Chapter 2: Page 1: The Message
While it is now referred to as the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases—a rather catchy title—when it was actually happening, right in the middle of the whirlpool, it was never called anything so impressive.
The media called it the Wara Ningyo Murders, or the L.A. Serial Locked Room Killings, or all kinds of other ghastly names. This fact was undoubtedly a source of great annoyance to Beyond Birthday—the perpetrator of the murders in question—but frankly, I think those names provide a more accurate description of what was actually happening. Either way, the day after Beyond Birthday carried out the third of the murders, August 14, 2002, 8:15 am, local time, the FBI agent Naomi Misora was lying dazedly on the bed in her apartment, having just woken up. She was wearing dark leather pants and a matching leather jacket, but it would be a mistake to assume she customarily slept in this outfit. She had spent several hours racing around on her motorcycle the night before, in a vain effort to burn off stress, and when she finally returned to lieu apartment she had fallen instantly into a sound slumber without bothering to shower or undress. Much like the name of the case, Misora has now entered the public consciousness as the one who eventually cracked the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases, but the truth is that when these events were unfolding in real time, she had been suspended from her duties as an FBI agent. According to the official records she was just on a leave of absence, but this is purely because she had absolutely no ability whatsoever to stand up to the pressure from her superiors and colleagues. Suspension, leave, summer vacation. I don't think we need to go into the reasons for her suspension here. What is certain is that this was America, she was Japanese, female, very good at her job, and the FBI is a large organization. . .which ought to be enough information. Obviously, she did have colleagues who had a high opinion of her, which is exactly why she had been able to work in the organization so far, but a month before, just before the Los Angeles BB murders, Misora had made a major blunder, so major even she could not believe it—which led directly to her current situation. This was not the kind of problem that could be alleviated by racing around in the middle of the night on a motorcycle.
Misora was seriously considering quitting the FBI, casting off her entire life, and moving back to Japan. Obviously, part of her was sick and tired of all the nonsense that came with the job, but even more than that was the guilt she felt over her own mistake, which hung upon her shoulders like a dead weight. Even if there had been no pressure from those around her—not that this hypothetical was even remotely possible—Misora would have asked for time off herself.
Or even resigned.
Misora slowly peeled herself off the bed, intending to shower away the sweat of the night before, but then she noticed the laptop on her desk was, for some reason, turned on. She had no recollection of turning it on—after all, she had just woken up. Had she hit the switch on her way in last night? And then fallen asleep without shutting it down again? She didn't remember doing that, but since the screen saver was working, there seemed to be no other explanation. One would assume that if she had enough energy left to turn on her computer, she would have had enough energy to undress. Misora peeled off her jacket and pants, and with her body feeling much lighter, got off the bed, moved over to her desk, and jiggled the mouse. This was enough to clear the screen saver, but at this point Misora became even more confused. The main e-mail program was running and flashing a "new mail" message. It was possible she'd fallen asleep with her computer on, but to fall asleep in the middle of checking her e-mail? While she was still wondering about that, she clicked on her inbox. There was one new message, from Raye Penber. This was the name of Misora's current boyfriend, also an FBI agent. He was the most obvious example of the agents who had a high opinion of her (not that this stopped him from begging her to transfer to a less dangerous department every time something happened). Since her leave was almost over, this might well be just business, so Misora went ahead and opened the message...
Naomi Misora-sama
I apologize for contacting you like this.
I would like to request your help in solving a certain case.
If you are willing to assist me, please access the third block of the third section of the Funny Dish server on August 14th at nine am. The line will be open for exactly five minutes (please break through the firewall yourself).
L
PS: In order to contact you, I took the liberty of borrowing your friend's address. This was the simplest and safest way to contact you, so please forgive me. Regardless of whether you agree to help me or not, I need you to destroy this computer within twenty-four hours of reading this message.
When she finished reading, Misora immediately reread the entire message and finally checked the sender's name again.
L.
She might be suspended, but she was still an FBI agent, and obviously she recognized the name—it would have been unforgivable had she not. She briefly considered the idea that Raye Penber, or someone else, was playing a practical joke on her, but she found it hard to believe anyone would be so bold to sign their name as such. L never revealed himself in public or in private, but Misora had heard several horror stories about what had happened to detectives who had tried passing themselves off as L.
