________________________________________________________________________
          J. Austin Wilde and Fission Park Press proudly present:

                               STIGMA
                              Part Five

                     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.
_______________________________________________________________________



                            -Eighteen-



     Inspector Takeda and Detective Lieutenant Ozawa stepped out of their 
white unmarked Toyota sedan as three more regular police cars and a 
Forensics Section minivan pulled up around them. The narrow street was 
completely blocked off by the vehicles. Pedestrians gave the officers a 
wide berth as they converged upon the modest two-story home of Gosunkugi 
Hikaru.
     A police sergeant stepped up to Takeda, bowed, and handed him an 
envelope. Takeda opened the envelope and inspected the contents. A search 
warrant from the Honorable Judge Wakamatsu commanded him to search the 
home and property of Gosunkugi Yoshio, and to seize such evidence as 
necessary in pursuance of the investigation.
     They approached the front door. The house was small but neat, its 
tiny grounds tended diligently if not with any particular skill. Ozawa 
knocked with an authoritative rap upon the door.
     A woman answered the door. She was in her late thirties, frail, with 
dark circles under her eyes, much like her son. She started in surprise 
and a little fear as she saw the platoon of uniformed police officers, 
the surgically gloved Forensics Section, and the two grim faces of Takeda 
and Ozawa.
     "How can I help you, officers?" she gushed with a hearty bow.
     Takeda bowed briefly in response and presented her with a copy of the 
search and seizure warrant. 
     "My name is Inspector Takeda Jiro of the Tokyo Prefectural Police, 
this is Detective Lieutenant Ozawa Iwase. Mrs Gosunkugi, I have a warrant 
for the search of this home, its grounds, and all property, including any 
motor vehicles, and the seizure as evidence of any property relevent to a 
criminal investigation in progress. Is your husband home?"
     Mrs Gosunkugi's mouth gaped open like a fish.
     "N-No, sir, he's still at work. He works in Shinjuku as a computer 
systems administrator, and doesn't come home until late."
     She remained in the door, looking confused and terrified. Takeda 
continued in a firm but non-threatening tone.
     "Mrs Gosunkugi, I'm going to have to ask you to step aside, and to 
cooperate with us wherever possible. I am instructing you not to use or 
answer the phone, or to leave the premises at any time for the duration 
that this warrant is being served. If you have any questions or complaints 
regarding the nature and conduct of this search and seizure warrant, you 
may do so after the completion by consulting with your attorney or by 
contacting the office of the Honorable Judge Wakamatsu Leiji, presiding 
over this investigation for the 1st District Court of the Tokyo Prefecture."
     She nodded dumbly, not understanding how or why this had come to pass. 
     Ozawa stepped forward.
     "Ma'am, your son has been arrested for obstruction of justice and
tampering with evidence related to a murder investigation. We have reason 
to believe he may be involved with the murders. Our search warrant has 
been isssued in light of these circumstances."
     What little color Mrs Gosunkugi had now drained from her skin. She 
sank against the door frame and closed her eyes. Her body was stiff with 
shock and disbelief.
     Ozawa took her inside gently, and the Forensics Section moved in. A 
uniformed police officer stood guard at the door while another went around 
to the back. Takeda shook his head and followed Kogata inside.


