To provide L with a mystery he could not solve.
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Even if he could not solve it, it did not mean there was no answer.
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Namely: it was unsolvable.
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According to Ryuzaki’s scenario, Misora would come running down the stairs when he failed to answer his phone as scheduled to find the Wara Ningyo on the far wall and Beyond Birthday burned to death—
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and if she had not yet figured out the locked room mystery, then everything would go as B planned, his plot executed perfectly. Since the locked room had been created even with only one Wara Ningyo, nobody would ever think of the triangulation technique.
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If the police had not taken the dolls and the nails that held them in place away as evidence, Misora would probably have figured it out faster. But this was not a matter of luck, but all part of Beyond Birthday’s plan. He knew all along the police would investigate the scene first. Beyond Birthday had coldly calculated that by the time L’s pawn arrived at the scene, the actual Wara Ningyo and the actual nails would be long gone. The third scene was the only one where they might remain—and in that case, they were counted with the stuffed animals to make the numbers on the sides of the clock face, which would distract her. So the only thing that did not go according to Beyond Birthday’s plan was Misora’s investigative ability.
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No, not ability
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Inspiration.
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But figuring out the locked room trick, figuring out that the way the killer had locked the doors would only work at the first three scenes did not tip off Naomi Misora. Rather, she had begun to wonder how the killer planned to lock the door at the fourth scene. Or to wonder if the theory was completely misguided. Her suspicions did not immediately turn toward Ryuzaki. Of course not—she had been told no details about the connection between L and B, so it never occurred to her that Ryuzaki might have a reason to do something like that. She kept saying he was suspicious, but her suspicions had never reached any definite form. To theorize that the fourth murder would actually be a suicide required her to realize that the message had pointed to two possible murder scenes, that the two of them were lying in wait for the killer, and since one of those two people was her, the other one had to be the killer...but Naomi Misora was not proficient in the kind of mathematical deduction that was required to logically prove who the killer was.
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But she had figured it out.
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Because he had known.
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He knew that Naomi Misora knew capoeira.
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And in this case, the only people who knew that were L, who Misora herself had told, and the man who had assaulted her in the alley downtown—the killer. Misora had used a capoeira technique while fighting him. She had driven him off with her capoeira. Since the idea that Ryuzaki was L was comically absurd and completely unthinkable, then it stood to reason the man who insulted her was Ryuzaki... which led Misora to the truth.
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Failure.
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Beyond Birthday, Rue Ryuzaki’s one and only failure. The only failure the killer who never made mistakes had made. If he had just rated Naomi Misora a little bit higher, he would never have let that shp. But it was too late. He might have been born with the unbelievable eyes of the shinigami, but he had no eyes for judging people... Probably a little too pat a conclusion to draw. A neat turn of phrase, to be sure, but that doesn’t salvage it.
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It is now an eternal mystery exactly how much of the truth L grasped and when. He might have known everything all along and put Misora into action based on that, and he might well have never figured anything out and been saved by heL Either way seems perfectly possible. But let us not think of such petty things. L is not someone we should speak of in such petty terms. As long as one thing is clear, nothing else matters.
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B lost to Naomi Misora.
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In other words, he lost to L.
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Losing twice in one battle, unable to die the way he had planned, Beyond Birthday was taken to the police hospital, ending the serial killings that had begun a month before, on July 3lst...no, July 22nd, when the warning first reached the police station. Apparently B had poured gasoline on himself at almost exactly the same moment Misora had arrived at the truth. It took a full minute before Misora burst into room 404. It would not have been at all surprising if he had died of smoke suffocation before she got there, or died before he reached the hospital, before the ambulance arrived. But he did not die.
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He did not die. His body was stronger than he believed, and his life went on longer than he thought.
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The hardest part of killing someone is to actually kill them—if he had been able to see his own life, I’m sure Beyond Birthday would have chosen a different method. My poor, poor predecessor. Not only was he utterly and completely defeated, but he survived, driving home his embarrassment...he must have longed for death. Accept my condolences, B.
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And with that, there is nothing more to be said in these notes about the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases.
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If I had space left over I had intended to carry right on into the other two stories I heard from L: the story of the detective war between the three greatest detectives, all solving that infamous bio-terror case, with guest appearances by the last of the alphabet, the first X to the first Z from Wammy’s House; and the story of how the world’s greatest inventor, Quillish Wammy, aka Watari, had first met L, then about eight years old—the case that gave birth to the century’s greatest detective, the Winchester Mad Bombings that occurred just after the third World War. But however objectively I look at things, I do not have the space or the time. Oh well. In that case, to close off the file, I will wrap things up with a small description of something that happened to Naomi Misora a few days later.
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With all that had happened, Misora’s return to work was put off until September. Capturing Beyond Birthday had proved to be far better for her than she had ever expected, and nobody uttered a word about her acting independently during her leave of absence. While she was not popular at work, nobody denied that she was good at her job—at least, not outwardly. It was not hard to imagine that L had pulled a few strings on her behalf. From an even more practical standpoint, it was also not difficult to imagine who was the real source of the money deposited in Misora’s bank account by a company she’d never heard of before.
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On September 1st, she left her house on foot, headed for the nearest subway station. When she reached her office, her superior would return her badge, her gun, and her handcuffs. The thought was a little embarrassing, and she felt a few butterflies in her stomach, but when it was over she would be back to her old life.
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She had spoken to L only once after the killer was arrested. He thanked her for helping to solve the case, and told her just a little about the background of the case. That B had been a candidate to succeed L, and that the pressure of that had driven him off track. At last she felt that she could understand Ryuzaki’s previously incomprehensible actions, but she also felt like she only imagined that she could.
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It all boiled down to the entire case being a challenge for L and he had killed people, and tried to kill himself, for that alone... but while murders could be dismissed as simple madness, committing suicide for such a stupid reason could not. Before he became like that, if only someone had stopped him... but that just shows ho intent he was on his purpose. His own life was as meaningless as the lives of his victims, nothing but a tool in Beyond Birthday’s quest t surpass L. It mattered more to him than his own life. Perhaps he was less intent than desperate. Nobody could have stopped him.
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That was his resolve.
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Which made him... so very strong.
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Had he really been strong?
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Misora wondered, remembering how he had nervously chewed his thumbnail.
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Strength.
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Strength Misora could never hope to imitate...
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The station entrance had just come into view, and standing in front of it was an awkward, uncomfortable-looking man.
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A young man, with an intense expression.
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There were lines under his eyes so dark she wondered if they were actually done with makeup. Like he hadn’t slept in days—or like he had never slept in his life. Like his sense of justice would not allow him time to sleep, since he had so many difficult cases to think about, battling unfathomable pressure on a daily basis.
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He wore a long-sleeved white shirt and blue jeans.
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His bare feet were crammed directly into beaten sneakers. She had a strange sense of déjà vu.