“What exactly do you plan to do?”
“There’s some bamboo out front, for the Star Festival. You saw it, right? I’ve got to examine it. There’s something I need to confirm.”
Shigenori didn’t have the power of Kotaro’s eye. He wasn’t sure what, if anything, he’d learn by looking at those strips of paper again. But he couldn’t ignore Galla’s hint and just go back to Tokyo.
“Mr. Tsuzuki.” Torisu’s face was pale in the darkness. His drooping eyelids spelled dilemma.
“The guys at Central … They figured you were from Metro Police. An advisor, or an observer maybe, sent here to check on us. This joint investigation stuff is hard to stomach. We’re not in a strong position. If we say anything, we just get our teeth kicked in for not solving the case faster.”
“Detective, get a grip. Advisor? You overestimate me. I’m retired.”
So they thought I was a spy from the big city. If Torisu hadn’t looked so uncomfortable, Shigenori would’ve laughed in his face.
“Yes, I understand that you’re retired. Or at least you seem to be.”
Shigenori burst out laughing. Torisu laughed awkwardly too. “That’s why they wanted you out of here quick. I tried to be as polite as I could—”
“You’ve been nothing but decent to me, detective. In fact you’ve been very kind. That’s why I’m asking for just one more favor. Take me to Naka-chan. All I need is one minute. That’s all, and I promise never to go near it again.”
Torisu was wavering. Shigenori shifted gears, to Bad Cop.
“Of course, if you’re not willing, I can always change my mind. I could hang around until tomorrow, spend a leisurely evening sampling the sake at Naka-chan. Maybe have a nice long Q&A with the current management. I’m sure it would be very enlightening.”
This line of attack sent the needle of Torisu’s discomfort meter against the stop. He sighed and pulled away from the curb. Shigenori was watching him closely, and he saw something in Torisu’s eyes that he couldn’t conceal. Whatever it was that this over-the-hill ex-Metro detective thought he could discover by going to Naka-chan, Torisu wanted to know what it was.
Naka-chan’s block was deserted. The bright lights along the street seemed to strengthen the atmosphere of solitude. Shigenori got out quickly, crossed the street and approached the miniature bamboo festooned with colored paper. Torisu stayed in the car, slumped behind the wheel. With Naka-chan under surveillance, he probably wasn’t eager to be seen.
The long, slender stalks of bamboo bent diffidently under the weight of their Star Festival wishes. Music and the sound of a woman’s voice drifted faintly out onto the sidewalk. Shigenori reached for the nearest strip, an inscribed ribbon of pink.
A spark seemed to leap between the paper and his fingertips. The glow expanded and spread, racing to the end of each stalk and the tip of each slender green leaf, almost as though it was scanning the bamboo. Then, just as quickly, the light disappeared.
Shigenori blinked with surprise. Everything was as before, except for one—no, two strips of paper. Not one, but two. Shigenori balled his hands into fists, trying to stop them from shaking.
Naka-chan is forever! The killer can go to hell! —Katsumi
Rest in peace, Shiro. —Reiji
Both strips were the color of blood.
A mastermind and his accomplice. One of them was named Katsumi.
Shigenori straightened up, put his palms together in prayer and bowed to the bamboo. He recrossed the street slowly, eyes downward in thought, and got into the car.
“Let’s go. I did what I came here to do.”
Torisu guided the car back to the main road and toward the hotel near the station. It was the same route Shigenori had walked earlier, not much of a distance by car.
“Detective, I’m going to sit here and chat with myself for a bit.”
“Huh?”
“I don’t know if Katsumi is a cousin on the victim’s father’s side or his mother’s side, but I’m guessing that his father’s name is Reiji.”
Torisu’s head swiveled to look at him. His eyes were wide. Shigenori plunged ahead.
“Katsumi and his father killed Shiro Nakanome. I don’t know who played the main role, but judging from where the body was found, it took some planning. In my experience, it’s usually the older perp who takes the lead. And since this didn’t revolve around money problems or a romance gone bad, the motive would be some sort of family conflict, something that built up over time and ultimately became intolerable. This wasn’t the result of some emotional blowup. It was planned, and planned carefully. That’s typical of an older person.”
Torisu broke out in a cold sweat.
“I only got a quick look at Katsumi. I’m not sure if he’d be able to lift a man as big as Nakanome into that refrigerator—”
“I’m sure he would be.” It just came out. Torisu seemed as surprised as Shigenori.
“Katsumi Nakanome played rugby in middle school and high school. Football in college,” Torisu said, “He dropped out in his sophomore year, so he didn’t leave much on the field in the way of accomplishment. Not much in the classroom, either.”
Shigenori nodded and said nothing. Torisu was probably relieved to talk about it. Or maybe he was just resigned to it. He took a deep breath.
“Reiji Nakanome is Shiro’s uncle on his father’s side. His father’s younger brother, to be exact.”
He braked smoothly for a traffic light. The lights of a taxi in the opposite lane shone in their eyes.
“Reiji is sixty-five. He’s a frail old man with quite a few health problems. He can’t do anything that requires strength.”
