On the Trail of Amari
Chapter 04

There was only one mental health clinic in the northern suburbs of Nagano City: the Nishimaru Clinic in Nakano, about 20 kilometers from downtown. Amari-san was from Iiyama, another four or five kilometers to the north. Since there were many doctors in Nagano proper, Kudo-kun and I reasoned that Amari-san had needed a doctor while she was still in school, and the Nishimaru Clinic was the most convenient and accessible.

Only the two of us—Kudo-kun and I—went to investigate the clinic. Inspector Yamato and her officers couldn't afford to spend anymore time on the case without more evidence that Amari-san wasn't alive and well. Though the inspector urged Kudo-kun to call if anything changed, we were on our own.

As famous as he'd become, Kudo Shinichi was still just a young man in an overpriced suit to some people. The receptionist at the clinic didn't recognize Kudo-kun, and the idea of a private detective snooping about their patients didn't put the receptionist at ease. "We can't confirm or deny anyone is a patient here," the receptionist insisted. Kudo-kun leaned with both hands on the reception counter and rattled off everything we knew about Amari-san and her relationship with Doctor Hayami. He produced photos of Amari-san's booklet of prescriptions. The receptionist promised to pass all that along to the doctor, but he "wouldn't make any promises."

Until Doctor Hayami had a chance to review our request, Kudo-kun and I waited. Kudo-kun was restless. He flipped through a stack of magazines, never looking at one for more than a minute at a time. "Archaic, aren't they?" he said, counting how many magazines there were to pass the time, but I didn't think so. Everything in this world has some inertia to it. It might've been true that magazines were dying, but they weren't archaic until they were completely dead and gone. Besides, he would've been happier in those days. There was once a time when detective stories were all the rage in weekly magazines. If he'd lived in those days, he probably would've had every good mystery magazine delivered to his doorstep, devouring them every week when he couldn't get enough of his cases.

I said as much, and Kudo-kun thought for a moment, handed me a fashion magazine, and started going through his case files for Amari-san. "You're probably right about that," he said. I meant to ask Kudo-kun about it, but one of of the clinic staff came to get us. Doctor Hayami was ready to talk.

The doctor's office was larger than I expected. It had a desk, a sofa, a traditional table, and a mixture of chairs, each with a different shape and set of materials. The doctor explained that he liked to offer his patients the choice of where to sit. "It gives them ownership and control over the situation," he said. Doctor Hayami offered us the choice, and we decided to sit on the sofa. Doctor Hayami took an armchair.

Doctor Hayami already knew who we were. He'd already spoken with Amari-san at length about Kudo Shinichi and her obsession with him. "It was totally healthy," he clarified, trying to put Kudo-kun at ease. "She's just a devoted fan, nothing more than that." He thought it was funny, but also sad, that Kudo-kun had come to investigate Amari-san's disappearance. As for me, Amari-san had spoken of me occasionally. The doctor said she thought very highly of me.

Kudo-kun got right to business. "We know Amari-san had an appointment with you yesterday. What can you tell us about it?"

The doctor recalled that Amari-san's appointment had been set for one o'clock. He couldn't say exactly when she arrived. His staff would've been the first to see her, and they probably asked her to fill out some documents updating her medical history and so on. She was ready promptly at one, so he thought she had to have been there for some time—at least 15 or 20 minutes—to have finished the paperwork by then.

Doctor Hayami wouldn't say much about the specifics of the appointment. Without breaking privilege, he remembered offering Amari-san some snacks—something he did with most patients—but she didn't eat. He got the impression she'd already eaten and had expected that. Amari-san usually scheduled her appointments for the early afternoon, so he thought that she might get lunch as a matter of course before seeing him. Without discussing the specifics of their session, he thought Amari-san to be healthy. She was in a good state of mind when he saw her. She was not, in any way, a danger to herself or others.

"You must've known her a long time, to say that," said Kudo-kun.

The doctor frowned at that. "She's been a patient for some time. I won't go into any more specifics than that."

Kudo-kun jotted that down. "You know I have Amari-san's prescription booklet, so I'm aware when you first started prescribing her medications. Did something happen in her life to make her suddenly need a psychiatrist in middle school?"

The doctor refused to discuss it, but if we wanted to snoop around some more, he recommended that we contact Amari-san's mother. We didn't know how to get in touch with her, but he promised to pass along her information if she approved of it.

"What about her father?" asked Kudo-kun. "Is he in the picture? Did he run off with another woman?"

He wasn't in the picture, as far as the doctor knew.

"Did he leave the picture before or after Amari-san started seeing you?" asked Kudo-kun.

The doctor looked back steadily. "I can't say."

Kudo-kun jotted that down and continued to ask about Amari-san's father and the father's family. Were they supportive of Amari-san? Yes, as far as Doctor Hayami knew. The two sides had had a falling out initially. Amari-san's mother still didn't get along with them, but the daughter was a different story. He didn't think they would wish Amari-san harm. He didn't believe that Amari-san had serious enemies.

"You're close enough to her to know that?" asked Kudo-kun.

