by Eiji Mikage
He said she usually parked her BMW at a pay-by-the-month lot half a mile from her apartment. Patrol vehicles had been parked at the lot near her place because officers from the Mukojima Station were patrolling the area. Akiyama also had no idea why she had such an expensive car.
Plus, the BMW hadn’t been returned to the parking lot. It was possible the murderer used it as a way to transport her body. However, using the victim’s car to transport the body was usually unthinkable. Even if the murderer knew about the car only through a loose acquaintance with Reina, using the car would be tipping the police off and would narrow down the perp profile.
Why did the body need to be moved in the first place? If you move the body, obviously you risk being seen in the process. Why did the killer have to get rid of the body in the park in Odaiba? Did he want the body to be discovered early in the morning?
There was something confusing and elusive about the killer’s actions. This wasn’t just a shoddy attempt to cover his tracks. And it made me sick to think it was intentional.
To begin with…Reina Myoko, that ethereal woman, couldn’t have been just another victim.
We’d determined from her dental records that the corpse was indeed her, but I kept doubting.
“Ughh,” I muttered. I lay my face on the desk and gave up. I’d exceeded my mental capacity. I took my commuter card wallet out from my pants pocket without moving from that defeated position.
I opened the wallet, revealing the face of a young woman, bright as a sunflower.
“Looking at photos again?” Yamaji asked.
I panicked and closed the wallet.
Yamaji hesitated, but in the end decided not to say whatever it was and instead stroked his stubble.
“Princess,” he said. “Now, this is just my impression, but I get the sense that this case isn’t straightforward. It reeks of something fishy. This isn’t going to be open and shut.”
“Ditto,” I agreed.
Part of me was pleased I had the same impression as a veteran officer like Yamaji. But as an officer, I wasn’t thrilled that my instinct was right.
“But here’s the key,” Yamaji said. “We have to solve the damn thing before they put together an investigative task force. And to do that, we need an ace up our sleeve.”
“An ace?” I wrinkled my brow. At the academy we’d learned there were no shortcuts. We were supposed to approach investigations earnestly, one step at a time. An ace up a sleeve was the exact opposite of that.
Yamaji strode quickly toward the window without waiting for my response. He marched right up to Section Chief Masatsugu Otawara like he was pretty proud of himself, looked Otawara in the eye, and for some reason placed a lollipop on his desk.
“I’m gonna do it my way, as usual.” He grinned.
Section Chief Otawara was huge, both vertically and horizontally, forming nearly a perfect sphere. He scratched at his buzzcut and picked up the candy. He opened his eyes so widely they looked like they were going to roll right out of his head, and looked at me.
I never would have said this to his face, but if one of those tanuki raccoon dog statues outside restaurants really did transform into a human, I had no doubt that it would look just like Section Chief Otawara.
He scowled and crossed his arms, forcing his already tight-fitting suit to stretch audibly.
“You’re taking Uguisu to see Dr. H already?” he said in a deep voice to Yamaji. “You don’t think it’s a little soon?”
“Well, the Princess has only been working under me for two months,” Yamaji admitted. “But it’s probably all right. Her instincts as an officer notwithstanding, I think we can trust her as a person.”
It was difficult to tell whether I was being complimented or insulted.
“Fine, then,” Otawara shrugged. “I’ll leave it up to you.” He put the lollipop in a desk drawer and curtly returned his attention to paperwork. Yamaji smiled, said “Thanks” quickly, and that ended their interaction.
Despite the awkwardness of their being so near in age but different in ranks, the two of them seemed to have a long-held trust. It was kind of cool to see, to be honest.
“What’s up with the candy?” I asked when Yamaji came back. I was a little embarrassed to ask about something so trivial.
“It’s a little bet we have. He gives me 10 to 1 odds. If they start an investigative task force before I solve it, he keeps it. If I solve it, he gives me ten of them.”
“Those aren’t great odds for you. There’s no way you solve the cases so quickly every time.”
