The Silent Dead (13 page)

Not the most pleasant family background.

“Some people working the case took the view that the parents hadn't overdosed, but they were so badly burned that it was impossible to prove an alternative cause of death. In the end, Fukazawa got three years in juvenile detention. Pretty harsh in light of the facts. I mean, the guy had his reasons. I guess they just wrote him off as bad lot because of the time he'd already spent in juvie and in reform school.

“He began working his security company job and moved into that apartment as soon as he got out. The boss there also works as a juvenile probation officer. He couldn't speak highly enough of Fukazawa. ‘Well on his way to becoming a model citizen' was how he described him. Hell, it's so damn ironic. Next thing you know, the poor guy's drunk some dirty water or something and his brain turns to gunk. It's frightening.”

But Reiko's attention had moved elsewhere. “It says here that he had 730,000 yen in cash.”

The local police had searched the apartment looking for clues to shed light on Fukazawa's activities prior to his death. The list of impounded items did not include a diary, but there were receipts, magazines, photographs, and a single-use camera. Among those personal effects was an envelope containing ¥730,000 in seventy-three used ten-thousand-yen notes. The envelope itself was a dog-eared manila envelope rather than a logo-emblazoned one like those the banks provide customers when they withdraw large sums. It had a definite whiff of criminality.

“We never figured out where the money had come from,” Ito said with an anxious frown. “Fukazawa's boss insisted he couldn't have saved that much on the salary he was paying him. Was Fukazawa working a second job? No, he didn't have the time for that. Okay then, was he earning it through criminal activity of some kind? To a man, his buddies say no. Apparently he lived very frugally and never seemed to have cash to spare.”

The furrows in Reiko's brow deepened.
Was the money Fukazawa's reward for helping dispose of the bodies?

It was a lot of money for a job like that. Or, rather, it was too much for simply dumping two bodies in the pond, but too little if he'd committed the murders as well. Anyway, Fukazawa had died before he'd been able to dump Kanebara's body. Could he have been paid the full ¥730,000 for dealing with the body they'd dredged up yesterday? No way. It was far too much for that—and it was an odd sum of money in the first place.

Are more bodies down there?!

The Water Rescue team had kept searching until yesterday evening without finding more bodies.

“Is something bugging you?”

Ito was obviously desperate to hear what Fukazawa was mixed up in. Someone brought them tea. The captain put out repeated feelers as they drank it. Reiko brushed him off every time.

“Thanks for making the time to see us.”

“Not at all. Hope I was some use.”

Ito probably felt he'd been left hanging, but that wasn't Reiko's problem. The investigation was confidential, and there was no compelling reason for her to open up to him about it.

“Bye. If there's anything else I can do, feel free to call,” Ito said as he walked them to the lobby to see them off.

The poor man was obviously desperate to find out what was going on.

*   *   *

When they emerged from Nishiarai police station, it was as hot as ever outside. The weather appeared to be getting worse, and the sky was a lowering mass of heavy gray clouds. Since it was a Sunday, instead of the weekday snarl of semis and construction vehicles, only the occasional passenger car whizzed along the road directly in front of the station. By three or four that afternoon, there'd probably be a traffic jam due to all the cars coming off the expressway at the Kahei Interchange. For now, though, the road was relatively quiet.

The sight of the broad empty road suddenly transported Reiko back to Minami Urawa, the site of the family home. She was back in her past. Back in that horrible summer. That black summer when she was seventeen years old.

“Are you still afraid … of hot summer nights?”

Reiko gasped and sucked in a deep breath.

Her chest felt tense, brittle.

The terror. She was supposed to have conquered it.

These days the only thing that brought the fear back was the sight of that bastard Kusaka. She thought she'd gotten used to his face. Her heart was beating painfully fast. There was a high-pitched whine inside her head.
I can't breathe, can't breathe, can't breathe
.…

“Lieutenant? Lieutenant?”

Next thing she knew, Ioka was standing in front of her, holding her by the shoulders. He was shaking her, shouting. It took her a while to catch on.

