Chapter 82: Second Diary Analysis (Part 7)
The progress I am making is so rapid, so… seamless. To be honest, it’s a little beyond my own, most optimistic, expectations.
I first started writing this diary on April 8th. And now, just a little over a month later…
At the time, my most ambitious projection was that I would be ready to act sometime in May.
But the ‘fastest’ projection is almost always an idealized, best-case scenario. If you plan ten things with that kind of optimism, you would be incredibly fortunate if even one or two of them proceed at the expected pace.
Realistically, I had anticipated that June would be the most likely timeframe for the event. And now, the timeline has been advanced significantly. It seems Lady Luck, in her own dark, inscrutable way, is smiling upon me.
The fight with Tanaka today… looking back on it now, it was not a setback, but a tactical opportunity.
Most people, after a fight, enter a ‘cold war’ period. Between two girls, this period of silence is usually quite short. Between a boy and a girl, if it lasts a little longer, that is also considered perfectly normal. So, if I deliberately extend this period of silence, I will have a very plausible, and entirely natural, pretext for arranging a private, one-on-one meeting with Tanaka.
The first conversation after a major argument… one would naturally want to avoid the prying eyes of others, and even of one’s own parents. Most people, after all, are not eager to discuss their quarrels between friends with their parents.
And isn’t that exactly the situation, the very set of circumstances, I was hoping for?
However, before that, I must find a way to ensure that Tanaka’s parents are aware that we have had a fight. That way, to avoid any potential awkwardness, neither Tanaka nor her parents will be likely to mention my name at home.
As for the specific pretext for the meeting… for a normal person, a simple, heartfelt apology would likely suffice to arrange a meeting. But for a girl as annoyingly, almost preternaturally, intelligent as Tanaka, she would know instantly that I felt no real remorse. In fact, if anyone should be apologizing, it should be her. To cause such a scene in front of our classmates… wasn’t that a considerable, and deeply irritating, inconvenience for me?
So, an apology is out of the question. My attitude must be firm, unyielding. If I can successfully convey the message, ‘I dislike trouble, and if you continue to cause trouble for me, then we can no longer be friends,’ then there is a high probability I will be able to deceive her.
“Hiss—strange. Very strange.” Seeing this, Suzuki Koji frowned, crossing his arms. “This part is very strange. The part about his reason for arranging the meeting with Tanaka Erika.”
“You feel it too?” Kishida Masayoshi looked surprised. He’d had the exact same, unsettling feeling when he’d first read the diary at home last night.
Suzuki Koji said, “If I were Kagehara Tetsuya, in his position, with his objectives, I would absolutely not choose this method of arranging a meeting. Why not just use the matter she needed his help with, the one that started the fight, as a pretext? It would have been perfect.”
“That’s exactly what I thought,” Kishida nodded, a sense of grim validation in their shared conclusion. This meant there was likely some hidden, and deeply significant, secret here. “The matter Tanaka needed help with… even her parents were unaware of it until after the fact. Which means, when she was in trouble, she didn’t tell her parents. It’s highly unlikely that Kagehara, with his sharp intellect, wouldn’t have considered this.”
“If he had used that as a pretext, if he had simply said, ‘What was it, precisely, that you needed my help with?’, he could have easily lured Tanaka Erika to the place he had prepared, without anyone else knowing. It would have been a far simpler and far more effective plan.”
Suzuki Koji pinched his chin, his eyes narrowed in thought. “Then why didn’t Kagehara Tetsuya consider using that as a reason? And more importantly, there’s another strange thing here.”
“What?” Kishida was taken aback.
“There’s no… process,” Suzuki said, choosing his words with a careful, deliberate precision. “In the previous diary entries, Kagehara’s style has always been meticulously, almost pathologically, detailed and thorough. Some parts were even excessively so, with him writing out his long, rambling, and often chilling, thought processes. But this time, on this specific, crucial point, it seems he didn’t even consider using any other reason to meet with Tanaka. He jumps directly to this far more complex and far less certain plan.”
“If you think of it that way, there are only two possibilities. First, the reason Kagehara didn’t consider the more logical option is contained in that heavily redacted portion of the text. Or second,” he said, his voice dropping slightly, “there is a fundamental, and as yet unknown, problem with the diary itself.”
Kishida Masayoshi paused in thought. For now, there were not many concrete clues pointing to the diary being a forgery. He couldn’t jump to that conclusion just yet. He said, “Let’s… not consider the possibility of forgery for the time being. Let’s keep reading.”
As for letting Tanaka’s parents know that we’ve had a fight, when I leave for school tomorrow morning, I’ll just leave a little earlier. If I happen to run into Tanaka’s father, he will probably greet me. As long as I can skillfully lead him to ask, “Why aren’t you waiting for Erika to go to school together?”, I can just say that we had a fight. Compared to Tanaka Erika, her father is much, much easier to read.
As for the next task on my list, it is a site survey.
To say ‘survey’ is perhaps not quite right. ‘Reconnaissance’ is a much more fitting, and accurate, term.
The content of the reconnaissance is, first and foremost, route planning.
The first route to be planned: from my house to the abandoned chemical warehouse in the Takao Nichōme district.
The second route to be planned: from the abandoned chemical warehouse to the abandoned flood control warehouse in Mitsuba.
The third route to be planned: from the abandoned flood control warehouse back to my house.
The operational flow is as follows: drive from home to Takao, commit the act in Takao, then transport the body to Mitsuba, dispose of it, and then return home from Mitsuba.
So, these three routes are essential.
The act itself will, of course, require the use of a car. So, the primary objective of the route planning is to avoid all roads that are equipped with surveillance cameras. The time and distance of the routes are, for now, secondary considerations.
In addition to that, I also need to consider suitable parking locations. I have never before paid attention to where one can park near those two abandoned warehouses, so I will need to scout that out.
And then there’s the timing.
Committing the act at ten in the morning is a completely different tactical proposition from committing it at five in the afternoon.
A minor reason for this is that it would be best to choose a time when there are almost no people in the immediate vicinity of the two abandoned warehouses. The more important reason is that after planning the routes, I need to drive them once, as a dry run. The one-way travel time for each route, plus the time required for the act itself, the subsequent makeup application, and any necessary waiting period, will give me the total time required for the entire operation.
I need to finish everything by nightfall, because it is strategically advantageous for Tanaka Erika’s body to be discovered only on the second, or even third, official search. So, after calculating the total time required for the operation, I need to use that to determine the optimal starting time.
Next is the date. Because I need to use the car, I must meticulously consider Kagehara Kenta’s work schedule. Is there a day when he is on a 24-hour shift? If so, that would be ideal. If not, then I will have to be even more cautious with the timing. After using the car, I will also need to thoroughly clean the interior. That time, too, must be factored into the equation. Speaking of which, thinking about it this way, there is still quite a lot of crucial information that I am currently missing.
In any case, I must continue to do my best.
After reading the last sentence, Suzuki Koji shook his head, a look of grim finality on his face. “Honestly, if you were to tell me now that Kagehara Tetsuya didn’t kill Tanaka Erika, I wouldn’t believe you for a single second. The plan has been laid out in such meticulous detail. If he’s not the killer… well… it’s hard to even know what to say.”
Kishida Masayoshi lit another cigarette, taking two long, slow drags before saying, “All I can say is, whether Kagehara Tetsuya is the killer, or the Makeup Hunter is the killer, neither would be a particularly surprising outcome at this point. In any case, I have the diary now. There’s no point in thinking too much about it.”
He gripped the mouse and scrolled down. “The next entry is the last one she gave me this time. It’s all about Kagehara Tetsuya’s detailed, final plan for the murder.”
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