Mystery 7
Shi wo Yobunoroi no Aburae
Death Curse of the Oil Painting

Assistant Section Chief Nonomura stood at the front of Keizoku's basement office, addressing Mayama, Taniguchi and Kondoh; the latter two concentrated on the speech, the former was indifferent for some time. "I have some very good news for you all today. This spring, those of you whose sons are enrolling in elementary, junior high, high school, university or any sort of specialty college will be given celebration money, in the even sum of one allowance of thirty thousand yen; this applies to Taniguchi and Kondoh."

Mayama was incredulous, but his two peers were exuberant in their expressions of gratitude and appreciation. Nonomura continued, "Also, for married men taking their vacations in the spring period, a sixty percent discount is available at the Hawaii clubhouse in Waikiki. Kondoh," he asked, "You're taking a long vacation in April; will you go?"

"Excuse me for asking," said Kondoh, "Is there a family discount for one week?"

Sure, actually," Nonomura said, "After spring, a 'Happy Birthday' vacation days package is implemented, applicable to the birthdays of each member of your family."

"Does that mean that since I have a family of four, I get four days paid vacation?" Taniguchi piped up enthusiastically.

"I have a family of seven, so do I get one week?" echoed Kondoh.

Mayama waved his hand in protest, quickly cutting into their revelry. "Hey, whoa, whoa, wait a second! Isn't there anything nice in the system for us single people?"

"Mayama," said Nonomura. "Why not get married? If you get married, you'll recieve two hundred thousand from personnel."

"Two hundred thousand!?" came Aya's raspy cry from around the corner as she hurried into the office and toward the desk cluster bearing a fat binder. "What's this about two hundred thou? Who gets that?"

Mayama gestured at her with the cigarette between his fingers as he explained, "Anybody who gets married, they get two hundred thousand from personnel." He narrowed his eyes playfully at her. "How 'bout it? Wanna marry me?"

Aya's face went sour and incredulous as she threw her hands up in an emphatic gesture of rejection. "What?! What in the hell would a girl like me wanna marry a poor old cop like you for, what?!"

"It was a joke, for chrissakes," Mayama said, returning to his book. Taniguchi leaned over the counter with a suggestive leer as he intoned, "Ah, wouldn't Inspector Shibata be a good choice?"

"Indeed," intoned Nonomura. "This summer she'll be in charge of some jurisdiction."

"Oh, a sugar mommy, a sugar mommy!" said Kondoh.

"She's a virgin, a virgin," Aya taunted.

"I'm gonna kill you," said Mayama. Kondoh apologized with placating hands, and the elevator bell heralded the arrival of the notorious latecomer. "Ah, she's here, she's here," Nonomura chuckled as Shibata burst into the office with her usual apology.

"Jesus Christ," Mayama grumbled. "No way in hell I'm gonna find a good woman to marry inside of a month." The other men began to chuckle, and just then a gruff-looking female officer announced her entrance.

"Consultation regarding the murder that took place six years ago in the Yamada Art Gallery." Upon completion of her compulsory announcement, she ostentatiously displayed a shining engagement ring on her thick finger.

The officer stepped aside, and just behind her entered a quite attractive young woman who amiably proceeded to inquire as to the commencement of her consultation.


Mayama grinned from ear to ear as he stood up promptly from behind the desk cluster. Nonomura welcomed the young woman in, and Mayama all but shoved him out of the way to compete for her attention. "Please entrust us with anything, no matter how small!" he insisted as he marched toward the office entrance.

"Thank you very much," the woman said. "We depend on your good will." She then stepped aside to make way for a short, elderly woman in a kimono behind her. Mayama gawked, stupified, and Nonomura took over to offer the visitors a seat.

As the two women seated themselves, the younger produced her business card and presented it to Nonomura. "I represent the Gallery Yamada located in Junguuji. My name is Yamada Naoko."

Mayama promptly grabbed the card to read her title. "Representative Director?" He leaned forward. "Excuse me, but what is your age?"

"I'm twenty-four," she said.

"Ah, so young!" Nonomura smiled, echoed by the smiles of everyone lurking behind him. "That's quite an accomplishment."

"My father left the gallery to me," she explained dismissively. "I love the paintings, but really I barely understand the management aspect."

"And such modesty, too," Mayama grinned, slapping Nonomura on the back. "Really!"

"The fact is, we have a concern regarding one of the paintings," Naoko said.

"Ah, which one?" Nonomura asked, with the curious office leaning forward behind him.

"It's a scene of children playing. That painting supposedly has the ability to change itself of its own volition, and to curse anyone who sees it happen with certain death."

"Well, yeah, naturally, everybody has to die someday," Mayama deadpanned. "It's scarier not to die, right, right?" He uttered his last syllables in a jovial falsetto that drew cordial laughter from his colleagues.

Naoko continued, "My father was in fact killed by it six years ago."

Mayama slumped against the back of the sofa, and the others exchanged somewhat dismayed glances. Shibata stood in a dim corner between the towering bookshelves, reading from the casebook. "3 March 1993, approximately 7pm, Yamada Shigeo, aged 44, resident and proprieter of the Gallery Yamada, returned to the room in which the painting in question was hung, to retrieve something he had left behind."

Shibata imagined the entrance to the darkened gallery, with Yamada Shigeo entering the room through the door directly opposite the painting, turning on the light, and picking up a set of keys from a coffee table. He turns the light out and is about to leave when a creaking sound makes him turn around. He enters the room once more, and stares in shock at a missing part of the painting. He makes a mad dash for the telephone, crying out for help, declaring that the painting had changed. Shibata imagined the muffled giggles of a crowd of young children carrying pinwheels filling the room, and Yamada screaming as they move toward him. His body was found in the cemetery the next morning, a pinwheel in his hand. "Cause of death was strangulation," Shibata read.

