The Aosawa Murders

by Riku Onda

  But she was also scared the media would get wind I was friendly with him, and chased me away whenever reporters came near. That was all right with me. I didn’t like being given the third degree about him either, so whenever a journalist type turned up I took off quickly, pretending I was on my way out somewhere.

  One day I couldn’t stand it any more – her superior attitude and going on about it to customers all the time – so I piped up at dinner.

  “Hey, looks like you’re enjoying yourself Ma,” I said. “How come you’re so happy we had a murderer living next door? You’re like the cat that got the cream, jabbering away non-stop about it.”

  Hell, did she go ballistic… it really shook me. I never saw her look so fit to kill. And the belting she gave me… I’ll never forget it.

  But, yeah, the fact was from then on she kept her mouth shut and avoided journalists, so what I said must have struck home.

  I had a friend at the time, a kid from Osaka. Being around him had given me a bit of a Kansai accent. More than a bit, actually. You know how harsh it sounds. If a kid spoke to me now in the same sarcastic tone I used then, I might well lose it and be tempted to throttle him.

  Uh, looking back, I do have some sympathy for the old lady. Out of the mouths of babes and all that. It’s cruel what a kid so young could come out with.

  When I think about it now, it’s understandable she was worried. I mean, your son gets friendly with a stranger living in the neighbourhood, doesn’t listen to a word you say, always argues back. There was nothing she could do. No wonder she was mad.

  Especially since the stranger in question doesn’t have a job but there’s nothing she can object to about his behaviour or appearance, so she can’t accuse him of anything. I think she was looking for a reason all along to get me away from him. Then the murders happened. And on top of that he commits suicide and disappears from the face of the earth.

  Yeah, she must have been relieved all right. Her kid was safe now. Not to mention she’d been proved right. That’s why she got so carried away.

  In any case, single men always get a raw deal. Look how Big Brother was treated. His parents were dead, his sister murdered, and he was sick in hospital for ages. But he was labelled unreliable just because he couldn’t work.

  I come in for that kind of treatment too. But luckily people know I’m divorced, otherwise if anything happened all eyes would be pointed straight at me. People think I’m all right because I work for a company, that’s all. Because it’s true that unemployed young men do commit all kinds of crimes.

  People with families have a lot of hostility towards singles. Where does that come from? I’m not especially jealous of married couples, but I don’t put them down. I hope they’re happy – I don’t want to get in their way. But they’re jealous and they pity us. It used to be a single person was just pitied. Now hatred and jealousy come into it too. Apparently we’re the only ones who have it easy…

  Uh, even an insensitive clod like me picks up on that vibe.

  Even so, compared to what it used to be, I think there’s more social acceptance of different family situations.

  Big Brother must have been really alone back then.

  IV

  He was a quiet guy. I think he must have been really brainy.

  Maths and science always made perfect sense when he explained it. I still remember it. It was thanks to him I became any kind of engineer.

  Lots of people can make simple things complicated, but not many can make difficult ideas easy to understand.

  Yeah, how can I put it… when Big Brother explained some concept, it was like you could see the logic being constructed, three-dimensionally, inside his head. Very precisely, with methodical structure. All the details firmly in place, so it didn’t matter what angle you questioned him on, everything hung together and was easy to visualize.

  Another thing about him was he didn’t change his attitude just because you were a kid. Kids know instinctively when someone treats them as an equal. That’s why he was popular with them.

  Uh, most adults are stingy about their time with kids.

  It’s like this. If the sum of all their time is a hundred, they’ll allocate ten parts to kids. Adults in the neighbourhood might use up two or three parts of that on a kid with no connection to them. You can see them doing the calculations in their head, deciding how much of their time you’re worth. If a kid asks something and they think there might be a chance of having to use three parts instead of one, they’ll panic and push the kid away.

  Kids are very sensitive when adults begrudge them time. Which only makes them want more, so they try to steal as much of adults’ time as they can. Usually it has the opposite effect and they fail. Gradually they learn to distrust adults and give up on them.

  When something happens, though, those same parents and teachers who are usually stingy with their time say “Tell us everything, don’t hold back.”

  Wouldn’t give you the time of day, but will shamelessly ask a kid for theirs. It’s no wonder kids push back against that.

  Big Brother never resented spending his time with kids. Maybe it’s cause he wasn’t working, and did have the time.

  Yeah, he was kind, you know.

  He wasn’t abnormal at all.

  Sometimes he said some weird things, but he was never scary or twisted. He was more the dreamy type, off in his own world. The type to get hurt rather than hurt anybody else. More likely to be bullied than bully somebody.

  When it came to science or study he was super clear and precise, but if the topic changed he immediately lost the thread, used to get this distant look on his face.

  I almost never heard him talk about himself. He always dodged personal questions.

  But it’s true, you know, that all he seemed to do for a few weeks before the murders was recite sutras. He wouldn’t see me.

  Yeah, but I had thick skin, so I kept going back. I was in the habit of stopping by to say hello on my way home from school.

  I’d whine and try to persuade him to let me in, but he’d just look at me with sad eyes. I couldn’t say anything to those eyes, so I always gave up and left.

