Puppet Master vol.1

by Miyuki Miyabe

  　For a man, Mr. T's hands were slender and neat. On the middle finger of his right hand he was wearing an elaborately worked ring. It was chunky, over a centimeter wide, and made of silver, a striking accessory against his faded jeans and worn-out sneakers. It probably held some kind of meaning for him, Shigeko thought, leaning forward to get a better look at it. However, she couldn't see it very well so once the program finished, she replayed the video and paused on the shots where it was visible. She still couldn't make out the details, though. All she could tell was that the surface wasn't flat, but worked into some relief pattern.

  　“Is something bothering you?” asked Shinichi, who had been sitting quietly beside her on the sofa watching the report.

  　“Not really. I just thought the ring he's wearing is a bit unusual.”

  　“Ring?”

  　Shigeko paused the video again and pointed at it.

  　Shinichi nodded and said, without much enthusiasm, “Oh, that.”

  　“Anyway, what do you think?”

  　“He's a bit suspect, isn't he?”

  　“I don't know,” Shigeko said honestly, shaking her head. “First, we don't know the source of the witness statement that the car was near Okawa Park. Even if it came from the police, how far can we trust it?”

  　“The police haven't made any comment about this interview, have they?”

  　“No, and at least at this point in time, they don't seem like they're going to, either.”

  　“Won't it make problems for them having this guy appear on TV like this?”

  　“Well, he's an adult─it's his right to agree to an interview.”

  　Shinichi shrugged. “I wonder why he did it?” He paused the video and studied a pixilated close-up of T's face. “Maybe he didn't realize that it wouldn't do him any good.”

  　Shigeko smiled. “It's possible the previous conviction really was a setup. Maybe he thought it would be a good chance to clear his name.

  　Keeping his eye on the screen, Shinichi blinked wearily. “Maybe, but then it could be a lie. He might just be using the TV to get sympathy.”

  　“Yeah, that's possible too.”

  　“So do you think it's right to give him a chance to speak when you don't even know which it is?” Shinichi asked. “Without giving his accusers─the people who are saying he harmed those women─a chance to speak too?”

  　“They'll probably be given a chance later.”

  　“But that's not fair! He got to speak first, this Mr. T.”

  　Shigeko held her tongue and looked at him. He was talking about the interview they'd just watched, but he was clearly thinking of the other case.

  　“I'm going back to work,” Shinichi said, and stood up.

  On his way back to the convenience store, Shinichi made a call from the public phone next to the apartment block. He was worried she might not be home yet, but luckily she answered the phone.

  　“Hey, Shinichi, is that you? Hi! Did you see the TV just now?”

  　It was Kumi, the girl whose dog, King, had led them to finding the arm that morning in Okawa Park. Some time afterwards he'd run into her again while out with Rocky in the park on an early-morning walk. He'd pretended not to notice and walked right on past, but she'd run after him and apologized for what she'd said to him in the waiting room at Bokuto Police Station. “I was so shocked I think I just got on a high or something. I'm so sorry, Shinichi, I didn't consider your feelings at all. It's been bothering me ever since.” At the time she hadn't known anything of Shinichi's past, so there really wasn't anything to apologize about. But she did anyway, and she didn't pry into why he'd reacted the way he had.

  　He'd run into her again in Okawa Park the next morning and the morning after that. By that time, Megumi was already onto him and he was finding it impossible to relax, but Kumi's cheerful face on those morning walks came like a comforting ray of sunshine for him. She gave him her phone number, and he surprised himself by giving her his number too─it was the first time he'd felt like being friends with anyone since his family had been murdered. And so they talked on the phone every now and then─until he ran away from the Ishii's because of Megumi. Later Yoshie told him that Kumi had been really worried and kept phoning to ask after him. After he'd settled into Maehata Apartments, therefore, he made a point of calling her from time to time.

  　“Yes, I saw it,” he told her. “Although we don't know if it's him or not yet.”

  　“I guess, but it was really scary anyway. That guy─there's something weird about him, isn't there?”

  　“How are King and Rocky?” After Shinichi had left the Ishii's, Kumi had been stopping by the Ishiis to look after Rocky. She loved animals, especially big dogs, and wanted to be a vet in the future, she'd told him.

  　“They're fine. Rocky's got a thick coat of fur on him, you know,” Kumi laughed. “But he sometimes looks for you. He goes sniffing around the garden, and looks over at the stairs and barks.”

  　“He's just spoiled.”

  　Kumi told him she'd been given a couple of tickets to a screening on Sunday, did he want to come with her? It was a new American blockbuster movie. “It'll be packed, but it's free.” When Shinichi didn't reply right away, she asked, “Is something up?”

  　“Have you seen her lately?” Between the two of them, her referred to Megumi. Since Kumi had started going to the Ishiis to check on Rocky, she had already come across Megumi a couple of times. Of course Shinichi had told her what it was all about.

  　“Ummm, no …” She always was a bad liar.

  　“You have, haven't you? When?”

  　“Yesterday,” she said, then mumbled, “I'm so dumb.”

