LITMIR.BIZ

      Fiddling with his pen, my section chief looked like a bored cat playing with a nearly-dead mouse. He hadn’t said anything for a solid minute, a long time when you are sitting across from someone. As was his style, he needed time to gather his thoughts so the silence didn’t bother me, but the pen twirling made me nervous. Would it be poor form to grab the pen away from him? Yes. The boss’s face would puff up like a blowfish and turn as red as a pickled plum. He might fire me on the spot.

      The chief read my report again. I thought he was going to say something, but the silence entered its second minute. The chief flicked the pen open and made a check mark next to a line in my report. From my perspective, I couldn’t see what conclusions or associations he was drawing, so I couldn’t prepare a response. Not that my response would have any bearing on his thoughts. He took unwarranted pride in making decisions and sticking to them.

      While I waited, I recalled a vivid detail from the old case of the missing husband. The missing husband’s co-worker called me early one morning and said something about taking action. I was so tongue-tied in my sleep-deprived state I couldn’t ask what he meant. Through the phone came the unreal sound of a chair falling over, a rope tightening, a beam creaking, and a gasp. Then silence. But I doubted I could have heard all that. I must have been inserting it into my memory.

      The chief tapped his pen on my report. His crisp collar worked up and down as he pronounced judgment. “Usually, I would withdraw us from a case such as this one. There are too many anomalies in the applicant’s statement. Now someone claims that the missing son is dead. We lack verification of this status, although no one knows his recent movements. However, given that this investigation is in the early stage, I can’t say that these anomalies will never be worked out. We should go back to the applicant to ask more probing questions.”

      “Yes, we should.” I was glad he hadn’t closed the case.

      “But keep in close contact,” the section chief added. “I’m ready to stop the investigation as soon as we stand the least chance of getting wrapped up in nonsense.”

      I didn’t want to get wrapped up in nonsense either.

      ▶

      My first stop was at the health and disability records office, a very reliable place to find a person’s address. I claimed to be working for a life insurance company and requested to verify applicants’ medical benefits. Sooner or later the office will catch on to their lax security and tighten their information request procedures.

      Unfortunately, there were no records for Mizuno Ren.

      However, I was rewarded with an address for the wife of the missing husband. Shortly after the case ended twenty years ago, she had a short stay in a hospital for an illness. Several years of no records followed until four years ago when she received injury treatment and short-term disability payments. The particulars of the injury weren’t important, but her address at that time was of interest. On a whim, I tried to find records for her ex-husband. There were no records for him.

      I hurried to the nearest train station and managed to get a seat as it was not yet rush hour. Sitting with my eyes closed and swaying with the train’s movement was as relaxing as an afternoon on a beach. Luckily, I managed to stay awake and not miss my stop. The station where I disembarked was small but newly renovated. I got into a taxi.

      On the narrow, winding roads, the traffic was heavy and all the vehicles were ten or fifteen kilometers per hour above the limit, the taxi being at the high end. We narrowly missed taking the leg off a motorcyclist who got too close to us. He gave us an obscene gesture before he veered and sped away. We flew past a modern shopping center, a business park, a roadside collection of pachinko parlors and family restaurants, another business park. I felt we had been driving for hours, but it had been only several minutes when we drove up a street between a park and a school. A few blocks later, the taxi driver pulled over and pointed to a small house. I asked him to wait.

      I walked up to the door through a small garden that could have used some tending. The grass patch was spreading across the walkway. Fallen leaves had turned a crunchy brown and were scattered in the light wind. A tiny pond was half-full of water green with algae blooms.

      I stood at the door that had a political flyer stuck in the jamb. I took it out and prepared to give it to whoever answered the door. But no one came. I checked the side to see if anyone was there. When I returned to the front, a woman holding a cleaning brush like a weapon peered at me around the corner of the fence.

      “Hello,” I said in the friendliest voice I could muster.

      The woman maintained her aggressive posture and failed to return my jovial greeting.

      “I was looking for an old friend of mine. A woman. This is the last address for her that I have.”

      “Friend you say? You’ve come about the accident?”

      “There’s been an accident?”

      “Hit and run. She’s in a coma.”

      The news was a dead weight in my gut.

      “You’re an old friend you say? I don’t think I’ve seen you here before. Not that I keep track of her visitors.”

      “I haven’t been in touch with her for many years.”

      A lock of hair had fallen out of the neighbor’s head scarf. She pushed it under the fabric and said, “It’s strange that you would finally take the time to look her up just when she’s had a horrible accident.”

      “I suppose it does seem coincidental. Do you know what happened?”

      The neighbor waved her brush toward the road. “People drive like nuts around here. Especially on the main road where it happened. The poor woman was walking home from the bus stop after her shift. She works at night at a business called Midori.” She added

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