CHAPTER 5
Shinji
Wednesday morning, a welcoming breeze of icy mist greeted Shinji as Keiko flew toward him. He was so happy to see her, but struggled to play it cool because of all the non-supernatural officers surrounding them.
Keiko stopped in front of him, mouth curved in a wide smile. “It’s so good to see you! Was the trip productive?”
Shinji put his phone on silent, then placed it to his ear. “More or less. I have some journals that I’m hoping Kazuya will make sense of.” He headed toward Megumi’s robberies unit to leave the last of his reports before assisting the homicide unit. “How have things been?”
“I’ve been trying to find the victims’ ghosts and failing.
Scouted the area of their homes, too.” Keiko sighed.
“I wasn’t with Teruo when he first went to the crime scene, only went there afterwards and it’s just…
peculiar. Can’t put my finger on it. There were no signs of spirits.
And yet, the area gave me this odd feeling. ”
Shinji nodded, wondering what it was about the crime scene that gave both Teruo and Keiko strange feelings.
He’d have to go check it out himself, but he wanted to ask Teruo if they could see the victims’ bodies first. Dr. Suzuki likely hadn’t finished the autopsies yet, but he needed to see if there was anything on them invisible to the non-supernatural eye.
He wasn’t too optimistic, though, because reiryoku dispersed after a while, but better safe than sorry.
As he approached the unit’s briefing room, Megumi emerged with another officer, both absorbed in conversation. A soft gasp escaped Keiko and she watched Megumi as she walked toward her office.
Keiko didn’t spend time with Megumi anymore—not that Shinji knew of, and he refused to spy on Keiko, trusting she would do the right thing.
But the distance affected Keiko. She’d become noticeably quieter, spending the days focused on cases, and the nights cooped up with Teruo’s cats or at her sister’s place.
Shinji felt guilty, but didn’t know how to solve the situation without endangering Megumi.
Their bond was strong enough that Keiko’s presence negatively affected Megumi compared to everyone else that Keiko interacted with.
If the Onmyōryō found out, they’d order Shinji to send her to the other side and he wanted to avoid that.
Safest choice was for Keiko to keep her distance.
A snort brought Shinji out of his thoughts.
Inside the briefing room, a detective was glaring at him.
Shinji had gotten used to all sorts of looks ever since his relationship with Teruo came out—or rather, they were forced out.
He’d heard a few snide remarks here and there, but he was mostly just stared at, like a caged animal at a zoo.
Incidentally, the detective to whom he was supposed to pass the reports was the one who had snorted. He was older than Shinji, but of the same rank, and never missed a chance to offer his inappropriate thoughts out loud.
“Heard you’re going back to homicide,” he said. “Your boyfriend misses you already?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Keiko rolled her eyes.
Shinji offered him a pleasant smile, bowing in greeting.
“Chief Inspector Hayashi requires my assistance with a quadruple homicide.” He enunciated Teruo’s rank slowly, just in case the guy forgot who he was talking about.
“Here are my reports.” He offered the stack of papers and the guy grabbed them from Shinji’s hands.
“Or maybe he requires some other kind of assistance.”
“Can I pass through this idiot and give him chills?” Keiko asked.
Shinji would’ve loved that, but it wasn’t safe to do it. He kept his smile and added, “I wonder what your unit chief will think when she hears about the things you say to me.” If Megumi heard, she’d likely rip the guy a new one and make him bawl like a baby.
“Snitch,” he sneered.
“No. Snitching would be if I’d told the teacher you skipped class to smoke behind the school, but we’re not in high school, are we? So, knock it off, or I’ll file a harassment report.”
The guy muttered something unintelligible under his breath, and walked away, files tucked under his arm.
Shinji turned on his heel, releasing a frustrated breath, and headed to Teruo’s office.
“You should rethink letting me pass through that guy,” Keiko said.
“Believe me, I’d immensely enjoy it, but we can’t abuse our powers like that.”
Keiko let out a long sigh. “Fine… I’ll ruffle some papers when he’s alone.”
Shinji gave her a side eye, but she pretended not to see it. “Okay, ruffle papers.” He chuckled at Keiko’s triumphant “yes!” and opened the door to Teruo’s office.
Inside, Teruo and Nakagawa were sitting at her desk, both looking at something on her laptop.
