“A museum?”
“She said it looked like one, but she didn’t stick around to investigate because she discovered she was partly undressed, and bleeding.”
“Raped?”
“No. The blood was from some cuts on her chest, in the same place where Erika’s and Cherry’s were.”
Suzuki gingerly climbed to his feet, waited a moment to make sure his stomach wasn’t going to rebel again, and picked up a marker. He drew Anna’s scar next to the others already on the whiteboard. It was the character used to write the words “first” and “before.”
“Anna said she was alone in the room, but could hear two men arguing nearby. She pulled her dress back up and found her way out through a long, dark hall with a ladder at the end. It went up through a trap door into some sort of garden shed. She didn’t have her phone or her purse, and had no idea where she was, so she just ran until she found a cab near the Yoyogi-Uehara train station. Apparently, the cabbie wasn’t too happy when she had to pay him the whole fare from a jar of loose change when she got home.
“The next day, a messenger arrived at her apartment with a package containing her purse and phone and an expensive diamond bracelet. The note read like an apology, but she got the impression that if she didn’t accept it, Mr. Matsuda would find more unpleasant ways of keeping her silent. She didn’t think the police would believe her anyway, so she kept the jewelry and didn’t report the assault.”
“It sounds like this Anna’s quite the party girl. Are you sure she’s not making it up?”
Suzuki blushed. “She, uh, she showed me her scar.”
Kenji pointed to the timeline leading up to Cherry’s death. “Anna’s incident happened in January? That would make her Matsuda’s first victim.”
“But if he cut the word for ‘first’ on Anna, why wasn’t Cherry ‘second’ and Erika ‘third’?” Oki mused. “Why did he write ‘astrology’ and ‘rice field’ on them?”
“You know,” two-time All-Kanto Kanji Champion Suzuki said, taking the marker from Kenji, “there’s another word that uses the strokes in Cherry’s scar.” He added four small marks below the sketch and replaced urana- with ten/tsu-.
“‘Point’? Or ‘ignite’?” Oki puzzled, trying out the two ways it could be read, alone or in combination with other characters. “That doesn’t make any more sense than ‘astrology.’”
“Yes it does,” Kenji said, staring at the board. He erased one of the readings under Cherry’s scar.
“Ma-tsu-da,” Oki read. “The sick bastard signed his work.”
Chapter 57
Monday, November 18
2:00 P.M.
Kenji
“We don’t have an appointment, but we need to speak with Matsuda-san,” Kenji said, as he and Suzuki displayed their police IDs to the receptionist in the magnificently paneled lobby of the Matsuda Lumber Products Building in Chiyoda-ku. They’d spent the past few hours searching the business records, and identified two lumber company executives named Matsuda who were roughly the right age. Oki was in Shinjuku, paying a visit to their other prime candidate.
After speaking briefly on her headset, the uniformed gatekeeper gestured toward a bank of elevators. “Fifteenth floor—the CEO’s assistant is expecting you.”
They emerged into a waiting room presided over by a middle-aged dragon who kept them waiting for fifteen minutes until a young woman dressed in a conservative black suit appeared to say that Matsuda-san would see them now. They followed her down a hallway of glowing hardwood to a heavy door. The assistant knocked deferentially and said, “We’re entering, with your permission.” She turned the handle, announcing their names and ranks as if she were a retainer to the emperor.
Enveloped by the intoxicating fragrance of cedar and the sight of an entire room paneled in priceless, old-growth Yakushima sugi, it took Kenji a moment to realize they were wasting their time.
There hadn’t been any pictures of company officers on the website, and the CEO who bowed to greet them was a woman.
“I’m Jun Matsuda,” she said.
Kenji had assumed “Jun” was a man’s name, but before he could apologize and explain they’d made a mistake, she said, “I was afraid this day would come. What’s he done?” She looked from one to the other. “I assume you’re here about my cousin, Nobu?”
“Is he tall and afflicted with pockmarks?” Kenji asked.
The CEO sighed and nodded. She turned to the young woman who had shown them in. “Go on ahead. I’ll join you later.”
