“Huh?” he gaped. “Why me?”
“Got no cash on me. You handle it.”
“You’re joking, right?”
“I’m serious. You pay.”
“Promise you’ll pay me back?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die. Come on, man up and stop making such a fuss about nothing.”
“How can you!”
Time to get back to work.
* * *
They got back to the big room in Kamata Precinct at two on the dot.
Captain Imaizumi, who was at the table at the front of the room, looked up from his paperwork.
“What’s going on, Himekawa? You’re back early.”
Reiko pulled a file out of her bag, then deposited it at her usual place.
“I need to talk to you, captain. Urgently.”
Reiko ran her eyes around the room. No sign of Director Hashizume anywhere. He must be gracing some other task force with his presence. The only other people in the room were a couple of the Kamata administration staff.
Imaizumi must have seen that she was serious from the look in her eyes. He frowned up at her.
“Okay, what’s this all about?”
“It’s about the torso they found in the river. The first thing is the damage to the neck here.”
She opened the file and pointed at the photograph.
“I have it on expert opinion that this scar is an electricity burn and has nothing to do with water degradation.”
Imaizumi shut his eyes. His head sagged forward slightly.
“Been talking to Dr. Kunioku again?”
“Yes, sir. In an individual capacity. I approached him for a second opinion.”
“What about the documentation?”
“I copied the file, sir, and posted it to him.”
“Goddammit to hell, Himekawa! Have you any idea how much trouble you cause by refusing to go through proper channels?”
“I’m very sorry, sir.”
Reiko knew that a simple apology would be enough. That was the sort of frank relationship she had with Imaizumi.
“You think electrocution was the cause of death?”
“May I explain, sir?”
Imaizumi sighed. He nodded.
“You need two things to electrocute a person: the first is a power source, and the second is an electrode that’s portable. That suggests to me that the crime is more likely to have been committed indoors than out. As things stand, the most probable location is the garage—meaning that the perpetrator committed the murder and dismembered the body all in the same place.”
Ioka was breathing loudly through his nose. What was he getting so excited about now? Reiko shot him a sour look. It failed to register.
“The power source is straightforward enough: there are two electrical sockets in the garage. That brings us to the next question: what was the exposed electrode that served as the murder weapon? I propose that it was this.”
Reiko flipped a page in the file to reveal a photograph of the electric saw that had been found in the garage.
“Notice how the power cord has been repaired about halfway down its length. We need to figure out exactly when this repair was made. I’d like to start by getting your permission to have the insulation removed and the wires examined.”
If she handled the saw without the proper clearance, she could get in trouble for evidence tampering.
“You want me to send the saw to the TMPD crime lab?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve got more. Could you just give me a minute, please?”
She performed a quick mental calculation. Hayama should be getting in touch any minute now. She decided to call him, just to be on the safe side.
He picked up. “Hayama here.”
“It’s Himekawa. Any joy?”
“Yes. I learned that Kazuyoshi Naito was seriously injured in the crash. The car he was in didn’t have airbags; he suffered multiple fractures when his chest hit the steering wheel. According to the accident report, some of the broken bones actually punctured his lungs. The name of the hospital he was taken to is in the report. I need a little more time to track down the surgeon who treated him and find out the kind of surgery he had.”
“Good. Get all the information you can, but you must be back in time for the evening meeting. Photocopy the accident report; if they won’t let you, just make a list of the key points. I’m already at the precinct. If anyone starts giving you grief, patch them through to me here and I’ll get Captain Imaizumi to have a word with them.”
“Understood. I’ll do my best.”
Reiko snapped her phone shut.
Imaizumi cleared his throat.
“Can we resume?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now look at the torso,” she said, again pointing at the photograph. “The report mentioned no surgical scars other than this one here, where the gallbladder was removed. If, however, Kenichi Takaoka is in fact Kazutoshi Naito, we would expect to find some visible traces of the medical care Kazutoshi Naito received in the wake of his car crash thirteen years ago.”
Imaizumi narrowed his eyes and gave her a sharp look.
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning that this body may not be who we think it is.”
“The victim isn’t Kenichi Takaoka, aka Kazuyoshi Naito?”
“No.”
“Then who in God’s name is it?”
“I believe it is Makio Tobe.”
“What are you talking about?” Imaizumi spluttered. “The DNA analysis definitively proved that the torso is Takaoka’s.”
“I don’t think so. In fact, sir, I believe that is where the mistake originated.”
Reiko flicked through her dossier until she came to the notes she had made in the course of a phone call with Dr. Umehara of Tomei University Hospital earlier.
“At Tomei, they collected the DNA from a blood sample. The blood sample came from inside the torso, for the simple reason that getting a sample from the exterior of the torso was next to impossible due to the length of time it had been in the water. Apparently, collecting DNA from blood samples is standard operating procedure in autopsies.”
“I don’t think it’s only limited to autopsies,” objected Imaizumi.
Whoops! Careful, girl!
“You’re right, sir. It’s standard for all DNA testing. Anyway, Dr. Umehara and his team compared the DNA sample they extracted from the torso with the data of the DNA extracted from the blood left at the two crime scenes and from blood from the severed left hand. Because it matched, they concluded that the torso and the severed left hand belonged to the same person.”
