Honeymoon to Nowhere

by Akimitsu Takagi

  “So the brothers wiped him out. Is that it?”

  “That’s possible, but I rather think Nobumasa did the job alone and hid the body somewhere. Yoshihiro some­how learned of Nobumasa’s crime and was seized with panic, and then it was his turn to be silenced for good, as a safety measure.”

  “I see,” Kirishima said, still enjoying this little diver­sion. “Your theory is fascinating, but if what you say is right, then why has Nobumasa asked for one extra day? He could never disclose Watanabe’s true identity, no matter how long he’s given to think about it, according to your theory.”

  “Well, he mightn’t have been able to think up a good enough lie on the spur of the moment. That’s not so easy, you know, even for a clever fellow like him, especially when he’s already in a state of agitation.”

  “All right, but he must have realized it’d be much more difficult for him to tell a convincing lie tomorrow than it would’ve been today. For instance, I might have swallowed a bastard son story today, but I certainly wouldn’t do it tomorrow. In fact, if he can spin a yarn I can’t pull to pieces, he must be the greatest liar in Japan, and I’ll bow to him with total admiration.”

  “I accept this, Mr. Prosecutor,” Kitahara said with growing excitement, “but let me support my theory by looking at the brothers’ income. Yoshihiro wasn’t the only one who made good money, you know. It seems to me Nobumasa is making even more. I realized this for the first time when I went to his place this morning. He has a posh house on a large allotment. It must be worth close to 10,000,000 yen at current prices.”

  “Is it his own house?”

  “I sounded him out on that on the way here, and he said he’d bought it about four years ago, and it was a bit too big for his income.”

  “Well, a company like Toho Kasei would treat its research workers pretty generously. He’d be on a fairly high salary, and would probably get a special bonus every time he produced something profitable. Further­more, he could’ve borrowed some money from the com­pany by using his retirement grant as security . . . Anyway, depending on the outcome of tomorrow’s session, I’ll probably get the police to check on his financial position.”

  “Let me see . . .” Kitahara screwed up his ruddy face. “Apart from the house, he’s got a brand new deluxe sedan. Of course, once a salary-man reaches a certain classification it’s not unusual for him to buy a car on hire purchase. But apart from the question of money—”

  “Are you saying that if he used his car, he could’ve easily committed the crime with a leg and an arm in plaster?”

  “Exactly . . . And he made a point of telling me he hadn’t used his car since the accident.”

  “Oh? That’s rather suspicious, isn’t it?”

  At last Kitahara realized Kirishima was making fun of him, but he accepted it in good grace, even entered into the spirit of it. “And while we’re on the subject,” he said, “let me inform you, Mr. Prosecutor, that there’s the inevitable woman behind this crime, and I’m not refer­ring to Etsuko Tsukamoto. The woman I have in mind is gorgeous, rather common, and very nasty.”

  “How did you find out about her?”

  “Kitahara’s pretty smart, eh? Well, just as I was walk­ing up to the house, she rushed out with a threatening look on her face. They must have had a lovers’ quarrel. When a man associates with this type of gay bird, he can expect plenty of trouble . . .”

  “Did he say anything about her?”

  “Yes, in response to my diplomatic question, of course. I said, ‘The woman who has just left the house—isn’t she a beauty?’ And he replied that she was beyond shame, or words to that effect . . . I should’ve stopped her in the first place and asked how much she charged.”

  “Now, that might have been a bit undignified for a prosecutor’s clerk.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Kitahara muttered while casually searching for something in his coat pocket. “What’s this?” He produced a matchbox with Princess Bar—Ginza printed on it. “Now, where did I get this from? . . . Oh, I know—I saw it in the visitors’ room while waiting for Mr. Tsukamoto to turn up. On the top of it was a cigarette butt with lipstick smeared on it.”

  Kirishima burst into laughter. “Hey, you! Strictly speaking, that’s stealing, you know.”

