“May I?” asked Misaki, showing some manners as the latecomer. Mikoshiba simply gave a light nod.
Misaki sat right across Mikoshiba, who he noticed was having the Sashimi Set. The prosecutor’s mindset shifted when he saw this. Rather than silently shovel food to his mouth, he might as well take advantage of the opportunity and observe the hell out of the fellow.
“The Sashimi Set at Cafeteria One. I’d heard that you were living large, but you lunch quite modestly.”
Mikoshiba glanced at him and said, “I have another case at the district court afterwards.”
So leaving the complex would be a waste of time? “I see. I’m glad your business is thriving.”
“That’s true for both of us.”
“Hm, we don’t get paid for individual cases like defense attorneys do.”
“Beats not knowing what to do with all your free time.”
“Because civil servants will be up to no good if they have too much time on their hands?”
“I’ll leave that to your imagination,” Mikoshiba muttered and started to move his chopsticks again. He seemed to be just masticating rather than tasting the food.
“I’d never know from watching you that the Sashimi Set here is supposed to be pretty delicious.”
“Forget delicious. It all ends up the same, as shit.”
“Did you have to be so blunt?”
It certainly wasn’t something you said during mealtime, and Misaki couldn’t help but mind the other guests. He wondered if it was the man’s twisted sense of humor, but his face was as calm as ever. He apparently hadn’t meant it as a joke.
“Do you wear that blank expression even while you’re eating? No joy, ever, in your life?”
“Joy?”
“Sitting around a table with loved ones, chatting about the day’s events as you dine. Isn’t that what a meal should be, a quotidian joy?”
“Being stuck with your family isn’t always a recipe for joy. Think of the Tsuda family.”
“That’s …” Misaki trailed off. According to the defendant’s confession, the Tsudas surely hadn’t been getting along in the last few years.
“With or without your joy, food travels down the throat. Children still grow.”
“Are you talking about the Tsuda daughters?”
“Their father was stabbed to death, and their mother is in custody as the culprit. There are only the sisters in the house, but they’re getting by. ‘Children grow with or without parents,’ as they say.”
“You’ve met the sisters?”
“I have.”
“What did you talk about?”
“As you know, we have a duty to ensure confidentiality.”
Had he obtained his new proof from conversing with the sisters? Misaki considered the possibility, but he knew he wouldn’t be getting anything out of Mikoshiba.
At this late date, Misaki gnashed his teeth at the local precinct’s lax initial investigation. Obtaining testimony from the father-in-law, an eyewitness, was par for the course, but they had failed to acquire any useful information from the two daughters. When the killing occurred, both girls were supposedly asleep. Perhaps they couldn’t offer decent testimonies, but it was still a feeble effort.
“You make it sound like you grew up having joyless meals,” Misaki threw out, intrigued about Mikoshiba’s past.
There was no reply. Misaki assumed that the silence meant yes, but Mikoshiba suddenly looked up and said, “What about you?”
“Huh?”
“I heard that you lost your wife quite a while ago. Also that you haven’t been on speaking terms with your only son for some time. Unless you’re shelling out some dough for a mistress, your life can’t be replete with joy, either.”
Misaki felt as if his blood was coursing backwards, but he calmed himself. He really couldn’t let his guard down around this man.
Mikoshiba was going for psych-ops even here. Another marvelous riposte—countering as soon as his private life was being intruded on. Where on earth had he gotten that information?
Getting riled up meant walking straight into his trap.
Misaki started to count off numbers slowly in his head. One, two, three, four, five, six … A primitive method, but it helped. Contemplating a riposte of his own, he was about to open his month, but that was when Mikoshiba’s expression shifted.
“Sorry about that.”
Misaki doubted his ears at the sincere tone.
“This wasn’t the time for it. If possible, please forget what I said.”
“… So unexpectedly gracious.”
“I try to avoid ringside fights. It’s a waste of time and energy.”
“Ringside fights?”
“I already have many enemies, but that doesn’t mean I want more,” murmured Mikoshiba, uncannily apologetic.
“I’m your enemy either way, though.”
“Then only in court, please.”
Misaki recalled why Mikoshiba had been hospitalized. He’d been knifed by the counterparty of some past case. Had he taken it to heart? Or was he underhandedly warning Misaki not to mix public and private affairs?
“You mean, your stab wound still smarts,” Misaki ventured.
“It was fairly deep. Do you want to examine it? Your métier, isn’t it?”
Discerning a slight hint of fragility in Mikoshiba’s voice, Misaki thought, Huh, even a guy like him has his bugbears. And with that, he took a deeper interest in the man. Half of it was a professional desire to scout out his enemy, but the other half was personal curiosity.
“At any rate, your counterarguments never fail to impress,” praised Misaki. “Now I understand why clients pay you huge fees. Where did you learn to trade blows like some street fighter?”
“… Is this an interrogation?”
“We’re just chatting. No law saying a prosecutor can’t have a nice chat with the defense attorney.”
“No law saying we need to.”
“There! That comeback. I really want to know where you picked it up.”
“And then what?”
“We’ll send our legal apprentices and assistance judges there.”
