The Drowning God (3 page)

 

CHAPTER 5

T
he 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.”

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.”

I'll bet they haven't.
The seedy little pubs with their careworn matrons and antiquated karaoke rigs would sadden Takuda as much as anything else he had seen that day.

“Chief, it's kind of you to offer. However, the sooner I get back to the city, the sooner my superiors will decide whether to recommend that Ogawa be charged.”

“Well, I won't stand in your way. We're all waiting to hear when the prefecture will take the suspect off our hands. It will really help us allocate our meager resources.”

“Chief, if you'll excuse me, I must make a call.”

“Of course. I'll wait for you at the office.”

The chief sauntered toward the bridge. He sang an old country song in a thin, reedy voice.

It was a day for singing, a beautiful spring day, but Takuda felt no joy in it. If it were simply a question of family honor and personal vengeance, he could easily drive away and never see the Naga River valley again. For Yumi's sake, he could let it all go. Unfortunately, there was more at stake.

The prefectural police force used a powerful little hybrid cell phone that performed well on either of Japan's competing wireless telephone systems. Even so, Takuda had to walk right up to the edge of the canal to find a signal.

She answered on the fifth ring.

“I just wanted to hear your voice,” he said.

“Well, here it is,” Yumi said. “What are you doing? Where are you?”

“Working. I'm out on the job now, but I should be home early.”

“You should go home now. Really, you should pull over somewhere and get a nap.”

“I've got a uniform to drive me today.”

“Did you get any sleep at all?”

He smiled even though she couldn't see it. “A little. I got up just before dawn.”

“I know when you got up. You think you're silent as a cat, but you aren't.”

“You're the only one who can hear me. You've got ears like a fox.”

She sighed. “Is that supposed to be flattery? It would be better if you didn't try at all.”

“As you wish,” he said. “I'm just lucky to have a woman like you.”

“Don't be such a fool,” she said. “Everyone is busy. Finish your work and come home to me.”

“All right. I'm teaching this afternoon.”

“If you get there first, take a nap. I'll broil mackerel, and you'll tell me what's bothering you.”

He broke the connection just as Mori and Kuma came out of the apartment. Mori carried a plastic garbage bag in each hand. Kuma followed him with a pained expression.

“Tell him,” Mori said.

“Detective,” Kuma said, “I'm sorry about all this, but the chief . . .”

“ . . . wants to know the real reason why I came. Why now, after all these years.”

The sergeant looked shocked.

“I saw him pull you aside back at the station.”

“Oh, right.” Kuma grinned. “He does that kind of thing. It's not that he's suspicious. He just gets nervous if he's not sure what ­people want.”

“Tell him I was homesick. Tell him I wanted to clean the family tomb.”

“Hey, that's good. It's close to the vernal equinox, so it's perfect timing. Do you mind?”

“Not if you keep Officer Mori company for the rest of the morning.”

Kuma's face fell into lines of worry. Mori showed no expression at all.

“The officer is a good man, Sergeant Kuma. You don't have to be on your guard with him.”

“I don't know about that.” Kuma pointed to the garbage bags in Mori's hands. “He's already taking stuff away.”

“Sergeant, you can trust him. At this point, Ogawa's apartment is not a crime scene. If the officer learns anything interesting, he will share it.”

The sergeant scratched his chest. He still looked worried.

“We won't let you get in trouble with the chief. If anyone ever asks, we'll say the officer gathered the material while you weren't looking.”

Mori didn't even blink.

Kuma shrugged. “All right. But we can't go back to the station, or there will be a lot of questions.”

“You don't have to go to the station. The officer will tell you where he wants to go.”

Kuma bowed dejectedly. “Well, it was good to see you again, anyway. I hope you have a good trip back.” He turned and stumped off toward the bridge. He kicked trash as he went.

Takuda turned to Mori. “And you. Do you want to ask why I have come back after so many years?”

Mori bowed as if he had been waiting for the question. “I trust that you'll tell me what I need to know. When and where should I meet you after I finish with Kuma?”

The young officer's blind, unquestioning loyalty was suddenly sickening. The garbage bags in Mori's hand were evidence of his willingness to please. He had started to follow Takuda around almost from the day he had arrived from the academy, and now he had begun to stray from procedure even before Takuda asked him to. If Takuda allowed it, the young fool would follow him into disgrace.

