A Midsummer's Equation: A Detective Galileo Mystery Page 8

“If it looks like murder, you know Tokyo’s going to get involved, even if it isn’t their jurisdiction. That’s got everyone at the station on tenterhooks. Which is why I’m trying to get everything squared away before the end of the day.” Nishiguchi leaned toward her and added, “And everything I just said, that’s just between old friends, okay? Don’t tell anyone else.”

  “Yeah, sure. No problem. So, how can I help you?”

  “Right, I almost forgot,” Nishiguchi said, straightening his back and clearing his throat. “Actually, there’s something I wanted to borrow from you, if I could? Your, er, guest ledger, I think it’s called? We need a record of people who stayed here.”

  “What are you going to do with that?”

  “Well, it’s a bit of a sensitive subject,” Nishiguchi began, glancing around before continuing, “but people were wondering why Tsukahara chose this place to stay.”

  “You mean why’d he pick an old, rundown inn like ours?”

  “I didn’t say that! I’m just saying, well, he might’ve had a specific reason. Like someone recommended it to him. That’s why we need to know who stayed here in the past.”

  “Oh, I get it. How many years back do you want?”

  “As many as you got.”

  “Okay, I’ll ask my folks.” Narumi went back to the living room, mulling over what Nishiguchi had said. It was a good question. Why had Tsukahara chosen the Green Rock Inn?

  THIRTEEN

  Kyohei finished breakfast and was on his way back to his room when he spotted Yukawa in the lobby. He was sitting on the wicker bench, staring at the framed painting of the ocean on the wall.

  “Did someone in your family paint this?” he asked as Kyohei was walking by.

  “I dunno. Something wrong with it?”

  Yukawa pointed at the painting. “You can’t get this view of the ocean from this inn, no matter where you stand. It made me wonder where it was painted from.”

  Kyohei looked between the physicist’s face and the painting. He shrugged. “Does it matter?”

  “Very much. This town prides itself on the beauty of its seascape, and this inn was built to cater to people lured here by its beauty. If we find a painting of the ocean in such a place, we would expect it to be a local scene. If the ocean in this painting were actually the ocean from an entirely different area, or something the painter just made up, well, that’s a kind of fraud, if you ask me.”

  “Fraud sounds a little strong,” Kyohei said.

  Yukawa stared at the painting a few moments longer, then turned to him. “What are your plans today?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Perfect,” Yukawa said, looking down at his watch. “It’s eight thirty now. Meet me here in half an hour.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “I believe I mentioned I was working on a plan to show you the bottom of the sea. Well, my plans have taken shape, and I’d like to put them into action as soon as possible,” Yukawa said, standing.

  Kyohei looked at the physicist in surprise. “I told you I don’t like boats.”

  “And I heard you. We’re only talking about one hundred meters here. We don’t need a boat.” Yukawa made his hand in the shape of a pistol and pointed the barrel at the painting of the sea. “Let’s hope it works.”

  * * *

  Roughly thirty minutes later, Yukawa showed up in the lobby carrying two large paper bags. He handed one of the bags to Kyohei, but the top was folded shut and he couldn’t see inside. It wasn’t as heavy as he expected it to be, judging by the size. When he asked what was inside, all Yukawa said was, “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s not lunch.”

  “By the way, did you bring your cell phone?” Yukawa asked as they were walking outside.

  Kyohei fished the phone out of his shorts pocket and showed it to him. Yukawa nodded approvingly and started to walk.

  The physicist wouldn’t tell him where they were going, so all Kyohei could do was follow. He thought they might be going to the place where the guest had fallen the night before, but Yukawa showed no signs of stopping as they passed by the rocky shore.

  Past the harbor, they came to a breakwater extending out into the ocean. Yukawa began walking down it toward the end, his pace quickening.

  “Are we going to do something at the end of the breakwater?”

  “That’s why we’re here.”

  “Well, what are we doing, then? Tell me already.”

  “Don’t be impatient, you’ll see soon enough.”

  Yukawa finally stopped when he reached the very end of the breakwater. “Open your bag,” he instructed, “and spread out its contents on the ground.”

