Puppet Master vol.1

“Hello?” It was the voice.

  　Takao Kida had answered the phone. One of the Arima Team detectives had come to keep him company as he minded the shop while Yoshio was out at the morgue, and now pressed the record button on the telephone.

  　“Is this Arima Tofu?” the voice continued.

  　“That's right,” Kida responded, feeling the corners of his mouth tremble.

  　“You're not Gramps, though. Oh, of course, Gramps must have gone to the police station.”

  　“You're the killer, are you?” Kida said. “What are you calling for? What more do you want, eh?”

  　“My, you're tough,” the caller sounded amused, drawing the words out. “Are you a relative?”

  　“None of your business who I am.” Kida had two children in junior high school, one son and one daughter. What had happened to Mariko was a tragedy, but it was also far too close to home for his liking.

  　“You seem to have a pretty high opinion of yourself,” the caller said. “If you take that kind of attitude with me, you'll regret it. And what's more, why aren't you thanking me?”

  　“Thanking you? What should I be thanking you for?”

  　“I returned Mariko didn't I?”

  　“Son of a bitch!”

  　“I had a hell of a time doing it. Digging someone up once you've already buried them─it's dirty work, and hard, I can tell you. But I felt so sorry for Gramps that I just had to do it.”

  　Kida felt dizzy with rage. “Bastard! Scum of the earth!”

  　The screechy voice laughed.

  　Kida spat out, “I know bastards like you─cowards who pick on people weaker than themselves. You can make calls like this and bully women, but you can't have it out properly with another man.”

  　“Is that what you think?” The voice stopped laughing. “You think I can't take on a man?”

  　Kida gulped. At his side, the detective gestured to him to keep the conversation going.

  　“I see. Maybe I'll have to prove you wrong then. If it's a full-grown man who dies next, then you're to blame, buddy.”

  　The phone went dead. “It was a cell phone again,” the detective muttered.

  　Kida grabbed the phone, yanked the cord out, and hurled it at the wall. It clanged to the floor, landing belly up, as if mocking him.

  Chapter 15

  Takegami was feeling slightly drunk.

  　It was October 21, ten days after Mariko Furukawa's remains had been found. The orange rays of the early-evening sun were slanting in through the windows of his living room at home. He had just had a bath and was enjoying a beer afterwards─he hadn't even drunk the whole can, but was already feeling quite dizzy. That's how exhausted he was.

  　The discovery of the remains had meant a lot of documentation needed to be prepared in a rush, and for the past three days he had hardly slept, and hadn't been eating properly either. Reports relating to the autopsy and dental records had to be submitted to the relevant places, and it was Takegami's job to write them. The photos and written record of the examination of the area where the remains had been found had to be filed at top speed, too. Meanwhile the joint investigation's first official press conference had been held two nights earlier and he'd had to check the information to be presented and prepare answers to hypothetical questions from reporters. After three days of this even Takegami had reached the limits of exhaustion and was at the point where he was falling asleep on the toilet.

  　Forty days had passed since the first incident in Okawa Park on September 12, and he hadn't been home once in all that time. Captain Kanzaki couldn't bear to see him like that any more, and sent him home even if it was just for two or three hours to have a bath and come back refreshed. Kanzaki himself hadn't been home at all either, and his change of shirt hadn't reached him in time so he was still wearing one with a dirty collar.

  　Takegami lived in Omori, Ota Ward, a five-minute walk from Rokugodote Station. It was a high-density neighborhood, in which small factories sat among neat rows of modest houses, a vestige of the postwar housing boom. He had rebuilt here about ten years ago on the postage-stamp-sized plot his wife had inherited from her parents─the only reason he could afford to own a house in the metropolitan area on his meager salary as a public servant. Until just a few years ago, the neighborhood had been densely built-up, but after the storm of the bubble economy had blown through, empty lots had opened up here and there. Next door to Takegami's there was now a parking lot on the site of what had been a sheet-metal and paint-job business. Thanks to that, the living room and kitchen now received more sunlight and cross breezes, which he had to admit was very pleasant.