  “Well, I’ve been serving prosecutors for the best part of thirty years, but I’ve never once seen anyone being arrested for stealing a box of matches . . . Would you like me to take it back?”

  “I don’t think that’ll be necessary. Just don’t do it again.”

  Kitahara carefully put the matchbox into a drawer of his desk. “Even a single box of matches is too valuable an item to throw away,” he said. “It might come in handy some day.”

  12

  Around nine o’clock the following morning Etsuko was heading for Nobumasa’s home in Koike’s car.

  When he picked her up he again apologized for causing her the inconvenience. “As I told you on the phone last night, Nobumasa said he must see you this morning, but he looked so ill, I thought perhaps—”

  “It’s all right,” Etsuko said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I was called to his house last night, and he talked about some of his plans for the future. After we discussed matters relating to your husband’s estate, he said he wanted to tell you something urgently. When I asked him what it was, he said he’d rather tell you first, in my presence . . . Would you have any idea what it might be?”

  “No.”

  “He said he had to go to the Criminal Affairs Division head office early this afternoon, so he’d like us to be there by ten o’clock—that would leave enough time for a full discussion.”

  “I see.”

  During the rest of the journey they didn’t say much. Koike was concentrating on the heavy morning traffic, and Etsuko seemed to be absorbed in her own thoughts.

  Presently Koike said, “We’re nearly there.”

  “Pardon?”

  He repeated the words as he turned the car off the main road and into a narrow street on their left. In that area there were still a few vacant allotments, even some vegetable plots. This gave the impression the place was far out of the city center.

  “That’s his house over there,” Koike said and began to brake. “Hey, what’s that?”

  The house was the last one on a dead-end street. It was a fairly modern residence with a green wire fence around it. Quite a few people had gathered on the footpath in front of it, and there was a police patrol car parked at the gate. Inside the fence two uniformed policemen moved about with eyes kept to the ground.

  Koike stopped the car and turned to Etsuko, his face drained of color.

  “What happened?” she asked. “They haven’t arrested him, have they?”

  Just then a policeman’s head appeared in the car window. “You’ve some business here, sir?” he asked Koike.

  “That’s right. But what happened?”

  “If you’d like to get out of the car, sir, the detectives will tell you all about it.”

  As soon as Koike and Etsuko were out of the vehicle, a burly man wearing a black overcoat came up to them.

  “Morning,” he said morosely. “Who are you?”

  “This is Mrs. Etsuko Tsukamoto, Mr. Nobumasa Tsukamoto’s sister-in-law. I’m Shoichi Koike, her lawyer. We’ve an appointment with Mr. Tsukamoto. What’s wrong?”

  “I’m Chief Detective Nozawa, of the Takaido police station,” he said slowly. “Sorry to have to tell you this, but Mr. Tsukamoto has been murdered, probably late last night . . . I must ask you to remain here till Inspector Yoshioka arrives from police headquarters. He won’t be long . . .”

  Kirishima was also on his way to the scene, driving his own car from home. Since it was a Sunday, he had planned to go to the office after lunch, only to see Nobumasa, but a little after half past nine, Inspector Yoshioka rang
him and told him what had happened.

  This was the last thing Kirishima had expected. He wondered if he had failed in his duty by not getting a po­lice guard put on Nobumasa’s house, even for that one day. He had been so busy assessing the pros and cons of Nobumasa’s possibly absconding, it had never occurred to him the man’s life might be in danger. And of course, it wasn’t possible to provide police protection for everyone being questioned in a murder case. There had to be some special reason—there just weren’t enought policemen to go around.

  His conclusion that Nobumasa wouldn’t try to evade justice by going into hiding had been correct, but why hadn’t he thought of this?

  I’ve made a mistake . . . I’ve made a mistake! . . . As he repeated the words, his anger grew thicker, and so did his determination to get the killer, if it was the last thing he did.

  When he pulled up in front of Nobumasa’s house, In­spector Yoshioka was already there. His big black squad car was parked next to the patrol car.

