Inspector Imanishi Investigates

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen you,” the medical center chief greeted him.

“Doctor, I’ll get right to the point. Has the body from Seijo station been delivered here yet?”

“Yes, it came in late last night.”

“When do you plan to open it up?”

“We’re in a bit of a crunch, so I expect it will be this afternoon.”

“Doctor, could you manage to do it earlier?”

“That’s a death from illness, isn’t it? We’re just doing a routine autopsy. Is there something suspicious?”

“I have a strange feeling about it.”

“You mean, the death may not have been natural?”

The medical examiner knew Imanishi’s skill as a detective. He agreed to do this autopsy first.

Imanishi looked through the file sent over from Seijo while he waited for the coroner to get ready. A young examiner came out to guide Imanishi to the autopsy room. They went down a narrow hallway and a flight of stairs. At the entrance to the autopsy room, they put slippers over their shoes. The autopsy room could be seen from the waiting room through a set of glass doors. Five medical examiners wearing white laboratory coats were already gathered inside.

In the center of the concrete-floored room stood the dissecting table on which a man’s naked body was laid out. The body was pasty white; long, tangled hair lay spread out on the table. The eyes were open, the mouth was slightly ajar. There was a look of pain on the face. Imanishi pressed his palms together in prayer as he faced the body.

The medical examiners took their respective places around the table. The coroner began with his observations on the exterior condition of the body. An assistant took down the information. When this dictation was over, the coroner inserted a scalpel into the chest cavity and cut downward in a Y-shaped line through the center of the body. He sliced the body open in one swift movement. Blood ran out.

Imanishi watched without flinching. The stench filled his nostrils, but he was used to it. An assistant had cut open the stomach to inspect its contents. Another assistant was slicing the brownish-tinted liver. Finally the scalp was opened. Miyata’s long hair flopped onto his face.

Imanishi left the autopsy room. His brow was beaded in perspiration. He could see the green leaves swaying in the breeze outside the corridor window. The sunlight was bright, the air fresh and full of life.

As he was looking out the window, he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was the coroner.

“Thank you very much for your efforts, Doctor,” Imanishi said.

“You’re welcome. Could you come this way, please.”

The coroner escorted Imanishi to a room.

“Imanishi-san, I’m sorry to say,” the coroner said, smiling, “the cause of death is unmistakably a heart attack.”

“Is that so, after all?” Imanishi looked at the doctor.

“We examined everything with particular care, but there were no external wounds, and no traces of any assault. We also examined the stomach, but there was no indication of a reaction to poisonous substances, no abnormalities in the abdominal organs. There was some enlargement of the heart, leading me to think that this person may have suffered from a mild case of valvular disease. We came to the conclusion that it was a heart attack. In each organ there was coagulated blood, which backs up this finding.”

“So you would say that it was death from natural causes?” Imanishi became lost in thought. He seemed to be terribly disappointed.

The doctor asked, “Imanishi-san, what were you suspicious of?”

When asked point-blank, Imanishi had no suitable answer. He could not say that he was suspicious because the man had died before he could hear his evidence.

“The man didn’t die at home. His dead body was discovered on the roadside, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, is there something strange in that?”

“If he had become ill and died at home, I wouldn’t be so suspicious. I’m concerned because he died at the side of the road.”

“But Imanishi-san, there are occasionally such cases. You can’t choose where you’re going to have a sudden heart attack.”

Imanishi had no reply. “I’m afraid I’ve got a bad habit of suspecting that every death is related to police work,” Imanishi said.

He continued to ponder. At eight p.m., Miyata was to have met him at the tearoom in Ginza. Why had he been walking around in the Setagaya district? Imanishi was still convinced that Miyata had intended to meet him. Could he have been lured to Setagaya against his will? Had he visited someone in the Setagaya area and lost track of the time?

Imanishi decided to view the place where Miyata’s body was found. By bus, it was not far from the Seijo police station. There were very few houses. The area still retained a rural feeling. He walked over to where the actor’s body had been discovered, following the diagram drawn for him by one of the men at the Seijo station. It was in a field, one yard away from the main bus route. Plumes of the pampas grass near the wooded area had already turned to autumn white.

As he stood there, Imanishi noted that there were many cars but few pedestrians passing by. At night it would be a lonely place. Had Miyata been walking here? If he had meant to keep his appointment with Imanishi, he would have taken a taxi. Suppose he had visited someone nearby and had waited here to hail a taxi. Who would Miyata have come to visit out here?

Imanishi stopped by the Avant-Garde Theater. When he made it clear that he wanted to ask about Miyata Kunio, a member of the office staff escorted him to Sugiura Akiko’s room. Her name was familiar to Imanishi; he’d seen her photograph in newspapers and magazines. She greeted him pleasantly. The famous actress – the leader of this theater group -smoked a cigarette while she answered.

“Miyata-san was at the theater rehearsing our new play until six-thirty. He didn’t seem to be in pain. That’s why I couldn’t believe it when I heard that he had died.”

“Do you know if he had some kind of heart condition?”

“Now that you mention it, he wasn’t very strong. Sometimes we rehearse all night before an opening, and he did seem to tire easily.”

“Did he happen to mention where he was going after the rehearsal ended?”

“No, I really wouldn’t know,” she said and pushed a buzzer to call in a young actor, a good friend of Miyata’s. “This is Yamagata-san. Did Miyata-san say where he was going after he left here last night?”

The young actor stood at attention, his hands clasped together in front of him. “Well, yes. He did say that he had to meet someone in Ginza at eight.”

“At eight in Ginza?” Imanishi interrupted. “Is that really what he said?”

“Yes, that’s what he told me,” Yamagata turned toward Imanishi and answered. “I invited him out, and that’s the reason he declined.”

So Miyata Kunio had intended to keep his appointment with Imanishi.

“Where did he live?”

“In an apartment in Komagome.”

“Komagome?” It was in the opposite direction from where his body had been found.

“How did Miyata-san seem when you parced?”

“He seemed to be his normal self. Oh, yes, he did say something-that he wasn’t looking forward to the meeting in Ginza.”

“I’d like to ask you about a different matter,” Imanishi turned toward Sugiura Akiko. “A young woman named Naruse Rieko used to work here, didn’t she?”

“Yes,” Sugiura Akiko nodded. “She was a quiet, gentle girl. She recently committed suicide.”

“Do you have any idea why she committed suicide?”

“No. I didn’t know her well at all, so I asked the office staff, thinking they would have more of an idea about what had gone on. But everyone said they had no idea why she committed suicide.”

“Could she have been heartbroken?”

“Well.” Sugiura Akiko smiled. “I wouldn’t know anything about that. If only she had left a suicide note or