Fallen Angel (9781101578810) Read online

  A muffled “No.”

  “Cheer up. There’ll be some great guys there.”

  “Like who?”

  “Like…the Suntory chairman’s son? And the guy Ichiro’s dad just put in charge of European wine buying for all the Mitsuyama department stores…”

  “Are they cute?”

  Yumi hesitated. Coco’s idea of “cute” had always meant guys who looked like Hoshi. None of Ichiro’s friends bleached their hair, wore anything racier than Armani, and only unbuttoned their shirts before taking a shower.

  Coco’s phone vibrated, lights dancing beneath the translucent pink casing. She picked it up and glanced at the caller ID.

  “Moshi-moshi.” A grin spread across her face and she sat up straight, instantly perky. “Oh, I’d love to talk to you, but I’m superbusy all day. Let me look at my calendar, though.” She paused and inspected her manicure while supposedly consulting her schedule. “Hey, I have an idea…there’s this party I’m invited to tonight—why don’t you come with me and we can talk there?” She listened. “Oh, come on. Good food, open bar. It’s at the Mitsuyama store in Nihonbashi.” A sly smile slowly spread across her face. “Great. I’ll meet you out front. Seven thirty? Ja, ne.”

  Hangover miraculously cured, she flipped her phone shut and forked up a big bite of cream puff. Popping it into her mouth, she said, “Guess what? Looks like I’ve got a date for tonight after all.”

  “Really? Who?”

  “Kenji Nakamura.”

  Chapter 10

  Saturday, November 9

  10:00 A.M.

  Kenji

  Kenji ended his call and rang the bell at apartment 202. No answer. He knew Cherry’s next-door neighbor was home—the drama-loving building manager had called him at 6:00 A.M.

  He pushed the bell again. This time he heard stumbling steps inside. The door cracked open. He caught a glimpse of tousled, bleached hair and sleepy eyes that widened as they registered the police ID he was displaying.

  “Just a minute,” she muttered, slamming the door shut.

  Kenji waited. Three minutes. Four. He pushed the bell again impatiently. This time it opened to reveal a pixyish woman in her early twenties, dressed in low-cut jeans and a pink T-shirt, her bleached hair pulled into a long, tangled ponytail, makeup hastily applied. She asked to see his ID again. After studying it, she cocked a hip and leaned against the doorjamb.

  Kenji told her he was looking into the death of her next-door neighbor and asked if she’d been home Friday night.

  She scratched absentmindedly at the small of her back and yawned. “Night before last? Yeah, after two I was. But I was sleeping. Or trying to sleep.”

  “Something woke you up?”

  “A couple of assholes having an argument.”

  “Outside, or in one of the neighboring apartments?”

  “Right outside my door.”

  “Men? Women?”

  “At least one of them was a woman.”

  “What were they fighting about?”

  “Who knows? Oh, yeah, now I remember. Astrology.”

  “Astrology?”

  “Yeah. I heard a woman shriek ‘hoshi uranai’ before I slammed my window shut and found my earplugs. It was two thirty in the morning, for God’s sake.”

  “Two thirty? You’re sure about the time?”

  “Two twenty-nine, to be exact. I checked so I’d know just how pissed off I should be.”

  Cherry Endo couldn’t have been dead yet when her neighbor heard the argument. Two people fighting outside would certainly have noticed a dead body sprawled at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Was one of them Miss Endo?”

  “Maybe, I dunno. I just wanted to go back to sleep.”

  “So you didn’t hear her fall down the stairs?”

  She yawned again and shook her head. “Didn’t hear a thing. Once I put my earplugs in, I have to set my phone on vibrate and sleep on top of it or I don’t even wake up when the alarm goes off.”

  That was certainly more than he needed to know. Kenji stepped back, bowed, and thanked her. She closed the door and the deadbolt slid into place with a fuck-you-for-waking-me-up snick.

