“What’s the matter?” I asked him. His face was pinched with worry.
“This is not going to be what you think, Mei-chan. I haven’t been able to bring the chief up to speed on everything regarding Ria yet, so we said we were pulling him back to the station to deal with administrative matters concerning leaving his post yesterday.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“I haven’t even been able to tell the chief that the body you found was possibly Ria’s. It’s been a mess here with the typhoon.”
“What?” My blood pressure spiked, and the baby somersaulted. “If you give Watanabe any leeway, he’ll find some angle to get out of this.”
Goro sighed. “He’s in the conference room right now with the chief. Care to come elaborate on the situation?”
“Hmph.” I pulled my bag closer to my body, stepped around Goro, and proceeded to the conference room with Goro right behind me.
The conference room was brightly lit behind the wall of glass, and I remembered how I once sat at the same table and looked at pictures of Amanda Cheung, Yasahiro’s old girlfriend, dead on the side of the road.
I pushed those memories aside.
Because Kohei Watanabe was a police officer already, they decided to give him the benefit of the doubt about deserting his post, obviously. He sat at the conference room table, a cup of coffee and a doughnut at his elbow, and he laughed with the chief.
Easy? I thought this would be easy? Try completely infuriating.
I approached the glass and stood on the other side watching them. They ignored me until anger sent me over the edge, and I rapped on the glass with my knuckle.
The chief smiled at me, but Kohei’s face fell. Not happy to see me? I wouldn’t be either if I were in his position. Upon being waved into the room, I opened the door and joined the chief on his side of the table. Goro sat at the end of the table nearest the door.
“It’s good to see you, Yama… Er, it’s Suga-san, now isn’t it?” The chief rose from his seat, and we bowed to each other.
“It is. Thank you for allowing me to come down here today to talk to Kohei-san.”
“Of course,” he said, hesitating slightly. I wasn’t sure if he had been briefed on everything I’d been doing regarding Ria, but he was about to find out.
“May I?” I gestured to the seat next to the chief, and he beckoned me to sit. I shifted into the chair, bent over and pulled Ria’s red sketchbook from my bag, setting it on the table in front of me. Kohei’s face paled by ten shades.
“Chief, I don’t know if you know this, but I’ve been keen on solving a mystery that has plagued this town for over a decade.”
He raised his eyebrows at me and sat back in his chair. “I heard from Goro-san that you were looking into the disappearance of Ria Fukuda. Is that what this is about?”
I nodded. “Ria’s father died recently, and he left his house and all of his assets to a friend of mine who I believe you know, Akai.” It occurred to me right then, I didn’t know Akai’s last name. But there were moments when I was sure Akai wasn’t even her real name, anyway. When you were named after the color “red,” it was quite possible the name was an alias.
“We work with Akai-san all the time. She inherited the house and his assets? Lucky woman.”
I glanced across the table at Kohei. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
“She did, and she asked me to help her clean out the Fukuda house, just in case there were clues as to why Ria went missing all those years ago.” I placed my hands on the sketchbook. “That’s when I found this.”
“What is it?” the chief asked. I pushed the book towards him, and Kohei jumped out of his seat. We both looked up at him.
Goro grunted. “You should sit back down. No one asked you to leave.”
I was impressed by Goro’s frosty attitude, and the chief picked up on the significance of Kohei being there right away. Kohei settled back into his chair.
“What’s going on?” The chief opened the manga and flipped through it. What I always liked about this man was that he never said no to evidence that was right in front of him. Sure, it had led to me being interrogated in the past, but he was far from being corrupt. He often listened to reason and would put aside his own prejudices to solve a case.
His eyes skimmed the text as I plowed on.
“This is a manga that Ria was working on at the time of her death.”
“Death?” This caught the chief’s attention. “I thought she was just missing.”
