Soul Cage--A Mystery

by Tetsuya Honda

  Reiko thanked Ishikura. She was quite happy to make tea herself when it was needed. Gender stereotypes about Japanese working women being nothing more than glorified tea ladies didn’t bother her, and bossing around an older man just because she could wasn’t her idea of fun.

  “We learned a decent amount about Takaoka’s background. Not so sure of its relevance to the case, though. How about you?”

  Ishikura had been making inquiries related to Takaoka’s work life.

  “We didn’t turn up anything. Takaoka was a complete boy scout. Paid his suppliers on time and never cut corners. Everyone says that Mishima’s a lovely young man and that he and Takaoka were, if anything, closer than a real father and son. No one has any idea why he could have been murdered.”

  Kikuta came back. He and his partner, one of the local precinct detectives, had also been speaking to Takaoka’s work associates.

  “Hey, how’s it going?” said Reiko.

  “All right. You?”

  Kikuta didn’t make eye contact.

  I’ve had it up to here with you!

  “Kikuta, come with me. Now.”

  She grabbed him by the sleeve and began to drag him between the rows of desks. He just grunted and kept his eyes fixed on the ground. When Ioka got to his feet to follow them, Reiko gestured him back into his seat.

  “Stay here and write up our report. Properly.”

  She tossed him the file and strode to the door. Kikuta followed in silence.

  Reiko marched up the stairs. Kikuta trudged dutifully after her.

  When they got to the seventh floor, the site of the infirmary and the dojo, there was no one around. She walked to the door of the darkened dojo, made the requisite bow of respect to the empty room and went on in.

  Standing on the duckboards beside the shoe lockers, she turned to face Kikuta. The angle of the light meant that she couldn’t see his face properly, while he could probably see hers.

  “What’s your problem?”

  The shadow didn’t respond.

  “Why are you carrying on like this? Are you upset about something?”

  Once again, there was no reply.

  “What is it you expect me to do? The way Ioka’s behaving—I mean, this is the third time you’ve worked with him, right? You should know, that’s just the way the guy is. You’re just going to have to put up with it. I hope you don’t think that I actually enjoy his shenanigans?”

  The only sound was heavy nasal breathing. What was Kikuta up to now? Impersonating a water buffalo?

  The air smelled of stale sweat. Over to one side, Reiko noticed a door. Probably led to a storeroom, she thought.

  Reiko peered over her shoulder into the darkened dojo. A white lump loomed vaguely up out of the dark floor: a heap of folded futons beneath the window overlooking the main road. The TMPD detectives assigned to the task force used them for sleeping. Reiko herself had been staying in a nearby hotel for the last couple of days.

  The streetlight outside must have turned red. The noise of traffic suddenly went quiet.

  “Would a kiss cheer you up?”

  Hadn’t Kikuta heard? He was so close, he must have.

  “Would a kiss from me cheer you up, I said?”

  Kikuta said nothing. He just stood rigidly to attention.

  Oh, for goodness’s sake!

  Reiko placed her hands on his broad shoulders, pulled herself up on her tiptoes, and kissed him square on the mouth.

  The texture of his lips was like the skin of a steamed sweet potato.

  Kikuta gave a loud gulp.

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t have.”

  Reiko took her hands away, patted Kikuta on the shoulder and took a step sideways. She’d have been quite happy for him to smother her in a bear hug. He seemed to have no intention of doing so.

  “We need to be getting back now, Sergeant Kikuta.”

  “Yes.”

  She went back out into the brightly lit corridor. Kikuta followed. The sound of their footfalls echoed in the passageway.

  “Kikuta.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re an idiot.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Reiko walked faster. So did Kikuta.

  She skipped down the stairs. Kikuta fell in step behind her.

  * * *

  Not long afterward, the evening meeting began.

  The first order of business was to hear the report of Lieutenant Kusaka.

  “This morning I had the opportunity to speak briefly to Kosuke Mishima. As you know, it was Mishima who was first on the crime scene. This was his second interview with us.”

