Nightshade Read online

  “Tall?”

  “About as tall as me,” she admitted. Back in high school, she and Coco had agreed that tallness in a boyfriend was key. That was back when trading character for looks was unlikely to turn into a lifelong mistake.

  Coco took a sip of tea. “All I can say is, you work fast. A month ago you were sitting at this same table, telling me how you hated that it shocked people if you gave your opinion when they asked for it, how you’re always being treated like an outsider, how you’d never fit in here. Now you’re marrying—”

  “Thinking about marrying. Considering thinking about marrying.”

  “—a guy from one of the oldest and richest families in the country!” Coco shook her head in disbelief. “Does he have any brothers?

  The first bars of Ayumi Hamasaki’s “Sparkle” chimed from Coco’s handbag. She dug out her phone and frowned at the display. “Hey, what do you know? It’s you,” she said to Yumi. “Moshi-moshi. Rika, where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you all day.”

  She listened for a moment, confused.

  “Oh! Sorry, officer. What?” She listened. “Oh. I guess that explains why Rika hasn’t been answering.” Silence. “No, Rika Ozawa is the one who dropped it but the phone you have belongs to Yumi Hata. Rika picked it up by accident on Friday night.” She listened again. “Ozawa . . . That’s right, the characters are the ones for ‘big marsh.’” She juggled the phone to her left hand. “Yes, I have that information, but Yumi’s right here—do you want to talk to her?” She listened again. “Okay, I’ll tell her. What kind of incident? Was Rika involved?” Silence. “Ah, I understand . . . So, you just need their contact info, right?” Rooting through her purse, Coco pulled out a dog-eared address book plastered three-deep with photo stickers and read off Rika’s and Yumi’s addresses, along with their families’ home phone numbers. “When can Yumi get her phone back?” She listened. “Okay, thanks.”

  Coco dropped her phone back in her bag. “Now we know why Rika hasn’t been picking up. She dropped your phone at the Komagome Shrine. The police are investigating some kind of incident there and your keitai got swept up with the evidence. He said you can probably get it back in a few days.”

  A few days? Yumi groaned. She didn’t want to be confronted by Moi dix Mois every time she made a call, but she certainly didn’t want to give Rika her phone back and be cut off from all communication while the police took their sweet time investigating this “incident.”

  “What happened?” she asked, peeved.

  “He didn’t say. Apparently it doesn’t have anything to do with Rika, though, because he said he just wanted her contact info so they could return the phone. If she was involved, he’d probably have wanted to confiscate the one you have, too.”

  Yumi forked up her last bite of cream puff. “Good thing you didn’t tell him I had it.”

  Chapter 5

  Saturday, April 6

  3:30 P.M.

  Kenji

  Kenji pushed aside the report he’d been working on since noon and rubbed his face. The protection racket investigation was going to put away some small-time gangsters, but Kenji had no illusions that it would make much difference. More petty criminals would pop up overnight like poisonous mushrooms.

  Maybe he should take a break, get a cup of tea. He stood up to stretch and looked around the half-deserted squad room. It was a slow day for interrogations—the interview room doors surrounding the common space all stood open.

  Kenji had been assigned to a desk halfway between the elevators and the section chief’s, which overlooked the room from beneath the only window. Although everybody received the same nondescript, government-issue equipment, it was easy to tell who sat at each desk by the personal items on top. The golf trophy Section Chief Tanaka had won last spring as one of the Superintendent General’s foursome attested to his years of climbing the ladder, both on and off duty. Next to Kenji, framed photos of Detective Oki’s family, going back to when his teenage son was a baby, jostled with a large collection of snapshots showing his judo students triumphantly holding trophies.

  Kenji’s desk remained almost bare. No wife, no kids, no commendations, no trophies. The only personal items in evidence were the three ornaments dangling from the cell phone he’d tossed on top of his paperwork: a success-in-exams charm he’d bought before he landed a coveted spot at Tokyo University, a small wooden gourd that had belonged to his mother, and a slightly grubby Year of the Dragon dangler he’d swiped in fifth grade, hoping the girl who still owned a little piece of his heart would discover his crime and ask for it back. He wondered where Yumi was now. Was she was married yet?

  His desk was clear of clutter, except for the evidence bags pushed into one corner. He set aside the protection racket report and pulled them over. One held a white envelope and a blank sheet of stationery; the other, a business envelope, a suicide note, and two passports.

  The note from the business envelope left few doubts about the intentions of the two people found dead in the Lexus’ front seats. He reread the bold calligraphy:

  To The People Of Japan, Our Loyal Customers, Employees, Family And Friends:

  By offering up our humble lives, we assume all responsibility for actions taken during our stewardship of the Hamada Sweets Corporation. Please accept our deepest apologies for any harm we have done, not only in the past, but any result of those actions in the future.

  We entrust to our son the duty of putting the company back on the right path. It would be most regrettable if innocent people were harmed as a result of the mistakes made under our imperfect management.

  Please accept our sincere sacrifice as a pledge that the wrongs done were ours and ours alone. Our son and the management of the Hamada Sweets Corporation are blameless and did not participate in the practices that precipitated this act.

