by Constantine
“I’m just making conversation, Inspector.” Arima looked at Kyoko. “So I hear you’re a private detective now? How’s it feel, going from a respected profession to a distrusted one? What kind of cases are you on, taking pictures of men with their pants down?”
“Here.” Kyoko reached into the pocket of her leather jacket and took out a silver card case. From it, she produced a NAKAMURA DETECTIVE AGENCY business card and held it out to him with one hand—in Japanese society, the proper etiquette involved holding the card out with two hands.
Arima scoffed and took the card, glancing quickly at the writing. “What, you think I’ll accept a payoff to give you inside information or something?” He took a few steps closer. “Or maybe you want me to give you a call sometime? Head out to a hotel together?”
Kyoko gave him a plastic smile. “Actually, I was hoping you’d give that card to your wife. Let her know that any time she’s interested in dumping you, I’d be happy to investigate your extramarital affairs. I’ll even give her the ‘my husband is a perverted jackass’ discount.”
Hashimoto chuckled. By the movement of Arima’s eyes, it was obvious that he wanted to glare at the senior officer, but knew he had to control himself. Instead, Arima tore the business card in two.
“You always were a bitch who didn’t know her place, Nakamura.” Arima dropped the two pieces of the business card in front of her and turned on his heel, marching back the way he came.
“Some things never change, I see,” said Kyoko.
Hashimoto grunted and bent down to pick up the torn halves of the business card. “Sadly no. Arima still does a good job of finding just the right asses to kiss.” Hashimoto looked down at her. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “It was years ago, and it takes a lot more than Ryusuke Arima to rattle me.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Saori picked up the office phone and dialed the number on her computer screen. After a few moments, she heard a voice on the other end pick up. “Good morning, my name is Ikeda with the Nakamura Detective Agen—”
She heard a click.
“Hello? Hello?”
A chuckle from beside her. Saori looked at her colleague with annoyance. “What?” she asked.
“Don’t you get it yet? People don’t trust private detectives,” said Nobu. “You gotta be a bit more subtle about it.”
“You mean lie.”
“Lying’s what we do.” He picked up the phone on his desk. “Go ahead, give me that number.”
Saori read the number off the screen. Nobu punched the digits into the phone’s pad and waited. He leaned back in his chair and smiled at Saori. She could hear the rings through the receiver and then finally, a voice.
“Good morning, I’m looking for Mr. Ichikawa.” A pause, and then, “Oh, I’m with the pension office, there’s just something we need to clear up regarding his—he no longer lives there? I see. Do you have a number where we could reach him?”
Nobu took a pen and wrote down the numbers he heard on a pad. Saori watched him with an open-mouthed expression. She couldn’t believe he was impersonating the Japan Pension Service just to get in touch with Yuki Ichikawa.
“Thank you very much for your time.” Nobu ended the call and dialed the number he’d just taken down. While the line rang, Nobu finally looked at Saori and smiled.
“You know how much trouble you could get in for that?” she asked.
“You worry too much, Ikeda.” Nobu tapped the pen on the desk. After waiting a few more moments, he sighed and hung up.
“Well?” asked Saori.
“No answer, just kept ringing.” Nobu stood and walked to the kitchen. “You want any coffee?”
“I’m fine.” Saori went back to the computer. “How many cups have you had today?”
“Not enough, apparently,” he shouted from the kitchen.
“Think you could use the toilet in the convenience store across the street then?” Saori typed on the keyboard. “Don’t want you stinking up the office when that coffee decides to leave your body.”
She heard his laughter while she continued looking through web searches. Yuki Ichikawa wasn’t answering his phone and he’d apparently moved, so they’d need to figure out where he was living. Saori went to Facebook and did a search. There were several different people named Yuki Ichikawa in Osaka, that would make it a bit more challenging.
“You find anything?” asked Nobu, walking from the kitchen to the desk.
“Lots of guys with the same name on Facebook,” said Saori. “That number you got from his parents, was it a landline or a mobile phone?”
“Mobile, why?”
“You know the carrier?”
“Umm…”
Nobu looked to be in thought. Most voicemail messages began with a statement from the cell service provider. It was Saori’s hope this was one of them.
“Softbank!” He snapped his fingers. “It was Softbank.”
Saori smiled and picked up her cell phone. “I was hoping you would say that.”
“Why?” asked Nobu.
“Hey, you got your underworld connections, I got mine.” Saori dialed a number on her phone and held it to her ear. As soon as she heard the young man answer, she spoke in a voice that was a pitch higher than normal and very upbeat. “Hi, Teppei, it’s Saori!”
From the way Teppei greeted her, Saori knew he was happy to get her call. This might be easier than she thought. She and Teppei had been on a gokon—or group date—several months ago. He’d given her his number, and most importantly, he had a part-time job working at a Softbank shop.
They shared a few moments of smalltalk, with Teppei asking how she’d been, what her class load was like this term. Saori put up with it, waving aside Nobu’s curious stares. Now it was time to ask the question.
“Listen, I’ve got a favor to ask… Well, I need an address for a phone number…”
Teppei’s excited smalltalk quickly turned to anxious protests. He said that he could get into a lot of trouble if his boss found out.
