The morning of the fourth day on the island had started extremely normal. Really, extremely normal.
I awoke the same as always. By the time I got to Kunagisa's room, she was already awake and sitting at her computers. She said she was checking her e-mail. "Do my hair," she said, without so much as a "good morning." I put the hair on the top of her head in two tails, what we called a "twin tail." I figured it would be easy enough for her to undo it herself this time.
"I feel like taking breakfast today," she said, so we headed for the dining room. Peeking into the living room on the way, I found that Maki-san and Shinya-san were still there, drinking wine. They must have been up all night drinking. "They sure aren't paying their age any mind," I thought, but of course I stayed quiet.
Out of courtesy, I invited them to breakfast and they accepted. The four of us entered the dining room. Sitting at the table were Akane-san and, making a rare appearance, Iria-san.
"Oh, what an unusual occurrence," Iria-san also said. "To have everyone gathered like this even in the morning… Well, I suppose it was inevitable. Shall I call in the others? It would be nice to do breakfast together."
She summoned the nearby Akari-san and asked her to go fetch Yayoi-san, who was no doubt in the kitchen, and the other maids.
"Well, I'll go fetch Kanami-san," Shinya-san said. "She's probably all done painting by now anyway. Hmm, I wonder if she's still sleeping. Ehh, she doesn't get cranky in the morning. Despite her lousy personality."
He chuckled a bit at his own joke and looked at me. "Hope you're looking forward to seeing that picture," he said and left the dining room.
It would have been the first time Kunagisa and I had done breakfast with the entire group, but it never actually happened.
When Shinya-san returned to the dining hall, what he brought was the news of Kanami-san's death.
"Kanami's been… Murdered."
That's how he phrased it, anyway, but it was quite a bit of an understatement if you ask me. There was no way she died of sickness or an accident or even suicide—she had been beheaded.
Whatever the case.
This was a murder.
And not just a murder, but…
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"Me? I was… Right, after dinner, I was with Kunagisa the whole time. I took a bath in her room, then she said she was hungry, so we went to the living room. On the way we ran into Akari-san. Isn't that right? Right. In the living room we met Hikari-san, Maki-san, and Shinya-san, and then… The earthquake. There was an earthquake, right? We were in the living room until that earthquake occurred. After that, I took Kunagisa back to her room, and then… Right, I went to sleep. I woke up today at six, and I've been with Kunagisa ever since." I tried my best to sound calm, even under everyone's gaze.
An alibi check.
Why we had to start with me, I don't know, but Iria-san had requested it, so there was no choice. It seemed she viewed me as the prime suspect.
The dining room.
Eating my slightly cold breakfast.
No one else seemed to be able to continue with breakfast after seeing the headless corpse, and indeed I was feeling pretty squeamish myself but Yayoi-san's cooking was so good, I couldn't just let it all go to waste.
The round table.
Iria-san, Teruko-san, Rei-san, Yayoi-san, Shinya-san, Kunagisa Tomo, myself. Akane-san, Maki-san, Hikari-san, and Akari-san. Everyone was sitting in their assigned seats, with only Kanami-san's seat, at the five o'clock position, empty. It would never be filled.
Iria-san tilted her head at me a bit in response to my testimony. Then she glanced over at Hikari-san in the ten o'clock seat. "Hikari, is that true?"
"Yes," she nodded. "Up until the earthquake occurred… Um… One o'clock, was it? Yes, one o'clock. The five of us including me were talking the whole time. I can vouch for that."
"Did anyone get up and leave for a while?"
"No," Hikari said with a bit of uncertainty. "I don't think so… Although I couldn't say for certain."
"No one left," Kunagisa said, coming to her rescue. "And I've got a perfect memory. Nobody left the living room."
"Is that so?" Iria-san closed her eyes. "In that case, you and Kunagisa-san, Sakaki-san, Himena-san, and Hikari can all account for one another up until the earthquake, is that right? How about after the earthquake?"
"I slept alone, so I suppose I don't have an alibi."
"Thank you. Well then, I suppose I should go ahead and give my alibi next. Last night I was with Rei and Sashirono-san in my room, talking. Yesterday's dinner was even more delicious than usual, so I was asking her about the recipe. Isn't that right, Sashirono-san?"
