Puppet Master vol.1

by Miyuki Miyabe

  　“Yes,” Yoshio said, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He understood what the detective was saying─it was logical, but …

  　“I understand your concern, but please don't just think of the worst scenario. Your daughter tells me,” he turned to Yoshio, “that Mariko's father is currently living elsewhere.”

  　“That's right. He's in Suginami.”

  　“Has it occurred to you that she might be with him?”

  　“No,” said Machiko, looking up quickly as if she had been slapped. “That's out of the question.”

  　Sakaki was unperturbed. He smiled faintly and said placatingly, “I can't be sure of that. After calling you, it's possible she ran into him by chance in Yurakucho, isn't it? They stayed out talking for a while, then it got late and she ended up staying at his place. Only she's a bit late in letting you know about it.”

  　Machiko shook her head, her eyes closed. “No, that's not it.”

  　“Where does your husband work?”

  　“In Marunouchi.”

  　“So meeting up with him in Yurakucho─”

  　“Yes, that has happened, if that's what you're getting at,” Machiko said irritably, her voice rising. “She did sometimes have dinner with him before coming home. Being the type of girl she is, she was worried about our marriage. But she's never gone out drinking with him until late and ended up staying with him. And her father wouldn't have it either. He'd see her home.”

  　“But─”

  　“Shigeru lives with another woman,” said Yoshio. “So there's no way he'd take his daughter home with him. He wouldn't even let me in when I went over there once.” Sakaki's eyes briefly glazed over. Yoshio worried that he might be thinking that the chances the girl had run away were pretty strong given the complicated family situation, so he added, “Mariko's parents have their problems. But that's got nothing at all to do with her not coming home. She's not the type of girl to run away because her parents have split up. And at this late stage─well, frankly, it's ridiculous.” He stopped, suddenly remembering that Sakaki was the detective dealing with the case, and it wouldn't do to offend him.

  　But whatever he might be feeling inside, Sakaki didn't show any external reaction. In fact he still looked somewhat unfocused, as though he were thinking about something else entirely.

  　“Be that as it may,” said Detective Sakaki, lightly clearing his throat and looking up, “For today let's keep an eye on the situation. Please call around to any places you think she might be. And I'll keep you informed from our side. Okay? Really, it's very possible that your daughter will show up with her tail between her legs before long.”

  Since then, Detective Sakaki's feckless attitude had never changed. A week had passed, ten days, two weeks, a month─Mariko still hadn't come home. The Higashi-Nakano police launched an investigation into her disappearance, with notices featuring her photo and a description of what she had been wearing posted at all the police boxes in the metropolitan area. And yet his response remained the same: We don't know that anything has happened to her. Don't go making any assumptions. The police are doing all they can. You shouldn't just be thinking the worst … and so on. It was as though he believed that if he thought just once that something bad had happened to her, at that moment it would become reality.

  　You could say that for these ninety-seven days Sakaki had been devoting himself to catching weights just as they were on the point of dropping onto the surface of the dark water in their hearts, and deflecting them as best he could.

  　But not today.

  　“You came too?” said Yoshio as he ushered the two of them into the tatami room behind the shop. He knew his voice sounded tense.

  　“I just happened to be off duty,” replied Sakaki, his voice calm as ever, in contrast to Machiko who came in after him with her shoulders drooping, exhausted. Glancing back at her, he added, “Mrs. Furukawa is so upset that I thought it best to accompany her. Also, if you're thinking of going to the Bokuto Police Station, things will go more smoothly if I'm there.” He was going out of his way to sound calm.

  　As Machiko stepped into the room, Yoshio patted her lightly on the shoulder. Her eyes were swollen from crying and were again filling with tears. “You see? Detective Sakaki said it too─we don't know yet that it's Mariko.”

  　Machiko nodded. “I'll make some tea,” she said and disappeared off into the kitchen.

  　Checking that she had closed the glass door between the tatami room and the kitchen behind her, Yoshio turned back to Sakaki. “Truthfully, what do you think?”

