Chapter 29 -At it again
I am back. I had a run in with the big C and I don't mean covid. But as Chihiro has learned, what doesn't kill you, hurts like a bitch, and leaves scars.
After Michael had escorted her out of the hospital, while she wore his wife's clothes, he promptly decided that his short term rental office would be too easy to find. As his eyes took in Chihiro's weary expression, Chihiro could see his mind making quick decisions. Later, Michael shared that he surmised that they would need more time, and working in another location should provided them with it. So instead of traveling in one direction, Michael pulled off to the side of the road, made several phone calls from the car, and then flipped a u-turn taking Chihiro in the opposite direction. While all this was going on, Chihiro only half listened to the one-sided conversations, allowing her mind to remain blissfully blank.
Twenty minutes later found herself in front of a massive imperial styled hotel with the car door being opened by a helpful valet attendant. Stepping out of the town car, Chihiro realized that Michael had taken her to the largest hotel in town that catered to foreign tourist. Michael exited the vehicle while still on the phone, she watched him tip the valet while keeping up a call in that must have been in code, because even though he spoke in Japanese, she had no idea what he was talking about.
Meekly following, she tried to keep up with him, and couldn't help wondering why he wasn't going to the front desk to check them in. Her answer came in the form of a tall blond man of European ancestry waiting for them off to the side in the massive lobby. Michael nodded to him, still on the phone, and motioned for the newcomer to hand him the keycards. After doing so, the newcomer fell into step beside her.
Chihiro cocked an eyebrow at him. Who was this guy?
"Brian, did you arrange everything like I asked?" Michael's commanding voice startled Chihiro. She hadn't realized that he was no longer on the phone.
"Yes. The conference room and connecting suites are ready, and room service should be arriving soon after we get in."
"Good. Good." Michael nodded.
As if anticipating Chihiro's questions, Michael motioned for her to not speak yet. Nodding her understanding, Chihiro continued to follow silently as Michael lead them to the elevators, and then through the hallways finally stopping at a set of double doors. Using the keycard, he opened the doors ushering Chihiro into a spacious conference room with several doors leading to separate bedroom suites, a kitchenette, and bathrooms.
The large conference room table that dominated the room was covered in a several banker boxes, laptops, note papers, and other office supplies. Two younger associates, were also present typing away on laptops. They barely acknowledge the new arrivals, they were completely absorbed in their task. Chihiro noticed a small table to the side hosting a coffee and tea caddy and another table hosting a midsized printer/scanner/fax combo.
Once the door was shut behind them, Chihiro raised her eyebrow again at Michael.
"Chihiro, this is Brian, one of my associates, Jin who is on the left, is my main paralegal, and Mei, next to him is our intern" Both nodded when their names were called, made the briefest eye contact, and continued typing away. "We should be fine here. The rooms are under Brian's name. It is not common knowledge that he works for me, so rooms rented under a British national's name will not draw any attention."
"That is.."
"Diabolically genius?" Brian interjected. There was a twinkle in his eyes matching the one in Michael's. Both men were enjoying this cloak and dagger mischief. If she wasn't so worried about the potential disaster she was facing, she would have enjoyed the drama more to
"Is this legal?" Chihiro asked through a small smile she couldn't keep off her face.
"Why wouldn't it be?" Brian asked back. "Am I not allowed to rent rooms, with my own money, for my own use?"
Chihiro had no answer to that. Turning back to Michael, "was all of this really necessary?" She couldn't help asking.
Michael flashed her a grin and shrugged. "Maybe not, but I cannot let Hana have all the fun."
Chihiro laughed. The more time she spent with Michael, the more she liked him. He and Hana really were a perfect fit for each other.
Michael motioned fro Chihiro to take a seat at the conference table while Brian went to the side to make them all coffee. As she sat and waited for Michael to start questioning her, her mind wandered on to what she could say and what she needed to keep quiet about unless she would get locked up for good.
Damn. This was going to be really hard.
