In Darkness Dwells - Chapter Four
Aug. 23rd, 2010 10:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dracoqueen22Been a while, huh? Yeah, I sorta let this book slide by the wayside as I focused on other things. But I promise, it will be written and I will finish it. I never start something I don't plan to finish. Scout's honor! (Yes, believe it or not, I was once a Girl Scout. That was years ago).
For newcomers, visit here for a good summary, description, and the beginning of all things!
There aren't any warnings for this chapter because it's mostly plot-forwarding. Very little to worry about so I'd give it a nice PG rating. Give or take a curse word. A little boring, but necessary.
Enjoy!
In Darkness Dwells
Chapter Four
Mamahara Retsu, the coroner, was a woman old enough to be my mother. Though I wouldn’t dare say such to her face. She stood a good foot shorter than me, but there was a hard gleam to her brown eyes that spoke volumes of her strength. She would have to be tough to do this job. No bleeding hearts here.
“Let’s make this quick, Mr. Grimm,” Dr. Mamahara said in a clipped tone, her English absolutely perfect. She had insisted on it.
To make me comfortable? I doubted it. There were just some things that didn’t translate well when it came to medical terms and speculations about them.
Permission given, I didn’t waste time on pleasantries. We were both busy people after all. “I want to discuss Tyrone McPherson.”
“I assumed as much.” She sat behind her desk, pulling out a drawer and rifling through her incredibly organized files. The contrast between her office and that of Inspector Abarai’s was immediate.
Dr. Mamahara was neat and organized with everything arranged in perfect stacks. I doubted a speck of dust even dared linger and the brightness of the light bulb seemed to chase away all shadows. Her filing cabinets were pristine, not a single drawer out of place.
“Though I don’t know what you expect to learn from me,” Dr. Mamahara continued, sounding annoyed and tired. Perhaps a topic already beaten within an inch of its life? “I can’t explain why he died.”
I couldn’t believe that no one had a reason for Tyrone’s death. It was as if every person I spoke to was trying to bury the truth. But why? What purpose would that serve? Was there something beneath the surface here? Who were they trying to protect? The Takafumi’s? Perhaps they had exerted their considerable influence to seal some mouths closed. It was a valid thought.
Maybe I needed to consider a dive into the Japanese underworld. Figure out just how deeply into the darkness the Takafumi had their fingers.
I bit back a sigh. “In all your years, no one has seen anything like this before?” I implied that she was old, but I also implied that she was wise, so the compliment balanced out the insult.
The following second of silence was obviously hesitation on her part. She was not a woman who hesitated and the fact that she did so now was telling. I lifted my gaze, pinning Mamahara with my stare.
“Dr. Mamahara?”
Her fingers rapped against the desk, nails perfectly short and clipped. “I almost wish I could say that McPherson was the first. But I am no detective, Mr. Grimm. I make no theories. I only give the facts.”
“And the facts are?”
She watched me for another long moment, her dark eyes seemingly assessing me from the inside out. I know I appeared less than reliable. I’d cut myself shaving this morning, so there were a few nicks across my chin. And my clothes were all rumpled and wrinkled from traveling. I’d done my best to smooth them out, but I’d stopped caring about my appearance a long time ago. Perhaps I’d better start. Japan was a lot different than America. Here, it might be better if I presented myself a lot more neatly. More doors might open.
Whatever Mamahara was looking for, she must have found it, because she rose to her feet and pushed a file across the desk. A flip of the wrist turned the manila folder around so that I could scan the contents easily.
“I’m not giving you anything the police do not know,” Mamahara explained as I lifted the flap to the first paper. The profile of a young, Japanese male stared back at me, sullen and snide. “But Tyrone McPherson’s death is disturbingly similar to twelve other deaths I’ve witnessed in the past three months.”
I flipped through the file quickly, suspicions growing, as faces stared back at me from the various pages. Young and old, male and female, rich and poor. There was no rhyme or reason to the victims. They seemed utterly random.
“How similar?”
I felt the weight of her stare and it distracted me from the contents of the file. “Except for the fact, McPherson was American… exactly the same.” Mamahara’s elbows hit the desktop, her fingers lacing together. “Every single death has no medical explanation. It’s like, for lack of a better description, someone removing the battery from a watch. Their bodies just ceased to function.”
“Inspector Abarai didn’t mention this.”
“Because the deaths of these Japanese citizens are our business, not that of an American detective,” Mamahara said as I scanned each coroner’s report, scarily identical to Tyrone’s. “We have modernized, joined hands with the West, and embraced new cultures. But we are still, at heart, Japanese, Mr. Grimm. And there are things we don’t like others meddling in.”
