The Silent Dead (14 page)

In the reports Katsumata filed, he never criticized his local partner for having lost track of him, preferring to drop a discreet word in their ear, “Better get your shit together, man.” The next couple of days, the local man would desperately try to stick with him. They never stood a chance. By day four, there was usually a tacit agreement for both sides to do their own thing.

That was how Katsumata liked it. In the end, a homicide detective has got to be a lone wolf. He wanted to trust the guys in his own squad, but you never knew when they might try to steal the credit for closing a case. That was the good thing—the one good thing—about his days in the Public Security Bureau. They always kept the same guys in the squad, and the squad operated as a single tight unit.

Maybe old age was catching up with him. He'd started thinking that being appointed captain and riding a desk like Imaizumi wouldn't be such an awful fate. His problem was, he was too old to cram for the test. No, on second thought, if the choice was between studying and staying on as a lieutenant, then being out on the street was the better option. People who aren't prepared to hit the books go nowhere, and he was no match for the bookworms.

Bookworms like Reiko Himekawa, he thought.
That broad …

Katsumata disliked Himekawa. The thing he most disliked about her—could not, in fact, stand—was her demure and all-too-perfect looks.
That face of hers. She's good-looking, and she damn well knows it.
As far as he was concerned, however Reiko behaved—chatty, silent, angry, or weepy—in her heart of hearts she was always thinking, “I've always got my looks to fall back on.” That was why he'd been driven to say what he said.

Her fainting was a surprise. I certainly put a dent in her confidence. Uppity broad.

When Katsumata was transferred to Homicide, he'd made a point of going through the files of everyone in the department to find out when they'd joined the force, where they'd been posted, which cases they'd helped close, and who'd pulled the strings to get them the holy grail of a Homicide job. He hadn't made an exception for Reiko Himekawa. If anything, the fact that she was a woman only made her more interesting. He'd even checked up on her history from before she joined the force.

Her family lived in Minami Urawa in Saitama. She attended a four-year women's college in Tokyo and joined the police as part of the regular graduate intake. After a stint at the Police Academy, she had been assigned to Shinagawa police station. There she started out in Traffic—the classic fallback for female cops—but was soon moved to Criminal Investigation. It took her two runs at the test to make sergeant, but she passed the exam for lieutenant the first time, at the age of twenty-seven. Since most people make sergeant at around thirty, Reiko Himekawa was making rapid progress up the greasy pole, especially for someone not on the management fast track. As a new lieutenant, she headed up an investigation unit in the Traffic Division until Imaizumi tapped her for Homicide. Which was where she was now.

Her story from before joining the force was much more intriguing. Something happened when she was in high school. Himekawa was the victim of a crime. The case culminated in the death of a detective sergeant, and Himekawa ended up on the witness stand.

She was seventeen at the time. Afterward, she had a truancy problem and was even sent to a local psychiatrist for a while. She nonetheless managed to graduate high school without repeating a year, albeit by the skin of her teeth.

You're pretty damn cocky given your history. It doesn't compute. I'd expect you to be a whole lot less sure of yourself.

That was what drove Katsumata crazy: Himekawa's attitude. Just because they were the same rank, she seemed to think that his age counted for nothing. Just because she was a looker, she thought she had the right to disrespect him. Shit, the broad wasn't even a real looker in the first place. She was tall with a baby face, and that tricked people into
thinking
she was cute. It was an optical illusion. A mirage. That posse of fanboys who wet their pants at the sight of her were all fools. Especially Kikuta. He was the worst of the bunch. He was completely under her thumb. A pussywhipped zombie.

