“Urn, Ryuzaki... that’s getting a bit facetious.” “I was joking.”
“That’s what being facetious means.” “Then I was serious.”
“Still facetious.”
“Then I was deadly serious. Look! Don’t you think she looks better?” “W-well... I suppose...”
Facetious.
The mother had first seen her daughter’s body in the morgue, and the glasses had already been removed. Which was probably all according to the killer’s plan... by this point in time, what else could they think?
“The third murder happened in West L.A. , near Glass Station— glasses. Very literal. But this doesn’t give us the address, only the neighborhood...”
“No, if you narrow it down that much, then you can probably narrow it down all the way, Misora. All you have to do is look for someone in the area with the initials B.B., and you can fix on the address. In other words, the killer has assumed that by the time the second murder occurs, we would have figured out the missing link.”
“Oh? But... we were only able to figure out that Q was actually B because the third murder had already taken place. At the time of the second murder, how could anyone have worked that out?”
“You don’t need to. I mean, even at the third murder, there’s no real way to tell if B is the main letter and Q the reverse, or the other way around. The fourth murder could be another child with the initials Q.Q. and flip the idea. It’s possible he’s mainly killing children, and is really after Qs. From our current data, we have no idea why he’s aiming for B.B.s, or why he’s after Q.Q.s. But that doesn’t matter. All you have to do is find everyone with either set of initials.”
“Oh... oh, right
But on August 16th, they were speaking in hindsight, they were much too late, and the third murder had long since happened. Just to be sure, she had checked, and within five hundred meters of Glass Station there was no one with the initials Q.Q., and only one person with the initials BR.
The eyeglass message was very simple compared to the book shelf message at the first scene, but they had only been able to solve it because they already had the phrase Glass Station in mind—otherwise, who would ever be able to figure out that putting glasses on a corpse was a message from the killer? The very simplicity of it was exactly what made it even more difficult than the first murder. Now Misora had to stop the fourth murder, but would she be able to figure out the message left at the scene of the third? She was more than a little worried. Once again, it was Ryuzaki who had brought up the topic of the victim’s crushed eyes, it was Ryuzaki who had suggested she look at the photo album carefully—without him, she would not have figured it out. Or at the least, it would have taken a lot more time. At this point, it was noon, so they decided to get some food and figure out how to move next. Ryuzaki invited Misora to eat with him, but she declined. There was no telling what hideous
sweet or poison he would foist on her, and she needed to speak to L. The mysteries they had uncovered had reached a level that demanded reporting. She moved well away from the apartment, looked around her carefully, leaned against a wall, and dialed.
“This is L.”
“This is Misora.”
She was getting used to the synthetic voice. She quickly explained what had happened that day, and what they had figured out, wasting no words. She felt herself getting a little worked up when she was explaining why the victim had been lying face down, but repressed it. At least, she thought she had.
“Okay. I understand. I was right to pick you, Naomi Misora. Honestly, I did not expect such impressive results.”
“No... not at all. I don’t deserve the compliment. More importantly, about what I should do next. . . any thoughts? We don’t know when the fourth murder will occur, so I thought maybe I should head right over to West L.A. now
“No need,” L said. “I’d prefer that you secure your footing. Based on your report, there is plenty of time before the fourth murder occurs.”
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