Chapter 50: No Evidence

Kii sat in the morgue, a charred skeleton resting on the table before him.

"Inspector Toyono..." Sogo Yokomizo said, looking startled as he arrived. "Have you been here the entire time?"

As Kii had predicted the previous day, they had unearthed the remains from the embankment behind the abandoned dormitory.

Unfortunately, given the immense passage of time and the fact that the body had been burned before burial, current technological methods made it impossible to extract any valuable evidence from the remains.

Still, they had managed to identify the victim through dental records. After contacting Mitsuki's parents, Yokomizo had simply gone home off duty.

He had not expected that Kii would remain seated there through the entire night.

"What is it?" Kii did not even turn his head, staring with a mesmerized, fixed gaze at the shattered corpse before him.

"The victim's family has arrived..." Yokomizo felt a deep ache in his chest. They had done everything within their power, but what good was finding the corpse? In reality, there was no evidence whatsoever.

"Oh, I see."

Just as Yokomizo opened his mouth to offer a word of comfort, he saw Kii stand up on his own.

Sighing inwardly and assuming Kii was going to receive Mitsuki's parents, Yokomizo quickly followed behind him.

To his utter astonishment, Mitsuki's parents were standing right there, yet Kii walked straight past them without a single word of greeting, leaving the room entirely.

What on earth was going on?

Yokomizo could not comprehend it.

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"Inspector?" Takagi and Chiba looked up in utter shock as Kii suddenly appeared before them. Wasn't the Inspector supposed to still be in Yokohama? Why had he returned so abruptly?

Before they could react, they saw Kii walk straight up to Tatsuya Nagai.

He shoved him violently to the ground and slapped handcuffs on his wrists.

"Tatsuya Nagai.

"You are suspected of three major criminal offenses, and I am arresting you in accordance with the law.

"During high school, you harassed and threatened your private tutor, Saya Kamihara.

"Following the incident, she resigned and committed suicide at home.

"Your father used money to hush everything up. You faced no punishment whatsoever.

"Three years ago, you murdered Mitsuki Mishima.

"On the day she returned her keys and prepared to head to the train station to go home.

"You lured her into your car, drove her to an isolated location, assaulted and murdered her.

"Finally, you burned the corpse and buried it in the rear embankment of an abandoned dormitory owned by your father's company.

"And now, you have spent an extended period stalking, secretly photographing, harassing, and attempting to assault and murder Miss Miho Nishitani."

He yanked Tatsuya Nagai roughly to his feet.

"Now, it's your turn."

"You don't have any evidence! I'll be out in no time!" Tatsuya Nagai glared malevolently at Kii, shouting loudly before being shoved into the police cruiser.

"Inspector, just as you predicted, we searched his residence and recovered secretly taken photographs along with a bag packed with various murder weapons," Takagi reported excitedly to Kii.

"Mhm." Kii showed little enthusiasm.

"This way, even though he was a minor when the first crime took place, the murder from three years ago and the recent attempted murder will be more than enough to put him away for the rest of his life," Takagi rambled on to himself.

"There is no evidence."

"No evidence?"

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"You want to prosecute him for murder based solely on a skeleton dug up behind his father's abandoned company dormitory?" Reiko Kujo argued with Kii for the very first time. "Are you joking with me? Just because he once pursued the victim? Just because that piece of land belongs to his family? Just because you feel 'he might have' killed her?"

"It wasn't merely pursuing her. It is a continuous pattern of controlling behavior, forming a clear and distinct vector of victimization."

"Don't talk to me about your criminal profiling theories. I am a prosecutor. I require evidence, not your 'understanding'."

Kii stood across from her, refusing to sit or offer justifications.

"I am well aware that you require evidence.

"First, behavioral consistency.

"Tatsuya Nagai subjected his private tutor, Saya Kamihara, to persistent harassment back in high school.

"She committed suicide after resigning, and while there is no police record of it, you can examine the definitive third-party money transfer records uncovered by Detective Mouri, originating from his father's account and transferred to the victim's family.

"Second, the victim, Mitsuki Mishima, formally processed her lease termination procedures the very day before her disappearance. Leaving behind no arrears, personal belongings, or rental disputes, she 'completely vanished from society,' failing to appear in any public registries until she was discovered three years later as an unidentified corpse."

"That is merely a description of circumstances, not proof of a crime," Reiko interrupted.

"Then listen to the third point: the exclusivity of the corpse's location.

"The remains of Mitsuki Mishima were discovered on the back embankment of an abandoned dormitory belonging to Tatsuya Nagai's father's company. This location is not marked in public records, lies within a non-public, enclosed zone, involves complex access routes, and experiences no municipal use or routine patrols year-round. The only group of people aware of its existence are members of that company. And the defendant is none other than the son of the company's president.

"No one else could possibly have known of this place, nor would they have had a motive."

Reiko fell silent for half a second before saying, "That is still not enough, Inspector Toyono. You have no direct evidence pointing to him as the murderer."

"True, I lack photographs of the murder scene and the murder weapon. But what I do have is—consistency of motive, breaks in the victim's trajectory, replication of behavioral patterns, the exclusivity of the burial site, concealment traces of past criminal behavior, and the preparations for stalking and violence uncovered in the current search.

"Taken individually, none of these items is sufficient for a conviction. But as an unbroken chain, they point to a single conclusion—this man has done this before, and this will not be his last time."

He pulled another search report from the folder on the table and placed it on top:

"The physical evidence we recovered from his home includes:

"An entire ledger detailing the stalking of Miss Miho Nishitani, with tracking locations precise to her room, her commute, and her habitual route deviations;

"Several secretly snapped photographs pasted onto cardboard, annotated with 'high-risk time slots';

"As well as hypnotic drugs, duct tape, restraint bindings, blades, and plastic sheeting."

Reiko glanced down at the report, her tone remaining restrained: "These are certainly sufficient to prosecute him for attempted murder, but that is a separate case."

Kii raised his eyes, his voice growing even colder: "Yes, a separate case. Yet the behavior is identical: control, voyeurism, and meticulous planning. The only difference is that this time we were fortunate, and she is still alive.

"We are not merely suspecting some killer. We are confronting an offender whose actions have escalated, whose need for control has become an addiction, and whose targets are entirely concrete."

A brief silence ensued.

Reiko finally gathered all the documents together. "I hope you are right."

Kii let out a long breath.

"Persuading me is pointless," Reiko added before turning to leave. "From now until the trial begins, you need to figure out how to convince the judge and the jury with your 'clear pattern of victimization' when you take the witness stand."

She paused. "They, and the defense attorneys, will not be nearly as easy to reason with as I am."