The headline read, “Highest Incidence of Sunspots This Year.”
There. Somehow, Saeko’s subconscious had zeroed in on the word “sun” on this page.
She read the brief article: “Yesterday, a group of sunspots suddenly appeared on the sun’s surface. They were large enough to be visible to the naked eye via a filter — a highly rare phenomenon. The unusual flare-up of solar activity caused low-latitude auroras to be visible in areas of northern Japan, including Hokkaido.”
Saeko looked up from the article.
There was unusual solar activity the day my father disappeared …
A rash of sunspots, the appearance of auroras, geomagnetism — each of these phenomena were linked by causal relationships. That said, it seemed impossible to identify even a theoretical link between unusual sunspot activity and such an immediate and raw phenomenon as a human disappearance.
Saeko closed the volume and made her way back to her seat in the reading room. She opened up her notebook, but no matter how much she tried to focus, she found her mind fixated on the image of a blazing sun. Again and again, her thoughts were disturbed by the grotesque black shades flickering across its imaginary surface.
Night came quickly. It had still been light when Kitazawa had checked into his room, but now half of the cars on the prefectural highway already had their headlights on. Through the chinks in the breakwater, Kitazawa could see the bi-colored lights of the fishing boats coming in to the Himekawa Port bobbing up and down rhythmically with the waves. The lights of various cities bordering the Japan Sea had begun to twinkle on the horizon. Already, the temperature had dropped quite a bit.
Kitazawa turned up the lapels of his coat, hunched his back, and thrust both hands in his pockets as he made his way down the sidewalk alongside the highway towards the Hime River. As he passed the window of a barbershop that was closed for the evening, he peeked at his reflection in the glass. Illuminated by the streetlights, the shop window functioned as a mirror, affording a clear view of the style Kitazawa had cultivated after the American hard-boiled detective novels he’d loved so much in his youth.
Philip Marlowe, the detective in Raymond Chandler’s novels, always wore a beat-up old trench coat with the lapels turned up. When he entered a bar, he always ordered a double gimlet. In college, Kitazawa had spent nearly all of his time steeped in hard-boiled detective novels. He’d made every effort to be like Philip Marlowe, but he hadn’t pulled it off very well. The woman he’d dated before marrying Chieko had kidded him about it. “You might as well give it up,” she’d laughed.
After working at the nonbank and the real estate company, when Kitazawa felt like his career was at a dead end, his decision to become a detective was much more than a whim. It was something he’d fantasized about since his youth. He wanted to live like the hero of a noveclass="underline" strong, cool, sharp, popular with the ladies. The boyish yearning coursed through Kitazawa’s veins.
Even now, whenever he tasted a hint of drama in his life, Kitazawa basked in the satisfaction of his chosen career. So what if he was really just a doddering old pot-bellied, balding detective putting on airs? When his motivation flagged, Kitazawa felt that it was important to go through the motions anyway. Kitazawa gave his Philip Marlowe-esque reflection a nod. The convenience store was just two blocks ahead.
The Rendaiji branch of S Mart — Kitazawa checked the name of the shop as he entered through its automatic sliding doors, glancing quickly around the store as he posed with his collar turned up and his hands in his pockets. Aside from him, there were four other customers in the shop. Two of them were over by the magazine racks, catching up on their reading.
As he approached the young female clerk behind the counter, Kitazawa softened his expression. Young women, in particular, were often alarmed by his menacing hard-boiled detective face.
“Excuse me. Is the manager of this establishment available?” Kitazawa inquired in honeyed tones, bowing deeply.
“Um, yes …” the clerk hesitated, shooting a glance towards the back of the store, where a man squatted to arrange a display of ready-made packaged foods. The man seemed to have overheard and looked up at Kitazawa.
“May I help you?” he said.
Kitazawa moved away from the counter and flashed the man an excessively friendly smile. “Are you the manager?” he asked, approaching the man.
“Er, yes …” the man rose to his feet and took a shaky step backwards. He had a pale complexion and a medium build. Behind his wire-framed glasses, his narrow eyes darted about nervously, no doubt alarmed by Kitazawa’s threatening build and features.
Quickly, Kitazawa whipped out his business card and handed it to the man, explaining that he was investigating a missing persons case. “It took place last September. Do you remember it?”
The man’s pupils wandered for a moment, as if searching his memory.
“Nishimura, you mean?”
“That’s right. When Tomoaki Nishimura went missing, you were at the scene, weren’t you?”
“The scene? I was in the warehouse, stowing some cardboard boxes we were finished with.”
That was exactly what the file said, too. Nishimura had been manning the register while the manager carried some cardboard boxes to the store’s warehouse around the corner to the right.
When the manager returned to the store, Nishimura had vanished.
“Would you mind telling me a bit more about what happened?”
“Er …” the manager glanced at his watch, hinting that he couldn’t spare the time.
“It won’t take long. Just five minutes,” Kitazawa urged.
“I’m afraid I don’t think I can be of much help.” The manager was starting to look antsy. Perhaps he really couldn’t afford to stand around talking in the middle of his workday. Kitazawa didn’t want to waste the manager’s time by asking him the same questions he’d already answered multiple times. He had to cut right to the chase and ask the manager something nobody else had …
Kitazawa opened his file and pulled out two documents with photographs. One was the flier from the criminal investigation of Mizuho Takayama’s disappearance. The investigators had already distributed close to two thousand copies.
The words “Please Find Me!” were emblazoned across the top in elegant lettering. There was a headshot of Mizuho Takayama and a shot of her whole body, as well as information on her height, weight, name, age, personal effects, and the circumstances of her disappearance. In the photographs, Mizuho Takayama’s delicate features were visible behind frameless glasses, her head cocked at a subtle angle. The strap of her shoulder bag dug into her thin, waifish shoulder. What had she carried in that bag? Her style and appearance were that of a serious, hard-working career girl.
The other document was from the dossier the publisher of Sea Bird magazine had provided Saeko on Nobuhisa Igarashi. Along with two color photographs, it bore Igarashi’s full name, height, weight, and age, plus other details about his hairstyle and appearance. One of the editors at Sea Bird had put it together. There had been no criminal investigation of Nobuhisa Igarashi’s disappearance. His family preferred to believe that he would find his way back on his own. Not that they had any clue as to what had happened to him, but they had been reluctant to jeopardize the family’s reputation by involving the police.