The Hunter

by Asa Nonami

  "A cat goes in and out of the house from under the veranda, right? In the old days, when they set fire to a building from outside, they threw something under the veranda. The flames would leap out suddenly, like a cat. People said other things, too, though—red dog, red horse."

  Whether true or not, the explanation sounded convincing. In the old days, cops used all sorts of colorful jargon. Some of the words were still in common use—like deka, for cop, supposedly a transposition of the first and last syllables of kakusode, which was the square-sleeved coat they used to wear; Takako used to think it came from dekai, meaning "huge," as in policemen having huge egos, lording it over others. For the most part, though, people of Takako's generation didn't use jargon. She had never expected to hear about it from Takizawa.

  "Sergeant Takizawa?"

  "Yeah."

  "Your face . . ." From the corner of her eye, she could see his thick hand reach up to his face. He made a sound that could have been a moan or a reply. "Is that from drinking?" she ventured.

  "No."

  She couldn't bring herself to ask more than that. She fell silent, and when the Hachioji exit came up, she put on her turn signal, changed lanes, and got off on the sloping curve of the exit ramp. There was still no sign of morning.

  "The little shit pasted me one good," Takizawa said in a half mumble.

  "Someone you know?"

  "Yeah. My son."

  A deep sigh scattered the smell of sake in the car. Takako reopened the back window, which she had closed earlier, and sighed, too. The sound of the daughter's voice answering the phone was still in her ears.

  "You have two children?"

  "Three."

  She said nothing.

  "Honestly. Whaddaya gonna do?"

  Having no idea how to respond to this, Takako again said nothing. She had no brothers, and found it hard to imagine how a quarrel between father and son could get so heated. For it to come to blows. For the son to have left a mark on his father's face—no thin-skinned face by any means. It must have been some fight.

  When they got off the expressway, their surroundings were blanketed with snow. Takako headed north up Route 16, and soon came to the Tama River. The road was slightly frozen.

  "Just our luck."

  "Pardon?"

  "The weather is shit and they drag us all the way to Akishima in the middle of the night."

  She turned left at the intersection of New Okutama Kaido and drove another six hundred yards before spotting the red beacon of a police car. As she pulled over, a uniformed policeman with snow on his coat and hat approached them. He saluted when he saw her badge, and with frosty breath explained where the fire was. She was to turn left, then take a right when she saw another police car. From there she couldn't miss it. Since even Takizawa and she had been called out, Takako expected a crowd.

  "When they see I came in your car, they'll start in with the jokes again." As they went slowly down a narrow street in a residential area, Takizawa offered this comment in a self-mocking tone.

  "It doesn't bother me."

  "That's good. 'Cause I don't give a shit either."

  They saw the second patrol car. As expected, by now there were cars all over the place. Takako pulled up behind one of them. Fat flakes of snow were falling fast, at a slant. Oh no, why hadn't she thought to bring a pocket heater? Takako turned off the engine.

  "One good thing is, you're no blabbermouth," Takizawa said as he reached for his coat in the back seat. Failing to understand, Takako turned and looked at him. The swelling was worse than she'd imagined. The right half of his face was untouched, but the left side was a pitiable sight. Apparently he'd been punched especially hard just beneath the eye, which was blood red.

  "Pretty awful, isn't it."

  "Does it stand out?"

  He scowled, turning his head to show her the left side of his face. Takako nodded slightly, thinking that even after the swelling subsided, the bruises would remain.

  "You'd better have it looked at."

  "I already treated it. Soaked it in alcohol."

  Whether he was laughing or bitter she couldn't tell. Imagine having your own son beat you up like this.

  As they got out of the car, he said: "I know I can trust you. Don't tell anyone, OK?"

  So he did trust her, to that extent. She answered briefly, yes, of course, and stepped out on the snow-covered road. Then she had a sudden thought: "Do you want to take the umbrella?"

  "No."

  "It might hide the bruises a little."

  It was a woman's umbrella, but plain navy blue, so it wouldn't seem ridiculous. When she held it out, Takizawa started to say something, but then silently accepted it. She turned up the collar of her coat and walked quickly ahead. She had not the slightest desire to walk side by side under an umbrella with Takizawa, like a pair of lovers.

  6

  As his partner marched off alone, Takizawa tried to wake up and to follow her. Maybe he shouldn't have drunk the booze after all. It felt like his heart had moved into his face. He hadn't felt pain like this in a long time. If it weren't for the prying eyes all around, he would have lost the umbrella and let the snow fall directly on his raw face, but he didn't have the nerve of a kid who didn't know better.

  Damn that kid, doing this to his old man.

  He wasn't actually that mad. The kid had sucker-punched him, all right; but the fact that he could hit his old man this hard just showed he was growing up. Still, Takizawa was going to have to teach the kid not to mess with him again, that if he did, he might get some of his own medicine back. Punching out on your own father was an outrage. Even if the son was technically in the right. Even if Takizawa's own high-handedness brought it on himself.