Possibly because her name had suddenly come up, Yayoi-san looked a bit startled. "Yes," she nodded quickly.
Rei-san shrugged a bit but said nothing. If you thought about it, she must've been a really cool-headed person. Of course, Teruko-san was quiet as ever, but Rei-san was more silent than you would have imagined. Whether she was just being loyal to her employer or this was just her natural personality, I wasn't sure.
"The earthquake happened, and… Then I decided to go back to my room," she said as if struggling to remember.
"That's right," Iria-san nodded. "After that, Rei and I were up all night talking. Kunagisa-san will be leaving soon, so I thought we should discuss the idea of holding some kind of fun event… You know, like a farewell party. That's the tradition here. Anyway, we ended up forgoing sleep, so I just came straight here for breakfast."
In other words, Iria-san and Rei-san had perfect alibis. Yayoi-san, like Kunagisa and I, only had an alibi up until the earthquake.
"Shinya-san and I have complete alibis as well," Maki-san said. "Kunagisa-chan and the rest can confirm that up until the earthquake, and Shinya-san and I can vouch for each other after that. My, alcohol is just wonderful."
Just how trustworthy was a drunk person's testimony? Maki-san must've known I was thinking that because she glared at me. But without a word to me, she turned to Shinya-san. "Isn't that right?" she asked.
"Oh, yeah, right," he replied vacantly.
"Hmm… Hikari, what did you do after the earthquake?"
"I went back to our room. Akari and Teruko were there, too. After that, I went to bed. I woke up today at five o'clock, and then got back to…"
"What about Akari and Teruko then? Akari, answer."
"After dinner, we didn't have any work left to do, so…" she paused, with a hand to her cheek as she tried to think. "Teruko and I were together in our room the whole time. Then the earthquake happened, and Hikari came back soon after that. That's when we decided to go to bed."
"The three of you share one room?" I asked. Akari-san's eyes shot in my direction as if she never would've guessed I would speak up.
"Yes, the three of us share a room. Is something wrong with that?"
"Oh no, nothing."
Just wondering. I bowed to her. I wanted to ask if they shared the same futon as well, but I decided to stay quiet.
Hmm…
That meant that Akari-san and Teruko-san had solid alibis up until the earthquake as well. After that, they had all gone to bed, so they couldn't really vouch for one another.
Teruko-san nodded a bit after listening to Akari's testimony but ultimately said nothing. It was a simple gesture, but somehow hard to understand.
"This is becoming quite complicated." Iria-san looked toward the last possible suspect, Sonoyama Akane-san. "What about you?" she asked. "What were you doing last night?"
Akane-san, who had been closely observing the situation up until now with arms folded and mouth shut, let out a sigh. "Judging from the fact that nobody's mentioned my name up until now, it's probably pretty obvious, but, yep, I wasn't with anyone last night." She spoke unhesitatingly. "After I finished dinner, I went back to my room and got on the computer. I was working on some modeling, and, well, I'll spare you the boring details. There should be a log, so you could check that for proof, but I suppose that kind of thing can be forged. I guess you couldn't call it an alibi."
"I don't know much about computers. What do you think, Kunagisa-san?"
"Hmm?" Kunagisa's head popped up (hell of a time to be daydreaming). "Oh. With a degree of skill, a person could easily manipulate something as simple as a log. Akane-chan, how much do you know about computers?"
Akane-san smirked. "There's probably no point in answering that."
"Oh, okay," Kunagisa nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right. With the right tools, even an amateur could alter a log. It's not like it's very hard. You can find that kind of software all over the place."
"Isn't there a way to see if the log's been altered?" I asked.
"There is, but that can be faked, too. Just about anything's possible with a computer, you see, so it's hard to use one to confirm an alibi."
Kunagisa Tomo. Invited to this island as the leader of that "team." She was peerless in her field, so there was no way she was wrong. In which case, Akane-san had no alibi to speak of.
Akane-san let out another sigh. "But I suppose I have to make a defense for myself or else you'll have me on a cross. So I'll just go ahead and say it: I didn't do it. Certainly, I hate artists, but I don't think they're worth killing. They're already dead when they're alive. It wouldn't be worth the effort. I had nothing to do."
