The Drowning God

 

DEDICATION

To Renée Boudreau Kendley, the love of my life, who believed in this book from the start.

 

CONTENTS

 

CHAPTER 1

T
he man smiled up at Hanako from the water's edge. He seemed very nice, but something was wrong.

“Come see him,” the man said. “Right here on the bank, he has a beautiful present for you.”

Hanako wasn't even supposed to leave the sidewalk. Everyone knew the canals were dangerous.

“I'll get in trouble if I get muddy.”

“He'll take care of you, heh-­heh. He's waiting for you.”

The man wore gray Zenkoku Corporation coveralls just like the ones her father wore every day. The man's smile was very wide, and his eyes were very big and bright. He was like a comedian on TV. Hanako stepped off the sidewalk.

Just as she started down the embankment, the wild spring wind brought the stench of rotting fish up from the canal.

“Ugh! What stinks?” She ran back to the sidewalk.

“What, that smell? Just the canal. It only lasted a second. See? Heh-­heh. It's already gone.” The man beckoned with both hands. He was begging. “Come see him! He'll take you to a magical world.”

Hanako was altogether doubtful of magic, but she knew that if magic were real, it wouldn't stink of fish. She also knew the man was lying. He was dangerous in an adult way that she only dimly understood. She couldn't outrun him, and there was nowhere to hide. Empty sidewalk stretched to either side. Somewhere behind her, the fencing that ran along the sidewalk was loose, just in one spot. Beyond that fence, there was nothing, just the back entrances to boarded-­up shops, but the loose fencing was her only hope. She had to go somewhere.

She bowed politely as she backed away from the water. “I can't be late for school.” She stumbled as she bumped into the fence. “Perhaps we can go to a magical world another day.”

The man was still smiling as he charged up the bank.

She turned to the fencing. The loose spot was only a few steps away, and she scooted under. Her satchel strap caught, and she turned to free it.

The strap wasn't caught. The man had it, and then he had her arm. He ripped the satchel away from her. She arched her back and planted her feet so he couldn't pull her under. He still smiled, but his laughter wheezed from behind his bared teeth: “Heh-­heh-­heh . . .”

Hanako bent forward to bite his hand, but she couldn't reach it. Then he grabbed at her pigtail with the other hand. She could reach that one. She sank her teeth into the webbing between his thumb and his forefinger. The stench of rotting fish filled her nostrils. She closed her eyes and bit down harder.

Her mouth filled with a coppery taste like ten-­yen coins. The man yanked her against the chain link, but she wriggled sideways and spread her knees to make herself bigger. The man released her arm to grab her leg, and just as his fingertips touched her ankle, Hanako rolled away. She rolled and rolled until he could not reach her, and then she sat up spitting out his nasty blood.

As she sat up, a boy walked up the bank behind the man. The boy seemed distorted, as if she were looking at him through deep water. The boy's mouth was much too wide, and his hands were much too large for his lanky arms. He looked very, very sick, Hanako thought.

She stared at the boy too long. The man tried to pinch shut his bleeding hand, but the crimson blood continued to flow. “Heh-­heh-­heh . . .” The man's smile was so wide that it looked painful. He gave up on the hand and let his blood trickle into the weeds. He didn't even look at her as he started up the fence.

She jumped up and ran to the back doors of the abandoned shops. Chain link rattled behind her. She reached the nearest door—­locked and rusted shut. She looked up and down the narrow lane. There was no use knocking. No one would answer, and these corroded doors would never open.

She heard the man drop to the asphalt behind her.

By the time she turned, he was almost on her. She dodged right, and he dodged to stop her, but she dug in her heels and ran left. She didn't look back. He was close behind her, closer with each step.

She ran toward a small black gap between buildings. She wouldn't make it, but she ran anyway. As his fingers closed on the back of her neck, she dove headfirst for the gap. His grip kept her upright, just for a second, and then his fingers slipped. She bounced off both walls, but she didn't fall. She ran faster.

The space between the buildings was very tight, crowded with ducting. The rotten-­fish man wouldn't fit through it, but she would.

Hanako burst out onto the shopping street between the hardware store and the old bakery. Both were boarded up. It was a good thing she hadn't stopped to knock.

The street was empty except for two old women staring at her in surprise. Her throat burned, and she was still spitting blood, but she held her breath as she peered back between the buildings. Sure enough, the man had stopped at the ducting. He was too big to fit under, and the space was so tight that he couldn't pull himself over. He stared back at her. His smile twisted and his eyes became brighter and wider. “Heh-­heh-­heh-­heh-­HEHHH . . .”

