Masquerade and the Nameless Women

by Eiji Mikage

  “Let’s assume that Reina’s yet-to-be-discovered BMW was used to transport the body. We return to the original question: let’s think about why Reina, who went so far as to live in a ramshackle wooden apartment to conceal the fact that she had money, didn’t have a driver’s license and yet had a luxury car. It had to be because she drove celebs and guests from the secret club in the car and wouldn’t have been able to fool them if it wasn’t a high-end vehicle, right? Having a luxury car and Shota as her chauffeur were essential to her operation. However, owning a luxury car would damage the front she worked so hard to create. So obviously she tried to hide the fact that she owned a BMW as much as she could. That’s why she parked it at a lot half a mile from her apartment.”

  His theory was convincing.

  “The killer took advantage of this fact. He moved around in the BMW no one knew was hers, killed her, abandoned the body in the park, and then erased all traces connecting him to the crime before returning the car to its original location. He may have even removed evidence from her apartment linking Reina to the BMW to prevent the police from finding the car so quickly. He must’ve known that if he wrapped up everything before the police knew about the BMW, they wouldn’t ever realize it had been used to transport the body. However, things didn’t work out so neatly.”

  It came to me, and I said, “The Mukojima police were already watching the parking lot.”

  “Exactly. Whether he was shaken by the severed foot or through some negligent slip, Shota, who had been living with her and hiding the money, let the police in to the BMW early on. He was the driver, or possibly even the owner in name, so obviously he would’ve known about the car. The killer hadn’t been expecting that. Because the police were guarding the parking lot, the killer couldn’t return the BMW to its original location.

  “So where is the BMW now? I’d guess he slipped it into a large parking garage to make it more difficult to find. But he only had a single day after he killed her, so he wouldn’t have been able to put together a real elaborate plan. If the police put enough manpower on it, they’ll turn up the car.”

  “So if we locate the BMW…” I said.

  Dr. Higano nodded and finished my sentence: “…It might have some evidence.”

  But the woman quickly cut in. “So what you’re saying is you can’t find any evidence here, and you may not find any in the car either?”

  Dr. Higano smiled wryly. He was trying to provoke Koichiro to force him to confess. The woman was clearly trying to prevent that with her quick response.

  However, her efforts were fruitless; Koichiro was starting to react.

  Dr. Higano pointed at Koichiro’s pants pocket.

  I’d also noticed that Koichiro had a hand in his pocket ever since we started talking about the car.

  “If I am right, this will be a seriously lucky guess,” Dr. Higano said. “One definite proof of a person’s humanity is our inability to let something go or throw something away. We walk around with things because, irrationally, we think they’re safer with us than somewhere else. So perhaps the killer still has it with him.” He smiled. “The key to the BMW, that is.”

  Everyone noticed the obvious shift on Koichiro’s face.

  “Time for a body search,” Yamaji said. He wrenched Reina’s father up by the shoulders.

  Koichiro’s face had gone pale and he was soundlessly shaking his head. He fumbled in his pocket and placed something on the desk.

  It was a car key.

  When “Otoha” saw this, she quietly sighed in resignation.

  No one could counter that.

  Dr. Higano, the detective, had completely taken over.

  He, too, sighed, and a concerned look appeared on his face. “As Ken said, the two of them really loved each other. Which is exactly why Reina went to such lengths to take her revenge…You get what I’m suggesting, right?” Dr. Higano’s voice turned scolding. “That love was forbidden.”

  Ken stepped across the room. He walked unhurriedly, even relaxedly. His face was as emotionless as a ghost’s, but in one fluid motion he grabbed the evidence bag off the desk near the door. We’d placed it there to gauge the reaction of the three men during their questioning.

  Inside the bag was the knife.

  Ken tore the bag and threw it away, brandishing the knife at Koichiro. He slowly approached him. It all happened so suddenly. The look on Ken’s face was completely unaligned with his actions, and in their confusion no one was able to react right away.

  “This man,” Ken said, his dead face starting to pour out globs of sweat. “He shouldn’t be alive.”

  Ken’s threat snapped me out of my daze.

  We had to stop him.

  But the knife had me frozen. I wasn’t used to the rough and tumble like Yamaji was, and I instinctually turned to him, counting on him to do something.

  “Ah!” When I saw Yamaji I realized his face was full of scorn for Koichiro.

  Yamaji and his warped sense of justice had no intention of getting in Ken’s way as he meted punishment out on this awful man.

  “This man…is just an animal.” Ken’s voice was shaking. His face had stiffened into a crude contortion. He looked more disturbed than angry. He wasn’t used to sharing his emotions; he was unable to express them clearly.

  But I’d never seen such rage before.

  To cut to the chase, it all ended quickly without Yamaji even having to get involved. Ken stood there heaving breaths, unable to move, the knife trembling in his hand until he released it and let it fall to the ground. He froze, hopeless and exhausted, and let his head hang down.

  Koichiro stared at the blade of the knife on the ground and suddenly cried out:

  “Reina’s scheme!