“Oh, you think not?” Yamaji boasted. “I’ll have you know my squad car has been fully stocked with candy for the past year.” He put another lollipop into his mouth with a grin. “You must be at least a little interested as to why I never run out.”
4
Yamaji parked his personal car, a vintage white Toyota Crown, on the edge of Shinonome in Koto Ward. The single-story house we were headed for had a handsome wood exterior that exuded warmth and style. The building was a little off of the main drag, but for a single-story building surrounded by residential high-rises, it was a pretty luxurious structure.
I got out of the car and took a quick look at the area around the building. Lush trees lined the street in neat rows, and a well-appointed black table had been set up on the terrace. The minimalist sheet-copper door stood out, and all in all the exterior of the building was nicely designed.
“This is crazy!” I cried, awed. “Pretty ritzy café you got here, Yamaji. I thought you were one of those guys who only goes to grungy mahjong parlors!”
“Café?” Yamaji said. “What the hell are you talking about? Read the damn sign! This is Higano Mental Clinic. It’s a psychiatry clinic.”
“What? A hospital?”
I looked at the sign near the entrance and saw that it was exactly as Yamaji said. I couldn’t believe such a fashionable space was a hospital. It had to be some kind of joke.
The sign read “By Appointment Only.” Underneath, the hours noted that it was open until 6:00 P.M. Currently, it was 6:30. If it really was a hospital of some sort, it was already closed.
“And Princess, what was that you said?” Yamaji asked. “Grungy or something rude like that?”
That had been what I’d said, but now wasn’t the time to deal with it, so I ignored him and changed the subject. “So, you’re going to teach me the secret to solving cases, right? You mentioned there’s a secret detective or something?”
Detective.
The character in TV shows and mystery novels who was somehow always pulled into a murder case, had rare powers of insight and deduction, and solved the case without the help of the police. It was a line of work that, in reality, mostly investigated cheating partners, in which the detective acquired personal information through methods of dubious legality, and used that information in fishy ways. That was my image of a detective.
“Don’t get so worked up,” he said. Yamaji gave the copper door a pull, which was locked, so he rang the doorbell.
After a moment, the door opened.
“Hello, Yamaji,” a voice with a nasal twang sounded. A woman stepped out.
She had brown hair which paired well with her fair complexion, done up in an impressive updo that had probably taken hours. Her large eyes were downturned at the ends, and were bright and adorable. Overall, she was so cute people probably wanted to take care of her instinctively. Her makeup was stylish and perfect, but her face was really well balanced and would’ve looked great even without makeup. She seemed to be in her early twenties.
She was a looker from head to toe, and I could tell she knew it. Ninety percent of women probably yelled out, “My God, you’re precious!” the first time they met her. When we looked at each other, she gave me a sweet and subtle smile.
“Ugh,” I muttered. I didn’t have much in terms of f
eminine charm myself, so I sometimes scowled without realizing it when I was around such perfect tens and had to face my own inferiority. To top it off, next to me my unshaven, middle-aged old man of a partner was openly ogling her. It pissed me off that he’d never looked at me that way.
“You’re not telling me that this woman is the detective?” I sniffed.
“Obviously not,” Yamaji retorted. “She’s the receptionist here.”
“This isn’t really a hospital, is it? Where’s the detective?” Was Yamaji messing with me?
“Dr. Higano is still finishing his paperwork,” the woman said. “Please wait inside.” She looked directly at Yamaji and smiled. Which caused him to blush and avert his eyes like he was a teenager. I was totally confused. The stock in Yamaji I’d bought into earlier had peaked and was rapidly plummeting past my stop-loss price.
“So, Yamaji, who is this woman?” she asked and looked deep into my eyes boldly. She wouldn’t have been able to pull this off unless she was seriously self-confident. I wanted to run away.
“This is Uguisu, one of the rookies,” Yamaji introduced me.
“Actually,” I broke in, “I’m Sergeant Yuri Uguisu, with the Tokyo Bay 1st Investigative Unit.”
