"Hara-kiri, Doc Baker corrected firmly. "If you're going to say it, you'd better say it right or you'll have half the folks in the International District jumping down your throat. But yes, that's what it looks like to me. I've called George in from the crime lab just to be sure. He should be here in a few minutes.
George Yamamoto is the head of the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory. He is also one of Seattle's more visibly prominent Japanese-American citizens.
"We've got a tentative ID from the landlord, Doc Baker added.
Dreading the sight that had given Big Al Lindstrom pause, I moved to a point where I could see. The dead man was lying on the blood-soaked carpet, his body twisted half on its side as though he had simply slipped out of his chair, the back of which had been shoved against the wall. A rusty, gore-covered knife lay on the floor nearby, its ornate handle only inches from the lifeless bloodstained fingers, while a mound of internal organs spilled onto the floor beneath him.
Suicide is usually ugly, but this was worse than most. No matter how many years I do this job, no matter how much I think I've seen it all, it never gets any easier. Sickened, I looked away.
Five feet above the dead man, a framed but faded color photo sat askew on the wall, revealing behind it the open door of a small concealed safe. I looked at the picture closely, grateful there was something in the room besides the dead man to occupy my attention.
It was an enlarged snapshot of a child on a horse and a middle-aged man. The man was standing near the horse's head and beaming proudly up at the child in something akin to adoration. The child seemed tiny, especially in relation to the fully grown animal, a gray Appaloosa. The girl couldn't have been much older than nine or ten. The dark hair and almond eyes said Japanese, but she was wearing an ornate, fringed cowgirl outfit and white pointed boots in the best cowboys-and-Indians tradition. Her hair was braided into two long Annie Oakley plaits, while a huge white cowboy hat framed her small oval face and dark hair. She was grinning for the camera, mugging in typical kid-gets-first-horse fashion.
Looking away from the picture, my attention strayed to the open door beside it. The concealed safe was empty, absolutely empty, without even a layer of dust to indicate what might have been kept inside.
"What was in there? I asked.
"Nothing, Doc Baker answered glumly. "Not a damn thing. If we knew that we'd probably be a long way down the line toward understanding exactly what went on here.
Dodging bloody footprints, I stepped close enough to look down at the screen of the computer on Kurobashi's desk. In the bright light of the room, pale amber letters glowed faintly on the CRT. Close examination revealed that the entire work space was covered with what looked like alphabet soup. The words were composed of English letters. Other than that, they were totally unrecognizable. I discerned a pattern, though. It was the same two lines repeated over and over.
"What does that say? I asked.
Doc Baker shrugged. "Nobody here can read it. That's the other reason I've called George in. Somebody said they thought it was Japanese.
As if on cue, George Yamamoto appeared at the door. He paused in the doorway for a moment, pulling on a pair of rubber gloves. Doc Baker saw him a moment after I did.
"There you are, George. We've been waiting for you. He's over here.
George Yamamoto didn't move forward immediately. He stood gazing at the nameplate on the door, seeming to draw into himself, as if marshaling his resources for some terrible ordeal. His face was pale, his mouth set in a narrow line, and he said nothing. There was none of the usual banter that Baker and he often volley back and forth when they encounter one another at crime scenes.
Big Al and I moved aside to make room for him. George Yamamoto squared his shoulders, stepped resolutely to the side of the desk, and looked down at the corpse. As he did so, a barely perceptible tremor passed through his body.
"It's Tadeo, he said quietly.
"Tadeo! Doc Baker's head came up sharply. He eyed George Yamamoto questioningly through his thick, bottle-bottom glasses. "You knew him?
George nodded. "His name is Tadeo Kurobashi. He was my friend.
With those few words, what had started out as a routine investigation into an ordinary suicide wasn't routine anymore. Like an automatic camera whirring into focus, Tadeo Kurobashi's ugly death suddenly took on the sharply delineated lines and proportions of personal tragedy. A friend's personal tragedy.
And in that instant, everything that was routine about it went straight out the window.
CHAPTER 2
I have worked with these two men for so long, spent so much time in both the medical examiner's office and the crime lab, that I know Doc Baker and George Yamamoto far better than I know some of the Seattle P.D. brass upstairs in the Public Safety Building.
The two men are a study in contrasts. Baker is a big burly man, a human tank, who habitually goes over or through people rather than around them. His volume control is permanently stuck on loud, and when he speaks, he gesticulates wildly, flapping around like some overweight bird attempting to become airborne. Baker's suits look like they were pulled as-is off the rack at the nearest big-and-tall shop. They're often wrinkled and unkempt. He looks like the proverbial rumpled bed much of the time, and his socks seldom match whatever else he's wearing.
George Yamamoto, on the other hand, is absolutely precise, from the meticulously folded and creased cuffs of his Brooks Brothers trousers to his carefully articulated manner of speech. When he speaks, he punctuates his words with small, deft hand gestures. Where Baker orders his subordinates around, George's quietly efficient management style inspires both loyalty and dedication. Of the two, I'd have to say, George Yamamoto's crime lab is a much tighter run ship than Doc Baker's medical examiner's office.
Now, as George stood over the body of his dead friend, I was struck by his unflinching self-control. Tadeo Kurobashi may have been one of George Yamamoto's close friends, but you couldn't tell that by looking. The head of the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab is nothing if not a complete professional. His friend was dead, but it was George's job to help us find out how and why. That didn't mean he wasn't hurting; he was, but he didn't let it show, and he didn't let it get in the way.
"What do you have so far, Howard? he asked.
For once even Doc Baker seemed subdued. "George, I had no idea he was a friend of yours, or I never would have called you in.
Yamamoto finished donning his protective clothing. "It's all right, George replied, waving aside the apology. "You had no way of knowing.
He made his way around to where Doc Baker was standing, and together the two of them knelt on the floor beside the body. Speaking in hushed, careful tones that were astonishingly low for someone as noisy as Doc Baker, they took their time examining Kurobashi's corpse with its gaping, horrifying wound. Finished at last, both men stood up simultaneously.
"Well? Baker asked pointedly, almost but not quite reverting to his normally brusque, blunt style. "What do you think?
"It's definitely not hara-kiri, George announced.
Baker frowned. "It isn't? But I thought…
George shook his head. "Absolutely not, although someone may have wanted us to think it was.
"How can you tell?
"It's just not right. Seppuku is a form of ritual suicide with a long and honored tradition. Originally it was done with sharpened bamboo. But this is wrong. Totally wrong.
"What's all wrong? Baker asked.
"For one thing, he's in a chair, not on a zabuton. That's a floor cushion. For another, he's not wearing a kimono. Tadeo was a stickler for tradition with an eye for detail as well.