“Good morning,” Shinji greeted. He loved the way Teruo’s scowl immediately turned into a beaming smile.
“Good morning.” Nakagawa bowed her head.
Shinji grabbed a chair and sat down. “Sorry I’m late. I got held up.”
“Don’t worry, you’re right on time.” Teruo’s eyes lingered on him for a bit longer, then he seemed to catch himself and cleared his throat. “We gathered more info about the victims and we have the preliminary reports.” He turned to Nakagawa and gave a nod.
“The forensic techs found several footprints, fingerprints and hair samples at the scene,” Nakagawa started. “They don’t belong to the victims, so they might belong to the criminal, but the techs couldn’t match the fingerprints to anyone in our system.”
“Any estimation for body type?” Shinji asked.
“Yes.” Nakagawa pulled another file. “Their height estimation is around 160 cm, and based on footprint depth, the person has a lighter weight.”
“Hm…” Keiko said. “That is interesting. And this short and possibly thin person managed to kill four people at the same time?”
Although Shinji couldn’t answer out loud, he was wondering the same, and likely Teruo was too.
That wasn’t to say the physical traits were necessarily an impediment, but the positions of the bodies suggested the perpetrator managed to overpower four people for long enough to poison them.
Or perhaps the criminal didn’t need to do that if the victims knew them?
But the entrance was forced open, so the victims didn’t let the criminal inside willingly.
“Were there any traces of gas at the scene?” Shinji inquired. “A type of gas that would bear similarities to how a poison attacks the body?”
“If there had been, it likely dissipated before we got there,” Teruo said. “The victims had been dead for two days when they were discovered. Since the lab’s still working on it, for now, we’ll focus on finding out if the four victims had any enemies.”
The profiles for the two taller men were in front of Shinji, so he dragged them closer to him. “Wada Toshio and Morimoto Hiroyuki, forty-four and forty-one, respectively, both unemployed.” He narrowed his eyes. “In fact, it seems they’ve never held a job since graduating high school.”
Teruo peeked at the files. “Any medical or other reasons they’re unemployed?”
“None mentioned here,” Shinji said. “But what’s strange is that both their addresses are located in pretty high-end residential areas. And, according to the forensics, their clothes are from expensive brands.”
“They could have wealthy family members helping them,” Teruo said. “Or a partner who’s supporting them financially. Or they could be into some shady law-skirting business. What about their next of kin?”
“Wada Toshio’s parents are alive,” Shinji continued. “Morimoto’s are deceased. And he’s a widower too. There’s no other info available about the two of them.”
Teruo jotted something down in his notepad. “All right. And the couple?”
Nakagawa took over. “They own a little neighborhood bakery. They’re both listed as the managers and they have six other employees. We can interview them. And both of their parents reside in Tōkyō.”
“Good.” Teruo nodded. “We’ll need to inform their families about their deaths and try to gather more information about who they used to hang around with, whether they have had encounters with gangsters, were threatened, had any debts, or anything else that would put us on the right track as to why they were murdered.
There’s something these four people have in common, and we have to find out what it is. ”
“Any surveillance footage?” Shinji inquired.
“None so far,” Teruo said.
Keiko leaned closer. “Two houses used to have cameras because I saw the wires, but they’d been cut.”
The cameras could’ve simply been turned off, but it seemed whoever cut them wanted to be extra sure there was no footage of the area available.
Shinji looked through the photographs of the victims, at their eyes and lips, and the peculiar tint of green rather than purple. “You sure they were poisoned?”
“Not sure.” Teruo shook his head. “Suzuki hasn’t sent the toxicology report yet.”
“It’s just…” Shinji blew a breath, staring at the photographs. “How were they poisoned? Was there any food or drinks at the scene?”
“One water bottle,” Teruo replied. “Tested with no trace of chemicals. But the victims were found by a food delivery man. The containers with the food were checked after Suzuki said it could be poison, and the results were negative. The customers who received food from that driver were also checked and they’re all well.
We verified the prints against the delivery man and he’s not a match.
But, honestly, I don’t think he has anything to do with it since the victims had been dead for two days before he arrived and he’s got an alibi for that time period. ”
“We checked the restaurants and the delivery app,” Nakagawa said. “No one complained about any issues with the food.”
“Okay…” Shinji folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. “So then, how were they poisoned? Well, it’s really poison,” he added.