Death By Degrees (9 page)

There wasn’t much north of the station, just some shopping and industrial areas prior to reaching the Kanmon Straits that separated the south island of Kyushu from the main island of Honshu. Everything was happening either in the station or to the south of it. The station itself had a combination mall and office building attached with several floors of shopping and various businesses from restaurants to medical offices. The Station Hotel was also conveniently attached and was where we would be spending the next couple of nights.

We found a sushi restaurant on the fifth floor and sat down in front of the conveyor belt for our dinner. The belt wound along in front of us, almost like we were sitting at a bar with a raised portion for the food to travel on, and the plates of sushi went past. Each plate had only a couple of pieces of
nigiri
or a single roll and they were colour-coded for price. There was a list that showed us how much each plate cost.

The white ones were the cheapest at less than two dollars a plate (but they also didn’t have much worth eating on them), and they went up as they changed in colour from pink to yellow to blue to green at several dollars a plate. By the time we were done we had amassed a stack of small round plates, a rainbow of colours rising from the surface of the ‘table’ we were at. I, being the obsessive compulsive person I am, rearranged the plates by colour and ascending price, just to make it easier on the young woman who would give us our bill.

It wasn’t a cheap meal by the time we were done, but at the same time, we also had eaten far more than we needed to. I paid the bill with yen I had taken out while we were at the airport in Tokyo and prepared to leave a tip.

“No tip, Lincoln,” Eddie said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. They don’t tip in Japan. Just say thank you when we leave and you’re covered.”

“Okay,” I said, putting the money back in my pocket. I thanked the chef behind the conveyor belt and we left the restaurant, a second
arigatō
on the way out for the hostess. It felt strange to not leave a tip even though I knew it was a custom that much of the world didn’t share. Kat always gave me hell for tipping too much, so maybe that had something to do with it as well. I felt like I was being cheap.

“Everything I’ve read says not to tip,” Eddie said when we left. “Apparently it can get awkward if you do. I read one story about a guy who left a tip at his hotel and they actually refunded the money to his credit card. Took him a while to figure out what the refund was for. Another person left a tip at a bed-and-breakfast-style place after the first night because they had gone out of their way. When he came back later in the day there was a bottle of sake and a box of chocolates worth the same as what he had left.”

“Alright. So easier to just not tip. Got it.”

Eddie laughed. “I have a feeling we’ll make some mistakes along the way if we keep traveling this much.”

“Would it be any fun if we all did things the same way?”

Both Eddie and Najat, who had been listening intently, answered with a “not at all”.

“The differences are important,” Najat said. “My family is from Turkey, so there were some things we had to get used to when we would go visit, but it makes things more interesting.”

We rode the elevator down to the main level, a large area with ticket sales and the entrance to the train station itself as well as shops and fast food restaurants. There were no doors to the outside, it was open but covered and I was certain that in the case of heavy rains the wind and water would make its way in. It must have been designed for that though, I couldn’t see the Japanese not thinking ahead.

The opening that led out to the south side of the station actually came out above street level where a series of walkways went over the busy street below. It was a terminal street - the end of the main road – and there were numerous cabs and buses turning around at the end and dropping passengers off. The walkway took us over the road to a pair of outdoor, uncovered escalators. My previous thought about designing with rain in mind was reinforced. It was as if they didn’t care when they designed the place; we’ll put what we want where we want it, if you want to rain on it that’s your problem.

And it worked. Given the aging population of Japan, open entrances without doors and outdoor escalators were brilliant ideas. We made our way down to the street and I noticed more simple yet intelligent ideas: ridged surfaces at the edges of sidewalks to keep people from stepping onto the road accidentally (I saw this as being most beneficial to the blind or those with vision problems); chimes or songs that played when it was time to cross the street, with different ones for different directions to cross (the north-south song was different from the east-west one); and walkways over roads to keep traffic moving and pedestrians safe. It was all very logical.

The area was quite busy with numerous shops and restaurants nearby. There was another mall, this one at least twelve-stories, although the footprint of the building was probably the same size as one large store in North America. Think of a building half the size of a standard Wal-Mart but then built upwards several stories.

That was Japan to a tee.

Apartments seemed to have only a few units on each floor unlike the buildings we had with sometimes twenty units to a floor. The Japanese were limited for space, but that didn’t seem to stop them. When you can’t build out, build up. There were some areas that weren’t quite as tall though. Behind the first row of tall buildings lining the main road and before another row of even taller buildings was a covered bazaar of small shops that ran for quite a ways parallel to the main road.