  　Sakaki looked at Yoshio straight on, yet his gaze did not feel intense. This was the man's hallmark. He wasn't capable of playing hardball. Yoshio had sometimes thought that this man's wife and kids must be happy, but on the other hand he really wasn't cut out for being a detective.

  　“We can't jump to conclusions,” Sakaki said. He looked around for an ashtray, so Yoshio brought out the tobacco tray and took out his pack of Hi-Lites. He had only just opened it that morning, yet he was already on the last one. He had been smoking like a chimney while waiting for Machiko to arrive. “Mrs. Furukawa seems to be convinced that it is Mariko.”

  　“She does get a bit hysterical at times,” said Yoshio, “but her intuition is often right. Like when Mariko went missing.”

  　“It's been ninety-seven days now, hasn't it?”

  　Yoshio was surprised. “Have you been counting too?”

  　Sakaki nodded and blew out smoke. He smoked light cigarettes, the tobacco paper-thin. “Just before coming out I called the Bokuto Police Station,” he said. “As things stand at the moment, the arm found this morning is all they've got. They have launched a massive investigation, though, and are going through the park with a fine-tooth comb.”

  　“Not that I know anything about these things, but …” Yoshio hesitated. “But a body that has been … um … dismembered isn't likely to have been disposed of all in one place, is it? I mean, isn't that why it's been cut up? To spread it around?”

  　“Yes, that's right. But they have to make sure. Okawa Park is big, and there are a lot of trash cans in it.”

  　“Trash cans?”

  　“Didn't you know? The arm in question was in a paper bag in a garbage can near the park gate. A brown paper bag, like the sort they use in supermarkets.”

  　Machiko came out of the kitchen carrying a tray with some coffee cups on it. Her eyes were still bloodshot, but she appeared to have stopped crying for the moment. “I couldn't find the tea,” she said, offering Sakaki a cup of coffee. “Where do you keep it?”

  　“Oh right … I only drink gabaron tea these days.”

  　Gabaron tea was effective for high blood pressure. It had been Mariko who had read about it in a magazine and had bought some for him, he recalled. Grandpa, didn't you say your blood pressure sometimes goes over two hundred? That's not human, it's giraffe blood pressure, she had laughed, but she'd looked worried. You should stop eating salty foods, you know. When you eat tofu, instead of soy sauce use ponzu. Okay?

  　Suddenly he felt a stab in his chest, as though it had been pierced by an ice pick, and pressed his hands to his face. Luckily Machiko was absorbed in herself and didn't notice. She was drinking her coffee, a brooding look in her eyes. But Sakaki noticed. He averted his eyes and picked up his coffee cup.

  　What would they do if that arm was Mariko's? What would happen next? He would know whether it was his own flesh and blood the moment he saw it. Whether it was Mariko's or not. But would he be able to summon the courage to look at it?

  　“You've got a customer,” said Sakaki.

  　Yoshio looked up to see a young woman wearing a yellow polo shirt come into the shop. She saw Yoshio and smiled.

  　“Morning Pops. I need some tofu.”

  　“I'll be right there,” he said, getting up and going through to the shop.

  　“I'll have a block each of soft and firm, please.”

  �
��She was a housewife who lived in a nearby condo. She worked afternoons as a receptionist at a dentist's about a ten-minute bicycle ride away. He knew this because a couple weeks ago he'd gone to pick up some medicine for a gum inflammation and she'd called out to him, “Hey, if it isn't Pops from the tofu shop!”

  　“Do you have any ganmodoki?”

  　“Not yet, sorry.”

  　This was tofu mixed with vegetables and deep-fried, something that Yoshio's shop didn't make during the summer months. They didn't usually start making it until well into the fall.

  　“It's about time you started making it again. It's getting quite chilly at night, isn't it? Now that I've got a taste for yours, I can't stand the supermarket brand any more.”

  　“Thanks.”

