Indeed, most of them were like fans waiting for the next installment of a novel or a TV series. Before the second murder, they’d debated whether it would be committed in Hokkaido or, like a burning spark, jump to somewhere else in Japan. When the second killing was announced, there was a huge response. As he scrolled down the dozens of excited messages and emojis, Kotaro couldn’t help picturing the scene at the end of a horse race, where bettors throw their losing tickets to the ground and the winners jump and cheer with excitement.
Dredging also meant reading through masses of content that would turn out to have nothing to do with the case. That was the nature of textboards. At first Kotaro found it challenging to stay alert when reading something he knew would probably not be relevant. But then again, after hours reading debates between profilers and criminal psychologists, it was a relief to turn to something that had nothing to do with murder. Criticism of politicians, celebrity scandals, book and movie reviews, etc., etc.
He checked his phone. Two hours until the dinner break. He decided to send his mother a message. He wouldn’t need dinner, and he might pull an all-nighter, but she shouldn’t worry about his classes for today and tomorrow. SEND. He hesitated, then decided to text Kazumi too.
This might sound weird, but has Mika mentioned any problems recently? Her grandmother mentioned something might be going on.
As Kotaro and the rest of the team kept dredging, more news flashes appeared about the killing in Mishima, but there were no new details. The victim was still unidentified, and there was no information about the mutilations.
The Internet and TV news programs, on the other hand, were starting to put the pieces together. The media hadn’t made the connection between the first two murders, but they were having a field day now that there were three killings to talk about.
People who post frequently watch a lot of television. Kotaro hadn’t realized this until he started working at Kumar. Anything on television became an instant subject for comment on the web. Thanks to this there was no need to watch TV at all. Just by following the comments, it was easy to find out what each announcer was saying on which channel, what the talk show guests were saying, and which reporters were where, all in near-real time.
People who should’ve known better were saying that the Internet would sooner or later make broadcasting obsolete, but this was a huge miscalculation. The citizens of cyber society relied on television for most of their information, whether they knew it or not. Sometimes important news first appeared and spread on the Internet, with TV playing catch-up, but there were very few players on the web who could match the reach and the muscle that the broadcasters wielded to sift and analyze information. Most people were just posting about something they saw on TV, or adding a comment or two to something someone else said. It didn’t matter what the subject was, the bounce of information from TV to the web was always the same.
Shinya Inose dropped by at seven. “You guys get dinner too,” he told Kenji and Kotaro. “Fifty minutes. The president is buying. It’s in the lounge. One meal per person,” he laughed. Though no one could outdo Kaname, there were more than a few big eaters at Kumar.
“Let’s eat and go for coffee,” Kenji said as they headed for the lounge.
They finished eating quickly and grabbed their jackets from the lockers. Kenji pulled out his laptop case and slung it over his shoulder. Outside, the cold cut like a knife. The two men walked down the street exhaling clouds of steam.
On the way to the self-service coffee shop, Kotaro explained his problem. When they reached the shop, he went to pick up two cups of coffee while Kenji grabbed a table in the back and started setting up his laptop.
“Thanks,” Kenji said as he took the coffee. “Two hundred, right?”
“It’s on me. Consulting fee.”
Kenji laughed. “I’m not sure if that’s gonna turn out to be cheap or expensive.”
Kenji’s laptop was loaded with Kumar’s security software. Employees who wanted to work from home had to get Seigo’s approval to load the software, and submit their laptop to a thorough check for file-sharing software. Users also had to change their passwords every week and report the change to their chief. In spite of the inconvenience, more than a few employees put up with it to be able to patrol outside work hours, less out of a feeling of obligation or responsibility than because it had become an ingrained habit. That’s what Maeda had told Kotaro once. He hadn’t quite gotten to that point, but the bug had already bitten Kenji.
“We look for basically the same thing you DI guys do, so you could probably do this yourself.” Kenji wiped his hands with a wet tissue and turned to the keyboard. “Then again, if you’re really close to this person, it would be better for me to handle it. We see a lot of people libeling each other in this job. If it’s aimed at someone you know, it can be pretty shocking.”
Kenji opened two windows on his desktop—work window on the right, watch window on the left.
“What’s the school name?”
“Aoba Middle School.”
“That’s a pretty common name.”
“Oh, right. It’s Ikuno Municipal Aoba Middle School. In Niban. I live in Oto, same as Mika.”
Kenji input the terms and scanned the hits. “ ‘Cherry Town?’ That’s a pretty name.”
“It’s one of those tract housing developments.”
“Hmm. And Mika’s a freshman. Okay. Does she have a nickname?”
“I’m not sure. My sister just calls her Mika.”
“Has she ever sent you an email?”
“Mails, sure.”
“Do you remember how she signed them?”
“No. Sorry, I left the phone at the office. But you know, I think she just calls herself Mika.”
Kenji hit the return key. In a few moments, a single line of text appeared in the left window.
