The following day. A dead body is discovered. The method of murder is exactly as it looks. No abnormal tricks are used.

 

The following day.

A dead body is discovered.

The method of murder is exactly as it looks.

No abnormal tricks are used.

He woke up to the sound of the wind.

Through the window of the mattress room, the field of white snow spread under the twilight. He briefly wondered if it was still night, as he couldn't see the morning sun, but the sky appeared to be cloudy. The view of the toy-like lodges standing in rows on the pure white ground looked like a scene from a children's book. Behind them, the forest rippled. It appeared the wind was quite strong today. The treetops were bending right and left, as if they were about to be yanked up and blown away. Even looking with just his eyes, it felt cold.

Kazuo quietly slipped off the silkworm rack.

He stretched. The mattress he'd slept on was light and thin, so his back felt a bit stiff. However, he'd been so exhausted last night that he fell asleep the moment he lay down, so he was still refreshed. Despite how strange it felt to be sleeping on a shelf in a closet, he didn't wake up in the night a single time.

He stretched again, then headed to the bathroom with his toothbrush in hand. First, he used the toilet, then washed his face. The water was painfully cold on his hands, and he felt once again how different it was from the city.

When he stepped into the dining room, he found Sagashima sitting alone with a book open in front of him. It was the same book he'd been reading last night.

“Good morning.”

When he greeted him, the ape-like UFO researcher responded with a slight tilt of the chin. His eyes never left the book. Kazuo looked into the kitchen, thinking about how unfriendly the old man was.

Zaino was preparing breakfast with smooth, efficient movements. The smell of good coffee filled the room.

“Good morning.”

Zaino didn't react at all and just said “Coffee's ready. Give this to Mr. Sagashima.”

Kazuo, who had gotten used to being treated coldly, complied without complaint.

As he was handing the coffee to Sagashima back in the dining room, Asako entered. Her face, completely free of makeup, practically glowed with a healthy radiance. She smiled at Kazuo as they exchanged meaningless morning greetings. It was a perfectly refreshing morning.

Asako offered to help, and the three of them worked together on breakfast. Asako was impressively deft with a frying pan, and Kazuo lavished extensive praise on her egg frying skills. Asako's embarrassment was cute, too. Kazuo was happy for the chance to see it.

Just as breakfast was almost ready, Yumi, Mikiko, and Hoshizono arrived. Instantly, the dining room was filled with chatter.

“I haven't had to get up this early in a long time,” Yumi said, rubbing her eyes.

“Mr. Hoshizono~, did you sleep well?” asked Mikiko. She was wearing loads of makeup, just as she had the previous night.

“I slept better than I ever did back in Tokyo. It's probably because I'm closer to the stars.”

“I couldn't sleep last night, the wind was too scary...”

Yumi sounded sulky.

Kazuo poked his head out of the kitchen, holding the coffee pot.

“Do you want some coffee, sir?”

“Ah...”

Hoshizono's eyes looked briefly startled, but he immediately put on his charming smile.

“Ah, yes, thank you.”

He nodded. It was Hoshizono who had taught him to take things in stride.

As he was pouring coffee for the three guests, Mikiko suddenly started screaming.

“Oh my God, Yumi, what's that!? It's all dirty!”

“Eh? What? Where?”

“Look, on your back!”

Mikiko pointed at Yumi's back.

“Eh? Where is it? Where is it?”

Yumi twisted her neck around, trying to see her own back.

“Oh no, you're right! Aww, I just bought this. What the heck...?”

The entire back of Yumi's white down parka had darkened. The stain was faint, as though it had been faintly smudged with ink, but Yumi was making a big deal out of it.

“Aw, I can't walk around in this anymore.”

She sounded a bit flirty.

“It's soot.”

Zaino said this suddenly, stepping into the dining room with a bowl of salad in one hand.

“Soot?”

“Yes. You hung it on the wall of your lodge, didn't you?”

“Yeah, there was a nail.”

“The previous owner put that nail there. He also had a wood-burning stove installed in each lodge, so the soot must have been from that. He was very particular about making them look like genuine mountain lodges.”

Zaino spoke in the cold voice of a man who refused to accept any responsibility. So, the ice axe and lantern he'd seen in Hoshizono's place last night were remnants of the previous owner's insistence on the mountain lodge style.

“I wonder if this will even come out at the dry cleaner's...”

Yumi muttered to herself, pouting her cheeks.

“Don't worry, no one will notice a stain like that.”

Hoshizono interrupted her.

“For you, men can't bring themselves to avert their eyes from your face and figure, so such stains will avoid their notice.”

