The taxi pulled off the street and Munroe, in the backseat, leaned down to see through the window, up the three-story concrete square that housed the precinct police station. The structure was separated from traffic by asphalt and parking on two sides and hedged in by taller, less blocky buildings on the others. There were few windows and no easy unconventional access, and somewhere behind those walls, on one of those floors, was the man she’d schemed to see while the days to his indictment clicked steadily onward.
Without knowledge of the enemy or of what Bradford may have already said, if he’d said anything at all, she could only pretend to predict the consequences of every word and action, so she’d come alone, without the pretense of an interpreter, willing to face whatever questions and accusations might later arise if her fluency was forced to surface.
The taxi stopped just shy of the entrance and Munroe paid the white-gloved driver. The passenger door swung open on automatic hinges and she stepped out, into midmorning heat, onto the doorstep of the belly of the beast.
Munroe pushed through the lobby doors, wedding ring on her finger, the modest dress on her frame, makeup heavy on the feminine, and papers stuffed into an enormous purse that she’d picked up at a boutique in the nearby shopping arcade. The interior was a cool contrast to the stickiness outside, relatively quiet, textured, and fragranced with standard open-floor-office air.
There were no uniformed officers that she could see.
No indifferent desk sergeant, burned out by a never-ending chain of human misery; no rank smells; no coughing, sniffling, dull-eyed bodies filling the few seats that lined the nearest wall; no radio background noise and incessant ringing phones; and no relatives and friends waiting with stress and fear and defeat etched into every movement. Instead, paper- and computer-cluttered desks were sandwiched in on one another end-to-end and corner-to-corner behind a wall-to-wall counter, while nonuniformed clerks went quietly about their work.
One of the women stood when Munroe reached the counter.
Munroe said, “I’m here to see my husband.”
The woman smiled the earnest smile of helpful nonunderstanding and slid a laminated sheet onto the counter. She brushed a hand across the page with an encouraging nod, inviting Munroe to point to the problem.
Cartoon drawings illustrated varied emergencies: I’m lost. I’ve been robbed. I’m hurt. I’ve been in an accident. Munroe shook her head and raised her wrists together in the universal sign of handcuffs. “Gaijin,” she said. She pointed to the ceiling and then to the floor. “He is here.” Then she pointed to the gold band on her finger. “I came to see him.”
The mental gears clicked and the woman said, “Ehhh.” She turned to her deskmate. She’s here to see the foreigner. She is his wife, maybe.
No visitors for him without approval, the deskmate said. Call for Mori-san, he should be the one to handle things.
The woman turned back to Munroe. “Yes,” she said in English. “Seat, please.” She motioned toward the chairs with a polite smile and courteous bow.
Daichi Mori arrived several minutes later, stepping out from behind a door that had appeared to belong to an office but which, from the force with which he pushed through, had more likely connected to a hallway. He was a man in his early fifties, short and stocky, dressed in impeccably pressed civilian clothes, with thick wild eyebrows and a permanent scowl that hung deep into drooping jowls.
Munroe stood when he approached, stuck out a tremulous hand, and pushing a quiver into her voice, she said, “Detective Mori?”
“Captain Mori,” he replied, his English lightly accented. He wore an air of unquestionable authority, but his voice was soft and his demeanor gentle.
He stared at her outstretched hand as if disgusted by the idea of touching it, then shook it gingerly. Munroe drew in a nervous breath and brushed strands of hair away from her tear-rimmed eyes. “My husband is missing,” she said, and her voice quivered again. “I’m told that he’s been arrested and that I can find him here. I don’t know what’s happened, but I have to see him, please can you help me?”
Mori held her gaze and Munroe pleaded in silence, desperate and hurting, while he sized her up. She’d come prepared to segue into tears, then hysterics, and if those failed, to quote chapter and verse of local laws to prove that she knew her rights—few as they were—and to dig in her heels with threats of publicity and noise, refusing to leave until she was able to see her husband. But Mori motioned a hand toward the counter and said, “There is some paperwork.”
He walked with her, then stood beside her long enough to give a round of instructions to the clerk, and when he turned to go, Munroe held up a plastic bag. “I have clothes and hygiene items,” she said. “I was told that these are things he’s allowed to have.”
“We will have to inspect them first,” Mori said. He nodded to the woman again and another set of forms made its way onto the counter.
Munroe filled out papers written in a language she couldn’t read, and the red tape and formality consumed an hour—certainly long enough for the station officer to contact the prosecutor’s office to inform them of her arrival and allow official objections to put an end to hope. But the opposition never came and in the end the marriage certificate was an afterthought, necessary only because the last name on her passport didn’t match Bradford’s.
A young officer arrived to take the items in the plastic bag, assuring Munroe that they would get to their intended recipient, and shortly thereafter another led her from the front and down an empty hall to a small room, where she was required to leave all personal belongings before continuing on.
The visitation area was a box of a room with institutional paint, one institutional chair, and a wall interrupted by a single plexiglass window. Munroe took a seat in front of the rectangle where a series of holes were drilled below mouth level. Bare walls and an empty chair faced her on the other side.
The young officer who’d escorted her in stood to the side, a few feet to her left, in no apparent hurry to go anywhere, and she waited in silence for several long minutes, counting the time in her head because there was no way to keep track otherwise. And then a flash of movement and color caught her eye, a reflection of a reflection on the other side of the plexiglass, and a moment later Bradford was in front of her, hair greasy, eyes bloodshot above dark circles, wearing the same clothes she’d last seen him in, now dirty and wrinkled.
He sat across from her, separated by the window, and he smiled a sad, sad smile.