"Nurse..."
Just when Kaise started to speak, his chest pocket vibrated.
"Crap. They catch me no matter where I am."
Kaise grabbed his cell phone and turned his back on Akane, who was no longer smiling.
"I'm sorry to bother you on your day off,” a loud voice said into his ear. It was Subsection Chief Ioka from Headquarters, the Police Affairs Section. He was Kaise's immediate subordinate. “We have a problem. The department chief asks that you come in right away...."
"What's happened?"
"Well...” Ioka hesitated. “Sorry for the extra trouble, but please could you call back on a land line?"
Kaise felt uneasy. When he stood up, Akane looked as if she was about to cry.
"I'll be right back,” he said to his father, and he left the recreation room. He was reluctant to use the telephone in the nurses’ station. He retraced his steps back along the hallway, had the male nurse unlock the door, and went to the public phone in the open ward.
He punched the buttons to dial the internal line of the chief of police affairs. Department Chief Kosuga answered immediately.
"It's Kaise. What's happened?"
Kosuga hesitated before he answered.
"The police ID notebooks are gone."
"What?"
"Thirty of them. Thirty officers’ identification documents that were stored together for safekeeping have been stolen."
Kaise stopped breathing.
"I've called a meeting of department heads. Get back to headquarters immediately and come directly to the conference room,” Kosuga ordered hurriedly. Before he hung up, he spat out the words, “Your idea seems to have backfired."
Kaise froze.
The collective storage was hit....
They had implemented a new system aimed at preventing the loss of police IDs—the passport-like books police officers flashed to show they were part of the police force. Previously, police officers had been obliged to carry their IDs on duty as well as off. The recent revision of that regulation had allowed the head of each section to be entrusted with the safekeeping of subordinates’ IDs during off-duty hours. That meant that officers who were finished with their workday no longer carried their IDs home with them. When they left their offices, they entrusted them to their respective departments.
Kaise was the one who had proposed this plan.
After he had overcome the opposition of the Criminal Investigation Department, a test of his plan was begun by the administrative section as well as by three police stations, including U Station. Zero missing identification documents. That was supposed to be the result. But now...
This measure which was to have eliminated the loss of the valuable IDs had resulted in an unprecedented large-scale burglary.
"Your plan seems to have backfired."
Kosuga's comment stung anew. It fit with the atmosphere swirling around at police headquarters at the moment.
Kaise headed toward the door, his pace quickening. He felt a searing pain at his temple.
Akane was at the stairway landing. She stared at Kaise reproachfully, her chin buried in the mountain of sheets she carried.
"I'll come again.” It was all he could do to mutter the words.
Passing through the doors, his cheeks slapped by the wind off the pale ocean, Kaise's only thought was of his route back to headquarters.
* * * *
2.
The seacoast road was empty, but the national highway leading to the city was congested. He escaped onto back roads, but even so it took nearly an hour for him to reach the Headquarters building in the government-offices area of town. It was nearly noon.
"Use the stairs to go up or down one or two floors.” These words posted on the wall in past days of energy conservation had at some point transformed into a slogan urging the staff to exercise more. Kaise, who had no problem with excess weight, adhered to this sign because the indicator lights for the elevators were hovering around the seventh and eighth floors.
Third floor. Police Affairs Department. Calming his breathing, Kaise pushed the door open. All of the staff turned toward him, but most quickly averted their eyes or looked down. Even his direct subordinate, Subsection Chief Ioka, behaved so. Handing Kaise a three-page document outlining the case, Ioka told him, “To the conference room,” in a low voice. He then fled back to his desk and buried his face in a pile of papers. Was he being considerate of Kaise's feelings? Or was he trying to avoid being implicated? No, his posture suggested something else. There was a difference in the heat that would be felt by Kaise, who had proposed the collective storage of the IDs, and Ioka, who had merely prepared the paperwork as ordered.
Kaise left the section office.
The conference room was on the eighth floor. Though the elevator had just arrived, Kaise once again chose the stairs. He couldn't go into a meeting of the top-level department heads with a blank mind. He wanted a bit of time to think about the situation, to deliberate and consider remedial measures.... As he moved his feet, relying on the handrail of the stairs, Kaise's eyes and brain pored over the document Ioka had given him.
"Location of incident: U Station, first floor."
U Station had been collecting and storing the IDs by floor. The first floor housed the Police Affairs Section and the Traffic Section. It was those IDs that had been taken.
"Case summary."
Yesterday, just after five p.m., the officer in charge of storing the IDs on the first floor began gathering the thirty documents belonging to the staff of the Police Affairs Section and the Traffic Section. He placed them in the safe and locked it. The precinct went into night-shift mode, during which time there was no suspicious occurrence. At 7:45 the following morning, when the officer in charge of storage reported to duty and opened the safe, all the IDs had disappeared.
What the hell? Kaise was irritated. He felt as if he were reading a newspaper account of office vandalism. It was too simple. Why wasn't there more precise documentation? Was this really something that had occurred in a police station?
He turned the page.
