The Devotion of Suspect X - Keigo Higashino [43]
“Doesn’t it? Apparently they have a mountain of reports of people saying they saw someone a lot like him. We don’t know where to start.”
“So, nothing useful at all?”
“Not really. The closest thing we have to a useful tip is one woman who says she saw a suspicious-looking guy wearing clothes like that near the station. An office lady on her way home from work; she saw him loitering there. She called it in after seeing one of the posters we put up at Shinozaki.”
“It’s good to see the people here are being helpful. So why don’t you question her? Maybe you can get something more out of her.”
“We did, of course. The problem is, the man she saw doesn’t sound like our victim.”
“How so?”
“Well, first of all, the station she saw him at wasn’t Shinozaki, but Mizue—one station before it on the same line. That, and when we showed her the picture, she said his face looked rounder than the one in our illustration.”
“Rounder, huh?”
“One thing you come to realize as a police detective is that a lot of our work consists of barking up the wrong tree. It’s not like your world, where once the logic fits, you have your proof and you can call it a day.” Kusanagi busied himself with fishing for leftover chunks of potato with his chopsticks. He was expecting a snappy comeback, but Yukawa didn’t say anything. When he looked up he saw his friend staring off into space, his hands lightly clasped together.
Kusanagi had seen this look before: it was a sure sign that the physicist was deep in thought—though whether the sudden revery had anything to do with the matter at hand remained to be seen.
Gradually Yukawa’s eyes regained their focus. He looked at Kusanagi. “You said the man’s face was crushed?”
“Yep. His fingerprints were burned off, too. They must have been trying to keep us from identifying the body.”
“What did they use to crush the face?”
Kusanagi glanced around to make sure no one was eavesdropping, then he leaned across the table. “We haven’t found anything, but we suspect the killer used a hammer. Forensics thinks the face was struck several times to break the bones. The teeth and jaw were completely destroyed, too, making it impossible for us to check them against his dental records.”
“A hammer, huh?” Yukawa muttered, using the tips of his chopsticks to split a soft stewed daikon radish.
“What about it?” Kusanagi asked.
Yukawa put down his chopsticks and rested his elbows on the table. “If this woman from the lunch box shop was the killer, what exactly do you think she did that day? First, you’re assuming that she didn’t really go to that movie, right?”
“I’m not certain she did or didn’t go, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Never mind what really happened. I just want to hear some deductive reasoning.” Yukawa made an encouraging motion with one hand while lifting his beer to his lips with the other.
Kusanagi frowned. “Well, it’s more conjecture than anything solid, but here’s what I think. The lunch box lady—let’s just call her Ms. A for short—well, Ms. A gets off work and leaves the shop after six. It takes her ten minutes to walk from there to Hamamatsu Station. It’s another twenty minutes from there on the subway to Shinozaki Station. She takes a bus or taxi from the station to someplace near the Old Edogawa River, which would put her near the scene of the crime at around seven o’clock.”
“And what’s the victim doing during this time?”
“The victim’s heading toward the scene, too. He’s going there to meet with Ms. A. But the victim comes from Shinozaki Station by bicycle.”
“Bicycle?”
“Yeah. There was a bicycle abandoned near where the body was found, and the prints on the bicycle matched those of the victim.”
“The prints? I thought you said his fingertips had been burned off?”
Kusanagi nodded. “After we figured out who the John Doe was, we got some useable prints. What I should have said was the prints on the bicycle matched those we found in the room where the victim was staying. Aha! I know what you’re getting at. You’re going to tell me that even if we could prove the man renting the room was the