  “Forbidden!

  “Just an animal!”

  He was spitting back the phrases people had used about him. “I see.” He covered his face with his hands. “I see. So that’s what it was.”

  For a moment he remained with his hands over his face. He dug his fingers into his skin with immense pressure. It was as though he was trying to crush his own head with all the force he had.

  Then he took his hands away.

  “Whew,” he sighed.

  The face revealed under the hands was as expressionless as a Noh mask.

  He didn’t seem quite human.

  “Ken,” he said and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You called me an animal. Do you think that’s true?”

  Ken opened his eyes wide and lifted his head to look at Koichiro, who said, “I mean, children are the property of their parents, aren’t they?”

  Brutal.

  Words like that would’ve enraged anyone.

  Koichiro was starting to realize that himself. His own brutal statement was also a declaration that he no longer had anything to hide.

  No one responded. We all wanted to hear whatever else it was this poker-faced man had to say.

  Still expressionless, Koichiro slowly turned, looking at each one of us observing him, and then continued in his detached manner.

  “I had sex with Reina. Often. But what does it matter? She loved me, she wanted the pleasure. We weren’t related, so ethically there was nothing wrong with it either. You can’t criticize me for it. Actually, Reina loved me and was trying to avenge me, even after we got physical.”

  He shook his head.

  “However, Reina betrayed me. She got pregnant with my child and tried to keep it.”

  The tone in his voice made it sound like he had no responsibility for what happened.

  “I’m a politician. If the world learned that my adopted daughter had my child, I’d lose everything in an instant. Even if we managed to raise the kid in secret, there’d always be damning proof right there—living with us. It would be like living with a bomb. I wouldn’t have been able to put up with it. I persuaded R
eina to have an abortion, I thought she’d agreed. But in the end she wasn’t convinced. She threatened to go public with the fact that I’d impregnated her. She had the irrefutable evidence of DNA test results, too.

  “I was confused. Her behavior was bizarre. When I asked her if she wanted me to lose my job, she said she didn’t care because she’d raise the kid herself, she had that much money. Obviously, money wasn’t the problem for me. But I couldn’t handle being gossiped about, while she lived off the profits of her shady activities. There was only one solution.”

  Koichiro paused.

  “I had to kill her.”

  I could understand every word he said.

  But I was utterly unconvinced.

  “Why did you use such a violent method?” I asked. “You inflicted so much pain on your own daughter.”

  He responded as though it were obvious: “Because there’s no way in hell you’d ever think a parent was capable of doing something so cruel.”

  Someone screamed.

  Ken was yelling and tears were rolling off his face down to the floor.

  Koichiro looked over at Ken. There was the slightest shift in his previously expressionless face, but I caught it.

  Koichiro smiled, as though he were happy.

  I had to get out of here.

  “Koichiro Myoko,” Yamaji said in a clinically neutral tone. “You’re under arrest for murder.” But he couldn’t hide the anger on his face as he put Koichiro in cuffs.

  When I looked at Koichiro, an expression almost of relief floated across his features. And at this point, I wanted to abandon thinking any further of this case.

  However…

  I took a covert glimpse at Dr. Higano.

  Ahh!

  He’d let down his guard for a moment.

  Seiren Higano was toying with the glass cube puzzle he’d broken. He seemed almost…morose, an expression he’d never revealed before.

  * * *

  —

  And I still hadn’t forgotten what he had said when I first asked him, “Have you identified a suspect?”

  Epilogue

  After all was said and done, it only took one day to arrest the killer.

  The following day, we restarted our investigation with Koichiro Myoko as our primary suspect. He seemed to have no interest whatsoever in denying what he’d done, so it was almost too easy to assemble a case against him. However, I still got an email from Yamaji bitching about Koichiro’s lack of remorse.

  The media went wild as well.

  An incumbent member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly had killed his beautiful, mysterious adopted daughter in a copycat crime imitating the serial killer Masquerade. That was more than enough to whet the public’s appetite. No photos of Reina had turned up yet, but that didn’t matter for the public’s interest in the case. Conversely, everyone who’d known her said she was beautiful, which only stirred everyone up and hyped the media up even more. Television news covered the case relentlessly.

  News of their physical relationship hadn’t leaked yet, but given the intensity of the coverage, it was only a matter of time until someone sniffed it out. Of course, I felt like it would’ve been best for my old classmate’s sake if no one ever learned the truth.

  After the arrest, Section Chief Otawara gave me two days off as an acknowledgement of my hard work. The day after we caught Koichiro (which was, technically, just later the same day) I was totally beat, so the only thing I felt capable of was passing out in my room.

  However, there was something I had to take care of.

  So the day after the arrest, I took my trusty bike out for a spin at noon. I didn’t feel like going straight to my destination, so at first I cycled randomly along Odaiba’s coast. Odaiba had become one of the leading tourist destinations in the world, and the artificial parks filling the manmade island, funded by casino-derived tax revenues, were designed for maximum architectural, environmental, and psychological pleasure. Next to these unnatural displays of nature sprawled the sparkling casino hotels, which went beyond bad taste. There were no words to describe their level of kitsch and gaudiness. Their maws seemed to gape open and swallow up all those who gave into their desires. Fortunately for public workers like us, it was these gambling machines, which blessed the lives of some and destroyed others, that paid our salaries.

