“No, no, I wasn’t sleeping yet. I’m a night owl, you know. What were you doing?”
Listening to their conversation, I could imagine the sludgy juices rising higher and higher in their bodies until they threatened to overflow. My grandfather’s profile exuded joy, a joy that is unattainable if one tries to attain it. Does such a joy really exist? I’ve never experienced a feeling like that and I never want to. Whenever someone is on the verge of such joy, they always run away from me. Am I lonely? Don’t be ridiculous. I had considered my grandfather an ally until he started mooning around. It was a betrayal. That’s the way I felt. If someone finds it lonely to be abandoned, they should behave so others don’t abandon them. But if they want to be left alone, they ought to induce disagreeable people to abandon them. I didn’t want Grandfather or Mitsuru to leave me, but I wanted to get Mitsuru’s mother and Yuriko as far away from me as possible.
To which group should I assign Kazue? She was an idiot who doted on her father like a little girl and who believed in the miracle motto, Try your best. I didn’t have much use for a stupid girl like that, other than to keep her nearby to control.
Next morning, that idiot Kazue came over to thank me.
“I’m really grateful to you for not telling my father about me last night. My father was furious and I was terrified, but you denied it all and really bailed me out.”
“So did your father forgive you?”
“Yes. Everything’s okay now.”
It would take time before Kazue could escape the spell her father had cast over her. Perhaps a lifetime. An interesting idea. I would create an opening for Kazue’s escape, which I would then take delight in personally destroying. Yes. When I saw Kazue I felt like a god, manipulating that dunce like a puppet on a string.
You think Kazue started behaving strangely because I bullied her? No, that’s not the case. I’ve said it any number of times before: Kazue was just too naïve, too pure. It’s not just that she didn’t see the world around her. She couldn’t even see herself. I’d like the following to stay just between us: Kazue had a secret confidence in her own looks. I came across her countless times staring at herself in the mirror. She would smile at herself, and her face would take on a look of ecstasy. She was vain.
Both Kazue and her father could not accept the fact that there could possibly be anyone else with more intellectual ability than they had. And Kazue would never accept the fact that a woman with equal ability would always be more successful if she was beautiful. Put another way, could there have been anyone happier than Kazue?
In contrast to Mitsuru and me—who knew to polish our natural gifts in order to survive—Kazue was overly ignorant of her own self. A woman who does not know herself has no choice other than to live with other people’s evaluations. But no one can adapt perfectly to public opinion. And herein lies the source of their destruction.
FIVE • MY CRIMES: ZHANG’S WRITTEN REPORT
• 1 •
JUDGE: Please verify that your name is Zhang Zhe-zhong, a native of Dayi City, Baoxing County, in Sichuan Province of the People’s Republic of China, born February 10, 1966.
DEFENDANT: Yes, that is true.
JUDGE: You presently reside at apartment 404 of the Matoya Building, 4–5 Maruyama-ch, Shibuya Ward, in the city of Tokyo; and you are employed by Dreamer. Is that correct?
DEFENDANT: That is correct.
JUDGE: You’ve stated that you do not need an interpreter. Are you certain?
DEFENDANT: Yes. My Japanese is good. I’m certain.
JUDGE: Very well. Will the attorney for the prosecution read aloud the indictment?
INDICTMENT
On this day of November 1, the twelfth year of Heisei (2000), the District Attorney for the city of Tokyo, as herein represented by D.A. Noro Yoshiaki, indicts Zhang Zhe-zhong, a citizen of the People’s Republic of China, born February 10, 1966, currently a hotel employee and residing at Matoya Building #404, 4–5 Maruyama-ch, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, before the Tokyo District Court on the following charges:
COUNT NO. 1
While the defendant was an employee at the Shangri-la, a Chinese restaurant in Kabuki-ch, Shinjuku-ku, he went to unit number 205 of Hope Heights apartments, 5–12 kubo, Shinjuku-ku, on June 5, 1999, and at approximately 3 a.m. used both hands to strangle Yuriko Hirata (then 37), thus causing her death by asphyxiation. Thereafter the defendant removed from the purse of the afore-named victim ¥20,000 and took an 18-carat gold necklace (valued at the time at ¥70,000) from her person.
