The Silent Dead (4 page)

“Good afternoon. I'm from the Metropolitan Police Department.”

Reiko showed her badge. The woman frowned, bristling disapprovingly. “I know why you're here. I've already told everything I know to the officer from the local precinct.”

The woman's tone made it clear that the last thing she wanted to do was to go through the whole thing for a second time. Reiko detected a note of powerful personal dislike in Mrs. Hirata's eyes. She seemed to be sizing up Reiko and thinking, “You're young, stuck-up, tall—and a woman!”

Reiko had to make an effort to keep her face blank.

“Yes, madam, I'm aware of that. I know it's a bore, but we'd like you to repeat to us the details of how you discovered the body. We have some additional questions as well.”

Mrs. Hirata sighed. Looking disgruntled, she opened the garden gate and ushered them in.

“Thank you.”

The shady little garden was pleasantly cool. Reiko wondered if it had been watered recently. While the exterior of the house was far from new, the inside was clean and tidy.

“This way.”

The moment Mrs. Hirata showed them into the air-conditioned comfort of the living room, Ioka raised his hand.

“I shouldn't, Mrs. Hirata, but could I trouble you for a glass of something cold? I'm so thirsty.”

Reiko tapped him on the waist.

Stop that right now!

“Okay. Why don't you sit down?” Mrs. Hirata gestured toward the sofa, then vanished into the kitchen.

“What the hell do you think you're doing?” hissed Reiko, jabbing Ioka with her elbow.

“I need a drink.”

The woman was angry enough about them being there in the first place. What the hell was Ioka thinking, pestering her for a cold drink the minute they got inside? They didn't need her any more hostile than she already was.

Mrs. Hirata reappeared. Unexpectedly, she was all smiles. She brought in a tray with a pitcher and glasses, then handed one to each of them. “I imagine you'd probably like nothing better than a nice cold beer, but seeing as you're working, well…”

“Thanks. I'm going to enjoy this just as much.”

Ioka downed his glass of barley tea in one gulp. Mrs. Hirata began to pour him a second. Why was she looking so pleased all of a sudden?

Things got worse when Mrs. Hirata decided to chitchat a bit.

“It must be very hot outside?”

“Hot's not the word,” Ioka replied. “More like unbearable.”

“Summer weather must make your job even tougher.”

“Too right. Why can't the criminals just take a break till it cools down a bit, eh?”

“That sounds unlikely.”

“You reckon?” Ioka laughed uproariously.

Is the man a complete moron?

Reiko cleared her throat and broke in. “Sorry to push things along, but I'd like to start by asking you to list the members of your family.”

The moment Reiko opened her mouth, the look of annoyance returned to Mrs. Hirata's face.

“Of course,” she said, after a short pause. “There's my husband, who's got a regular office job. Then my son. He's a university student. Plus there's my father-in-law. He's over at the senior center right now. And me.”

“Your son, is he…?”

“He's not at home right now.”

“No, what I meant is, is he on his own?”

Mrs. Hirata looked nonplussed.

“Of course he is. He's a student. He's hardly likely to be married.”

Reiko realized she'd phrased her question badly.

“That's not what I meant. Is he your only child?”

The woman's eyes widened. “Oh, I am sorry,” she said, grinning at Ioka. “No, I have two sons. The eldest one has already finished university and lives in a company dorm for unmarried employees. He's up in Utsunomiya. Not that far, really. The least he could do is to come back and see his mom for the Obon summer holidays.”

“Couldn't agree more,” said Ioka, smirking.

Was it the Obon holiday this week?

When you had a job that was completely out of sync with everybody else's, important dates like that slipped your mind all too easily. Reiko guessed that the rest of this week would be a holiday—at least for those companies that believed in giving their staff time off. She wondered what was normal. Five days off from tomorrow was probably standard.

“Is your husband at work?”

“Yes. He works for a foreign company, so he doesn't get to take Japanese public holidays off.”

Reiko nodded.