“No. She most certainly is dead. Let me lay out the story of the last few months of her life.” I cleared my throat and turned so I could look Kohei straight in the eyes. “Ria Fukuda was in her last year of high school. She was bright and talented, one of the more popular yet quiet girls in the school. She had broken up with her long time boyfriend a few months before she went missing, and though the relationship had been good, she wasn’t heartbroken. In fact, she went on to date two boys afterward. One boy, she dated somewhat openly. The other was an affair, someone she dated on the side. I’m going to guess that after a fairly boring life with a promising future in front of her and a family who loved her, she hungered for something devious and reckless. Two-timing a boyfriend was just risky enough to thrill her and not get her into too much trouble. She even wrote and drew a manga about the whole affair.”
I waited while the chief continued to flip through the sketchbook. When he made it to the final scenes, he slowed down. This is what I should’ve done right from the beginning, but I’m one of those people who never reads the ending of the book before starting it. I want to be surprised at the end.
Looking across the table at Kohei, I knew I needed to surprise him. I needed to lure him out. He loved to be better than me even if that meant manufacturing lies to keep me down. He had an intense desire to be correct and for me to be wrong.
I could work that angle.
“I’ve done a lot of digging the last two weeks. I met Ria’s previous boyfriend, Itsuki Kato, and I’ve spoken to many who knew her at the time. I’ve pieced together the last months of her life, and it’s my belief she was dating Kohei-san at the time of her death.”
The chief startled and looked up to take in the frosty stare between Kohei and me.
“Did you know he lived here briefly during his last year of high school?” I asked the chief.
“I did know that. His father is a big name in the police department, mostly administrative roles, and he had been stationed here for six months a little over ten years ago. It was before my time. They left as soon as his posting was complete. So Watanabe was dating Ria Fukuda while living here?” he asked me before turning to Kohei. “Is this true?”
Kohei didn’t answer. He pressed his lips together and waited.
“Yes, he was dating her,” I provided, “and considering I saw him in the backfields behind Akiko Kano-san’s house looking at a dead body buried there, I’ll hazard a guess that he killed her when he found out she was cheating on him.”
Kohei’s mouth twitched, and the chief became very still.
“A guess?” the chief asked. “We don’t bring people in for murder charges on guesses.”
“Yes. It was just a hunch that he killed her, and I needed more evidence. I had to link him directly to Ria. So I went to the high school and looked for photos of Kohei at the time he was dating Ria, and funnily enough, I couldn’t find any!” I mocked surprise, and Kohei’s lips twisted, but he kept his mouth shut. The chief still looked interested.
“So I went to the local library where all the school’s yearbooks were kept, and the pages that should’ve had the photos of Kohei were ripped out.”
“Ripped out?” The chief briefly fumed, and I was reminded of the librarian and how upset she was.
“Ripped out, I’m sorry to say.”
Kohei remained silent on the other side of the table. This was the longest time we had ever been in the same room when he hadn’t mouthed off or insulted me in some way. I was cl
ose to exposing him.
“It was hard to find photos of Kohei during that time. He often blocked the camera from capturing him or moved while the picture was being taken so he’d be nothing but a blur. I suppose he was camera shy. But I found one photo of him.”
I pulled out my phone, ready to turn it on and show the photo Akai had given me, when Kohei huffed.
“There’s no way you have a picture of me from back then. I never allowed photos to be taken of me. I hated the camera.”
I opened the photo on my phone, flipped to the last two pages of the manga and set my phone next to the panel of Shizuka telling Hiromi she was breaking up with him. It was a close match, but not as close as how she had drawn the “other man” Kuro.
This was it. I had baited him as far as I could. I didn’t know who the killer was for sure, but he did. What would Kohei say?
I expected bravado, a raging firestorm of anger and curse words.
Kohei leaned forward and moved my phone off the sketchbook, his eyes flitting over the last panel. His hand shook as he flipped back a few pages and halted at the panel where Shizuka declared her love for Kuro, how she was going to break up with Hiromi, and then they’d both go off to college together.