It was getting late though and most of the shops were closed by that time. We stayed on the main road which looked to me to be probably one of the busier streets. It ran north-south through the city and was complete with an elevated monorail. The street and the monorail both led south into the ward of Kokuraminami.

We carried on south then headed west toward where we had been told we would find Kokura Castle. It was something I’d read about on the flight to Fukuoka and its splendor wasn’t lost at night, not with numerous lights illuminating a castle built in 1602 (although it had been rebuilt after being burnt down in 1866 during a war between rival clans). It was only a ten-minute walk and from a distance we could see the tall, white castle looming in the night.

The castle was surrounded by a rock wall and a moat to keep invaders at bay. We stood a bit back and I took a number of photos, the flash of my camera breaking the darkness that surrounded us. We weren’t the only ones taking pictures of the castle as I watched another flash going off several times about fifty metres to our left. The museum and gardens were closed, but I had seen what I came to see. If we had the chance I’d come back and go through the keep itself, but I didn’t hold much hope for that kind of free time tomorrow.

We made our way back to the hotel and said our goodnights. After all the traveling we’d done and the little bit of excitement at the airport, it was time to call it a night and get some rest. The next day was going to be a rough one, I could tell that just from looking at the files.

I seriously underestimated how bad it would be.

Chapter Eleven

W
e rose early the next morning and took a cab to the local police department. They seemed to have been expecting us, something that was happening a lot lately, and we were brought into an office to wait. A few minutes later two detectives and a uniformed constable entered the room.

“Good morning,” the constable said. “My name is Arata Fukuda. I’ve been briefed on the case and will be assisting today to help with translation.” He gave a bow as he told us his name.

“Thank you,” I said. “Your English sounds… Canadian.”

He laughed. “I lived in Vancouver for a few years from when I was about seven until almost twelve and then I went to U of T for my undergrad.”

The University of Toronto. That explained why he sounded so much like… well, so much like me.

“Sorry, getting ahead of myself. Lincoln Munroe,” I said, giving a bow. It was apparently the right thing to have done as everyone in the room looked pleased by my actions. “This is Eddie Fromm, our computer expert, and Najat Şentürk, a graduate student doing her Ph.D. in anthropology.” Both Eddie and Najat bowed when I spoke their names.

“Detectives Akio Watanabe and Takashi Satō.” They both bowed as well and the introductions were finished. Arata leaned toward us and spoke more quietly. “We use
–san
after names like you use mister or missus before. For me, Arata is fine. But they’re used to being addressed more formally, so Watanabe
-san
and Satō
-san
.”

We all nodded. I’d heard of this before. It was no different than at home really, they just used a suffix instead of a prefix. Once you got to know someone, the honorific
san
could be ignored.

“Okay,” I said now that the introductions and formalities were dealt with. “I’ve read up on all the information that was sent to INTERPOL. Where are we heading first?”

“The e-mail Crawford sent listed one body and then said, ‘you will also find the body of’ and listed the next one. Personally, I think we should start with the first one he lists. The detectives were thinking the same.”

“I guess it makes sense. I’d assume he listed them in the order he killed them. Crawford seems like he’d keep things in line, almost seems fastidious in regard to the details.”

“Alright. Both bodies are in the mountains, the first one is closer to the summit.”

“So we have a hike ahead of us?”

“Yes,” Arata said. “A good one. We should get going. The humidity here is like nothing you’ve experienced.”

“Wonderful,” I said. “Then let’s get a move on.”

The detectives took one vehicle and the three of us went with Arata in a marked cruiser. We drove through the city, over narrow waterways and past a large Ferris wheel on top of a mall. The waterways I could explain as they seemed to be the equivalent of our storm sewers, they just kept theirs open. The Ferris wheel on the roof of a building… that one defied explanation for me.

“That’s Cha-Cha Town,” Arata said as we drove past. “It’s got everything. There’s fast food, clothing stores, a grocery store, a pet store, a
hyaku-en
store, a movie theatre, an arcade, and…”

“And a Ferris wheel on the roof.”

“Yeah, basically. It’s a little odd, for sure, but you get some awesome views from up there.”

“Hey,” I said. “What was that you said, a
ya-koo
something?”

“
Hyaku-en
, means a hundred yen. Basically the Japanese equivalent of a dollar store. Great deals there… I probably shop there more than I should admit.”

“Don’t worry about it, I love dollar stores.”

“I’m still a student,” Najat said. “I basically live there.”

