The Hunter (14 page)

"I'm OK. Did Mom leave you a message on your answering machine?"

Takako had completely forgotten. She looked down at the telephone covered in dust and sighed. It suddenly occurred to her she wasn't so happy to hear the voice of her sister, who had been her closest friend during childhood. Instead of warmth and pleasure, what she felt was irritation.

"Sorry, I've been really busy."

"Yeah, I know. What about today? Are you on your way to work?"

"I have the day off.
Finally."

She put deliberate extra stress on "finally," but the implication of that was totally missed by her sister. "Great! Perfect!" said Tomoko excitedly. Tomoko worked for a government agency, doing little more than pouring tea and making Xerox copies. "So, can I come see you? I'll come to your apartment after work tonight."

"Um, sure. What's this all about?"

"Before you talk to Mom, I want you to hear my side of things."

*

Takako wiped the dust off the telephone with the tip of a finger, thinking that she would have to get out the vacuum cleaner. Since the case began, she hadn't done a lick of housework. Even if it was her sister coming over, she couldn't let her see this place the way it was now.

Boy, oh boy. Here goes.

Getting up with a creak, feeling ancient, Takako sighed and looked around the room. Then she turned on her CD player for the first time in a while, and started to clean up. A detective needed to be tough and agile. And tenacious.

A year ago, when she moved out of her old place, she left behind everything that might bring back memories of her husband. That meant leaving behind all but a few CDs. There were times when she regretted that decision, but she had done it for good reason. Now, she had an old Carpenters album on. These were songs that reminded her of her teenage years, long before she was married; they fell pleasantly on her ears and seeped into her heart. In those days, marriage and divorce alike had been just words.

She cleared away the old newspapers and clothes lying around the room, as well as the empty bags of sweets and unopened junk mail, and then did a once-over with the vacuum cleaner. Before her sister came she'd run a load of laundry, go to the dry cleaner's, and do some ironing. She'd have to clean out the refrigerator, too; didn't want her sister to see the spoiled vegetables.

As she was rushing around in jeans and a sweater, Takako was suddenly brought near tears. The song playing was "Yesterday Once More."

She'd just had a day off, but Takako hardly felt refreshed. Almost the opposite. Her sister came over after work, and they'd stayed up talking almost till dawn. Takako barely got a couple of hours of light sleep before it was time to get up for work.

Some day off.

So she wouldn't oversleep, Takako had stayed in the living room, dozing under the kotatsu, while her sister took the bed. As Takako was dressing, her sister awoke. "Are you leaving already?" Tomoko asked, her tone a little clingy.

"Yes."

"Sorry I kept you up all night."

"What about you? Aren't you going to work?"

"Not now. I'll take the day off."

"Can you?"

"It's nothing."

Must be nice, thought Takako. As she completed her toilet, she looked over at her little sister; her unmade-up face was still youthful.

"I'll leave you the spare key, so lock up when you leave. I'll get the key from you later."

"You'll think over what we talked about, won't you, please?"

Tomoko's grand idea was that she leave home and come live with Takako. At first she said she wanted to leave home because the commute from Saitama was so long and their aging father was getting increasingly irascible; but the main reason, it soon became clear, was that their parents had found out about the man Tomoko was seeing. Pouting, Tomoko said they'd hit the ceiling, and had even imposed a strict curfew.

"Tomoko, you're twenty-seven years old! I can't believe Mom and Dad going ballistic about a boyfriend."

Takako, the eldest of three daughters, had married at the age of twenty-six. The sister after her, now twenty-nine, was single still. Their parents had always told the daughters not to worry about their welfare, to go ahead and marry as they wished, so Takako couldn't understand why Tomoko having a boyfriend would upset them. As she asked more questions, the fuller picture emerged: Tomoko was seeing a married man. And her mother discovered the affair when she found the hospital bill for Tomoko's abortion.

Tomoko!

"Don't say anything. I know. I've been told over and over by Mom and Dad and Koko. But I couldn't help myself. I... love him. And I really trust him."

Takako was astonished. She still thought of Tomoko as a child; she had never dreamed she was leading such a life. She stayed up almost the entire night listening to her sister talk. She promised herself she wouldn't get emotional, and yet she felt sick and disconsolate.

"Please, Takako," her sister pleaded. "I'll do all the housework. I can pay part of the rent, too." Fully awake, Tomoko got up and followed Takako around the apartment like a puppy.