Hanako whipped her head back and shrank against the cool bricks of the bakery. The rotten-­fish man had her satchel. It was neatly patterned with stickers from her friend Sachiko, and she would never get it back. It was all too terrible. She burst into tears.

The old greengrocer was first to her side. Within a few seconds, Hanako was surrounded. She had never seen so many ­people on the shopping street. A high school student ran to the village police station, and he came back with two young patrolmen. A chubby one came up huffing and puffing a few minutes later. He was a sergeant, they said. One young patrolman ran to catch the rotten-­fish man, another one took her to the village police station, and the sergeant jogged off to look for the chief.

At the village police station, the young patrolman helped Hanako rinse the blood out of her mouth. He washed her face and smoothed her hair, and then he gave her hot tea and ginger crisps. She said she wasn't sorry for biting the rotten-­fish man. She said she would never apologize, not even if she had to go to jail. The patrolman said she would not go to jail. Her mother took forever to get there, and after hugs and kisses, she and the patrolman both asked her questions. She started crying again when she told them about her satchel, and they told her she would get it back. Then her father came, and he was very angry. Hanako started crying harder, but her mother said that he was angry with the rotten-­fish man, not with her.

Morning became afternoon, and Hanako met more police and answered the same questions over and over again. She overheard that the police had caught the rotten-­fish man quickly. High school students found him first, and by the time the police got there, the students had the man surrounded at the canal bridge. They were fencing at school that week, so most of them had practice sticks. They made the man kneel properly, and they smacked him hard when he tried to stand.

Hanako and her parents stayed in an office crowded with dark furniture. Every surface was covered with yellowed doilies that stank of cigarette smoke. Just outside the door, one policeman told another that the man had a deep wound between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand; Hanako had bitten clean through.

Her father looked at her with an expression she didn't understand. He laid his hand on her head, just for a second, and she didn't know what to say.

Later, an officer told them that the rotten-­fish man's name was Hiroyasu Ogawa. His wife had gone somewhere else, he didn't have a job, and he lived alone in an apartment block on the other side of the canal. Before he lost his job, he had worked at Zenkoku Fiber, where her father worked.

Her mother held her close and asked everyone else to leave.

Finally, the chief of the village police station came. He smelled of dandruff and mothballs. He gave her satchel back to her, and she started crying again. Everything made her cry that day, and she was getting tired of it. The old chief told her that the rotten-­fish man would not bother her anymore, and she believed him.

By the time she got home, it was already dark. She dropped to her mat and slipped into the dreamless sleep of the innocent pure. For Hanako Kawaguchi, it was finished.

For her village, it was beginning all over again.

 

CHAPTER 2

D
etective Takuda rode in the back of the squad car. On the seat beside him lay two slim folders. One contained the incident report on the attempted abduction of Hanako Kawaguchi. The other contained all that was officially known of Hiroyasu Ogawa, the suspect.

Officer Mori drove. Takuda hadn't really needed a driver; he knew the way to Oku Village very well. Even so, he had requested Mori. The young officer was smart and tough, and he understood that procedure was the heart and soul of police work. Takuda had come to depend on him.

A winding, two-­lane road through the forest took them down from the mountain pass and into the Naga River valley's southern end. The trees fell away as the car rounded the last curve and hit the steep straightaway down to the Naga River. The old dam loomed above them to the south, and the narrow, eye-­shaped valley spread out below them in the spring sunlight: The strangled river wound north past Oku Village, the irregular net of the old canal system held the village together, and the reservoir formed by the lower dam glistened at the valley's narrow northern end. On the reservoir's northwestern shore, the Zenkoku Fiber plant poured pinkish haze from a neat row of smokestacks. It was just as Takuda remembered it.

Takuda studied the valley as they descended to the bridge, but when they crossed the river, he didn't look down into the water.

“Detective, you said you've been here before, didn't you? Which way should we go?”

“Turn right on the river road, by the Farmers' Co-­op,” he said, feigning interest in the folders. There were other roads they could take, roads that would keep them far away from the river, but he refused to avoid it. He was no longer a child. “Follow the river until the main canal cuts off northwest. Cross the bridge and keep the main canal to your left and the river to you right. That will take you directly to the shopping street.”

They drove on in silence. The Farmers' Co-­op building, little more than a thatched barn, appeared abandoned. The mud-­and-­lath walls were sloughing their plaster shell, and the roof straw was black with fungus.
Father would be pleased.