That wasn't all. The woman lacked even the most basic grasp of how investigations were meant to be conducted. An investigation was like a game of checkers. The goal was to get your pieces safely to the other side of the board, something you did by slowly and steadily moving
all
of them forward. Himekawa, though, preferred bold moves, leaping over multiple squares to capture her opponent's pieces, without bothering to occupy the center of the board first. And she had no doubts about the effectiveness of her method. She might as well have jumped up and down, flashed her panties, and chanted, “I solved the case. I solved the case.” But Himekawa was just a woman—and a damn stupid one. As for Imaizumi, who'd mobilized the Water Rescue team on her behalf, well, what could you expect? Hashizume, who had let the mobilization request go through, was the biggest fool of the lot.

Director Hashizume, you seriously think I don't know? About that toupee you wear?

Despite approaching her cases ass-backward, Himekawa got results. Katsumata had to respect that. This year she seemed to be slightly off her game, but last year she'd closed a multiple street stabbing case in three days and needed just half a day to solve a robbery-with-murder. She hadn't relied on testimony or physical evidence to find the perpetrator. It had been a matter of intuition. One look at the guy was enough for her. “He's a killer. I can see it in his eyes.” Based on some such bullshit reason, she would pick out her prime suspect, then do all the necessary legwork to get an arrest.

She seemed to be following the same playbook with the current case. She made an inspired guess about the bodies being dumped in a pond, then managed to link that to Yasuyuki Fukazawa's suspicious death. The woman had something—something well beyond normal detective instincts. He was sure of that.

Don't tell me that she's a frigging psychic.…

It was time to forget about her. Katsumata was on the case, and he was going to tackle it his way. His direct boss, the captain in charge of Unit 5, was a moron. The man wouldn't give him any trouble, though.

Director Toupee, Captain Zoomzoom, and Little Miss Uppity, all working the case together. It's a recipe for disaster.

Things could get even worse if Kusaka's squad, which was also part of Unit 10, was brought in. Kusaka was a tough bastard. His acute appendicitis would probably only keep him out of a circulation for a week, max.

Fuck Kusaka too. I'm gonna be the one who cracks this case
.
End of story.

The automatic doors of Central Medical College Hospital slid open. Katsumata strode in.

*   *   *

The slut at reception had on way too much makeup, and her dyed brown hair didn't suit her.

“Hi, I'm from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Need to see my badge?”

The girl looked up with a deer-in-the-headlights look on her face.

“Excuse me?”

“I asked if you needed to see my police ID, dumbo.”

“Wha-what do you mean?”

She wasn't getting it. He had no choice.

Katsumata whipped his ID out of his jacket pocket, swung it open, and shoved it in her face.

“The name's Katsumata, Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, Homicide Division. I need to see Dr. Omuro of Psychiatry, now.”

Everyone—the in-patients who were ambling aimlessly around the lobby, the emergency cases and outpatients who were sitting around waiting their turn—turned to stare at them. The penny finally dropped. The girl now realized why Katsumata had asked her if she really wanted to see his ID.

“If you could wait a moment, sir.”

She abandoned the reception desk and dashed into a room behind. Probably the administrative offices, thought Katsumata. The girl couldn't be bothered to shut the door properly, and it was wide open when she began jabbering. “The police are here. What should I do? Has something happened?”

None of your business, bitch.

A man in a suit, obviously higher in the pecking order than she was, came out and beckoned Katsumata to one corner of the reception desk.

Fuck, man. What does it matter where we talk?

It wasn't worth making a fuss about, so Katsumata strolled over to the corner. “I'm looking for Dr. Omuro?”

The man started writhing and squirming. He reminded Katsumata of those wimps you sometimes see at the public bath who contort themselves to hide their tiny little todgers. The man kept bowing at him, over and over again. He was a born fucking loser.

“I'm terribly sorry, Officer, but Dr. Omuro is currently in a meeting at the Medical Office—”

“Which ends when?”

“Uh, it should be over in an hour. No, sorry, in thirty minutes.”

“Which, man? Spit it out.”

“Uh, yes. I mean no…” Now the man was just babbling.

“That's enough. I'll wait. Where is the Medical Office?”

“Sorry?”