  This time, his report was classic Kusaka: excruciating detail on everything from Takaoka Construction’s business practices to the most recent developments of the case, all delivered at machine-gun speed.

  He left nothing out: the Kawasaki kitchen renovation job; the difficulty of estimating costs making Mishima skeptical about his ability to run the business alone; the fact that Takaoka occasionally had trouble getting paid but that the sums involved were not large enough to derail the business; how Mishima was always paid on time; and how Mishima had identified the hand because of a scar and had in fact been present when Takaoka cut himself.

  Kusaka then began to explain how Mishima and Takaoka had first met.

  “Tadaharu Mishima, Kosuke’s father, was working as a scaffolder for Kinoshita Construction nine years ago when he lost his footing and fell from the ninth floor.”

  Reiko and Ioka exchanged a look.

  At the meeting that morning, Kusaka had mentioned that Takaoka used to work for Nakabayashi Construction. This, however, was the first time anyone had said anything about Kosuke Mishima’s father being employed by them too.

  Other people must have realized that Kusaka had come up with something new and interesting. A buzz of excited chatter broke out.

  Kusaka paused for a moment. Reiko raised her hand.

  Imaizumi, who was sitting at the front of the room, pointed to her. “Okay, Himekawa. Fire away.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” she replied, without getting to her feet. “You couldn’t make it back for last night’s meeting, Lieutenant Kusaka, so I don’t think you’re aware that the father of Michiko Nakagawa, Kosuke Mishima’s girlfriend, also died in an accident at a Kinoshita Construction site. It was a fall in his case too.”

  Kusaka turned and looked at her. The white glare of the fluorescent lights was reflected in his glasses.

  There was a drawn-out silence.

  Kusaka was at a loss for words.

  A twenty-year-old boy and a nineteen-year-old girl. A builder and a waitress who was studying hairdressing. A boyfriend and girlfriend in a normal relationship—except for the fact that both their fathers had died in identical accidents, albeit years apart, when employed by the same company.…

  “I’m at fault here.” Kusaka’s power of speech seemed to have returned. “I haven’t had time to review all yesterday’s reports yet. When did Michiko Nakagawa’s father die?”

  “It was a couple of months ago. He’d only just joined Kinoshita.”

  “Did the girl tell you how she got to know Kosuke Mishima?”

  Reiko flipped back a few pages in her notebook.

  “Let’s see. Oh yes. He was a frequent visitor to the diner where she works. Being more or less the same age, they got chatting and ended up becoming friends.”

  “That tallies with what Mishima told me.”

  Kusaka turned to face the front.

  “There’s one thing I’m doubtful about: Mishima told me that he went to the diner because it was ‘convenient’ when he was on his way home from jobs in Kawasaki. The trouble with his story is that the Royal Diner is actually located on the wrong side of the highway for traffic going in that direction. When I pointed this fact out to Mishima, he was very insistent about that particular restaurant chain being a favorite of his; his manner changed and he became quite aggressive.”

  Imaizumi lolled back in h
is chair and crossed his arms on his chest.

  “What’s your interpretation?”

  Kusaka looked down at the floor and slowly exhaled.

  “I think he’s lying. I don’t believe that the two of them met by chance. I’m willing to accept that the children of two men who both worked for the same company could go out together. But the idea that the children of two men who both worked for the same company and died in similar accidents, even if several years apart, should start a relationship based on a random meeting at a roadside diner strains the limits of credibility.”

  “Meaning?”

  Imaizumi was deliberately forcing Kusaka to deal in impressions and guesswork, knowing that there was nothing the man hated more.

  “Meaning, sir, that it’s not impossible that the meeting was the result of intention on somebody’s part.”

  “Whose part?”

  “That, I don’t know.”

  “Who do you think?”

  Kusaka’s jaw clenched.

  “If push came to shove, I’d probably go with Mishima having initiated the meeting. Of course, it could have been a third party, though I’ve no idea who.”

  “Good. Keep going.”

