Takuda nodded. “You’ll never understand people like Ogawa. No matter how many you meet.” I understand them less every day. “Sometimes our bellies know better than our brains. Listen to your belly, Kikuchi. It might help you save a citizen’s life someday.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Takuda exchanged bows with the boy and turned to the chief’s office. The belly always knows. His own belly hadn’t squirmed like this for years, but he ignored it. There was work to be done. He had already decided to start with Ogawa’s apartment.
CHAPTER 4
“Canals were the veins and arteries of Naga River valley. We lived and died by them. Detective, do you remember feasting in the flat-bottomed boats? We ate broiled eel with cold beer in summer, and we ate roasted sweet potatoes with hot saké in the winter. Do you remember that, Detective?”
“Yes, Chief. The boats passed our dock,” Takuda said. They walked along the main canal. The water ran smooth and dark.
Nakamura sighed loudly. “No one’s made a living as a boatman for decades. It’s very sad, of course.”
The suspect’s apartment complex was across the canal from the public services building. Nakamura had insisted that he and Sergeant Kuma accompany Takuda and Officer Mori.
“See, here’s where the suspect attacked the Kawaguchi girl. That’s the fence she slipped under, right there. You know, Detective, I used to go to school by boat. That was before your time. The canal used to come up behind the athletic field, but there were problems, so they filled in that section . . .”
“Chief Nakamura,” Mori said, “did your men search this area?”
Nakamura blinked at the interruption as if startled that Mori could speak. “Yes, of course they did. As you can see, there is very little to search.”
Mori pointed to a concrete cube at the water’s edge. “Chief, what is that structure?”
“It’s something to do with the canal, Officer. There are pairs of them at regular intervals. See, there is one on the other side.”
Another concrete cube squatted on the far bank. Water lapped at the thick steel grate in its face.
“It’s a storm drain,” Kuma said. “It lets the runoff from the main canal into the spillway.”
“Quite right,” Nakamura said. “The spillway.”
Takuda walked carefully down the slope.
“Detective, don’t fall in,” Nakamura called from the pathway. “The bank is slippery.”
“Oh, he’s fine,” Kuma said. “When he was a kid, he could walk on top of the wall all the way around the school, even the gates. We called him ‘cat’ . . .” Kuma trailed off under the chief’s gaze.
Takuda stepped up onto the concrete cube. He knelt on the far edge. If he leaned out just a little farther, he could check the grate. All of a sudden, leaning over the opening was the last thing he wanted to do.
“Detective, what are you doing?”
In his mind’s eye, the water itself rose faceless from the canal and dragged him down into the storm drain. You’re no longer a child. He took a deep breath and leaned out to look at the opening.
As Takuda had expected, the steel grate was missing. A torrent roared down into darkness. It triggered a memory of black current rushing, tumbling him among the river rocks, his brother’s sleeve slipping from his fingertips, his son’s anguished little face slipping beneath the dock, the pain raking downward across his face—gone.
Takuda stood.
“Detective? Is something wrong?”
He turned to face them. “Why was Ogawa down here? Do you think Ogawa planned to take the girl down into the storm drain?”
Kuma shook his head. He hitched up his pants and took a step away from the chief. “The river is high from snowmelt, so the canal current is still too strong. No one could stand up in that spillway, not until the irrigation really gets going.”
“Where does the spillway lead?”
“Down to the runoff pond by the Zenkoku plant and then through gates to the north reservoir.”
The water rushed into the spillway. Takuda could feel it beneath his feet, through the concrete slab. He needed a wet suit, a stout rope, and spiked fishing boots. With Kuma and Mori at the other end of the rope, he could find out what was down there.
“Detective, the apartment is this way,” Nakamura said.
There was nothing down there right now, nothing but the sound of water.
“Let’s have a look at that apartment then,” he said.
They crossed the narrow pedestrian bridge single file. Mori ended up behind Nakamura.