“You mentioned the Medical Office. If that's where the doctor's meeting, then I'll wait right outside.”

“Oh-ah. It's on the sixth floor of the new wing. You turn right out of the elevator.”

“Gotcha.” Katsumata marched off. The hospital administrator looked like he had something more to say, but Katsumata didn't intend to hang around.

The hospital was a labyrinth. Despite the maps posted on the walls, it took Katsumata a long time to find the connecting passage to the new wing. Even then, he wasn't home and dry: there was only one elevator, and it was stuck on the fourth floor, showing no sign of coming down anytime soon.

This fucking hospital.
Katsumata ground his teeth as he waited. Several people got in line behind him, including a few who were in wheelchairs. When the elevator finally arrived, he grudgingly let them on first. He made sure he was standing at the front so he could get off easily.

He looked around the elevator.
Damn sick people everywhere.

Hospitals were one of the many things that Katsumata hated. His policy was to tough it out when he felt under the weather. The last time he'd been to the doctor had to have been four or five years ago. He'd been coming down with pneumonia and had gone to see his local physician. His symptoms immediately got a whole lot worse. It was the clinic and the other patients there—that's what had fucked him up.

The whole thing started with a cold I got from my wife. We were just about to get divorced. That damn woman—no, I'm not going to go that way.

Katsumata shook his head to drive away the anger that was building up inside him.

He was the only person to get off at the sixth floor.

The creep at reception had told him to turn right out of the elevator. He decided to take a peek at the floor guide. The neuropsychiatry ward covered the whole floor. Was neuropsychiatry the same as psychiatry? He had no idea.

Katsumata had visited a mental hospital once before. Ages ago. For an investigation in which a lobotomy patient was the prime suspect. This place was different. The patients being helped around by nurses didn't look like they had completely lost it. That meant people who were outwardly normal needed psychiatric treatment too. That was a sure sign of a sick society.

Well, as long as the medical profession can make a buck, eh?

Katsumata tapped a passing nurse on the shoulder. “Hi, I'm looking for the Medical Office. I've got to talk to Dr. Omuro.” He pulled out his badge. “Can you fetch him for me?”

“I'm sorry, sir. He's in a meeting.”

Her unruffled tone rubbed Katsumata the wrong way.

Oh, so his meeting's more important than my investigation, is it?

“Okay. Forget it.”

Katsumata stalked off without much idea of where he was going. He found himself in a long corridor with two doors on the right and five on the left: the men's and women's toilets, an unmarked door, the door leading to the emergency stairs, and another unmarked door.… The Medical Office wasn't indicated anywhere. Not helpful.

They'll need a decent-sized room for a meeting
.

Katsumata pushed open the last door on the right. It was a meeting room all right, but it was empty.

Goddammit, this hospital's driving me crazy.

Katsumata slammed the door shut and tried the next room. This was his last chance. If it was empty, he'd have to go back with his tail between his legs and ask the nurse a second time. He'd have to cheer himself up by giving the creep downstairs a good smacking later.

You aren't making my life easy
.

Was this the Medical Office? It looked just like any other stupid office. There were three men and a woman, all in white coats, around a group of six desks. The oldest-looking of the men was standing, holding a file and fiddling with his glasses. He was about to say something, but Katsumata got in first.

“Is there a Dr. Omuro here?”

All eyes went to a man who looked about thirty. So that was Dr. Omuro, thought Katsumata. A typical posh little mommy's boy.

“I am he.” The confident and authoritative tone was typical of his class. Katsumata decided to introduce himself properly. “My name's Lieutenant Kensaku Katsumata from the Homicide Division of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Could I have a word, please?”

Omuro glanced uncertainly over at the older man, who cocked his head, then nodded with evident reluctance. Omuro turned toward Katsumata without getting up.

“What do you want to talk to me about?”

Clearly, it was beneath the doctor's dignity to even stand.

“I need to ask you some questions about Yukari Fukazawa.”