Chapter 20 Chapter 18 Scandal

Back in Tokyo, Totsukawa investigates Masashi Horie's alibi when the serial killings occurred 20 years ago.That was because it was impossible to investigate whether Horie was involved in the murder of the young woman, so he had to investigate from his alibi.But it's also difficult. One is because this incident happened twenty years ago, and the other is that once people know that he is investigating the alibi of the deceased, they will inevitably put pressure on him to stop him from investigating. So he had to secretly investigate Horie's alibi twenty years ago. If it happened when Horie was the Minister of State, there are still records to check, because someone would record the minister's daily actions. However, the murder incident 20 years ago happened after he stepped down.

The incidents all happened on Sunday night, when Congress is closed on Sunday, and there is a chance to kill people at night. But since it was late at night, not to mention proving his alibi was very difficult, it was also very difficult to prove that his alibi was false. Twenty years ago, when the third murder occurred on the banks of the Keio Tama River, a black high-end car was witnessed.Could this black luxury car be Horie's car?Because Totsukawa was so skeptical, he wanted to meet the witness, but unfortunately the witness was dead. The criminal police who received the report ignored the black high-end car because they believed that the white Porsche was involved.

Perhaps the witnesses clearly saw the owner of the black high-end car, but there was no mention of this in the investigation report.Many of Masashi Horie's friends have passed away. "It's nerve-wracking." Totsukawa couldn't help but sighed to Detective Kamei. Because his search work hit the rocks. If it is a recent incident, even if he encounters difficulties, he can still search, but for the incident twenty years ago, he has no such ability. Because almost everyone who can ask is dead. Just when he entered a dead end, Detective Kamei got a piece of news. "I don't know if this is true. I heard that the "Big Insider" photography magazine originally wanted to publish Horie's photos, but I didn't expect to cause a lot of trouble and was forced to postpone the publication." Detective Kamei said.

"Is the Horie you mentioned Master Horie?" "yes." "What photo is it?" "I don't know either, but I heard that it was a scandalous photo for Master Horie." Totsukawa pondered. Although he didn't know what the photo was, but Totsukawa wondered if that photo might be related to this incident? If it has nothing to do with it, it's just a nude photo of Master Horie, it doesn't mean anything to Totsukawa. "Let's go investigate." After saying that, Totsukawa stood up. Since the search hit the rocks, the direction of the search had to be changed.

"Big Insider" is not a big publishing house, but a small publishing house that publishes a weekly magazine. Totsukawa and Detective Kamei go to Kanda to visit the publishing house. The name of the president is Aida. As soon as Detective Kamei mentioned the photo in question that was prohibited from being published, Aida quickly shook his hand and said, "That's a complete rumor. This week's magazine never planned to publish the photo of Diet Member Horie." "However, your weekly magazine is usually published on Mondays. Why hasn't this issue been published yet?" Kamei Detective asked.

"It was a little trouble in the printing house, which delayed the publication date." "However, we heard the news that you were pressured by Horie to postpone the publication. Is this true?" Totsukawa asked. Aida said a little unhappily: "There is no such thing, this magazine does not have a photo of Diet Member Horie at all, let alone publish it." "If you lie, you're in big trouble." "I didn't lie, and there's no need to lie to the police about such trivial matters." Aida shrugged. Totsukawa and Detective Kamei left the publishing house, and the editorial staff left the publishing house in a nearby cafe.

Totsukawa finally caught a young editor. Totsukawa brought the annual editor into the cafe, showed him his police ID and said, "We want to ask you about the photo of Diet Member Horie published in your magazine." When Totsukawa said this, Fang Fang turned blue with fright and said, "I don't know what you're talking about." "Looking at your expression, you must have wanted to publish the scandalous photos of Diet Member Horie. Why didn't you publish them suddenly? I hope you will tell me the details." Totsukawa said. "That's not the case." The other party said with a guilty conscience.

"Are you afraid to tell the truth because you were threatened?" Detective Kamei stared at the other person's face and said. The young editor blinked and said, "Since the publication of this magazine, it has never published scandalous photos of politicians." "No, it should be, because we have investigated it clearly. Did you cancel the publication of the photo because you were pressured by Members of the Horie Diet? Or was the violent group N Group in Kabukicho, Shinjuku intimidated you? No, it is also possible It's the political group N that will intimidate you, isn't it?"

