-ONE-
Inspector Jiro Takeda looked up from his desk to a most unwelcome
sight: that of tall and gaunt Detective Lieutenant Iwase Ozawa with
two large manilla files in his hands.
"Can I speak with you for a moment?" Ozawa asked.
Takeda leaned his bulk over his desk to sweep a pile of folders
from one of the chairs before him. The folders joined the stacks of
boxes, more files, and takeout lunch containers in the disarray of
his office floor.
"Have a seat," he grunted with a sip of tepid coffee.
Ozawa sat down and placed the two folders on Takeda's desk. The
Inspector did not look at them.
"I see this place hasn't changed a bit," Ozawa observed with a
wave of his hand.
"How are things in the Commissioner's Office?" Takeda asked, ignoring
the remark.
"Fine. Fine," Ozawa replied.
"What brings you down here?"
Ozawa composed himself slightly before speaking, a gesture that was
not lost upon Inspector Takeda. "Two floaters have been found in a canal
in Nerima ward in the last six weeks. Both were teenaged girls, both
mangled pretty badly."
"Sounds like a problem for Nerima Homicide," Takeda observed with
another sip of coffee.
"That's the problem," Ozawa returned. "It *is* a problem for Nerima
Homicide. They have nothing right now. Nothing. They don't have anyone
who has ever had to do something like this before. Most of them have never
even had to deal with a homicide before." He steepled his fingers. "Nerima
is pretty tame. They get petty larceny, vandalism, and some disturbances
of the peace. That's about it. They're almost as weird as Tomobiki ward,
but basically harmless."
"What do I have to do with this?" Takeda asked warily.
"We want you to go take a look. Just a look. Give the boys in Nerima
some ideas, that sort of thing."
"I don't do that sort of thing anymore. I work for the Special Unit
now," Takeda countered. It was true even though he was Tokyo Prefecture
Police and not part of the National Police. "Yakuza. There are no Yakuza in
Nerima. Find someone else."
"There is no-one else," Ozawa returned. "You're the only one with
this kind of experience."
Takeda cursed. His fat, ruddy, fortyish face became much older, paler,
and wasted.
"You think it's a Serial, don't you?"
"What do you think?"
"I think you're trying to bullshit me into taking this job."
"Would I do that?"
"Fuck you," Takeda growled. "You wouldn't come over from the Police
Commissioner's Office just to get me to recite a precis on homicide
investigation to the clowns on the Nerima force."
Ozawa changed tacks. "You have no idea how big this has become. Hawa
and Yamaga and the other assistant chiefs didn't even want to listen to me
about this. I just barely got the old man to open the investigation."
Takeda grunted in thought. Hawa and Yamaga were dull, stupid assholes
who wouldn't believe in Santa Claus even if the fat old gaijin showed up
on their doors with a sleigh and a sack full of gifts for them.
"No-one wants to admit that there's a problem," Takeda said bitterly.
"Serial murder is the product of the decadent and immoral United States;
it simply doesn't happen in precious, holy Japan."
"You'll help, then?" Ozawa asked hopefully.
"Get someone else."
"I just said that there was no-one else. You know that. We could ask
the F.B.I. for help, and Interpol, but you know as well as I do that no
potential witness will talk to them. They would be outsiders. They can't
understand our culture enough to make the right connections with the
evidence." Ozawa's gaze leveled on Takeda. "You're the guy who's caught
two wackos, remember?"
"That was a long time ago," Takeda replied, secretly hating Ozawa for
even mentioning it. "Look, just level with me. You aren't here to ask,
are you."
Ozawa's face tightened. "No. I wanted to be polite about it, but if
you refused, the Commissioner was going to make it an order."
"Your idea?"
"No. I recommended you, that much is true, but they want this matter
wrapped up quickly and quietly. Before it really leaks out to the press."
Takeda felt the bile rise in his throat. He thought of mangled bodies,
of cruelty beyond any ritualized Yakuza hit, of hatred alien and incompre-
hensible to rational minds. Even worse than the hateful madness, he thought
of the cold unfeeling bastards in the Commissioner's Office. They didn't
care that someone was out there turning schoolgirls into hamburger, the only
thing that concerned them was making the whole thing disappear. Before the
stigma of serial murder in Japan became a stain too tough to wash away.
"I'm in," he said hoarsely. "But on one condition: I get everything
and everyone I need to finish this. Anyone from Headquarters tries to
fuck around with my investigation, and I promise you the only thing we'll
accomplish is counting the bodies in the morgue until there are too many
to keep this silent from the national media."
"Fair enough," Ozawa replied. He took out an organizer and a pen.
"What do you need?"
"I want Ito over at Tokyo General to do the pathology from now on.
He's done great work for us on Yakuza murders. I don't care whose ass I
burn in Nerima, Ito gets first dibs on any more homicides that turn up."
"Done," Ozawa replied. "Next?"
"Ichiro Kogata at Latent Prints. He's done floaters before. I want him
assigned to my investigation full time. Same with Ryu Tokaida at Hair and
Fiber."
"Done."
"I want a liason set up with Frank MacFarlane of Behavioral Science
at the F.B.I. -including labwork. You can go through the usual channels
with the American Embassy. The same with the Anthropology and Forensic
Dentistry sections at the Smithsonian Institute. I think Doctor Hale Alsever
is still a point of contact for them. If they can't or won't help, see if
you can get Colonel Paul Graham at Trippler Army Hospital on Oahu to do it."
