The Last Train (Detective Hiroshi Series Book 1)

by Michael Pronko

  Little by little, the workers found other jobs. Michiko tried her best to restart the factory, collect the little they were owed and postpone any of the bills she could. But without her father there to arrange new contracts, no new ones came in. Eventually, all that was left was Uncle Ono and a mountain of debt.

  She walked up the steel grate steps, stooping under the low ceiling, to the second-floor office. Metal desks were pushed together in the middle of the room. Along the back wall was a row of filing cabinets and glass-fronted bookshelves holding record-keeping logs, spiral notebooks, and file boxes.

  From the window over the factory floor, she looked down at the press drills, precision lathes, spray guns, and belt sanders. Seeing Uncle Ono working on the machines calmed her. He was so short he had to get up on tiptoes to reach the ball-end handles of some machines, but his wiry, pointed energy pulled them down with ease. Out of habit more than expectation, he kept the machines running, polishing the drill presses and making sure oil was worked into the points of friction on the grinder, thread roller and lathes, even though orders no longer came in.

  Michiko walked down the narrow hall to her childhood room. The room was packed tight with three beds, a study desk, two chests of drawers and a small closet fashioned from pipes. She dug in the drawers for an oversized T-shirt and pulled it on, dropping her other clothes in a pile on the pink shag rug.

  She sat on the edge of the bed, looking at her study desk. Its upper shelf held English dictionaries, textbooks and French self-study books, practice guides for college entrance exams, and brightly-colored preparation folders. On a small bookshelf, matching sets of manga in serial order were lined up next to novels in alphabetical order.

  The walls held a poster of Hide, her favorite singer, and Disney movie posters for Mulan, Cinderella and Pocahontas. A small box, covered in red washi paper held earrings, necklaces and bracelets, expensive gold she got as presents from clients mixed in with plastic junk she bought herself when she was young. She dug out a hair tie and spritzed perfume on the maroon pillow and futon to mask the mustiness.

  Her collection of kokeshi dolls—wooden, woman-shaped spindles with black hair and eyes and red lips and kimono—were arrayed on a shelf over her bed. The workers who specialized in lathe work from Miyagi and Akita made hundreds of these dolls for her, each a different height and width. Goddesses of the lathe, they formed a protective forest above her bed. With the gentle rumble of the workshop lathe and the soothing lotus perfume on her pillow, she fell deep asleep.

  Chapter 22

  For a moment, Hiroshi could see the eyes of the driver staring straight ahead before the train blurred into a flash and shot on. The whoosh of the massive steel, solid as a building, blasted a wall of air that made him step back to brace himself. The express train was so close he could touch it. And it was gone, though its slipstream sucked him a step toward the tracks and let him go.

  After a few minutes, the local slowed alongside the platform. Hiroshi got on the front car, right behind the driver’s cabin. The doors shut, and he looked in. The driver’s hand rested on a silver accelerator lever that eased the train forward at a steady pace. On the driver’s control panel, the speedometer and pressure gauge sprang and climbed. An old-style, wind-up train watch set firmly in a frame ticked the minutes between stations.

  The train picked up speed, and overhead wires, fencerows, piles of gravel, and sidetracked maintenance cars slipped by. Hiroshi blinked, focused and refocused on fleeting buildings, billboards, sidewalks, and streets. The speed gauge trembled at 80 kilometers an hour, not as fast as an express, but fast enough.

  When the train came to a stop in Chiba, Hiroshi phoned Akiko from the platform. She had left a message. As he listened to it, he couldn’t help but not notice the many passengers two short steps from the edge of the platform. After being down on the tracks to see Steve’s body, the yellow warning line—a row of raised-bump tiles—seemed useless to warn anyone of anything.

  “I was looking through the matching list of Japanese suicides. One of them seemed different,” Akiko said.

  “Different how?”

  “The family hired a lawyer to keep the case open.”

  “Were they wealthy?”