  That’s another thing – he often mentioned a third eye.

  Uh, he used to mumble away about training. Said that if you made a breakthrough you could acquire it.

  That didn’t interest me, so when he started going on about it I used to think here he goes again, and let it wash over me without really listening. So I don’t remember much.

  What I remember most is the stuff about the voice.

  Yeah, sometimes he’d be talking and suddenly jerk, then look at the ceiling or out the window for a moment.

  If I asked what was up, he’d say, “There’s a voice.”

  I told him he was hearing things, but he’d say no, and shake his head.

  Then he’d say, always with a dead serious look, “I hear the flower’s voice.”

  V

  Uh, I know it sounds crazy, but at the time I didn’t think so.

  He’d be talking away perfectly normally about functions and equations and stuff, then suddenly go “ah” – and look off in another direction.

  I got used to it. There he goes again, I’d think.

  Flower voices. I don’t know what kind of flowers. I asked him that too. “What flowers do you hear? Cherry blossom? Tulips? Any kind of flower?”

  He didn’t seem really sure himself. Just shook his head.

  “White,” he said once. “Beautiful, white flowers. In full bloom. Lots and lots of them.”

  That’s all he ever said.

  But, you know, there are all sorts of white flowers. Lilies, chrysanthemums, magnolias… If I mentioned any one specifically he just shook his head.

  “Such a beautiful voice,” he’d say.

  He always looked kind of blissed out when he talked about that voice.

  Yeah, he was good-looking, very clean-cut features. Used to look down at the ground a lot and had a kind of han
gdog air, but when he smiled he was handsome. He always brightened up when he mentioned the flowers, so I was kind of glad when he talked about them.

  Course, I didn’t know if he really heard anything. I think he genuinely believed he could. But I didn’t care one way or the other. Even though I was a kid, I knew he was a bit fragile mentally. So if he was happy, I was happy.

  The gossip magazines and papers went to town about that voice. Put their own spin on it to pull in the readers. But, jeez, some of the stuff they wrote… like a voice from heaven came to him every day telling him to kill that family. They made out that’s what he’d written in his will, but I don’t believe it.

  I read a few articles, but every one made him out to be some kind of weirdo.

  Uh, the question is – was that voice real or not?

  Huh? Yeah, I told the cops. But in the end they didn’t seem to believe me. Nobody else saw that piece of paper except me.

  Uh, two days before the murders. I saw him carrying around a small piece of notepaper.

  I was on my way to a friend’s house after school when I ran into him.

  He had something in his hands, and was holding it real careful. And he had this goofy happy look on his face. I was curious, of course, so I asked, “Hey, what’s that?”

  “I got it from the voice,” he said.

  That was a shock to hear. Of course, I knew he meant the voice he was always talking about, but I never thought it was real.

  So I asked, “What did you get?” and snuck a look at his hands. He had this piece of coarse straw paper. It had fold marks, and I saw two addresses written on it. In neat handwriting. I only had a quick look, but I’d say it was girl’s writing.

  I couldn’t read all the addresses properly, but I could see one was in Yamagata Prefecture.

  Big Brother didn’t say a thing. He just giggled like a girl and kept walking towards home.

  I didn’t take much notice then. But somewhere in my head it registered that maybe Big Brother’s voice wasn’t just in his imagination.

  I only started to think about that piece of paper again after he died. When the cops and media were swarming all over the place asking questions. To tell the truth, I forgot all about it up to then.

  But I didn’t mention it till the first wave of excitement had blown over and another detective came. The first detective who showed up was really intimidating. Mum didn’t want me speaking to him, so basically it was the first time I talked about it.

  That detective was like a teacher. Calm and serious. He always came with a plump woman policeman, and she was a good listener too – easy to talk to.

  Uh, when I told the detective about the paper I saw Big Brother with, he was very excited.

  I didn’t understand why till years later.

  It was the Yamagata address. The person who’d supposedly ordered all that poisoned sake and soft drinks was in Yamagata. And the delivery address was the clinic where all those people died.

  VI

  Uh, that meant somebody gave Big Brother those addresses and asked him to write delivery slips. Doesn’t take much thought to see the significance.

  That’s right. Someone else was involved.

  I’d been racking my brains over the possibility someone else was behind the murders, ever since Big Brother got blamed for them. You know, the cops had no idea what his motive might be. They knew he wasn’t in good shape mentally.

  But they checked all his contacts thoroughly. Anyone who had ever laid eyes on him was investigated. The monk at the temple where he sometimes went to look at Buddha statues was grilled too. For days apparently. He was all riled up about being treated like a suspect.

  The weakest part of their theory was the link between him and the supposed sender – the clinic in Yamagata Prefecture. And the Aosawa Clinic. Basically they couldn’t find one. If the sender was someone from this city, it might be understandable. But how did the person know the address of the doctor’s friend in Yamagata? That was the biggest mystery.

  So if the memo paper I saw was in fact from the real culprit, then it’s major evidence.

