Blue Light Yokohama

by Nicolas Obregon

  “Was this locked on discovery?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Who found the bodies?”

  “The wife’s mother.”

  “Where are the bodies now?”

  “With the Medical Examiner’s Office, sir.”

  Hatanaka unlocked the door and Sakai stepped in without hesitation, following the safe path marked out by blue tape on the floor. The faint spice of incense wafted out after her. Faint at first. Then the earthy tang overcame Iwata, as though he had ripped up a clump of forest moss and pressed his face into that secret smell beneath.

  I’m happy with you. Please let me hear.

  “Inspector?” Hatanaka was frowning uncertainly.

  “What?”

  “I asked if there’s anything else you need from me.”

  Iwata cleared his throat and gathered his thoughts. “First, you’ll give me your number. Then I need you to canvass the local area thoroughly. I want to know if this family had any feuds, any debts, any enemies, anything at all like that. And don’t forget to look for passion as a motive. These murders happened on Valentine’s night. Affairs, old flames, you know what I’m saying.”

  “Yes, sir.” Hatanaka wrote his number on a piece of paper, bowed and closed the door behind him. The hallway was gloomy and silent. The genkan was packed with shoes. Photographs hung on the walls. A normal family home.

  He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.

  Iwata stood in the hallway next to Sakai, who was flipping through the case file.

  “Ready?” she asked.

  “Ready.”

  “Okay, then. Fred Flintstone was found upstairs in the master bedroom. Everyone else was found in there.” She nodded toward the lounge.

  “Hatanaka confirms the front door was locked.”

  “So maybe the killer had a key. Or maybe he knows them.”

  “But the upstairs window is open and the file says no prints were found on the front door.”

  “He’s a glove-owner, then. Hey, look at that, our first lead. Now, shall we?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Ladies first.” She held open the lounge door.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, took a breath, and entered.

  I walk and I walk, swaying, like a small boat in your arms.

  The room was lit by powerful lamps. The bodies of the family were no longer present but a sticky stench lingered in the air. Iwata knew it by heart. Carbohydrates, proteins, and fatty acids broken down by microbes. Gases emitted by dead bodies. Connective tissues broken down and, as the phases of decomposition shifted, intestines starting to liquefy. The daily bread of Division One.

  “Lovely blood spatter.” Sakai nodded at the red mountain range on the wall. “I mean is this guy a regular Picasso, or what?”

  “You mean Pollock.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind.”

  Iwata stepped over blood-soaked homework. On the front cover of a Good Housekeeping magazine, a fleck of gore had landed on the smiling model’s nose. A small bonsai tree had shed its leaves and was slowly dying on the windowsill. Sakai pointed to the three distinct lakes of dark blood on the carpet.

  “Meet Wilma, Bamm-Bamm, and Pebbles.”

  Sakai passed him several photographs from the case file. The mother lay spread-eagled in the center of the room, disembowelled, her throat slashed. Her teenage son had died against the wall, a deep wound to his oblique abdominals, his right eye socket destroyed. Lastly, in the corner, the young girl had been murdered. Her shoulders were hunched, as if mystified by death.

  The lights of the city are so pretty.

  “This is how it plays out.” Sakai cracked her knuckles. “The killer threatens the children, the mother doesn’t resist. She’s killed there and then. The son jumps up in her defense. He’s a big boy, strong, probably throws a few punches. This is why his first stab wound is a defensive blow. Lastly, the child has its throat cut. She’s cowering the whole time.”

  Iwata nodded. Dead children and rotting flesh, all part of the job, no different from waiting at red lights and filing reports.

  “You have a good eye, Sakai.”

  She ignored the compliment and scanned the case file.

  “Picasso didn’t leave a single print behind here, either.”

  “Let’s move on.”

  They searched the ground floor, finding nothing out of place. When they were done, Sakai led the way upstairs. On the landing, they paused at the bathroom door. Above the toilet, the window was open, a cold wind whispering in. Iwata pulled down the toilet seat to reveal part of a muddy footprint.