"She's never given me any indication that she was fearful or anxious about someone to the point they might physically harm her," the doctor explained. "She's concerned with other people's feelings and accommodating of them. If anyone would want to harm her, I don't think it would be for personal reasons. Professional ones? Maybe."

Kudo-kun wrapped up his interrogation of the doctor with a question about the end of Amari-san's session. Doctor Hayami told us that Amari-san left around 2:30. With nothing else to ask, Kudo-kun offered me a chance to pose questions, but I didn't think there would be any point. Instead, Doctor Hayami volunteered one more thing: on Amari-san's behalf he apologized that she had concealed her medical history from me. "Kagura-chan's been through a lot, and there are very few people who know about it. I'm sure she trusts you a great deal even though she was unsure how to talk about this. I know that may be hard to understand, but…" He couldn't find the words to finish, but I nodded like I understood, and he seemed satisfied with that.

On our way out of the clinic, Kudo-kun asked me what I thought of the doctor. I told him I hadn't planned on questioning the doctor like a suspect, but Kudo-kun insisted that one should assume everyone is a suspect until they can be ruled out.

"Ah, so I'm a suspect, too, then?" I asked.

He rolled his eyes and scoffed. "Do I really need to answer that?"

He didn't, but I'd thought I would ask anyway. I'd just felt that Kudo-kun's suspicions toward the doctor were strange and unsettling. He'd pretended to be much more ignorant of the situation than he really was—asking questions he already knew the answers to, just to see if the doctor would lie. It was paranoid, and I told him so.

"Yeah, sometimes as a detective you have to be a little suspicious of people," he said as casually as one talks about children running on a playground or the nesting habits of birds. "Don't tell me you can't see it. You're a sharp one. You have a knack for it."

I did not have a knack for detective work, but if I had think suspiciously about Doctor Hayami, I could come up with a few reasons why he might lie to us. A doctor and a patient tend to have a close relationship, especially when it comes to emotional problems and trauma. It was possible Doctor Hayami had coerced Amari-san into something unethical, or he might've allowed her to develop feelings for him in a way that only someone vulnerable might do. He had the ability to hide behind professional ethics to excuse his silence on various questions. Alternatively, perhaps Doctor Hayami had exaggerated how well Amari-san's family was getting along with her father's side. He might know that they had some longstanding grudge against Amari-san. Maybe he had been persuaded to work for them, or he might have felt that allowing us to interfere would only make things worse.

I told Kudo-kun about these ideas, not thinking they were worth much. Kudo-kun actually thought that the first was plausible. "You see?" he said. "Knack for it. You're naturally suspicious of people."

He said that like I should take pride in it.

Doctor Hayami gave us some contact information for Amari-san's mother, but by the time we reached her workplace—a local high school—she'd already left for the day. The doctor had led slip that Amari-san was missing, and within minutes, Amari-sensei had gone home and called the police. By the time Kudo-kun and I arrived, Inspector Yamato and her detectives were already on the scene.

Amari-sensei had last seen her daughter at a cafe near the high school. They'd had a late lunch; Amari-san was late that morning, complaining about a backup on the train, so it was probable that Amari-san had come directly from the train to the cafe. The inspector asked if Amari-sensei had been angry or upset because her daughter was late. Amari-sensei had been irritated, yes, because she only had so much time for her lunch break. School schedules aren't flexible.

"But do you generally have a good relationship with your daughter?" the inspector asked.

Amari-sensei took offense to the question. "We're family," she said. "Of course we have a good relationship! Just what are you implying, Inspector?"

Kudo-kun tried to smooth things over, saying that it's better to know these things in advance and not be surprised than to suspect that Amari-sensei misled us. Unfortunately, Kudo-kun wasn't half as good at persuading a distraught mother as he was at being a detective. Amari-sensei didn't take the suggestion that she might be lying to police well, wondering if she should ask us to get off her property and find her daughter instead of wasting precious time. Multiple detectives tried to calm her down, but she started talking about calling up her husband's relatives to see if they'd heard from her daughter or were keeping something from her. The police thought that was a terrible idea; if nothing else, it could tip off potential perpetrators about the investigation.

Kudo-kun saw that the police were getting nowhere, so he asked me to step in. I knew Amari-san, after all. Her mother might listen to me.

I asked him since when I was his assistant, and he just shot a look back at me like he knew he couldn't answer that well, so I settled for something else. "Buy me a handbag," I said.

"This is your friend we're talking about!" he complained, so I amended the offer: buy Amari-san a handbag, too, when we found her. "Fine," he said, and he made it known through Inspector Yamato that I was going to take a turn with Amari-sensei. The mother was typing up a message on her phone when I approached her. I introduced myself, and my name got her attention. She knew who I was, at least through her daughter. I told her I'd found Amari-san's apartment broken into, but when she asked for a description of the scene, I caught a glimpse of Kudo-kun in the corner of my eye, shaking his head. I couldn't tell a potential suspect what we'd learned. All I could say was that it looked like Amari-san hadn't been home and wasn't attacked there.

