Tokyo Zangyo

Chapter 3

Chapter 3Shigeru Onizuka’s house was in the far west Tokyo suburb of Tachikawa. The homes were dropped into the center of lots whose size showed precisely how much salary the owner had. Wide roads with roundabouts, trees and streetside parks formed a flowing grid of wealth that made up for the commute into the center of the city. Onizuka’s lot was large enough to distance the neighbors and have a spacious garden inside the enclosure, though no trees poked over the top of the solid, tile-topped wall.

Takamatsu pressed the call button in the gate of Onizuka’s home. He had to lean halfway out the car window to reach the button, mussing his suit. Sugamo kept the car running. Hiroshi looked at his watch. “Maybe the new widow isn’t home.” But it was just past eight, when home deliveries started.

The blank camera eye on the button stared at the detectives.

Takamatsu held his tie back and pressed the call button again, his leather coat folded neatly on the seat beside him.

“We can come back later, or you can.” Hiroshi drained the last of the take-out coffee he’d forced Sugamo to stop for. What he needed now was a couple shots of espresso in his office.

Sugamo looked in the rearview mirror. A black two-door Mercedes-Benz pulled up behind them.

“Wonder where she’s been?” Takamatsu twisted for a better look.

The Benz pulled back and Sugamo backed into the street to let it by.

Instead of a woman, though, a square-headed young man leaned out. “Are you police?”

Takamatsu held up his badge.

“Follow me in,” the young man said. The front gate slid open and the detectives followed the Benz up a short concrete drive that ended in a turnaround. The garden around the house was nothing more than smooth grass lawn, more field than garden. A single stone pagoda poked up, the only decor inside the surrounding wall of tan plaster and tiled top.

The young man hopped out of the Benz and stood waiting in a white shirt and black slacks. When Takamatsu and Hiroshi got out, he said, “I’m the son. Onizuka’s son. Please come inside.” He locked his Benz and flipped through a ring of keys to open the thick wooden door.

Takamatsu watched him closely as he slipped on his coat.

Hiroshi bowed. “We’re here to let you know—”

“About my father? I heard already,” he said, taking off his shoes in the entryway.

“And to offer our condolences,” Hiroshi said.

The younger Onizuka bowed in thanks, paused, and motioned the detectives inside.

Hiroshi said, “We’d also like to talk with your mother.”

He stopped in the hallway. “She hasn’t answered her phone.”

Hiroshi and Takamatsu followed him down a hallway. The home was a rectangular succession of stone, glass and wood. The living room was lined on two sides with windows looking out on the flat trimmed lawn. Below the windows ran a low shelf holding a single, dark vase. The room was either highly restrained or greatly ignored, and didn’t feel lived in.

The son’s small, sturdy frame had a quick, muscular way of moving. His sighs signaled concern. He pulled open one of the sliding windows to let in some air. The room felt overheated from direct sun. Takamatsu slipped off his leather trench coat and draped it over his arm.

“I’m Satoshi Onizuka, the first son.” He motioned for them to sit.

“You have a brother?” Takamatsu asked.

“Yes, but he’s not in Japan right now.” Satoshi held out his meishi for the detectives. Takamatsu and Hiroshi handed him theirs.

“Please sit down. I’ll get some tea.”

“We just have a few questions,” Hiroshi said, settling onto a leather upholstered chair.

Satoshi checked his cellphone. “I need some coffee. Are you sure you won’t have some?”

Hiroshi said, “If you’re making it for yourself.”

Takamatsu waved his hand to say no and folded his jacket neatly over the back of the chair. Hiroshi looked out at the mowed lawn and plain wall, waiting politely.

They heard a car pull up in the drive, its door open and slam shut. Hiroshi and Takamatsu turned at the sound of the front door banging open. Down the hallway, a woman bustled in carrying a large purse and a shopping bag. Satoshi hurried toward her from a side door and started whispering.

Hiroshi and Takamatsu listened but couldn’t hear what they said.

The woman dumped the bag into Satoshi’s arms and flopped her purse on a shelf in the hall. She flounced into the living room and pushed back her long, straight hair with both hands.

Hiroshi stood up, trying to remember how old the bucho was. Sakaguchi had said he was sixty. But this woman seemed to be in her thirties. If the son was in his twenties, she must have had him quite young. Maybe it was her hoop earrings, tight skirt and stylish hair. It looked as if each single hair had been treated and trimmed separately.

She waved them to sit down and flopped into the wide leather sofa across from them. It whuffed as if it were new. “I’m Natsuko Onizuka. And you’re the police.”

Even across the room, Hiroshi could smell the booze. He saw Takamatsu lean back as he no doubt sniffed the same thing. Her face was flushed and she jostled herself into place, leaning back like they were all old friends. She was plastered.

Takamatsu spoke first. “We came to inform you…”

“I heard already. I got it out of the person who called,” she said.

The detectives offered their condolences with a low bow. “I’m Hiroshi Shimizu and this is Detective Takamatsu. We have a few questions.”

She crossed her legs and twisted her shoulders. Her compact face, angled chin and dimpled, padded cheeks were what most Japanese would call cute. Her eyes curved in neat brushstrokes to the far sides of her face, but inside, the whites were bloodshot and glassy.