  “Glad you could come, Mr. Prosecutor,” Yoshioka said. “I thought you might have gone away for the week­end.”

  Kirishima didn’t reply. He walked straight through the gate toward the front door.

  Yoshioka must have guessed what was on Kirishima’s mind by the look on his face. “Nobody could’ve an­ticipated this,” he said. “And I’m sure it has nothing to do with your summoning him to the office yesterday . . . Anyway, it’s most unlikely Nobumasa would’ve con­tacted Watanabe to ask him what to tell you today. That would’ve amounted to saying, ‘If you’d like to mur­der me, your last chance is tonight’ . . . No, I really don’t think the motive for this crime was to silence Nobumasa. It’s probably just a coincidence he was attacked last night.”

  “The killer could’ve easily found out he’d been to see me yesterday,” Kirishima said dryly.

  “Agreed. But even if he did, he wouldn’t know what the purpose of the interview was or what Nobumasa told you. Interviewing a victim’s brother is the most natural thing in the world. Why should he have thought it meant any danger to him?”

  “Well, let’s concentrate on what we’ve got here,” Kirishima said curtly. He decided there was no point in brooding over something that couldn’t be undone, even if he felt he was partly responsible.

  Yoshioka showed Kirishima into the visitors’ room. Nobumasa’s corpse was lying face down, about six feet inside the door. There was a narrow purple-colored bruise around the back of the neck.

  “Same technique as before,” Yoshioka said. “Stunned him with a blow to the front, then strangled him with a cord. This time he would’ve had an easier job, I’d say, with the victim in such poor condition.”

  “What’s the preliminary estimate on the time of death?”

  Yoshioka pointed to a gas heater in the room. It was still burning, fully turned on. “The closest we can get to it is between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., and even this could be out, depending on how long the heater’s been on. If the killer knows anything at all about forensic medicine, he might have lit it himself to make things a bit harder for us. Or it could’ve been burning since early in the evening.”

  Chief Detective Nozawa gave his report in a stilted, lumbering police style. “At about 9:10 a.m. today the charwoman who comes here every morning, a Mrs. Tomi Kosaka, discovered the body of the owner of the house, Nobumasa Tsukamoto, in its present position. She re­ported the incident on the police emergency line. Immediately upon receiving instructions from police headquarters, I proceeded to the scene, and upon arrival placed several constables on guard around the building. The Takaido police station is only a few hundred yards from here, so it didn’t take me very long to get here . . . I requested Mrs. Kosaka to remain on the premises. Subsequently the victim’s sister-in-law, Mrs. Etsuko Tsukamoto, and her lawyer, Shoichi Koike, arrived in a car, and I requested them, too, to remain on the premises pending further instructions. At present they’re seated in the living room, situated on the opposite side of the passageway.”

  “Thank you,” Kirishima said. “We appreciate your efforts.” He wasn’t surprised to hear that Etsuko and Koike were here, since his wife had told him last night about Koike’s visit to the apartment. But he was a little annoyed they had turned up at such an awkward time—so soon after the discovery of the crime.

  Ignoring the busy fingerprint experts, Kirishima looked around the room once more. It was neat and clean but had the unmistakable drabness of a bachelor’s home. A five-piece lounge suite, a large bookcase filled with sets of various encyclopaedias and art books, and a small glass cabinet containing foreign wine and spirit bottles—that was all the furniture. The only decoration was a large, framed western painting that looked like a printed reproduction.

  On the coffee table were two brandy glasses, a bottle of Hennessy Three Star cognac, a cigarette box and lighter, and a large ashtray with a pile of butts in it.

  “This could prove interesting,” Yoshioka said, hand­ing a dark green pocket notebook to Kirishima. “It belongs to Koike and was left here on the sofa, ap­parently last night.”

  “Then this must be his second visit here in less than twenty-four hours . . . But we can leave this till later. How about making a start with the woman who dis­covered the body?”

  “Yes, of course,” Yoshioka said obligingly. “We can use the study, if you like.”