     Hikaru's bedroom was on the second floor. It was neat and tidy, a 
sharp contrast from the rooms of most of the youths Takeda had seen in 
the course of his time on the force. He ran his gloved hands along the 
simulated wood grain finish of the study desk, noting that it was quite 
clean. He sniffed at his fingertip, noting the faint pine odor of cleaning 
spray residue. His mother's handiwork, he didn't see a sixteen year old 
boy like Gosunkugi Hikaru being so fastidious.
     The sheets and bedspread had been smartly arranged on the bed in the 
far corner of the room. Takeda had been able to bounce a 50 yen coin on it. 
They were now spread on the floor while Tokaida went over it with tweezers 
and a magnifying glass for hairs and other evidence. Another man went 
through stacks of manga, magazines, and science fiction novels looking for 
loose papers, photographs, and notes written on the pages. A third scanned 
videotapes in fast forward from Gosunkugi's thirteen inch television/VHS 
unit. He would play it at normal speed long enough to identify the program 
and log it in an inventory. Most of it was anime, a few were television 
programs on science topics, one was an untranslated bootleg of the American 
sci-fi film, "Aliens." 
     Several cameras and various photographic accessories were set in a box. 
A dozen tapers and one large votive candle sat on a shelf. A large poster of 
Akane Tendo, created from a photograph most likely, was on the wall above 
the head of the bed. 
     A forensics assistant had already bagged several notebooks and tagged 
them as evidence. A clipboard sat on the desk for the inventory of items 
seized. A pile of polaroid prints showed how the room appeared prior to 
the police begining the search.
     There wasn't much yet, but then, Gosunkugi had about fourteen thousand 
photographs stacked neatly in two small sized shipping boxes to go through, 
plus the negatives, and other photographs in the darkroom. His mother had 
told them that Mister Gosunkugi had built it out of a small spare room for 
their son several years ago.
     Ozawa stepped into the room. He shook his head slowly.
     "So far we haven't found anything particularly damning. The shed out 
by the garden turned up nothing, the same with the yard. We'll hit the 
photographs next, but that's going to take awhile."
     "You check under the house?" Takeda grunted.
     "I've got a man down there right now."
     Takeda gestured to the room for him.
     "We're making a bigger mess here than it was when we found it. The 
place is way too clean for a teenaged boy when we arrived."
     "Mother does the cleaning?" Ozawa asked.
     "I think so," the inspector replied. "Remember to ask her when you 
go down to the living room."
     "So what are you getting at?"
     Takeda swept his hand around the room again.
     "Where is the good stuff?" he asked. "You're not that old. Did you 
ever keep a skin magazine or two somewhere secret when you were a kid?"
     Ozawa frowned. "What of it?"
     "Well if he's got one, he's got to hide it from mom, because she 
cleans his room all the time. Maybe he's hiding other things. Photographs 
he's taken that he doesn't want mom to see. Things like that."
     He looked around the room again. The closet was wide open, its contents 
arranged on the floor before it. The desk had already been checked and 
double checked according to the room inspection sheet.
     "We're being thorough," Ozawa said. "You know these guys are first 
rate, but we've only just begun."
     "I know," Takeda grunted. "I'm just being impatient. I want to get 
this fucker and put him away. I don't want there to be a number five."
     He lifted his chin to the ceiling and stretched out the kinks in his 
neck. He hadn't gotten much sleep the previous night, as he had been poring 
over witness statements, compiling tables of alibis, and coming up with new 
lines of questioning. It had taken a few fingers of whiskey to finally put 
him down.
     The ceiling was criss-crossed with pine beams stained a brown so deep 
that it was almost black depending on the lighting. Sections of heavy rice 
paper lined the ceiling in 50cm by 100cm rectangles. He craned his neck 
about to look at the section above the desk.
     The stain on the beam closest to the wall was scratched and uneven. 
The paper curled slightly out of parallel with the rest of the ceiling. 
     "Check up there," Takeda said to Ozawa. "I'm too fat and clumsy to 
go up there myself."
     Ozawa looked up and saw what had interested Takeda. He moved the chair 
out and stood upon the desk. He had to hunch his tall gaunt frame to keep 
his head from bumping the wooden beams, but a boy of Hikaru's height would 
have been fairly comfortable.
     "The paper's tacked to the beam running along the wall," Ozawa reported. 
"It's a brown thumbtack, it blends nicely with the color of the stain. The 
paper has been cut neatly on three sides by a sharp instrument very close 
along the beams. You can see where he stretched it slightly to tack it back 
in place, it's so taut that you'd never see a gap from the floor."
     Takeda turned to an officer who was lurking in the hall.
     "Tell Kogata to get in here, I need to touch something, and I want him 
to clear it for prints first."
     The cop did as he was told. Kogata appeared with his field kit shortly 
thereafter.
     "Join Ozawa up there and see what you can pull off that beam," Takeda 
told him.
     "What's up?"
     "Maybe the kid's hidey-hole. I want to make sure that he's the only 
one going up there."
     Kogata climbed up next to Ozawa and dusted the area around the beam. 
His small lamp shone on the area, producing a smudge of prints around the 
thumbtack. He looked closely at them while Ozawa held the lamp in place.
     "Looks like one set of prints," Kogata said at length. "Both hands, 
gripping the beam for support and pulling the tack out. I can see a few 
extra holes where he stuck the tack into the beam when he was up here doing 
whatever."
     "Anything else?"
     "I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that there is only one set of 
prints here." Kogata reached down to his hip where a good quality camera 
rested in a pouch. He snapped a few shots for evidence and then climbed 
down.
     Ozawa pulled the thumbtack out and set it in one of the extra holes. 
The paper curled back slightly and then fell out of the ceiling to settle 
on his head. He gently lifted the paper and folded it back over itself on 
the beam that still secured it.
     Above him was a large mesh laundry bag. It was filled with video 
tapes, magazines, books, several photo albums, and curiously enough; a 
small mallet and a bundle of iron spikes. Ozawa could see where it was 
suspended by a hook through the tag hole in the zipper at the top of 
the bag. A length of heavy test nylon fishing line supported the bag, 
which was anchored by another hook sunk into the six by six beams that 
supported the roof above the ceiling. The zipper was just high enough 
for someone of Hikaru's height to stand on tip-toe to reach it.
     "Quite a find," Ozawa said as he reached up to take the bag down off 
the hook. He passed it to Kogata, who set it on the desk.
     Takeda unzipped the bag as Ozawa stepped down from the desk. He began 
removing items as Ozawa checked them off on an inventory sheet. Kogata stood 
by to dust the items that Takeda was finished examining.
     "Here's the skin mags," Takeda said, setting two dog-eared periodicals 
festooned with Korean writing and teenaged girls in varying states of dress 
and undress. "Bunch of videotapes, they look like pirated copies from a 
local distributer. There's a phone number and a name: Anything Goes Video. 
Also what looks like three vouchers from the place for free merchandise."
     He set the tapes down next to the officer reviewing Gosunkugi's video 
library. The vouchers went into a plastic bag.
     The books were interesting. Occult books. They dealt with western 
magical and religious beliefs mostly. Some were paperbacks touting the lost 
works of Mad Arabs, others espoused the systems of the Victorian era Order 
of the Golden Dawn and other nonsense. A treatise on Voodoo had many pages 
dogeared and passages highlighted for reference.
     The mallet was made of wood, and had numerous marks upon each striking 
face where it had impacted against something hard and circular, most likely 
the iron spikes it was bundled to by a couple heavy duty rubber bands. He'd 
have to have Occult Section explain the possible purpose of such items, but 
they didn't seem relevant to the investigation. About the only thing he 
could say about the mallet was that whatever Hikaru was driving the spikes 
into, it wasn't very hard. He'd ruin the mallet trying to go through 
anything substantial.
     The photo albums were what interested him the most.
     The first one was dated in the inside right hand page corner from last 
year. The subject of the album was clear. Every photograph, and there were 
close to a hundred of them, featured Akane Tendo. Any other people who 
happened to turn up in the photos had their eyes blocked out by neat black 
rectangles.
     "This kid has one hell of a fixation on Tendo Akane," Takeda muttered 
as he flipped through the album pages. Most of the stuff was pretty tame. 
Akane in her school uniform, Akane in gym class wearing tiny red shorts and 
a yellow top. Akane in her yellow gi smashing cinderblocks. Akane out on 
the town shopping with her friends. None of the pictures gave any indication 
that she was posing for any of the photographs. In spite of this, they were 
excellent shots; in sharp focus, with the lighting just right, and managing 
to capture the charm, beauty, and spirit of the girl. He had to be staking 
her out carefully to get such photographs unawares.
     As he progressed towards the back of the album, the tone changed. 
There were shots of the girls' locker room now, carefully cropped to show 
only Akane wherever possible. Wherever he was taking them, he didn't seem 
to be getting any good frontal shots. There was one which captured the image 
of her pulling her sports bra off to change, revealing modest sized, perky 
breasts with erect nipples and nothing more. Takeda wondered how much that 
might have frustrated Gosunkugi. Then again, it was probably racy stuff 
considering who he was. There were no shots of Akane at home. They must 
have seized the only ones he had taken, unless they turned up some in the 
darkroom.
     There was something else about the later ones. Any photograph of Akane 
that contained Ranma had the image of the Saotome boy carefully blacked out 
with a marker. Takeda guessed it was Ranma, he couldn't think of any other 
silhouettes featuring pigtails that would be associated with Akane.
     Takeda handed the album over to Kogata. The next album was earlier 
stuff. Temples, parks, a bunch of Mt. Fuji, a few crowd scenes, an odd 
group featuring men in loincloths running into a fountain pool. The work 
seemed cruder than the other photos. It was obvious that this was his first 
solo work, as none of the prints bore any identification with a photoshop. 
Why he was concealing them with the rest of his forbidden treasures, Takeda 
did not know.
     The third album was a surprise.
     It was a journal of some sort, starting seven weeks ago. The first 
entry detailed the death of Hiroyuki Kimiko, the date she was reported 
missing, the date she was discovered, the date she was cremated, her age, 
and other vital statistics. A shaky hand, presumably Hikaru's, wrote in the 
margins of several newspaper clippings, including her obituary. One of the 
clippings had a photograph, the same one Takeda received from the High 
School that Kimiko attended. Another photograph showed the bridge she was 
believed to have been dumped from, and another showed the section of fence 
that Saotome Ranma had discovered her hung up on. The lighting and angle 
were different from the photos they had seized with his camera earlier that 
day. 
     The last photograph was one of her mangled face. A small lock of hair 
in a tiny ziplock bag was scotch-taped to the bottom of the page next to 
the photo.
     "Tokaida!" the inspector barked. "I've got something for you!"
     "Gods," Ozawa breathed. 
     Tokaida got up from his work on the bedding, and carefully removed 
several strands of hair from the envelope. He examined them with his glass.
     "The hairs have been cut with a pair of scissors," he said after a 
few moments. "I can compare them with the hairs taken from Hiroyuki at the 
autopsy for a match."
     They flipped through the other pages of the album. Nakazawa Miko had 
a similar entry, though it was a bit more extensive. A single photograph 
of Miko in a teal leotard standing next to a very angry Kuno Kodachi was 
pasted next to the obituary photo. A gruesome close-up image of Miko's 
ruined face had an envelope with more hair taped next to it. The hair color 
matched that of Miko from the gymnastics photo.
     Ogata Yuka's entry was even more detailed, and featured several photos 
of her with Tendo Akane and another girl, presumably Kitano Sayuri. A photo 
of her mangled face had a lock of hair taped next to it. A line of writing 
was at the bottom of the photograph of Yuka alive and with her friends. The 
words were written in English, in black ink, and in the same shaky hand as 
the other entries. 

