I had no intention of getting caught, least of all by someone as preposterous as her. So I ran. First to Ishigaki Island on an overnight ferry—was there ever such a sleepless night?—and then on to Taiwan, slipping free of Japanese jurisdiction. Or at least, that was the plan: to island-hop along secondary routes until I could melt into the liberating confusion that is Taipei. But the Ishigaki airport was being watched, and my banshee was drawing ever nearer. I could feel the noose tightening, my throat constricting, was having trouble swallowing.
A final ferry, one last island, and I find myself here on this godforsaken outpost at the end of Japan. There is nowhere left to turn and, as I scribble down these words, I remember a hollowed-out home on Shankill Road, a scratch card win and the false hopes it engendered, like riches lost in a swamp, and I wonder if I should ever have left Belfast to begin with. When I look ahead, I see only darkness. I can find no way forward, no way back, and with the dying of the light, I find myself—
* * *
THAT WAS THE POINT THEY realized they were no longer reading a confession, but a suicide note.
A young US military clerk with pit-pony eyes, a corporal by the insignia on his shoulder, quietly lay the clicker to one side.
Projected onto the screen in front of him was the final entry in the diary of Billy Moore, esq., (deceased). A fan rattled in the corner, more audible assurance than actual temperature modification. Even with the blinds closed, meeting room 2-B at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa City, US Armed Forces, was basting in its own heat. A narrow table ran the length of the room, and in the middle of the table, like a holy relic or a lost manuscript, was the journal itself, sealed in a plastic evidence bag, its blood-bespeckled pages blurry but visible within. A jug of water, sweaty with condensation. Ice cubes melting into nubs. Rings of wetness along the tabletop. Notebooks and pens, and aligned on either side of the clerk, radiating outward like a scene from the Last Supper, a dozen figures sat, partially silhouetted, facing the screen, printed transcripts in front of them, but all eyes on the screen, on the original diary itself, its spidery handwriting slanting down to the edge of the page: I can find no way forward.…
SHARDS OF BONE
IN 2-B, AN ASSEMBLAGE OF uniforms had gathered, Japanese and American, military and prefectural police, dress whites and navy blues, caps parked on the table in front of them like cars in a lot. Among these uniforms were the loosened ties and disheveled presence of civilians as well: members of the British consulate, their attendance more pro forma than anything. The dead was one of theirs, after all, even if it was the Americans who had cornered him and the Japanese who had pounced. The layers of paperwork and flurries of requisitions required to set up this trinational briefing represented a bureaucratic feat—or nightmare, depending on one’s point of view. And all of it to catch one poor soul from the streets of Belfast.
“Would someone mind turning on the AC? If it’s not a bother.”
“It is on.”
Can build a stealth bomber, but can’t figure out how to cool down a room. The damp-faced Brits shifted in their seats, smiled in that uniquely ingratiating way of theirs, waited for the corporal clerk with pit-pony eyes to move on to the next slide.
The silence grew, became heavier. They were waiting for something to happen, but weren’t quite sure what.
Within this Last Supper arrangement, a dark-haired woman, face drawn in broad strokes, sat in the Judas position, steadfast and stoic. No uniform, none was needed; she carried her authority in her deportment and unblinking gaze. Her name was Andrea Addario, an alliterative arrangement which often gave rise to jabs about Alcoholics Anonymous or, considering how rarely she drank, Assholes Anonymous, though not to her face. Never to her face. Lieutenant Addario was the highest-ranking member of Interpol’s ICA division in the room, and this—ultimately—was their investigation.
Standing behind her, and the only person not seated, tall and thin and angry, was the banshee herself, arms crossed at having weathered a barrage of insults from a dead man. Pale hair. Skin so thin as to be translucent. Eyes a startling blue. As lead investigator, she should have been triumphant, at the very least satisfied, but Agent Rhodes was neither. If anything, her frown was more deeply etched than ever, thin lips bracketed by angry parentheses. Everyone in the room was aware of her presence. Painfully aware.
