The Gate of Sorrows Page 17

  “I understand she draws a lot of pictures like that,” Kotaro said.

  Ms. Sato studied the drawing and gave a small nod. “She’s done nothing like this recently.”

  “Could you show it to her?”

  Ms. Sato turned to Nagasaki and Masao. “Is this really necessary?”

  Nagasaki looked at Masao, who lobbed the question back at her. “Do you think showing it to the child will hurt her?”

  “I don’t know. But I’d like to avoid it.” She turned back to Kotaro. “It took so long for her to start drawing cheerful pictures.”

  But something unexpected happened. Mana reached out and touched the picture.

  “Mana-chan?” Ms. Sato said to the child.

  Mana’s fingers brushed the edge of the birdman’s wings. She stared wide-eyed at the image she had drawn. Kotaro looked at her steadily. “Please give it to her.” The woman hesitated. “Please.”

  Mana grasped the edge of the sketch. Her fist was tiny, but her grip was resolute. To Kotaro, it looked like she was asking for it.

  “That’s right, you drew this picture, didn’t you?” Ms. Sato humored the child as she tried to tug the drawing out of her hand. But the girl just grasped it more tightly.

  “Ms. Sato wasn’t happy when we included this picture in the exhibit,” Nagasaki said, “but it seemed to me this was the one Mana liked the best. Hatsuko said so too. We all went to see it when it was at the post office.”

  “How did she react?” asked Kotaro.

  “She didn’t say a thing, so we weren’t sure, but she reached out to touch it, just like she’s doing now.”

  Kotaro sensed that something had entered Mana’s eyes and buried itself in her heart. By drawing what she’d seen, over and over, she had freed her heart. Now that something was outside her again. It had left her. Confirming this by looking at the picture made her feel safe. Wasn’t that it?

  Kenji, I think you were right. Mana had seen it with her own eyes.

  “Mana-chan?” Kotaro whispered softly. He pointed to the birdman and spoke slowly. “What is that?”

  Her eyes gazed at the picture, two pure orbs of deep brown crystal. Kotaro had never seen a child with such unblinking eyes.

  Her lips trembled. “Is a monster.”

  Everyone in the room started in astonishment. Kotaro’s palms were damp with excitement.

  “Yes, that’s a monster. You must’ve been scared.” Mana didn’t answer. She stared at the picture.

  “Where is the monster?”

  No answer.

  “Can you tell me where it came from?”

  Mana blinked. Her eyes shone. Now they were fixed on Kotaro. Her gaze struck him like an arrow. He nearly gasped.

  She opened her right hand, dropped the crayon and raised her index finger. The tiny nail was a healthy pink. She thrust the finger toward the ceiling.

  “Sky.”

  The six-mat apartment where Mana lived with her mother was vacant, but when Hatsuko loaned Kotaro the key, she grumbled about having to show the apartment to a “stranger.” The gap between her luxurious living conditions and the rathole that was Asahi House probably had her feeling a bit guilty.

  “Managing rental units can be very trying,” Masao mumbled apologetically, trying to cover for sentiments he certainly didn’t share.

  Kotaro stood at the window. The winter sun streamed into the room. It was already low. The putty around the windowpanes was old and broken in spots. Frigid wind whistled through the gaps. Mana had stood here while her mother lay behind her on the floor, hurrying toward death.

  She had been here when she saw it. Kotaro saw it too.

  “What is that?”

  He pointed to a four-story building with a shape like a truncated tower. Asahi House stood on a small rise, and the round building was squarely in the center of the window.

  “Is that in Ida too?”

  “Yes. Let’s see, what is that …” Masao shaded his eyes and peered at the building. “There’s a statue on the roof,” he said. “A gargoyle, maybe. I hear it’s well-known in the neighborhood. The owner must’ve had strange tastes.”

  “Is it an office building?”

  “No. It’s empty now.”

  A winged monster crouched on the roof of the deserted tower.

  Is a monster.

  This was what Mana saw. This was what Kenji had gone looking for.

  4

  Shigenori Tsuzuki sat near the emergency room admissions desk at West Shinjuku General Hospital. Tae Chigusa’s niece sat next to him. She was a beautiful woman with the same eyes and gaze as Tae, but her symmetrical features were lined with fatigue. Shigenori was not surprised; it was 10:30 a.m. and she had been here since early morning, beset with worry and tension.

  That morning, just after the note from Yamacho, Shigenori had sent Tae a message. After an hour with no answer, he sent her another. He was anxious to make sure she was okay.

  Thirty minutes passed with no response. He telephoned. No answer. Perhaps she didn’t feel like reading messages or using her phone just now. Shigenori could understand that, but he needed to hear her voice.

  He decided to visit her. It would be enough to speak to her through the lobby intercom. He was putting his arms through the sleeves of his jacket when he got a call from Shigeru Noro.

  “Shigenori, I thought you ought to know that Tae was taken to the emergency room this morning around five o’clock.”

  Shigenori froze.

  “Luckily she was conscious when the medical team got to her. She used her emergency call button and they came right away. Her building has a contract with a security company. I’m on the list of people to contact if something happens to her.”

  “What’s her condition?”