“Really, Mr. Hoshizono?”

Yumi's mood was immediately fixed. Kazuo secretly laughed a bit at the sight of “Mr. Hoshizono” doing business. Strangely, the sight no longer creeped him out. Sagashima looked totally indifferent to the noise and continued to turn the pages.

Iwagishi and Akane still hadn't shown up by the time they were finished setting out breakfast on the table. Since everyone was in the same seats at last night, the two empty seats at the end of the table looked out of place.

“I think Ms. Kusabuki is still sleeping,” said Asako, with some reservation.

“I'm sure she just worked late into the night... Please, don't worry about her.”

“I'm sure the president has overslept as well. I apologize the meal is so simple, but please, enjoy.”

With Zaino's addition, breakfast began.

Fried eggs and ham salad, yogurt and toasted baguettes, milk, and coffee. Although as he'd said, it was simple, compared to what the single Kazuo was used to, it was a feast fit for a king. Asako's fried eggs were especially delicious.

Perhaps it was because they hadn't eaten since last night's supposed full-course meal, but everyone demonstrated a voracious appetite. Even Sagashima, who looked like he didn't eat enough, showed off a healthy appetite. He'd said he set up camps and did fieldwork, so maybe he was healthier than he looked.

In Iwagishi's absence, Yumi and Mikiko took over directing the conversation. Hoshizono kept his responses polite, even as he was chirped at from both sides like a mama bird with her young. It wasn't easy, being a professional playboy.

“Miss Hayasawa, how did you become an author's secretary?” Mikiko asked Asako. “I kinda admire having a job like that.”

“I suppose first you'd have to take the secretarial exam.”

Asako's answer was diplomatic.

“Wow, Mikiko, you wanna be a secretary?”

Yumi's response was chilly.

“Well, it's way cooler than being something like a regular ol' office lady,” Mikiko answered casually.

Kazuo wondered if that girl would ever experience the true hardships of society.

Breakfast ended with everyone still in a good mood. Still, Akane and Iwagishi hadn't turned up.

“We'd planned to have a meeting this morning, but like this, it will be impossible. I'm sorry, but please stay here for a moment. Our plans to descend the mountain this afternoon have not changed.”

Zaino bowed his head. However, his tone was as indifferent as usual, and he didn't sound very apologetic.

Kazuo and Asako were in charge of clean up. Yumi and Mikiko were acting like customers and showed no intention of helping. But this time, Kazuo appreciated that. Now he had plenty of time to enjoy idle conversation with Asako.

Sagashima was still absorbed in his book, and Zaino idly smoked a cigarette. Yumi and Mikiko kept talking to Hoshizono. Everyone idly whiled away the time. Spending time basking in the warmth of a hot stove doing nothing in particular didn't feel too bad. Eventually, Yumi spoke up.

“Hey, hey, Mr. Hoshizono, there's a game room over there. Let's go check it out!”

“Ah, that's not fair, I wanna go too!”

The three of them left for the game room, then immediately returned with dejected looks on their faces.

Then, finally, as the two college girls ran out of things to talk about and began to sit in silence, Akane woke up. She was dressed in all black and had the same dazed, sleepy eyes as she had when she'd gotten out of the car yesterday.

“Girl... I didn't finish until sunrise. You were right, I shouldn't have brought work here with me, I feel terrible.”

She vigorously scratched her bobbed hair, which still had a few traces of bedhead. The hand she used to scratch ran methodically over her face, neck, chest, and back to the side of her head. The combination of her lazy, old man behavior and her Cleopatra-esque beauty was incredibly jarring.

“Thanks to your hard work, Mr. Fukuike will stop whining at us.”

Asako smiled sympathetically.

“That Fukuike's such a buzzkill. 'Oh, Ms. Kusabuki, I need this in by 6:00, otherwise the editor-in-chief will have my head on a platter!'”

Akane made an expression like she was trying to force herself to cry. She was probably doing an impression of someone she knew. Asako giggled.

“Seriously, can't we do something about his attitude? 'Ohhh, my shoulders are so stiff...'”

Akane sat down in her seat, lit a cigarette, and rubbed her neck like a creaky old man.

“What would you like for breakfast, ma'am?”

Asako was already halfway into the kitchen.

“I don't want anything, I've got no appetite.”

“Just coffee again?”

“Yeah, and make it strong.”

Akane had started rubbing at her thighs. Strangely, when she did it, it came across almost glamorous.

“Ma'am, this isn't good, you need to eat properly. I swear, if it weren't for me, you'd only eat one meal a day.”

Asako's complains came through the kitchen doorway.

