Malice (22 page)

3. Would the videotape and the knife really have been sufficient evidence for an attempted murder charge? The only thing caught on tape was Nonoguchi going in through Hidaka's office window, and no traces of blood were on the knife. Moreover, the only person at the scene other than the would-be murderer and intended victim was Hatsumi, a conspirator to murder. Depending on her testimony, it seemed to me that chances were good Nonoguchi would be found innocent if he was even brought to trial in the first place.

4. In his confession, Nonoguchi writes that his relationship with Hidaka became that of a genuine collaborator. Considering all that had passed before then, was that really possible?

I questioned Nonoguchi on these four points. He had one answer for all of them:

“You might think it's strange, but I can't change what happened just to suit you. I can't tell you why I did what I did when I did it. All I can say is, I wasn't in my right mind. Not for several years.”

This left me with little to go on. If there were something concrete, a contradiction I could wave in his face, I might get somewhere. But my doubts were ethereal, psychological questions rather than cold, hard facts.

However, there was another reason for my misgivings, one that overshadowed all four of these points.

It comes down to character. I know the man Osamu Nonoguchi far better than the chief or any of the other investigators who worked on the case. And what I know about his character and what he claims in his confession just don't match up.

I have grown increasingly unwilling to abandon an alternative theory of mine, one that has arisen out of these doubts. A theory that, if correct, would explain everything.

I had a clear purpose in going to see Rie Hidaka. I was sure that, if my conjecture was correct, then Osamu Nonoguchi's first account of the discovery of her husband had an entirely different purpose from what I'd initially assumed.

I was, however, unable to elicit any useful information. The only new piece of information that I'd gleaned from her was that Nonoguchi had brought the Hidakas a bottle of champagne. Nonoguchi might simply have forgotten to mention this in his account. Or perhaps he left it out for some reason. It seemed meaningful, since he did not typically bring alcohol when he visited—though it might've simply been a send-off present for the couple's imminent move. If there was some other, deeper meaning, I didn't uncover it. Still, I filed the bottle of champagne away in my mind for possible future use.

I believe it's necessary to completely reassess the relationship between Osamu Nonoguchi and Kunihiko Hidaka. If I have indeed taken a wrong turn somewhere, then I need to go back to the beginning and start over.

To this end, it was useful meeting with Miyako Fujio. When I was talking with her, I realized what I needed to do next. To clarify the relationship between the two men, I'd have to go back to their days together in middle school. In researching this, the novel-cum-documentary
Forbidden Hunting Grounds
should prove an excellent resource.

After meeting with Ms. Fujio, I went straight to a bookstore and bought a copy of the book, which I started reading on the train home. It was a quick read, partly because I already knew how the story went. As usual, however, I am no judge of the novel's literary worth.

As Miyako Fujio had said, the book was written from the viewpoint of the character Hamaoka. The story begins with Hamaoka, an employee at a nondescript company, reading in the morning paper about the stabbing death of a woodblock artist. Hamaoka recalls that this woodblock artist, Kazuya Nishina, was the ringleader of a group of bullies who used to torment Hamaoka in middle school. The book then slides into an account of the bullying he endured.

The bullying comes to a peak during Hamaoka's last year in middle school, when he gets beaten up several times—thrashed within an inch of his life. On one occasion he is stripped, wrapped in cellophane, and abandoned in a corner of the gymnasium. On another he's walking beneath a window and a cup of hydrochloric acid is emptied on his head. He gets beaten up in more “traditional” ways as well. Verbal abuse and mean-spirited pranks are part of his daily life.

The account was meticulously detailed, the descriptions designed for maximum impact. I could understand why Miyako Fujio called it more journalism than fiction.

But why Hamaoka becomes the target of so much abuse is never made clear. He claims it just started one day, as though he had “stepped on the wrong grave and angered an evil spirit.” In this account, I saw similarities to other bullying incidents that I was aware from my time as a teacher. At first, the target tries to keep his head up, but he eventually succumbs to fear and depression.

