Fallen Angel (9781101578810)

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Fallen Angel (9781101578810) Page 14

by Patrick, Jonelle


  Kenji hadn’t read the report that closely; the complex characters used for medical terminology were impenetrable to everyone but Assistant Detective Suzuki, the two-time All-Kanto Kanji Champion.

  “So she was pregnant?”

  “Without a blood test I wouldn’t swear to it in court, but yes, I think she was.”

  “Thank you. I have one more question, if you don’t mind.” Kenji flipped to the second page of the report. “Can you tell me anything about the scar you mentioned under ‘identifying marks,’ the one above her left breast?”

  “Scar?” Silence while the doctor searched his notes. “Oh. Yes. I do remember that. Did they include a copy of my sketch with the autopsy report?”

  Kenji flipped through the file. “Nope.”

  “Okay, just a minute, I’ll fax it over. It didn’t have anything to do with her death,” he said, “but I made a drawing of it because it was kind of strange.”

  Kenji walked over to the fax machine as it slowly spit out the diagram.

  Cherry had added to the wounds the clinic doctor had seen in March. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?” Kenji asked.

  “No. I thought it might be body art; it looked like some kind of design. Tattoos and piercings are just the tip of the iceberg these days, you know.”

  “Do you know anything about self-mutilation?” Kenji asked.

  “Some. That would explain why one of the lines seemed more recent than the others.”

  “Which one?”

  “The vertical one, far right.”

  “How recent?”

  “I’d say within the past few weeks.”

  Kenji thanked him and stared at the sketch. What had triggered this weird behavior? The rape had happened in July—was that when she’d made the first cut? By the time she visited the women’s clinic later that month, she’d cut herself twice. Why?

  Slipping the fax into Cherry’s file, he threaded his way between the desks to interview room 3 where he’d asked Oki and Suzuki to join him so Section Chief Tanaka wouldn’t overhear.

  “What’s new?” the big detective asked.

  “I just got off the phone with the doctor who performed Cherry’s autopsy. He says she was pregnant when she died, and he sent me a sketch of a strange scar above her left breast.”

  Kenji laid the fax on the table. “Here’s what it looked like when she died.” He pulled out the sketch the women’s clinic doctor had drawn for him. “But the scar wasn’t made all at one time. This is what it looked like back in January. Both the clinic doctor and the one who performed her post-mortem thought the cuts might be self-inflicted, because some lines were healed and some were fresh.”

  “Hmm.” Oki tapped his chin with his pen. “So let me get this straight. In June, she gets into debt with a loan shark. In July, she may have been raped by a customer, who gives her an expensive present afterward. In August, she goes to the clinic for a pregnancy test. She’s not pregnant, but the doctor gives her a prescription for birth control pills and notices she’s been cutting herself. She starts taking the pills and continues to see the customer, in addition to Hoshi the host and another man she meets on Friday nights. She continues to cut herself. In November, she gets pregnant, has a marriage chart drawn up by an astrologer, and ends up dead.” Oki looked at him. “So who killed her?”

  “We don’t know much about the customer, but if he’s rich enough to afford Club Heaven, he’s probably not looking to marry a pregnant hostess or be pleased if she threatened to upset his comfortable life. The Friday night boyfriend is too much of a mystery to know how news of a baby would affect him, but if it were someone else’s he might have been mad enough to push Cherry down the stairs. Maybe he’ll turn up at her funeral on Saturday and I can ask him. But my money is on Hoshi, who would have lost his job and rich sugar mama Miho Yamaguchi if Cherry went public with proof he was the father.”

  “You got any evidence yet?”

  “If Hoshi’s fingerprints match the ones left at Cherry’s apartment on her brand new teapot the night she died, I will.”

  Chapter 31

  Monday, November 11

  7:00 P.M.

  Yumi

  A gruff bark came from behind the fence on Yumi’s right, startling her. She almost didn’t recognize the house where Kenji lived with his dad because the weeping cherry in the front garden had grown so tall since she was last there. Yellowing leaves now formed a curtain that fell nearly to the ground, rustling slightly in the evening breeze.