She probably meant to say, "I had nothing to do with it," but at any rate, she didn't seem to be bluffing or playing tough, and it didn't seem like an act, either.
"Okay, everyone please hold on a minute. I need to work this out in my head."
"Um, before that, please hold on," I said to Iria-san. The conversation was growing bizarre. Hold on before we hold on? "Um, Iria-san, what exactly are you trying to do?"
"I'm sorry?"
"It's just that this all feels really strange to me, and… Of course, this is your island and your mansion, so I know it's probably better not to say anything, plus I'm not even really a guest, but I'm asking anyway. What exactly are you trying to do?"
"Well. I'm trying to get to the bottom of this, of course," she smiled softly. "It seems pretty clear to me," she continued. "Ibuki-san was murdered by someone. And in this case, that means she was murdered by someone in this room. As you said, this is my island and my mansion. One of the guests I've invited here has been killed, and the murderer is right here. Surely you don't think we can just leave this alone?"
She glanced over the crowd with an ironic smile.
Indeed, she was right. This was a remote island. A remote, deserted island, completely isolated.
Wet Crow's Feather Island.
If there were twelve people on the island and one was killed, the murderer had to be one of the remaining eleven. Even elementary school students can do that sort of basic arithmetic.
"Gosh, another death," Iria-san said with a sigh.
Another? Did she just say "another"?
"And another decapitation, at that. Could it be that this island is cursed? Say, Himena-san, can you see into that?"
"You're the one who's cursed," Maki-san answered. "The island is just an island. If anything is cursed, it's you."
As disheartening a statement as that was, Iria-san replied with a strange smile. "Maybe so."
Ah, it all made sense. It had seemed strange to me that despite her attitude, Maki-san was able to get along so well with everyone other than me, but now I got it. Nobody else on this island cared about what other people said.
"Mmm, but this is a fairly simple case. Maybe there's no need for all this questioning. After all, the time of the incident is fairly laid out for us."
"Is it?"
"It is. You saw it, too, right? All that paint got knocked over during the earthquake, and Ibuki-san's body was lying on the other side. How wide do you suppose that river of paint was?"
Nobody ventured an answer, so I went ahead. "At a quick glance, I would've said about ten feet."
"Right, not that big but certainly not small enough to jump over. So we can confirm that the murder must have happened before the earthquake."
The shelf had fallen over in the quake, resulting in that marble-colored river. What did that mean? The quake must have been more intense than I had realized, but that's not all.
What did that river really mean?
"Hold on a second," Akane-san interrupted. She looked a bit concerned. "This conversation doesn't bode well for me. You know why?"
Why?
Everyone besides Akane-san had an alibi prior to the earthquake.
I was with Kunagisa the whole time. Same with Hikari-san, Maki-san, and Shinya-san. Same deal with Akari-san and Teruko-san. And of course, Iria-san, Rei-san, and Yayoi-san. Everyone had an alibi and could vouch for one another.
Iria-san was right. There was no way someone could jump that marble river of paint the earthquake had created. Likewise, there was no way to cross the river without stepping in the paint and creating footprints.
In which case…
The murder had to have happened before the earthquake. The only one with no alibi at that time was Akane-san. Indeed, this didn't bode well for her at all.
"Iria-san," she clucked. "I'm just going to ask you straight. Do you think I did it?" That certainly was straight.
"Yes," Iria-san admitted just as directly. "I mean, who else could have?"
Akane-san broke eye contact with Iria-san and said nothing. She was at a loss for an effective argument despite that Seven Fools brain of hers. Feeling some sliver of a connection with her somehow, I wanted to jump in and save her, but if a member of the Seven Fools couldn't think of a rebuttal, there was no way a program dropout could.
An awkwardness hung in the air for a while, but it was Kunagisa who broke it.
"That's wrong," she said. "I don't think that logic completely makes sense, Iria-chan."
"Oh? Why is that?" Iria-san seemed strangely glad to hear it. "Ah, I see. You're talking about the possibility of an accomplice. I suppose there is that possibility. That would make everyone's alibis a little shaky."
"No, not that. Even if you don't consider an accomplice, you're missing something. Right, Ii-chan?"
