________________________________________________________________________
J. Austin Wilde and Fission Park Press proudly present:
STIGMA
Part Five
By J. Austin Wilde, K.B.C.S.
Special Agent in Charge,
Fission Park Press
wildeman@psn.net
http://www.psn.net/~wildeman/
The characters and situations of Ranma 1/2 are
the creation and property of Rumiko Takahashi
and Shogakukan/Kitty TV.
--DARKFIC WARNING--
The following work of fanfiction contains graphic
and violent presentations of torture, sexual assault,
and murder. It is not for the faint of heart or the
easily disturbed.
_______________________________________________________________________
-Eighteen-
Inspector Takeda and Detective Lieutenant Ozawa stepped out of their
white unmarked Toyota sedan as three more regular police cars and a
Forensics Section minivan pulled up around them. The narrow street was
completely blocked off by the vehicles. Pedestrians gave the officers a
wide berth as they converged upon the modest two-story home of Gosunkugi
Hikaru.
A police sergeant stepped up to Takeda, bowed, and handed him an
envelope. Takeda opened the envelope and inspected the contents. A search
warrant from the Honorable Judge Wakamatsu commanded him to search the
home and property of Gosunkugi Yoshio, and to seize such evidence as
necessary in pursuance of the investigation.
They approached the front door. The house was small but neat, its
tiny grounds tended diligently if not with any particular skill. Ozawa
knocked with an authoritative rap upon the door.
A woman answered the door. She was in her late thirties, frail, with
dark circles under her eyes, much like her son. She started in surprise
and a little fear as she saw the platoon of uniformed police officers,
the surgically gloved Forensics Section, and the two grim faces of Takeda
and Ozawa.
"How can I help you, officers?" she gushed with a hearty bow.
Takeda bowed briefly in response and presented her with a copy of the
search and seizure warrant.
"My name is Inspector Takeda Jiro of the Tokyo Prefectural Police,
this is Detective Lieutenant Ozawa Iwase. Mrs Gosunkugi, I have a warrant
for the search of this home, its grounds, and all property, including any
motor vehicles, and the seizure as evidence of any property relevent to a
criminal investigation in progress. Is your husband home?"
Mrs Gosunkugi's mouth gaped open like a fish.
"N-No, sir, he's still at work. He works in Shinjuku as a computer
systems administrator, and doesn't come home until late."
She remained in the door, looking confused and terrified. Takeda
continued in a firm but non-threatening tone.
"Mrs Gosunkugi, I'm going to have to ask you to step aside, and to
cooperate with us wherever possible. I am instructing you not to use or
answer the phone, or to leave the premises at any time for the duration
that this warrant is being served. If you have any questions or complaints
regarding the nature and conduct of this search and seizure warrant, you
may do so after the completion by consulting with your attorney or by
contacting the office of the Honorable Judge Wakamatsu Leiji, presiding
over this investigation for the 1st District Court of the Tokyo Prefecture."
She nodded dumbly, not understanding how or why this had come to pass.
Ozawa stepped forward.
"Ma'am, your son has been arrested for obstruction of justice and
tampering with evidence related to a murder investigation. We have reason
to believe he may be involved with the murders. Our search warrant has
been isssued in light of these circumstances."
What little color Mrs Gosunkugi had now drained from her skin. She
sank against the door frame and closed her eyes. Her body was stiff with
shock and disbelief.
Ozawa took her inside gently, and the Forensics Section moved in. A
uniformed police officer stood guard at the door while another went around
to the back. Takeda shook his head and followed Kogata inside.
Hikaru's bedroom was on the second floor. It was neat and tidy, a
sharp contrast from the rooms of most of the youths Takeda had seen in
the course of his time on the force. He ran his gloved hands along the
simulated wood grain finish of the study desk, noting that it was quite
clean. He sniffed at his fingertip, noting the faint pine odor of cleaning
spray residue. His mother's handiwork, he didn't see a sixteen year old
boy like Gosunkugi Hikaru being so fastidious.
The sheets and bedspread had been smartly arranged on the bed in the
far corner of the room. Takeda had been able to bounce a 50 yen coin on it.
They were now spread on the floor while Tokaida went over it with tweezers
and a magnifying glass for hairs and other evidence. Another man went
through stacks of manga, magazines, and science fiction novels looking for
loose papers, photographs, and notes written on the pages. A third scanned
videotapes in fast forward from Gosunkugi's thirteen inch television/VHS
unit. He would play it at normal speed long enough to identify the program
and log it in an inventory. Most of it was anime, a few were television
programs on science topics, one was an untranslated bootleg of the American
sci-fi film, "Aliens."
Several cameras and various photographic accessories were set in a box.
A dozen tapers and one large votive candle sat on a shelf. A large poster of
Akane Tendo, created from a photograph most likely, was on the wall above
the head of the bed.
A forensics assistant had already bagged several notebooks and tagged
them as evidence. A clipboard sat on the desk for the inventory of items
seized. A pile of polaroid prints showed how the room appeared prior to
the police begining the search.
There wasn't much yet, but then, Gosunkugi had about fourteen thousand
photographs stacked neatly in two small sized shipping boxes to go through,
plus the negatives, and other photographs in the darkroom. His mother had
told them that Mister Gosunkugi had built it out of a small spare room for
their son several years ago.
Ozawa stepped into the room. He shook his head slowly.
"So far we haven't found anything particularly damning. The shed out
by the garden turned up nothing, the same with the yard. We'll hit the
photographs next, but that's going to take awhile."
"You check under the house?" Takeda grunted.
"I've got a man down there right now."
Takeda gestured to the room for him.
"We're making a bigger mess here than it was when we found it. The
place is way too clean for a teenaged boy when we arrived."
"Mother does the cleaning?" Ozawa asked.