  Kyohei opened his bag, finding a plastic bucket, some plastic string, and what looked like a long tube made out of cut plastic bottles.

  “We’re making a bottle rocket. Sometimes called a water rocket. Know what those are?”

  “Yeah, we made them at school once. They shoot water out of the back, right?”

  “They most certainly do.”

  “Is it going to take a long time?”

  “Don’t worry, it’s already nearly finished. I did most of the work last night in my room and then dismantled it to fit in the bags. It will be easy to reassemble.” Yukawa worked while he talked, sticking the various pieces together with practiced hands. Kyohei watched as the rocket gradually took shape. It was easily over a meter tall, considerably larger than the ones they’d made at school.

  “You made this in your room?”

  “It was the easiest solution to the problem, believe it or not. It should provide an interesting lesson in physics, too.”

  “How is firing off a rocket going to let us see the ocean floor?”

  Yukawa’s hands stopped their work. He pushed up his glasses with the tip of his finger. “Ever hear of Yuri Gagarin? He was an astronaut—the first man in outer space, and the first man to orbit the earth. He did that in a rocket. Without rockets, mankind would never have been able to see what the earth really looks like. We need a rocket.”

  FOURTEEN

  In the homicide division of the Tokyo Police Department, Detective Shunpei Kusanagi was in the middle of laboriously typing up a report when he sensed someone standing in front of his desk. He looked up to see Division Chief Mamiya glaring down at him.

  “Don’t tell me you can’t touch type, Kusanagi.”

  Kusanagi narrowed his eyes. “What about you, Chief?”

  “You know I don’t have time for that crap,” Mamiya said. He glanced around the office and leaned in a little closer. “Speaking of which, got a moment?”

  Kusanagi chuckled. “Didn’t you just tell me you needed this report done on the double?”

  “It can wait. Come with me, Director Tatara’s waiting.”

  “Tatara?” Kusanagi immediately began thinking back over the last couple of days, trying to figure out what he could’ve messed up badly enough to get the director’s attention.

  “Don’t worry, he’s not going to chew us out. Come.”

  Mamiya walked off without waiting for an answer. Kusanagi got up from his desk and hurried after him. They reached a small meeting room, where Mamiya knocked on the door. A voice from inside said, “Enter.”

  The two detectives walked into the room to find Tatara, his jacket off, sitting in one of the chairs. He had spread several papers out on the conference table, along with some photographs. Kusanagi spotted a photocopy of a map, though it wasn’t an area he was familiar with.

  “Have a seat,” Tatara said. “I called you both in here because I have a somewhat irregular request for Kusanagi.” The director’s face was calm, but there was a serious look in his eyes.

  Kusanagi straightened a little in his chair. “Yes, sir?”

  “I assume you’ve heard about Masatsugu Tsukahara’s death?”

  It took Kusanagi a moment to reply, “Yes, yesterday, but only a rumor. They said he died on a trip somewhere?”

  Masatsugu Tsukahara had left the homicide division ten years ag
o. He’d been transferred to another department, apparently due to ill health. They hadn’t even been on the same squad when he was in homicide, so Kusanagi barely knew the man. He didn’t even know he’d retired when he heard about the death.

  “Well, it’s a long story, but basically, I owe a lot to Tsukahara. My entire career, really.”

  Kusanagi nodded, unsure whether he should offer his condolences.

  “Yesterday, I went with his widow to visit the town where it happened,” Tatara continued. “This is where they found him.” He placed a photograph in front of Kusanagi, showing some rocks on the coast somewhere, photographed from above. “He was lying on these rocks. The local physician’s assessment was cerebral contusion.”

  A wrinkle formed between Kusanagi’s eyebrows. “So he slipped and fell, something like that?”

  “That’s how the locals are calling it. They weren’t even planning an autopsy.”

  Kusanagi raised an eyebrow. “But something was off, I take it?”

