Fallen Angel (9781101578810)

by Patrick, Jonelle

  “Yes, but the evidence the lab is finding supports the theory that Matsuda was either framed or wasn’t acting alone,” Kenji said. “I just talked to Rowdy-san and he told me the prints on Fire Phoenix are all Matsuda’s, except for one. Rowdy-san found a partial of Kita’s thumb, half wiped. That could mean Kita used the dagger, then cleaned it and wrapped Matsuda’s hand around it to leave his prints. Matsuda might be lying or delusional, but in case he’s not, I don’t want your career to suffer if it turns out he didn’t do it.”

  Mori fumed, weighing what Kenji had said. A knock on the door announced that the assistant inspectors had returned with Matsuda, whom Mori had been intending to pressure again for a confession.

  “Come in,” Mori called. “Take notes,” he growled at Kenji.

  Kenji took a seat behind the computer as the handcuffed Matsuda was led in and settled into the chair across the small table from the inspector.

  Mori folded his hands and asked Matsuda to tell him what happened the night Erika was attacked.

  Matsuda twisted around to look at Kenji. Kenji nodded toward Mori, encouraging the prisoner to repeat what he’d just told Kenji in the cell downstairs.

  He turned back to face Mori and took a deep breath.

  “Why don’t you start with what happened at Club Heaven,” Mori prompted. “Who entertained you that night?”

  “The n-night I found out Cherry was d-dead, Erika-san entertained me at C-club Heaven. After the m-manager told me about Cherry, I felt so t-terrible I g-got really drunk. When it was t-time to go home, K-Kita-san suggested we give Erika a ride. When I dropped the p-pain pill K-Kita-san gave me it fell d-down by her feet and she stepped on it, so I d-didn’t p-pick it up. I wasn’t f-feeling very well because of all the b-brandy, so I c-closed my eyes and listened to K-Kita-san telling Erika about the Tale of Genji scroll in the bomb shelter. When we g-got home, K-Kita-san helped me to my room and I fell asleep in my clothes. The n-next thing I remember is waking up because a w-woman was screaming. I g-got up and ran to the g-genkan. The front d-door was open and K-Kita-san was heading toward it, b-but he stopped when I c-called his name. I asked him w-w-what was going on, and he j-just stared at me. Then he closed the d-door and said the c-cab had just come for Erika and I should g-go back to b-bed. He walked me to my room and g-gave me a sleeping pill, but after he left, all the brandy c-caught up with me and I was s-sick. I b-barely made it to the b-bathroom in time.”

  Matsuda went on to say that after he cleaned himself up, he felt a little better and tried to go back to sleep, but one sock was uncomfortably wet on the bottom. He pulled it off and took it to the hamper in the bathroom, but as he threw it in, he was shocked to discover the wetness wasn’t water, it was blood. Where had it come from?

  He retraced his steps to the genkan and was alarmed to discover more blood on the dark stones. Whose was it? Kita’s? No, his retainer hadn’t shown any signs of being wounded when they walked back to his room together. Erika’s? Had there been an accident?

  Then he remembered the woman’s scream that had awakened him.

  A scream, an open door, no Erika.

  If an accident had produced that much blood, wouldn’t Kita have called an ambulance? What had really happened that night?

  Matsuda went in search of his retainer and found the door to the sword museum standing wide open. He’d moved quietly through the dark rooms, approaching the faint light coming from the hatch in the third room. He could hear someone moving around down in the bomb shelter.

  He peered down the steep stairs and saw Kita unwrapping the largest puzzle box, the one that took only a few moves to open, but which were so counterintuitive it had taken the two of them an entire summer to figure out the secret. When Kita got to the secret compartment in the center, he picked up a slim rag-wrapped bundle sitting on the shelf next to it and stowed it inside.

  Matsuda crept back to his rooms. Why had there been blood in the entryway? And what had Kita hidden in that puzzle box?

  When he awoke again midmorning, the river stones in the genkan were clean and dry. The disjointed scenes from the night before seemed like a bad dream, the product of too much brandy and the shock of Cherry’s death. But when he asked Kita-san why Erika was still at the house when he woke up, his retainer told Matsuda that it had taken a while to calm the hostess down after the crude advances Matsuda had made to her in the car. He said they’d have to move to another hostess club because she would certainly complain to her manager and they wouldn’t be welcome at Heaven anymore.

