The Wavering of Haruhi Suzumiya (16 page)

“Excuse me for a moment,” Koizumi muttered to me. “I need to go speak to Arakawa et al about tomorrow’s arrangements.”

And with that, he left the common area. I didn’t know what he needed to meet with them about, but that wasn’t my problem at the moment. The fate of my clubroom portrait was in the hands of my own sense of spatial orientation.

My round of fukuwarai ended with a burst of laughter. Oh well. It would’ve spoiled the mood if I’d arranged a perfect face, I suppose. Hey—Tsuruya, you’re laughing a little too hard, I thought.

As I took off the towel amid Tsuruya’s and Haruhi’s cackling, I saw Koizumi return. Reflexively, I checked the clock.

It was just past two thirty.

“Pardon my absence.”

For some reason, Koizumi had gone somewhere and returned carrying Shamisen. What was he doing with that cat? I asked him.

“Ah, nothing. He was just following Mori around too much in the kitchen.”

Koizumi set the calico down on the cushion in front of the heater, whereupon the cat curled up in front of the warm airflow. Putting a well-fed cat somewhere warm is the best way to get it to behave.

“How did you do?”

Koizumi sat down next to me at the table and took a look at
the proceedings. My little sister had inflicted her paste upon the portraits of myself, Tsuruya, and Koizumi. Surely there was something better than these to decorate the clubroom with—Asahina’s cosplay photos, for example.

Time passed, and the game of fukuwarai proceeded with Asahina, then Nagato. Asahina’s hands were charmingly hesitant as she felt around for the parts of her face, and in the end her portrait was just as charming. Nagato then completed a surrealist version of herself that absolutely slew Tsuruya. Nagato regarded her own work curiously, having no idea what was so funny about it.

As we continued to play—

“Excuse me, everyone—it will soon be three o’clock.”

Koizumi made his announcement.

“I’d like everyone to take a short break. I’ll need you all to stay here from three to four o’clock, so if you need to use the bathroom, now is your chance.”

Everyone left the room except Nagato, Yutaka, Koizumi, and me. Nagato continued to regard her fukuwarai portrait, while Yutaka watched her profile, seemingly amused.

I turned to Koizumi.

“When will the murder happen?”

“More important, take a look outside the window.” Koizumi pointed outside. “You can see that it is snowing, correct? Please remember that. If it hadn’t been snowing, I would have had to ask you to pretend that it was, but fortunately, things are working out nicely.”

As I was scrutinizing Koizumi’s easy smile, the four girls returned. Yutaka seemed like the most likely suspect to me. He had no other role to play, after all. Not that he was actually doing anything suspicious at the moment.

Haruhi sat back down at the hearth.

“Koizumi, let’s do that next. Get it out for me, will you?”

“Understood. That game, yes?”

Koizumi again went over to his rucksack. Wondering what handmade nonsense he was going to pull out this time, I followed him over. He rummaged around for a moment, then, looking back at me, produced a large sheet of paper by some sleight of hand.

“Please give this to Suzumiya.”

Koizumi handed me a large sheet of paper that was folded over onto itself; it fluttered slightly in the heater’s breeze. As I tried to open it, I felt suddenly uneasy. It wasn’t because of the big sheet of paper. There was Koizumi right in front of me, his hand on his bag, and next to it was the heater. Also there was Shamisen, sleeping comfortably away on the cushion.

There wasn’t anything strange about it, and yet something was off. Had Koizumi seemed nervous when I’d gotten close to him?

“Kyon, what’re you doing? Bring it over here!”

I reluctantly brought the mysterious sheet of paper back to the table, Koizumi following me.

The clock indicated exactly three o’clock.

“Koizumi and I made it!”

Haruhi’s pride seemed to hit a crescendo. It was written all over her face.

“It’s a board game just for the SOS Brigade! I drew every square by hand, so you’d better be grateful.”

Incidentally, the first square my piece landed on said this:

KYON ONLY—THIRTY PUSH-UPS.