I'm a lieutenant. I'm not a high school kid anymore.

In her mind, Reiko did a rapid review of her life since the incident.
The court case. Entrance exams. University. Graduation. Joining the force. Training period. First job assignment. Working. Taking an exam. Working. Taking another exam. Working. Yet another exam. Getting into Homicide, my dream job.

Running through the chronology of her life was one way she could push the fear back into the past where it belonged. That whole episode was over and done with. She'd put it behind her. She no longer had any reason to be afraid.

“Are you all right, Lieutenant?”

Ioka pressed one hand into her armpit to hold her upright as he bent down to pick up her handbag with the other. Reiko wasn't even aware of having dropped the thing. She tried yoga breathing. It was a technique she'd picked up in the bad old days, when she was willing to experiment with anything that might help. Gradually her breathing slowed and her pulse rate normalized. She suddenly became aware that the plainclothes cop on guard duty outside the station was strolling over to check on her.

She and Ioka were not yet close enough for her to tell him about her past. Now she felt strong enough to put on an indifferent front.

“I'm fine. Don't worry about me.”

In the end, that was all she came up with. Her main worry was why Katsumata had chosen to bring the matter up at all.

What's that old buzzard trying to do to me?

“Okay, Ioka, let's go.”

Reiko grabbed her handbag from him, slung it over her shoulder, and stalked off. Her mouth was clamped shut, her lips a tight line.

*   *   *

Sansho Security Ltd. specialized in managing vehicular traffic to and from construction sites and in monitoring parking lots. The office was a three-story building. The president lived on the top floor; the middle floor was a dormitory for employees; and the ground floor contained a garage and the actual offices. That was where they met Mr. Kishikawa, the president.

“You want to know about Fukazawa? He was serious—a good man.”

The majority of Kishikawa's employees were young men who had been in reform school or juvenile detention. Everyone currently living in the dorm upstairs, he explained, was on parole.

“I know what I'm doing. I can make something of people that society's written off as bad apples. But Fukazawa wasn't like that. Yes, I was tough with the boy; I had to teach him how to behave properly, how to be polite, stuff like that. At bottom, though, he wasn't a lost cause. He didn't say much, but I know he doted on his sister. I always liked Fukazawa.”

Kishikawa was wearing traditional Japanese costume and—despite being indoors—a pair of sunglasses wrapped around his gleaming bald head. The man's fashion sense was certainly … distinctive. It was a look you occasionally came across in the higher ranks of the yakuza. For a normal company boss, it was highly unusual.

“Why do you think Fukazawa rented a place of his own rather than living here in the dorm?”

Kishikawa pursed his lips. “He rented a place so his sister would have somewhere to go when she got out of the hospital. Thing is, there was no way he could afford to pay his sister's hospital bills
and
his rent, even if he skimped on meals. That's why I said to him, ‘You're eating breakfast and dinner here with the boys in the dormitory.' I twisted his arm. He still had to pony up for lunch when he was on site, not to mention weekends. My wife was worried he might be doing without.”

“Except that a large amount of cash was found in Fukazawa's apartment. Did you know that?”

“Yes, the Nishiarai police told me about it. My best guess is that he got the money from some stash of his father's in the family home before the place went up in flames. He worked for me for less than a year all told. How much was it? Seven hundred grand? No way on earth he could save that much with me.”

Meaning what? That Fukazawa covered his sister's hospital fees and the rent by helping dump dead bodies?

“Do you think Fukazawa got into anything sketchy to earn that money?”

Kishikawa closed his eyes behind his sunglasses and slowly shook his head.

“I don't think so. At least, as far I could tell. Like I said, he worked here less than a year, so it's not like I knew all his ins and outs. Still, going by impressions—and that's all it is, my personal impression—I don't think so. That kid—I can't imagine him doing anything criminal just to get cash to fool around with. Did you know he was in reform school before he got packed off to juvenile detention? It was for nothing—a brawl or something stupid. If his parents had bothered to fetch him from the station and promised to keep an eye on him, he'd have been let off with a warning.”

