A Dog in Water (19 page)

“No, but I’m beginning to get a little interested in you.”

I felt like I was being teased, but it was not unpleasant. “There are things that I must do,” I answered with uncharacteristic frankness. “But I’m not sure how to go about doing those things …” I felt like I was talking to myself. The words seemed not to have reached her ears.

“Does it itch anywhere?”

“No.”

The itching was gone. I was already starting to remember things I didn’t want to remember.

After rinsing out my hair and toweling it dry, she led me to a chair in front of a mirror. A sullen middle-aged man with his hair plastered to his head stared back at me from within the mirror.

“Did you enjoy the shampoo?” Her soft fingers worked through my hair as she blew it dry.

“Yes, very refreshing,” I lied.

“I’m good at haircuts, not just shampooing, y’know. Will you let me cut your hair, Mr. Detective?” She kept talking, not giving me a chance to respond. “I think you’ll look so much better with a far shorter cut. Leave it to me. I’ll make you look super cool.”

“Okay, next time.”

“Really? That’s a promise!” She smiled charmingly at me through the mirror. I felt my spirits lift slightly.
Her smile is as effective as morphine
, I noted.

When I headed towards the exit after settling the bill, the girl stepped in front of me and held open the glass door. The boss was chatting with her own client. I bobbed my head at the girl and started to walk past when she spoke.

“Uhm, I know it’s not my place to say this, but …”

I turned back to face her.

“If there really is something you have to do, then I’m sure God will let you do it.” She smiled bashfully and gave a polite bow.

“Thank you,” I said and left the salon.

I entered the dingy Chinese restaurant across the street from my office’s building. I started to feel like I had an appetite. Unfortunately it was lunch hour and all the seats at the tables and counter were taken. I turned to leave, thinking I would come back later, when the elderly owner standing by the register said, “Please,” and pointed toward a table in the corner. A girl who couldn’t have been more than eight years old sat alone at the table.

“Oh, but—”

“Please,” the old man repeated, cutting me off mid-protest, and disappeared into the kitchen.

I felt trepidation towards a girl her age. That scene started to knit together in my mind. Even so, I had no intention of running away. I made my way to the table with a tense gait.

“Hi, can I share this table with you?”

The girl gave a small nod. She had both hands on her knees, which were pressed together, and her gaze was fixed on the surface of the table. I sat down in the chair opposite. An empty bottle of orange juice and an empty glass sat in front of the girl. I took in the menu on the wall.

“If you’d like, as a thank-you for letting me sit here, I could buy you
another glass of juice.”

“No, thank you,” she replied. “Oh, no need to—”

“You’re very kind, but please don’t take any interest in me,” the girl said, never looking me in the eye.

My mouth relaxed.
Of course. Damn right. Don’t trust strangers
.

I ordered hot-and-sour ramen from the young Chinese who brought over a glass of water.

I left the restaurant and went back to the office. I’d tried, not wanting to waste food in front of the little girl, but ended up leaving about half of it uneaten. Her reply had distracted me enough that I’d ordered my favorite, but it’d been too heavy for my stomach in its current state. Considering, I hadn’t done too badly.

A woman was standing in front of the office door. When she caught sight of me climbing the stairs, her expression betrayed relief and she bowed politely.

She looked to be in her mid-thirties. She didn’t have much makeup on and her hair was tied back. Her eyes were impressive, exotic, bringing to mind women from the Middle East. She wore a cropped hooded jacket, sweatshirt, jeans and sneakers. She looked like any other housewife out in casual clothes.

“Are you here to request my services?” I asked.

She nodded.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t take on new clients at this time.”

“But I was told you would take on cases that no one else would touch.”

Yet again, some jackass had shot off his mouth. “I’m terribly sorry, but I’m not in the best of health at the moment …” I showed her my thickly-bandaged left hand.

“My daughter is going to get killed.”

Her face was stiff, her lips dry and cracked.

I gave up.

“Where is your daughter now?”