“Chief, you said students no longer take boats to school. Why is that?”
“Why? Well, it was dangerous. Kids used to get in trouble down there, smoking and all.” Nakamura turned his attention to Takuda. “But kids were tougher then. We could handle it. Later, there were too many drownings. It’s as if kids forgot how to swim. Kids got soft from postwar liberalism and television.”
Takuda tried to keep his tone casual. “So you never lost classmates in your day? None ever disappeared?”
“Well, a couple did. But not as many as later. If they didn’t show up back in those days, we assumed they had run off to the city. That was where my classmates went. Sometimes they sent us postcards, but they never came back.”
As they left the bridge, Mori moved up to Takuda’s side. If the officer was curious about Takuda’s history in the Naga River valley, he had yet to show it.
They turned down the winding path to the apartment complex. The complex followed a pattern common to public housing from the 1980s: identical buildings set at varying angles on park-like grounds. The curved walks and roadways had been designed to produce a relaxed, pastoral effect. Now the grounds were overgrown with trash-choked weeds, and several of the buildings nearest the canal appeared abandoned.
“Talks are under way with Zenkoku Fiber,” Nakamura said. “If they buy this complex, they’ll clean up the grounds and turn the empty buildings into free housing for their workers.”
At that moment, Mori casually handed Takuda an evidence bag. He had produced the crinkly plastic sleeve silently, from nowhere, as if he were a carnival conjurer. Mori looked straight ahead and picked up the pace, leaving Takuda to read the evidence bag’s handwritten label:
HIROYASU OGAWA, left hip pocket.
“What do you have there, Detective?”
“I’m not sure, Chief.” The bag contained a clipping from a magazine: a cartoonish image of a smiling Kappa, a mythical water sprite.
“That’s one of our evidence bags,” the chief said. Takuda handed it over, and the chief shoved it into his hip pocket without looking at it. “How did you get this?”
“I’m more interested in the picture.” He turned back toward the apartment buildings. “Why was Ogawa carrying a picture of a Kappa?”
“Well, it’s obvious,” Nakamura said. “He’s a pedophile, and he studies cute, cartoonish images in order to lure children.”
The sergeant hurried off as if to catch up to Mori. Neither Takuda nor the chief spoke for a few seconds.
“Chief, is there any indication that Ogawa lured Hanako Kawaguchi with images of any kind?”
“Well, no, not images as such. It was more of a picture in words, if you understand me.”
Takuda held his tongue. It made no sense for Ogawa, a grown man, to be interested in the Kappa. The Kappa was a ridiculous figure: the shell of a tortoise, greenish skin, webbed feet and hands, a simian skull with a raptor’s beak, a ring of long black hair, and in some renderings a bowl-shaped depression in the crown of its head. It had once been drawn as a lean and evil creature. Now it was cute and rounded, usually smiling, an ancient monster demoted to mascot for candies, toys, magazines, and other nonessential consumer goods.
Takuda stuck his hands in his pockets. If he stayed q
uiet long enough, Nakamura might say something useful.
“Ogawa did paint a picture in words, and he was talking about the Kappa,” Nakamura said. His voice was insistent. “Ogawa told Hanako that there was a god. That’s the first thing he said to her before he tried to lead her off the pavement.”
After a few seconds of silence, Nakamura sighed loudly.
“So it makes sense,” Nakamura said. “Technically, a Kappa is a water god from the old faith.”
“There was nothing about a god in the final incident report,” Takuda said. “Chief, why did you leave that out?”
Chief Nakamura looked around as if for support. Mori and Kuma were still a few yards ahead. “Well, there was no way to include everything, was there? It was a single comment from an initial report. It hardly seemed important except that it showed how crazy Ogawa is.”
They reached Mori and Kuma.
The chief threw his hands in the air. “The girl Hanako even mentioned a boy at the water’s edge, a boy following Ogawa, but there was no boy. We’re sure of it. There’s no report of a boy missing anywhere. That’s not in the report, either. Ha!”
