They march through the snow. Hoshizono speaks up along the way. He explains that the two incidents definitely have the same single culprit. Of course, he's correct.

 

They march through the snow.

Hoshizono speaks up along the way.

He explains that the two incidents definitely have the same single culprit.

Of course, he's correct.

The falling snow froze his cheeks.

The tip of his nose was starting to hurt as well. He'd lost all feeling in his toes, and every step he took through the snow prompted nothing but numbness. His teeth wouldn't stop chattering, rattling his jaw without pause. Although he'd only been outside for a brief time, he was already chilled to the core.

The wind pushed him as fresh snow piled around his feet. There were times when he stumbled, but he held on and kept walking, step after step.

He was on the same road he had investigated with Asako yesterday, but it looked completely different. The sky above him roared, shaking the trees violently. A strong wind blew from above. Snow buffeted him from all directions, making it hard to see. The white road and the white wind and the white earth all merged together. Above, below, to the left, to the right, it was all white, covered with a scattering of fine snowflakes.

The wind was so hard it was a struggle for him to even open his eyes, and he shielded his face with both arms. Snow stuck to the arms and melted. He pulled his feet off the ground, kicking up snow with every step. Even in his gloves, his fingertips were sore with cold.

“Mr. Sugishita! You're so fast! Wait up!”

Hearing Yumi's cutesy voice, Kazuo sighed deeply. He stopped and looked back.

Yumi and Mikiko were also advancing, taking timid steps through the raging blizzard. They weren't making much progress, predictably enough. Setting aside Yumi, who was short and chubby, Mikiko's taller figure wavered this way and that, looking like a streamer on a kite in the May sky.

Kazuo patiently waited for the two of them to catch up. When he brushed the top off the hat Asako had given him, the snow blew away in the wind.

They were nowhere near him.

It had been like this from the moment they left. Kazuo took the lead, Yumi and Mikiko followed him, and Hoshizono pulled up the rear... It was a nice enough idea, but there was no way those girls could keep up. Kazuo had stopped like this many times, and each time resulted in a long wait. Walk a little, stop, walk a little, stop. The unsteady pace made the trip even harder. Even worse, the cold and wind blew snow into his collar, and the constant screaming from behind him grated on his nerves. He felt like an idiot, having agreed to come with them.

Kazuo straightened his back the best he could and tried to stay light on his feet as he waited for them. Looking at the snowflakes rapidly blowing by, it created the illusion that he was racing forward at great speed, even though he was standing still. It threw off his sense of balance.

Yumi finally caught up.

“Geez, Mr. Sugishita, you're going so fast. You could at least wait for us.”

She wrinkled the reddened tip of her nose as she spoke. Mikiko followed her, two steps to the right, then three to the left, flailing in the wind. She didn't look like she could talk like this.

Hoshizono pushed through the wind with steady steps, keeping his hands in his coat pockets. The way his snow-dusted hair caressed his chiseled cheeks made him look like the son of a yuki-onna.

Mikiko fell in the snow for what must have been the hundredth time.

“Ow! It's so cold!” she cried.

Yumi, as though in response, slipped and fell as well.

“Ah! It's so cold! Why is it so cold? It wasn't even this cold when I went on that trip to Canada!”

It seemed pointless to complain now, so Kazuo started walking again.

Snowflakes hit his cheek one after the other with a cutting chill. He leaned forward and pushed through. The wind whipped around, swirling up the fallen snow. The air was as cold as a freezer.

Suddenly, he noticed Hoshizono's tall form walking next to him.

“One thing is certain,” he abruptly said, eyes fixed straight ahead.

“As I said yesterday, the only footprints left in front of Mr. Iwagishi's lodge were his own and the culprit's. In other words, they're the only other person to set foot in that lodge. One end of the rope was tied to the leg of the bed – this also suggests there was a single culprit. If there were two culprits, they could have pulled the rope from both sides, rather than taking the longer time tying it.”

Hoshizono's hair danced in the wind as he spoke. Kazuo remained silent, waiting for Hoshizono to continue. He was finally making his thoughts clear.

“Also, at the time of Mr. Iwagishi's murder, nobody had a clear alibi. However, if the culprit had an accomplice, it would have been a great advantage to have them give a false alibi. In a situation with so few suspects, that would allow them to go unsuspected and have greater freedom of movement than the rest, which would also make killing Mr. Zaino easier. However, nobody gave anyone else an alibi in either case... I believe that's proof the culprit has no accomplices. Mr. Zaino's case was also the same as Mr. Iwagishi's. The fact that his pants were also tied to the bed frame indicates that one person committed the crime, and nobody had a solid alibi. Especially those two...”

Hoshizono used his eyes to indicate the two girls staggering after them.

“Even though they slept in the same room, neither of them gave the other a solid alibi.”

Hoshizono lowered his voice, but he didn't have to. There was no way they could hear him over the rush of the wind. Yumi was still yelling complaints, and Mikiko was staggering side to side.

“In other words, there's no trace of any accomplices in Mr. Zaino's case. The odds of two separate murderers being in a group this size are astronomical, and the methods of both crimes are the same. Thus, there is only one conclusion: Both these incidents were committed by the same culprit, working alone.”

“I understand, and I agree with you.”

Kazuo looked at the Apollonian profile of the man who looked like a statue at a winter festival. Hoshizono's conclusion was honestly fairly obvious, but he guessed Hoshizono wasn't one to neglect the basics.

“But sir, if we're only talking about possibilities, I think there are others.”

“Oh? Such as?”

Hoshizono twisted his body to escape a sudden gust of wind. Yumi shrieked from behind them.