  “This isn’t in the file, is it?”

  Sakai shrugged.

  “At least now we know how he got in.”

  They returned to the hallway and checked the children’s bedrooms. There was nothing in the file relating to either room and they noticed nothing out of the ordinary. They cleared the balcony and then the garage downstairs. The Kaneshiros seemingly owned no car, despite some grease stains and an old bottle of antifreeze.

  “Where’s the car?” Sakai asked.

  “Hasn’t been in the garage for a long time.”

  “They sold it?”

  “One second.” Iwata dialed Hatanaka. “Yeah, it’s me again. One more thing, I need you to check on a family car registered to the Kaneshiros. If their money situation wasn’t great, they might have sold it. Or it could have been reported stolen. When you find out, let me know.”

  Iwata hung up and Sakai winked at him.

  “Good thinking.”

  “What’s left?” he asked.

  “Just the study and the master bedroom.”

  “Okay, in that order, then.”

  They returned upstairs. The door to the study was wide open. The family PC was still on, and a tub of mint ice cream, now melted, had been left by the keyboard.

  “Strange,” Iwata said quietly.

  “Could be him. Murder is hungry work.”

  “No spoon left behind.”

  Sakai passed him the case file, sat down at the computer, and snapped on a rubber glove. She opened up the Internet search history.

  “Look at that.” She scratched her head. “The guy spent hours online.”

  “Definitely him?”

  “It’s well after the family’s time of death. He looked up theater groups, baseball news, and eventually got round to searching for flights to Korea. Nothing in the file about computer records, but I’m sure we could have the tech boys spend twenty minutes on this?”

  Iwata shook his head.

  “This makes no sense, Sakai. He kills an entire family without leaving a single print or clue but then gives us his browsing history?”

  “You’re saying you think he did this deliberately?”

  Iwata shrugged.

  “Everything else was done in such a fashion.”

  Sakai mulled this over.

  “Could be. This Picasso is too clever for his own good, then.”

  Iwata flipped through the pages of the case file.

  “Sakai, doesn’t this file seem a little slim to you? A little vague?”

  “Not surprising, given the circumstances surrounding Inspector Akashi. Come on, one room left.”

  They left the study and stopped at the blood spatter outside the master bedroom.

  “Okay.” Sakai pointed at the bedroom door. “So Fred is in bed, feeling unwell or whatever. He hears something coming from the bathroom but he comes out to check. Why does he come out to check? Why not assume it’s just his wife having a crap?”

  “Maybe the noise is very loud. The footprint was scuffed, right? Maybe the killer slipped and fell.”

  “Yeah that makes sense. Either way, he comes out, sees Picasso and they clash. The killer debilitates him, the main threat is neutralized, and then our guy is free to work the others.”

  Iwata hunched down over the blood pool.

  “The father was badly injured but we know h
e died in the bedroom.”

  “So?”

  “If he was still conscious out here, he might have heard his family being killed downstairs.”

  “God, I love my job.” Sakai scratched her nose. “You ready?”

  Iwata nodded. She opened the door to the master bedroom and there was the blood of Tsunemasa Kaneshiro.

  The lights of the city are so pretty.

  Iwata knew the practicalities of murder. And he knew the practicalities of death. The father would take ninety minutes to cremate. His son, Seiji, roughly the same. His wife, Takako, would take forty-five minutes. His six-year-old child, Hana, a little over twenty minutes. An afternoon’s work for somebody.

  Iwata saw a sunset over cliffs. He saw rocks below. He staggered for a moment.

  I’m happy with you. Please let me hear.

  “Iwata, you okay?”

  “Fine.” He was in control again. “We need light.”

  Sakai peered at the pond of blood on the bed. Iwata opened the curtains, bathing the room in harsh light.

  That’s when he saw it.

  Sakai hadn’t yet noticed. She was absorbed in a photograph of the dead father.

  “Clearly, this was the most brutal killing. Stab wounds everywhere, additional to the first attack sustained in the hallway. I’m guessing Fred was Picasso’s muse.”

