“Yo. Is it over?”
As I exited Muimi’s condo, Zerozaki, leaning against a telephone pole, waved a hand and called out to me. Walking past him without stopping, I answered, “Yeah, it’s over.”
“I’ll be damned,” he said, catching up to me and matching his pace to mine. “Whoa! What the hell happened to your hands? Am I crazy, or did the number of broken bones multiply by nine?”
“Yup, it did.”
“She broke them? Holy cow, man, Atemiya’s like some hardcore ascetic! That’s some risky business.”
“Nah, I broke them myself. All of them.”
“You dumbass… Come to think of it, you did say you were the one who broke your thumb, too. Are you a masochist? Are you a freaking masochist? Doesn’t that hurt? Do you not feel pain? Have you had a lobotomy?”
“It hurts like shit. It hurts so much I can’t even faint. I might cry. I’m actually headed for the hospital right now. We’re near Nishijin Hospital, aren’t we… I’m not really a masochist, no. The situation just called for a little shock treatment.”
“You know, broken bones don’t always heal properly. You may never play baseball again.”
“No worries. If it comes to that, I’ll just play soccer.”
“Liar.” Zerozaki sighed like he was fed up with me. “So how’d it go?”
“Who knows? From here it’s just a matter of sweeping up the mess. That’s Sasaki and Kazuhito’s domain. I’m sure they’ll be thorough about it. Muimi will be arrested, all the facts will come to light, and that’ll be that.”
That is, if Muimi maintained her sanity for that long.
That is, if she was even alive.
Zerozaki folded his hands behind his head with a disappointed expression. “Aw, man. That’s not dramatic at all. Couldn’t it at least have been a little more romantic?”
“What can you do? This is reality.”
“Mmm. I guess. Say, do you have parents and stuff?”
Zerozaki had suddenly posed a completely unrelated question, but I had a feeling he would, so I wasn’t surprised.
“Yeah, I do. In Kobe. I trust they’re doing fine.”
“Oh. So are you grateful to them?”
“Huh?”
“I mean, how do you feel toward them?”
“About what?”
“About bringing you into this world, dammit.”
“What about you, Zerozaki? Though I probably don’t even have to ask.”
“Answer should be obvious.”
“Yeah, it is.”
For an instant, we shared a glance.
“I’m sorry…”
“For being born.”
“Me, I just dig Dazai more than Akutagawa,” Zerozaki said, laughing.
“Me, I like Mushanokoji best,” I said, not laughing.
“How do you feel about Kan Kikuchi? I’m kind of a fan.”
“I don’t read him. In fact, I don’t really like reading.”
“Oh yeah, you told me that, didn’t you? Huh.” For some reason, Zerozaki gave a convinced nod. “By the way, how about giving me my knife back? I don’t have a whole lot of that type.”
“Oh, this. Listen, Zerozaki. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to part with it? It’s really handy. You can unlock doors without any skills to speak of.”
“Those things are expensive, jerk. Can you pay me one million five hundred thousand yen right now?”
“Geez, why’s a little steak knife like this so expensive?”
“Cram it. So what’s it gonna be?”
“How about if I pay you in one hundred fifty annual installments?”
“We probably won’t actually meet again.”
“Ah, right.”
With no other alternative, I reluctantly gave him back the knife. He took it by the handle, spun it around, and tucked it inside his vest. Evidently he had knives placed all over his body. Seriously, what if he tripped and fell?
“By the way,” Zerozaki said. “Maybe it doesn’t matter, but there are still some things that bother me. How about answering a few questions?”
“Sure. What?”
“It seems to me that when Emoto and Aoii were killed, Atemiya had a solid alibi both times. She was at karaoke in Emoto’s case and with her sister in Aoii’s case. I don’t know how it was with Usami and you, but how could she have killed those two girls? And it seems like you realized Atemiya was the killer as soon as that detective called about Usami being murdered. And you already seemed to know that she was the one who attacked you in Kamogawa Park, too. How the hell did you know it was her? When did you realize that?”
“Hmm. It’s kind of hard to explain.”
“Really?” Zerozaki tilted his head. “What do you mean? Was it just intuition or something? Or was it because all the other people involved were dead, and it had to be Atemiya by default? Who are you, Kindaichi?”
“No. But do I have to explain? It might get cerebral.”
“Hey, I don’t mind. Come on, you made me tell you all about my prowling exploits. Whatever happened to give and take? Come on, leave me with a good memory.”
“What are you, dying?”
“I might die. A red monster’s been chasing after me.” Indeed, it was entirely plausible. It was even possible that Aikawa would appear before us there and then. Given that fact, Zerozaki’s life was like a candlelight flickering in the wind.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right… Okay, so how far back should I go?”
“Start at the beginning, of course. How’d you know Atemiya was the one who killed Emoto, Aoii, and Usami, and attacked you?”
“See, there’s your first mistake,” I said. “Muimi didn’t kill Tomoe or Mikoko. She had alibis, so that should be obvious.”
“Wha?” Zerozaki’s jaw dropped.
