A Cop's Eyes

by Gaku Yakumaru

  Keiko braced herself, hoping Natsume didn’t notice. “What might they be?”

  “Was Hideaki taking anything like sleeping medications?”

  “Sleeping medications?”

  “Yes, the forensics autopsy detected traces of sleeping medications in his remains.”

  “He might have taken mine. I keep irregular hours and it’s hard for me to sleep, so I got a prescription. I stored it in that cupboard drawer, but sometimes there would be less …”

  “Then he might have not been able to sleep that day and taken your medication. How unfortunate. He might have noticed the fire earlier if he hadn’t taken any.”

  “If I’d properly kept track of my medication, Hideaki …”

  “I may have said something ignorant. It’s not your fault that he passed away. It’s the fault of the culprit who started the fire.” Natsume’s gaze seemed to sharpen from the anger he felt toward the perp.

  “You’re right … Excuse me, but I need to go to work soon …” Increasingly discomfited by Natsume’s presence, Keiko looked at her watch.

  “Yes, I almost forgot, I need to return this to you.” He took something out of his pocket and gave it to Keiko. It was an evidence bag containing a cellphone that seemed to have warped from the heat. “Hideaki’s. We kept it for a bit.”

  “I see.”

  “It seems he’d promised to meet with someone that day. The night before, he had sent a text message. It was to a woman named Shizuka Okamoto. Do you know her?”

  “I don’t.”

  It was a lie. Shizuka Okamoto worked at a hostess club in Ikebukuro, and Hideaki had become an ardent fan of hers. He’d spent liberally there several times a week, using either the money Koichi had left her or the savings she’d worked so hard for. Then, after closing time, he’d gone to hotels to hold that woman in his arms until morning.

  Keiko had pressed him about his relationship with Shizuka many times, but Hideaki would spout that he could do as he pleased since they weren’t married. Then, complaining that he’d sacrificed his old life to marry her and be with them, he’d turn the tables on her and blame her for failing to persuade Yuma to let them marry.

  Hearing him say so always made her feel that Hideaki was sincere about getting married, at least. If he did stray, if he did raise his hand against them, it was simply due to his frustration over not having tied the knot yet.

  What a vicious circle. If only he’d continued being the kind man that he’d been toward her, Yuma might have come to trust him, too, in time.

  Then it wouldn’t have come to this—

  She couldn’t stand having Hideaki stolen from her.

  “Mind telling me where you live now?” Natsume requested, handing her a memo pad.

  Keiko shut out all of her feelings and wrote out her friend’s address.

  “Are you sure you’re fine?” Morita, the head nurse, called out to her as she entered the nurse station.

  “Yes, sorry for worrying you. I’m fine now.”

  “Well, don’t push yourself too hard.”

  Like Morita, most of her coworkers offered her words of condolence and encouragement.

  During her shift, she tried her best not to think about the case. She couldn’t let it slow her down. From now on, just like in the past, she and Yuma were going to weather life together. She wanted to work hard at her job and save up money to send him to a good college.

  Since meeting Hideaki, she hadn’t been a good mother. No, she’d been the worst of mothers. From now on, more than anything, she would treasure her life with her son. From now on, she would devote all of her life to making him happy. She intended to be reborn.

  Yet, a dark shadow slipped into her chest as soon as she recalled Natsume’s antics.

  According to Morita and the others, the detective had come to the hospital the day before asking many questions about Keiko and her family.

  Perhaps Natsume didn’t believe the case was the handiwork of the serial arsonist.

  When she looked at the clock, it was almost time for her to replace the IV drip for the patient in Room 312. Keiko left the nurse station, prepared the drip, and headed onward. The private Room 312 was at the very end of the hallway, beyond which lay the emergency stairs.

  When she entered, Yoshio Yasuoka smiled at her from his bed and said, “Are you okay now?”