  Next, he rapped on the door of 201. He’d called Cherry’s roommate, so she was expecting him, looking reassuringly plain in a baggy sweater and cargo pants. She invited him to sit at the low table and busied herself making tea in the kitchenette that occupied a corner of the room.

  Everything was so neat, so ordinary. He hadn’t expected girls working in the sex trade to have cheery daisy-printed curtains and keep their countertops wiped and tidy. Bookshelves held complete collections of the “girl comics” Hana to Yume and Otomen, and an incomplete set of Black Butler. Souvenirs from weekend getaways competed for shelf space with framed snapshots of Cherry and Kiku posed with friends and family. No pictures of Hoshi or other boyfriends. The furnishings weren’t expensive, but they were comfortable. A denim-slipcovered couch heaped with flowered pillows sat behind a coffee table stacked with Egg and Ageha fashion magazines; a modest television sat on a stand before an easy chair with the latest Black Butler splayed face down over the arm.

  Next to the front door stood a stack of boxes, neatly sealed.

  “Cherry’s parents are picking those up later,” Kiku explained, following his gaze. She set two teacups on the table and poured for Kenji, then herself. “They’re in Tokyo today to see about making arrangements to…to take her back to Chiba for the funeral.”

  Today? He was sure he’d have until Monday at least. Section Chief Tanaka must be really anxious to close the case if he’d agreed to meet them at the office on his day off to hand over the necessary paperwork. If Cherry’s body were released today, it might be cremated before Kenji was able to dig up evidence that her death wasn’t an accident. He’d never get the judicial autopsy needed to confirm his suspicions.

  “What time are they coming?”

  “They said they’d call first. Sometime this afternoon.”

  If he moved this interview right along, maybe he could get back to the station in time to convince Section Chief Tanaka not to release Cherry’s body.

  “Your next-door neighbor said she heard two people arguing around two thirty the night your roommate died. If one of them was Endo-san, do you have any idea who the other person might have been? A customer from her club, maybe? A boyfriend?”

  “Cherry didn’t have a boyfriend. It wasn’t allowed.”

  “What do you mean, ‘wasn’t allowed’? By whom?”

  “Her club. They have a strict policy—the girls have to be single. Boyfriends don’t really like it if they see their girl out with some other guy. Club Heaven had a problem a couple of years back when one of the hostesses was dating a guy who turned out to be a gangster. He and his yakuza friends came in and tore the place apart after he saw her out having dinner with one of her customers.”

  “Well, what about Endo-san’s customers? Did she ever talk about a guy she called The Zombie?”

  Kiku looked away. “Yeah. I know about him.”

  “And…?”

  “He’s a bad guy.”

  “What kind of bad guy?”

  “He…did something terrible to her.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. I asked her if she’d been raped and she said no, but…”

  When?”

  “The beginning of July. I came home from work and she was sitting in the shower, just sitting there, with the water pounding down. She’d been there for so long, I could barely see her through the steam. By the time I got there, the hot water had run out and she was shivering. I dried her off and got her some tea, but her teeth were chattering so badly, it was twenty minutes before she could talk about what happened.

  “She finally told me she’d been out with that guy, The Zombie. When he first chose her, she was excited because he was a big spender, but before long I could tell she dreaded going to work on the nights he’d made a reservation.”

 
“You think he forced her to have sex?”

  “No, but…I think he hurt her.” Kiku bit her lip. “The night I found her in the shower, she had a scratch on her chest that was bleeding, and she stayed home from work the next day, shut in her room. I told her she should tell her manager what a creep he was, but she said it was her job to entertain the club’s customers. She thought it was her fault she let herself get into a situation that got out of hand. She said if the club had to choose between her and a free-spending client, they wouldn’t pick her. And if she moved to another club, he’d just follow her. She figured it was safer to keep seeing him, but make sure she never let him take advantage of her again. And…”

  Kenji waited.

  Kiku sighed. “A package arrived from Cartier the next day. A pair of diamond earrings. Really nice ones.”

  “Diamond earrings? She wasn’t wearing them last night, was she?” Robbery was a powerful motive. Maybe someone sketchy had noticed her expensive jewelry.