Officer Mori said, “Excuse me, but I’ve read the initial reports, and I think there may be a misinterpretation here. Ogawa can’t have meant ‘Kappa’ when he said ‘god.’ All children know that Kappa near water mean danger, don’t they? There are Kappa signs all over Japan to warn children of drowning danger.”
Nakamura shook his head. “Not in the Naga River valley.”
“There must be.”
Kuma shook his head. “The chief’s right. Not around here. The only Kappa I ever saw were the ones I painted myself. And someone always took those down or painted them over. They looked more like ducks, anyway. Green ducks. I’m not an artist. I gave up.”
Takuda said, “Well, anyway, Ogawa didn’t have that clipping for Hanako Kawaguchi’s benefit. An advertisement for toilet wipes certainly wouldn’t be an effective lure for a little girl.”
The other three stared.
“Kappa Kleen Wipes. You don’t recognize the mascot? Mothers use them when little boys piddle on the rim.”
“Ah.” The chief nodded. “Your wife uses them at home?”
Mori and Kuma went still.
“She did when my boy was alive,” Takuda said.
“Ah, yes, of course. That’s what I meant.” The chief turned away from the apartments. “You know, it’s funny, but the Kappa was still very popular here when I was a boy. There was an old shrine to the Kappa somewhere below the south dam, and there was a big Kappa festival every year until the war. By the time I was old enough to go, it was just a few old farmers dancing. They finally had to quit. It’s still everywhere in the language, though. They call the railing on a dock a ‘Kappa fence,’ and they call stillbirths and drowned infants ‘Kappa babies.’ ” Nakamura gasped. “I’m so stupid, Detective. I have such a big mouth.”
“My son was hardly an infant, Chief. He was three years old.”
“Yes, yes, I remember now. Like old times, but not very pleasant memories. Speaking of your family, it’s odd that you don’t know more about the Kappa. Didn’t your father ever mention it to you?”
“No, not once.” My father mentioned very little to me.
“Really? Your father was almost fanatical about destroying the old faith, if I may say so. When I was a boy, he was head of the Eagle Peak Temple lay organization. He was the one who got Oku Village to stop the Kappa dance, and he got the village symbol changed from a Kappa to an eagle. Postwar secularism, you know.”
After a few seconds of silence, Takuda said, “Let’s find keys to Ogawa’s apartment, shall we?”
Kuma exhaled as if he hadn’t breathed properly for several minutes. Then he turned and ran toward the office. Takuda hadn’t imagined the man could move so fast.
The manager was a sad-eyed youth who balked at opening Ogawa’s apartment. After Nakamura threatened the boy with arrest, he faxed a copy of the search warrant to the prefectural housing office and reluctantly handed the key to Kuma. He refused to look at Nakamura.
They smelled rotten fish as they approached the apartment door. They braced for the stench as Kuma turned the key, and Nakamura backed down the stairs with his handkerchief to his nose. When the door swung open, the smell seemed no worse. It was as if the stink had penetrated the concrete walls and spread itself evenly through the plaster and paint.
At the darkened doorway, Takuda finally recognized the smell.
He also realized why it had taken him so long to place it: Memories buried so deeply could only emerge to protect him from danger.
That stench had clung to his younger brother’s corpse. That stench had wafted from below the dock just before his little son had been snatched away into the dark water. That stench had leaked from his own tattered face as he recovered from the attempt to save his son. That stench had filled his house as he struggled with his wife’s violent grief and his own craving for oblivion.
It set off phantom pains in his scarred flesh, and it set off waves of panic in his gut. The worst thing that could happen was happening. As he approached the threshold, part of his mind watched as if from outside his body. That part of his mind was relaxed and ready, as if it had been waiting for this day. That made sense. Takuda had rehearsed for this day in his nightmares since he was nine years old.