Kohei pressed his fist to his mouth and stared at the page for a long moment.
“I never saw these last panels,” Kohei whispered. “We met the day before she went missing, and she was so scared. She was sure she was in a lot of trouble, and she told me to hold onto the sketchbook. Pleaded with me to take it. But I told her no. The sketchbook was hers, and I couldn’t take it from her. Where did you find it?”
I was stunned speechless for a moment. This was not the same Kohei I knew. This was a soft-spoken man on the verge of tears.
“It was buried in her backyard.”
“Under the cherry tree?”
I swallowed, my throat turned into sandpaper. “Yeah.”
“This” — he laughed as he picked up my phone and looked at the photo — “was unexpected. I should never have gone to that hanami party. Always too many people with cameras.”
He set my phone down on the panel where Shizuka looked up into the adoring face of Kuro. “That’s me right there. You’ve had it backwards.”
The room was dead silent for a few moments. Then Goro blew out a long breath, rubbed his face, and sat forward. He returned my phone to me and flipped to the last page, the one where Hiromi’s vengeful face stared at Shizuka.
All Goro did was point to it, and Kohei laughed.
“You all are so short-sighted. I’ve been telling you for months that Mei-san is a complete idiot, and none of you listened to me.”
I bristled, and the chief said, “Hey now,” but Kohei laughed again, a tear rolling down his face.
“Did you honestly believe when Tama Kano tried to kill you a year ago that that had been his first time?”
All the blood in my head drained away, and I reached over to grasp Goro’s arm.
“My life ended the night he strangled Ria in the fields behind his house. He led her back there and killed her to teach me a lesson.” Kohei paused, his eyes unfocused. “Then he convinced me to help bury her and keep the whole thing a secret.” He laughed bitterly. “He was such a good manipulator. He was sure he could pin the murder on me, and I believed him. So I helped him bury her, and I kept quiet.”
He sat back in his chair, pushing out a relieved breath and wiping his face. “I actually became a police officer, so I could watch him. I knew he’d screw up somehow, and he did with his own father. What an idiot.” He shook his head before pointing at me. “I got transferred here to watch you. I heard you were good at figuring out mysteries. Haruka-san told me so. And I just knew you’d poke around into Tama’s past, eventually. Then I saw the Midori Sankaku deal go through a few months ago, and I was afraid they’d uncover the body before I could totally discredit you.”
He shrugged his shoulders, and though I had a moment where I felt bad for him, that moment evaporated in a puff of air. He’d been willing to bring me down to save himself.
“It didn’t work,” I said, raising my chin. “And though you may not have killed Ria, you knew who had.”
Tama Kano had killed Ria Fukuda. He’d killed his father, and he’d tried to kill Akiko and me. Tama was Hiromi in the manga, and Tama had not wanted to let go of Ria Fukuda when she tried to leave him for Kohei. It made perfect sense, but it also made me sick to my stomach. When I was younger, I’d loved Tama. What kind of person did that make me?
The chief stood up. “I think it’s time to go to an interrogation room, Goro-san. I want this confession on camera.”
“Yes, sir,” Goro said, and we all stood up.
The chief led out Kohei, but Goro stayed back. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
He grasped my shoulder and squeezed. “It’s over now, Mei-chan. Time to go home to that husband of yours and put your feet up. You deserve it.”
While I watched him walk off to the back of the station, I tried to feel like I deserved all the rest in the world after pulling that off, but my brain was churning through this new information.
Why was I afraid this would not be the last I’d hear of Tama Kano?
Chapter Thirty-Four
The late morning sun beat down on our umbrellas as Akiko, and I stood in the new Midori Sankaku parking lot that abutted to the fields in back of Akiko’s house. The yellow police caution tape fluttered in the wind in front of us as we sipped on our cold bottles of water.