It was safe to say that no one would dare use his name, even in jest.
So.
"Aw, dang," she grumbled, and proceeded to take her shower, washing away the exhaustion of the night before. She dried her long black hair and drank a cup of hot coffee.
But she was only pretending to consider the matter—she did not really have a choice. No FBI agent, particularly a low-ranking one, could ever consider turning down a request from L. But at this time Misora did not have a particularly favorable opinion of the great detective L, so she had to pretend to hesitate, if only to make herself feel better. If you consider Misora's personality, the reasons for this are clear. It seemed obvious that the reason her laptop had been turned on was that L had hacked it, and she was more than a little depressed that she would now have to randomly destroy the new computer she had just purchased a month before.
"I don't mind… I mean, I do, but..."
She didn't have a choice.
At just past 8:50, Misora sat down in front of her laptop, which now had less than twenty three hours left to live, and began following L's instructions. She was not an expert hacker, but she had been taught the basics as part of her FBI training.
Just as she successfully gained access to the server, her entire screen went white. Misora was momentarily alarmed, but then she noticed a giant calligraphic L floating in the center of the screen, and relaxed.
"Naomi Misora," came a voice from the laptop speakers, after a brief pause. It was obviously a synthetic voice. But this was the voice recognized as L's by every investigative department in the world. Misora had heard it several times before—but this was the first time it had ever addressed her directly It felt weird, like she was hearing her name on TV—not that she had ever had that experience, but this was what she imagined it would be like.
"This is L."
"Hi," Misora started to say, but then realized how pointless that was. Her laptop did not have a microphone installed, and there was no way for him to hear her.
Instead, she typed in, "This is Naomi Misora. It's an honor to speak to you, L." If her connection was sound, he should be able to receive this.
"Naomi Misora, are you familiar with the murder investigation going on in Los Angeles as we speak?" L got right down to business, without acknowledging her words at all. Presumably this was because he had to complete this communication by 9:05, but his manner and attitude rubbed Misora the wrong way Like it was a given that she would cooperate with him— which was true, but acting like it showed no respect for her pride. Misora allowed herself to bang on the keyboard rather loudly
"I am not so skilled that I can keep track of all the murder investigations happening in Los Angeles."
"Oh? I am."
He'd returned her sarcasm with a boast.
L continued, "I'm referring to the serial killings—-the third victim was found yesterday. I believe there will be more victims to come. HNN news is calling it the Wara Ningyo Murders."
"The Wara Ningyo Murders?"
She had not heard about it. She was on leave and had been deliberately avoiding that kind of news.
Misora had lived in Japan until she graduated high school and was familiar with the term, but hearing it pronounced in English gave it an edge of unfamiliarity.
"I would like to solve this case," L said. "I need to arrest the killer. But your help in this matter is vital, Naomi Misora."
"Why me?" she typed. This could be taken to mean either "Why do you need my help?" or "Why should I help you?" but L took the first meaning without a moment's hesitation. Sarcasm appeared to be lost on him.
"Naturally, because you are a skilled investigator, Naomi Misora."
"I'm on a leave of absence..."
"I know. Isn't that convenient?"
Three victims, he'd said.
Obviously, it depended on the victims, but from what L had told her this case had not yet reached the kind of scale required for the FBI to get involved. She would normally have assumed that this was why he had approached her instead of going through the FBI director, but this was much too sudden. And she had been given almost no time to think things through. But it had been enough time for her to wonder why L would be involved in a case too small for the FBI to notice. She did not imagine he would answer that question over her computer, however.
She glanced at her clock.
She had one more minute.
"Okay. I'll help in any way I can," Misora typed.
L answered instantly, "Thank you. I knew you would agree." He did not sound very thankful.
But perhaps that could be blamed on the synthetic nature of his voice.
"Let me explain how you will contact me in the future. We have no time, so I will be brief. First..
