Inspector Imanishi Investigates

“Yes, he was. His wife’s name was Ofumi, if I remember correctly. Unfortunately she died when Miki- san was transferred to Minari. She was also a wonderful person. As a couple, they were like saints. Usually, policemen aren’t popular, but everyone liked Miki-san. I don’t know of anyone who cared so much for others.” The old man closed his eyes, recalling the past.

There was a splash, perhaps the sound of a carp diving in the pond.

“Miki-san,” the old man continued, “was a very humble person. Nowadays the police are respectful, but in those days, especially in a police station like this one, there were those who acted high and mighty. Miki-san had no such arrogance, and he took care of everyone. As you probably saw, Kamedake hardly has any fields. All the farmers are poor. They make ends meet by making charcoal, or growing tree mushrooms, or cutting wood. That’s about it. Others may work at the abacus factory, but life isn’t easy.”

The strong sun beat down on the plants in the garden. No breeze found its way into the room.

“If they get sick, there’s trouble paying the doctor’s bills. In many households both husband and wife work. Families with children have their own problems. Miki-san saw this and collected donations to start a day-care center at the temple. Now we have a welfare commissioner, but there was no system like that in those days, so Miki-san filled that role. You can’t imagine how many people he helped.”

Imanishi wrote down each point.

“A policeman’s salary wasn’t high, but from that small amount, Miki-san would secretly pay for medicine for anyone who was sick and too poor to pay. The Mikis had no children, so his only indulgence was to drink a couple of small carafes of sake every evening. Yet sometimes he would even go without that small pleasure in order to help someone else.”

“I can see what a good person he must have been.”

“That’s right. People today just aren’t that good. I’m not heaping extra praise on him because he was my friend. He was truly a rare person. To give you an example, once a leper beggar came to this village. Let’s see, when was that?”

“A beggar?”

“Yes, a beggar. This beggar came to the village with his son. Miki-san saw them and made a place for the boy in the temple day-care center. You’ve probably heard from the police chief that he rescued a baby from a fire and that he saved someone from drowning during a flood. There are more stories just like that from when he was here in Kamedake. One time a wood cutter fell ill in the mountains behind us. It was too steep and dangerous for the doctor to go up to him, so Miki-san carried the patient down from the mountain to the doctor. If there was any trouble in the village, Miki-san would show up and smooth things over. People went to him for advice on family quarrels, too. When Miki- san was transferred to the Minari station, the whole village tried to keep him here. The reason Miki-san was here for three years was because everyone begged him to stay.”

The old gentleman’s long account ended. Imanishi couldn’t help but be disappointed. The more he heard, the more upright Miki seemed. Imanishi felt a secret professional pride that there had been such a policeman in this hinterland. But along with gratification, he felt a sense of futility. He had come convinced that something in Miki’s days as a policeman must have been the cause of his death, but Kirihara’s discourse yielded not even a glimpse of a reason. Imanishi thanked Kirihara, but his expression was sad.

“I’d like to ask you one last question,” Imanishi said. “Is there anyone from Kamedake who lives in Tokyo now?”

“Let me see,” the old man cocked his head. “This is such a small village, quite a few have left for the city. Their relatives get letters, so I would naturally hear if someone were in Tokyo. I can’t recall hearing about anyone moving to Tokyo.”

“A young man about thirty years old? Is there someone that age who has moved to Tokyo?”

“I haven’t heard of anyone. I’m one of the old ones here and I run this shop, so I hear most things.”

“Is that so? Well, you must excuse me.” Imanishi started to stand up.

“Since you’ve come such a long way, please stay a little longer. I don’t have anything more to add about Miki- san, but I’d like to show you the box for the haiku themes. Do you compose haiku?”

“I’m very interested in haiku.”

“In that case, you must stay. I’ll have the box brought out to show you. There’s no one now who can even pretend to do similar work. Since you’ve come all this way, you have to take a look.”

Kirihara clapped his hands together to call for a servant.

Imanishi spent some two hours at the old gentleman’s house. Before he left, he had been shown the poetry theme box and the poems written on stiff-backed paper left by the haiku poets of old. The poems, too, were stored as family treasures.

Imanishi enjoyed seeing them and would normally have lost track of time, but he was troubled. The victim had been too fine a man.

He was driven back in the same jeep. When they reached the outskirts of the village, he saw the police substation. Imanishi asked to stop. Looking into the substation, he saw a young policeman at a desk, writing. In the adjoining living area, a blue rattan blind swung in the breeze. This was the substation where Miki had been posted. It looked as if it had remained unchanged from Miki’s day. Imanishi felt as if he were visiting a memorial.

Imanishi had come back from Kameda in Akita Prefecture with something like a lead. But Kamedake yielded nothing.

SEVEN Bloodstains

Imanishi Eitaro returned to Tokyo, his disappointment all the greater because his hopes had been so high. He reported his findings to his section chief and his department head. He criticized himself for having been so convinced about Kameda and the Tohoku dialect. His superiors tried to reassure him.

In order to shift his thoughts away from this case, Imanishi put his energies into new cases. Still, he couldn’t get rid of his obsession. He felt guilty for having spent money from the limited investigation budget on two trips, one to the Tohoku area and the other to Kamedake.

Three months had now passed since the case was opened. A hint of autumn could be felt in the morning and evening air, but the summer days were still horrendously hot. One torrid day, Imanishi bought a weekly magazine on his way home from headquarters and opened it on the streetcar. An essay in the magazine happened to catch his attention. He read,

When one travels, one comes across various intriguing situations. This past May, I was traveling home from some business I had in the Shinshu region. I boarded a night train. At Kofu Station, a young woman boarded and sat across from me. She was quite a beauty.

That was not all. She opened the train window and started to scatter something.

Wondering what it was, I watched her and saw that she was scattering tiny bits of paper out the window. She did this not once, but over and over again, even after the train left Otsuki Station. This young girl reached into her bag to grab a handful of these scraps and tossed them bit by bit out the window. The pieces scattered in the wind like a paper blizzard.

I smiled in spite of myself. I didn’t think that today’s young girls, who are considered to be extremely pragmatic, would engage in such childish and romantic behavior. I was reminded of the short story “Tangerine” by Akutagawa Ryunosuke.

Imanishi returned to his house. As soon as he arrived, he took his son, Taro, to the public bath. It was still early and the bath was not yet crowded. Seeing some neighborhood friends, Taro happily started to play with them.

Soaking in the large bath, Imanishi recalled the essay he had read on his way home. He thought it interesting. From the way the piece had been written, the girl seemed to be traveling alone from Kofu to Tokyo. Loneliness might have motivated her. Imanishi had not read the short story by Akutagawa Ryunosuke to which the author