Grotesque

by Natsuo Kirino

  When no news of the murder came to light, even after several days had passed, the defendant asked Chen-yi to help him find another job. Chen-yi suggested that the defendant join him at the pachinko parlor, an offer the defendant declined, saying the establishment was too noisy. Chen-yi promised to continue looking on the defendant’s behalf.

  Item 6: The Discovery of Hirata’s Body and Subsequent Circumstances

  Hirata’s body was discovered ten days after the crime on June 15 when the occupant in the neighboring apartment, a Korean national, reported an offensive odor to the building owner. The owner went to the apartment to investigate and found the door unlocked. When he entered the apartment he found Hirata’s corpse. She was clad only in a T-shirt, a light blanket covering her head.

  Decomposition had already set in, but it was still possible to discern unusual marks on Hirata’s throat and blood had pooled in the soft tissue of her neck region and the membrane along her thyroid gland. When the news of Hirata’s death broke, the defendant realized he would not be able to return to the Shangri-la to collect his back wages. And fearing the necklace he had stolen would link him to the crime, he hid it in the pocket of one of his suitcases. Finally, worried about running out of money, he went back to Chen-yi and told him he would take any job he could find.

  Chen-yi introduced the defendant to a part-time job as a janitor at the love hotel Dreamer, located at 1 Honmachi in Kichijji, Musashino City. The defendant accepted the job and began work from July of that year.

  OVERVIEW OF THE PROSECUTION’S OPENING ARGUMENTS: COUNT NO. 2 OF THE INDICTMENT

  Item 1: The Victim Kazue Sat

  The victim, Kazue Sat (hereafter Sat), was born April 4, 1961, the eldest daughter of Yoshio and Satoko Sat. Yoshio was employed by G Architecture and Engineering Firm. When Sat was in her first year of elementary school, her family moved from miya in Saitama Prefecture to the Kita-Karasuyama area of Setagaya Ward, Tokyo. Sat attended local elementary and middle schools, advanced to Q High School for Young Women, and from there entered the economics department of Q University.

  Sat’s father died when she was in her sophomore year of university, and as a result Sat had to take part-time jobs as a tutor and cram school instructor in order to pay her tuition fees.

  Sat graduated from Q University in March 1984 and was employed in April by G Architecture and Engineering Firm, where her father had worked. As the largest firm in the industry, G was known for close relations among employees, earning the nickname G Family Company. Moreover, the company actively recruited the children of employees. When Sat, who had a distinguished university record, entered the company as a member of the General Research Department, she was the first woman to be assigned such a high position, and her future with the company held great promise.

  In 1985, Sat was promoted to the position of assistant manager of the research office. This office is responsible for analyzing economic factors affecting construction, developing new analytical software programs, and so forth. Sat mostly conducted research on the economic effects of high-rise buildings. Her work was valued highly by others in the firm, and she was dedicated to her job.

  However, she did not socialize with her superiors or colleagues after hours and, because she had no close acquaintances within the firm, no one really knew what she did after work. Sat never married. She lived with her mother and a younger sister. After her father died, Sat provided the main financial support for the family.

  In 1990, when Sat was twenty-nine, she was sent provisionally to an engineering research laboratory affiliated with G firm. At this time she was hospitalized for anorexia. Sat had been diagnosed with and treated for anorexia when she was a sophomore in high school. In May 1991, Sat began to work part time as a hostess at a club in the evenings after work. In 1994, she started meeting men in hotels for compensated sex; finally, in 1998, she became a full-fledged prostitute working out of the Shibuya area.

  Yuriko Hirata, the victim named in Count No. 1, and Kazue Sat both attended Q High School for Young Women, but they were in different classes and did not interact with each other either during or after their years in the school.

  Item 2: The Defendant’s Personal Circumstances as They Relate to the Present Case

  After the commission of the crime described in Count No. 1 of this indictment, the defendant resigned his jobs at both the tavern, Shangri-la, and the flophouse, Futomomokko, and took up employment at the love hotel in Musashino City known as Dreamer. However, he did not change his domicile and continued to live at 404 Matoya Building, 4–5 Murayama-ch in Shibuya. Other than the aforementioned Dragon, Huang, and Chen-yi, two other Chinese nationals, by the name of Niu-hu and A-wu, stayed at the apartment from time to time.

