Rain of Terra
Ratatosk
5. Chapter 5
Rated: T - English - Crime/Mystery - Tomo T. - Reviews: 68 - Updated: 12-15-11 - Published: 08-23-09 - id:5325016
The PC confiscated from Asagi's office was dropped off at their district crime lab, located in the same building as the district headquarters. The data recovery specialist was out for the night, so the night officer filled out the paperwork and locked the computer in the holding vault.
Asagi's murder was whittling Torako's stony cool to dust, and even Tomo could tell it was time for her to go home and deal with it privately. They were silent while Torako, in her personal vehicle (a recent model Fiat Panda) drove Tomo back to her apartment. Since it was her personal vehicle and she didn't have to follow police protocol, Torako spammed Tomo with her Anglophilia by playing Buzzcocks and The Damned on her MP3 player, attached to the car's sound system. For once, Tomo didn't complain about Torako's musical preferences (usually by suggesting that it was unpatriotic, which never worked on Torako), nor do battle by unplugging Torako's MP3 player and attaching her own.
Tomo arrived at her apartment shortly after midnight. She stepped outside and was about to close the car door when Torako, without looking at her, mumbled, "I'm not coming in tomorrow." Torako pulled out her notebook and police camera, and placed them in the passenger seat.
"Good night," Tomo said, grabbing Torako's notebook and camera. She stuffed them in her trench coat, shut the car door, and trotted upstairs to her apartment, while the little Fiat sped away.
She unlocked her door and left it open. She banged her fists on Osaka's door, making a sound like a kettledrum roll, before diving into her own apartment, locking the door behind her.
In the bedroom, she stripped down to her boxers and t-shirt, carefully hung up her trench coat, but left her clothes on the bedroom floor. She stood over the bed containing her sleeping husband.
"Representing Japan, the champion diver and five time gold medalist, Tomo Takino!" she said, and jumped into the bed. Her hands slapped down hard on Rico, who didn't even grunt or budge. "A gold medal! Yay!" Tomo made the appropriate sounds of a cheering audience before scooting next to Rico, who was lying on his side and facing the wall. She put one arm around him.
"Mmm… Kazumi," he said.
"What?" Tomo said, sitting up.
Rico let out a laugh smothered by sleepiness. "You're so easy," he said.
Tomo punched him in the arm before settling back into her previous position. "Torako had a bad night," she said.
"Tell me about it tomorrow, okay?"
"It's already tomorrow," Tomo said, but Rico responded by snoring. Tomo imaged Torako driving to her home, dark and empty, entering it, perhaps flicking on a light and turning down the thermostat, before getting ready to bed. Tomo opened her heavy eyelids, checking to make sure her husband was still next to her, before settling down to sleep.
Her sleep didn't last long, as both she and Rico were awakened by Burzum exploding from Osaka's stereo system. Rico slowly turned over to face Tomo while Varg Vikernes vocally assaulted the couple with the church-burning power of his hate.
"Did you wake up Osaka again?" Rico said.
Tomo groaned, snatched the phone sitting on her nightstand, and dialed Osaka's number. Osaka answered after four rings, a sliver of time to all but Tomo, who felt as if she was waiting for the Big Crunch.
"Telephone," Osaka said. Moaning synths, screeching guitars, and thudding drums swirled around Osaka's sleepy-headed voice like ancestral spirits protecting their sacred burial ground.
"Osaka? Hit that big red button on the stereo, okay?"
"What's all that noise? I guess I'm at the dentist," Osaka drawled.
"The big red button that's lit up, can you see it? Press it!"
"Hee hee, he's singin' about bananas," Osaka said. Tomo heard a long series of bumps and bangs, as patience testing as a high school cheerleader talking about her weekend. Mercifully, the music finally stopped.
"I love bananas, Tomo."
"Great, good night," Tomo said.
"Good night, I love you Tomo," Osaka said.
"…iloveyoutoobye," Tomo said, bashing the off button with her finger. She tossed the phone at the nightstand. It missed and bounced on the floor, but there was no way Tomo was going to look for it now. She thudded her head against her pillow like Michael Jordan making a slam dunk.
Rico said, "You love Os-"
"Not a word!"