     "Do not die, for I shall hate all women so when thou art gone."

     They looked, but there was no entry for victim number four. The 
journal ended at three.
     "Tag and bag this one," Takeda said evenly to Tokaida as he held up 
the album. "Follow up on the rest of this stuff. You're in charge. Keep me 
posted."
     He started for the door.
     "Now what?" Ozawa asked, following him out.
     "I want to talk to the kid. I want to know how the hell he got the 
goddamn hair."
     "He can't be the killer," Ozawa remarked. "He can't even be involved 
with the killer. If he was, he'd have hair for number four. Photographs. 
Something. It looks like he's got some kind of sick obituary going, and 
that's it."
     "That makes the most sense," Takeda returned. "But I still want to 
know what the hell is going on here before I write him off as some kind 
of sick necrophilic voyeur. If there is the slightest chance that he knows 
more about the murders, I want to know what it is. There is the possibility 
that he knows who the killer is, but he isn't actively participating, and 
that he doesn't care to tell us about it for whatever reason."
     They encountered Matsumoto on their way out the door. The Nerima 
detective had just stepped out of his car, and was on his way to report 
to them.
     "According to the owner, Mousse hasn't come back to the Cat Cafe 
since he ran out on you yesterday," he began. "The same with Kurenai. 
The old man who supervises the half-way house says he never came back 
to the place after he was released from police custody."
     "Great," Takeda said darkly. "Anything else?"
     "Oh yeah," Matsumoto replied. "Doctor Ito came up with some 
potentially big finds. He pulled a few wood slivers out of number four's 
ankle for starters, came up with some unusual abrasion patterns on the 
skin, and a bruise on the back of the neck that matches one he found on 
number three."
     "Outstanding!" Takeda cried. They needed a break like this. For the 
first time since the investigation began, he felt like they were making 
progress.
     "The doctor wants to go over his preliminary findings with you as 
soon as possible. He wants to bring in an outside specialist, and he wants 
to get your approval before he does so."
     Takeda nodded. "Gosunkugi can wait," he decided. "We'll be right 
there. In the meantime, I want your cops who are out looking for the 
clothes of number four to keep an eye out for a bouquet of roses. They 
probably won't be in very good shape, but if we can find them, we might 
have discovered the location of where she was taken."
     Matsumoto wrote that down. "I'll get my people on it."