"Christ, I hate it, I really hate this kinda shit," Mayama said to Kondoh, with his back toward the rest of the office.

"Totally," Aya breathed in agreement, resting her chin in her palm. "Shouldn't have even come in."

Shibata, seated next to Nonomura on the sofa, smiled with delight as she eagerly moved her gaze up and down from the business card to Naoko and back, and back and forth between Naoko and her aged companion. Nonomura reached for the cup in front of him and gulped down the hot liquid, forgetting that that particular cup had been poured for the visitor across from him. With a scorched throat, he cried out apologetically to Kondoh for another cup.

"No, thank you," Naoko interjected. "My body can't handle coffee," she said, pushing her own cup to her companion to replace that which Nonomura had emptied, and reaching into her bag. "I have an atopic disposition, so I always carry herb tea in my thermos." She began to pour from the small thermos, and Shibata murmured that hers was the same and reached around the back of the sofa to remove it from her own tote bag. "Look," she said to Naoko.

"This thermos is so light and convenient, isn't it," she declared, joined on the last syllable by Shibata as the two of them smiled like schoolgirls. Naoko placed hers on the tabletop, and Shibata murmured approvingly of the scent of the steaming beverage.

"Would you like to try it?" Naoko offered.

Shibata's face lit up with gratitude. "Thank you," she said, removing the cup of her own thermos and rubbing her cheek. "Lately the condition of my skin has been just a bit..."

"Yeah, right," Mayama called from behind the desk cluster. "You just don't wash your face."

Shibata smiled and thanked Naoko, and slowly raised the small cup to her mouth, savouring the flavor. At last, she sighed with joy. "Delicious," she declared softly.

Aya leaped from her seat and hurried over to the sofa. "It's good? It's good? Lemme try?" Shibata handed her the little cup, from which Aya proceeded to take one swallow, then suddenly looked as if she would vomit. She covered her mouth with her fingers as she hurried out of the room.

Shibata turned around to make an offer to the others behind her, but she received a resounding no from the men. She smiled at them as Nonomura continued, asking Naoko what brought her to the office on this day. "There's someone who noticed a change in that painting recently," Naoko said.

Shibata turned abruptly back to Naoko. "The painting changed?"

"Who is it who claims to have seen that?" Nonomura asked.

"It was I," croaked the elderly woman in the kimono.

Nonomura appealed for the lack of introduction. "Excuse me for asking, but your relation is...?"

"Her name is Fujita Shige," said Naoko. "She's been employed in my family for a very long time."

"It could be imaginary," the aged woman continued in a nervous voice, "Except that I heard it when the master said the painting changed--and those were his last words. The painting's curse is real!"

"I don't want what happened to my father to happen again," Naoko emphasized. "There must be some way you can help us solve the riddle of the painting's curse." Shige looked on in anticipation.

Shibata leaned forward and raised her hand. "I'll go."

"All right, then," Nonomura beamed with satisfaction, turning around. "Mayama?"

"What?" Mayama said from the other side of the room.

"Well, since you're both single, even if something were to happen to you..." Nonomura grinned with an eager nod echoed by Shibata and Naoko.

"That's terrible!" said Mayama.

"Please help us," Naoko pleaded.

"You can count on us," Shibata told her, turning around to wink at Mayama. "Right?"

Mayama staggered up from his chair. "I'm cursed!" he screamed, pulling his hair and twitching like a madman as Aya twirled her hands and jeeringly sung out a mockery of sirens. Mayama collapsed dramatically on the floor.

"Mr Mayama is strange," said Shibata.


Under a crystal blue morning sky, Mayama and Shibata made their way past the cemetery on their trek to the Gallery Yamada. "Why, why," Mayama grumbled, as they passed a small flock of aging women chanting the Prajnaparamita Sutra. Shibata murmured approvingly of the baby carriage one woman was pushing as Mayama continued to complain. "Why the hell should I be the one to go, anyway?"

Shibata looked up from the map she was carrying. "Wasn't it the Chief's orders?"

"Jesus Christ. You know it's because we're single that he always sends us on the dangerous ones," he spat as his partner looked around for landmarks and continued to study the map. "We gotta get married by next week!"

Shibata looked up from her map again. "You're not my type, Mr Mayama."

"I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna fuckin' kill you," he said, and she returned her attention to the map. "Hey, look," he grumbled, "For the past few minutes we been going around in circles here. You're gettin' us lost. I know this place, I'm tellin' you."

"You finally figured it out?" Shibata chided him.

"Just find the place dammit," he growled, directing a smack toward her head, which she dodged.

"That's funny," she said, reading the address: "Minato-ku Jinguuji 7-21-10 should be this way..." She began to jog ahead of Mayama and past his right side.

"It's this way, for chrissakes, no damn sense of direction," Mayama insisted, pointing in the opposite way.

"Oh, I see, I'm sorry," Shibata said, hurrying back and passing Mayama's left side. Mayama, seizing his chance, took off running back the way they had come.

He wasn't quick enough. "Hey?" cried Shibata's voice. "Hey? Mr Mayama?" she called out as she ran after him; he tripped on the sidewalk and went rolling over the cement. "Mr Mayama!? Are you all right?"

"No! Get away!"

The two detectives stood before the garden adjacent to the stylish, old-fashioned building made of stone and wood. "Ahh, this must be it," Shibata was sure. "It smells of it."

"Your head is what smells of it," Mayama frowned.

A classy wooden sign near the front door invited guests to enter the Gallery Yamada freely. Shibata cried out, "Is anyone home?" as she and Mayama stood uncertainly in the genkan. "There must not be anyone in," she said after a moment's silence.

