A long and narrow, densely green space sandwiched between the Sumida River and a main trunk road, Okawa Park seemed out of place in the crowded cityscape. It was a lot bigger than she had imagined, Shigeko noted in surprise. She walked in, looking for the place where the arm had been discovered. She had brought with her a simple sketched map of the crime scene and surroundings that had appeared in one of the weekly magazines, and now followed it until she came to the cosmos flowerbed near where the trash can was located.
It was a large-sized can with a fitted lid, and looked brand new, probably changed after the discovery. It didn't have a number, or anything written on it─just a very ordinary, typical park trash can. She opened it and peered inside to see it was about seventy-percent full. What the heck was she doing? She quickly looked around, embarrassed. There weren't many people, the few that she saw were either ambling along or rushing through. The soft sunlight felt pleasant, but there was hardly anyone sitting on the benches dotted along the path or by the flowerbeds. It was peaceful and quiet. Other than the odd police notice board appealing for information, there was nothing in the atmosphere of the park to suggest what had recently happened there.
Shigeko decided to do a full tour of the park anyway. She wanted to get a good grasp of the scene, and she had plenty of time. The Ishiis were both teachers so nobody would be at home during the day. She had tried calling their house just once yesterday evening, around eight. A woman's voice had answered, probably Mrs. Ishii. Shigeko hadn't given her name, but just asked, “Is Tsukada-kun in?”
The woman had replied cheerfully, “Sorry, he's in the bath at the moment.”
“Never mind. Sorry for calling so late.” She had tried to sound as much like a schoolgirl as she could muster, and as she had hoped the woman seemed to assume that she was one of Shinichi's friends.
“Shall I get him to call you back?”
“No, it's okay. I'll call back again tomorrow.”
“Really? Okay, then.”
“What sort of time does he usually get home from school?”
“About four-thirty or five. He's not doing any club activities at the moment, so he comes straight home,” Mrs. Ishii said, then asked, “Is that Kumi, by any chance?”
“What? Oh, er, no.” Shigeko hedged. Kumi?
“Oh dear, I'm so sorry. I only asked because you seem to be at a different school.”
Shigeko apologized again, and quickly hung up wondering whether she'd aroused the woman's suspicions. It was quite possible that the media had started calling Shinichi's home again. But Mrs. Ishii had spoken relatively openly. She might have let her guard down because the caller had been female.
Shigeko's plan was to leave the park at four to head for their house. She would try ringing the front doorbell, and if no one answered she would wait on the street for Shinichi to come home. The best would be if someone answered, but then it might be more effective to catch Shinichi on the street rather than have the door slammed in her face. She was feeling nervous, and walked blindly through the park rehearsing in her head what she would say when she met Shinichi. Passersby her gave her odd looks as she muttered to herself. By the time she'd done a full circle of the park and come back to the cosmos flowerbed, it was about ten to four and she started heading for the exit. Just then she noticed someone sitting on a bench, who hadn't been there before.
It was a girl. She might be cuter if she were a bit plumper, but even with her thin face she was pretty. She was wearing blue jeans and white sneakers, with a red pullover slung over her shoulders, her long hair tied back in a ponytail. In contrast to the bright tricolored outfit, though, her expression was thunderous, and she was glaring in front of her in fury. Her face was so serious that Shigeko couldn't help wondering about her. Maybe she'd had a fight with someone─a boyfriend? Parents? What on earth could be the cause of such hatred on a teenage girl's face?
She suddenly recalled something she'd seen on the news that morning. A high-school girl had been found strangled to death in a children's park in Mitaka. It was all over the news, since she was believed to have been the one who'd delivered the message to the Plaza Hotel addressed to Mariko Furukawa's grandfather, and a few hours before she was found that same machine-like voice had called her home. It turned out that while the girl had dressed modestly at school, she had been living a double life as a prostitute, dressing flashily and living high on the sly─a kind of lifestyle that was incomprehensible to Shigeko, now in her thirties.