It would be better for everyone if Takuda broke him then and there. It would be violent and ugly and humiliating, but taking the bus home in a dirty uniform would teach Mori to be more careful in his loyalties. It would save his career, maybe his life.

Mori had no idea. He looked Takuda in the eye. “Sergeant Kuma may have important information. I'll take him to lunch and put him at ease. He doesn't seem like a baseball fan, so I'll play sumo trivia with him. I follow the tournaments, and I know a lot of the wrestlers' stats.”

Spring wind whisked through young trees lining the canal bank. Takuda fought to keep his face immobile. “You're not surprised that I was born and raised in this valley? You're not curious why I didn't tell you that before I brought you here?”

“I'm not surprised, Detective. Again, I'm only curious about what you think I need to know.”

“You're not concerned that I may have some personal interest in this case? Some personal interest that could compromise my objectivity?”

“Detective, you have no objectivity. You are rather dangerous, actually. You may be the tip of the lever that pries open this whole rotten mess.”

“What mess is that, Officer?”

“I believe the local officials refer to it as the water safety question. They seem to do so without any sense of irony.”

The water safety question.
That bland, innocuous little phrase represented a nightmare of grief for the ­people of the Naga River valley, untold generations of mothers' tears. Those words coming from Officer Mori's lips unsettled Takuda. He looked into Mori's eyes. There was no belligerence, no fear.

“Officer Mori,” he said, “what do you know about the water safety question?”

“I gather that the extent of the water safety question has been downplayed in official correspondence. There may be procedural irregularities in the Oku Village police station's handling of drownings and disappearances.”

Takuda stood very still. There was little to say in response to such an understatement. “Officer Mori, there may be procedural irregularities on our end, as well.”

Mori hefted the garbage bags in reply:
There already are
.

“It could cost you your job, Officer.”

“I make my own choices.” Mori lowered his gaze and spoke so quietly Takuda had to take a step forward to hear him. “The situation may not respond to standard procedure. However, your paperwork doesn't have to reflect irregularities. Leave all that to me. I'm quite good at smoothing out irregularities. No one will suspect me of it even if they become suspicious of you.”

Suddenly, strangely, chills rippled down Takuda's spine.
This is too easy.

He stepped back and rubbed his eyes as if he were simply tired. “Perhaps you're right. Perhaps your training better prepares you for a situation like this. I wouldn't be surprised.”

Mori bowed.

They turned toward the bridge. Kuma was leaning against the railing. He straightened when they started walking in his direction.

Takuda took a deep breath. “Don't let the chief see you with the sergeant. Take the car and get out of here. At noon, I'll be waiting at the west end of the shopping street. There's a cemetery.”

Mori glanced at him and then looked down quickly. “I'll pick you up.”

They caught up with Kuma, and they all crossed the bridge together. Mori had Kuma talking about sumo before they reached the other side. On the path by the canal, the same path on which Hanako Kawaguchi had met Hiroyasu Ogawa, they split up. Mori took Kuma east for gentle interrogation.

Takuda went west to visit ghosts.

 

CHAPTER 6

M
iyoko Gotoh lived at the dead end of the shopping street, down the hill from the cemetery. It was a bad spot. Trash blown in from livelier parts of Oku Village covered the cracked pavement at her doorstep. Behind her house, flotsam choked the last bend of the main canal. In the vacant lot across the street, a tangled, man-­high mound of rusting bicycles and stripped scooters rose from the weeds.

Gotoh herself stood in the middle of the dead end stirring the trash in a childlike imitation of sweeping. As Takuda approached, her clouded gaze locked on him. When he was almost close enough to touch her, she suddenly recognized him.

“Detective! Welcome home!” She bowed again and again, as if to a benefactor. “I knew you'd be back someday.” Her seamed face split with a grin of pleasure, but the smile stopped just short of her eyes. It was the second time that morning the eyes didn't match the story. Gotoh was a simple village matron, but she had the dead, expressionless stare of a prison guard left on the job too long.

What happened to her?

“I'm sorry about my house. The kids now, they all just drop trash. The wind blows it right to my doorstep.”

“Your house looks just the same, always welcoming.” Thick moss erupted through cracked roof tiles, and the faded cedar siding was more green than gray. The house was rotting where it stood. He looked away from it. “I came to thank you for taking care of the tomb.”

“It's no problem. I tell your ancestors that you'll come back to see them someday. It was just too hard, everything happening all at once like that.”