"Forget it. How many times do I have to tell you? You may think that once you leave home you can see him all you want, but believe me, nothing good is going to come from a man like that."

"Don't say that. I thought you'd understand. You're my only hope. And besides, he—"

"Yes, I heard. He gave you his word, right? Please. I don't have time to be listening to this."

"But you do understand, don't you?" Wearing Takako's pajamas, Tomoko padded around the apartment in her bare feet, pleading with Takako like a spoiled child. "Please."

"Absolutely not. I'm calling Mom, so go on home. Don't expect me to help you carry on an affair with a married man."

Tomoko had screwed up her face like an infant, stamped the floor and yelled, "I won't go back!"

My god. Involved with a married man. And an abortion, too.

Whatever had become of the sunny, wholesome child her sister used to be? What had gotten into her? As the youngest, Tomoko had been indulged by their parents, raised with every opportunity, fun to be around; now, to Takako, she was a stranger, someone separated from her by a great divide. Think how it feels to be the woman whose husband you're stealing, she wanted to say. Although the man, of course, was at fault: He was a married man, but that didn't stop him from seducing a naive girl, getting her pregnant, then aborting the child. The whole thing was his fault. Totally his fault.

What a bastard. And Tomoko is an idiot.

The train was packed, which only added to Takako's frustration, and she arrived at Tachikawa Central Station still feeling upset. Going straight to the rest room, she stared into the mirror as she combed her hair. Her eyes looked a little sunken. Well, another day alongside the emperor penguin begins. She better not let on about the weariness she felt.

As the morning meeting got underway, Wakita, looking himself rather healthier than two days before, spoke with a clear, ringing voice: "I trust you all had a good rest yesterday. Today we start afresh, and while we certainly have our work cut out for us, let's do our best to move this case along and get a suspect in custody as soon as possible. Now, as to the Tennozu case, there is a new discovery to report."

He's been to the barber.

"It is now believed that the tooth marks on the body of Kazuki Horikawa, the victim in the Tennozu case, were made by a large dog—or, possibly, by a wolf."

A wolf? The room swirled with mumblings. Takako stared at Wakita in disbelief. He was the picture of earnestness, looking stern as he nodded in confirmation of his announcement.

Actually his hair is cut too short; he looks like an anachronism, a soldier in the war.

"According to the report from the crime lab, the hairs found on the body of the victim are definitely not from a wild animal. They are from a male animal that's been well cared for, and yet they don't match any breed of dog. We are in the process of collecting samples for comparison, but at this point it seems quite possible that we are looking at a wolf. Two kinds of hairs were found, bristles and soft hair. The condition of the sebaceous matter, and the presence of skin tissue at the roots of the hair follicles, rules out any question of their coming from a fur coat. They are from the body of a live animal."

A well-groomed wolf? Somebody's pet? No one smiled. This was not a joke. It was inconceivable that the chief could be jesting.

"Examination of the area where the victim was found turned up relatively fresh prints in nearby shrubbery. They match the claw marks on the victim's back. The prints are thought to be from the animal's hind legs. They measure 10.6 centimeters by 7.5 centimeters, which would be enormous for a dog; moreover, whereas paw prints of a dog are normally fairly rounded, these tend toward oval. The savagery of the injury to the victim's head and neck tells us this must be an animal with jaws bigger and more powerful than a German shepherd or a Doberman pinscher. But the style of the attack suggests that the animal, whether dog or wolf, is not wild; it is a highly trained animal. These are only parts of the puzzle, but it seems safe to say at this point that we're up against something quite formidable."

After the chemical symbols and equations of the other day, which Takako had little understood, the image of the wolf in Takako's mind was very vivid.

"Now, the victim Kazuki Horikawa was employed as an ordinary salaryman, but in his university days he hung around Roppongi at night, lived in the fast lane. It seems to us more than a coincidence that many of the places he frequented at that time overlap with the employment of the homicide victim, Teruo Hara; we are investigating the possibility of a connection between Hara and Horikawa.

"There are many questions that remain, but because of the possibility that the two deaths may be linked in some way, headquarters has decided: We will be heading up the investigation of the Horikawa case as well as the Hara case. Both cases will be pursued in tandem."

*

Takako, with her notebook open, felt a vague dissatisfaction. Chase a wolf? She'd never done anything like that before. Of course, the ultimate purpose of the chase would be to round up whoever was controlling the wolf—but what did that have to do with benzoyl peroxide and a belt rigged to throw flames?