In any case, this girl was almost certainly the third victim of whoever had been responsible for cutting off the arm of an as-yet unidentified woman, and for the disappearance of Mariko Furukawa, also still missing. And this was the first certain homicide, since there was no evidence at this stage that the other two were dead. When Shigeko had pointed that out to Shoji, he'd grimaced. “She's had her arm cut off, so she must be dead, surely,” he'd said. “The rest of her body must have been thrown away elsewhere.”
Shigeko thought he was probably right. It was highly unlikely that she would come back alive, unfortunately. But it was possible that she was still alive and being kept prisoner. Judging by events so far, this guy was quite capable of doing something as cruel as cutting off a woman's arm while she was still alive, throwing it away, then sitting back and enjoying the public outrage. With Mariko Furukawa, too, she had the feeling the culprit was simply using her belongings as leverage to get her family and the police to jump at his commands. Wasn't the whole purpose to make her suffer? It was to show her, not anyone else, what he was capable of. It was sinister and cruel, but if true it meant that there was a good chance she was still alive.
Even if she were reading too much into it, she couldn't help feeling there was a reason behind the killer's actions. He was running circles around the police as to whether the other two women were alive or not, but here he was tossing the high-school girl's body out like a piece of trash. Had the girl been just a tool? Or had there been something about her that had made him feel guilty, and that was why he had made sure her body was discovered quickly? Perhaps it gave some insight into his view of women. So far, all of his victims were young women …
As her thoughts wandered, Shigeko had unconsciously been staring at the young woman on the bench. Then the girl met her eye. Shigeko abruptly looked away and headed briskly for the exit, feeling the girl's gaze following her.
Shigeko immediately knew which was the Ishii's house. A brisk ten-minute walk from the park, it was a fairly new two-story house with a parking space and a tiny yard where a collie was chained up. When she leaned over the fence to peer into the south-facing glass doors, the dog stood up and wagged its tail. Cute, but it would never make a good guard dog.
The nameplate had only the Ishii couple's names on it. There was no laundry airing out in the yard or on the balcony, not even a bike outside. At first glance there was nothing at all to suggest the presence of a teenage boy in the house. The dog barked, and she stepped quickly away from the fence, but it was still wagging its tail and was probably just after attention. She crossed over the road to an old-fashioned apartment building with a wide-open entrance. She stepped inside─it made a good hiding place. The dog still barked intermittently, but there was no sign of anyone in the house coming to see what was going on.
Shigeko checked her wristwatch. It was just after four-fifteen. From one of the apartments came the sound of a TV─a historical drama rerun. The dog stopped barking after a while. She stood leaning against the wall keeping watch outside, rehearsing again what she would say to Shinichi when she finally met him. Hello, I'm Shigeko Maehata─no, better, My name is Shigeko Maehata. You must be Shinichi Tsukada. Or, You're Shinichi, right? There's something I'd like to talk to you about. Would you mind? She had chosen her clothes with care. Too scruffy and she would look suspicious, but a suit would be too formal. In the end she had decided on a white blouse with a light fall jacket, khaki slacks, and leather loafe
rs─neat and stylish. Instead of a purse, she had brought the big battered old bag she always used for work. She wanted to make herself look convincing─a real journalist investigating a story.
The dog started barking again, this time more frenziedly. Shigeko peeked out to see it pulling on the chain and jumping up against the fence, and rushing around the small yard. It looked happy. Somebody from the house was clearly arriving home. Shigeko braced herself. At just that moment, someone came running along the road from her right. He was wearing jeans and sweatshirt, and carrying a canvas school bag slung over his shoulder. It was Shinichi. Shigeko recognized him immediately. She'd just stepped out from the door to call him when she heard someone else.
“Wait! Stop running away, you coward!”