...
Tomo was grumpy and irritable when she woke up for good that day, an understandable side effect of her sleep being interrupted by Norwegian black metal, which also presented the annoying mystery of how Osaka ever got into that stuff in the first place. She stepped on the phone when she got out of bed, causing the antennae to stab her in the foot. After breakfast, Rico made her mood worse by defending Osaka, painting a coat of anger on Tomo's irritation.
"Hey, my argument is that Osaka, when she's sleep deprived, is a reflex machine." He was facing Tomo, who was sulking on the couch, her arms crossed, her face pointedly turned away from her husband. Rico was on his fourth attempt at tying a tie, something he couldn't do without looking in a mirror. "She's like a computer program," he said. "You put in your data and it can only be run one way. It wasn't really her fault, see, because she didn't know what she was doing."
"Oh yeah?" Tomo said. "Well my argument is that your argument is stupid." Tomo hopped up from the couch and grabbed the two strands of his tie, tying it for him with quick, slashing strokes. "You're supposed to stand up for your wife, anyway."
"I'm not against you," Rico said.
"You're defending Osaka because you're attracted to her."
"Oh my god!" Rico said, raising his hands like a soldier at the Maginot Line. "Not this crap ACK!"
Tomo finished tying his tie. Rico stuck a finger in the knot to loosen it so his windpipe could once again become a productive citizen of the respiratory system.
"Tomo," he wheezed, "she's not even my type."
"Oh, what is your type? Huh?" Tomo crossed her arms and affected a pouty, petulant look, as if her lips were used to juice lemons.
"I like them short, cute, and crazy," Rico said. "You know that."
"Ew, you like the chief? He's old!"
Rico rolled his eyes. He bent his head down to kiss Tomo, but she moved her head out of the way.
"Fine, be that way," Rico said. "Later."
After Rico had left the apartment, Tomo ran outside to see him at the bottom of the stairs. "You won't get a morning kiss if you don't apologize!"
Rico looked up at her. "Oh, I'll get a kiss, just not from you!"
"The chief's not going to kiss you," Tomo shouted, as Rico ran down the sidewalk toward the train station.
What a stupid argument, Tomo thought as she re-entered her apartment. Can't he see he's being stupid?
...
What a stupid argument, Rico thought as he sat on the train. Can't she see she's being stupid?
Rico's position (a construction supervisor) required physical labor, but he had to wear a tie that day due to a company meeting. The sidelong glances from his fellow passengers made his nervousness even worse. He looked up at the mirror above the train windows to see if he had combed his hair properly, but was stunned to see what Lovecraft would describe as a horror of non-Euclidean proportions growing out of his neck.
Dammit Tomo, he thought, as he untied his tie. He tied it again, this time getting it right.
...
The weather continued its bi-polar behavior by being angry during the day before calming down at night, a game that would be played until the end of the month, when autumn's bite would put an end to summer's fading warmth. Tomo, entering the crime lab in the district headquarters from which she worked, dressed in shorts and a t-shirt. This was reasonable dress for the weather (except for her trench coat), albeit unprofessional for a police station headquarters. However, this was a battle chief Akiyama has long since resigned himself to losing.
"Man, it's hot," Tomo said to the lab coat clad Megane. "I'm checking up on that computer me and Torako dropped off yesterday. What's the status?"
"J-just one moment," Megane said. He took a clipboard that was hanging on a nail and started flipping through the pages. "He started on it t-two hours ago. E.T.A. is seven more hours."
Tomo blinked. "Seven hours? That long?"
Megane shrugged. "That w-what he says. Must be a lot of d-deleted files-"
"Yeah, yeah, that's okay," Tomo said, patting Megane's shoulder with more force than was required. "I'll check back later." She flashed the peace sign and exited the lab, heading toward her side of the building.
...
Tomo was staring at her desk, demonstrating shock by holding her arms in front of her like a failed kata from a drunken martial artist.
"What's this stuff on my desk? Kazumi, did you do this?"
Kazumi, at the end of the room, kept her head behind her computer. She said nothing.
Oh yeah, Tomo thought, recognizing the empty potato chip bag and the styrofoam peanuts. That's from yesterday.