That I could understand. It probably didn’t help that I was American, no matter how well I spoke the language or the Asian blood that flowed in my veins. Other counters weren’t too fond of the United States and many of them had great reason. We meddled, often in places where our help wasn’t wanted. And we were far too arrogant for our own good.
Here, however, was different. I had been hired to complete a task. And no matter what roadblocks I encountered, I would find Tyrone’s killer. I refused to fail in this.
“Why are you telling me this?”
Someone knocked on her door no sooner had the words passed my lips. A male voice was quick to follow in short, stressed Japanese. “Mamahara-sensei, it’s time.”
The coroner tapped her fingers on her desk top again, a rat-tat-tat noise that seemed habit for her. “I have something else that I must attend to.” If she was attempting to sound regretful, she failed miserably. Mamahara better sounded relieved.
“Another body?”
She inclined her head, moving around her desk, only to pause and stare at me, again with that eerily penetrating look. “From all accounts, it seems to be similar to McPherson. Would you care to observe?”
The idea of it churned my stomach. I was no stranger to autopsies, blood, or gore, but I never enjoyed any of it. “You’re being rather helpful, Dr. Mamahara.”
Her eyelashes fluttered in fake demure. “Is that a compliment or a question?”
“A little bit of both.” I tucked my notebook into my pocket. “You’re the first to give me a real answer.” I grabbed the file she had pushed to me as well; I would review it while I observed the autopsy.
The voice on the other side of the door called again. “Mamahara-sensei?”
“I’m coming, Uryuu,” the coroner retorted with a huff, striding with a click-click of low heels to the door. “And tradition or not, the police aren’t solving this. Maybe what we need is a fresh angle.”
The door opened before I could respond and Mamahara’s assistant ushered her toward the autopsy room without sparing me a glance. I followed silently, not interested in the actual autopsy, but the results themselves. I would wait for Dr. Mamahara to finish.
Her revelations worried me. If Tyrone was just another in a string of similar deaths, then this was far, far bigger than I had expected. And definitely more than I, on my own, could handle. The type of case I’d need back up for, if I had any to call.
Retsu’s assistant, a tall, thin man with lips like a trout, showed me to an observation room where I could both hear and watch. I stayed away from the window, content to let Dr. Mamahara’s voice drone into my ears. I stuck with crossing my ankle over my knee and pulling out the file. I had the feeling I wouldn’t be allowed to keep it so I had a limited time to glean the necessary information from its perfectly organized contents.
The cases were in order of first to last, and as I looked closer at the first smiling face and its associated information, Dr Mamahara’s cooperation clicked into place.
The first victim was a young lady named Yamada Tohru. Recently married with a young child, she’d had a bright future ahead of her. She was beautiful, in a soft, gentle way. But it was her origins that intrigued me the most. Her maiden name was Mamahara, her mother listed as Dr. Mamahara Retsu.
The coroner didn’t care about tradition. She just wanted answers for why her little girl had to die.
I sifted through the file on Yamada Tohru. She was healthy and young, jogged every morning and ate vegetarian. She was friendly, outgoing… she had no enemies. At least, none that were obvious. Yamada Tohru was just your everyday working girl trying to start a family.
I studied Yamada-san’s picture, finding nothing unusual in her pretty smile. She wore a fashionable blouse, had a mole under her left eye, and the pale skin of most Japanese. I frowned as I looked closer. She appeared to have a necklace, something silver.
I dug out the list of her personal possessions, scanning it. Yamada-san had been found wearing a necklace with a small, fox-shaped pendant. It was described as being stylistic and silver, very artsy and likely hand-made. I didn’t know why it struck me as important. Perhaps because I distinctly remembered Takafumi Atsuko wearing a necklace of similar design.
Interest in Dr. Mamahara’s autopsy momentarily sidetracked, I dug out my notes on Tyrone. My handwriting was barely legible even to myself. Not even my assistant – back when I could afford one – was able to read it. I considered it a form of code, that way I didn’t have to worry about protecting my notebook. Even if sometimes I had to decipher my own chicken scratch.
I had made a brief notation about the necklace. At the time, I had thought the dainty fox beyond Tyrone’s style.
Coincidence? I didn’t believe in coincidence.
I flipped back to the folder Mamahara had given me, and past the paper-clipped documents about her daughter to the next bundle. A man, perhaps mid-thirties stared back at me solidly, premature grey streaking from his temples. He was single, no family save a brother in Kyoto. And he’d been found face down in his breakfast. How undignified.
Most importantly, he’d had a watch, a pocketwatch as a matter of fact. And the symbol imprinted on the lid was of a nine-tailed fox, howling towards the sky like a wolf and its fascination with th full moon.