Who was going to believe her about the Spirit World and Aki being kidnapped by his estranged grandfather. She was still having a hard time believing it. Fort that matter, why had Tatsuo kidnapped Aki? Had she ever really gotten an answer for that?
Before she knew it, Brian had placed a coffee in front of her with packets of cream and sugar for her to doctor it how she liked it. Nodding her thanks, she started dumping all the sugar and cream into to the coffee, she had a feeling she would need the calorie boost.
Michael continued to quietly observe her sipping from his own coffee cup.
Chihiro couldn't take it anymore. "Shouldn't you start asking me questions?" she blurted out.
Michael, finished another sip, and then gently placed his cup down. His steady eyes saw completely through her. Chihiro fought the urge to shrink back in her chair. The steady stream of typing from the intern and paralegal began to weigh on her nerves.
She shook herself to ahold of herself. She has stared down dragons damnit! She was not intimidated by her own lawyer. She paid him; he worked for her.
"Chihiro, I am on your side. I need you to tell me everything. We don't know what might be important…"
She felt him hesitate. He motioned for Brian to bring him a file.
Chihiro took a deep breath. She had a suspicion what was in the file, and she wasn't sure she wanted to see it.
Michael carefully opened it and drew out several photos laying them out in front of her.
Chihiro felt her body immediately react to the images. She was going to be sick. Taking deep breathes she tried to force her stomach to stop heaving. Brian placed a glass of water by her coffee cup. Instinctively Chihiro grabbed on to and began to gulp the water down.
The room went silent while Chihiro fought to control her reaction.
Michael seemed to know when she was no longer in danger of vomiting all over the table, and began to add more documents beside the photos.
"What you see here, is the evidence complied in three deaths that the police believe that you are somehow involved in."
"Three?" Chihiro asked surprised. "Keiko Fujimoto and who else?"
"Keiko Fujimoto was found in the basement in your condo. Her remains were days old. The autopsy report is there." Michael motioned to a document near the photo of human woman's mutilated remains. "The other two have not been full identified, though it is believed that one of them in the missing Detective Ashibe."
"Detective Ashibe? Who is that?" Chihiro's mind was drawing a blank. Then it came to her. "He was the one who questioned me… But he wan't the one who…" Chihiro trailed off. In her surprise, she almost said he wasn't the one who questioned her in her condo, but that creature couldn't have been a man. Who ever it was must have killed the human detective first but why was Detective Ashibe in her apartment?
"Yes. Organic material was found in your condo has been linked to a substance found on his body." Michael point to the photo of Detective Ashibe's body. Chihiro refused to look at it. What peripheral vision saw was enough to let her know she didn't want the image in her head.
"The third?" Chihiro asked.
"The third is the most interesting one."
"Why is that?"
"She has not been identified yet."
"She?"
"Yes, this has been determined to be an unidentifiable female." Michael laid the photos before her.
"Oh my God, what happened to her." Chihiro felt the words dissolve on her tongue this was a woman she was staring at the only thing that made it obvious it was a human body with the structure of the bones but the visceral that has sold remained on them she really couldn't tell for certain thought it was a human she had been staring at. Quickly she swallowed to keep the bile from rising up, she refused to vomit all over her lawyers materials.
"Yes," Michael confirmed. "The coroner was able to determine that the unidentified Jane Doe is female because of her bone structure, as you can see there are no teeth, so there are no dental records, and the DNA that they were able to capture has no match to anything in any of the databases."
Chihiro felt her mind swirling. This was too much. Was she about to have a complete nervous breakdown? What was going on here?
"How…or Why do the police think that any of these bodies are connected to me are somehow connected to Aki's disappearance? Keiko, I mean Mrs. Fujimoto, I can see the connection. I mean, she was found in my condo is basement and I know she is the one that first kidnapped Aki, but the others; detective Rampo and this mysterious woman here…. why? I guess I just don't understand, but why did the police think that I had anything to do with it?"
