The Devotion of Suspect X - Keigo Higashino [86]
“Keep chatting like this and you’ll use up your two or three minutes in no time,” Ishigami said, looking at his watch. “You’re at one minute already.”
“Okay—the world needs its cogs, all of them; and even a cog may say how it gets used. In fact, only a cog may determine its eventual meaning in the system. That’s what I wanted to tell you,” Yukawa said, staring Ishigami in the face. “Are you going to quit your teaching job?”
Ishigami’s eyes opened wide with surprise. “Why do you ask that?”
“I just thought you might be moving in that direction. You’re not planning on being the cog labeled ‘math teacher’ all your life, are you?” Yukawa stood. “Shall we?”
The two stood up and began walking along the Sumida. Ishigami didn’t speak, waiting for his old friend to say something.
“I heard Kusanagi paid you another visit. Checking on your alibi?”
“Yeah. Last week.”
“He suspects you.”
“Seems like it. Though I haven’t the foggiest clue why.”
Yukawa suddenly smiled. “To tell you the truth, he’s a little foggy on that as well. He’s only interested in you because he saw me taking an interest in you, that’s all. I’m sure it’s not my place to tell you this, but the police don’t have a bit of evidence to point them in your direction.”
Ishigami stopped. “So why are you telling me this?”
Yukawa stopped as well and turned toward him. “Because I’m your friend. No other reason but that.”
“Because you’re my friend you thought you needed to tell me about some murder investigation? Why? I have nothing to do with the crime. Why should I care if the police suspect me of anything?”
He heard Yukawa sigh—a long, slow sound. Then his friend shook his head. Something about the sadness in his expression made Ishigami feel nervous.
“The alibi’s immaterial,” Yukawa said quietly.
“Huh?”
“Kusanagi and company are obsessed with picking apart their suspect’s alibi. They think that if they keep prodding at the holes in Yasuko Hanaoka’s story, they’ll eventually find the truth, provided she really did kill her ex-husband. And they think that if you were her conspirator, then all they need to do is check out your alibi, too, and the fortress you’ve built will come crumbling down.”
“Sorry, but I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.” Ishigami frowned. “Besides, what’s wrong with detectives looking for holes in alibis? Isn’t that what they do? Assuming there really are holes to be found, that is.”
Yukawa’s mouth softened. “Kusanagi said something interesting the other day. He was talking about the way you designed the tests you give to your students, taking advantage of the blind spots created by the students’ own assumptions. Like making an algebra problem look like a geometry problem, for instance. It made sense. It’s very effective for tripping up the ones who don’t understand the underlying principles and just try to solve everything by the book. The student sees what they think is a geometry problem, so they attack it from that angle. But they can’t solve it. They get nowhere, and end up just wasting time. Some people might call it unfair, but it’s a very effective way of measuring someone’s true ability.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Kusanagi and company,” Yukawa said, his face growing serious, “think that this is a question of breaking down alibis. And why not, since their primary suspect has an alibi. Even better, her alibi feels weak. It feels like you could just keep hitting it and eventually it might break. The same thing happens all the time in our research, really. And, time and time again, we find that while we were happily swinging away at a problem, all the while we were completely off the mark. The police have fallen into that very trap. The bait was there and they