A Cop's Eyes (17 page)

Maybe Natsume had seen through almost all of her. Looking into his eyes filled her with so much dread that she hung her head.

She'd been elated to hear him say,
After I'm discharged, why don't you break up with Hideaki and marry me, I'll take good care of you and your son
. She'd wondered,
Why couldn't I have come across a man like him before running into Hideaki?

But she had already met Hideaki. It was too late.

The pleasure of rough sex with him was something she'd never be able to forget. It was like a drug. Her body knew she would never be satisfied with any other man.

“Why did you try to kill him?” she heard Natsume's voice ask.

“It was both love and hate …”

“Love and hate?”

“Since we first started living together, that man wouldn't even work. He took the money my previous spouse left us, as well as my own savings, to play around. When he was cross about something, he resorted to violence towards me and Yuma … In that sense, I hated him, but at the same time, I loved him more than anyone else could. I didn't want to lose him. If he was going to be stolen by another woman anyway, I might as well kill him with my own hands …”

“Stolen by another woman … Indeed, it appears as though Hideaki meant to marry Shizuka Okamoto.”

She felt an intense shock at Natsume's words and raised her face in disbelief.

“He must have been planning to leave you as soon as you ran out of money. He'd have left you one day, on his own. But that isn't what I was asking you. Why did you try to kill him? Tell me your real motive.”

Natsume was staring at her with sorrowful eyes.

“I don't understand what you mean. I just told you my motive—”

“Do you know why Yuma turned himself in?” interrupted Natsume.

“It … was to protect me, wasn't it?”

“Is that what you think?”

What other reason could there be?

There was a long silence. Natsume shook his head slightly and directed the other detective not to include the next part in the transcript.

“Yuma wanted to be arrested so that he would be sent to a reform school or a juvenile detention center. He couldn't live with you anymore.”

“Wh-What do you mean …” Keiko asked, perplexed.

“You saw the text message Hideaki sent Shizuka, didn't you.
Having read it, you were sure he would be with Shizuka—and away from home. Am I wrong?”

Natsume's words gouged her heart. They dug into its recesses, to its dark depths.

“But Hideaki, feeling ill, came home.”

Feeling ill—so that was why some of it had been left over.

“What are you … I don't understand what you're trying to say at all,” Keiko maintained desperately.

“The one you tried to kill wasn't Hideaki, but Yuma.”

Natsume's words ran her heart clean through.

“Don't screw with me!” she shrieked.

Confronted with the truth she'd been trying so hard to scrub from her mind, she felt like she was going insane.

She just wanted to be happy. To escape from such a life. She'd thought a second marriage, with Hideaki, would change everything. Weighing Yuma and Hideaki against each other, training her eyes on what happiness truly meant to her, she learned that a grotesque demon dwelled in her heart.

“How … how did you …” she somehow squeezed out the words.

“The rice omelet.”

“The rice omelet?” she parroted.

“Apparently, Hideaki had said time and again to Shizuka, ‘I don't feel any attraction towards that woman, but she knows how to cook.' And so, according to her, he always ate the dinner you made when he was home. There was only one rice omelet, the leftover one by the sink. Hideaki's stomach contained very little food.”

“So what?!”

“If you were sure he'd be home, wouldn't you have made two of them?”

Keiko stared at Natsume and bit her lips.

“For his last supper, you made Yuma his favorite dish.”

She almost nodded along but stopped herself in the nick of time.

She couldn't admit to it. If she admitted to
that
here, she would no longer …

“The person I killed was Hideaki. I will atone for that crime from now on, in prison,” she somehow pulled herself together and declared.

“A lot of people seem to confuse going to prison with atoning for a crime, but the two aren't the same. The defense will likely request extenuating circumstances for your near-daily violent treatment at Hideaki's hands, and many of your fellow citizens will even sympathize with you. Is that what you seek, first and foremost?”

Natsume was facing her with an unrelenting look.

“What do you mean?”