  As he walked along, head down, a terrible burning smell drifted by. There were clusters of people rubbernecking. It's cold, everybody, go on home, he thought. Another two or three hours and they'd be commiserating about the sleep they lost because of the fire. They didn't know how lucky they were.

  When he got to the scene of the fire, by now extinguished, Inspector Miyagawa was already in command. So the top guy had shown up in person, and early to boot. "People say they heard an explosion," Miyagawa told him, "followed immediately by clouds of thick black smoke and an acrid smell. The seat of the fire is around back, by the kitchen door. But it wasn't the gas stove, which wasn't in use at the time. We have testimony from a material witness that after the explosion the fire started on the outside before spreading into the house."

  "So it was that same chemical, is that what—"

  "Can't say for certain. We'll have to wait for it to get light."

  As Miyagawa spoke, he caught sight of Takizawa's face and was on the verge of commenting, then seemed to reconsider. Turning away, he told a young officer next to him to go get Chief Wakita. Relieved, Takizawa went to stand next to Otomichi and look up at the remains of the fire.

  The wreck of a building that had only hours ago been the setting for daily ordinary life stood cruelly exposed in the snow. You could tell it had been a two-story wooden house, but parts of the roof had caved in, leaving nothing but beams and pillars thrusting upward in the shadowy darkness. The life of the house had been extinguished.

  "Do your eyes sting?" Otomichi asked in a low voice.

  "Can't tell. Everything from the nose up hurts," he answered, his voice similarly low.

  He looked at her. Her hair was already covered in snow, with drops of water clinging to the bangs. Silently he held out the umbrella. She gave him the usual impassive look and said, "I'm OK." Then, her breath coming out in white clouds, she gazed on up at the site. Curt as always. He couldn't very well go on standing next to her and be the only one using an umbrella.

  Quietly he folded it. The snow felt pleasantly cold on his smarting face. He took out his white police gloves from his coat pocket, and Otomichi quickly retrieved hers from her bag.

  The house was surrounded by a tall fence, on a lot that was a good 450 to 500 square ya
rds. Next to the house was the skeletal steel framework of what was once a garage. The station wagon sitting inside was half charred.

  "What happened to you?" asked a colleague passing by and seeing Takizawa's battered face. Takizawa said nothing, only waved slightly. The place was turning into Grand Central Station, with investigators from the local police, backup from the head office, and now their colleagues from investigation headquarters, likewise woken up by telephone, all arriving in a steady stream. Amid the crowd, several of his colleagues, upon seeing his face, would gape. "At your age, you should know better!" one guy kidded him.

  Five minutes went by before Chief Wakita made his way through the crowd to where Takizawa and Otomichi stood. Coming up to them, he gestured with his chin that they were to follow him, and led the way through the burned gate. They entered the property, passed the house, and headed for the carport. Walking single file between the fence and the car, they got to the backyard, where running along the wall that surrounded the house, a steel cage, about two meters tall, had been constructed. It was covered with mesh.

  "What do you think?" Wakita asked, turning back toward them. Takizawa inspected the interior of the cage. Part of the bottom of the cage was an extension of the concrete garage floor; where there was earth were several large potholes. There was an airless basketball and a beat-up tin basin. And at one end of the cage was a shed, approximately twenty feet long.

  Before Takizawa could say anything, Otomichi spoke up: "Is it the wolf-dog?"

  "Possibly. Once CSI gets here, they can give us a better idea. Anyway, take a look at this."

  Takizawa and Otomichi now peered into the station wagon, its windows shattered, and saw a leather dog leash, a dog collar, a Softball, and other items numbingly familiar from their rounds of the last few days. In addition, there were several objects resembling scarecrows. Strange-looking things stuffed to resemble human form, wrapped round and round with cloth. Takizawa leaned farther in for a better look. One had been ripped at the throat and on the head.

  "This clinches it," Takizawa growled. Otomichi, who'd gone to the other side of the car, could only clear her throat, as if she'd lost the power of speech. Training in murder. Practice targets.

  "Neighbors never saw anything unusual going on. Some knew that there was a dog living here, but that was it."

  "What about the head of the household?" Takizawa asked, drawing his head out of the car. Wakita looked in turn from Otomichi to Takizawa and then took a deep, resolute breath.

  "Judging from his age and appearance, the man taken to the hospital was the head of the household. He was suffering from severe smoke inhalation, and may still be unconscious. This house was rented. The former tenant went by the name of Takagi—"

  "Takagi? Then—" Otomichi began to interrupt. Wakita forestalled her with one hand in the air.

  "But the current resident is named Kasahara."

  "Kasahara? Not Takagi?" This time it was Takizawa who spoke.

  Chief Wakita wrinkled his forehead and nodded soberly. "Kasahara. Katsuhiro Kasahara."