  The defendant worked at Dreamer every day of the week but Tuesday, from noon to ten at night, cleaning the guest rooms, washing the linens, and doing other menial tasks.

  When he began working in 1998 he was industrious and dependable, but in the following year his attitude toward work gradually changed. He would arrive late and leave early and frequently missed work altogether. Cleaning the guest rooms was a two-person assignment. The defendant’s behavior affected the work rotation and inconvenienced his partner, an employee from Iran, who lodged a complaint against him. Moreover, the defendant was written up for taking naps in the guest rooms; pilfering soap, shampoo, and towels; watching adult videos in the rooms; and other such inappropriate behavior.

  In February of the same year, a local resident reported seeing the defendant take the condoms the hotel supplied its guests, fill them with water, and hurl the water-filled condoms from a hotel window at the cat owned by the sushi shop next door. At that point the hotel owner first considered terminating the defendant.

  At that time the defendant earned an hourly wage of ¥750 yen for an average monthly salary of approximately ¥170,000. He received no additional allowance for transportation costs. The defendant, whose income had been reduced in comparison to what he had earned while working at the Shangri-la, began to borrow from his apartment mates. He borrowed ¥100,000 from Dragon, ¥40,000 from Huang, and ¥60,000 from Chen-yi. He told them his mother had been hospitalized back in China, and he had to send her more funds.

  He also borrowed from Niu-hu and A-wu, who occasionally stayed over in the cramped apartment. And he continued to receive rent from Dragon and the others as before. Consequently, the relations between the defendant and his boarders grew progressively worse. Even Chen-yi, with whom the defendant had been on relatively good terms, grew embittered when the defendant lost his standing with his employers at Dreamer. Chen-yi had been the one to introduce the defendant to his employers.

  On March 25, 2000, Dragon, Huang, and Chen-yi, knowing it was the defendant’s payday, decided to press him to return the money he had borrowed from them. The defendant had planned to pay each man half the sum he had borrowed but, because the three knew he had over ¥240,000 in cash in a locked suitcase, they refused to accept his terms of repayment. They also argued with him for extorting so much rent from the three of them.

  Under pressure, the defendant had no choice but to accede to the new terms his boarders presented. He agreed to pay a total of ¥200,000 back to the three men to cover the money he had borrowed and an additional ¥50,000 each to cover the past disparity in rent. The defendant had to resort to his Dreamer salary and the money he had until then been hoarding.

  As a result, the defendant had only ¥60,000 left, which he had to stretch over the rest of the month, until his next paycheck. The hardship this imposed further weakened his relationships with Dragon, Huang, and Chen-yi.

  About the same time, Chen, under whose name the apartment at 404 Matoya was being rented, had been pressuring the defendant to find another place to live. Beginning in January, Chen informed the defendant several times that he wanted him to vacate the apartment by mid-March. When the defendant complained that he had nowhere else to go, Chen offered to let him stay until the end of April. He also informe
d him that there was a vacancy in a neighboring building: unit 103 in the Green Villa Apartments at 4–5 Murayama-ch, Shibuya-ku. For a fee of ¥150,000 he would assist the defendant in renting the apartment. As these circumstances make clear, the defendant faced endless and escalating money problems.

  The Iranian who worked with the defendant at the Dreamer later revealed that the defendant’s reason for borrowing money—even though he had a sizable sum stashed away—was because he was saving up to buy a passport. It was his goal to travel to America.

  Item 3: Conditions at 103 Green Villa Apartments

  The Matoya Building at 4–5 Maruyama-ch in Shibuya-ku was a four-story ferroconcrete building about one hundred yards north on a narrow one-way road just across from the north side of Shinsen Station on the Inokashira-Keio Train Line. The Green Villa Apartments, scene of the crime under discussion, was a wooden building to the north of the Matoya Building. With one floor belowground and two above, space in the Green Villa was occupied by a number of small shops in addition to residences. Both buildings were owned by Fumi Yamamoto.

