A visit to every resident of the complex. Where just imagining it made me feel fed up, just mentioning it made me reluctant, such plain, honest work. It was like busy work, or rather, as work goes, it was honestly considerably labor intensive.
I mean yeah, unlike detective novels, a majority of real detective work consisted of these sort of investigation and listening duties, requiring a great deal of patience—it couldn't be carried out with a straight face like a machine, how Kyouko-san adapted herself to every encounter really wasn't normal.
To speak from conclusions, there was nothing to end the visit to every door along the way, it finished in just under four hours—I estimated around five, so my plans were just compressed a bit.
Of course, there were people who were out, and those who were (probably) pretending to be out—but we managed to meet the larger majority of over fifty residents.
We met and heard what they had to say. I'll say this, it was a job that could only be done with Kyouko-san's character—of course, the fact we were unable to end it along the way came as a set with a futility that we didn't gain much information.
Perhaps I should be thankful just that the police didn't barge into the complex from a police report in the middle of investigations… we were hiding our identities and the incident itself to question, so perhaps there was a restriction on the questions we could pose.
What we heard from each resident was their relation to old Wakui, and about his 'work' these days—then about their personal life habits, Kyouko-san was able to nonchalantly draw out information, yet you could say we barely gained anything.
At most, that old Wakui had a considerably pure reputation among the residents—to think, without knowing the one in question was at present wandering the boundary of life and death at the hospital, those residents would unveil such language and vilification without reserve or consideration to Kyouko-san, someone they were seeing for the first time.
He was supposed to be their patron, and someone they were indebted to, but should I say surprisingly, or should I say I saw it coming, he was quite hated by his tenants—that being the case, just form what I'd heard from the side, it was hard to think that was connected to murderous intent.
I can't say what Kyouko-san thought about their words, but as one who looked after them, and someone they shared a house with, it was foul language that came with a sense of closeness—I'm sure there was that side to it as well.
I may be repeating myself, but while one may surmise a motive, when you get down to it, there's no way one could understand anyone's inner workings—it's between family, friends, lovers than quarrels are easiest to break out. If they got along poorly enough for the seeds of murder to sprout, then they were never within arm's reach, they were growing apart, such people—when you boil it down, no matter the relationship, one could say a case was likely could happen, and another could say it was not.
But if one were to ask if those four hours were wasted, that wasn't the case.
Even if one's innermost thoughts remain unclear, simple pros, cons, and interests there are such definite difficult-to-shift entities. In that regard, including those who were out, pretending to be out, and those we couldn't have a decent conversation with regardless, it was clear not a single resident o Atelier House stood to gain from murdering old Wakui—more so, a majority of them novice artists, they would generally be at a massive loss.
That wasn't simply because they would lose support from an influential person. While this Atelier House held the appearance of a towering apartment building, it apparently was not registered as a housing complex.
One of the residents told us.
On paper, this place was treated as Wakui's personal residence. In short, that would make every resident living here a freeloader with no right of residence.
If it were a housing complex, a lease contract would have been exchanged, and even if the owner of the complex were to change, even if there was a problem in paying rent, at the very least, they'd be able to live there a while longer, but in the case old Wakui died, and the complex's owner changed, they would be promptly driven right out—even if we were in a recession, it was a generally prosperous country we lived in, albeit even if they didn't end up on the streets, they would be placed in quite a painful position.
Losing Wakui their patron wouldn't set them back to zero, it would put them into the negatives—was there any resident here who would really ignore that logic to harm their landlord? Would they really grow so emotional that such profit and loss calculations stopped working—Kyouko-san's 'the culprit is in our midst' theory, upon making our rounds, suddenly grew dubious.
"You mustn't jump to conclusions, Oyagiri-san. They could also see it like this—say they're a resident who chose to give up on their talent, and was to soon have their support cut off, if they were going to be driven out regardless, the decided to bet it all and resort to violence in the end, bringing about such a tragedy. How does that sound?"
Kyouko-san said—it was certainly possible. Rather than betting it all, that was practically desperation, but… if we surmise they wanted to clear up their resentment at the end, that would make it easier to reach our current predicament.
