Loups-Garous (32 page)

If someone saved Yuko knowing who her assailant was, Rey Mao would naturally be the first under suspicion.

“I don't think Nakamura will be caught so easily. There was another murder yesterday. I still think it'd be better for her to be protected by the police than to hide out here.”

The latest victim—Asumi Aikawa. Hazuki couldn't remember her face.

However, Nakamura was on the run and wanted by the police. Would someone in that situation still be killing right now? Couldn't this be an unrelated event?

“But, Mio, you're the one who said that Rey Mao being questioned by the police would threaten the entirety of Section C and its residents. That may still be, but I doubt if Nakamura knows all about Rey Mao's situation. I mean, even Yuko didn't catch her name. There's no way she'd have given up that information accidentally,” Hazuki said.

“So what's she supposed to say about the week she disappeared?”

“I'll just tell them
I don't know
,” Yuko said.

“Temporary amnesia,” Ayumi said “Isn't that a little childish? It's so convenient,” Mio said.

“That's not true.” Ayumi stood up. “If she were lying—
if
she were lying, that would be the most productive answer. You just say you don't know anything if they ask.”

“You mean she just lost consciousness for a week and magically regained it?”

“No, I mean that if she started to make up something she'd have to pile on more and more lies, details. Eventually she'd say something that would expose the lie. Why not just say ‘I don't know' and be confused about the whole situation from the beginning.”

“One answer for all of it then. ‘I don't know,'” Yuko said.

Mio crossed her arms and started pacing. “What do you think, Hazuki?”

“I, uh, don't really know, but even if she decided to pretend she doesn't know, how's she going to get to the police?”

“Ahh.” More of Mio's signature eye-widening.

“What do you mean
how
?”

“Is Yuko going to go home still having no idea what's what?”

“Well, she's not going to just waltz in and say hi to her parents, but let's say she's walking aimlessly around her neighborhood. The police would apprehend her then, right?”

“And what if Nakamura finds her first?” Just as Hazuki asked the question, Yuko hugged her shoulders.

She was scared.

“Where do you live, Yuko?”

“Huh?”

Yuko said her address.

It would take at least an hour to get there on foot.

“So you're pretty far from here. You think she should walk that alone? I didn't see any police or area cops in the twenty minutes it took me to walk here. I assume you didn't either, Mio.”

“This is a safe area, so they never patrol here,” Mio said.

“If I got this straight, a straight path from here to Yuko's house would lead through Section C. Even if she went by way of the community center she'd have to walk through Section B.”

“There's that green preserve by the center. The police think Nakamura might be hiding out there, and they've focused their search to that area. So what about going to the community center? Guaranteed to be lots of cops there.”

“But that means Nakamura might be there too,” Ayumi said.

Shit!
Mio spit out.

“Anyway,” Hazuki continued. “If she's going to go to the police, this is the safest place for her to be picked up.”

“But,” Yuko lowered her pale eyes. “You all would be…”

“That's the safest way to go.”

“Call the police here? Hazuki. What are you going to do when they come? Are you retarded?”

“Look, I know we can't do that. We can't explain why she's here. It'd be unnatural for us to say we just saw her milling around coincidentally and decided to protect her. We'd been told not to go out and all. If we obeyed the warning how would we have run into her, right?”

“Maybe we take her somewhere else and call the police there?”

“How? Yuko doesn't have a friggin' monitor.” Mio scowled.

“She needs to borrow someone's monitor to get ahold of the police. What about the emergency monitor at the center of town?”

“Someone with amnesia using the emergency monitor? You'd think she'd have used it earlier rather than waiting a week.”

“Then there's no other way for her to go to the police other than to have them find her. But sending her out alone is too dangerous. It's no less dangerous if we go with her, and if the police find all of us, it'd be the same as if they came and got her here.”

“Hazuki's right,” Ayumi said. “In the end, we're just kids. If we're thinking about Yuko's safety, the best solution is to call the police from here and explain everything. But then we'd be completely exposed— Hazuki's sneaking out, Mio's hacking, and my being up here at all.”

Yuko's life couldn't be exchanged.

Ayumi didn't say it but Hazuki heard it.

Mio shook her hands through her hair frantically. “Yeah, I mean getting caught is one thing, but isn't this all really frustrating?”

“I don't understand. Frustrating?”

“Frustrating, meaning I don't like the way this feels. Do you understand
that
?” Mio said. Ayumi said, “No, I still don't understand.” Hazuki had a feeling she did.

Though it was just a feeling.

Mio rubbed her head with her right hand and then stopped. “Wait a minute!” she said. “I know how we can call the police without actually calling them.”

She looked around at everyone.

“
Cheer up!
” Mio said. “Okay, we all go to Hazuki's house.”

“Huh?”

“It's near here, and it's in the safe area of Section A, plus no one's there, and it's secure as hell. Am I right?”

“You are, but—”

“You guys are no fun.” Mio sighed. “Look. First I'll jigger the system to let Hazuki back into her house. Then Yuko will kind of wander past the gate of the house. The surveillance camera will catch it and notify the security company. Hazuki will say she was just studying when she looked at the screen, recognized her, and immediately called the emergency line. What do you think?” She looked around, trying to make eye contact with the others.

“The police will come flying to her place,” Mio concluded.

“Is that…okay?” Yuko turned her painfully beseeching look over to Hazuki.

Hazuki nodded.

That should be fine
, she thought.

CHAPTER
016

THE TERRIBLE NEWS
was delivered on a Wednesday morning.