She took off her trench coat and draped it over her chair, sat down, and switched on her computer. She swung her arm in a wide sweeping motion to knock the bag and styrofoam peanuts off of her desk. This enterprise ended in failure as her mug full of pencils and pens, her stapler, a scotch tape dispenser stolen from Torako, a box of paper clips, a stack of official documents, and scissors stolen from Kazumi clattered onto the floor. Her items travelled over the aisle like gold prospectors racing to California.
"Aww man," Tomo said. "Hey Kazumi, come clean all this up. It's your fault, you know."
Kazumi was doing an adequate job of ignoring Tomo. The rest of the office staff was transfixed by the grinning Tomo's attempt to poke the dragon with a stick.
"Man, she's starting early today," one of her co-workers whispered to a nodding accomplice.
Tomo hunted through her pocket and pulled out some coins. She grabbed one and held it in the air. "Hey Kazumi," she said, loudly, "I really shouldn't be doing this but I'll give you a 100 yen piece if you clean this up. Since you're supposed to be cleaning it up for free anyway, you can take this as a token of how nice I am."
Kazumi stood up from her desk and walked toward Tomo, her long silver hair swaying with each step, not once making eye contact. She bent down in the aisle, picked up the scissors that Tomo had stolen from her, and walked back to her desk. She sat down, put the scissors in her desk, and hunched back over her monitor.
"Thief!" Tomo said. "Get your own! Now come back and clean up the rest of this. And just for that, you only get a 25 yen piece." Tomo pocketed her 100 yen piece and pulled out a ten yen piece and waved it in the air. "She's too dumb to know the difference," Tomo whispered, loudly.
Chief Akiyama, from his private office directly behind Tomo, opened his door. "Takino," he said, "stop showing what a broke cheapskate you are and clean up your own mess. And in case you don't understand, that's an order." He slammed the door.
Tomo stuck the coin back in her pocket and grumbled to herself as she kneeled on the aisle. She started picking up pens and pencils, some of which had rolled under other desks.
Her cell phone rang to the chorus of an Ayumi Hamasaki song, signaling that Rico was calling her. She flipped it opened and answered with a cheery "Hey!"
"You're the one attracted to Osaka because you told her you love h-"
"Gah!" Tomo shouted, slamming the phone shut.
...
After cleaning up her mess and finishing her report of last night's activities, Tomo grabbed Torako's police camera and plugged it into her computer. She cycled through each picture, noticing that none was taken after she smashed the TV. Tomo studied the pictures for any clue she may have missed, but found nothing. She uploaded the pictures to her computer and emailed them to the crime lab after typing in the appropriate e-form. She unhooked the camera and placed it on Torako's desk.
Tomo's phone buzzed, and she flipped it out. It was a terse message from Torako, saying she was attending Asagi's memorial at the Ayase residence. That was quick, Tomo thought. Then again, Asagi was a criminal who died in mysterious circumstances, so the family are probably hurrying along the memorial to save face. This was normal for families of suicide victims, too.
Tomo grabbed Torako's notebook and flipped through it until she found the number she needed; the Ueno district headquarters in the Taito ward, the ones handling the actual crime scene. After several negotiations with nasal sounding secretaries, each more obnoxiously oblivious than the last, Tomo was transferred to the crime scene specialist, a woman with such a severe case of smoker's voice that it sounded like a record player playing sandpaper.
"Ueno district crime lab, Dr. Sakamoto speaking."
"No way," Tomo said, stunned into discourtesy by the lab manager's voice.
"Hello?" Dr. Sakamoto said.
"Uh… This is inspector Tomo Takino of Chiyoda. We're in charge of the investigation of Asagi Ayase's murder."
There was a pause. "And?" the manager said.
"Well, you guys are handling the lab work. What are your findings, ma'am?"
"Doctor," she said. "One moment."
Tomo covered the mouthpiece and snickered. After a minute of waiting, Dr. Sakamoto returned.
"The blood found on the scene was entirely the murder victim's," she said. "Fingerprint analysis of the crime scene is inconclusive. There are no intact prints. No material outside of the victim's belongings was found."
How would you know what was hers or not, Tomo thought. "What about the body?"