The houses grew more numerous as Takuda and Mori approached Oku Village. Things had changed. There were traffic lights at the intersections now, and there were guardrails on most bridges over the main canal. Fallen plum blossoms floated on the current into irrigation channels branching off westward from the main canal, following the current to gates opened to flood the rice paddies for the first planting. The next day, farmers would open the gates on the east side. The rotation was the same every year, as regular as the seasons, as sure as sunrise. The canal slid past the squad car window as if flowing straight from Takuda's memory, as if he had never left.

Slowly, so slowly that he almost didn't notice, his attention was drawn by the Naga River to his right.

Despite the dams, it still ran deep and swift, still carving a new channel in the folds of its older, wider bed. It was tamer now, controlled by engineers at the dams and monitored at every canal gate. It watered fields and filled reservoirs, bringing life to the Naga River valley.
Safe as milk.

It made Takuda's flesh crawl. He watched the current until he felt Mori's gaze. Their eyes met in the rearview mirror, and Mori quickly looked back at the road.

“What is it, Officer?”

“Nothing, Detective. Nothing at all.”

Mori drove on impassively, and he refused to look at Takuda through the mirror again. Takuda sat in the backseat willing him to do so. Why had Mori been watching him? Did Mori sense his unease? Would the young officer be foolish enough to say so if he did? Takuda doubted it. Mori was too precise for idle talk, especially with a detective ten years his senior. Mori's hair was regulation length, his uniform collar was knife-­edge sharp, and his hat was at the correct angle. His uniform gloves were spotlessly white, and his hands were at exactly ten o'clock and two o'clock on the steering wheel. Even on this deserted country road, he reflexively checked his side mirrors every few seconds. Avoiding Takuda's gaze made him avoid checking the rearview mirror, breaking his rhythm.

Takuda decided to just let the boy do his job. He spent the rest of the trip pretending to study the skimpy files.

There were no visitors' spots at the Oku Village police station, but it didn't matter. They could have parked on the sidewalk without disturbing foot traffic. They stood for a moment, looking up and down the grubby shopping street. There were more storefronts than ­people.

“I've never seen so many boarded-­up shops. It's like a postwar newsreel.”

Takuda turned up his collar. “It's been happening for forty years. The young ­people run away to the cities as soon as they can.”

No one was on duty to greet them at the station. The old squad room hadn't changed. Takuda scanned the tiny offices on the perimeter and found a pale, gray-­haired man reading a newspaper. A small sign above the office door gave the man's title. Takuda had heard about the promotion, but he had not truly believed it until this day.

“Chief Nakamura.”

The old man looked up from his paper. He showed no sign of recognition as he stood to greet the detective.

Takuda introduced himself and Mori, and he had Mori present the bean-­jam cakes they had brought from the city. Nakamura accepted the cakes with three more bows than necessary. Takuda dismissed Mori and asked if Nakamura had time to sit and talk. The old man accepted with a look of surprise.

“Most visitors from the prefectural office are in a hurry to get out of here.” He motioned for a young patrolman to bring them tea. “Yes, yes, we can sit and talk about this abduction. Attempted abduction, I mean.” He led Takuda into a dingy conference room with stained wallpaper and a reek of stale tobacco. “You'll be taking the suspect with you, I assume.”

“No. We have not yet decided whether to take custody. It will depend mostly on the prosecutor.”

“Mostly. I see. Well. I wish you would take him. He's stinking up our only holding cell.”

A grizzled sergeant brought tea on a tray. He served it delicately, even though the dainty cups almost disappeared in his huge hands. “Excuse me, Detective, but don't I know you? Aren't you Tohru Takuda's son?”

“Yes, I am,” Takuda said.

Nakamura went still, and his eyes narrowed.

The sergeant smiled and bowed as he spoke. “I'm Kuma, your senior from the judo club. Remember me? I was away at the academy when you joined the force here.”

“Kuma! Yes, I remember.” Takuda rose and bowed in return. “You taught me a lot, but you threw me all over the place.”

“Oh, I'm sure it wasn't that bad. You were a tough kid,” Kuma said. He smiled and shifted from one foot to the other until his chief stared him out of the room. He backed out with another bow to the detective.

“Well, so you're
that
Takuda? I'm embarrassed that I didn't recognize you. And you're a detective with the prefecture now. You were just a skinny kid when you left.”

“We were all younger then, weren't we?”

“Your face healed well. Did you have plastic surgery?”

“The scars have just faded. Some of them are hidden in the wrinkles.”

“Oh, come on. You look so young. And you keep in shape, too.”

Takuda bowed to make him stop. “You're too kind.”

“Not judo anymore, right?”

“I teach aikido in private life, and I help out with basic training for the prefecture.”

“Aikido. Yes, I could tell it wasn't judo. You don't move like a judo man at all.” Nakamura sat back and crossed his hands. The cuffs were worn threadbare on his bony wrists. “It seems strange that we never saw you. None of us ever heard anything more about you. It's as if you were on another planet.”