  And somewhere in this warped idea of a town lived my adversary, a serial killer.

  As I rode my bike, I saw news vans double parked all over the place, covering the murder. I couldn’t help but be reminded of the fevered coverage of my own sister’s murder. I couldn’t even spare any sympathy for the press guys hurriedly lugging cameras around.

  Please, I thought, use your freedom as the press to save as many people as you can, instead of hurting anyone.

  Despite my lengthy detour, I still managed to arrive at my destination precisely at 2:00 P.M., the time I had pre-arranged. Foreign pines lined the front of the pleasant wooden building.

  The psychiatry clinic that looked like a café.

  Also known as the detective agency without a sign.

  I rang the bell next to the copper door, and someone quickly opened it. It was the cute woman whose dyed brown hair was put up into a bun.

  “Hello there,” she said. “All by yourself today?”

  Erika Shirasu looked around with her big, smiling eyes and moved her whole body exaggeratedly, checking to see whether I was alone. The superfluous thought came to me that this over-the-top attitude was perhaps a method she’d developed to win over the opposite sex.

  “It’s, uhh, kinda non-work related…”

  I found myself trailing off the end of my sentence; her effusive femininity always brought out my inferiority complex.

  “Oh, non-work related? You’re meeting Dr. Higano for private reasons? Then maybe I should leave you two alone?”

  “I’d…appreciate it if you wouldn’t.”

  She snickered. “I’m joking. Please, come in. I’ll make coffee.”

  Erika held open the door with her right hand and beckoned me in.

  “Thanks…I thought that the clinic was closed today. You don’t have the day off?”

  “It is closed. But the detective agency is basically open 24/7.”

  “Do you help out with that as well?”

  “No, no. As if. Dr. Higano’s around, so I’m just taking a break here. He said it was ok for me to use this place as I would a café.”

  Erika walked behind reception with as much assurance as though she owned the place. She quickly took out coffee cups and put the water on boil. “I’m pretty particular about the temperature of the water when I do a pour over. The correct temperature varies depending on the degree to which the beans are roasted. These beans are medium, so 183 to 186 degrees would be an orthodox temperature.” She continued her coffee talk in a sing-song voice, evidently not caring if I was listening or not.

  “Umm,” I said.

  I didn’t really need to ask the question I was about to ask. And if I bungled it, Erika might start keeping her eye on me.

  But I couldn’t keep myself quiet. I had a surprising need to make sure everything was black or white.

  Erika had her back to me, so I went ahead and asked, “You’re Noi-tan, right?”

  She paused, holding the drip kettle mid-air. She turned to me with a serious look I’d never seen her make before and stared at me for a second.

  But then she said “What do you mean?” and tilted her head cutely as always.

  * * *

  —

  Erika said she had a date with her boyfriend (so she actually had one!), and headed out soon after she finished making coffee. I honestly couldn’t tell from the vague look on her face whether she was leaving to get away from the investigation or to give me time to be alone with Dr. Higano.

  After she left,
I watched the ceiling fan spin round as I sipped my coffee. I felt bad, but the coffee Erika had made so carefully only tasted bitter to me. I alternated between taking sips of it and sighing.

  Was I confident enough?

  I’d probably say something ridiculous and disappoint him.

  “Yuri, please come in.”

  Dr. Higano called for me, but it took me a second to muster up my courage and stand up from the leaf-green sofa.

  I knocked on the door and went into his office. I noticed all of his things: shelves of academic tomes, the SLR camera, his puzzle, a coffee mill, and a can of coffee beans. The monotone room hadn’t changed from when I visited the day before yesterday. The only difference was that today Dr. Higano was sitting at his black desk in his Armani suit, without his white coat.

  “You wanted to talk to me about Masquerade?”

  Dr. Higano looked up from the medical records on his desk and smiled at me.

  He gestured for me to sit on the white leather sofa. I realized I’d balled my fists up without knowing it. I slowly, carefully opened them, like I was solving one of the puzzle cubes on his shelf.

  I got straight to the point. “Yes. But before that, there’s something I wanted to confirm with you.”

  “Hmm,” Dr. Higano sounded focused, but he also seemed to be trying to guess what I was about to say.

  I took a deep breath. I had no idea what would happen once I said my piece. I was aware that everything I’d gone to the trouble of building up might come toppling down.

  However, I wanted to know the truth.

  * * *

  —

  “Koichiro Myoko wasn’t the killer…right?”

  * * *

  —

  “Right,” Dr. Higano admitted, almost too readily. “That’s correct. Do you mind if I ask how you arrived at that conclusion?”

  “Do you remember how you responded when I asked you, here in this room, whether you’d identified a suspect?”

  Dr. Higano just smiled and didn’t respond.