Other squares said things like
PLAY STRIP ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS WITH THE NEXT PERSON WHO STOPS
, or
SAY FIVE NICE THINGS TO THE CHIEF
, or
ANSWER EVERYBODY’S QUESTIONS HONESTLY (AND EVERYBODY HAS TO ASK THE MOST EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS THEY CAN)
, and so on. It was a board game filled with Haruhi-style punishments.

After much fuss, obviously we wound up playing it. Asahina and Yutaka landed on the strip rock-paper-scissors square, but Asahina’s blank face made it clear she didn’t have the slightest idea what the terms meant, so I wound up playing in her stead. What followed was a parade of squares I can only assume were designed to exhaust me. An hour later, when Tsuruya finally reached the goal, I was about ready to collapse.

I’m sure Koizumi didn’t care about me a bit, but he raised his hand and spoke, as though he’d been looking forward to it.

“Your attention please, everybody. It is now four o’clock,” he announced like a timekeeper for a live broadcast. “It is now free time. Please assemble back here by four thirty. Also, if possible, please refrain from going outside. Of course, that only applies if you are not the murderer.”

“Well then, if you’ll excuse me,” said Yutaka Tamaru, smiling meaningfully as he stood. “I need to unpack the luggage in my room. Don’t worry, I’ll be back in five minutes.”

He left immediately thereafter, whereupon Haruhi announced, “I’m going to the kitchen,” and she did, taking Tsuruya with her, returning a few moments later bearing tea cakes and drinks. No one else left the table. Nobody wanted to be accused of being the murderer, after all—especially if it wasn’t true.

Incidentally, I should add that Yutaka did indeed return five minutes later.

It was just past four thirty in the afternoon.

Mori entered the common area and made an announcement.

“Mr. Keiichi is not answering the door.”

She pretended to look unsettled.

“I checked the shack, but there is no response, and the door has been locked.”

“It’s time!” Haruhi said, standing up gallantly. “We’ll need to check the scene of the crime first.”

Every inch the tour guide, Koizumi headed down the hallway, the rest of us trailing behind.

Upon opening the doors that led to the courtyard, we found outdoor shoes set out for us in advance. After putting them on and making our way down the path to the shack, we found Arakawa waiting beside the door.

“What’s the situation?” asked Haruhi.

“Just as Mori said, I’m sure. The door is locked from the inside, and Mr. Keiichi is the only one who has the key. Incidentally, there are no duplicates.”

“That’s how things are,” noted Koizumi. “However, there is no need to break the door down. Please simply assume that there are no duplicate keys. Arakawa, the key, please.”

Arakawa the butler extended his hand, which contained a key.

“This key does not really exist. Please act as though that were true.”

Koizumi opened the door, through which Haruhi immediately strode.

“Hi.”

Keiichi waved at us. Lying next to the futon, the elder Tamaru brother pointed to his chest.

“I’ve been stabbed again.”

A knife handle stuck out of his chest—a gag toy I’d seen before.

“Who stabbed you?” asked Haruhi.

“I can’t say. I’m dead, after all, and corpses don’t talk.”

With that, his hand flopped down onto the floor.

“Everyone, please,” began Koizumi, “take a careful look around the room. The key to the shack is here on the desk. This is, of course, the one that Keiichi brought with him. That means that the murderer did not leave through the door.”

Koizumi approached the window that faced the veranda.

“The window is closed, but it is not locked, which means that the killer escaped through it. Also, snow is piling up outside.”

Once Koizumi opened the window, we all peered out at the courtyard.

“Allow me to explain the killer’s escape route. We know that he or she did not leave through the door, but escaped through the window. While walking through the snow would of course leave footprints behind, none are visible. Look above the window—the eaves of this shack overhang all four corners, and directly beneath them, the layer of snow is very thin. The killer walked along the outside wall to get to the path that returns to the house.”

I looked down at the ground that Koizumi was pointing to, then back up to the sky. Snow was slowly falling.