"I think so," the inspector replied. "Remember to ask her when you
go down to the living room."
"So what are you getting at?"
Takeda swept his hand around the room again.
"Where is the good stuff?" he asked. "You're not that old. Did you
ever keep a skin magazine or two somewhere secret when you were a kid?"
Ozawa frowned. "What of it?"
"Well if he's got one, he's got to hide it from mom, because she
cleans his room all the time. Maybe he's hiding other things. Photographs
he's taken that he doesn't want mom to see. Things like that."
He looked around the room again. The closet was wide open, its contents
arranged on the floor before it. The desk had already been checked and
double checked according to the room inspection sheet.
"We're being thorough," Ozawa said. "You know these guys are first
rate, but we've only just begun."
"I know," Takeda grunted. "I'm just being impatient. I want to get
this fucker and put him away. I don't want there to be a number five."
He lifted his chin to the ceiling and stretched out the kinks in his
neck. He hadn't gotten much sleep the previous night, as he had been poring
over witness statements, compiling tables of alibis, and coming up with new
lines of questioning. It had taken a few fingers of whiskey to finally put
him down.
The ceiling was criss-crossed with pine beams stained a brown so deep
that it was almost black depending on the lighting. Sections of heavy rice
paper lined the ceiling in 50cm by 100cm rectangles. He craned his neck
about to look at the section above the desk.
The stain on the beam closest to the wall was scratched and uneven.
The paper curled slightly out of parallel with the rest of the ceiling.
"Check up there," Takeda said to Ozawa. "I'm too fat and clumsy to
go up there myself."
Ozawa looked up and saw what had interested Takeda. He moved the chair
out and stood upon the desk. He had to hunch his tall gaunt frame to keep
his head from bumping the wooden beams, but a boy of Hikaru's height would
have been fairly comfortable.
"The paper's tacked to the beam running along the wall," Ozawa reported.
"It's a brown thumbtack, it blends nicely with the color of the stain. The
paper has been cut neatly on three sides by a sharp instrument very close
along the beams. You can see where he stretched it slightly to tack it back
in place, it's so taut that you'd never see a gap from the floor."
Takeda turned to an officer who was lurking in the hall.
"Tell Kogata to get in here, I need to touch something, and I want him
to clear it for prints first."
The cop did as he was told. Kogata appeared with his field kit shortly
thereafter.
"Join Ozawa up there and see what you can pull off that beam," Takeda
told him.
"What's up?"
"Maybe the kid's hidey-hole. I want to make sure that he's the only
one going up there."
Kogata climbed up next to Ozawa and dusted the area around the beam.
His small lamp shone on the area, producing a smudge of prints around the
thumbtack. He looked closely at them while Ozawa held the lamp in place.
"Looks like one set of prints," Kogata said at length. "Both hands,
gripping the beam for support and pulling the tack out. I can see a few
extra holes where he stuck the tack into the beam when he was up here doing
whatever."
"Anything else?"
"I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that there is only one set of
prints here." Kogata reached down to his hip where a good quality camera
rested in a pouch. He snapped a few shots for evidence and then climbed
down.
Ozawa pulled the thumbtack out and set it in one of the extra holes.
The paper curled back slightly and then fell out of the ceiling to settle
on his head. He gently lifted the paper and folded it back over itself on
the beam that still secured it.
Above him was a large mesh laundry bag. It was filled with video
tapes, magazines, books, several photo albums, and curiously enough; a
small mallet and a bundle of iron spikes. Ozawa could see where it was
suspended by a hook through the tag hole in the zipper at the top of
the bag. A length of heavy test nylon fishing line supported the bag,
which was anchored by another hook sunk into the six by six beams that
supported the roof above the ceiling. The zipper was just high enough
for someone of Hikaru's height to stand on tip-toe to reach it.
"Quite a find," Ozawa said as he reached up to take the bag down off
the hook. He passed it to Kogata, who set it on the desk.
Takeda unzipped the bag as Ozawa stepped down from the desk. He began
removing items as Ozawa checked them off on an inventory sheet. Kogata stood
by to dust the items that Takeda was finished examining.
"Here's the skin mags," Takeda said, setting two dog-eared periodicals
festooned with Korean writing and teenaged girls in varying states of dress
and undress. "Bunch of videotapes, they look like pirated copies from a
local distributer. There's a phone number and a name: Anything Goes Video.
Also what looks like three vouchers from the place for free merchandise."
He set the tapes down next to the officer reviewing Gosunkugi's video
library. The vouchers went into a plastic bag.
The books were interesting. Occult books. They dealt with western
magical and religious beliefs mostly. Some were paperbacks touting the lost
works of Mad Arabs, others espoused the systems of the Victorian era Order
of the Golden Dawn and other nonsense. A treatise on Voodoo had many pages
dogeared and passages highlighted for reference.
The mallet was made of wood, and had numerous marks upon each striking
face where it had impacted against something hard and circular, most likely
the iron spikes it was bundled to by a couple heavy duty rubber bands. He'd
have to have Occult Section explain the possible purpose of such items, but
they didn't seem relevant to the investigation. About the only thing he
could say about the mallet was that whatever Hikaru was driving the spikes
into, it wasn't very hard. He'd ruin the mallet trying to go through
anything substantial.
The photo albums were what interested him the most.
The first one was dated in the inside right hand page corner from last
year. The subject of the album was clear. Every photograph, and there were
close to a hundred of them, featured Akane Tendo. Any other people who
happened to turn up in the photos had their eyes blocked out by neat black
rectangles.
"This kid has one hell of a fixation on Tendo Akane," Takeda muttered
as he flipped through the album pages. Most of the stuff was pretty tame.