                            -Nineteen-
 


     The drive to the Nerima Morgue was a slow one with the midday traffic 
detoured around the area where tomorrow evening's merchants' festival was 
being set up. Ozawa drove while Takeda smoked to pass the time.
     "What do you think about Gosunkugi?" Ozawa asked. "Did you ever see 
anything like this before?"
     "In answer to your second question, yes. My first serial had a journal 
going," Takeda replied. "That's how we caught him. The stupid bastard was 
carrying it around with him. We go to review his witness statement with 
him, and it falls out of his backpack and spills open to a page of photos 
of one of his victims. I about shit myself when it happened, I think he 
did too. They locked him up in a maximum security mental hospital in 
Hokkaido, and he's been there ever since."
     Ozawa whistled. "How about my first question."
     Takeda took a long drag on his cigarette. "I think he's been getting 
picked on his whole life. He's an introvert, doesn't have many friends, and 
compensates by losing himself in a bunch of fantasy and science fiction 
bullshit. His only serious hobby seems to be spying on a girl that he has a 
crush on, and for some reason he's developed some kind of death fascination 
that's got him compiling information on three dead girls. Four, if we hadn't 
caught him across the barrier this morning."
     "You think those occult books have anything to do with that?"
     "Maybe. They sure didn't help."
     Ozawa nodded as he made the last turn towards Nerima General.
     "The hair bothers me."
     "It should," Takeda said with another drag. "It bugs the hell out of 
me. If that hair matches up to the victims... Say what you want about him 
not being involved, but that's pretty damning."
     "Agreed," Ozawa replied. "I want answers as badly as you on that one."



                          *       *       *



     Doctor Ito received them in a private lounge above the morgue. He had 
several copies of the autopsy report lying on a table between himself and 
the chairs where Takeda and Ozawa sat. The doctor was drinking a can of 
iced tea purchased from a noisy vending machine sitting in a corner of the 
lounge.
     "I'm glad you could make it so quickly," Ito said to them. "How is 
it going with the kid who crossed the line this morning?"
     "It's a real mess," Takeda replied. "He might be seriously involved."
     "Well I guess that's good news then. As for me, It's my opinion that 
number four was killed by the same person as the other three murders. If 
it is a copycat, he is privy to details of the murders that haven't been 
made available to the public. Cause of death is the same -cervical 
displacement severing the spinal cord. Time of death is roughly the same 
-late evening before midnight. The disfigurement pattern is identical. The 
vaginal penetration is exclusively digital, with some of it occuring before 
death."
     Ito opened the report. "We went over her with a fine toothed comb," 
he said. "Floaters are hard to work with, even if they haven't been in the 
water all that long, so I was glad to get this one nice and dry. We came up 
with three wood slivers in her left ankle, consistant with her being brushed 
against a rough wooden surface. One of the slivers was a centimeter long, so 
the lab should have a good sample to work with."
     He showed them the photos of the slivers, which were set next to a 
small ruler for comparison. Next he showed them photos of the girl's back, 
buttocks, and knees. 
     "It's hard to make out in these black and whites," Ito told them. "But 
you can see abrasion marks here, here, and along here." He pointed out the 
various areas as he went. "Not a ligature mark, but some kind of rubbing 
contact. It doesn't look post-mortem, either. The skin of the other victims 
was in bad shape, but if our man is following the same methods, they very 
probably had similar marks, and were concealed by the immersion effects. I 
also came up with another burn on the back, it's definitely lime, because 
we recovered some from her hair. This burn was more prominent than with 
number three."
     "So by not disposing of her in the water in order to avoid getting 
caught, he might have given us what we need to catch him," Takeda remarked. 
     "It's a good start," Ito agreed. "But the most fascinating find I made 
is next."
     He pulled out four eight by ten black and white photos. "This is victim 
number three. I found this bruise on the back of her neck, below the base of 
the skull." He showed them the mark in the autopsy photo. "I didn't think 
much of it, since it's such a small bruise. It was logged and nothing more."
     He showed them another photo. "Then I get number four on my table, 
and I find the same mark in the same location. It jogs my memory, so I go 
back to the report on number three. They match, so I go back to the 
autopsies on numbers two and one made by the Nerima medical examiner."
     He showed them two more photos, each victim had a similar mark.
     "All four victims have the same bruise in the same place," he said to 
them. "The significance is obvious, but I haven't been able to make the 
connection. I almost want to say it's some kind of acupressure point, but 
I'm a classically trained physician. I never did much in the way of natural 
medicine."
     "Matsumoto said you wanted to bring in an outsider. Is it because of 
this?" Takeda asked.
     "Precisely," Ito said. "One of my colleagues at the hospital here 
recommended a local physician with degrees in natural medicine and 
chiropractry. His name is Ono Tofu. He has a private practice in the ward."
     "His name's come up, actually," Takeda replied. "If you think he can 
shed some light on this mysterious bruise, then by all means bring him in.
Just remind him about the confidentiality of the investigation."
     Ito agreed. Takeda decided to broach the obvious next question.
     "Do you have any idea who she was yet?"
     "No one has come down to the morgue to identify her yet," Ito replied. 
"Otherwise you would be in a better position to tell me who she was. She 
has a birthmark on the small of her back, that will help, but until 
someone comes forward..."
     "It's still too early. We're doing the same thing we did with Ogata 
Yuka; waiting for a missing persons report, and calling the high schools 
for attendence reports and asking them to verify with the families."