Ozawa's brow furrowed. Outside help would not be appreciated by his
superiors, even if Ozawa himself recognized the invaluable assistance
that the F.B.I. and the Smithsonian could provide. "I'll do what I can for
those. Anything else?"
"I don't know yet," Takeda muttered distantly. "I probably won't know
until I get to Nerima. Maybe not until floater number three turns up."
Ozawa flushed slightly.
"Number three turned up this morning before I came over to see you."
"What?"
"I don't have any file yet. I didn't want to mention it right away
-unless you were going to say no."
Takeda's face grew taut.
"Listen up, you cocksucker. You hold anything back from me again, and
I'll walk. You got that?"
________________________________________________________________________
J. Austin Wilde and Fission Park Press proudly present:
STIGMA
Part One
By J. Austin Wilde, K.B.C.S.
Special Agent in Charge,
Fission Park Press
wildeman@psn.net
http://www.psn.net/~wildeman/
The characters and situations of Ranma 1/2 are
the creation and property of Rumiko Takahashi
and Shogakukan/Kitty TV.
--DARKFIC WARNING--
The following work of fanfiction contains graphic
and violent presentations of torture, sexual assault,
and murder. It is not for the faint of heart or the
easily disturbed.
______________________________________________________________________
-TWO-
Inspector Takeda took the offered jar of Vick's Vaporub from Doctor
Ito, and smeared a glob of the menthol creme under his nose. He handed the
jar to Ozawa, who did the same with absent ease. By the time the jar made
its way around to the Nerima cops, they aped the procedure with little
understanding of why they did so.
Lying on a chipped porcelain examining table was a dark green vinyl
bag. A large red tag was tied to the zipper. The characters for "Evidence"
were most prevalent. Takeda was glad at least that the shape within
corresponded to an *intact* human being. Some of the murder victims he
had investigated in the past had come "some assembly required."
The Nerima Morgue was an old building next to the ward hospital,
dating back to the late forties, and done in faded pastel green paint and
dingy tile that resisted even the most diligent efforts by the cleaning
staff. The faint tang of chlorine bleach permeated the room. Old wooden
cabinets painted a dull white were filled with trochars, autopsy saws,
rib spreaders, and other instruments behind glass covered doors.
Takeda noted that the Nerima ward morgue also doubled as a funerary
establishment at the sight of packages of Rock-Hard Cavity Fluid behind
several cabinets. A mumbled question to the Nerima Chief Medical Examiner
confirmed this: the deceased poor were handled here at a government
subsidized discount by a moonlighting licensed mortician. There was an
incinerator in the basement to handle their cremations.
Doctor Ito motioned for one of the morgue assistants to open the
body bag. The man lowered his paper mask over his nose and mouth and
proceeded. The zipper made a sighing sound as it opened, and at once a
horrible stench filled the room. The reason for the vaporub became clear
to the Nerima cops. Without the menthol creme, the smell would have been
sickeningly unbearable.
"Smells pretty bad," Ozawa remarked. "It's been pretty hot out of
late."
"Time of death has been estimated at 10 PM last night," Ito began.
"She was found this morning just before eight o'clock. That means worst
case, she was in the water for twelve hours. The preliminary indication is
that she was dead prior to her immersion in the canal."
"Cause of death?" Takeda asked. What he saw in the vinyl bag did not
give way to any specific method of slaying. Instead it looked like pure
slaughter.
"Indeterminate," Ito replied. He made a polite gesture to the medical
examiner. "With all due respect to my colleague, it is very difficult to
agree upon a specific cause until a full autopsy can be performed."
"Best guess then," Takeda said.
"Either strangulation or cervical displacement," Ito answered. "With
the extensive damage to the face, throat, and thoracic regions, I can't
find any ligature marks or bruises to correlate strangulation, and the
broken neck may well be a post mortem injury."
Takeda nodded. The autopsy photographs of the first two victims showed
a similar savage disfigurement. Both also had broken necks, though the
Nerima medical examiner was unable to determine if they were caused after
death. He didn't hold it against the man, he was way out of his league
for investigating such atrocities. That was why Takeda now had Ito working
on the case.
"Go on, doctor."
Ito looked down at the mangled girl and sighed tiredly.
"The subject is a female, approximately seventeen years old, well
nourished. Apparent good health prior to death."
An assistant measured her from foot to top of crown with a fabric tape
measure.
"One hundred sixty-two point five centimeters long," he said. She had
been weighed prior to being brought into the examining room. "Weight is
fifty three kilograms."
"Some of that will be water in her lungs and stomach," Ito replied.
"We'll take a second measurement after we evacuate her torso."
"The last two reports speculated at sexual assault," Takeda said.
Several of the Nerima cops grit their teeth at his gall. This was an
innocent girl, and here he was asking if the killer popped her cherry
before he did her.
"There is indication of penetration," Ito said, running his gloved
hand down into the body bag, and thankfully out of sight. "No sign of
seminal fluid -that's odd for a murder-rape." He knelt low over the body
and shined a penlight down into the bag. "Marks inside the vaginal wall; a
small sharp object, maybe fingernails. I'd rule out penile penetration for
the moment."
"Could the killer be impotent?" Ozawa speculated. "Unable to get it
up, so he finds some other way to violate them?"
"Either that or he's too smart to risk leaving evidence that could
link back to him," Takeda countered. "Even condoms aren't foolproof...
Tell me about all this carnage here, doctor."
Ito gestured to the ripped and torn body.
"The face, throat, and torso front are heavily and deeply disfigured,
the flesh apparently rent. Bone is visible near the sternum xyphoid
process and right clavicle."