It was hard to call the latest development good news, yet the mood of the investigation, in the doldrums recently, had definitely perked up. They were bound to make some headway now.

Once again the teams and assignments were shifted around. In addition to the ongoing background check of Teruo Hara, the search for witnesses, and the investigation into the distribution of benzoyl peroxide, new teams were formed to look into possible connections between Hara and Horikawa, to search for new motives, and to track down the wolf. Takako assumed that again she'd be making the rounds of pharmaceutical companies, but to her surprise they were assigned to the wolf.

As the meeting was drawing to a close, Watanuki almost offhandedly announced: "Officer Otomichi, a word with you, please."

"Yes, sir," Takako replied automatically, lowering her head instinctively as she sensed the eyes of everyone, including Takizawa, on her.

When the meeting adjourned Takako first went quickly over to Takizawa, bowed, and said, "I'll be a minute."

His mouth in an ironic twist, he raised his eyebrows with a look of utter boredom, jutted out his chin, and said with exaggerated politeness, "Be my guest. Take all the time you want." Apparently, a day's R&R had only fueled the emperor penguin's ill nature.

Takako was led into a side room where various higher-ups were assembled, including Chief Wakita and the head of the Tachikawa Third Mobile Investigative Unit she belonged to.

"Otomichi, you are a lizard, is that right?"

Takako darted a glance at her supervisor and saw the approval in his eyes before replying, "Yes, I am."

"Lizards" were designated members of the mobile investigative unit who had served as motorcycle policemen or whose motorcycle skills were at the highest level; as need arose, they might be ordered to follow a suspect's trail alone on their motorcycle, departing from the usual pattern of working with a partner. While not exactly a code name, the term lizard was not in open use either. People Takako worked with were probably familiar with it, but here at investigation headquarters, few if any of those around her knew what it meant. Takako had started out as a motorcycle cop, and received the lizard designation after transferring to the mobile investigative unit of the Criminal Affairs Division.

"You're prepared to go into action at any time?"

"Yes, sir."

"That's all we needed to know. You may go."

Takako bowed deeply and left the room, wondering what that was all about.

"They say wolves run like the wind," a voice said from behind her. Takako turned find her supervisor following her down the corridor, grinning.

Ahh.

At the door of the meeting room, her supervisor stopped and motioned inside with his chin. "Looks like you've got your hands full," he said. Takako saw that he was referring to Takizawa sitting glumly in a chair, legs straight out in front of him. The room was empty except for the desk staff, and Takizawa was smoking a cigarette, stroking his jaw as if searching for patches of stubble he missed while shaving. Takako shrugged.

"One of these days you'll have a chance to show him your real stuff. Just hang in there."

"Thanks to him, I'm a lot more thick-skinned now. He—"

Her supervisor held up his hand, cutting her off; he understood, she didn't have to explain. Takako felt lucky to have colleagues like him for the most part.

"He's got a good reputation. You're just not used to each other. Think of him as the classic, old-fashioned type of cop."

"That's not the problem; the problem is he hates women."

"Then you two are a good match. The man-hater and the woman-hater."

"But I—"

"Don't tell me you're crazy about men. You aren't. You're not crazy about the human race in general. Anyway, main thing is, you do your job. Do what you can to get that wolf."

Takizawa had waited grumpily for his partner. As soon as she got back, he stood up with a cool, standoffish air. "Ready now? Is your important business finished?"

"Sorry to keep you waiting."

"Let's go. Time to round up the pooch."

As they left the room, Takizawa made a deliberate show of letting Takako go first, and even started to hum a little. "Yes, sir," he said, "gotta thank my lucky stars I'm paired with you. This way I get all the easy jobs."

Here we go again, thought Takako. She kept her eyes straight ahead, not wanting to get into it with him.

"So what was the big deal about?"

"Nothing special," she replied, not looking toward him. She could register his annoyance at this. That was one reason she disliked walking with a man her height. With his face so close by, she had to see his every little change of expression. Having Takizawa's scruffy face constantly in her line of sight was not a pleasant part of the job.

After a bit, Takizawa spoke up. "So where're we headed?"

Throughout their so-called partnership, Takizawa had called all the shots, deciding where they would go without giving Takako a say in the matter. What was this, she wondered. A test?

"Well, why don't we start by going around to the larger pet shops?"

"Good. What else?"

"As I recall, under something called the Washington Convention, trafficking in wolves is prohibited."