In that case, the following deductions would be simple. We just had to make another round, and identify a resident who was about to be cut off—even if it was just on the level of gossip between floormates, identifying candidates shouldn't prove too difficult.
"Of course, in that case, would Wakui-san really cover for a resident he was about to cut off? That births a new question."
Kyouko-san turned over the deduction she made herself—it did seem that was one of her specialty shows of round-robin reasoning. Through we already spent too much time to go through every possible theory.
"And of course, there's also the possibility of complicity, isn't there? Two, maybe even more people tried to kill Wakui-san…"
"It's possible. But the residents are all rivals, and as long as they were urged into a competition, it's hard to think it would be easy to form a complicit relationship on the level of conspiring."
"Competition… is it."
Right, even if they had to mingle to an extent, living in the same complex, as they were peers holding the same title, they couldn't grow any closer than necessary—or rather, in the first place, there were signs old Wakui measured it out so they wouldn't get along too well.
The way he stuck up camouflage for his final job was the same—with no one knowing who was real and who was a fake, a certain seed of paranoia would sprout. This was something one of the residents we heard out (anxiously) spoke of, but old Wakui apparently preached the harm of fellow artists getting together at every opportunity. There is nothing that degrades art further than artists colluding—apparently.
While those words were harsh, I could see what he was getting at—rather, it was a single possible outlook. If aspiring artist gathered to simply form a group of friends or support circle, that would undoubtedly differ from the Atelier House old Wakui had in mind.
Though was it excessive to purposely produce an environment where they'd hate one another… to add to that, in each house visit, we could see through the gaps the residents' living conditions. To an outsider like me, I thought them severely limited.
Among those interviewed were friendly and sociable ones and, perhaps feeling an intimacy with the visitor Kyouko-san (though never with me), quite a few of them let her into their room, but while the rooms' make itself was luxurious, their state was specialized to paint pictures, it was a space for that alone.
Put simply, excluding the minimum necessary essentials for life, only art supplies were left around the room—old Wakui's support seemed to be limited to art matters in the strictest possible sense. He would always oblige requests like I'm out of paint, or I need a brush, but his support for food and clothing expenses were drops in a bucket.
When he was told it would be used to paint, he bought bread, when he was told it would be used as a motif, he bought fruit, there were residents with episodes that brought tears to my eyes—old-fashioned episodes I couldn't think would come from any human living in a high-rise complex.
To add onto that, pets were prohibited, living with family was prohibited, letting friends or lovers stay over was prohibited, It had rules set down like a strict student dorm.
No hunger or cold, if you ignored the luxuries, it didn't lack any freedoms, but if you lived here, taking any action apart from 'painting paintings' was quite difficult—considering how Atelier House was old Wakui's private residence, there was a time I held an impression of a salon where artists gathered to hold an exhibition, but hearing of the real conditions from the one in question, I was even leaning towards calling it a forced labor institution.
Of course, it wasn't as if there was any quota, and in the case their paintings sold, he wouldn't even take a commission, the artist would simply receive the money, so calling it forced labor might be going so far—but if one spent too long under these living conditions, there was no doubt in my mind it would place a burden on the heart.
At the very least, looking at it from the perspective of a welfare program, it was wholly inadequate—the outside might be splendid, but the contents weren't fit for life. No, there were kitchens and bathrooms, so perhaps only the blessed could say it wasn't fit for life, but still, it was undeniable that rather than living, it was a space where art was placed on a higher plane.
With that rose another possibility, that mentally cornered, no longer able to discern what was what, and unable to distinguish profit or loss, a resident might have murdered with no motive at all—so the only 'definitive' thing that became clear after the visits was perhaps that the residents of Atelier House were generally not living in any decent environment.
To be honest, I didn't get it.
When Kyouko-san deduced that old Wakui was covering for the culprit, I felt like she had seen his aptitude as a landlord, but in his management of Atelier House, that sweetness and calmness was nowhere to be found. More so, it was terribly cruel—with such reverence to the artistic attributes, the human attributes were sacrificed.
"Do you mean you can't tell if Wakui-san is a good person or not?"