First, she had to know the basic details of the Los Angeles BB Murder Cases. On July 3 1st, 2002, in the bedroom of a small house on Hollywood's Insist Street, a man named Believe Bridesmaid was killed. He lived alone, working as a freelance writer. He had written articles for dozens of magazines under many different names and was relatively well known in the industry—-which means exactly nothing, but in this case appears to have been fairly accurate. He was strangled. He was first knocked out with some sort of drug and then strangled from behind with some sort of string. There were no signs of struggle—all things considered, a smoothly executed crime. The second murder occurred four days later, on August 4th, 2002. This time it was downtown, in an apartment on Third Avenue, and the victim was a female named Quarter Queen. This time the victim was beaten to death, her skull caved in from the front by something long and hard. Once again, the victim appeared to have been drugged first and was unconscious at the time of death. As for why it was determined that these two murders were committed by the same killer... well, anyone who saw the scene of the crime instantly noticed the connection.
There were straw voodoo dolls nailed to the walls at both places. These dolls were specifically known as Wara Ningyo.
Four of them on Insist Street.
Three of them on Third Avenue.
Nailed to the walls.
The Wara Ningyo had been covered in the news, so strictly speaking there was a chance of a copycat crime, but several other details matched as well, leading the police to begin treating the case as a serial killing. But if that was the case, that left a very big question—there was absolutely nothing to connect Believe Bridesmaid with Quarter Queen. Neither one of them had the other's number in their cell phones, neither one of them had the other's card in their business card holder, and besides, Quarter Queen did not own a cell phone or a business card holder—she was a thirteen-year-old girl. What connection could she possibly have to a forty-four-year-old professional freelance writer? If there was a connection, it was probably through the girl's mother, who was out of town when the murder happened, but given the difference in neighborhoods and situations between the two, it was still difficult to see any significant connection. To use a term from an old-fashioned detective novel, there was a missing link—they could not find any connection between the victims. The investigation had naturally focused on this, but nine days later (by which time the media had begun calling them the Wara Ningyo Murders) on August 13th, 2002, the third murder happened.
There were two Wara Ningyo on the wall. There was one less doll with each murder.
The third murder was in West L.A., in a townhouse near the Metrorail Glass Station, and the victim's name was Backyard Bottomslash. This victim was another female—age twenty-six, midway between the first and second victims—and she was a bank clerk.
Once again, she had no connections with Believe Bridesmaid or Quarter Queen at all. It seemed unlikely they had even bumped into each other on the street. She died from loss of blood—massive hemorrhaging. Strangulation, beating, and finally stabbing—each time a different method of murder, giving the unnatural impression that he was trying something new with each killing. And he left no useful clues at any of the scenes. The only other thing to investigate was the link between them, but since none was found—which was very strange for murders of this type—the third murder left the police at a complete loss. The killer was far better at this than the police were.
I have no intention of praising Beyond Birthday, but in this case I will give him the credit he is due.
Oh, right—in addition to the Wara Ningyo, there was one other major similarity between the scenes—
they were all locked rooms. Just like an old mystery novel. The detectives investigating the case had not put a lot of value on this particular aspect of the case.. .but when Naomi Misora received the file on the case from L, this word was the first thing that caught her attention.
When Misora began investigating the case—not as an FBI agent, hut as an individual under L's supervision—it was the day after she received L's request, August 15th. She was off duty, so her badge and gun had been taken away from her, leaving her with no more rights to weaponry than any ordinary citizen.
But she did not particularly mind—Misora had never been the kind of agent to throw her authority around. She was a little put nit, and her mental condition was a little choppy, so she was not in I he best condition to tackle the case, but in that sense her emotional slate was similar to L's own. In other words, she was not good at working in groups, and her ability shone brightest when she escaped he bindings of organizations and worked on her own—which in him might explain why she had a pinch of resentment coloring her eclings toward L.
But on August 15th, at just past noon, Naomi Misora was on Hollywood's Insist Street, the scene of the first murder. Looking up it the house, which seemed a trifle large for a man who lived alone, Misora reached into her bag, took out a cell phone, and dialed the timber she'd been given. She had been told it was scrambled fivefold and completely safe. Not only safe for L, but also safe for the off duty Misora.
"L, I've reached the scene."
"Good," the artificial voice said, as if he'd been waiting for her.
Misora briefly wondered where L was, in what kind of environment he went about his investigations, but she quickly realized that it made no difference either way.