“What was most frightening was not the violence itself, but the negative energy emitted by those other boys who hated him. He had never imagined that such malice existed in the world.”

I feel this line from
Forbidden Hunting Grounds
is an honest portrayal of the victim's feelings. When I was a teacher, I found that victims of bullying were often bewildered at what seemed like the sheer arbitrariness of the attacks.

Fortunately for Hamaoka, the bullying stopped when the ringleader suddenly transferred to another school. No one knew where Nishina had gone, but it was rumored that he'd been sent away because he attacked a girl.

The story then moves beyond Hamaoka's middle-school days. After a few twists and turns in the plot (which seemed unrelated to the case at hand), Hamaoka begins trying to follow Kazuya Nishina's trail.

The remainder of the book is divided between Hamaoka's recollections and the results of his investigation. The first thing the reader learns is the truth behind Nishina's departure from Hamaoka's school. The girl he attacked was a student at a nearby all-girls Catholic middle school. Nishina had his cronies hold her down, raped her in plain sight, and filmed the whole thing. He'd intended to sell the film to a local gang, who would distribute it. None of this made it into the papers because the parents of the girl were well connected and wanted to keep the incident under wraps.

This revelation concludes the first half of the book, which is largely concerned with Kazuya Nishina's cruelty. The second half of the book talks about the sudden change in his life after he develops an interest in woodblock printing and decides to become an artist. The story ends when, just before his first gallery show, a prostitute approaches him on the street and stabs him to death. It's common knowledge that the stabbing was based on fact.

I could see how Miyako Fujio would assume that Hamaoka was a fictional stand-in for the author. If this were a typical novel, that would be a foolish assumption. In the case of a work so closely based on actual events, it seemed the most likely explanation.

Her theory that the author had written the book to get revenge on his tormentor also had merit. As she asserted, the portrayal of Kazuya Nishina was anything but favorable throughout the book. One could imagine a gentler telling of the story of a troubled youth who becomes an artist, one that didn't go into such emphatic detail about the man's ugliness and moral weakness. This was probably the reasoning behind Miyako Fujio's claim that her family name was being dragged through the mud.

Yet if we assumed Hamaoka was a stand-in for Osamu Nonoguchi, something was missing: Where was Kunihiko Hidaka in the story? (Or, if Hidaka was the author, we'd have to ask, where was Nonoguchi?)

The book is ostensibly a work of fiction. Characters may have been written out. But that wasn't what bugged me. If, as the novel suggested, Osamu Nonoguchi had been bullied during middle school, I wondered what Kunihiko Hidaka had done about it at the time. Was he sitting by silently, letting it all happen?

I persist in this line of inquiry for one reason: in his account of the events surrounding the murder, Nonoguchi repeatedly refers to Kunihiko Hidaka as his “friend.”

It is unfortunate, but true, that parental guidance and the intervention of teachers often has little effect in bullying cases. Friendship is a child's greatest ally. Yet if the character of Hamaoka had any friends, they didn't get involved.

And a friend who lets his friend get bullied isn't a friend at all.

The same contradiction was apparent in Osamu Nonoguchi's confession. Friends don't steal friends' wives. Friends don't conspire with said wives to kill their friends. And friends don't blackmail friends into becoming their ghostwriters.

So why did Nonoguchi ever consider Kunihiko Hidaka his friend?

It was all explained by the new theory I was working on—the theory that came to me the moment I saw the pen callus on the side of Osamu Nonoguchi's middle finger.

 

7

THE PAST (PART TWO)

OLD ACQUAINTANCES—KAGA'S INTERVIEWS

 

Interview: Junichi Hayashida

I'm not really sure I can tell you anything useful—middle school was an awful long time ago! Twentysome-odd years, right? My memory's pretty good, but that's ancient history.