Diverting them to a foursome of chairs surrounding a low glass table, she explained it was her grandmother’s—and her assistant’s great-grandmother’s—twenty-one-year death anniversary observance that afternoon, which was why she was dressed so somberly.
“Fortunately,” she said, “Grandma’s used to me being late.”
She invited them to sit while she prepared tea in a blue-and-white Tobe-yaki teapot. Height must run in the family—Jun Matsuda was not much shorter than Kenji in her heels, but there any resemblance to The Zombie ended. She was around forty, but her face was classically beautiful, her skin as smooth as the cedar on the walls. Black hair pulled back in a timeless style accentuated her resemblance to the noble on the antique scroll hanging in the tokonoma alcove.
“What’s the damage this time?” she asked.
“I’m afraid we’re investigating the death of one woman and an assault on another.”
Shock. “A death? And an assault? What kind of assault?”
“What kind were you expecting?”
She dropped her gaze. “I couldn’t say.”
“It was a knife attack.”
The CEO looked at him sharply. “You think Nobu did that? He’s never…” She set her teacup down on its saucer.
“We understand he has a history of misbehaving in Kabuki-chō.”
“He’s been kicked out of more clubs and, ah, other kinds of places, than you can imagine,” she said. “It’s been quite an education. But he never hurts anybody.” She looked away. “Not without their consent, anyway. Believe me, I’d know—you can guess who gets to clean up after him so the company name doesn’t get dragged through the mud.”
“He works here?”
“If you call cashing his quarterly checks ‘work.’” Picking up her teacup, she sat back in her chair. “The company is the family and the family is the company, Detectives. And so it has been since our sixteen-times-great-grandfather was given a couple of tree-covered mountains in Shikoku in exchange for his loyalty to the Tokugawa shogunate.
“My father was the eldest son. He took over the Matsuda Lumber Corporation when my grandfather passed away, but died unexpectedly when I was six. Nobu’s father was the second son, so he took over, but when he became too, er, incapacitated, the board had to make a decision: pass the company to the first son’s daughter or the second son’s son. Fortunately, there’s precedent in the family for making practical rather than sexist choices. I majored in economics and have a business degree from Keio. Nobu never finished his freshman year. Everybody knew that Nobu had no interest and even less ability, so I was chosen to run the company while he was given enough money to keep him busy.”
“In Kabuki-chō”
“Unfortunately. But also with his collection. Or rather, the family collection. Nobu inherited a fascination with arms and armor from our three-times-great-grandfather, who amassed one of the largest private holdings of samurai swords in Japan. My cousin’s one positive contribution is that he takes care of the family collection and does an excellent job dealing with loan requests from museums and research institutes. In fact, there’s an exhibition featuring a number of our pieces opening next week at the National Museum.”
“Does he live in Tokyo?”
“In the Yoyogi-Uehara house.”
Yoyogi-Uehara. The neighborhood where Erika was attacked, behind closed doors.
“Will you give us his contact information?”
“Certainly.”
She stood and made a few keystrokes on her computer. “But I can’t guarantee it’ll get you past his front door. Except for his nighttime visits to the seedier parts of Kabuki-chō, he’s a complete recluse.”
“We are the police,” Kenji reminded her. “He doesn’t really have a choice.”
She handed him the printout. “Good luck.”
Suzuki stepped forward. “Would you consider calling and asking him to see us?”
“That,” she said, “would really make him deploy the archers and light a fire under the pot of boiling oil.”
Chapter 58
Monday, November 18
4:00 P.M.
Kenji
“Looks like the president of Matsuda-Tohoko didn’t have anything to do with Cherry’s death or Erika’s attack,” Detective Oki said to Kenji, tossing his file down onto his desk and peeling off his suit coat. “He’s been in Nagasaki for two weeks, giving testimony before a judge in a corruption investigation. However, I did find out that Cherry was less than truthful about going to Slipknot with Matsuda the night she died. I stopped by on my way back, and the manager said she moonlighted a couple of times back in August as an assistant for the bondage artistes, but she’d never been there with a Club Heaven customer.” Oki paused. “Why do you think she lied to Hoshi about that?”