The third victim. A college student, male, in his third year, studying architecture. Tetsu Amano was set to intern at Parker and Sugita immediately after graduation. He had a bright future ahead of him… until he took an unintentional nap in his bathwater. That wasn’t what killed him – no water in his lungs, soapy or otherwise – but he was dead all the same. No necklace on him, but then, he’d been nude. I had the feeling that if I searched his home, I’d find something with a silver fox.
Did it have something to do with a cult? I was a little familiar with Japanese mythology so I knew of their fascination with foxes. But was it important?
I filed the possibility in the back of my head, moving on to the rest of the victims. They were as varied as a box of Jelly Bellies, an assortment of flavors with absolutely nothing in common. Eight of the twelve carried obvious pieces of jewelry with foxes decorating their inlaid metals. It was a long shot, yes, but damn it, it was the most I’d pieced together since arriving in this tradition and silk-draped country.
“My work doesn’t interest you?”
I closed the file, a bit startled since I hadn’t heard the door open, registered the completion of Dr. Maamhara’s recitation, or even heard her approach. “I’m not keen to the sight, no. But I overheard. Another one.”
Mamahara nodded, sliding out of her spotless scrubs and removing the mask from her face. I had a feeling that she was the sort that worked with absolute precision. “He was found this morning. His daughter went in to wake him up.” She shrugged. “She thought it was cardiac failure. He’s certainly old enough for it to be plausible, and not in the best shape.”
I stared at her evenly. “Except that his heart was fine.”
“Except,” Mamahara agreed, and returned my stare, glancing pointedly at the file in my hands. “Find anything new?” The circles under her eyes, dark and portraying a continued lack of sleep, strongly resembled Atsuko’s in that moment.
“Do you recall your daughter having a silver necklace with a fox-shaped charm?”
Mamahara’s brow furrowed, confusion flickering across her face. “On a small chain? Yes, I do. She bought me one just like it.” Her fingers tugged on the top string of her scrubs and bared the top of her collarbone. She withdrew a small chain, a gleaming silver charm dangling from the bottom and twinkling in the bright, hospital-grade lighting.
The pendant was small, about the size of an old, American silver dollar. There was a small imprint, perhaps the signature of the artist, on the backside. I couldn’t recognize the symbol, not that I thought I would. No doubt the artist was Japanese.
“Do you know where she got it?”
“There’s a small shrine in Shibuki. The priest makes these and other things.”
Was this a lead? Why yes, I think it was.
I let the necklace return to Dr. Mamahara’s possession, watching as she carefully tucked it back beneath her shirt. “Do you know the address of the shrine?”
She shook her head, reaching up to tuck an escaping strand of hair back under her scrubs cap. “No, but if you tell any driver the name ‘Suou’, you should get where you need to go.”
That familiar, huh? Much in the same way that Takafumi was so recognizable? Curiouser and curiouser, Alice.
“Thank you, Dr. Mamahara. You’ve been most helpful.”
She stepped toward me, reaching for the file. “If anyone asks, I didn’t answer your questions.”
Covering her ass. A smart woman. Considering the nature of this case, I didn’t blame her. It was obvious someone was trying to cover up something somewhere.
“Of course you didn’t.” A small smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. There was steel and fire in this woman. I appreciated that.
Dr. Mamahara glanced from me to my notebook, as though hoping to get a glimpse of what discoveries I might have made, before she turned away and held the door open for me. “Now, if you’ll excuse me… I have reports to write before Inspector Abarai visits.”
I moved past her into the stark, white corridor smelling strongly of disinfectant and floor wax. Dr. Mamahara had been monumentally helpful, and I made a mental note to inform her of whatever I unearthed in the end. It was the least I could do.
“Mr. Grimm?”
I glanced over my shoulder, Mamahara lingering in the doorway of the observation room, chewing her lip over some inner dilemma. “The victim tonight was in possession of a ring shaped like a dancing fox.”
I smiled. Nothing in my line of work was ever coincidence.
I slipped my notebook back into my pocket. “Thank you, Dr. Mamahara,” I said, and continued on my way, boots sounding uncommonly loud in the hospital-like silence.
I headed for the exit, lifting my wrist to check the time. High noon. The best time to grab lunch and then see if I could find this Suou shrine.
Did I honestly think the killer – now that I was sure there was one – would leave such an obvious clue? Not if he were smart, which he had to be judging by the crime itself.
How do you kill someone without harming the body? It was like some deity had reached down and snatched the life out of the victims. Frightening to consider, but also highly improbable. I didn’t believe in higher powers of any kind. I trusted myself and no one else. And you know what? To this day, I’m the only one who hasn’t let me down.
