Popular Culture Review Vol. 12, No. 2, August 2001 | Page 16
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Popular Culture Review
“Doctor,” Imanishi said, turning toward the medical
examiner, “you’re sure it was suicide?”
“There’s no mistake. She’d taken about two hundred
sleeping pills. The empty bottle was by her pillow.”
“So there’s no need for autopsy?” (121)
With the seed of doubt planted, Matsumoto keeps the suspense for nearly 200
pages before telling his readers whether it was indeed a suicide. As the case comes
to a close, Imanishi reports his findings to the Homicide Division: Rieko disposed
o f the evidence for her lover, who had committed the murder. Later, “she despaired
o f her lover, who was guilty of such a terrible crime and who had made her an
accessory to it. She committed suicide” (309).
Sometimes, camouflaging homicides as suicides is the real issue rather
than a literary diversion in Matsumoto’s tales. Both Vanishing Points and The Se
rials deal with actual cover-ups. In Points and Lines, the novel that launched the
“Matsumoto boom,” the focus of the story centers on whether two bodies found on
a remote beach are love suicides or homicides.
“There are dead bodies on the beach!”
“Dead bodies? On the beach?” The old policeman stood up
and shivered as he buttoned his jacket. The man was obviously
very excited.
“Yes, two of them. It looks like a man and a woman.” ...
“Love suicide,” said the old policeman, looking down at the
bodies. “Poor souls; still young, too.” (18-19)
That was how the story Points and Lines got started and it took two determined
detectives traversing the length of Japan to crack the case. As the truth becomes
apparent, the masterminds of the cover-ups, a married couple, commit suicide. But
one detective does not believe suicide is a manly act in this situation:
Frankly, 1 am skeptical. I find it hard to accept that a man as
tough as Yasuda would commit suicide. 1 believe that Ryoko,
who knew her end was near, could have planned it and taken
her husband with her. She was that kind of a woman. (158)
In Matsumoto’s literary moral landscape, male perpetrators usually get arrested,
but murderesses, in due respect to Japanese chivalry, are allowed to take their own
lives rather than be subjected to the indignity of going to prisons or the gallows.
There are exceptions, however. In Just Eighteen Months (Ichinen-han matte), an