Akane in her school uniform, Akane in gym class wearing tiny red shorts and
a yellow top. Akane in her yellow gi smashing cinderblocks. Akane out on
the town shopping with her friends. None of the pictures gave any indication
that she was posing for any of the photographs. In spite of this, they were
excellent shots; in sharp focus, with the lighting just right, and managing
to capture the charm, beauty, and spirit of the girl. He had to be staking
her out carefully to get such photographs unawares.
As he progressed towards the back of the album, the tone changed.
There were shots of the girls' locker room now, carefully cropped to show
only Akane wherever possible. Wherever he was taking them, he didn't seem
to be getting any good frontal shots. There was one which captured the image
of her pulling her sports bra off to change, revealing modest sized, perky
breasts with erect nipples and nothing more. Takeda wondered how much that
might have frustrated Gosunkugi. Then again, it was probably racy stuff
considering who he was. There were no shots of Akane at home. They must
have seized the only ones he had taken, unless they turned up some in the
darkroom.
There was something else about the later ones. Any photograph of Akane
that contained Ranma had the image of the Saotome boy carefully blacked out
with a marker. Takeda guessed it was Ranma, he couldn't think of any other
silhouettes featuring pigtails that would be associated with Akane.
Takeda handed the album over to Kogata. The next album was earlier
stuff. Temples, parks, a bunch of Mt. Fuji, a few crowd scenes, an odd
group featuring men in loincloths running into a fountain pool. The work
seemed cruder than the other photos. It was obvious that this was his first
solo work, as none of the prints bore any identification with a photoshop.
Why he was concealing them with the rest of his forbidden treasures, Takeda
did not know.
The third album was a surprise.
It was a journal of some sort, starting seven weeks ago. The first
entry detailed the death of Hiroyuki Kimiko, the date she was reported
missing, the date she was discovered, the date she was cremated, her age,
and other vital statistics. A shaky hand, presumably Hikaru's, wrote in the
margins of several newspaper clippings, including her obituary. One of the
clippings had a photograph, the same one Takeda received from the High
School that Kimiko attended. Another photograph showed the bridge she was
believed to have been dumped from, and another showed the section of fence
that Saotome Ranma had discovered her hung up on. The lighting and angle
were different from the photos they had seized with his camera earlier that
day.
The last photograph was one of her mangled face. A small lock of hair
in a tiny ziplock bag was scotch-taped to the bottom of the page next to
the photo.
"Tokaida!" the inspector barked. "I've got something for you!"
"Gods," Ozawa breathed.
Tokaida got up from his work on the bedding, and carefully removed
several strands of hair from the envelope. He examined them with his glass.
"The hairs have been cut with a pair of scissors," he said after a
few moments. "I can compare them with the hairs taken from Hiroyuki at the
autopsy for a match."
They flipped through the other pages of the album. Nakazawa Miko had
a similar entry, though it was a bit more extensive. A single photograph
of Miko in a teal leotard standing next to a very angry Kuno Kodachi was
pasted next to the obituary photo. A gruesome close-up image of Miko's
ruined face had an envelope with more hair taped next to it. The hair color
matched that of Miko from the gymnastics photo.
Ogata Yuka's entry was even more detailed, and featured several photos
of her with Tendo Akane and another girl, presumably Kitano Sayuri. A photo
of her mangled face had a lock of hair taped next to it. A line of writing
was at the bottom of the photograph of Yuka alive and with her friends. The
words were written in English, in black ink, and in the same shaky hand as
the other entries.
"Do not die, for I shall hate all women so when thou art gone."
They looked, but there was no entry for victim number four. The
journal ended at three.
"Tag and bag this one," Takeda said evenly to Tokaida as he held up
the album. "Follow up on the rest of this stuff. You're in charge. Keep me
posted."
He started for the door.
"Now what?" Ozawa asked, following him out.
"I want to talk to the kid. I want to know how the hell he got the
goddamn hair."
"He can't be the killer," Ozawa remarked. "He can't even be involved
with the killer. If he was, he'd have hair for number four. Photographs.
Something. It looks like he's got some kind of sick obituary going, and
that's it."
"That makes the most sense," Takeda returned. "But I still want to
know what the hell is going on here before I write him off as some kind
of sick necrophilic voyeur. If there is the slightest chance that he knows
more about the murders, I want to know what it is. There is the possibility
that he knows who the killer is, but he isn't actively participating, and
that he doesn't care to tell us about it for whatever reason."
They encountered Matsumoto on their way out the door. The Nerima
detective had just stepped out of his car, and was on his way to report
to them.
"According to the owner, Mousse hasn't come back to the Cat Cafe
since he ran out on you yesterday," he began. "The same with Kurenai.
The old man who supervises the half-way house says he never came back
to the place after he was released from police custody."
"Great," Takeda said darkly. "Anything else?"
"Oh yeah," Matsumoto replied. "Doctor Ito came up with some
potentially big finds. He pulled a few wood slivers out of number four's
ankle for starters, came up with some unusual abrasion patterns on the
skin, and a bruise on the back of the neck that matches one he found on
number three."
"Outstanding!" Takeda cried. They needed a break like this. For the
first time since the investigation began, he felt like they were making
progress.
"The doctor wants to go over his preliminary findings with you as
soon as possible. He wants to bring in an outside specialist, and he wants
to get your approval before he does so."
Takeda nodded. "Gosunkugi can wait," he decided. "We'll be right
there. In the meantime, I want your cops who are out looking for the
clothes of number four to keep an eye out for a bouquet of roses. They
probably won't be in very good shape, but if we can find them, we might
have discovered the location of where she was taken."
Matsumoto wrote that down. "I'll get my people on it."
-Nineteen-
The drive to the Nerima Morgue was a slow one with the midday traffic
detoured around the area where tomorrow evening's merchants' festival was
being set up. Ozawa drove while Takeda smoked to pass the time.