  Kenji had invited her to stop by that evening when she called to apologize for sleeping through their meeting time, knocked out by the headache that had come on like a freight train after taking the “morning after” pill the clinician had prescribed. He’d warned her there might be side effects: headache, upset stomach, fatigue, dizziness. But at least she’d be sure she wasn’t pregnant.

  Her steps slowed. Was she dreading seeing Kenji, or looking forward to it?

  She knocked. His familiar shape filled the doorway, silhouetted against the warm light coming from the kitchen. He invited her in.

  “Sorry,” he said, clicking off the TV and clearing away his empty ramen bowl. “My dad’s out tonight, so I didn’t bother being civilized. Have a seat.” He crossed to the counter where a pot of tea was brewing. “O-cha?” he offered.

  She shook her head.

  He poured a cup for himself, then handed her the small Seibu bag with her phone in it. “Thank you for helping me get Hoshi’s prints. I should have the analysis by tomorrow or the next day.”

  “If the ones at your crime scene are his, how long before you arrest him?”

  “The match won’t be admissible in court because the chain of evidence is too shaky, so it might take me a while to get enough to legally nail him. Can you hold off saying anything to Coco until then?”

  Yumi nodded. The room tilted and she put her hands on the table to steady herself.

  “Are you okay?” In two steps, Kenji was across the small kitchen, bending over her, his face filled with concern.

  “Yeah. Sorry. I’m fine. Just felt dizzy for a second.”

  She tried to get to her feet, but was hit with another wave of vertigo. She reeled. He caught her.

  “You’re not all right.”

  “No, I’m fine, really.”

  But she wasn’t. She closed her eyes to stop the spinning.

  “Yumi?”

  “Sorry, could I…lie down for a minute?”

  Before she could object, Kenji lifted her in his arms and carried her to a dark room. Covers were tucked around her and she felt him sit carefully on the edge of the futon. Silence settled around them, then the faint croaks of frogs from the garden pond. She began to feel a little better, drifted off. When she next opened her eyes, the dizziness was gone. Kenji was lying beside her, asleep, a stripe of moonlight falling across his chest.

  Oh no, what time was it? She raised herself on her elbow and checked her watch. Past midnight. She should have gone home hours ago. Should she wake Kenji or…?

  He looked so peaceful, but she should thank him for taking care of her. She watched him sleeping for a moment, then leaned over to touch his shoulder. His eyes opened, then he smiled and pulled her down. Their lips found each other like they’d been longing to do since they’d been interrupted in that dark restaurant. A great hunger welled up in her and she forgot that she shouldn’t be kissing him, forgot she ought to be home, forgot that she was engaged to Ichiro…

  Then suddenly, he let go of her as if a switch had been thrown and pulled away.

  “What’s the matter?” Yumi asked.

  “I forgot.”

  “You forgot…what?” she asked.

  “I forgot what I saw this afternoon. At the women’s clinic.” His eyes searched her face. “You’re having his baby, aren’t you?”

  “What? No! I was there to make sure I don’t…” Then her cheeks burned. She’d as much as admitted she was sleeping with Ichiro. But it was too la
te to stop. “I was there to make sure I don’t have his baby. Because everything’s happening too fast. The o-miai, the engagement…”

  “Then why don’t you put a stop to it? After you heard what his girlfriend said…”

  “I can’t!”

  “You could. If you wanted to.”

  Kenji grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her again.

  She should push him away, get up, walk out, but when he paused to brush the hair out of her eyes, she pulled him back hungrily and together they fell back into the place where nothing existed but wanting. He explored her face and neck with his lips, returning to her mouth as passion took hold and overflowed. Buttons came undone, his skin warm and smooth against hers, his hands finding places that ached for his touch.

  The square of moonlight from the window crept across their entwined bodies, but soon the reckoning came like a dark raven to sit on her shoulder. She tried to push it away as his hands moved over her bare skin, but the consequences gathered around her, thicker and closer, until they smothered all pleasure. She tore herself away.

