Japantown Read Free Page B

approached me. He had heard of my inquiries and asked to see the kanji, then insisted on anonymity before he would speak. I consented. Three years ago, he told me, he had seen the same kanji next to a body in a suburban park in Hiroshima, and it had also been found at another murder site in Fukuoka fifteen years earlier. But my only witness was clearly terrified of something and vanished before I could drag any further details out of him.
    Renna knew about my hunt for the kanji—he and Miriam had watched Jenny during my crazed string of trips to Japan, comforting her while her father communed more with the dead than with the living.
    I said to the lieutenant, “Is a closer look possible?”
    He shook his head. “Can’t move it yet. Can’t allow you inside the tape. But from here, you think it’s the same?”
    “Ninety percent chance.”
    “What’ll close the deal?”
    “Need to see it without the blood.”
    Before Renna could reply, someone near the patrol cars shouted for him. Muttering under his breath, Renna stalked off and dove into a huddle with a plainclothes detective. They exchanged some words I couldn’t hear, after which Renna signaled to a female detective with cinnamon-brown hair, good muscle tone, and no makeup. She separated from the crowd.
    “Sir?”
    “Corelli,” Renna said, “have you done this before?”
    “Twice, sir.”
    “Okay. Listen up. I want teams of two knocking on any door with lights. As soon as it’s decent, say six, hit the rest. Get warm bodies up Buchanan checking the apartment complexes on both sides of the mall for witnesses. Hit anyplace on the hill that overlooks the crime scene. Send two teams to rip apart the Miyako Inn, where the vics were staying. Find out if anyone saw or heard anything and if any members of the family had contact with the staff. Talk to all shifts. Drag them out of bed if you have to. Got that?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    I wondered if the police footwork would ferret out any useful information. Should the killer prove to be even half as elusive as the kanji, Renna’s efforts would lead nowhere.
    “Good. Next, bring me the hotel bill, luggage, and a computer printout of any calls in or out. Order a full workup on the rooms for prints and fiber and get onto the Japanese consulate for a list of any friends the vics might have in town, the state, the country. In that order.”
    “Okay.”
    “You find any walk-by witness yet?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Anyone in the coffee shop?”
    “No, but that’s where the deceased last ate. Tea and cake for the adults, sundaes for the kids. Third night running. They were on their way back to their rooms when they got hit.” She pointed to the Miyako Inn’s blue sign beyond the far end of the pedestrian mall, glowing benignly behind the towering twin pillars of a red torii gateway designating the northern edge of the concourse.
    Torii were most often composed of two red, inward-leaning columns surging up into the sky and topped by a pair of horizontal rails. They were symbolic structures from Shinto, Japan’s indigenous religion, and usually mark the approach to a shrine, where sacred ground begins. This one was decorative and marked the north face of the Japantown mall, its placement at the boundary of a commercial district faintly sacrilegious.
    Renna pursed his lips. “But no witnesses?”
    “No.”
    “Who heard it?”
    “Most of the people in Denny’s, for starters. But this close to the projects, they either thought it was gangs or firecrackers.”
    In other words, no one was willing to venture into the night to confirm the source of the noise.
    “Okay, close off the area. Don’t let anyone out until our boys have their vitals and don’t let anyone in unless they have a note from God. Got it?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And Corelli?”
    “Sir?”
    “Did you call Bryant HQ for the rest of my people?”
    “That’s next on my list but—”
    Renna’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
    “It’s a lot of manpower.