“Why do you think otherwise?”
“I believe that how the DNA sample was extracted from the hand lies at the root of the problem. I spoke to the people at the crime lab earlier today. They confirmed that they extracted the DNA sample from blood adhering to the severed base of the wrist. Let me go into a bit more detail about the whole process: they applied a special cotton swab to the bone protruding from the hand to collect a blood sample; they then isolated a single blood cell from which they extracted a DNA sample: they then amplified this DNA sample using PCR amplification equipment and used the MCT118 method to analyze its profile. They then compared it with the DNA profile of the blood from the garage floor and the back of the van. They concluded that it was the same. However…”
Reiko paused to catch her breath.
“What if the perpetrator had soaked the severed hand in someone else’s blood? What would the effect of pouring a large amount of somebody else’s blood into the carrier bag containing the severed hand be? That’s the question we should be asking ourselves. When the hand was found, you may recall, it was covered in blood; the whole thing was a lurid pinky-red color, rather like pickled ginger.”
Imaizumi was too busy trying to read Reiko’s notes upside down to respond.
“That means that the DNA that the c
rime lab actually collected from the severed wrist bone was actually the DNA of a completely different person.”
“Why should anyone do that?”
“The ‘anyone’ in this case is Kenichi Takaoka—and he wanted to create the false impression that he was dead.”
Imaizumi scowled. A sound that was half sigh, half groan came out of his mouth.
Reiko pushed on.
“We don’t know what Kenichi Takaoka knew about the subject of DNA, but it probably wasn’t much. What, then, if we dial things down a notch? The idea of soaking the hand in someone else’s blood to falsify the blood type is simple enough. Not so simple, of course, that we didn’t fall for it, hook, line, and sinker…”
She flipped back through the file to a photograph of the torso.
“Faking fingerprints is a much more difficult thing to do. And every man and his dog know that the police check fingerprints. How did Kenichi Takaoka choose to deal with that? He chopped off his own hand and dunked it in Tobe’s blood. He then chopped up Tobe’s body and disposed of all the pieces, but by making sure that we found his hand and his fingerprints, he tricked us into thinking that the blood in the garage and the van—not to mention the torso that turned up later—all belonged to him, Kenichi Takaoka. Admittedly, I don’t think that our finding the torso was part of his original plan.”
Imaizumi uncrossed his arms.
“There you go again. Same damn story every time. Your theory’s riddled with holes. There are way too many unknowns in there. Out of everything we currently know about this case, you’ve chosen to construct an elaborate scenario based on a single fact: the fact that this torso, which we originally thought to be Kazutoshi Naito’s, lacks the surgical scars from an operation or operations that he had thirteen years ago.”
“That’s correct, sir. That’s why I ordered the TMPD crime lab to redo the DNA test on the hand.”
Imaizumi swallowed audibly.
“You did what? Without consulting me?”
“I’m very sorry, sir. It was urgent. Also—this is a little difficult for me to have to say—I suspect that Director Hashizume may be partially responsible for what happened. He was pressuring the crime lab to complete the first DNA test faster than normal. If the lab technicians say it’s going to take nine hours, he should just shut up and wait nine hours.”
“If they extract the DNA sample in the same way they did last time, we’ll get the same result. How long you wait’s got eff-all to do with it.”
“I think I’ve addressed that issue, sir. Based on Dr. Kunioku’s advice, I instructed the lab to slice open one of the fingertips, take a cell from inside the finger, and extract the DNA sample for amplification and analysis from that cell. There’s no way that the other person’s blood could have made its way all the way up to the fingertips of the severed hand.”
Imaizumi’s head lolled on his shoulders incredulously.
“The whole damn shebang, eh?”
“I apologize, sir. Sincerely.”
Reiko gave a deep bow of contrition. Ioka, beside her, bowed too.
What have you got to apologize for? she thought to herself.
“Officer Hayama should be returning with a full report on the surgeries that Kazutoshi Naito underwent thirteen years ago and the scars that those surgeries left him with. The results of the DNA test rerun should be out at around eight thirty.”
The door flew open with a bang. Reiko turned. Kusaka was barreling toward them, an uncharacteristically agitated expression on his face.
“Captain!”
There was a tremor in his voice.
“What’s the problem, Lieutenant?”
Kusaka was panting heavily. Reiko wondered where he’d run from.
Kusaka placed his hands flat on the table and leaned down toward Imaizumi. There was a tinge of hysteria in his eyes.
“Captain, listen to me.”
“I’ll be happy to. After you’ve calmed down.”
“I am calm,” Kusaka countered.
Perhaps Imaizumi’s comment had struck home. Kusaka took a deep, steadying breath before proceeding.
“Mikako Kobayashi has just made a highly significant statement concerning the torso found in the Tama River. She identified it as the torso of Makio Tobe, based on the surgical scar from a gallbladder operation beneath the right breast.”
Reiko kicked herself for missing that angle.
Whatever. Let it go.