"No matter," said Mayama, slipping off his shoes. "We can take the liberty and go right up, I'd say."

The guest lounge, a warmly furnished room lit by a single hanging chandolier, was graced with classical and natural images elegantly brushed onto canvas. Mayama stood before the paintings and commented, "I wonder who's gonna buy paintings like this these days."

"Yeah, but I get such a feeling just standing in such a splendid gallery!" Shibata intoned, smiling with admiration as she moved toward one particular work and gazed intently at its detail. "How beautiful!"

"What, you understand the qualities of paintings?" asked Mayama, lurking over her shoulder.

"I do," she said, studying the canvas. "There's oil painting, and water colour, and acrylic..."

Mayama thought for a second before smacking her head. "Those are types, goddamn it."

A man's voice from behind welcomed them. The detectives turned around to see a bespectacled man in a bow tie accompanied by a wiry teenager in a black turtleneck. "Is there some way I can assist you?" the man asked.

"We were called in by Yamada Naoko," said Shibata.

"And you are...?"

Mayama searched his coat pockets in vain for his police notebook, while Shibata made the same fruitless effort. "Er, I'm Mayama, of the Metropolitan Police Department," he said finally.

"The same, I'm Shibata from the police department."

The man returned their introductory nods with a polite bow. Then Naoko and Shige rushed into the room behind the reticent teenager. Naoko came immediately to her visitors, bowing as she smiled, "We've been waiting for you! This is our manager, Mr Kikuchi. And this is our part time helper, Takasugi. Takasugi is a student at the College of Arts.

"We must apologize for asking you here," said Shige. "You must be terribly busy."

"Oh, not at all," said Shibata, waving her hand. "These are truly wonderful paintings," she added, indicating the one behind her in particular.

"I bought some flowers this morning, thinking of that painting near you," Naoko said. "Do you like it?"

"Yes," Shibata smiled.

"If you'd like to, go ahead and take it."

"No, I don't have any money," Shibata shook her head.

"I'll give it to you," said Naoko. "Provided you'd take good care of it."

"Spit it out, spit it out," Mayama mumbled to Shibata.

"How much is it?" she asked.

"Ni sen, said the manager: Two thousand.

Mayama and Shibata repeated the price in unison, his brow wrinkled with disbelief and her voice an irrepressible giggle as she covered her mouth.

"Ni sen man," said Naoko: That is, two million.

The two detectives repeated that price in shocked unison, their aghast faces scrutinizing the painting in amazement.


Naoko placed the teacups of fine crystal before her guests, who offered their thanks in return. Shibata twisted in her seat to reach into her bag. "I've started on herb tea, too, lately," she said. "I went to a store called Santohru in Aoyama..."

"Oh, they prepare an orginal blend for you, right?" said Naoko.

"That's right. Here's my Shibata Special." Shibata held out the lid of her thermos to Naoko, who thanked her while Mayama looked on with a dubious glower mixed with some measure of disgust. "Tasty, isn't it?" Shibata presumed as Naoko tentatively tasted the first sip.

Naoko smiled politely, pretending to agree, but sniffed quizzically at the suspicious beverage when Shibata turned away to offer some to Mayama. "Don't gimme that shit," he mumbled, halting her efforts to fill his cup with an abrupt clip to the head. Naoko's eyes widened in surprise.

"So," said Mayama, "The only ones who have seen that painting recently are Naoko and Shige, is that right?"

"Yeah," said Naoko thoughtfully, "But, my uncle just returned last night from abroad. He may have seen it, but I'm not sure."

"I think he's seen it," Kikuchi interjected. "You don't often hear him say anything like 'Here's the painting everyone's talking about'..."

"Yeah, pretty wierd, huh," said the teenage Takasugi. "He's not interested in paintings at all."

"So it seems that at this point," said Shibata, "There's no account other than Shige's of any change in the painting."

"You've got it exactly," Shige breathed. "How old are you?"

"I'm twenty-four," said Shibata.

"Why, I say, you two are of the same age," Shige relayed to Naoko. Shibata was beaming with delight.

"Eh?! Mayama grunted to her incredulously. "You're nothing like her! That's just messed up!"

"Hm? What is?" she asked.

"Hm? Your lifestyle, your existence, nothing like a woman oughtta be!"

"I don't particularly need your approval, Mr Mayama."

Mayama clicked his tongue and pinched both of Shibata's cheeks, tugging at them in reprimand. Shige chuckled a merry approval of what she perceived to be quite a wonderful friendship.

"Well, at any rate," Kikuchi said firmly. "To get some impression of how the painting might have changed, we ought to see it for ourselves."

Mayama nodded affirmatively. "Well, shall we go have a look, then?" The party was about to rise from their seats when a wiry man in a garish, ground-length robe stumbled through the doorway. "What the hell's goin' on here?" he slurred.

"What? Who's this character?" said Mayama.

"This is my uncle, my mother's brother," said Naoko. "These are Mr Mayama and Miss Shibata, from the police department." Shibata held her nose as the man staggered toward her. "Uncle, have you been drinking again?" Naoko asked him.

"I only had a nip to fix my jet lag and get some sleep," he drawled, earning a sigh of chagrin from his neice as he leaned on the coffee table in front of Shibata. "So then! What sort of business brings you honourable police here today?"

"We've come to have a look at the infamous painting," Shibata pronounced.

"Oh, the Children's Limbo painting?" he asked, using the phrase Sai no kawara.

"Sai?" Shibata repeated, forgetting the rest and instead pronouncing the Japanese word for rhinoceros.

"Actually, we're all about to have a look at it now," Naoko interjected.

"Oh yeah, alright, I can take you there," said the drunken uncle, who then missed the door by a metre or so and plowed into the fireplace, staggering to his knees on the mantle.