  “As soon as I saw the body in the morgue, I knew this was no simple fall on the rocks,” Tatara said, looking between the two detectives. “I’ve seen plenty of accidental deaths by falling. Even when we’re only talking about a few meters, if he hit hard enough to cause cerebral contusion, there should have been internal hemorrhaging throughout the body. But he was hardly bruised at all. Which says to me Tsukahara was dead before he hit those rocks.

  “Once I had a chance to examine the scene, I felt even more sure foul play was involved. Tsukahara liked to drink as much as any of us, but I never knew him to drink to excess. I don’t buy for a second that he scrambled drunkenly up on that seawall, then slipped off the other side.”

  “Is that what the locals said?” Mamiya asked.

  Tatara chuckled and shook his head. “If we leave this case in their hands, it will die a quick death. No, we need to requisition the body and perform an autopsy here.”

  Mamiya’s eyes widened. “And we’re going to do that?”

  “The Hari police commissioner’s already signed off on it. I had our chief of detectives give the local station a call. If we find reasonable evidence of murder, we’ll get their homicide people on it—after sharing our findings with them, of course. That should keep the locals happy.”

  Kusanagi nodded, duly impressed. He examined the man across the table, his neatly combed hair making him look more like a banker than a cop, remembering the stories he’d heard about Tatara back when he was a detective, not an administrator, and working actual cases. Tatara was rumored to have been a loose cannon who kept everyone on his team guessing what he’d do next. Guess the rumors had some truth to them.

  “So when’s the autopsy scheduled?” Mamiya asked.

  Tatara grinned. “It’s already under way. They brought the body in last night, and started the autopsy this morning. We don’t have an official report yet, mostly because they haven’t determined the cause of death.”

  “Am I to take it that means it wasn’t cerebral contusion?” Kusanagi said.

  “No. The injury on his head was most definitely inflicted after death. Nor were there any signs of natural causes, like a cerebral hemorrhage or heart attack. In other words, he didn’t keel over on top of the seawall and then fall onto those rocks.”

  “So he wasn’t sick, and there weren’t any injuries other than the one to the head,” Kusanagi said, choosing his words carefully. “Poison?”

  “Probably,” Tatara agreed. “They’re running a bunch of tests right now. It’s only a matter of time before we nail it down. The real question is, why did a dead man end up on those rocks?” Tatara tapped the photograph on the table.

  Kusanagi raised an eyebrow. “I assume we’ll be setting up a task force in Hari?”

  “Sooner or later, yes. I expect we’ll get a formal request for assistance from the Shizuoka Police. Problem is, if we wait that long, we might lose our chance to pick up the trail. Also, I doubt the locals will give us jurisdiction on their turf, so we might end up getting only part of the full picture.” Tatara took a breath. “We need to move on our own on this one.”

  “You mean the Tokyo Police Department will be effectively taking over the investigation?” Kusanagi asked.

  The director shook his head. “No. I’m not trying to shove the local police out completely. I’m happy to have them conduct their investigation. That said, I’m not going to go to Tsukahara’s widow or, for that matter, Tsukahara himself when we meet in the great beyond, and say we couldn’t find his killer because of inept police work. That’s why we need to conduct our own investigation. And if we find anything of value, we’ll bring it straight to the local prefectural headquarters.”

  “And you want me to conduct this investigation?” Kusanagi asked.

  “That’s right,” Tatara said, his eyes shifting to Mamiya. “How about it? You just wrapped up a case, probably won’t have anything for a while, right? Think you can loan me your detective until the next case starts up?”

  “Well, it’s fine with me, but…” Mamiya’s words trailed off as he turned to look at Kusanagi.

  “Why me?” Kusanagi asked.

  Tatara’s eyes glimmered. “You don’t want to take this on?”

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying. But assigning me to the case doesn’t make much sense. There are a lot of other people, high-ranking people, in the department who knew Tsukahara a lot better than I did.”

  “Like me, for instance,” Tatara said. “You’re right.”

  “Of course, I’m not suggesting that you go out there yourself, Director,” Kusanagi quickly added.

  Tatara shook his head. “I don’t think anyone else in the department knew the deceased like I did. Which pretty much leaves everyone else but me on equal footing.”