“Well, well,” she said. “So I see.” She gave my whole body a long, careful, unrestrained look. Suddenly, her expression, which had been relaxed to that point, stiffened into a hard mask.
Her gaze stopped on my right hand, the one that Reina Myoko had complimented.
“Umm, what are you looking at?”
Her smile quickly reappeared, and she giggled. “Just try not to flatter the doctor.”
“What?”
She revealed her name was Erika Shirasu. She gave off a disturbing hostility that only other women would sense as she guided us into the clinic. I noticed her shiny pink nails.
I asked Yamaji, “So this Dr. Higano, is he the detective you’re talking about?”
“That’s correct,” he affirmed. “He’s a psychiatrist as a day job, and a detective on the side. He doesn’t advertise it, but supposedly he’s submitted all the paperwork to be a detective.”
“He gets clients without advertising?”
“He makes enough as a doctor without any clientele as a detective, so he doesn’t seem to mind. That said, he’s got talent, so I think he gets a lot of detective work through word of mouth.”
I took another look around the waiting room to try and get a sense of what kind of person this doctor might be.
Like the exterior, the interior was also a fashionable café incarnate. I had trouble believing it was a hospital, or a detective agency, for that matter. In addition to the leafy-green couch we were sitting on, there were two other stylish sofas, a modern-looking ceiling fan hanging from the white ceiling, and spotlight-style lighting installed evenly throughout. Jazz flowed from the speakers at a perfect volume.
The design alone made it a very strange hospital. But even that was a minor detail compared to the aroma wafting through the waiting room.
The waiting room was rich with the smell of coffee. Behind the reception desk there was a shelf lined with bottles filled with coffee beans, a coffee siphon, and a coffee mill.
Dr. Higano was definitely not your ordinary psychiatrist. I guess that should’ve gone without saying the moment I learned he also moonlighted as a detective.
“Please, have some coffee while you wait,” Erika offered.
She had just finished elegantly preparing pour-overs (I wondered about the unused siphon) and put the mugs on coasters for us. I carefully brought the coffee to my mouth and was overwhelmed by the rich aroma and delicate acidity. I was really more of a tea drinker, but I did love the flavor of coffee. And this was far more delicious than anything a coffee chain could produce.
The flavor was impressive, but I wasn’t in a café. I was in a hospital. The disjunction of the atmosphere and the setting made me unable to enjoy the coffee Erika had gone out of the way to make.
“Excuse me, Erika, do you ever have any patients who have trouble relaxing in a hospital like this?”
“We definitely do,” she said. “But those patients choose to go somewhere else, so it’s fine. There are psychiatric practices everywhere these days. Patients should choose the hospital for them. Dr. Higano always says that we should provide our services for patients who enjoy them and find them relaxing.”
I might’ve been biased, but that didn’t seem like a good management policy for a hospital.
“But most of the patients really like Dr. Higano,” she continued. “We’re doing so well that we’re basically unable to see new patients.”
To be honest, I was starting to get pretty interested in the Doctor myself.
So I jumped when his deep, booming voice echoed from his exam room: “Sorry to make you wait, Yamaji,” he said. “You can come on in. Erika, you can head out if you like.”
“Ah,” she replied in a sweet voice, instinctively touching her hand to her cheek. “It’s no trouble. I’ll wait until you finish.” She took a fashion magazine from a rack and perched herself on one of the sofas. She undid the bun on her head, put a piece of gum in her mouth, and deftly put her hair into a pony tail on one side of her head. I could almost see the pheromones emanating from the nape of her neck.
Damn, I was impressed. Her feminine wiles were flawless. It was as though she were constantly under observation by some organization dedicated to the assessment of feminine charm.
“Time to go, Princess,” Yamaji called me. He ignored me, still fawning over Erika, stood, and knocked on the wooden door. “Doc, thanks for making time.”
I gulped and repeated weakly, “Thanks for seeing us.”