"Oh, Uncle, I think you'd better rest," Naoko cried, putting her arms around his back and calling out to Takasugi. The uncle protested the treatment, insisting he was okay. Naoko apologized to her guests for the typical behaviour of her relative. Kikuchi and Shige remained silent and lowered their eyes.

Soon the sun was setting behind the trees outside. "It's this way," said Naoko, leading the way to the darkened alcove. "Please come in."

Shibata excused herself as she and Mayama entered the blackness of the dusty room, followed by the others. The overhead lamp was flicked on, and the solitary painting came into view, hanging on the far wall directly opposite the door. "This is it?" Shibata asked. The entire party inched toward the infamous painting, gazing at it intently.

"Hm, you can't tell if that's supposed to be a pleasant scene, or just plain eerie," Mayama mused.

"I feel a chill every time I look at it," agreed Kikuchi.

"There's no rhinoceros here, is there," observed Shibata.

"No, there isn't," Takasugi said suddenly.

"Eh?" said Shibata. She turned promptly to Shige. "Something changed here?" she asked.

"I wonder if it was only my imagination," said Shige, staring into the foreboding canvas.

"Really," said Shibata. Shige nodded. Shibata closed her eyes like a mole, pushing her curious nose closer to the brushstrokes.

"So, how much is this painting worth?" Mayama inquired of Naoko.

She looked to Kikuchi, who explained, "It's gone down in value since the bubble economy burst, but we believe its value would have to exceed fifty million..."

"Fifty million!" Mayama gasped. "For an unknown painting?!"

"It's a very important work to us," Naoko smiled firmly. "We might not sell it even for one hundred million."

Mayama smirked and nodded curtly, then quickly moved up behind Shibata to whack the back of her head with his slippers. "Hurry up and take the picture!"

Shibata's eyes were jolted open, and she rubbed her hurt head. "Right," she murmured, drawing her polariod and aiming at the canvas.

"At any rate, there doesn't seem to be any problem at this point," Mayama nodded to the party. "Well, what else can we do. Shall we just stand here until the painting changes again?" he asked with some irony.

"Can we?" Shibata asked eagerly as she tore the developing photo from the camera.

"Oh, no, of course not," Shige quickly dismissed. "We're sorry to have put you to such trouble." She and Naoko bowed in unison.

"No trouble at all," said Mayama, waving his hand and feigning congeniality. "Well, we'll be going." He turned on his heels and headed away without further ceremony. That is, until Shibata caught him by the arm and uttered his name in protest. He seized her head and gave her a noogie and a grumbling accusation that she was being over-familiar. Shige laughed, embarrassing him with another comment on the nice friendship between them. The others were quite unsure what to make of it.

"Well, if you need anything more, please feel free to ask," Mayama said as he and Shibata prepared to part, facing the others in the downstairs foyer.

"Yes, thank you very much," Naoko bowed. Mayama took his cue and headed out the door.

"Anything at all you need, please feel free to call," Shibata continued. "For anything at all, it would be my pleasure to come anytime, maybe I could spend the night--"

"Shibata, let's go," said Mayama.

"Right," said Shibata, making her parting nod. Just then a guttural shriek from Naoko's uncle preceded his staggering race through the doors and into the foyer, stumbling through the arms of the disconcerted others.

Naoko caught him in her arms, asking what was wrong. He looked up at her with a face full of terror. "The painting," he stammered, "The painting--changed!"

The others stared in consternation. "The painting?" Naoko said finally.

"I'm gonna be killed," the uncle said, turning away. He made a tottering leap through the genkan and out the door.

"Please catch him!" Naoko cried to Mayama. "Kikuchi, Tagasugi, please!" She ran frantically in the direction from which her uncle had come, while the others made their way out the genkan--except for Shibata, who wavered at the edge of the foyer mumbling into her hands in helpless indecision. "Should I go to the painting--what should I--"

"Shibata!" Mayama yelled from the distance outside.

"Coming," she called, throwing a last irresolute glance in the direction of the room that held the painting before sweeping toward the door and sitting down in the genkan to slip her shoes onto her feet.

Naoko's scream made her turn around.

Shibata rushed into the room to find Naoko babbling, "The painting, that painting--" and pointing to the macabre image in enigmatic shades of black and red.

Shibata held her polaroid snapshot out before the sinister painting. "For certain, the child that was here is now gone," she pronounced. "It really is." Taking a few short steps toward the canvas, she began to smile. "The painting changed." She sniffed it like a curious child and raised the camera for an evidence photo. Naoko gaped as the strange detective lapsed into a trance of ecstasy. "It did," Shibata continued to smile, taking the strap from her neck. She turned around to pose in front of the painting, brushed her hair out of her face, held the camera at arm's length and took a blissful snapshot of herself.

"Miss Shibata!" Naoko cut into her rapture. "What about my uncle?"

Shibata apologized and put down the camera, then hurried out the door and across the sunset garden.

Mayama was marching quickly through the columns of tombstones in the cemetery. "Mr Taira!" cried Kikuchi, racing through town on his bicycle. "Mr Taira!" Takasugi called out as he jogged through the shrubbery below the terrace on which Shige opened every door upstairs in a desperate hunt. Naoko dashed down a flight of stone stairs and onto the sidewalk at the edge of the property.

Shibata returned to the gallery well after dark. "Is anyone here? Has anyone found Mr Taira?" she cried out, switching on the light in the dark and empty foyer into which she stared for a moment. "No one's even back yet," she said to herself at length.

