Ryusuke had wanted to go after Kageyama immediately. As soon as they got back to Hiroshima, the young detective offered to do all the paperwork to get them a warrant to search the Kageyama Medical Group's main facility. But Toshiro knew better, he knew all they had was the word of an old professor, they needed a lot more if they were going to go after the biggest medical research group in Japan. This is why Toshiro found himself headed to Okayama.
One of the widows of the purported pediatricians returned his call, the husband of Manami Shibata. According to his research, Shibata was a well-respected pediatrician who graduated top of her class at Okayama University Medical School. All the other doctors whom the professor told them about had similar pedigrees; well-respected, unassuming pediatricians.
"You think this guy will have anything for us?" Ryusuke asked.
"Almost definitely. He seemed eager to meet on the phone. Says there's no way his wife would have killed herself, he wants to tell us his side of the story." Toshiro explained as they drove down the highway towards Okayama.
"Everyone who has a loved one who commits suicide says that. They're too close to the person to see the depression creeping in and taking hold." Ryusuke argued.
"That may be, but mister Shibata is convinced that his wife was in a perfect, healthy state of mind when the purported suicide occurred. Says they were trying to have kids." Ryusuke explained.
"If the guy was so chatty on the phone, why didn't you just complete the interview there?"
"Says he has something we need to see. Besides, In-person interviews are better, you get to look them in the eye and that helps you decide if they're telling the truth or not, or if they're holding something back."
"Couldn't you just use your power on the phone to get all that?"
"No, I tried. It didn't work over the phone."
"Ohhh, wow. Maybe it has something to do with the electromagnetic field made by the phone. Maybe magnets are your weakness, like kryptonite!" Ryusuke joked.
Toshiro grunted a laugh.
"No, I don't think that's it. It's like he had no presence on the phone, I didn't hear any of the usual 'waves' coming from him that normally draw me in." Toshiro said.
They finally reached the Shibata residence a little after noon. The modern design boasted of an above-average income and the clean neighborhood suggested a nice place for kids to grow up. The two men walked back up the walkway shaped like a river that cut through the neatly kept grass. Plants of all kinds sprouted a cornucopia of color along the flower beds at the fringes of the house.
Toshiro rang the doorbell, and a moment later, the door opened.
"Hello." The strapping young widow greeted them with a squirrely demeanor, he scanned the street behind them. Toshiro noticed his handsome face showed the ravages of grief.
Bags under the eyes, red circles around them from rubbing, face drawn from rapid weight loss.
"Hello, thank you for having us. I'm Detective Nakagawa, we spoke on the phone. This is Detective Tamaguchi, he's my partner."
"Ah, yes, the pleasure is all mine. Thank you for coming, I'm glad the justice system hasn't given up on my wife." He said with a face full of determination. "Please, come in." He bowed and gestured into the home.
The detectives returned the bow and followed his pointing hand into the well-manicured home.
"What do you mean?" Ryusuke asked, as soon as the front door shut.
"Your partner must have told you, I believe that my wife wouldn't kill herself." The young widow closed and locked the door with authority, and blew past the detectives into the living room.
The detectives followed him. They put on the slippers provided and walked past walls lined with newspaper clippings of a smiling woman in a lab coat holding children or using a stethoscope on babies. Toshiro paused and looked at all the memorabilia.
He's been doing his own investigation, he definitely knows something...
"It just doesn't add up." The widow continued. "The coroners and local police all went against me, however, they said I was being hysterical, that the grief was making me forget all the signs." The young widow couldn't contain his anger and lashed out at the air as he spoke.
"I see. I'm sorry to have upset you, please, tell me, what's all this" Ryusuke apologized.
Good, he's noticed too. She wasn't small-time, that's for sure. She's in the paper more than the mayor! And this house must've cost more than my salary. Maybe she had her own practice? Wealthy patients?