"Could an animal have done that?" Takeda asked.
Ito shook his head. "A human animal most likely," he said evenly.
"The wound patterns don't correspond with tooth and claw injury. Neither
do they correspond with some kind of instrument. They're *too* messy for
that. We'll go over the body with a fine toothed comb looking for metal
and wood slivers, but I don't think we'll find anything significant. If
you want my opinion, I'd say that this was done with bare hands."
"Bare hands?" Matsumoto, the Nerima Homicide detective gasped.
"Yes, someone with great strength and ferocity did this."
"You mean rage," someone else mentioned.
"Maybe not a blind rage," Ozawa said. "It's convenient how the
disfigurement makes cause of death difficult to determine. It might also
conceal any ligature marks that could be matched up with rope or wire in
the killer's possession, or marks that could match up with his hand spread
and finger measurements."
Takeda mentally gave him a few points for that theory.
"You're saying he's ripping these girls apart with his bare hands
just to cover up the evidence?" Matsumoto pressed.
"It's a possibility. Especially if that's the reason why he didn't
come all over her."
"All that damage and you're saying it was strangulation or a broken
neck?" Takeda teased. "Tell me why you think that, doctor."
"Simple really," Ito replied. "The disfigurement was post mortem.
Histamine and serotonin levels in the wounds are very low, even allowing
for her soak. She was dead for at least five minutes before he ripped her,
and most likely closer to twenty since serotonin levels are elevated above
histamine."
"That long," Takeda mused. "He had to have a place to do this. This
wasn't something he did on the spot, in the open, and then dumped her in
the canal when he was finished. There is no way he could do it like that
three times already and not get caught in the act."
"We've been up and down the canal bank," Matsumoto declared. "We've
turned up nothing that would indicate that he killed these girls close to
the water."
"Any ID on her yet?" Takeda asked him. There had to be something the
man could give him to work with.
"No," Matsumoto answered. "We're discreetly asking the high schools
to take thorough roll calls, and to call the homes of the absent students,
but so far nothing. There aren't any missing persons reports for a girl
in the last five days."
"That was how you identified the last two, wasn't it?"
"Initially, yes. We tentatively matched the victims with girls who
were reported missing within the previous week. We were able to confirm
their identification with a plantar, or footprint match, against their
original birth certificates."
"Who found this one?" Takeda asked, gesturing to the body.
"A barge operator named Ryutaru Eiji," Matsumoto replied after
consulting his notes. "He was hauling old tires from a landfill north of
the ward. He's about sixty five years old, so we weren't in any hurry to
detain him."
"Understandable. How many people have had contact with the body
before she was tagged and bagged?"
Matsumoto gave a few names, but wasn't sure if this was all of them.
Ozawa knew Takeda well enough to know that unsecured crime scenes were his
biggest pet peeve.
"If we get another floater," the Inspector told the homicide detective,
"You will not fucking touch her until my team gets there. I don't care
if you have to leave her in the water, no-one outside of my team touches
her. Is that clear?"
Matsumoto was clearly stung by his words, but nodded agreement. There
was no doubt that the man was under a ton of heat from higher up with his
inability to make head-way in the murders. The only way to salvage himself
was to play along and try to be as helpful as possible. Even if he choked
on his pride.
Takeda turned away from the body. "I've seen enough for now. Doctor
Ito, if you would be so kind as to hold off on the autopsy until Kogata
from Latent Prints and Tokaida from Hair and Fiber can take a crack at her,
I would appreciate it."
The doctor bowed for him in agreement.
Takeda went out the door. Ozawa and Matsumoto were close behind.
"Now what?" Ozawa asked.
"I want to go back to where this all started. What was the name of the
guy who found the first body? I haven't had nearly enough time to go through
the files."
"Ranma Saotome," Ozawa said after a moment's thought. "He's a high
school student at Furinkan High. About sixteen I think."
"I know him," Matsumoto added. "One of those troublemaking martial
artists. A real pain in the ass."
"Martial artist, huh?" Takeda mused. "Interesting. We'll have to pay
this Saotome a visit. Let's get some lunch. It'll give me a little time to
read up on the first case before we go to the school."
-THREE-
Takeda flipped through the files of the first two victims, evaluating
the evidence collected, judging the police theories, looking for any useful
similarities between them. There wasn't much. There were no witnesses to
either the murders, or the disposal of the bodies in the canal. Both girls
had been alone for at least three hours before their estimated times of
death, and the witnesses who had last seen them alive had nothing to give
the police for possible suspects.
So far, the only similarities were that the girls were both in their
late teens, lived in Nerima ward, and died, were disfigured, and disposed
of in the same horrible way. Ozawa was right, the Nerima cops had nothing
to go on. He was essentially starting from square one.
As he thumbed through the autopsy photographs, he mused that it might
be better that way. The Prefecture Police psychologist would be giving his
preliminary profile on the killer sometime this morning, Ozawa had informed
him. That would be something to start with. He just had to be careful not
to let it prejudice his thinking.
"Ucchan's is a good place to sit down and eat," Matsumoto said as they
drove down the narrow streets of the ward. "It's got some booth seats away
from the seating area along the griddle, so we can talk out of earshot."
Takeda nodded. Despite initial impressions, Matsumoto was turning out
to be a decent cop, and seemed to have a good head on his shoulders, he was
just very inexperienced for a lead homicide detective. Perhaps he could
teach the guy right in the process of nabbing the killer.
"The food's not bad, and it's a popular hang-out for young people,"
Matsumoto added.
