Loups-Garous (33 page)

She replied honestly.

“Is that so?” Ishida smartly withdrew. “Well, I suppose there are things even a counselor wouldn't notice. I guess there's nothing we can say about this.”

Ishida looked directly at Shizue. “Oh, I didn't mean for that to imply any deficit in your counseling abilities. You are an excellent counselor. It's just that we hear about children who aren't able to open up. I'm sure they've got to be a handful for you. We just discovered this bit of information after a careful reading of the data you provided us, but with that many children in your care I suppose it would be impossible to know everything.”

“It has nothing to do with the number of children I counsel. It's not as if I were watching over more children than the law allows. If you're wondering why I didn't notice this change in the child's behavior it's because of my inattention to her.”

“No need to get defensive. I want to say this again, but we hold your services as a counselor in very high esteem. If you didn't notice it, we think it's safe to assume there was nothing to be noticed. We thought maybe she had a medical situation, but she received Triple-A health status on her medical exam. No diseases or ailments. Her late communication deficit might just be incidental.”

“Incidental?”

“An incidentally poorly placed bug as they say in divinations. That could happen to anyone.”

Something was wrong.

Shizue knew it.

“However…”

At last there was what came after. Shizue turned away from Ishida's plastic-looking face.

“Well, I mean even a gifted counselor such as yourself can't be expected to grasp every single thing a child is going through. Just as we as police officers can't possibly grasp every single aspect of a criminal. There are some things only other children know. Isn't that right?”

“Humans aren't so pure that they can be easily grasped.”

“Exactly.” Ishida closed his monitor. “And that's precisely why you went to see Hinako Sakura, isn't it? That is how I understood it. That's the kind of person you are. You weren't going to be content to sit back and watch nothing be done about Yuko Yabe's disappearance. You knew Sakura was the last person Miss Yabe spoke to, and you wanted the information Sakura had, that only Sakura could have. Am I wrong? You said it was a private matter, but it was an action you took based on your duties as a counselor.”

“That's…your own interpretation,” Shizue said. “You can infer all you want, but I can't tell you more than the honest truth. Besides, even if you're right, haven't you already interrogated Sakura?”

“Like I said we still are. It's just…she won't answer any of our questions.”

“Won't answer? What do you mean?”

“Sakura definitely spoke with the victim, but she said she's forgotten what about. She tells us it was probably nothing important. We just have a hard time believing that. According to the data we have on her, she has an incredible memory. We're pretty sure she remembers what happened a little over a month ago. Besides, unlike the victim, Hinako Sakura actually did not have many interactions with other children. Her
real contact
with Yabe would have been exceptional. Unforgettable, even.”

Hinako was hiding something. The fact that Yuko had been worried about the illness she had.

“That may be, but…if that's what she said, that must be what happened,” Shizue responded.

If she didn't want to talk, Shizue wasn't going to make her.

Least of all to Ishida.

Besides, she was sure Hinako Sakura had nothing to do with the murder.

“What about it then, did you hear anything?” Ishida sat up.

“As I said before, I went to Sakura to ask about divinations. I didn't hear anything. Aren't you guys supposed to be experts at getting information out of people?”

“If we're experts at interrogation, then you're the pro at figuring out children.” Ishida intensified his glare.

“Any clues at all?”

“None.”

“More importantly, could you tell me about how Yuko Yabe's body was discovered? I just received word this morning and haven't heard any specifics since then.”

“Ahh,” Ishida said. He pulled up his monitor again.

“Yuko Yabe's body…was in Section C…on the east side. She was discovered there. It was this morning, no, closer to last night, that she was found. Four fifty am. She was discovered by a patrolman local to the area; he was there looking for another missing child, that Yuji Nakamura. The corpse was in a savaged state. You can think of it being in the same state we found Asumi Aikawa.”

She didn't want to think of it at all.

“Estimated time of death is somewhere up to thirty hours before the discovery. We're still performing the autopsy, so we won't know any more till it's completed. It's possible she was murdered late Monday night.”

At the very least, she wasn't killed immediately after her disappearance.

“You have no idea where she was while she was missing?”

“No. However, we think she was wearing the same clothes she was last seen in.”

“Based on what? You have eyewitnesses from the day of her disappearance?”

“No. We don't have eyewitnesses from the day of her disappearance. That's why I can't say for certain, but we deduced that she hadn't changed clothes from looking at the wardrobe her parents had at the house. According to them, there is only one outfit missing, and it's the one she was found wearing.”

She'd been wearing the same clothes for over a week.

“It does seem, however, that her clothes were cleaned at some point,” Ishida said.

“The chemical composition on clothing is altered whenever it is cleaned. We determined from a test of a swatch of her clothing that she'd had her clothes cleaned approximately five days before she died. Meaning while she was missing.”

“She had her clothes cleaned while she was missing?”

“I don't know if we should call it ‘missing' anymore. It's more like she was hiding,” Ishida said.

“You think she was in danger and hid herself?”

“Her parents were gone and all…”

“But wouldn't she go to the police for protection in that situation? Or at least the center, where I…”

No.

Yuko wouldn't have felt she could trust Shizue.

“Did you find her monitor?” Shizue asked.

“We didn't find her personal mobile monitor. She had her ID card on her, but it wasn't used once during her disappearance. You would need to use an ID card at some point just for the cleaning, but we don't know anything more about that.”

“What about her personal communication log?”

Only counselors were privy to that information.

