The Silent Dead (37 page)

Kitami had fired at her—that much was certain—but apparently he'd missed. Reiko nonetheless remembered feeling an excruciating burst of pain in her leg before she went down. What was that about?

She rolled up the trouser leg of her pajamas and uncovered a horrendous bruise on her left calf just above the ankle.

Was it Yukari?

Yukari had been standing to the left of Reiko as she made her attempt to get out of the room. Yukari must have tried to help by kicking Reiko's feet out from under her when she saw that Kitami was about to shoot.

What was it Yukari had said to her? “Mako, you came to help me.”

Reiko had no idea who this “Mako” was. Her best guess was that there must have been a physical resemblance and that Yukari, in her confused state, had mistaken Reiko for some friend from her past and so tried to help her.

Yukari was a remarkable young woman, thought Reiko. Her ghoulish appearance and innocent, girlish voice. Her scarecrowlike thinness and that iron grip. Reiko had only seen Yukari's face spattered with blood. What did she look like underneath? What sort of history was the girl dragging behind her to throw herself so enthusiastically into the Strawberry Night show?

I'm going to find out.

As the Strawberry Night murderer, Yukari Fukazawa was guilty of multiple grave crimes. When Reiko inquired about her age, she learned that she was eighteen—old enough for the death penalty. Apparently, Yukari had spent her whole life in and out of psychiatric hospitals. A successful plea of diminished mental capacity could dramatically reduce her sentence. Reiko wasn't sure which would be better.

Reiko was reluctant to believe that Yukari was intrinsically evil. A handful of random impressions formed during the chaos of yesterday were hardly grounds for her to declare an eleven-time murderer “not a bad person,” but she could feel her heart tugging her in that direction.

What's got into me? Siding with the perpetrator like this!

Reiko had breakfast. The nurses took her temperature and changed her bandages. With that out of the way, she was alone in her private room with nothing to do. Tamaki, her sister, showed up as soon as visiting hours started.

“I can't look after both you and Mom, you know,” was all she said. She deposited a bag with some clothes in it and bustled off.

Outside it was raining. The air conditioning was on high, and the chilliness of the room conjured a wintry bleakness. The weather was just too depressing. If it brightened up, so would she, thought Reiko.

Otsuka was dead. Kitami had gotten the drop on her. She'd failed to make an arrest. And—this was the icing on the cake—one of the perpetrators had saved her life, and she was now starting to pity the poor girl.

God, I hate myself!

She felt as miserable as if she were stuck outside in the rain, buried up to her neck in cold mud.

Then, just after eleven o'clock:

“How are you, Himekawa?”

“Hey, Lieutenant. You look healthy as a horse.”

“Yeah, you've got good color.”

“Reiko, it was me! I pulled you to safety!”

It was Captain Imaizumi and her squad.

“Captain, you didn't need to come. I know you're busy,” Reiko protested. Inside, she was ready to burst into tears of joy. They must have come straight over from the morning meeting. The figures loitering in the corridor outside must be their partners from the precinct.

Ioka was his usual self and Ishikura's face the usual imperturbable mask. Only Kikuta was different. There was something stiff and awkward about him. He said nothing and avoided eye contact.

Come on, Kikuta. Talk to me
.

Reiko had a pretty good idea what was going on with the man. No doubt he was beating himself up for not having swung in and rescued her when she was in danger. The fact that Ioka and Katsumata had been the ones to do so must have been salt in the wound, because Kikuta disliked them both.

It's over now. There's nothing you can do about it
.

Reiko glanced at him from time to time, but he stubbornly refused to catch her eye.

There's really nothing I can do
.
Best thing is to give him some space
.

Yuda was unusually hyper. Reiko suspected he was trying to fill the gap left by Otsuka. His strained efforts at jollity backfired; she found herself thinking of Otsuka more than ever. There was a hole between Kikuta and Yuda, a gap that no one else could fill. Their visit only reinforced what she already knew: Otsuka was gone. Forever.