“I buy most of my electronics stuff there, cables and that. It’s ridiculous that I can buy an HDMI cable for two bucks there or forty everywhere else.”

“I hear you, Eddie. When I bought my first LCD TV they talked me into some hundred dollar HDMI cable. When it quit I bought one from the dollar store… never noticed a difference.”

“I go for the snacks,” Arata said. “Can’t beat only spending a hundred yen on some dried squid or fish.”

“Damn, I could go for that,” I said. Eddie and Najat didn’t seem too keen on the idea.

Arata kept driving and eventually he came to a stop in front of a cemetery at the base of a mountain. The cemetery was terraced up the slope a ways before the stairs led into the forest.

“Interesting, never seen a terraced cemetery before.”

“We need to do what we need to do. Land isn’t easy to come by around here. We need to take the stairs up into the forest and then it’ll be a while to get to the body. The first one is quite a ways in, almost at one of the summits.”

It was only just past ten but I could already feel the heat and humidity. Arata was right, I knew then it would be like nothing I’d experienced. The previous day had been like what I’d expect in southwestern Ontario, but maybe it had been worse. I just wouldn’t have noticed since I hadn’t had to climb a mountain.

We talked as we hiked west from the cemetery into the dense forest that blanketed the mountain range. It wasn’t a high range, nothing like Mt. Fuji, Japan’s most famous mountain, but they were still high and steep enough to make for a solid workout. Eddie and I had been gentlemen and were now carrying Najat’s tools which didn’t make the climb any easier when the path decided to take a sudden turn for the vertical.

“Okay, so the first body is…”

“Megumi Tanaka, schoolgirl. She was only eighteen when she went missing, uh, it would’ve been twenty-one months ago now. End of summer two years past. She had gone to a friend’s house for the day and was on her way back on her bike. I think it was just after five in the afternoon when she left the friend’s house. Shouldn’t have taken her more than a half an hour to get home at a normal pace.”

“But she never made it.”

“No. She never did. They found her bike almost two weeks later outside a bowling alley. We kind of assumed that was where she had left it. It was an old bike that no one would really care to steal, even with the way bike thefts are here.”

“That bad?”

“Pretty much the only thing that gets stolen.”

“Must make your job easy,” I said. “I’m jealous.”

“It’s different here than in Canada. Our crime rate is a lot lower, but we also don’t have the same number of police officers. And we don’t get paid anywhere near what you guys do.”

“That bad?”

“Could be worse. Working for the government has it’s perks no matter what country you’re in.”

He had a point.

“Anyway. Megumi was an only child. Her parents were devastated. Mom tried to kill herself on the one-year anniversary of Megumi going missing. She jumped in front of a train but a few people saw her try and managed to pull her back in just in time. Her father comes to the station from time to time to speak to the detectives about the case, see if there’s anything new. There never is. And every time he comes in, he’s drunker than the last.”

“I can’t blame him. I couldn’t imagine losing a child.”

“You have kids?”

“Yeah,” I said. “A boy and a girl.” I took pictures out of my wallet. “Link and Kasia. They’re ten and eight.”

“Beautiful,” he said, pulling out his wallet. “This is Akane, she turned three last week. My wife is pregnant with our second, only a few months along.”

“She’s adorable, Arata. Do you know what you guys are having?”

“No. She wants to find out, I don’t. So far, we’re leaving it a surprise.”

“We didn’t find out either time,” I said. “I’m glad we didn’t. It made that day even more special.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. But Misaki – my wife – wants to be able to have the baby’s room decorated, have clothes already bought. You know, all that nesting stuff she says she didn’t get to do before Akane was born.”

“What about going with neutral colours?”

“We did that for Akane and then I had to repaint and redecorate a few weeks later. Neither of us want to do that again.”

“I can see that. Oh well, honestly, either way I’m sure when the big day comes it’s still going to be just as amazing. Not to mention I had friends who were having a girl, painted everything pink, but girl’s clothes, a pink stroller, the whole shebang.” I paused for dramatic effect.

“And?”

“Their daughter? His name is Michael.”

Arata burst out laughing. “Guess ultrasound technology isn’t perfect after all.”

“Apparently not. Everyone else found it hilarious. They eventually saw the humour in it, although it cost them a fair buck in the end with all sorts of things they couldn’t return.”

“Lincoln, that story may just get her to give up trying to find out. Thanks!”

“Glad I could help.”

We kept walking for another half hour or so, Eddie and Najat tailing by about a minute. They were talking and appeared to be very much enjoying each other’s company.

Had I inadvertently played matchmaker?