All at once.
It had taken agonizing years for the Naga River valley to destroy his family, but he hadn't come back to argue with an old woman.

“You know, you send too much money,” she said. “I tried to send back the extra, but the bank refused it, so I started putting it aside. Last winter, I bought a new kerosene heater, a nice one with a fan and filters and a thermostat, and I bought the old man a new TV.”

“Ah. Your husband is well, I trust.”

She made a dismissive gesture. “We're old. We keep on living for some reason.”

Takuda bowed. “My wife and I appreciate your looking after the tomb.”

Gotoh leaned on her broom. “Well, I take care of my family at the same time, so it's no problem.” She hadn't put any special emphasis on
family
, but it rang in Takuda's ears just the same. “You're too late for the vernal equinox cleaning. I did it yesterday, and I swept this morning. Still, you can go sprinkle some water and wipe off the stones. You can never be too tidy. You're here about the little girl?”

Takuda bowed in reply:
At your ser­vice
.

“It's scandalous, isn't it?” She leaned over to peer at his shoes. She didn't seem to approve. “A shocking thing for our little village.”

“Gotoh-­
san
, what has happened to you?”

She looked up at him sharply.

“You're not the same woman I knew. What is it? What has happened?”

She studied him with filmy eyes. It was the first real interest she had shown. “Do you pray, Detective? Do you go to the temple?”

The question surprised him, and he faltered. “Sometimes.”

She nodded to herself. The hesitation had told her all she needed to know. Takuda was useless to her. She didn't give herself easily to hope, nor did she waste energy on disappointment. She simply looked over her shoulder toward the cemetery on the hill above her house. “Your father was a good man. He was the last good Buddhist in all of the Naga River valley. You should pray for him.”

She started stirring the trash again. Takuda was dismissed. He headed toward his family's tomb, his face burning with a sudden and surprising shame. Stammering because he didn't practice his father's faith, then lying transparently to save face? It wasn't like him. He was a decorated detective and a martial arts expert, one of the top in his style, but one question from an old woman had reduced him to a bashful child.

Coming home was full of nasty surprises.

The gravel path to the cemetery started at the end of the pavement beside the Gotohs' house and snaked up into the foothills of Eagle Peak. At the end of the path, two stone pillars marked the entrance to a cemetery nestled among the towering cedars. Stepping between the pillars, Takuda entered a silent, windless world.

As his eyes adjusted to the shadowed stillness beneath the trees, Takuda was disoriented. The last time he had come, the cemetery had been full, a dark forest of pristine stone obelisks. Now there were just a few neglected tombs standing in different parts of the cemetery. To his right stood stacks of toppled stones. Needles and cones from the cedars above obscured the gravel between the tombs, all but a straight line toward the far end, a cleared path leading to the Takuda family tomb.

He walked toward it slowly, reading the names on abandoned tombs along the way. Some tombstones were so blackened with age and neglect that the incised characters were barely legible. On others, the names were completely covered with moss. One inscription stopped him:
Gotoh
. The tomb had not been touched for years. Blackened, moldy debris from the cedars above had piled up on the offering platform as if in a deliberate and shocking parody of familial piety. The old woman simply ignored her own family tomb.

The Takuda tomb stood spotless in the place of honor, farthest from the entrance and facing south. It was an irregular obelisk of black granite artfully carved and polished to appear like a naturally occurring boulder and set atop a four-­tiered pedestal. It still looked new even though it had been erected in his grandfather's time.

He pulled out a cigarette. There was no reason to pretend to clean an immaculate tomb.

On the obelisk's face were inscribed the names of his distant ancestors, then his grandparents, his parents, his brother, Shunsuke, and his son, Kenji. The inner surfaces of the incised characters shone with gold leaf. There had been no gold when his son's ashes had gone into the base of the tomb. Had Takuda really sent that much money, or had Gotoh used some of her own meager income?

Takuda sat on the pedestal of a ruined tomb.
A tombstone is still only a stone.
He had been a fool to come.

He flicked ashes into the gravel and gazed at the gilt characters. Just long enough to finish his cigarette, then he'd be off. But off to where? The only thing he owned in that valley was the tomb right in front of him.

