Masquerade and the Nameless Women

by Eiji Mikage

  “W-Wait a second, Yamaji!” I sputtered. “Giving out victim and suspects’ personal information is a total violation of confidentiality!”

  “Don’t be such a hardass,” Yamaji said. “The brass already know.”

  “Already know?” I paused. “Now that you mention it, Section Chief Otawara did seem to be really okay with us coming here…”

  “I’m the only one that works with Doc, so you should be thanking me. I found him.”

  “What?” I asked. “I just wanted to know why an officer who’s supposed to uphold the law would be bending the rules!”

  Yamaji sighed resignedly. “I thought you’d say something like that. Look here, Princess. You’ll figure out soon enough that in this line of work you’ll never solve any real world crimes if your investigation is strictly by the books. Like the sting operation you were working on this morning. If you did one thing wrong, it’d be illegal, right?”

  “What I was doing this morning and this here are…”

  Totally different, I wanted to say. But I couldn’t bring myself to say it.

  “Princess, what is your highest priority?” he asked.

  “It’s…” I trailed off. Of course, I wanted to catch the serial killer Masquerade.

  “You don’t have to say it,” Yamaji let me off. “For me, it’s all about justice. I want to catch the criminals that have taken over society and create a more peaceful, decent place, even if I make only a microscopic contribution. If I have to break a few rules to do that, then that’s the breaks. What do you think?”

  If we could catch Masquerade by leaking details of the investigation to Dr. Higano, then I had no choice but to do so.

  I’d taken a vow. There was nothing I wouldn’t sacrifice for that.

  “You still don’t seem convinced.” Dr. Higano smiled.

  “N-No, I’m fine.”

  “I meant that you still don’t seem convinced you can trust my abilities as a detective. Would you say that’s the case? If only I could somehow convince you…Ah, yes. May I demonstrate for you my detective powers of deduction?”

  “Your powers of deduction?”

  Dr. Higano took the glass puzzle in his hands and pointed it toward me. Smaller versions of me were reflected in the transparent cubes.

  “Hmm. Ah ha,” Dr. Higano mused, with little consideration. Then he became assertive. “You became a policewoman to take revenge on Masquerade.”

  “What?!” My eyes bulged open. Yamaji must’ve said something to him beforehand, but when I looked at Yamaji he was shaking his head.

  “In order to do so, you had to cut ties with a close friend. You live on your own, and you keep some distance from your family. Recently you’ve been suffering from headaches.”

  I haven’t mentioned any of these things to anyone. Not even Yamaji. Dr. Higano was able to guess these simply by having me look at his puzzle.

  “Is this some kind of joke?” I wanted to know. “Are you trying to say all of that was reflected inside your stupid puzzle?”

  “Unlikely,” he grinned. “That would make me a fortune teller. I am a psychiatrist, and a detective. I’ll add that this is merely a glass puzzle, not a crystal ball.” He set the puzzle on his desk.

  “Then how?” I asked.

  “It’s quite simple. In the few minutes since you arrived, I observed you and was guided by logical inferences. Fortunately for me, they all seem to have hit the mark.”

  “There’s no way you could get all that with just inferences…”

  Dr. Higano saw me wrinkle my brow and crossed his arms. “I’ll start with the easiest to explain. First, the reason I knew you’re having headaches. You probably don’t even realize it, but since you arrived you’ve ground your teeth a number of times. You seem to be constantly anxious. Your automatic nervous system must be thrown off. You’re constantly in a state of being clenched, so your shoulders tighten up. Even now I can tell that the muscles between your head and shoulders are stiff. This can lead to headaches. You should make an effort to relax more in your day-to-day. I’d recommend drawing a bath with your favorite powder, having a warm soak in the tub, and then put on some relaxing music just before bed and light a pleasant-smelling candle.”

  “I feel like I’m getting a physical…”

  “My apologies. I’m sort of a workaholic.” He laughed for a second and then continued. “The other thing that I’ve noticed from observing you is the frequency of your double bind reactions.”

  “Double bind?”

  “I mean the times when what you said didn’t match your facial expression. Based on the timing of the double binds I could see, you haven’t fully accepted the fact that you’re an officer. However, you’re trying to convince yourself that it’s what you want and that you take pride in it.”

  I pursed my lips.

  “This is what I’ve gathered from the tone of your voice, the way you dress, and your facial expressions. I’m sensing that you’re very serious and patient, but have a certain anxious sensitivity?”

  “I’d agree, but…”

  “This corresponds with the characteristics of someone with a type A personality.”

  I frowned before I could stop myself. “I actually am type A, but…I’m sorry, Doctor Higano, I thought that blood type personality theory didn’t have any scientific basis? I heard that humans have such multifaceted personalities that we tend to think we fit whichever blood type people tell us we are.”

  “That’s the Barnum effect. That’s how fortune tellers are able to do what they do.”

  Here he was again with the technical terms.