  　After getting out of the bath he sat by the living-room window enjoying the feel of the breeze on his skin, abstractedly noting the plate numbers of the cars parked in the next-door lot. He had come home just for a short break and didn't want to think about work, but it was hard not to. At such times, the best thing to do was to cram your head with something trivial. Takegami worked on memorizing the numbers, linking their sounds with words to make it easier.

  　But still he couldn't banish his thoughts of Mariko Furukawa. The manner of the discovery had been humiliating to the investigation team, and deeply wounding for her family─a gaping laceration that would never fully heal. There were many detectives, Takegami among them, who after long years of service were good at controlling their feelings. However, some of the younger officers couldn't restrain themselves from venting their frustrations; someone had smashed a urinal in the men's bathroom on the third floor of Bokuto Police Station.

  　“That was quite a kick,” Shinozaki had said, impressed. “It can't have been easy to break that.

  　Shinozaki was currently soaking in Takegami's bath. He was also someone with steady emotions, although this was his nature rather than something acquired through experience. Yet, he seemed to be even more burned-out than Takegami. He had been working closely with Takegami all along without going home once either. Even today, when told to go home for a break, he'd said that since he lived alone it wasn't much of a change of scene and instead crawled under a vacant desk for a nap, so Takegami had dragged him out and taken him home with him. Takegami's wife returned from her part-time job in a pharmacy to find they'd just arrived, so had hurriedly gone out shopping and set about making some dinner. Their daughter hadn't yet come home from college, so the house was quiet.

  　Takegami doggedly continued studying the license numbers. He had a good memory, so by the second time around he'd already memorized the plates of most of the cars parked there. It was a stupid thing to use his head for, but whenever he stopped, his thoughts turned back to Mariko Furukawa. After a while though, he gave up trying to keep his mind from straying to the case and instead purposely thought about the woman whose arm had been found, who hadn't yet been identified.

  　The arm alone had yielded too few clues. A number of people had come forward worried that it might be their daughter, or their wife, but so far to no avail. There was the color of the nail polish and the birthmark on the inside of the arm, although it was too small to be called a distinguishing feature, but these hadn't matched any of the missing women to date.

  　What was the killer planning to do? After having devised such a sensational way to return Mariko, he had once again contacted Arima. But so far he had not said a thing about who that arm belonged to. The killer alone knew who and where she was. Surely he'd found out how to contact her family too, so why hadn't he done the same as he'd done with Furukawa's family?

  　“Hey, you know what?” his wife called from the kitchen.

  　Takegami looked up with a start. “What?”

  　“It's gone awful quiet in the bathroom. What's his name … Shinozaki, wasn't it? Is he okay in there? Would you mind going to check on him?

  　Takegami stood up and headed for the bathroom. He called through the glass door, but there was no answer so he poked his head around the door. Shinozaki was submerged up to his chin in
the tub, fast asleep. He tapped him on the head. “Oy, wake up!”

  　Shinozaki opened his eyes in surprise. The next moment he slipped under the water and came up spluttering. “Ah, sorry! It was so relaxing.”

  　“You can die if you fall asleep in the bath, you know!”

  　“I know. I'll get out now.”

  　As Takegami shut the bathroom door he heard Shinozaki mutter under his breath, “Ridiculous! As if I'd drown in the bath.” He made a mental note to show him photos of the boiled corpse of someone who had drowned in the bath after turning on the water heater and falling asleep.

  　Passing by the front door, he noticed the evening papers in the mailbox. They subscribed to three papers, so the delivery was quite bulky. He had taken them through to the living room and was reading them in turn when Shinozaki came back from the bathroom neatly dressed in a fresh change of clothes, and thanked his wife. His hair smelled sweet. The schmuck must have used his daughter's shampoo. She insisted on having her own towels and shampoo, and freaked out if her parents or especially her little brother dared to touch them, so perhaps they'd better eat up their meal and get back to work before she found out what he'd done.