  Kusanagi frowned. “I guess what I’m asking is, was there any particular reason you picked me, other than the fact I’m not currently on a case?”

  “Hey, Kusanagi,” Mamiya grumbled. “Don’t get me in trouble here.”

  “It’s fine,” Tatara said. “You have every reason to wonder why we picked you.” A smile played across the director’s face as he picked up a piece of paper from the table. “Like I said, we haven’t received a formal request for assistance. Which means we can’t do anything too heavy-handed, without pissing off a lot of people and making things harder for us down the road. Still, we need to know what’s going on down there, or our hands will be tied. It’s a sticky problem, so I started thinking about how we might solve it.” He pushed the paper across the table toward Kusanagi. “I asked if anyone else was staying at the inn where Tsukahara spent his last night. Turns out, there was only one other guest that night at the inn. And it’s someone we know.”

  Kusanagi looked down at the paper. It was a copy of a page from the guest ledger of the Green Rock Inn.

  Kusanagi looked up from the paper. “Yukawa? What the hell was he doing out there?”

  “What is he doing, you mean. He’s still in Hari Cove,” Tatara said, a smile spreading across his face. “You can ask him yourself.”

  FIFTEEN

  With a whoosh of compressed water, the rocket soared into the distance. Kyohei frowned. He’d missed the moment of launch again. The rocket was flying across the water too fast for his eyes to follow, with much more power than he’d expected.

  Yukawa held up a small pair of binoculars and watched as the rocket splashed into the ocean.

  “Distance?”

  Kyohei checked the reading on the electric fishing reel they had stuck into the ground. They had attached a fishing line to the back of the rocket, and Kyohei was in charge of checking the distance of each launch.

  “Uh, 135 meters. A little less than last time.”

  “Right. Reel her in,” Yukawa said. He was sitting cross-legged on the breakwater and typing on his laptop, using his satchel in place of a desk.

  Kyohei watched him out of the corner of his eye as he reeled the rocket back in. This was the seventh time in a row
they’d performed this exact same procedure. Yukawa clearly loved firing off the rocket, but he hadn’t done anything about showing Kyohei the bottom of the sea yet. Kyohei was starting to wonder what the point of all this was.

  Yukawa squinted at the screen of his laptop and folded his arms across his chest. “I think we have the results we need. I’ve determined the source of the variation between our simulated results and the actual launches. We should be able to achieve perfect conditions for our launch.”

  “You mean we have to shoot the thing off again? How many times are we going to do this?”

  “As many times as possible,” the physicist answered. “With water rockets and manned rockets alike, it behooves us to test our equipment as many times as possible. In the case of an actual rocket, however, there are budgetary constraints that prevent unlimited testing. In our case, the main constraint is time: the sun is starting to get pretty high in the sky, and if we don’t hop to it, we’re going to miss our chance to see these so-called ‘crystals’ on the seafloor. So, the next launch is for real.”

  Yukawa stood and tossed the plastic bucket into the water. The bucket had a line of nylon rope tied to the handle.

  While Kyohei continued reeling in the rocket, Yukawa deftly manipulated the bucket at the end of the rope, scooping up seawater as he had done six times previously.

  Yukawa’s rocket was remarkable not only because of its size, but also the curious shape of its fins. Yukawa claimed they were his own original creation, but Kyohei couldn’t see what was particularly creative about them. Another unusual feature of the rocket was a weight he placed inside, about the size of a pack of cigarettes. He would adjust the position of the weight very slightly each launch. The weight measured in at almost one hundred grams, which Kyohei thought had to be cutting their distance by a lot, but according to Yukawa, the weight was a vital component.

  Not for the first time, Kyohei wondered who exactly his strange professorial friend was. Yes, Kyohei had expressed some interest in seeing the crystals that gave Hari Cove its name, but it wasn’t like he’d asked anyone to go to such lengths. Lengths he didn’t even understand, because Yukawa wouldn’t explain anything to him. All he could do was watch in silence as they performed one test launch after another.