  Kusaka cleared his throat and pushed his spectacles high up on the bridge of his nose.

  “Mishima told us that Takaoka invited him to come and work for him not long before he graduated from junior high school. Takaoka was still an employee of Nakabayashi Construction at that time—”

  “Excuse me!”

  Ioka had thrust his hand into the air and was waving it about.

  Oh, the idiot.

  Didn’t he know that it was rude to interrupt a speaker in full flow? That was doubly true with Kusaka. Sure enough, when Kusaka turned around to face them, his eyes glowed with cold fury.

  “What do you want? Can’t you wait a min—”

  Ioka plowed on, jumping to his feet.

  This won’t end well, thought Reiko.

  “Yes … uhm … I mean no. Anyway, as I’m sure you’re aware, Lieutenant Kusaka, Nakabayashi Construction is a front company for the Tajima-gumi.”

  Ioka’s syntax was a mess. On top of that, he had interrupted Kusaka, a superior officer, not once but twice.

  Silence fell on the room. A heavy, cold silence. Being buried alive probably felt rather like this, Reiko thought to herself. Ioka’s hand was still sticking hopelessly up in the air.

  “And so? That was precisely the point I was about to address. I’m very well aware about the relationship Nakabayashi has with the Tajima-gumi.”

  Ioka gurgled something incoherent.

  “So if you want to say anything, kindly wait until I’ve reached the end of my report.”

  Ioka sagged visibly. He reminded Reiko of katsuobushi, those flakes of dried tuna that people sprinkle on their food. Dancing around merrily from the effects of the heat one moment; flaccid and inert the next, as they soak up the sauce.

  “I’m sorry, sir.”

  Poor Ioka looked ready to burst into tears. Reiko couldn’t very well laugh at his misfortune: she, after all, was the one who’d encouraged him to speak out.

  “Thank you. Now, to get back to what I was saying.…”

  Kusaka then proceeded to explain how Nakabayashi Construction and the other firms that belonged to the Nakabayashi Group had been established with capital provided by Masayoshi Tajima, the first-generation boss of the Tajima-gumi, a branch of the Yamato-kai Syndicate, and by Michio Ogawa, who was married to his brother’s daughter.

  “I’ve not yet managed to confirm that Kinoshita Construction was set up based on an injection of capital from the same Ogawa. What I do know is that Nakabayashi Construction does a significant amount of business with Kinoshita Construction and outsources plenty of site-prepping and scaffolding-related projects to them. I have yet to review the two companies’ accounts, but I have spoken testimony from a Seiichi Murai, a thirty-nine-year-old employee of Chiba Building Materials, a company that does business with Nakabayashi, to the effect that Kinoshita Construction gets three or four large-scale projects from Nakabayashi every year.

  “Let’s turn our attention to Tadaharu Mishima, Kosuke Mishima’s father. When Tadaharu fell to his death nine years ago, his life was insured for twelve million yen. Kinoshita Construction both paid for the policy and was the designated beneficiary. I found this information in the records of the Takaido Precinct CID—that’s the precinct that certified Mishima’s death as an accident. Their records also show that Tadaharu declared personal bankruptcy thirteen years ago, four years prior to his death. It seems to have been of little use to him. His financial situation remained precarious, and he eventually went through illegal channels to borrow money. At the time of his death, he had debts of almost ten million yen.

  “A finance company by the name of Joy Credit rolled up and took over all of Mishima’s debts. Joy Credit has definite links to the Tajima-gumi. I haven’t yet been able to establish any link between Joy Credit and Kinoshita Construction. However, according to the current principal of Shinagawa Mercy College, the police informed the school that Tadaharu’s life insurance covered his debts in full. Unfortunately, I have not yet managed to track down the detective who was in charge of Mishima’s case.”

  Goddammit! How could he possibly have found out so much in such a short time?

  It was some consolation to Reiko that she’d managed to surprise him with her nugget about the fathers of both Kosuke Mishima and Michiko Nakagawa dying in accidents at Kinoshita Construction building sites. In Tadaharu Mishima’s case, it was even looking as though Kinoshita might be guilty of insurance fraud.

