Chapter 195 - Name and Reality 118 {146 Solo} (347–348 Closing in on the Isaka Family Blackmailer 2: The Meaning of the Fake Account Name)
A considerable amount of what follows will involve foreshadowing that appeared quite some time ago. As this is a mystery novel, and given the unusual length of the volume and serialization period, it is only natural that such foreshadowing may have completely slipped from the readers' memories. Therefore, I have taken the liberty of explicitly pointing out the foreshadowing and providing the sources. While this may be a bit unrefined, I hope you will understand that it is a necessary measure given the circumstances of this novel.
Yoshimura, who had been sitting on the sofa simply watching his superior's state without daring to ask what he was investigating, realized that something must have happened given the situation.
"Did something happen?"
He stood up and approached the Branch Manager's desk.
Then, ignoring Nishida who remained slumped over, he peered at the laptop screen. A search engine page was displayed, and it seemed a list of results for a query was already shown. When he looked closely at the searched text, he confirmed the name "Fukuda Fusajiro," the name on the fake account. Based on that, he looked at the search results again, thought for a few seconds, and then let out a small cry of "Ah!" before questioning Nishida.
"This Fukuda Fusajiro... is it really... this guy?"
"Yeah... I knew he had used the surname Fukuda at one point... but I never imagined..."
With the answer Nishida managed to squeeze out, Yoshimura placed both hands on the desk and his shoulders slumped in shock.
Sensing the "abnormality" in the two detectives, even Branch Manager Suzuhara realized something was wrong.
"Is something the matter?" he asked. Nishida, who had been slumped over, could no longer ignore him.
"There's just something that caught my attention... but please, don't worry about it," he said, raising his head and managing to reply stoutly. However, Yoshimura seemed to remain in shock, his shoulders still slumped.
Managing to pull himself together, Nishida lightly placed a hand on Yoshimura's shoulder to urge him back to his seat, and Yoshimura complied. Suzuhara followed them back to the sofa, but he seemed at a loss for how to broach the subject with the two clearly dejected men. Naturally, Nishida and his subordinate didn't notice this, and for a while, there was no conversation among the three.
However, they couldn't remain that way forever, and Nishida opened his mouth.
"Did the person in this security camera footage ever come back to Hokumo after that?"
"At the very least, he didn't come barging in directly. There have been no complaints or inquiries of any kind to our branch since then," he replied.
"So these security camera images are from the first and last time he barged into the Abashiri branch?"
"Yes. First, he couldn't withdraw money from the Engaru branch ATM, and when he checked with the staff there, they explained that the account was frozen by the Abashiri branch which manages it. He then apparently told our counter staff that he had gone to the Abashiri branch to complain. After that, since I wasn't there, the Deputy Manager—who has since transferred—handled it, and the story goes that he just gave up and left."
With Suzuhara's answer to Nishida's question, the two received what felt like a final ultimatum.
The result of Nishida's search for the fake account name "Fukuda Fusajiro" on the computer screen was a list containing the name "Kitaoji Rosanjin." And the person captured in the security camera images was Aida Izumi, the Boss of the small restaurant and izakaya, Yusen.
The two could hardly believe that the Boss was shown there, but Nishida's internet search results made him 99% certain, and the fact that the attempt to withdraw from the ATM was at the Engaru branch led to a conclusion that was 100% undeniable.
Immediately after Nishida and Yoshimura saw the images, they thought the person looked exactly like the Boss, despite the blurriness, but their thoughts were conflicted, thinking it must be someone else. However, at that moment, a memory from seven years ago flashed through Nishida's mind—the events after they discovered the remains believed to be Sada Minoru at the Remote Grave Marker. He remembered the time he had hurriedly returned to his home in Sapporo to use up his remaining summer vacation days while waiting for the official identification results.
It just so happened that at a department store he visited with his wife and child, a "Kitaoji Rosanjin Exhibition" was being held. Regarding Kitaoji Rosanjin, just before that, the Boss—who adored him as a gourmet—had shown Nishida some of the vessels he had crafted, so Nishida had visited the exhibition thinking it would be a good way to kill time.
Along with various creations starting with ceramic tableware, he learned that Kitaoji Rosanjin had led an unfortunate life as a family man. Due to a family collapse, he was passed around several households as an adoptee from a young age, eventually being adopted into the Fukuda family at age six and living under that surname until he was thirty-three (Foreshadowing: see below). Incidentally, Kitaoji Rosanjin's real name was Kitaoji Fusajiro.
And after confirming the person who looked like the Boss—the owner of the fake account under the name Fukuda Fusajiro shown in the images—that memory suddenly resurfaced, and he searched for "Fukuda Fusajiro" out of curiosity. The results were now pushing the two into the depths of despair.
Foreshadowing Below
Main Story: Light and Shadow 34
https://ncode.syosetu.com/n7099ca/186/
Revised Version: Light and Shadow 4 (Near the very end)
https://ncode.syosetu.com/n5921df/25/
To be honest, with almost no memory of what happened afterward, they finished the questioning of Suzuhara, and Nishida and Yoshimura headed back by car.
Needless to say, with almost no conversation between them, Nishida sat in the passenger seat staring again at the transaction history of the fake account. In addition to the regular donation transfers to various welfare organizations, he confirmed that in the early stages of the blackmail, two million yen had been transferred to an account named Masuyama Stonemasonry.
In the summer of '95, when he learned from the elderly Okuda about the case where three unidentified remains were discovered near the Ikutahara-side exit of the Jomon Tunnel in 1977, he found out that in addition to Kitagawa and Shinoda, another person named Tanemura, a former JNR maintenance worker, had been involved in the discovery.
