Chapter 77: Second Diary Analysis (Part 2)
“A criminal genius?”
Hearing Suzuki’s confident assessment, a strange, persistent feeling of incongruity, a nagging sense of wrongness, began to prickle at the back of Kishida Masayoshi’s neck.
“Are you certain? You really think Kagehara Tetsuya is some kind of… criminal genius?”
Suzuki looked at him, a little surprised. When it came to the gritty, real-world details of this particular subject, Kishida surely knew far more than he did. Still, he nodded, a flicker of academic certainty in his eyes. “I believe that when he focuses his formidable intellect on a specific field of interest, he can easily become a master of it. I’ve mentioned it to you before, haven’t I? The clinical term for his condition is a ‘successful psychopath.’ Because he is not shackled by the usual human limitations – by emotions, by impulses, by a moral compass. He is extremely calm, extremely rational, and possesses an almost superhuman level of self-control and meticulous planning ability. While he may not be a ‘genius’ in the traditional, academic sense, for an ordinary person to try and outmaneuver him in a game of his own choosing… it would be next to impossible.”
The more Suzuki spoke, the stronger that feeling of wrongness grew in Kishida’s gut. “Is that really the case, though? Reading these diary entries, yes, he certainly comes across that way. Meticulous, calculating, cold. But…”
But when it came to the actual, physical murders of Ōshima Masaki and Hasebe Koichi… why were they so… messy? So unnecessarily complicated?
Suzuki had just claimed that Kagehara had the ability to erase all definitive evidence of his crimes. And yet, in both the Ōshima and Hasebe cases, while there were certainly signs of a twisted, cunning premeditation, the execution itself seemed to lack the cold, clean precision, the almost surgical elegance, that was so evident in the clinical prose of his diary. In fact, the two styles seemed almost… contradictory.
The act of severing Ōshima Masaki’s head, for example. There had been no attempt to disguise the method, no effort to obscure the tell-tale, amateurish marks of the blade. It was as if the killer had been completely, childishly unaware that the police could analyze wound patterns to determine a perpetrator’s experience, their profession, even their state of mind. If one were to be strict about it, the wound itself, in its very sloppiness, was a form of indirect and deeply confusing evidence.
And then there was the Hasebe Koichi case. Kagehara Tetsuya had deliberately, almost playfully guided him, Kishida, to the discovery of the body. What was the purpose of that? A taunt? A challenge to the police? For any supremely rational, self-interested criminal, provoking the police is an irrational and deeply foolish act. Provoking an individual, that could be explained as a calculated attempt to make them act rashly, to make a mistake. But to provoke the entire police force… that was just strange.
These had been two small details of the cases, loose threads he hadn’t been able to tie off. But now, in this moment, they felt like sharp, irritating splinters, lodged deep in Kishida Masayoshi’s mind, making him anxious, uneasy.
Yomikawa Tsuko’s cold, cutting voice echoed in his memory, a ghostly counterpoint to Suzuki’s confident analysis.
“What was the reason, Officer, that Kagehara-kun had to dismember the body himself?”
“What was the reason that Kagehara-kun had to guide you to the discovery of Hasebe Koichi’s corpse?”
Taking a deep breath, Kishida forcibly pushed the distracting and deeply unsettling thoughts from his mind. “Enough of that,” he said, his voice a little too sharp. “Stop nursing your tea and let’s keep reading.”
Suzuki Koji nodded and turned back to the glowing screen.
The next problem to be solved is, where should I hide the cosmetics I have purchased?
I am required to go to school during the day. If Kagehara Kenta were to enter my room during that time, whether out of some misguided sense of ‘concern,’ or a more intrusive desire to see what I am up to in private, the presence of these items would be difficult to explain.
But taking them to school would be even more foolish. Although no one at school bullies or ostracizes me, and it is highly unlikely that anyone would randomly go through the contents of my desk, that girl, Tanaka Erika, might very well sense that I am hiding something. I must not, under any circumstances, underestimate her.
If anyone were to discover that I was secretly in possession of cosmetics, products used exclusively by women, I would likely become an immediate target for ostracism and bullying. That is a social outcome I absolutely cannot allow.
