Chapter 37: The Object of Worship
Sunday. Five o’clock in the afternoon. The precinct was quiet, smelling of stale coffee and quiet desperation.
Kishida Masayoshi stretched languidly in his worn office chair, the springs groaning in protest. He lit a cigarette, the flare of the match a brief spark of warmth in the gloomy office, and took a long, thoughtful drag.
This morning, the ĹŚgami boy had shown up with a quiet, nervous girl in tow, spinning a tale that had been just strange enough to be plausible, requesting assistance with a matter that had left Kishida with more questions than answers. After dealing with that particular diversion, he had spent the rest of his day buried in a mountain of paper, meticulously combing through the burial records for the Fura Ward church cemetery. It was a public graveyard, which meant the records were voluminous. And to make matters worse, a significant portion of the files were archaic, pre-digital paper records, a testament to the frustratingly outdated state of municipal bureaucracy. His eyes burned from the effort.
“Still at it, Senpai? Any luck?” Matsushita Makoto appeared at his elbow, placing a steaming cup of coffee on his cluttered desk. “Or are you going to tell me why, exactly, you’ve suddenly developed an intense interest in cemetery records? Is this somehow connected to the hot spring inn case?”
“The initial sweep is complete,” Kishida sighed, rubbing his tired eyes. “But unfortunately, it’s yielded precisely nothing.”
His methodology had been sound. He had started by searching for the surname ‘Yomikawa.’ It was exceptionally rare; there were likely fewer than a hundred people in all of Japan who shared it. A match in this specific cemetery would almost certainly be a relative of Yomikawa Tsuko’s. But there were no Yomikawas interred there.
Next, he had investigated her mother’s side. Yuna’s maiden name had been Watanabe – a name as common as leaves on a tree. The chances of an unrelated Watanabe being buried there were astronomically high. Still, he cross-referenced the records with what little he knew of her family, only to discover that Yuna was originally from Kyoto. All her deceased relatives were buried there, hundreds of kilometers away.
So, no relatives from either her mother’s or her father’s side. That line of inquiry was a dead end.
Which meant, if she was visiting a grave, it wasn’t for family. It had to be for a friend.
And so, Kishida Masayoshi had found himself making a trip to Suzaku High, obtaining a comprehensive list of every single one of Yomikawa Tsuko’s classmates and fellow club members, from her first day of elementary school to the present. For a student, the pool of potential close friends was, logically, limited. Classmates, club companions. If any of them had died young… that would be his target.
But again, the result was a frustrating null. Yomikawa Tsuko, it seemed, had never had a classmate or club-mate who had died.
The problem was becoming a real headache. He’d ruled out family, classmates, and club companions. The only remaining possibilities were vanishingly slim: a schoolmate from a different class, a neighborhood peer, someone she’d met through some other, unknown means. To investigate that angle, he would have to peel back the layers of Yomikawa Tsuko’s private life, a task that, without her direct and willing cooperation, was next to impossible.
Seeing Kishida’s grim, uncommunicative expression, Matsushita Makoto pouted, then idly picked up one of the dusty printouts, her eyes scanning the columns of names and dates. “Speaking of which,” she said, her tone casual, “Kagehara Kenta is also buried in this cemetery, isn’t he? Did you happen to visit his grave yesterday as well, Senpai?”
“I took a brief look,” Kishida replied, his voice flat. “But given my… professional involvement… in his son’s case, you couldn’t exactly call it ‘paying respects’.”
He had answered automatically, but in the next instant, his mind snagged on the name, and he froze.
Kagehara Kenta.
Could it be? Was it possible? Had Yomikawa Tsuko, for some inexplicable reason, gone to pay her respects to Kagehara Kenta’s grave?
The fact that she had brought no offerings, no flowers… that detail, which had seemed so bizarre, so contradictory, now suddenly, chillingly, clicked into place. If she were visiting Kagehara Kenta’s grave, it would be a visit fraught with complexity, inextricably linked to her relationship with his fugitive son, Kagehara Tetsuya. She almost certainly hadn’t known Kagehara Kenta personally. So, the only conceivable reason for her to visit his grave would be… because of Tetsuya.