When Totsukawa asked, the young editor gradually became flustered. "Sure enough, it was Teramoto who threatened you not to publish that kind of photo." Totsukawa nodded. The other party didn't say a word. But it was obvious that he seemed to be afraid of something. Totsukawa said as if encouraging the other party: "Can you tell us what photo is that? Who owns it now? We are very eager to know, so I hope you can help us. We will never say that you told us. Take it easy on you." "No." The other party said in a low voice. "You can't see it, do you really have that kind of photo?"

"We won't cause trouble for you, can you tell us who to go to see the photo?" Totsukawa said very gently. The other party seemed to be still hesitating, and after a while, he said: "All the trial copies of this issue have been disposed of, but the editor-in-chief seems to have kept a few copies." "Can you tell me, what is the name of the editor-in-chief? Where does he live?" "The editor-in-chief's name is Maejima, and he lives in Nerima—" the other party said in a small voice. "Let's go and see." Totsukawa told Kamei detective, got up and left, leaving the young editor in the cafe.

They drove the patrol car to the training horse. Maeshima's home is about twelve to three minutes away from Nerima Station by car. When I saw the nameplate of "Maejima", I realized that the entrance door was open. Totsukawa felt that there was something strange in the house. Because he heard groans coming from the second floor. "Mr. Maeshima!" Detective Kamei stood at the door and yelled. Since no one answered, he quickly entered the house with Totsukawa and watched from the first floor. Since it was past seven o'clock, the lights were turned on downstairs and upstairs.The two of them glanced at the reception room downstairs, it was in a mess, thinking something must have happened. Totsukawa ran up to the second floor without hesitation, followed by Detective Kamei. There was a man lying in the six-square-meter Japanese-style room, his face was swollen due to the beating. Judging by his stomach, the stomach must have been beaten too. His face was so swollen from the beating that it nearly covered his eyes and was bleeding. "Are you okay?" Totsukawa asked.Detective Kamei hurried downstairs, wet the towel with water and took it upstairs. Totsukawa put a wet towel on the man's face, and said, "The other party is really ruthless, and even attacked so hard, why didn't you call the police? May I call the police for you?" "No." The man said in a hoarse voice. "why not!" "Because once the criminals know that I call the police, I will die, and I don't want the police to question me." After that, the man opened his swollen eyes and stared at Totsukawa and Detective Kamei. "Who are you?" "It's your friend right now. Are you Mr. Maeshima, the editor-in-chief of "Big Insider"?" "Yes. Who are you?" Maeshima asked again. "Have all the trial prints of this issue been handed over to the gangsters?" "Yes. They have been taken away by the gangsters." Maejima said in a vague voice. Totsukawa and Detective Kamei glanced at each other. Maejima slowly got up, a smile appeared on his swollen face. "However, I have kept one copy, which I have kept in a very secret place, as I had expected such a thing to happen." "Can you show us that book?" "No, I don't know who you are, so how can I show it to you casually?" "We are the people who watch the police." Totsukawa showed Maejima his police card. Maeshima frowned and said, "Why would the police want to see it? There are no pornographic photos here." "Anyway, please show it to us." Totsukawa said. "What if I don't agree?" "I have no choice but to search your home. I can search your home on the grounds that you were almost killed." "I admit it." After saying that, Maejima stood up and entered another room. He peeled off a weekly magazine from behind a wall chart hanging to the floor. It is a sample periodical with white paper as the cover. Maejima handed the weekly magazine to Totsukawa, and said, "If you want to read it, you can take it home and read it, but don't publish it, and I hope you can keep it a secret, otherwise I will die." "Don't worry about this, we're just using it as a reference for handling the case, and we won't show it to others." After Totsukawa finished speaking, he hid the weekly magazine and left the Maejima house. Back in the patrol car, after driving for a while, he stopped and flipped through the weekly magazine. The photo of Master Horie is published on the third page. Detective Kamei was also watching. It was a photo taken at night, and there are two men in the photo. One is Master Horie. The other is a tall young man. Young MPs getting gay? This kind of title jumped into the eyes impressively. That tall, handsome man was named Yoshioka Masashi, twenty-eight years old.Here's what the photo says: In the world of glass circles, he is known as a handsome man, maybe he has something to do with actor K. Actor K is 40 years old and still unmarried, so weekly magazines often report whether he is gay.The next page is a photo of two people riding in a Porsche. Master Horie was driving the car, and Masashi Yoshioka was sitting in the passenger seat.Kooka faced Master Horie. "It's just this kind of photo!" Totsukawa sighed softly, because it was different