Soul Cage--A Mystery

by Tetsuya Honda

  “Hiya. What’s up?”

  Kunioku’s voice was not quite as perky—or was smarmy a better word?—as normal.

  “You sound a little down, Doctor.”

  “I can’t believe the way you’re behaving, saying, ‘Hello, it’s me,’ as though nothing’s happened.”

  “Okay, why are you sulking?”

  Was it because of the way she’d turned down his invitation to dinner the other day?

  “Sulking? Nursing a broken heart is more like it.”

  “Don’t let’s go overboard. Listen, Doctor, I’ve got a favor to ask you.”

  “How can you treat me like this! No small talk; no ‘I’m sorry.’ Just straight down to brass tacks.”

  Reiko decided that ignoring him was probably her best tactic.

  “Just listen, please. We’ve comes across an interesting body in the case I’m on right now. The pathologist at Tomei University Hospital was unable to specify a cause of death. I need to get a second opinion from the leader in the field, and that’s why I’ve just posted all the documentation to you. Promise me you’ll have a look, Doc?”

  There was a long silence at the other end.

  What now?

  “Doc, you still there?”

  “So you won’t be delivering the file by your own fair hand?”

  “Oh, I didn’t think of that. I’m afraid it’s already in the post.”

  “What should I do once I’ve looked it over?’

  “Let me know what you think. Phone or e-mail are fine.”

  “Not for me, they’re not. I’ll only look at what you sent if you come in person to discuss it with me.”

  Reiko had been expecting something like this.

  “Provided you’ve got some observations worth listening to, I’m happy to go.”

  “I’m not falling for that trick. Promise me you’ll come regardless of my findings—otherwise I’ll use your precious documents as toilet paper.”

  “Don’t come whining to me when you get hemorrhoids.”

  “Oh, you didn’t know? My nickname is ‘the man with the iron colon.’”

  “Potty mouth. Such a crude sense of humor.”

  The old fellow was back to his normal cheeky self.

  “The file will reach you tomorrow. Have a look as soon as you can.”

  “How’s it coming? DHL? Bike courier?”

  “No, by express post.”

  “I’m strongly opposed to these recent moves to privatize the post office.”

  “I haven’t time for that now. Treat me to your best lecture on the subject next time we meet. Take a good look at the file. Please.”

  “There’s this fabulous dobin mushi restaurant I know in Ueno. I thought—”

  Reiko hung up.

  Good. That’s the body out of the way.

  3

  Most of the investigators had left the station house, but Kusaka stayed behind. He wanted to watch the press conference. It was going to be held at 10:00 a.m. in the conference room where the task force was based.

  There were around thirty journalists there. Most were newspaper reporters, but there was also a smattering of TV correspondents.

  The Kamata station commander and his deputy were sitting at the head of the room along with Wada, the chief of TMPD Homicide, and Director Hashizume. The precinct commander did the talking.

  “At 11:00 a.m. yesterday morning, we were notified that something that appeared to be a human torso had washed ashore in the South Rokugo section of the Tama River. Officers went to the scene and confirmed that it was indeed the torso of an adult male. We are now working in conjunction with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, and our task force is doing its best to establish the identity of the victim.”

  The top brass must have felt there was sufficient doubt surrounding the real identity of Kenichi Takaoka to keep his name back for now.

  “The torso is that of a male in his forties. We have not yet recovered the head, arms, or legs. That is all we have to share with you for the time being.”

  One of the journalists raised his hand. The deputy station commander pointed to him. He identified himself as Ozeki of the Daily News.

  “My sources are telling me that you’ve been conducting quite a large investigation since the beginning of the month focusing on an abandoned vehicle. Is there a link between the two incidents?”

  “That is currently under investigation,” came the bland reply.

  The next question was from Furuta of the Tokyo Sun.

  “I’ve been hearing rumors of extensive house-to-house canvassing in the Middle Rokugo district since the start of the month. Would you care to comment?”

  “An investigation is ongoing there.”

  “Do you believe the two cases are linked?”

  “I cannot comment at the present time.”