                             -Twenty-



     "I just want to talk to my parents," Gosunkugi pleaded. 
     "Your mother has already been informed about you," Takeda countered.
     Gosunkugi's face fell. To Takeda it seemed that the kid had endured 
torment, ridicule, and abuse from his peers his whole life, and had somehow 
weathered it -probably by crafting a shell of fantasy and retreating into 
it when things got ugly. That strategy worked when the worst you could 
face in a day was getting beat up by a school bully or laughed at by the 
girls. In the face of an indeterminate time in jail, where he would be 
stripped of those things he used for his private escape, it was starting to 
crumble.
     "A search and seizure warrant was served on your house this afternoon," 
Takeda said after a calculated moment of silence. "Can you tell me where 
my probable cause for the warrant came from?"
     "The film," Gosunkugi said into his hands. He had been thinking about 
what the police would find on his rolls of undeveloped film from the 
moment he was formally arrested, and his anxiety over it was plainly evident 
on his face.
     "The film," Takeda confirmed. "Do you want to tell me why you were 
taking photographs of the places where the murder victims were dumped? I 
can guess about the peep photos of Tendo Akane..."
     "You wouldn't believe me," he whimpered in shame.
     "Try me."
     Gosunkugi took a deep breath to keep from sobbing. He was scared. He 
wasn't ashamed to admit it, because he had always been a victim and no one 
expected anything less of him, but the cold demeanor of the inspector was 
infuriating. He was no better than a bully 'borrowing' his lunch money, for 
his options were to give in to the demand or suffer and still end up 
submitting.
     Even though he always lost, Hikaru Gosunkugi had enough courage to 
at least try and fight a bully.
     "No."
     Takeda frowned. "No, you're not going to try me? Fair enough, it's 
your right not to answer questioning."
     He took a drag on a cigarette while Gosunkugi sat staring into his 
hands. "To tell you the truth, I don't think you killed anyone," he said to 
the boy from behind a puff of blue smoke. "But there are a few people who 
think you are involved, and they have good reasons to think that way."
     He let Gosunkugi stew for a moment before dropping his bombshell.
     "We found your photo albums up in the ceiling of your room," he said 
with another puff of smoke. Gosunkugi's face registered momentary alarm. 
"If the hair we found in that album matches the dead girls, you're going 
down, kid. As an accessory to murder at the very least. Even if you aren't 
involved in the murders, there's not much I can do about that kind of 
evidence if you won't talk to me... Right now, you are the only person who 
can help you."
     Hikaru Gosunkugi lowered his face from his hands and looked down into 
his lap. How could he tell the inspector something he didn't understand and 
couldn't really explain, even to himself? The sob he had been trying to 
stifle erupted from his lips and his frail body shuddered with its passing.
     "I don't know," he mumbled. "...It's all so complicated."
     Takeda leaned back on a stool. "Let's start with a few simple and 
direct questions, then." He crushed his cigarette out on the sole of his 
shoe. "Does the hair from the photo album belong to the murder victims?"
     Gosunkugi nodded slowly, avoiding eye contact.
     "I'd like to hear you say that to me," Takeda replied.
     "Yes."
     "Yes, what?"
     Gosunkugi choked back another sob. "Yes, the hair from my journal came 
from the girls."
     "How did you get the hair?"
     Gosunkugi was silent.
     "You're in too deep to stop treading water now," Takeda advised. 
"Answer the question."
     The frail boy sniffed.
     "When I heard about the first murder, I went to the morgue," Gosunkugi 
began. "I don't know why, I just did. I didn't even know her." He coughed 
once, mostly to collect his thoughts. "It was after the autopsy, and she 
was waiting to be transferred to the mortuary. I... I bribed one of the 
assistants to let me see the body, and when he wasn't looking, I clipped 
some hair."
     Takeda nodded. "You also took a photograph of her," he reminded him.
     "Yes," Gosunkugi replied. "That was what I was paying him to let me 
do. One photograph only... I had never seen a dead body before..."
     "Do you remember his name?"
     Gosunkugi shook his head. "It never came up."
     "Did you bribe the same person the next two times?"
     "Yes. He was actually looking forward to seeing me the third time." 
Gosunkugi shrugged. "He's probably wondering where I am right now..."
     Takeda took a few notes. "And despite this bond you had formed with 
the morgue attendent, you never got his name?"
     "No. It seemed better that way, I guess."
     Takeda frowned. "But you can describe him."
     Gosunkugi nodded. "Um, yes, I guess."
     "Go on."
     "He's a ronin, from what he told me, just working at the morgue until 
he can get into college. I suppose he is about nineteen, black hair, skin 
pale like mine. He's about ten centimeters taller than me, and skinny."
     Takeda didn't remember seeing anyone like that at the morgue, but it 
didn't mean it wasn't possible.
     "Any distinguishing marks?" Takeda asked. "Tattoos, scars, birthmarks?"
     "I don't remember any."
     Takeda finished his notes. "So if I go down to the morgue and start 
asking questions about this guy, am I going to find him?"
     Gosunkugi nodded desperately. "I swear I'm telling the truth. That's 
how I got the hair."
     "I believe you," Takeda told him. "Now tell me why you were at the 
crime scene this morning."
     "I wanted a photo of the body where it was discovered," Gosunkugi 
replied. "It didn't have a chance to get anything like that with the 
others."
     "It didn't matter that you had to cross a police evidence boundary 
to get your shots?" Takeda asked archly.
     Gosunkugi shrank down in his chair.
     "I didn't think I would get caught."
     Takeda snorted something under his breath. It wasn't clear at first if 
he believed the boy. 
     "Now tell me why you did all this."
     Gosunkugi's weak chin trembled. "I don't know..."
     "You can do better than that," Takeda retorted. "You decided to do it 
two more times after the first one, and if we hadn't caught you this morning 
trying to add to your photo collection for your, what did you call it? For 
your 'journal,' you probably would have been back at the morgue slipping 
your good friend another wad of yen for a shot at number four."
     What little control over himself he had regained in the last few 
minutes began to slip away from Hikaru Gosunkugi. He looked away as anguish 
played across his face. Takeda thought he detected a look of self-loathing 
as well.
     "...I don't know why..." he said in a whisper. "I know it was wrong. I 
know it was something people would say was disgusting, but... But... It was 
all so *cool,* too... I didn't mean to hurt anyone. I mean, they were 
already dead, so what harm could I do?"
     Takeda didn't reply. He wasn't sure what would be appropriate. It was 
obvious that the kid had some serious psychological problems. He had felt it 
while he was at the Gosunkugi house. The order and the cleanliness of the 
place was more like a silent scream of despair. A small family with little 
money and no prestige, ekking out a living with nothing to look forward to 
in their lives. There were no signs that they had ever been anywhere or 
done anything exciting; no photographs of vacations, no souveniers of places 
visited, nothing but a single portrait of a frail ghostly looking boy, a 
lonely wife, and a husband who, with his unruly bangs and ridiculous little 
mustache, looked like a sleep deprived and Japanese version of Adolf 
Hitler.
     The real wonder was that Hikaru Gosunkugi hadn't turned out worse 
than he was. He was preoccupied with death, he was a voyeur, but not a 
murderer. He doubted that the kid even had anything to do with the murders 
beyond his twisted little 'journal.'In spite of his doubts, he wasn't going 
to let the kid off the hook. At least not until he had confirmed his story. 
There was also the spying on Akane Tendo to consider. He'd have to answer 
for that.
     He rapped on the steel door, and the burly police sergeant opened it 
to let him out. He'd leave the particulars for one of Matsumoto's men to 
take care of. Hikaru Gosunkugi sat silently in the chair, looking down 
at the table before him, trying to come to grips with who he was and what 
he had become.