Farther down were Officers Gushiken and Kawaishi, whose work was now complete. Officer Gushiken was dying for a cigarette, almost literally. (The cancerous sac in his left lung would not make its presence known for several months.) Officer Kawaishi, younger and more attuned to international sensibilities, had had his name rendered in English on the business cards he presented at the start of the meeting: “River Stone,” he said. “My name means River Stone,” which had annoyed Officer Gushiken, because his name didn’t translate as readily.
Gushiken was older, with softer angles and a rheumy gaze—and isn’t it odd how life wears down the edges like pebbles polished in the tumbler of a tidal pool. They could have been before and after photos, Kawaishi and Gushiken: Before the Years Piled Up, and After. They were there to answer any questions that might arise about the Japanese side of the operation, but there were no questions that needed answering. Gushiken and Kawaishi had executed their manhunt admirably, with a poised precision that reflected well on their department. A language interpreter sat beside Officer Gushiken whispering words, which Gushiken ignored, as a point of pride primarily.
At the far end of the table was the person hosting this confab: Colonel Andrew J. McNair, flight commander, Second Wing, Kadena Air Base. Eyes too small for his face. The type of man who looked on life as a series of tactical maneuvers. The lowly corporal overseeing the slideshow was afraid of the colonel, even though the colonel himself went out of his way to present a portrait of patience and good manners. A false portrait, to be sure, but one he came by naturally; a touch of the Deep South hung about the colonel the way mist might cling to a landscape. Not quite a drawl, but the memory of. He turned with a slight tilt of the head. “Son?” he said.
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
The clerk jumped to the next slide. The last pages of a man’s life.
* * *
—peering over the edge of a precipice, into a greater emptiness. I have been chased to ground by an unrelenting agent of iniquity. The banshees of Ulster are small creatures; mine is a towering figure capable of straddling oceans. (With my earthly departure, I can only hope she will find solace in what is surely a loveless and lonely existence.) But I delay the inevitable. It is time for me to exit, stage left.
With sins unforgiven, I face the darkness alone, a single shell in the chamber. All those countless things I shall remember: the moribund plans and pre-emptive surrenders, the scotched schemes of lesser men, this torn and tortured world. A reliquary of broken dreams. A bone drawer of mistakes.
The past haunts us all, I suppose, with its usual regrets and small defeats, the might-have-beens and should-have-saids, the lovers we let slip from our embrace. And Agent Rhodes, what haunts you, late at night when the darkness comes?
The past fades like skywriting, dissolving into air: my mother at the Europa Hotel, laughing in the half light, a single sad moment of happiness in a life that was hardly worth the living. May God have mercy.
* * *
A MOMENT OF SILENCE, AND then—
“Fuck this.”
It was Agent Rhodes.
She squeezed around the table, not caring who she jostled, snatched up the plastic-encased journal with a lack of respect that caused the clerk to gasp. “This?” said Rhodes, holding up Exhibit A. “Pure unmitigated bullshit.” She threw it back down onto the table with palpable disdain. It landed like a slap. “Fuck this and fuck him.”
Lieutenant Addario, sharply: “Agent Rhodes—”
“It’s not him.”
“We have the body.”
“You have a body.”
“We recovered the artifacts.”
“
You recovered those artifacts he wanted you to find.”
Lieutenant Addario took a steadying breath, brought her temper into check. “We have his journal, don’t forget.”
Suicide is always a form of confession. Agent Rhodes knew this, but she stood her ground nonetheless, stubborn, defiant, unreasonable. She gestured to the plastic-encased relic before them. “This? This isn’t a confession. It’s an elaborate prank arranged for his amusement. He’s laughing at us.”
“He’s dead.”
“No. He’s not.” She referred again to the journal. “That’s a transcript, a spoken record. You can hear it. A narration. This was dictated.”
“By whom? He was alone.”
“And the wound?” Rhodes asked. “A shotgun—to the face? Really?”
“Not unheard of,” Addario replied. “Unusual, but not unheard of. And again—if he didn’t pull the trigger, who did?”