"The police haven't been as forthcoming with their information. But you're right, there really is nothing linking you to these suspicious deaths. And that is the position we are going to come hard. What can you tell me about your disappearance?"
"Well, that's not exactly true." Brian interrupted in his accented Japanese.
Looking up at him Chihiro, confusion in her eyes. His became steel as he placed several dated photos before her. The first one reappeared in her nightmares, broken swing set, blood splatter and pools of blood where the crumpled body of her best friend had laid. The next series of close-ups of the injuries on Rei's body. Chihiro had no idea if the photos where taken while she had been alive or dead. The autopsy report was placed underneath.
It was too much. This time Chihiro ran to the bathroom to vomit.
Time stopped as she tried to hold herself over the sterile toilet. As her body violently expelled everything she had recently eaten, a cool hand gently toughed her shoulder and pulled her hair out of her face. Several moments passed until Chihiro found herself sitting on the floor next to the toilet, haphazardly leaning against it. She felt the disgusting chunks and bile coating her throat and mouth, stickiness on her lips and chin, but she had no energy to clean herself up.
What was going on here? Did her own lawyers not believe her? How the hell had they been able to get photos of Rei? Did they suspect that she had been responsible for Rei's death?
A glass of water with condensation on the glass and an linen handkerchief came into her view. Brian held them both out to her. She eyed him suspiciously.
"I apologize for that, I didn't think that you were going to have that type of reaction." Chihiro's eyes hardened but she let Brian continue. "I was trying to show why we think that they suspect you of somehow being connected to the murdered Jane Doe."
It was only then that she realized Michael was next to her, he was still holding her hair back.
Chihiro turned her gaze towards Michael. At her raised eyebrow, he released her hair.
He didn't apologize, instead her helped her up and walked her to the sink so she could clean herself off.
"Chihiro, I know that there are things that you don't believe you can tell me. But I need you to understand that I cannot defend you if I do not know the full extent of what I need to defend you from."
"Do you think that-" her voice croaked out.
"No, I don't. I believe that somehow you have gotten mixed into something much larger and I am not exactly sure what it is."
"Even if I could tell you, you wouldn't believe me."
"Try me."
Chihiro looked hard into his eyes. Saw his resolve. She decided to take a chance. This was privileged communications anyways right? So she did. She told him everything. The unvarnished truth.
Hours later, Tatsuo and Dean had joined the "war room" the moniker Chihiro had given the hotel suites were she and her legal team were meeting.
To say that she needed to prove part of which she revealed to her attorney's was a bit of an understatement.
Chihiro had correctly read the disbelief in Jin and Mei's faces as she began her story. Michael and Brian, were too good at what they did to reveal their inner thoughts, but Chihiro knew that it would be a more efficient use of time if she could just prove to her legal team that she was not crazy. Then they could focus on crafting what they could tell the public and police.
What better way to prove the Spirit World existed than to have a dragon transform in front of you?
"Lets look at the timeline again" Brian stated with his British accent becoming more noticeable as the day went on.
Mei walked over to the large whiteboard that had been brought in. "Lets create separate, overlapping, timelines for Chihiro and each of the victims. That way we can see how things played out."
Michael and Brian nodded.
Mei picked up a dry erase pen, but before she started, she looked to Chihiro, "I think we should start back when Mrs. Fujimoto filed her most recent juvenile case filing."
Chihiro started to nod in agreement, but then looking at Tatsuo, she stopped. "Actually, we should start one month later, when Aki and I missed our scheduled visitation. That was the catalyst at least on our end I think." Her questioning eyes met Tatsuo's
He nodded. "Yes, I had previously made contact with Keiko and wanted to see my daughter. And I had learned bout Rei's death and about Aki a week or so before that visit was scheduled."
Mei, erased the date she had previously written and back dated to three months ago. "Is this correct?" she asked him.
Tatsuo's eyes went distant as he calculated back to when the plan had been created to remove Aki from Chihiro's care. "Yes. I believe that date is correct."
"I have a silly question," Dean interrupted.