"Manami never liked being in the paper," The widow saw what the detectives were looking at and walked up to present his case, "she said the photographers always got her bad side." The young widow said.
The detective turned and looked at the young man, tears welling in his eyes, about to burst.
"Forgive me, Mr. Shibata. I was just curious, an occupational hazard." Toshiro joked.
"It's fine. And please, call me Eiji."
"Mr. Shi- I mean, Eiji, my partner tells me you have something to show us?" Ryusuke asked, injecting himself into the conversation.
"Ah, yes, of course. This way please." Eiji motioned and the detectives followed him down a hallway decorated with family photos.
They came to a room cluttered with file cabinets and documents, a desk too big for the room with a computer on top, and a wide-open window, all of it tied together by a document that hung proudly on the wall 'Manami Shibata, P.h.D, University of Okayama Medical School'.
Eiji went around the desk and motioned for the detectives to follow.
"Look at this, seems like a normal desk, right? Wrong." Eiji crouched down under the desk and the detectives followed suit.
The young widower pushed a section of the desk's underbelly and released the pressure, causing a small compartment to open, hanging from the bottom of the desk.
"A secret compartment!" Ryusuke gasped.
"Exactly." Eiji confirmed. "But that's not all." The widow reached into the small compartment and found a USB flash drive. "I found this when I was cleaning, I've tried to open it to get a look inside, but the damn thing is password protected."
"Hidden in a secret compartment and password protected? You don't have to have any formal police training to see that whatever is on that drive was extremely valuable to your wife." Toshiro noted. "Why show it to us?"
Eiji's face became grim.
"Because you weren't looking for it." He answered.
"Wait, what do you mean?" Ryusuke jumped in.
"I mean that the police turned the room upside down when she...first passed. Then men in suits came and took her laptop saying it had copywritten material on it. They also wanted any of Manami's thumb drives and external hard drives. I didn't think she had any, so I told them that. But then I got curious and poked around only to find this. Those people were after something, you're not." Eiji finished.
"No way! The men in suits, who did they say they were with?" Ryusuke gasped.
"They refused to answer. Just shoved some damn business card in my face and said Manami worked for their client." Eiji shook his head.
Toshiro and Ryusuke exchanged a look that neither of them needed telepathy to understand.
Kageyama.
"Mr. Shibata, I don't mean to pry in this difficult time, but we're you aware of any of your wife's moonlighting activities?" Toshiro asked.
"Yeah, she told me she took a consulting job at Kageyama Medical Research to save up for our future child, but she said she signed contracts that made it so she couldn't tell me more." The widower explained. Toshiro nodded in understanding.
Interesting. So Kageyama is irrefutably involved. I was worried the old man might have been a fraud or senile and the pediatricians were just a wild goose chase. But this confirms it. There's no way it's a coincidence that a chemical engineer and a pediatrician were both working on a classified Kageyama project and both ended up dead.
"Eiji, did you notice any changes in your wife's behavior in the time leading up to her death?" Toshiro asked. Tears started back up in the young man's eyes.
"She...she couldn't sleep. After she started moonlighting, she would come home late and stay awake for hours alone. And then there were the dreams..."
"What dreams?" Ryusuke prompted eagerly, he could smell a lead coming and hadn't yet developed the poker face of a veteran detective like Toshiro. The young man shook his head.
"She would talk in her sleep about a monster, something coming to get her. She would wake up screaming sometimes. I thought it was just stress. Do you think it's at all related?" Eiji sobbed.
"There's no way to tell yet, but your information is definitely helping." Toshiro explained. "Do you mind if we take this? It could have evidence on it." Eiji nodded at Toshiro's request and began handing over the flash drive, but he stopped short.
"On one condition: you don't use police computer specialists to open it. Only an independent contractor or other third party. There's no telling what could happen if this ended up in the wrong hands." Eiji's face was so serious that Toshiro knew there was no point in arguing.
