“What was stupid?”
“My bright idea. It was totally stupid. Far-fetched. Impossible. Forget about it.”
Yukawa returned his tumbler to the coaster.
“You shouldn’t be the one to decide if your idea is stupid or not. And you certainly don’t want to rush to judgment about something being impossible. Buried inside a crazy idea, you can often find useful hints for solving problems. You should come out and say it, and see what a third party has to say.”
“I don’t need to. If I told you, Professor, you’d just laugh. And if you didn’t laugh, you’d be horrified.”
“Now I really want to hear your idea!” This time, it was Yukawa who swiveled around on his seat to face Utsumi. The expression on his face was deadly earnest. “Go on. Tell me.”
Utsumi exhaled slowly. I should never have told him that I’d had a brainstorm. She was kicking herself.
“I thought that... perhaps the perpetrators used the gas from that thing,” she said, pointing at the miniature mascot on the shelf.
“From that?” Yukawa drew his brows together skeptically.
“Yes, the gas from the giant Kikunon inflatable. It contains a lot of helium. They could have drained the helium from it when the parade was over and then transported it to the crime scene. That way they could have asphyxiated Hasunuma using the first method you proposed.” At that point, Utsumi’s self-confidence collapsed. “Look, please just forget about it. After all, it was liquid nitrogen, not helium, that was used for the murder, anyway.”
Yukawa wasn’t laughing. Nor was there an expression of horror on his face. “Interesting,” he simply said, while looking pensively at the Kikunon mascot on the shelf. “With that method, the perpetrators wouldn’t actually need to do anything between the starting point of the parade to the finishing point of the parade, because the members of Team Kikuno would transport the balloon and the gas inside it for them.”
“That’s what I thought. And that’s why I thought — for about a microsecond — that it was a good idea. But it’s impossible, isn’t it? To extract the helium from the balloon, I mean.”
“Extracting the gas from the balloon isn’t difficult. It’s getting it back into the cylinders that would be a mind-boggling challenge.”
“Of course. So, yes, just forget about it. At least you didn’t laugh at me.” Relieved, Utsumi took a sip of her Moscow Mule.
“I’m very far indeed from laughing at you.” Yukawa took his smartphone out of his inside jacket pocket. “I think you may have hit upon the mother of all solutions.”
“Really? Explain.”
Yukawa thumbed the screen of his phone.
“A few minutes ago, you said that you’d examined the footage from all the security cameras along the parade route and had got a good grasp of how the crowd moved and behaved.”
“That’s right.”
“I rather doubt that you paid much attention to the movements of this particular group.” As Yukawa said this, he turned the display of his phone toward Utsumi.
On it were the pirates in the parade.
36
At three stories high, Miyazawa Books was large for a bookstore. On the first floor, they actually sold music, DVDs, and computer games. Books were on the second floor, while the third floor was the company office.
Maya Miyazawa had a firm, straight mouth that suggested strength of will. Clearly, she also had a certain charisma since she was a director of the neighborhood association and the leader of Kikuno’s official parade team.
She had looked askance at Kusanagi when he showed her his police badge, but when he asked if he could see the props for the parade, she looked daggers at him.
“What’s the problem with our props?”
“We just need to check something. Where are they kept?”
“They’re in the parade committee’s storeroom.”
“Where is that? Is the place staffed?”
“It’s just up the road. No, normally there’s no one there. Uh... do you want to see the props right now?”
Kusanagi bowed curtly while maintaining eye contact. “Yes, if we could.”
“Fine,” said Maya Miyazawa. She opened a drawer in a nearby desk and pulled out a bunch of keys.
She took them to the parade committee building herself. It was a modest, two-story structure, located a little ways from the shopping district. The first floor was a storeroom, while the committee’s offices were upstairs.
“In December, all the shops have their end-of-year sales. Team Kikuno always does a special performance, and we store the costumes and props here. We dismantled the float after the parade, because we don’t use that in December,” Miyazawa said, as she pressed the switch to open the storeroom’s electric shutter.
The storeroom itself was full of piles of cardboard boxes and clothes cases, along with wooden boards, bits of lumber, and metal sheeting.
“So what is it you want to see?” asked Miyazawa, turning to Kusanagi.
Kusanagi gestured to Utsumi who was standing just behind him. He had also brought several junior officers along with them, to handle any physical work.
Utsumi deftly thumbed her phone, then showed the display to Maya Miyazawa. “These things.”
Kusanagi scrutinized the young bookstore owner’s face. He didn’t want to miss even the subtlest change in her expression.
He thought he saw a slight twitch in one of her cheeks. He had no way of parsing her reaction to what Utsumi had shown her. Had she been shocked and dismayed? Or was she expecting it?
“You mean... the treasure chests?”
“Correct,” Kusanagi replied. “I heard from people who saw the parade that there were several of them.”
“Yes, we made five.”
“Are they here?”
“They’re here.” Maya Miyazawa ran her eye around the storeroom. “But they’ve been disassembled.”
“That’s not a problem. If you show my men how to do it, they can put them back together again.”
“Fine. What color chest do you want to start with?”
“How many colors are there?”
“They’re all different. We’ve got gold, silver, copper, red, and blue. They’re all the same size and shape.”
“In that case, any color will do.”
Maya Miyazawa nodded. “Follow me,” she said and headed for the back of the storeroom. With a jerk of his head, Kusanagi indicated for the junior officers to follow her.
As he watched them putting together the chest under Maya Miyazawa’s guidance, Kusanagi took out an e-cigarette and started vaping. He had given up traditional cigarettes three years before.
“Do you smoke that thing when you’re with Professor Yukawa?” Utsumi asked, walking over to him.
“Never. If he knew I smoked this thing, he’d tease me, I know. He’d say that I was illogical — I was giving up smoking without really giving it up.”
“I happen to agree with him.”
“Oh, shut up and leave me alone. They’re my damn lungs.”
While they were chatting, the young officers had finished assembling the treasure chest.
The base resembled a large handcart. The treasure chest, which was about three feet high, had its lid up, and was overflowing with gold and jewels. When Kusanagi touched the “treasure,” it turned out to be a sheet of carved polystyrene that was glued into place.
“It’s pretty tacky when seen up close, isn’t it?” said Maya Miyazawa self-mockingly in a bid to preempt any criticism. “The chest itself is made of plywood.” She rapped the side of the chest with her knuckles. It made a flimsy, hollow sound.
“Can you shut the lid?” Kusanagi asked.
“No, you can’t. It’s fixed open like this.”