Inspector Imanishi Investigates

“I suppose so.”

“You discovered Kameda, Imanishi-san. If we find out something, it’ll be a gold star for you.”

“I don’t know if my theory is correct. I might get criticized by the chief for spouting off and making them waste money on this trip.”

The two of them chatted for a while. It was hard to sleep. The lights from the scattered houses flowed past the dark window. They couldn’t see the scenery, but it seemed that they could already smell the Tohoku region.

Daylight came. It was 6:30 when they reached Sakata. Imanishi woke early. Beside him Yoshimura was still asleep, leaning against the seat back with his arms crossed. After changing trains at Honjo they arrived at Kameda. It was close to ten o’clock.

The station was empty. The houses in front of the station were all old but built in a sturdy manner. A mountain rose up behind the town. The eaves of the houses were very deep in this area of heavy snowfalls. For Imanishi and Yoshimura this sight was unusual.

They went to a restaurant in front of the station. Only two or three customers were inside, and half of the space was taken by a souvenir shop. The second floor was an inn.

Imanishi ordered some noodles. They ate sitting side by side.

“Imanishi-san, this may sound strange, but I wonder how you feel about it,” Yoshimura said, wolfing down his tempura over rice. “We go on various business trips like this. And afterward, rather than the scenery or problems I might have encountered, what I remember is the food. Our expense allowance is so small we can only afford rice with curry, or some meat on top of a bowl of rice, food you can get anywhere. Yet the flavoring is always different. It’s the taste of each location that I remember first.”

“Is that so?” Imanishi said, sipping his noodles. “After all, you’re young. I prefer to remember the scenery.”

Yoshimura said, his chopsticks stilled for a moment, “I hear that you write poetry. That’s why you focus on scenery. Will you add to your haiku collection on this trip?”

“My poems aren’t any good.” Imanishi laughed in self-deprecation.

“By the way, what shall we do? Should we go to the police station right after we eat?”

“Yes, let’s do that.”

“Isn’t it strange? We’re here because you happened to look at the supplement in your wife’s magazine. If it hadn’t been for that, I wouldn’t have seen this place. One’s life can be changed by a chance happening,” Yoshimura said, pouring himself some tea. He’d polished off his bowl of rice leaving not a single grain behind.

The Iwaki police station was housed in an old building.

They entered and Imanishi presented his name card at the reception desk. A policeman looked at the card and led them into the station chief’s room immediately.

The chief was seated, looking over some documents, but he stood up as soon as he saw the two visitors. He seemed to know who they were even before he had seen their cards.

“Please. Please, sit down.”

The heavy-set chief smiled at the visitors and had two chairs brought for them.

“I’m Imanishi Eitaro of the Homicide Division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Agency.”

“Yoshimura Hiroshi from the same division.”

“I appreciate your coming here,” the station chief said, urging them to be seated.

Imanishi offered their thanks for the cooperation they had already received.

“Not at all. I didn’t know if it would be of any help, but I thought I should report the matter, just in case.”

A young staff member of the police station brought in some tea.

“You must have had a tiring trip,” the chief said, offering them the cigarettes on the table. “Did you come to this station directly?”

“No, we got off at Ugo Kameda to see what the area was like. Then we took a bus here.”

“You’re the first visitors we’ve had at this station who have come from the Tokyo police,” the station chief said. “We’ve heard the outline of the case you are concerned with. But would you mind giving me more details?”

Imanishi gave an account of the investigation into the Kamata railroad yard murder case.

The chief listened intently. Then he started to explain. “Kameda was a castle town in the olden days. It was a small domain of about twenty thousand koku. You must have seen that three sides of the town are surrounded by mountains. There is very little land that can be cultivated, so the main products of this area are dried noodles and cloth. This cloth is called Kameda weave, and it was valued up until before the war. Now there isn’t that much production. Every year more and more young people leave town.”

The station chief was using the words of standard Japanese, but his accent was thick.

“That’s why practically everyone would know a person who was a native of Kameda. I had my men go around with the photograph of the victim sent by your headquarters; it doesn’t seem that the person is from this area. But…” he paused, and then continued, “about a week ago, a strange man appeared in the town of Kameda.”

“When you say strange, in what way?” Imanishi asked.

“At first glance he seemed to be a laborer, wearing an old, worn-out suit, a man of about thirty or forty. He wasn’t considered strange from the beginning, but when your inquiry came and we checked out the Kameda area, people recalled that a stranger had been around.”

“I see.”

“This man stayed at Asahiya, an inn in Kameda. This inn is an old house, and well regarded in this area. It’s not strange that he stayed in that inn, but it seems odd that a laborer would stay in such an inn.”

“Yes, I see.”

“The inn at first refused to accept him. They didn’t want him spending the night because of the way he looked. But the man said that he had enough money and would pay in advance. The innkeeper agreed to let him stay because they didn’t have any other guests at the time. Of course, they didn’t give him one of their good rooms.”

“What kinds of things happened?”

“Well, that’s about all. Nothing happened in particular. He paid the inn for his lodging in advance as promised. He even gave a five-hundred-yen tip to the chambermaid. There aren’t many people around here who would give such a tip to a maid. The innkeeper regretted having given him a bad room.”

“What did he do at the inn?”

“He arrived in the evening. After supper, he said he was tired and went to sleep without even taking a bath. That made the people think that he was quite odd.”

“Did anything else happen?”

“Something strange? Well, this is what happened. The man slept until after ten o’clock, and called a maid to ask how late the inn kept its doors open. When the maid answered that they were up until one o’clock, he said he had something to do and went out, wearing the inn’s wooden clogs.”

“He went out after ten o’clock at night?”

“That’s right,” the station chief answered. “He returned to the inn just after one a.m.”

He continued, “I forgot to mention this, but this man arrived with a shoulder bag. He left that bag at the inn when he went out. In this area all the houses close up early in the evening. So we can’t figure out what this man was doing when he went out from after ten until one o’clock. It wouldn’t be strange at all if he had gone out like that in a big city, but in our area, this is considered to be strange.”

“I suppose so. And when he came back, was there anything changed about this man’s behavior?”

“There wasn’t anything. It didn’t seem that he had gone drinking, and he seemed to behave the same as before he left. When the maid asked where he had gone, he told her that he had gone to run an errand. But no one runs errands after ten at night.”

“I see. I suppose there is a record of his registration?”

“Yes, there is. We could have seized it, but since we knew you were coming, we’ve left it at the inn.”

“Thank you very much. Was there anything else that was strange?”

“That was all at the inn. The man left just after eight in the morning. When she served him breakfast, the maid asked him where he was going. He said he was getting on the train for Aomori.”

“What was the address he listed on the inn registration?”

“It’s listed as Mito City in Ibaragi Prefecture.”