The Silent Dead (31 page)

Katsumata cranked out a smile. “Fine. I'll get you the money right now. You want to wait here or come with me?”

“Come with you,” replied Tatsumi, after a moment's thought.

*   *   *

They walked back to the area with all the shops. As Katsumata entered the ATM booth, Tatsumi squeezed in after him.

“Get the fuck out!”

“Old timers like you probably can't operate a cash machine right. I'll keep an eye on things for you.”

“You calling me old?”

“Oh, knock it off. Just get the money.”

Katsumata turned to the cash dispenser. He felt rather self-conscious.

“Don't look.”

“I won't. Hey, it's not like I need to watch to find out your PIN number anyway.”

Katsumata slid his card into the slot and punched in his PIN. It was his daughter's weight at birth.

“Oh yeah? So why don't you earn your living that way?”

Katsumata carefully entered a five followed by five zeroes.

“PIN fraud's small-time and risky. Not my thing. Buying and selling information's a far safer business model.”

“Here we go. Five hundred thousand yen.”

He slipped the notes into one of the envelopes provided and handed it over.

Tatsumi grunted his thanks and crammed the money straight into his back pocket.

“Aren't you going to count it?”

“Can't be bothered. Your dirty money is my easy money. I won't throw a fit if it's a note or two short. Relax.”

Tatsumi pulled out another envelope from his other back pocket and held it out. Katsumata plucked at it, but Tatsumi refused to let go. Each of them was holding a corner of the sweat-dampened rectangle.

“What are you playing at? Give it to me.”

“There's something I need to ask you first,” Tatsumi growled.

Katsumata had been starting to like Tatsumi. Now he lost his temper.

“You dirty rat. I did my part. I paid you the five hundred grand.”

“Cool it. I'm not backing out of the deal. I'm asking this because I've got a conscience. You don't want to answer, that's fine.”

That PI sleazeball had a conscience? Yeah, sure he did. Katsumata hated it when people got all moral on him. Morality was so much wishy-washy bullshit.

Katsumata looked directly at Tatsumi and jerked his chin. “Keep it short, then.”

“Truth is, I warned Otsuka to stay away from this case. And look what happened to him. Was there an envelope like this on Otsuka's body?”

“No. We didn't find any envelope.”

“As I thought,” sighed Tatsumi. “His estimated time of death was in the newspapers. If the papers were right about it, Otsuka was murdered almost straight after I handed him the information. Someone must have been sitting close on his tail.”

Katsumata gave his corner of the envelope a tug and Tatsumi let him have it. He wanted to hear what Tatsumi had to say.

“Why did you warn Otsuka to drop the case? You knew something?”

Tatsumi took a deep breath then exhaled loudly through his nose. “It's just something I heard,” he began. “I heard from a pal in the same line as me that some yakuza gang asked him to take a look and find out what this Strawberry Night was all about. Whatever he found, it wasn't what anyone was expecting. He reported back to his yakuza clients, and they decided just to step away. It was nothing to do with them being frightened, the guy said. The yakuza thought it would be more ‘interesting' to let Strawberry Night go on.” Tatsumi paused. “You know what that means? Their deciding not to interfere with the show has to mean that the organizer was someone they wanted to get into trouble, that they didn't care if he got found out. Get my drift?”

Katsumata said nothing. He got Tatsumi's drift all right. He just didn't want to believe it. Tatsumi plunged ahead.

“I don't know the full story. My guess, though, is that the yakuza stood back because the organizer has some connection to the police. That's why I warned Otsuka off. ‘There's a devil on your tail,' I told him. You'd better be careful too. You've got the same information. You don't want to end up dead.”

Katsumata looked at the envelope in his hand, then stuffed it into an inside pocket of his jacket.

“What about you? You know too much as well.”

“Whatever. I can take care of myself.”

Tatsumi made to leave the booth.

Katsumata hastily reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Not so fast. Are you telling me that you knew someone was targeting Otsuka?”

