The Devotion of Suspect X - Keigo Higashino [101]
Kusanagi crossed his arms over the stack of newspapers.
It didn’t make any sense. For one thing, a man like Yukawa wouldn’t normally rely on newspapers to help him investigate a case of this sort, if that indeed was what he’d been doing. With murders happening practically every day in Japan, most newspapers wouldn’t continue running stories about a particular case unless there was some large development. The case of Togashi’s murder wasn’t a particularly unusual one, either. Yukawa knew all that.
He also wasn’t the type to trek to the library for no reason, either.
Despite what he had said to the physicist, Kusanagi couldn’t accept that Ishigami had done what he had claimed. Nor could the detective shake the feeling that his team had been barking up the wrong tree all along. He felt that Yukawa knew what they were doing wrong. The physicist had come to the aid of Kusanagi and the police department several times before, and maybe he had some insight this time around, too. But if he did, why wasn’t he talking?
Kusanagi restacked the newspapers and went to inform the librarian that he was done.
“I hope they were of some help?” she asked uncertainly.
“Yeah, very helpful,” Kusanagi replied, without elaborating.
“You know,” the librarian said as he was signing out, “Professor Yukawa was also interested in the local papers.”
“Huh?” Kusanagi looked up. “Which local papers?”
“He asked about the papers from Chiba and Saitama Prefectures. Unfortunately, we don’t carry those.”
“Did he ask about anything else?”
“No, I think that was all.”
“Chiba and Saitama…?”
Confused, Kusanagi left the library. This time, he really had no idea what Yukawa had been thinking. Why would he be interested in local papers? Maybe he hadn’t been looking into the murder case after all.
His mind churning, Kusanagi made his way back to the parking lot. He had just climbed into the driver’s seat and was about to turn the ignition key when Manabu Yukawa came walking out of the university building right in front of him. He was wearing a dark navy jacket in place of his lab coat, and he was making a beeline for the front gates, a look of intense concentration on his face.
After watching as Yukawa reached the street and turned left, Kusanagi started his car and headed out onto the roadway himself. Passing through the gates, he glanced over just in time to see Yukawa climb into a cab. Kusanagi pulled onto the road just as the cab was pulling away.
Yukawa typically spent most of each day at the university. He’d always told Kusanagi that, being single, there was nothing for him to do at home, and it was easier for him to read or play the occasional game of racquetball at the university. Meals were easier there, too.
Kusanagi glanced at his watch. It wasn’t even five o’clock yet. Yukawa wouldn’t be headed home for the day already.
Kusanagi began tailing Yukawa’s cab. As he drove he memorized the name of the cab company and the car’s license plate number, so that even if he happened to lose them along the way, he would be able to call the company and find out where the cab had dropped off its passenger.
The taxi was heading east down a relatively busy street. Several other cars moved in between it and Kusanagi’s car, but the detective managed to avoid losing his quarry.
He had been following them for some time when the taxi passed through the Nihonbashi area and stopped just before crossing the Sumida River, right by the Shin-Ohashi Bridge. Ishigami’s apartment building lay just across the bridge.
Kusanagi pulled over to one side of the road and watched the cab from there. Yukawa got out of the cab and went down the staircase at the side of the bridge.
Doesn’t look like he’s headed for the apartment, at least.
Kusanagi quickly checked his surroundings, looking for a place to park. He was in luck and found a spot by a parking meter.