"Huh?" I blurted out, completely surprised that I would be pulled into this.
"Come on, Ii-chan, tell her. About what happened last night."
"Last night… Something happened?"
Looking fairly irritated, Kunagisa clammed up. This was a fairly rare thing for her.
"What can I say? Unlike you, I have a bad memory."
"Geez, you really don't remember? Your memory isn't bad, it's nonexistent! Do you always forget things this important? After the earthquake. Shinya-chan made a call to Kanami-chan, right?"
"Oh. Oh. Oh!"
Hikari-san and Shinya-san looked up in surprise.
That's right. Shinya-san had called Kanami-san after the quake and confirmed that she was okay. Confirmed that nothing had happened to her.
Wow, that was important, just like Kunagisa said. What did that mean though? What would happen now?
"In other words, Kanami-chan must have been killed after the earthquake."
"Hold on a sec," Iria-san said in a bit of a panic. "But that river of paint…"
"Well, Iria-chan, that must mean this…" she paused for a moment. "The atelier was locked."
Everyone exchanged glances for a moment.
That river of paint was unjumpable for sure. It was ten feet wide. Maybe it was possible if you were a long-jumper, but even then, there was no space to get a running start. If you considered that, the murder must have happened before the earthquake, just like Iria-san said, but then Shinya-san's story wouldn't have made sense. Immediately after the earthquake, Kanami-san had neither been killed nor harmed.
"Sakaki-san," Iria-san said, "that was Ibuki-san's voice for sure, right?"
He went even paler, with a confused expression written on his face. At last, he nodded. "Yeah, it was definitely Kanami. No mistake. She said she was busy, and that the paint had fallen over so everything was a mess. She had to have been alive after the earthquake."
"I heard Sakaki-san talking on the phone as well," Hikari-san told her mistress. "He asked me if he could use the house phone and… I think Ibuki-san must have been alive still."
"Yeah, she was still…" He clutched his head in anguish. "If I had only gone to the atelier instead of neglecting my duties. Dammit! I'm scum! I'm nothing but scum!"
There wasn't much to say to that. Only that in the end, it wasn't earthquakes or blizzards or fire that was frightening.
It seems there is some kind of solace to be found in regret.
It serves as an escape from what's right before your eyes. You end up pinning all your bad deeds on the "former you." It's hardly what you would call self-condemnation.
When you are regretting something, you're technically being good.
I'm not saying Shinya-san was a monster. People are just wired that way. If anyone was a monster, it was me, for only being able to nitpick at people's flaws like this.
"This is starting to get strange," Akane-san said, stroking her chin. "According to Shinya-san, Hikari-san, and Kunagisa-san's testimony, the murder must have happened after the earthquake. But after the earthquake, the river of paint had already been formed, in which case there is nobody who could have killed her. In which case…"
"That's right, Akane-chan." Kunagisa interrupted. She had that look she gets when she's starting to find something interesting. "This is an incredibly strange situation."
"When you say the atelier was locked, you mean…" Iria-san nodded, seemingly convinced. "Hmm. Indeed, even now, that paint isn't dry, huh? Could there have been a way to climb over it and enter the room? Say, Akari, where's the house phone in Ibuki-san's atelier?"
"It's beside the window, on a phone stand," Akari-san answered with great certainty.
Iria-san crossed her arms and considered this. "Kunagisa-san, you've posed this question, but I don't suppose you know the answer already? Do you know who did it?"
"Nope," Kunagisa answered, strangely confident.
Of course, I didn't know, either.
Nobody knew.
"What about the window? Is it possible that the person entered through the window?" Shinya-san asked.
Hikari-san answered. "But it's the second floor. I don't think it's possible. And I'm pretty sure that window is locked from the inside, so—"
"So it can't be opened from the outside at all?"
"Probably," Hikari-san answered.
Check. So the window was impossible, and so was the door. It couldn't have happened before the earthquake or after the earthquake, so…
Okay.
We were at a complete dead end.
Everyone fell into silence once more. And then, eyes started shifting back toward Akane-san.
"Huh?" she seemed a little surprised. "Hey, I thought I had cleared myself."
"Maybe not," Iria-san said. "Clearing that paint river is impossible, right? So, ultimately, it must have been before the earthquake."
