Episode 7: Yuzuriha’s home
The body of an old man, Miyazaka Yoshitaro, who died an unnatural death, is found in his room. According to the statements given by his daughter Sachiko and son-in-law, who have been living with him, he hung himself from the wooden beam that passes over the sliding doors but Kuraishi is unable to find signs that Yoshitaro had hung from the beam and died at once. Is is possible that Yoshitaro, who had been bedridden, would have made the point to stand up and tie the sash of his yutaka to the wooden beam so that he could hang himself? It is likely that someone had strangled Yoshitaro given the condition of the wooden beam and the incrustation on his neck among other things … Kuraishi concludes that it is a murder.
The results of the autopsy determines that someone had used their hands to strangle the old man. There are few pressure marks because the person had not exerted a lot of strength. Furthermore, the incrustation on Yoshitaro’s neck turns out to be pine tar. Pine tar is used for the rosin bag in baseball and Sachiko’s son, Yoshiki, belongs to the baseball club. And Yoshiki, who tended to skip lessons, had been scolded by Yoshitaro. Did an angry Yoshiki lay hands on his grandfather …? However, the composition of pine tar in the rosin bag doesn’t match the pine tar found on Yoshitaro’s neck.
Meanwhile, Sachiko’s husband, Naoki, had an art gallery business that went bankrupt and is saddled with heavy debt. He had talked about making a fresh start in Okinawa but because Yoshitaro refused to relocate, they couldn’t move. Moreover, Naoki’s current workplace makes ornaments called rosin art with pine tar … Tachihara relentlessly grills Naoki.
While suspicion is focused on Naoki, Kuraishi goes to the Miyazaka residence, which had been the scene of the incident, alone. Sachiko insistently declares that her father had committed suicide because he had grown depressed. However, Kuraishi says, “That’s different from mine,” and searches about for evidence of murder but Sachiko asks him to leave just as he takes notice of a round block of rosin beside her violin in the living room. Could it have been Sachiko instead?
The First Investigative Division closes in on Naoki as the murder suspect while Kuraishi rushes the crime lab to process an identical block of rosin that he had obtained from a musical instruments shop. Just as Tachihara’s men are about to take Naoki to the precinct for questioning, Kuraishi, Rumi and Ichinose arrive to stop them. The composition of pine tar in the rosin block is an exact match for the pine tar found on Yoshitaro’s neck.
Confronted with the evidence, Sachiko admits to killing her father. She had entered his room before lunch to find him missing from his bed. Yoshitaro had strangled himself by tying one end of the sash of his yutaka to the handle of a chest of drawers, and wrapping the other around his foot but he was still alive … Knowing how many suicide notes her father had written and how frequently he thought of suicide because he felt he was a burden to the family, a distraught Sachiko had made the decision to relieve him of his pain by ending his life for him.
Related Posts:
All text copyright © jdramas.wordpress.com.
Jdrama Weblog 