  “What’s wrong?” Kenji asked.

  “This. Everything.” She stumbled to her feet and groped blindly for her discarded blouse.

  “I don’t understand.” Frustration.

  She began buttoning and zipping, misery making her fingers do it wrong, start over. “I shouldn’t have come. I knew…”

  Kenji stood and reached for her, but with a last despairing look, she backed toward the door. “I have to go.”

  He didn’t follow her as she ran to the kitchen to scoop up her handbag, scuffed on her shoes, and let herself out onto the street, the stars shining cold and distant overhead.

  Chapter 32

  Tuesday, November 12

  3:00 A.M.

  Kenji

  Kenji stared at the ceiling, unable to go back to sleep, thinking of all the things he wished he’d said to Yumi, the arguments that would make her abandon her plan of marrying someone she didn’t love, the things that…

  His phone blared from somewhere across the room. Stumbling to where it had fallen when he emptied his pockets before lying down next to her, he squinted at the caller ID. He wasn’t on duty tonight—why was Oki calling?

  “Nakamura desu,” he mumbled.

  “Can you meet me at the Tokyo Medical University Hospital emergency room?”

  “Huh? What are you doing way over there?”

  “I was on rotation and a beat cop from Yoyogi-Uehara called the station about an assault. The victim had your card in her purse.”

  “An assault? Who?”

  “Erika Yamato.”

  Who was Erika Yamato?

  “She works at Club Heaven.”

  Oh no. That Erika. “Is she…?”

  “Still in surgery.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Kenji gathered his scattered clothes, stuffing his shirttail back into his pants on the way down the hall. Grabbing his jacket and tie from the hanger near the door, he traded his slippers for shoes, threw on a coat, and stepped out into the cold November night. Knotting his tie, he crossed a deserted intersection, the changing stoplights irrelevant at this hour. Tokyo never slept, but it occasionally catnapped between the last revelers staggering home and the most industrious workers hustling off to the office. A cab crawled past, looking for an address. It stopped halfway up the block and by the time the inebriated passenger had paid and staggered toward the nearest apartment building, Kenji was there to grab the door and hop in for the forty-five-minute ride to where Erika was being patched up.

  The hospital was a brightly lit island in the dark neighborhood. Kenji unbuttoned his coat and buttoned his suit jacket as he strode through the Urgent Care door.

  Oki was perched on a chair that looked like it had been designed for a smaller species, talking quietly on his phone. A twenty-something beat officer from Yoyogi-Uehara station sat beside him. There was only one other person waiting, a bleary-looking salaryman with his arm in an improvised sling and a resigned look on his face.

  Oki stood as he spotted Kenji. “So you’re finding blood spots leading up the hill toward the residential area?” He listened for a moment. “Are the beat officers finished with the neighborhood canvass yet?” Oki listened. “Yeah, I’ll wait.”

  He covered the mouthpiece and said to Kenji, “You got here faster than I thought you would.”

  “I was still up.”

  Oki gave him a strange look, took his hand away from the mouthpiece and said, “So, did they cover both sides of the street? Anybody hear anything?” He listened. Sighed. “That’s pretty much what I expected. Thanks.”

  He ended the call and turned to Kenji. “Erika-san was found around twelve forty-five in an alleyway behind the Family Mart by a guy on his way home from work. It was dark and she was still wearing her hostess gown, so at first he thought she was passed out, drunk. Then he saw the blood and called one one nine.”

  “Nobody heard the attack?”

  “No. If it happened in this neighborhood, it was behind closed doors.”

  “Could it have been an accident?”

  “Only if she accidentally ran into a knife.”

  Kenji thought about that. Knives were the weapon of choice among gangsters in Japan, where the penalties for being caught with a gun were so severe, the jail time wasn’t worth the risk. Plenty of gangsters prowled Kabuki-chō, where Erika worked. Kenji didn’t need Oki to explain that people ended up at the sharp end of a blade for any number of reasons, from jealousy to unpaid debts to accidentally stepping on the toe of a chinpira who’d had a bad day. With a little practice, a butterfly knife could be opened with a flick of the wrist, and the victim never saw death coming. But what would a gangster and a hostess from Kabuki-chō be doing in Yoyogi-Uehara?