YOUR SEARCH RETURNED TOO MANY RESULTS
“Hey, that’s unusual for a middle school. Okay, let me explain what’s going on here. Sites like this are part of the deep web. Some people call it the deep net. Deep net sites aren’t indexed by search engines. Officially, this site has nothing to do with Aoba Middle School. You can’t get on a forum like this without special software and an access code. Kids can talk about whatever’s on their minds without worrying about teachers or the school looking over their shoulder.”
Kotaro and Kenji had joined Kumar at the same time, but Kenji already sounded like a veteran.
“Aoba Middle School’s dark social site is pretty hot right now. High school kids are way more likely to have smartphones and PCs than middle-schoolers, but I still got so many hits off the search terms that our software couldn’t display them. It’s like there are ten freshmen named Mika and they’re all using the site to spend tons of time chatting with their friends.”
“Are things out of control?”
Kenji took a sip of coffee. “I wouldn’t say that. They’re just hot. I can think of two reasons. One is, whatever’s going on, there are a lot of people participating. The other is that a small number of students are spending all their time posting about something, whatever it is. Well then,” Kenji steepled his fingers. “Let’s narrow it down. Is Mika in any clubs?”
Kotaro nodded. “She’s on the soft tennis team.” He was about to say more, but stopped. Kenji raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t know who would want to bully her,” Kotaro continued, “but I can think of one thing people might be calling her.”
“And that would be?”
“Aborigine.”
Kenji looked at him with blank incomprehension.
“I know it sounds stupid, but it’s true.” Kotaro gave a pained chuckle. “You said the neighborhood had a pretty name. It is pretty, but it’s artificial too. The next block of houses over is called ‘Dappled Sunshine Town.’ ”
Kenji didn’t laugh.
“See, the whole area used to be farmland and scattered patches of woods. A developer came in and kind of conjured up the town whole. It’s only been there since around the time I was born.
“My father’s from Himeji, but my mother grew up near where we live. Her parents were farmers. They grew tomatoes and other stuff in big greenhouses. My mother was an only child and she wasn’t interested in taking over the business. Her father died kind of young, so the family got out of farming. I don’t have any memories of this, but I heard a lot about it. A lot of farms in Ikuno closed down the same way.”
“The farms go away, and developers turn the land into tract housing.”
“Right. So, the thing is—” Kotaro had never spoken to anyone outside his immediate friends and family about this—“there are basically two types of people living in Cherry Town and Dappled Sunshine Town and the other tracts in Ikuno: people who’ve lived there for generations—they almost all used to be farmers—and people who moved from somewhere else after the houses were built.”
Kenji nodded thoughtfully.
“The first group, the people from Ikuno, got a special deal, like low-interest loans or subsidies from the city. Some of them traded land for a house of equal value.”
“Interesting.”
“People who moved in from outside didn’t get that. My neighborhood—it’s kind of embarrassing to say this—it has this image as sort of an upscale district.”
“I had that impression. Just now I thought, ‘This guy seems like he’s from a good background.’ ” Kenji’s tone didn’t betray a hint of irony.
“The subway to Shibuya opened four years ago. That raised property prices. So there’s this image that a lot of rich people live there. It’s kind of true, I guess. A lot of residents work for elite companies in downtown Tokyo. There are self-made businesspeople too, and people who are just rich.”
“I’m starting to get the picture. So we have some middle school girls from well-off households—and maybe their parents too—who are proud of their wealth, and they think they’re on a different level from people who’ve been living in Ikuno for generations.”
“I think they’re right. About being richer, I mean.”
“So they call the ‘native’ residents aborigines. With prejudice, of course.”
“Yeah. They do. Mika’s family used to farm too. They still have a little land in the city, growing vegetables and such.”
Kenji shook his head with resignation, entered “aborigine” in the search term box and hit ENTER. The left window overflowed with hits.
“Okay, let me look at this first,” said Kenji. He turned the laptop slightly away as Kotaro craned his neck to see. With nothing to do, Kotaro sipped his tepid coffee and listened to the background music.
Finally Kenji spoke. He kept his eyes on the screen as he scrolled through the messages. “Did Mika mention anything about a boyfriend recently?”
Kotaro had no idea.
“Maybe someone said he liked her?”
“I haven’t heard. Kazumi might know something.”
“Has she ever called herself ‘Mikarin’?”
Kotaro was surprised. “She’s pretty quiet. I don’t think she’d give herself a cute nickname. She’s so shy, she practically hides behind Kazumi. My sister is the outgoing one.”
“There’s a lot here.” Kenji kept the screen turned away. “Just scrolling through this, it doesn’t look like a lot of people are involved. But they all seem to be members of the soft tennis club. Some of them are third-year—there are comments here about high school entrance exams. Your sister is a second-year student?”
“Yes.”
“Her name is in some of these posts.” Kenji waved a hand reassuringly. “The comments aren’t negative. In fact, the posters seem a little worried your sister might find out.”
Kotaro was so nervous about what Kenji was seeing that he bit his lip reflexively.
“I’d have to backtrack to be sure, but it sounds like some third-year guy is the cause of all this. Somebody who used to be in the club.”
“Is he the one bullying Mika?”