At the emergency meeting held over the weekend, it had been decided that the communication sessions would temporarily be put on hold. But that did not mean the counselors had no work to do. Though they didn't have direct access, the counselors had to monitor the surroundings of each child via messaging, and if there appeared to be a problem they would have to resolve it promptly.

Unlike administrators, counselor workloads increased in times of emergency.

What with her having to support Shima—who could not execute her duties due to her cooperation with the investigation—Shizue ended up working at the center three days straight.

She returned home Tuesday afternoon and finally got to bed at two in the morning after taking care of personal affairs that had piled up in the meantime.

However.

Sleep, which could hardly be called pleasant but was nonetheless welcome, was forced to end after a mere five hours.

Shizue received an emergency message. An emergency message replete with alarm.

Yuko Yabe had been discovered.

Not a recovery. A discovery.

Yuko had been killed.

This was terrible.

Shizue took a shower and went to her dresser. She looked horrible. It couldn't have been the result of fatigue. She looked way worse than Shima did last week.

Why'd you go and die?

It was what Shima had said. There was not a whole lot different between the two now. Shizue didn't need the words to come out of her mouth for the thought to be visible on her face.

She groomed herself because she had to.

It would have had more impact had she run out of the house without so much as a look in the mirror, but Shizue didn't like to present herself in that way.

Besides, all the time in the world wouldn't change the situation she had to confirm. If she were able to resurrect the dead, Shizue might run out barefoot, naked even, but desperate cries wouldn't bring Yuko Yabe back.

Dead children don't return.

She thought, though…

That just made her seem like a heartless woman.

Her countenance looked even more horrible than before.

She was a horrible person.

Her instructions were to be at the center as soon as possible, so she left.

Beginning with the area chief's and continuing with all her associates' were the faces of idiots, lined up and dazed.

They'd determined at the last convening the general stance the center would take toward the crime. Just because there were now more victims didn't mean that stance should change. It stood to reason then that they had nothing to say to each other, but then Shizue also thought there had to be something they should be doing.

Eventually Shizue was called into a special meeting room.

There were a number of men who looked like investigators, and Ishida.

“Miss Fuwa,” Ishida voiced as soon as Shizue sat down. “I'm sure I don't need to explain to you that the situation has gotten worse. I know you provided all the information you had, and we for our part did everything we could, but regardless, let me start by saying sorry.”

Ishida lowered his head.

The investigators lined up behind him also all bowed.

“I appreciate your apologies but I have no way to respond, since from the beginning stages of the investigation you made it clear my opinions as a counselor were totally impertinent. If you're going to go on about placing responsibility, I should be declared the victim.”

“I'm apologizing knowing all of that full well. If the victim's survivors find a problem with this case, it will initially be directed toward you. In that sense…I am expressing regret in the fact that it didn't matter how much time we had; we were unable to prevent this tragedy from taking place.”

He was talking in circles.

“So is there something I can do? I've submitted all the data on the children, even more information on the victim since she was missing. If there's anything else…”

“It's as you say,” Ishida said. “But isn't there something you're neglecting to tell us?”

“What would that be?” Shizue answered unphased.

Ishida was expressionless. Shizue didn't typically like exuberant people, but in this case it was Ishida's metallic composure she found loathsome.

“Last week after our interrogation, you went to Hinako Sakura's residence, did you not?”

“I did.”

They had been following her.

It could be Kunugi had told them about this.

Actually, his timing
had
seemed too good at the time. He'd made up some convenient excuse about having been on patrol or something, but he could have been following her.

“According to her family you were not there in your capacity as a counselor.”

“It was a private matter.”

“Meaning? If you don't mind, could you please tell us what you talked about?”

“I asked her about divinations. Miss Sakura gave me a whole lecture.”

There was no point in hiding this information. It was half true.

Ishida's thin lips curled, and he tapped at his monitor screen with a fingertip.

“A counselor listening to a lecture by a child.”

“Is that odd?”

“Not odd. I gather you've been lectured by other children in your charge before. However…”

Ishida stopped to look at the portable big-screen monitor.

“I can't imagine you had a personal interest in divination. Nothing in our records indicates you had any interest in the occult before. What's more, you don't strike me personally as someone who would believe in such superstitions—that's to say, you seem more like someone who'd reject those ideas.”

“People are known to change, officer.”

“You mean you suddenly took up an interest?”

Shizue asked
is that not allowed?
and Ishida said
of course it is
.

“Well, Hinako Sakura's testimony corroborates your story. I'm sure there are no problems.”

“You interrogated Sakura?”

“We still are.”

“She has nothing to do with this.”

“We'll be the judge of that,” Ishida said. “Actually, she is the very last person to have spoken directly to the victim. It was after the medical exam last month, but of course, you already knew that. There were several communication sessions afterward but she didn't speak to anyone off-session.”

“It is not uncommon for children to refrain from any vocal communication with others. That's precisely why we have them attend these communication labs.”

“Well, well.” Ishida sat up. “Our records indicate Yuko Yabe was precisely not one of those kinds of children. She didn't meet with people privately, but you wrote in your notes yourself that she was very enthusiastic about talking to others during the labs.”

What an asshole
.

“There's nothing too out of the ordinary in the data we received for that month, but we looked a little deeper into it and discovered that for the month leading up to her disappearance she became uncharacteristically quiet. What do you have to say about that?” Ishida asked.

To be honest, she hadn't even noticed.

As far as Shizue was concerned, Yuko Yabe hadn't exhibited any noticeable behavior at all.