Rikashi was waiting outside, propped up against the hood of the car and reading some kind of tabloid with a famous Japanese actor splashed across the front. And I had thought Rikashi to be a man of taste.
He watched as I approached. Wary, like a rabbit waiting for the wolf to strike, fingers subtly tightening around the pages of his magazine.
Rikashi had been more cautious of me since he dropped me off in Nichome. Maybe he’d never seen a gay detective before. Or more likely, he probably thought I was going to jump him the minute he turned his back. Aside from the fact I wasn’t interested in unwilling partners, Rikashi wasn’t my type. He was too short, too twitchy, and most of all, too much McPherson’s lapdog.
I had my standards, after all. Even for one night stands, which brought Madison to mind. I was pretty certain Madison wasn’t his name, just like I hadn’t given him ‘Elias’. Not that it mattered since I didn’t plan to track Madison down though the sex had been hot. If I needed something like that, I’d just find another stranger to help me work out my frustrations. Women just weren’t suited for that. They required too much wining and dining.
I had never really put much thought into my sexuality before. I never had one of those world-shattering, epiphany moments where I suddenly understood the truth about myself. Curiosity had me falling into bed with another man, and that sort of sex quickly became a drug. That easy, rough way of fucking requiring no promises was like a salve to all the shit I had to suffer on a regular basis, including my wife.
Of course, it was after Jennifer found out that things went from bad to shitstorm. First came the divorce – she blamed it on infidelity that I couldn’t and didn’t deny – and after that, custody battles. Those were ever so much fun, especially when Jennifer tromped out proof of my liaisons with men. It wasn’t hard for the judge to connect kissing other men with homosexual with “dear lord, he must be a pedophile.”
Immediately thereafter, I was slapped with hefty child support and Jennifer took Deidre, our daughter, and moved to the West Coast. I hadn’t seen either since, except for the birthday cards I receive from Deidre once a year. Currently they were the only decoration in my office, hanging crookedly around my PI license.
Goddammit, but sometimes I missed her. I won’t lie. It was more than sometimes. I saw her pictures – chubby, ruddy cheeks, her mother’s blue eyes, my mother’s tight ringlets, the pale skin of her partial Japanese heritage. My Deidre had grown from my baby, to a little girl, and now a little lady. All in the blink of an eye. And her goddamned mother, convinced I’d do something heinous to our own daughter, wouldn’t even let me see her.
Yeah. Our divorce hadn’t been pretty. The only saving grace was that Deidre had been too young to understand what was going on.
So here I was, some seven years later, half the failure Jennifer’s father expected me to be and all the useless layabout my father thought of me. I was wandering around Japan, looking for a killer who didn’t even have the decency to murder in an identifiable way. And I wasn’t exactly the best at solving murders – to be honest, this was my first one. I didn’t know why McPherson chose me, but I supposed I’d have to figure it out.
“Where to?” Rikashi asked, dragging me from my thoughtful reverie. He sounded impatient.
I caught his eyes in the rearview mirror through a dim haze of smoke. My Black was half gone; I didn’t even remember lighting it. I must have really been out of it. Thinking too hard perhaps.
“You know anything about the Suou?”
Rikashi blinked, his fingers flexing around the steering wheel with the dull creak of skin on polished leather. “They’re one of the older families. Traced back to the Edo period.”
My head cocked to the side. “I’ve never heard of them.”
Something flickered through Rikashi’s eyes as they fell to focus on the dashboard, no longer meeting my gaze in the mirror. “They fell from favor.”
“Whose favor?”
“Does it matter?”
I flicked my lighter open and shut, the click-click noise filling the uncomfortable quiet of the limo interior. “It might.”
Rikashi sighed and the Rolls rumbled to life. “One of their ancestors – I can’t remember who exactly – betrayed their lord. Caused his death. It cursed the whole Suou family.”
In other words, traditional, honor, mumbo-jumbo. Something that began with a vow and ended with seppuku no doubt. I had never understood that practice. Then again, I’d yet to encounter a fate worse than death.
“Hmm.” I considered as Rikashi merged with traffic, drawing more of the sweet Black ‘n Mild into my lungs.
I had the sense of direction of a bird. Rikashi was heading back to the hotel since I hadn’t given him any other instructions.
“Something to eat,” I suggested aloud. “Quick and cheap.” No need to start wasting money just yet. Despite all that McPherson had paid me.
“Whatever you want,” Rikashi answered, all curt and annoyed. He was probably just grateful I wasn’t asking for another ride to Ni-chome. Che. Homophobic bastard.
* * * *
a/n: The next two chapters are written. I"m just waiting for some time to pass so I can do another edit on them with fresh eyes.
