“But won’t they fix the reflections, too?”

“If they have time, yes. Because now there are computer programs to map an image onto any shape. You can map a picture onto a complicated, twisted surface. But it takes time. So. Let’s hope they had no time.”

She started the tapes forward. The first portion was dark, as Cheryl Austin first appeared by the elevators. I looked at Theresa. I said, “How do you feel about this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Helping us. The police.”

“You mean, because I am Japanese?” She glanced at me, and smiled. It was an odd, crooked smile. “I have no illusions about Japanese. Do you know where Sako is?”

“No.”

“It is a city—a town, really—in the north. In Hokkaido. A provincial place. There is an American airfield there. I was born in Sako. My father was a kokujin mechanic. You know that word, kokujin? Niguro. A black man. My mother worked in a noodle shop where the air force personnel went. They married, but my father died in an accident when I was two years old. There was a small pension for the widow. So we had some money. But my grandfather took most of it, because he insisted he had been disgraced by my birth. I was ainoko and niguro. They are not nice words, what he called me. But my mother wanted to stay there, to stay in Japan. So I grew up in Sako. In this… place…”

I heard the bitterness in her voice.

“You know what the burakumin are?” she said. “No? I am not surprised. In Japan, the land where everyone is supposedly equal, no one speaks of burakumin. But before a marriage, a young man’s family will check the family history of the bride, to be sure there are no burakumin in the past. The bride’s family will do the same. And if there is any doubt, the marriage will not occur. The burakumin are the untouchables of Japan. The outcasts, the lowest of the low. They are the descendants of tanners and leather workers, which in Buddhism is unclean.”

“I see.”

“And I was lower than burakumin, because I was deformed. To the Japanese, deformity is shameful. Not sad, or a burden. Shameful. It means you have done something wrong. Deformity shames you, and your family, and your community. The people around you wish you were dead. And if you are half black, the ainoko of an American big nose…” She shook her head. “Children are cruel. And this was a provincial place, a country town.”

She watched the tape go forward.

“So I am glad to be here. You Americans do not know in what grace your land exists. What freedom you enjoy in your hearts. You cannot imagine the harshness of life in Japan, if you are excluded from the group. But I know it very well. And I do not mind if the Japanese suffer a little now, from my efforts with my one good hand.”

She glared at me. The intensity turned her face to a mask. “Does that answer your question, Lieutenant?”

“Yes,” I said. “It does.”

“When I come to America, I think the Americans are very foolish about the Japanese—but never mind. Here is the sequence now. You watch the top two monitors. I will watch the bottom three. Look carefully for objects that reflect. Look closely. Here it comes.”

19

I watched the monitors in the darkness.

Theresa Asakuma was feeling bitter about the Japanese, but so was I. The incident with Weasel Wilhelm had made me angry. Angry the way somebody who’s scared can be angry. One sentence he had said kept coming back to my mind, again and again.

Under the circumstances, don’t you think the court made a mistake in granting you custody of your young daughter?

I never wanted custody. In all the turmoil of the divorce, of Lauren moving out, packing up, this is yours, this is mine—in all that, the last thing I wanted was custody of a seven-month-old baby. Shelly was just starting to move around the living room, holding onto the furniture. She would say “Mama.” Her first word. But Lauren didn’t want the responsibility and kept saying, “I can’t handle it, Peter. I just can’t handle it.” So I took custody. What else could I do?

But now it was almost two years later. I had changed my life. I had changed my job, my schedule. She was my daughter now. And the thought of giving her up was like twisting a knife in my stomach.

Under the circumstances, Lieutenant, don’t you think…

On the monitor, I watched as Cheryl Austin waited in the darkness for the arrival of her lover. I watched the way she looked around the room.

The court made a mistake…

No, I thought, the court didn’t make a mistake. Lauren couldn’t handle it, and had never been able to handle it. Half the time, she skipped on her weekends. She was too busy to see her own daughter. Once after a weekend she returned Michelle to me. Michelle was crying. Lauren said, “I just don’t know what to do with her.” I checked. Her diapers were wet and she had a painful rash. Michelle always gets a rash when her diapers aren’t changed promptly. Lauren hadn’t changed her diapers often enough during the weekend. So I changed her, and there were streaks of shit in Michelle’s vagina. She hadn’t cleaned her own daughter properly.

Don’t you think the court made a mistake?

No, I didn’t.

Under the circumstances, don’t you think—

“Fuck it,” I said.

Theresa stabbed a button, stopped the tapes. The images froze on the monitors all around us. “What is it?” she said. “What did you see?”

“Nothing.”

She looked at me.

“I’m sorry. I was thinking of something else.”

“Don’t.”

She started the tape again.

On multiple monitors, the man embraced Cheryl Austin. Images from the different cameras were coordinated in an eerie way. It was as if we could see all sides of the event—front and back, top and sides. It was like a moving architectural blueprint.

And it felt creepy, to watch,

My two monitors showed the view from the far end of the room, and from high above, looking straight down. Cheryl and her lover were small in one monitor, and in the other one, I saw only the tops of their heads. But I watched.

Standing alongside me, Theresa Asakuma breathed slowly, regularly. In and out. I glanced at her.

“Pay attention.”

I looked back.

The lovers were in a passionate embrace. The man pressed Cheryl back against a desk. In my top view, I could see her face, looking straight up as she lay back. Beside her, a framed picture on the desk fell over.

“There,” I said.

Theresa stopped the tape.

“What?” she said.

“There.” I pointed to the framed picture. It lay flat, facing upward. Reflected in the glass, we could see the outline of the man’s head as he bent over Cheryl. It was very dark. Just a silhouette.

“Can you get an image from that?” I said.

“I don’t know. Let’s try.”

Her hand moved swiftly across the controls, touching them briefly. “The video image is digital,” she said. “It’s in the computer now. We’ll see what we can do with it.” The image began to jump, growing larger in increments as she zoomed in on the picture frame. The image moved past Cheryl’s frozen, grainy face, her head thrown back in an instant of passion. Moved down from her shoulder, toward the frame.

As the picture enlarged, it became more grainy. It began to decompose into a pattern of dots, like a newspaper photo held too close to your face. Then the dots themselves enlarged, formed edges, turned into small blocks of gray. Pretty soon I couldn’t tell what we were looking at.

“Is this going to work?”

“I doubt it. But there’s the edge of the frame, and there’s the face.”

I was glad she could see it. I couldn’t.

“Let’s sharpen.”

She pressed buttons. Computer menus dropped down, flashed back. The image became crisper. Grittier. But I could see the frame. And the outline of the head.