from what he thought. "This kind of photo will cause harm to young politicians?" Detective Kamei asked Totsukawa in confusion. "Perhaps the reputation will be affected? It is said that many homosexuals have been infected with AIDS recently." "No wonder Congressman Koborie is still a bachelor." Detective Kamei said with some insight. It's not surprising to be unmarried at the age of forty, but if there are rumors of homosexuality, it will be a big problem. "The question is, does this have anything to do with the murder incident 20 years ago?" Totsukawa said. Detective Kamei looked at the photo and said, "Is it okay? Because if he's interested in the same sex, he's not interested in the opposite sex." "Maybe." Totsukawa was a little disappointed. Because he thought it might be a photo of Master Horie getting drunk and entangled with a woman. If it is this kind of photo, it may be related to the murder incident 20 years ago. When the search work hit the rocks, I hope to find clues from the photo. Although Master Horie's homosexuality will affect his political career, it may not be deafly related to the murder incident twenty years ago. "Abandon this clue?" Kamei detective asked. "yes." "If it has nothing to do with the incident, then his homosexuality is purely a private matter, and our police can't interfere with it." Detective Kamei said, becoming a mother-in-law. "Even if you ask Mr. Horie himself or someone in his office about the photo in person, they will deny it," Totsukawa said. "So, shall we meet the handsome Yoshioka Masashi?" Detective Kamei asked. "Let's go! Because if we go to meet him, maybe we can know something about Master Horie." Totsukawa said. They went to Roppongi to visit the hotel where Yoshioka worked. The hotel was on the third floor of a residential building and was richly decorated. Totsukawa originally thought that the hotel where Yoshioka worked would have a strange atmosphere, but when he arrived, he found that there was no such atmosphere. The guests are mostly men, and the female guests are in the minority. The young people who work in this hotel are all tall, handsome men with handsome faces. Detective Totsukawa and Kamei Detective sat down in front of the counter, ordered a bottle of beer each and asked, "Where's Mr. Yoshioka?" "He's on vacation today," said the young man at the counter. "When did he start taking leave?" "From yesterday." Said the white-skinned young man who looked like a mixed race. (Youth with long eyelashes.) While thinking this way, Totsukawa asked, "Do you know where he lives?" "have no idea." "Please tell me, because I am anxious to see him." Totsukawa said after showing the police ID to the other party.The manager hurried over. He is a middle-aged man who is a bit fat. "Did something happen to Yoshioka?" the manager asked. Totsukawa smiled and said, "No! We just want to talk to him." "yes?" With a relieved expression, the manager told Totsukawa the address of the Shibuya apartment. "If he's not home, it means he's out on a trip." "Do you know where he travels?" Detective Kamei asked this question, and the manager quickly entered inside, and came back after a while and said, "Maybe it's to Shimoda." "Does he have friends in Shimoda?" "His friend said he might have gone to Mr. Fukamachi's villa." "Who is Fukamachi?" Detective Kamei asked this question, and the manager said in surprise, "He is a very famous young industrialist! He owns several houses in Roppongi and Harajuku." "Humph!" Detective Kamei snorted a little unconvinced. Totsukawa and Kamei detectives found out the address of Shimoda Villa and left the hotel. The two drove to Shibuya in a patrol car. Although he quickly found the apartment, Yoshioka was not here. "It seems that he has gone to work in the field." Kamei detective said. "Call first to make sure." After Totsukawa finished speaking, he dialed the Shimoda villa's phone number written on a notepad at a nearby public phone booth. Although he heard the ringing of the other party's phone, no one answered the phone. Totsukawa had a sense of foreboding. "Go and see anyway." Totsukawa spoke to the Kamei detective, and after contacting Nishimoto and other detectives who searched the headquarters, he drove the patrol car to Shimoda, Izu. Uneasiness deepened. It was already late at night when we entered the Izu Peninsula. It was 4:30 in the morning when we arrived at Shimoda. Since it was not yet dawn, the citizens were still sleeping. The two of them went to Fukamachi Goro Villa by the sea according to the map. It is a building made of reinforced concrete, which protrudes a little towards the sea. "The light is not on." Kamei detective said in the car. "It's better to visit after dawn." Totsukawa said. The surroundings gradually brightened. It has been a long time since Totsukawa watched the sunrise at the beach. I saw a young girl walking on the beach with a dog. "awesome." Totsukawa couldn't help but be fascinated. They got out of the car and came to the entrance of the villa. On the door is a nameplate spelled in Roman characters: "FUKAMACHI". There are two cars parked in the garage next to the entrance, one is a Porsche and the other is a Mercedes. Detective Kamei rang the bell. No one answered. Totsukawa felt ominous again, although he was a little anxious, but since he didn't