  There were three residential units in the Green Villa Apartments. The crime under discussion took place in unit 103, which faced out on the one-way street. Unit 102 was unoccupied; Kimio Hara lived in unit 101. On the west side of the building was a metal exterior staircase leading to the second floor. In the basement, directly below unit 103, was a small eatery known as Seven Fortunes.

  On the south side of the building was a narrow concrete sidewalk providing residents of the building access to their apartments from the road. On the south side of unit 103 was the exterior door that led to this sidewalk, as well as a window at about eye level. Upon entering the apartment, the kitchen was on the south wall and next to it a six-mat Japanese-style room with tatami flooring. Between the entry hall and the six-mat room was the toilet.

  Chen had been introduced to Fumi Yamamoto by relatives and had rented unit 404 in the Matoya Building for ¥45,000. He in turn had rented the apartment to the defendant for ¥65,000. His relatives had opened a Chinese restaurant in Niiza City, Saitama Prefecture, and needed the apartment as a place to board employees. That is why the defendant had to vacate the premises. When the defendant complained that he had no other apartment to rent, Chen spoke with the landlady, Ms. Fumi Yamamoto, and made plans to rent the unit in Green Villa Apartments from her. When the defendant said he wanted to see the unit, Ms. Yamamoto gave him the key to unit 103 on January 28, 2000.

  Shizu Kakiya had rented the apartment in question up until August 18, 1999, when she passed away. The apartment had been vacant ever since. The gas was cut off in September of 1999 and the electricity the following month.

  There was only one key to the apartment, which Ms. Yamamoto possessed. She lent it to the defendant on January 28, 2000. Until that time, no one else had used the key.

  Item 4: The Relations Between the Defendant and the Victim

  On or around November 1998, the defendant learned from his apartment mate Huang that he had “met a Japanese woman on a dark street and had had sex with her.” The woman’s distinguishing features were that she was thin and had long hair. When he heard this, the defendant was convinced it was the same woman he’d seen in the neighborhood from time to time. Toward the middle of the next month, the defendant ran into Sat on his way home. Recalling Huang’s story, he turned to look at her. When she saw this, she called after him, “Do you want to fool around?” When the defendant did not respond, she continued, “Can we go to your room?” The defendant declined, stating that he “had friends staying there.” To this Sat replied, “How many? I’ll do them all.” When he heard that, the defendant brought Sat back to his apartment at 404 Matoya.

  At that time two of the defendant’s roommates were in the apartment, Dragon and Chen-yi. The three of them took turns having sex with Sat. Later, around January of the following year, the defendant was walking with Huang when they came across Sat in the Murayama-ch area. “Is that the woman you slept with?” the defendant asked Huang. When Huang nodded, the defendant said he’d slept with her too. Huang had already heard from Dragon around December 1998 that the defendant, Dragon, and Chen-yi had had sex with the woman in the apartment. When he told the defendant as much, the latter replied, “Well, actually, I first met that woman about a year ago.”

  Item 5: Events Leading to the Crime

  On (Saturday,) April 8, 2000, at approximately 4 p.m., Sat left her home without saying where she was going. At approximately 6 p.m., she met up with a company employee whom she had seen on several occasions earlier. They met at the statue of Hachiko in front of Shibuya Station. From there they went to a hotel in Maruyama-ch, Sat received ¥40,000 from the man and, just before 9 p.m., she and the company employee parted ways at the top of Dogenzaka. Sat was seen heading toward Shinsen Station.

  That same day the defendant had gone to work at Dreamer. At 10 p.m. the late-shift worker arrived and replaced the defendant. The defendant boarded the 10:13 Keio-Inokashira Line train bound for Shibuya and headed home. When he reached Shinsen Station, he got out and began walking toward the Matoya apartment building, which was only two minutes away.