  Matsuda had withdrawn, confused. He’d had a lot to drink that night, but he was sure that the only thing that had happened in the car on the way home was that Erika had fallen asleep listening to Kita talk about how the Matsuda family’s Tale of Genji scroll had once belonged to Ieyasu Tokugawa.

  When his retainer left to do the shopping, Matsuda went down to the storage room. He hadn’t opened the big puzzle box since his childhood accident, and it was hard to get to the center chamber using only one hand. Finally he lifted the lid to the innermost hiding place, and inside was the rag-wrapped bundle he’d seen the night before. He took it out and unrolled it.

  Matsuda immediately recognized the blade that clattered out onto the shelf. It was White Cloud, the tantō Kita had told him four months ago that they couldn’t loan to the National Museum because he’d sent it with Fire Phoenix to their swordsmith in Kyoto for restoration. Why was it hidden in the storage room, wrapped in a rag? Matsuda bundled up the dagger and replaced it in the box, shoving it back where he found it.

  For three days he fretted over what he’d seen, but nothing made sense. Then the police arrived with their shocking accusations, and he’d read Kita’s statement. It wasn’t until he’d heard the burning resentment in his childhood friend’s voice that he accepted the terrible truth.

  “Is that dagger still inside the puzzle box?” Mori asked the prisoner.

  “It must be. K-Kita-san d-doesn’t know I saw him hide it that n-night,” Matsuda answered.

  “I think you’d better show us.”

  The inspector instructed his assistants to bring Matsuda his clothes, and gathered a small team for an unannounced trip to Yoyogi-Uehara.

  Chapter 68

  Wednesday, November 20

  11:30 A.M.

  Kenji

  “Your job is to watch the back entrance and do nothing to further endanger this operation,” Mori hissed at Kenji, outside the thatched gate of Matsuda’s Yoyogi-Uehara compound. “Call me when you’re in place.”

  “Yes sir,” Kenji said. He joined Oki, Suzuki, and three another officers from the Komagome squad as they trudged through the garden to the back of the house. Kita hadn’t been warned of their arrival, so the chances were slim that he’d flee out the back or though the underground tunnel to the garden shed Anna had described. Nevertheless, Mori was too good a tactician not to cover those bases.

  Inspector Mori, a still-handcuffed Matsuda, and the phalanx of elite underlings who’d been brought along as backup would go in the front door, confront Kita with Matsuda’s account of what had happened to Erika, then search for the White Cloud tantō. Mori’s assistant inspectors would share the glory if Kenji’s theory panned out, but would be loyal to their boss if it became necessary to hide the fact he’d doubted their star witness, Kita’s, testimony.

  Two of the Komagome officers stationed themselves outside the back gate, and Suzuki took the other detective to watch the back door.

  Kenji and Oki made their way to a rough-plastered hut with a graying thatched roof, set amid a grove of maple trees whose just-emerging leaves wreathed the bare branches in a pale green mist.

  “We’re in place,” Kenji reported on his walkie-talkie.

  The hut’s wooden door slid smoothly aside, constructed when even garden sheds were built to last. Kenji ducked inside and bumped into a dangling string weighted with a plastic Pikachu toy. When he pulled it, the bare bulb illuminated flowerpots sitting on a potting bench
beside an old-fashioned ceramic pig with a half-burned coil of mosquito punk inside. An array of bright-edged garden tools hung next to a cupboard filled with croquet mallets, rusty wickets, quaint wooden badminton racquets, and a scarred baseball bat. The floor was packed earth, like an old farmhouse, except for a wooden square set flush with the smooth dirt. It had thumb and finger holes like the trapdoor in the family museum, but there was no trick to opening it. When Kenji pulled, it sighed open on well-oiled hinges. A ladder descended into the darkness.

  Oki ducked his head as he came through the door into the dark hut. He looked around and said, “Well, this is romantic.”

  “Police work, always action-packed,” Kenji agreed.

  “Cheer up. When Mori finally figures out who the criminal is, there’ll be plenty of commendations to go around. You’ll get kicked upstairs with the other career trackers, and next year you’ll be in the posse at the front door.”