Tatsumi shook off Katsumata's grip angrily.

“Course I fucking didn't,” he snarled, glaring at Katsumata.

Katsumata turned back to the machine.

“Just stay there one second. I need you to do another job. How much will you need to identify the people behind the show?”

Katsumata shoved his card back into the ATM.

“How much is it going to cost me?”

Tatsumi hesitated. Was he afraid to go after a cop killer? Was he unsure if he was up to the job? Or was he simply having trouble pricing his services?

“I said, how much?”

Katsumata had already entered his PIN number. Now he was waiting to input the money figure.

Tatsumi swallowed. “Two million.” His voiced trembled slightly. “Then I can do the job properly.”

Fuck! That was serious wage inflation.

Katsumata, however, didn't intend to haggle about the price. He punched in a two followed by six zeroes.

Gonna have to shake down more than a few people down to get that back
.

He pressed the “Enter” button tenderly. The flapping sound of the machine counting the ten-thousand-yen notes seemed to last forever.

 

7

Reiko's former partner, Ioka, had been taken away from her and paired with Katsumata. In his place she now had Lieutenant Kitami. Reiko felt as though the people she cared for were being torn away from her, one by one.

She decided to put Shibuya on hold and go to Ikebukuro instead. She felt a physical pain in her chest at the thought that Otsuka had walked these same streets for the last three days of his life. What had he seen, heard, and thought there? Why had they killed him? Reiko had no idea, she didn't even know what he'd been investigating when he decided to fly solo. Everything was gray and unclear.

Like the weather. The day was cloudy. The bustling pedestrians, the flashing neon signs, and the colorful billboards all seemed to be leached of color.

Otsuka
 …

Reiko's heart felt like a lead weight in her chest, dragging her down. Staying upright cost her an effort; moving around was worse.

Otsuka, are you really dead?

Reiko hadn't yet seen Otsuka's body, but his absence alone made his death all too crushingly real. Was death always so hard to deal with? So painful?

What about all those other deaths?

It dawned on Reiko that she hadn't been treating the dead people she encountered on the job with the respect they deserved. “I channel the victims' rage and use it to power my investigations”—that's what she'd always told herself. Now, however, she was forced to acknowledge that her empathy was superficial. She'd been heartless and shallow—not a recipe for a good detective.

Her sister had complained about her having changed. This was another problem altogether.

Detective Michiko Sata's death in the line of duty was what had shaped Reiko's whole approach to her job. Sata's death had inspired her not just to become a detective but to try to put herself in the victim's shoes. At least, that had been her original goal.

But Reiko had also set out to make lieutenant, the rank Sata had achieved through her posthumous promotion. She'd worked hard and achieved that rank relatively young. Had success made her arrogant? Yes, that it had. The moment she'd fulfilled her dream, she lost touch with her better self and unconsciously betrayed everything that Detective Sata stood for.

She tried to analyze the attitude with which she approached the cases she worked on. It wasn't comfortable. Her strongest emotions, she decided, were probably excitement at being on a task force and relief at not having to go home—something she never passed up an opportunity to joke about. And where had that got her? She'd failed to notice her mother's deteriorating health. If things had gone worse for her mother, she might have even failed to make it to her mother's deathbed.

It was all too much. Otsuka's death, her mother's heart attack, the stalled investigation, the pressures of the job. So many weighty things, all crushing the heart in her chest.

“Here you go, Lieutenant.”

Reiko was sitting at a long counter by the window in the upper floor of a fast-food joint. The window overlooked Meiji Boulevard, one of Tokyo's major thoroughfares. Kitami stood there holding two trays, one for him and one for her.

“Oh, thanks.”

Reiko left her food untouched until she noticed that Kitami was reluctant to start without her.

“Dig in. Don't you worry about me.”

“Okay, sorry.”

Kitami began nibbling his French fries one at a time. She could see the tension in his bunched-up shoulders.