"Good enough for me," Takeda said. "I'm usually a ramen man. A little
variety in the diet wouldn't hurt."
They had to park in a side street to reach Ucchan's Okonomiyaki.
Ozawa used his cellular phone to call his office and report their location
in addition to a query on the status of Doctor Dosaka's profile. It was
due at any time, and the office would fax it to them as soon as they
received it.
Ucchan's was a quaint little shop, not upscale in any sense, but homey
and comfortable. The hot smell of the griddle mingled with the tangy odors
of sauce. The girl at the griddle wore a brightly colored kimono in a
checkered pattern of red and white. A second girl came in from a door behind
the counter, her long chestnut hair tied with a white ribbon, and wearing
the traditional attire of an okonomiyaki chef. A spatula of prodigious size
was slung on her back.
"Welcome to Ucchan's!" the two girls greeted cheerfully.
Takeda took a seat in a corner booth, far from the griddle and facing
the single doorway available to the patrons. Ozawa and Matsumoto followed
suit. The girl in the red and white kimono minced over to them to take their
orders.
Her voice was oddly falsetto, and Takeda noted that the hands which
clutched the guest check book possessed a youthful masculinity. They ordered,
letting Matsumoto go first to get an idea of what was good. The girl was
shyly helpful as she took their orders, and left them to fetch their drinks.
"Interesting wait staff," Ozawa noted.
"You noticed too?" Takeda asked.
"Noticed what?" Matsumoto piped up.
Takeda frowned. The Nerima homicide detective needed to be more
observant. That was a difficult skill to learn; most people either have it
or they don't. He was beginning to fear that the killer had left behind
clues that were too subtle for the Nerima cops to notice.
"The girl in the red and white kimono isn't a girl at all," Ozawa said
quietly.
"What?" Matsumoto hissed in reply.
"He's a cross-dresser. A transvestite," Takeda said bluntly.
Matsumoto turned to watch the waitress fill their drink orders. Her
movements were graceful and delicate, as if she were performing the Tea
Ceremony.
"How can you tell?" he asked in a hushed voice. The server started
over towards their table with a gait that was almost instinctively
feminine.
"The voice and the hands mostly," Takeda replied. "His posture is
a little off because of his upper body structure. I'll admit, he's very
convincing. I'd almost say he was raised as a girl."
The girl who might possibly be a boy set their drinks before them
with grace and shy smiles.
"May I ask your name, Miss?" Takeda asked politely.
"Konatsu Kenzan," she replied with a sudden shy sweep of her kimono
covered hand over her mouth.
"You look quite lovely, Miss Konatsu," Takeda offered.
"Thank you, sir," she replied with a blush. The words came soft enough
to avoid the falsetto and still sound feminine.
"How long have you worked here, Miss Konatsu?"
"Several months," she replied. "Mistress Kuonji has been very generous
to me."
"Mistress Kuonji is the woman at the griddle?" Takeda asked.
"Yes, sir," Konatsu replied gently.
"I would like her to come over for a few words after our meal. Would
you be so kind as to ask her?"
"Certainly, sir. May I ask who is making this request?"
Takeda nodded, reaching into his rumpled suit coat for his tin.
"Inspector Takeda Jiro, Tokyo Prefecture Police Special Unit," he said,
flipping open the leather case to display his badge and credentials. He
gestured with his hand to the other two. "This is Detective Lieutenant
Ozawa Iwase, also of the Tokyo Prefecture Police, and I'm sure you've met
Detective Matsumoto of the Nerima Ward Police."
Konatsu's bright eyes flashed in surprise and a little apprehension.
"I shall let her know."
"It's nothing serious," Ozawa said quickly. Perhaps too quickly. "We
just want to ask her a few questions about the neighborhood."
Konatsu bowed extremely politely and left them to their drinks.
"Was that necessary?" Ozawa asked Takeda.
"I'm curious," the Inspector replied. "I want to know a little more
about Konatsu, and the badge will get answers to embarrassing questions."
"What's on your mind?"
"Transvestites are a strange bunch, and I'm not talking about their
dressing habits. Some have definite mental problems; the others simply
like the clothes, and are basically harmless, if a little quirky,
heterosexuals. There are Oedipal matters to be sure, but nothing dangerous.
Doctor Dosaka could give you a more precise definition, but this is good
enough to suit our purposes.
"Transsexuals are another matter. A transsexual is someone who fully
identifies with the opposite gender. Male transsexuals are a passive,
nonviolent sort. Not very likely candidates for our killer."
He rubbed his temples and took a drink of his Asahi beer.
"What I want to know is whether our cute little waitress has been
raised as a girl, or does he just like to pretend? If he's been raised as
a girl, and resents it, there could well be a subconscious antipathy
towards all females."
"You mean he could be a suspect?" Matsumoto asked.
"I'm not saying anything yet," Takeda replied. "I'm just keeping an
open mind. It's a pretty safe bet that Dosaka's preliminary profile will
talk about hatred towards women as a possible motive. That kind of
disfigurement, performed bare-handed no less, would take an enormous
amount of anger. Either that or the guy is a total sociopath -utterly
lacking an emotional link to his actions. I don't even want to think about
that. An intelligent sociopath would be almost impossible to catch."
"I don't think he's capable of it," Ozawa said. "Not strong enough."
"How can you tell underneath that kimono?" Takeda countered. "But
you're right, unless he's putting on a pretty good act, I'd say he
identifies with females very favorably. Not a likely candidate." He took
another sip. "But not impossible either. Let's just call this a warm-up
exercise."