"What should I do?"
"Naomi Misora, are you inside the building or outside?"
"Outside. I'm headed toward the scene of the crime but have not yet entered the yard."
"Then please go inside. It should be unlocked. I've arranged for that."
"Thanks."
Well prepared.
She grit her teeth, resisting the urge to say something sarcastic. Normally she would have considered being prepared a point worth respecting, but she found it hard to accept that anyone was this thoroughly prepared.
She opened the door and entered the house. The victim had been killed in his bedroom, and Misora had been involved in enough investigations with the FBI to make a fair guess at where that room was located from the outside. A house like this usually had the bedroom on the first floor, so she moved accordingly. It'd been two weeks since the murder, but they were obviously keeping the place clean.
There wasn't a speck of dust anywhere.
"But, L..."
"What?"
"According to the data I received yesterday—not to state the obvious, but the police have already examined the scene."
"Yes.'
"I'm not sure how you did it, but you already have the police reports covering that."
"Yes."
Not very helpful.
"So there's no point in my being here?"
"No," L said. "I expect you will be able to find something that the police did not."
"Well.. that's clear enough."
Or perhaps a tad obvious.
It ultimately explained nothing.
"They say you should visit the crime scene a hundred times, So going there is hardly pointless. Some time has passed, so it's possible something floated to the surface. Naomi Misora, the first thing we iced to think about in this case is the connection between the victims. What links Believe Bridesmaid, Quarter Queen, and the new victim, Backyard Bottomslash? Or is there no connection, and these murders are completely random? But even if they are random, there must be some logic by which the killer selects his victims. What l am asking you to do, Naomi Misora, is to discover this missing link."
"I see..."
She didn't really, hut she had begun to understand that arguing with L would not make him stop being evasive and tell her what she actually wanted to know, so she decided to not ask many questions.
Besides, she had found the bedroom. The door opened inward and had a thumb turn lock.
A locked room.
The second and third crime scenes also had thumb turn locks... was that a link? No, that much information had been in the file. The
police had already noticed it. L was looking for something more.
It was not a very large room, but there was not much furniture, so it did not feel cramped. There was a big bed in the center of the scene, but the only other furniture was a few bookshelves. These shelves were mainly filled with how-to books for different leisure activities and famous Japanese comics, suggesting that Believe Bridesmaid had used this room exclusively for relaxation. He seemed be the type to carefully separate work and private time—not a type often found in freelance writers.
Presumably there was a study of some kind on the second floor, Misora thought, absently glancing up at the ceiling. She would have to check there later.
"By the way, Naomi Misora. What are your thoughts on the culprit behind these killings? I'd like to hear your current thinking on the matter."
"I doubt if my thoughts will be of any use to you, L…"
"All thoughts are of use."
Oh?
Misora thought for a moment.
"He's abnormal," she replied, not bothering to choose her words, but just stating her mind. This was the main impression she had received the day before, reading over the file. "Not just because he's killed three people, but... each action he took just drove that impression home. And he's not even trying to hide it."
"For example?"
"For example… fingerprints. They have not found a single fingerprint at any of the crime scenes. They had been wiped away completely."
"True... but Naomi Misora, surely leaving no fingerprints is the most basic of criminal techniques."
"Not to this extent," Misora said, annoyed—she knew L understood what she was driving at and was sure that he was testing her ability, no matter what he said. Testing to see if she was capable of serving as his man on the scene. "If you didn't want to leave fingerprints, most people would wear gloves—or otherwise, wipe down anything they touched. But this guy... apparently he wiped clean every fingerprint in the house. At all three scenes. At first I wondered if he'd been to the victim's house so many times he had no idea what he'd touched and what he hadn't, but once I read that he had unscrewed the light bulbs and wiped the sockets, it became a completely different story. What else can you call that but abnormal?"
"I agree."
Did he, now?
"So, L, back to what I was saying earlier, if he's taken such extreme precautions, then I doubt I'm going to be able to find anything new here. It's a faint hope at best. Someone like this isn't going to make a mistake."
A mistake.
Like the one she'd made last month.
"Normally this kind of investigation starts by finding the criminal's mistake, and then filling in the puzzle from there, but in this case, I doubt we'll find anything like that."