She returned to the fated room to make a startling discovery under the ghostly luminescence of the antique chandolier. "Eh? The painting has gone back to the original." She held a magnifying glass to the canvas, inspecting every centimetre of the surface, then studied the edges and underside of the frame, lifting it slightly, looking at the front with the glass again, and then taking a good peek underneath the painting, to the wall on which it was mounted.

The phone rang.

Shibata walked quickly toward it and answered readily. "Yes. Um, er, you have reached the Gallery Yamada."

"Whosis?" said the queasy voice on the other end.

"My name is Shibata," she said.

"Ya gotta help me!" cried the voice that Shibata soon recognized as that of Naoko's uncle.

"Is that you, Mr Taira? Hello? Where are you now?"

"Somewhere near a construction site... near the beach..."

"Hello?" Shibata insisted. "Which beach is it?"

Taira's voice became a muffled gurgling as Shibata called out for an answer. Then the line went dead. Shibata lowered the phone and glanced at the table clock, which read just after seven.

"That's all I heard before I heard him groan, and the line went dead," she told Naoko, having found the number of Naoko's cell phone in a small handwritten directory on a table in the alcove. "Would you happen to have any idea where that could have been?"

"A construction site near the sea," Naoko calculated with urgency. "Our storehouse is in Shibaura."


Naoko's car rolled steadily through the inpenetrable darkness on the road to Shibaura. Mayama sat somberly in the front beside her, and Shibata in back, gazing out the windows. She leaned forward hesitantly to catch Naoko's attention. "Excuse me," she said in a tiny voice.

"Yes," said Naoko.

"How much longer before we arrive?"

"I think we should be there in another five minutes," Naoko said.

"That long?!" Shibata gasped.

"What?" Mayama grumbled, then noticed Shibata's tightly closed eyes and very still posture with her knees pressed together. "Oh--bathroom? Um, around here, around here... Would you mind pulling over?" he asked of Naoko.

Before Naoko could answer, Shibata shook her head in softly vigourous protest. "I can't do that. I can never get married if I do something like that." Mayama looked back at quietly desperate Shibata, who swallowed hard as she continued to sit very still. Mayama's jaw dropped.

Across the dark channel from the construction site, Naoko's car rolled to a stop on the sandy pavement at the water's edge and the three black figures disembarked. "Pretty dark, isn't it?" Mayama commented.

"But we're so close to the sea," said Shibata, "The scent of the water, and... uhnn..." She began to squirm and let out a barely audible moan.

"The restroom!" Naoko directed, pointing into the darkness. "The restroom, go into that building, it's just on the right side."

"Thank you," Shibata murmured. "Excuse me a moment." She ducked back into the back seat of the car to gather her tote bag and thermos, then headed off into the deep shadows. She stopped suddenly as her bladder began to fail, and her entire body tensed as she made a mostly successful effort to contain herself. She continued forward in very small steps.

"Idiot!" Mayama grumbled. "Sorry about that," he nodded to Naoko. "I'll just go look over this way."

Naoko thanked him and went off in her own direction, each of them calling out to the lost Mr Taira. Mayama explored the shadows of the warehouse in vain as the rattle of jackhammers reverberated across the moonlit canal.

Shibata eventually came running out of the darkness and into the beam of Naoko's flashlight. "Excuse me, sorry about that!" She caught her breath and looked about beside the vehicle. "Is there any trace of Mr Taira?"

Naoko shook her head, shivering. "Nowhere," she said.

Mayama stepped out of the blackness to shiver with them. He stood beside Shibata and wiped his nose on his glove. "Agh, can't find him. But there's the possibility of freezing to death in this cold. And he seemed like he was pretty drunk," he said, drawing the thermos from Shibata's bag, against her mild monosyllabic protest. "What? What, can't I get any?"

Shibata watched him with shuddering arms wrapped around her torso as he poured the last bit of whatever was in the thermos, and immediately spit it out in disgust. "What the hell is this shit?!" he cried, wiping his mouth on the shoulder of her overcoat.

"Cut it out!" she cried, pushing him away. She scooted out from under his lips to find a cellular phone near the water's edge. "What's this?" she wondered, moving toward it. "Was someone using a cell phone?"

"Eh?" said Mayama.

"What?" said Naoko.

"This," said Shibata, crouching on the ground and holding up the object.

"Ah--that's my uncle's," Naoko said, shining the flashlight on it.

"May I?" Shibata asked, whispering her thanks as she received the flashlight and ocillated the beam over their immediate surroundings. She stepped along the stone ledge that overlooked the brackish waves, and swept the beam downward. "Hey, be careful," Mayama warned.

In a moment, a few metres out, she spotted the cloaked body of Naoko's uncle awash in the drift and looked back unpleasantly at her companions. "Um," she began, "I'm afraid I've found Mr Taira."

Mayama staggered over and looked down from the ledge. Naoko was right behind him. The horror blossomed on her face as she cried out to him, her cry rising to a shrill and useless scream.

Inside the Metropolitan Police Headquarters, Saotome and a handful of others sat in the conference room absorbing Hayashida's summation. "The victim was revealed by autopsy to have died by drowning. Approximate time of death, indicated by the condition of the contents of his stomach, is believed to be approximately seven PM. This is consistent with the report from Shibata of Second Chapter of having received a phone call from him at the Gallery Yamada, at which time she heard his scream. We glean from the circumstances that after the victim had run to hide in the storehouse by the beach at Shibaura, he telephoned the Gallery Yamada to request help. We believe that at that point he was pushed into the water and drowned."

"Has a written report come forth from Second Chapter's Department of Continuing Investigations?" Saotome asked.

"No, not yet," said Nagao.

Saotome frowned and uttered a quiet sigh. "Must be Shibata again..."