I'm sorry, boys. I'm a crap lieutenant
.

There was a short silence. Sensing that things were getting a little awkward, Ishikura called time on the visit.

“We need to be moving. Eh, Kikuta?”

Kikuta nodded. He looked as miserable as a freshly pinched suspect.

“Thanks for coming when you've got so much on your plates. I'll be fine. No need to come back.”

“No fear of that, Lieutenant,” shot back Yuda. “Get a move on and come back to work.”

Yuda's rejoinder made her injured ear sting.

Ishikura poked the younger man in the ribs to keep him in line.

“I'll be back,” chirped Ioka.

Kikuta said nothing.

The guy's hopeless
.

“No more visits,” reiterated Reiko firmly.

In her heart, though, she hoped they would be back—though perhaps without Ioka.

“Captain, we'll be going now,” said Ishikura.

Imaizumi nodded, and Ishikura bowed at him.

“Good luck.”

“Thanks for coming. I know you'll all do a great job.”

“Good-bye.”

“Bye. Get well soon.”

Ishikura and Yuda left the room. Kikuta, who still hadn't said a word, followed them out.

“Get well soon. It's lonely without you. So lonely.”

“Oh, piss off, Ioka.”

“Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

“I'll slam the door on you.”

“Oh, Reiko.”

Ioka finally left too. Their partners, who'd been waiting in the corridor, went with them. Now there were just the two of them left in the room—herself and Captain Imaizumi. There was a moment of silence as Imaizumi planted his hands on his hips and gazed out of the window.

“Director Kitami of Third District resigned his position. It seems his son used his father's influence to be assigned to the task force and then again later to be assigned as your partner. Then he hanged himself.”

Reiko's mind served up an image of a middle-aged man dangling by a kimono sash from the wooden lintel of a traditional Japanese room.

“He was found at five this morning. Taking responsibility for the scandal his kid caused, I guess. Leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.”

Captain Imaizumi grimaced as though he had bitten into a lemon. He looked up at the sky and took a deep breath.

“Stubby really wiped the floor with us this time,” he said, darting a glance at Reiko. “It's a grand slam for him.”

“I know. Still, God only knows what would have happened if Stubby and Ioka hadn't turned up.”

Kusaka's warning had come true in the worst possible way. Still, Reiko refused to let herself wallow. No sour grapes. No grudges.

She still loathed Katsumata, but she was quite prepared to acknowledge that he was a cut above her as a detective. She also knew that he would make a good job of preparing the charge papers for the public prosecutor's office. What did she have to bellyache about?

“There's something I've been wanting to ask you, Captain. Where did Katsumata get his ‘Stubby' nickname?”

Uncharacteristically, Captain Imaizumi's face betrayed surprise.

“You don't know?”

“No.”

Imaizumi sighed and went back to staring out of the window.

“When he was young, he was a real stickler for procedure. His stubbornness was legendary.”

“And ‘stubborn' got shortened to ‘stubby'?”

“Yeah. Is it so hard to believe?”

“No, it's not that.…”

Imaizumi nodded and went on. “You see, when Katsumata was young, he wasn't the outlaw he is now. He was very by-the-book, visiting crime scenes over and over again. He believed in the old-fashioned shoe leather approach. If you'd known him then, you'd get where the whole ‘stubby' thing came from. Working in Public Security changed the guy. I don't really know what happened to him in the years he was away from regular police investigations, though I've got one or two ideas.…

“When he rejoined us, he'd hardened into what you see now. Did you know that he earns pocket money by selling off intel about the police department? The top brass know what he's doing, and they more or less tolerate it. You know why? Because he has the dirt on them too.

“In one sense, though, the guy hasn't changed at all. All the money he gets from selling information, he recycles into bribes and payments to further the investigations he's assigned to. It's like a rainy day fund. It's not for him; he'd never spend a cent on himself, as far as anyone can tell, anyway. He acts like a one-man Public Security Bureau. In a way, it's just another expression of his stubborn, all-in personality.”