  “I don’t know the details. I was about to go over there myself.”

  “I’d like to go too.”

  Shigeru swung by Shigenori’s apartment and the two men hurried to the emergency room. A man with the security company logo on his jacket was talking to a nurse.

  “She’s in the operating room,” he told them. “It looks like she had a heart attack.”

  Tae had a number of medical conditions. One of them was hardening of the arteries. According to the security rep, her home caregiver had gone to her condo to pick up her collection of medications.

  “We got in touch with her niece in Yokohama. She’s on the way.”

  “Thanks for all your help. You’ve done a wonderful job.” Shigeru bowed gratefully. “If you hadn’t come right away, she might not have made it.”

  “When the team arrived, she was conscious and talking, but her speech was slurred. They weren’t sure what she was trying to say.”

  “Did she seem frightened at all?” Shigenori asked. “Like she’d had a shock of some kind?”

  The security rep and Shigeru exchanged curious glances.

  “For someone her age, any kind of shock or surprise could put a strain on the heart. A loud noise, for example. Or maybe she stumbled and fell.”

  “Sure, that must be what happened,” Shigeru said.

  Shigeru was a kind man and eager to help, but digging for information and connecting the dots was not his strong point. The fact that Tae’s condo looked directly out onto the gargoyle seemed to have completely slipped his mind. Half out of guilt, half with relief, Shigenori averted his eyes.

  About an hour later, after the security rep had gone, Tae’s niece Shizuko had arrived. Once the introductions were over, Shigeru left to tend to his shop. Now Shigenori and Shizuko were waiting for the operation to end.

  Perhaps she found the silence uncomfortable; though Shigenori hadn’t asked, she kept talking about her relatives. She was the eldest daughter of Tae’s late husband’s younger brother, and worked at a large trading company. Her last name was also Chigusa, a
nd from what she said, Shigenori inferred that she was unmarried.

  “My father is gone too. My mother doesn’t get along with Tae. She never has.”

  “Have you contacted her son?”

  “He told me to ‘look after her.’ ” Shizuko sounded bitter. “I’m sure he’s busy. He won’t come back to Japan—unless there’s a funeral.”

  For a moment, Shigenori saw vividly why Tae seemed so lonely.

  “I guess that means you’re the relative she’s closest to.”

  “I wouldn’t say we’re close.”

  “Did you notice anything different about her recently?”

  “Different? How do you mean?”

  “Just that—different. Did she mention anything to you that seemed odd, for example?”

  Shizuko cocked her head and looked at him as though the question were utterly absurd. For Shigenori, that was answer enough.

  What had happened to Tae this morning?

  I’m afraid to look outside.

  She had called at 3:22 a.m. and collapsed roughly two hours later.

  At 5 a.m. in early January, it would still have been dark outside her windows. Perhaps there’d been a faint line of dawn on the eastern horizon, but that would’ve been all.

  Still, five o’clock was morning. It was not the middle of the night. Tae would have decided she couldn’t be afraid forever, remembered her promise to Shigenori, calmed down, forced herself to put a hand on the blackout curtains. She wouldn’t have had the courage to fling them open. Just part them a tiny bit, take a quick peek outside—

  And she saw something. It was enough to make her collapse with shock. Her heart attack must have been caused by that shock.

  What did she see? Was the gargoyle actually moving? Flapping its wings? Dancing in the predawn darkness?

  It might have been a hallucination. She hadn’t been in a normal state of mind. People see all kinds of things when they’re afraid. They see what they fear to see.

  It didn’t matter. However things actually happened, Shigenori’s responsibility was no less.

  The operation wasn’t over until after noon. Tae’s life had been saved, but her condition was serious. She would be in intensive care for some time.

  While Shizuko went to see her aunt, Shigeru dropped by again. When he heard Shigenori’s description of Tae’s condition, his shoulders sagged with disappointment. “It’s hard, you know. She’s younger than I am. I hate to see this happen to younger people.”

  Shizuko returned from the ICU. Her face was streaked with tears. “She looked so small lying there. It’s like she suddenly shrank.”

  Shigenori’s guilt sank like poison into his bones.

  “Did the security rep give you the key to Tae’s condo?” Shigeru’s voice was gentle.

  “Yes …”

  “You should go there and take a rest. I’ll stay here while you’re gone. If anything happens, I’ll call you.”

  “I’ll take her over there,” Shigenori said. Shizuko demurred, but Shigenori was insistent. Together they left the hospital.

  “There’s something I have to tell you,” he said along the way. “It’s somewhat unpleasant, so I’ll speak quietly.”

  Shizuko blinked her swollen eyes in puzzlement.

  “I’d appreciate it if you could let me take a look around your aunt’s condo. You see—”

  Shigenori explained his background as a detective, and that he was helping Shigeru, the chairman of the district association, with crime prevention.

  “Maybe she saw someone on her balcony. Or perhaps there was a strange noise outside her window. I just can’t shake the feeling that something startled your aunt.”

  Shizuko was visibly perturbed. “Should I notify the police?”

  “I’d like to take a look first, if I might. I could be wrong, after all.”

  “All right, then. Please have a look.”