There was his father's name lined with gold:
Tohru Takuda
. His father's only lasting legacy, the name they shared. He pictured himself in the Eagle Peak Temple, at his father's side with the old Reverend Suzuki leading the chanting congregation. There was a feeling of security there, a sense of strength that he had seldom felt since. In many ways, worship at the temple had been the happiest time in his life. It always helped that the temple was high up above the southwest corner of the Naga River valley, so much brighter and sunnier than any place down in the valley itself. He always felt as if he were stepping out of the shadows when he went to temple.

Those days were long gone. He had no business there. He could just walk away right now. He and Yumi had escaped, and they had a good life in the city. If he tried to solve the water safety question, he could lose his career, his reputation, everything.

The valley is someone else's problem.
The thought turned over and over in his mind, formless, soundless, just empty and unspoken words in search of a voice.

He tried to speak it aloud, and he could not. The words stuck in his throat.

Hundreds of ­people, maybe thousands, had pulled their covers over their heads as killers prowled the canals, as innocent lives were destroyed, as women wept for their lost children. They had told themselves it was someone else's problem.

He took a deep breath and ground his cigarette into the dirt, burying the butt with his heel. He loosened his tie and stretched his arms wide, easing his bunched shoulders. He had slept poorly the night before, tortured by the illusion that he could decide whether to walk away. The illusion was gone. He would sleep like a baby.

Just like Ogawa the predator.

He recited the second chapter of the
Lotus Sutra
, just as he had up at Eagle Peak Temple for so many years. It was soothing, as always, but he was distracted the whole time.
The decision is made, but I'm too scared to do my job properly.

Returning to the Naga River Valley had awakened fear. Not nerves or worry but
fear
, primal, bone-­chilling, gut-­quickening fear. Something he didn't understand was at work here in the valley, and the stink of it was working its way into his heart.

What am I so afraid of?

P
atricia Hunt hated the Naga River valley, and she was afraid of it. She had been there less than an hour.

“I heard this was the place,” said her husband, Lee. “It's supposed to be a great swimming hole.” He looked down at the river, chuckling and burbling in its narrow, rocky bed. “It's still pretty swift with snowmelt, I guess.”

Patricia sat on the bank. She had picked her way among the slick, mossy stones that paved the river's older, wider bed, but she had turned back before getting close to the water. She had never been to this remote valley where her husband worked on Wednesdays and Fridays, and she wouldn't have come for a swim if she had known the southwest corner, this supposed swimming hole, would already be partly in shadow by early afternoon.

“Lee, you've been had.” She threw a stone in his general direction. “When have Japanese ­people ever told you about some fun, touristy thing without at least meeting you there? Hmm? Never happens. Where is this student who told you about this place?” She looked back farther southwest, where the river crept out of a darkened cleft at the base of Eagle Peak. Far above, the sun shone on a tiny dam, a dam that looked like a miniature set from an old movie. Wisps of water sprayed out of spillways at the top. On the way into the valley, she had seen a building at the western edge of the dam, a bright, white building. It was a temple. She was sure of it.

He was down among the rocks at the water's edge, frowning at the dark, gurgling water.

“Lee, let's go back up and find the road across the dam. I just saw a car cross it.” That was a lie, but she thought she could make out a guardrail and streetlamps. “Let's get out of here. This place is a hole.”

“Do you hear that?” he said.

“I hear my afternoon flushing down the toilet. Let's go, Lee.”

“Shhh,” he said, staring downstream. “What is that? Is that a little boy?”

“What?” She stood. She stared downstream as well. There were rocks and dark water.

“Jesus,” he said. He straightened and backed upstream, but he didn't step away from the water. “Jesus, it dove so quick, like a water snake or something. Too fast.”

She stepped down to the rocks and reached out to him. “What is it? Come up here, Lee.”

“I can't . . .” He looked down. “Oh God, it's—­”

Lee's legs shot out from under him, and he disappeared among the rocks.

“LEE!” Patricia ran down among the rocks. “LEE!”

She leapt over stones to reach the river, but he was already gone. Then he was bobbing up to grab at the rocks at the next bend, so far away, so far away.

His hair was slicked over his face. He was pawing at a rounded boulder, trying to pull himself out. He was gasping like a fish out of water.

She didn't call his name again. She just ran, and Lee slipped backward into the water before she had taken the third step.

She ran along the river all the way to the main canal. She ran until her breath was ragged in her lungs and her feet were blistered in her tennis shoes, but she found no sign of her husband. She never saw him alive again.