As always, comments and critiques are always welcome. Feel free to correct me on specific Japanese knowledge. Websites that I can look at with information are even better! Especially with this story. Any help is appreciated.
For newcomers, visit here for a good summary, description, and the beginning of all things!
There aren't any warnings for this chapter because it's mostly plot-forwarding. Very little to worry about so I'd give it a nice PG rating. Give or take a curse word. A little boring, but necessary.
Enjoy!
Chapter Four
Mamahara Retsu, the coroner, was a woman old enough to be my mother. Though I wouldn’t dare say such to her face. She stood a good foot shorter than me, but there was a hard gleam to her brown eyes that spoke volumes of her strength. She would have to be tough to do this job. No bleeding hearts here.
“Let’s make this quick, Mr. Grimm,” Dr. Mamahara said in a clipped tone, her English absolutely perfect. She had insisted on it.
To make me comfortable? I doubted it. There were just some things that didn’t translate well when it came to medical terms and speculations about them.
Permission given, I didn’t waste time on pleasantries. We were both busy people after all. “I want to discuss Tyrone McPherson.”
“I assumed as much.” She sat behind her desk, pulling out a drawer and rifling through her incredibly organized files. The contrast between her office and that of Inspector Abarai’s was immediate.
Dr. Mamahara was neat and organized with everything arranged in perfect stacks. I doubted a speck of dust even dared linger and the brightness of the light bulb seemed to chase away all shadows. Her filing cabinets were pristine, not a single drawer out of place.
“Though I don’t know what you expect to learn from me,” Dr. Mamahara continued, sounding annoyed and tired. Perhaps a topic already beaten within an inch of its life? “I can’t explain why he died.”
I couldn’t believe that no one had a reason for Tyrone’s death. It was as if every person I spoke to was trying to bury the truth. But why? What purpose would that serve? Was there something beneath the surface here? Who were they trying to protect? The Takafumi’s? Perhaps they had exerted their considerable influence to seal some mouths closed. It was a valid thought.
Maybe I needed to consider a dive into the Japanese underworld. Figure out just how deeply into the darkness the Takafumi had their fingers.
I bit back a sigh. “In all your years, no one has seen anything like this before?” I implied that she was old, but I also implied that she was wise, so the compliment balanced out the insult.
The following second of silence was obviously hesitation on her part. She was not a woman who hesitated and the fact that she did so now was telling. I lifted my gaze, pinning Mamahara with my stare.
“Dr. Mamahara?”
Her fingers rapped against the desk, nails perfectly short and clipped. “I almost wish I could say that McPherson was the first. But I am no detective, Mr. Grimm. I make no theories. I only give the facts.”
“And the facts are?”
She watched me for another long moment, her dark eyes seemingly assessing me from the inside out. I know I appeared less than reliable. I’d cut myself shaving this morning, so there were a few nicks across my chin. And my clothes were all rumpled and wrinkled from traveling. I’d done my best to smooth them out, but I’d stopped caring about my appearance a long time ago. Perhaps I’d better start. Japan was a lot different than America. Here, it might be better if I presented myself a lot more neatly. More doors might open.
Whatever Mamahara was looking for, she must have found it, because she rose to her feet and pushed a file across the desk. A flip of the wrist turned the manila folder around so that I could scan the contents easily.
“I’m not giving you anything the police do not know,” Mamahara explained as I lifted the flap to the first paper. The profile of a young, Japanese male stared back at me, sullen and snide. “But Tyrone McPherson’s death is disturbingly similar to twelve other deaths I’ve witnessed in the past three months.”
I flipped through the file quickly, suspicions growing, as faces stared back at me from the various pages. Young and old, male and female, rich and poor. There was no rhyme or reason to the victims. They seemed utterly random.
“How similar?”
I felt the weight of her stare and it distracted me from the contents of the file. “Except for the fact, McPherson was American… exactly the same.” Mamahara’s elbows hit the desktop, her fingers lacing together. “Every single death has no medical explanation. It’s like, for lack of a better description, someone removing the battery from a watch. Their bodies just ceased to function.”
“Inspector Abarai didn’t mention this.”
“Because the deaths of these Japanese citizens are our business, not that of an American detective,” Mamahara said as I scanned each coroner’s report, scarily identical to Tyrone’s. “We have modernized, joined hands with the West, and embraced new cultures. But we are still, at heart, Japanese, Mr. Grimm. And there are things we don’t like others meddling in.”
That I could understand. It probably didn’t help that I was American, no matter how well I spoke the language or the Asian blood that flowed in my veins. Other counters weren’t too fond of the United States and many of them had great reason. We meddled, often in places where our help wasn’t wanted. And we were far too arrogant for our own good.