"The Criminal Investigation Department and Security Department begin secret investigation.... Three investigators enter U Station to take statements from those connected to the station in the fifth-floor physical training room."
As a matter of course, they were pursuing the possibility of an inside job.
Here was the reality: The large-scale theft of police IDs—this unprecedented scandal—would shake the organization to its core. Kaise was treading up the stairs to the conference room as if he were about to be tried as a war criminal.
He envisioned the inside of U Station in his increasingly throbbing head. The ground level had an open floor plan. To the left of the entry was the Traffic Section, with the Police Affairs Section beyond. There were no walls or doors between the two sections, allowing for free access. The storage safe was in the wall behind the Police Affairs Section.
Could an outsider have done it?
Under normal circumstances, that would be difficult. The station went into night-duty mode at 5:15 p.m. The office for the night-duty staff was in a corner of the Traffic Section. There were two entrances to the station: the front entrance and the back door. Anyone entering from either doorway would be seen by the night-duty officers. Moreover, the key to the storage safe in question was hung on the wall directly facing the duty staff. To steal the key brazenly and pass through the night-duty office and enter the Police Affairs Section—that would be impossible. There was no way it could be done.
No, don't make simplistic assumptions.
U Station's night-duty officers numbered thirteen. By shortly after 10 p.m. nearly half of them, the “early sleep group,” would be asleep. If the theft had occurred during that time, the station would have been short-handed. The night-duty chief and the radio operator would have been at their seats, but even that wasn't absolute. Should a drunken brawl cause several people to be taken into custody, the officers migh
t leave their seats to assist in their detainment. If the thief chose that time...
If it was an outside job, who might it be?
Extremists. Cultists. Those were the types that first came to mind. A deranged police buff was also someone to watch out for. There had been cases in the past in which police boxes had been targeted for the theft of guns and police IDs. Disgruntled former police officers also needed to be kept in mind. If the thief had worked at U Station, he would be familiar with internal procedure. It was also necessary to investigate people who could enter the station without raising suspicions. Someone in an extra-governmental agency. Newspaper reporters. Restaurant delivery staff. Town drunks...
Kaise pressed a finger to the bridge of his nose. An infinite number of possibilities came to his mind.
As he passed the landing on the sixth floor, he forced himself to shift his thinking.
What about an inside job?
There was no question that the situation allowed for this. Anyone who worked at U Station could have done it. Most obviously, it could be last night's night-duty staff.
Kaise returned his eyes to the report. The names of the thirteen night-duty officers were listed. The officer in charge of the night-duty staff was Masukawa Takashi, Assistant Police Inspector, First Criminal Investigation Section, Burglary Section Chief.
Masukawa...
His rugged face loomed up in Kaise's mind. He had entered the force one year ahead of Kaise. Kaise had never spoken to Masukawa, but according to rumor, he was quite the tough guy. He was known as a member of the judo team when he was young. About five years ago, his rough handling of suspects had nearly led to a lawsuit.
What disturbed Kaise more than Masukawa's reputation was finding out that the officer in charge of last night's night duty was from the Criminal Investigation side. He couldn't help but recall the furor of six months ago. The opposition of the Criminal Investigation Department to his proposal to store the IDs all together had been virulent.
"What do you mean by taking away the very soul of the police officer!"
"Do you mean to turn police officers into mere salary earners?!"
"Police officers are police officers twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year!"
Kaise had not pulled back. He had felt he could not retreat.
Wasn't being a police officer an occupation?
Of course, it was not the same type of occupation as working for a private enterprise that pursues profits. Yet in so far as one labored, received compensation, and made a living in that manner, it was certainly an occupation. Saying it was a “way of life” or a “divine calling” could not change that fact. And the times had surely changed. It was still an occupation worth doing. An occupation that engaged one's spirit of service. But it shouldn't matter if there was an increasing number of police officers imbued with a more practical awareness of the job as long as they worked with diligence.
He couldn't give in on this matter. That was his thought. Having been born and raised as the “local policeman's kid” and proud of his father, Kaise had chosen to become a second-generation police officer. But with the onset of his father's illness, he had come to look at his own organization with sober eyes. To a certain extent this business of the police IDs was a battle to avenge his father, who had fallen in the line of duty.
Naturally, he did not speak of this. He had made a decisive proposal to prevent the loss of the IDs, and faced with the opposition of the Criminal Investigation Department, he had battled without yielding and forcibly pushed for a test case. However...
What if the opposition of the Criminal Investigation Department was much more deeply rooted than Kaise had imagined?
The storage-safe key was hung on the wall directly across from the night-duty officer. Even if some of the night-duty staff left to go outside the station, the officer in charge was always in front of the key.
What kind of guy was Masukawa Takashi?
The eighth floor. The door to the conference room was closed tight.
Kaise took a deep breath. It was not only from fear. He also felt the tension of stepping into an arena for confrontation.
* * * *
3.
