Trying not to pay any more attention to his surroundings than necessary, Toshihiko entered the police station and asked for Kamemura. When Kamemura emerged, the man took one look at Toshihiko and groaned. An overblown reaction like that had to be deliberate. The younger officer at Kamemura’s side rebuked him. Toshihiko didn’t wait for the older man to sit down and got right to business.
“I never did file that Letter of Complaint, you know.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Maybe it wouldn’t hurt you to show a little gratitude.”
Kamemura looked at him quizzically.
“Anyway, I was hoping I could speak to you alone.”
This request clearly put the younger officer in a difficult spot. The same probably went for Kamemura. But his years of experience had clearly taught him how to stay cool under fire.
“Aw, is that a no?”
Toshihiko maintained eye contact and tilted his head to the side coquettishly. It was the kind of gesture that suited a teenage girl more than a man in his thirties. No one but Toshihiko could have gotten away with it. Kamemura cleared his throat and gestured to his partner to leave them. The young officer was spacing out and staring at Toshihiko, but a whack on the knee from Kamemura soon had him scrambling for the door.
“All right, what did you want to talk about?”
Kamemura’s fists were clenched tight, and his hands were shaking.
“Don’t think doing this will get you any kind of special treatment,” he added.
“Doing what, exactly?” Toshihiko asked.
He leaned forward a little. Kamemura carefully averted his eyes.
“There’s security cameras in here, you know.”
“I’m well aware.”
Toshihiko turned to face one of them and smiled.
“Q-quit wasting my time. What do you want?”
He took a USB drive out of his bag and placed it on the table. Kamemura looked from it, to Toshihiko, and back again.
“I have a picture of the culprit on this.”
“What?!”
Pressing his advantage, Toshihiko proceeded to explain.
“A used menstrual pad was stuck to the door of my house. It still had plenty of blood on it. I used the DNA to reconstruct an image of the stalker’s face.”
“Why didn’t you tell us about such an important piece of evidence?”
“I wanted to see if I could do something about it myself first.”
Kamemura scratched the back of his head, letting out a groan of frustration. After a moment, he seemed to calm down and turned back to Toshihiko.
“No way. Absolutely not. There’s no way that’s even possible. You can’t do that. I don’t know if you think you can fool me because I’m just some Community Safety schlub, but once I get the lab to take a look at this, they’ll—”
“I don’t expect you to believe me.”
Eyes still fixed on Kamemura, Toshihiko reached out and grabbed the man’s sleeve, running a finger over his wrist to relax his muscles and massaging his now open palm.
“But it’s true. I can’t say for sure if the image on here really is the woman who’s behind it all. At the very least, though, she’s involved. This is all I can do on my own. But you should be able to find out who this woman is, right?”
He caressed Kamemura’s hand with his thumb.
“Please? For me?”
The detective sprang to his feet as if an electric shock had run through him. In that moment, their hands separated.
“Naganuma!”
He’d barely spoken when the younger officer came barreling back into the room.
“Wh-what is it, sir?!”
The officer—evidently named Naganuma—saw Kamemura’s bright red face take on a troubled expression.
“Mr. Katayama is leaving.”
“Oh, right…”
Naganuma opened the door, still stealing furtive glances at Toshihiko’s face.
“Make sure he gets to the exit okay, will you?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
Toshihiko followed the young officer out, pausing just once to turn and smile at Kamemura.
“I’m counting on you.”
He left without waiting for a reply.
Outside the police station, he realized he was shivering. He felt chilled to the bone. It wasn’t because the AC had been on too high. If anything, it had been so warm, it was stifling in there. He’d been sweating the whole time.
What Toshihiko had just done to Kamemura was something he’d learned in a book. If his memory served, it was called HOSPITALITY TIPS FROM A FORMER NUMBER ONE ROPPONGI CABARET GIRL. Get your customer one-on-one. Make eye contact. Speak shortly, slowly, and whisper gently. Make frequent physical contact. The palm has a lot of nerves, so treat it with particular care.
Once Toshihiko tried it, he’d soon realized it wasn’t the kind of thing a man his age could work into casual conversation. Even taking Toshihiko’s overwhelming beauty into account, it could easily come across as off-puttingly familiar. Kamemura had blushed but probably not exclusively from positive feelings. There had likely been a lot of bewilderment and fear mixed in as well.
Going in, Toshihiko hadn’t possessed any real idea if this borderline seduction approach would work. It would be nice if Kamemura was inspired to do some extra investigating, but the whole thing had been a gamble. He couldn’t expect too much. All he could do now was wait for Rumi to contact him with further developments.
He turned to look up at the police station one more time. He found his gaze drawn to a window on the second floor. Somebody was waving. Kamemura? Naganuma? Toshihiko strained his eyes to see better…then wished he hadn’t. It was a woman who was waving at him. A wide smile was plastered across her face, like she could barely contain her happiness. And now that he’d seen her, he couldn’t peel his eyes away. He couldn’t hear the woman’s voice from here, but her mouth was moving.
“Won’t…”
His feet were rooted to the spot. He felt like he’d merged with the ground itself.
“…be…”
Even with all the other people walking to and fro, the tall woman alone stood out.
“…long…”
Suddenly, his sides felt hot. More than hot—burning. The pain finally got his legs moving. He ran as fast as he could. He didn’t know if all this would do any good. “Won’t be long.” Not long until what? Nothing pleasant, that was for sure. He seemed to hear the grinding noise close by. At least, he thought he did. He was just imagining it, wasn’t he? Or was he? He didn’t know. The woman’s uncanny smile remained seared into his mind.