"What do you think about Gosunkugi?" Ozawa asked. "Did you ever see
anything like this before?"
"In answer to your second question, yes. My first serial had a journal
going," Takeda replied. "That's how we caught him. The stupid bastard was
carrying it around with him. We go to review his witness statement with
him, and it falls out of his backpack and spills open to a page of photos
of one of his victims. I about shit myself when it happened, I think he
did too. They locked him up in a maximum security mental hospital in
Hokkaido, and he's been there ever since."
Ozawa whistled. "How about my first question."
Takeda took a long drag on his cigarette. "I think he's been getting
picked on his whole life. He's an introvert, doesn't have many friends, and
compensates by losing himself in a bunch of fantasy and science fiction
bullshit. His only serious hobby seems to be spying on a girl that he has a
crush on, and for some reason he's developed some kind of death fascination
that's got him compiling information on three dead girls. Four, if we hadn't
caught him across the barrier this morning."
"You think those occult books have anything to do with that?"
"Maybe. They sure didn't help."
Ozawa nodded as he made the last turn towards Nerima General.
"The hair bothers me."
"It should," Takeda said with another drag. "It bugs the hell out of
me. If that hair matches up to the victims... Say what you want about him
not being involved, but that's pretty damning."
"Agreed," Ozawa replied. "I want answers as badly as you on that one."
* * *
Doctor Ito received them in a private lounge above the morgue. He had
several copies of the autopsy report lying on a table between himself and
the chairs where Takeda and Ozawa sat. The doctor was drinking a can of
iced tea purchased from a noisy vending machine sitting in a corner of the
lounge.
"I'm glad you could make it so quickly," Ito said to them. "How is
it going with the kid who crossed the line this morning?"
"It's a real mess," Takeda replied. "He might be seriously involved."
"Well I guess that's good news then. As for me, It's my opinion that
number four was killed by the same person as the other three murders. If
it is a copycat, he is privy to details of the murders that haven't been
made available to the public. Cause of death is the same -cervical
displacement severing the spinal cord. Time of death is roughly the same
-late evening before midnight. The disfigurement pattern is identical. The
vaginal penetration is exclusively digital, with some of it occuring before
death."
Ito opened the report. "We went over her with a fine toothed comb,"
he said. "Floaters are hard to work with, even if they haven't been in the
water all that long, so I was glad to get this one nice and dry. We came up
with three wood slivers in her left ankle, consistant with her being brushed
against a rough wooden surface. One of the slivers was a centimeter long, so
the lab should have a good sample to work with."
He showed them the photos of the slivers, which were set next to a
small ruler for comparison. Next he showed them photos of the girl's back,
buttocks, and knees.
"It's hard to make out in these black and whites," Ito told them. "But
you can see abrasion marks here, here, and along here." He pointed out the
various areas as he went. "Not a ligature mark, but some kind of rubbing
contact. It doesn't look post-mortem, either. The skin of the other victims
was in bad shape, but if our man is following the same methods, they very
probably had similar marks, and were concealed by the immersion effects. I
also came up with another burn on the back, it's definitely lime, because
we recovered some from her hair. This burn was more prominent than with
number three."
"So by not disposing of her in the water in order to avoid getting
caught, he might have given us what we need to catch him," Takeda remarked.
"It's a good start," Ito agreed. "But the most fascinating find I made
is next."
He pulled out four eight by ten black and white photos. "This is victim
number three. I found this bruise on the back of her neck, below the base of
the skull." He showed them the mark in the autopsy photo. "I didn't think
much of it, since it's such a small bruise. It was logged and nothing more."
He showed them another photo. "Then I get number four on my table,
and I find the same mark in the same location. It jogs my memory, so I go
back to the report on number three. They match, so I go back to the
autopsies on numbers two and one made by the Nerima medical examiner."
He showed them two more photos, each victim had a similar mark.
"All four victims have the same bruise in the same place," he said to
them. "The significance is obvious, but I haven't been able to make the
connection. I almost want to say it's some kind of acupressure point, but
I'm a classically trained physician. I never did much in the way of natural
medicine."
"Matsumoto said you wanted to bring in an outsider. Is it because of
this?" Takeda asked.
"Precisely," Ito said. "One of my colleagues at the hospital here
recommended a local physician with degrees in natural medicine and
chiropractry. His name is Ono Tofu. He has a private practice in the ward."
"His name's come up, actually," Takeda replied. "If you think he can
shed some light on this mysterious bruise, then by all means bring him in.
Just remind him about the confidentiality of the investigation."
Ito agreed. Takeda decided to broach the obvious next question.
"Do you have any idea who she was yet?"
"No one has come down to the morgue to identify her yet," Ito replied.
"Otherwise you would be in a better position to tell me who she was. She
has a birthmark on the small of her back, that will help, but until
someone comes forward..."
"It's still too early. We're doing the same thing we did with Ogata
Yuka; waiting for a missing persons report, and calling the high schools
for attendence reports and asking them to verify with the families."
-Twenty-
"I just want to talk to my parents," Gosunkugi pleaded.
"Your mother has already been informed about you," Takeda countered.
Gosunkugi's face fell. To Takeda it seemed that the kid had endured
torment, ridicule, and abuse from his peers his whole life, and had somehow
weathered it -probably by crafting a shell of fantasy and retreating into
it when things got ugly. That strategy worked when the worst you could
face in a day was getting beat up by a school bully or laughed at by the
girls. In the face of an indeterminate time in jail, where he would be
stripped of those things he used for his private escape, it was starting to
crumble.
"A search and seizure warrant was served on your house this afternoon,"
Takeda said after a calculated moment of silence. "Can you tell me where
my probable cause for the warrant came from?"
