Lady Joker, Volume 1 by Kaoru Takamura (lightest ebook reader .txt) 📕

he would be lucky if he could gain access to even a nugget of information, and by this time tomorrow, he would no longer have any knowledge of the situation. These thoughts made him feel as if he were as useless as a twig.

When the intercom buzzed at 11:35 p.m., it signaled the arrival of the Mobile CI Unit at last. As soon as he heard the buzzer Goda raced outside and opened the front gate from the inside.

Four officers from the Kamata sub-unit had arrived, as well as the leader of the First Mobile CI Unit’s main squad and another four officers from the Crime Scene Unit. Each of them wore wireless earpieces connected to the investigation radio; some held bulging paper bags, while others carried toolboxes as they slipped stealthily onto the property. Perhaps there had been trouble deciding how to handle the case or securing a wireless vehicle—either way, it was unclear why it had taken them half an hour to get here.

The first man through the gate looked at Goda and demanded, “Has the NTT arrived?”

“Not yet,” Goda responded. As he spoke, he realized that he recognized the sergeant from the sub-unit, but the man with the fierce expression paid him no notice.

The squad leader, who walked in next, shouted instructions to the officers from the sub-unit: “Get them to sign the consent form first, then ask for a photo of the vic!” He quickly turned his attention to Goda. “Where was the note found?”

“Over there.” Goda pointed with his flashlight to the spot on path. The squad leader glared at the circle of light on the paving stone, then summoned the Crime Scene Unit officers behind him, “Go to it.” Two of them immediately spread out a tarp and began the task of collecting and preserving any evidence from the scene.

“And the note itself?” The squad leader stuck out his hand. Goda handed him the piece of paper.

The squad leader looked at the paper without saying a word, while behind him, the Crime Scene Unit swiftly set up another tarp inside the front gate to block the view from outside. The squad leader lifted his gaze and verified, “There’s been no call from the perpetrator, correct?”

“Correct,” Goda answered.

“You’ve spoke with the family?”

“Yes.” Goda ripped about five pages out of his notebook and handed them over. The squad leader quickly scanned the notes with his flashlight.

“No chronic illness, in good health. Good,” he murmured. Then, “We’ll take it from here. Those two men controlling traffic outside, leave them where they are until we say so. I want everyone at the department on stand by.” The squad leader spoke brusquely, as if he were loath to waste a minute, before hastening inside the front door.

One of the officers from the sub-unit called out to Goda. “Hey, this gate—how do you open it from inside?”

“Like this.” Goda showed him how the inner switch worked.

“I see. If it can be opened that easily from inside, then this has gotta be their ‘out.’ They must have had a car . . .” the officer mumbled to himself. He called out to a fellow officer, “Omura!”

They spread open a map, and shined the beam of a flashlight on it. “First, see if anyone heard any noise or the sound of a car ignition right around 10:05. Then, check if anyone saw any suspicious vehicles—”

“Many of the streets around here dead-end in a cul-de-sac, so pay attention,” Goda said and marked the map with his own ballpoint pen.

“Got it. Omura, you go right. I’ll take the left. We’ll circle back here in half an hour. We’ll communicate via radio over 100A.”

The two sub-unit officers quickly went off down their respective streets and were soon replaced by two new faces that ducked through the tarp covering the front gate. It was a lieutenant and a sergeant from the second unit of MPD’s First Special Investigation Team whose names and faces Goda knew, but for the moment neither of them gave Goda even a nod in greeting.

The two men glanced over to where the Crime Scene Unit was working, then took in the entire view of the mansion before the lieutenant, whose name was Satoru Hirase, spoke up.

“Goda-san? Is that you?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Where’s the squad?”

“They’re here.”

“Sure is cold tonight . . . was the vic wearing a coat?”

“No.”

“I see—”

The proficient engine of the Special Investigation Team had taken over the situation in which the president of a major corporation had been abducted, and was only just getting revved up. After repeatedly surveying the premises of the estate, which was now a crime scene, the lieutenant and the sergeant also disappeared behind the front door. The four officers from the Crime Scene Unit were crawling around on the path, having already placed five markers. Taking a last look at it all, Goda ducked under the tarp and went out the front gate.

Mounting the bike he had left on the street, Goda looked up again at the mansion enveloped by the pitch-black shadows of the trees and let his imagination run free, just for the sake of it. Bet there are at least three perps. Two of them must have jumped the wall and waited by the shrubs along the path for the victim to come home, and after capturing the victim, they whisked him out the gate, where someone else had a car by the roadside that they forced him into, and then drove away. Goda was easily able to imagine the details of such a crime from beginning to end, but the profiles of those who might have actually executed it were obscured by a thick haze.

Even if the perps had closely examined the area in advance, how could they have pulled off a crime that exploited the exact gap in time when there was no policeman on patrol nearby? They could not have done so by sheer chance—how on earth could they have been confident that the patrol would not return during those