End of the Innocence: Scylla and Charybdis

    "His name is Aoshi Shinomori," Dr. Ohtori said as he pushed a pale blue folder across the table toward me.  "He said he's 24.  He looked the age, but his memory could not be trusted."

    "How so?" I asked and opened the folder.  In it were sheets of paper-clipped copies of Shinomori's medical chart and mental evaluation report.  

    "Post traumatic syndrome," Dr. Ohtori said and gestured at the folder with his silver pen.  "Both Dr. Amano and I examined him quite thoroughly."

    I scanned through the first page of the medical report as he spoke.  It was the page the police usually filled out.  A blank picture of a manikin which the first detective on scene marked his initial findings on the victim's body as the medic tended to his wounds.  The detective had listed over 20 knife wounds in different phases of healing.  There were cigarette and electrical burns in various parts of his body but mostly on his thighs and chest.  His wrists were badly chaffed and cut--the wounds consistent with being bound with a coarse rope.  Two of his fingers on his left hand were broken.  There were also rope burns around his neck, but they were layered.  Someone had wanted to strangle or hang Shinomori on several different times and had changed their mind about completing the act.        

    "With the list of wounds he had sustained," I said and flipped to the mental evaluation report toward the back of the folder.  "I am not too surprised."

    "He had no recollection of the crime in question, and for some reason, pieces of his childhood," Dr. Ohtori said. 

    "His childhood?"

    "He couldn't seem to remember who his parents were.  He recalled he had an older brother, although he didn't know his name.  He wasn't even certain where he was born.  He did remember where he currently lived and where he worked."

    I frowned when I read the last note on the police report.  A small brand in shape of Celtic cross had been burned into the small of his back.  

    "This is...?"

    Detective Utsuki chewed on his unlit cigar a little harder and nodded.  Utsuki looked liked a tired middle-aged man who had a permanent grimace etched onto his face.  He was quite famous among the ranks of the police, and had been credited with breaking over a hundred cold homicide cases.  Aside from his professional history, I knew nothing about him.  

    "One of the Tokyo Hunter's latest victim.  He kept Shinomori for about a month, a little longer than the standard period of the time the Hunter kept his victims.  That's why you are here, Doctor," he said from the corner of his mouth.  "I understand you had done quite a few profile work with the Americans on their serial murder cases."

    "I did," I said and closed the folder.  "But by no means should I be considered an expert in that field. I have little academic background as a profiler."   

    Utsuki took out his cigar and shoved it into the breast pocket of his gray suit.

    "For Tokyo Police Department, you're as close it comes to being the expert, Doctor," he said.  "It's very important that you get into Shinomori's head and learn who had done this to him."

    "It's not as easy as you say, detective.  When the mind blocks a piece of memory, especially after a severe trauma, it does so out of self-preservation."

    "Well, you need to figure out how to get into his head because what he knows could mean a stop to godknows how many more killings."

    "Making him remember could also kill him."

    Utsuki shrugged.  "And not making him remember could mean a few more dozens young men murdered.  And none of them died quickly or painlessly."

    "This "hunter" had broken his pattern," I said.  "He let this one live.  It could mean he no longer want to kill his games."

    "So it's okay for him to snatch young men off the street and be tortured like this one was for a few weeks?"

    I looked away from him and at Ohtori. He didn't have much reaction on his face.  He wasn't even focused on myself or the Utsuki, but at the pale blue folder on the table.

    "Maybe we don't have to have him remember everything," Ohtori said finally.  "Perhaps we should just try to understand through him what kind of relationship he and 'The Hunter' had that let this one live.  If we have enough information to profile the killer, it will help the police."

    "A victim's mind does not work like that," I said.  "They cannot be selective on what they chose to recall or forget.  It would be like pulling at a loose thread.  Once we start pulling, the entire seam can easily be undone."

    "You are assuming there's a method to the killer's madness," Utsuki said.  "There isn't.  The bastard's been very consistent with the methods of torturing his victims, and branding them.  The only difference between this one and fifteen others is the fact that this one's alive.  Obviously "The Hunter" knew this one's screwed up enough not to remember much of anything and let him go--"

    "It was more than that," Ohtori cut in.  "Shinomori was driven back to his apartment and left where he would be found quickly.  The Hunter wanted him to live.  The two had somehow formed an unintentional relationship...and if you break it, the hunter will come back and finish the job.  I agree with Dr. Kanoe.  Shinomori should be treated for his physical wounds, and returned to his former life before all of this happened, as quickly and as smoothly as possible."

    "Do you really think Shinomori's ever capable of a normal life after this? You don't think he would ever come to question where his scars came from? And if he had indeed formed a kind of relationship with the hunter, you don't think he would come back for him eventually?"

    "What kind of guarantee do you have that he would return to Shinomori's life if we left him as we found him?"

    Utsuki stared hard at Ohtori and then at me.  I sighed and looked down at the pale folder.

    "Shinomori's the only chance we have left," Utsuki said, his voice leveled off.  "I spent the last 5 years tracking this fuckin' bastard, and I've picked up the pieces of the 15 bodies he had left all over Tokyo.  One of them was only sixteen years-old, Dr. Kanoe.  Do you know what it's like to be the one to tell the parents that their boy's dead? And had to admit to them their boy had died in pain and fear and alone.   Can you begin to imagine what you would feel if that was your son?"

    "That's enough! I am not one of your subjects, Detective.  Don't talk to me like that," I said and stood up.  