I told myself that I would ask Eddie when I had the chance. He’d be more open to discussing it than Najat, and maybe I could even play wingman for him, help him out a little.

By the time we reached the first burial site I was drenched with sweat and felt like I’d just done a full workout in a steam room. My lungs felt heavy as I breathed. There was no way that what we’d just put ourselves through was healthy. We all sat on a fallen tree and took a breather before the dig commenced.

The detectives had been ahead of us the whole way and had already had some extra time to relax. Both were standing a stone’s throw from the site with cigarettes in one hand and portable electric fans in another. Stress relief and a chance to cool down all at once. For a moment, it was almost tempting. When they were done the cigarettes one pulled out a small plastic cylinder and they both put their butts inside. Portable fans and portable ashtrays… what was next?

Once we identified the grave it was routine once more. The remains gave us nothing new to go on. It had been long enough that there was no tissue left, only bones. This made the cross carved into the skull very easy to detect as we brushed the dirt away. Bits of dirt stayed within the cross making it contrast against the skull. I still didn’t understand the ritual and why he was doing this. There were still so many things we didn’t know.

The detectives had brought a large digital camera with them, one with far more power than I was used to. I took a number of pictures during the dig and later of the surrounding area and the remains. I had to move around the grave to keep the sun from casting my shadow across the skeleton.

“Eddie,” I said, snapping picture after picture. “Did any of the reports you compiled mention the position of the body? Like which direction it was facing?”

“I don’t think so. I don’t remember entering that in. I could probably figure it out from the pictures though.”

“Alright, you just volunteered yourself for a new job. The two we had back home were both facing pretty much to the east, a little south but not much. Finland the body was facing to the south.”

“Think that has something to do with it?”

“Kat thought maybe. Burial direction was based on tradition but the two in Canada were facing opposite to the Christian tradition of having the head to the west. Maybe having them turned around would follow along the lines of carving the cross in upside-down, but Finland changed things there.”

“I’ll see what I can figure out once we’re back to the office.”

“Thanks. It may be nothing. The two in Canada might have just been coincidental.”

“No worries. It’s worth checking it out.”

I nodded then went back to the photos.

After a few hours of muggy heat and dripping sweat the skeleton was fully exposed. We had been joined by other officers and a coroner who were there to assist in removing the bones and bringing them to the nearest hospital for the post-mortem. And now we had to walk about a kilometer back more or less in the direction we had come.

We left the officers and coroner behind. Two were to stay and search the area for any evidence - something I expected they wouldn’t find. It had been almost two years and we hadn’t known Crawford to leave anything behind. Someone also had to handle the task of filling the grave back in. Not the nicest task, and for me it seemed more morbid to fill in the empty grave than to exhume the body.

The next gravesite was easier to find even though it was a little further from the trail. The dirt was piled higher leading me to believe the grave had been dug shallower. If that was the case, it meant Crawford was moving faster than he had wanted to. For whatever reason, he didn’t have the time to dig a deeper grave.

“This one will be shallower,” I said to Najat. We both crouched down and began removing the dirt.

“Because the pile is higher?”

“Yes. It almost looks like he barely dug a hole and just piled the dirt up over the body. See? If you look around here you can see we’re in a bit of a depression.”

The earth around us looked like those pictures of the splash a water droplet would make when a really high-speed camera was used. There was a ring around us where the ground was lower and then it rose up again in the middle where the body was buried. Had it been closer to the path and not hidden behind the trees and bushes, I had a feeling this grave would’ve been discovered earlier by someone passing through on a hike or something.

“Who do we have here, Arata?”

“Hidenori Kobayashi. Reported missing two days after Megumi but last seen the night before she went missing. He was a business bachelor, so he lived alone.”

“Business bachelor?”

“A man who lives and works in one city while his wife and family live in another. They usually stay in the city for a couple of weeks then go home for a visit.”

“An odd set-up.”

“Yeah, not ideal by any stretch. There are a lot less these days. Most of the guys my age don’t want that. I think it was just that they didn’t want to have to relocate the whole family and they probably hoped that with the experience the man gained at the job he’d be able to find something back home. Hidenori had been doing it for seven years though.”

“Shit. That’s a long time to be away from your family and only visiting occasionally.”

“I agree. Family dynamics, especially for older generations, are different than what you’re used to. It’s just the way it is here. Men work and work and work. That has to be their lives or they lose their jobs. Drink with the boss after work, never turn down overtime or a business trip… going against the grain isn’t really accepted here.”

“So he just didn’t show up for work and they called?”