Here, however, was different. I had been hired to complete a task. And no matter what roadblocks I encountered, I would find Tyrone’s killer. I refused to fail in this.
“Why are you telling me this?”
Someone knocked on her door no sooner had the words passed my lips. A male voice was quick to follow in short, stressed Japanese. “Mamahara-sensei, it’s time.”
The coroner tapped her fingers on her desk top again, a rat-tat-tat noise that seemed habit for her. “I have something else that I must attend to.” If she was attempting to sound regretful, she failed miserably. Mamahara better sounded relieved.
“Another body?”
She inclined her head, moving around her desk, only to pause and stare at me, again with that eerily penetrating look. “From all accounts, it seems to be similar to McPherson. Would you care to observe?”
The idea of it churned my stomach. I was no stranger to autopsies, blood, or gore, but I never enjoyed any of it. “You’re being rather helpful, Dr. Mamahara.”
Her eyelashes fluttered in fake demure. “Is that a compliment or a question?”
“A little bit of both.” I tucked my notebook into my pocket. “You’re the first to give me a real answer.” I grabbed the file she had pushed to me as well; I would review it while I observed the autopsy.
The voice on the other side of the door called again. “Mamahara-sensei?”
“I’m coming, Uryuu,” the coroner retorted with a huff, striding with a click-click of low heels to the door. “And tradition or not, the police aren’t solving this. Maybe what we need is a fresh angle.”
The door opened before I could respond and Mamahara’s assistant ushered her toward the autopsy room without sparing me a glance. I followed silently, not interested in the actual autopsy, but the results themselves. I would wait for Dr. Mamahara to finish.
Her revelations worried me. If Tyrone was just another in a string of similar deaths, then this was far, far bigger than I had expected. And definitely more than I, on my own, could handle. The type of case I’d need back up for, if I had any to call.
Retsu’s assistant, a tall, thin man with lips like a trout, showed me to an observation room where I could both hear and watch. I stayed away from the window, content to let Dr. Mamahara’s voice drone into my ears. I stuck with crossing my ankle over my knee and pulling out the file. I had the feeling I wouldn’t be allowed to keep it so I had a limited time to glean the necessary information from its perfectly organized contents.
The cases were in order of first to last, and as I looked closer at the first smiling face and its associated information, Dr Mamahara’s cooperation clicked into place.
The first victim was a young lady named Yamada Tohru. Recently married with a young child, she’d had a bright future ahead of her. She was beautiful, in a soft, gentle way. But it was her origins that intrigued me the most. Her maiden name was Mamahara, her mother listed as Dr. Mamahara Retsu.
The coroner didn’t care about tradition. She just wanted answers for why her little girl had to die.
I sifted through the file on Yamada Tohru. She was healthy and young, jogged every morning and ate vegetarian. She was friendly, outgoing… she had no enemies. At least, none that were obvious. Yamada Tohru was just your everyday working girl trying to start a family.
I studied Yamada-san’s picture, finding nothing unusual in her pretty smile. She wore a fashionable blouse, had a mole under her left eye, and the pale skin of most Japanese. I frowned as I looked closer. She appeared to have a necklace, something silver.
I dug out the list of her personal possessions, scanning it. Yamada-san had been found wearing a necklace with a small, fox-shaped pendant. It was described as being stylistic and silver, very artsy and likely hand-made. I didn’t know why it struck me as important. Perhaps because I distinctly remembered Takafumi Atsuko wearing a necklace of similar design.
Interest in Dr. Mamahara’s autopsy momentarily sidetracked, I dug out my notes on Tyrone. My handwriting was barely legible even to myself. Not even my assistant – back when I could afford one – was able to read it. I considered it a form of code, that way I didn’t have to worry about protecting my notebook. Even if sometimes I had to decipher my own chicken scratch.
I had made a brief notation about the necklace. At the time, I had thought the dainty fox beyond Tyrone’s style.
Coincidence? I didn’t believe in coincidence.
I flipped back to the folder Mamahara had given me, and past the paper-clipped documents about her daughter to the next bundle. A man, perhaps mid-thirties stared back at me solidly, premature grey streaking from his temples. He was single, no family save a brother in Kyoto. And he’d been found face down in his breakfast. How undignified.
Most importantly, he’d had a watch, a pocketwatch as a matter of fact. And the symbol imprinted on the lid was of a nine-tailed fox, howling towards the sky like a wolf and its fascination with th full moon.
