Lady Joker, Volume 1 Kaoru Takamura (ereader ebook .TXT) 📖

judicial system. Shiroyama was in the position of a victim for the moment, but perhaps he had already predicted the eventual conflict of interests between the investigation and the company, for his face did not give the impression of someone who would be wholly dependent upon the police investigation.

With the press cameras chasing him, the police closed in around Shiroyama and they disappeared swiftly behind the doors. Goda stood up from the bench.

“So? What’s your opinion now that you’ve eyeballed him?” his partner quizzed him.

“Looks like a tough one to crack,” Goda replied.

“He’s making backroom deals, that’s what I see on his face,” his partner remarked, but Goda’s ruminations had stopped short of such a judgment, and he could neither agree nor disagree. Since he knew next to nothing about the corporate society to which a great many Japanese people belonged, upon further reflection, Goda did not feel confident that his eye could accurately appraise the expression of the president of a huge company like Hinode Beer. And now, having gone out of his way to duck into this random clinic just to glimpse the face of a victim of abduction and unlawful confinement, his only true impression was a renewed sense of suffocation at the constrains of his own life.

Goda went along with his partner back to the bus stop at the north exit of the station and waited for the bus. The subject of their inquiry this morning was a resident of the Hibarigaoka public housing complex whom they had been unable to reach. The license plate of the van for which said resident had filed a stolen vehicle report one month ago had been found affixed to a different-make van that was listed as an abandoned vehicle in Kita City two weeks earlier. While the precinct had attempted to locate the owner of the abandoned vehicle with the switched license plate, that van also disappeared without a trace. Both of those cars were white, unlike the dark-colored vehicle that had been witnessed in the alley near the scene of the crime.

“By the way, Goda-san. Did you have a secret chat with old man Anzai outside the third-floor bathroom?”

As his partner mumbled this question, Goda felt a sudden irritation at being checked up on, and he spat out, “You jealous?”

“The guys from MPD’s Second Investigation were watching you two from the stairway, you know. Word is Anzai’s older brother is a lawyer in Fukushima and a card-carrying member of the Japanese Communist Party,” whispered his partner.

Hearing this, Goda could now understand why Inspector Anzai had to pay his dues on the lower rungs of an anti-communist organization like the police force, but the person whom Goda felt wary of was not Anzai but his own partner, who had gotten wind of this Japanese Communist Party chatter from who knows where.

Goda looked at his partner and mustered a bitter laugh. “Makes me wonder just what our organization is doing . . .”

“Ain’t that the truth.” His partner shrugged with an equally forced laugh and then yawned.

Goda looked away, summoning what little patience he had left as he tried to figure out who was in the wrong. By now, the select members of SIT and Second Investigation at the center of the case must be sharpening their minds to a razor focus to grasp every detail of the incident, and while those on the fringes like him and his partner stood here yawning, still others were engaged in a game of collusion that had nothing to do with to the crime itself.

久保晴久　Haruhisa Kubo

As he silenced the beeping of the pager on his hip with his left hand, Haruhisa Kubo noted the time on his wristwatch first—11:51 a.m.—then looked at the number displayed on the LCD of his pager. The person was calling from a private cell phone. His colleagues on either side stole a glance his way.

Kubo hoped that the call would take no more than a minute and, setting aside his unfinished draft for the third edition, he picked up the receiver for the outside line. “Takeuchi-san? This is Kubo,” he said when the call went through.

“You guys must have it rough over there, too.” Takeuchi’s tone was somewhat leisurely. Takeuchi was from Marunouchi Police Department, and a police beat reporter and his source were not on equal ground, which always made it a little difficult for them to be on the same wavelength. Even without bridging that gap, though, it was second nature—an unconditioned response—for the reporter to answer a call from a source.

Glaring at the clock, Kubo’s irritation mounted. Restlessness crept into his voice as he responded, “Yeah, I guess,” so he forced himself to sound calmer. “Thanks for calling. Where are you now?”

“Out making the rounds,” Takeuchi said. “I was watching TV this morning. Kubo-san, Saturday night on the phone, you asked if there was anything worth checking out in corporate relations. A younger colleague of mine used to work in records for CID at Shinagawa Police Department up until two years ago . . .”

“Oh, that sounds promising. I can accommodate his schedule—please set it up.”

“The name’s Kitagawa. He’s an assistant inspector now at Fukagawa Police Department. Apparently there was an incident with Hinode a few years back.”

Just hearing that Hinode might have been involved in something made his voice rise with eagerness. “That’s fantastic, thanks for introducing me!”

“Who knows if it’ll be useful, but the earlier the better for you, right? I’ll reach out to Kitagawa and call you back this afternoon. You said it’s best to call after two?”

“Yes, thanks again for everything. I’ll wait to hear from you.”

“Fine. Later then.”

At this early stage, a reporter had no right or reason to criticize the content of the information supplied by a source. That unequal ground on which they stood often meant they were focused on different things, too, but the content was best judged once it was in hand, and until then his priority was to take the call, keep alert, remember to