Shibata was barely cognizant of the bowl of thick beige mush she was stirring in her hand as she stared fixedly at those before and after polaroids that sat on the table before her. On the other side of the little table in the eatery, Aya rambled on. "Long time ago, the wheat flour business started 'cause of a lack of money. It was damn tough to make a profit in the trades that used flour. Those dumplings you like, then came octopus and squid dumplings... Check it, this stuff is eight hundred yen here. Back in Kansai, they sell the same thing for three hundred yen, dude..." Aya waved her spatula in front of Shibata's vacant face. "Hey you, don't ya hear somebody talkin' to ya? Hello!"

"Sorry," said Shibata.

"What's up with you lately?"

"Um, this is the sai painting," said Shibata, again using the Japanese word for rhinoceros as she turned the two photographs over to Aya.

Aya chewed her food while she scrutinized the photographs. "Where's the rhino in this picture of kids playing?"

"That's what I'm wondering," Shibata said.

Aya stared at it intently. "Ugh, it gives me the creeps," she whispered thoughtfully. "Ah, this is the Children's Limbo."

"The Chidren's Limbo?"

"Um, it's kind of a hell where you go if you die in childhood." She leaned over the table to explain the details of the mythology expressed in the miniaturized painting. "Look here, this kid's piling up the rocks here. He tries so hard to stack them up, but the nasty demon always comes to knock it over. And that there is the worst hell of all."

"Of course," said Shibata. "Then, that demon must be Sai!"

"Nah, not quite--"

"Excuse me, Aya. I'll be right back." Shibata rose, picking up her bag, and left Aya to fluster at the table. "Wait, Shibata, where you goin'? Hey, wait up--it was your turn to buy today--hold it, I-I only got three hundred yen..."

Shibata walked alone in the bitter, aphotic emptiness of the cemetery adjacent to the gallery. She murmured to herself as she wandered with her hands buried in her overcoat pockets, murmured about the cold and the peculiarity, and she looked to and fro in a fruitless attempt to orient herself. She had lost her way. She rubbed her face and moaned in dismay.

Something seized her from behind. A tight noose was made from her scarf, choking her. She struggled feebly, coughing, resisting, as asphyxiation prevented the scream from rising to her lips. Finally, she fell senseless on her back on the frigid ground. The shadowy figure of a woman in a skirt ran from the spot where Shibata lay. In the distance, Asakura stood and bared his teeth in a cagey smile.

Traffic in the city moved in a calvalcade of horns and headlights around the unmoving car in which the two men sat. "These are the photos taken by the murdered reportage writer," said the man in the driver's seat.

The passenger silently thumbed through the photos of Mayama Tôru, pictures taken apparently without the subject's knowledge; and photos of Asakura in a phone booth. He held a videotape in his other hand, impalpable in the darkness. "There's also the footage of the four boys who committed suicide eight years ago. What is it you're after?" he asked.

From the driver's seat, Saotome turned his dour face. "What is it you're after," he repeated, mockingly, as he erupted into a quiet fit of demonic laughter.

The four men, Nonomura, Mayama, Taniguchi and Kondoh, were gathered around the coffee table in their subterranean office. "They were together all the while," Nononmura pontificated. "That is precisely why no one present at the time could have used any sort of trick with the painting."

Mayama grunted in contemplation. "So?"

"Therein, as regards this case, a great hint is concealed," Nonomura continued. "For example, if there was such a device in the painting that could automatically change it..."

"Of course," nodded Kondoh. He then suddenly jumped. "Ah!" he exclaimed, gesturing with open palms, "If that's true, then it was there from the start! Underneath it, or maybe on the crest, there's something to move the angle and change the painting."

"Yeahyeahyeah, that's it," Taniguchi agreed.

"That's impossible, I woulda seen it," said Mayama.

"Well, uh, how about an animation cell?" Taniguchi suggested exuberantly.

"Woulda seen it," Mayama insisted.

"Then how about this," said Nonomura. "Perhaps the painting is partially composed of iron sand. On the reverse side, a magnet is held in place. If the magnet is removed, the children could vanish from the painting."

"Bingo!" exclaimed Kondoh. Taniguchi likewise considered the possibility. "Ohhh, yeah..."

"Indeed, Chief," Kondoh said, "That would change the visual point."

"Well, I've been a detective for many years..." Nonomura smiled.

"But how could it reconsititute itself?" Mayama objected.

"Eh?" The Chief was silent for a moment. "That's a good question," he brooded, reaching for a handful of party mix for lack of a better idea. "If only I could have seen it."

"I did see it," Mayama insisted as the footsteps of Kido Aya came into the room, "I woulda noticed."

"Helloo," Aya drawled, slumping onto the sofa and draping her arm over Kondoh's shoulder. "Where's Shibata?"

"She's not here yet," said Taniguchi.

"Well, isn't it her usual lateness pattern?" said Kondoh. "She's sure to show up after awhile."

"I'll bet she must be tired," Nonomura said casually. "Well, she's still in training, besides."

"Miss Shibata has shirked her duty," Aya said, referring to an official attendance report she held in her fingers. "Zero lateness, zero absences, right?"

"Eh? Why?" Mayama gasped, leaning forward with eyes widened at the foreboding papers.

"Because it's her career," said Nonomura.

"So it is," said Kondoh. "Is it any good for her career to come in late and take absences without leave?"

"Hell no," said Aya.

"Shit! Call Shibata, call her!" Mayama said, rushing from his chair toward the desk cluster with Aya right behind him. "Get her in here!"

Aya sat on the desk and let the telephone ring into her ear. "She's not pickin' up," she drawled.

"Aha!" Mayama grinned with eyes bulging mockingly. "She must be dead! Curse of the Painting!"

"Don't talk like that," Nonomura objected as Kondoh giggled on the sofa.

