Кэйго Хигасино - A Midsummer’s Equation

“I have to do this life schedule thing. It’s where you plan out every day, and then you write down whether you did what you said you were going to do. It’s a total drag. I also have to do a book report. And then some self-study project... I’m not even sure what to do for that. I don’t get why they make us do all this stuff anyway. It’s supposed to be vacation, right? Don’t they know what vacation means?”

Yukawa picked up the book of math drills and flipped through the pages. “Looks like you haven’t even started yet. Are you sure you’ll finish on time?”

“Probably not. I’ll get home and Mom will yell at me the day before school starts and I’ll do it then. It’s easier that way, because in between the yelling she helps me by doing some of the problems.”

“I wouldn’t call that helping. I’d call that getting in your way,” Yukawa said. “She’s impeding your academic progress.”

“Yeah, but if I didn’t do my homework, I’d just get in trouble at school.”

“Then get in trouble. You’d learn a valuable lesson.”

“Easy for you to say,” Kyohei grumbled, reaching out to snatch the book of drills back from Yukawa. Just before his fingers touched the book, Yukawa pulled it away.

“How about I help you with your math? We can probably finish this workbook in two or three days that way.”

Kyohei sat up straight. “You’re going to do my math?”

“I said help, not do. What I’m offering is instruction. I will teach you how to properly approach the problems, so you can do it yourself.”

“You mean like a tutor?”

“I suppose you could call it that.”

“Blargh,” Kyohei said, making a face. “I didn’t come all the way out here just to study.”

“You have to do it sometime,” Yukawa said, opening the book of drills. “‘Find the sum of the angles of an eighteen-sided polygon,’” he read. “Someday, you’re going to have to be able to answer this question on your own. Graduate without learning how to do that, and you’ll get yourself into trouble later. The obvious solution is to learn how to solve it now. Besides, I’ve already helped you complete one of your homework requirements.”

“Huh? What’s that?”

“The rocket we used to see the bottom of the ocean. That was a perfect self-study project. I still have all the data, you only need to collate it and write it down.”

“Hey, you’re right. But it was kind of you who did the experiment, Professor. Isn’t that cheating?”

“I’m startled at this sudden ethical rigor from someone whose mom does his math homework. Besides, you were a full participant in the rocket experiment. That’s not cheating.”

“Cool! One down,” Kyohei said, pumping his fist enthusiastically.

“You’re on a roll. How about another?” Yukawa said, lifting up the book of math drills.

Kyohei wrinkled his nose and scratched his head before shrugging. “Fine. It’ll be more fun with you teaching me anyway.”

“I guarantee it. Which brings me to a question I had for you. In exchange for me helping you with your studies, I was hoping I could ask a favor.”

“Sure. What?”

“Are you familiar with a master key? It’s a key that opens all the locks in a hotel or inn such as this.”

“You mean the one in my uncle’s room? I’ve seen Narumi going there to grab it.”

“That would be the one. I’d like to use it, if I can. Just for a little while, of course.”

“Sure, I’ll go ask for it,” Kyohei said, standing. Yukawa put a hand on his shoulder, stopping him.

“You don’t have to get it right now. And I don’t want you to ask for it,” he said, wetting his lips and lowering his voice, “I want you to steal it.”

Nishiguchi parted ways with Isobe and made it back to the Hari police station just after eight o’clock in the evening to find it bustling with activity. Apparently, whatever strings needed to be pulled to set up a special investigative task force had been pulled, and everyone with a free hand had been deputized. Officers were carrying computers and office supplies into the main conference room.

Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned to see Hashigami with a gloomy look on his face.

“Stand around like you don’t have anything to do and someone’s going to put you to work, Nishiguchi. You haven’t eaten yet, have you? Let’s go.”

“You sure we shouldn’t stay and lend a hand?”

“There’ll be plenty of time for that once the prefectural guys get here. Let’s live a little while we can.”

Hashigami walked out of the police station without waiting for an answer, so Nishiguchi followed. They went to a small place near the station and Nishiguchi ordered the yakiniku dinner set, fuel for the long slog ahead.

“Well, this case has gone from a simple accident to a full-blown disaster,” Hashigami grumbled. “That director from Tokyo threw us a curveball. The prefectural guys can’t stop dropping comments about how we screwed up the initial investigation. I mean, who would look at that and say it was something other than an accident? You can bet we’d get in trouble if we called for an autopsy on every single one of our cases.” He stabbed at his baked fish with his chopsticks.

“Where did they send you today?” Nishiguchi asked.

“East Hari. I spent the whole day walking around with Shizuoka Prefecture detectives, showing them around.”

“Up at that summer colony? Marine Hills, was it?”

“We went there too, but we spent most of our time doing questioning at a different development, where Senba’s wife’s family lived — the place is a parking lot now.”

“Senba’s wife was from East Hari?”

“Apparently so,” Hashigami said, setting down his chopsticks and pulling his notebook from the jacket he’d draped over the chair next to him. “According to the files we got from Tokyo, Senba was originally from Toyohashi City, down in Aichi. He came up to Tokyo when he got a job, and married a girl from the same company when he was thirty.”

Hashigami opened his notebook and showed Nishiguchi a page that read, “Etsuko, maiden name: Hino.”

“Wait, so his wife already had her family house in East Hari, but they bought a summer home there too?”

“Not quite. By the time they got married, her old house had already been taken down. She only lived in East Hari through high school. After that they moved to Yokohama. Right after she got married, they lived in Tokyo. When Senba turned thirty-five, he quit his job and started his own company doing electrical repairs. They were living in Meguro Ward at the time. Business went well, and at the age of forty-six, he bought the summer place in Marine Hills. I guess his wife always dreamed of living in a place where she could see the same ocean she looked out on as a child, so he bought it for her — that’s what he told the detectives after his arrest.” Hashigami put down his notebook and picked up his chopsticks.

“Huh. He doesn’t sound like such a bad guy, except for the murdering part,” Nishiguchi commented between bites.

“Well, things took a turn for the worse, obviously. He might’ve been flush enough with cash at one point to buy a summer home, but with a small business, one misstep can ruin everything. Turns out they’d gone out on a limb on a new project, and it became an albatross around their neck. Pretty soon they were drowning in debt and had to file for bankruptcy. He got to keep the house in Meguro and the summer home down here, but then his wife got sick. Cancer.”

Nishiguchi frowned. “You weren’t kidding about that turn for the worse.”

“Some guys just run out of luck,” Hashigami said, picking at his stew. “They sold the place in Meguro to pay the medical bills, and moved to East Hari. So his wife’s dream came true, though not quite in the way they’d hoped, and it didn’t last long. She died right after they moved down here, and then it was just him.”