Case 00: A World of Ash (5)

Saying something like that, Sako lankily swayed as he walked in the residential area. I had no choice but drift behind in his stead.

“First let’s try going to the house nearby where the headless case occurred. Umm, the ‘Nagami’ household, was it? Where is it…ah, we don’t even need to look for it. It’s the house over there with the swarm of crowds that regrettably look like they haven’t gone back home in days.”

Saying that, Sako drew close to the front of the Nagami household which was swarmed with a few dozen or so reporters. He stood up straight as he looked around the entire house with a relaxed expression on his face. His appearance was so peaceful that he appeared to nothing more than a shameless onlooker, but seeing his face right next to mine, a cold shiver ran down my back.

It was because of the look in Sako’s eyes. Cold, emotionless, and hollow eyes. They reminded me of that girl named Takamura in a way, and there was a sense of dread in them, as if they were seeing right through this world.

“Hmm… I see.”

Going around and seeing the entirety of the house surrounded by a fence, Sako muttered lazily when he reached the back of the house.

“So, this was the persimmon tree where the head was stuck in. Not under the Cherry blossom tree, but on top of the persimmon tree, is it? Ah, it does seem like he cut it off himself. And yet despite that, the person in question seems to be bewildered. Hmm.”

Muttering such creepy things, Sako continued a few steps closer to the fence of the house, and while the reporters were giving him suspicious looks, he suddenly climbed up onto the fence. He then stretched his long fingers towards the branches of the persimmon tree. And thereafter, picked up something in his hand.

“Um, excuse me?”

A man with an armband of a major TV station, who seemed to be a television reporter, came up behind him with a microphone in one hand.

“Are you related to this incident? Or are you from the police?”

“I’m merely a passerby.”

“Eh, wait, if you’re not involved, then please stop. This is inappropriate given that this is the scene of a crime.”

“Being told what is inappropriate from the fellows making a big fuss in front of other people’s homes at the crack of dawn is quite something.”

Replying aggressively, Sako stroked something invisible in his hand as if he cherished it. It was just about the size of a person’s head, causing me to take a step back, “Hey, it can’t be?”

“What did you take just now?”

“What, I'm trying to help you guys and the police –Hmm, it seems his consciousness was thrown off here from the head itself. Conversation isn’t really viable anymore.”

As Sako muttered that kind of thing, a uniformed police officer who was guarding the area near the entrance came running, perhaps noticing the noisy media.

“Hey! What are you doing?! Get down from there!”

“Well, please just wait a moment. He won’t be able to speak soon. If that were to happen, then the moments before his death are bound to become even more confusing.”

Sako narrowed his thin eyes to be even thinner and continued to mutter something with his lips. From the looks of it, Sako had found the ghost of Nagami-san’s head on the branches of the persimmon tree. I'm sure he’ll be thought of as a crazy person after giving that explanation, and if I wasn’t dead myself, I’d fully agree with that assessment a hundred percent.

“According to the reports, Kōichi Nagami-san is supposed to have died on the second floor, and the window was closed. Only a married couple lived in this house with no children. And yet – he said, "a child". Who is that I wonder?”

Thereupon Sako turned around, and spoke to the police.”

“I suppose you won’t allow me inside.”

“O-of course not! Who are you?”

“Sorry for the late introductions. Here, please take a look.”

Even though it would have been better for him to come down, Sako crouched down on the fence, and with his left hand still clutching the invisible head, he skillfully took out a business card with his right hand. I took a peek, and the words therein were:

“Sako Takita, Chief Priest of Okitachi Inari Shrine.”

“C-chief priest?”

“Yes, the late Nagami-san wished for a Shinto funeral when he was alive, and I am merely here to fulfill his wishes.”

--Hey, that kind of lie will get exposed right away.

I was worried, but the police did a visual comparison of the business card with Sako’s pale, featureless face, waited a while, and began to communicate with someone on the radio. Before he could even reach a decision, Sako nimbly jumped down on the other side of the fence, in short – on the side of the Nagami household’s garden. “Ah—Hey, wait a minute!”, a voice came from the other side of the fence, but without as much of a care, Sako quickly went around to the front entrance and ended up entering inside. I had no choice but to follow in his stead.

It was my second time in the Nagami household, and despite being daytime, it was deserted. Well, that was natural. The wife seemed to have returned to her parents’ home, and no one was present inside. It would be scarier to sense the presence of a person. Sako took off his shoes, and quickly entered inside. He turned his somewhat vacant gaze toward the second floor, and climbed up the stairs without hesitation.

There were three rooms on the second floor. One was presumably the couples’ western style bedroom with a double sized bed. A second room that was presumably Nagami-san’s study room. And the last one which was a Japanese-style room where the body was discovered, it seemed to be an empty guest room with only a vase of flowers present. Sako entered the Japanese style room after removing the yellow tape sealing it. He then bowed toward the white tape that marked the location of the corpse, then stepped over it as he opened the window.

“Yes, this room is the closest to that branch of the persimmon tree.”

I looked at the scenery from the window and saw a member of the media below aiming their camera our way. It must have been their instinct as reporters to record anything that might happen right away.

Suddenly, Sako turned to me and called out.

“Are you there?”

--Yes, I’m here.

I answered, and in reply, Sako spoke with his hands still in his pockets.

“I mostly figured it out. Let’s move on.”