“I was mainly working in the central region of the prefecture and on the coast.”

“So you haven't been back to Naga River valley, not even once?”

“Not since my wife and I left.”

“Ah, yes. And your wife, she's well?”

Takuda willed himself to bow. “Very well, thank you.”

“I assume you didn't have any more children.”

Takuda searched Nakamura's face for malice and found none. Nakamura might simply be as stupid as he had always seemed.

“No. We chose not to have more children.”

“Well, that's understandable. What happened to your son really was a tragedy.” The chief pretended to be at a loss for words. “Still, it's surprising that you haven't been back for so many years.”

Takuda drank his tea.

Nakamura shifted in his seat. “Yes, it might be hard to recognize the place. Zenkoku Fiber has really helped things pick up around here. It's really something. We keep on losing the young ­people to the cities, just like every other country town, but Zenkoku Fiber keeps the Naga River valley alive. We still have the pottery, of course. Despite the mountain shadow, green tea and rice still do well, thanks to the old canal system. But Zenkoku Fiber is our savior.”

“The suspect Ogawa worked for Zenkoku, didn't he?”

“Umm—­yes, yes he did. However, I think it's important to mention that he was fired well before the incident. They tried to reassign him. Zenkoku is like that, a healthy mix of old-­fashioned loyalty and progressive resourcing. He refused to leave the valley, so there was nothing they could do.”

“This is a small matter. There's no reason to bring Zenkoku's name into it.”

“Well, you go straight to the point, don't you? Honestly, it's a relief. I mean, the reputation of a fine company shouldn't suffer because of the actions of one lunatic. And as officers of the law, we protect the innocent in any way we can.”

Protect the innocent.
From Nakamura's mouth, the words were poison. Takuda couldn't even look at the man.

“The thing is, it's all Ogawa's fault. You see, he's like a glue sniffer. The fumes have affected him. It's really the worst case I've ever seen. We had a boy in here a few years ago, a glue sniffer. He had been sniffing paint thinner and gasoline and anything else he could get his hands on. That boy was a genius compared to Ogawa. The fumes have destroyed whatever mind Ogawa had.”

Takuda frowned despite himself. “How was Ogawa exposed to harmful fumes?”

“Ah, well, he's obviously been in parts of the plant where employees need breathing equipment, but he didn't follow protocol. It's completely his own fault.”

“How do you know that fumes from the plant affected him?”

Nakamura raised his skinny hands in a gesture of mock defeat. “Exactly. That's an excellent point. There has been no medical examination. I imagine it would take a great deal of medical evidence to link his idiocy to the plant. Perhaps it's better if you ignore my guesswork. I'm just a village constable at heart, after all.”

Takuda sat forward. “If the court needs information about Ogawa's health or mental aptitude, appropriate measures will be taken.”

“Just so, just so. Let's all just do our own jobs. Personally, I'm not sure it could have anything to do with the plant. My son-­in-­law works there. As part of the safety crew, he knows all the procedures. It's lock-­and-­tag all the way.”

Kuma came to tell them that the suspect was ready. Nakamura led them to a cluttered room that had been a small armory when Takuda had worked there. It was cluttered with public safety posters, pamphlet racks, and a man-­sized eagle suit. Kuma patted the suit.

“Our mascot. We wear it to the schools.”

Nakamura waved him out. “We usually store all this in the interrogation room, but we thought someone might come to question the prisoner.”

Nakamura grunted and strained against a standing rack of yellowed safety pamphlets. It finally slid aside to reveal a grimy one-­way mirror.

There was a pleasing symmetry to the scene in the interrogation room. Two patrolmen, their lines clean and crisp, flanked the twitching, drooling suspect. It was perfect. The young patrolmen protected the entire country from this man. They were the first circle of protection. The walls were the second. Takuda himself was the third. Through the court system and the prison system, Japan would wrap this man tighter and tighter, in layer upon layer. The system would bind this man so tightly that he could never hurt anyone, not even himself.

Spittle ran down the prisoner's chin as he raised his face and grinned at Takuda.

Nakamura laughed. “Look, Ogawa the idiot can't tie his own shoes, but he can see through one-­way glass, huh? He seems alert right now. Perhaps you would like to question him.”

Nakamura opened the door and stood aside, waiting for Takuda to enter.

Something is very wrong here.
The grinning prisoner didn't fit the rest of the picture. Takuda bowed to the chief and stepped into the interrogation room.

“There you are,” the prisoner said. “How nice. Heh-­heh. How very, very nice.”