"What about what Shinya-san said?"
"He could've been tricked. Maybe it was an auditory hallucination or something."
Auditory hallucination? Nonsense. It was beyond nonsense. I had to say something.
"I think that's just what you want to believe," I said.
"I don't think so," Iria-san said, unfazed by my opinion. "Even supposing it wasn't an auditory hallucination, it could have easily been some other sort of misunderstanding. There's no crossing that river of paint, that much is for sure. Thus, it's only logical to presume the murder happened before the earthquake, in which case it couldn't be anyone but Akane-san."
"This isn't good," Akane-san said, seeming truly worried. "I know this probably won't help my case any, but I can't help but feel like Akari-san and Teruko-san's alibi is a little sketchy. I mean, family members vouching for each other? It wouldn't hold up in a court of law."
"We're not talking about a court of law," Iria-san said flatly.
"I didn't think so," Akane-san said as if she expected such a response. "Still, determining the criminal by process of elimination doesn't make much sense. It's silly. And simply ignoring Sakaki-san's testimony isn't exactly what I would call logical thinking. It's selective thinking."
"Selective thinking?"
Akane-san shot me a look as if to say, "Will you please explain?"
"A confirmation bias," I blurted, suddenly remembering from my program training that one is never to reveal his own stupidity to a "senior." "In other words, it means when you only consider testimonies and evidence that suit your opinion and write off all evidence to the contrary as some kind of fluke. Actually, they say that in supernatural ability experiments, they"—my eyes wandered over to Maki-san—"they use it a lot. 'Dry Love,' wasn't it? They obsess over any evidence that suggests these abilities exist while ignoring any evidence that suggests they don't. It's their way of getting desirable results, I guess."
"I don't really follow you."
I had gone to all that effort to remember these things, and here Iria-san wasn't even listening. What a waste of breath.
Akane-san sighed deep.
"I suppose Ibuki-san and I were on pretty awful terms, but still…"
I recalled their nasty bickering from the previous night's dinner. It didn't exactly do wonders for her case. Certainly, it wasn't only the lack of Akane-san's alibi that made Iria-san doubt her so much, but this as well.
Of course, it wasn't that I didn't understand Iria-san's feelings. But if you took Shinya-san's testimony into account, even Akane-san couldn't be a suspect.
It was an uncommittable crime. There were no suspects. There was one victim and zero suspects. The situation didn't make any sense. And thus to fix it…
"Sakaki-san's testimony seems a little shady after all," Iria-san said, staring right at him. "Even if it's not a lie, it's got to be some kind of misperception or dream or some such."
"But I heard him talking on the phone," Hikari-san said.
Iria-san shook her head. "It's not like you heard Ibuki-san's voice, right? Sakaki-san is the only one who heard her voice directly, which means…"
"Come on, that's—" Shinya-san started to protest, but as if realizing he had no basis for an argument, he went silent.
"Hmm. Well, if that's the way it is, I guess there's no choice but to suspect me. That's one way to look at things, anyway," Akane-san said, almost as if she was talking about someone else. Even now, she didn't seem to be lying or acting. Sonoyama Akane, ER3 system, Seven Fools. She seemed all too used to this kind of pandemonium. "But still, you don't have any proof. Iria-san, even if you are the mistress of this island and this mansion, you wouldn't treat me like a criminal without any proof, would you? This may not be a court of law here, as you say, but it's not some dusty old detective novel, either, right? You can't just assume I'm the criminal based on this unformulaic process of elimination and selective thinking. Nobody can do that."
"But Sonoyama-san, you also can't prove that you're not the criminal."
"You can't ask the innocent to prove their innocence. You can't prove unprovable. I'm innocent until proven guilty."
"You're talking law again."
Akane-san's shoulders slumped. "Well, what's your point, Iria-san? So I'm the prime suspect. Fine. That's absolutely right. I'm the only one with no alibi before the earthquake. Nobody could have entered the atelier after the earthquake. Sure, I'm with you on that, too. Therefore, Sakaki-san's testimony becomes suspicious. Makes sense. So what now?"
So…
What now?
"What should we do?" Iria-san looked around the table with a troubled expression. It seemed she hadn't thought any further than this. How anticlimactic.