“The falling snow has covered up the killer’s footprints. Based on this rate of snowfall… the footprints wouldn’t have disappeared in less than thirty minutes.”

Then, as if to confirm that everybody understood, he added, “This is the scenario. I ask for your cooperation. The corpse cannot talk, but as the game’s master, I will not deceive you.”

“Hmm.”

Haruhi looked back and forth from the snow to Koizumi, then frowned and folded her arms.

“Is that all?”

Koizumi only pointed to the futon. Something seemed to be moving around beneath the soft comforter. Could it be—?

It was Haruhi who pulled the comforter aside, to reveal—

“Shamisen?”

It was definitely our cat, narrowing his eyes at the sudden light.

We returned to the common area and sat around the table.

Mori and Arakawa quietly stood back, while Keiichi—his corpse duties concluded—was probably enjoying a nice cup of coffee somewhere.

“Let’s put the facts in order. Keiichi entered the shack at exactly two o’clock. His body was discovered just a moment ago, at four
thirty. We know for sure that the crime was committed sometime during those two and a half hours. The doors were locked from the inside, and the key was inside the room. Let me reiterate that you must assume that there were no duplicate keys. The window that faced the veranda was unlocked, which means the killer escaped through that window.”

Koizumi explained the facts.

“It would be impossible to reach the path to the shack from the window without leaving footprints. The fact that there are no footprints means that the prints that were once there have been covered by the falling snow.”

He looked at the calico cat that my sister held.

“Moreover, Shamisen was present at the scene of the crime when the corpse was discovered. Now, let’s think back. Before discovering him with the body, when did we last see the cat?”

I’d seen him right after Koizumi told everyone to take a bathroom break. He’d been sleeping by the rucksack when Koizumi took Haruhi’s punishment board game out of it, I told everyone.

“What? Really?”

Haruhi pushed on her forehead with her finger.

“Now that you mention it, I don’t have any memory of seeing the cat for the last three hours. Was he really there?”

“I think he was there…” said Asahina without much confidence. “I, um, saw him a few times when we were playing fukuwarai. He was sleeping on the cushion.”

“That was the last I saw of him too!” said Tsuruya. “Right when I stood up to head to the bathroom, I saw the kitty cat all curled up there. I think he was there when we were board-gamin’ it up too.”

It seemed that based on witness testimony, I was the last one to have seen him. Which meant that Shamisen had no alibi from three to four o’clock.

Sometime during the time we were absorbed with the game,
he’d woken up and wandered off somewhere. Eventually he’d found his way into Keiichi’s room, then snuck into the futon…

Wait—that can’t be right.

“There’s no way the cat would decide to go into the shack of his own volition,” I said. “He hated the cold so much he freaked out just by being outside for a bit. He flinched away from the snow, and he couldn’t have opened the door from the main house to the courtyard by himself.”

“True.”

Koizumi voiced his mild agreement.

“It stands to reason that someone must have taken him there. Either Keiichi or the killer.”

“Well, it couldn’t have been Keiichi.”

Haruhi butted in.

“He said he was allergic to cats. That was foreshadowing, although it was kinda fake.”

“Of course, that was part of the setup for the mystery. It would have been a bit problematic otherwise. So whoever brought the cat into the room must be the killer. This seems to be a hint.”

Haruhi raised her hand at Koizumi’s declaration.

“Now wait just a minute. So that means Shamisen was with us until three, whereupon he went missing. The killer had to leave the shack no later than four thirty. It took half an hour for the snow to cover the tracks, so that narrows it down to four. That means that the killer took Shamisen—and killed Keiichi—sometime between three and four.”

That sounded right, I said.

“The hell it does!” Haruhi said. “Something’s wrong. The only ones who left the room at four were Tsuruya, Yutaka, and me. But I was with Tsuruya the whole time, so that means she’s not the killer. Yutaka’s suspicious, but if it took at least half an hour for the snow to cover the tracks, he couldn’t have done it either.”