Mikoshiba suddenly bent down over the table. Misaki wondered what the matter was, then realized that the man was trying, but failing, not to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“Impossible …” Mikoshiba was laughing so hard that his reply came in bits. “Sorry, it’s impossible, for you people.”
“Why so sure?”
“You don’t know bad guys.”
“We do. We confront them every day.”
“No, that’s not knowing them. You just see them. Like some kid peering down at a creature swimming in the mud. If you really want to learn their ways, you have to jump into the mud. Unless you swim with them, swallow the muck with them, and breathe the same dark slime, it’s pointless.”
Mikoshiba went on laughing. The man’s clientele featured many criminals, including gangsters, who slapped people with wads of banknotes. So you couldn’t really know them if you didn’t cozy up to them until your hearts beat as one? Assuming that was what Mikoshiba meant, Misaki changed the topic.
“Do you have a family?”
“A lawyer doesn’t need one. Why do you ask?”
“Well. I just thought you might have special feelings for that family, or families in general.”
“Merely a client.”
“But isn’t it widely rumored that most of yours are wealthy individuals?”
When Mikoshiba gave a stare, his lips still curled, Misaki asked, “Did I say something funny again?”
“You must be the fourth one. People involved in this case keep saying that.”
“It’s only natural if they’ve heard tell of your practice. If I may, the defense has nothing going for it in this case. Even if you demonstrate your remarkable debating skills, the best you’ll achieve is a reduced sentence. It’s different when the defendant is a celebrity, but the PR effect won’t be
large with an ordinary citizen. However I look at it, it’s all pain and no gain.”
“Prosecutor Misaki. Have you ever dealt with cases related to stocks?”
“Not a few. Felt like it was all I did after the economic bubble burst.”
“Then you must have heard this maxim along the way. ‘Behind where others go is a road and a mountain of flowers.’ ”
It meant that walking a different route was the key to success, or some such thing. “Okay. But what on earth about this case is a mountain of flowers?”
“The moment I divulge that, the back road will be a mountain of people.”
With that, Mikoshiba shut his mouth. He seemed unlikely to cough up anything more.
Fine. I’ll work a different angle. “By the way, have you ever heard about the Shimane Bar Association?”
“Shimane?” It was a sparsely populated prefecture in western Japan.
“I’m not sure about now, but they had extremely few lawyers in the past. There was a time when Saigo on Oki Island didn’t even have one. The Saigo branch of the Matsue District Court also didn’t have a judge. Once a trial started there, the defense attorney, the prosecutor, and the judge all had to travel to the district court on Oki. The only means of transportation was a single ferry departing from the fishing port of Shichirui. The trio would meet face to face on the cramped vessel. And if the trial dragged on, they’d have to make the long journey again. So they used to hold simple trials aboard the tub. By the time the party arrived at the district court, they knew how it was going to end.”
“In other words, collusion in the legal profession.”
“That’s a bit too harsh. There’s that aphorism. The most capable attorneys don’t sue but settle.”
“Nowadays we have an oversupply of lawyers. Moreover, we’re in Tokyo and this is a criminal case. Why the nostalgic episode?”
“I would like to eliminate waste as much as possible. If you really have something that can reduce Akiko Tsuda’s sentence, so be it … But if that was just a bluff, count me out. The prosecution is just as busy as you, with piles of other cases waiting for us.”
Of course, this was a lie.
Humans were strange creatures. Talking at length made them loosen their collars even if they’d been at each other’s throats just a moment ago. It was a way into people’s hearts that Misaki had mastered all on his own after becoming a prosecutor, but it did wonders with suspects and their attorneys. Perhaps because the title of prosecutor and his demeanor made them fear a hard-nosed style, once he started just yapping with them, they quickly opened up.
He didn’t really think it would work on Mikoshiba. But if it did, great; if not, it didn’t hurt Misaki one bit.
Mikoshiba’s reaction, however, was totally unexpected. “In that case, I’ll hear you out. I don’t want to waste time, either. My hourly rate is higher than a civil servant’s.”
So this case, too, was all about money for him after all—convinced, Misaki nodded. “Then let me ask you straight off. What’s this stuff that you’re hiding? Does it even exist?”
Mikoshiba responded with a faint smile as he masticated his last slice of sashimi. He had been moving his chopsticks mechanically all throughout their conversation, much to Misaki’s surprise. “Prosecutor, I think the rule is to show your card first before asking me to show mine.”
“Show mine? What would that be?”
“You. You must have pored over the precinct’s investigation records. Probably criticizing their sloppy initial investigation point by point.”
That was true, but Misaki kept silent.
“So I’d like to ask you. Is the confiscated evidence still being stored?”
“Yes. It will stay in the jurisdiction’s warehouse until the trial is over.”
“The box cutter used as the murder weapon, the blue tarp. That’s not all. All the trash—from the bathroom where the murder was committed, from the living room, the kitchen, the bedrooms, the floors, the walls, the trash cans. The books on the shelves, the soil in the potted plants. Have you checked them all?”
Misaki ran over the contents of the investigation report mentally. He remembered them in detail because he’d examined them with his eyes peeled. He’d had all of the potentially important evidence sent over to the crime lab, of course, but it wasn’t each and every accouterment.