  "Katsuhiro? That's the same first name," Otomichi said. If it was Katsuhiro Takagi, this was their man, but Katsuhiro Kasahara? Was this someone else? Or an alias?

  "What about the victim? " Takizawa asked.

  "Not yet identified. A woman."

  "A woman." Trying to process this information, Takizawa repeated the words to himself.

  "Where's the dog?" Otomichi asked.

  She's more worried about the damned dog than she is about the name of the owner.

  "No sign of it. No body. When the fire department got here, the cage was open."

  "So he let it out?" Every time she spoke, a white cloud of breath swirled around her face.

  Looking up, Takizawa thought the eastern sky was beginning to lighten, but with all the snow you couldn't tell.

  "Hard to say. We have to wait till Kasahara comes to." The furrows in Wakita's brow deepened, and he clucked his tongue slightly. "We have witnesses who say they heard some kind of barking after the fire got started. Not the usual barking, but deeper in pitch, kind of gruff, but not for long. Some witnesses say they heard howls."

  "Howls..."

  In his mind Takizawa started to review what he'd learned about wolf-dogs: they didn't bark needlessly; they didn't make good watchdogs; they weren't really dogs, but wolves with some dog mixed in ... And now this animal was on the loose.

  "As you can see, he kept the animal in such a way that it couldn't be seen from outside, and if he took it out of here by car, no one would have known. We have no witnesses who've ever laid eyes on it."

  The owner had exercised extra caution. Had he sneaked the animal away from here and trained it somewhere else? Where he trained it to rip out the throats of specific human targets?

  "If the animal has gotten away—"

  "That's why there's no time to lose." Wakita's expression grew still grimmer. His eyes kept wandering back to Takizawa's bruised face. Every second counted—but they were after a wolf-dog, not a human being. The usual tracking methods did not apply.

  "He had no family?"

  "We don't know. According to the neighborhood records, the guy lived alone."

  A detective, head of the chemical teams, approached Wakita to say he was needed elsewhere at the site. Recognizing Takizawa and Takako, he raised a hand in silent greeting.

  The dawn was approaching. Takizawa thought back to the picture of the wolf-dog in the snow in the dog importer's office. Was this wolf-dog doing the same thing? Was it running through the landscape, breath coming in white puffs, its body blending into the pale gray atmosphere? Big question: Where was it running to?

  "This is what I want you to do," Wakita said firmly to Takizawa and Takako. "Go straight to the hospital. As soon as the burn victim comes to, begin your interrogation, I don't care how bad off he is. Find out about this wolf-dog."

  As they exited the property, Wakita went off to speak to other investigators at the site, but then stopped and called Takizawa to him. Laying a hand on his shoulder, he drew Takizawa close to him and spoke quietly. The man was a good four inches taller than Takizawa.

  "I hear you and Kanai got into it. Is that what happened to you?"

  Reflexively, Takizawa drew back, straightened up, and looked at the chief. "No, sir," he said. "This was a personal matter."

  Though a gleam of mischief appeared in Wakita's eyes, he spoke with authority. You’ve gotten this far, I don't want any blowups. I put you with Otomichi because I was confident you could handle it."

  "I understand, sir. But this really is another matter. It's . . . actually . . . domestic violence." He had no choice but to confess. Otherwise this other suspicion would never go away.

  "And after that you hit the bottle?"

  "To kill the pain, sir. Also, alcohol is a disinfectant."

  Wakita's eyes widened momentarily; then he let out his breath with a sound and clapped Takizawa on the shoulder without another word. Next he called Otomichi over.

  Takizawa moved off, savoring the chief's expression of confidence. From a little distance he watched as the chief spoke to his partner. It was a gray morning. There were spots all over Otomichi's stockings where she'd been spattered by snow and mud. Her head, nodding now and then slightly in response to the chief's words, was soaking wet.

  Easy for him to say. Thanks for nothing.

  Why he in particular should have inspired Wakita's confidence he had no idea, but there was no doubt that Otomichi was bad news. And now if it got around that he'd been in a dustup with another cop over her, he'd never hear the end of it.

  "Let's go."

  Their talk was over. Otomichi came striding his way across the mucky ground. They ducked under the rope at the perimeter of the site and headed back to her car. Takizawa lit a cigarette; he'd been dying for one all morning.

  "So what'd he want?" He expected her to brush the question off: "Oh, nothing." Instead, with her eyes fixed on the ground as she stepped
carefully along, she said, "He told me not to cause you too much trouble." So the chief didn't believe him? The possibility was upsetting. But sooner or later Wakita would talk to Kanai, and then he'd get the story straight.

  "You think Kasahara and Takagi are the same man?" she asked.

  "I dunno. All we can do is ask the guy himself."

  "Would he tell the truth?"

  Otomichi's car was lightly coated with snow. He was frozen to the bone. Lucky thing he'd listened to his daughter and put on his long Johns.