Avis de décès 2 Destinée

Chapitre 7

"You won't back down right away, will you, Ayako-neechan?"

—Yuriko and Tamami spent a long time yesterday planning to wait for Ayako at the coffee shop. Normally, Ayako gets off work at five o'clock, so she should be here by now.

"But she's a college student, after all. She'll be fine." Even so, Yuriko couldn't help but worry. She wondered if Ayako would just wander around the reception desk for a bit and then come back.

"Ah, here it comes!" Tamami exclaimed.

"I'm sorry I'm late!" Ayako said.

"How about it?"

"This is a gift," Ayako said, putting down the cake box.

"How much? We must ask the accountant."

"Oh dear, this is what I bought with the money I earned from my part-time job," Ayako said, taking an envelope out of her bag. "These are the rest. Tamami will keep them for now."

Yuriko and Tamami hesitated for a moment before accepting the envelope. Ayako was surprisingly radiant and in high spirits.

"Big sister... are you alright?" Yuriko asked.

"What?"

"How's work going?"

"Of course! I'm very happy, they say it's for white-collar workers. And I've heard some tidying up."

Yuriko and Tamami exchanged glances and then stared intently at Ayako.

"Hey... are you really the eldest sister?" Yuriko asked.

Chapter Four: A Belated Leave Application

“Hey, accountant! Give me the money!” Yuriko said.

"What? You won't give it to me without a reason." Zhu Mei was stopped just as she was about to go to school. She said impatiently, "Hurry up, you'll be late for school."

"Telephone bill."

"But—you're using the Katase family's phone, right? If so, that's fine. Her family is rich."

"You can't say that. It's a long-distance trip."

"Where are you calling?"

"Sapporo."

"Why?"

"To confirm whether Dad had stayed in Sapporo, I dialed 100, which has a higher fare."

"How many?"

"There should be at least two thousand yen."

So many?

"I wonder how many hotels you called."

"Okay." Zhu Mei reluctantly took out two thousand-yen bills from her wallet. "You have to return the rest." What a stingy character.

"Goodbye." Yuriko said with a wry smile as she watched Tamami walk away.

Ayako seemed to have mustered the energy to go to work. Tamami also seemed unfazed by the current difficulties. —Although the situation had not yet improved, Yuriko felt a strange sense of peace within her.

When Yuriko returned to the Katase house, Atsuko was just coming out with her schoolbag. "Yuriko, aren't you going to school?"

"I'm taking a temporary break from school."

"Why?" Atsuko sensed Yuriko's thoughts. "Well, if it's a tuition issue, let my dad take care of it."

“No.” Yuriko grasped her friend’s hand. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

"Are you in a bad mood? Then forget it."

"What?! I'm not going to school because I'm conducting investigations to prove Dad's innocence."

“Yuriko is doing this.”

"With the combined efforts of the three sisters, the police were content to simply presume my father to be the murderer. So we had no choice but to solve it ourselves."

"Then, let me help too!" Atsuko said, her eyes shining brightly. "Is that alright?"

"no."

"Why?"

“If I dragged Atsuko into this, and something unexpected happens, how could I face your parents? Besides, I’ve already caused you a lot of trouble.”

"But……"

"However, during your days off, I might need to ask you for a favor."

"Understood." Atsuko nodded reluctantly. "Let's schedule the arrest for Sunday or a holiday."

"Is it really such a coincidence?"

2005-3-14 14:48:00

—Yuriko entered the living room and bowed to Atsuko's mother, who had just finished cleaning, asking, "I'd like to borrow your phone for a moment." She then took out her notebook, looking at the numbers of major hotels in Sapporo that she had copied down. Yuriko wanted to investigate whether her father had stayed in Sapporo before the day of the incident. Regardless of whether the other party would tell her, she wanted to try her luck first. "Let's begin." Just as Yuriko reached out her hand, the phone rang. Atsuko's mother seemed to be cleaning upstairs. With no other option, Yuriko answered the receiver.

"Hello, this is the Katase family." Yuriko's voice sounded exactly like her deceased mother's, like an adult's voice. Especially the voice coming from the phone, it was indistinguishable from an adult's.

"Hello, is this Madam?" It was a man's voice, deliberately lowered.

"Hello?"

"It's me." The other person probably assumed it must be her mother at this time.

