“Thanks. Come visit anytime.”
Kotaro and Makoto had made their peace since their “transaction” at the tea caddy building. Now they worked hard and competed to see who could make Kaname laugh.
Finally a day came that started out like any other. The three of them were on break in the lounge, shooting the breeze, when an employee staring at her tablet and munching on a sandwich gasped in surprise.
“Look at this—arrests in Tomakomai!”
Kaname and Makoto were shocked into silence. The three of them crowded around the tablet.
“It’s the Serial Amputator!” Makoto said breathlessly.
“Well, I’m not sure. It doesn’t say that,” said the tablet owner. The news feed had a one-line headline.
ARRESTS IN MURDER OF TOMAKOMAI IZAKAYA OWNER:
UNCLE AND COUSIN
Things heated up quickly. The islands competed keenly to find the latest scraps of information. Everyone assumed that the arrest of suspects in this case almost certainly meant that Ayuko’s killers had been found.
No, you’re wrong. You’re all wrong!
He wanted to shout it from the rooftops, but Kotaro thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans, gave the tumult a cool gaze, closed his ears, and immersed himself in his monitoring.
Two hours later, Seigo sent everyone an email. The men arrested in Tomakomai had nothing to do with Ayuko’s murder, or with the statement sent to the media. Tomakomai Central Police Department hadn’t made an official announcement, but he had this information from the special investigation unit in Tokyo. Everyone should calm down and focus on their work.
It was seven by the time Kotaro got home. Asako—and Kazumi, who’d lately been even ruder than usual—were glued to the TV. Making dinner didn’t look likely to happen anytime soon. Every network was running special coverage of the arrests.
“Hey guys. When’s dinner?”
His mother and sister looked at him with astonishment.
“Kotaro, haven’t you heard? They caught the Serial Amputators!” Kazumi said, pointing to the TV.
“They’re the ones who did that awful thing to the president of your company,” Asako added.
“Nah, it’s not them. Don’t jump to conclusions.”
They gaped at him with total incomprehension. Kazumi’s finger was frozen, pointed at the television.
“The guys in Tomakomai didn’t kill Ayuko Yamashina,” Kotaro added. “You ought to listen better. The police haven’t said a single thing about the Serial Amputator, have they?”
“But, but …”
The networks reported that Shiro Nakanome’s uncle and cousin had murdered him because of a conflict over the right to manage the izakaya. There were more details on the web that hadn’t made it to television, but they were from established sites that didn’t usually blow smoke.
“It was some kind of family conflict,” Kotaro said.
“But they cut off his toe!” Asako insisted.
“So? They must’ve had a reason. Or maybe they didn’t. It doesn’t matter. I’m phoning for pizza.”
The women turned back to the TV. Takayuki soon arrived home and joined them. When the pizzas came, they ate and channel-surfed the news. Kotaro had his fill and drifted quietly away from the table. Halfway up the stairs he heard his mother say, “Ko-chan’s still in denial. He says they’re not the ones who killed his boss.”
There’d been a call from Shigenori ten minutes earlier. He hadn’t left a message. Kotaro called back, but the line was busy. He was booting up his PC when Shigenori finally rang back.
“The Tomakomai police will hold a press conference at nine,” he said without preamble. “If you’ve been watching the news, you pretty much know what they’re going to say. But I’ve got something that won’t be at the press conference.”
Kotaro didn’t ask what it was. He could tell Shigenori was excited. He was going to say it anyway.
“The uncle—Reiji Nakanome—confessed to cutting off the victim’s toe. He said it was for luck. About thirty years back, there was a robbery-homicide in Sapporo. A shop owner was murdered and three million yen was stolen from his safe. The case was never solved and the statute of limitations eventually expired. The perp, or perps, got away clean,” Shigenori said. “The owner was missing his left big toe. He lost it in an accident when he was young. It’s hard to keep your balance and even harder to walk without a big toe. The victim was in his forties, but he was already using a cane.”
Kotaro said nothing.
“Reiji Nakanome killed his nephew with his son’s help. He cut off the victim’s toe as a talisman, hoping that whatever good fortune let the killers in Sapporo get away scot-free would attach itself to the murder in Tomakomai. Sympathetic magic, in a way. That’s not the sort of motivation the police could infer without a confession. Unfortunately for Reiji and his son, the statute of limitations on violent crimes has been abolished. No amount of luck can help them now.”
“Are you sure about all this?” Kotaro asked.
“A hundred percent. I heard it from the detective who collared me there.”
“But the robbery was in Sapporo. Tomakomai’s pretty far away.”
“Reiji Nakanome lived in Sapporo for years. Anyway, this wraps it up. The Serial Amputator’s debut was nothing of the sort. He’s a phantom. Are you convinced now?”
Detective, are you excited about this?
“You’ve been lying low recently, Kotaro. I was happy about that, to be honest.”
“I’m busy with school. I don’t have a lot of free time.”
“Keep at it, then. Stick with your studies.”
“If it was a family thing, how come the cops didn’t arrest those guys sooner?”
“Crimes like that are actually harder to solve. Families protect their own. Not out of compassion. Out of shame.”