                           -Twenty-one-



     Ozawa found Takeda studying in a dingy and practically deserted 
Homicide office. The detectives were all out working on leads or the search 
for evidence, leaving only the confirmed desk jockeys to push the paper 
that supposedly ran the place. Takeda barely registered the gaunt man's 
presence. A clock on the wall indicated that it would soon be dusk, several 
hours since Hikaru Gosunkugi's questioning.
     "Another lucky break for us," Ozawa announced. "We think we found 
the scene of number four's abduction."
     Takeda looked up. "Oh?"
     Ozawa nodded. "A bouquet of wilted roses and a baton was found in a 
side street within a quarter kilometer of the Tendo Dojo. We still haven't 
found the victim's clothes, and we probably won't; the garbage collection 
was already carried out for half of the area before we were able to stop 
them. Matsumoto's detailed a couple patrolmen to go through the collected 
refuse before it gets sorted and disposed of, but I'm not holding my 
breath."
     "Baton?" Takeda asked, seemingly oblivious to the rest of the 
detective's update.
     Ozawa nodded once again. "The kind a cheerleader would use."
     Takeda's lips pursed in understanding, his jowls stretching taut for 
a moment. "I understand. They still have the scene sealed off?"
     "Forensics had just finished up with the Gosunkugi place when they 
got the call, but there's a whole lot more than just the photos and the 
hair to talk about." He paused for effect. "One of the hidden tapes was 
a snuff-flick."
     Takeda's eyes widened in the kind of sick horror that men of his 
profession and experience were supposed to be immune from suffering.
     "You're lying to me," was all that he could say. "That's a lousy 
fucking joke."
     The icy glint in Ozawa'a eyes told him that he wasn't.
     "Apparently it was buried with twenty minutes of bootlegged anime on 
either side of it," he replied. "The victim's a teenaged girl, about 
seventeen, perhaps. Looks Burmese or Thai, maybe Cambodian. Two men, whose 
faces are blocked out, rape her for about twenty minutes before they 
strangle her. It looks too real to be clever acting. Right down to the 
muscle tremors after she goes down."
     "Gosunkugi's death fixation," Takeda grunted to himself.
     Ozawa shrugged. "I haven't been able to bring myself to think about 
reasons for it being there in his possession. I turned it over to Matsumoto, 
since I don't think it has anything to do with our case. National will 
probably step in on this one, since it appears to involve a foreigner."
     Takeda nodded absently. "Yes, probably. What about the pirate?"
     "According to the phone number, it's a private apartment in the ward. 
The number actually checks against our list of known sex-offenders. 
Hashimoto Otsu. He was convicted three years ago of molesting a nine year 
old girl. The particulars of the case weren't very clear cut, so he got 
time served, psychiatric treatment, and restitution to the victim's parents 
in addition to five years probation to include periodic follow-up 
psychiatric evaluation."
     "He got off light," Takeda observed. "Scum like that should be 
castrated."
     "He was a first offender and although he isn't approved of by his 
family, they are wealthy and influential investment bankers," Ozawa noted 
from memory. "According to the write-up I was faxed, he was sent to Nerima 
by his family because it was quiet and no-one would ask too many questions. 
He's supposed to work as a night custodian at one of the family's branch 
offices in the ward, but the phone call I made to his supervisor says he 
almost never shows up for work. The guy knows who Hashimoto is, so he's too 
afraid to fire him and risk revoking Hashimoto's probation -and the family's 
wrath."
     "Matsumoto send anyone over to check the place out?" Takeda growled. 
"That tape is more than enough to get a warrant. Hell, you could get a 
S.W.A.T. explosive entry authorized with that."
     "Not enough warm bodies," Ozawa returned. "He's running himself and 
the rest of the homicide team ragged on our case. I give National twenty-
four hours before they step in. If this Hashimoto creep is part of a snuff-
flick ring, they'll bury him, family or no family. There's no way they'd 
stand behind him at that point."
     Takeda rose from the desk and dumped out his tepid coffee.
     "If National does go in, I'm counting on you to make sure that we get 
a peek at whatever sludge they turn up. You never know what else a guy like 
that might have on him."
     Ozawa nodded in understanding. "I'll do what I can." He lead the way 
out of the office and towards the parking lot. They'd have to hurry if they 
wanted to reach the abduction scene before dark. "So what did you learn 
about Gosunkugi?"
     "He didn't do it," Takeda admitted. "I didn't have too many doubts 
about that, but there was a part of me hoping that he was at least somehow 
involved."
     "And the pictures?" Ozawa asked. "The hair?"
     "Gosunkugi paid a morgue attendent to let him snap photos of the 
bodies. He then sneaked locks of hair while the guy wasn't paying attention, 
and put them in that 'journal' for whatever twisted reason the shrinks can 
drag out of his head. Matsumoto found the guy he bribed; he saw to it 
personally. You know how much he went for each time?"
     "I have no idea," Ozawa admitted.
     "A thousand lousy yen," Takeda replied.
     "If you had ever been a college student, that might not be so 
surprising," Ozawa said with a shrug. "He'll lose his job over it, but 
since the bodies had been released to the mortuaries in each case when he 
let Gosunkugi in, it's not like we can charge him with obstructing justice 
or tampering with evidence."
     Takeda nodded with a frown.
     "The only thing that still bothers me about Gosunkugi are those 
rain checks from the pirate video guy we found at the house. They're all 
dated the day after he visited the morgue each time."
     "What do suppose that is about?"
     "I don't know for certain," Takeda admitted. "The kid blows a thousand 
yen to get photos and hair from the victims. You saw the house, it's not 
like the Gosunkugis are rolling in money. Then the next day he's pulling 
in vouchers for tapes and stuff from this pirate that are listed as having 
a redemption value worth five thousand yen apiece."
     "He's selling copies of the morgue photos to the pirate, who doesn't 
want to pay him cash, but offers him merchandise instead," Ozawa observed. 
"Like the snuff-flick."
     "That's what I come up with, but something still bothers me about it,"
Takeda said. "What kind of wacko would want them?"
     "The same kind of wacko who'd get them," Ozawa returned.
     Takeda nodded distractedly. "You're probably right." He changed the 
subject. "So, what could you manage to get from the girl's parents?"
     "Mariko?" Ozawa asked. He had interviewed the grieving parents of 
Mariko Konjou following the identification of her body while Takeda had 
questioned Hikaru Gosunkugi. "They informed their local koban as soon as 
they got the call from Seisyun High School asking where she was. The 
officer on duty was looking out for such a report, and so he phoned 