  “As you mentioned,” he continued, “there is no scientific basis for links between blood type and personality. However, there is a psychological phenomenon called labeling theory. When people are labeled, they have a tendency to go along with those labels. To give you a concrete example, if those with type A blood are told by those around them from a young age that they are very diligent, they themselves become convinced that’s the way they are, and they start to behave like someone who is type A. That’s what I mean.”

  I could see where he was coming from. However, my blood type had nothing to do with his conclusion that I’d joined the police to get revenge.

  “I can tell that you’re a pretty straightforward person. Can you deny the fact that you’ve been influenced by that label?”

  “I think I have been influenced,” I admitted.

  I’d been a so-called “good kid” for as long as I could remember.

  Someone said I was “mature,” so I acted that way, and then someone would say I was “clever,” so I studied hard. That’s definitely how I was wired.

  “After seeing how you behaved, your parents must’ve wanted you to be more typically feminine, didn’t they? But in reality, you are in some senses the exact opposite of traditionally feminine. You became a police officer who investigates brutal crimes. Judging from the frequency of your double binds, you’re still resisting it yourself. For you to become an officer given those conditions, you had to have been incredibly motivated and determined. I can imagine how difficult it was to betray the expectations everyone had of you and how you must’ve consciously recalculated all the relationships you’d had up to that point. For you, Sergeant Uguisu, it was natural to think your circumstances compelled you to become an officer.”

  There was no way for me to respond. My mouth was strangely dry.

  I mean, everything was spot on. And his logic was flawless. Hearing it put like that, no one would be surprised by how I turned out.

  But this was impossible. I’d only just met Doctor Higano today for the first time.

  “My deductions made it that far and then I got caught up on one thing: your name. Uguisu isn’t a very commonplace surname. I remembered that Masquerade’s first victim had the same surname. That’s when the pieces
started to fit together. I realized that being close with one of the victims might make a powerful motivation.” Dr. Higano quickly moved the pieces of his glass puzzle. “It was an obvious conclusion to reach. Just as obvious an ending as death is for a murder victim.” He put all the different aspects together and finally put them into words: “You joined the police to take revenge on Masquerade.”

  * * *

  —

  Nadeshiko Uguisu. My sister.

  Nadeshiko was two years younger than me, but you never would’ve thought we were related. She was as bright as I was plain. Whatever she did had a halo about it, as though she were trying to share the light she was imbued with.

  She was popular wherever she went, always at the center of attention. Our family was not an exception to this. I often felt like Nadeshiko had the leading role and I was nothing more than a lucky actor who happened to have the same agent and got tossed into the same production.

  That is, until my second year of high school, when Nadeshiko was murdered.

  Her beautifully expressive face, which had flashed like a kaleidoscope, was cut off, and her porcelain white left hand was cut off by the wrist. Nadeshiko as a corpse was, surprisingly, just a dead person—it was still so strange to me. She wasn’t a leading actor in another world. The world didn’t end because of her death.

  Only one family was destroyed.

  Nadeshiko Uguisu’s murder was Masquerade’s first crime. Her case was rehashed in the media over and over and eventually kneaded into a caricature.

  * * *

  —

  A photo of her was broadcast over and over on TV. In it, she had a sheepish grin and wore no makeup. She seemed to be asking the photographer to stop taking her picture. The photo was shared online and showed no sign of disappearing. There were some people who wanted to blame the victim for her own murder, so the baseless slander of my sister was endless.

  Because the killer was so famous, we, her relatives, weren’t even able to forget the painful incident. Whenever we turned on the TV, whenever we got online, we often found ourselves ambushed by her death as it was shoved in our faces. We were left injured, emotionally wounded, like bystanders killed by a samurai randomly testing a new blade.

  When I decided to become a policewoman, everyone around me tried to persuade me against it. They argued things like:

  “Best just forget about it.”

  “You should stay on your own path.”

  “Revenge isn’t the solution.”

  I understood what they were trying to say. I knew that they meant well. I might have even given similar advice to someone else in my shoes.

  But it had happened to me.

  Don’t pretend that you understand.

  I’d been robbed of any path other than the one I’d taken.

  However—and others may not get what I’m saying here—it wasn’t like my world became a fiery landscape fueled only by my passion for revenge just because I became an officer. I lived my life as usual. I enjoyed what I could of the world each day.

  I just couldn’t forget about what happened to Nadeshiko. I was constantly praying. Praying for a future in which Masquerade was caught and exposed as the stale, diminutive, cowardly criminal he was so that the world would lose interest and we could, finally, quietly bury my sister’s death.

  * * *

  —

  Yamaji gave a dry clap of his hands. I returned to my senses.

  “Impressive, Doc,” Yamaji said. “I think even Princess will welcome you to the case after that performance.”

  I gripped my wallet; it never left my side. When I thought of the photo inside, I was filled with hatred for her murderer.

  Yamaji had been right. I did want to catch my classmate’s killer as quickly as possible.