"What makes you think the proprietor knows the answers?" Matsumoto
asked.
"Just a hunch," Takeda replied. "It was what Konatsu said about his
boss. Being very generous that is. She has to know something personal about
Konatsu, or she wouldn't have kept him around this long."
They ate in silence, with Takeda poring over the files. The proprietor
gave them a respectful period of time after they had finished before
presenting herself. She appeared slightly nervous, a reaction normal for
most people faced with interviews by police. Takeda made certain the
files were closed and placed in an attach� before she could see them.
"How can I be of assistance, officers?" she asked them.
Takeda made the introductions again, and flashed his badge and ID.
"We can start with your name."
"Kuonji Ukyo," she said evenly.
"How long have you been in Nerima, Miss -it is Miss?- Kuonji?"
Ukyo ticked off the months on her fingers.
"Almost a year. And it is 'Miss.'"
Takeda nodded. "How do you like Nerima? It must be quite a change
from Osaka."
Ukyo flushed for a second before realizing that what people from
Tokyo considered an accent had not entirely faded. Her place of origin
would be clear enough for a detective.
"It's all right," she replied. "Business isn't great, but I get by."
"You're quite young to be in business for yourself," Ozawa remarked.
"You're what, sixteen? Seventeen?"
"I'll be seventeen in a few weeks," Ukyo replied. "And yes, I am a
bit young, but I've been an independent sort since I was a kid."
"You have a nice place," Takeda complimented.
"Thank you, sir."
Takeda took a last sip from his beer.
"Can I ask you a few questions of a more personal nature?"
"Um... I guess," she replied uneasily.
"What's the story with your waitress, Konatsu? Or should I say,
*waiter.*"
He watched Ukyo's face carefully as he made his revelation. She was
surprised more than upset or anxious.
"Oh," she began. "He's been working for me for a few months. He
tries real hard, but I don't think he's cut out for the okonomiyaki
business."
"Can you tell me why he dresses and acts like a girl?"
"Um, he was raised as one actually. By his mother and sisters. I guess
they didn't like the idea of having a boy in the family."
Takeda nodded. "Would you say he was fairly comfortable as a girl?"
Ukyo bit her lip. "At first I think he was..."
"Go on."
She blushed in embarassment. "Well, he sorta has a crush on me right
now. He still acts like a girl and all, but it's there."
"Why would he act like a girl around you if he was interested in you?"
Ukyo shrugged. "Because that's the only life he knows?"
Takeda nodded again. There was something else, something she didn't
want to talk about. It was probably a kinky little intimacy between the two
of them. It was none of his business; he let it drop.
"Fair enough," he said. "Can you answer one last question about Konatsu
for me? I'd like to know if you can recall any time when he might have been
angry or violent, I mean irrationally violent -a response completely out of
proportion with the cause."
Ukyo thought for a moment, but it was clear that she couldn't think
of anything.
"No, I don't think so. Konatsu is really quite sweet."
Takeda smiled. "Thank you for your time and cooperation."
Ukyo smiled weakly and excused herself with thinly veiled relief.
Then she turned back to him. "Inspector Takeda, is this about the murders?"
Takeda saw no sense in lying to her, though he could feel the heat
from Ozawa's stare.
"Yes."
"And you think Konatsu might be involved?" she whispered in disbelief.
"We have no suspects as of yet," he replied evenly. "The investigation
is just starting... Personally, I don't think he is the person we're looking
for."
Ukyo nodded. "I know Konatsu, and I know he wouldn't hurt anyone."
She returned to her customers.
"Think there's something between them?" Ozawa asked.
"None of my business," Takeda replied.
Ozawa's cellular phone bleeped for attention. He answered, nodding
his head and looking around the room.
"Dosaka's report just came in," he supplied. "I need a phone to
set up the portable fax machine." He looked over to Ukyo, who was tending
to the late lunch crowd. "Excuse me, Miss Kuonji, is there a telephone
I could use? It's very urgent."
"There is one in the back," she replied, busy with an order of the
House Special. "Konatsu can show you."
Ozawa thanked her and gathered up the small facsimile machine from
his attach�. He followed the pretend girl into the back room, where
large clay jars of sauce aged, and bags of flour sat stacked up in a
corner on a wooden pallet. There was a small walk-in refrigerator for
perishables and beer, and several boxes of assorted dry goods. A staircase
led up to the apartment over the establishment.
He noted the neatly folded bedding and a traveling bag in the corner
opposite the refrigerator, close to the heating vents, and decided that
the apartment upstairs was for Ukyo exclusively. Konatsu showed him the
phone that rested on a preparation counter close to the door. Several
knives and a large cleaver gleamed on a shelf. He thanked the boy and
indicated that he needed privacy. Konatsu was only too glad to leave.
He called the office and gave them the phone number printed on the
unit. Then he unplugged the phone from the wall jack and inserted it into
the facsimile machine. After several minutes the machine received an
incoming call and began to print out Doctor Dosaka's report.
When he was finished, he reconnected the phone and headed back out
front. Ukyo was still busy, and Konatsu was politely deflecting the
flirting advances of one of the patrons. Takeda and Matsumoto were having
a quiet conversation about baseball, which was odd because Ozawa had never
known the Inspector for a fan. He talked with some authority on the matter.
"Dosaka's report," he said, offering it to Takeda.
"I know you looked at it already," Takeda said. "What do you think?"
"You were right about him thinking misogyny was a possible motivation,
but after what I saw in the morgue today, that wasn't a difficult theory to
come up with."
Takeda scanned the pages.