Satoshi came in with three cups of coffee and a glass of water. He whispered something to his mother and she took the coffee with an irritated look. He set out another cup for Hiroshi and set the water in front of Takamatsu. Satoshi sat down beside his mother.

“You have another son?” Hiroshi asked.

“Yes.” Natsuko turned to Satoshi. “Does he even know?”

Satoshi set his coffee cup down. “I called and left a message. He didn’t call back yet.”

Natsuko turned to the detectives. “He’s backpacking somewhere in Southeast Asia. He’s the only one who’ll be pleased at the news.”

Satoshi shook his head. “Mother, that’s not true.”

Hiroshi nodded. “They didn’t get along?”

Natsuko laughed. “No one got along with my husband. This son suffered him. The other son left. Fled, I’d say.”

“It sounds like your husband was hard to deal with,” Hiroshi prodded.

Satoshi frowned. “He was gone most of the time working.”

Natsuko put down her coffee. “He was gone all the time. He missed graduations, archery contests, chess matches. Barely came to the hospital for their births.”

“So, you took care of the house?” Hiroshi prompted.

“I managed the household. Once the boys left, I was free to do what I want.” She shook her head and drank more coffee. “Even freer now, I guess.”

She sent Satoshi to get her purse.

“You’ve been married for…”

Natsuko pointed at Satoshi. “Twenty-three years. I was a young little OL office lady, naive as hell. Worked in another department. He was charming when he wanted something. When I got pregnant, I quit work and we married and moved in here.” She gestured at the house as if it were nothing of importance.

Satoshi carried in her purse and she dug inside before taking out a pack of cigarettes and lighting a long, thin black one with gold foil around the filter.

Hiroshi could sense Takamatsu fidgeting beside him, but he resisted joining her. “When was the last time you talked to your husband?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Did you have any inkling of anything wrong?”

Natsuko pointed at Satoshi, “He talks to him more than I do.”

Satoshi shook his head, unsure. “I talked to him, by phone, a few days ago. He sounded ready for the overseas expansion. It was just the usual conversation…how was work, did I have a girlfriend, nothing much.”

Hiroshi turned back to Natsuko. “Were you going with him?”

“Overseas? No, no,” Natsuko replied, blowing smoke toward the ceiling. “Visiting would be enough. He’d be working constantly there, too. That’s all he ever cared about.”

Hiroshi said, “He worked a lot?”

Satoshi said, “He was a workaholic. And a perfectionist. If things weren’t going how he wanted, he made everyone follow his way. He wanted everything right, and he decided what was right.”

“What kind of things?” Hiroshi asked.

Satoshi nodded, thinking. “School, sports, part-time jobs. He didn’t want me joining a small company. All my life I followed his rules, met his expectations, his advice.”

“And where are you working now?”

“A start-up IT company. First real decision I made in my life.”

“Was he upset or acting strangely lately?” Takamatsu asked.

Natsuko smiled. “If he’d started acting normal, I would have been surprised.”

“Would he have wanted to hurt himself? Commit suicide, I mean?” Hiroshi breathed through his mouth. Natsuko’s alcohol breath was strong.

Natsuko shook her head, no. “He was too in love with himself to do that.”

Satoshi said, “Since I was young, he told us how he was the hardest worker in Japan and why I should be like him. He was always sure of himself. He wasn’t suicidal.”

Takamatsu leaned forward. “So, nothing different lately of any kind?”

Natsuko looked at her empty cup. “He seemed busier, but he was always busy. Work consumed him. And now, I guess, it really has.” She chuckled bitterly. “When I married him, I didn’t know he’d only come home after midnight. At first, I’d get up to make dinner at one in the morning, turn on his bath. With the second son, I started leaving his dinner in the microwave. Some weeks, I’d hardly see him. He’d sleep a few hours, in the other room, change clothes and go back to work. I spent all day taking care of the boys. And now they’re gone. And now he’s gone.”

Satoshi said, “I’ll get you another coffee, Mom.”

“The lawyers are coming soon,” she said to her son, stabbing the cigarette out in her coffee cup.

Lawyers already, Hiroshi wondered.

Takamatsu breathed in. “Is there anything else you can tell us about him recently, anything related to work or finances or…”

Natsuko shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about that since the call woke me up.”

“Who called, if I might ask?” Hiroshi thought the detectives would be the first.

“Someone from the company.”

“Nakata from Human Resources?”

“Maybe.” Natsuko nodded. “I just went back over everything, back to the first time we kissed, in a karaoke room. Recently, we lived separate lives, to be honest, so if there was something, I wouldn’t know. He rarely came home for dinner, and when he did, he was hollowed out.”

Hiroshi nodded. “And just one more question…who handled the finances for the family?”

She laughed bitterly and played with her coffee cup. “I did. I worked in accounting before I quit the company. Seems like a long time ago.”

The doorbell rang.

“That must be the lawyers.” Natsuko took her son’s hand and rested it on her shoulder.

“Was there anyone who might have wanted to harm him?” Hiroshi asked, standing up.

Takamatsu took his coat from the back of the chair.

Satoshi shrugged and stood behind his mother. “He wasn’t a likable person.”