Kotaro could sympathize with that motivation.
“Since there were no witnesses, it was hard to check people’s alibis. If the crime takes place at night, everyone you talk to was home asleep, and it’s usually true. It makes things harder to sort out.”
You’re not just excited. I think you’re enjoying this.
“The police were walking on tiptoe until they had definite proof,” Shigenori added.
“What did they find?”
“The body was abandoned in a place where people were dumping trash illegally. The area’s full of discarded furniture and appliances with thousands of partial fingerprints and palm prints. But the police worked everything over for prints. It must’ve taken them weeks.
“Anyway, they got lucky. They found Reiji’s fingerprints on a busted bicycle saddle, and half of a palm print from his son on the side of a filing cabinet. That gave them the wedge they needed to make arrests. Reiji confessed to everything. He says it was all his doing. He forced his son to help him.”
Kotaro was still doubtful. “Why did the detective give you all this, anyway? It sounds a little too kind. You must’ve threatened him or something.”
“That’s kind of a hard way to put it.” Shigenori chuckled. “I had a hunch about why they took the toe, and it happened to pay off. I think he was just trying to thank me.”
Kotaro could tell from his tone that he wasn’t just pleased because his hunch had proved out. For the first time in a long time, he’d helped an investigation move forward.
“Today, when we saw the first news—”
Kotaro paused. Am I really going to say this?
“—everybody at Kumar totally freaked out. They were over the moon. They thought the Serial Amputators, the people who killed Ayuko, had been captured.”
Shigenori sighed. “I’m sure they did. That’s how everyone is reacting. Japan has been hypnotized by a phantom. People haven’t woken up yet.”
“Keiko Tashiro will never be arrested.
No one will hear her confession, because I nailed her.”
“You’re right, kid.”
“Even if they solve those other murders, people at Kumar will never get closure,” Kotaro said. “They won’t be able to hold on to that feeling of relief they had when they first heard the news today.”
What Kotaro needed just now was someone to tell him to stop worrying about it, that it was over and done with and couldn’t be helped. He needed someone to drill that into him and let him off the hook.
But Shigenori wouldn’t play ball. “It’s not just the people at Kumar. Saeko Komiya’s family and relatives, her friends and the people she worked with—they’ll never lose that knot in their chests.”
The truth Kotaro had been running from was suddenly staring him in the face and wouldn’t let him look away.
“You got involved with the dark side, kiddo. You took the law into your own hands. Now you see the result.”
“But … I couldn’t …”
“Let it go. You can’t take back the past. Just don’t make the same mistake again. That’s all you can do.”
A dressing down or some blistering criticism would’ve been easier to take than Shigenori’s preaching. I can’t stand this guy.
“I wanted retribution. I thought doing anything else would mean letting them off easy.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He just hit END. The phone didn’t ring again.
In the morning, the news shows were still banging away at the break in the Tomakomai case. Every channel had its panel of experts trying to get a handle on what it meant if the “first” murder in the series wasn’t the work of the Serial Amputator.
The textboards were in the same mode, with people vying to make sense of the news and rejiggering their profiling theories. Some insisted stubbornly that the arrests had been a mistake, that the two men had been falsely charged. All five murders could only be the work of one man—the Serial Amputator!
I call on the Serial Amputator to make a statement. To understand what you really want, we need more than that letter you sent to the media.
Comments like this were all over the boards, and they brought a response. “Yes, I am the Serial Amputator. I killed my first victim long before Tomakomai, and I’m planning my next even as we speak.” This was what passed as humor for some.
Words. A torrent of words. Utterance upon utterance, piling up endlessly. But these mountains of words were invisible to ordinary people. They were invisible to upstanding citizens of the web and to those in the shadows waiting for a chance to do harm. No one felt them growing heavier with each passing moment.
No one can monitor them. That’s why I had to—
Hanging from a strap on the train, Kotaro stared at his face reflected in the window. The face of Kotaro Mishima. He’d had it for nineteen years.
What would it look like through his left eye?
You’ve got huge fangs …
You betcha. Me and Makoto’s giant, we’re thick as thieves.
His phone vibrated. It was Asako. She hung up as soon as the message service connected and tried again.
He got off at the next station and called her. This wasn’t normal. It had to be some kind of emergency.
“Hey Mom. What’s going on?”
“I’m leaving for the hospital.” She sounded relieved to hear his voice. Her own voice was trembling. “Mika’s been injured.”
“Mika? How? At school?”
“I don’t know the details, but they say she fell down the stairs. She hit her head and they took her away in an ambulance.”
Takako Sonoi worked for an international trading company in the heart of Tokyo, near the Imperial Palace. It took Kotaro thirty minutes to get there. On the way he got a text from Asako.
Mika is alert and talking.
He walked into the steel and chrome lobby of a futuristic skyscraper, went to the reception desk, and demanded urgently to see Takako Sonoi. He waited impatiently for a few minutes, complained at the desk again, and steamed for another ten minutes before she emerged from one of the elevators.
“Ko-chan? What’s going on?”
“Did you check your phone?”
“I was making a presentation,” she said. “It was off.”