The voice was almost screaming at him, sharp as an arrow. Shinichi was running as if fleeing that voice. Reaching the front doorstep, he rummaged around in his jeans pocket looking for his key, his shoulders hunched in fear.
“Stop! Wait already!” the voice chasing him shouted. A girl's voice─then she came into view. Shigeko was stunned to see the girl she'd noticed in Okawa Park earlier. The girl with a face of thunder glaring angrily into space.
Just as Shinichi pulled out his key and was opening the door, the girl rushed onto the doorstep and yanked his bag.
“Stop running away from me, dammit!”
Without replying, Shinichi yanked his bag back, opened the door, and slipped inside, slamming the door in her face. She clung onto the door and shouted, “Why? Why won't you listen to me? Open the door. Please!” She rattled the door knob and banged on the door, yelling, “Tsukada-kun. Can you hear me? You can, can't you? Tsukada-kun!”
But there was no reaction at all from within the house. The dog was still barking, and Shigeko briefly saw the curtain over the window onto the garden move, but even that was just a second. Recovering from her initial shock at the girl's hysterical outburst, she was incredulous. What on earth was all the fuss about? Some of the neighbors, too, were poking their heads out of windows and front doors to see what was going on.
But the girl took absolutely no notice. She took a few steps back from the front door, and looked up at the upstairs window overlooking the street and yelled, “Tsukada-kun, there's no point hiding. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going to leave until you come out here and talk to me.”
Just above Shigeko's head, someone laughed. She looked up to see a middle-aged woman in an apron, a resident of the apartment house, chuckling with her hand over her mouth. In the small office next door to the Ishii's, two men in gray work outfits had stuck their heads through the shutters and, grinning, were looking from the girl to the Ishii's house, and back again.
“I'm staying right here!” And with that, she turned her back on the house and sat down on the front step directly facing Shigeko. Her face, flushed with anger, was redder than it had been in the park, but her furious, brooding eyes were the same, and her scowl marred her pretty looks.
“Had a fight with the boyfriend, have we?” teased one of the workmen next door.
She snapped her head around and glared at him. “Mind your own business.”
“Oooh, you're a feisty one!” The workmen fell about laughing, then slipped back under the shutter and disappeared.
The girl hugged her knees tightly with her arms and buried her chin in them. She seemed about to cry after her outburst, Shigeko thought. It really did have all the hallmarks of a childish lovers' tiff, but Shigeko had been shocked to see Shinichi tense and shaking with fear. Shigeko had had her share of quarrels─with Shoji, for one, and she'd had even more serious blowups with men she'd been out with before him. But men generally didn't react with fear when their woman got angry with them. They might be ashamed or even yell back, but they didn't get scared. It was no different with teenage couples. If that had really been a lovers' tiff, while running away and ducking his head Shinichi would either have been grinning like those workers next door, or turning to yell right back at her.
Shigeko moved away from the apartment block and walked across the street to where the girl was sitting. She didn't look up until Shigeko's shadow fell over her.
“Hello,” Shigeko said. “I don't mean to meddle, but are you okay?”
The girl glanced at her, but immediately looked away and went back to hugging her knees. Her eyes were gleaming like hard black pebbles.
“I don't think you'll get what you want like this,” Shigeko went on, looking her in the face. “If you want to talk to him, you'd better think of another way. You might as well give up for now─he won't come out again today, whatever you try.”
Still with her face turned away sullenly, the girl spat, “Leave me alone.”
“Are you Shinichi's friend?”
“Leave me alone!”
“But─”
“I said go away! It's none of your business,” the girl snapped, losing her temper.
Shigeko felt the girl's spit land on her cheek. She really was like a high-tension power cable, her slim body overflowing with energy. But this was energy tainted with─what? Anger? Grief? What on earth could be causing this girl so much suffering? Shigeko sighed, loud enough for the girl to hear. Then she stood up and looked up at the Ishii's second-floor window. The curtain twitched, and Shinichi looked out of it. For a moment his gaze met Shigeko's.