  “Maybe. But if Kita turns out to be innocent, Mori’ll make sure I get busted back to koban duty.”

  A loud thump came from somewhere beyond the open trapdoor, then a shout that was abruptly silenced.

  Oki and Kenji looked at each other. Nobody had been issued weapons from the gun locker for this operation, so Kenji grabbed the baseball bat from the cupboard while Oki sized up the garden tools and chose a branch saw affixed to a long wooden pole. Kenji poked his head out the door of the garden shed and called to the officers stationed at the back of the house to radio for backup.

  Then he followed Oki as he silently lowered himself down the ladder and moved toward the lighted doorway near the end of the hall.

  They heard Kita’s voice. “Take off your pants.”

  Someone objected, then cried out in pain.

  “Hurry up. Don’t make me give you another demonstration of how sharp this blade is. Tie those around your legs. Tight.”

  Kenji beckoned Oki away from the door and whispered, “Sounds like he’s got a hostage. Mori and the others must be locked outside the hatch leading to the family museum.”

  Oki thought for a moment. “The only way out is past us. I guess we ought to make sure he doesn’t leave before Mori gets down here with reinforcements.”

  “That might not be so easy,” Kenji said in a low voice. “He’s got the Kanemoto katana. It’s as sharp as if it were made yesterday, and he knows how to use it.”

  Kita’s voice again. “Good. Nice and tight. Now let me just check the back door security cameras…” He paused, presumably waiting for his phone to load the CCTV feed. “Goddamit. Where are the two who went into the garden shed?”

  Silence. Then, “Get up. I’m going to have to take you with me, in case I need a little human shield.”

  “What’s taking Mori so long? Sounds like he hasn’t got anybody covering the shed yet,” Oki whispered to Kenji. “We’d better try and slow him down. I’ll go in first, you stay here as backup.”

  As Oki charged into the room, saw-first, Kenji saw Kita was standing over one of Mori’s assistant detectives, who’d lost his glasses since Kenji had last seen him standing at the front door. His pants were bound tightly around his ankles.

  Kita snapped into fighting stance, gripping the gleaming saijo o wazamono blade in both hands, swiftly raising it aloft.

  Chok. The blade lopped through the wooden pole, leaving Oki with little more than a broom handle as Kita whipped the sword around for a more deadly attack. The big detective retreated, saying, “Okay, okay, you got me. I thought I could surprise you. See, I’m backing off.” He stopped in the doorway. “I’m Detective Oki from Komagome Station. The boys from downtown don’t know you’re armed. What do you want?”

  “I want to walk away.” Kita grabbed Mori’s assistant inspector by the collar and hauled him to his feet. “Move!” he snapped, stepping behind his hostage, sword raised. The assistant inspector carefully straightened and took a hop forward.

  “Faster.” The assistant inspector flinched as Kita touched the blade to the side of his neck, drawing an oozing red line. He began hopping slowly toward Oki in his underwear, wobbling a little.

  Kita said, “This nice detective from Komagome is going to back down the hallway in front of us and warn anybody outside to keep clear.”

  Kenji stood in the shadows on the other side of the doorway and cocked his bat. Oki retreated, tossing aside the shortened pole and assuming classic judo stance as he backed into the dark hallway. “You doing okay, Honda-kun?”

  Oki knew him?

  “Yes, sensei.”

  Ah. The captive assistant inspector must have attended one of Oki’s weekend workshops.

  “I guess judo’s not much good against a sword, is it?”

  Oki was reminding Honda that the strength of judo was defense.

  As Kita and his human shield came through the door, Oki shouted, “Honda-kun, drop!”

  The assistant inspector fell to the floor and rolled away as Kita automatically raised his sword to strike. Kenji swung the bat and caught him in the diaphragm. Oki pulled Honda out of harm’s way as the sword clattered to the floor and Kita collapsed, the wind knocked out of him. Oki pounced on him, locking him in an ironfisted judo hold as Kenji pulled their captive’s arms behind him, snapping police-issue detention ties around his wrists.

  “A-plus on that roll, Honda-kun,” said Oki. He turned to Kenji. “I’m glad you didn’t decide to bunt.”