Michael nodded at him to continue, "Why don't we just tell the truth? I mean, the truth that we can tell?"
Everyone looked to Dean and then Tatsuo.
"Are you trying to get me arrest for kidnapping?" Tatsuo dryly asked.
Someone snorted out loud and Dean blushed bright red. However, he continued to push forward. "Not exactly, don't worry. I just had this thought, technically in this world, there is no proof of your existence? Right?"
Tatsuo nodded, "That is partially true. I do have one or two alias in this world that I regularly use, but Tatsuo, The Black Dragon of the Spirit World does not exist here."
"Right, so if we can provide proof that Aki was kidnapped by his grandparents in an elaborate attempt to discredit Chihiro and cause her to lose out on any Hollywood deals, while keeping Aki away from her?"
"That could work-" Brian mused.
"No." Chihiro interrupted. "No, I don't want Aki to read in the papers that his Grandmother or Grandfather was a bad person. We have to find another way."
"Chihiro, with all due respect," Brain started.
"No." Chihiro restated. "Look, I am not trying to be difficult. Yes, I do know that we would have a much easier time if I did just blamed a dead woman who cannot defend herself. The problem is that Keiko Fujimoto is as much as a victim as Aki was in this whole diaster. Her life had not been easy. And we all know she was no saint, but I will not be the one to cast her memory in the mud and have Aki hurt by it. No. We need to find another way."
Mei nodded. Accepting Chihiro's word as law and went back to creating the timelines. Within 30 minutes, 4 color coded timelines illustrated what had taken place.
"Okay, lets review again what the police evidence is." Brian held out the case file "The police were called on this date to investigate Aki and Chihiro's, mysterious disappearance. Only Chihiro's blood was found at the scene."
"Thats not true" Michael interrupted.
"What do you mean?" Mei, Chihiro and Brian asked almost simultaneously. "Here," Michael pointed at a paragraph on the paper in his hand, "there was additional blood found at the scene, but it could not be identified. The lab results are inconclusive, they couldn't even tell if it was human, so it was cast aside."
"They can do that?" Chihiro asked.
Micheal nodded, still reading the report. "Yeah, it's more common than you would think, especially in today's technological forensic science loving society. Lab errors do occur, chain of custody is broken, and sometimes evidence picked up at the scene of a crime, was there prior to the crime and is thrown out of the evidence. Judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys typically don't bring these things up because most juries are not sophisticated enough to understand that not everything collected at a scene of a crime is used as evidence."
"But in this situation, we can use it." Michael continued. "Chihiro, didn't you say that Aki's blood work was always unusual?"
"Yes. Dr. Osaka, our psychiatrist, had to do multiple blood draws from him. Why?"
"I bet we can show that this blood at the scene was Aki's if we can compare the samples to what was found at the scene."
"What does that prove?"
"Nothing, but it makes it more likely than not that the blood at the scene was Aki's and that Chihiro was telling the truth that Aki was kidnapped by an unknown entity."
"But won't that open up Aki to scrutiny? Won't people be concerned about what he is?"
"No. According to his blood work from Dr. Osaka, he is human, he just has abnormalities." Brian held the paperwork in his hands.
"It's not your fault the crime lab couldn't determine his abnormalities." Michael held Chihito's gaze. "Our job right now is to explain why the police are wrong in suspecting you. You told the truth that Aki was kidnapped. When Aki is subjected to questioning, he will confirm he was kidnapped from your old bedroom and nicked his arm in the process."
Chihiro slowly nodded in agreement.
"Does Aki have to be interrogated?" Tatsuo asked.
"Yes, but it will only be done by trained child psychologist. In fact, if Aki tells the truth about everything, including his time in the Spirit World, it will be taken as his child mind was traumatized and is trying to make sense of everything. All prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges know how difficult it is to interview children and how unreliable they are as witnesses, that is sadly one of the main reason why most child abusers go free because children are considered "unreliable witnesses."
"Wow. I had no idea." Mei gasped.