“Uuugh...”

Akane groaned with a sleepy look in her eyes as she exhaled cigarette smoke.

“The president is running extremely late.”

Zaino suddenly stood up. Kazuo looked at his watch. It was almost 11:00.

“I'll go wake him.”

With that, Zaino opened the door next to the kitchen and left, walking silent as the grave.

He really was late. No matter how relaxing a trip he was on, there was no excuse for the host to oversleep by this much.

Kazuo opened the glass door and went out on the balcony. He wanted to see how Iwagishi looked as he exited his lodge. Suddenly, a tremendous wind blew. The cold instantly numbed his ears. Leaning over the iron rail of the balcony, he could see the snowy field dotted with lodges. From up there, Zaino's back looked small as he made his way to the lodge. Zaino staggered through the snowy field, which didn't bear a single footprint. He struggled with the wind and seemed to get stuck in the snow, making it look like he was struggling to walk. Zaino's footprints dotted the white blanket as he waddled forward.

“It's freezing out there, shut the door!”

Yumi shouted at him with cheeks puffed.

“Ah, I'm sorry!”

Kazuo rushed back into the room. He shut the glass door, and the warmth of the stove slowly enveloped him.

“Your coffee's ready, ma'am.”

Asako handed Akane a steaming cup of coffee.

“Thank you.”

Akane took a sip and sighed.

“That looks delicious. Miss Asako, might I trouble you for a cup?” asked Hoshizono.

“Oh, I'll get it for you!”

“No fair! I'll get it for him!”

Yumi and Mikiko raced into the kitchen.

“I'll have one too.”

Unusually, it was Sagashima. They ignored him, so Asako had no choice but to go to the kitchen to get his coffee.

The coffee was ready, and just as Hoshizono was about to take a sip, Zaino came barreling into the dining room. He threw the door open so hard that the glass panel shook in its frame. For a moment, Kazuo was afraid he'd broken it. More surprising still, however, was Zaino himself. His usual cool, collected demeanor lay shattered, and his face was pale and panicked.

“Is something the matter?” asked Hoshizono.

“There is. There's a big problem.”

Zaino's jaw was trembling.

“The president... President Iwagishi is dead. I think he's been murdered.”

Kazuo was stunned. He didn't understand. For a second, he thought it must have been a joke, but Zaino's demeanor was deathly serious.

“What? He was murdered...?”

Sagashima's voice was also confused. His surprised face looked exactly like a monkey in a jack-in-the-box, but nobody laughed.

“Yes, he appears to have been strangled.”

Zaino sounded like he was struggling to talk himself.

“HYAAAAAAAAH!”

Mikiko suddenly screamed. Akane put down her coffee with a thunk.

“Are you certain that he was killed?”

“Yes, I think so... No, I'm sure of it.”

Akane suddenly stood up.

“Then let's go.”

With that, almost everyone in the dining room ran outside. Of course, Kazuo went with them. Suddenly, he remembered the voice from last night. Iwagishi was talking to someone. That hysterical voice... did it have something to do with the murder?

But for the time being, he just needed to find out what had happened. Kazuo ran.

They went out the back door as a group. As he ran out, Kazuo bumped into someone and got his foot entangled, nearly kicking the small fire extinguisher by the door.

They ran down the three stairs. Kazuo staggered a bit as the piercing cold wind hit him like a slap to the face. He was about to leap onto the field of snow, when:

“Wait!”

Akane's voice stopped him cold. He turned and saw Zaino, Hoshizono, Asako, and Sagashima still on the stairs, with Akane in the front. It looked like Yumi and Mikiko weren't coming.

“What is it, Ms. Kusabuki?” asked Hoshizono.

Akane stood with her hand on her head.

“Mr. Zaino, did you leave those footprints just now?”

She indicated the snow with her other hand.

There were two sets of footprints there. They overlapped, going straight from the building to Iwagishi's lodge and back.

“Yes, they are mine.”

Zaino nodded with a face turning blue. The sharply angled footprints had been left from stepping on snow that had hardened in the night's chill. There was no doubt they were fresh.

“All right, let's go.”

Akane sounded satisfied as she led the group through the snow. They followed Zaino's footprints, walking against the wind. Hoshizono's longish, wavy hair fluttered behind him.

A bit further on, they came to a spot where Zaino's footprints intersected another set. A set of footprints connected the lodge closest to the administration building and the left path, moving straight from one to the other. They intersected Zaino's path through the snowy field at a right angle.

“Whose lodge is that?”

Hoshizono pointed to the lodge in front of them.

“It's mine.”