The third victim. A college student, male, in his third year, studying architecture. Tetsu Amano was set to intern at Parker and Sugita immediately after graduation. He had a bright future ahead of him… until he took an unintentional nap in his bathwater. That wasn’t what killed him – no water in his lungs, soapy or otherwise – but he was dead all the same. No necklace on him, but then, he’d been nude. I had the feeling that if I searched his home, I’d find something with a silver fox.
Did it have something to do with a cult? I was a little familiar with Japanese mythology so I knew of their fascination with foxes. But was it important?
I filed the possibility in the back of my head, moving on to the rest of the victims. They were as varied as a box of Jelly Bellies, an assortment of flavors with absolutely nothing in common. Eight of the twelve carried obvious pieces of jewelry with foxes decorating their inlaid metals. It was a long shot, yes, but damn it, it was the most I’d pieced together since arriving in this tradition and silk-draped country.
“My work doesn’t interest you?”
I closed the file, a bit startled since I hadn’t heard the door open, registered the completion of Dr. Maamhara’s recitation, or even heard her approach. “I’m not keen to the sight, no. But I overheard. Another one.”
Mamahara nodded, sliding out of her spotless scrubs and removing the mask from her face. I had a feeling that she was the sort that worked with absolute precision. “He was found this morning. His daughter went in to wake him up.” She shrugged. “She thought it was cardiac failure. He’s certainly old enough for it to be plausible, and not in the best shape.”
I stared at her evenly. “Except that his heart was fine.”
“Except,” Mamahara agreed, and returned my stare, glancing pointedly at the file in my hands. “Find anything new?” The circles under her eyes, dark and portraying a continued lack of sleep, strongly resembled Atsuko’s in that moment.
“Do you recall your daughter having a silver necklace with a fox-shaped charm?”
Mamahara’s brow furrowed, confusion flickering across her face. “On a small chain? Yes, I do. She bought me one just like it.” Her fingers tugged on the top string of her scrubs and bared the top of her collarbone. She withdrew a small chain, a gleaming silver charm dangling from the bottom and twinkling in the bright, hospital-grade lighting.
The pendant was small, about the size of an old, American silver dollar. There was a small imprint, perhaps the signature of the artist, on the backside. I couldn’t recognize the symbol, not that I thought I would. No doubt the artist was Japanese.
“Do you know where she got it?”
“There’s a small shrine in Shibuki. The priest makes these and other things.”
Was this a lead? Why yes, I think it was.
I let the necklace return to Dr. Mamahara’s possession, watching as she carefully tucked it back beneath her shirt. “Do you know the address of the shrine?”
She shook her head, reaching up to tuck an escaping strand of hair back under her scrubs cap. “No, but if you tell any driver the name ‘Suou’, you should get where you need to go.”
That familiar, huh? Much in the same way that Takafumi was so recognizable? Curiouser and curiouser, Alice.
“Thank you, Dr. Mamahara. You’ve been most helpful.”
She stepped toward me, reaching for the file. “If anyone asks, I didn’t answer your questions.”
Covering her ass. A smart woman. Considering the nature of this case, I didn’t blame her. It was obvious someone was trying to cover up something somewhere.
“Of course you didn’t.” A small smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. There was steel and fire in this woman. I appreciated that.
Dr. Mamahara glanced from me to my notebook, as though hoping to get a glimpse of what discoveries I might have made, before she turned away and held the door open for me. “Now, if you’ll excuse me… I have reports to write before Inspector Abarai visits.”
I moved past her into the stark, white corridor smelling strongly of disinfectant and floor wax. Dr. Mamahara had been monumentally helpful, and I made a mental note to inform her of whatever I unearthed in the end. It was the least I could do.
“Mr. Grimm?”
I glanced over my shoulder, Mamahara lingering in the doorway of the observation room, chewing her lip over some inner dilemma. “The victim tonight was in possession of a ring shaped like a dancing fox.”
I smiled. Nothing in my line of work was ever coincidence.
I slipped my notebook back into my pocket. “Thank you, Dr. Mamahara,” I said, and continued on my way, boots sounding uncommonly loud in the hospital-like silence.
I headed for the exit, lifting my wrist to check the time. High noon. The best time to grab lunch and then see if I could find this Suou shrine.
Did I honestly think the killer – now that I was sure there was one – would leave such an obvious clue? Not if he were smart, which he had to be judging by the crime itself.
How do you kill someone without harming the body? It was like some deity had reached down and snatched the life out of the victims. Frightening to consider, but also highly improbable. I didn’t believe in higher powers of any kind. I trusted myself and no one else. And you know what? To this day, I’m the only one who hasn’t let me down.
Rikashi was waiting outside, propped up against the hood of the car and reading some kind of tabloid with a famous Japanese actor splashed across the front. And I had thought Rikashi to be a man of taste.