On Hidaka:

To be totally honest with you, I didn't even know there was an author named Kunihiko Hidaka until a couple of weeks ago. I haven't read a novel in years. I know I should read more—I'm a barber and it's good to be able to talk with the customers about the latest stuff—but I just can't find the time. Anyway, it was only when I read about what happened in the newspapers that I found out about Hidaka. I do read the newspaper, at least. I wouldn't have even realized he was my classmate if they hadn't done that special bit on Nonoguchi's and Hidaka's past. Yeah, that was a surprise, finding out I went to school with a bestselling author and a murderer both!

On Nonoguchi:

I remember Gooch, a lot better than the other guy. I don't think Hidaka stood out that much; he was one of those people who don't really make an impression on you. I had no idea they were friends, either.

“Gooch”? Yeah, that's what we called him. I don't know why, it just kinda fit. He was sort of slow—just kind of a gooch. He was always reading, though. We sat next to each other in class for a while, that's why I remember. No idea what he was reading. I wasn't all that interested in reading back then either, I guess. I just know it wasn't comic books. He was great in composition class, too. Our homeroom teacher taught composition, actually, so he was always kind of a teacher's pet.

On bullying:

Yeah, there was some of that. They talk about bullying a lot in the news lately, but it was always around. And people who say it wasn't as mean back then are full of it. I mean, being mean is the point, right?

And Gooch, he spent his share of time in the crosshairs. Actually, yeah, he got beat up pretty bad. People messing with his lunchbox, taking his money. He probably got locked in the janitor's closet once or twice, too. He was just the type, the kind bullies like to pick on.

The cellophane-wrap incident:

You mean they wrapped him up in that stuff they use in the kitchen? Yeah, maybe I heard about something along those lines. But you gotta understand, there were things like that going on all the time.

The hydrochloric acid incident:

I didn't hear about that, but it could've happened. It wasn't the best middle school, to say the least. Mayhem was pretty much par for the course.

Were you ever involved?

Well, it's nothing I'm proud of, but, yeah, I knocked some heads together once or twice. Just a little, though. Nothing serious. Honestly. See, the problem kids liked getting us regular students involved. If you resisted, you'd be the next one on the chopping block, so you kind of had to go along with 'em. It felt terrible. I mean, who wants to beat up on some snot-nosed little kid who doesn't even fight back? Everyone knew it was going on, too. I remember I put some dog shit in this kid's bag once, and our student leader was sitting right there, but she pretended not to see. Masuoka, her name was. Even if you weren't helping 'em, you were letting 'em get away with it. Yeah, those kids loved picking on people, but I think they liked getting us other students' hands dirty even more. Of course, I didn't think about it like that back then.

On Fujio:

Oh, yeah, no way I could forget Fujio. I don't think I was the only one who wished he'd disappear. I bet even the teachers were hoping he'd walk off a cliff.

He was just a bad egg. He thought nothing of making some poor kid's life a living hell. He was bigger than some of the grown-ups, too, and really strong, so who was going to stop him? Course, when the other bullies figured that out, they fell all over each other to be friends with him. Figured they were safer being on the winning side. I think that just encouraged him, you know? Fujio's the kind of kid they're talking about when they say someone's a lost cause.

Was Fujio the ringleader?

Oh, yeah, without a doubt. He called all the shots. I even heard that whenever any of the kids in his posse stole someone's lunch money, they had to give it to him first, and he would distribute it. Basically no different from the yakuza, really.

On Fujio's departure:

Boy, were we happy when he left school. I mean, peace at last, finally! Things did change a lot after he left, too. It was like a big mood shift. There were still a few bad seeds around, but it was nothing like when Fujio was in charge. I didn't ever find out what happened to him, though. There was a rumor he'd beat up some kid from another school and got sent to juvie, but I doubt it was anything as big as that, or it probably would've made the local paper.

Does Fujio have something to do with your case, Detective? Didn't Nonoguchi kill Hidaka because he was stealing his books?

The other members of Fujio's circle:

No idea what became of them. They're probably all productive members of society.

I think I've got a class roster around here somewhere. The addresses and phone numbers are old, though. Hang on, I'll go get it.…