Aibou TV Season 7 Episode 7 - The Last Fortress(最後の砦)

Subtitle: The Last Fortress(最後の砦)

 The police forcibly bring in Masami Tsuji(辻 正巳), a suspect in a pair of drive-by slashing incidents, for questioning. Lieutenant Shūji Nomura(野村 修司) of the Kitamura Police Station(北川警察署) question Tsuji for three days and Tsuji, looking weary, asks for permission to use the restroom. Lieutenant is not pleased and kicks Tsuji off his chair, causing the suspect to hit his head. Lieutenant Nomura orders Tsuji to get back up, but he never does. Realizing that Tsuji is dead, the lieutenant wipes away a bloodstain on the floor, even after the test interrogation supervisor Tsutomu Shimoyanagi(下柳 努) asks the lieutenant to stop. The higher ups in the police department try to cover up what happened in that interrogation room, but Inspector Ukyō, with Superintendent Supervisor's gentle prodding, starts his own investigation into the case.

Locations

Ōtaku(大田区) - Ota District, where the second woman was attacked.

Green Hill Fujigaoka - Apartment where Masami Tsuji(辻 正巳) lives.

Timeline of events

11/23 5:10 Tsuji's watch stops moving.

11/23 5:20 - Tsuji taken into custody.

11/26 9:32 - Tsuji passed away in the interrogation room.

Characters appearing/mentioned in the story

Kōken Onoda(小野田 公顕) - Superintendent Supervisor Onoda relays the details about Tsuji's interrogation to Inspector Ukyō over an okonomiyaki meal. He later asks General Inspector Ōkōchi to hold off performing Tsuji's autopsy.

Haruki Ōkōchi(大河内 春樹) - General Inspector Ōkōchi is sent to the Kitagawa Police Station(北川警察署) to confirm that nothing illegal occurred during Tsuji's interrogation. He questions Lieutenant Nomura and Sergeant Shimoyanagi separately. He asks CSI Yonezawa to check the interrogation report to see if it was altered in any way (it wasn't). He then confiscates the tire tread marks taken from the second slashing incident. Sensing that there was some kind of cover up, he asks Superintendent Supervisor Onoda's permission to perform an autopsy on Tsuji, but the superintendent supervisor asks the general inspector to hold off for a bit.

Shūji Nomura(野村 修司) - Lieutenant at Kitagawa Police Station(北川警察署) whose mother is hospitalized. He brought in Tsuji for questioning, but on the third day of questioning, he caused Tsuji to fall and hit head, killing the suspect. He wiped away a bloodstain on the floor even after test Interrogation Supervisor Shimoyanagi ordered him to stop. He later lies to the Tokumeigakari pair by hiding the fact that they collected tire marks from the second slashing incident. Sergeant Itami catches the lieutenant trying to get rid of the tire tread marks. Later he begs Inspector Ukyō to not match the two tire treads, but instead gets a stern lecture from the inspector on what it means to be a policeman.

Tsutomu Shimoyanagi(下柳 努) - 35 year old sergeant at Kitagawa Police Station(北川警察署), He is the test interrogation supervisor who testified that Nomura did not use violent measures during Tsuji's interrogation. Superintendent Uchimura later calls him to his office and asks him to be the "final fortress" defending the Japanese Police's prestige. CSI Yonezawa runs into him right afterwards and notices that the Sergeant is horribly ill, throwing up at a bathroom sink under the pressure. The pressure reaches a boiling point for him as Lieutenant Nomura is cornered, and the sergeant takes a drastic and tragic measure to end his impossible situation.

Sugita杉田) - Commissioner of Kitagawa Police Station(北川警察署). He submits a report stating that violence was not used during Tsuji's questioning.

Kaneko Yōko(金子洋子) - 25 year old saleswoman and the first victim of the drive-by slashing case. She says that the suspect rode a black scooter.

Kana Takanashi(高梨 加奈) - 29 year old company employee and the second victim of the drive-by slashing case, She says that the suspect rode a black scooter. She saw his eyes through his helmet before he rode away. The police later asked her to pick out the suspect most similar to the face she saw that night from a batch of photographs.

Masami Tsuji(辻 正巳) - 36 year old resident of room 308 in Green Hill Fujigaoka. Suspect in the drive-by slashing incidents. He worked at night and slept during the day, and he was loud when he came back home when everyone else was sleeping. As a result, people living near him complained about noises. He also wasn't a people's person, not responding to greetings.

Lieutenant Nomura zeroed in on Tsuji as the suspect for the drive-by slashing incidents for the following reasons.

1. He owns a black scooter.
2. The second victim Kana Takanashi(高梨 加奈) picked his photograph from among several as the man who most closely resembled the face she saw.
3. He doesn't have an alibi for either incident.
4. He caused an accident last year, and the victim from the incident billed him for a large medical bill. He had complained about her while drinking in taverns. Lieutenant Nomura insinuates that maybe Tsuji was upset at women in general.

As a result, Lieutenant Nomura forced Tsuji to go to the police station even though the process was supposed to be voluntary at that stage of the investigation. In order to make Tsuji confess, the lieutenant interrogated him for over 14 hours in a single day, even though the police aren't supposed to question a suspect over 8 hours a day. (Lieutenant Nomura later claims that he got the commissioner's permission first.) Tsuji started acting strangely by the third day of interrogation and asked the lieutenant if he could  use the restroom. Lieutenant Nomura was not amused and kicked Tsuji's chair, causing him to fall and hit his head. He stops breathing and dies in the interrogation room as a result of this fall.

Later, Inspector Ukyō discovers a wound on his lips with a blood clot inside Tsuji's mouth. The inspector also discovers scratches and dark blue paint on Tsuji's wrist watch.

Hiroshi, Kusakabe(日下部 裕) - A resident of Green Hill Fujigaoka and owner of a deep blue scooter. The Tokumeigakari pair ask him a few questions about the slashing incident after he runs into them in the apartment's garage.\Later, it is revealed that shortly before Tsuji was arrested, Kusakabe ran into Tsuji with his scooter. Tsuji fell backwards and hit his head as a result but was able to walk away.