  　“There's no need to lie, Kumi. What was she like? I'm sorry if she gave you a hard time.”

  　“Not especially. Same as usual─glaring at me from a distance, hanging around the house. I was in the yard giving Rocky a bath …”

  　Her voice had changed─it wasn't the “same as usual” at all, thought Shinichi. Something must have happened. “What did she do, Kumi?”

  　Kumi didn't answer for a moment, then said, “She spoke to me.”

  　Up until now, Megumi hadn't made any direct contact with Kumi, but just watched her from a distance. This had been rather unexpected─he wouldn't have been at all surprised if Megumi had immediately pounced on her from the start, demanding to know where Shinichi was now, but for some reason she hadn't done that. Maybe there had been some kind of invisible barrier between the two girls─they were about the same age, after all.

  　“What did she say?”

  　“She wanted to know if Mrs. Ishii was out.”

  　“Wasn't she there at the time?”

  　“She'd gone shopping.”

  　When she'd told Megumi that Mrs. Ishii was out, Megumi had looked up at the second-floor window, then turned to Kumi and asked, “How old are you?”

  　Surprised, Kumi had stopped soaping Rocky and looked up at her. Megumi's expression was stern, her eyebrows drawn into a frown, but she didn't look deranged. “Sixteen,” she'd answered.

  　“Really? How nice,” Megumi had said. “No problems, not a care in the world, only thinking about yourself. Lucky you.” And with that she'd turned on her heel and walked off.

  　“I was so mad!” Kumi said angrily. “I felt like yelling at her, who's the one thinking only about herself?”

  　“It's good you didn't say anything. It'd be awful if she came after you,” Shinichi said laughing. Trying to sound as if he was laughing, rather, for there was no trace of even a smile in the reflection of his face in the glass of the phone box.

  　“Have you told the police and your lawyer about her?”

  　“I called them. They said they'd get her to stop right away.”

  　“But she hasn't. At least she hasn't stopped coming around.”

  　Adults could give Megumi all the advice, exhortations, and warnings they wanted but they probably wouldn't
stop her, Shinichi thought. He wasn't pinning his hopes on it anyway. He was beginning to think that this was a battle between just the two of them: Shinichi Tsukada versus Megumi Higuchi. But a battle for what?

  　Mr. T's skinny knees jiggling constantly during that TV interview came to mind. That didn't seem to match with someone appearing in public in order to justify himself. But using that to judge whether he was innocent or guilty was risky business, and Mr. T had the right to say whatever he wanted …

  　What would be the fastest and most effective method to say what you wanted, the way you wanted, and to have it broadcast as widely as possible to get the public to believe you? That was the only real standard for judging whether someone was right or wrong, innocent or guilty, it seemed. That was why Mr. T had decided to do the interview. And Megumi wanted Shinichi to meet Hideyuki Higuchi because that would be the most effective way to get his voice heard, too. Everyone knew subconsciously that public opinion decided what was right or wrong, what was good or bad, what was God and what was the Devil. The law and ethics could only hover around the edges.

  　Would Megumi talk to the media? Would that be her next move? Behind those fierce emotions, she had brains─what was her strategy going to be?

  Chapter 16

  Mr. T was all over the TV and weekly magazines for days afterwards, reigniting the flagging media interest in the case.

  　His approach to interviews was always the same: he only ever appeared on TV in pre-recorded footage with his face and voice disguised, claimed his previous conviction had been a setup, and hotly denied any involvement with the present case. On November 1, however, HBS pulled off another coup: Mr. T would appear on live TV for the first time, in a special broadcast from the studio at 7 PM that very night.

  　A weirdly expectant atmosphere prevailed as the prime-time program got underway. The anchor and his assistant had been joined in the studio by a crime-fiction author and a female critic as their guests. Mr. T was obscured behind a smoked-glass screen to the left of the stage, and as before his voice was disguised. Now and then the camera focused on his knees or feet or hands, to give the viewers a sense that it was a real person sitting there.

  　As before, his knees jiggled nervously, and when he tried to still them with his hands it traveled to his shoulders. His tense posture revealed more anger than before. He leaned forward with his head thrust out ready to attack as he responded to questions, pouncing on each word thrown his way. He was clearly far more aware of his own role than he had been in the previous interview. He was every inch the victim.

  　Having had the carpet swept out from under their feet with the first interview, the investigation team had been forced to deal with the backlash: they had not given any official press conference with regard to Tagawa being a suspect, but neither had they tried to kill off the coverage through silence. Instead they had sought compromise by issuing a press release admitting that Tagawa's name had been on their list of suspects and had at one time been under surveillance, but that he had an alibi for the night that Mariko Furukawa's remains were returned. Reading between the lines of this announcement, the media could infer not only that there were no plans to arrest him at present, but that he was not considered a strong suspect. In other words, the police were sending out the message that the leaked information wasn't of any particular value. If the press wanted to sensationalize it, then go ahead.

  　HBS took up the gauntlet, as did Tagawa himself. It was partly because of the police attitude that he was looking so angry now. In the initial interview he had clearly stated that he'd had no idea he was a suspect in the serial killer case, but now he was being asked leading questions such as, “When you realized you were being tailed, were you afraid?” and “What did you think when your friend called to say that a detective had been around asking this and that about your previous conviction?” and a new narrative began to emerge.