But… Yomikawa Tsuko had described her relationship with Kagehara Tetsuya as that of “comrades” and “enemies,” a strange alliance forged in a shared, obsessive interest in the Makeup Hunter case. If their connection was truly that… transactional, that impersonal… would she really go so far as to visit his deceased father’s grave? It seemed… unlikely.
“Am I wrong again? Am I just chasing phantoms?”
“Or… was Yomikawa Tsuko not being entirely truthful about the nature of her relationship with Kagehara Tetsuya?”
“And then there’s the matter of the diary. She has his diary. Would mere ‘comrades’ or ‘friends’ exchange something so intensely personal? Between two girls, perhaps. But between a boy and a girl… it implies a certain… intimacy. A level of trust that goes beyond a shared hobby.”
“And yet… she explicitly stated that she and Kagehara Tetsuya were not romantically involved. And ĹŚgami’s own analysis of their interactions had yielded no hint of romance.”
“Damn it,” Kishida muttered under his breath, rubbing his throbbing temples. “The more I think about this, the more my head hurts.”
The possibility of her visiting Kagehara Kenta’s grave was one of those infuriating theories that seemed absurd at first glance, and riddled with contradictions upon closer inspection, yet possessed a strange, almost hypnotic power that made his detective’s intuition scream that he was on the right track.
This was, he knew, partly a product of his own subjective biases. At the end of the day, Yomikawa Tsuko’s behavior had consistently, and profoundly, deviated from the ordinary.
“If she was there to pay her respects to Kagehara Kenta… then what does that signify? Does it imply that she is still in contact with Kagehara Tetsuya, and was visiting the grave on his behalf? And if that’s the case, does it mean that Kagehara Tetsuya is no longer in the city, and is thus unable to make the pilgrimage himself?”
“The possibilities are multiplying, branching out in a dozen different directions. I can’t make a definitive judgment based on what I have now… Should I take the risk? Should I just… confront her with it? Ask her directly?”
“But… if that girl finds out that I’ve been secretly investigating this, investigating her… she’ll undoubtedly mock me with that cold, cutting amusement of hers. And more importantly, if she gets angry, if she decides to withdraw her cooperation… she might refuse to give me the rest of Kagehara Tetsuya’s diary. And then I’ll be back to square one. Or worse.”
Just as he was wrestling with this tactical dilemma, his phone buzzed, a new text message displayed on the screen.
“Officer Kishida. Please meet me at the Weekend Café in Nagano Ward. You have one hour. —Yomikawa Tsuko.”
Kishida’s heart gave a violent lurch. For her to contact him, so proactively, so… commandingly… it could only be about one thing. Kagehara Tetsuya’s diary.
“Something’s come up. I have to go,” he said, grabbing his jacket and bolting from his seat. “If you get any new leads, contact me immediately.”
Matsushita Makoto, utterly bewildered by his sudden, frantic departure, called after him a couple of times but received no reply. She stomped her foot in frustration, then turned back to the mountain of paperwork on his desk.
On the road, Kishida drove fast, weaving through the late afternoon traffic with a reckless urgency. The precinct was a considerable distance from Nagano Ward. Yomikawa Tsuko had given him an hour. He knew, with an absolute, gut-wrenching certainty, that if he was so much as a minute late, she would not wait for him.
Forty minutes later, his car screeched to a halt in a parking spot near the café. He walked in, his heart still pounding. A quick scan of the room, and he breathed a small, almost imperceptible sigh of relief.
Good. She’s not here yet. He still had the upper hand. If only just. He chose a small, inconspicuous table in a corner, ordered a black coffee he didn’t particularly want, and waited, his mind buzzing with a feverish anticipation of the secrets Kagehara Tetsuya’s diary might finally unlock.
The minutes ticked by, each one stretching into an eternity. Six o’clock came and went. Still no sign of Yomikawa Tsuko. Kishida started to feel a familiar, anxious agitation, repeatedly checking his watch, the coffee growing cold in its cup. Finally, at a quarter past six, the small bell above the café door chimed, and a familiar, graceful figure stepped inside.
Yomikawa Tsuko’s eyes swept the room, landing on him almost instantly. A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. She walked over, her hands clasped elegantly behind her back, her movements fluid, unhurried. “Good afternoon, Mr. Officer,” she said, her voice smooth as silk, her apology containing not a single, genuine shred of remorse. “I was… unavoidably detained… by a small matter. I do apologize for my tardiness.”
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