“I made her wait in the Chinese restaurant across the street.”

That child. Suddenly I recalled the words of the girl at the salon. I felt like God was already offering me a chance.

“Is this something that can be discussed in your daughter’s presence?” I asked as I unlocked the door to my office.

“No.”

“Then why did you bring her along? She should be in school at this hour.”

“She wanted to come. She insisted.”

I had no idea what that meant, nor why she would allow her daughter to do so.

“What should I …”

“Well, you can’t just leave her sitting in a Chinese restaurant. Why don’t you bring her here?”

Once my client left I cleared off the lounge table and opened a window to air out the office. I had never imagined a child would come to this place, and that was the least I could do.

What drink could I offer? I didn’t have anything suitable for children. Between coffee and water, which would be better? The woman reappeared with her daughter as I was still pondering the issue. In the end I decided against offering either coffee or water.

“Thanks for earlier,” I said to the girl, who sat next to her mother on the sofa. She stared straight at me and gave a small, polite bow. I asked, “Did you want to see what a real life detective is like?”

“No, I wanted to see what kind of person my mother was going
to talk to,” the girl answered. Then, turning to her mother, she said, “I think he’ll be fine,” and stood up. “I’ll go kill time so call me when you’re done.”

Her mother nodded.

“Will you be okay on your own?” I asked.

“I’m used to it. Please be good to my mother,” she replied, bowed and left the office.

“She’s very grown-up,” I observed, and I meant it wholeheartedly.

“Yes, she’s more reliable than I am,” my client said with a faint smile. She introduced herself as Yuko Kuroki. Her daughter, whose name was Shiori, was in first grade. Yuko was raising her alone.

“So please tell me. Why is your daughter going to get killed?” I pressed the record button on my voice recorder and placed it on the table.

“This arrived last week,” the woman said, retrieving an envelope from her shoulder bag and handing it to me. It was a standard, Western-style envelope, the address printed out rather than written and on a label as with direct-mail campaigns. There was no return address anywhere.

“Let me take a look.” I opened the envelope and pulled out the content. There was a single sheet of folded paper inside, also with typed text:

Unfairness must be righted. I will wait ten days. If you cannot do it, I will. - Johannes

That was all.

“Is this the only thing that was sent?” I asked.

“Yes.” She seemed as nervous as a candidate at a job interview.

“You read this and thought that your daughter would be killed?”

“Yes. I can tell.”

“So that means you know this ‘Johannes’?”

“No, the name isn’t familiar to me. But I know who sent the letter.”

“Who?”

“My benefactor. Someone to whom I owe a debt so great I’ll never be able to repay him.”

“And your benefactor thinks it unfair that your daughter is alive?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I killed his child,” she replied with startling composure.

I poured two cups of coffee and, after seeking permission from my client, lit a cigarette. She began talking, the words spilling forth like water from a broken dam.

Eight years ago, the pregnant Yuko was being physically abused by her husband. She thought of running away countless times, but worries over how she would get by and what would happen if he found her and dragged her home held her back.

Yuko’s husband was an attorney at a major law firm. She was fully aware that she had no chance of winning a court case against him. A martial arts fanatic, her husband never resorted to simple punches or kicks and instead used judo locking techniques and strangleholds. Holds on joints in the legs, arms, shoulders or neck delivered tremendous pain but didn’t leave many tell-tale marks. The scariest were the choke holds, where the pressure on her carotid artery caused her to black out. When she’d come to, her husband would be looming above her with a smirk. “You might not wake up next time,” he’d say and strangle her again. Endless rounds of that implanted dread and despair in a person. She lost the will to fight back.

“I can kill you whenever I want.” That was his favorite phrase. Yuko didn’t know how he arranged it, but he procured a diagnosis from a psychiatrist she had never even seen. She supposedly had mild schizophrenia. The diagnosis stated that she clearly exhibited symptoms such as paranoia and delusion.

“Now no one will believe anything you say. No one’s gonna help you.” He laughed and laughed in triumph.