  　There were no new developments in the papers. All the reports faithfully reproduced the information they had given out in the press conference that morning: that investigations were continuing into suspicious cars seen in the area around Sakazaki Professional Movers, and they were questioning everyone connected to them.

  　“Has anything new come out?” Shinozaki asked, sipping on a glass of cold barley tea, as he never drank alcohol.

  　“Nope, nothing.”

  　After Mariko's remains turned up, some of the investigation team had been clamoring to announce that they had a suspect in Kazuyoshi Tagawa, even if they didn't release his name. In other words, they wanted to let the public know that it wasn't as if the police were sitting around doing nothing. In the end, this faction was suppressed, which Takegami thought was the obvious thing to do. It was not known exactly what time Mariko's remains had been deposited at the scene, but certainly it had been sometime during the night before they were found, and the surveillance team assigned to Tagawa had confirmed that he had not set foot outside his housing project, which was located on the other side of town, during that time. The investigation was now being pressed to reconsider the level of surveillance assigned to him─whether to reduce it, or even put it on hold. Announcing that he was a suspect would be premature, to say the least.

  　This was also a turning point in the course of the investigation, as it raised the issue of whether they should focus on the theory of one perpetrator operating alone, or of two or more accomplices working together. If the lone perpetrator theory held sway, logically Tagawa would have to be eliminated from the list of suspects given that he had an alibi, but as long as they couldn't find an innocent explanation for his rental cars being in the vicinity of Okawa Park on certain specific days, there would always remain an element of doubt.

  　“Wasn't it the Weekly Post that trashed the investigation team as a bunch of incompetents?”

  　“They're entitled to write what they like─not a lot we can do about it,” Takegami said.

  　Just then the phone rang. He answered it to hear Akitsu ask, without the usual preamble or niceties, “Gami, is that you?”

  　Something must have happened, Takegami thought. “What's up?”

  　“Have you seen the Japan Daily?”

  　It was an evening paper on sale at stations, not one of those that he subscribed to. “No, I haven't. What does it say?”

  　“Someone leaked about Tagawa.” He didn't sound so much angry, as stunned. “They didn't identify him, but still─it's obviously him.”

  　“What's the headline?”

  　“‘SERIAL KILLER SUSPECT!’ Who the hell told them?”

  　“Someone on the team, obviously.”

  　So the faction that had been clamoring to make an announcement about it had gone ahead and leaked it anyway. And they hadn't leaked it to the “NPA Seven,” as the papers in the Police Agency press club were known, but to an evening daily. That could only spell trouble, thought Takegami.

  　“The surveillance guys say the TV news crews are already onto Tagawa. They must have insider information. What the hell are they going to do next?”

  　Takegami hung up and turned to Shinozaki. “Time to get back to work.”

  Shinichi was carrying the cases of Coca-Cola that had just been delivered into the storeroom. His uniform was too big for him, and every time he sat down or stood up he had to hitch his trousers up again, much to his boss's amusement.

  　Straight after moving into Maehata Apartments, Shinichi had gotten a job at a convenience store ten minutes away. Even though the money his parents had left him was enough to cover his living expenses, he didn't want to sit around idly. He couldn't go back to school until the problem with Megumi Higuchi had been sorted out, and the next best thing would be to have a job, he'd thought.

  　Originally a liquor store, it had been acquired by a major franchise and turned into a convenience store managed by the son of the original owner. He was still in his thirties and had been a friend of Shoji since elementary school, and even now they were drinking buddies. This made it a comfortable place for Shinichi to work at, and he quickly got used to the job. The manager's wife had a strong and cheerful personality, and was more of a motherly type than Shigeko. She'd promised to take the uniform pants in at the waist for him, since they were a men's size and there weren't any smaller ones, but she'd been too busy to find a moment to do it yet.

  　After shifting the cases of soda, he'd just started mopping the floor when he spotted Shigeko outside hurrying this way, clutching her purse in one hand. She pushed the button at the traffic signal, but then crossed the road dodging the cars without waiting for it to change. Shinichi straightened up and stretched his back, wondering what was up. Shigeko came in through the automatic doors and headed straight for the cash register, plucking an evening paper off the display on her way.