Kyouko-san asked, seeing through my hesitation; I could only nod—it kinda made me feel embarrassed I had tried to classify him under an infantile black and white scale of good person and bad person, but it was an honest point I couldn't cover up.
"How should I put it… I ended up wondering if you really had to put in so much effort to succeed his will—if this situation was brought about by him reaping what he sowed."
"You're kind, you know that, Oygiri-san. I'd call you a good person."
Kyouko-san gave a peculiar laugh.
"Then why not try thinking about it like this? If you don't know if Wakui-san is a good person or bad person, for now, why don't we continue investigating until we know for sure? If he is a bad person, you can just stop then—but if we stop now, in the case Wakui-san is a good person, there's no way to turn back."
That was definitely one way to look at it. That so-called 'better to regret doing than to regret never having done,'—I didn't like the words too much, but to Kyouko-san, the forgetful detective, that strategy was exceedingly effective and applicable.
Regret or not, once tomorrow came around, Kyouko-san would forget everything she did today—do it or not, there were no regrets. Then she just had to do what she had to.
Even if the result had it all end in vain, that was fine in itself—If it went well and she forgot, it was quite much the same. Because she couldn't regret, she could bravely challenge things at full speed—thinking about it normally, only having a day's worth of memory looked like nothing more than a huge demerit in the detective agency, but the more I thought about it, the more of an advantage it was to her.
Of course, there were surely things she could do precisely because of who she was—there was no guarantee anyone could do the same.
… And, no matter what job she accomplished, just as there was no regret, there was no achievement or worth in doing it—I wonder how that balance was settled in Kyouko-san.
"Kyouko-san, err… what do you think at the moment?"
"Meaning? About whether Wakui-san is a good or bad person?"
"There's that too… but about the environment of Atelier House itself. I can't really tell if this environment is a good thing or not—"
"That's the difficult part. I personally think leaving myself to this environment would be too tiresome, and I'd have to take a pass, but for one with artistic inclinations, it is unknown how they would think. Everyone, despite what they said, didn't seem to have the slightest intentions of leaving this place—perhaps to an aspiring artist, this place is a heaven, and also a hell."
Once you station yourself here, you can never get a break even if you want to, Kyouko-san put it together. Putting it all together, for anyone aspiring to be an artist, being able to receive unlimited support undoubtedly made this a dream-like environment—there was also no doubt the environment itself was making them spoiled.
"Good or bad, vice or virtue, it depends on the person experiencing them—I would say? It's like appraising a painting."
Having long since forgotten the happenings of that day, Kyouko-san might have said it without any particular intentions, but those nonchalant words had me recall how the same picture's value could change between two hundred million and two million. That appraisal—that pricing was Kyouko-san's personal opinion, and once again, I priced the smashed painting at zero yen.
Yet back then, perhaps I was the one who was truly being appraised—insisting he would judge everything with his own eyes, with his question, old Wakui surmised the human known as Oyagiri Mamoru.
Someone who tried to see value in me, eh? Someone who tried to know my worth—if that was the underlying reason behind my hiring, then that was similarly the reason Kyouko-san was here. As a result, that decision was the one that saved his life, but…
How to see old Wakui, and how to see this Atelier House—I couldn't determine what decision I'd reach after that, but perhaps that conclusion would paradoxically manifest my values, my value as a person.
"And also, Oyagiri-san."
Kyouko-san said.
"For a while now, you've been speaking as if those visits were a wasted effort, but that wasn't the case at all—don't tell me you've forgotten the two large gains we made?"
"Umm…"
When she urged me, I see, sure enough, it wasn't like the investigation ended with nothing at all.
There were two special mentions. It's just, I couldn't determine whether to call them large gains or not—especially when one of them was just a trouble that put the progress of our investigation in danger. For the other, not only did it complicate our outlook on the case, it was hard to say it got us any closer to a resolution.
"That's not true. Try remembering, Oyagiri-san."
When the forgetful detective was telling me to remember, there's wasn't much else to do—I reflected on them one at a time. Right, that one happened not long after the investigation ha begun… on the thirtieth floor if I recall correctly—