As if in a dream, his nightmares come true, Detective Takuda entered darkness.
CHAPTER 5
The air was dense and foul. Takuda stepped up from the entranceway into the kitchenette without taking off his shoes. The others followed.
“Officer Mori, check the closets and cabinets,” Takuda said.
“What a stink,” Nakamura said. “Is it from the garbage or the refrigerator?”
Kuma turned on lights. The apartment was grimy, but there was no garbage in sight. There was nothing unusual—a kitchenette, a tiny dining area, a living room, two bedrooms, a bath, and a toilet. It was perfect for a married couple without children. Except for the stink and the northern exposure, it was very much like the apartment Takuda shared with Yumi, his wife.
“Detective,” Mori called from the back bedroom. “This may be important.”
The smell was a little stronger in the bedroom. Mori, Kuma, and Nakamura stood facing the back wall, and they moved aside so he could see.
The wall was plastered with hundreds of scraps cut from magazines, comic books, and food packaging. Almost all were representations of the Kappa, but a few were photos of the Naga River and the surrounding mountains. In the center of the wall was a bulletin board covered with pages ripped from a dictionary. The entries were nearly illegible due to scribbled notes and corrections.
“That looks like the gibberish the kids send each other on their cell phones,” the chief said.
Stacks of papers slouched against each other beneath the bizarre collage.
Mori knelt to go through the papers. “They’re all the same. It’s some sort of grammatical study in a modified phonetic alphabet, I think.”
“It’s all gibberish,” Nakamura said.
Mori frowned as he held one sheet up to the light. “I don’t recognize the language, but it sounds like this: Sineani sineni wakka keera’an kuru kewe ku-ro—”
As Mori intoned the foreign words, the room suddenly began to feel smaller. Kuma stepped back against the wall.
Mori’s voice faltered, and he came to a sudden stop. “That might be just words thrown together. It doesn’t flow, does it?”
“Well, he’s an idiot and a madman,” Nakamura said. “What did we expect? I’m just glad there’s not a body in here. The only surprise is that he had the attention span to make a collage.” He picked with his fingernail at a smiling Kappa that hadn’t been glued down completely. “On top of everything else, Ogawa will lose his damage deposit.”
&nb
sp; Kuma seemed agitated. He stepped away from the wall and poked at a soiled futon in the corner. “That’s what smells,” Kuma said. “That black slime, that’s what was on his clothes when we caught him.”
Mori prepared to photograph the bed.
“Hey, that’s a tiny little camera.” The sergeant stepped forward and blocked what little light Mori had. “That’s something. We use a first-generation instant camera the size of a brick.”
“If this were a crime scene, we would call out a photographer,” Mori said. “Please step back.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“Officer, there’s no need for pictures,” Nakamura said. “He slept in his clothes, and he soiled his sheets. That’s all we need to know.”
“Officer, let’s take the chief’s advice,” Takuda said. “If the prefecture decides to press charges, we’ll search the apartment properly.”
“I understand, Detective,” Mori said. He had already pocketed his camera. The chief grimaced at him.
“Officer Mori, I think we’re done here,” Takuda said. “Our main concern was that Ogawa had harmed someone else.”
Nakamura rubbed his palms together. “Well, no bodies in the cabinets although we’ll probably find a drawer full of little girls’ underwear later on. Ogawa seems more like a glue-sniffing panty thief than a serial kidnapper. It looks like our fine village police force caught him on his first outing.”
Takuda walked toward the door, and Nakamura fell in step behind him. “Say, are you and your driver in a hurry? Are you going back to the city early? We should go sing some songs, have a drink, and talk about old times.”
“It’s not even noon yet.”
“No, I meant if you were staying till supper. You must be looking forward to the local cuisine after—how many years?”
“Seventeen.”
“Seventeen years! We have some great little restaurants, and I’ll bet the clubs haven’t changed at all.”
The Drowning God Page 3