"No, I don't think we will," L said. "But what if it isn't a mistake?"
"Not a mistake?"
"Yes. Something he deliberately left behind. And if the police detectives simply failed to notice it…
then we might have a chance."
Deliberately leaving clues? Did that ever happen? Not in the normal run of things, no—why would anyone leave something behind hat could be used against them? Or wait. Now that he mentioned it, they already knew two examples of exactly that behavior. One was the Wara Ningyo nailed to the walls, and the other was the thumb turn locks, creating a locked room. These were not mistakes, but had clearly been left behind by the killer. Especially the latter. Exactly the thing that Misora had been most interested in—locked rooms were almost always created when the killer was trying to make it look like a suicide. But the first victim was strangled from behind, the second was beaten to death with a weapon that was not found at the scene, and the third victim was stabbed with, again, a weapon not left at the scene… none of which could ever be mistaken for a suicide. Which meant there was nothing to be gained from creating a locked room. It was not a mistake, but it was unnatural.
The Wara Ningyo were the same.
She had no idea what they meant.
Since Wara Ningyo were used for curses in Japan, there were people wildly theorizing that the killer was Japanese, or someone with a deep-seated grudge against the Japanese, but especially since these Wara Ningyo were a particularly cheap variety that could be easily purchased in any toy shop (for about three dollars) no one theory had gained prominence.
Misora shut the door behind her, and since the thumb turn lock was at waist height, she absently turned it and locked herself in.
Then she checked each location where the dolls had been nailed to the walls.
There had been four of them.
One on each of the four walls of the square room. Obviously, they had been taken away by the police as critical evidence, and were no longer here. It was easy enough to tell where they had been, since there were holes in the walls. Misora took six pictures out of her bag. One of each of the four dolls. One showed the victim, Believe Bridesmaid, lying on his back on the bed, It clearly showed the rope marks around his neck.
And then the last picture.
This was not from the scene, but a close up of Believe Bridesmaid's bare chest, taken during the autopsy. There were a number of major cuts on it, which appeared to have been carved into his flesh with a knife. They were not that deep, but ran in all directions. According to the report, they had been made after the victim's death.
"Generally speaking, when the killer engages in this sort of meaningless destruction of the corpse, they have a deep-seated grudge against their victim....for a freelance writer who would take any job, I wouldn't be surprised if he had quite a few enemies. He did a lot of gossip columns..."
"But Naomi Misora, that does not explain the connection to the second and third murders. Both of those bodies were also damaged in ways that had no direct connection to the cause of death—in fact, the damage seems to have escalated with each murder."
"It's possible Bridesmaid was the only one he had a grudge against, and the other two murders were designed to disguise that. Or maybe it wasn't Bridesmaid, but one of the other two.. .or two out of the three, and the third was camouflage. The destruction night be getting worse because it's part of the disguise, or..."
"You believe the killer is only pretending to kill indiscriminately?"
"No. This is just one pattern worth considering. This idea wouldn't explain the Wara Ningyo. I mean, maybe he deliberately left them there to prove that all three were killed by the same man—and the locked doors might be for the same reason."
In which case moving from Hollywood to downtown to the west side of town could be seen as an effort to confuse the investigation. The more people the case connected to, the more chaotic the investigation would become.., and the selection of a young girl as the second victim may have been done deliberately to make him look like a psycho.
"Pretending to be abnormal... well, just the idea of doing that is abnormal enough," L said. Misora was surprised to hear him express such a human sentiment. The emotion she felt was very similar to being impressed, and she quickly put the conversation back on topic —to cover her reaction, if not to hide it.
"So, L, I feel ridiculous trying to figure out a connection between the victims. I think the police are doing a fine job with that, and... Frankly, checking out everyone who knew each of them seems more useful. I mean, the third victim, Backyard Bottomslash... she must have been involved in all kinds of business dealings at the bank."
"But Naomi Misora," L interrupted. "This is no time for idle musings. I believe there will be a fourth murder in the near future."
He'd said something similar the day before. That there would be more victims. But based on what?