Rhodes ignored this, turned to the British representatives in the room instead, who were befuddled by what was going on. This was supposed to be a simple briefing, a formality, not a sparring session, certainly not a cross-examination. They’d been told the investigation was complete; they hadn’t expected to walk into an internecine firing range.
“Sidewalks,” said Rhodes. “In the UK you would say ‘pavements,’ am I right?”
“Well yes, but—”
“I take this text, run it through analytics, I fucking guarantee more anomalies will jump out. It’ll be riddled with them.”
Addario sighed. “He spent much of his time in the company of Americans.”
“That’s true,” said one of the Brits. “A certain amount of vulgarisms are bound to have rubbed off. I know, I sometimes catch myself saying ‘gas’ instead of petrol.” He started to laugh but no one joined in.
Agent Rhodes referred again to the Last Testament of Billy Moore wrapped in plastic in front of them.
“He refers to ‘sins unforgiven.’ No self-respecting Presbyterian would talk like that. They believe in predestination; one is born damned or saved, sin hardly enters into it. Those are Catholic sentiments.”
Addario again, losing patience: “But he isn’t self-respecting. That’s the point. You’re asking for theological consistency in a suicide document?”
“It’s not a suicide document. This—this so-called confession tells us absolutely nothing. Except maybe what he isn’t. The only thing we can say for sure is that he isn’t from Belfast, he isn’t Irish, he didn’t grow up on Shankill Road, has probably never been to Belfast, wasn’t raised in poverty by a sad-eyed single mother, poor baby. He no doubt had a doting father, lots of siblings, never found a one-pound coin in a ruined home, never met a mysterious figure in a tropical tavern. And I’d wager my badge that he can’t whistle a tune to save his fucking life.”
“So,” said one of the Brits with a slight smirk. “We’re looking for a non-Irish, non-poor, nameless, faceless someone who can’t whistle.” He’d meant it sarcastically, but Americans are always so inept at reading irony.
“Exactly,” said Rhodes. “We have to flip this entire thing on end. Start with the assumption that everything he wrote was designed to mislead us, to send us off the scent. We went one way, he went another. Why on earth would anybody try to escape by fleeing to Hateruma? There are easier ways to get to Taiwan.”
“He explained why,” said Addario, not bothering to hide the weariness in her voice. “Weren’t you paying attention? He made it very clear.”
“A tiny speck at the very end? Hateruma Island? Really? He knew he would get caught, wanted to get caught. He wanted us to find that body, wanted us to find this journal. It was the only way to get us to call off the hunt. I was closing in, that part is true. I almost had him, I could taste it, the fear and finality, his arrogance dissolving. Panic setting in. So, what does he do? He leads us as far away from him as possible and then slips free. It was a feint, that’s all it was. An act of misdirection.”
The Japanese were confused. “Feint?” asked Officer Gushiken.
“Like in a magic show,” said Rhodes. “You know, when they draw your attention to one hand, while they’re palming a coin in the other.”
The interpreter whispered in Officer Gushiken’s ear, but this only confused the matter more. “He was—magician?”
“Not actually, no, of course not. What I’m saying—”
Lieutenant Addario interjected. “What Agent Rhodes is saying is that she does not accept the authenticity of this document. Agent Rhodes worked many years in our forgery investigation department. However”—she glared at her unruly protégé—“Agent Rhodes was dealing with art and archeological artifacts, not written documents, certainly not diaries.”
“I can still smell a fake. Can smell it from here. It reeks of artifice.” She turned to the clerk. “Go back,” she said. “The previous page.” The clerk complied, and Rhodes pointed to the screen. “Here, and here. And here. He repeatedly insults me. Why?”
What followed was a pause so pregnant one was tempted to boil water and gather up bedsheets. The Americans didn’t want to say anything. The Brits looked everywhere except at her. The Japanese were conciliatory.