"The film," Gosunkugi said into his hands. He had been thinking about
what the police would find on his rolls of undeveloped film from the
moment he was formally arrested, and his anxiety over it was plainly evident
on his face.
"The film," Takeda confirmed. "Do you want to tell me why you were
taking photographs of the places where the murder victims were dumped? I
can guess about the peep photos of Tendo Akane..."
"You wouldn't believe me," he whimpered in shame.
"Try me."
Gosunkugi took a deep breath to keep from sobbing. He was scared. He
wasn't ashamed to admit it, because he had always been a victim and no one
expected anything less of him, but the cold demeanor of the inspector was
infuriating. He was no better than a bully 'borrowing' his lunch money, for
his options were to give in to the demand or suffer and still end up
submitting.
Even though he always lost, Hikaru Gosunkugi had enough courage to
at least try and fight a bully.
"No."
Takeda frowned. "No, you're not going to try me? Fair enough, it's
your right not to answer questioning."
He took a drag on a cigarette while Gosunkugi sat staring into his
hands. "To tell you the truth, I don't think you killed anyone," he said to
the boy from behind a puff of blue smoke. "But there are a few people who
think you are involved, and they have good reasons to think that way."
He let Gosunkugi stew for a moment before dropping his bombshell.
"We found your photo albums up in the ceiling of your room," he said
with another puff of smoke. Gosunkugi's face registered momentary alarm.
"If the hair we found in that album matches the dead girls, you're going
down, kid. As an accessory to murder at the very least. Even if you aren't
involved in the murders, there's not much I can do about that kind of
evidence if you won't talk to me... Right now, you are the only person who
can help you."
Hikaru Gosunkugi lowered his face from his hands and looked down into
his lap. How could he tell the inspector something he didn't understand and
couldn't really explain, even to himself? The sob he had been trying to
stifle erupted from his lips and his frail body shuddered with its passing.
"I don't know," he mumbled. "...It's all so complicated."
Takeda leaned back on a stool. "Let's start with a few simple and
direct questions, then." He crushed his cigarette out on the sole of his
shoe. "Does the hair from the photo album belong to the murder victims?"
Gosunkugi nodded slowly, avoiding eye contact.
"I'd like to hear you say that to me," Takeda replied.
"Yes."
"Yes, what?"
Gosunkugi choked back another sob. "Yes, the hair from my journal came
from the girls."
"How did you get the hair?"
Gosunkugi was silent.
"You're in too deep to stop treading water now," Takeda advised.
"Answer the question."
The frail boy sniffed.
"When I heard about the first murder, I went to the morgue," Gosunkugi
began. "I don't know why, I just did. I didn't even know her." He coughed
once, mostly to collect his thoughts. "It was after the autopsy, and she
was waiting to be transferred to the mortuary. I... I bribed one of the
assistants to let me see the body, and when he wasn't looking, I clipped
some hair."
Takeda nodded. "You also took a photograph of her," he reminded him.
"Yes," Gosunkugi replied. "That was what I was paying him to let me
do. One photograph only... I had never seen a dead body before..."
"Do you remember his name?"
Gosunkugi shook his head. "It never came up."
"Did you bribe the same person the next two times?"
"Yes. He was actually looking forward to seeing me the third time."
Gosunkugi shrugged. "He's probably wondering where I am right now..."
Takeda took a few notes. "And despite this bond you had formed with
the morgue attendent, you never got his name?"
"No. It seemed better that way, I guess."
Takeda frowned. "But you can describe him."
Gosunkugi nodded. "Um, yes, I guess."
"Go on."
"He's a ronin, from what he told me, just working at the morgue until
he can get into college. I suppose he is about nineteen, black hair, skin
pale like mine. He's about ten centimeters taller than me, and skinny."
Takeda didn't remember seeing anyone like that at the morgue, but it
didn't mean it wasn't possible.
"Any distinguishing marks?" Takeda asked. "Tattoos, scars, birthmarks?"
"I don't remember any."
Takeda finished his notes. "So if I go down to the morgue and start
asking questions about this guy, am I going to find him?"
Gosunkugi nodded desperately. "I swear I'm telling the truth. That's
how I got the hair."
"I believe you," Takeda told him. "Now tell me why you were at the
crime scene this morning."
"I wanted a photo of the body where it was discovered," Gosunkugi
replied. "It didn't have a chance to get anything like that with the
others."
"It didn't matter that you had to cross a police evidence boundary
to get your shots?" Takeda asked archly.
Gosunkugi shrank down in his chair.
"I didn't think I would get caught."
Takeda snorted something under his breath. It wasn't clear at first if
he believed the boy.
"Now tell me why you did all this."
Gosunkugi's weak chin trembled. "I don't know..."
"You can do better than that," Takeda retorted. "You decided to do it
two more times after the first one, and if we hadn't caught you this morning
trying to add to your photo collection for your, what did you call it? For
your 'journal,' you probably would have been back at the morgue slipping
your good friend another wad of yen for a shot at number four."
What little control over himself he had regained in the last few
minutes began to slip away from Hikaru Gosunkugi. He looked away as anguish
played across his face. Takeda thought he detected a look of self-loathing
as well.
"...I don't know why..." he said in a whisper. "I know it was wrong. I
know it was something people would say was disgusting, but... But... It was
all so *cool,* too... I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I mean, they were
already dead, so what harm could I do?"
Takeda didn't reply. He wasn't sure what would be appropriate. It was
obvious that the kid had some serious psychological problems. He had felt it
while he was at the Gosunkugi house. The order and the cleanliness of the
place was more like a silent scream of despair. A small family with little
money and no prestige, ekking out a living with nothing to look forward to
in their lives. There were no signs that they had ever been anywhere or
done anything exciting; no photographs of vacations, no souveniers of places
visited, nothing but a single portrait of a frail ghostly looking boy, a
lonely wife, and a husband who, with his unruly bangs and ridiculous little
mustache, looked like a sleep deprived and Japanese version of Adolf
Hitler.