Inside the conference room, with its expansive view of the far-off horizon, Headquarters Department Head Aoyama and heads of the departments of Police Affairs, Criminal Investigation, Community Safety, Traffic, and Security were seated around an oval table with solemn expressions. In chairs behind them sat the section chiefs, their hands rapidly jotting down notes.
Kaise stood erect against the wall.
No words of abuse or sarcasm were aimed at him. What greeted Kaise's entry into the room were cold glances from the executive officials. It was their way of saying that the root cause of this scandal was this man. No one made any further acknowledgment of Kaise's presence.
Except for one person, Kaise's superior, Police Affairs Department Head Kamoike, who intentionally clicked his tongue. Was he indicating to the Headquarters Department Head that he hadn't been enthusiastic about the collective storage of the police IDs?
Police Affairs Section Chief Kosuga, who had no doubt been forced to explain the circumstances in place of the absent Kaise, still had a flushed face. The gaze he directed at Kaise said, “You menace."
His hooked nose beaded with sweat, the chief of the Criminal Investigation Department, Yamanouchi, spat out in a hushed voice, “The idiot."
The meeting proceeded while Kaise remained standing against the wall. The course of action for the investigation had already been determined, but the biggest headache, how to deal with the mass media, was yet to be decided.
Should this incident be announced to the press? Or should it be kept quiet?
The majority opinion was that there was no choice but to make an announcement. Thirty police IDs had been stolen—too large a number to be kept hidden. If, while the matter was concealed, the IDs were misused, the fallout would be enormous. Even if nothing untoward happened, should the incident be exposed later on, there would be no way to avoid incurring blame for a cover-up.
Yet, as thirty IDs was such a large number, there was a sense that the incident shouldn't be so readily publicized. It was an unheard-of scandal. Trust in the prefectural police would plummet drastically. Flitting inside the heads of all of the department heads was the spector of oversized newspaper headlines assailing the incompetence of the police.
Sighs filled the conference room.
"How about delaying the announcement until the papers are almost ready to go to press? The articles would be smaller then."
"That wouldn't help. The story is just too big. If we try to play gimmicks, they'll get upset and continue writing about it for weeks."
"At a time like this, it's best to appear sincere. The collective storage was still in the test stage. We will review it. The only thing we can do is to say that and bow our heads in apology."
Kaise was assaulted by the sensation that his innards were being eaten up.
This incident was going to become news. It would be broadcast on television. He was already dead within the organization. When the story broke, millions of citizens would also ridicule the collective storage system. Those within the force would heartlessly stomp on Kaise's feelings. Sympathy. Pity. Ridicule. Abuse.
But he wasn't thinking only of self-protection. He felt anger and chagrin. Any police officer understood the spell of the police IDs. Even when he is drinking with a friend or on a family outing, there is a moment when the police officer's hand reaches for his breast pocket. If he loses his ID, it is noted as a red mark in his file, and this negative evaluation stays with him as long as he is a police officer. It can affect whether he passes the promotion tests.
It was clear that the collective storage system had taken a hit. On the surface, it had backfired. But the system itself was not necessarily defective, Kaise thought. If it was an inside job. there was no way to have prevented it. If someone on the inside wanted to, he could even
take out guns and bullets from the arms safe. It wasn't the system that was bad. What was bad was...
At that instant, the name Masukawa passed across Kaise's brain. I can't die like this, he thought. Kaise clenched his teeth and fists.
Faces with dubious expressions turned toward him as one. Several cast sharply piercing gazes at him.
Headquarters Department Head Aoyama stretched his neck.
"What is it?"
Kaise swallowed the dryness at the back of his throat. His thoughts were in disarray. An inside crime. Retaliation. Blocking the news conference. Recovery of the IDs.... Speculation and desire confused his mind.
"What is it? If you have an opinion, give it."
"Yes, sir.” Kaise took a step forward. His brain exerted itself to expand on a quickly formed idea. “As long as we have the suspicion that it might be an inside crime, I think it would be prudent to wait until the internal investigation has been completed before announcing it to the press."
"Why is that?"
"I think it is hardly likely that an insider would have stolen the IDs for the purpose of misusing them. If it is a case of malicious mischief or harassment, it is possible that the IDs may be returned quite soon."
Aoyama leaned forward. “The IDs may be returned? What makes you think so?"
"Well...” He felt that he was getting into deep water. Wasn't he just spinning a fantastic yarn to cover his shame? Despite his dread, Kaise couldn't stop his words. “The perpetrator may have already achieved his aim by causing such a disruption. He may become scared and return the IDs. That is a possibility."
Aoyama gazed into space. The other senior officials also mulled this over.
But Yamanouchi, the Criminal Investigation Department Head, responded differently.
"Mischief or harassment ... Why would someone in the police do that?"
"That would be...” Kaise couldn't avoid saying it. He braced himself. “The aim may be to upset the agency, or to bring down a certain person...."
"Who do you mean?” Yamanouchi shouted. He had sniffed out the scent of Kaise's reference to the feud between the Criminal Investigation Department and the Police Affairs Department. “Who's bringing down who? Just say it!"
EQMM, May 2008 Page 7