COUNT NO. 2
The same defendant went to unit number 103 of Green Villa Apartments, 4–5 Maruyama-ch, Shibuya-ku, on April 9, 2000, and at approximately midnight strangled with both hands Kazue Sat (then 39), thus causing her death by asphyxiation. Subsequently he removed ¥40,000 from the victim’s purse.
CHARGES AND PENALTIES
Count No. 1: The defendant is charged with burglary and murder in accordance with Article 240, Part Two, of the Penal Code.
Count No. 2: The defendant is charged with burglary and murder in accordance with Article 240, Part Two, of the Penal Code.
JUDGE: We will begin the trial on the charges the district attorney has just read. But before proceeding I will inform the defendant of his rights. You have the right to remain silent, and so during these pro ceedings you may choose to remain silent. Should you answer a question, you are not under obligation to answer subsequent questions. However, should you choose to answer a question, anything you say may be used in evidence against you, so I urge you to exercise caution. You have heard the aforementioned conditions. I would like to take this opportunity to ask you if you have any response to the charges against you as read into the record by the prosecuting attorney.
DEFENDANT: I admit to killing Yuriko Hirata, but I did not murder Kazue Sat.
JUDGE: You plead guilty to the charges in the first count but not to the charges in the second count?
DEFENDANT: Correct.
JUDGE: And what about the charges of robbery?
DEFENDANT: I stole Miss Hirata’s money and necklace, but I did not steal from Miss Sat.
JUDGE: Attorney for the defense, what is your statement?
DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I concur with the defendant.
JUDGE: Very well. Will the attorney for the prosecution please read your opening arguments.
OVERVIEW OF THE PROSECUTION’S OPENING ARGUMENTS: COUNT NO. 1 OF THE INDICTMENT
Item 1: The Defendant’s Personal History
The defendant was born on February 10, 1966, in Sichuan Province of the People’s Republic of China as the third son of Zhang Xiao-niu (currently 68) a farmer, and Zhang Xiu-lan (currently 61). The defendant has four siblings: his oldest brother, An-ji (currently 42); a second older brother, Gen-de; an older sister, Mei-hua (currently 40); and a younger sister, Mei-kun. Note that the second brother, Gen-de, died in childhood and the younger sister Mei-kun died in an accident in 1992. The defendant graduated from the local elementary school at the age of 12 and henceforth began to help the family with farming.
In 1989 the defendant decided to leave home to secure better employment. He and his younger sister, Mei-kun, boarded a train to Guang-dong Province and sought employment in Guangzhou City. In 1991 they moved to Shenzhen City, also in Guangdong Province.
In 1992 the defendant and his younger sister, Mei-kun, stowed away on a ship sailing from Fujian Province, planning to enter Japan illegally. Although Mei-kun drowned in the process, the defendant was successful and entered our country illegally at Ishigaki Island. While concealing his illegal status, he found successive employment in the cleaning and cooking sectors. He also had jobs in construction. In 1998 he worked at a bar in Shinjuku known as Nomisuke, and in 1999 he began working at a tavern, also in Shinjuku, known as Shangri-la. In July of that same year he began employment at Dreamer, a love hotel in the Honmachi neighborhood of Kichijji, Musashino City. The defendant is not known to be married. According to housing records, he lives with individuals
known by the names Chen-yi, Huang, and Dragon, all Chinese nationals.
On June 30, 2000, the defendant was brought before the Tokyo District Court on the charge of entering the country illegally. He was sentenced to two years of incarceration with a suspended sentence of four years. (Decision dated July 20 of the same year.)
Item 2: Victim Yuriko Hirata
The victim Yuriko Hirata (hereafter Hirata) was born May 17, 1962, as the second daughter of Jan Maher (a Swiss national) who is currently employed by Schmidt, a textile manufacturer in Switzerland, and Sachiko Hirata. As her parents never legally married, the victim went by both Maher and her mother’s name Hirata. Hirata and her parents moved from Kita-Shirakawa in Shirakawa Ward to Bern, Switzerland, in March of 1976. In July of that year, Sachiko died in Bern and Hirata left her father and returned alone to Japan. Because her elder sister was currently living with Sachiko’s father, Hirata boarded at the house of an American acquaintance and entered the junior high division of the Q School system. Subsequently, Hirata advanced to the high school division but was expelled during her third year of high school due to inappropriate behavior.