“Thank you for this,” she murmured before picking up her glass. Rather than gulp the tea down like Ioka, she restricted herself to one modest sip. Any liquid she took in would only come back out as sweat, and the only thing people disliked more than a dirty, sweaty man was a dirty, sweaty woman. Reiko was especially careful when doing house-to-house inquiries.

She got Ioka to write down the names of everyone in the family and turned back to Mrs. Hirata.

“I want to ask you about how you found the body. It was this morning? Is that correct?”

“Yes, that's right. The bedroom—I mean, our bedroom, since it's mine and my husband's—is directly above this room, with a window that looks over that way. First thing in the morning, I opened the curtains.”

“What sort of time was that?”

“Six on the dot. That was when I first noticed it.”

“In the hedge?”

“Yes. At first, I just thought it was a piece of trash. We've had a lot of that—what's it called?—illegal dumping in the little wooded area by the shrine over there. I just thought, ‘Oh no, are people dumping stuff in the hedge now too!'”

Illegal dumping?
Reiko wondered if the forensics team had explored that angle.

“You didn't phone it in then, though?”

“No. I'm rushed off my feet first thing in the morning. I pack my husband off to work, get my father-in-law and my son out of bed, make breakfast, put the rubbish out—the proper rubbish, that is—turn on the washing machine…”

“You actually contacted us at eleven thirty a.m. Why that time specifically?”

“That's because … let me see … my father-in-law wanted to go to the senior center, and I took him as far as the bus stop. On my way there, I thought, ‘I do wish people wouldn't dump garbage around here.' Then, when I took another look at the thing on my way home, I suddenly felt frightened … I realized it was shaped like a body.”

“So you called us.”

“Yes. I figured that even if it turned out not to be … what I thought it was, the police wouldn't be angry at my reporting such an outsized piece of trash.”

“You made the right decision.”

“I did, didn't I? Yes, I … I think I did.”

Reiko couldn't quite follow the woman's thought process from anxiety to relief. In any case, Mrs. Hirata was clearly a well-intentioned bystander. Having originally thought the body in its blue sheeting was bulky waste, she'd called it in the minute the shape of it worried her. Her story was plausible and consistent.

“What was the latest time yesterday that you saw the hedge without that thing in it?”

“Without that thing?”

“All I'm trying to do here is to get an idea—just as far as you yourself are aware, Mrs. Hirata—of when the body was put there. Your answer will help me establish a timeframe.”

A look of relief washed over Mrs. Hirata's face.

“Well, I'm pretty sure it wasn't there yesterday. Certainly not when I got back from doing the shopping.”

“Which would be what time?”

“Around four thirty or five.”

“I see. And roughly what time did you close the curtains in your bedroom?”

“Just before turning in. Around midnight, I'd say.”

“You didn't see it then?”

“It was dark. I wouldn't have been able to see it even if it was there.”

That made sense.

“Did you hear anything suspicious? See any suspicious-looking vehicles?”

“The car they used to bring that thing here, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“There is a road—a small one—running in front of the house. There's not much in the way of traffic, but I don't actually notice every time a car goes by.”

“I see. Let's move on, then. Now, roughly when did the other members of your family get home yesterday?”

“My husband got back about eight o'clock. My son at eleven thirty, give or take. My father-in-law didn't go out all day yesterday.”

“Did your husband or son say anything about the hedge?”

“Nothing. Even in the dark, anyone walking that way would have noticed it. I'm pretty sure they'd have said something if they'd seen it.… On second thought, perhaps my son wouldn't. No, I doubt he'd mention it.”

That was strange …

No, thought Reiko, it wasn't Mrs. Hirata who was strange. What was strange was to dispose of a body in a place like that.

