Episode 2: Seal (Part 2)
Sawaki Toshiya, a security guard at a big supermarket, is found murdered in his own room. The whistle next to his dead body seems to be Tanimoto’s missing whistle. According to Kuraishi’s assessment, the estimated time of death coincides with the day of Tanimoto’s suicide. Did Tanimoto kill Sawaki and commit suicide after that?
They learn that Sawaki had caught Tanimoto’s daughter, Erika, in the act of shoplifting a tube of lipstick. Because it was her first offense, she had been let off with a warning. At that moment, Tanimoto’s subordinate, Okudera Nobuhiko, who was doing his daily round on that day, came by. Okudera says he was worried when he saw Erika with the security guards. He found out what had happened and told Tanimoto the facts despite his reservations.
The whistle dropped at the scene of Sawaki’s murder is confirmed to belong to Tanimoto. Tanimoto’s fingerprints are also found on the ashtray thought to be the murder weapon. Doubts about Tanimoto grow but Kuraishi, who has barged in on an investigation meeting, declares, “That’s different from mine,” and rejects the theory that Tanimoto is the murderer. Kuraishi states that as a former member of the crime lab, Tanimoto would not have left his fingerprints behind if he was the murderer. Kuraishi also points out that the first person to discover Sawaki’s body had noted that the door to the apartment was locked. Why did Tanimoto lock the door if he had left clear traces of evidence behind? But Tanimoto, who is connected with Sawaki through his daughter’s shoplifting, cannot be dropped as a suspect. And so, Tachihara and Kuraishi are sharply divided.
A witness who had seen Tanimoto near Sawaki’s apartment on the night of the incident emerges. Furthermore, the witness had also seen Erika …
Tachihara and his men take Erika in for questioning. Erika confesses that Sawaki had called her to come to his apartment by threatening to show the video footage of the shoplifting to her father. She says that although she had gone to Sawaki’s neighbourhood, she could not bring herself to visit his apartment and had gone back. Then a horrible thought strikes her … Had her father killed Sawaki for her sake and committed suicide after that?
The following day, Kuraishi and the rest learn that Erika has been hospitalised after a suicide attempt. A furious Kuraishi confronts Tachihara and his investigation team for driving Erika to take her own life. Tachihara does not wish to think of Tanimoto as the murderer but all the evidence points in that direction. Many eyewitnesses had seen a uniformed policeman near Sawaki’s apartment, and footage from a convenience store security camera also showed Tanimoto cycling past at the time of the crime.
Godai orders Tachihara to wrap up the case. Tanimoto not only had the motive, he had also been seen in the vicinity on the night of the murder. However, Tachihara is bothered by the fact that there seem to be too many eyewitnesses who had seen a uniformed policeman.
Meanwhile, Kuraishi checks Tanimoto’s movements on the night of the murder another time. Viewing the convenience store security camera footage, he notices a uniformed policeman cycling past the store, followed by Tanimoto about ten minutes later, and then, the same uniformed policeman again an hour later … The face of that uniformed policeman cannot be seen, but Kuraishi seems to have figured out the sequence of events.
That night, Kuraishi follows Okudera on his patrol and confronts him. Okudera denies killing Sawaki. However, Kuraishi knows that he had requested for a new whistle from the Equipment Division the day after the incident.
Kuraishi tells him that Tanimoto had found his actions unusual and made inquiries. Learning that Okudera had met Sawaki, Tanimoto followed when he went on a patrol on the night of the murder, and saw him flee from Sawaki’s apartment. Tanimoto realised that Okudera had killed Sawaki because of Erika. He covered up the crime by replacing Okudera’s dropped whistle with his own and leaving his fingerprints on the ashtray. Then he locked the door so Okudera could not enter the apartment again. This was Tanimoto’s sacrifice …
Okudera admits that he had seen Erika with Sawaki at a cafe on the night after the shoplifting incident. Suspicious of Sawaki’s intentions, Okudera had gone to his apartment and come upon the video footage of Erika. In their struggle, Sawaki had hit his head against a table and haemorrhaged.
All text copyright © jdramas.wordpress.com.