Amari-sensei seemed calmed by that thought, and she realized that we were being watched. She walked me into the kitchen area—the same kitchen where Amari-san's father had been stabbed and laid face-down as he died.

Amari-sensei offered me some tea. I allowed her to pour it, but I didn't drink. She had questions, and I couldn't drink much if I was answering them anyway. What kind of friend was I to her daughter? How long had we known each other? What was I doing going over to her apartment on a weeknight? As I answered these questions, I got the sense that, while Amari-sensei claimed she was on good terms with her daughter, she didn't know that much about Amari-san's personal life. Maybe that was natural, but I wasn't sure. Amari-san had never struck me as someone with much to hide, but she'd hidden some things from me, and it made sense that she wouldn't go into detail talking about her life at Shinshu.

Having calmed down once she understood more of the situation, Amari-sensei was ready to take my questions. "Does Amari-san see her therapist because of your husband?"

Amari-sensei put her teacup down and composed herself. "Did Kagura tell you about him?"

I admitted she hadn't. We'd learned only through some digging.

Amari-sensei nodded. "She was upstairs when it happened. She heard the whole thing. It's not something a child should be involved in."

"The name Amari is your family's name, not your husband's, isn't it? Do you and your daughter get along with your husband's family?"

"I don't, but Kagura does," Sensei said. "I don't think they would hurt her, but they still try to pit her against me. They even try to get her to change her name back. It's not happening, but she does talk to them."

"Why don't you get along with them?" I asked.

"I killed their boy. Do you think they're about to forget about that?"

Did that mean they would try to hurt her by hurting her daughter? Not in her opinion, no, and she became exasperated with the question.

"Miyano-san," she said, "I'm glad you're Kagura's friend and that you're helping look for her, but why don't you focus on why she disappeared and not ancient history?"

It wasn't clear to me that it was ancient history. Her husband's death was the reason Amari-san was nearby. How many other people even knew she would have an appointment? I hadn't. Only Professor Noto, Amari-sensei, Doctor Hayami and his staff. Did Amari-sensei's in-laws know about it?

"They would," she admitted quietly, seeming to realize what I was getting at.

Aside from the logic of the situation, I disagreed with the idea that it was ancient history. It wasn't. Amari-san had kept her appointment from me. I considered her a close friend, but it was still something she felt she had to keep secret. I wouldn't have been surprised if no one else in the lab knew. It was still something that affected her every day.

"You shouldn't take it personally," Amari-sensei said. "It's not something you just tell people out of the blue. I don't talk about it even with my friends. They haven't been through something like that; they can't know what it's like. It's impossible for them."

It was something difficult to explain.

I asked about why Amari-sensei was so sure her daughter was on good terms with her in-laws' family; she admitted it was unexpected, but she had no ill will toward them before. As long as they didn't drive a wedge between her and her daughter, she didn't have a problem with them. Despite what her father had done, Amari-san still paid her respects often. As far as Amari-sensei knew, her daughter had planned to visit the grave the day before. Usually she did it in the morning, but since Amari-san had been running late, it was possible she didn't make it until after her appointment with Doctor Hayami—in the afternoon.

I had a bad feeling already when it became clear Amari-san hadn't been seen since visiting the cemetery. I think it's unwise to be unduly sentimental about the dead. Keep them in your heart, sure, but it's all too easy for the living to use the dead against you, to be overcome with emotion when you should be vigilant for threats.

At the cemetery, the ground was still soft from a morning dew and rain the previous day. At the grave of Ohara Itsuki, a bouquet of purple hyacinths had been soaked through. The grave was near a corner of the cemetery, with access to some adjacent woods. It was there, at the foot of a tree, that we found Amari-san's wallet, soaked through and dried again, so that the material was warped and deformed. A business card inside bled ink. Two sets of footprints were intermingled around the tree, leaving impressions in the soft soil and grass.

As Inspector Yamato called for additional detectives to examine the scene, search for the florist, and canvass the area for potential witnesses, Kudo Shinichi stood by my side. "It's going to be okay," he tried to assure me. "We know she was taken here. We'll find her."

He meant it as comfort, but he was horrifically bad at it. The last thing I needed was the thought of someone close to me dying and having her face plastered on the front page. This certainty was far from a comfort. It was a recurring nightmare.

"Oi, Haibara."

I jolted, and I shot a glance past him at the inspector and her detectives, but no one was looking our way. I relaxed, and I brushed his hand off my shoulder. "You'll make sure of that—is that what you're saying?" I remarked.

Kudo-kun smirked, assured and confident. "Yeah," he said.

And I may have smiled a little.

The first time I met Kudo Shinichi in Nagano, I thought it was ironic. My colleague Amari-san was a fan of his. She'd tell me stories about his cases, and I'd done my best to listen to her—to be attentive and ask questions—even though, more often than not, I'd heard too much about those cases already.

With each passing minute, the ground dries out, and the evidence goes stale. What fate has befallen Amari?
Next time: The search effort ramps up, and the detectives learn something new about Amari's father.
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