After careful and thorough consideration, there is only one truly safe and logistically sound place to store them: the abandoned chemical warehouse in the Takao Nichōme district.
The diary entry for that day ended there.
“Would Kagehara Tetsuya really be worried about something like that?” Kishida asked, a new and even more profound confusion creasing his brow. “If he’s afraid of being ostracized or isolated, then why would he engage in the torture and killing of small animals, or even meticulously plot the murder of Tanaka Erika in the first place? The two things seem… mutually exclusive.”
“That’s a ridiculous and frankly naive question,” Suzuki said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. “A bank robber is afraid of being caught. A rapist or a molester is afraid of being exposed. But crimes like that still happen all the time, don’t they? The first reason is that human beings are, on occasion, impulsive. And the second is that, once the idea of a crime has taken root in the mind, the fear of the law, of morality, gradually, and inevitably, diminishes.”
“No, no, that’s not what I mean,” Kishida said, shaking his head. “The point is not that he committed a crime despite being afraid. The point is the emotion of ‘fear’ itself. Would that emotion, as you and I understand it, even appear in a clinical psychopath like Kagehara Tetsuya?”
Hearing this, Suzuki Koji frowned, a flicker of genuine, professional interest in his eyes. “It would, yes. But you are right to question it. The ‘fear’ mentioned here is clearly not an emotional terror, a feeling of dread. It is a rational, cold calculation. An avoidance of a future that would be… disadvantageous… to himself.”
“And another thing. Psychopaths are, in fact, extremely and obsessively concerned with their ‘social status and evaluation’.”
“I mentioned it to you before. Almost all psychopaths, particularly successful ones, go to great lengths to disguise themselves, to appear just like normal, ordinary people. If you think about it more deeply, why do they have this spontaneou and highly consistent behavior? Why the desperate need for camouflage?”
“The fundamental reason,” Suzuki continued, his voice taking on the calm, authoritative tone of a lecturer, “is that they do not want to negatively affect their own ‘social status and evaluation.’ Humans are, at their core, social, pack animals. Being an outcast, being seen as different from the majority, in the eyes of an extremely rational psychopath, this is a foolish and entirely avoidable original sin. So, to avoid ‘committing’ this original sin, they have no choice but to meticulously disguise themselves.”
“And from the existing diary entries we have, this point is also easily and repeatedly confirmed. Kagehara Tetsuya’s plan to murder Tanaka Erika considered almost every minute detail. Such a cautious, paranoid attitude speaks volumes.”
Kishida Masayoshi nodded thoughtfully. “I see. Explained that way, the last missing piece of Kagehara Tetsuya’s motive for murder seems to fall into place. And the reason for his intense hatred of Tanaka Erika becomes much more specific, and much more chilling.”
After saying this, he waited for a long time, but heard no response from Suzuki Koji. He looked down and saw his friend frowning deeply, his eyes narrowed, staring at the screen in front of him, as if he hadn’t heard a single word he’d just said.
“Hey, Koji! What is it? Why’d you suddenly stop? Let’s finish reading the diary before you space out.”
“Spacing out? I’m not, okay?” Suzuki Koji let out a long, slow breath, then began to rub his temples, as if a sudden, intense headache had taken hold. “It’s just… I’ve suddenly noticed a detail. A very, very strange one.”
“Hm? What detail? How did I miss it?” Kishida thought, a flicker of annoyance in his mind. This is the second time I’ve read this damn entry. And there’s not that much about Kagehara Tetsuya’s inner world in this particular part. Besides the point I just raised, what other obscure, hidden details could there possibly be?
“Actually, I noticed this detail the last time we analyzed the diary,” Suzuki said, his words slow and deliberate, as if he were carefully, and with a growing sense of dread, weighing each one. “But at the time, I dismissed it. I thought it was just a coincidence, a stylistic quirk. But after reading this entry, the issue is still there. This seems… this can no longer be explained away as a coincidence.”
“Stop being so damn dramatic! What is it? What’s the detail?!”
Suzuki answered, his voice low and serious, each word landing with the weight of a stone. “In the diary, in all the entries we have seen, Kagehara Tetsuya never once, not a single time, refers to Kagehara Kenta as ‘Dad’ or ‘Father.’ Why is that?”
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