Matsumoto's office... They identified her by her birthmark, just as Ito 
thought they would."
     "They didn't realize that she was missing until the next morning?" 
Takeda couldn't believe that parents would be so lax with their children.
     Ozawa sighed. "I asked them about that. They said she had a lot of 
extra-curricular activities that kept her away from home until late. 
Sometimes she wouldn't get home until after her parents went to bed, but 
she never got into any kind of trouble, kept her grades up and whatnot, so 
they never made an issue out of it."
     "Activities? Like what?"
     "She was captain of her school's cheerleading squad for one thing."
     Takeda thought about this. "Seisyun High School you say?" 
     Ozawa nodded as they walked. The car stood before them, but it was 
several moments before Takeda opened his door. He thought some more, 
having pored over the map of the ward many times since he took over the 
investigation. "That's on the other side of the ward. What was she doing 
over here?"
     "Konatsu might be able to answer that one," Ozawa offered as he sat 
down in the driver's seat. "He claims to have seen her last night."
     "Hibiki Ryouga would be a better choice," Takeda returned, finally 
geting into the car. "According to Konatsu, Hibiki was with a girl last 
night. From the description of her hair and clothing, I'd say that it was 
Konjou Mariko." He rubbed at his temples. "I don't know who I want to find 
more tonight; Mousse, Kurenai, or Hibiki."
     "Preferably all three," Ozawa noted.
     "If we can get them, I won't complain." He looked  Now I want to know 
what Konjou was doing in this part of town at night. With a bouquet of 
roses no less."
     "The card with the bouquet is being run through all the local florists. 
The card itself was anonymous, but there must have been something that told 
her who sent it."
     Takeda frowned suddenly at a thought. Ozawa caught the look in his 
mirror and turned to the inspector.
     "What is it?"
     Takeda frowned again.
     "Do you think it was bait?"
     "The flowers?"
     "Yes."
     "It's possible," Ozawa conceded. "But in this case it's clear that 
Konjou knew who the sender was. I don't think our man operates like that, 
baiting them I mean. He seems more predatory, prefering to find his victims 
and going and getting them, not waiting for them to come to him." He turned 
onto one of the few major streets outside the residential areas. "Besides, 
why haven't we found more bouquets if that's his pattern?"
     "We didn't know to look for them," Takeda replied. "Aside from that 
I'm not saying that he's always using flowers, but there could be the 
possibility that he is baiting them."
     "Agreed," Ozawa replied. "I suppose that might help explain the lack 
of a struggle on the part of the victims... There's also the acupressure 
point possibility."
     "True, but if those bruises are an indication that the killer is 
incapacitating his victims, how much sense does it make to do it somewhere 
in the open? He'd have to spend twice as much time carrying dead weight and 
running the risk of getting caught, instead of however long it takes him to 
simply dispose of them when he's done. Baiting almost makes sense."
     "I'm not convinced," Ozawa muttered. "But I'll keep an open mind about 
it. Until we come up with some more information on who sent the flowers, 
it's all just speculation."
     They reached the taped off area where the flowers and the baton were 
discovered. Matsumoto, sweating buckets from running all over the ward 
that day, was pacing back and forth outside the tape waiting for the two 
Prefectural police officers. Tokaida stood close by, speaking to one of his 
assistants. He seemed very pleased with himself.
     The street beyond the tape was too narrow for a car to drive through, 
it was foot traffic only. Takeda and Ozawa stepped out of the car and 
walked towards Matsumoto and the scene.
     "We found the bouquet over there," the Nerima detective pointed with 
his finger. "It was lying next to that cinderblock wall. The baton was only 
a meter away, hidden by that broken ceramic frog you see there."
     Takeda noted the large pile of shards painted a cheerful green. There 
were several other frogs lining the top of the wall. Beyond the wall was 
a small house. Chinese lanterns hung from the back porch. 
     "The owner didn't note the missing frog and come out to look?" Takeda 
asked.
     Matsumoto shook his head. "I guess not. She's a shut-in, from what one 
of the koban officers said. He talked to her after he found the bouquet and 
baton, and said that she had nothing to say about the matter."
     Tokaida stepped up.
     "While you discuss the significance of frogs, I just wanted you to know 
that I pulled some evidence from the bouquet."
     He held up a large plastic envelope, sealed and tagged as evidence. A 
long black hair was contained within.
     "There's more. I found several hairs on the baton. The part where the 
metal sleeve touches the rubber tip had several hairs caught up in the tiny 
gap. From the look of the baton, I'd say she hit someone on the head with 
it, and whoever it was got a few hairs caught."
     "That's fantastic!" Ozawa cried. Takeda looked very pleased. Tokaida 
wasn't finished.
     "The tricky part is that the hair on the bouquet doesn't match the 
hairs on the baton, and neither sample matches the hair of the victim. There 
were two people who had contact with her. One of whom she hit on the head."
     "Hibiki was reported to be in her company last night," Ozawa stated. 
"He is likely going to be one of the two. As for the other one..."
     "I'm headed back to the lab right now," Tokaida said. "It's going to 
be an all-nighter, I can feel it already. I'll fax you the results as soon 
as I come up with something."     
     "Good work, Tokaida," Takeda said evenly. He was glad for this kind of 
break, twice in one day. All they needed was just the right kind of physical 
evidence, and they would have their killer. He knew it.
     Tokaida and his assistants gathered up their equipment and left while 
men like Kogata searched for footprints, fingerprints, and any other evidence 
that might lend a clue to the killer's identity -or at least how he was able 
to get Mariko from this spot.
     "Could the killer have knocked one of the frogs down in the process 
of grabbing Konjou?" Ozawa asked Kogata.
     "It's possible," Kogata conceded. "I'm not having much luck here. There 
are too many footprints here to isolate anything, let alone prove any one 
person was here in the last twenty-four hours. I couldn't pull anything 
off the frog as far as fingerprints."
     "If Mariko hit someone with her baton, why weren't there any further 
signs of a struggle," Takeda mused loud enough to distract Ozawa and Kogata 
from their discussion.
     "It comes back to the acupressure point question," Ozawa replied. "If 
it's true, then it would seem that he incapacitated them with it."
     "He had to strike the back of their head to hit the point," Takeda 
said. "If he was clumsy, his knocking the frog over would alert her. She 
probably got in one good swing with the baton before he could stop her."



