Two and a Half Years

The two detectives from Saitama Prefecture looked just as embarrassed when Inspector Ogino apologized.

More than two years ago, they had failed to solve the case. Worse, none of the suspects they had identified had visited Tokyo recently. In other words, they had not even narrowed down the right group of suspects.

As the host, Munakata did not put them on the spot. He steered the discussion forward instead. "The Nerima case and the Saitama case followed the same logic in how the victims were killed, and both victims were young women who lived alone. The only difference is that the cases were more than two years apart."

"The Metropolitan Police Department has already sent a notice to every jurisdiction, asking them to check for similar unsolved cases nationwide," Inspector Megure added.

"Inspector Megure and I also found another similarity on the way here," Ogino said. "In both cases, a neighbor gave a vague statement that the victim seemed to have a boyfriend and had been seen with a handsome man. Unfortunately, more than two years ago, we found no evidence that Ami Murose had a boyfriend before she died."

Megure nodded. "That's right. The Metropolitan Police Department hasn't found anything on that front either. The victim's friends and family all said she didn't have a boyfriend. If Inspector Ogino hadn't told us about the Saitama case today, we would have assumed the neighbor was mistaken."

"So both victims may have been in secret relationships?" Munakata said with a nod.

That gave the investigation an apparent focus.

Both victims were young women, so a crime of passion had always been a primary consideration. Now it seemed both might have deliberately concealed an intimate relationship, which made that possibility even more suspicious.

"Next, let's go over what was different about the