  Faced with his gentle smile, she relaxed a little, but he seemed to have lost some weight while she’d been away. Yasuoka, the director of an accounting office in Ikebukuro, had been admitted two months ago with an ailing stomach.

  No matter how tired from work or how vexed she’d been by Hideaki’s selfishness, nursing Yasuoka had been her oasis. Gentle, considerate, he was the opposite of Hideaki.

  Widowed by his spouse and lacking children, he had to be lonely in his hospital room. He seemed to have gradually come to hold special feelings for Keiko, who attended to him every day.

  Especially after seeing a bruise that Hideaki had left on her, he’d grown sincerely concerned about her wellbeing and lent her a sympathetic ear.

  After I’m discharged, why don’t you break up with Hideaki and marry me, I’ll take good care of you and your son.

  She’d been elated to hear him say that. Why couldn’t she have come across a man like him before running into Hideaki? But regret as she might, it was already too late.

  “That reminds me, yesterday a detective visited me.”

  Her hand, which had been inserting the needle for the drip, froze. “You?”

  “Yes … The police seem to think that the apartment caught fire around ten past midnight. They heard that you hadn’t been at the nursing station at the time and came to talk to me.”

  “What was the detective like?”

  “Tall, young … I think he said his name was Natsume.”

  Hearing that, Keiko fell into a gloom.

  “There isn’t anything for you to worry about,” Yasuoka said, sensing her anguish. “I told them that you were giving me my drip the whole time. We heard the sirens and wondered if it was a fire.”

  Keiko looked at Yasuoka’s thinning arms and at the numerous needle marks. Her heart ached to think of it. She’d been such a burden—but it was all over now. She wanted to think it was.

  She inserted the drip needle into a vein.

  “As usual, it doesn’t hurt when you do it,” Yasuoka smiled.

  It was already totally dark when her shift ended and she left the hospital.

  She needed to hurry home and make Yuma dinner. Crossing through the parking lot with brisk steps, she pondered what to put on the menu.

  Tired as she was from getting back to work, today she’d cook an elaborate meal for Yuma. Her body seemed to shake off some of its fatigue at the idea.

  The door opened on a car parked in front of her, and someone stepped out.

  “Good evening.”

  The exhaustion that had lifted just a moment ago came swooping back when she saw who it was that had greeted her. “Do you have some business with me?” she returned brusquely.

  “I apologize for inconveniencing you, but I wanted to ask if I could talk to Yuma a little.”

  She showily looked at her watch. “It’s already nine o’clock.”

  “Just a little. I could have gone straight to him, but I thought it might be better if his mother were present.”

  Even if she refused now, there was no mistaking that he’d eventually seek out Yuma. In that case, it would be better, indeed, if she were there too. Keiko reluctantly agreed and got into the passenger’s seat of Natsume’s car.

  The road to the condo felt interminable.

  “What kind of kid is Yuma?” Natsume spoke out of the blue.

  “What kind … He’s that difficult age, but I think he’s a good son. You’re asking his mother, though.”

  “No, when I met him at the vigil, I thought he was a tough kid, too. I mean, he’s had to bear losing his father, and now his adoptive father.”

  “He�
��s been through a lot of hardship. Even though Hideaki wasn’t legally his father, I think my son feels shaken in his own way …” Keiko told the detective, implying that he should go easy on Yuma.

  “I will exercise discretion.”

  Her friend was still out working, so Keiko had Natsume ask his questions in the living room.

  “Sorry to impose on you at this late hour. I just wanted to ask you some things regarding the night of the fire,” Natsume began, facing Yuma, who sat on the sofa.

  Keiko, who was sitting side by side with her son, studied her son’s profile. Yuma seemed to be nervous and had his eyes cast down as he listened to Natsume.

  “That night, did you have a fight with Hideaki? The next-door neighbor heard voices like someone was arguing,” Natsume inquired in a calm, deliberate manner, looking straight at Yuma.

  “Not really … When I got home, I had an argument with him about nothing. Like always.”