With the killer still at large, it was an obvious possibility, but it seemed just as likely the murders would end at three. It all depended on the killer's whim—as an investigator, she found it hard to place the odds higher than fifty-fifty.
"The number of Wara Ningyo," L said. "Four where you are, three downtown with the second victim, and two at the third scene, in West L.A—one less doll at each scene."
"Yeah. So?"
"The number of dolls can still decrease by one."
She should have guessed. In fact, it made little sense to count backward from four to two and then stop.
Even if Misora's theory was right, and he was killing indiscriminately to camouflage his real victim, then the more victims the more effective this plan would be. Of course, each new murder was an added risk, but the return probably justified it. Frankly, there was no way of telling if this killer even considered murders a risk—there were certainly some killers who considered the murders themselves return enough. And it was abnormal to pretend to be abnormal...
"So, L... you think there will be as many as two additional murders?"
"More than a ninety percent chance," he said. "I'd say a hundred, but there is a small possibility that something will happen on the killer's side, preventing him from continuing. So maybe ninety-two percent. But Misora, if something does happen, it will not be two more—only one. There's only a thirty percent chance of a fifth murder."
"Thirty percent?"
Quite a drop.
"Why? There are two more Wara Ningyo... and if he's using the dolls to represent his victims..."
"But in that case, he won't be able to leave a Wara Ningyo at the fifth crime scene. He will go from two dolls to one when he kills the fourth victim. That doll will make it obvious that these are the work of the stifle killer, but..."
"Oh! I see," Misora said, wincing at her own stupidity. Obviously whatever the killer's motive, leaving a Wara Ningyo at the scene was part of his rules. He would hardly kill a fifth victim when the number of dolls had reached zero.
"There is a thirty percent chance the killer won't think things through that far, but that's extremely doubtful. After all, he did wipe the light bulb sockets..."
"So there will only be four victims total. The next one is the list."
"No. The third was the last," L said firmly. Despite being a synthetic voice. "There will not be another.
Not with me involved."
Confidence?
Or hubris?
Neither one was something Misora had laid claim to for a while now. The last few weeks in particular.
What had confidence been like?
What had pride been like?
Misora no longer knew
"But I need your assistance, Naomi Misora. I expect great things from your investigations."
"Do you?"
"Yes. Please keep your heart frozen while you work. In my experience, what a case like this needs most is a mind that will not be moved by anything. Behave as if you are playing chess on the ice."
"…"
Wasn't that called curling?
"L, you do know that I'm on a leave of absence?"
"Yes. That's why I asked you for help. With this case, I need a skilled individual who can work on their own."
"So I imagine you also know why I'm on a leave of absence?"
"No," he said, to Misora's surprise. "I don't know that."
"You didn't check?"
"I wasn't interested. You are skilled, and were currently available, and that was all that mattered—
unless there was something I should know about? In that case, I could find out in under a minute."
"No." she said, grimacing.
She had felt like the entire world knew about her blunder, but not even the world's greatest detective knew. And he had described Misora's leave of absence/suspension as making her "available." She had never thought to wonder, but it seemed L did have a sense of humor.
"Okay, L, if we're going to stop the fourth murder, we should begin. What should I do first?"
"What can you do?"
"I can do what I can do," Misora said. "I know I keep asking, but if I'm going to look over the scene again.., searching for anything he left behind besides the Wara Ningyo. . .what, specifically, am I looking for?"
"Any kind of message."
"Message?"
"Yes. This was not listed in the data I gave you, but nine days before July 3 1st, before the first murder, on July 22nd, the LAPD received a letter."
"A letter?"
Where was this going? The LAPD...?
"Connected to the case?"
"At the moment, none of the detectives involved have noticed a connection. I don't know for certain if there actually is one, but I think there is."
"What percent?"
"Eighty percent."
Instant response.
"The sender is unknown—a forwarding system was used, and there's no way to tell where it was sent from. Inside the envelope was a single piece of paper with a crossword puzzle written on it."
"A crossword puzzle? Hunh…"
"Don't be dismissive. It was a very difficult puzzle, and no one could solve it. Of course, we could also take that to mean no one applied themselves to it seriously, but it seems reasonable to hypothesize that several policemen working together were unable to solve the puzzle.''
I see. So?"