Most cops ate like vikings and could polish off a burger in two mouthfuls. Kitami, though, was a shadow of his normal self. Otsuka's death seemed to be have shrunk him physically.

“Don't apologize all the time,” she snapped. “And stop blaming yourself for Otsuka's death.”

“Yes, sorry.”

“There you go again.”

Kitami mumbled something.

Reiko tried to give him an encouraging smile but was unsure that she managed one. The two of them had spent the morning wandering vaguely around Ikebukuro. Nothing that deserved to be called an investigation.

Reiko sighed softly and helped herself to a French fry.

The music venue where Otsuka had been murdered wasn't far away. Since Otsuka's death was being handled by the Ikebukuro precinct, showing up at the crime scene would only be a distraction for the officers working the case. Captain Imaizumi had provided a statement on behalf of the unit. Kitami had given a statement first thing this morning. Reiko didn't know what he'd said; frankly, she was afraid to ask. Sitting right there in Ikebukuro beside Kitami, the idea of hearing about the last few days of Otsuka's life terrified her. She was sure she would go to pieces.

“Tell me something funny.”

She wasn't surprised when Kitami looked put out.

“I can't just…”

She was being unreasonable, and she knew it. That didn't change the fact that she wanted to hear him talk about anything except Otsuka and their investigation.

“Anything … You graduated from the Tokyo University law department, didn't you?”

Reiko closed her lips around the straw in her drink. Kitami nodded stiffly.

“Suppose so.”

“You
suppose
so? Come on, it's great. You should be proud of yourself.”

“Sorry.”

“There you go, apologizing again.”

“That wasn't what I meant…”

Reiko was struck by Kitami's good looks. He had to be wildly popular with women his own age. What did he think of someone like her?

He probably thinks I'm way past my sell-by date
.

A question flashed into her mind. What had Otsuka thought of his partner? This Tokyo University law grad, young, handsome, a lieutenant from day one—classic fast-track material.

Was he jealous?

She'd never be able to ask Otsuka to his face. They wouldn't be going to any more meetings or to any drinking sessions together—ever. She felt a sharp tingling behind her eyes. She forced herself to speak in an exaggeratedly cheerful tone to keep control.

“You're quite a strapping lad. Did you do sports in college?”

“Huh? Well … you know, I…”

Her crackbrained question seemed to have thrown Kitami. She went blithely on, ignoring his discomfiture.

“You're tall. Was it basketball, maybe? Or volleyball?”

“Neither.” He sheepishly shook his head.

“Karate, then?”

“Never done martial arts in my life.”

“Tennis?”

“Nor ball sports.”

“What then? Horse riding?”

“No. Look, can't we talk about something else? I'm not really the sporty type.”

Kitami was just being modest, thought Reiko. It was obvious that he was fit. The brisk way he'd marched around the vacant properties that morning bespoke an unusual level of athleticism.

“There's something else, Lieutenant Himekawa.”

From his tone, she could tell he was serious about wanting to change the subject.

“When Otsuka was doing his own thing, I wandered around and came across this building nearby. The firm that built it must have gone bust just before completing it. The building's almost finished, but it's never been occupied, and the fence around the site is riddled with holes. It's easy to get in. Don't you think we should check it?”

“Doing his own thing”?

Kitami was trying to be tactful. He was deliberately avoiding the phrase “solo investigation,” out of respect for Otsuka—or possibly out of pity for the frazzled woman lieutenant.

Normally Reiko would have bristled at being mollycoddled by this fast-track golden boy, but now her primary emotion was gratitude.

Reiko, you're turning soft
.

She broke into a self-mocking laugh. It felt good. Perhaps bottling up her feelings had been a mistake.

“Good idea. Let's go there after we've visited all the other places on our list.”

“Oh, okay.”

Reiko looked at her watch. It was already past three o'clock.

 

8

The envelope Tatsumi gave Katsumata contained two sheets of paper and three photographs.