  In the photograph, a large hole gaped open beneath Mr. Kaneshiro’s ribs.

  “He took his heart,” Iwata whispered to himself, still looking up at the ceiling. “These killings were ritualistic, Sakai. Taking the heart meant something. See how he only took the father’s? The rest he left alone.”

  “Ritualistic? Isn’t that a bit much? Maybe the killer was after money or revenge. Or we’re just talking about a psycho who sees an open window and goes from there; you’re not saying anything, what is it?”

  Iwata pointed up to the ceiling in reply. Sakai covered her mouth.

  “Oh my fucking God.”

  There, in sooty smudges, was a jagged black sun.

  CHAPTER 3: I AM HERE

  DOUTOR CAFÉ WAS PACKED WITH the lunchtime crowd. Gossiping housewives gasped behind the rims of their coffee cups and salarymen sitting alone absently chewed on donuts. Sakai was shaking her head as she sipped her hot chocolate. Printouts of the Internet search history from the Kaneshiro’s family PC were splayed on the table between them.

  “Just because he didn’t book the flights there and then at the house doesn’t mean he didn’t do it later. Or maybe he did it over the phone. Do you really think that this asshole is going to go to the trouble of looking up flights to Seoul for twenty minutes if he’s not going to go?”

  “I do think so, yes.” Iwata was biting a nail, tapping his foot, and peering at the sketch of the black sun that he had made.

  “Why?”

  “Maybe he knows that if we’re given a logical line of inquiry, we’ll usually take it.”

  Sakai laughed.

  “You have been a cop before, then.”

  “Reserving a flight from the Kaneshiro computer would have meant giving away his name. And that’s a death sentence.”

  She licked chocolate from her upper lip.

  “Maybe he wasn’t thinking straight after slaughtering a whole family? Maybe he pulled out because he got spooked?”

  Now Iwata shook his head.

  “He killed the family around 10 P.M., and by 8 A.M. he had eaten the food from their refrigerator, filled out the sudoku in their newspaper, listened to their CDs, and looked up flights to Korea on their computer. You think a guy that can stab a child to death and take a man’s heart out is going to spook at a slamming door?”

  Sakai pondered this then gestured for another hot chocolate. Iwata shook his head.

  “Maybe the grandmother’s incessant phone calls freaked him out,” she said.

  “Could be. But think about it, he left in broad daylight. He was comfortable enough to know that if he was seen, he wouldn’t be recognized.”

  “Look, all I’m saying, just because he wore a pair of gloves and drew some symbol on the ceiling, doesn’t make him a genius.”

  Her chocolate arrived and she snapped some butter biscuits into the cup.

  “Your teeth will fall out, Sakai.”

  She narrowed her eyes in spiteful pleasure as she drank. “So go on, why is he such a sharp tack?”

  “Statistically speaking, the evil genius is essentially one in a million. But there is a chance he’ll be above average intelligence, yes.”

  “Well, fuck him. Your brain doesn’t seem defective, and I’m bright as a button.”

  “It’s not his IQ that worries me, Sakai. What’s troubling is that, so far as I can make out, he hasn’t left behind a single worthwhile clue. Obsession, meticulous planning, and a cold-blooded readiness to act on his fantasy—whatever the collateral. He has the makings of an organized serial killer.”

  “Serial killer. And how do you know he’s one of those? Aside from the family, I mean.”

  “The FBI definition is a killer with four or more victims. He already qualifies.”

  “You were in the FBI?”

  “No, that’s just a standard definition. You learn them in police training over there.”

  “Why are you so sure he’s not finished?”

  “The symbol. He didn’t just put it there for fun. It means something. It represents his work, or his world, or his manifesto. You call him Picasso. If an artist signs his painting, it isn’t because he’s only going to paint once.”

  “All right, so what does the symbol mean?”

  “No idea, but I know what it’s saying to us.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “I am here. I am not finished.”