“This place stinks now that all the water is gone,” Akiko said, wrinkling her nose. She was right. The air had a certain decaying scent to it. But if I squinted my eyes, I could see rotting squash and other produce out in the trampled grass and mud. I was sure at least half of Mom’s crops were either here or floating in the river on their way to Southern Japan.
It had taken two weeks for the fields to drain from the floodwaters. Midori Sankaku had wanted to get back on track, so they did everything they could to help the water abate, but some things had to be left up to Mother Nature. Now, the heavy machinery worked around us but gave us plenty of room to wait while the police forensics unit dug out Ria’s body from the muck and dirt.
“Mei-chan, I’m so glad I’ve sold this place. I can’t live here much longer knowing Ria was buried in the backfields all this time.” A tear sprinted down Akiko’s face, and she wiped it with the back of her hand. “I know it’s selfish, but I need to leave this behind me.”
“I completely understand.”
I took a few steps to my right to look out past Akiko’s house to my mom’s house beyond. A local arborist had cut up the pine tree two days after the typhoon, turned it into wood chips and logs, and Yasahiro’s car had been towed away. Mom and Yuna were there, cleaning out the house and loading anything worth saving into a moving van. From there, everything would go into storage until our new house was built, and Mom moved into the apartment.
“Could it be any hotter out today? I thought the heat would lessen once we were in September.” Akiko fanned herself as she gazed out across the fields. “I’m giving them ten more minutes before I get back in the car with the air conditioning.”
I looked out at the fields again, and this time the situation at the site looked different. Many people stood around the hole in the ground, and they all had their hands on their hips. One man took off his hat and scratched his head. A photographer snapped away with his camera.
Goro turned and walked towards us, his face dark with determination. Worry grew in my chest as he approached. Something wasn’t right about his demeanor.
“Come on,” he said, lifting the yellow tape and urging us underneath it. “Your presence has been requested.”
“By whom?” I asked, following him.
He didn’t answer, so I just shrugged my shoulders at Akiko, and we continued behind him. Everyone parted to let us join them at the rim of the hole, whispering to each other as we stepp
ed up to see what they saw.
I gasped, and my hand flew to my mouth. Akiko groaned and squatted down into a ball.
There were three bodies in the hole. Not one.
I opened my mouth to talk, and nothing came out. Three bodies? Three? Oh my god, Tama. Why would you do this?
I couldn’t even guess who they were, their bodies were so decayed and unrecognizable, and the police had covered some of the most gruesome bits before we approached. But pieces of clothing remained even after all these years, thanks to synthetic fabrics, and I knew they were all women. He had buried them in their shoes.
“Suga-san,” the chief said, crossing behind others to come around to me. Bile rose in my throat.
“I-I-I didn’t know,” I stammered out, panic overwhelming me. “I swear.”
The chief’s face softened, and he rested his hands on my shoulders. “I didn’t think you had. But we all owe you a huge debt of gratitude.” He glanced over his shoulder at the hole and the dead bodies. “It looks like you’ve caught a serial killer.”
Akiko let out a wail, but my brain had stopped functioning.
“A serial killer? Tama Kano was a serial killer?” My lips bumbled over the question.
“There’s no other explanation for this. We must dig out farther from here, a wider radius of the field. But if one of these bodies is Ria Fukuda, which I believe the one on the far left is, then no one else besides Tama Kano or Kohei Watanabe would know to bury other bodies here.” The chief squeezed my arms and then let go.
“And since we know Tama Kano stuck around town the last ten years, and he’s the one with the arrogant ego who never believed he’d be caught, it has to be him,” Goro said, wiping the sweat from his face. “Only someone with his personality would hide all the bodies in one place. He probably believed he’d own the land forever. Then Midori Sankaku arrived in town.”
We turned to look at the greenhouse and the foundations for the new administrative buildings. When I first heard that Midori Sankaku had come to town to buy up land and start a new venture here, I thought they were the evil ones. I was suspicious of them and wanted to keep my town from being eaten up by a big corporation.
The Daydreamer Detective Returns a Favor Page 21