“Maybe what she was actually doing was too shameful to admit,” Kenji speculated. “On top of the big bucks he paid her club, Matsuda sent her really expensive jewelry on at least four occasions. She must have been doing more than pour his drinks.”
“Where do you think they really went that night?”
“Maybe after he got kicked out of all the Kabuki-chō clubs, he went private. I bet he took Cherry to the same room where Anna woke up. Turns out he lives in a huge house out in Yoyogi-Uehara, and owns a large collection of museum-quality samurai weapons.”
“You found him? Why didn’t you bring him in?”
“Because finding him and actually seeing him are two different things. Suzuki and I rang the bell at his house but nobody answered. We figured he was probably with the rest of his family at his grandmother’s death anniversary, so I left him a voicemail saying we’d stop by tomorrow. Less than ten minutes later I got a call from a Tokyo Metropolitan Police superintendent, asking why we wanted to talk to Mr. Matsuda. I told him Matsuda might be a witness to something we’re investigating, and he hit the roof. Ordered me not to contact Matsuda directly again. He said anybody who wanted access had to go through him, and you’ll-find-yourself-posted-to-rural-Aomori-if-you-make-this-mistake-again, fuck you very much.”
“Just out of curiosity…?”
“Miyabe.”
“Oh.” Oki made a face. “He’s retiring to a nice villa in Hakone soon, I hear.”
“On a superintendent’s pension?”
“Yeah.” Oki paused as they pondered that improbability. “Problem is, he’s not retiring soon enough for us, and if Matsuda’s got Miyabe in his pocket, we’re seriously outgunned.”
Suzuki appeared with his laptop. “Sir? I think I’ve got something.”
Kenji vacated his chair and they looked over the assistant detective’s shoulder as he showed them a website with an article from last Thursday’s Mainichi Shimbun: “The Art of War: Samurai Arms and Armor Exhibition to Open at Tokyo National Museum.”
“The Matsuda Family Collection is one of the major lenders,” explained Suzuki. He clicked on a link. “They own over two thousand pieces of samurai weaponry, most notably a large collection of Kamakura-era tantō.”
“What’s a tantō” Kenji asked.
“We’d call it a dagger today,” Suzuki explained. “But before the sixteenth century, the sword pair carried by samurai were a tachi and a tantō rather than katana and a wakizashi. Tachi are longer and more curved than katana, and tantō are shorter than wakizashi. Tantō are interesting because they evolved to include unusual specializations like kubikiri that were used to cut off enemies’ heads on the battlefield, and kaikan, carried by samurai women in case they had to commit suicide to preserve their honor.”
“How do you know so much about this stuff?” Oki asked.
Suzuki reddened. “Sorry, sir. When I was a kid, I was kind of interested in samurai weapons.”
Kenji laughed. “You get ‘interested’ in things the way Godzilla was ‘interested’ in destroying Tokyo. I bet you know as much about samurai swords as the curator at the National Museum.”
“Oh, no, sir—I’ve attended lectures by Dr. Sato. He’s the world expert. Everybody who’s interested in tantō holds his opinion in the highest regard. That’s why I thought Mr. Matsuda might be attending this.” Suzuki clicked on the link to the upcoming exhibition’s website.
“The opening gala is Saturday night. I called and talked the organizer into e-mailing me a list of the attendees.” He brought up a file, scrolled halfway through the names and highlighted one. Nobu Matsuda.
“But will he show up?” Oki asked.
“Look at the sponsor list,” Kenji said. “Sumida Swords and Armor. Bushido Fine Arts. Tokyo University Department of Japanese History. Seems like half of them have something to do with buying and selling samurai weaponry, and the rest are studying it.”
“And I bet our suspect knows or deals with most of them,” Oki said, thoughtfully. “Didn’t you say his cousin mentioned he’d inherited his great-great-et cetera grandfather’s obsession with arms and armor? Even though he’s a recluse, I bet he makes an exception for people who share his passion for Kamakura-era tantō.”