“KYAA! What's with this wind!?”

Kazuo ignored her. 

“For example, a murder exchange.”

“I see,” Hoshizono nodded.

“Couldn't Iwagishi's case and Zaino's case could have had separate culprits, each of whom agreed to kill the other person's target?”

“No.”

Hoshizono denied him immediately.

“The whole point of a murder exchange is that it creates a situation in which the perpetrators will avoid suspicion. They would have never committed the murder in a situation where both culprits were in the same suspicious situation like this. Neither culprit has an alibi for either case, either. There's absolutely no point to committing a murder exchange in this way.”

“Then what about a copycat crime? The culprit of the second case imitated the first.”

Kazuo said that, but he didn't believe a word of it. He was just playing devil's advocate. If Hoshizono's method was to prove every last detail, then as the detective's self-proclaimed assistant, his would be to supplement the investigation.

“That isn't possible either.”

Hoshizono appeared to understand his intentions and responded decisively.

“The advantage of a copycat crime is that it puts all the blame on the culprit of the first incident, letting them take the fall for all the crimes. In this case, the culprit would be thinking 'let's take advantage of Mr. Iwagishi's murder to kill Mr. Zaino, and if I'm lucky, they'll blame everything on whoever killed Mr. Iwagishi'. However, we have no idea who that person is. There isn't even anyone here who has an alibi for Mr. Iwagishi's case. In that case, there's a risk that, if something goes wrong with Mr. Zaino's murder, they'll be the one to take the blame for both crimes. I don't see any value in committing a copycat crime here. If nobody benefits to do it, then we can say it didn't happen... Will that be sufficient?”

“Sure, but what if someone wanted to protect the one who killed Iwagishi... so they killed Zaino to protect them?”

“In that case, there was no reason to commit murder. If they wanted to protect them, why didn't they just lie to give him an alibi? ...Kazuo, I think you're straying a bit far from reality.”

“Sorry... I can't think of anything else. I guess we have no choice but to think that there's one culprit with no accomplices after all.”

“I hope the others agree.”

“They will. There's no way they can argue against it.”

“The police too?”

“Yes, the police will have no choice but to accept it.”

“That's good. We've organized our information just a bit more.”

Hoshizono sounded satisfied. It seemed their experiment was a success.

“But sir, what's the culprit's motive?” asked Kazuo. “Why did they kill them both? Since they worked for the same company, I wonder if that had to do with anything.”

“The motive... I don't know.”

Hoshizono narrowed his eyes against the snow hitting his face.

“I didn't actually expect there to be a second victim. Mr. Iwagishi and Mr. Zaino are both people I've never met before, so it's impossible to speculate about the motive, company-related or otherwise.”

“We just don't have enough information.”

“Yes. Perhaps some tangle of incentives and emotions we know nothing about lurks under the surface. That's why, Kazuo, I've given up on trying to guess the motive. I'll expose the culprit some other way.”

“What other ways are there?”

“Of course, I'm talking about the footprints. Not the footprints they left outside Mr. Iwagishi's lodge, but the ones they've left all over the crime: Their psychological profile. That's the only route I see left to us. Even though we've met the rest of these people for the first time here, it's all we can do.”

“Psychological profile... What kind of footprints did they leave?”

Just as Kazuo asked, they heard Yumi howling like a banshee behind them.

 “No more! I can't go any more!”

Her whining was laughably pathetic.

“Mr. Hoshizono~! I'm at my limit! My feet are so cold, I can't walk anymore!”

Yumi had stopped in her tracks, allowing her long hair to be blown wildly in the wind.

Gimme a break, whose fault is it we're out here? Kazuo was about to complain, but when he saw Yumi pouting as though she genuinely thought the answer was “someone else”, he lost the will. She'd truly elevated selfishness to an art form. It seemed she was pathologically incapable of being sensible.

As expected, Hoshizono couldn't deal with her, either.

“Stop your whining, you'll tire yourself out while we still have snow to walk through. You just have to follow the footsteps of the person in front of you...”

Suddenly, Hoshizono went quiet. When Kazuo turned to ask what was wrong, he saw him frowning, standing like an ice sculpture of Narcissus. It was clear he was deep in thought.

“Mr. Hoshizono! I'm going to freeze to death out here! This is why I wanted to come by car.”

Yumi sounded on the verge of tears.

“I can't walk any more either. I can't. If I have to, I'll just collapse...”

Mikiko also broke down sobbing, right there in the snow.

Hoshizono's eyebrows were furrowed in though. He stood there for what felt like a long time.

The wind howled as snow whipped past them. Kazuo's body grew as cold as though an ice arrow had pierced him down to the marrow of his bones.

Oi, oi, what are you doing out here? If an artist captured this moment, framed it, and sold it as “The Absolute Worst”, tickets would sell out in half an hour...

 “Well, can't be helped. Let's go back.” 

Hoshizono said it as though it were the simplest thing in the world...

“.........We're going back?”

Kazuo was flabbergasted. They hadn't even reached the avalanche yet. It was so pathetic, he was the one who wanted to cry.

“Sir, since we already came this far, why don't I just go on by myself? I can get down and call the police-”

“No, you come back, too. I'd rather have you with me.”

Hoshizono sounded like he didn't understand Kazuo's point.

“Hooray! C'mon, let's head back already!”

Yumi jumped up. Mikiko, image-conscious as ever, brushed off her fur coat before following.

“Come on, Kazuo, let's go. There's nothing we can do. This weather is harsh for an innocent maiden.”

Kazuo could only assume that Hoshizono had anticipated this from the very beginning.

 

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