  “How is she?” Kenji asked.

  “Stitched up, but still out.” Oki gave him a speculative look. “So how come you were up when I called? I’m hoping the reason she had your card isn’t because you’re a valued customer.”

  Kenji snorted at the laughable suggestion that he could afford a hostess club. “No, I met Erika-san when I went to Club Heaven to talk to her boss. She’s the one who told me about The Zombie, that customer Cherry was entertaining the night she died. She wouldn’t tell me his real name, but she was scared of him. She was afraid that with Cherry gone, he’d start asking for her.”

  “You think he might have had something to do with this?”

  “Let’s ask her when she wakes up.”

  A doctor holding a clipboard pushed open the door to the waiting room. “Detective Oki?”

  They turned.

  “Yamato-san’s awake, but pretty weak. We had to give her two units of blood. She’s got a wicked bump on her head and a slice across her chest and upper arm originating from a stab wound above her left breast, plus some odd scratches.”

  “Any idea what kind of knife was used in the attack?” Oki asked.

  The doctor shook his head. “I’m not a forensic specialist, but I can tell you it was something with a really sharp edge. The cuts were clean.”

  “Long? Short?” Oki asked. “Are we looking for a butterfly knife or a sword?”

  “Hard to tell. Looks like the slice was done with the point, not the blade. Stabbed in, then drawn straight across. Carved pretty deep when it hit her upper arm.”

  “The stab wound on her chest—how deep?”

  “About one centimeter. Fortunately, it didn’t make it past her ribs and puncture her lung.”

  That was strange, Kenji thought. He’d have expected someone intending to do bodily harm to stab a sharp blade in deeper than a centimeter.

  Oki finished jotting in his notebook and looked up. “Can we speak with her?”

  “For a few minutes. But I have to warn you, she doesn’t remember the attack or anything that happened prior to it. That’s not unusual in trauma cases like this. Although she might regain her memory over time, don’t expect much tonight.” />
  “Thanks, Doc.”

  The detectives followed him through the swinging door. He stopped next to the second curtained bed and parted the drapes. “Erika-san?”

  The covers were tucked smoothly around the girl up to her chin. A stand with a nearly depleted bag of saline stood next to her bed, a clear line snaking under the covers toward her arm. Her now-snarled hair framed her unnaturally pale face, and she’d lost nearly all of the red stars that usually adorned her curls. A square of white gauze was taped to her forehead over her right eye.

  The doctor said, “Erika-san, this is Detective Oki and Detective…?”

  “Nakamura,” Kenji supplied.

  Erika’s eyes blinked open and her brow furrowed as she focused on Kenji. “You came to the club the other night.”

  “Detective Oki found my card in your purse and called me. Who did this to you?”

  She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. I went to work, but I can’t remember going home.”

  “That’s all right,” he said, pulling out his notebook. “Let’s just walk through as much as you can remember.”

  She swallowed. “Okay.”

  “So, you arrived at work at the usual time…?”

  “A little after six thirty. None of my regulars had appointments, so I just entertained walk-ins until…” She closed her eyes as if in pain.

  “The Zombie showed up, didn’t he?” Kenji asked.

  “How did you know?”

  “What happened?”

  She sighed. “Manager-san took him aside and told him what happened to Cherry. We all hoped he’d leave.”

  “But?”

  “He stayed. And he asked for me.”

  “Why you?”

  “I sat in for Cherry once when he came to the club. That night she was already juggling three regular customers, so she couldn’t get to him right away. He took a liking to me for some reason.”

  “So last night, did you entertain him?”

  “I had to. It’s my job.”

  “How did he seem? Shocked? Sad? Did he seem like he already knew about Cherry, or was it a surprise?”

 

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