  That was another western-style room. Here the shelves were loaded with foreign-language originals dealing with science and technology. There was no fiction or general literature, or anything on the arts. Kirishima thought the books in the visitors’ room must serve only as a decora­tion.

  Soon a fat woman in her mid-forties was ushered in by a policeman. She looked coarse but good-natured, and obviously bewildered. Her small, shiny eyes never stopped blinking.

  “Just relax, will you?” Yoshioka told her. “There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

  “Yes,” she whispered, but his reassurance didn’t seem to have the slightest effect on her.

  “You’re supposed to come here around nine o’clock each morning. Is that right?”

  “Yes . . . I was told to come late in the morning.”

  “Have you been here every day?”

  “Yes, every day, since the master’s accident. Before that, I used to come every third day to do the washing and cleaning.”

  “What about yesterday?”

  “Yes, I come yesterday morning . . . When the master had to go out, he told me I could go home earlier, so I finished me washing and cleaning and left here around two o’clock.”

  “You left here before Mr. Tsukamoto returned home. Is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “What about locking up the house?”

  “Yes, I’ve got a key to the kitchen door at the back. I keep it in me bag all the time . . . The front door can be opened and locked without a key, from the inside. It’s a spring lock or something like that.”

  “And did you come in through the back door this morning, too?”

  “Yes . . . There’s a buzzer at the back. I pressed it just to let him know I was here, but I come straight in. The master told me to do it, so he wouldn’t have to get up.”

  “And then?”

  “He wasn’t in the living room, so I looked into his bed­room. I thought he could be still asleep, you see, but his bed was empty. It hasn’t been used at all since yesterday morning . . . He wasn’t in the dining room either, so I looked for him in here, and then in the visitors’ room . . .”She opened her little eyes wide, together with her mouth, and started to take the air in quick gasps. “I’ve never been so scared in all me life! Oh my . . . Namumyohorengekyo . . . Namumyohorengekyo . . .”

  “Just leave your prayers till later, will you?” Yoshioka said testily.

  “Yes—yes,” she panted.

  “Would you have any idea how it happene
d?”

  “No—no, I wouldn’t—honest.”

  Yoshioka glanced at Kirishima. His expression sug­gested it would be useless going on with her.

  Kirishima raised a finger, and said to her, “Now, I want to ask you something. Yesterday morning, before the man came to drive Mr. Tsukamoto to the city, was there a woman in this house?”

  “Ah, yes,” she said, frowning. “I’ve seen that woman a couple of times before yesterday.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “I don’t know . . . I first seen her early last December. I gone to the door to answer the bell, and she was there, and I said, ‘Yes?’ and she said in a real nasty sort of way, ‘Yes, that’s what I’d like to know—who’re you? You must be the charwoman. Well, just step out of my way then. He’s at home, isn’t he?’ That’s what she said, and then just walked straight past me, as if I wasn’t there . . . She’s a nasty piece of work all right—make no mistake about that.”

  “Didn’t Mr. Tsukamoto tell you anything about her?”

  “No—nothing much, but each time she came the master looked real annoyed afterward. Yesterday he said, ‘Next time she comes, tell her I’m not home, will you?’ That’s what he said.”

  “Did you hear what they were talking about?”

  “No, I never put me nose into other people’s business—I keep out of the way . . . But there was a bit of a commotion, with shouting and screaming, I can tell you. I ain’t surprised the master was angry. With his accident, and his flu, and the way his poor younger brother finished up—he had enough trouble without this hard bitch pushing her way in here.”

  “You said there was shouting.”

  “Yes, plenty of it.”

  “Well, then you must have overheard something.”

  “No I didn’t—honest.”

  “Not even a single word?”

  Mrs. Kosaka opened her hands and shrugged her shoulders in desperation. “I come here to do me work. I ain’t got no spare time to worry about other things when I’m doing me washing and cleaning and cooking. When the water’s running from them noisy taps, I can’t hear other people talking.”