  “What does that matter?”

  “Insurance.”

  “Their life insurance paid.”

  “Even though it was ruled a suicide?”

  “Their insurance covered every cause of death.”

  “They must be rich.”

  “Denenchofu address.”

  “Very rich.”

  “Want me to set up a visit?”

  “Tell them it’s urgent. I’ll go there after I talk to the driver.”

  The neighborhood where the driver lived was east of Tokyo in Chiba, in a modest area of broad streets and huge apartment buildings. Hiroshi followed the numbers painted on the top right hand corners of the buildings. The rain returned, a swift invasion of gray.

  The wife of the driver bowed at the door. She spoke in soft Japanese phrases, taking his umbrella and handing him a dry towel to wipe off the rain. In the living room, the driver, Torigai, rose from a low wood table and bowed deeply.

  Hiroshi handed the driver his meishi name card as they settled onto flat zabuton pillows on the tatami and exchanged formal greetings.

  Torigai was in his late fifties, with a wrinkled face and a burly body. His arms were folded across his chest in permanent resignation, and his head looked as if it had been bald forever.

  The window was open to a garden with well-trimmed trees arching over a pond rimmed with moss-covered rocks. The rain fell on the green garden and splashed into the pond’s surface.

  On one side of the room, a TV sat atop a knee-high bookcase next to a tokonoma alcove with a ceramic vase and a scroll of calligraphy. Hiroshi could not read the fluid black characters, but the knotty wood of the pillar made him want to run his hands over its smooth, furrowed grain.

  Torigai’s wife knelt to pour tea for Hiroshi and then for her husband, moving fluidly from the table to the kitchen after setting out senbei rice crackers on a cherry bark tray.

  “That must be a shidarezakura weeping cherry tree out there,” said Hiroshi.

  “I planted it when we first moved in twenty-five years ago. The apartment rules forbid gardening by tenants, so I snuck out in the middle of the night. The gardeners took care of it after that and never said a word,” chuckled Torigai.

  “It’s the perfect view from this room. Did you do the calligraphy?”

  “Years ago. I’ll take it up again when I retire. Or when I’m fired.”

  “You’ve been driving trains for twenty-five years?”

  “Thirty-five. I drove on other lines ten years before that.”

  “That’s impressive.”

  “No, just the opposite. Most drivers get promoted or find better jobs. I’m just stubborn.”

  “So, politics is as bad for drivers as for detectives.”

  “And the stakes are lower.”

  Torigai sipped his tea.

  “After the national railway was privatized, driver schedules were compacted.”

  “Layoffs?”

  “Pay reductions. They scheduled overtime, which was where we made our real money. They added longer commutes and more paperwork, all unpaid.”

  “That was after privatization?”

  “In the ‘90s. I organized the drivers to file a written complaint.”

  “Did it work?”

  “It worked to put me on their blacklist.”

  The doorbell sounded, and Torigai’s wife shuffled past them from the kitchen to answer it.

  “There was a blacklist?”

  “The union structure changed during the ‘90s. The new managers wanted to boost efficiency and cut costs. All they know how to do. The only way to do that was to take it out of us.”

  “The man who fell in front of your train last week—”

  “It wasn’t my train.” Torigai said.


  “But your name was on the…”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “But you weren’t the driver?”

  “No, he was,” Torigai nodded at a man in his late thirties being led in by Torigai’s wife. He was unusually tall and thin with long limbs waving awkwardly around the small room. He bowed jerkily before sitting down—as if out of practice—and pushed his thick, oily hair away from his face.

  “This is Tada,” Torigai said.

  Hiroshi bowed and passed Tada a name card. Tada bowed, his head lowered for a long time.

  Torigai said, “Tada was driving.”

  Hiroshi again settled on the zabuton cushion as Torigai’s wife offered Tada tea. She poured him a cup and went back to the kitchen.