  Hashimoto of the Nippon Times asked the next question.

  “My sources tell me that the vehicle you found on December fourth on the embankment of the Tama River contained a severed hand. Have you DNA-tested the hand and the torso?”

  The room went very quiet. The rest of the reporters looked shocked. Kusaka was every bit as taken aback. If that much information had leaked, it meant that either someone in TMPD headquarters or someone on the task force was shooting their mouth off.

  He wondered how the station commander was going to wriggle out of that question. He would have to improvise. The chief of Homicide leaned over and whispered something into the commander’s ear.

  “We have indeed conducted DNA tests,” said the commander. “But we are still awaiting the results.”

  Though better than a flat-out denial, it was hardly the ideal response. Kusaka would have preferred that the whole severed hand angle had been kept quiet.

  “When will you get them?”

  Wada whispered into the commander’s ear again. The journalists at the front of the room stared at him intently.

  “We expect to get the results sometime tomorrow. We will make a public announcement the day after.”

  Hashimoto of the Nippon Times was nothing if not persistent. It was obvious that he’d done a lot of digging around.

  “With a dismembered corpse, you must be treating this case as a homicide. Can you give us a cause of death?”

  “We were unable to locate any lethal wounds or visible signs on the torso that were identifiable as the cause of death.”

  “In that case, is it fair to assume that the victim died from injuries to the head?”

  “That we don’t yet know.”

  Knowing that the station commander’s response was unlikely to keep the Nippon Times journalist quiet, Chief Wada picked up the microphone and leaned forward sternly.

  “This is an ongoing investigation. All we can tell you is this: previously we found a hand and yesterday we found a torso. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. That will be all for today.”

  “The hand—is it a left or a right hand?” yelled someone.

  “This press conference is officially over,” barked chief Wada, with an air of finality. Director Hashizume gestured at the station commander and the four men filed out of the room, bringing the event to a rather anticlimactic end.

  Now everyone and their dog knew that a torso had been found in the Tama River and a severed hand found in a vehicle. Fine, thought Kusaka, the real investigation starts now.

  * * *

  Kusaka had spent the last few days trying to find the trail of Makio Tobe. Kinoshita Construction was the natural place to start.

  According to Ms. Yashiro, Tobe had last been seen in the Kinoshita offices at around 3:00 p.m. on December 3.

  Ms. Yashiro was having a cup of tea with her two coworkers and Mr. Kinoshita, the president of the company, when Tobe burst in. Although he smelled of drink, he didn’t appear to be downright drunk.

  Tobe walked up behind Ms. Yashiro, commented on how stiff she was, and began to give her a shoulder massage. It didn’t take long for him to slide his hands down and
start fondling her breasts. When Kinoshita, the CEO, and Kawakami, the accountant, told Tobe to knock it off, Tobe clapped Kawakami hard on the back. “I’m just playing around, man,” he said. “Just joking.”

  He then leaned down and nuzzled Ms. Niki, the other woman in the office. When Kinoshita roared at him, Tobe smirked and headed for the toilet. He emerged a few minutes later, and stalked out of the office without a word—and without having done a stroke of work.

  Another witness placed Tobe in a slot machine parlor not far from Todoroki Station between 3:30 and 5:30. One of the women working on the floor remembered him because of the way he’d tried to grab her ass every time she went by. “Oh God, he’s not still here!” she’d thought to herself at 5:20. Ten minutes later, she noticed that he had gone. The woman was able to provide a positive visual ID based on a copy of Tobe’s driver’s license and a photograph that Kinoshita Construction had provided. Kusaka made doubly sure by having the manager show him the CCTV footage from the day. It confirmed that Tobe had entered the parlor at 3:27 and left at 5:22.

  With the time of Takaoka’s murder placed at around 9:30 in the evening, that left four hours unaccounted for. Where had Tobe gone when he got fed up with playing the slots?

  Kusaka dropped in to all the local bars and sleazy massage parlors. No joy there. Tobe’s trail went cold at the slot machine parlor.