“Please, Miss Rhodes-san,” said Officer Gushiken. “Do not feel sadly. He is very impolite, what he says about your appearance. I can assure you, on behalf of my colleagues, that we find you very—”
“Oh, for chrissake. It’s not that my feelings were hurt. I don’t give a shit what he says, I want to know why. Look, if you were writing your final confession, would you go out of your way to poke someone in the eye like that? It was a message. To me. He’s mocking us, he’s mocking me—not from beyond the grave, but from whatever beach he’s currently lounging on, no doubt raising a toast to the linear predictability of law enforcement officials. We’re investigators; we live and die by Occam’s Razor. The simplest solution is the preferred solution. That’s our greatest strength, and our greatest weakness. He’s using that against us, presenting us with a perfectly packaged explanation, wrapped up with a bow—and we’re using Occam’s Razor to cut the ribbon. He’s laughing at us!” She delivered that last line more sharply than she intended.
“I see,” said Officer Gushiken, but of course he didn’t. These foreigners, always flying off the handle. It must be exhausting to be a gaijin. The interpreter whispered, “She’s saying something about a razor.”
Lieutenant Addario, voice curdling. “Ms. Rhodes has spent a great deal of time and energy on this case. She may be having trouble letting go. It happens sometimes.” Addario was trying to get her agent to sit down through sheer will.
Rhodes chose not to notice. Instead, she stood in front of the projector with the words from Billy Moore’s journal tattooed across her stomach, facing her Last Supper as though it were a jury of her peers, hands knotted in front of her. She was fiddling with her empty ring finger, rubbing it, twisting back and forth as though turning a ring, a nervous habit that she was hardly aware of anymore. “He’s not dead.”
Lieutenant Addario, to the room. “Shall we move on?”
But Gaddy Rhodes wouldn’t let it go, couldn’t let it go. “If I’m wrong,” she asked the room, “if—then why the second grave? Answer me that.”
No one could, because they didn’t understand the question.
“Um, a second grave?” one of the Brits hazarded. (They were more or less interchangeable, these men from the consular office.)
Rhodes, twisting the missing ring on her finger more urgently now: “O-jina. The Island of the Dead.” She turned to the clerk. “Bring up the map of Okinawa, the main island. The Motobu Peninsula north of Naha.”
When the contours appeared on the screen, Rhodes moved closer, pointed out a small drop of land offshore. “Here. Where the peninsula turns back. A small island, an islet really. Just a stepping-stone between Yagaii-jima, here, and the main island of Okinawa, over here. No one lives on O-jina, though its population numbers in the tens of thousands. It’s a burial island.”<
br />
“Dying to get in, I imagine,” said one of the Brits brightly. But nobody appreciated the joke, and his smile fizzled. Fuckin’ Yanks.
“O-jina used to be off-limits,” Rhodes explained. “Almost taboo. A spooky place accessible only by small boat. But a few years ago, the prefectural government built a pair of bridges at either end, pinning O-jina in place, connecting it to the rest of the main island. Traffic now rumbles across the islet unimpeded. This has shortened driving times considerably, but it’s also stirred up sleeping ghosts. At least, that’s what the locals objected to—and were blithely ignored.” She turned to the clerk. “Bring up image file O-JINA.”
A photograph taken on the island was now flung onto the screen. A crowded venue, O-jina, replete with tombs and stone pillars, burial sites stacked this way and that, practically on top of each other at times. A village without people.
“Among the dead that live on this island are members of royal lineage. The main Kara Family tombs were located in the south, at Shuri Castle. These were destroyed by the American bombardment during the war, but the lesser outlying family graves escaped relatively unscathed, were left undisturbed. Until now. The pottery we recovered in Hateruma came from—”
She looked to the corporal, who was struggling to keep up. An expansive turtleback tomb, larger than those around it, appeared on the screen. The front had been split open.
“—this tomb. He went in here”—she pointed—“with no attempt to cover it up. The break-in was quickly discovered by the caretaker the next morning.”
“Agent Rhodes, we’re all familiar with the facts of the case.”
“Whoever entered—”
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