Dr. Sakamoto repeated what Tomo had ascertained about Asagi's injuries, although with a lot more technical and medical jargon. She ended by saying that the Ayase family had claimed the body that morning.
"Thanks Dr. Smoka- uh, Dr. Sakamoto," Tomo said.
"Hold on detective," Dr. Sakamoto said. "Did you find any additional evidence at the crime scene?"
"Only what you guys already have. Why, is there something I need to be looking for?"
"You tell me, you're the detective," Dr. Sakamoto said, and hung up.
What was that about, Tomo thought as she hung up her phone. She waited for the sharp, eye-widening prick of paranoia… nope, nothing coming. It's just Torako this time, Tomo thought. She stretched and got ready for the next order of business, which was…
…the mysterious payphone at Tokyo Station.
She had flashed her badge at the information center in Tokyo Station, allowing her into the bowels of the security room, a massive basement devoted to surveillance of the station. Several security guards faced a barrage of images from the wall of monitors, showing the crowds going in and out from the trains, nonstop.
Tomo explained the situation to the head security technician and gave him the number that called the hotel last night. He entered it into the Tokyo Station phone grid database, pulling up the physical location of the phone.
The technician whistled. "That's in front of the central ticket gate." They walked to the security area where he commandeered a monitor. He cycled through the security cameras until he got to the one viewing the payphones in front of the central ticket gate. He checked the phone-grid printout, and pointed at the payphone on the far left of the grouping. "That's the one," he said.
Tomo flipped open Torako's notepad. "I need footage from yesterday, start it at around 18:10."
The technician typed in the information. The computer took thirty seconds to pull up the footage before playing it on the monitor. It showed hundreds of people milling around at the ticket gate, purchasing tickets, waiting for partners, cycling through their MP3 players, or talking on their cell phones. Two minutes later, a woman wearing a wide brimmed straw sunhat, a surgical mask, and sunglasses walked up to the phone in question. She either had short hair, or had stuffed it underneath her hat.
"Yes!" Tomo said, pumping her fist in the air. "I am the master!" The technician let out a nervous laugh.
The girl deposited a coin, punched her numbers, and held the phone up to her face. The time on the footage said 18:15, the time recorded by the hotel when they received the anonymous call. After twelve seconds, she hung up and left.
"Yeah, that's not suspicious," Tomo said. I bet that's the sales girl at the bakery, she thought. What's her name? Ryoko.
"What direction is the platform?"
"To the east of the phones," the technician said.
"Uh… heh heh…" Tomo scratched the back of her head. "Could you point which way is east? On this footage?"
The technician glanced at Tomo and pointed to the right of the monitor.
"Okay, so she came from the other direction. I bet she came from outside, walked all the way over there, made the call, and left. Can you trace her steps?"
"Yes ma'am," the technician said. "But it will take at least an hour to find all the footage."
"That's fine," Tomo said. "So, do you know where a gal can get some lunch? Like, maybe a meatball sub?"
...
Three hours later, Tomo was back at her police headquarters. Only two minutes of footage spliced together showed the masked suspect enter Tokyo station, walk to a payphone, make the call, and leave the way she came. The suspect did not look around, did not dawdle, and did not get distracted. She kept her head down the entire time. It would be difficult to get a clear shot.
Tomo emailed the footage to the lab and requested that they print the best picture they could find of the suspect, and distribute it to the police stations in Tokyo as an APB. The heading would be 'unknown suspect wanted in a murder case.' Tomo seriously doubted that she could be identified.
She thought about oiling her bokken on Kazumi's desk while Kazumi was still sitting there when Torako entered the office. She was wearing black fighter pilot Ray-Bans, barely covering the practiced indifference on her face. It was 1610 hours, almost time to leave.
"Hey Torako," Tomo said. "You might as well have stayed home. I got everything handled." She grinned like an imp about to cause mischief toward a bumbling knight.
"That's what I was afraid of," Torako said as she sat down.
"Huh, what was that? A joke," Tomo said. She leaned back in her chair with her hands clasped behind her head. "An attempt at one, anyway. Maybe you should leave the witty repartee to me. After all, I was the one that discovered Ms. Ayase was a prostitute." Tomo had a brief flash of worry that she had overstepped some boundaries again, but decided she didn't care. She would not be afraid of her partner. Torako needed to lighten up.