  Several teams of investigators were making inquiries in Yutenji, Meguro Ward, where Tobe lived. While none of the local residents had seen Tobe since the day of the crime, it turned out that few of them had ever set eyes on him.

  Tobe lived in a five-story apartment building. The landlord lived on the top floor and rented out all the others. There was residents’ parking and a single rental office unit on the first floor; the upper floors contained four apartments each, with Tobe in room 302 on the third floor. The other residents were average families with normal nine-to-five jobs. They never laid eyes on Tobe, because he lived his life on a timetable wholly different from theirs.

  When Sergeant Toyama and his partner went to Tobe’s apartment, they discovered that he shared the place with a thirty-two-year-old bar hostess. She hadn’t changed her lifestyle after moving in with Tobe: she left for the club where she worked at half past four and returned home either by taxi late at night or by the first train in the morning. Tobe had now been gone for two weeks. While such a long absence was unusual, it wasn’t unprecedented, so his girlfriend wasn’t unduly worried.

  “Hey, for all I know, he could be popping back here while I’m out at work,” she told the two detectives with a laugh, as they stood in the doorway.

  The two of them had been living together for two years. Sergeant Toyama got the distinct impression that the temperature of the relationship had cooled considerably with time.

  * * *

  While Kusaka was conducting his investigation around Tokyo, he and his partner were also on call for relief surveillance duties.

  The investigators working the Tobe angle had to keep tabs on quite a number people. First, there were the women Tobe knew, ranging from insurance saleswomen to girls in local bars and massage parlors. There were his friends, and then there was the Ogawa Mansion. The Ogawa Mansion was the residence of Miyuki Ogawa, Tobe’s biological mother (despite what his family register said).

  Kusaka was heading toward the Ogawa Mansion to take over stakeout when his cell phone rang. He looked at the display: an unregistered number.

  “Kusaka here.”

  “It’s me, Makihara.”

  Lieutenant Takeo Makihara was the head of TMPD Organized Crime Unit.

  “What’s up?”

  “I need to speak with you, Kusaka. You’re in the Ogawa Mansion neighborhood?”

  Was Makihara following him?

  Kusaka was in a quiet residential area near Jiyugaoka Station. He looked up and down the street he was in, but couldn’t see anyone.

  “Where? Out here?”

  “No. Keep walking and you’ll hit a one-way street. Turn in and you’ll find a coffee shop. The place is called Lichere.”

  “Got you.”

  Kusaka told Sergeant Satomura to go ahead without him, and then he set off for the coffee shop.

  * * *

  The cowbell attached to the inside of the coffee shop door emitted a mournful clunk when Kusaka pushed it open. There was only one other customer, who was sitting right at the back. It was Lieutenant Kubota of the Criminal Investigation Division. His unit specialized in election law violation, bribery, corruption, and corporate crime. The crimes his unit and Makihara’s unit investigated overlapped often.

  “Long time no see,” said Kusaka, sliding into the seat opposite. Kubota didn’t bother to reply. A few seconds later, Makihara came in and marched over to their table.

  “What exactly is the point of this little gathering?” asked Kusaka, once Makihara had sat down.

  Makihara raised his hand and ordered three coffees. Kubota chose that moment to finally open his mouth.

  “The investigators you’ve got on Tajima and Nakabayashi—pull them out right now. All of them.”

  Kubota and Makihara were a few years older than Kusaka was. That didn’t mean he was prepared to let them boss him around.

  “Shelve the high-and-mighty tone, will you? I don’t work for you. You want me to do something, you need to give me a reason. A good reason.”

  Makihara leaned over the table and glared at him.

  “You guys treading on the toes of the Tajima-gumi is the last thing we need right now, so be a good boy and back the fuck off.”

  “You should go through the proper channels. Talk to my superiors. This isn’t how I’m meant to get orders.”

  “Listen,” Kubota hissed. “We’re talking to you like this because we can’t go through the normal channels.”

  Kubota and Makihara were both lieutenants. If they were worried about their immediate superiors, that meant captains, directors, and, one level up, department chiefs and station commanders.