He watched as I approached. Wary, like a rabbit waiting for the wolf to strike, fingers subtly tightening around the pages of his magazine.
Rikashi had been more cautious of me since he dropped me off in Nichome. Maybe he’d never seen a gay detective before. Or more likely, he probably thought I was going to jump him the minute he turned his back. Aside from the fact I wasn’t interested in unwilling partners, Rikashi wasn’t my type. He was too short, too twitchy, and most of all, too much McPherson’s lapdog.
I had my standards, after all. Even for one night stands, which brought Madison to mind. I was pretty certain Madison wasn’t his name, just like I hadn’t given him ‘Elias’. Not that it mattered since I didn’t plan to track Madison down though the sex had been hot. If I needed something like that, I’d just find another stranger to help me work out my frustrations. Women just weren’t suited for that. They required too much wining and dining.
I had never really put much thought into my sexuality before. I never had one of those world-shattering, epiphany moments where I suddenly understood the truth about myself. Curiosity had me falling into bed with another man, and that sort of sex quickly became a drug. That easy, rough way of fucking requiring no promises was like a salve to all the shit I had to suffer on a regular basis, including my wife.
Of course, it was after Jennifer found out that things went from bad to shitstorm. First came the divorce – she blamed it on infidelity that I couldn’t and didn’t deny – and after that, custody battles. Those were ever so much fun, especially when Jennifer tromped out proof of my liaisons with men. It wasn’t hard for the judge to connect kissing other men with homosexual with “dear lord, he must be a pedophile.”
Immediately thereafter, I was slapped with hefty child support and Jennifer took Deidre, our daughter, and moved to the West Coast. I hadn’t seen either since, except for the birthday cards I receive from Deidre once a year. Currently they were the only decoration in my office, hanging crookedly around my PI license.
Goddammit, but sometimes I missed her. I won’t lie. It was more than sometimes. I saw her pictures – chubby, ruddy cheeks, her mother’s blue eyes, my mother’s tight ringlets, the pale skin of her partial Japanese heritage. My Deidre had grown from my baby, to a little girl, and now a little lady. All in the blink of an eye. And her goddamned mother, convinced I’d do something heinous to our own daughter, wouldn’t even let me see her.
Yeah. Our divorce hadn’t been pretty. The only saving grace was that Deidre had been too young to understand what was going on.
So here I was, some seven years later, half the failure Jennifer’s father expected me to be and all the useless layabout my father thought of me. I was wandering around Japan, looking for a killer who didn’t even have the decency to murder in an identifiable way. And I wasn’t exactly the best at solving murders – to be honest, this was my first one. I didn’t know why McPherson chose me, but I supposed I’d have to figure it out.
“Where to?” Rikashi asked, dragging me from my thoughtful reverie. He sounded impatient.
I caught his eyes in the rearview mirror through a dim haze of smoke. My Black was half gone; I didn’t even remember lighting it. I must have really been out of it. Thinking too hard perhaps.
“You know anything about the Suou?”
Rikashi blinked, his fingers flexing around the steering wheel with the dull creak of skin on polished leather. “They’re one of the older families. Traced back to the Edo period.”
My head cocked to the side. “I’ve never heard of them.”
Something flickered through Rikashi’s eyes as they fell to focus on the dashboard, no longer meeting my gaze in the mirror. “They fell from favor.”
“Whose favor?”
“Does it matter?”
I flicked my lighter open and shut, the click-click noise filling the uncomfortable quiet of the limo interior. “It might.”
Rikashi sighed and the Rolls rumbled to life. “One of their ancestors – I can’t remember who exactly – betrayed their lord. Caused his death. It cursed the whole Suou family.”
In other words, traditional, honor, mumbo-jumbo. Something that began with a vow and ended with seppuku no doubt. I had never understood that practice. Then again, I’d yet to encounter a fate worse than death.
“Hmm.” I considered as Rikashi merged with traffic, drawing more of the sweet Black ‘n Mild into my lungs.
I had the sense of direction of a bird. Rikashi was heading back to the hotel since I hadn’t given him any other instructions.
“Something to eat,” I suggested aloud. “Quick and cheap.” No need to start wasting money just yet. Despite all that McPherson had paid me.
“Whatever you want,” Rikashi answered, all curt and annoyed. He was probably just grateful I wasn’t asking for another ride to Ni-chome. Che. Homophobic bastard.
a/n: The next two chapters are written. I"m just waiting for some time to pass so I can do another edit on them with fresh eyes.
As always, comments and critiques are always welcome. Feel free to correct me on specific Japanese knowledge. Websites that I can look at with information are even better! Especially with this story. Any help is appreciated.