"So you're gonna die, too," Aya told Mayama. "You looked at the painting too, you bastard."

The ringing of Shibata's cell phone reverberated among the tombstones, cold and still with their patient dusting of moss. Morning was breaking in the cemetery. The crow cawed as it flew overhead, heralding the coming day. Shibata lay at rest on the hard earth, her eyes peacefully closed to the clear blue sky.

She made a little moan as she drew her first waking breath through chilly nostrils. She moved her arms, spread up behind her, and moaned a little more as she touched her fingers to her sore neck. "Was that the painting's curse?" she wondered to herself. She sat up, nursing her aching throat, and dug into her bag. She was happy to have warm tea to soothe her, and she smiled as she unscrewed the lid to her thermos and poured herself the morning's first cup. "Ahhh, delicious," she murmured with contentment. "I don't know why it tastes so good."

She began to drain the rest of her cup, but lowered it away from her lips when memories from the night before crept into her mind: Mayama's words when they had found no trace of Taira, and Mayama polishing off the remainder of whatever was in the thermos he found in Shibata's bag. Shibata looked at the cup and thermos in her hand, and shook the thermos for confirmation. She found it to be quite full, and she poured the steaming beverage onto the cold stones beside her, listening to the slow trickle as disjointed memories pieced themselves together. The glimmering waves. The rattling of jackhammers across the channel. The factory's chimney. Taira's buoyant dead body. The painting at first. The pinwheel. The painting after the change. The thermos.

Shibata opened her eyes and stood at attention in the cemetery.

A rust-coloured sky punctuated by the far-off calls of crows loomed over the gallery. Naoko sat in the semi-darkness gazing at the familiar painting, studying each brushstroke she knew intimately with solemn eyes. Shige's sandaled feet stepped into the shadowy corridor. "Miss Shibata from the Metropolitan Police Department is here to see you," she said.

Naoko turned her head ever so slightly and paused. "Is she," she whispered, and turned to look at the painting once more.

Shibata was picking the lint off her sweater in the cozy reception room when the door opened. She rose to greet Naoko as the latter entered with a tea tray she placed amicably on the lace-covered table between the sofas. "Forgive me for disturbing you," Shibata said softly.

"Have you solved something?" Naoko asked.

"Yes," Shibata said. "I've discovered the identity of the perpetrator in the murder of your uncle Mr Taira."

Naoko rose to face her. "Tell me, who was the killer?"

"The killer was you, Naoko."


Naoko smiled with a lighthearted air. "Really, how can you say such a thing."

Shibata's eyes followed her as she seated herself. "It's something I've concluded."

"But you and I were together near this house the whole time," said Naoko, placing a crystal teacup in front of herself. "How do you suppose I managed to go more than ten kilometres away to murder my uncle?"

"Was Mr Taira actually in Shibaura at that time?"

"You received the phone call from him here, didn't you?"

"That's right," Shibata said. "He's near the ocean. Mr Taira said so as he raised his voice to a groan. That was seven PM. Mr Taira drowns immediately afterwards."

"In other words, my uncle was at the edge of the sea, and someone pushed him in."

"No. Actually, Mr Taira was not near the sea at all. Most likely, he was blindfolded."

"How is it that you can know a thing like that?"

"This is what Mr Taira told me: Somewhere near a construction site, near the ocean. If he was really in Shibaura and not near an unknown construcion site, landmarks such as that conspicuous chimney, for example, would leap out at him to immediately clarify his actual surroundings. In other words, Mr Taira wasn't able to perceive his own whereabouts. Therefore, I have to assume he made that determination based on perceptions other than sight. That's how I can conclude that. The sound that Mr Taira was straining to hear was in fact that of a tape you were playing--"

Naoko scoffed. "Now, how can you determine that I'd do a thing like use a tape?"

"Near the storehouse, the scent of sea water was abnormally strong. If his eyes couldn't see and if he was really at that location, he would have immediately recognized the scent of salt water. When I was that close to the sea, I noticed it at the outset. Therefore it remains that Mr Taira was not in that place at all."

Naoko swallowed. "But my uncle drowned at approximately seven PM, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"If it is as you say, if he wasn't in that place, then where and how do you propose he drowned?"

"Your thermos," Shibata pronounced. "In my hurry to get to the restroom, I mistakenly picked up your thermos. Then, Mr Mayama, mistaking your thermos for mine, consumed the remainder of the liquid in it." Shibata held up her overcoat to expose the portion of her sleeve where Mayama had wiped his mouth. "Naoko, do you know what this white thing is? These are salt crystals. They represent what was left in your thermos. It wasn't herb tea, it was sea water."

"For what purpose?"

"To falsify the impression of a drowning in the ocean."

Naoko sighed with a slight nod as she looked away. "Of course." She blinked and met Shibata's eyes once more. "So?"


"Within my previous illustration, it is feasible that you filled a wash basin, or some such, with sea water beforehand for the purpose of drowning," Shibata said. She had a clear visualization of Naoko sneaking up on her uncle in the garage as he tried to escape by car; she would have gagged him, blindfolded him, and let a cassette recorder play the sounds of the construcion site when he came to. "Using the salt water in your thermos, you drowned him in the wash basin. While you pretended to search for Mr Taira with us, you were actually carrying his corpse to the ocean. While we weren't looking, you tossed the body into the water. There in its entirety is the technique you used to murder Mr Taira."

"If it was really I who killed him, that I used the trick you described is perhaps possible. But aren't you forgetting something from the outset of this incident?"

"What's that?"


Naoko led Shibata to the dusky corridor and switched on the overhead lamp in the doorway to the room. "This painting," she said, walking slowly toward it. "My uncle came running, saying that the painting had changed. The real killer had by some means transformed this painting into a different picture."