After her expulsion she moved out of the American acquaintance’s house and began to live alone. She signed on with a modeling agency and worked in advertising and magazine modeling until 1985, when she took employment as a hostess in Mallord, a club in Roppongi. In 1989 she moved to the club Jeanne, also in Roppongi, and after that she changed employment any number of times. While working as a hostess, Hirata engaged in prostitution in Shinjuku and Shibuya.
Item 3: Circumstances Leading to the Crime
The defendant, as previously stated, was employed as a waiter in the tavern Shangri-la in Shinjuku. But the salary was low and he felt ostracized by the owners of the business, who were natives of Fujian. The other employees criticized Zhang for being “a bumpkin who put on the airs of a sophisticated urbanite,” so he did not have many personal associations with others at the establishment.
He was known to pinch off bites of food for himself when he carried food to customers; he poured the beer or whiskey left in the bottles he had served into a plastic container that he then carried home for his own consumption. He was warned about the inappropriateness of this behavior on numerous occasions.
Despite these lapses, he worked hard, was punctual, and never missed a day on the job. Claiming that he had to send money home to his family, he worked part-time at the neighborhood flophouse, Futomomokko, heading there after his tavern job ended at 10 p.m. His duties at Futomomokko included taking out the trash and washing the towels. Once finished here he would rush through the streets of Kabuki-ch to catch the last train back to his apartment in Maruyama-ch, Shibuya Ward.
Every day of the week except Wednesdays, the defendant worked at the Shangri-la from noon to 10 p.m. He earned ¥800 an hour plus a monthly transportation fee of ¥6,500, so that every month he received approximately ¥315,000. In addition to this, his part-time job at the motel paid ¥2,000 for two hours.
The rent on unit 404, Matoya Building, came to ¥65,000 a month. But because he charged his three roommates, Chen-yi, Huang, and Dragon, ¥35,000 a month each, he made a profit of ¥40,000.
He often told his coworkers that his parents were rebuilding their house back home and he needed to raise ¥3,000,000 to send them. But he had expensive tastes and wore flashy clothes and accessories such as a 24-carat gold bracelet and a ¥50,000 leather jacket that he bought at the Isetan Department Store.
Item 4: Events Related to the Crime
At approximately 10 p.m. on June 4, 1999, the defendant came across Hirata in front of kubo Park in the second block of Kabuki-ch as he was rushing to his job at Motel Futomomokko. She was holding an umbrella. He knew that streetwalkers frequented ¯
Okubo Park, but this was the first time the defendant had seen Hirata there. His interest in her was immediately piqued because he mistook her for an American, and he had always thought that eventually he would travel on to America.
“You have a nice face” were Hirata’s first words to him. Since she spoke to him in Japanese, he realized she was not American, and initially he was disappointed. Her flattery, however, appealed to him and he was interested in following up but worried about missing work at the motel. So he just waved to her, smiled, and rushed ahead to the Futomomokko. There he went about his usual tasks.
Unable to get Hirata out of his mind, the defendant took the same route past ¯
Okubo Park on his way home. He reached the park at approximately 12:05 on the morning of the fifth and saw that Hirata was still standing there in the rain.
When Hirata saw the defendant, she called out to him cheerfully, “I’m about to freeze, standing here waiting for you!” At this point the defendant decided to have sex with her.
At that time the defendant had ¥22,000 on his person. When he asked Hirata what she charged, she replied that it would be ¥30,000. Since he did not have that much money, the defendant was ready to give up the idea; Hirata offered to lower the price to ¥15,000. The defendant then proposed that they move to a hotel. At this point Hirata informed the defendant that she had an apartment nearby. The defendant was relieved that he would not have to pay extra for a hotel and accompanied the defendant to her room.