  We, the undersigned, attest that we took our own lives without coercion or assistance.

  It was signed by Masayo and Tatsuo Hamada and sealed with two vermilion hanko stamps.

  “Nakamura-san.”

  His neighbor, Detective Oki, had just returned from investigating a burglary at the Fujimoto Corporation headquarters. Loosening his tie and undoing the top button of his shirt as he dropped into his swivel chair, Oki cracked his neck left and right, looking exactly like the fifth-degree black belt in judo that he was. Even taller than Kenji and twice as broad, the big detective’s graying brush-cut hair and good-natured face routinely made suspects mistake him for someone whose brawn exceeded his brains. They never guessed he’d been within a year of getting a psychology degree before transferring to the police academy, until he trapped them into admitting something they later regretted.

  “I was just down at the lab talking to Rowdy-san,” the big detective said, dumping a couple of file folders on his desk. “He said they’ve started on your suicides. The dead girl’s fingerprints were all over that phone.”

  “Thanks, Oki-san.” Kenji held up the note he had just been reading. “Take a look at this and tell me what you think.”

  Oki took the bag and read the suicide note through the plastic.

  “Huh. Looks like another chicken farmer case.”

  Kenji nodded. During the most recent bird flu panic, dozens of poultry farms had faced bankruptcy when entire flocks were slaughtered to keep the epidemic from spreading. To avoid certain ruin, one family-owned business near Kyoto quickly butchered and shipped birds that were known to have been infected. Although nobody died as a result, the owner and his wife hanged themselves, leaving a note apologizing to the Japanese people for causing so much “inconvenience.”

  Oki handed the evidence bag back to Kenji. “What do you think is going on at their company? Sounds like it might be worth investigating. Do you know anything about their business? Or their son?”

  “Not yet.”

  Oki pic
ked up the bag with the white envelope addressed to “Mother and Father” in it. “This one belongs to the third victim?”

  Kenji nodded.

  Oki flipped the clear bag over and saw that the piece of paper was blank on both sides. “No note?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Sir?” Suzuki appeared, a file folder in hand.

  “Ah, Suzuki-san. What have you got?”

  “That phone you found in the bushes, sir. It turns out that the person who owns it is different from the person who lost it.”

  “How did the phone company know that?”

  Suzuki reddened. “Well, sir, I . . . I hope I didn’t break any regulations, sir. I, uh . . .” He glanced nervously at Oki.

  “Remember what I told you—there’s breaking, and there’s bending,” the older detective said with a grin. He looked at Kenji. “I mentioned that there was an easier way to get that information than beating his head against phone company bureaucracy.”

  “He suggested I return the most recent received call and ask whose number came up on their caller ID, sir,” Suzuki explained. He glanced down at his notes. “Coco—the woman who answered—told me the phone we have belongs to someone named Yumi, but Yumi’s friend is the one who actually dropped it at the shrine. Apparently, they have the same model and the friend picked up the wrong one by accident. The friend’s name is . . .” He consulted his notes. “Rika Ozawa.”

  Rika Ozawa. A Rika Ozawa had been in his high school class, although he hadn’t known her personally. He hoped that wasn’t why she looked familiar.

  “Did you get an address?”

  Suzuki extracted a piece of paper from the folder.

  Kenji glanced at it and frowned. “4-14-21 Hon-Komagome.” She was local. Kenji hadn’t hung around with the Goth-Lolitas in high school, but this Rika might have. He wondered if the victim’s missing cell phone had messages on it that would explain why the dead couple had joined her to commit suicide. He’d track it down after he did the next-of-kin notifications.

  “Good work, Suzuki-san. What about the couple in the front seats?”

  Suzuki shuffled his papers. “According to Minato Ward family records, the Hamadas have one adult son, who lives with them at the address on the car registration.” He pushed another piece of paper across Kenji’s desk.

  “Did you find anything on the family business?”

  “I haven’t had time to check yet, sir.”

  “Do an online search. I’d like to know as much as possible before we notify the son. The suicide note suggests that the company is involved in something that warrants investigation, and we may need to ask him some questions before he has a chance to hide whatever it is.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll do that right away, sir.” Suzuki bowed deferentially and left.

  Oki sat down at his desk and pulled out a form to start his burglary report.

  Kenji hesitated, then said, “Oki-san? Um, I could use some advice.”

  The older detective looked up.

  Kenji lowered his voice. “Have you ever had to request an autopsy?”

  Oki frowned. “A few times. Why? Suicide isn’t a crime. It’s even considered honorable, in some circumstances.”

  “I know. But . . . I’m not completely convinced it was suicide.”

  Oki looked around and saw that the section chief was sitting at his desk within earshot, muttering to himself as he stamped a thick stack of forms with his hanko. The big detective jerked his head toward one of the interview rooms; Kenji followed.

  Inside, Oki closed the door and leaned against it, arms folded. “Why don’t you think it was suicide?”

  Kenji perched on the edge of the interview table. “First of all, even though there was a charcoal burner in the car, the doctor on morgue rotation told me none of the victims had the reddened skin associated with carbon monoxide poisoning. He was sure they must have died from something else first.”