  “No. She pawned them.”

  “How much?”

  “Two hundred thousand yen.”

  Kenji frowned. “And she kept seeing him?”

  Kiku nodded.

  “Did she have problems with him after that?”

  “Not that I know of. But…there were at least three more times she took presents he gave her to the pawn shop. And she started taking pills.”

  If Cherry had a drug problem, that would open up a new line of investigation. “What kind?”

  “I threw them out when I cleaned up her stuff. I think they’re still in the wastebasket.” Kiku disappeared and returned with a slim plastic compact.

  Not illegal drugs, a prescription. Kenji flipped it over; the label was made out to Sakura Endo. Inside, the characters for the days of the week repeated four times around a ring of bubbles, some with pills still inside, some empty. Contraceptives.

  “Why did she start taking these?” He gave Kiku a hard look. “I know she told you she wasn’t sleeping with him, but two hundred thousand yen is pretty good pay for a night’s work.”

  “Don’t say that! Cherry didn’t sell herself!”

  “So why did she need the pills? Who was she sleeping with?”

  Kiku’s eyes slid away.

  “She had a boyfriend, didn’t she, even though it wasn’t allowed.”

  Cherry’s roommate picked at a snag near the hem of her sweater. “Lately she’d been coming home much later than usual on Fridays. She never talked about who she’d been with, but I could tell it wasn’t that Zombie guy because after she saw him, she’d always call in sick the next day and stay in her room with the door closed. After she’d been out with this other guy, she’d have an expensive lipstick or a new designer bag, and she never pawned the stuff he gave her.”

  “Could her boyfriend have been a guy named Hoshi? A host at Club Nova?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Because that’s who she was with last night, after she ran out on The Zombie. She went to the host club where Hoshi works. Did she bring him back here afterward?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t get home until six in the morning, remember?”

  “But when you came in, were there any signs she’d had a visitor?”

  Kiku’s eyes widened. “There was half a pot of cold tea here on the table. And two cups.”

  Two cups. Cherry Endo might have entertained her killer. He stared at the teapot on the table. “This one?”

  “No. This one’s mine. The one I found on the table was new. Cherry dropped hers Wednesday night and she must have replaced it on Thursday. I rinsed it out and packed it.”

  “Rinsed or washed?”

  “I washed the cups, but my mother told me it’s bad to put soap in a teapot. I rinsed it.”

  “I’d like to borrow it, if you don’t mind. There might still be prints.”

  Kiku crossed to the boxes stacked next to the door. She moved the top one to the floor, slit open the packing tape, and peered inside. “Here it is.” She reached into the box and pulled out a bubble-wrapped teapot.

  “Can I have the cups too, just in case?”

  Removing two smaller bundles, she set everything on the table and moved to the kitchenette to search for a shopping bag.

  “What about other surfaces he might have touched?”

  She turned, distressed. “Oh no. I’m sorry; I cleaned up before you came. I didn’t realize…”

  “That’s okay. Would it be all right if I came back with a tech? Just in case there are prints somewhere that match whatever we find on the teapot?”

  She nodded and handed him a Parco bag.

  Outside, Kenji called Tommy Loud and said, “I need a favor.”

  Chapter 11

  Saturday, November 9

  11:00 A.M.

  Kenji

  A middle-aged man and woman were standing in front of Section Chief Tanaka’s desk when Kenji arrived in the squad room. Tanaka handed the man a sheaf of papers stamped with multiple red seals and solicitously ushered them toward the elevator. They looked like grieving parents. The woman with lank, chin-length, graying hair clutching a cheap handbag must be Cherry Endo’s mother, the man with the comb-over and bleak expression, her father.

  He was too late. They stepped into the elevator, turned, and bowed one final time as the doors closed. The section chief returned to his desk.

  “Sir? Were those my accident victim’s parents? You didn’t release the body yet, did you?”