“Please?” asked Saori, her voice rising and stretching out the word.
Teppei gave in and Saori told him the number she was looking for. She smiled as she jotted down the name and address.
“Thank you, Teppei. I owe you big time!” Saori ended the call and tore the note off the pad. She could feel Nobu’s eyes on her and she looked at him, shrugging. “What?”
Nobu scoffed. “And you question my methods…”
“Hey, I got the information, didn’t I?”
“Sure, and you’ve also got some poor loser on your hook.”
Saori waved a dismissive hand. “I didn’t pretend to be someone I’m not, Mr. Pension Officer.” The phone on her desk started ringing. She picked up the receiver. “Nakamura Detective Agency.”
“Bet it’s Teppei asking when you’re free to go to a love hotel.”
“Oh, hey boss!” Saori stuck her tongue out at Nobu while she listened to Kyoko. “Hold on, I’ll ask.” Covering the receiver with one hand, she looked at Nobu. “Boss wants to know if you’ve found anything from your criminal contacts.”
“It’s eleven in the morning, none of those guys are up before three.”
“Nope, he says he’s useless,” said Saori into the phone.
“I did not say—!”
Saori put a finger to her lips to quiet him down. “Yeah, I got an address for Ichikawa. I’ll text it to you. You learn anything from the police? Mmm…mmm… Right, we’ll see you tonight.”
Saori hung up the phone. “She says she wants us to meet up tonight at Sho’s.”
“And the cops?” asked Nobu.
“Hashimoto told her drugs were definitely involved. Amphetamines.”
Nobu nodded. “I know someone who deals in those.”
Saori propped her elbow on the desk and rested her head against her open hand. “And how exactly do you know all these seedy types, Mr. Tsuji?”
Nobu snickered. “What happened to
me being useless?”
“Oh, you are. I’m just curious how you got to be so useless.”
He looked from side to side, as if he were checking for any eavesdroppers. Then, he slid his chair closer to her. “Okay, you wanna know?”
Saori leaned forward, resting her forearms on her thighs. Nobu moved in closer, speaking in a low voice.
“The truth is…” He paused and sighed. “No, I can’t. It’s too horrible.”
“What?” Saori’s eyes widened with curiosity.
“Okay…the truth is, the story of my life? How I know all these seedy types?” Nobu cleared his throat. “As a child, I was left on the doorstep of a yakuza oyabun. He could never have children of his own, so he raised me to one day take over the family business. I grew up in the business. Then, on the eve of my inauguration, a strong sense of honor overcame me, and I realized I couldn’t perpetuate this cycle of misery. So I left the clan, but not before I killed all of them with the sword my adoptive father had given me.”
“Wow…” Saori sat up, then slapped him.
“Ow!”
“Do you really think I’m that stupid?”
Nobu chuckled and rubbed his cheek where she hit him.
“The truth?”
“Right, okay.” He groaned and took a sip of his coffee. “The truth is I made up that whole yakuza story.”
“Ugh, you’re a pain in the ass.” Saori stood and went to the front door.
“Hey, where you going?” asked Nobu.
“Across the street to get a snack.”
“Can you pick up anything for me?”
Saori glared at him while she took her jacket from the front closet and pulled it on, her golden hair spilling down the back. “What, the heir to the yakuza can’t afford his own riceballs?”
She walked out the door, hearing Nobu’s laughter echoing after her. Saori took the elevator down to the first floor, then walked outside to the Family Mart convenience store right across from their office.
Saori walked through the aisles, stopping to check the magazine rack pushed up against the window. Her eyes traveled across the various headlines and she saw one that seemed to be of some significance. Taking the magazine out, she looked at the headline on the cover: “AKANE SUZUKI – AN UNFORTUNATE END TO A TROUBLED LIFE.”
She flipped through the pages of the tabloid magazine, looking at the story and the photographs taken of the late singer. Already, it seemed like the media was ready to crucify this girl. She was being portrayed as someone who was only looking to cause trouble for herself and others. That she deserved what had happened to her. The story talked about the public feuds she’d had with her co-star, about her relationship with Yuki leading to her dismissal from the group, and rumors of drug abuse from an anonymous source.
Saori closed the magazine and set it back on the rack in disgust. No one wanted to stand up for Akane, to figure out what had really happened. That made her hope Kyoko would choose to commit to the case.
She started to walk from the rack, but then another thought went through her mind. Looking back, Saori stared at the magazine. It was tabloid trash, but it might have something useful, something they didn’t count on.
Saori picked up the magazine.
CHAPTER SIX
Despite what Kyoko had told Hashimoto, Arima’s words did rattle her. That attitude followed her from the Chuo Ward where the police headquarters were located to the Shinsekai neighborhood. Akane Suzuki’s final residence—and place of death.
It had been about a month or so since Akane supposedly committed suicide and when Kyoko arrived at the address, she wasn’t really surprised to see that the street Akane had landed on bore no trace of her grisly fate.
That was one thing the police did really well—clean up after a crime. Sweep everything seedy out of the public eye, so only the surface of peace and tranquility remained. Appearances were everything here.