Imaizumi smiled sheepishly and went back to discussing the ongoing investigation.

*   *   *

That evening, just as the official visiting hours were coming to an end, she had an unexpected visitor: Katsumata.

“I'm looking for the detective who kicked up a storm about losing her ear and didn't have the decency to croak when it was a false alarm.”

“Hey, hey. No need to tell the whole world.”

“What's with the private room? Bit fancy for a hick like you.” He snorted contemptuously, then, without being asked, plunked himself in a chair.

Katsumata handed her a rolled-up weekly magazine as a gift. Reiko assumed he'd already read whatever he wanted in it and was just using her as a dustbin. “No thanks,” she said, handing it back.

“No damn manners,” said Katsumata in mock horror. The man didn't hold back. He ridiculed the pajamas Tamaki had brought her—“You're not a little girl. What's a woman of thirty doing in floral fucking pajamas!”—told her she looked awful without makeup; complained about the smell of the room, and offered to wash out her bedpan.

Reiko waited until the abuse had run its course before saying what she felt she had to.

“I have to thank you,” she stammered. “If it weren't for you, I'd be dead.”

Katsumata looked away, a confused welter of emotions on his face.

“Where's the damn sick bag? Nicely brought up girls don't come right out and say stuff like that. You're such a hopeless hick.”

But the acrimony was missing from his voice. A heavy silence hung over the room. Clearly uncomfortable, Katsumata started hunting for something in his jacket pockets. Not finding whatever he was looking for, he briefly put his hands on his knees before getting out a cigarette. He was about to light it, when he remembered where he was.

Now's my chance
.

“Lieutenant Katsumata?”

He only jerked his chin vaguely by way of response. He didn't look at her but sighed. Reiko caught a glimpse of the very real exhaustion in his face. He was human after all.

It's a good time to ask him.

“Lieutenant, what did you mean those times you told me that I was ‘dangerous'?”

Katsumata snorted. “I'll tell you, but there's something I want to ask you first.”

He was going to string her along a while. She didn't mind.

“Okay. Fire away.”

Katsumata scowled and eyed her suspiciously. “Oh, Little Miss Cooperative all of a sudden, are we?” He straightened himself in his chair and leaned in. “It's about yesterday. Ioka was the one who told me where you and Kitami were. He was right outside the apartment building. I was on the phone with him when the first shots were fired, so how come you got out with nothing more than a scrape on the ear?”

“Oh, that's what you want to know.”

Reiko talked Katsumata through what happened. How she speculated about Kitami having been in the rowing club as a student. How that would explain the bodies being dumped in the Mizumoto Park pond in place of the Toda Rowing Course. How she had realized that the switch—which coincided with the freshly graduated Kitami arriving at Kameari police station as a trainee—was simply too much of a coincidence.

“I asked Kitami, ‘You were a rower when you were at college, weren't you?' and he tried to shoot me. I got out of the way—mostly.”

Something like disappointment scudded across Katsumata's face.

“I can't tell if you're smart or stupid.”

“Come on. My instincts are razor sharp.”

“They are. Except that Kitami wasn't the rower. It was Harunobu Ogawa, his accomplice.”

Reiko wiped the cold beads of sweat from her forehead.

“The real reason they switched to the Mizumoto pond was that Kitami thought it was easier to get up close to in a car. So you were right about the bigger picture and wrong about the details. In my report, I was having a hard time explaining why I tailed you and Kitami. Think I'll borrow your pet theory.”

Katsumata produced a ballpoint pen from his inside jacket pocket.

“What do you mean about ‘having a hard time'?”

“Forget about it.”

“Oh, okay. I'll forget about it. It and everything else. Go ahead and use the rowing angle. Just don't forget, when you write your report, to give the credit that's due to Officer Otsuka.”

Startled, Katsumata stared at her for a moment. He wondered how much she knew. Did she really know anything, or was she just guessing again? Either way, she'd offered him a deal, and she'd named her price. He could respect that. Maybe she wasn't such a dumb hick after all.