  “Dr. Higano,” I said. “We’d appreciate your help with the investigation.”

  If asking for his help meant breaking the law, I didn’t know whether it was the right thing to do.

  But at this point all I could do was bow and ask for his help.

  “Alrighty,” Yamaji said brightly. “That settles things. We’ll tell you everything we know so far.”

  After Dr. Higano finished listening to everything we’d established, such as the alibis of everyone involved, he took his glass cube puzzle in his hands again and slowly started to rotate it. After a few rotations, he suddenly stopped and crossed his arms with the puzzle still in one hand.

  “I may have enough material.” He relaxed his jaw. “Yamaji, I’ll need your help with the arrangements. Can you get all three of them together in the same place quickly?”

  “Just like always, Doc. I thought you’d say that, so I already asked my guys to take them in at eight and put them in interrogation rooms at the station.”

  “Impressive as always, Yamaji. Well done.”

  I listened to their exchange in a daze. I mean, they made it seem like they already had the killer in their sights.

  But then I saw Yamaji put another lollipop in his mouth with a look of relief and I understood.

  He did think he had him. Dr. Higano took this perplexing case from us the second it got difficult for Yamaji and me and solved it based on the background info alone.

  I shook my head before I realized it. “No, no,” I said. “That’s impossible! You haven’t even seen the crime scene, Dr. Higano! No matter how good you are, you have to admit it’s way too soon to make any conclusions, right?”

  “Perhaps,” he replied humbly, but in his eyes I could see that his confidence was unwavering.

  “You don’t get it,” I protested. “Reina Myoko was a special person, she’s not just some victim.”

  “No, I do get it. Strange though it may be, she was not just a victim; she may have been the killer.” The way he said this made it difficult to tell whether he was joking or not. Then he smiled at me.

  Yamaji saw that I was getting flustered and came up behind me and patted me gently on the back. It was as though he were trying to say, I know how you feel but try to understand.

  “So, Doc, off to the station?” Yamaji prompted.

  “Yes. But before that, there’s something I’m very interested to ask you, Yuri.” Dr. Higano pointed his narrow eyes right at me. “Who do you think is the killer?”

  “What?” I said, confused.

  Yamaji looked at me and slowly shook his stubbled face. “Do we really need her input, Doc? She’s basically an amateur with a badge.”

  “She’s by no means an amateur. When someone is completely obsessed with a single thing, I’m quite interested to hear what they have to say.”

  I’d been left hanging out to dry, and now he was looking out for me? But Doctor Higano’s eyes were serious. He really thought I’d be a useful resource.

  The look on his face demanded a serious response, even if I ended up saying something ridiculous.

  “I…”

  There were other people with motives in this case. The methods didn’t have the same panache as Masquerade. The killer didn’t take the severed body part with him. And the victim herself was so mysterious.

  However, that didn’t change my theory.

  “I think Masquerade is the killer.”

  I’d planned to keep quiet about my theory until we had enough evidence so I wouldn’t get laughed off the case. But faced with the earnestness in Dr. Higano’s eyes, I told him what I was really thinking.

  “Princess, Princess,” Yamaji intervened. “There’s no fucking way it’s him. I told you, if you can’t look at things objectively, then you should piss off. Are you paying attention at all?”

  Unsurprisingly, he looked incredulous and started scratching his head.

  However, the serious look on Dr. Higano’s face didn’t shift. His eyes seemed to be flashing even more intensely.

  “Yuri,” he said. “T
here’s evidence disproving the theory that Masquerade committed this crime. It may not be definitive, but surely you’d agree it exists, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yet you still insist it was Masquerade. Are you suggesting you have evidence that would discredit the material we already have?”

  “That…I don’t have.”

  Yamaji shook his head in frustration with the lollipop hanging out of his mouth.

  “I want to take on one of Masquerade’s crimes. I’m well aware that I have bias. But I’m not playing fast and loose. I don’t have any evidence, but I do have a reason.”

  “I want to hear it,” Dr. Higano encouraged me.

  “I considered the theory that Masquerade committed this crime…and came to this conclusion: it’s incredibly convenient for Masquerade that Reina Myoko happened to be the victim.”

  Yamaji still had a harsh look on his face. “What the hell was convenient? I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “It’s…a little difficult to explain it all…”

  “Do you mean that her feet were very beautiful?” Dr. Higano said.

  “That’s my premise. But there’s more than that…”

  I began to lose confidence as I spoke. I started to realize exactly how baseless my theory was.

  “Doc,” Yamaji said. “I don’t think we have to take Princess’s advice here seriously, do we? She’s got too many things clouding her thinking.”

  “We do, Yamaji. Masquerade is infamous. I’d like to hunt him down as well. And no one wants to catch him more than Yuri. Even if her obsession produces ideas that are theoretically off the mark, they still have value as a reference.”

  “So that’s what you’re up to.” Yamaji scratched his jaw.