Kishikawa paused for a moment and looked out of the window. “I still haven't taken on board what happened to him, the way he died.… It's too damn sad. Hell, the sister never even made it to his apartment in the end. Not once. She's in her late teens, you know. He wanted to buy her a vanity desk and a bed—you know what girls that age are like—so I lent him some money. He was paying it back a little every month. He wasn't sure what sort of place would be best for them: one room with a bath, or two rooms without one. What with her being a teenager, he thought she'd need her own room … and she never made it.… It was a struggle for him to pay the rent
and
repay me what he'd borrowed, but that's the kind of straight-up guy he was.”

Kishikawa's tone was measured and dispassionate. He showed no sign of tearing up. Oddly, Reiko found that all the more affecting.

“I think I've got the picture. We'd like to have a word with Fukazawa's coworker, the one who found his body.”

“Sure. That's Togashi. Afraid he's out on a job right now. He's just tending a parking lot, so why not go and talk to him there? Can't imagine he's rushed off his feet.”

It was the parking lot of a university hospital in Arakawa ward. Reiko and Ioka thanked Kishikawa, left the office, and climbed into a taxi.

Ioka didn't broach any personal topics during the journey, and a taxi wasn't the best place to discuss the progress of the investigation. The silence was long and a little awkward, but Reiko welcomed it.

“At the end of the day, Lieutenant, you are my boss. I know that,” volunteered Ioka, after a while.

Reiko turned and looked at the side of his face. She didn't reply. She was unable to.

How well do you really know me, Ioka?

What was Ioka trying to tell her?

No. It couldn't be that.

Having the rank of lieutenant meant everything to Reiko. It was the thing that sustained her. Perhaps Ioka had somehow sensed that and tried to boost her morale by stressing that she was very much his boss.

If so, then Ioka is frighteningly perceptive.

He was a caring and compassionate man. That much had come across.

Silence was indeed golden. Reiko took the opportunity to briefly shut her eyes.

*   *   *

Togashi's testimony tallied with what Kishikawa had told them. Togashi, however, was far less amenable, at least at first. When they approached him in the attendant's booth inside the parking lot, he yelled at them to piss off. Fair enough, thought Reiko. For a guy with his background, especially one who was serious about rehabilitation, few things were more unwelcome than cops showing up at his workplace. When they kept their cool, Togashi gradually opened up about Fukazawa. Mainly, he just said what “a great guy” he was over and over again. He was adamant about not knowing where the money had come from and even joked that if Fukazawa was so loaded, he really should have sent some of it his way.

“Sometimes I think that if I'd met the guy earlier—you know, like when I was a kid—maybe my whole life would have turned out different. I never met Fukazawa's sister, but the way he looked out for her, stuff like that, it made me realize what a mess I'd made of my life. It's thanks to him that I'm starting to get my shit together now. May not look like much, I know but … Don't go pissing on his grave, please.”

They tried to get more out of him about the sister, but Togashi clammed up and refused to say another word. He didn't even look up to watch them leave when they turned away from the little prefab booth.

Although Reiko's watch indicated that it was after six, there was still light in the gray sky.

“Shall we go catch a train?”

Ioka nodded, and Reiko started walking.

 

3

SUNDAY, AUGUST 17, 2:00 P.M.

Katsumata was on his way to Central Medical College Hospital.

He'd spent the morning at family court and the local district attorney's office looking into Fukazawa's past. What had he done to be sent to reform school and juvie? How many stints had he done? What had the family court said about him in its judgment? How had he behaved inside?

Like all the other detectives, Katsumata always got saddled with a partner from the local precinct when he was on a case. Giving them the slip—usually while on a train—was a point of pride with him. Although they made useful enough street guides on their own turf, they were dead weight as soon as they were out of their own precinct. He moved faster when he was alone. If he needed help, he could just call on the guys from his squad, who always got rid of their local partners too.