"According to the good doctor, what we have is a person with a
tremendous antipathy towards the female gender. He is possibly suffering
from some sort of rage disorder -likely undiagnosed and untreated- and
possibly even suffering a gender identity crisis." His eyes drifted over
towards Konatsu. "Dosaka rates his intelligence as bright average. Things to
look for are a history of abuse, probably very early, at less than six years
of age, from the mother, maybe even a grandmother if the person was from a
broken home or was an orphan.
"Other than that, our killer isn't following a lunar cycle, nothing to
correlate with the zodiac, no observable pattern other than where he's
dumping the bodies. The killer's period is getting shorter though, and that
means we'll start seeing bodies turn up more often."
He narrowed his eyes at them.
"Dosaka thinks the reason for the decreasing period is because the
killer is getting into his work. Whatever it's doing for him, he likes it,
and he wants to keep it up. That means a suicide isn't likely."
He rose from the table.
"We have to find this guy. He won't stop until he's caught. We can't
let him keep piling up the body count... Let's get this guy."
"Where to next?" Matsumoto asked.
"First I want to visit the three sites along the canal where the
victims were found, then we visit Saotome. He was the first person to report
a body. After that we'll talk to Officer Tenkai -he found number two. We'll
go from there."
After they had settled their bill and walked out of Ucchan's, Takeda
looked at both Ozawa and Matsumoto.
"I'm putting Konatsu Kenzan on the list of possible suspects."
"Oh?" Ozawa replied, surprised. "Any particular reason? I thought you
said he wasn't a likely suspect."
"Just a hunch," Takeda told him.
-FOUR-
The canal was wide and not very deep, allowing only shallow draft
barges and tugs to transit. A road bridge crossed over the water upstream
of the spot where Ranma Saotome had discovered the body of sixteen year
old Hiroyuki Kimiko. She had hung up on a broken down section of chain-link
fence that screened the canal from the pedestrian walkway above.
"The current isn't very strong," Takeda noted. "How much does it change
with the tides?"
Matsumoto shook his head. "Very little, actually."
"So it's likely that the killer could have dumped her from that
bridge over there."
"That was our conclusion," Matsumoto replied. "There were bridges
within one hundred yards of each discovery. Unfortunately we haven't been
able to come up with any witnesses. We found some blood spatters, but we
were only able to categorize type. Type B blood at all three sites."
"Type B blood," Takeda said. "That's a big help. Seventy percent of
Japan has Type B blood, including all three victims." He coughed. "I'm going
to go take a look," There was a chance that Matsumoto and his men had missed
something. He only hoped that after six weeks there would be something left
to find.
Ozawa stayed with Matsumoto, who answered various questions the
Detective Lieutenant asked. Takeda huffed along the walkway to the bridge.
He cursed as he looked around. The homes that were within sight of the
canal crossing were screened by trees and tall fences. Unless a person were
directly on the road -and close, or on the walkway on either bank, no-one
could see you dump a body. It would be easy enough for the killer to watch
out for witnesses before he dumped the body.
According to the reports he had read, the streetlights in Nerima were
in a state of disrepair. Vandalism mostly. In the wake of the murders, the
heat had come down from above, and maintenance crews had made replacing and
repairing the lights their number one priority. They still had a lot of
work to do, Takeda noted. The lights on this bridge were all broken,
possibly by the killer himself.
He stepped onto the bridge and walked over to the middle, on the side
facing the discovery of floater number one. The killer would probably dump
her here, the water was deepest at this point, and the sluggish current
would move the body better than close to the banks. He visualized the
killer, swathed in blood...
**Swathed in blood!** Takeda shouted in his head. **Where is the damn
blood?! A body as mangled as that has to drip something, even if he let her
drain for a few hours before dumping her. And that's all he has, none of the
girls were missing all that long before they died.**
"How did you do it?" he asked the phantom killer. "How did you dump
them without leaving a gory mess?"
He looked around. The cement of the walkway was clean save for a few
small brown spots circled in faded white police chalk close to the rail. A
few weeds poked up from the expansion joints and odd cracks in the paving.
There was nothing else.
-FIVE-
The other sites also turned up nothing. Even the most recent one.
Floater number three had been spotted drifting in the middle of the canal
by the tug operator, Ryutaru. He pulled her alongside with a boat hook and
radio'd for help.
As they drove towards the Tendo Dojo, and current home of Ranma Saotome,
Ozawa's cellular phone rang.
"Ozawa," he said into the phone.
He nodded his head several times.
"Yes, thank you."
He hung up.
"They identified floater number three," he told Takeda and Matsumoto.
"Ogata Yuka, aged seventeen. A student at Furinkan high school. She was
reported missing shortly after we left the morgue. They identified her with
her dental records. The plantar prints from her birth certificate are
expected to confirm. Doctor Ito completed the preliminary autopsy, and all
he's waiting on is the labwork; toxicology and whatnot. He'll fax us the
report later this evening. Tokaida couldn't get anything useful off the
body, and Kogata couldn't get any prints."
"I doubt he'll find anything unusual in her blood," Takeda said. "The
others were clean. As for Kogata and Tokaida, I was hoping more than
anything. He's a careful one, this guy. About the only thing that could
have left a decent print was the girl's fingernails."
"We have to be thorough," Ozawa replied. "One more thing; he found an
interesting burn pattern on her back."
"Burn pattern?"
"Chemical burn, maybe lime or caustic soda, even a concentrated bleach.
Any traces of whatever it was washed away in the canal, but the marks are
clear enough."