Asako's answer was clear.

“So then these must be your footprints,” said Akane.

“Yes, I exited and entered the lodge several times last night,” she said with a nod.

“Ms. Hayasawa's footprints have nothing to do with this.”

Zaino, still in a state of agitation, kept walking.

“When I passed by here, they were already here, and they just go straight from the path to the lodge.”

Zaino didn't seem to care. Indeed, Asako's footprints only connected her lodge to the left path, and they didn't appear to have any connection to the crime.

After a bit more walking, they arrived at Iwagishi's lodge. Kazuo and co. climbed the three stairs, wind to their backs. Zaino, taking position at the head of the group, put his hand on the doorknob and turned back.

“It's not a pleasant sight, so I think it would be for the best if the women stayed outside.”

Nobody responded. The wind whistled past the tense group.

Zaino opened the door, and Kazuo entered the lodge, Hoshizono following close behind. It was horrible. Warm air and a faint smell enveloped him. It was the smell of dusty wood and a hint of old coins – he thought it was the smell of blood, but it might have been an illusion. His nerves were strained to the breaking point. His throat was dry, and his shoulders were tense.

The inside of the lodge was exactly the same as Hoshizono's when he visited last night. Wooden walls, two bunk beds, the table and stools in the narrow space between them, the wardrobe to the left of the entrance and the old, worn-out stove to the right, in front of the beds. The stove had been left on, filling the room with the unnatural warmth. Kazuo felt a drop of sweat run down his forehead, but he couldn't tell if it was from the heat or his fear.

The room looked tidy, as there was nothing to make a mess with, but there was a single foreign object, lying in the gap between the table and the right bed [See Fig. 4, The Lodge Where It Happened]

It was Iwagishi's body.

The body lay on its side with its head to the back of the room, tucked into the narrow space. Showing them his stout back and hefty rear end, you could have mistaken him for having just fallen asleep in an usual position. With him facing the other way, they could only see the back of his head. However, there was proof he wasn't just taking a nap. A rope was looped around his neck. The other end of the rope was tied to the nearest leg of the bed. It was a bizarre sight.

“What do you think?”

Zaino turned back to them as he asked. He looked genuinely horrified.

“Is he dead?”

Sagashima also sounded afraid. He was clinging to Kazuo's back.

“It's as you can see.”

Zaino sounded like he wanted someone else to make the discovery for him.

“He does appear to have been strangled.”

Hoshizono approached the table and made his observation. Then he knelt down to examine Iwagishi's body. Kazuo, with some trepidation, followed his example. Behind them, Sagashima peeked over Kazuo's shoulder.

All four men were now in position to observe the body. As expected, Akane and Asako appeared unable to bring themselves to go inside, and watched them from the entrance.

Kazuo moved his eyes so that the corpse was in the corner of his vision, lacking the courage to look at it directly. Of course, this wasn't his first time seeing a dead body, but what he'd seen before now were “prepared corpses”, so to speak, bodies lying in coffins. It went without saying that this was his first time seeing a murder victim. Even so, he could tell that it was a real corpse. It had no signs of life. Although its shape was that of a human being, it was, without question, an empty shell.

The shell was lodged between the bed and the table, with its hands hanging limp. It was wearing an old fashioned gray tracksuit with the sleeves rolled up, revealing that it didn't have a scratch on either arm, furthering the impression that he was just sleeping. However, Kazuo noticed that on the side of the head facing the ceiling, the hair was raised and strangely stiff. He realized that there was dried blood there and reflexively turned away. His knees began to shake.

“There's blood on his head.”

He addressed Hoshizono's back with a shaky voice.

“Oh, I noticed that, too.”

Hoshizono nodded as though his mind were elsewhere.

Kazuo turned around and met Asako's eyes as she stood anxiously in the entryway. At Asako's questioning look, he slowly shook his head. Asako's brow furrowed, then her eyes fell.

“I think they hit him with that.”

Zaino hesitantly pointed to the side of the bed, slightly to the left. There was an ice axe lying on the floor. It was the same type as the one he'd seen last night in Hoshizono's lodge. He looked up at the wall, near the ceiling. There was a nail to the left, and he figured the ice axe must have been taken off of it. Apparently, the layout here was identical to in Hoshizono's lodge. In addition, there was another nail to the right of the lantern. They must have gotten the mountain climbing rope from there... Remembering that, he looked back at Iwagishi's body, and saw that he'd definitely been strangled with a nylon rope. The rolled-up portion was tucked under the bed. The rope extended like in an Indian rope trick, wrapping around Iwagishi's neck and reaching to the leg of the bed.