  “Why can’t you take it to your bosses?”

  “We can’t share that information with you,” said Kubota.

  “You’re just going to have to trust us,” Makihara chimed in. “There are certain issues we can’t take to them. That’s just how it is.”

  That had to mean that someone high up in the force had some sort of corrupt relationship with the Tajima-gumi or the Nakabayashi Group, and that Makihara and Kubota were discreetly investigating the matter. But isn’t this sort of thing usually handled by Internal Affairs? Kusaka thought to himself.

  “We’re not just poking into Tajima and Nakabayashi for our own goddamn amusement, you know,” added Kubota.

  “We heard you’re on the case of that chopped-up body found in the Tama River,” said Makihara. “And that Makio Tobe’s your suspect.”

  That was information he could only have gotten from inside the force. Who’d fed him the intel?

  “Tobe’s not yet an official suspect. We just want him to help us with our inquiries.”

  “You won’t flush Tobe out by putting the heat on Tajima and Nakabayashi,” growled Kubota.

  “Oh no?”

  Kubota waited for the waitress to move away.

  “The Tajima-gumi cut its ties with Tobe years ago. He’s not allowed near their offices. He’s under a life ban. Since the time Nakabayashi kicked him out and he joined Kinoshita Construction, Tobe’s been completely on his own.”

  “He’s still doing business with lenders connected to the Tajima-gumi,” protested Kusaka.

  “The head honchos don’t know about that. Tobe’s flying under the radar, freelancing. The big guys aren’t interested in that sort of nickel-and-dime loan-sharking shit.”

  “I need to warn you,” interrupted Makihara, raising a cautionary finger. “If you make a move on the Ogawa Mansion, you may well get Tobe killed.”

  Kusaka cocked his head in surprise.

  “I thought Miyuki Ogawa was his mother? The gang wouldn’t
dare touch him, surely?”

  “You heard of Aiko Ogawa?”

  Kusaka shook his head.

  “Aiko is the daughter of Miyuki and Michio Ogawa. She’s seriously ugly. Anyway, the story goes that Miyuki went through a phase of trying to be a good mom to her bastard boy, and Tobe was popping into the Ogawa Mansion on a regular basis. Good old Tobe decided to repay mommy’s hospitality by raping his younger half-sister. Rumor is that Tobe’s such a lecher, he’d fuck a dog if you stuck a wig on it. In his case, I’m prepared to give the rumors the benefit of the doubt.

  “That’s why Tobe was kicked out of the Tajima-gumi and the Nakabayashi Group. He’s not allowed to set foot in the Ogawa Mansion either. The guy somehow managed to wriggle his way into Kinoshita Construction. Michio Ogawa and high-up Nakabayashi people all know that he’s there, but if we pile the pressure on them because of Tobe, there’s no telling what they might do to him. He likes to flaunt his Tajima and Nakabayashi connections, but they’ve hung him out to dry. He means nothing to them.”

  It sounded plausible, but Kusaka still wasn’t ready to abort his own operation based on their story alone.

  “The thing is, I don’t have the authority to cancel the operation myself,” he explained mildly. “At the very least, I’m going to have to involve the captain.”

  Makihara scowled.

  “You’re Unit Ten, right? Who’s your captain? Is it Zoom-zoom?”

  The veteran cops on the force all referred to Imaizumi by his nickname.

  “That’s right.”

  “Who’s your director?”

  “Hashizume.”

  Kubota shook his head violently.

  “That man’s dangerous. Hashizume doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut. Keep this between you and Zoom-zoom.”

  “I understand what you want me to do. But I know there’s no way the captain will play ball if I just go and tell him we’ve got to pull back just because you guys met me in a café somewhere and asked me to. I’ll need a written order with your names on it. It’ll be handled discreetly, I promise. No one outside the unit will see it.”

  “You bastard,” growled Makihara.

  Kubota waved for him to back off.

  “It’ll take a little time, but we can do that. The one thing we cannot do is go into any detail about why we need you to withdraw your surveillance.”