Kyoko’s eyes followed the height of the building, counting up eight floors. A corner unit, that was where Akane had jumped from—or been pushed from. She walked up the front entrance to the building and pulled open the glass door. The unit numbers were stamped on a plate next to each door and one of them had the word MANAGER under the unit number. She pushed the button for the doorbell and waited.
At first, there was no answer. Kyoko pushed the button again. She heard curses through the door before finally the sound of the lock turning. A man in his fifties with a receding hairline and dressed only in a pair of lounge pants opened the door. His skin was darkly tanned and he glared at Kyoko.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“My name is Kyoko Nakamura, I’m a private investigator.” She handed him a business card. “I’ve been asked by the parents of Akane Suzuki to look into her death.”
The man took the card and studied it for a moment, then began to close the door. “She killed herself. Investigation over.”
Kyoko stuck her foot between the door and the frame. The manager sighed and opened it again.
“That may very well be the case. But there are some things you might be able to shed a little light on.”
“What do you want me to tell you?”
“Just a few questions about the time she spent living here.”
He looked away. “I’ve got things to do.”
Another attempt at closing the door. This time, Kyoko stopped the door with the palm of her hand.
“Just a few minutes of your time. That’s all I ask. Her parents just want to know why she did it.”
The man looked down at her card. “You’re not gonna go away until I talk to you, are you?”
Kyoko shook her head.
“You’re worse than the damn NHK…” He opened the door for her. “Okay, come in, I guess.”
“Thank you, Mr. Fukui. Yoroshiku.” Kyoko gave a bow.
Fukui didn’t seem impressed. He turned from the door and walked into the apartment. Kyoko removed her shoes and left them in the genkan, then stepped up and followed him.
The apartment was just a one-room unit. Fukui still had his futon laid out and he sat on it, picking up a cup of instant ramen noodles and chopsticks from the small table between the futon and the TV set, which was on. Evidently, Kyoko had interrupted his lunch.
She walked over to the table and sat on her knees. Fukui kept his eyes glued to the television set. He picked up the remote and turned down the volume, but he left it on. Kyoko glanced at the screen and saw some sort of cooking show playing. She got the sense that it wouldn’t have mattered what was on. Right beside the TV was a stack of magazines. The one on top featured a young woman in a schoolgirl outfit bent over, looking at the camera with a look of manufactured surprise. Kyoko shook her head and turned her attention to the landlord.
“How long was Suzuki living here?”
Fukui shrugged. “Hell if I can remember.”
“Why not?”
He slurped up some noodles, digging almost frantically through the cup for more. “There’s ten floors in this building, five units per floor. Pretty much every single one is occupied. You think I remember every damn person in here?”
“No, not necessarily. But remembering a former pop idol? That would seem significant.”
Fukui raised a shrimp from the cup and tossed it into his mouth. Then he dug back in for more treasure within the broth.
“Did you ever have any encounters with Ms. Suzuki?”
His rapid eating took a pause. Just a moment, but then he went back to it. He only stopped to say, “Not really. Saw her in the hall every once in a while, but we didn’t really talk.”
“How did she pay the rent? Bank transfer?”
“Cash. First of the month, she’d drop an envelope in my slot.” Fukui pointed at the closed door with his chopsticks.
Kyoko turned her head to look back at the door and the metal mailbox affixed to the lower portion of it. “Was she ever late with the rent?”
Another silent pause from eating. Then, “Can�
�t remember.”
“Were there ever any complaints about her? From the other tenants?”
He shook his head. “None.”
“I’d like to talk about the night she died.”
Now, Fukui tore his eyes away from the TV to look at her. There was something in his eyes. He looked almost…scared. “Why?”
“Because I’m curious about a few things,” said Kyoko. “Do you remember that night?”
“I don’t—”
“Mr. Fukui, I should tell you that I’ve already spoken to the police, so I’d recommend you don’t lie to me.” That was stretching the truth a bit. She had spoken to the police, but she knew nothing about Fukui or his involvement with the case.
“I…” Fukui stopped and set down the cup. He pointed to the window. “I heard her body fall.”
“It woke you up?”
“No, I was awake.”
“Her time of death was around three in the morning. What were you doing up so late?”
“Watching TV, drinking.”
“What happened after you heard the sound?”
“If you talked to the police, don’t you already know this?”
“I do, but I want to hear it from you.” Lie.
Fukui sighed. “I pulled open the curtains, but I couldn’t really get a good look. So I went outside. That’s when…when I saw it was Akane.”
“And then?”
“I called the police. They came, took my statement, and then the only way I was able to sleep after seeing that was by drinking until I passed out.”
“You said you saw Ms. Suzuki in the hall on several occasions,” said Kyoko.
Fukui nodded.
“Did you ever see her with anyone else? A friend, perhaps? Or a lover?”
“No!”
Kyoko noted the abruptness in his response. “Never?”
“I-I never saw her with anyone.”
“Is there any chance I could have a look at the apartment?”
“The police have been through there, they didn’t find anything.”
“It’s for my own peace of mind,” she said.
Fukui looked away from her and drank the rest of the broth from the noodle cup. “You know I don’t have to let you up there, don’t you?”