    "Like what, doctor?" Utsuki said.  "Try to come into my head and feel a fraction of what I go through every fucking day that bastard walk the streets, looking for the next one to take home and carve up.  Shinomori has a chance no other victims in the past, or victims to come will ever have, doctor.  He has a chance to recover from a certain death, even with the memory of the crime.  And what about his right to be vindicated?"

    "You are not understanding what I am saying, Detective," I said.  "You are asking me to temper with something that came into place because it became a necessity.  If he remembers, he runs a great risk of becoming suicidal or insane....and he might not even be coherent enough to give you the information you wanted.  He will be sucked into the vacuum he had  created in his mind, and perhaps be locked in there until he died.  Will you be able to live with that?"

    "I do understand what you are saying," Utsuki said.  "But it still does not remove the need for you to get into his mind and get the answers we need."

    "I can't do it," I said.  "What you are asking me to do is inhumane and cruel.  Shinomori had formed a scar over this trauma, and you are asking me to rip it open and dip my hand into it...and hopefully, I can pull out what you want."

    Utsuki looked at Ohtori, who looked down at his hands.  

    "Then he will be sent to Dr. Tenkoku in Osaka--"

    "Are you mad? Dr. Tenkoku will do nothing but shoot him full of drugs," Ohtori said.  

    "He's the next on the list to take the case," Utsuki said.  "Whether you are the one to work with Shinomori or not does not matter to me.  Shinomori's an eyewitness, and will remain in State custody until this case is over.  If you care as much as you think you do about him--then you would be the one to take him and fully complete him.  Sooner or later, the memories will come back to him.  I'm no psychiatrist but I can venture a very good guess on what will happen to him if the memory comes back to him.  It might not happen today or tomorrow or for next few years.  But can YOU live with the fact that you've sent an incomplete man back into the world who will find himself in that vacuum eventually?"

    I picked up the folder and tucked it under my arm.

    "I will see him first thing tomorrow," I said quietly after awhile.  I gave Dr. Ohtori a nod and left the room without another word to either one of them.  

    I spent the rest of the afternoon in my office reading the pale folder about Shinomori.  A few hours later, two uniformed police officers came by and dropped off two thick stacks of manila folder.  Utsuki had sent over all of the files on the past Tokyo Hunter murders, including Shinomori's which was marked "pending" in big red letters.

    The Tokyo Hunter serial murders was strange, circumstantially.  That is, the murders did not make the media circuit as it should have.  A murder's uncommon as it was.  A serial murder spanning five years was sensational.  The Tokyo police had kept the news of the murders tight under them, and refused to make any connection between the 15 murders publicly.  I understood why.  A low-crime society would not be able to handle the stress and panic that comes with this kind of brutality.  And it was brutality of the worst kind.

   The nameless and faceless killer had been called "The Tokyo Hunter" by the investigators since he had deposited his first victim in a cluster of trees in lower Mount Fuji a little over five years ago.  And it was quite an obvious serial case.  The victims looked similar in build and face, down to their shoulder-length dark hair with wisps of bangs that came over their eyebrows slightly.  All of them had suffered similar cuts, bruises and wounds.  And they all were branded with a quarter-inch sized Celtic cross at the small of the back, about an inch to the right of their tail bone.  All fifteen had died from either hanging or manual strangulation.  It was literally a text book serial murder: from victim selection to marking the victim as territory, down to re-playing a fantasy role of a hate-filled sadist.  

    From the initial profile of the killer, I had guessed him to be someone young.  At least, someone young enough to be a peer to most of these 20-something victims, and was able to easily  blend into the scene most of the 20-something year-olds in Tokyo socialized in.  His victims had been attractive, which would mean they were lured into the company of the killer either by money or perhaps the killer himself was quite attractive himself.  Although money did not seem to be a main motive--all 15 victims and Shinomori were young men with jobs in stable companies as salarymen or programmers.

   In Shinomori's case, everything was consistent with the pattern except it looked as if the Hunter had tried to strangle him several times and on different occasions, but had changed his mind.  More interestingly, Shinomori had more intimate wounds along his back and chest.  Bite marks and nail scratches that looked deliberately placed.  Shinomori had sexual contact with the killer, whereas, none of the previous victims had been sexually assaulted.  And unlike other victims, Shinomori had suffered little damage to his face.  It was as if the Hunter had been careful not to mark it.  The other victims were not so fortunate.  Some had their eyes gauged out crudely with a knife.  Most had cigarette burns on the mouth or cheeks.  One had his nose shorn off cleanly.  In spite of being tortured and nearly murdered several times, it would seem as if the Hunter had grown fond of Shinomori.  They had indeed formed an unintentional relationship, and whether Shinomori had accepted it, no one but his past memory knew.  

    When Shinomori was found by a neighbor in his apartment complex, Shinomori was freshly bathed and dressed back into the clothing he wore the day he was missing.  His freshest wound was about a week old, meaning the Hunter had not hurt him for a week before he decided to release him.  There were even some bandages applied carefully on some of the open wounds.     

   It was nearly midnight when I finally read through the files.  Suddenly, I was eager to speak to him.  I was eager to learn about the Hunter through him.  Shinomori had been a deliberate exception and I wanted to know, more than anything in the world, why he was.  As much as I did not want to be the one to break Shinomori, I wanted to be.   For the first time in my life, I had come to despise my job.