The aroma of coffee grew more intense right as the office door cracked open. The room behind the door was decorated in a monochrome style, and was almost obnoxiously well put together. A black bookshelf contained documents and dense-looking academic tomes. On top of the shelf was an SLR camera and lens, maybe one of his hobbies, and a silver puzzle of some sort. He had a coffee mill and bottles filled with coffee beans in here, too.
On the other side of the black desk sat the one and only Dr. Higano. I could feel the anticipation building in my chest.
My stomach felt tight and I blurted out, “Ah.”
The man sat in an Aeron office chair manipulating a glass cube puzzle. He was unlike anyone I’d ever seen before. He was so tall and slender it seemed like he might snap in half, and he had ghostly white skin. But he gave off a sense of vitality rather than of weakness. He was like a reed made of steel. He wore an Armani suit underneath his white doctor’s coat. It looked like he’d been born in that outfit.
Blue irises filled the center of his narrow eyes, and he had a handsome face with a well-defined nose, but his face was bereft of emotion or warmth. It was all intense pressure.
Nevertheless, there was nothing uncomfortable or off-putting about him. He was cold enough that you could’ve convinced me he was an android, but he also made me feel strangely at ease.
Dr. Higano set down the glass cube puzzle with his long, bony fingers, and raised his shoulders as though taken off guard. He narrowed his eyes, looked at me with a glance as sharp as an icepick, and then said, “Beautiful.”
My entire body went numb.
“Your right hand,” he said. “It’s absolutely stunning.”
“Ah.” I instinctively hid my hand behind my back. I was embarrassed and unable to stay composed when it came to physical attraction.
It was pretty natural to get flustered when a man as attractive as Dr. Higano called you beautiful.
But why was I so worked up? I felt like it had to be more than just that.
I kind of felt like he’d targeted me or something. And not in the normal way that you’d target someone romantically.
“Come on, Doc,” Yamaji interrupt
ed. “Stop teasing the help. Princess here hasn’t had a boyfriend yet. She might trip and fall for you.”
“You have n-no idea whether I’ve had a boyfriend or not!”
“C’mon now,” Yamaji said. “Don’t underestimate the deductive powers of a veteran law enforcement officer.” He made a camera with his fingers and thumbs and directed it at me. “Hmm. Judging from the steam rising off of your body…I’ve got it—you’ve never even been with a man!”
“I could write you up for sexual harassment!” I almost shrieked. Yamaji was such a crude old man.
Dr. Higano smiled with just the edges of his mouth and ignored our exchange. “Now then,” he broke in, standing and reaching his hand out to me. “I’m Dr. Seiren Higano, psychiatrist and part-time detective.”
I struggled valiantly to hide my embarrassment and timidly returned his handshake. “I’m Sergeant Yuri Uguisu, with the Tokyo Bay 1st Investigative Unit.”
I’d only intended to give his hand a gentle shake, but Dr. Higano firmly grasped my hand with both of his like he was trying to memorize its shape.
“Not much flesh on your hand,” he observed. “Very thin. The hand of a hard worker.” My face reddened, a stark contrast with Dr. Higano’s cold hands.
“You always give your job title when you introduce yourself,” Yamaji said blandly. “That’s a sign of a lack of confidence.”
Yamaji’s snide remark drained the blush from my face. His comment sobered me. He occasionally did come in handy.
“Well, maybe that’s because I do lack confidence,” I admitted. “Nobody looks at me and thinks ‘She’s a cop who investigates serial killers.’”
Dr. Higano released my hand and narrowed his eyes, looking fascinated. “You do take pride in the work you do, correct?”
“Yes. I take pride in it,” I answered immediately. There was no confusion there.
Or rather, I had no confusion in providing that response.
“That’s enough of an introduction for the rookie,” Yamaji said. “Sorry to get right to it, but we’re here for your advice, Doc. This morning we found a woman’s body with the face removed and left foot cut off. The name of the victim is Reina Myoko. Happens to be Princess here’s high school classmate, apparently. At this point, the suspects are the victim’s boyfriend, her fiancé, and her father, her only relative. That’s it. Now, the details of the case—“