  　“Hello there. Just this please.” She wasn't smiling.

  　The store manager was on duty at the counter and asked her, “Something up, Shigeko?”

  　Shigeko tucked her purse under one arm and stood turning the pages of the newspaper without answering. It was the Japan Daily.

  　“Shigeko, has something happened?” Shinichi asked her.

  　Shigeko chewed her lip and carried on reading. Shinichi peered over her shoulder to see a headline: SERIAL KILLER SUSPECT!

  　“Seems they've got a suspect,” Shigeko said breathlessly, not taking her eyes off the page. “It's all over the TV, especially HBS.”

  　“The TV? Already?”

  　“Yeah, HBS got to the guy just before this article came out. HBS and Japan Daily are affiliates, so that's no surprise. But the guy's agreed to an interview. That's why it's such big news.

  　“You mean the same bunch as got that other scoop?” the store manager put in.

  　“Seems like it's a guy who lives near Okawa Park. The commercial break came on, so I thought I'd pop down here and read the article. Shin-chan, you coming back with me?” And with that, she rushed off again.

  　The manager looked at the clock and said, “Can't be helped, I guess.” He knew that Shinichi was helping Shigeko with her work. “Okay, you can make up the extra hour tomorrow.”

  　“Thanks─and sorry.”

  　Hitching up his pants again, Shinichi raced off after Shigeko.

  　Introduced to the TV audience as “Mr. T” with his face and voice disguised, Kazuyoshi Tagawa had plenty to say. He'd had no idea he was a suspect in the serial killer cases until the HBC news crew contacted him, and couldn't imagine why they'd picked on him. When his interviewer told him that it was because of his previous conviction and the fact that the car he'd rented was seen near Okawa Park around the time of the first incident, he responded furiously tha
t he'd been framed by an older colleague, twenty-seven at the time, who had what he called a “changing-room fetish.” It had been that guy who'd set up the hidden camera. “But he'd got the job through a relative of the company president and it wouldn't look good if word got round about it, so they set me up as the fall guy.”

  　When he was asked why he hadn't fought his case on that point in court, he said, “If I'd done that, the court judgment would have been delayed for ten or fifteen years at least and I'd have been left in limbo. I just wanted to get on with my life! All I could do was confess and try to get as light a sentence as possible.” The reporter put it to him that it wasn't like a murder case, so it wouldn't have dragged out that long in court if he'd contested it, but Mr. T shouted back, “What the fuck do you know? You weren't there!” The camera zoomed in on him as he got so worked up it seemed they might have to stop the interview.

  　The reporter changed tack and broached the subject of the trouble he'd gone to get a friend to rent a car for him three times, on September 4, 11, and 12. What had he been doing in the vicinity of Okawa Park, especially on the eleventh, the day before the arm was found? Mr. T's outburst abruptly subsided. Now he looked defensive, like a turtle that had sensed danger and retreated into its shell. He hadn't been to Okawa Park, he said. Ever since being falsely convicted, he'd been unable to trust people and found it hard to go out at all, so he'd asked a friend to get the cars for him. He used them to go on photography trips─he'd been to a bird sanctuary and a couple of other places but couldn't clearly remember where he'd been when.

  　The interview itself wasn't all that long, but with the studio discussion and replays of clips, along with a video summarizing the course of the case to date, it took up the entire afternoon talk-show slot. They made it into a sensational splash, but not once did they question whether the information was reliable, or even whether the police had made any official comment on the matter.

  　Shigeko was videoing the program. As she listened to Mr. T speak she scrutinized the pixelated images of his body and close-ups of his hands and feet as they fidgeted. All the way through the interview, he nervously jiggled his legs, and it became especially pronounced when the reporter asked a question that he found difficult to answer. He put his hands on his knees as if trying to stop it, but it just ended up making his arms and even his shoulders shake, too. Shigeko was observing all of this closely.