"Eventually they decided the puzzle was just a prank, and it was thrown away. ..but my information-gathering network acquired a copy through other channels yesterday."
"Yesterday…"
So that was why it wasn't in the file. Even as Misora was preparing to start her investigation, L had been pursuing the matter from different angle.
"I solved it," L said.
Apparently that hypothesis about the difficulty of the puzzle had a preemptive form of bragging. He must get frowned at a lot, Misora thought. Not that she was one to talk.
"If I'm not mistaken, then the answer to that puzzle is where you are—The address of the first murder."
"221 Insist St., Hollywood? Where I am now? But that means...then."
"Exactly. He told them he was going to commit these murders. But since the puzzle was so difficult that no one could solve it, it did not realistically stand a chance of serving that purpose..."
"Has the LAPD received any other letters like that? Indicating the address for the second or third murders?"
"No. I checked the entire state of California, just to be sure. I have discovered no other such letters or c-mails. I plan to keep looking, but..
"Then it might just be a coincidence? No, that's impossible. If it listed the address exactly, it must be...
so why nine days before?"
"The time between the second and third murders was also nine days. August 4th to August 13th. It's possible the killer likes the number nine."
"But there are only four days between the first and second murders... pure chance?"
"A reasonable interpretation. But it seems worth remembering that time lag. Nine days, four days, nine days. Either way, the killer is the type to advertise his actions to the police. Even if he was just pre034
tending to be that type of killer, there remains a very good chance that there is some kind of message in the room, something besides the Wara Ningyo."
"Hmm... so..."
Something deliberate.
A message much harder to understand than the Wara Ningyo... something like a very challenging crossword puzzle. Misora felt like she was at last starting to understand why L needed her help. There was no way an armchair detective would be able to find something like this on his own. You had to see the scene with your own eyes, be able to reach out and touch things... and it required quality over quantity. Someone who could look at the scene from his own perspective, his own way of thinking...
But she also thought he was putting too much stock in her. If she had to be L's eyes as well... that was too much for an ordinary I:II agent to handle.
"Something wrong, Naomi Misora?"
"No... never mind."
"Okay. For the moment, let us cease communication. I have many things I must attend to."
"Certainly."
This was L, so he was undoubtedly solving several other difficult cases all at once. Cases all over the world. For him, this case was just one of many parallel investigations. How else could he maintain his reputation as the world's greatest detective?
The century's greatest detective, L.
The detective with no clients.
"I'll be waiting to hear good things from you. The next time you call me, please use the number five line, Naomi Misora," L said, and hung up.
Misora folded her phone and put it back in her bag. Then she moved over to the bookshelves to start her investigation. There was nothing in the bedroom but the bed and the bookshelves, so there wasn't much else to investigate.
"Not as bad as his killer, but it looks like Believe Bridesmaid was reasonably obsessive himself..." The books were packed tightly onto the shelves with no excess space. Misora did a quick count—fifty-seven volumes. She tried to pull one out at random, but this was rather difficult to do. Her index huger alone proved inadequate, and she had to use her thumb and mime lever principle to pry it Out. She flipped through the pages, well aware that this was pointless. She was just keeping her hands busy while she tried to figure out what to do. It would be nice and simple ml there were a message hidden between the pages of the book, but that was too much to hope for. According to the files, like the light bulb sockets, each page of every book had been wiped, removing all fingerprints—suggesting not only that the killer was extremely finicky, but that the police had in fact gone through all of the books. One could assume there had been no messages.
Or the message had been arranged in a way the police had not noticed... something that looked like an ordinary bookmark, but actually had a code hidden on it... But after flipping through another few books, she dismissed this theory as well. The books here did not have bookmarks. Believe Bridesmaid did not appear to be the bookmark type. Many fussy readers detest the slight curve in the page a bookmark can leave.
Which meant that even the most fastidious killer would never dream of placing anything inside a book.
Misora moved away from the shelves. She glanced down at the bed, but there seemed to be even less to investigate here. There was nothing to do but pull the sheets off and look under the mattress. And she didn't even need to check the file to know that the police had already done that, it seemed virtually impossible to hide a message on the bed that the police would not notice.
