“Has anyone found the rope and gag?” Teruo addressed all the other officers.
“Yes.” One officer showed two transparent bags with a coil of rope and what appeared to be a torn sheet.
“Get them tested fast,” Teruo said, then turned to Shinji. “Come with me to Ishida’s bedroom. Let’s see if we find anything there.”
“This is one thorough murderer, sir,” Shinji said as he pulled open the bedroom’s door. “No footprints, no fingerprints, no nothing.”
“Yeah…”
The room had a single bed in the corner, unmade and with a laptop cable lying across the covers. The nightstand had a glass of water and two bags of chips on top. Opposite was a small desk with piles of paper scattered around and next to it a narrow wardrobe.
Making a beeline for the bed, Teruo grabbed the cable. “Where’s the laptop?”
“They’ve already swept the room,” Shinji said. “Found no laptop and no phone.”
“Fuck.” Teruo threw the cable back on the bed. “Either there’s something incriminating stored in Ishida’s phone and laptop or the criminal has a thing for stealing personal objects.”
“Seeing as they took pictures at that reunion it’s possible there are more pictures than what we found on the internet. Perhaps the killer appears in some of them.”
A cold breeze wafted through the open window, ruffling the papers on the desk. Shinji’s gaze turned to it and Teruo followed his line of sight. His focus shifted from the window to the wall next to the window and then toward the wardrobe. He couldn’t be looking at walls and furniture. That cold breeze must’ve been related to the white wind.
Then, that exact wind slowly took shape around Shinji. It appeared out of nowhere. A white tendril stretched reaching the window as if it had life of its own and did Shinji’s bidding. But what was Shinji searching for?
Teruo walked by him without a word and stopped at the window, right in the way of the white wind. It was freezing and felt as if a current of strong air passed through his body. Teruo held his breath, then that sensation disappeared and Shinji came by his side, the wind gone. Their eyes met for a moment, but Shinji quickly averted his gaze. Whether he’d noticed Teruo staring or not, he couldn’t tell.
Teruo cleared his throat and looked outside the window where the fire escape stretched to the right, the stairs zig-zagging down the building. As he examined the rusty floor of the fire escape something caught his attention.
“There’s blood on the wall, underneath the window. By the looks of it, the forensics took a sample.”
Shinji grabbed onto the sill and leaned forward for better view, then glanced at the fire escape. “I’d like to check it out. If there’s blood here, it means the suspect might’ve taken this route instead of the main exit.”
Teruo almost wanted to call one of their forensic officers to climb over, but the look on Shinji’s face stopped him. Once again, something invisible to Teruo seemed to have caught Shinji’s attention and his gaze pierced the length of the fire escape, brows furrowed and his shoulders tense.
Best to leave Shinji alone to check out whatever it was and observe from a distance. Teruo’s gut feeling told him Shinji wouldn’t do anything with an audience and from the frantic way he’d looked outside their office’s window, it had to be important.
“All right,” Teruo said.
Shinji took off his suit jacket and passed it to Teruo, then stepped over the sill and landed on the metal floor with a thud.
“Be careful. That shit looks like it’ll collapse at any moment.”
Shinji nodded. “There’s some more blood on the railing.”
“Don’t touch it. I’ll call the forensics when you’re done.”
Shinji didn’t reply and continued forward on the fire escape.
Quickly striding to the door, Teruo told one of the officers not to let anyone inside the bedroom, then closed the door. Returning to the window, he took a slow breath and exhaled, concentrating on Shinji’s footsteps in the distance. With the other officers’ voices muffled by the door and the quietness of the street below, it was easy to hear them. No, not just hear, Teruo realized, baffled by this sudden pressure in his chest.
He could sense the white wind as if it were next to him. Swallowing the dryness in his throat, Teruo held onto the edge of the window with his gloved hand. Before he could make sense of it all, the sensation completely disappeared.
CHAPTER 15
Shinji
Shinji walked the metal floor of the fire escape and stopped at the staircase before peeking down. This was a good place for a killer to make a run. The stairs went all the way to the ground. The area was quiet and devoid of ghosts.
Earlier while he was in the bedroom, Shinji had felt Ishida’s spirit. He was most likely hovering nearby, waiting for an opportunity to speak. But Shinji sensed something else too. A pressure in his chest and a coldness that didn’t belong to a ghost. Many people mixed up the spiritual energies of supernatural beings together, but Shinji could tell them apart by analyzing the energy at a deeper level. It was a talent possessed only by Shinigami.