  　He put her tofu into a plastic bag and handed it to her over the display case, taking the coins she handed to him in exchange. He was just thanking her again as he saw her out, when she stopped and said, “Pops, you're not looking too well today. Is anything wrong?”

  　Her voice was so sprightly that the others in the back room must have heard her. Yoshio laughed and said, “I'm getting old.”

  　“Get out, don't be so silly!” she said with a laugh.

  　He thanked her again as she left, then went to wash his hands in the small sink on the side. Then he splashed some water on his face.

  　When he returned to the back room, Machiko was crying again. “You've got a premonition too, haven't you Dad?

  　Yoshio didn't say anything. He sat down and drank the remains of his coffee.

  　“Where's Mr. Kida?” asked Sakaki.

  　“Out on deliveries. He'll be back before midday.”

  　“Okay, when he comes back we can get going,” Sakaki said with an air of unconcern, then turned back to Machiko. “Like I was saying on the way over here, it's only one arm. I don't know whether we'll be able to identify her from that, so don't go tormenting yourself now.”

  　Nodding, Machiko pulled her handbag to her and opened it. “Detective Sakaki told me I should bring something with Mariko's fingerprints on it,” she said pulling something out and showing it to Yoshio. It was a small comb inside a transparent plastic bag. Mariko's room in Higashi-Nakano had been left exactly as it was when she disappeared. Machiko would probably have done that even without being told, although Sakaki had recommended it.

  　“Just in case,” Sakaki added hastily. “At any rate, we still don't know what the situation is yet. We don't even know whether they'll be able to get the fingerprints from the hand yet.”

  　Yoshio watched Machiko put the comb carefully back in her bag. “Machiko, sorry, but I've run out of cigarettes. Can you go get me a pack of Hi-Lites? I have to keep an eye on the shop.”

  　“Sure,” she said, standing up. “Where's the nearest place?”

  　“Next to the mailbox. Go out and turn right.”

  　Yoshio waited as she left. Once she was out of sight, he turned to Sasaki, who was staring at a carton of Hi-Lites atop a tea cabinet.

  　“You can speak your mind better without her here,” Yoshio said. “I was thinking you came with her for a reason.”

  　Sakaki stared at his half-empty coffee cup. “Will she be long?”

  　“The tobacco shop is closed today. She'll have to go looking, so I reckon she won't be back for ten minutes or so.” He'd had that in mind when he sent her out. “You must get the latest information quicker than the TV networks. Please be straight with me. That … er … that arm in Okawa Park, does it have any distinguishing features? I mean …”

  　Without looking up, Sakaki rubbed his face with his hands. It looked as though he was trying to rub away any unintended expression on his face before Yoshio saw it. “We don't know yet. All we know that it is definitely a woman's arm. Given that, it's possible it could be Mariko.”

  　“Is that all? But you have your doubts?”

  　“I'm considering all the possibilities.”

  　The conversation didn't progress any further. Sakaki sat with his shoulders slumped. Yoshio couldn't help feeling that he was hiding something─but how could he get it out of him?

  　Just then two customers came in. While he was seeing to them, Kida returned and was just parking the shop van alongside Sakaki's car when Machiko got back. She was carrying a plastic bag from the supermarket as well as the pack of cigarettes.

  　“You took your time.”

  　“I saw some grapes,” she said, holding up the plastic bag. “Mariko likes them, so I splurged.”

  　Yoshio looked at his daughter. She looked back at him laughing, with tears in her eyes. He wondered whether she was beginning to lose her sanity.

  　The three of them hardly exchanged a word during the drive to the police station. Machiko was looking out the window sunk in her own world, the sound of her breathing barely audible. Her hands on her knees were still, but trembled now and then as if remembering.

  　Bokuto Police Station was a five-story building that looked less than a year old. It had an underground lot for patrol cars and other official vehicles, and as Sakaki parked in the visitors' lot outside, two patrol cars came rushing out. Unless Yoshio's memory and sense of direction were mistaken, they were headed toward Okawa Park.