From there, we made our way to the neighboring S town, about a ten-minute bus ride away. As I recall, it was the incident where an old man who went by the name ‘Niizawa’ was found hanging from a tree in the grounds of the Inari shrine there. After asking passersby about the location, we arrived at the shrine just past 2 pm.

A dense thicket of trees lined both sides, and the path towards the shrine stretched in the center. Walking slightly leftward from the center of the stone paving, Sako spoke:

“There really is a god here. Shrines with gods are always enveloped in a faint mist for some reason.”

--Mist?

Come to think of it, there did indeed appear to be a faint mist in the air even though it wasn’t early in the morning. I mean, if there really was a god here, then I was the one who wanted to implore them. I continued to walk a little nervously with this thought in mind, but no voice came down to me.

It must have been so because I lacked faith, right?

As I pondered such things to myself, “Aren’t you mistaken about god?”

As he stepped on the gravel, Sako spoke as if narrating a monologue.

“The original god of this country you see, is not the almighty personal god like that in the west. It’s something that has spilled from the realm where humans are not allowed to tread. It is something only to be feared, not something to ask favor of. If anything, a thing revered and sealed in order to minimize calamities.”

--Calamities?

“That’s right, most of them are curse gods.”

With those creepy words, Sako eventually stopped a few meters in front of the main temple building. He stroked his thin beard as he looked around the surroundings, and I saw it. I heard that the old man was hung from a large ginkgo tree, but – I see, from a rough look around I could see a dozen or so ginkgo trees.

“Now then, which one was it?”

Muttering that, he drew close to each ginkgo tree and touched it by hand.

Eventually, he began to repeatedly stroke one of the large trees, and nodded.

“I guess this is it.”

(…You can tell?)

“It’s far more unsettled than the other trees; It’s still shaking. Yes… this does seem a bit too thick to climb. It’s around four meters in height, and if we’re talking about branches not breaking if a person is hung from them– then was that…?”

He then looked around the surroundings restlessly, and eventually caught sight of a worn out shed next to the shrine office, headed over to it, and took the liberty of bringing a step ladder meant to be used for pruning. He brought it up close to the trunk and began to climb the ginkgo tree.

I was worried someone might come, but no one was passing by, as if the fact that a man had died had put everyone off.

“Ah, I see.”

Eventually, Sako’s voice came down from up above.

“I understand the gist of it. It wasn’t a significant incident after all – no, it wasn’t even an incident.”

Sako sat down on the branch where a dead man would have been hanging from just a few days ago, and spoke that kind of thing while yawning.

(Hey, I don’t understand at all. What do you mean you get it? Aren’t these two incidents the work of some psycho killer? Isn't he still hiding somewhere in this city, and in the next ten days, he’s going to make a move on M’s family, isn’t he?)

He must have sensed the intent of my unrelenting questions. The pale faced young man spoke, “Now, now, please calm down.”

“Firstly, the man who hung from this branch merely committed suicide. If there’s a death that’s considered suspicious in this country, then the autopsy is very thorough every time. It is true that the lack of good medical examiners in the field has led to a number of cases and accidents being misjudged, and it’s also true that the police are not as good at investigating as they once were, but the investigative organizations in this country aren’t that dumb yet.”

…Suicide?

No, if that’s the case, then how did he climb up there?

“That was simple. He probably used that stepladder like I did. The problem is how the step ladder disappeared, but the truth is quite simple. Someone put it away.”

……..

I was dumbfounded with the way Sako recited those words like poetry.

--Wa, wait a second. You mean to tell me that someone who put the step ladder away didn’t notice the feet dangling above it? Even if the old man was around 170 cm in height, his legs would surely be in the field of vision, right?

“That is the unpleasant fact about this case. That someone put it away even after noticing.”

(…Huh?)

“What would happen if a step ladder or anything to climb on wasn’t discovered in the surroundings when they found the hanging body? It would probably cause a strong sense of discomfort at the scene. That's what someone was trying to do. They merely put it away because it would be amusing.”

--Merely, amusing…?

“And that Nagami-san – was it? With the headless corpse. That was the same thing. Nagami-san cut off his own head with a terrible strength. You might question if that’s possible with a human being’s mental and physical strength, but it probably is. It’s recorded that after Antoine Lavoisier was decapitated in the year 1794, he continued to blink for more than fifteen seconds. In 1904, the French physician Baulieu described how decapitated heads could react to their names being called. Looking at the direction of the corpse on the tatami floor, the direction of the blood spray, and the position of the head discovered on the persimmon tree, they all point to this as the most likely explanation. With a strong will. Nagami-san cut off his head with his own hands, and the moment it separated from the body, it shot off towards the window, where it was caught in the branches of the persimmon tree.”

(But, that window was closed, right?)

I saw it myself right after the incident had occurred. I saw that the window was closed together with that old inspector… “Ah”, I suddenly realized.

“That’s right. Because that window was closed, the crime scene became that of a different nature. Someone must have closed the window after Nagami-san had committed suicide. If that was done, then it would have the same effect on the people who discovered the headless corpse. The same effect as removing the step ladder, to create an intense sense of unease that clung to the area around the body.

………………

“Why did Niizawa-san hang himself at the shrine, and why did Nagami-san cut off his own head? To be honest, I have no interest in that, and I'm sure the police will look into it. However, the reason the incidents became tinged with a bizarre aspect to them is definitely because someone added a slight sense of unease to the scene of the crimes. That’s why these aren’t even incidents.”

That’s all, the end – and with that, Sako quickly descended to the ground using the step ladder, and returned it to the shed.