On the way, Hirata stopped at a 7-Eleven and bought four cans of beer, a packet of chili peanut chips, and two bean-jam buns. The food cost ¥1,575, and Hirata paid for it out of her own pocket.
The room that Hirata led the defendant to was in a two-story building of wood and concrete construction just behind the Kitashin Credit Union on the fifth block of kubo. The building, Hope Heights, had five units on the ground floor and five on the second. Hirata’s apartment, number 205, was on the second floor, farthest to the north and just next to the exterior stairway. Hirata had been renting the room, under the name Yuriko Hirata, from December 5, 1996, at the rate of ¥33,000 a month. The sum was withdrawn monthly from her bank account. Hirata, it seems, rented the space for the purpose of prostitution. The unit consisted of a six-mat Japanese-style room with tatami flooring, and in the small space between the entry vestibule and this room were a kitchenette, toilet, and sink. Hardly any furnishings were on the premises, though a futon mattress was folded and ready for use.
The defendant and Hirata each drank two beers in the Japanese-style room, pulled the futon out, and had sex. The defendant wanted to fall asleep afterward but Hirata requested that he leave. When he asked her again to let him stay because it was raining and he had already missed the last train, she refused.
Hirata insisted that the defendant pay her ¥20,000 to cover the use of the room and the cost of the provisions she had bought at the 7-Eleven. When the defendant learned of these charges, he realized that not only would he have to spend all the money he had with him, he would also have to walk back to Shibuya in the rain. He refused to pay Hirata. When Hirata reproached the defendant, he decided to kill her. At approximately three o’clock in the morning on June 5, he strangled Hirata with both hands, bringing about her death by asphyxiation. The defendant then remained in the room, sleeping, until 10 a.m. that same morning.
At approximately 10:30 a.m., the defendant took ¥20,000 from Hirata’s wallet. He removed the 18-carat gold necklace that she was wearing (valued at ¥70,000) and put it around his own neck. He then fled the apartment without locking the door, leaving Hirata’s body just as it was.
Item 5: Events Subsequent to the Crime
The defendant arrived at the Shangri-la one hour earlier than his scheduled noontime start. He spoke to the owner about resigning effective immediately. When the owner refused to allow such a sudden resig nation, the defendant cleaned out his locker and left the premises without any discussion of collecting the salary currently owed him. As he was leaving the Shangri-la, the defendant encountered Mr. A, another employee. They stood and spoke briefly in front of the restaurant. The defendant told A he had quit and then turned and headed toward Yasukuni Avenue. Mr. A noticed th
e defendant was wearing what seemed to be an expensive gold necklace that he had not seen before.
After the defendant left the Shangri-la, he took the Japan Railways Yamanote Line to Shibuya Station. From there he returned on foot to his apartment, number 404 in the Matoya Building on the fourth block of Maruyama-ch. This unit was rented by a certain Chen, a man the defendant met while a stowaway. Chen began renting the apartment in April 1998, and even after he moved out he kept the apartment under his name while the defendant remitted the monthly rent of ¥65,000 into Chen’s bank account.
Matoya Building is a four-story ferroconcrete building. It has no elevator. The building and land are owned by Mrs. Fumi Yamamoto. Unit 404 consists of a six-mat and a three-mat Japanese-style room, a kitchen, and a bath. The defendant occupied the three-mat room. At noon on June 5, the man known as Dragon and the one named Huang were sleeping. Chen-yi (no relation to the aforementioned Chen) had already gone to his job at a pachinko parlor in Shinkoiwa and was not home. Dragon, Huang, and Chen-yi are all male Chinese nationals whom the defendant had met in Tokyo. They did not discuss their personal history or their work with one another.
The noise the defendant made when he entered the apartment woke Dragon and Huang, and they left shortly thereafter. After the defendant fixed himself a meal in the kitchen, he ate and went back to sleep. He awoke later that day, when Chen-yi returned, and the two of them went out to eat ramen at the Tamary Noodle Shop on the east side of Shibuya Station. They played a game at the Shibuya Meeting Hall bowling alley and returned to their apartment at around eleven o’clock that night.