  The cops searched Big Brother’s apartment and the neighbourhood from top to bottom. Even the drainpipes. But they never found that memo. It was only small and would have been hard to find. So then they started to doubt me. Uh, it didn’t suit them to believe me then. Said I was just a kid, that I’d made a mistake, that there wasn’t really any memo at all.

  I wasn’t impressed by that. But I couldn’t do anything, seeing as they didn’t find it.

  So after all that, it was left up in the air. The possibility of someone else being involved.

  That pair of detectives – the man and woman – they kept coming back. Had me tell them about the memo over and over. But as time went on, and the memo never turned up, the male detective started looking grim. I could tell they believed me, but without evidence they had no choice but to take the official view that Big Brother had done it all on his own.

  But it’s true. I did see that memo. And I’m sure it wasn’t Big Brother’s writing. I’d know his writing because he’d been my tutor all that time.

  His handwriting was distinctive. Tiny, but written with a heavy hand. What I saw looked nothing like his style. This was neat and flowing.

  Yeah, I was frustrated by the way things turned out. But I couldn’t do anything more. Back then I was more annoyed about not being believed than interested in knowing the truth. Didn’t even dawn on me that the memo could prove Big Brother’s innocence.

  But when I look back now, there’s one thing I’m sure of.

  He was set up. I know it.

  Uh, the real culprit? No doubt about it. A woman.

  VII

  Nah, I’m pretty sure Big Brother didn’t have a girlfriend.

  Uh, he hardly saw anyone. He was normal enough around children, but didn’t seem to get on with adults too well.

  I’m not surprised, though. All the adults in the neighbourhood treated him like he was somehow suspect.

  But he had a double handicap. No job for one thing, and on top of that his landlords – who owned the hardware store – weren’t exactly a poster couple for good neighbourly relations.

  The husband and the wife were stubborn and crazy, the pair of them. Always stirring up trouble over everything, from putting out garbage to how to run the neighbourhood association. They built those apartments without a word of warning to neighbours. Then when tenants moved in and needed to use the private access road, the level of friction shot up.

  The tenants were mostly bar managers and tradespeople. Hardly had anything to do with the rest of the neighbourhood. Big Brother stood out because he was there all day. A sitting duck for all the hostility directed at the hardware store and prejudice about tenants. It was his bad luck. Though he was the type to get picked on anyway. He had a habit of looking down – like he was saying sorry – that only made it worse.

  But women are sharp-eyed.

  Yeah, and Big Brother was a good-looking guy. Skinny but dignified, you know. I think he had a pathetic air that appealed to the ladies.

  Women with their heads screwed on right weren’t interested, but I noticed the younger girls looked at him. Hookers too. Uh, they often came on to him out loud.

  He couldn’t handle that at all. Made him go red and run away. I felt sorry for him.

  They were really explicit, you know. “You’re a man, don’t pretend you don’t get it,” they used to say to him. I didn’t get what they were saying either, and when I asked Mum I got in trouble.

  I remember there was one girl who used to follow him about all the time. Her parents had a pork cutlet restaurant, or a coffee shop – something like that. I heard her begging him to let her take care of him. Said he needed someone like her to soothe his heart because he was sick. Stuff like that. She was a solid girl. And all thumbs as well. Big Brother nearly died of embarrassment. He nearly fell over himself trying to get away from her, but that only made her chase him ev
en more.

  Everybody killed themselves laughing. The hookers made fun of her something bad. You know, women can be really cruel to other, less good-looking women.

  “Ooh, he’s no match for a shameless girl,” they’d say. “The cheek of her thinking she could soothe anyone’s heart with that face… Though they say you get used to anything after three days.”

  Yeah, the hookers were merciless. But even their hassling didn’t budge the girl. I don’t know… they were all as bad as each other.

  Then she suddenly disappeared. Once and for all. Rumour was her parents folded up the shop and moved to the mother’s hometown. Don’t know the real story, though. In any case, Big Brother was off the hook. I still remember how relieved he looked when he heard.

  So that was the only sign of any woman.

  But I’d bet my bottom dollar the flower voice was a woman. White flowers, beautiful voice. Yeah, had to be a woman.

  Like I said, talking about the voice always put Big Brother in a good mood. But when that business first started, he was different somehow.

  He started reading sutras about the same time and – uh, I don’t how to put it – it was like he’d found a purpose. Something like that. I know it sounds cliched to say he found something to believe in, but I think that’s what happened.

  But I can’t say one way or the other if that something was the voice.

  Uh, before then he seemed kinda insecure. Like a leaf in a puddle, spinning in circles, with nothing to focus his life on – if you wanna get poetic. Battered by the elements, even. Hah, that’s a good one too. But you know, in that time before the murders he seemed different, like he’d found a purpose in life.

  Don’t get me wrong, he was still always down at the mouth. It was more like he accepted his fate.

  What did he find?

  What did he see when he opened the lids on those bottles of drink and mixed in the poison?

  He was methodical, good with his hands, you know. I can imagine him carefully putting the lids back on the bottles, one by one. Straightening the dents, making sure the beer didn’t go flat, so nobody would notice they had been opened.