“This…” Yuriko hesitated, unable to finish her sentence. For some reason, the way the other person spoke left her with the impression that they were unserious.

"I really want to see you," the man said softly. "Come to the hotel we stayed at. Two o'clock. — Understand?"

"Hey, hey hey..."

"If you don't come, I'll have to talk to your husband. How about it?"

The phone call abruptly ended. Yuriko remained standing there, still holding the receiver, lost in thought.

Atsuko's mother poked her head out and asked, "Yuriko, was there a phone call just now?"

"Huh? Oh, that was a wrong number." Yuriko quickly put the phone back.

"Really?" Atsuko's mother, without a hint of doubt, dragged the vacuum cleaner to the side.

Yuriko calmed her racing heart slightly. The phone call just now… Yuriko had initially made random calls before, so she assumed it was a prank. But then she remembered the caller mentioning “the previous hotel” and “two o’clock.” And the threat, “If you don’t come, I’ll talk to your husband”… That meant Atsuko’s mother had met that man at least once.

"No way!" Yuriko exclaimed to herself.

No—as for Yuriko, she wasn't a child anymore, so she could imagine that even the best-connected couples could have all sorts of problems. But that phone call seemed inappropriate no matter how you looked at it. Even if Atsuko's mother were having an affair with a man like that… even so, what could she do? Yuriko fell into deep thought. She absolutely had to find a way to tell Atsuko's mother what had happened on that phone call. But what would happen if she didn't? Atsuko's mother certainly wouldn't go to the hotel, and that man had said he would tell her husband if she didn't come. Yuriko thought that her silence might disrupt the peace of the Katase family.

"This is really a headache..." Yuriko clutched her head. Just then, the phone rang again.

"I'll answer it." This time, Atsuko's mother answered the phone. Was it the same man from before?

"Hello, this is the Katase family. — Please hold for a moment." He handed the phone to Yuriko: "This is yours."

"If only it were the other way around," Yuriko thought.

"It's a woman named Nogami."

Nogami. —Is it Nogami Sachiyo? She's someone who's been very kind to me at my father's company.

"Ah, Yuriko? I'm Sachiyo Nogami."

"Thank you for yesterday."

"I couldn't get through to your home phone, but then I realized that was to be expected. So I called the school, and your homeroom teacher gave me the phone number here."

"Thanks……"

"You did a fantastic job yesterday! I really admire you. I feel so good about it. The news spread throughout the company in no time."

"You flatter me."

"Also, you noticed your father's leave yesterday, right? I tried checking his leave application records."

"Thank you, did you really find anything?"

"I want to meet you. I feel like there's something different about your handwriting compared to Mr. Sasamoto's."

Yuriko felt her heart pounding. "Then, I'll come find you!"

"Hmm, is it possible to get there in an hour? Well, there's a coffee shop in front of the office building, let's go there."

"Yes!" Yuriko answered energetically, standing up as if she had already completely forgotten about the strange phone call.

"How's work going?"

Yuriko went into the coffee shop where she had met Nishikawa yesterday. Although it was not yet noon, Nogami Sachiyo was already eating a sandwich.

"It's alright, it's alright," she said between bites of food. "I've been working for almost twenty years without a single complaint. Want to eat together?"

“No, thank you.” Yuriko couldn’t help but laugh. “Then, about the leave application—”

"Oh, right. I can't forget something so important." Nogami Sachiyo pulled half a sheet of paper from her notebook into her work uniform pocket. It was a hastily printed "leave application form," with the date, reason, and four side-by-side stamp fields at the bottom.

Does the stamp make it effective?

"Yes. It was stamped by a female employee under the supervision of her supervisor. Is this Sasamoto's handwriting?"

Yuriko stared intently at the words "Sasa Shuppei" in the name column of the paper. Although she didn't see her father's handwriting often... "It looks similar... but something seems off."

“I think so too. This is the handwriting on another document.” Nogami Sachiyo took out another document. “This one is definitely right, it’s Sasamoto’s handwriting. Look, compare them.”

Yuriko compared the words on the two receipts. "But they're the same..."

"Isn't it too similar?"

"Why?"

"No matter who it is, everyone has their own personality when they write. It's impossible to write names exactly the same, right? I think this one is too similar."

Now that you think about it, it's true.