"Lime..." Takeda murmured. "That clinches a common location for his
killings. He's using lime to destroy the blood and serum evidence... But he
still dumps the bodies instead of burying them and coating them with lime to
break them down quickly."
He thought for a moment.
"Wherever he's doing it, he doesn't live there alone. It could mean he
lives in an apartment, or he lives with other people in a house, but he
doesn't have the full run of the place."
"It's a start," Ozawa said, knowing that the game of murder was often
a game of centimeters.
"Now if only we could figure out how he's picking his victims."
"What about Ogata Yuka?" Matsumoto asked.
Takeda grunted a reply. "Get a couple of local cops to do a walk around
of Furinkan. Have them find out who knew Yuka, who hung around her. I want
names and addresses. We'll talk to them during the week."
The Tendo Dojo was a large home dating back to the turn of the century.
A high wooden palisade screened the place from the street on three sides, a
more recent cinderblock wall marked the boundary of the back yard and garden.
A handpainted sign in a steady hand indicated that challengers of the dojo's
occupants should use the rear entrance.
"Tendo School of Indiscriminate Grappling," Takeda read aloud. "Ever
hear of it?"
"It's pretty obscure," Ozawa admitted. He was a part time student of
the Fighting Arts. "I think it was originally a kempo style." He sighed. "I
can't *even* list the number of different schools in Japan. For instance,
did you know that there's a school of Martial Arts Tea Ceremony?"
"No," Takeda said. "I didn't. I'm not sure I wanted to know."
The gate was open, and they stepped through into a well tended front
walk. The house was before them, a two story affair that could accommodate
a good-sized extended family, and the dojo was to their right. A covered
wooden walkway linked the two structures. Beyond the walkway they could see
a garden and what was perhaps a koi pond.
As they approached the front door, Takeda noted that the shingles of
the roof were unevenly colored. Some parts were obviously new while the
others showed signs of weathering and age. The house had other subtle hints
about it that it was undergoing continual repair, and not always by the most
skilled of carpenters.
A young woman about nineteen or twenty, possibly a little older,
answered the door. She gave them a pleasant smile and greeting, and
welcomed them in. She didn't seem to be concerned in the least when they
identified themselves as police.
"Oh dear," Kasumi said absently. "What has Ranma done this time?"
"Nothing we know about, Miss Tendo," Takeda replied. Matsumoto's
description of Ranma as a troublemaker came immediately to mind. "We just
want to ask him a few questions."
"I think he's in his room," Kasumi said. "Would you mind waiting in the
living room while I get him?"
"Not at all."
She led them into the living room. A rather large panda sat on a
cushion watching a television soap opera and crunching absently on a chunk
of bamboo. The panda looked over his shoulder at them, spotted Matsumoto's
badge upon his belt, and turned back to the television with haste.
"Don't mind Mister Saotome," Kasumi told them. "He's harmless."
Genma growled something at this.
"Mister Saotome?" Ozawa cried. "That's an unusual name for a panda.
Does he belong to Ranma Saotome?"
"Not really," Kasumi said. "Mister Saotome is Ranma's father. Excuse me,
please." With that, she went upstairs to look for Ranma.
Takeda looked to Matsumoto, who made a circling motion with his finger
pointed at his temple. Takeda agreed. The girl didn't seem to have all of
her cylinders firing.
The three men knelt around the low table and waited for the arrival
of Ranma Saotome. Takeda composed his thoughts into useful questions. He
debated asking him about Yuka. The announcement of her death had probably
not reached the high school yet.
A teenaged boy about seventeen years old entered the room nervously.
He had black hair braided into a pigtail, piercing blue-grey eyes, and a
strong muscular build that would be quite formidable when he finished
filling out in his early twenties. He wore a mandarin style blouse in red
satin and baggy black trousers with a draw-string waist and legs.
"Ummm," he began, "Kasumi said you wanted to talk to me." His eyes lit
in recognition of Matsumoto. "It's about the dead girl I found, isn't it."
"This is Inspector Takeda of the Tokyo Prefecture Police Special Unit,"
Ozawa told him. "I'm Detective Lieutenant Ozawa. We've been assigned to the
investigation, and would like to ask you a few questions."
"I already told you guys what I know," Ranma replied. He pointed to
Matsumoto. "Just ask him. He's the guy I talked to."
"Inspector Takeda has a great deal of experience with this type of
case, and he would like to hear your story again in case you can recall any
new details," Ozawa said evenly.
"I don't see how I can help, but okay," Ranma replied. It was obvious
that he was uncomfortable with the situation, but he knew from the look in
the man's eyes that the Inspector wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer.
"Have a seat," Takeda told him. Ranma sat down cross-legged in front
of them. The panda craned his head around to listen. "I would like you to
start from before you discovered the body. What were you doing, where
were you going, and how you ended up in the canal. I may interrupt you
every now and then as a new question comes to mind, so please bear with me."
Ranma took a deep breath and let it out before answering.
"I was running along the top of the fence next to the canal on my way
to school. I was late, as usual," he began. When he saw the looks on their
faces he added, "I do that for balance training. Running on the fence tops
that is."
"Was anyone with you at the time?"
"Yeah, Akane."
Takeda tapped a pencil to his teeth. "Who is this Akane? Does she live
around here?"
"Her name's Akane Tendo, so I guess you could say she lives around
here," Ranma replied a little flippantly. Takeda smiled graciously, making
the jowls of his face stretch taut.
"So you were walking along the top of the fence to school, in the
company of Akane Tendo. Anyone else?"