Kusaka looked between Reiko and Imaizumi. His face was the picture of incredulity.
“What’s going on here? Why aren’t you even surprised?”
Surprise wasn’t at the top of the list of emotions Reiko felt at that moment. Mostly she was enjoying a nice sense of smugness: she had got to the truth ahead of Kusaka, even if not by much.
5
Kusaka lost no time in contacting Kosuke Mishima. He told Mishima that he needed to ask him some questions and would appreciate him coming to the Kamata Precinct as soon as possible. Mishima promised to finish work early and come around right away.
In the meantime, Hayama came back, ready to share the results of his research in the Kawaguchi area. After phoning to let Reiko know that Kazutoshi Naito had suffered injuries in the chest area, he had gone to Saitama Central Hospital to interview the surgeon who operated on Kazutoshi after the crash.
“I’m sorry to say that the hospital had disposed of Kazutoshi’s medical records. However, the surgeon who operated on him, Tatsuo Ikejiri, is still working there. He clearly remembered the accident—the wife killed, the son in critical condition and unconscious—and he provided me with a statement about Kazutoshi Naito’s surgical scars. Apparently, Kazutoshi had a substantial amount of scar tissue in the chest area.”
Reiko was so pleased that she clapped Hayama heartily on the back.
“Good work, Nori, my boy.”
The corners of Hayama’s mouth twitched up one, maybe two millimeters.
Did Nori just smile? Is there such a thing in nature?
Ishikura, who accompanied Hayama on his fact-finding mission to Kawaguchi, beamed happily in the background.
The phone rang. It was the downstairs lobby: Kosuke Mishima had arrived.
“I’ll be right down,” said Kusaka.
Reiko grabbed his elbow as he was putting down the phone.
“Lieutenant, can I sit in while you interview Mishima?”
Sergeant Satomura, who was standing next to his partner, gawped at her.
“Please,” she begged. “I promise not to interfere. I can take notes, if you like.”
With a frown, Kusaka glanced across at Satomura. The sergeant nodded discreetly. Done deal.
“We’re fine with that,” said Kusaka. He swung around to Imaizumi. “Is it okay with you, Captain?”
Imaizumi crossed his arms over his chest.
“If it’s okay with you, it’s okay with me,” he said gruffly.
“Thank you.”
Reiko bowed three times: once to Imaizumi, once to Kusaka, and once to Satomura.
“What about me, Lieutenant Reiko?” said Ioka.
Reiko had something important that she needed her partner to do for her.
“Ioka. I need you to get the circular saw out of the evidence room here and take it over to the crime lab at TMPD headquarters. If the precinct’s got the budget, take a cab; otherwise, take the train. Is that all right, Captain?”
Imaizumi gave the okay. As Reiko headed for the door, she could hear Ioka grumbling behind her. His emotional state was the least of her worries right now.
* * *
Reiko’s initial impression of Kosuke Mishima dovetailed with everything she’d heard about him so far: he was an attractive young man with a frank, honest air.
His shoulders and chest were broad—the result of working with his hands from a young age, she assumed—and he exuded dependability. He wasn’t tall by any means, but the interview room felt a great deal smaller with him inside it.
“We’ve learned th
at we made some serious mistakes in our handling of this case. I need to talk to you today to see if you can assist us with the new direction of the investigation.”
Kusaka’s voice was the same as ever, but Reiko knew that he had to be feeling panicky underneath. Making a bad situation worse, at a second press conference the day before, the task force executive had announced that DNA analysis had proven without a doubt that the hand and the torso both belonged to the same man. To have to walk that back, almost before the journalists had left the building, was acutely embarrassing. Kusaka probably felt it more than most.
It’s no skin off my nose.
Mishima said he was happy to cooperate. Kusaka, who’d been anxious, emitted a discreet sigh of relief.
“As of today, we now believe that the severed left hand that we discovered in the minivan and the torso that was found in the river on the fifteenth could belong to two different people.”
Puzzled, Mishima stared at him.
“We cross-checked the fingerprints. We know that the hand belongs to Kenichi Takaoka. That fact is beyond doubt. However, the blood in the van and in the garage, and, as I mentioned just now, the torso, could be somebody else’s.”
“Somebody else?” Mishima parroted in a dazed voice.
“We’re still reviewing all the data; however, we suspect that the other person is Makio Tobe.”
Mishima’s jaw dropped. He sat quite motionless. He almost seemed to have stopped breathing.
“Our current take on what happened goes like this: on the evening of December third, Kenichi Takaoka and Makio Tobe got into some kind of argument at the garage. The argument escalated and culminated in Takaoka murdering Tobe. It appears that he electrocuted him and that the murder weapon was the broken power cord of an electric saw. Would you know anything about that?”
Mishima told them how Takaoka had accidently sliced through the cord that very evening and taken the saw home to repair it.
“Thank you. That’s very helpful indeed. Anyway, getting back to our take on the sequence of events. We think that Takaoka repaired the power cable after murdering Tobe, used the saw to chop up Tobe’s body, and loaded all the body parts into the van. It was at that point that he cut off his own hand.”
Soul Cage--A Mystery Page 27