“I’m almost as old,” Shigenori said. He had to chuckle. “I was a frail old man too, before the operation.”
“Do you have any children, Mr. Tsuzuki?”
“No. Just me and the wife.”
“Katsumi is Reiji’s only son. After he dropped out of college, he drifted from job to job. He’s past thirty now, but he still lives at home.”
It was a common scenario. Parents without the resources to raise their kids right, saddled in old age with adults who still need parenting.
“The victim’s father and his uncle were not on good terms. It goes back a long way, but both of them were fathers to only sons. Let’s just say one turned out quite a bit better than the other,” Torisu said.
“That wouldn’t make for harmony in the family.”
“Not at all. Everyone knew about it, of course.”
The light turned green. Torisu wiped the perspiration from his forehead before he pressed the accelerator.
“Reiji Nakanome spent most of his life working for a company in Sapporo. He moved to Tomakomai after he retired, so he’s a new face around here, but the Nakanomes have been living in this part of Hokkaido since before the war. The family has a lot branches and deep roots in the community, through marriage and otherwise. None of them wanted to see one of their own end up in the slammer.”
Torisu was a generation younger than Shigenori, but for a moment he felt a professional kinship with the young cop.
“They’re a very tight-lipped clan, very stubborn. We have to approach this carefully, or they’ll clam up tight.”
“I understand.” Shigenori had now heard everything he needed to hear. Coming up with irrefutable proof and consolidating the circumstantial evidence was taking time. “Say no more, detective. You were just talking to yourself, right?” The hotel’s lighted sign was visible down the street.
“Mr. Tsuzuki, are you really—”
“Yes, I’m a private citizen. Not an advisor or an observer or a spy. I came here on my own initiative. What I told you is my opinion alone.”
He unbuckled his seat beat and was about to get out when something occurred to him.
“Why do you think the killer took on
e of the victim’s toes?”
Torisu shook his head slowly. “We have no idea at this point.”
“I see. Well, you’ll get it out of them. But just talking to myself here—”
Layers of experience laid down over years were whispering to Shigenori. They had probably been whispering all this time, but he hadn’t heard them over the clamor of the Serial Amputator story.
“They may have taken it as some kind of talisman.”
“A talisman?”
“Yes. I’ve seen several cases like it, usually in robberies, but sometimes murderers do it too,” Shigenori said. “There was one guy who always drove a three-inch nail into his victims’ foreheads. He did it after they were dead, but it was still grotesque. I thought it must be a sign of hatred toward each of the victims, but after we arrested him, he turned out to be a penny-ante housebreaker who knew none of his victims personally. If the owner was unlucky enough to wake up and confront the thief, he or she ended up dead. The perp told us he took the trouble to drive a nail into their skulls because he was afraid they might come back to life and take revenge on him.
“There was another killer who blindfolded his victims after they were dead. He told us he didn’t want them to see which way he went. If they couldn’t see him, they couldn’t tell anyone.
“If you kill someone, they’re no longer a threat as a living person. But the dead aren’t so harmless. People in this country have that kind of mentality. Or if things go well when they do something specific, after that they do the same thing over and over, automatically.
“Sorry, it’s just something that occurred to me. Don’t take it too seriously. You can let me off here.”
The hotel was still some distance down the street, but Shigenori got out of the car. He wouldn’t be seeing Torisu again. The white compact drove away.
He didn’t wait to go to his room. He stood by the road, took out his mobile and sent a mail to Kotaro.
Tomakomai was not the work of the Serial Amputator. It was a one-off.
He input the rest of the message quickly, paused to think, and added a final line.
Watch your back.
Watch your back for what? Am I getting superstitious too?
The murder of Shiro Nakanome was supposed to be the first in a series. Now it had disappeared. The killing of Ayuko Yamashina was a ham-fisted copycat crime.
Would the other murders turn out to be the same? Maybe all five were unrelated, and the Serial Amputator wasn’t even real. Maybe everyone had just been trying too hard to see him.
Kotaro didn’t notice the mail from Shigenori. His eyes were glued to Makoto’s laptop.
When Makoto found friends at Kumar, he’d promised himself he’d never touch this laptop again. All of his lovingly developed hacking tools were loaded into its hard drive. But he hadn’t been able to bring himself to erase the drive. Instead he’d tossed it in a closet and tried to forget it.
Hacking Blossom School’s website was simplicity itself. Kotaro watched as Makoto breached one layer of security after another and page after page of content scrolled up the screen—messages between staff and parents, chat pages, news and photos. Kotaro’s left eye was filled with countless floating silver threads.
“Stop!”
A cluster of blood-red threads.
It was a post with a headshot. As Kotaro watched, the threads wriggled and rose out of the monitor into the air, like worms carrying an infectious disease. They curled and formed into clumps that divided like cells and came together again, slowly assuming a shape.
It was a humanoid shape, like the “excrement” that had stood, gently undulating, outside the restroom in Totsuka. But this one was red, the color of fresh-spattered blood.
Kotaro felt his gorge rising and clapped a hand over his mouth. Makoto peered at him doubtfully in the blue-white glow from the monitor. With his innocent face, Makoto looked like a child’s ghost.