In the fifth month of her pregnancy, Yuko experienced intense abdominal pain and was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. She had severe hemorrhaging. The pain was so overwhelming she was sure both her and her child would die. She thought that might be better for
her child. That alone was the bright spot. But thanks to the physician’s treatment, it didn’t end that way. The moment she learned her unborn child was safe she made a decision. It was obvious the child would be born into misery if things continued as they had. The night before she was scheduled to be released from the hospital, the nurse told her, “Your husband is coming to get you tomorrow morning.” Yuko fled immediately after.

She had nowhere to go. She wandered the streets of Shibuya. She couldn’t go back to her natal home in Ibaraki. Her obstinate country-bumpkin parents had full faith in her Tokyoite lawyer husband. Her father might even contact him. She feared that no matter how much she pleaded, her father would just brush her off:
You need to learn to put up with some things
.

Yuko had left her hometown at age eighteen sick of her parents and the countryside. She’d lost touch with all her friends from back then. She had only a little cash on her. At a loss for what to do, she was taken into custody by a policeman on patrol on his bicycle.

The policeman lent a sincere ear to her story. He let her rest in the police box and contacted a municipal domestic violence victim support center. He was conscientious of her pregnancy, taking care of her without expecting anything in return. His name was Akikumo Toshikawa. He was thirty-five and a head patrol officer.

After an interview with a public caseworker, Yuko was placed in a temporary shelter for victims of domestic violence. All contact with the outside was prohibited. The address of the shelter was not publicly listed. One woman there seemed to be hiding with bated breath with her baby, while another, far more laid back, had apparently been staying there for more than half a year.
If I’m here my husband might not find me
. Yuko began to feel the faintest of hopes.

When he had the time, Toshikawa would check in on her and dispense earnest advice, becoming a source of courage for her. He expressed regret at not being able to do anything as an officer because the issue was marital. He had lost his wife to illness and was raising their son, then almost three years old, on his own. He said he’d
become a cop wanting to help those who weren’t privileged. His words and behavior brimmed with compassion for people. After seeing him several times, she realized she was attracted to him.
If I could divorce my husband, I’d start my life over with someone like him
, Yuko found herself thinking. Yet she knew it would never happen.

Two weeks after being placed in the shelter, her husband showed up at the shelter bearing a writ of habeas corpus. She froze to the spot, her mind going blank. She lost her ability to think.

Her husband was kind. “I’m so glad to find you safe,” he said, tears streaming down his face. Yuko began to think everything that had happened was just a dream. She returned home at her husband’s bidding. What awaited her was a life of confinement that was nothing short of hellish.

She was not allowed to take even a single step outside their apartment, let alone contact the outside world. When her husband went out, he shut her in her room and locked the door from the outside. He abused her every night, forcing her to swear, “I’ll never run away again. I will obey you for the rest of my life.”

When Toshikawa came to see her a few days after she returned home, her husband turned him away at the door. “What is he to you? Did you screw him?!” he accused her. It was Toshikawa, the man who had cared for her in her pregnancy. Of course nothing like that had happened. In fact, she didn’t think her husband took his own suspicions seriously.
He’ll use any excuse to hurt me
.

Yuko’s only hope of escaping her husband was suicide, yet he kept away anything resembling a rope that she could use to hang herself, not to mention knives. The window had a grill on the outside, preventing her from jumping. She considered biting off her tongue, but fear over what would happen if she didn’t succeed kept her from trying. At some point she simply began to pray that Toshikawa would come and rescue her.

He came back about ten days later. He knocked down her husband and forced his way into the apartment. He unlocked the room and found Yuko inside. Her husband’s repeated holds had torn a
ligament in her right knee, rendering her unable to stand on her own. Toshikawa picked her up and tried to carry her out but was blocked by her husband.

“I’ve reported you to the police. What you’re committing is abduction—on top of assault, bodily injury and illegal trespassing. What kind of a cop are you? Mark my words, you’re a goner!”