"Yes," said Shibata.

Naoko faced her. "But, that day, I was with you from the time of your arrival here to the time that my uncle saw the painting and came running."

"Yes," Shibata whispered.

"Then you admit," Naoko continued, taking a seat in the shadows of the simple room, "That there was not one instant during which I could have touched this painting. Isn't that what you're saying?"

Shibata remained standing. "Surely you and I were together the whole time. Basically, Mr Taira claimed that he had seen the painting, which we had all viewed together, alter in condition. Mr Taira indicated that this painting was 'the infamous painting.' I suspected something at that time." Shibata held up one of the polariod snapshots she had taken. "Mr Taira had at one time seen the legendary painting. When all of us were about to go to view it, he said this: 'Ah, the Children's Limbo painting.' This picture of children playing doesn't bring the term 'Children's Limbo' to anyone's mind. However, when one looks at this painting, in which the child is missing, 'the Children's Limbo' is quite a fitting description. In other words, the painting that Mr Taira had seen previously was this painting here," she said, holding up the second snapshot, "In which the child at play is missing."

Naoko said nothing.

"The painting Mr Taira had seen on the night of his return to the country was one you had substituted, the one of the Children's Limbo. I believe implicitly that that is the legendary painting of which he spoke. After he came running, you replaced the Children's Limbo painting with the scene of children playing. That is why the painting which we viewed on the day we visited was still that very scene of children playing. And Mr Taira was very surprised indeed to see that painting.

"This in its entirety is the trick to the legendary painting's invitation of death." Shibata leaned forward and spoke softly to Naoko. "Please turn yourself in."

"It is regrettable, but what I have done is in accordance with what you say," said Naoko. "Well, I wonder if you have come to any settlement regarding the incident with my father six years ago?"

Shibata paused and took slow steps toward the solitary painting. "Mr Taira had obtained a fairly good profit from introducing an artist who had become famous here into another gallery. The manager, Mr Kikuchi, has given us his testimony on that. And when your father became aware of this, Mr Taira killed him. You could not permit Mr Taira--"

"But my uncle knew nothing of the authenticity of this painting's legend," Naoko insisted, twisting in her seat to stare blackly at Shibata. "I don't see how he could have carried out that murder."

"Nothing would remain of that case other than 'The painting changed.' In other words, Mr Taira wasn't concerned with knowing the accuracy of the painting's legend."

"I covered him up?" Naoko snapped, shooting up defensively from her seat. "The culprit in that case was--"

"Yamada Naoko," pronounced the sudden voice of Mayama lurking in the doorway. "That was you, too."

"Mr Mayama," said Shibata.

Naoko smiled tightly. "How?"

"Well, well, have a seat," Mayama said, grunting. "The truth is," he said, "All you wanted was to jack up the price of the infamous painting people forgot about by simply killing people. After the end of the bubble economy, this gallery was just about to go under. Right? Well, looks like a broker appeared to buy that painting for a hundred million yen for resale." Mayama produced a photograph of Naoko and an older man from his pocket. "Tokunaga Eisuke, aged fifty-four. The boy at Daisan Hotel has a real good memory for you and this ol' dude."

"In the end, you detecitives understand nothing more than the surface of the matter." Naoko got up and went slowly back to that precious canvas. "I had no particular plans to sell this painting at all. I don't even need money. I really loved the paintings. That's the only reason. That's why I wanted to keep the paintings for the people who truly loved them. At the height of the bubble economy, for mere pretense, people who knew nothing about the quality of these paintings were buying them up."

Naoko remembered herself as a teenager, watching her father lie to gullible prospective customers about qualities of art he knew nothing about. "Such a painting is a great investment," he would say sincerely. "Nothing like this painting exists." He and his brother delighted in the scams they ran, gloating over how easily they could convince people to pay almost anything for fairly unknown works. And to young Naoko's protest, her father responded only with anger, telling her she was but a child who knew nothing.

"Neither my father nor my uncle understood the value of such beautiful things." Naoko began to raise her voice. "They only used beauty as a means toward profit. For them, the important thing was not beauty, or the people who loved it, but money." She snapped her face around and met the detectives with burning eyes. "That's all!" she cried. "Those bastards would get over any way they could!"

That evening, when the rope tightened around Yamada Shigeo's neck and he desperately pleaded for help on the telephone in strangled cries that the painting had changed, it had been his own daughter who held the noose from behind. "The painting's curse," she had uttered to his falling body.

Now Naoko stood still, and took a long hard look at the painting. "So it is," she sighed at length, slumping her shoulders and turning back to face her silent challengers. "Well, it can't be like this," she said with defiant conviction. "The arts so quickly slip away from those of us who most treasure their beauty. I've done the best I could."

She took a final warm look at the oil painting, and reached into the pocket inside her jacket. She drew out a small white capsule and held it in calm fingers. Mayama made a move as if to stop her, and Shibata stood as though paralyzed as Naoko slowly inserted the capsule into her mouth. She swallowed, hard and dry, and smiled her farewell to the paling, helpless faces of Mayama and Shibata which stared back at her in consternation. Naoko's feet rose on their heels as her body fell heavy and lifeless to the floor.

Mayama ran to her. Shibata began to shriek, her hands drawn to her cheeks and her body stiff and immobile, as Mayama forced his fingers into Naoko's mouth. He pounded hard on her stomach in a frantic, vain attempt to dislodge the poison, his fist rising and falling again and again while Shibata's shrieks degenerated into weak sobs.

He gave up, and slouched beside Naoko's body. The only sound in the dim room was Shibata's maniacal screaming, as the cursed painting hung motionless and unchanged on the wall.


mystery 7 end

mystery 8

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English translation Tremain Xenos
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