The real wonder was that Hikaru Gosunkugi hadn't turned out worse
than he was. He was preoccupied with death, he was a voyeur, but not a
murderer. He doubted that the kid even had anything to do with the murders
beyond his twisted little 'journal.'In spite of his doubts, he wasn't going
to let the kid off the hook. At least not until he had confirmed his story.
There was also the spying on Akane Tendo to consider. He'd have to answer
for that.
He rapped on the steel door, and the burly police sergeant opened it
to let him out. He'd leave the particulars for one of Matsumoto's men to
take care of. Hikaru Gosunkugi sat silently in the chair, looking down
at the table before him, trying to come to grips with who he was and what
he had become.
-Twenty-one-
Ozawa found Takeda studying in a dingy and practically deserted
Homicide office. The detectives were all out working on leads or the search
for evidence, leaving only the confirmed desk jockeys to push the paper
that supposedly ran the place. Takeda barely registered the gaunt man's
presence. A clock on the wall indicated that it would soon be dusk, several
hours since Hikaru Gosunkugi's questioning.
"Another lucky break for us," Ozawa announced. "We think we found
the scene of number four's abduction."
Takeda looked up. "Oh?"
Ozawa nodded. "A bouquet of wilted roses and a baton was found in a
side street within a quarter kilometer of the Tendo Dojo. We still haven't
found the victim's clothes, and we probably won't; the garbage collection
was already carried out for half of the area before we were able to stop
them. Matsumoto's detailed a couple patrolmen to go through the collected
refuse before it gets sorted and disposed of, but I'm not holding my
breath."
"Baton?" Takeda asked, seemingly oblivious to the rest of the
detective's update.
Ozawa nodded once again. "The kind a cheerleader would use."
Takeda's lips pursed in understanding, his jowls stretching taut for
a moment. "I understand. They still have the scene sealed off?"
"Forensics had just finished up with the Gosunkugi place when they
got the call, but there's a whole lot more than just the photos and the
hair to talk about." He paused for effect. "One of the hidden tapes was
a snuff-flick."
Takeda's eyes widened in the kind of sick horror that men of his
profession and experience were supposed to be immune from suffering.
"You're lying to me," was all that he could say. "That's a lousy
fucking joke."
The icy glint in Ozawa'a eyes told him that he wasn't.
"Apparently it was buried with twenty minutes of bootlegged anime on
either side of it," he replied. "The victim's a teenaged girl, about
seventeen, perhaps. Looks Burmese or Thai, maybe Cambodian. Two men, whose
faces are blocked out, rape her for about twenty minutes before they
strangle her. It looks too real to be clever acting. Right down to the
muscle tremors after she goes down."
"Gosunkugi's death fixation," Takeda grunted to himself.
Ozawa shrugged. "I haven't been able to bring myself to think about
reasons for it being there in his possession. I turned it over to Matsumoto,
since I don't think it has anything to do with our case. National will
probably step in on this one, since it appears to involve a foreigner."
Takeda nodded absently. "Yes, probably. What about the pirate?"
"According to the phone number, it's a private apartment in the ward.
The number actually checks against our list of known sex-offenders.
Hashimoto Otsu. He was convicted three years ago of molesting a nine year
old girl. The particulars of the case weren't very clear cut, so he got
time served, psychiatric treatment, and restitution to the victim's parents
in addition to five years probation to include periodic follow-up
psychiatric evaluation."
"He got off light," Takeda observed. "Scum like that should be
castrated."
"He was a first offender and although he isn't approved of by his
family, they are wealthy and influential investment bankers," Ozawa noted
from memory. "According to the write-up I was faxed, he was sent to Nerima
by his family because it was quiet and no-one would ask too many questions.
He's supposed to work as a night custodian at one of the family's branch
offices in the ward, but the phone call I made to his supervisor says he
almost never shows up for work. The guy knows who Hashimoto is, so he's too
afraid to fire him and risk revoking Hashimoto's probation -and the family's
wrath."
"Matsumoto send anyone over to check the place out?" Takeda growled.
"That tape is more than enough to get a warrant. Hell, you could get a
S.W.A.T. explosive entry authorized with that."
"Not enough warm bodies," Ozawa returned. "He's running himself and
the rest of the homicide team ragged on our case. I give National twenty-
four hours before they step in. If this Hashimoto creep is part of a snuff-
flick ring, they'll bury him, family or no family. There's no way they'd
stand behind him at that point."
Takeda rose from the desk and dumped out his tepid coffee.
"If National does go in, I'm counting on you to make sure that we get
a peek at whatever sludge they turn up. You never know what else a guy like
that might have on him."
Ozawa nodded in understanding. "I'll do what I can." He lead the way
out of the office and towards the parking lot. They'd have to hurry if they
wanted to reach the abduction scene before dark. "So what did you learn
about Gosunkugi?"
"He didn't do it," Takeda admitted. "I didn't have too many doubts
about that, but there was a part of me hoping that he was at least somehow
involved."
"And the pictures?" Ozawa asked. "The hair?"
"Gosunkugi paid a morgue attendent to let him snap photos of the
bodies. He then sneaked locks of hair while the guy wasn't paying attention,
and put them in that 'journal' for whatever twisted reason the shrinks can
drag out of his head. Matsumoto found the guy he bribed; he saw to it
personally. You know how much he went for each time?"
"I have no idea," Ozawa admitted.
"A thousand lousy yen," Takeda replied.
"If you had ever been a college student, that might not be so
surprising," Ozawa said with a shrug. "He'll lose his job over it, but
since the bodies had been released to the mortuaries in each case when he
let Gosunkugi in, it's not like we can charge him with obstructing justice
or tampering with evidence."