“With her parents' approval we were able to look into that as well. There is
absolutely no record
of communication.”

“None? No communication sent
or
received?”

“Nothing personal.”

Was it possible for there not to be any communication whatsoever? Knowing Yuko, that seemed especially implausible.

“The suspect…”

Yuji Nakamura.

“Okay, then what about this Nakamura then?”

“We haven't been able to trace him. There's this thing with the Kawabata boy too. It's a very dangerous situation. We're putting all our energy into this investigation.”

“Are you saying you've changed your search status for him from likely culprit to possible victim?”

“I've said this several times now, but we never had any evidence confirming his guilt. He's a person of great interest, but in keeping with what you said yourself, we are treating him as a potential victim in this investigation. Besides…”

Ishida peered back as if to confirm the presence of the investigators standing behind him.

“Just between us, there have been some sketchy types coming forward. Eyewitnesses.”

“Sketchy types.”

“You know, undocumented residents in Section C. They have no citizenship. There are quite a few of them in this country, but then we run into issues of human rights. We can't just expose them all, and our department frankly doesn't know how to handle them. It seems Nakamura, Kawabata, and Yabe have all three been among these people.”

“The undocumented residents?”

“About 20 percent of the area's juvenile population resides in Section C, am I right?” Ishida asked.

“If that's the figure the police came up with then I'm assuming it's correct. The breakdown of children's residential demography doesn't mean anything, so I don't bother to put it out there.”

“Aren't you required to be concerned with the children's living environment?”

“All that means is that the area you mentioned has characteristics that don't meet the standard of residential environments. It's been a predominantly commercial area, and so it has no history of having been developed as a residential area. That's beyond me.”

“But it's a nonstandard environment, then?”

“Yes. But, excluding the undocumented residents, for example, most of the people residing in Section C are what you'd call average citizens. Documented residents are using the residential area correctly, and so even if the environment is nonstandard, there is no reason to give it special attention. At the very least, we as counselors should be more concerned with individual homes.”

“So you don't think that the nonstandard characteristics of a particular area might affect the quality of life in an individual household?”

“Unfortunately no,” Shizue answered. “Households are independent within their neighborhoods. The people inside the household are independent of their homes. What connects individuals to each other is information; physical proximity has no real bearing. This is why we built community centers. Ours is a society where so long as they aren't coerced or systematized, people won't care who's in the next room.”

“I believe it,” Ishida said.

“Those who still believe in the primacy of geography are largely of the bygone century. They—well, if I had to pick a side I'd be one of them too—believe it imperative to maintain the framework of a nation-state. That's why we create borders. And building the framework means maintaining it. But categorizations and labels don't necessarily equate with control. It is irritating.”

“Irritating?”

“Yes. That much is obvious from the fact that two-thirds of the police infrastructure is concerned with information supervision. But…”

Ishida drew a cloth from his pocket and wiped the frame of his monitor. “Still, we don't exist just on intake of information alone. We also live, eat, and sleep in this place. As long as
real access
happens, there will be crime.”

Shizue wasn't going to disagree with him there. She was sure that was true.

But Shizue didn't believe in it.

“That's why we have epic mistakes such as investigation exhibit R,” Ishida said. “Those undocumented citizens who have centralized in Section C, in particular, have built a life ignoring the framework we as authorities have taken many pains to build. These people have now formed communities with blood ties and connections to the land and established a lifestyle by means of illegal methods.”

“So you're suggesting they are all criminals.”

“In that someone who doesn't abide by the law is a criminal, yes. Undocumented residents are all criminals. Regardless, the reality is that they refuse to live under our rules and social mores. In other words, it'd be more accurate to say they live in their own country. Meaning that Section C represents their country and our country living side by side. I think it's impossible to say that living situation doesn't have an effect on the average citizen.”

“You're really talking in circles, aren't you?” Shizue blurted. “To be sure, I have children in my care who interact with undocumented or foreign citizens, or else they used to interact with them. That goes without saying. I've given you all the data.”

Shizue said
you already know this
, and Ishida responded matter-of-factly that he did.

“Then what else could you possibly want to hear from me? The worst has already happened, and so there's little need to hurry, but this is also no time for us to be sitting around at leisure. Stop beating around the bush and just tell me what you want.”

Ishida's eyebrows, neatly matching in shape, lowered, and he smiled weakly.

Then he started tapping lightly at the screen of his monitor with an index finger and very purposefully said,
I see then
.

“Well, that makes it easier for me to talk as well. Actually, the undocumented citizen that came up in our investigation is a girl of about fourteen or fifteen years of age. Of course she doesn't have a family seal or anything, so we can't know her exact age or real name. But she is definitely very close in age to all the murder victims in our investigation. I suppose it could be said her proximity in age won't have anything to do with this, but—”

“You're saying she had interaction with the victim?”

“Not exactly, but we can't say she didn't at least run into one of the victims. We had this sketch made based on the eyewitness accounts of several people and ran it through the children's database, and…”

Ishida turned his monitor toward Shizue.

On the screen was the face of an unfriendly-looking young girl.

“Mio Tsuzuki. She's one of yours, right? Seems she's a very intelligent little girl. Looking at her developmental profile on the public server. Frankly, I was shocked. She's advancing at a stunning pace.”

“She's probably the most advanced in her age group for the area.”

“It's more than that. As far as I know, she is the most intelligent girl of her age group, bar none. It'd be safe to call her a
world
-class genius.