Hanzai Japan: Fantastical, Futuristic Stories of Crime From and About Japan (16 page)

“It’s a bit of a pain, eh?”

A map appeared on the projection screen, and on it eight crime scenes had been plotted out. They were framed by color-coded areas shaped like doughnuts.

“I think you’ll get the picture when you see this, but I attempted to analyze the crime scenes using Rossmo’s formula.”

Rossmo’s formula is a method of geographical profiling. Where do serial murderers, sex offenders, and other serial criminals live? The formula seeks to answer this question based on the distribution of crime scenes.

The theory is pretty straightforward. When serial murderers and the like select a location in which to commit their crimes, they tend to choose a place that is relatively close to their own homes while avoiding locales that are
too
close, instead establishing a buffer zone around their domiciles. In their minds, the probability of being discovered if they select a location too close to home is high. On the other hand, if one strays too far from home it takes too long to return from the scene of the crime—and from the criminal’s standpoint, this is a dangerous thing.

Thus, in an attempt to establish what he believes to be a safe location for his serial crimes, the perpetrator unwittingly supplies information concerning where he lives. Rossmo’s formula works according to this principle, utilizing crime scene distribution data to determine the hot zone in which a criminal is hiding.

Yatsuyanagi had carried out an analysis utilizing this technique, and the room had grown agitated upon seeing the results.

“How did you arrive at this?”

Muraki grumbled. Hashimoto addressed him.

“Muraki, I’ve computed the hot zone using Rossmo’s formula—so why does everyone look so skeptical?”

“Rossmo’s formula doesn’t hold up for Vampire Squad investigations. Well, there are exceptions, but that’s true for nine cases out of ten.”

“Why? Because vampires think differently than humans?”

“That’s too simplistic. A sharp-witted vampire would at least be familiar with Rossmo’s formula. And a vampire living at the peripheries of society would need to become familiar with police procedure. That sort of vampire would choose a location precisely in order to circumvent Rossmo’s formula. Or perhaps he’d contrive a way for identical crimes to go undiscovered. It’s not often that things fall into place like you’re suggesting.”

“I had no idea. In the training course we learned that it was an effective investigative technique, and the formula itself isn’t readily apprehensible.”

“Vampiric crimes are discovered daily. The content of the training courses immediately grows outmoded. And vampires, too, surf the Web. This sort of information isn’t circulated. Disinformation, on the other hand …”

To supplement Muraki’s explanation, Yatsuyanagi split the screen and presented the data related to prior similar incidents.

“So that he can pull off serial crimes, this clever vampire selects locations in order to sidestep Rossmo’s formula. Most of them transpire outside of the turbulence of the hot zone, making his serial crimes appear to be one-time offenses. When a vampire indulges in serial bloodsucking, without question, he’ll be found out and put down. If it’s a one-time affair, he might avoid euthanasia. Even so, the vampire in this case is different. It’s as though he’s declaring that he’s a serial offender. Is there some connection between this and the fact that the prior five incidents and the most recent three differ?”

Muraki looked at the hot zone, and something came to mind.

“Doctor, you recently participated in an academic conference in Mitaka. That isn’t far from the hot zone, is it?”

“Muraki, what an unpleasant thought. That’s right, the conference took place in the hot zone. If I’d walked down the wrong street at the wrong time, I could have become the subject of an autopsy.”

Muraki raised his hand, and again asked for comment. He highlighted a spot on the map with the pointer.

“The home-improvement center where the party in question had the victim purchase a stake—it’s also near the hot zone. Supposing that the vampire’s behavior doesn’t contradict Rossmo’s formula, isn’t there a strong possibility that the person in question also lives in this hot zone? Maybe the human accomplice has established a pattern based on the behavior of the offending vampire. What do you think, Chief?”

“Muraki, are you saying we’re dealing with a human being who’s living with a rogue vampire?”

“Or a vampire who’s romantically involved with a human. For a rogue vampire there’s no better cover, right? In which case, might the stakes be signs that this person wants them to be found out? If so, it all adds up.”