  The defendant encountered Sat within a few feet of his apartment building and decided that he would have sex with her again. But Dragon, Huang, and Chen-yi were at home by now, and he was no longer on good terms with them. He hesitated, therefore, not wishing to take her back to the apartment that he shared with them. As luck would have it, however, he happened to have the key to unit 103 in the neighboring Green Villa Apartments, for reasons already described. He took her to that apartment and had sex with her there.

  Sat had condoms with her, taken from hotels she had visited with customers. She selected one from among her stash—a condom from the Glass Palace Hotel, as the wrapper read—and had the defendant put it on before they had sex. After the sex act, the defendant tossed the used condom along the sidewalk to the south of the Green Villa Apartments.

  As previously noted, the defendant was short of money. When he saw Sat preparing to leave, he decided he would steal from her. Just after midnight, Sat put on her coat and began to pull herself together in preparation to leave. The defendant snatched her brown leather handbag. However, the victim struggled with him. He punched her in the face, and then, seized with the desire to kill her, he placed both hands around her neck and strangled her until she was dead. Then he unclasped the metal fitting on her purse and pulled out the wallet inside, taking from it ¥40,000 that she had received earlier. Leaving her body as it was, and leaving the door to the apartment unlocked, he fled back to his room at 404 Matoya.

  Satoko Sat, the victim’s mother, began to worry about her daughter when she did not return home on the evening of April 8. Up to this point, Sat had never been out all night. On Monday, April 10, when Satoko learned that her daughter had not gone in to work that morning, she filed a missing persons report.

  Item 6: Events Following the Crime

  The defendant calmly reported to work at Dreamer on April 9 as though nothing had changed. After work he went with two colleagues to Inokashira Park to drink beer. At approximately 11:30 p.m., he boarded the Inokashira Line at Inokashira Station and headed home.

  The next day, after he had finished work at Dreamer, the defendant met Chen-yi at Shibuya Station. They went to the ramen noodle shop Tamary on the east side of the station. Following this they went bowling at the Shibuya Meeting Hall alley. When they had finished, they discussed Green Villa and decided not to move there, as it was even smaller than their current apartment in Matoya Building. Further, the defendant indicated that he was planning to move to ¯

  Osaka to find work there.

  The eleventh of the month was the defendant’s day off. He went to Niiza City in Saitama Prefecture to meet Chen. The defendant gave Chen ¥100,000, informed him he would not move into the Green Villa Apartments, and gave Chen the key to unit 103. That night Chen returned the key to the landlady, Ms. Yamamoto, at her residence in Sug
inami Ward. Yamamoto in turn handed the key to her son, Akira, who ran the company that supervised both the Matoya and the Green Villa apartments.

  Item 7: Discovery of the Body

  On April 18, when Akira Yamamoto was on his way to visit an acquaintance who lived on the first floor of the Matoya Building, he decided to check to be sure the door to unit 103 in the Green Villa Apartments had been locked. Once he approached the apartment, he looked through the eye-level window which was beside the apartment door. A small opening in the window allowed him to peer into the apartment where he saw, in the inner room, the upper body of someone who appeared to be sleeping. He speculated that the person was either an acquaintance of Chen’s or a Chinese national who was employed in his restaurant. Akira Yamamoto called out and tried the door. It had been left unlocked. A woman’s shoes were lined up just inside the entryway. Yamamoto was unpleasantly surprised when he realized the interloper was a woman. It was at this point he noticed a strange smell permeating the apartment and, without making a sound, he turned and left the apartment, locking the door behind him. The door was the kind that could be locked from the inside without a key. One only needed to push the button on the knob.

  The following day, April 19, Akira Yamamoto grew concerned about the person he had seen sleeping in the apartment. What if the person continued to stay there? And what about that smell? Worried, Yamamoto headed back to the apartment with the key. When he looked in through the window he noticed that the individual was lying just as she had been the day before. Yamamoto unlocked the door, entered the apartment, and discovered Sat’s corpse.

  Other than the strangulation marks on Sat’s throat, there were contusions on her head, face, and limbs—indicating that she’d been struck with a blunt object—and scratches on her as well, as though she’d been dragged. The soft tissue of her neck region and the membrane along her thyroid gland had hemorrhaged.