The Devotion of Suspect X - Keigo Higashino [42]
“Yes, yes, I’m sure you had every reason to be watching drivel on the public’s dollar. So what did the daughter’s friend have to say for herself?”
“Nothing helpful. According to her, there was nothing unusual about anything the daughter said. Her friend’s name is Mika Ueno. Mika told me she had seen the movie, too, so they had had a lot to talk about.”
“Odd that she would wait a day after seeing it,” Yukawa noted.
“Isn’t it? If she wanted to chat about it with her friends, why wouldn’t she do that the next day? So I started thinking, what if they really went to see that movie on the eleventh?”
“Is that possible?”
“Can’t rule it out. The suspect works until six o’clock, and if the daughter came home right after badminton practice, they could make the seven o’clock show. Which is what they allegedly did on the tenth.”
“Badminton? The daughter’s in the badminton club?”
“Yeah. I figured that out the first time I went to visit them. Saw her racquet in the apartment. Incidentally, the whole badminton thing bothers me, too. It’s a pretty intense sport, and even if she is in junior high, she should be bushed after practice.”
“Not if she’s a slacker like you who lets everyone else do the heavy lifting,” Yukawa commented, smearing some hot mustard on a rubbery cube of steamed konnyaku.
“Don’t try to derail the conversation with your little jokes. What I’m trying to say is—”
“It’s remarkable that a schoolgirl, worn out from badminton practice, would go off to the movies, then sing late into the night at a karaoke joint, right?”
Kusanagi blinked at his friend. That was exactly his point.
“Still, it’s not entirely inconceivable. She’s a healthy enough girl, right? And young.”
“That’s true. But she’s skinny—doesn’t look like she has much stamina.”
“I don’t know that that’s a valid assumption, and besides, maybe practice wasn’t so hard that day. And you confirmed they went to the karaoke place on the night of the tenth, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, what time did they go into the karaoke place?”
“9:40 P.M.”
“And you confirmed that the mom works at the lunch box store until six, right? If the crime was committed in Shinozaki, then allowing for a round trip, they had two hours to do the deed and still get to karaoke. I suppose it’s possible.” Yukawa folded his arms, chopsticks still in hand.
Kusanagi stared at him, wondering when he had told Yukawa that the suspect worked at a lunch box shop. “Tell me,” he said after a moment, “why are you so interested in this case all of a sudden? You never ask me how my other investigations are going.”
“I wouldn’t call it ‘interest,’ per se. It was just on my mind. I like this business of chipping away at ironclad alibis.”
“It’s less ironclad then simply hard to pin down—which is why we’re working on it.”
“But you have no evidence against her, nothing that would lead you to suspect her yet, right?”
“True enough. But the fact is, we have no one else worth suspecting right now. Togashi didn’t leave much of a trail. He didn’t have a lot of friends, but no real enemies either. That, and doesn’t it strike you as a little bit too convenient that they happened to go to the movies and karaoke on the night of the murder?”
“I see what you mean, but you need to make some logical decisions here. Maybe you should look at something other than the alibi?”
“Don’t feel you have to tell me how to do my job. We’re doing all the groundwork, believe me.” Kusanagi pulled a photocopy from the pocket of his coat where it hung on his chair and spread the paper out on the table. It was a drawing of a man’s face.
“What’s that?”
“An artist’s depiction of the victim when he was still alive. We have a few men around Shinozaki Station asking if anyone saw him.”
“That reminds me—you were saying some of the man’s clothing escaped burning? A navy jacket, gray sweater, and black pants, was it? Sounds like something just about anybody