  Sakai downed her chocolate, then used her spoon to fish out the last crumbs from the cup. Iwata finished his coffee and paid the bill, making sure to keep the receipt for his expenses. He hoped he could claim the money back soon. Outside, the drizzle had thinned but Sakai still hurried to the car. Getting in on the driver’s side, Iwata pulled away and headed for the Medical Examiner’s Office. He guided them up to the expressway as Sakai went through the case file again. After a few minutes, her phone began to ring and she answered without greeting.

  “All right, thank you.” She snapped her phone shut and shook her head. “That was the Ninth Floor. They’re saying it’ll be impossible to lift DNA from the ice cream. And the footprint from the bathroom was too vague to show much. One thing it does reveal, however, is that the killer has big feet. Twenty-eight centimeters.”

  Iwata looked at her.

  “Twenty-eight?”

  “Seems we’re looking for a giant.” She grinned.

  * * *

  Tokyo’s Medical Examiner’s Office was one of the largest buildings in Bunkyō, a large, white L-shaped structure that cast a shadow over a children’s playground across the street. In the lobby, proud statistics were displayed on the walls.

  EACH YEAR, WE RECEIVE 20% OF TOKYO’S DEAD.

  WE PERFORM OVER 13,000 MEDICAL EXAMINATIONS.

  WE CONDUCT OVER 2,650 AUTOPSIES.

  Iwata knew that this morning, it had already conducted four.

  At the reception desk, Sakai showed her badge and they were buzzed through the security doors. They took the elevator down to the basement and the doors slid open to reveal a short, middle-aged woman in a lab coat. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, she had written reminders on the back of both hands, and the tips of her fingers were yellow from tobacco. She was whistling “Greensleeves.”

  “I’m Doctor Eguchi. You’re here for the family, yes?” She had a smoker’s voice.

  “Right, I’m Sakai and this is Iwata.”

  “You’re early. Those that come down here are usually late.”

  The detectives looked at each other.

  “Never mind,” Eguchi said. “Pathologist humor.”

  She led the way.

  “It’s been three or four days, I was beginning
to think nobody was coming for the bodies.”

  “There’s been a holdup due to a change in TMPD personnel.”

  Eguchi hoisted an eyebrow but said nothing.

  She led them into a large and gleaming dissection room with beige walls and five metallic tables.

  The lights of the city are so pretty.

  The halogen strip lights flickered into life. The autopsy room was starkly lit now and every surface was spotless stainless steel. Four of the autopsy tables were occupied with the bodies of the Kaneshiro family.

  “Well,” Eguchi said. “I think we can safely list this one as homicide. All of them stabbed to death. Some more than others.”

  She glanced up, smiling hopefully.

  “Your predecessor had more of a sense of humor.”

  Eguchi gestured toward Tsunemasa and Seiji Kaneshiro, as though she were pointing out fuse boxes in an apartment she was letting.

  “The father and the son both struggled with the aggressor though neither drew blood, nothing under the nails.”

  The father and the son looked much alike, though the former had sustained far more severe punishment. He had been slit open like a fish. His heart had been accessed through a massive slash under his lower rib. His eyelids were torn. Cream-colored fragments of skull jutted through his forehead.

  “The wounds show that the killer is left-handed. Also, given the damage to the underlying bone and the manner in which the heart was removed, your killer is, I’d guess, extremely strong.”

  Eguchi swept a hand toward the mother and the girl, clearly less interested.

  “None of the victims were interfered with sexually, I should add.”

  The girl’s lashes were long, her mouth open, her cheeks a waxen yellow now. Beneath her small chin, a long, deep cut ran across her throat, curved like a cat’s smile.

  “Doctor, any information on the murder weapon?” Iwata asked, looking away from the child’s still, white shell.

  Eguchi smiled enigmatically.

  “That’s the interesting point, Inspector. We can normally have a good guess at the exact kind of blade, model of knife, and what have you. Each knife or scalpel leaves behind telltale signatures or imperfections.”

  “But that’s not the case here?”

  “We have extensive records but, to be honest, this family was killed with something I’ve never seen before.”