“Yeah. That’s what I was thinking.”
“Remind me not to go into that line of work when I’m looking to make some extra cash after retirement. Maybe something safer, like lion taming or mercenary,” Chuck said drily.
They made their way down to their cruiser, and Ken popped a rotating blue light onto the roof before starting the engine and pulling away from the curb into the dense late morning traffic.
The scene at Koshi’s was confused because the forensics group wasn’t sure why they were being told to treat an obvious overdose as a homicide. Ken and Chuck arrived to find them griping, which Ken dealt with in short order. Rebuffed, they began processing the apartment with care while Ken moved alongside them wearing paper booties, so as not to contaminate the area.
“Your boy here doesn’t look like he was a regular user. There’s no obvious evidence of track marks, although we’ll need to get him to the morgue to process him and check his legs and other areas,” the lead tech, Melanie Gomez, told him.
“I don’t think he was a user. I think this might be staged,” Ken told her.
“Well, we found some cooking paraphernalia on the table and two dime bags of Mexican brown, but obviously if this is a setup, that would be the expected part of it,” she added.
“Exactly. I think I’ll go next door and talk to his neighbor, see if he heard anything.” Ken nodded in the direction of the corpse. “How long ago did he die?” Ken asked.
“From preliminary temperature, I’d say ten hours, twelve max. So you’ll want to focus on between midnight and two,” Melanie said.
“Let me know if you find anything that looks odd. I’ll be next door for a bit.”
Ken moved back down the hall to the front door, where he spotted the neighbor standing with his arms crossed, watching the commotion. He was wearing a stained jogging ensemble that looked like mid-eighties K-Mart. His face had the blotchy red quality of a man who put down a good liter of scotch every day by the time it was dark out. He smelled like cheap booze and sweat.
“I’m Detective Ken Romer. I’m heading up the investigation into Mister Yamaguchi’s death and I’d like to ask you a few questions,” Ken explained reasonably, holding out his badge as he spoke. “And this is my partner, Charles Barron.”
Chuck had his notepad out and looked somewhat narcoleptic, about to drift off to sleep. The neighbor didn’t look much better.
“Name’s Sam Rigley. What happened in there? He slit his wrists?” Sam asked.
“This will probably go smoother if I ask the questions. This is just routine follow-up. We can take your statement here, or at the station. Which would you prefer?” Ken asked politely, knowing full well nobody ever wanted to go to the station.
“Uh, I’d just as soon do it here then.”
“Okay. Officer Barron is going to tape this so we’re sure we don’t get anything wrong later. Is that all right with you, Mister Rigley?” Ken asked, for the record.
“Sure, whatever. And you can call me Sam.”
“Great, Sam. Let’s move over to the stairs, where it’s quieter, unless we can come inside…” Ken suggested.
“Stairs are fine. What do you want to know?” Sam asked, squinting at Ken dubiously.
“Did you know Mister Yamaguchi well, Mist…Sam?” Ken asked.
“Not really. Kept to ourselves, mostly. Hardly saw each other. I…we musta kept different hours. I don’t go out a whole lot. I’m a vet, on disability,” Sam explained, as though that clarified everything.
“What was your impression of him?” Ken probed.
“Whadda ya mean?” Sam looked like he was having a tough time following the simple questions and seemed to lose focus every few seconds. Ken noted his hands were shaking with a subtle tremor, which Sam seemed accustomed to.
“Well, you know, was he loud? Did he play music all night long? Did he throw parties? Have a lot of friends over, or high traffic?” Ken suggested.
“Nah. Kid was a freak, looked like some punk rocker but he was quiet. Kept to himself, like I said. I think he was a computer geek. Garbage was always full of boxes for some new gizmo or another. What, was he running a porn operation or something? Is that what this is about?” Sam asked, grinning suggestively.
“So he was quiet, and you didn’t see him much. Does that pretty much sum it up?” Chuck interjected impatiently.
“Yup.”
“How do you like living here? Are the walls pretty thin, do you hear everything? My place, you can hear my neighbor drop a quarter at the other end of the building,” Chuck asked, apparently curious about acoustics.
“Nah, this place is built outta brick and rebar. You could shoot a gun off next door and not hear a sound, except for the traffic outside. That you hear twenty-four seven,” Sam complained.
“Nice. So, again, back to the routine, did you hear anything last night…anything unusual or unexpected?” Ken queried.
“Like what?” Sam fired back, unsure of what answer they were looking for.
Ken tried again. “I don’t know. Anything at all. Did you hear anything last night you can remember as being odd or out of the ordinary?”
“Chief—”
“Detective, Sam.”
“Er, Detective, I tend to get to sleep early, and I’m a sound sleeper with my medication and all. So I didn’t hear nuthin’ last night, or any other night. I was snoozing like a baby till morning.” Sam grinned a barfly’s smirk, his eyes recessed in their sockets, yellowing from jaundice.
“So for the record, you heard nothing last night,” Ken summarized.
“That’s right. Not a thing. Sorry I can’t help you on that. Now, mind tellin’ me what happened in there? I overheard one a your guys say it was a dope thing?” Sam probed.
Ken’s cell phone rang. He extricated it from his jacket pocket and looked at the number. “I have to take this. Detective Barron will finish this up,” he told Sam, and moved to the landing to descend the stairs to the street.
“Ken, this is Michael. What did you find out? Is Koshi okay? Did you find him?” Michael asked.
“Yeah, we found him, but no, he’s not okay. Did Koshi have a drug problem, Michael?” Ken inquired.
“Did he? Past tense…no, I don’t think so, beyond the usual booze and weed thing, although I’m guessing on the pot. What happened, Ken? Why is Koshi past tense?”
Ken explained the situation. Michael listened in silence.
“Ken, you can’t possibly believe that this is an accident or a genuine OD, right? I mean, Jim ends it all, and Koshi ODs within hours?” Michael blurted, frustrated with what he was hearing.
“Do I seem like a rookie to you, Michael? Am I giving off the first day on the force vibe? I hate it when I do that…”
“Sorry, Ken. Really. It’s just…it just wasn’t what I was expecting to hear, I guess,” Michael said.
“Are you sure you’re that surprised? I mean, you seem like you were pretty worked up about making sure Koshi was safe, so that tells me you had a better than fair idea he could be in real danger…” Ken observed.
“I…I assumed the worst when you told me about Jim. Someone’s taking out my security group, one by one…” Michael explained.
“Not just your team, Michael. I called your agent buddy’s office again, and nobody’s heard from the receptionist since the day you saw her. Want to bet a dollar that she’s gone missing? Look, I don’t have a lot of time here, but I’ll give you some free advice. Stay gone until we figure out what the hell is going on here, because otherwise I have a feeling I’m going to be putting a tag on your toe next,” Ken advised.
“Thanks. I get it. But it’s not looking good, Ken. I think you’ll find that there are no leads on any of these, at the end of the day. If this is a covert ops team doing this, they’ll be ghosts and you’ll never get within a mile of them. That’s my best guess given what I know so far, and it scares the hell out of me,” Michael admitted.