A hedge beside a fishing pond might be discreet enough in the night, but the local residents would notice the body as soon as day broke—which was exactly what had happened. There was a lot of pedestrian traffic as well. Things like that wouldn't have been difficult for the perpetrator to figure out. It simply wasn't a good place to dump a corpse. Reiko had seen a digital photo of the body when it was still tied up with the PVC string. The rope work had been very professional. Reiko could not reconcile that meticulousness with the sloppiness of the choice of where to dump the body. At the moment it was just a vague, niggling feeling—she couldn't yet explain it.

Reiko nodded briskly, then bowed. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Hirata. We may ask you to come down to the station tomorrow to go through all this again. I know it's a pain, but we'd really appreciate your help. And if anyone in the family, particularly your son, remembers anything, please let us know. Anything at all.”

Reiko scribbled the phone number of the Kameari police station onto the back of her business card before she handed it over. Mrs. Hirata took the card with both hands in the formal manner, scrutinized it, then looked up, as if to compare the card with its owner.

What is it now? You're thinking, “So that's a lieutenant, is it?”

The real question was whether Mrs. Hirata even understood what lieutenant actually meant. With Reiko's luck, the woman probably thought that sergeant was a higher rank. But what could you expect? Ordinary civilians knew next to nothing about the police.

Or are you insinuating that I don't look like a lieutenant should?

As these thoughts were running through Reiko's mind, she noticed for the first time how neatly made up Mrs. Hirata was. She was startled. Had she been like that when they first arrived? Or had the woman secretly done her face while she was in the kitchen fixing the barley tea?

Damn! Maybe I'm the one who looks like shit!

Reiko began to worry that she was the one with makeup problems.

*   *   *

After shutting the garden gate behind them, Reiko and Ioka turned for another look at the Hiratas' house. Bathed in the strong afternoon sunlight, the house gave the impression of being just right for the family that lived in it.

“That barley tea was delicious.”

Ioka mopped at his forehead. It was already damp with sweat.

“Yeah—”

Reiko's cell phone began to vibrate. As she pulled it out, Ioka craned to see the display.

“Call from the parents, eh?”

The caller ID was “Himekawa Home.” It had to be Reiko's mother. Her father was at work so couldn't be calling from home at this time.

The phone continued pulsating gently. She knew what her mom would say: something trite like “Make sure to be back in time for dinner,” “When's your next day off?” or “Don't forget to call your auntie in Yokohama.”

Reiko pressed the decline button.

“There's no need to do that.”

“Forget about it. Let's go to the next house.”

Reiko followed Ioka to the house next door. The nameplate said “Matsumiya.” Reiko pressed the doorbell.

Oh damn. That's what happens when you get stupid phone calls from people!

She had completely forgotten to retouch her makeup.

 

3

TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 7:30 P.M.

A piece of paper reading “Mizumoto Park Dumped Body Task Force HQ” was taped to the door of the largest meeting room in Kameari police station.

The body had actually been found just outside the park, thought Reiko to herself. Or was she just being pedantic? She sat down in the middle of the front row.

“Right, let's get started. Everyone, stand to attention! Bow!”

The thirty or so people involved in the case were present, including the forensics guys. The investigators were all there too. That meant they'd had enough time to complete their door-to-door inquiries.

The commander of Kameari police station, Chief of Homicide Wada, and Captain Imaizumi, the head of Unit 10, were sitting at the front of the room facing everyone else. Director Hashizume from Homicide was running the meeting.

“I want to start with the autopsy report,” he began. “The victim was male, midthirties, one hundred seventy-one centimeters tall, around seventy kilograms. Blood type B. Cause of death was hemorrhagic shock, the result of massive blood loss from a cut wound in the neck area. Estimated time of death is between seven p.m. and ten p.m. the day before yesterday. The cut runs in a straight line from below the mandible on the left to the upper larynx. The depth of the incision is between two and five millimeters. The length, twenty centimeters. Enough to sever the left carotid artery.”

Hashizume made a throat-cutting gesture.

“The murder weapon had a thin blade—something like a razor blade or a box cutter. From the way force was applied, we're assuming that the victim was cut from behind with a circular motion around the neck. Questions so far?”