"Yep, thats why I stay away from child abuse cases, I don't want to unintentionally help an abuser go free just because a child is being manipulated by the system to either change their testimony or is not considered believable." Brian signed heavily. "Sorry guys, just remembering past cases."
Michale patted Brian on his back. "Okay. So we can address the blood and Aki's future testimony will not contradict it. Whats next?"
Brian began shuffling through the files but Dean piped up first. "Yeah, but we still need to explain why Chihiro showed up three weeks ago covered in blood and where she disappeared to to only randomly show up again and with a dead body in her condo, and whatnot." He stated flatly.
"Oh, and I stole a truck." Chihiro added."I think I crashed it too."
All eyes turned to her.
"When did you do that?" Dean asked incredulously.
"When your Prius ran out of gas, I was trying to get Kohaku to his source."
"I think that we are forgetting our real purpose here. Our job is not to solve whatever crime the police are trying to nail Chihiro for. We just need to show how their "evidence" does not prove Chihiro had anything to do with the crimes they still have not yet charged her for." Brian's clear voice brought everyone back to the task at hand.
"Okay, what other evidence do the police believe that they have?" Michael once again took control of the brainstorming.
"Keiko's body found dead in Chihiro's condo building. In the basement of the facility" Mei spoke circling the listed evidence on another white board.
"We can already prove that Chihiro had nothing to do with that one." Dean stated.
"Can we?" Tatsuo questioned.
"In a sense," Michael began to explain. " Chihiro was in police custody during the time the Medical Examiner placed the time of death. She was also 3 hours away. There was no way she could have killed Keiko Fujimoto."
"That's convenient," Tatsuo mused.
Chihiro snorted. "Whose side are you on?" she questioned archly.
"Chihiro, please, if I thought it would benefit you in the long run, I would allow you all to frame one of my aliases for the murders and kidnapping. At least one of the "murders" may or may not have taken place in your condo. From what I heard, that skin walking technique done by the Detective Ramp impersonator, sounds very much like what the White Knight does. His whole team is specialized in infiltration and deception. Whether or not the real Detective Rampo is still alive remains to be seen. But I would caution anytime one of us meets with him. His "skin" or at least his likeness maybe used many time until his persona is no longer useful. As for Detective Ashibe, I wonder if he began to suspect something was wrong with his partner and that is why he was murdered."
"Wait. We don't know that he was killed. just his DNA was found. He might still be alive!" Brian interjected. "But what you just said is too crazy for me to even begin to comprehend. I thought I was okay with Dragons and a spirt world outside of my understanding." Brain stared dumbstruck at Tatsuo."But skin walkers? That's just insane..." he trailed off.
Sensing the change in the room, Michael laughed humorously. "Okay team, I think we need to take a short break. Let come back in an hour or so." No one objected and the legal team slowly went out of the room leaving Chihiro, Dean, and Tatsuo sitting at the conference table.
Chihiro dropped her head on the table. Was there a way out of this? Should she just cave and blame everything on Keiko Fujimoto? No. They would find a way. They had to.
"What should we do?" she asked both Dean and Tatsuo.
Both men silently looked at her.
"Boss," Dean started he seemed to falter for a second, then he smiled his signature mischievous grin. Where did he find the confidence to believe that everything was going to be okay? "I think we should all take a break." He stood and motioned to one of the attached suites. "Did anyone claim that room? Because I'm going to change my clothes and go for a run. Wanna join? I have a bag of your stuff that your mom helped me pack."
Chihiro almost objected, but then stopped. "Yeah. A Run sounds good. Lets do it." She turned to Tatsuo questioning.
"Go. it will do you good. I will protect you and keep you hidden."
Chihiro, smiled and nodded her thanks. Her mind was too fried right now to do anything else, but she was hopeful a solution would come to her soon. It had to.
I'm back. Lets see where this goes shall we?
Thank you to all my my readers and reviewers who even after years of silence offered you encouragement and support. From the bottom of my heart. Thank you.
XXOO Thyme