“She killed only Akiharu. And she assaulted me. That’s all she did. Oh, and she won’t be getting her apartment deposit back.”
“Hold on.” Zerozaki spun around in front of me and grabbed me by the shoulders. His face wore a grin, but he wasn’t smiling. “Just a few hours ago, didn’t you go on confidently and matter-of-factly about how ‘the one who killed Tomoe Emoto, who killed Mikoko Aoii, who attacked me in Kamogawa Park, and now has killed Akiharu Usami’ is ‘obviously’ Muimi Atemiya?!”
“Indeed,” I answered shamelessly. “But you see, the thing is that I was confidently and matter-of-factly lying. Time was of the essence, so I just kind of traced the surface. It’s actually a little more complicated.”
“Hang on. So what the hell have I been doing for the past few hours, wondering, How in the world did Atemiya manage to kill those two? What a puzzling brain-teaser!”
“I told you. I’m a liar.”
“I wanna kill you,” Zerozaki muttered, sinisterly you might say, before returning to my side. I chose to put a modest distance, just a single step, between us. “Err, let me rephrase the question then. So who killed Emoto? If it wasn’t Atemiya, who was it?”
“Mikoko Aoii,” I answered with her name alone. Zerozaki had seen it coming at least well enough not to vocalize his suprise. But he furrowed his brow at me, crinkling his tattoo.
“So then who killed Mikoko Aoii? Don’t tell me the punch line’s that it was you…”
“Nope. That was just a suicide.”
“Suicide?” This time he was clearly surprised. “Aoii killed herself?”
“Yup. That explains nobody showing up on the security cameras, doesn’t it? Of course it does; there was no culprit. Anyway, Mikoko committed suicide, which made Muimi go bananas and kill Akiharu and make an attempt on my life. But I didn’t want to be killed, so I took measures. There you have it. QED.”
“You’re using it wrong,” Zerozaki retorted, then cradled his head. “Hang on, hang on. Explain this to me step by step. You can’t just give me a big, crazy summary like that up front.”
“Fine, I’ll explain properly. Uhh, so you understand the part about Mikoko killing Tomoe, right? Okay so far?”
“Yeah. No, wait, not okay. Aren’t you the one who vouched for Aoii’s alibi? Or your neighbor, actually? Don’t tell me you and Aoii were in cahoots.”
“No. Why are you so suspicious of me? What happened is that as far as that night goes, I was thoroughly tricked. Miiko too. Well, she wasn’t tricked, exactly, she just didn’t notice.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Try thinking about it for yourself. Tomoe was killed by Mikoko. If you know that, there are only so many possibilities.”
“Uhm,” pondered Zerozaki. “So she left Emoto’s apartment with you? And you got a call from Emoto when you were around Nishioji Nakadachiuri. You walked back to your apartment together, and then you left her with your neighbor, Asano. Then the next morning Aoii woke up early, went to your room, then went to Emoto’s place… Oh, is that it? When she was supposedly ‘discovering’ Emoto’s body, she was actually killing her?”
“Not likely. That conflicts with the established time of death. So it must have been at night.”
“So she snuck out of Asano’s apartment?”
“Couldn’t be. Miiko is highly sensitive to noise and would have caught on, and she has no reason to cover for Mikoko.”
“Then what was it, some kind of remote-control trick? Then again, this was a strangling, not some locked-room mystery.”
“So there’s only one possible scenario left.”
“What? Does it have something to do with that ‘x over y’ thing?”
“Nope. You don’t need to worry about that. It’s like a side order of fries. Just set it aside.”
“Come on, just tell me already. You sure know how to beat around the bush.”
“It’s simple. There was no point at which Mikoko could have interacted with Tomoe once we left her apartment. Which means the murder took place before we left.”
“Huh? What does that mean?” Zerozaki asked suspiciously. “If that’s the case then all the premises crumble. Emoto was killed between the time she called you and three a.m., right?”
“Suppose,” I said, “that the call hadn’t occurred. Then couldn’t Mikoko have killed her?”
“No, it’s still impossible. You left the apartment together.”
“Aha. We left together, but not at the exact same time. There was a slight lag. I mean incredibly slight. But I left the room before Mikoko did.”
“…?”
“As I was leaving, I had to put on my shoes, right? At that time, naturally I wasn’t facing the interior. In other words, I had my back to Mikoko and Tomoe. I was looking at my shoelaces.” I raised a foot to show him. “What’s more, there was a door between the hallway and the room. I couldn’t see what they were doing in there.”
“Wait a minute. There must have been a scream or some kind of noise. Even if it was happening behind you, there’s no way you wouldn’t have noticed someone being killed.”
“If it was a stabbing or bludgeoning, maybe. But you can’t scream if you’re being strangled. There were noises, but I never would’ve guessed it was the sound of someone being killed. I thought Mikoko had tripped or something.”
“Ahh.” Zerozaki began rubbing his temples. If you tried hard enough, you could discern a passing resemblance to Keiko Nose. But you had to really try.