  “Such as . . . ?”

  “We found empty prescription pill bottles, so they might have taken enough to do the job. But the doctor said most people don’t trust meds alone—if you take too many, you throw up before they kill you. If you take too few, you don’t die. That’s why they usually back up the sleeping pills with a charcoal burner. The pills knock you out quickly and the fumes finish the job.”

  “Didn’t you say that someone did toss their cookies near the scene?”

  Kenji nodded. “We think it was the girl. The examining doctor found traces in her mouth and there was a piece of notebook paper in her purse that looked as if she’d wiped her mouth with it. But if she threw up the pills before they killed her and she didn’t show signs of carbon monoxide poisoning, what did she die of?”

  “The doc didn’t find anything else out of the ordinary?”

  “No. She had recent scrapes on her knees and hands, but he said she could have gotten those any time on the day of her death.” Kenji hesitated, then said, “The doc on morgue rotation was young. I don’t think he’s done many exams like this, and he didn’t seem to like it much. I could tell he hated even touching the dead bodies. He suggested I wait and see whether the lab finds drugs in the vomit or not, and whether it matches the swab from the girl’s mouth. If Rowdy-san finds she threw up before taking any pills, it would be safe to assume she died of overdose, same as the others.” He shifted in his chair. “But there’s something else, too. The note. Or rather, the lack of one. Why would she address an envelope to her parents, then forget to put in a note?”

  Oki shook his head. “It’s hard to believe anybody would be that distracted. Or that cruel.”

  “Do you think I ought to wait before asking the family for permission? For a post-mortem?”

  Oki thought a moment. “Without more evidence, they’d be well within their rights to refuse. Wait and see what the lab says. You don’t have to ask the family at the same time you do the notification, you know. Nobody will think it’s strange if you don’t release the body for a day or two. Besides,” he added, “If you get permission and the autopsy indicates it wasn’t suicide, you know what will happen. They’ll send in the elite murder squad from headquarters.”

  “Wouldn’t that be a good thing? We’d have access to all their resources, get to work with the experienced investigators from downtown.”

  “Yeah,” said Oki with a cynical laugh. “We’d get to work with them, all right: Driving the superintendent to his interviews, hauling their equipment around for them, making copies. It’d be a real education, I guarantee it.”

  “Oh.” Kenji’s face fell. “Thanks. I guess I’ll wait and see what Rowdy-san comes up with.”

  Oki turned to go.

  “Oki-san . . . ?”

  The big detective stopped, his hand on the doorknob.

  “Have you ever done a next-of-kin notification?”

  “Yeah,” he replied, without enthusiasm. “Is this your first?”

  Kenji nodded. “So . . . what do you say? When they come to the door, how do you tell them that someone in their family is dead?”

  Oki sighed. “There’s no good way. If you dress it up, it just delays that awful moment when they figure out you’ve brought them the worst news they’ll ever hear.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of.”

  Chapter 6

  Saturday, April 6

  7:00 P.M.

  Yumi

  Sitting in a taxi that was creeping along in Tokyo traffic, Yumi pulled out her phone. 6:54. Oh no, she was going to be late. In America, she’d have been on time, but in Japan, 7:00 really meant 6:55. Why had her supervisor at the International Interpreting Company picked today to lecture her about using the honorific form when addressing clients, correct her bowing style, and remind her that even if the client was an idiot, he was paying for interpretion, not correcti
on of his so-called facts?

  She slipped her heels back into her shoes, wincing. The new flats were cute, but she’d had to buy a 24.5—the largest size most stores carried—and they were a half-centimeter too short. When she went out with Ichiro she didn’t want to be taller than him, so she’d stopped wearing heels. In America, her 170-centimeter height had been unremarkable; but in Japan, she towered over nearly all the women and half the men. Finding shoes that fit and pants that were long enough was a perpetual irritation.

  Almost there. She glanced at the meter and pulled two ¥1,000 notes from her wallet. As the cab pulled up to the curb, she spotted Ichiro waiting just where he said he’d be, checking his phone for messages. He looked good tonight. Had he gotten a new haircut? It suited his glasses. He was so confident of his place in the world, few women noticed he wasn’t tall or especially good-looking.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said, running the few steps from the curb.

  His face brightened as he saw her, and they bowed to each other, even though they’d parted after their third date far more intimately. Trading small talk about her interpreting job and his day at the office, they ascended to his reunion in the soaring steel and glass Roppongi Hills tower.

  Yumi was reminded of the first time she walked through the swanky development with her parents, past the precious little restaurants tucked between handbag shops and minimalist florists. Even the tonkatsu joint had been tarted up, the menu offerings reduced to premium bites of deep-fried pork, portions halved and prices doubled. Her mother had looked around with a melancholy smile, wondering whether the neighborhood residents who’d traded the land under their wooden houses for luxury apartments ever wandered sadly through the halls, longing for the roasted sweet potato man and his cart.

  But the echoes of that old neighborhood faded long before reaching the Roppongi Hills Club on the fifty-first floor. Without slowing down, Ichiro gave a friendly bow to the woman at the members’ check-in desk and led Yumi up the wide granite stairs.