About four years later, the case took an unexpected turn. A hiker trekking deep in the mountains to the west of Tokyo reported seeing what looked like human bones. The local police hurried to the site and exhumed a number of dismembered bones. Careful analysis confirmed that they were definitely human and, based on size and length, belonged to a child.
Since the skull was still intact, the crime laboratory was able to produce a possible likeness. When they sent the facial reconstruction to regional police forces all over Japan, word came back that it might be Yuna Motohashi. DNA test results confirmed their suspicions.
An investigation task force was established and it was Tatara who headed the team, with Mamiya as his second-in-command. At the time, Kusanagi was an up-and-coming young detective recently assigned to the Homicide Division.
Outside of the dismembered body itself, there was an almost complete lack of clues. There was one unusual thing about Yuna’s remains: not only had the bones been dismembered, chopped up, and buried, the body had been burned first. The focus of the investigation therefore shifted to finding places near the last sighting of Yuna Motohashi where it was possible to cremate a body. An incinerator seemed the most plausible solution. Not only did the police carefully check all the incinerators in the neighborhood, they also took a second look at workers at the Motohashi factory to see if any of them lived close to an incinerator.
It was then that Kusanagi set his sights on Kanichi Hasunuma. Hasunuma had by now quit his job at the Motohashi factory, but the HR department still had his résumé on file. It revealed that he had previously worked at a company specializing in personal and industrial waste disposal, and that firm had multiple incinerators.
When Kusanagi interviewed Hasunuma’s former boss, he learned one noteworthy piece of information. Four years ago, Hasunuma had phoned the man; he had something he needed to dispose of, he said. Could he possibly use one of the company’s incinerators that weekend? When the boss inquired what exactly he was planning to burn, Hasunuma had explained that he had a number of dead animals that he intended to cremate. He hinted that he’d set himself up as a sort of pet undertaker for friends and neighbors to earn a little cash on the side. Since the company was used to cremating dead dogs and cats along with regular household rubbish, his boss gave his okay, as long as Hasunuma left the place nice and tidy.
When Kusanagi checked the precise dates, he found that Hasunuma’s use of the incinerator coincided with Yuna Motohashi’s disappearance. It was at this point that Kanichi Hasunuma became the prime suspect.
Kusanagi immediately started investigating Hasunuma’s past. Many of the details of his life were fuzzy. All Kusanagi managed to ascertain was that Hasunuma had been born in Shizuoka prefecture and that he changed jobs frequently.
When Mamiya announced that he wanted to have a face-to-face meeting with the guy, Kusanagi asked if he could tag along, and the two detectives went directly to his apartment to interview him.
Hasunuma had small, narrow eyes and a blank, inexpressive face. The skin of his sunken cheeks barely moved even when he spoke.
Mamiya got the ball rolling by asking Hasunuma for the names of the people whose pets he had disposed of at the incinerator. With a list of names, it would be easy for them to check whether his pet-undertaker story was true or not.
Hasunuma, however, said that he couldn’t give them any names “because he had promised the owners confidentiality.”
Mamiya followed up by asking what kind of animals the pets were, how many of them there were, and how much he had charged his friends. Hasunuma answered none of these questions, either. “Is it a crime if I refuse to reply?” he finally asked. Kusanagi could still remember the tone of his voice: quiet and utterly devoid of emotion.
Hasunuma’s refusal to cooperate only deepened their suspicions. In addition, he was of middling height and neither fat nor thin — exactly as the eyewitness had described the man she’d seen walking with the murdered girl.
What followed was a series of misfires. They spoke to a wide range of people — starting with Seiji Motohashi, the abducted girl’s father — in an effort to establish a link between Hasunuma and Yuna. But apart from the fact that Yuna was the daughter of the owner of the factory where Hasunuma worked, they turned up nothing. Nor was there any history of bad blood between Hasunuma and his employer.
As all this was going on, one particular photograph from the case file caught Kusanagi’s attention. The detective who had visited Hasunuma four years earlier had taken one of the interior of his apartment.
While Mamiya interviewed Hasunuma, Kusanagi was looking over the place rather than listening to their conversation. Kusanagi wanted to see if there was anywhere one could easily hide a body. After all, Hasunuma must have hidden the body somewhere before getting access to the incinerator. Somewhere the original detective wouldn’t have thought to inspect.
Hasunuma’s apartment was modest: just two small rooms with a tiny kitchen area. The only places one could conceivably hide a body were the futon cupboard and inside the ceiling. But what caught Kusanagi’s attention was the refrigerator. It was small, like the minifridges you see in hotel rooms.
The refrigerator in the photograph from four years ago had been bigger, he remembered. Although not quite as large as a standard family refrigerator, it had been at least waist-high.
Sometime over the past four years, Hasunuma had replaced his refrigerator. Why had he done so?
Assuming that Hasunuma had burned the body in the incinerator, then in the interim he would have had to keep the body in his apartment. The best way to retard decomposition was to put the body in a refrigerator. Then, once he had buried Yuna’s incinerated remains deep in the mountains, he would have gotten rid of the refrigerator itself. That would make sense.
If this hypothesis was right, then the original refrigerator should contain some trace of the girl’s body.
Back at headquarters, Kusanagi showed the photograph to Mamiya and Tatara and explained his theory. While they both agreed that the young detective might be onto something, their faces hardly lit up. Locating the refrigerator was clearly going to be a challenge; for all they knew, it might no longer exist.
The three men tried to imagine what Hasunuma would have done with the refrigerator. He would be keen to dispose of it discreetly. Hasunuma probably couldn’t have carted the refrigerator out on his own. It was too big. He would need someone to help him.
Hasunuma didn’t have an extensive circle of friends. One of the few they came up with was one of his mahjong buddies who was also the owner of a minitruck.
The truck owner admitted it the instant they confronted him. Around four years ago, he had helped Hasunuma transport his old refrigerator, he said. They had taken it to the Hasunuma family home. Hasunuma had told him that he was going to give his old refrigerator to his mother.
Kusanagi and Mamiya promptly went to check out the place. Yoshie, Hasunuma’s mother, was short and stooped and looked considerably older than she really was. As soon as she realized that the two unfamiliar men who had suddenly appeared on her doorstep were from the police, she was gripped by fear. “I haven’t done anything wrong,” she kept muttering, as if chanting a magic spell.
Yoshie Hasunuma’s jaw dropped when Mamiya said that they only wanted to ask her a few questions about a refrigerator. She didn’t seem to know what they were talking about. Understanding only dawned when Mamiya continued, “We believe your son brought you a refrigerator around four years ago.”