  Natsume showed no impatience at Yuma’s muttered and vague reply.

  Seeing Natsume confront her son, Keiko remembered that the detective had once worked at a juvenile detention center. The man was used to talking to boys like Yuma who were at an impressionable age. Never domineering, he seemed to excel at unspooling his interviewee’s mind.

  “Yuma, you left the house after that, right? Do you remember around what time?”

  “Ten thirty or so …”

  Why had Natsume quit his previous job and become a detective? The point elicited her interest and suspicion, but she wasn’t about to ask. She could do without becoming better acquainted with a cop.

  “Where were you until you came home?”

  “Around … I rode my scooter. I ran out of gas, so I went to a gas station and ate a hamburger and then rode around again.”

  Natsume smiled when Yuma said this. “Of course, you’re young, you have a big appetite.”

  Yuma raised his face with a puzzled expression.

  “You’d already had rice omelet for dinner, right?”

  “I didn’t eat it …”

  “I see.” Natsume nodded, then continued, “So you got on your bike for a while and came home. Do you remember around what time?”

  “I think it was past 1 a.m. I was surprised because there were a lot of fire trucks and ambulances parked around.”

  “You intended to come home after your mom did, is that right?”

  Yuma nodded. “Because I didn’t want to come home to just him …”

  “In that case, you weren’t anywhere near the apartment at twelve o’clock. That’s too bad. I wanted to ask if you there were any suspicious persons around at that hour.”

  “Dunno …” Yuma shook his head.

  After that, Natsume asked Yuma which gasoline station he’d stopped at and wrote it down in a memo pad.

  Keiko was anxious over just how much of Yuma’s story Natsume believed. Her son had been riding his scooter around twelve o’clock, at the time of the fire. He didn’t have a proper alibi.

  “Thank you.”

  When Natsume made to stand up from the sofa, Yuma said, forcefully for the first time, “You don’t think our fire was part of the serial arson case, do you?”

  “The police need to account for many possibilities as we conduct an investigation. Although questioning you, the victim’s family, like this, even as you’re grieving over the loss of your adoptive father, pains me.”

  “I’m not really grieving. I’m relieved that he died,” Yuma threw out with a defiant look at Natsume.

  Keiko was alarmed by her son’s words. Why go out of his way to say that?

  “Thank you, sorry for my rudeness.”

  Staring at the door Natsume had shut, Keiko hesitated for a moment. Then she put on her shoes and flew out of the apartment. She called out to stop Natsume, who was standing in front of the elevator.

  “Please don’t make too much of what Yuma just said,” she tried to justify her son’s behavior to the detective. “He might not have liked Hideaki much, but my son is definitely not the kind of child who would do such a thing.”

  “He was at least half serious, though. I already knew they didn’t have a good relationship. One of his friends said that Yuma grew to hate Hideaki for getting violent with both of you.”

  Keiko winced. So he hadn’t just made inquiries at the hospital but also gone to Yuma’s school.

  “But I don’t think hatred necessarily leads to murderous intent, either.”

  Natsume bobbed his head and got onto the elevator that had arrived.

  Inspecting the apartment’s restored white walls, Keiko asked the accompanying real estate agent: “How much is the rent?”

  “Including the admin fee, it’s 108,000 yen.”

  That was more than double their previous apartment’s rate, but a two-bedroom property in Ikebukuro no doubt cost that much even if it wasn’t very spacious.

  When she asked, “Yu, how do you like it,” he assented with a silent nod.

  He had to be tired from visiting properties since the morning. Despite her son’s lukewarm response, Keiko took a liking to the apartment. It wasn’t too far from Yuma’s school, and with two rooms, he’d have his own study.

  She was far over her planned budget but resigned herself to working harder at her job.

  “I’ll sign the contract,” she told the agent, and indulged herself with glances around the interior. Picturing the life that she could start with Yuma here, she felt thrilled for the first time in a while.

  After they returned to the real estate company to pay the deposit, she and Yuma walked back to the condominium.

