You need me for something?”
Asakawa handed him the copy he’d made of the article. Yoshino stared at it for an extraordinarily long time. Since he’d written the article himself, he should have been able to remember what it said just by looking at it. As it was, he sat there concentrating all his nerves on it, hand frozen halfway through the motion of putting a peanut in his mouth. It was as if he were chewing it: recalling what he’d written and digesting it.
“What about it?” Yoshino had assumed a serious expression.
“Nothing special. I just wanted to find out more details.”
Yoshino stood up. “All right. Let’s go next door and talk over a cup of tea or something.”
“Do you have time for this right now? Are you sure I’m not interrupting?”
“Not a problem. This is more interesting than what I was doing.”
There was a little cafe right next to City Hall where you could get coffee for two hundred yen a cup. Yoshino sat down and immediately turned to the counter and called out, “Two coffees.” Then, turning back to Asakawa, he hunched over, leaning close. “Okay, look, I’ve been on the local beat for 12 years now. I’ve seen a lot of things. But. Never have I come across anything as downright odd as this.”
Yoshino paused for a sip of water, then continued. “Now, Asakawa. This has got to be a fair trade of information. Why is someone from the main office looking into this?”
Asakawa wasn’t ready to tip his hand. He wanted to keep the scoop for himself. If an expert like Yoshino caught wind of it, in a heartbeat he’d chase and nab the prize for himself. Asakawa promptly came up with a lie.
“No special reason. My niece was a friend of the dead girl, and she keeps badgering me for information—you know, about the incident. So as long as I was down here …”
It was a poor lie. He thought he saw Yoshino’s eyes flash with suspicion, and he shrank back, unnerved.
“Really?”
“Yeah, well, she’s a high school student, right? It’s bad enough that her friend’s dead, but then there are the circumstances. She just keeps bugging me about it. I’m begging you. Give me details.”
“So, what do you want to know?”
“Did they ever decide on the cause of death?”
Yoshino shook his head. “Basically, they’re saying their hearts just stopped all of a sudden. They have no idea why.”
“How about the murder angle? Strangulation, for example.”
“Impossible. No bruise marks on the neck.”
“Drugs?”
“No traces in the autopsy.”
“In other words, the case hasn’t been solved.”
“Shit, no. No solving to be done. It isn’t a murder—it’s not even an incident, really. They died of some illness, or from some kind of accident, and that’s all there is to it. Period. There’s not even an investigation.”
It was a blunt way of putting it. Yoshino leaned back in his chair.
“So why haven’t they released the names of the deceased?”
“They’re minors. Plus, there’s the suspicion that it was a love suicide.”
At this point Yoshino suddenly smiled, as if he’d just remembered something, and he leaned forward again.
“You know, the guy? He had his jeans and his briefs down around his knees. The girl, too—her panties were pulled down to her knees.”
“So, you mean it was coitus interruptus?”
“I didn’t say they were doing it. They were just getting ready to do it. They were just getting ready to have a little fun and, bam! That’s when it happened,” Yoshino clapped his hands together for effect.
“When what happened?”
Yoshino was telling his story for maximum effect.
“Okay, Asakawa, level with me. You’ve got something. I mean, something that connects with this case. Right?”
Asakawa didn’t reply.
“I can keep a secret. I won’t steal your scoop, either. It’s just that I’m interested in this.”
Asakawa still remained silent.
“Are you gonna keep me hanging here in suspense?”
Should I tell … ? But I can’t. I mustn’t say anything yet. But lies aren’t working …
“Sorry, Yoshino. Could you wait just a little longer? I can’t tell you quite yet. But I will in two or three days. I promise.”
Disappointment clouded Yoshino’s face. “If you say so, pal …”
Asakawa gave him a pleading look, urging him to continue his story.
“Well, we’ve got to assume that something happened. A guy and a gal suffocate just when they’re getting ready to do it? That’s not even funny. I guess it’s possible that they’d taken poison earlier and it had only taken effect just then, but there were no traces. Sure, there are poisons that leave no trace, but you can’t figure on a couple of students getting their hands on something like that.”
Yoshino thought of the place where the car had been found. He’d actually gone there himself and still had a clear impression. The car was parked on an overgrown piece of vacant land in a little ravine just off the unpaved prefectural road that led from Ashina to Mt Okusu. Cars coming up the road could just catch the reflection of its taillights as they passed. It wasn’t hard to imagine why the prep school kid, who’d been driving, had chosen this place to park in. After nightfall hardly any cars used this road, and with the thick growth of trees providing cover, it made for a perfect hideaway for a penniless young couple.
“Then, you’ve got the guy with his head jammed up against the steering wheel and the side window. Meanwhile, the girl’s got her head buried between the passenger seat and the door. That’s how they died. I saw them being taken out of the car, with my own eyes. Each body came tumbling out the moment the doors were opened. It’s like at the moment of death some sort of force had been pushing them from the inside, didn’t stop when they died but kept pushing for thirty hours or so until the investigators opened the doors, and then burst out. Now, are you with me here? This car was a two-door, one of those where you can’t lock the doors with the key still inside. And the key was in the ignition, but the doors … well, you catch my drift. The car was completely sealed. It’s hard to imagine that any force from the outside could have affected them. And what kind of expression do you suppose they had on their dead faces? They were both scared shitless. Faces contorted with terror.”
Yoshino paused to catch his breath. There was a loud gulping sound. It wasn’t clear which of them had swallowed his saliva.
“Think about it. Suppose, just for the hell of it, that some fearsome beast had come out of the woods. They’d have been scared, and they would have huddled close to each other. Even if he hadn’t, the girl would absolutely have clung to him. After all, they were lovers. But instead, their backs were pressed up against the doors, as if they were trying to get as far away from each other as they could.”
Yoshino threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Beats the hell out of me.”
If it hadn’t been for the shipwreck in the waters off Yokosuka, the article might have been given more space. And if it had, there would have been a lot of readers who would have enjoyed trying to solve the puzzle, playing detective. But … But. A consensus had spread, an atmosphere, among the investigators and everybody else who had been at the scene. They all thought more or less