Takeda nodded with a frown.
"The only thing that still bothers me about Gosunkugi are those
rain checks from the pirate video guy we found at the house. They're all
dated the day after he visited the morgue each time."
"What do suppose that is about?"
"I don't know for certain," Takeda admitted. "The kid blows a thousand
yen to get photos and hair from the victims. You saw the house, it's not
like the Gosunkugis are rolling in money. Then the next day he's pulling
in vouchers for tapes and stuff from this pirate that are listed as having
a redemption value worth five thousand yen apiece."
"He's selling copies of the morgue photos to the pirate, who doesn't
want to pay him cash, but offers him merchandise instead," Ozawa observed.
"Like the snuff-flick."
"That's what I come up with, but something still bothers me about it,"
Takeda said. "What kind of wacko would want them?"
"The same kind of wacko who'd get them," Ozawa returned.
Takeda nodded distractedly. "You're probably right." He changed the
subject. "So, what could you manage to get from the girl's parents?"
"Mariko?" Ozawa asked. He had interviewed the grieving parents of
Mariko Konjou following the identification of her body while Takeda had
questioned Hikaru Gosunkugi. "They informed their local koban as soon as
they got the call from Seisyun High School asking where she was. The
officer on duty was looking out for such a report, and so he phoned
Matsumoto's office... They identified her by her birthmark, just as Ito
thought they would."
"They didn't realize that she was missing until the next morning?"
Takeda couldn't believe that parents would be so lax with their children.
Ozawa sighed. "I asked them about that. They said she had a lot of
extra-curricular activities that kept her away from home until late.
Sometimes she wouldn't get home until after her parents went to bed, but
she never got into any kind of trouble, kept her grades up and whatnot, so
they never made an issue out of it."
"Activities? Like what?"
"She was captain of her school's cheerleading squad for one thing."
Takeda thought about this. "Seisyun High School you say?"
Ozawa nodded as they walked. The car stood before them, but it was
several moments before Takeda opened his door. He thought some more,
having pored over the map of the ward many times since he took over the
investigation. "That's on the other side of the ward. What was she doing
over here?"
"Konatsu might be able to answer that one," Ozawa offered as he sat
down in the driver's seat. "He claims to have seen her last night."
"Hibiki Ryouga would be a better choice," Takeda returned, finally
geting into the car. "According to Konatsu, Hibiki was with a girl last
night. From the description of her hair and clothing, I'd say that it was
Konjou Mariko." He rubbed at his temples. "I don't know who I want to find
more tonight; Mousse, Kurenai, or Hibiki."
"Preferably all three," Ozawa noted.
"If we can get them, I won't complain." He looked Now I want to know
what Konjou was doing in this part of town at night. With a bouquet of
roses no less."
"The card with the bouquet is being run through all the local florists.
The card itself was anonymous, but there must have been something that told
her who sent it."
Takeda frowned suddenly at a thought. Ozawa caught the look in his
mirror and turned to the inspector.
"What is it?"
Takeda frowned again.
"Do you think it was bait?"
"The flowers?"
"Yes."
"It's possible," Ozawa conceded. "But in this case it's clear that
Konjou knew who the sender was. I don't think our man operates like that,
baiting them I mean. He seems more predatory, prefering to find his victims
and going and getting them, not waiting for them to come to him." He turned
onto one of the few major streets outside the residential areas. "Besides,
why haven't we found more bouquets if that's his pattern?"
"We didn't know to look for them," Takeda replied. "Aside from that
I'm not saying that he's always using flowers, but there could be the
possibility that he is baiting them."
"Agreed," Ozawa replied. "I suppose that might help explain the lack
of a struggle on the part of the victims... There's also the acupressure
point possibility."
"True, but if those bruises are an indication that the killer is
incapacitating his victims, how much sense does it make to do it somewhere
in the open? He'd have to spend twice as much time carrying dead weight and
running the risk of getting caught, instead of however long it takes him to
simply dispose of them when he's done. Baiting almost makes sense."
"I'm not convinced," Ozawa muttered. "But I'll keep an open mind about
it. Until we come up with some more information on who sent the flowers,
it's all just speculation."
They reached the taped off area where the flowers and the baton were
discovered. Matsumoto, sweating buckets from running all over the ward
that day, was pacing back and forth outside the tape waiting for the two
Prefectural police officers. Tokaida stood close by, speaking to one of his
assistants. He seemed very pleased with himself.
The street beyond the tape was too narrow for a car to drive through,
it was foot traffic only. Takeda and Ozawa stepped out of the car and
walked towards Matsumoto and the scene.
"We found the bouquet over there," the Nerima detective pointed with
his finger. "It was lying next to that cinderblock wall. The baton was only
a meter away, hidden by that broken ceramic frog you see there."
Takeda noted the large pile of shards painted a cheerful green. There
were several other frogs lining the top of the wall. Beyond the wall was
a small house. Chinese lanterns hung from the back porch.
"The owner didn't note the missing frog and come out to look?" Takeda
asked.
Matsumoto shook his head. "I guess not. She's a shut-in, from what one
of the koban officers said. He talked to her after he found the bouquet and
baton, and said that she had nothing to say about the matter."
Tokaida stepped up.
"While you discuss the significance of frogs, I just wanted you to know
that I pulled some evidence from the bouquet."
He held up a large plastic envelope, sealed and tagged as evidence. A
long black hair was contained within.
"There's more. I found several hairs on the baton. The part where the
metal sleeve touches the rubber tip had several hairs caught up in the tiny
gap. From the look of the baton, I'd say she hit someone on the head with
it, and whoever it was got a few hairs caught."
"That's fantastic!" Ozawa cried. Takeda looked very pleased. Tokaida
wasn't finished.