"Naw, just her. Nabiki can't stand to listen to us fight all the time,
so she goes a different way to school."
"Nabiki?"
"Akane's older sister. She's a year older."
"You said you fight all the time with Akane," Takeda pointed out.
"Could you explain what you mean by this?"
Ranma shot the panda a dirty look. "Akane is my fiance�. Sort of."
Before Takeda could interrupt with the obvious question, Ranma continued
with, "My dad and her dad decided we were engaged. I didn't like it, I don't
think she likes it... We argue a lot, I guess."
"You don't like your fiance�?" Ozawa asked gently.
"I didn't say that," Ranma snapped. "I just said we fight a lot." He
shot another dirty look at the panda, who returned his attention to the
television screen.
"So how did you end up in the canal?" Takeda prompted.
"I, uh, I think I said something to insult Akane, and she smacked
me with her bookbag and knocked me in the water."
"Do you recall what you said to her?"
Ranma flushed. "I, uh, I called her an uncute tomboy. She hates that."
"And she struck you with her bookbag hard enough to make you, a martial
artist capable of running along a raised chain link fence top, to lose your
balance and fall into the water."
Ranma's face turned a deeper shade of red. "You don't understand what
she's like when she's mad," he managed.
Takeda filed that away for future reference. "So you ended up in the
water, and then what happened?"
"I landed in the water, and..." he paused briefly as he realized that
he was about to spill the secret of his curse to a total stranger, and a
policeman at that, and then continued. "...And there she was. It looked
like she was tangled up in the bottom part of the fence that had come
undone from the post... Her head was below the water, I couldn't see
her... face. What was left of it, anyway."
Takeda could see the unease on Ranma's face, and it didn't have
anything to do with the curious pause in his narration. He had seen the
photographs of the first victim after they pulled her from the water.
"Then what did you do?"
"I screamed," Ranma said sheepishly. He tried to downplay his reaction
with "I mean, what do you think a guy would say when he lands in the water
next to a dead girl?"
"That's okay, Ranma. I don't blame you for being frightened," Takeda
soothed.
"I wasn't frightened," the pig-tailed martial artist retorted. "I was
just startled is all."
"Of course. Then what happened?"
"I, um, I told Akane to go get help. I didn't want her to see... You
know... She tried to see what was wrong, but I yelled really loud at her to
go. She was pretty steamed, but afterwards, when she found out what happened,
I think she let it go."
"About how much time passed before the police arrived?"
Ranma thought about this. "I'm not really sure. I don't have a watch
or nothing, but I guess it took about fifteen minutes for a policeman to
arrive, and a little after that for an ambulance. More cops kept coming in
after that."
"And you stayed with the body the whole time?"
"No!" Ranma cried. "You kidding me? Why the heck would I want to stay
with a dead body?"
"So you climbed out and waited for the police?"
"Not really," Ranma replied. "I, uh, I went to Doctor Tofu's clinic. It
was only a half a block away."
Matsumoto frowned. Saotome had never mentioned this to him.
Takeda was intrigued. "Now why would you do that?"
Ranma flushed again. "I, um, just wanted to make sure someone called
for help. Akane was already there when I reached the clinic, so I went back
and waited for the cops to show up."
"About how long were you away from the body?" Ozawa asked.
"I dunno. Five, maybe ten minutes."
"Was anyone else there by the time you returned?" Takeda asked.
"No. It was just me. Doctor Tofu and Akane didn't show up until after
the cops came."
Takeda nodded. "Did you know the victim, Hiroyuki Kimiko?"
"No," Ranma replied. "And even if I did, I wouldna recognized her after
what happened to her face."
"What did you think happened to her face?"
Ranma thought. "At first I thought she'd been mauled by a stray dog or
something."
"At first? You have a different opinion now?" Ozawa asked.
"Well, when I saw the divers pulling her out of the water, I saw her
head kinda roll around on her shoulders. I could tell her neck was broken.
I think that was when I knew that someone killed her, and then some dog
decided to... you know... mess her up after."
"I see," Takeda said. "How about the second victim, Nakazawa Miko?"
Ranma shrugged. "Never heard of her."
Takeda decided to tell him. He went to the same school, so he'd find
out soon enough.
"What about Ogata Yuka?"
Ranma grimaced. "...Yuka?" The color drained from his face. "Yuka's
dead?"
"She was found early this morning," Takeda said evenly. "I take it you
knew her."
"Yeah," Ranma said hoarsely. "She was a friend of Akane's..."
"Can you tell us who else hung around with her?" Ozawa asked, he had a
notepad ready.
"Well there's Akane," Ranma said. "And another girl named Sayuri.
Kitano Sayuri. There are others, I guess, but those three always hung out
together at school."
"Did Yuka have a habit of staying out late on school nights?" Takeda
asked. "Did she know anyone whom she might have been reluctant to talk
about? An older boyfriend perhaps?"
"How should I know?" Ranma replied. "She was Akane's friend, not mine."
"Do you know where your fiance� is right now?" Takeda asked. "I'd
like to ask her some questions regarding Yuka."
"I think she's in the dojo. Come on, I'll show you. Just promise not
to make her upset, will ya?"
"We'll do our best," Ozawa returned.
Ranma jumped to his feet. The three policemen stood and followed him
out of the house.
"It's the same guy, isn't it?" he asked them.
"Pardon?" Takeda asked.
"The same guy killed all three girls, didn't he?"
Takeda nodded. "We think so."
"That asshole better not come around here, or I'll break *his* neck."
END OF PART ONE