"She ran gambling dens," Torako said. If she was upset, she hid it well behind her glasses.
Tomo made a wide shrug, like a seagull spreading its wings. "Gambler, prostitute, same thing. I'm morally right."
Torako typed some things at her computer before pushing her chair over to face Tomo, putting her hands in her lap. "What did you do today," she said.
Tomo described, in great detail and with some exaggeration, what she did that day. Torako had to get her to skip over how unhelpful Kazumi was about cleaning up the mess in the aisle, and had to ask her to not describe the meatball sub in such minute detail. Eventually, Tomo got to the point and finished her narrative.
Torako grabbed the surveillance footage from the lab server and watched it on her monitor. "This could be Ryoko," Torako said. "Let's go get her and Ms. Ando."
"We should've got them last night," Tomo said, standing up. "You were fooled by that kind old grandmother act, weren't you?"
"Wasn't thinking straight," Torako said, as they exited the office.
...
Torako was outside by the Civic, arms folded, and leaning her back against the driver-side door. The evening breeze was blowing through the setting sun, and Tomo's glasses reflected the sun's glare like a pinpoint laser. She was waiting for Tomo to finish her phone call to her husband, explaining that she was going to put in another late night. Tomo eventually appeared, bouncing across the parking lot like a mechanized pogo stick. She jumped into the car.
After Torako pulled out of the parking lot, Tomo asked, "How was the wedding?"
"The memorial," Torako said. After a pause, "It was there."
"Heh, that bad, huh?"
"It was only awkward," Torako said. "I hadn't seen her family or friends in a long while. The circumstances weren't the best, of course. A memorial service never is."
"What, they gave you the cold shoulder?"
Torako stopped at a red light. "Her youngest sister asked me what it was like to kill people. I told her it felt pretty good."
Tomo froze like an introvert at a public recital. After five seconds had passed with no reaction from Tomo (a record), Torako let a phantom smile haunt her lips.
"Of course it doesn't feel good," Torako said. "I'm not blood simple."
Tomo exhaled, signaling relief. "Man, I was going to say," she said. "I thought you had finally snapped. I can't believe you told her that, though."
"People ask you that so they can feel morally superior," Torako said. "They want to rattle you, force you to make excuses while they feel safe and smug. I don't play that game. I left after that."
...
The business district was hemorrhaging businessmen in all directions. Buses, cars, and pedestrians choked Tomo and Torako's path to the bakery, their stomachs sinking when they saw that the bakery was completely dark.
Torako pulled up on the sidewalk in front of the bakery, cutting off the path of several pedestrians. One middle aged businessman decided this was a personal insult, as rank as rotting fish, and decided to act.
"Hey! Why don't you learn how to drive, woman!"
Without looking at the loudmouth stiff, Torako flipped out her badge. "Anything else you'd like to add?"
The businessman balked. "No ma-, officer."
"On your way then," Torako said.
"Yeah!" Tomo shouted, shaking her fist at his quickly retreating back. "Stay off the sidewalk, that's for driving!"
The bakery was empty and dark. They peered inside, and except for the glass display counter, nothing remained from last night: no table, no chairs, no cash register, no phone, nothing.
Torako tried to open the door, but it was locked. Tomo pulled out her lock-picking kit and got to work. Torako turned around to face the sidewalk, peopled with busybodies. After lighting a cigarette, Torako said nothing but displayed her badge, which said everything. The rubberneckers immediately went on their way.
Tomo smelled the cigarette smoke. "So, starting that stuff up again, eh?"
"Never quit," Torako said, after finishing a drag. "Just took a break."
Tomo paused in her work to flash a smirk at Torako, her chin propped on her gun-shaped hand. "Need to talk to Osaka again?"
"No," Torako said.
...
Tomo introduced Torako to Osaka over three months ago. Torako lit a cigarette and took a drag while Osaka stared at her in blank wonder. Torako figured a lecture about the danger of smoking was in the making, but Osaka just started laughing and pointing at her.
"What?" Torako said. She started the motions of putting the cigarette back into her mouth.