have a search ticket, he couldn't go in to check without authorization. They patrolled around the villa. A white yacht was seen moored. "What a big boat!" Detective Kamei said with admiration. "Looks like they want to go to Ogasawara," Totsukawa said. They climbed over the low iron railing and walked on the jetty to which the yacht was tied. Due to the deep curtains in the cabin, it is impossible to see the situation inside from the jetty. They boarded the yacht by the gangway. Open the window from the deck and climb into the cabin. It was a room with a table, a bottle of brandy on it, and a glass dropped on the floor. There was a double bed in the room inside. Totsukawa looked at that room and couldn't help frowning. It turned out that he saw two disheveled male corpses lying on the double bed. Blood splattered everywhere. (Sure enough, the opponent did it again.) While thinking this way, Totsukawa measured the pulses of these two people, which had stopped beating. "Is the murder weapon a pistol?" Detective Kamei asked Totsukawa. "It seems that both of them were shot from behind." Totsukawa said seriously. There was no clutter in the cabin, just glasses dropped on the floor. From this point of view, the murderer hid in the cabin in order to kill these two people, and shot from behind in order to facilitate escape, right? Judging from the fact that the walls and windows of the cabin were not hit by stray bullets, the murderer must have fired calmly. Under the instructions of Totsukawa, Kamei Detective used the phone in the cabin to call 119 to report the case. Seven or eight minutes later, the patrol car and forensic car of the Shizuoka prefectural police arrived at the murder scene. Among the criminal police, a police department named Minagawa greeted Totsukawa. "We came to look for them because we suspected that they were related to the Tokyo incident, but we didn't expect to find two dead bodies." Totsukawa said, ignoring Kohorie Diet Member. "So, you know these two people?" Minagawa Police Department asked. "One is the owner of this villa and this yacht, named Shenmachi. To be honest, we don't know much about this person. We came to this villa to talk to another victim, another murdered young man. His name is Masashi Yoshioka, he is twenty-eight years old, he is a cowherd, and his address is an apartment in Shibuya, Tokyo." "These two people were killed with disheveled clothes. Do they have that kind of habit?" "It is said that Yoshioka Masashi is a homosexual." Totsukawa said. "Then, is it because the gay partners are jealous that they were killed?" Minagawa stared at the two corpses and said. "Maybe." Totsukawa agreed. Although Totsukawa believed that the murderer killed Fukamachi who was with him in order to kill Yoshioka Masashi, but he couldn't say that at the moment. Although Yoshioka was killed, it can be seen that Yoshioka has something to do with Master Horie, but this is purely his personal opinion, so it cannot be said.What's more, as soon as Master Horie's name is mentioned, his search will definitely be full of crises. "We will go back to Tokyo to search Yoshioka's apartment. If we find anything, we will notify you immediately." Totsukawa said to Minagawa. Totsukawa and Detective Kamei hurried back to Tokyo. They both looked worried, because they thought that since the murderer went to Shimoda to kill Yoshioka, he would inevitably search his apartment as well. They returned to Tokyo and immediately transferred to Yoshioka's apartment in Shibuya. Sure enough, as they expected, Yoshioka's room was turned upside down. Even so, Totsukawa and Kamei detectives carefully inspected the room. First, Detective Kamei found an address book. There were nearly thirty people in total, all men's names and phone numbers. Among them are the names of famous actors. "This is the roster that film and television reporters want." Detective Kamei said. "There is no member of Congress Kohorie's name." "Will it not be taken away because there is none?" "Guilao, what do you think?" Totsukawa asked. "What do you mean?" "The relationship between Congressman Kohorie and the murdered Yoshioka Masashi, are they really having a homosexual relationship?" "I think it is true, otherwise it would not prevent the weekly magazine from publishing the photo, let alone kill Yoshioka." "It does seem so." Totsukawa was lost in thought. "Is there anything strange?" "Master Horie is a new member of Congress, and he is expected to make great achievements in the future. At such an important moment, even if he is gay, will he be so accidentally photographed by the photographers of the weekly magazine? What's more, Yoshioka's roster is also Not his name." "I can explain this. Could it be that before he was elected as a member of Congress, he could still restrain his feelings, but after he was elected, because he was relieved, he revealed his true colors? His name did not appear on the roll. He just became Yoshioka's guest that day, and Yoshioka hasn't registered yet." Detective Kamei said. Maybe? But Totsukawa thought to himself, is Master Horie meeting Yoshioka really gay? If so, wouldn't it be very nerve-wracking once this matter is spread? Detective Kamei, who was searching the room, suddenly said to Totsukawa: "It's so strange! I can't find a single photo of Yoshioka Masashi."