Chateau Shimo-renjaku, as its name suggested, was a small four-story apartment building facing Renjaku Street. All of the units were used as VLC employee housing, but it was not widely known that the surveillance state’s As
ō
Real Estate Company was a subsidiary of VLC.

With Hashimoto in tow, Muraki drove his electric car soundlessly into the visitor parking lot at Chateau Shimo-renjaku. The police department had embraced the electric car more fully than any other part of the public sector.

“Muraki, the informant you’re going to introduce me to—is it a VLC worker?”

“Come on, you’ll understand before long. More importantly, do you have your gun?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Good.”

Muraki was facing the corner room on the fourth floor. The doorplate read
Technical Translator Jonathan
. On the steel door hung a bulb of garlic. Reading Muraki’s ID tag, the door produced a sound indicating that the lock had been released.

“Enter two meters behind me. And remain at least two meters away from me. Near the exit, if possible,” Muraki said, then entered the room. The corridor from the entryway to the living area was a steel bookcase lined with nondigitized dictionaries and documents in German, Russian, and other languages.

Muraki had visited this place many times, but never without a sense of unease. Though in his head he knew that nothing would happen, his gut wouldn’t accept it.

“Thank you for coming.”

An androgynous voice arose from the living area. The parlor, which together with the kitchen formed a twelve-mat room, was lined on all four sides with steel bookcases that blocked off even the window. In the center of the room was a large wooden desk. The lights had been turned off, but a ray of sunlight that slipped through the window otherwise obscured by the bookcase mingled with the glow of a large computer monitor to illuminate Jonathan.

He welcomed Muraki and Hashimoto in a polite tone, but made no move to rise from his chair. This was not out of lack of courtesy; rather, it seemed, he was trying to avoid putting his company on edge by making a careless movement.

Perhaps in an attempt to demonstrate to his visitors that he was one of the virtuous vampires, the cup of blood that he had just finished drinking had been left out on the kitchen sink. It appeared that he had also eaten some pasta.

Jonathan looked to be a young man. He was a Japanese, not a foreigner. He was slender, and when he did stand he gave the impression of being quite tall. Perhaps owing to the light of the computer monitor, his pallid skin appeared sickly.

“Muraki, what the …”

Muraki heard Hashimoto’s voice from behind.

“Let me introduce you two: This is my informant, Jonathan. As you can see, he’s a vampire. And this is my partner, Hashimoto.”

Hashimoto bowed to Jonathan. Jonathan gestured toward a pair of seats. Muraki sat down, but Hashimoto remained standing, maintaining his distance from Muraki. Perhaps because Jonathan understood why, he said nothing more.

“So, why did you ask me here?”

Jonathan produced a printout of an image taken with a digital camera. The picture depicted a group of roughly thirty young men. On the back something had been written in slender characters.

“The Kichij
ō
ji affair?”

“Yep.”

Muraki read the writing on the back of the picture. Current addresses and brief personal histories of the men pictured. And a name.

“
Satoshi Kijima?
Is he our rogue? Who created him?” Muraki asked.

“You wont hear a peep from me on that matter,” Jonathan replied.

“We could also put the screws on this stray and make him spit it out!”

“If you search VLC’s records, you’ll find a vampire who committed suicide. But the truth is that she was killed by a vampire, one I myself transformed.”

“
She?
You’re saying he meant to turn his lover into a vampire?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it was an experiment. Why he’d do something so foolish is a mystery to us, too.”

“What kind of fellow is he, this Kijima?”

“A beast. He’s driven by instinct. Not a cultured bone in his body, but he is cunning. To the extent that he was able to convince even his fellow vampires that it was a suicide.”

“This guy isn’t living with a human, is he?”

“If he only had the self-restraint to do so without drinking their blood, he wouldn’t have been so stupid as to make enemies of us.”

Feeling that “us” included the Vampire Squad, Muraki got an unsettled feeling.

“The long and short of it is that if this rogue keeps committing crimes, this virtuous vampire before me is going to have trouble. Is this why you’re trying to make us get rid of him?”

“I don’t manipulate the police. Isn’t reporting information about criminals to the police the responsibility of virtuous citizens?”

“I see. You have our thanks. If this information is correct, we’ll arrange for a reward.”