“There is no evidence for what I just said. The facts of your crime are that you started an apartment fire and killed Hideaki. But Yuma caught on to it. That night, when he left the house on his scooter, he noticed that the gasoline he'd filled his tank with the day before had been extracted. When he saw that his apartment was on fire, he knew that you were the culprit. And that the one you really meant to kill was him—”

Yuma had caught on.

She desperately held back her brimming tears.

“You killed two people. You took Hideaki's life and murdered Yuma's heart. You did something atrocious, below even a fiend. Until you accept that, you don't have the right to use a word like ‘atone'—nor can you ever face your son again.”

Unable to bear meeting Natsume's eyes, Keiko lowered her gaze.

“No matter what happens, Hideaki won't come back to life. Yuma's heart, on the other hand—maybe it can live again. But in order for that to happen, you need to confess to the real crime
you committed. You need to spend the rest of your life staring down the ugly, cold-blooded heart that was beating inside of you. You'll have to bear your son's hatred, and society's, henceforth. If you don't go down that path of thorns, you can't possibly atone for what you did to Yuma.”

Natsume's words weighed heavily on her. She'd committed a terrible sin that was here to stay.

Natsume directed the detective behind him to resume taking notes.

“Who did you try to kill?”

Keiko raised her head. The man, his eyes strong, was staring at her.

“M-My son …”

The moment she answered, tears came flooding out, and she couldn't see the man anymore.

When she closed her eyes, she saw Yuma. He was gazing at her with lonely eyes.

Wondering if she'd meet him again someday, she kept her own shut awhile.

Kumiko Tanabe arrived at Ikebukuro East High School well before one o'clock.

When she looked into the staff room, most of the teachers were finishing lunch and chatting while drinking tea.

Kumiko entered the staff room and looked for a sign of Machida. The homeroom teacher for the Junior C class, Machida was sitting at his own desk. He was looking through a textbook to make preparations for the afternoon lesson.

“Mr. Machida, looks like you're hard at work,” Kumiko called out to him.

Machida looked up from the textbook. “Ah, Ms. Tanabe, you too.”

“Is Miss Nakamura at school today?” Kumiko asked about what had been on her mind.

“Nakamura … Oh, now that you mention, she wasn't here today either.”

He said it as though it were someone else's problem.

He was an unreliable homeroom teacher. She felt frustrated about the man before her, but more than that, disappointment in Yuka overcame her.

“Is that right …” Kumiko muttered and left the staff room. She entered the counseling room two doors down and let out a loud sigh.

Yuka Nakamura hadn't come to school today, either—

The day before, when Kumiko had gone to talk to Yuka at
her house, she'd said she'd do her best to be at school the next day.

Yuka was a high school junior who repeatedly refused to come to school. Even more troubling was her compulsion to hurt herself. She had countless scars from cutting into her left arm with a knife. No matter how many times they talked face to face, Kumiko couldn't determine the exact reason for Yuka's truancy and wrist-cutting.

Day after day, out of all the students who came in for counseling, Yuka was the one to whom Kumiko paid the most attention.

She pulled out her cellphone and texted,
Yuka, what happened today? Call me back please
.

When it was past 5 p.m., Kumiko started on her work report.

That day, two people had come in for counseling. One was a senior who had concerns about his path after high school. The other, a guardian, had a sophomore girl who was always partying out lately.

Kumiko's cellphone chimed. It was a text from Yuka.

I'm suffering. I don't know what to do anymore. Maybe I should never have been born
.

The message, more pressing than usual, put Kumiko on edge.

She called this time, but the ringtone sounded idly on and Yuka wouldn't pick up at all.

Kumiko put the unfinished work report in her bag and left the counseling room. As she walked down the hallway, she tried calling Yuka's mother.

Kumiko intended to visit Yuka's home, but it was likely that Yuka's mother was out working. If the girl didn't come to unlock the door, Kumiko wouldn't be able to get in. She didn't want to worry Yuka's mother more than necessary but thought it would be best to contact her, in case they were dealing with the worst-case scenario.