"The tricky part is that the hair on the bouquet doesn't match the
hairs on the baton, and neither sample matches the hair of the victim. There
were two people who had contact with her. One of whom she hit on the head."
"Hibiki was reported to be in her company last night," Ozawa stated.
"He is likely going to be one of the two. As for the other one..."
"I'm headed back to the lab right now," Tokaida said. "It's going to
be an all-nighter, I can feel it already. I'll fax you the results as soon
as I come up with something."
"Good work, Tokaida," Takeda said evenly. He was glad for this kind of
break, twice in one day. All they needed was just the right kind of physical
evidence, and they would have their killer. He knew it.
Tokaida and his assistants gathered up their equipment and left while
men like Kogata searched for footprints, fingerprints, and any other evidence
that might lend a clue to the killer's identity -or at least how he was able
to get Mariko from this spot.
"Could the killer have knocked one of the frogs down in the process
of grabbing Konjou?" Ozawa asked Kogata.
"It's possible," Kogata conceded. "I'm not having much luck here. There
are too many footprints here to isolate anything, let alone prove any one
person was here in the last twenty-four hours. I couldn't pull anything
off the frog as far as fingerprints."
"If Mariko hit someone with her baton, why weren't there any further
signs of a struggle," Takeda mused loud enough to distract Ozawa and Kogata
from their discussion.
"It comes back to the acupressure point question," Ozawa replied. "If
it's true, then it would seem that he incapacitated them with it."
"He had to strike the back of their head to hit the point," Takeda
said. "If he was clumsy, his knocking the frog over would alert her. She
probably got in one good swing with the baton before he could stop her."
Chapter Twenty-two
Doctor Ono Tofu adjusted the position of the lamp over the body of
Konjou Mariko. Doctor Ito stood close by to assist, remaining silent until
spoken to. Tofu wasn't a stranger to death. He had a fair share of elderly
patients, and sometimes he would make that dreaded house call to the
residence of one who had missed an appointment without ever calling to
reschedule, and find them dead. Sometimes they were days gone, but
they never looked like this.
The body lying on the examining table looked more like a worked over
cadaver in medical school, dissected by clumsy first timers with the knife
over and over and over. Ito's neat incisions, careful sectionings, and
practiced sutures were lost in the carnage that the killer had wrought. He
rubbed absently at side of his surgical masked nose with the heel of his
gloved hand. The vaporub was starting to wear off.
He brought his hands down onto her cold and lifelessly yielding neck
once again. The bruise was there, and he had consulted the charts and his
private library. It was an acupressure point, there was no doubt about it.
He shuddered at the sight of the small bruise, for he knew that it heralded
her death.
"Doctor Ito, you are quite certain the other three bodies had marks
like this, the same size and location?"
Ito frowned. "You saw the photographs yourself, doctor."
Tofu closed his eyes. "I know. I just keep hoping it isn't true."
"Are the marks indicative of an acupressure point?" Ito asked.
Tofu nodded. "They are. It's an obscure point, nothing you would find
in a normal practice. There's no need for it."
"What are the effects?"
"Sleep," Tofu replied. "Nervous disruption along the dorsal and
anterior regions if the practitioner isn't careful; mild paralysis similar
to musculo-skeletal anesthesia in some cases; but sleep is the primary
effect."
Ito watched as Tofu traced the ki paths to and from the point along
the ashen body of what was once a gorgeous teenaged girl.
"Where did you learn of this, if I may ask, doctor?"
Tofu ran his finger along another branching path, searching for traces
of the living energy that once coursed through her. Until the last cell in
her body died, there would be some ki left in her, a tiny hopelessly faint
flicker of the secret fire that would yet trickle along her body's natural
pathways. What he sensed concerned him more than the slaughter he probed,
but he had no idea how to describe it.
"Doctor?" Ito pressed.
Tofu started back to reality.
"Oh. Forgive me, doctor. What was your question?"
"I asked you where you learned about this point. You said yourself that
it wasn't part of a normal practice."
"Oh no, usually there are plenty of other procedures for deadening pain
and sensation that don't require putting the patient to sleep," Tofu replied.
"I practice martial arts as part of my medical training. I learned of it
through the art."
"This is by no means a common acupressure point, then?" Ito asked.
It was clear that he understood it to be so, but like Tofu, he sought
reassurances.
"Not at all," Tofu replied. "But it wouldn't be difficult to employ
if you knew where it was."
"I see," Ito said at length.
Tofu moved his hands along Mariko's corpse once again. His eyes closed
and it was clear that he was concentrating on something. Ito wasn't sure
what to make of this, but Tofu had seemed very competent and professional
thus far, so he was willing to indulge the man for a moment.
After several minutes Tofu's eyes snapped open. It seemed like he had
been struck.
"What is it, doctor?" Ito asked apprehensively.
"Help me turn her over," Tofu replied sharply.
Ito did so, and together they turned the body of Mariko Konjou over
onto her back. Tofu closed his eyes once again and began tracing pathways
with his fingers along the ruined torso, up her throat, across her face.
Almost shamefully, one of his hands moved down her torso towards her vagina.
Ito was about to throw him out of the examining room when Tofu came to
his senses and whipped off his gloves with snaps.
"I need to make a phone call," he told the medical examiner.
Ito pointed to a phone on the back wall.
"A private call," Tofu implored quietly.
Reluctantly, Doctor Ito left the room. Tofu wasted no time in picking
up the phone and dialling a familiar number. He waited several moments for
a reply, trying to collect his thoughts in the meantime. A girl's voice
greeted him in Chinese.
"Hello, Shampoo," he began. "Is your great-grandmother around? Yes,
I'll wait. Yes, it's urgent. Very urgent."
TO BE CONCLUDED