  “Always swing for the fences when you see a pitch with your name on it,” Kenji replied.

  Chapter 69

  Wednesday, November 20

  2:00 P.M.

  Kenji

  Kenji sat idle at the note-taking station in interview room 2. Kita had maintained stoic silence, despite Inspector Mori’s best efforts.

  The retainer’s face was pinched with pain. Patched up in the infirmary after Kenji’s home run hit, his abdomen was wrapped with melting ice packs. An X-ray had shown three cracked ribs, and bruises had blossomed across his stomach in an angry purple slash. His breathing was shallow, careful.

  They probably had enough evidence to convict him of cutting the hostesses, but the inspector was hoping for a confession. If Kita made them do it the hard way, they’d be forced to write reams of reports, deal with busywork generated by a wily defense lawyer, and endure a time-wasting trial just to get the same result.

  Mori bombarded him with the evidence pouring in.

  Tommy Loud’s team was tearing apart the room where Kita had held Honda hostage, and under the tatami mats they’d found a zippered bag filled with Band-Aids, cotton balls, rubbing alcohol, a fine-line permanent marker, and a tube of numbing ointment. All the fingerprints were Kita’s, except for the ones on the Band-Aid tin. Those were Cherry’s. The evidence suggested it was Kita—not Matsuda—who’d convinced Cherry to let him systematically cut a kanji character on her chest. Matsuda admitted being besotted with her and sending gifts of jewelry every time she allowed certain intimacies, but it looked like Kita had paid with cash. A sealed envelope stuffed with ten ¥10,000 notes had been found alongside the zippered “surgery kit.” Cherry’s bank confirmed she’d made four ¥100,000 deposits, one for each cut Kita had made on her chest.

  The crime lab reported that the white tablets in the bottle found in Matsuda’s car weren’t the oxycodone listed on the prescription label, they were Amoban. The “pain meds” Kita always offered Matsuda on the way home from the hostess clubs were actually the kind of sleeping pills that delivered a well-known side effect of memory loss.

  Then one of Mori’s assistants reported that around 1:30 A.M. on the night Cherry died, the local koban patrolman had turned the corner onto Matsuda’s street and seen Kita grabbing the arm of a girl in a white dress who looked like a hostess. She’d pulled away, and Kita chased her. The officer had stopped him and called for backup, but his colleague never caught up with the fleeing girl. He’d taken Kita back to the police box for questioning, and Kita told the officer he had no idea who the girl was, that she was drunk, maybe
even on drugs. He claimed she’d pressed the doorbell saying she needed help, then freaked out when he opened the door.

  But a neighbor across the street told a different story. He remembered the disturbance that had awakened him that night—he’d twitched aside his curtains just as Kita slapped the hostess across the face and tried to drag her back into the house before she broke free and ran. The neighbor said he’d seen that girl going into the house before, and on those occasions, Matsuda had always been too drunk to walk without Kita’s help.

  Mori hammered on the retainer, accusing him of setting Matsuda up to be declared criminally insane by luring the victims, systematically committing acts of assault so inexplicable they looked like the product of a dangerous and irrational mind, giving Matsuda sedatives instead of pain pills so he’d be out cold while Kita did his dirty work, then wiping down the weapons and imprinting them with the unconscious Matsuda’s fingerprints.

  Lab results came in. Several blood smears taken from between the stones in the hallway just beyond the entry suggested that Kita had dragged the unconscious Erika that far and fetched his weapon and cutting kit to assault her there. Erika had positively identified the red rhinestone hairpin Kenji had found caught in the folds of the umbrella, and they really hit the jackpot with the dagger they’d found hidden inside the big puzzle box. Blood matching the types of at least two of the three hostesses had been found on the blade and rag, and would be sent out for DNA analysis. The hilt was covered with Kita’s prints.

  Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, Kita admitted nothing.

  But the evidence that was surfacing about what really happened the night Cherry died made Kenji wonder what time Kita had been cut loose from the police box after the koban officer interviewed him about what happened. If it was after 1:30, there was no way he could have been in Komagome in time to push the object of his fury down the stairs.

  Chapter 70

  Wednesday, November 20