  “I don’t have a name card anymore,” Tada said in a thin, dry voice. “You’re going to ask me about the guy I killed?”

  Torigai interrupted. “You didn’t kill him. You were doing your job.”

  “I killed him,” Tada insisted.

  “Killing involves motive, intention, action. There are very strict rules about that,” Hiroshi said.

  “I feel like I killed him,” he said, jiggling his leg.

  Hiroshi cleared his throat. “It must be upsetting.”

  Tada said, “It makes an incredible sound. His body cracked the window.”

  Torigai lifted his chin to encourage Tada to keep going.

  Tada fidgeted with his hands and continued, “The mind fills in all sorts of things, just to make a complete picture, I learned, so I can never be sure if it really happened the way I remember. I’m sure, though, that his feet were in the air.”

  “His feet?” asked Hiroshi.

  “What was, was, my therapist taught me. That means to accept, but it doesn’t mean to forget. His feet were in the air. That wasn’t put in the report. I didn’t even write the report. Someone else did.”

  “So, the name signed on the driver’s form was forged?” Hiroshi asked.

  Tada looked at Torigai, who cleared his throat and answered, “Yes.”

  “Who forged it?”

  Torigai said, “Tada was officially on leave. If you have any, well, psychological issues, you can take medical leave, but your salary is docked. But since there are not enough drivers, some people go on overtime. So, what happens is the drivers on leave take a shift from time to time and sign the name of a driver who is not on leave. We split up the money after. The company turns a blind eye because they save money by not hiring new drivers. It’s easy to cover up.”

  “Unless there’s a suicide.”

  “It wasn’t a suicide,” Tada intervened. “I’ve been over it in my head so many times. I go to therapy to talk about it. I’m better now that I don’t replay the scene so often. That can drive you crazy. It DID drive me crazy,” Tada laughed and choked and took a hurried drink of tea. He waved his hand over his mouth, sucking in air to cool the burn of too-hot tea.

  “Why do you think it was not suicide?” Hiroshi asked.

  “There was a woman on the platform with the man. I could not see clearly because there’s a wall there at the end of the platform. But I did see the way she looked as the body hurtled through the air. She did not have a look of surprise or shock.”

  “What was her look?”

  “Concentration. Calm and focused.”

  They all took a sip of tea.

  Hiroshi continued: “And you remember that distinctly?”

  Tada nodded his head vigorously. “I remember it because I had another so-called suicide. That’s why I was on leave in the first place. The first one got to me unconsciously. At least this time, it’s conscious trauma.”

  “When was that?”

  “March 15th, 11:15, Musashi-Kosugi station, one away from Kawasaki. The case number is 974218,” Tada recited.

  Hiroshi took out his notebook and jotted down the details. “Thank you. That’s very helpful.”

  “Is it?” Tada asked with sudden earnestness.

  “Yes, very much. What do you remember from this time?”

  Tada took a sip of tea, remembering to blow over it first. He set the teacup on the table and picked up the wooden coaster, turning it in his hands as he spoke. “I was always working on the late shift, which makes it difficult for me to meet people and find friends. But you get used to things. I saw the body flying in front of the train. I saw her face. I stopped the train. I saw the dead body on the tracks and looked back at the people on the platform.” Tada swallowed.

  “Take your time, Tada. There’s no hurry,” Torigai said with a fatherly voice.

  Tada nodded, took several deep breaths, and continued flipping the coaster in his hands. “A man and a woman walking down the platform turned to look at a tall woman with long hair walking away. I wouldn’t have noticed her at all, but they stared after her. I was so panicked I couldn’t move. The man punched the emergency call button. I sat down on a bench, and my life was over.”

  Hiroshi asked, “The woman you saw was the woman walking away?”

  “It was front and back, but it was her.”

  Hiroshi nodded, wondering if he could be believed, or if Takamatsu and the others would believe him.

  “The strangest thing was people were angry.” Tada said, setting the coaster back on the table.