Hoshizono silently tilted his head, indicating the corpse and the space on the wall where the rope was supposed to be. It seemed he was thinking the same thing. Kazuo nodded back.

“Looking more closely, I think there's blood.”

Zaino was still pointing at the ice axe. Leaning forward to look more closely, there was a reddish-black mark right on the border between the wooden handle and the metal. It was on the axe's side. Kazuo didn't know who did this, but he thanked them for not using the edge. If they had, it would have made such a mess that he didn't think he could have brought himself to look.

“There's no doubt, it's blood. Mr. Zaino is right, he must have been hit with this.” 

Hoshizono's voice was quiet. At that moment...

“GYAAAAA!”

A cry like a monstrous bird echoed through the air. At the same time, a noise like a clap of thunder rang out.

There was a loud thud.

Kazuo jumped in surprise. His whole body went stiff and his stomach did flips.

When he looked up, he saw Sagashima, crouching by the stove. He was holding his left wrist. Beside him, a large kettle lay on its side.

“...The stove was hot and I hurt myself.”

Sagashima looked at them with a distorted face. He was obviously upset, and his voice was hollow.

“Did you burn yourself?” asked Zaino as he approached.

“I didn't expect it to be that hot...”

Sagashima sounded like he was trying to explain himself. Apparently, he'd touched the stove, which had been left on, and knocked over the kettle. He was a troublesome old man. Kazuo's heart was still pounding.

“This is bad, it's already blistering. You should cool that down right away.”

Zaino's voice held no sympathy.

“What are you doing?” Akane yelled from the doorway. “If you want to cool it, just go stick it in the snow.”

Sagashima ran outside.

As Kazuo watched him leave, a thought occurred to him. The sound of Sagashima's voice returned to him. Perhaps he'd been mistaken... Kazuo had assumed that the voice he'd overheard last night was a woman. However, judging from the sound Sagashima had just made, even a man could make a hysterical voice like that if they got emotional enough. It might have been the voice of the murderer. Iwagishi had been trying to calm down the emotionally agitated criminal, and he'd mistaken it for a lover's quarrel. He couldn't even be sure the voice was female. Had he heard the culprit's voice? But his memory held no clues to the voice's owner, or even whether they were a man or a woman.

“This is definitely a murder,” said Hoshizono. “For the time being, we should report this to the police.”

Zaino nodded.

“Yes, we also need to get Mr. Sagashima treatment for his burns.”

Kazuo followed them out of the lodge.

“Maybe we should turn off the stove,” said Akane, still standing coldly in the entryway.

“It's dangerous, isn't it?”

“I agree. If a fire starts here, it would cause considerable problems,” said Zaino.

He returned to the lodge and reached a hand towards the stove.

“Ah, wait!”

Kazuo stopped him. The words “preserve the scene” flashed through his mind. But Akane turned and glared at him.

“Are you worried about fingerprints? There's no way any culprit would be stupid enough to leave those at a crime scene in this day and age. Besides, everyone here brought gloves with them.”

Kazuo was a bit taken aback. If she was talking about “everyone”, did that mean she suspected the culprit was one of them?

Kazuo was still in a daze as he walked down the stairs.

“Kazuo, look at that,” said Hoshizono.

“Look there. More footprints.”

He would have seen them even if Hoshizono hadn't pointed them out. The footprints went straight from where Kazuo was standing to the left path. There were exactly three lines of them...

“They appear to have been left a while ago.”

It sure looked that way. The footprints originally left in hardened snow had been worn down, probably by the wind, and were now mere ovals in the ground. They were clearly different from the ones their group had just left. But that also made it impossible to determine anything from them.

“A-AAAAAAHHH!”

He heard a strange yell. He looked up and saw it was Sagashima again. He was sitting down with his hands in the snow, astonishment written all over his face. His wide open eyes stared to the left of the lodge.

There was something strange there.

In the snow, there was a circle, about a meter in diameter.

It looked like a heavy circular object had been placed in the snow, then removed...

“I-It's a crop circle!”

Sagashima was still stunned and stammering to himself.

“T-T-The channel, it's got a channel!”

From the mysterious circle stamped to the left of the lodge, a straight line with a width of about 20 cm extended, bending in the middle and ending at the stairs. The line was hollowed out, as though something had passed through it. [See Fig. 5, Outside the Scene, Traces in the Snow]

What the heck? Kazuo tilted his head. The others seemed to be thinking along the same lines and looked with wide eyes. Only Sagashima was speaking.

“Amazing, a real crop circle. And not only that, but a genuine cattle mutilation...”

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