  Shigenori regretted deceiving this woman who had no idea what was going on. But he had to stand at that window one more time. What sort of pose would the monster show him today? Would anything be different?

  What he’d just told Shizuko was not totally false. Tae had been frightened. And she’d sensed something outside her window.

  The security company had locked the condo door securely. To get in, they’d had to cut the chain. There was a notice pasted on the inside of the door confirming that they had been there and cut the chain. Very professional, thought Shigenori.

  “Please, come in.” Shizuko offered him a pair of slippers and took her smartphone out of her bag. She’d turned it off at the hospital; she probably had mails and messages to attend to. Shigenori left her peering intently at her phone and approached the living room window.

  The blackout curtains were open. He pulled the lace curtains aside.

  The tea caddy building stood under a bright blue winter sky, framed by the West Shinjuku skyline. There was the gargoyle. To Shigenori’s eye, the statue hadn’t moved an inch since yesterday. Even the angle of the great scythe handle projecting above the statue’s right shoulder was the same.

  It’s outside my window. It doesn’t want me to see.

  It was just a statue. A decoration.

  Strange noises several times while working.

  He said a huge, black bird flew over his head.

  Your “intruder” isn’t a bird, is it?

  Now it looked like a monster.

  I’ve got no choice. I’ve got to go back up there, Shigenori thought. His mind made up, he was about to turn away from the window when he saw something on the glass.

  It was low down on one of the panes on the right, at about waist height. There was a built-in shelf under the window that Tae had decorated with a large flower vase. Shigenori hadn’t noticed that part of the window at first because the vase partially obscured it.

  He doubted his eyes. He blinked several times and rubbed them with his fists, but it was still there. It hadn’t disappeared. It would not go away.

  A handprint.

  A hand had pressed against the outside of the pane. At this height off the ground. In that place.

  How could anyone explain the size of that hand? The length of the fingers? A hand twice as large as Shigenori’s.

  The hand of a monster.

  Suddenly Shigenori knew. He could read the sign.

  I am here. I am not a dream. Not one of your hallucinations, not a trick of the eye. I am here.

  It’s outside my window.

  It had been indeed. Tae had spoken the truth.

  “Well, this is rather sudden.”

  Toshiko looked skeptical as she watched Shigenori pack a small Boston bag. It was a prize possession from his days as a detective and always accompanied him on trips or when he had to spend a night on stakeout duty. It was great to have it out again.

  “Someone had to cancel. It would be a shame to waste the reservation.”

  “But can you travel? Your leg—”

  “That’s why they didn’t invite me in the first place. But someone canceled, so they contacted me. I don’t think they expected me to say yes.”

  To discover the truth, Shigenori would have to stake out the roof under cover of darkness. When night fell, he would use Yamacho’s key to enter the building, and find a good spot to stand watch until morning.

  He didn’t want to think about tomorrow, when he’d have to return with stories about a trip that never took place, but there was no alternative. A group of former colleagues was planning a hot-springs jaunt to Hakone. Someone had fallen ill and had to cancel. That’s how he got the invitation at the last minute. A likely cover story.

  “Well, a spa wouldn’t be bad for your leg,” Toshiko said with a distinct lack of cheer. “I wonder how long it’s been since I—”

  “When my leg is healed, I promise I’ll t
ake you.”

  “All right, whatever you say. I’ll look forward to it in the meantime.”

  “One more thing. It might not look good for me to be traipsing off to a spa with Tae laid up in the hospital. I’d be embarrassed to have Shigeru find out. Let’s keep this a secret. I’ll tell him when I get back.”

  “I don’t think you need to feel so obligated to the association.”

  “I just want to observe the niceties.”

  Toshiko was channel surfing as they spoke. Shigenori couldn’t see the screen from where he was, but every program sounded like it was covering the same news. The announcers sounded tense.

  “What are you watching?”

  “It’s the same on every channel. They found the fourth victim.”

  Shigenori straightened up in surprise. “The fourth—you mean the serial killer who’s been cutting people’s toes off?”

  “Yes. But this time it’s not a toe, it’s the whole leg below the right knee. It’s just terrible.” Toshiko frowned in disgust. Even as the wife of a policeman, her reaction to something like this was the same as anyone else’s.

  Shigenori closed his bag and shuffled on his tingling leg into the living room. The TV camera was focused on a small, run-down gas station.

  “This time it’s Totsuka. He keeps getting closer to Tokyo.”

  “When did they start reporting this?”

  “About noon I think. At first they didn’t know who it was. Now they’re saying it was a pharmacist from Kawasaki. She had a three-year-old son,” Toshiko said with a pained look. “They’d better capture the killer soon. I remember you once said the prefectural police in Kanagawa were top-notch.”

  Shigenori grunted absentmindedly. His eyes were fixed on the TV, which now showed a long shot of a detached restroom screened by blue sheeting, with forensics team members going in and out.

  “The restroom is beyond that blue sheeting,” the announcer said. “We can’t see what’s going on, but it’s a separate structure behind the gas station.”

  The camera moved slightly to bring a reporter with a microphone into the frame. He was so excited that little drops of spittle flew out of his mouth occasionally.