“When the local police arrived,” Mikoshiba continued, “the body, the criminal, and an eyewitness were there on a platter. A forensics team must have also come, but with everything in place like that, their work would have been perfunctory. I bet they didn’t examine everything. A capable investigator’s zeal is in direct proportion to the challenge at hand.”
“What on earth have you latched on to?”
“You don’t expect me to reveal that much, do you? I’ve practically shown my whole hand already.” Mikoshiba stood up holding his lunch plate, which was clean empty. “Let me assure you that I’m not bluffing. It’s like preaching to the Buddha, but everything you need was at the scene. As long as it isn’t discarded or destroyed, the evidence sits silently waiting for the limelight. Do guard it with your life.”
With that, Mikoshiba left without even uttering a word of parting, and Misaki sat alone with the set lunch he hadn’t even touched yet.
— 4 —
When Mikoshiba left the Tokyo High Court and visited the Tsuda residence, the one who appeared at the door was Yozo.
“Ah, sensei. Back from court? Thank you for your efforts.”
“You knew the date of the session?”
“Of course. If I could get a seat, I would have absolutely been there …”
Come to think of it, the visitors’ gallery had indeed been full. However, it wasn’t because Akiko’s case was attracting attention. Recently, observing trials had become a sort of fad, and apparently most criminal cases got full houses. Some of the visitors took notes or drew sketches, but it was all a bad joke for Mikoshiba. Mere rubberneckers were flattering themselves that they were fashionable or intellectually curious.
“How is the trial going?” Yozo asked, gauging Mikoshiba’s expression, but unfortunately there was nothing to report that might please the old man.
“They won’t let us win easily. The prosecution submitted Shingo’s loan status as a supplemental factor regarding her motive. The situation has worsened for us.”
“That good-for-nothing! Causing us problems even after he died.”
“But we haven’t run out of options yet.”
“Are you sure?”
“I came here today for additional research.”
Even before Mikoshiba could finish speaking, a voice came down from the upper floor.
“Sis! Sis!” It was Rinko’s.
When Mikoshiba cast a dubious look at Yozo, the old man shook his head weakly. “Miyuki’s condition has deteriorated again … She leaves more than half of her meals, and I was told that this morning she vomited an awful lot. I just arrived, too, after Rinko called.”
“Sis!” the girl kept hollering.
“Pardon the intrusion.”
Mikoshiba entered the house and headed to the stairs, and Yozo followed him. On the second floor, Rinko stood in front of Miyuki’s room.
“Ah, sensei!”
“What’s wrong?”
“I told her to let’s go see a doctor if she’s not feeling well, but she won’t listen.”
“Miyuki. This is Mikoshiba, the lawyer. Can we talk now?”
There was no answer from the room. Mikoshiba tried turning the knob, but the door was locked on the inside. He called to her several more times but there was no answer, so the three of them went down to the first floor.
“Has she been that way for some time?”
“Yes,” replied Yozo, furrowing his brow. “Even when I call to her from across the door, she won’t come out. Her body must not be accepting any food. But perhaps it’s only natural when her mother stabbed her father to death. That’s nothing but a nightmare for
a girl her age. Food refusal will result from such a mental blow.”
“Anyhow, it would be best to have her examined.” Mikoshiba looked over at Rinko, but she didn’t look as peppy as usual, more like a withered flower. No good could come from bringing it up now, but he opened his mouth against his better judgment. “I investigated the hospital records. You were beaten by your father, too, huh?”
Rinko nodded silently.
“And your sister? Not so badly that she needed to see a doctor?”
“Papa didn’t beat her. And sis used to say that she felt sorry for Papa.”
“I heard that she threw up.”
“… Yeah.”
“Who cleaned it up?”
“Rinko did. I’m in charge of cleaning, too.”
Indeed, when Mikoshiba looked around, he didn’t see dust or hair to speak of on the living-room floor or in the kitchen. “You clean the whole house?”
“Yup. Instead of Mommy. But I leave Papa’s room as it is.”
“Why?”
“Mommy never went in there, either …”
“Ah, you did right.”
“Huh?”
“It means that the room hasn’t been cleaned at all since what happened. The police might come again and take away everything in it down to the tiniest speck of dust, so not cleaning it was just perfect.”
Yozo didn’t try to hide his displeasure. “They’re coming here again? Aren’t they done with their forensics? If they rummage around in the house, how do you think Miyuki will take it?”
“I recommend that she be hospitalized, even if only for a short period. I understand her not feeling like going out, but staying here is having an adverse effect on her.”
“Why do you say that?”
“The atrocity occurred in this house. For her, it must be a place saturated with gross memories.”
Phew, Yozo sighed from his gut. “You might be right. I could take Rinko to my place.”
“Oh, then may I have your contact info, if you don’t mind? Just your cell phone number would be fine.” Mikoshiba handed over his business card and a pen to Yozo.
“Sensei, big sis shouldn’t stay home?”
“For now, no. This house is breeding illness. Didn’t they teach you? When you’re sick, you won’t get better unless you take medicine and also get rid of the germs.”
Nocturne of Remembrance Page 19