  　HBS had clearly hoped to get a scoop on their “Mr. T,” but given the police reaction, they now changed their focus to present him as a victim of a negligent and inept police investigation, wrongly suspected simply because he had a previous conviction. They started the program with a recap of the case to date, and then went on to question Mr. T and give him a chance to air his grievances. After that they pointed out that the skills to conduct this sort of serial killer investigation were still in their infancy in Japan compared to more advanced countries like America, and they also invited Mr. T to comment on these issues.

  　Meanwhile they had prepared a separate studio equipped with over twenty telephones, and invited viewers to call in or fax any information they might have to a hotline number. The discussions with the commentators and Mr. T were held against the backdrop of phones ringing off the hook, to demonstrate to viewers nationwide that there was a lot of information coming in, all of which was highly valued.

  Yoshio was at home watching the program.

  　When Mr. T had first appeared on TV on October 21, Yoshio had been tending the shop and knew nothing about it. He'd only heard about it during the evening rush when one of his customers told him the killer had apparently been caught. Between various news reports, and thanks to customers filling him in on the details and bringing him a copy of the Japan Daily, he'd finally understood the situation.

  　He'd felt an initial surge of hope, as though he'd had the breath knocked out of him. They got the guy? Just hearing those words he'd felt something like a shiver of anticipation run through his entire body. But he'd forced himself to remain calm, and as he'd learned more he'd felt his initial excitement gradually turn to cold despair seeping down all the way to his fingertips.

  　Still, he had to watch this special broadcast on HBS. He couldn't not watch it. He was pretty sure this Mr. T was being wrongly suspected, or rather the likelihood of it being a mistake was rather high, but even so he couldn't bear not to see him. It was so frustrating that he was hidden behind that screen. If he could just see him clearly in the flesh, he was sure that he would know whether or not this was the one who had killed Mariko. He didn't know why. He couldn't explain it. He just knew. Mariko was bound to tell him: It's him, this was the guy. He would see Mariko's finger pointing, vividly, like a flash of divine revelation, a lightning bolt inside his head.

  　The program had just come back to the topic of focus, Mr. T. The crime-fiction author was questioning him about his rental car having been seen outside Okawa Park. Was the witness statement mistaken, had he actually not been to the park?

  　“I don't think I went, but …” Mr. T answered, his voice disguised. “But it was a couple months ago now, so I don't really remember.”

  　“What did you rent the car for to begin with?”

  　“Because I wanted to go around taking photographs.”

  　“If that's so, surely you can remember where you were going or what you wanted to photograph? It's not like remembering what you had for dinner, really.”

  　Seeing Mr. T become flustered, the anchor said hastily, “But memory isn't a precise thing, is it?”

  　The female critic jumped in: “Exactly! Apart from anything, it's up to you what you rent a car for, isn't it? It doesn't mean there's anything suspicious about it. Pressing someone on what they used a rental for is a violation of privacy. Investigating a crime is far too important to allow it to involve trampling over personal freedom. Individual freedom should be the priority here.”

  　“That would make it impossible to investigate any crime!”

  　“That's not true. It's only the outdated structure of the police, who catch someone first then turn the screws on them until they confess. How many false charges have been brought before? We'll never know!”

  　What on earth was the purpose of this program, wondered Yoshio as he stared at the screen. What were they arguing about? What was it all about?

  　The dispute between the two commentators was interrupted by a commercial break. An ad for instant coffee featuring a young woman about the same age as M
ariko was followed by an ad for makeup, showing a young woman's pouting lips glistening with freshly applied gloss. Then, in an ad for women's underwear, a young woman clad only in bra and panties opened her front door to accept a delivery. Commercials featuring images of beautiful, vibrant women supporting a program about those who had been murdered and cut up and thrown into a trash can, strangled and left on top of a slide in a playground, reduced to bones mixed in with earth and left outside some stranger's house … Any one of these images, if seen by someone with a sick imagination, someone dangerous, could possibly be taken in the wrong way and unleash a powerful force.

  　Yoshio had known Mariko with his own ears, his own eyes, his own hands─the way she had disappeared, the way she had died, the lightness of her dirtied bones when she'd come home at last. Now seeing these attractive young women prancing around in the commercials, he couldn't help thinking that their purpose wasn't to advertise those products, it was something else altogether. It was an invitation: We are toys, beautiful toys! Toys you can use however you want─we don't mind what you do with us. You can catch us, kill us, bury us, if you like.

  　The guy who had killed Mariko was simply someone who had responded to that invitation─even though it hadn't come from Mariko, or from the nameless woman who'd had her right arm cut off, or from that unfortunate high-school girl, either. The invitation had been sent by anonymous others, and its offer was all young women, Mariko and the other victims included. When had this sort of thing begun? Who had started it? And who could make it stop?

  　Well not the TV, anyway. Yoshio reached out to switch it off, but just then the screen cut back to the studio─and to an entirely different situation.