  　As they got out of the car, Yoshio took Machiko's arm. She looked as though she was unable to walk unaided. A uniformed police officer standing guard, holding what looked like a wooden sword in his right hand, stared at the three of them as they made their way up the stairs to the entrance.

  　Just then Yoshio noticed a lone youth, about high-school age, sitting hunched over at the bottom of the steps next to the guard. He was holding his head in both hands, as if trying to protect himself from something.

  Shinichi had been brought in a patrol car from Okawa Park to Bokuto Police Station along with the girl who was King's owner. They had sat shoulder-to-shoulder in the back seat, she crying the whole way while he just hung his head. As they had pulled away from the crowd of rubberneckers, he had overheard comments like “Another high-school troublemaker, eh?”

  　From the moment the human arm had spilled out of the trash can Shinichi had been in shock, unable to move, while the girl just crouched down screaming. A middle-aged couple out for a walk had come running to help, and had called the police 110 emergency number. They had been calm and businesslike, protecting the two of them from the rabble of rubberneckers who appeared out of nowhere as the sirens approached, and stopping the curious crowd from going anywhere near the can. Not only that, but when the police decided to take Shinichi and the girl to the station for further questioning, the couple offered to walk Rocky and King back to their homes. “You both live not far from us,” they'd said.

  　In the end, it was decided to send a police officer with the couple to explain the circumstances to the families. When Shinichi, his body still rigid, nodded his thanks to the husband instead of saying it aloud, he had responded quietly, “You've had a terrible shock, I know. I understand how you feel, but you're a man, right? Pull yourself together! You want to show her your best side, don't you?” He patted Shinichi on the shoulder, and left. Shinichi wanted to retort, She's not my girlfriend! And you don't have the first idea why I'm so shocked, do you? The man would probably have been satisfied if he'd done that, too. But the words didn't come out. Instead he felt the heat go to his head, leaving the rest of him cold and his knees shaking.

  　With them in the car was a detective who wore a suit that smelled vaguely of mothballs, had blue stubble on his chin, and said nothing more than necessary. He must have given his name, but Shinichi couldn't take it in. His head still rang with the girl's screams when she'd seen what was inside that bag─overlaid with his own screams. And however hard he tried to blink them away, all he could see were the fingers pointing straight at him. It's you! It's you, Shinichi. We've come back for you. You gave us the slip once, but we're back. We'll get you this time. It was the hand of Death, he thought.


  　Arriving at the police station, they had been ushered into a meeting room right at the top of the first flight of stairs. They'd sat there for a while as plain-clothed detectives rushed in and out talking busily amongst themselves, occasionally commenting, “Good job! Sorry to keep you waiting. Won't be long …” A young female police officer brought them some coffee in paper cups. Possibly reassured by her kindly presence, the girl raised her head. Her eyes were red. “Sorry, but do you think I could have a tissue?” The policewoman nodded and produced a packet of pocket tissues from somewhere.

  　“Anything else? Do you need to use the bathroom?”

  　“I'm fine. Thanks.”

  　The girl smiled at the policewoman, who smiled back before looking over at Shinichi and asking, “Are you okay? You're not looking too good.”

  　Shinichi said nothing, just indicating his assent with his chin. The policewoman started to say more, but thought better of it and went out of the room. She left the door slightly ajar and they could hear voices outside, but otherwise Shinichi and the girl were alone. As if she had been waiting for this, the girl said, “Isn't it just awful?”

  　Shinichi sat hanging his head, not looking at her. He heard her push back her chair and come closer to him, lowering her voice to say sweetly, “When you went out for a walk this morning, I bet you never imagined anything like this happening, right? I just can't get my head around it.”

  　“Mmm.” Shinichi nodded. She was making it worse: how could she sound so bright at a time like this, he wondered. He wiped his forehead with his hand, and let out a deep breath. It was because it wasn't her problem. As far as she was concerned, it had nothing to do with her personally, so once she was over the initial shock she could go back to her usual self. Unlike Shinichi.