Furthermore, he learned that Tanemura had later confirmed with Mr. Okada—who was a monk at Koan-ji in Ikutahara at the time and was the head priest of Ko-on-ji in Engaru by 1995—that those remains had been buried at the Remote Grave Marker along with the remains of the tako-beya laborers they had collected.
To perform an identification, he had Tanemura send a photo of himself from around 1977 and visited Mr. Okada at Ko-on-ji with Takeshita (Foreshadowing 1: see below). And at that time, they had encountered the Boss, who had come to visit his mother's grave on the anniversary of her death.
The Boss had left the three of them and gone home first, but Nishida now remembered Head Priest Okada saying, "(The Boss) even rebuilt the grave into a magnificent one a few years ago. On top of that, he apparently donates to organizations that support single-mother households and orphaned children. Perhaps it's an act born of his own hardships in his youth." Given the coincidence of the "few years ago" mentioned in '95, Nishida speculated that the two-million-yen transfer to the stonemasonry was likely used for the new grave for his mother.
Even so, between the donations, his devotion to his mother, and the impression of actually interacting with the Boss, he simply did not seem like the kind of person who would be involved in such malicious blackmail. Of course, Yoshimura likely felt this even more than Nishida, and it was easy to imagine that his continued silent driving was due to those emotions.
In the first place, how on earth did the Boss find out that Sada Minoru had been murdered by Isaka Daikichi and the others? No, since it appeared that in the initial stages he threatened them in a "way that suggested he was alive," or perhaps it was a prank, he might not have known that Sada had been murdered at that point... He couldn't think of any connection with Sada or information that even the police didn't know back in '92.
The car had entered Memanbetsu Town (merged into Ozora Town since 2006) and was stopped at a traffic light, so he took the plunge and spoke to Yoshimura.
"Even so, I wonder how the Boss found out about the Sada matter?"
Then, faster than he had expected, Yoshimura snapped back bluntly.
"I think it can only be that."
"What do you mean by 'that'?"
Nishida immediately asked back without even glancing at Yoshimura.
"Do you remember? About a month and a bit before Sada Minoru was murdered, during Obon, the story about him going to check the vicinity of the Jomon Tunnel to see if the contents of his dead brother Sada Toru's letter were true. At that time, he stayed at the Shinoyama Inn in Engaru, right?" (Foreshadowing 2: see below)
Now that he mentioned it, it was true that Sada Minoru had stayed at the Shinoyama Inn in Engaru during the Obon period of '95, and that inn was located very close to the Boss's Yusen.
"Ah, there was indeed such a story... I see, I get it! Timewise, it's quite possible that was their first point of contact."
Nishida also remembered that story. On top of that, Yoshimura traced his memories of the time.
"At that time, Sada stayed for three days and two nights. Before that, a former teacher couple in Ikutahara... uh, I think it was the Maedas, had taken him to the front of the Jomon Tunnel, but he gave up because of a sudden downpour. The story was that he had a gloomy face until the night before he returned to Sapporo. However, he went out after dinner, and on the morning he left the next day, he told the old man at the inn, 'I'm glad I came,' and then headed back to Sapporo."
"Umu. It was indeed a story like that... Even so, you remember it well! I don't have that much of an impression of the story from then, so I couldn't possibly remember the details without looking at my notebook from that time which I used as an investigation diary."
Nishida was honestly impressed, but Yoshimura said dismissively,
"Nah, it's just that the old man at the inn treated me like dirt back then, so I remember it well because I was pissed off."
He spat out the words and stepped on the accelerator as he saw the green light.
Now that he mentioned it, while the innkeeper Shinoyama had given thorough explanations to Nishida, who was older than Yoshimura, he had clearly looked down on the young Yoshimura. Nishida remembered how Yoshimura had been indignant after the canvassing and how he had soothed him.
"If that's the case, then. It means he met the Boss at Yusen the night before returning to Sapporo, and the Boss heard something from Sada Minoru—and moreover, Sada obtained information that was pleasing to him... which likely connected to something convenient for blackmailing Isaka?"
Nishida voiced a new prediction based on Yoshimura's reasoning, but Yoshimura sat back deeply in his seat while driving.
"I can't say for certain, but the fact that he never again visited the Maeda couple—whom he had promised to visit again—to go near the Jomon Tunnel to confirm what was in his brother Toru's letter... I'm saying there's a high possibility he was able to confirm the story in his brother's letter in a different way. If so, combined with the story of him returning to Sapporo satisfied, isn't that possibility quite likely? At the same time, it seems highly probable that the Boss also learned there was some kind of grudge between Sada Minoru and Isaka Daikichi. Well, unlike the Sada matter, I can't read whether he found out all of a sudden at that time."
"Yeah, yeah. Certainly, the logic of the story has become much more consistent. However, if the Boss had heard something from Sada... it's strange that there's a five-year time lag between Sada's disappearance in '87 and the threats and blackmail in '92. The fact that Sada was murdered didn't come to light publicly until we found him in the autumn of '95, but if the Boss's threats and blackmail began three years prior in the autumn of '92, it seems like far too much time has passed."
While accepting Yoshimura's reasoning, Nishida presented a new doubt.
Foreshadowing Below
Revised Version Light and Shadow 3 (Beginning)
https://ncode.syosetu.com/n5921df/24/
Revised Version Light and Shadow 10 (From slightly above the middle to further ahead; reading further will overlap with other foreshadowing)
https://ncode.syosetu.com/n5921df/31/
If you read until the next Light and Shadow 11, the details of the encounter between the Maeda couple in Ikutahara and Sada Minoru at the time are also described.
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