Machiko Yoneoka

Machiko Yoneoka is an arts and entertainment journalist whose indirect role in obtaining Kyoichiro Kaga’s private contact information brings her into the murder investigation. Her interview links the detectives’ search through a magazine’s information trail to a woman whose name prompts an immediate, ominous recognition from Kaga.

Identity and Introduction

Yoneoka has a long career as a film and theater journalist. The detectives meet her as part of their effort to identify who had sought Kaga’s contact details through a publisher. She is not presented as the original requester: rather, a journalist who covered Yokohama’s professional baseball team told the detectives that he had obtained the information as a favor for a female friend working in arts and entertainment journalism. Yoneoka is the woman they arrange to interview.

The Magazine and the Information Trail

The investigation reaches back to a feature about Kaga in a kendo magazine. The article had covered his interview after he won the national police championships for judo and kendo. Although the magazine did not publish his address, Kaga had provided it so the publisher could send him a complimentary copy. He later wondered whether his address had been passed on, but had avoided asking the publisher because he did not want to use his rank to pursue a personal matter. When he finally seeks help, he is also concerned that telling the publisher the inquiry is connected to a murder might make it less forthcoming.

The detectives’ search takes them through a list of companies supplied by Health Publishing Research. After interviewing people around central Tokyo, they travel to Yokohama and learn that a baseball journalist had asked Health Publishing Research for Kaga’s contact information—not for himself, but on behalf of a female friend. He cannot recall why she wanted it, and may not have asked. That uncertain explanation is enough to give the detectives a route to Yoneoka.

Interview and Recognition

At a diner, Shuhei Matsumiya and Kaga wait to meet Yoneoka after a long day of interviews. Matsumiya is tired of repeating his explanation but remains intent on following leads, including apparent dead ends. When Yoneoka arrives, she asks whether she has done something wrong. Matsumiya reassures her with a cover story: the detectives are supposedly surveying the impact of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police’s public-relations outreach, using selected magazine and newspaper articles from the previous twenty years. He places the kendo magazine on the table and identifies Kaga’s interview as the article under review.

Yoneoka is surprised that the police conduct this kind of research. Matsumiya says they need to show that public-relations spending has an impact, then asks her to name the person who had requested Kaga’s contact details. She hesitates over whether the person might get into trouble, and Matsumiya assures her that any further meeting would only ask what had interested the person in the article. She eventually gives them a woman’s name.

Significance in the Investigation

Yoneoka’s answer turns an indirect chain of requests into a specific lead. Matsumiya senses that the name is familiar but has not yet placed it. Yoneoka’s expression changes: she appears terrified. Kaga, looking in the direction of her attention, has recognized the name’s significance. The scene does not establish Yoneoka’s reason for helping her friend, or what she knew about the woman’s intentions. Instead, her role is defined by the information she passes on and by her visible alarm when Kaga reacts, a contrast that signals how consequential the name is to the investigation.