“Are you all right, Mishima?”
Kotaro was frozen. The minikin looked like a little blood bag. It advanced on him, shaking its head from side to side, swinging its tiny arms as it walked toward him relentlessly, suspended in space.
When Kotaro was very young, he’d had a horror of moths. If one flew into his room at night, attracted to a light, he would scream for help.
I hate you, I hate you! Go away! Don’t touch me! No, get it off me!
He’d become that frightened child again. He had to restrain himself from flailing away at the little red monstrosity. Instead he opened his right eye. The miniature blood bag disappeared. He pointed at the monitor.
“That post—”
“It’s from their gardener,” Makoto said, peering even more curiously at Kotaro. “It’s about the flowers he planted outside the school.”
Why would Kotaro be so disturbed by an innocent post? Why was his face twitching like that? Makoto—Good Makoto—looked at him warily.
I can’t help it. You can’t see it, but I can. You can’t even see the giant you’re dragging around.
The school gardener.
The post listed the names and species of flowers planted, with information about each one and the human qualities each was said to represent, all in a gentle, approachable tone. The posted closed with this:
We hope you’ll enjoy these little blossoms as you watch your own blossoms at play in the nursery school.
Katsura Florist
Flower Delivery, Garden Care and
Yard Work
Kosuke Nakasono, School Gardener
The headshot showed a suntanned, smiling man with a square jaw and short hair. The corners of his eyes crinkled pleasantly. He wasn’t young. Early forties, perhaps.
“Makoto, do a search on Katsura Florist.”
Makoto went silently to work. A moment later the website filled the screen. Kotaro had to turn away from the gaily colored home page with its photos of flowers and smiling staff.
This time the blood oozing from the monitor was black. The numberless clusters of words were interspersed with screams. They came splattering from the screen and onto Kotaro.
It was too much. He slammed the laptop shut. His head was spinning. He started shivering uncontrollably.
Words, millions of words. Putrescent blood.
She’s not his only victim.
“Kotaro!”
He came to his senses to find Makoto shaking him by the arm. With both eyes open, all he could see was reality: Makoto Miyama and his hacker’s laptop.
“Sorry. I’ve seen enough. We’re done.”
Makoto packed his gear quickly between curious glances at Kotaro, who started down the stairs ahead of him.
“Was that really everything you needed?” Makoto called after him. Kotaro didn’t answer. He just kept going. Makoto hurried to catch up.
“What did you find? I swore never to touch this laptop again, but you threatened me. I deserve an explanation at least.”
“What are you talking about? I didn’t threaten you.”
“You sure did. You said things would change.”
Makoto sounded almost lighthearted. He and Kotaro were partners in crime, though he wasn’t sure just what the crime had been. He felt somehow as though things were back to normal. Kotaro was Kotaro, not Mishima, and he was Makoto again.
“Kotaro? Something’s different about you.”
They reached the second-floor landing. Kotaro turned and closed his right eye.
Makoto’s giant towered over them almost protectively. It thrust its huge head slowly toward Kotaro. He could sense it examining him with curiosity and a kind of interest. It was buzzing even louder than before—the buzzing of insects bloated near to bursting with poison.
Friend …
The black giant was Makoto’s past. It was his Shadow. Now it was Kotaro’s confederate. Now they were in
the same business.
Fine. Whatever it takes to catch that monster.
9
The next morning, half past nine. Kotaro was staring at the steel shutters over the front of Katsura Florist.
Opening time: now.
The florist occupied the first floor of a newish-looking, three-story building on a one-way street not far from Blossom School. The second and third floors would be where the owner, Kosuke Nakasono, and his family lived. The balcony and widows were profusely decorated with flower boxes and planters.
Other than the flower shop, the neighborhood was purely residential. Many of the houses had space for gardens. It was a prosperous-looking area. Katsura Florist probably did good business.
The street was in an elementary school zone. The children were in class and the street was quiet and empty. A misty, dew-like rain sluiced down from an overcast sky. Kotaro’s hair was beaded with moisture.
He used the camcorder he’d brought from home to shoot the white van in the parking space to the left of the building. He checked to make sure the license plate was clear. He moved to the side of the van and took another photo. This time he captured the lettering on the side: KATSURA FLORIST— YOUR GOOD NEIGHBOR.
A metal stairway ran down the outside of the building from the second-floor entry to the parking space. A mailbox labeled NAKASONO was bolted to the foot of the railing. A little bicycle with training wheels and a larger one with cargo baskets fore and aft were parked in the lee of the building.
A man with a trademark smile, living with his family in a chic house in a chic neighborhood.
Why him?
The night before, after he’d gotten home, Kotaro had noticed Shigenori’s mail.
Tomakomai was not the work of the Serial Amputator. It was a one-off. The local police will make arrests soon. There’s nothing for us to do on this one.
The copycat killing of Ayuko Yamashina, complete with a cooked-up statement from the killer, wasn’t the work of the Serial Amputator either. Could the other three killings—in Akita, Mishima, and Totsuka—be laid at his feet? And was Kosuke Nakasono that person?
The Gate of Sorrows Page 45