She looked very much at home in a stylish black suit with black high heels and a white dress shirt. Her makeup was elegant. Kotaro had never seen her dressed for battle; to say she looked impressive would’ve been an understatement. But as he told her what had happened, the blood quickly drained from her face.
“Aunt Hanako is so upset that she’s bouncing off the walls, so Mom’s at the hospital. You better get going too. I sent you the address and phone number. I can take you there if you want.”
Takako was still pale, but she pulled herself together quickly. “No, I’ll be fine. I’ll leave right away. You shouldn’t miss class. I really appreciate your coming to tell me.”
“Are you sure you’ll be okay?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll text you as soon as I see how Mika’s doing. Thank you,” she said and gave his shoulder a firm squeeze. She turned and dashed back to the elevators.
Caught up in the moment, Kotaro gave in to temptation and closed his right eye.
So far everything he’d seen with his left eye had been ugly, if not horrible, but he was sure Takako’s word body must be completely different.
The elevator opened. Takako got in, turned and waved to Kotaro.
Two pure white wings rose above her head. To Kotaro, they looked like the wings of Pegasus, folded behind her back. Their wingspan would probably be wider than she was tall. They sheltered her from harm and, with a good wind, could take her as far as she wanted to go. The edges of each feather sparkled. In motion, they would be sure to leave a powdery wake of light.
Those wings are protecting Mika too.
He wanted to tell Takako that she had beautiful wings. Maybe then she would use them to fly straight to Mika.
Kazumi had told him Takako was touchy about her inability to be there for Mika, the way Asako could for her own children. But if Asako had seen her today—even without her wings—she surely would’ve felt outclassed.
Kotaro’s morning lecture was distilled boredom. As he sat there fighting drowsiness, he got a mail from Mika.
Ko-chan, I’m sorry you had to worry. I slipped and fell down the stairs. I’ve got a lump on my forehead!!
The message ended with a tearfully laughing emoji.
Mika wasn’t excitable or impetuous. Kazumi, maybe. Mika was down-to-earth. Perhaps she’d been thinking about something, let her attention wander, and slipped.
U-ri the wolf. Kotaro stirred uneasily in his seat, remembering what Yukiko Morisaki had said that day in the park. Mika’s troubles aren’t over.
But Mika said she’d just slipped. It must’ve been a simple accident. There was no point in assuming the worst. That was a slippery slope.
Just before class ended, Kotaro got the grade on his latest report: C minus.
Stick to your studies.
He shook his head. Now Shigenori’s words were echoing in his ears.
When he arrived for the evening shift, things at Kumar had settled down. Naturally, the atmosphere of calm was alloyed with disappointment and gloom. Seigo’s desk was empty and only a few members of Drug Island were on duty. Kotaro took a seat next to Maeda and went to work.
After about an hour, Maeda said abruptly, “Narita’s quitting at the end of the month.”
It took Kotaro a few moments to digest this fresh serving of bad news. “I didn’t know.”
“I think he’s the third chief to leave.” Maeda stared at his monitor. “The move’s been rescheduled. Have you heard?”
“No, nothing specific.”
“It’s not next March. We close at the end of this year. Too much bad stuf
f has happened. First Morinaga disappears, then we lose Ayuko. And we still don’t know the truth.”
Kotaro felt a stab of guilt.
“What do you think? Tomakomai was a one-off, but is the Serial Amputator real?” he asked.
“I don’t know what to think,” Maeda said. He put his hands behind his head and arched his back to get the kinks out. He turned to Kotaro and smiled ironically.
“I don’t believe anything anymore. Now that I look back at it, that statement the media got smells like a hoax.”
Kotaro wanted to smile ironically too, but something held him back. “I heard that a friend of Ayuko’s and Seigo’s from college disappeared right after the murder.”
Maeda’s eyes widened in surprise. “You are plugged in. Where did you hear that?”
“Someone talking.”
Maeda leaned toward him. Kotaro did the same.
“I heard something myself. The police are treating her as a suspect.”
“Her? The suspect is a woman?”
“Yeah.” Maeda nodded and paused. He seemed to be sizing up Kotaro’s reaction to this bit of information.
Playing dumb was easy, but it got on Kotaro’s conscience. He looked away and said, “Just like Kenji. It’s spooky.”
“Yeah, but this woman has nothing to do with Morinaga. She has everything to do with Seigo, though.” Maeda lowered his voice to a whisper. “Ayuko was seen with her the night before she was found. A security camera filmed them. They say she also called Ayuko before that, when she was in a taxi.”
“Is she a suspect?” Kotaro fought to calm the pounding in his chest. He feared what he might hear next.
“Seigo had to meet with the cops again today. They’re going to search her apartment.”
So it had finally come to that. Kotaro wanted to clap hands with joy. He wanted to shout. Instead he clenched his fist under the table, fighting back the urge.
He was fighting back something else as well. The police were talking to Seigo again.
They’re not finished with him.
“Seems like there was some kind of triangle, I guess you’d call it.” Maeda scratched his head awkwardly. “They say you can’t tell what happens between men and women behind closed doors. I don’t have much experience in that area, so I couldn’t say.”