"Deal." He said, and the small flash drive fell into the detective's hands. "That'll be all for today. Thank you again for your invaluable help." Toshiro said. He and Ryusuke bowed.
"Don't thank me yet, detective. Your work is not done. Call me as soon as you have the flash drive unlocked, I want answers as soon as possible." Eiji said.
"Of course." And with that, the two detectives headed back to their car.
Inside the car, Toshiro stared at the little thumb drive.
"You think it'll help us?" Ryusuke asked.
"Almost certainly. I didn't have to read Eiji's mind to see he was earnest, the police and those men in suits did come looking for this, that means there has to be something of interest on it." Toshiro explained.
"Right! God, this case just goes deeper and deeper! How exciting!" Ryusuke almost squealed.
"No. Take advice from an old-timer like me: you don't want interesting cases, you want boring ones. The interesting ones almost always get you in trouble." Toshiro said, still looking at the small piece of plastic. Then, at the edge of his hearing, he heard a crash. The tinkling of broken glass. Ryusuke heard it too, and the two men looked at each other to confirm their suspicion.
It came from Shibata's house.
The detectives sprung into action and leaped from their vehicle. There was no time to ring the doorbell to get the gate open so they hopped the fence. They reached the wooden door and Toshiro began banging on it.
"Police, open up! Eiji! Mr. Shibata! It's the detectives, open the door!" But there was no reply. And so, Ryusuke and Toshiro nodded at one another and Toshiro stepped aside and in one swift front kick near the knob, Ryusuke blew the door off its hinges and the men swarmed inside with guns drawn. Toshiro heard grunting coming from the office and commanded Ryusuke to follow him in the direction of the noise.
There in the office, a man in a black mask was sitting on top of Eiji, trying to force a knife into the face of the widower.
"Police! Drop your weapon or we'll shoot!" Toshiro demanded. The man in the mask did not heed his words and instead began pressing the knife down towards Eiji's face with renewed vigor.
"Stop or we'll shoot!" Toshiro demanded again. Still no obedience from the masked man.
Damn it. Forgive me, Sango.
Toshiro fired blasts into the man's back, knocking him clear off Eiji and making him lose a grip on his knife. Toshiro charged in and cuffed the masked man and lifted his shirt to inspect the wounds.
A vest! He's wearing a vest! Thank god...
Toshiro had the presence of mind to try and listen to the man's thoughts as he heard Ryusuke helping Eiji.
Come on. Find the tide. Focus on the waves. Push into them, and......
Ow, damn it! Bastard cop! Damned pig! He shouldn't be here! I don't want to die. But what will they do if I don't follow instructions? It's probably worse than prison. Damn...never thought I'd go out like this..... gotta bite down, so long world.
"Open your mouth, you son of a bitch!" Toshiro screamed, turning the masked man over. "Open, damn it! Open your goddamn mouth!" Toshiro forced the man's lips apart with his fingers, but it was too late. The masked man was foaming at the lips, his eyes hollow, and the waves of his mind vanished.
Local police were on the scene within minutes after Toshiro's call. They took the masked man away on a gurney and treated Eiji on the scene for a small defensive cut on his arm.
"Good thing you were here, detectives. I know that masked man all too well. Nobu Aoyama, multiple charges of armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. A real piece of work. I know this probably isn't just to say, but I'll sleep better knowing he's off the streets for good." The beat cop explained.
"No problem, all in a day's work." Ryusuke said.
"You said that man was a hardened criminal?" Toshiro asked.
"Oh, yeah. Real psycho, never any chance of rehabilitation. I'd wager he spent more time in prison than out of it."
"Right, thank you, officer. I'm sure you're more than capable of handling things from here." Toshiro said. The two detectives bowed and headed back to the car. Once inside, Toshiro started the engine and drove off.
"Something wrong?" Ryusuke asked.
"I read the assassin's mind before he died."
"No way, that's amazing! Did you get any leads?"
"Something like that. The officer outside told us that the man was a career criminal with a violent streak, right?"