“I look forward to working with you.”

Hashimoto exited Johnson’s dwelling, and shortly thereafter Muraki left, as well. They didn’t exchange a word until they had retraced their steps to the car.

“Muraki, you’re using a vampire as an informant?”

Muraki had anticipated this reaction.

“There’s no better source of information about vampiric crimes than a vampire. You must have seen that. When humans become vampires, most lose touch with their emotions, but some undergo the change without entirely losing their connection to humanity. Are you familiar with the theory that if the vampire factor is highly concentrated at the time the blood is drunk, the vampire retains more of his base human personality? Only those vampires possess the ability to hold direct conversations with human beings.”

“If that’s the case,” Hashimoto said, “no matter how much a vampire works at it, only those that excel at communication could adapt to society and follow in the footsteps of Europe’s elder vampires. An individual with a poor ability to communicate would soon find himself unable to adapt to society and be weeded out.”

“The vampires in the metropolitan area are granted legal protection. Natural selection doesn’t apply—vampires with whom it is difficult to come to a mutual understanding haven’t killed themselves off yet. Still, it’s a pain to correspond only with fellows like Jonathan. He has a pliant demeanor, but he’s obstinate. If what he says is true, there is a problem with VLC’s ability to keep things in check,” Muraki said. “To conclude that a murder is a suicide—we’ll be heaped with criticism asking what the hell the Vampire Squad was doing. This has to be resolved peacefully. With the police secure, and the vampires happy.”

“But something doesn’t make sense.”

“In what regard?”

“Rossmo’s formula. Kijima’s an uneducated vampire, so he wouldn’t know about Rossmo’s formula. So, he established a pattern. Proceeded in a logical manner.”

Muraki got the feeling that Hashimoto was holding something back, some sort of grave hint. But he wasn’t able to adeptly put it into words.

“When we get back shall we try to meet with the doctor?”

The Amachi home was in the residential district of Azabu. It was a sizable three-story dwelling, but the building-to-land ratio was significant, and ensuring that there was space for visitor parking meant there was practically nothing in the way of a garden.

Yatsuyanagi parked his car in a visitor spot. Unsurprisingly, there was nothing in the first-floor garage. Had Rieko already come home? The outdoor electric unit was running, and the wattage meter near the garage was rotating smoothly.

Yatsuyanagi stood at the door unsure how to greet her, but in the end called out officially, “It’s Yatsuyanagi.” As though it had read his ID tag, the door unlocked. When he opened it the coolness that Yatsuyanagi had anticipated encountering was absent.

“Prop the door open to let in some fresh air and come upstairs,” came Rieko’s voice from the floor above him.

“Sorry to disturb you.” Yatsuyanagi reached down for the doorstop, and after cracking the door he humbly removed his shoes, changed into a pair of slippers, and headed toward the second-floor living room. The air was pregnant with heat. Rieko was wearing a suit, and a large tote bag had been carelessly placed on a chair.

“Sorry, my meeting ran late, so I just got home.”

Saying this, Rieko opened the window all the way. It was a south-facing window, which meant that the temperature in the approximately twenty-mat living room had soared above body temperature. The breeze flowed through the open window.

“You have a giant air conditioner over there—why not use it?”

“I hate the cold air from the A/C. Natural breeze is the best—that’s why I opened the window.”

As Rieko climbed to the third floor to change her clothes, Yatsuyanagi, with her permission, entered the kitchen and helped himself to some water. The kitchen was spacious. An island had been installed, as though to enable husband and wife to prepare food together. Yatsuyanagi firmly believed that his hunch was correct.

Rieko returned, having changed into jeans and a T-shirt. The married woman standing before him was not the girl Yatsuyanagi remembered. When Rieko offered him coffee, Yatsuyanagi lifted his glass of water. The two got down to business.

“So, what’s the news on Amachi? Something bad?”

“Amachi’s car has been found. It was among the items confiscated from a theft ring specializing in luxury automobiles. They say they nabbed it in the middle of the night from a parking lot in Azabu. They’re professionals—they dismantle electric cars and sell the parts overseas. So what we more accurately found was not the car, but rather some of its parts.”