The girl was still hunched over, hugging her knees as if to protect herself. She was crying. Shigeko crossed back over to the apartment block where she had been standing before, rummaging in her bag for her cell phone as she walked. Shielding the phone with her hand, she looked back at the second floor of the Ishii's house and raised her hand. Shinichi was still by the window. He should able to see the phone. She waved it a couple of times, and mouthed silently “I'll phone!” He disappeared from the window. Had he understood her gesture?
Hiding behind the door to the apartments, she called the Ishii's number. It was picked up on the first ring. “Well, this is a strange turn of events,” Shigeko said. “That girl has no intention of leaving, you know. What are you going to do?”
There was a brief pause before the answer came. She could feel Shinichi's confusion, and felt sorry for him. “I'm sorry …” he said in a small voice.
“You can't just leave her there. I wonder what the best thing to do would be?
Shinichi didn't answer, but instead asked, “Um, are you from the neighborhood?”
“Nope,” Shigeko said wryly. “Actually, I came to see you, too.”
There was a pause, then he said in an even smaller voice, “To see me?”
“Yes. You are Shinichi Tsukada, aren't you?”
“Yes, but …” His tone suggested strongly that he would have preferred being anything but Shinichi Tsukada at that moment, even a cockroach or a worm would have been preferable. How he would have loved to answer, “No.”
“My name's Shigeko Maehata. I came to talk with you today. The truth is I'm working on a story about Okawa Park. You were the person who discovered the arm, right?”
“Yes, I was,” he said, then added a bit louder, “Well actually, I wasn't the only one though.”
This was the first she'd heard that. “Is that so? I didn't know. There are a few things I'd like to ask you. Would you be willing to meet me?” There, she'd finally said it. “If you say no, I won't plant myself on your front doorstep or anything like that. But I really would like to meet you.”
Shinichi didn't say anything.
“Is the girl downstairs your girlfriend?”
His response was immediate. “No. Nothing like that.”
“Really? I didn't think so. You'd rather she went away, wouldn't you?”
Shinichi didn't answer. Instead he said, “She's not going to go away. So the only possibility is for me to go.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
“Leaving he
r there?”
“Yes.”
“Your parents . . . Mr. and Mrs. Ishii will be home soon, won't they?”
“Yes. Ms. Maehata, you said your name was, right?”
“That's right. You can call me Shigeko, though.”
“You know who I am, don't you?”
He'd probably picked up on her slip about his parents just now. Shigeko looked at the phone in her hand and nodded. “Yes, I do. Mr. and Mrs. Ishii were friends with your parents, weren't they?”
“Yes, that's why I don't want to cause them any more worry,” he muttered, almost to himself.
“But how are you going to get out of the house?”
“Out the back.”
“Is there a road behind the house, too?”
“Yes, just a lane.”
“Okay, how about this? I'll get a taxi and come to pick you up there. Once I'm ready, I'll call you back. Is that okay?”
“Okay.” A pause. “Thanks.”
“You're welcome.”
Shigeko cut the call, and stood there for a few moments, thinking how unexpectedly smoothly things were going for her. He was going to come out to meet her─she had that girl to thank for that. The girl was still sitting stubbornly outside the front door looking rather cold, but every bit as obstinate as before. Shigeko paused in front of her, but as she remained looking away, she didn't bother to say anything to her.
Back out on the main road, she hailed a cab. Just as Shinichi had said, there was a narrow lane behind his house, and as the car pulled up alongside it she called him again, keeping her eye on the upstairs balcony. He answered immediately and said he would be out right away. True to his word, he opened the window and climbed lightly over the balcony wall and onto the canopy over the first-floor windows. He was still dressed in the same clothes, and was carrying the same bag slung across his back. He jumped the fence and got into the back of the cab. He was shorter than Shigeko had thought, although at his age he probably still had some more to grow.
Puppet Master vol.1 Page 19