"Sure enough, yeah."
"Well, when I was in his head, he was scared shitless. Absolutely terrified. But not of prison, of 'they'." Toshiro explained as he got on the highway back to Hiroshima.
"Who is 'they'? Kageyama?" Ryusuke pondered.
"There's no saying for certain, but if it isn't Kageyama, I'm willing to turn in my badge and gun."
Back at the station, Toshiro was dismayed to see the sea of reporters outside of the building.
"What the hell are they doing here?!" Ryusuke lamented.
"They must've already heard about the suicide pill, newspapers have informants in all of the local stations, if it bleeds, it leads." Toshiro stepped out of the car and Ryusuke followed quickly behind. Like a shark smelling blood in the water, the sea of reporters turned and went into a frenzy.
"Detective Nakagawa! Io Masamura, with the NHK, is it true you caused a suspect to have a seizure?!" A woman shouted. Around them, cameras went off by the dozens, and cell phones with recording apps came at Toshiro's face from all angles.
"What? No! You need to fire your informant." Toshiro answered, bullying his way through the crowd.
"Detective Tamaguchi! Hiroshima Free Press, what's the status of the hunt for the Harrowing of Hiroshima?"
"That matter is being investigated by top men, Nakagawa and I are just two members of the team, there's a lot going on behind the scenes so we don't have all the information."
They were nearing the entrance now, the crowd got even louder as they knew their time for badgering would soon be up. Questions came so loudly and so quickly that they couldn't be answered.
"Any word on a motive?!"
"When will the killer strike next?!"
"Are these killings possibly occult related?!"
"Detective Nakagawa, don't you think the missing status of your daughter is affecting your ability to investigate a case centered around missing children?"
Toshiro stopped cold with boiling blood and turned to see that fat prick, Goro Kikuchi standing there, bold as ever, with a shit-eating grin on his shiny, pustule-plastered face. Toshiro felt Ryusuke's hands on him, trying to restrain him, but the bigger man shrugged off his partner. Toshiro threw a straight left that landed square between the eyes of the fat bastard, smashing his glasses, causing a fountain of blood to erupt from his nose, and sending him to the floor.
"Any of you bastards bring up my kid again and I'll smash you like I did this slime ball! You hear me? You hear me, you sons of bitches?!" Toshiro roared at the frightened crowd, none of which stopped filming for a second.
"Damn it, Toshiro!" Ryusuke cried over the roar of the crowd and their cameras.
The junior detective dragged Nakagawa backward through the door, where two officers slammed it shut and braced themselves against it.
"Helluva shot, Detective!" One of the young blood officers shouted, his back against the door.
"Thanks, I used to box back in high school." Toshiro said, nursing his hand.
"Don't encourage him, Fujioka, he's enough trouble as is." Ryusuke said, grabbing his partner and dragging him back towards the office.
Toshiro couldn't help but smile. He knew he'd be in trouble, but the fact that that shot would be all over the news for the next week would also show all the reporters that talking about Chihiro was off-limits.
"What the hell was that?! I know Goro deserved that, probably more, but you can't hit journalists!" Ryusuke scolded.
"He brought up Chihiro, that damned rookie needed to learn some manners." Toshiro dismissed his partner's concerns with a wave of his hand.
"Look, I'm not saying his question was all that polite, but you're a detective on a high-profile murder case! You have to hold yourself to a higher standard or the public will lose faith and demand you get taken off the case!" Ryusuke slammed his fist into his desk.
"I know. I'm...sorry. I'll do whatever I can to mitigate any damage I caused, but right now, we need to focus on this Kageyama thing."
"You bet your ass that's what you'll do!" Ryusuke agreed. "You're not getting out helping me solve this puzzle so easily." He smirked. Toshiro chuckled along.
"Alright, what do you say tomorrow we go and have a talk with the director of the Kageyama Main Facility?"
"If you're still on the force, sure."