  “Of course I did. As I explained yesterday, there was no reason to deny their request.” Tanaka flipped open his vermilion ink pad to put his hanko stamp on the paperwork that would officially close the case.

  Kenji set the Parco bag Cherry’s roommate had given him on the desk. “I still don’t think it was an accident, sir. I found out that Cherry Endo served tea to someone right before she died. Someone was with her in the apartment before she fell down the stairs.” He outlined what he’d learned, stressing that either of the two men who’d been with her that night—one a possible lover, one a customer with kinky tastes and a history of violence—could have had reason to push her down the stairs.

  “Her roommate also told me Cherry had a boyfriend—maybe Hoshi, maybe someone who was jealous of Hoshi and waiting for her when she got home.”

  “Maybe, maybe, maybe.” Tanaka sat back in his chair. “Nakamura-san, with all due respect, all you’ve really learned is that a hostess had a client who slapped her around a little, she went to her favorite host club after work, and drank a nice cup of tea with a friend when she got home. While I applaud your industriousness, your speculations fall far short of the kind of facts that warrant further investigation.” He fixed Kenji with a baleful stare. “No witnesses, no evidence, case closed.”

  Section Chief Tanaka was an expert at navigating the treacherous waters of police politics. He’d discovered that the key to remaining in the good graces of his superiors at the National Police Administration headquarters was to make sure nobody got bad press for failing to solve a crime. Sometimes that meant unleashing every resource at his disposal; sometimes it meant sweeping a borderline case under the rug. Kenji made a last-ditch effort to move Cherry’s death from the second category to the first.

  “What if we find fingerprints on the teapot?”

  “You won’t get a match unless whoever touched it already has a police record. And you’re so far short of probable cause to get a warrant for collecting prints from either of your suspects that the prosecutor would laugh you out of his office. Plus, even if you discovered ten picture-perfect matching prints, you can’t prove they were put there Thursday night.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Close the case, Nakamura-san. Her parents are at the morgue right now with the paperwork, claiming her body. Let them grieve in peace.” He stood and fitted a Pebble Beach golf cap over his thinning hair. “If you’re so anxious to investigate something on your day off, how about helping Detective Oki with that gray-market shakedown case
he’s working on? Someone’s been preying on those guys who deliver questionable goods to cut-rate shops in the wee hours of the morning. Oki doesn’t seem to be making much progress.”

  Kenji swallowed his disappointment. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Now, I’m going to try to make my tee time.” Tanaka gave him a curt bow and headed down the stairs.

  Kenji returned to his desk with the Parco bag and tossed his phone onto his Inbox.

  The elevator doors opened and Tommy Loud strode into the squad room. The tech greeted Kenji and dug the bubble-wrapped teapot from the Parco bag on Kenji’s desk. “Is this what you want fingerprinted?”

  “I’m not sure it’s worth it now.” He related his discouraging conversation with Tanaka.

  Loud considered the setback, then said, “We’ll take a look at this stuff anyway, see what we come up with.”

  “The roommate wiped down the table, but do you have time to drop by her apartment and dust the other likely surfaces?”

  “I’m on my way to drink some beer and play some poker this afternoon, but lucky for you, I’ve got a fresh graduate with not enough to do. I’ll give her a call and have her meet you with a fingerprint kit.” Loud settled the teapot back into the shopping bag, then dug down and pulled out the plastic pill compact. “What’s this?”

  “The victim’s birth control pills.”

  Loud examined the prescription then flipped open the case. “I hope she was backing these up with condoms.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He pointed to three untouched pills randomly spaced among the empty bubbles. “These don’t prevent pregnancy unless they’re taken every day without fail. It looks like she missed three days in two weeks. Do you know when she started taking them?”

  “Her roommate said she got the prescription in July. After possibly being raped by one of her customers.”

  “Did she report it?”

  “No.”

  Loud tossed the compact back in the bag. “Well, if this is an indication of how diligently she’s been taking the pills, she might have been pregnant when she died.”

  Pregnant. By whom? Hoshi? The Zombie? The Friday night boyfriend?