"Throw me to the police or whatever you want," Akane-san said, brushing the bangs from her face.
Akane-san of the Seven Fools being sent off to the police?
"I hate the police," Iria-san said, still perplexed as she stared up at the ceiling. "Oh, what to do?"
A heaviness filled the air once again.
I whispered to Kunagisa. "Hey, Tomo."
"What's up, Ii-chan?"
"Isn't there some way to stop this witch hunt?"
"There is."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah, but"—she looked up at me—"you ought to do it, not me."
"Yeah, okay," I nodded, then raised my hand.
Iria-san called on me with a confused look. "Yes, you." Ah, good. It was so nice not to be ignored.
"I have a suggestion."
"Yes?"
"How about using the room I've been staying in? It looks like you can only lock and unlock it from the outside. What if we kept Akane-san there for a while?"
"Kept her there?" She eyed me dubiously. "You mean like imprisonment?"
"Not imprisonment, exactly. Not imprisonment, just… A brief period of seclusion. Iria-san, I think the biggest thing we have to fear right now is that this turns into a string of murders. Kanami-san was killed. Okay, that's already said and done. I hate to be so frank about it, but what's done is done. But more importantly, we can't let anyone else die. The quickest way to deal with a situation like this is to isolate the prime suspect. If Akane-san really is the murderer, naturally she won't be able to commit any more murders. If, on the other hand, someone else used some kind of trick and managed to sneak in and kill Kanami-san after the earthquake, then that person would be brought to a standstill. After all, if they tried anything again, it would prove Akane-san's innocence."
I looked around to see people's responses.
"In other words, create an antagonistic environment, so that the killer can't move around. This includes Akane-san, as well as everyone else. The atelier may have been locked, but locked doors are made to be unlocked. There might have been some trick. There might not have been. That doesn't matter. What matters is that we don't know either way. Akane-san might have done it. Someone else might have. Even I might have. I might not. So I think the best thing to do is create a situation where the killer can't do anything."
"Ah, I get it," Yayoi-san said, a bit to my surprise. "That makes a lot of sense. I'd have to say I agree. I don't think there's a very solid basis for suspecting Sonoyama-san alone. Iria-san's reasoning seems rather arbitrary."
Iria-san gave her a quizzical look. Nonetheless, Yayoi-san continued.
"I don't think it's a bad idea. But you don't intend to just lock her up forever, right? In that awful room?"
Hey, I've been sleeping in that awful room, dammit.
Lousy bourgeoisie.
"Well, just until the police arrive. This is a private island, it shouldn't take more than a day or two to get an investigator out here."
"I'm not calling the police," Iria-san said, completely surprising me.
Eh? Pardon me, madame, what was the horrible thing you uttered?
"I mean, what's the point, right? Even if we call the police, they'll just figure Sonoyama-san was the criminal and it'll end there. The police won't do anything."
It wasn't Iria-san's words that I found suspicious, but her facial expression. The police won't do anything? Why did she say that with such a stern face?
"But we can't just call the police. If we did that, there wouldn't be any point in confining her."
"Not necessarily. We just have to piece things together while she's in there. We'll track down the real culprit with evidence and reason. Doesn't that make sense to you?"
"Will you be the one investigating then, Iria-san?"
Something about Iria-san's idea of using "reason" didn't sit well with me at all. But to my surprise, she shook her head.
"No, not me, of course. Don't you remember? I told you yesterday, didn't I? In a week—no, six days—that wonderful, marvelous human being is coming to this island."
The detective of this proverbial mystery novel. Iria-san's favorite.
Iria-san's hero.
"Surely Aikawa-san will crush this problem to smithereens."
To smithereens. What an expression. And she didn't look like she was exaggerating, either.
"Six more days, huh?" Akane-san said cynically, letting her crossed arms drop down beside her. "Well, whatever. Fine, fine, fine. I know I'm not guilty, but if this is what it takes to convince you, what can I say? I presume we can trust this Aikawa-san?"
"Yes. Of course." Iria-san gave a confident nod. You could feel her utmost faith in this hero of hers just from looking at her.
Akane-san let out one more big sigh. "Fine. Let's do it then."