When Kumiko shared the situation over the phone, Yuka's mother said she would try her best to leave work as soon as possible and head home.

Kumiko also hurried toward Ikebukuro station and headed to Hibarigaoka, where Yuka's home was located.

When she got off onto the platform, she found Yuka's mother among the sea of people getting off the train. It seemed they had been on the same one. Yuka's mother was a canvasser for an insurance company in Nerima.

“Excuse me!” Kumiko called to her, to which the mother turned around.

“Ah, Ms. Tanabe. I'm very sorry you've had to come to Hibarigaoka so many times. She seemed fine when she left home this morning … Why in the world …” the mother muttered in bewilderment.

“At any rate, let's hurry and get to your place.”

They got into a taxi outside the station and headed to the Nakamura residence.

In about five minutes, they reached the condominium. Kumiko had the mother open the door, and they went into the unit. Going through the entrance, Yuka's room was immediately to the left. Kumiko knocked on the door.

“Yuka, it's me … Are you there? If you're in there, answer.”

“Leave me alone!” Yuka's shout came from inside the room.

It was a shout that seemed to reject everything whatsoever, but just hearing it, Kumiko was a bit relieved. Yuka was alive.

“Yuka, calm down. Let's talk a little. May I open the door?” Kumiko asked in a gentle tone.

“No! Don't come in! It's all my fault! It doesn't matter what happens to me anymore!”

She sounded quite hysterical. What could have happened?

Ms. Tanabe
—
I'll try. I won't run, and I'll try
, Yuka had said, with a smile even, when they'd talked the day before.

“Yuka … just show me your face. If you don't want to talk, I won't make you. Can I open it?”

“No!”

Kumiko slowly turned the knob and opened the door.

Inside, it was pitch black. Keiko heard muffled sobs. From the light that leaked in from the hallway, she could tell Yuka was on the bed along the wall.

“Yuka … I'm going to turn the lights on, okay?”

Kumiko reached for the switch. She started the moment she saw Yuka in the light.

The girl's left hand was stained red. It wasn't just her hand. The sheet was colored with an immense amount of blood. A box cutter lay on the bed.

“Yuka!” Kumiko rushed to her, immediately took her hand, and inspected the wound. The cut looked quite deep. Wrapping the girl's wrist with a handkerchief, the counselor turned and called out, “Please, call an ambulance!”

“Ms. Tanabe … what should I do?” Yuka's mother muttered with a weak look on the way back from the hospital. “I just don't know what to do anymore …”

Yuka's wound hadn't been life-threatening, but her hysterical state hadn't subsided. She seemed better off being admitted to the hospital until she calmed down, and had been left there in that state.

Seeing the mother's haggard face, Kumiko thought the doctor who'd decided that it would be best to admit Yuka had made the right call for the mother as well. Yuka's mother needed to work in order to make a living, and she was at the limits of her fatigue, Kumiko sensed.

“She used to be such a cheerful child …”

The mother's mutter gave way to sobs.

What could have caused the girl to suffer to this extent?

Kumiko had been counseling Yuka for nearly a year and a half but still wasn't sure why. She felt utterly powerless.

Kumiko had come to know the two after Yuka's mother had been led to the counseling room by her daughter's homeroom teacher a year and a half ago. Yuka had recently started to skip school and to stay out late, and her mother needed advice.

From her story, Kumiko easily fathomed the cause of Yuka's truancy. Not long before, Yuka's father had been arrested by the police. He had been working at a construction company until he was charged with bribery over the development of a building lot. As a result Yuka's parents got divorced, and her father was serving time in prison. Kumiko was certain that it must have cast a dark shadow over the girl's heart.

From then on, Kumiko had counseled her. Yuka had steadily regained her spirits and started coming to school again, but then relapsed about a year ago. Moreover, she began to make incisions in her arms and wrists with a box cutter.