"When you smoke, you pucker up your mouth and it looks like an old man's sphincter." Osaka started laughing again, holding her sides.
Osaka's words presented Torako with such an overpowering image that the cigarette froze in midair, unable to complete its journey to her lips. She dropped it and ground it out.
That night, she took out a cigarette, but couldn't light it. The image had implanted itself in her head. Torako realized that Osaka had cured her smoking, much to her regret. Why did she have to say old man?
Torako liked smoking. It was her preferred vice, her trademark. It made her look cool, and made her feel like a badass. It played well with her introverted nature, because it made people avoid her.
Sure, there were the lecturers, some well meaning, but most just wanted to display their moral superiority. The studies meant nothing to her, anyway. She lucked out on the genetic lottery, as each check-up came back negative for signs of cancer and emphysema. Even her lungs were as pink as the second before she took her first puff, placing her in that 0.5 percentile of smokers with undamaged lungs. Sure, it made her clothes smell, and it could yellow her teeth and fingernails if she wasn't careful, but she rarely smoked more than four sticks a day for it to make that much of a difference. Yet, even if her lungs were as black as Caligula's conscience, even if she was confined to a wheelchair like Captain Pike and could only communicate with a blinking light, and even if the act of breathing was as tedious and painful as a political argument, she'd still smoke to her dying day.
That dopey-looking, unassuming Osaka had to come along and ruin it with one well-placed mental bombardment. If Torako didn't know any better, she'd swear Osaka was a witch that placed a curse on her.
...
She wasn't going to let her get the chance to do it again.
Tomo and Torako entered the bakery. Tomo flipped the light switch, but no lights came on. The light from the waning sun was enough to show them that there was nothing left.
Torako walked outside to the car and popped the trunk. She grabbed two flashlights to explore the rest of the building. She tossed one to Tomo, took off her sunglasses, and hopped behind the counter.
She had pushed open the swinging door and was walking into the dark hallway, flashlight in hand, when she heard breaking glass. She rushed back to the entrance, and saw Tomo, bokken in the final form of a killing stroke, standing over the broken glass of the display case.
"What?" Tomo said. "I felt like it."
"Hmm," Torako said. They explored the rest of the building.
They found nothing. Even the carpet in Asagi's office was removed. Tomo tried knocking walls and corners looking for dead spots, but there would be no secret hiding places here.
They stood in the entrance, the outside blanketed with red from the setting sun. Torako stood at the window, facing the Civic but not looking at anything. Tomo trounced on the broken glass on the floor, trying to break each shard into its smallest possible piece.
"Well," Tomo said, "what do you say happened?"
"Ueno cops came and cleared it out," Torako said. "Trying to find anything that would incriminate them. I wish we could have got our field analysts to grab this stuff last night, but the chief would never allow it. He wouldn't want to step on anyone's toes."
"Ah, more conspiracies!" Tomo jumped on a large piece of glass, breaking it into several pieces. "Why cops and not whatever lackey took over Ms. Ayase's business?"
"We're going to work long and hard tonight," Torako said, answering the question in her heart instead of the one from Tomo's lips. Her eyes focused on something much farther away than the car in front of her. "We're going to find out who owns this building, and we're going to find out what happened to Ms. Ando. We're going to find out where Ryoko lives. We're going to get the data from Asagi's computer, and we are going to bust us some gambling dens."
Torako walked outside without announcement. Tomo followed, eyeing Torako like a doctor peering into a microscope that contained a new disease. There's a reason why investigators aren't allowed to work on cases concerning close relatives or friends. They'd get too personally involved, and lose whatever objectivity they had. Torako was nothing but objectivity; bored, indifferent efficiency that was as smooth and calm as a pebble skipping over a pond.
This Torako, though, was jagged at the edges, and it was sawing at Tomo's wellbeing.
The Civic hit the streets when Tomo noticed the police radio repeating a query for their location. She grabbed the mic and rattled off their status.
"Chief Akiyama needs the two of you in his office immediately," dispatch said. "This is A-level priority."
Tomo rogered that and hung up the mic. Torako spared a quick glance at Tomo before returning it to the road. Something import enough that it couldn't be repeated over the radio… interesting.