"Under the carpet... behind the wallpaper. . . no, no, why would he hide the message? He wants it to be found. It's not a message if it isn't found. He sent the crossword puzzle to the police... very egotistical.
He wants the puzzles to be difficult... to prove that we're stupid." He wasn't trying to outwit them.
He was mocking them.
"You are beneath me, You can never beat me,'—that's what the messages are saying. Which means...
he's not trying to make everything go right and avoid getting caught, he's after something more than his goals... or making fun of us is his primary goal? Who is 'us'? The police? The LAPD? Society? The U.S.A.? The world? No... the scale's too small.. This is more personal. So this message... or something like a message... There must be one somewhere in this room... or, wait..." There must be was wrong.
Maybe there wasn't.
"Something that should be here, but isn't… something missing, that used to be here... the Wara Ningyo? No, those were a symbol of the victims, not a message… the bedroom. ..oh, right! The occupant! The bedroom's occupant isn't here."
Something missing, something no longer here.
Like the room's owner, Believe Bridesmaid.
Misora took out the photographs again and looked carefully at the two pictures of Bridesmaid's corpse-one taken at the scene, and one taken during the autopsy. If the killer had left a message on his body, it was obviously not the rope marks, but the knife wounds in his chest. Like Misora had said to L, normally these would be taken as a sign of a personal vendetta, but now that she thought about it, they weren't natural. In the photo from the scene, the body was on its back, wearing a T-shirt which had a few bloodstains on it... but the T-shirt itself wasn't damaged at all. Which meant that after the killer had murdered him, he had taken the T-shirt off, cut up the body with a knife, and then put the T-shirt back on. If this was a simple grudge, he would have just cut right through the fabric. Was there a reason he didn't want to damage the T-shirt? But he didn't seem to mind if it got bloodstained... and the T-shirt definitely belonged to the victim. It was one he always slept in...
"If you… look at them right... these marks... do look like letters... sort of…" You had to twist the picture around a lot, though.
"V... C... I? No, M... another V... X? D... and that's three l's in a row... L? That looks like L… hmm, feels like I'm forcing it..."
This only worked if you were looking for it. It wasn't like kanji or Hangul—alphabet letters were constructed of simple lines and curves, and any random scratch marks, whether with a pencil or knife, would look like something.
"Normally I'd like to see what the detectives in charge think, the people actually involved in the case...
but I don't have a badge at the moment, so that's out of the question. Of course, L's probably handling that side of things for me."
Misora was starting to appreciate how much harder it was to work on your own, without the support of the organization. She had always felt out of place in the FBI, but she was just now realizing how much she had taken advantage of the resources it offered.
"I guess I should check the other rooms... seems sort of pointless. But if he wiped all the fingerprints in the house…" she murmured, and turned to leave the room.
But then it occurred to her that there was one place she hadn't checked yet. Under the bed. Easy enough to overlook, and far more likely than under the carpet or behind the wallpaper—it seemed fairly unlikely that the police had missed such an obvious blind spot, but it seemed worth crawling under there, just to be sure. There might be something new she could see from down there. For this reason, Misora crouched down next to the bed...
And a hand reached out from underneath it.
"…?!"
Misora jumped backward instantly, forced down the surge of emotions this sudden turn of events stirred up, and put her fists up. She didn't have a gun with her—not because she was suspended, but simply because she had never really gotten used to carrying one around. With no gun, she had no trigger to pull.
"What… no, who are you?" she roared, trying to sound intimidating. But the hand was joined by a second hand, as if her voice was just the wind blowing, and a body followed it. A man, crawling out from under the bed.
How long... had he been here...?
Was he under the bed this whole time?
Had he heard her talking to L?
All kinds of questions flooded through Misora's mind.
"Answer me! Who are you?!"
She put one hand inside her jacket, pretending she had a gun. The man raised his head.
And slowly stood up.
Natural black hair.
A plain shirt, faded jeans.
He was a young man, with dark lines under his wide, bulging eyes.
Thin, and apparently fairly tall, but his back was curved, leaving his gaze two heads lower than Misora's so he appeared to be looking up at her.
"Nice to meet you," he said, completely unruffled. He bowed even lower. "Please call me Ryuzaki."
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