“No. He’s interested in her. The other girls aren’t too happy about that. They keep bitching about it.”
Kotaro couldn’t help but lean forward for a look at the screen. “What are they saying?”
Kenji scrolled down the posts. “They’re being pretty rough on her.” He turned the screen so Kotaro could see for himself.
Raw language is perfect for expressing raw emotions. Kotaro was astonished at what he was seeing.
I can’t believe that slut keeps showing up for class.
Aborigines don’t know their place.
Mikarin doesn’t have nerves. If you killed her, she might not even die.
I hope she dies quick, she’s seriously getting on mine.
Kotaro looked up from the screen. His eyes met Kenji’s.
“This is bad.” Kotaro was in a cold sweat. “I mean, ‘slut’? Do these people know what they’re saying?” The surface of Kotaro’s now-cold coffee had a skin of creamer. The aroma was gone.
“I’ll get some water.” Kenji returned with two glasses. The two men drank it silently, thinking.
“You told me the school called Mika’s mother?” Kenji kept his voice low. Kotaro nodded, still holding his glass.
“That would mean they know about the site. I wonder what they told her mother.”
It hit Kotaro suddenly that things might be the other way round. “Mika’s grandmother told me the school called Mika’s mom, but that doesn’t mean she was right. Maybe Mika’s mother contacted the school.”
“She would’ve done that only if Mika went to her for help.”
“Which means her mother knows about this site too.”
“Not necessarily. The girls posting here have got to be treating her pretty badly in class and at practice. Something’s sure to be going on. Mika would know how they feel, but we don’t know if she told her mother or your sister.”
Kenji set his empty glass on the table and shut down the laptop. The clock on the wall read 7:45.
“Don’t do anything for the time being,” Kenji said. “There’s nothing you can do anyway.” He closed the laptop and sighed as he packed it away. “At least the school is taking action. I’d tell her grandmother not to worry. Tell her parents too.”
“Her mother’s divorced. It’s just her and Mika.”
Kenji looked pained. “I see. Well, what’s the mother like? Would this kind of thing bother her?”
“Takako Sonoi? No, she’s not the type. She has bigger stones than the average guy. She’s good at what she does, I hear. Work keeps her busy.”
“So why don’t you tell her about your work? Tell her Kumar can help. We don’t have an official channel for this kind of thing, but we consult for people who’re having problems with unofficial school sites.”
“Maybe that’d just complicate things.”
“Schools protect themselves in cases like this. You can’t just assume they’ll be on Mika’s side. What her mother needs is someone who can give her useful advice, kind of like a lawyer.”
Kenji hoisted his bag onto his shoulder. “Listen, Kotaro. Don’t try to handle this yourself. Neither of us has enough experience. Okay?”
“Sure, okay.”
Walking back to work, Kotaro felt a great weight on his shoulders.
Fresh news on the murder in Mishima was waiting when he got back to his desk. Now he knew why the first reports hadn’t mentioned the victim’s gender. The corpse, which was missing the third toe of the right foot, was that of a transsexual woman. The victim had undergone breast augmentation surgery.
4
“Wouldn’t you like to take a short walk?”
Toshiko bent down to close the little dust window that faced the balcony. This floor-
level fixture was a sign of how old the apartment was. The south-facing balcony was flooded with sunlight. Newly hung laundry swayed gently in the breeze.
“It’s too cold.”
Shigenori Tsuzuki sat on the sofa in front of the television, clipping his toenails. A sheet of newspaper spread over the faux wood floor caught the clippings. The breeze that blew in when Toshiko opened the dust window had caught the paper and scattered some of the fresh clippings.
“Well, it’s December. Of course it’s cold. But the weather’s so nice today.” Toshiko looked up into the cobalt-blue winter sky and squinted against the sunlight.
The five-story apartment building had stood for thirty years in this quiet corner of Shinjuku’s Wakaba district. The Tsuzukis’ apartment, on the southeast corner of the third floor, looked out over an elementary school and a small park. The couple had always loved the southern exposure and fresh breezes.
“The doctor said you ought to be walking as long as it doesn’t tire you. It’s good for the circulation in your legs.”
“Not today.” Shigenori pushed his reading glasses up the bridge of his nose.
“Is it bothering you much?”
“It hurts even to stand and brush my teeth.”
Toshiko sighed. “Then you’d better not lean forward like that to trim your toenails. I can do it for you.”
Yeah, that would be great, Shigenori thought. Just like a doddering old basket case. I’m only sixty-three.
“Well, I’m going shopping. Are you sure you wouldn’t like me to do that for you first?”
“I’ll do it myself.”
“What would you like for lunch?”
“Anything.”
“What about dinner?”
“No special requests.”
“Requests that aren’t special are the hardest to deal with,” muttered Toshiko. Shigenori heard her putting her arms into her coat sleeves, then the front door opening and closing behind her.
The two-hour news shows every morning at eight mostly covered celebrity scandals. It was almost ten now, but the program coming up would be similar, with a different name and a different panel of experts. Still, there might be some new developments in the case. Shigenori left the television on.
The Gate of Sorrows Page 5
