Yamaji gave a dry clap of his hands. I returned to my senses.
“Impressive, Doc,” Yamaji said. “I think even Princess will welcome you to the case after that performance.”
I gripped my wallet; it never left my side. When I thought of the photo inside, I was filled with hatred for her murderer.
Yamaji had been right. I did want to catch my classmate’s killer as quickly as possible.
“Dr. Higano,” I said. “We’d appreciate your help with the investigation.”
If asking for his help meant breaking the law, I didn’t know whether it was the right thing to do.
But at this point all I could do was bow and ask for his help.
“Alrighty,” Yamaji said brightly. “That settles things. We’ll tell you everything we know so far.”
After Dr. Higano finished listening to everything we’d established, such as the alibis of everyone involved, he took his glass cube puzzle in his hands again and slowly started to rotate it. After a few rotations, he suddenly stopped and crossed his arms with the puzzle still in one hand.
“I may have enough material.” He relaxed his jaw. “Yamaji, I’ll need your help with the arrangements. Can you get all three of them together in the same place quickly?”
“Just like always, Doc. I thought you’d say that, so I already asked my guys to take them in at eight and put them in interrogation rooms at the station.”
“Impressive as always, Yamaji. Well done.”
I listened to their exchange in a daze. I mean, they made it seem like they already had the killer in their sights.
But then I saw Yamaji put another lollipop in his mouth with a look of relief and I understood.
He did think he had him. Dr. Higano took this perplexing case from us the second it got difficult for Yamaji and me and solved it based on the background info alone.
I shook my head before I realized it. “No, no,” I said. “That’s impossible! You haven’t even seen the crime scene, Dr. Higano! No matter how good you are, you have to admit it’s way too soon to make any conclusions, right?”
“Perhaps,” he replied humbly, but in his eyes I could see that his confidence was unwavering.
“You don’t get it,” I protested. “Reina Myoko was a special person, she’s not just some victim.”
“No, I do get it. Strange though it may be, she was not just a victim; she may have been the killer.” The way he said this made it difficult to tell whether he was joking or not. Then he smiled at me.
Yamaji saw that I was getting flustered and came up behind me and patted me gently on the back. It was as though he were trying to say, I know how you feel but try to understand.
“So, Doc, off to the station?” Yamaji prompted.
“Yes. But before that, there’s something I’m very interested to ask you, Yuri.” Dr. Higano pointed his narrow eyes right at me. “Who do you think is the killer?”
“What?” I said, confused.
Yamaji looked at me and slowly shook his stubbled face. “Do we really need her input, Doc? She’s basically an amateur with a badge.”
“She’s by no means an amateur. When someone is completely obsessed with a single thing, I’m quite interested to hear what they have to say.”
I’d been left hanging out to dry, and now he was looking out for me? But Doctor Higano’s eyes were serious. He really thought I’d be a useful resource.
The look on his face demanded a serious response, even if I ended up saying something ridiculous.
“I…”
There were other people with motives in this case. The methods didn’t have the same panache as Masquerade. The killer didn’t take the severed body part with him. And the victim herself was so mysterious.
However, that didn’t change my theory.
“I think Masquerade is the killer.”
I’d planned to keep quiet about my theory until we had enough evidence so I wouldn’t get laughed off the case. But faced with the earnestness in Dr. Higano’s eyes, I told him what I was really thinking.
“Princess, Princess,” Yamaji intervened. “There’s no fucking way it’s him. I told you, if you can’t look at things objectively, then you should piss off. Are you paying attention at all?”
Unsurprisingly, he looked incredulous and started scratching his head.
However, the serious look on Dr. Higano’s face didn’t shift. His eyes seemed to be flashing even more intensely.
“Yuri,” he said. “There’s evidence disproving the theory that Masquerade committed this crime. It may not be definitive, but surely you’d agree it exists, right?”
“Yes.”
“Yet you still insist it was Masquerade. Are you suggesting you have evidence that would discredit the material we already have?”
“That…I don’t have.”
Yamaji shook his head in frustration with the lollipop hanging out of his mouth.
“I want to take on one of Masquerade’s crimes. I’m well aware that I have bias. But I’m not playing fast and loose. I don’t have any evidence, but I do have a reason.”
“I want to hear it,” Dr. Higano encouraged me.
“I considered the theory that Masquerade committed this crime…and came to this conclusion: it’s incredibly convenient for Masquerade that Reina Myoko happened to be the victim.”
Yamaji still had a harsh look on his face. “What the hell was convenient? I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”
“It’s…a little difficult to explain it all…”
“Do you mean that her feet were very beautiful?” Dr. Higano said.
“That’s my premise. But there’s more than that…”
I began to lose confidence as I spoke. I started to realize exactly how baseless my theory was.
“Doc,” Yamaji said. “I don’t think we have to take Princess’s advice here seriously, do we? She’s got too many things clouding her thinking.”
“We do, Yamaji. Masquerade is infamous. I’d like to hunt him down as well. And no one wants to catch him more than Yuri. Even if her obsession produces ideas that are theoretically off the mark, they still have value as a reference.”
“So that’s what you’re up to.” Yamaji scratched his jaw.
“But our appointment with the three people of interest is approaching. Let’s talk more about your theory on the way to the station. Yuri, my apologies for making our talk secondary, but would you be okay with this?”
“Yes, of course.”
Before I even finished speaking, Dr. Higano drained the remainder of his coffee, tucked his tablet computer under his arm, and stood up. It was a single, nonchalant gesture, but it was so refined that I couldn’t resist watching him in fascination.
“Um, Dr. Higano…Can I ask something?”
His movements were so elegant that it felt like a crime to interrupt him.
But I had to ask him.
“Have you already identified a suspect?”
Dr. Higano answered without looking at me. “Yes. I’m going to pin it on her father.”
Naturally, I was taken aback by how summarily he rendered this verdict.
Dr. Higano winked to clear things up for me: “That was a joke.”