As she looked into Kaname’s face, Wakana Yoko frowned suspiciously. “Oh, hello again. What are you doing here?”
“This is my apartment,” Kaname told her, “I live here.”
“Really? What a coincidence,” Yoko said flatly, looking suspiciously around her entryway.
“Um... so, what can I help you with?”
“I have a few questions for you. There was a burglary in your apartment complex this morning.”
“A burglary? Aren’t you in the traffic division—”
“There’s a patrolman who acts as a gofer for the regional division,” said Wakana, cutting her off midway. “I stole the job he was assigned.”
“You really just take whatever you want, don’t you?” asked Kaname, who was beginning to have doubts about the professionalism of the Sengawa Police Department, given the free rein they seemed to give this cop drama-obsessed maniac.
“It’s fine,” Wakana said confidently. “Questioning goes much smoother with a beautiful woman like me handling it. Incidentally, a scriptwriter named Shimo ****hiko got involved in a murder case and a real big-shot detective in our precinct thinks he’s behind it. He even had his fingerprints taken. This is nothing compared to that.”
“That’s a lot to throw on a person out of nowhere...” muttered Kaname.
“Let’s talk about the burglary,” said Wakana. “The Yamadas in apartment 103 had a break-in while they were out for their morning tennis game. They were gone for two and a half hours, between 7:00 and 9:30. In that time, their savings of 50,000 yen in the dresser and 150,000 yen worth of jewelry were stolen.”
“A first-floor apartment, huh?”
“Yeah. Perp came in through the garden and broke the glass door. You see anyone suspicious?”
“I don’t think so,” said Kaname. “I just threw out my trash and went to school, like always.”
“Did you run into anyone on the way? A big guy with a striped sack and a hanky wrapped around his face, or a phantom thief-type in a mask and a tuxedo?”
“I wish criminals were that easy to identify...”
“So, you didn’t see anyone at all?” Wakana asked.
“Nobody suspicious, at least,” said Kaname. “I shared the elevator with a standard middle-aged white-collar type I see around now and then. That’s about it.”
“You know which is his apartment?”
“No idea. I think he came from the fifth floor or higher.”
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know.”
“And you said he wore a brown tie?”
“No, I didn’t.”
Police officers often asked for confirmation of things they knew to be false when dealing with someone they had suspicions about. Someone with something to hide would just agree to whatever the officer said. This was one such leading question.
“Why do you suspect me, anyway?” Kaname asked.
“It’s nothing personal. It’s just part of the investigation. So? You said he lived in apartment 302?”
“You’re really getting on my nerves now...”
“I’m just kidding.” Yoko shrugged. “One way or another, it seems like it was an inside job.”
“What makes you think that?”
“There’s a security perimeter around the first-floor garden. The only way to get in without triggering the alarm would be to go around the fire escape from inside the complex.”
They were in a relatively safe residential district in the Tokyo suburbs, but things had been getting a little more dangerous lately. Kaname’s apartment, too, had undergone construction a little while ago and had anti-theft devices installed at that time. It was now much more difficult for criminals to enter than before.
“So the culprit would first have to enter the apartment’s communal areas without being suspected,” Wakana said.
“I see.”
“Good. Incidentally... you haven’t been hard up for money lately, have you? Not incurring debts from your friends at school, or gaining a taste for expensive brands...”
“Well, I did borrow five hundred yen from Kyoko...” Kaname admitted, then realized what she was doing. “Hey, I told you to cut it out!”
Yoko looked very disappointed. “I see. I guess you’re not involved, then.”
“Of course I’m not!” Kaname exclaimed. “And while I’m at it, I really doubt anyone living here would need to pull off a small-potatoes robbery like that.” The people in her apartment complex had a pretty high standard of living. The place had been built twelve years ago, it was close to the station, and it had all the amenities. All of the cars in the parking lot were relatively expensive brands, as well. In other words, there were a lot of rather well-off families living there.
Surprisingly enough, Yoko agreed pretty readily with Kaname. “Yeah, that’s the issue. Which means that this is our obvious suspect.”
“Hmm?”
Yoko held out a picture of a pair of dirty tongs lying next to a dresser.
“Is that...”
“Our sole piece of evidence. A tool used by the complex’s cleaning lady.”
“That old lady?” asked Kaname. “I doubt she’d leave behind such an obvious piece of—”
“I thought it was suspicious too,” Wakana admitted. But it was all she had to go on. It wasn’t actually a violent crime, so they hadn’t done any proper crime scene investigation. It turned out that the cleaning lady had been questioned and taken off to the station that morning while Kaname was at school. “We also contacted the apartment’s management agency and insurance company for her papers and such. They sent a few of their suits by the precinct.”
“Is she still at the precinct?”
“I’m not sure,” Wakana told her. “She’s not cooperating, though, so I decided to do some investigating on my own. I wanted to get the credit, after all... ha ha ha.” Yoko laughed confidently and then left.
Kaname was concerned about the burglary, but it seemed unlikely that the culprit would target the same building twice. Still, she was worried about the cleaning lady. The old woman might be irritating, but Kaname couldn’t imagine her being a thief.
“I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding...” Kaname whispered to herself. But then, it didn’t directly concern her, anyway.
Afterwards, Kaname threw all of the leftovers in her refrigerator together, seasoned the mix heavily with chili pepper and garlic, and made spaghetti. It was a little too much for one person, though, so she gave Sousuke a call.
He picked up and said, “Sorry, I’m eating at the moment.” Apparently, he was meeting up with an old battle colleague at Yokota Air Base.
Kaname said, “Fine. Later,” and hung up.
She ate dinner alone while watching TV. Maybe I should have invited Wakana-san, she thought. The spaghetti tasted all right for being such an improvised meal, but there was nobody to brag about her good instincts to. With no other choice, she just whispered, “Yes. It’s good,” out loud.
But there was nobody to agree with her.
The next morning was trash day, but Kaname didn’t see the old cleaning lady anywhere. A small group of crows skulked among the garbage bags strewn haphazardly around the dump site, picking at them and casting their contents onto the street.