  She realized that it had been a while since she’d spent time with Yuma. He walked a pace ahead of her in silence. Her son no longer initiated conversations with her, and Keiko, herself, had no idea how to these days. Yuma had been a talkative kid once. As soon as Keiko came home from work, he’d go on about whatever had happened at school like he couldn’t wait.

  After Hideaki joined them, Yuma became a different person. She’d hurt him badly enough that he was now a different person. Slowly, though, she was going to mend their relationship. They were moving into a new apartment and starting a new life, redoing this one step at a time.

  She stopped in front of the supermarket.

  “Yu—” she called out, to which her son slowly turned around. “What do you want to have for dinner today?”

  Yuma thought for a while. “A rice omelet, I guess?”

  The hint of sorrow in her son’s eyes gave her pause.

  Although she wanted to eat with Yuma, Keiko had a late shift again that night. Once she made and wrapped the rice omelet, she went to work.

  It was almost nine o’clock, according to her watch. There had been no emergency cases that day, and peace reigned in the nurse station. Just when she thought it would be nice if it stayed that way until the end of her shift, Natsume strode in.

  The expression on his face filled her with dread.

  “I would prefer you didn’t come to my workplace. If you need to speak with me, come to my house,” she requested firmly, glancing at her coworkers.

  “I’m very sorry, but there was no time for that … Yuma came to the police this evening.”

  “To the police?”

  “He confessed to setting the apartment on fire,” whispered Natsume.

  She couldn’t process what he was saying. What a bad joke. But Natsume’s earnest gaze dispelled that possibility.

  What in the world was going on—

  “Is there somewhere we can speak?” Natsume insisted, and they headed to the lobby.

  “What’s going on?!” she demanded.

  “Please calm down,” the detective tried to appease her. No one was in the lobby at the moment, but he was still speaking in a near whisper.

  “Around six o’clock tonight, Yuma came to our police station. He said he wanted to tell me something. When I listened to him in a room, he said he had lit the apartment on fire.”

  “There�
�s no way that could have happened.”

  Why would Yuma say such a thing? She couldn’t make any sense of it.

  “There is nothing to contradict his confession right now. It’s been verified that he did drop by a gas station at around 10:00 p.m. that day, but the staffer also testified that Yuma had come and filled his whole tank up the day before as well.”

  Keiko’s heart started to hammer when she heard this. The previous day too?

  “Riding his scooter enough to use up a full tank in a day is hard to imagine, and I found it strange. He turned himself in as I was wondering about that. Apparently, that night, Hideaki came home just as Yuma was about to have dinner. They got into an argument, and your son was struck in the head several times. He rushed out of the house. The episode seems to have honed the hatred he’d felt toward Hideaki into a murderous impulse. Using the refueling pump on the veranda, he transferred the gasoline from his scooter into plastic bottles, went back to the gas station to refuel, and bided his time, riding his scooter around again, until Hideaki went to bed …”

  “But … Yuma really said that?” she asked in disbelief.

  Natsume nodded. “Would you come with me to the station? I’ll be waiting in the parking lot.” He gently placed his hand on Keiko’s shoulder, then left.

  It was unbelievable—

  Why would Yuma make such a confession? He certainly wasn’t the culprit.

  The only possibility that came to mind was that he was protecting her. Keiko felt a tight pain in her chest at the conclusion.

  Was Yuma actually trying to take the fall for a mother like herself?

  Even standing up was a challenge, but Keiko hurried to Room 312.

  “What’s wrong?” Yasuoka asked, beside himself, sensing a crisis from Keiko’s expression alone.

  “Apparently Yuma confessed to the police.”

  “What?!” let out Yasuoka, stunned.

  Keiko couldn’t stop her body from shaking. The more she thought about Yuma, the worse her shaking became.

  “Why would he …”

  “To protect me. I can’t think of any other reason.”

  Yasuoka turned a pained look at her.