  Hashizume, the director of Homicide, suddenly put his palms flat on the table and leaned aggressively forward.

  “What exactly are you investigating here, Kusaka?”

  Kusaka plucked his glasses off his nose.

  “I’m probing the alibi of Kosuke Mishima, the person who discovered the crime scene in this particular case. I’m examining Mishima’s relationship with Michiko Nakagawa, the person who provided him with an alibi; and I’m also looking into the circumstances surrounding the death of Tadaharu Mishima, the event which led to the first encounter between Takaoka, the victim, and Kosuke Mishima.”

  “Do you think any of it has a direct bearing on Takaoka’s murder?”

  “That, I do not know.”

  “If you don’t know, then why go into such painstaking detail?”

  “It’s precisely because I don’t know that I’m investigating all of this. Nothing I’m doing is a waste of time.”

  Hashizume had leveled the same accusation at Kusaka many times before. Today was just another rerun.

  “There simply isn’t the time for you to chase down every tidbit of information that you blunder across.”

  “I don’t believe that my progress is particularly slow compared to any of the other investigators on this case.”

  “All I’m trying to say is that a man of your abilities would make even faster progress if you narrowed your focus slightly.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m trying to do, in my own way. I made a conscious decision, for instance, not to delve into the background of the principal of Shinagawa Mercy College.”

  “Why not treat Tadaharu Mishima the same way, then? Even if you suspect that insurance fraud had something to do with his death, it’s nine years since it happened. The statute of limitations has run out.”

  “I’m not trying to build a case here. I’m just trying to see if there is a causal relationship between that incident and the murder case we’re working on.”

  “Based on what? The father of the person who discovered the crime scene dying in an accident nine years ago? Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely. And I don’t plan to abandon this particular line of inquiry until I can find positive proof that no connection exists.”

  Kusaka and Hashizume were oblivious to everyone else in the room. Looking around at the forty or so investigators t
here, Reiko detected signs of impatience in a good many of them.

  She turned to the front of the room and caught Imaizumi’s eye. He nodded knowingly and cleared his throat loudly, forcing Kusaka to stop talking.

  “So, have you anything else to report to us, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, sir. I need to give you an account of my interview with Mitsuru Kurihara, Nakabayashi Construction’s head of general affairs, and Hidehiko Ikawa, the man in charge of construction sites in the south segment of Tokyo.”

  “Go right ahead.”

  Kusaka resumed his normal, rapid-fire delivery.

  “Neither of the two men could tell me anything about Tadaharu Mishima; Ikawa, however, clearly remembered Takaoka. Takaoka quit Nakabayashi around five and a half years ago, after having worked there for five or six years. There was no disagreement or unpleasantness of any kind behind his decision to leave. That brings my report for today to an end.”

  “Any questions? No? All right, Sergeant Mizoguchi, you’re up next.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mizoguchi got to his feet.

  “Since yesterday, I’ve been going over the articles we found in our search of Kenichi Takaoka’s apartment. I’ve not come across anything massively significant. Takaoka’s bankbook shows that he ran his business primarily on a cash basis: whenever there was an incoming payment to his work account, he seems to have withdrawn the same amount the following day. He treated his bank account like a mailbox. The current balance stands at twenty-three thousand yen. He seems to have used cash rather than direct debit to pay for his utilities. All in all, getting a handle on his finances isn’t going to be easy.”

  That was the end of Mizoguchi’s report. Short and sweet. Sergeant Toyama was next.

  “I’ve got something … pretty big to report.”

  He sounds pretty sure of himself, with his dramatic pauses!

  “Today, we visited the outlets of all the insurance companies in Takaoka’s neighborhood. There were twelve in total. It turned out that the Omori South branch of Act Insurance had issued a policy for him.”

  A wave of excitement rippled through the room. Everyone sat up straighter in their chairs. All eyes were focused on Toyama.