“But sir,” the assistant detective said, “how can a sword specialist help us find out if Matsuda-san is involved in attacks on hostesses?”
“Oh, I have all kinds of faith in Dr. Suzuki.”
“I’ve never heard of…you mean me, sir?”
A smile twitched at the corner of Oki’s lips. “After your performance at Anna’s club, imitating a mere sword collector should be a piece of cake. Anyone who can do a speech-impaired, transgender Pipo-kun imitation…”
Suzuki’s eyes popped in alarm. “Oh no, did I…?”
“Just for me and an appreciative audience of urinals,” Oki assured him. “But we did give you a standing ovation.”
“That might not be necessary,” Kenji said, studying the list. “I wonder if this Professor Fujimoto from Tokyo University’s School of Letters is the same history professor whose stolen briefcase I returned to him, back when I was on koban duty at Todaimae?”
Chapter 59
Tuesday, November 19
10:00 A.M.
Kenji
The next morning, the rain had almost stopped by the time they got to Yoyogi-Uehara.
Kenji turned to Dr. Fujimoto as they ducked under the imposing thatch-roofed gate at Nobu Matsuda’s compound and lowered their umbrellas. “Thank you for helping us with this case, Fujimoto-sensei. You’re the only one I know who can get us past Matsuda-san’s front door.”
“The pleasure is all mine—he has a magnificent collection, and if we play our cards right, he’ll show us some of the stuff he never lends out.” The goateed professor smiled.
“Once we’re in the rooms where he keeps the swords, can you engage him so I have a chance to look around for the crime scene our first victim described?”
“That shouldn’t be too hard.”
“If you see any evidence of Anna and his other victims, tell me. But leave it in place so the section chief can call in the big boys from downtown and collect it with proper warrants.”
Dr. Fujimoto nodded. “Understood. And you want me to introduce you as my graduate student, right?”
“Don’t forget to call me Nakajima-kun. We don’t want to remind him he recently had a voicemail from a detective named Nakamura.”
“Got it.”
Kenji hung back as Dr. Fujimoto rang the bell and announced his name to the intercom. The door buzzed and they walked through the gate into a garden guarded by towering evergreens. Some of the trees looked to be o
ver a hundred years old, their roots in the Meiji Era. Gray stepping-stones sank into the pillowy moss, now pearled with raindrops. The path curved past a rough stone basin with a bamboo dipper, rings overlapping as drops that made it through the trees overhead disturbed the mirror-like surface. This house looked like it had escaped the firebombing of Tokyo, its traditional wood construction and dark tile roof unchanged from the days when samurai served the shogun.
A short but solid man, losing his hair in a pattern that made him resemble a samurai warrior, stepped through the sliding door onto the wooden landing. The way he watched them approach, feet planted and arms crossed, reinforced the impression that they’d traveled back in time to visit the local daimyo. Bowing, he welcomed them to the House of Matsuda, introducing himself as Kita, Mr. Matsuda’s assistant.
Dr. Fujimoto returned the greeting, introducing himself and his “research assistant.” They shook the rain from their umbrellas and furled them before stepping into the genkan entry, stuffing them in a stand that was already nearly full.
After they exchanged their shoes for slippers, Kita led them down a hallway paved with water-polished river stone, and Kenji saw that his assumption about the house was half wrong. To his left, the rooms were as expected, with tatami mat floors and paper-covered sliding doors. But to his right, the Meiji Era reigned. Rooms gloomily paneled in dark wood were furnished with diminutive chairs, tables and settees, their unforgiving hardness scaled to the stature of Japanese born before dairy products added several inches to the average national height. Dim, mica-shaded lamps cast a golden glow on rugs woven in stylized botanical patterns that weren’t Japanese, but didn’t seem quite Western, either. Even the hallway was divided down the middle. On the left, traditional mown-hay-colored Japanese plaster. On the right, art nouveau wallpaper punctuated by stuffed antelope heads, mounted all along the corridor. Kenji wondered what dramas their glassy eyes had witnessed over the years.
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