  “Angry? At what?” Hiroshi asked.

  “At being delayed. I was standing there, in shock, a normal reaction in those situations, my therapist tells me, but most people complained about not getting home on time.”

  “Do you remember anything else about that woman?”

  “She walked forcefully.”

  “Forcefully?”

  “You could tell she was strong.”

  “And the couple?”

  “They claimed they did not see what happened,” Torigai said.

  “Was that in the report?” Hiroshi asked.

  “No, they were foreigners on vacation. The train investigators took them out of the final report,” Torigai said.

  Tada spoke up again, “Also, she didn’t push him. She flipped him. Her height, hair, sandals—” Tada’s voice got higher and faster.

  “She wore sandals?”

  “I could see them when she got on the escalator. And she wore all black, too and—”

  Torigai said, “Tada-san, calm down.”

  “OK, yes, give me a minute.” He breathed in, closed his eyes, focused on breathing, found some inner point of calm and then opened his eyes.

  Hiroshi turned to Torigai. “So, you signed the paper for the shift.”

  “We shouldn’t even be telling you this,” Torigai said.

  “Why are you, then?”

  Torigai said, “You should know the truth. That’s why you came, isn’t it?”

  Hiroshi looked out at the garden.

  Chapter 23

  On the way back to the station, Hiroshi called Akiko, one hand holding his umbrella and the other on the cell phone. “Can you check one suicide: March 15, 11:15, Musashi-Kosugi station. The case number is 974218.”

  “Give me a minute,” she said. Hiroshi could hear her shuffling through papers. “Hey, that’s the one I was just talking about.”

  “The rich people in Denenchofu?”

  “Yes. Wakayama is the name. I called them already and they seemed eager to talk with you.”

  “Did you hear from Takamatsu?”

  “No.”

  “He’s the one telling me how important it is to talk with the drivers and the victim’s families. Now, he’s disappeared?”

  “He trusts you,” Akiko said.

  “I’m not sure it’s mutual.”

  “I found one more thing. Several of the suicides worked in real estate.”

  Hiroshi stopped in his tracks. “How many?”

  “Some were in consulting or investment companies, joint ventures—I’ll count and cross-reference them.”

  “Did Wakayama do business with Bentley Associates?”

  “Let me check. Wakayama was listed as an ad
visor to Bentley.”

  “It seems his widow might have a lot to say.”

  “By the way, Wakayama’s daughter was an actress.”

  “Really?”

  “She was famous for a few years, but attempted suicide. She spoke about it to the press. Broke the taboo. It was in all the papers.”

  “Not by train?”

  “No, pills. There’s a photo of her at Cannes. Stunning. Watch yourself!” Akiko laughed.

  “I watch myself too much,” Hiroshi said, though he was thinking just the opposite.

  ***

  Getting off the subway at Denenchofu Station, Hiroshi cringed at the deafening tremors of the train inside the enclosed tunnel. The more he thought about the frail body of Steve—and the frail bodies of all these humans—the bigger and heavier the trains seemed, and the smaller and closer the stations. Walking along the platform felt like walking beside a busy highway. He hurried up the escalator to the relative safety of the taxis.

  The Wakayama’s Denenchofu house was in a neighborhood of houses hidden by high walls of layered, sculpted rock. One of the few planned areas of Tokyo, Denenchofu’s small parks punctuated the neighborhood’s layout at regular intervals. The taxi driver checked his dashboard’s computerized navigation map and pulled onto a quiet street with no sidewalks.

  Larger and larger gates blocked the entrances to the neighborhood’s many compounds until the taxi stopped at an entryway with no number or name.

  “Is this it?” Hiroshi asked the driver.

  “It must be,” the driver said. “Do you want me to wait?”

  “No, I’m sure you’re right,” Hiroshi said and paid and got out. He pressed the button on a wall panel. A light flashed and the thick gate rolled back, allowing Hiroshi inside. The gate quickly closed behind him.