They sped towards their office.
...
Chief Akiyama's office had wood paneling, a wood floor with a large rug, and an oak desk that was around before Tokyo Tower was built. He wore a suit to work every day, hanging his fedora and jacket on the hat rack located next to the entrance of his office. He was probably the only policeman in Japan who could get away with having a bottle of scotch in his desk.
He joined the force after high school because he wanted to be hard-boiled like his childhood heroes, the Sam Spades and Philip Marlowes of noir. Sure, they were private eyes, but Akiyama didn't let that trivial detail derail him. If now asked why he joined, he'd shrug and mention something about being for the good of Japan.
Tomo and Torako sat in his office, the door closed, while the chief held a phone to his head. He muttered one-syllable confirmations to whoever was chewing his ear out. He had an ancient phonograph system against the wall, as large as a table, softly playing John Coltrane's Giant Steps.
Torako respected the jazz legends, knowing them to be musical innovators and trailblazers, despite it being a genre she couldn't get into. To Tomo, who grew up on the processed sounds of bubblegum J-pop, jazz was nonexistent, and regulated to background noise.
The chief hung up the phone without saying bye. He turned to face Torako, arms propped on the armrests and sitting as still as a forest stream at midnight, and Tomo, bouncing around to a private song playing in her head.
"The Taito ward office has assigned new detectives to Ueno, so you two are no longer needed," the chief said.
"That was fast," Tomo said.
"The both of you are taken off of the Ayase murder case."
"Who has it now?" Torako said.
The chief kept silent while he eyed the two detectives, tapping his fingers on the desk. He then said, "No one."
"Eh? It's been solved already?" Tomo said.
"No Tomo, it's been sealed."
"Sealed? Internal affairs sealed?" Tomo looked at Torako and back at the chief. Torako showed no reaction.
"National Public Safety Commission. Tomo," he said, pointing at her and her gaping mouth, "Not a word. None of your cockamamie theories."
"Chief, I wasn't going-"
"Hush. I can smell the smoke coming from your little brain. You guys are off the case. All of the evidence has been collected and sealed. So, forget about it." The chief let out a sigh that had the effect of making its listeners feel guilty. "That was the Ueno district superintendent I was talking to. He didn't care much for that computer coming here instead of to his lab. Makes us look bad. But anyway, that's that. You guys take off for the night. See you tomorrow."
The chief started shuffling papers as a sign that the conversation was over. Tomo jumped from her seat while Torako lifted herself from hers.
"Oh yeah," the chief said, and the two stopped and turned around. "Don't forget Hasegawa's hearing tomorrow morning. Be at the Chiyoda Civil office at 11:00 sharp." The chief started shuffling papers again.
"Who's Hasegawa?" Tomo asked. The chief continued his display of disinterest by shuffling papers and not looking up from his desk, but his lips tightened like a pants press, and almost as much steam poured from his ears.
"The surviving kidnapper," Torako said.
"Oh, you mean Baldy," Tomo said. They exited the office door when Torako turned around and asked the chief, "What's our assignment now?"
The chief gave Torako his attention like a merciful king deigning to speak to his serfs. "Go to bed, come back tomorrow. Good night, Torako."
...
"It's a conspiracy!" Tomo said.
They were in Torako's Fiat, headed toward Tomo's apartment. Torako had turned the music down just enough to listen to Tomo's flights of fancy.
"It's not only internal affairs, it's the NPSC! This goes way up to the top! They're protecting important people!" Tomo slammed her fist into her hand. "I know who did it! That politician guy with two last names!"
"…Oda Otomo?"
"Yeah! He's in charge of the whole thing, I bet. He took over Ms. Ayase's whore houses."
"Gambling dens," Torako said. "And why would he be involved? He doesn't even represent Taito."
Tomo looked at Torako as if she was an unreasoning child. "Come on Torako, he has two last names! Anyone with two last names has to be up to no good."
"Stupid," Torako said.
"Yeah, I know," Tomo said, smiling and rubbing the back of her head. "I was only kidding. Well, it's out of our hands now. I wonder what the chief is going to have us working on tomorrow."
Torako remained silent. She was working on yesterday.