near the Oi off-ramp of the Metropolitan Bayside Expressway. Heading from Urayasu toward Oi, it was not uncommon to encounter traffic near the entrance to the Tokyo Harbor Tunnel. The Asakawas' car had slammed into a light truck at the end of a column of vehicles waiting to exit at Oi. The car was badly wrecked, and mother and daughter, together in the back seat, had lost their lives, while Mr Asakawa had sustained serious injuries.
"Why did they get sent in for autopsies?" Ando wondered aloud. There wasn't much call to autopsy people who had obviously died in a traffic accident. A full forensic autopsy such as they'd received, with a public prosecutor presiding, usually didn't happen unless a crime was suspected.
"Don't get ahead of yourself. Keep reading."
"Why don't you buy a new fax machine anyway? I can hardly read these. It's making my head hurt," Ando said, waving the curling page in Miyashita's face. He just wanted to know what had happened, and he was having trouble grasping the situation from the blurry printouts cranked out by the antiquated fax.
"You are one impatient bastard," Miyashita said by way of preface. Then he began to explain. "At first, the feeling was that they had indeed died in the collision. But further examination showed no life-threatening injuries. The car was completely wrecked, but on the other hand, mother and daughter were in the back seat. This probably raised some doubts. They did a meticulous post-mortem on both of them. And sure enough, they found bruises and lacerations from the accident on their faces, their feet, et cetera, but the wounds showed no vital reaction. And I think that brings us to your territory."
It was easy to tell if a corpse's injuries had been sustained before or after death based on the presence or absence of a vital reaction. In this case, there was none. Which meant only one thing: at the time of the crash, mother and daughter were already dead.
"So, what, the husband was driving his dead wife and child around?"
Miyashita spread his hands. "So it would seem."
That would immediately justify the forensic autopsy. Perhaps the husband had decided to kill himself and taken his family with him; he'd strangled his wife and child and driven off with them looking for the best place to end his own life, but had gotten into an accident on the way. The autopsies, however, had cleared the husband, for Shizu and Yoko had both had arterial blockages identical to the other cases. They couldn't have been murdered. They'd both died of heart attacks on the expressway, shortly before the accident.
Once that was established, it was easy to guess how the husband lost control of the vehicle… He doesn't realize for a while that his wife and daughter are dead-maybe they just quietly stopped breathing-so he drives on, thinking they're asleep in the back seat. They've been curled up like that for an awfully long while. He tries to wake them up, keeping one hand on the steering wheel and reaching with the other into the rear of the car. He shakes his wife. She doesn't wake up. He glances back to the front again before putting his hand on his wife's knee. Then, suddenly, he realizes the change that's come over her. He panics and just stares at his wife and child, not realizing that the traffic's clogged ahead of him.
That had to be more or less what happened. Having lost his own son, Ando could well understand the panic the husband must have felt. It had been the same for him. If only he'd been able to overcome the panic, maybe he needn't have lost Takanori… In the driver's case, though, overcoming panic wouldn't have accomplished anything. His wife and daughter were already dead.
"So what happened to the husband?" He felt sympathy for the man, who'd lost his family only two weeks before.
"He's hospitalized, of course."
"How bad are his injuries?"
"Physically, he doesn't seem to be that bad off. Mostly it's his mind that was affected."
"Emotional damage?"
"Ever since they
"Why did they get sent in for autopsies?" Ando wondered aloud. There wasn't much call to autopsy people who had obviously died in a traffic accident. A full forensic autopsy such as they'd received, with a public prosecutor presiding, usually didn't happen unless a crime was suspected.
"Don't get ahead of yourself. Keep reading."
"Why don't you buy a new fax machine anyway? I can hardly read these. It's making my head hurt," Ando said, waving the curling page in Miyashita's face. He just wanted to know what had happened, and he was having trouble grasping the situation from the blurry printouts cranked out by the antiquated fax.
"You are one impatient bastard," Miyashita said by way of preface. Then he began to explain. "At first, the feeling was that they had indeed died in the collision. But further examination showed no life-threatening injuries. The car was completely wrecked, but on the other hand, mother and daughter were in the back seat. This probably raised some doubts. They did a meticulous post-mortem on both of them. And sure enough, they found bruises and lacerations from the accident on their faces, their feet, et cetera, but the wounds showed no vital reaction. And I think that brings us to your territory."
It was easy to tell if a corpse's injuries had been sustained before or after death based on the presence or absence of a vital reaction. In this case, there was none. Which meant only one thing: at the time of the crash, mother and daughter were already dead.
"So, what, the husband was driving his dead wife and child around?"
Miyashita spread his hands. "So it would seem."
That would immediately justify the forensic autopsy. Perhaps the husband had decided to kill himself and taken his family with him; he'd strangled his wife and child and driven off with them looking for the best place to end his own life, but had gotten into an accident on the way. The autopsies, however, had cleared the husband, for Shizu and Yoko had both had arterial blockages identical to the other cases. They couldn't have been murdered. They'd both died of heart attacks on the expressway, shortly before the accident.
Once that was established, it was easy to guess how the husband lost control of the vehicle… He doesn't realize for a while that his wife and daughter are dead-maybe they just quietly stopped breathing-so he drives on, thinking they're asleep in the back seat. They've been curled up like that for an awfully long while. He tries to wake them up, keeping one hand on the steering wheel and reaching with the other into the rear of the car. He shakes his wife. She doesn't wake up. He glances back to the front again before putting his hand on his wife's knee. Then, suddenly, he realizes the change that's come over her. He panics and just stares at his wife and child, not realizing that the traffic's clogged ahead of him.
That had to be more or less what happened. Having lost his own son, Ando could well understand the panic the husband must have felt. It had been the same for him. If only he'd been able to overcome the panic, maybe he needn't have lost Takanori… In the driver's case, though, overcoming panic wouldn't have accomplished anything. His wife and daughter were already dead.
"So what happened to the husband?" He felt sympathy for the man, who'd lost his family only two weeks before.
"He's hospitalized, of course."
"How bad are his injuries?"
"Physically, he doesn't seem to be that bad off. Mostly it's his mind that was affected."
"Emotional damage?"
"Ever since they
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