Chapter Twelve
Shadow
Aoi was right, it was bad. Hand prints were smeared on the walls in messy black and red paint (hopefully) that dripped down the walls and stained the carpet. Several of the lockers had been smashed, as if with a hammer, and the words "You're home!" was smeared across them. I covered my mouth with my hands.
"Oh…" I couldn't think of what to say about this horrific scene, but it made me feel deeply disturbed and uneasy.
"What is this?" demanded Yako, turning on poor Aoi, who had tears in her eyes.
"I don't know ma'am, I came back here to fix my makeup and found it like this."
"How did we not hear it?" asked Sakura, "this had to have happened during work, because the break room was normal this morning."
"Did you hear anyone, Manager?" asked Kou carefully, "your office is right next to the break room, surely…"
"Nanamine-san, will you check the security tapes?" Yako turned to Sakura, who nodded and glided off. "Akane-san, you should call the police. Minamoto-san, I want you to tell our customers that we'll have to close for the day due to unexpected circumstance. Mitigate what damage you can, I don't want to give the rumor mill any more fuel, especially not at my expense. And Yashiro-san," she turned to me, her eyes flashing, "you stay right here with me, I want you to speak to the police."
"Ma'am?" I gave her a questioning look.
"You were right in there with me, they'll be asking if you heard something," she explained, she surveyed the damage again, her lips pinched together so tightly that they were bleached white. Her normally porcelain pale complexion was marred by two bright pink blotches high on her cheeks. She wasn't angry, she was furious, this was akin to someone throwing paint on her body. She turned to me, eyes blazing.
"Bring me a cup of coffee," she said, her voice was like ice chips, "go ahead and grab a cup for you too, we'll talk while we wait for the police."
~oOoOoOo~
I found Kou in the kitchen with a boy I didn't recognize, Kou introduced him as Mitsuba Souske.
"What happened here?" Mitsuba asked after the introductions were over.
"I don't know," I shook my head, "no one heard anything. I suppose we'll have to wait and see what the police think." Kou and Mitsuba exchanged an unsettled glance. I poured two cups of coffee and set them on a tray with some tea and sugar. "Wish me luck," I said to the boys, "I have to go keep the manager entertained, and she is far from happy."
"Good luck," said Kou with genuine sympathy.
~oOoOoOo~
I returned to the break room to find Yako pacing back and forth, her hands hooked into claws at her sides. She relaxed a little when she saw me, and we sat down to have coffee together.
"I saw something like this once," she said, after a while of uncomfortable silence, "a long time ago, when I was a little girl."
"You did?" I asked, stirring a healthy amount of sugar into the steaming black liquid, "how?"
"When I was young, a lot of young women started disappearing from the village," her eyes took on a faraway look, "at first we thought that they were just running away, but then the bodies started cropping up and we realized that there was a killer in our midst. I was just little then, too young to be in danger, but I remember one time we stumbled across one of the crime scenes and it looked a lot like this."
"Did you find a body?" I asked, shocked.
"No, thank goodness, no body, but I remember just feeling...wrong about it, it's strange. It's bothered me all these years, and it bothers me now." she motioned to the walls, "this bothers me, a lot."
"This serial killer," I began, cautiously "was he called Shadow by the news papers?"
"You know the case?" asked Yako, which was answer enough.
"I've been finding old newspaper clippings about it, can you please tell me what happened? Was he ever caught?"
"They found him, at the crime scene of his last victims. He stabbed his brother and his brother's girlfriend to death, and then slit his own throat."
~oOoOoOo~
I answered the policeman's questions absently as Yako and I took him on a tour of the damage. My mind was stuck on Shadow. I had a bad feeling boiling in the pit of my stomach, I needed to talk to Hanako about it, and soon.
"Yashiro-san?" the policeman peered into my face, and I jumped, snapping back to the matter at hand.
"Yes sir?"
"Can we open your locker? See if there's any damage inside?"
"Yes, of course," I watched as he unlocked the metal door, it swung open with a rusty creak and vomitted a tidal wave of black paper cranes, scattering across the floor. Hundreds and hundreds of cranes, I heard a gasp and turned around to see Aoi and Sakura standing in the doorway. Aoi clinging onto Sakura. Sakura just stared blankly ahead, pale and silent. I had the feeling that maybe she knew something about this. But I didn't have the nerve to ask. I turned back to my locker, now emptied of cranes to find more paint smeared inside my locker. In dripping, smeared paint the name 'Asami' was written over and over on the metal. My insides turned to liquid.