                       Chapter Twenty-two



     Doctor Ono Tofu adjusted the position of the lamp over the body of 
Konjou Mariko. Doctor Ito stood close by to assist, remaining silent until 
spoken to. Tofu wasn't a stranger to death. He had a fair share of elderly 
patients, and sometimes he would make that dreaded house call to the 
residence of one who had missed an appointment without ever calling to 
reschedule, and find them dead. Sometimes they were days gone, but 
they never looked like this.
     The body lying on the examining table looked more like a worked over 
cadaver in medical school, dissected by clumsy first timers with the knife 
over and over and over. Ito's neat incisions, careful sectionings, and 
practiced sutures were lost in the carnage that the killer had wrought. He 
rubbed absently at side of his surgical masked nose with the heel of his 
gloved hand. The vaporub was starting to wear off.
     He brought his hands down onto her cold and lifelessly yielding neck 
once again. The bruise was there, and he had consulted the charts and his 
private library. It was an acupressure point, there was no doubt about it. 
He shuddered at the sight of the small bruise, for he knew that it heralded 
her death.
     "Doctor Ito, you are quite certain the other three bodies had marks 
like this, the same size and location?"
     Ito frowned. "You saw the photographs yourself, doctor."
     Tofu closed his eyes. "I know. I just keep hoping it isn't true."
     "Are the marks indicative of an acupressure point?" Ito asked.
     Tofu nodded. "They are. It's an obscure point, nothing you would find 
in a normal practice. There's no need for it."
     "What are the effects?"
     "Sleep," Tofu replied. "Nervous disruption along the dorsal and 
anterior regions if the practitioner isn't careful; mild paralysis similar 
to musculo-skeletal anesthesia in some cases; but sleep is the primary 
effect."
     Ito watched as Tofu traced the ki paths to and from the point along 
the ashen body of what was once a gorgeous teenaged girl. 
     "Where did you learn of this, if I may ask, doctor?"
     Tofu ran his finger along another branching path, searching for traces 
of the living energy that once coursed through her. Until the last cell in 
her body died, there would be some ki left in her, a tiny hopelessly faint 
flicker of the secret fire that would yet trickle along her body's natural 
pathways. What he sensed concerned him more than the slaughter he probed, 
but he had no idea how to describe it.
     "Doctor?" Ito pressed. 
     Tofu started back to reality.
     "Oh. Forgive me, doctor. What was your question?"
     "I asked you where you learned about this point. You said yourself that 
it wasn't part of a normal practice."
     "Oh no, usually there are plenty of other procedures for deadening pain 
and sensation that don't require putting the patient to sleep," Tofu replied. 
"I practice martial arts as part of my medical training. I learned of it 
through the art."
     "This is by no means a common acupressure point, then?" Ito asked. 
It was clear that he understood it to be so, but like Tofu, he sought 
reassurances.
     "Not at all," Tofu replied. "But it wouldn't be difficult to employ 
if you knew where it was."
     "I see," Ito said at length.
     Tofu moved his hands along Mariko's corpse once again. His eyes closed 
and it was clear that he was concentrating on something. Ito wasn't sure 
what to make of this, but Tofu had seemed very competent and professional 
thus far, so he was willing to indulge the man for a moment.
     After several minutes Tofu's eyes snapped open. It seemed like he had 
been struck.
     "What is it, doctor?" Ito asked apprehensively.
     "Help me turn her over," Tofu replied sharply.
     Ito did so, and together they turned the body of Mariko Konjou over 
onto her back. Tofu closed his eyes once again and began tracing pathways 
with his fingers along the ruined torso, up her throat, across her face. 
Almost shamefully, one of his hands moved down her torso towards her vagina. 
Ito was about to throw him out of the examining room when Tofu came to 
his senses and whipped off his gloves with snaps.
     "I need to make a phone call," he told the medical examiner.
     Ito pointed to a phone on the back wall.
     "A private call," Tofu implored quietly.
     Reluctantly, Doctor Ito left the room. Tofu wasted no time in picking 
up the phone and dialling a familiar number. He waited several moments for 
a reply, trying to collect his thoughts in the meantime. A girl's voice 
greeted him in Chinese.
     "Hello, Shampoo," he began. "Is your great-grandmother around? Yes, 
I'll wait. Yes, it's urgent. Very urgent."



                          TO BE CONCLUDED