Death Sentences Read Online Free Page B

Station, heading toward Miyamasuzaka. She was walking fairly fast now.
    She wore a long coat with a purse slung over her shoulder.
    Her clothes were nothing remarkable. But she was attractive and shapely enough that you might have pegged her as early twenties.
    Actually-

    Sakamoto figured her real age to be forty-two. She looked about twenty years younger.
    This was one of the characteristic "symptoms" of the afflicted. It was said to be an effect of their state of delirium in which the soul drifted free of the body. But little progress had been made on a detailed account of causes and effects. You weren't supposed to look for explanations. That just slowed things down. The idea was to eradicate it, not figure it out.
    In the middle stages, some afflicted would grow physically younger in the blink of an eye, while others would advance horrendously in age.
    In any event, the effects varied a great deal from individual to individual. Everything hinged on individual characteristics. But all of the afflicted eventually met with the same end. Researchers referred to the last stage as "salvation."
    But whatever you called it, in the end it amounted to a person turning into a complete vegetable. Death was quick to follow.
    As if drawn there magnetically, Miura Sachiko entered a coffee shop located halfway up the rise of Miyamasuzaka.
    The coffee shop was small with a narrow entrance.
    It looked like this was the meeting place.
    "All right, see you there at five," she had said on the phone. Sakamoto's team had gathered this much from their wiretap.
    About ten minutes left until five.
    Sakamoto checked his pace and turned back.
    He saw the blinker of the white Corolla as it pulled over. The driver gave him a thumbs-up, and Sakamoto drew a deep breath.
    So far things were going smoothly.
    The hard part came next. How things turned out depended entirely on Sakamoto's actions.
    Sakamoto continued to stroll casually.
    Through the coffee shop window he spotted Miura Sachiko out of the corner of his eye.
    She was sitting alone.

    The waitress had just brought her a glass of water and a hot towel, and she looked up at her to order something.
    The shop was pretty much empty.
    Except a couple of young slackers glued to a video game, there were no other customers. Neither looked like the guy Sachiko was waiting for.
    Sakamoto continued past the shop.
    He found a pay phone in front of the building just next door.
    He was going to need some information after all.
    Sakamoto picked up the receiver coated with car exhaust and dropped a couple of coins in the slot. He started dialing.
The number would connect him with Sachiko's apartment.
After two rings somebody answered.
    "Well?" Sakamoto asked.
    2
    "Not a thing. Clean as a whistle."
    It was one of the guys who'd slipped into her apartment as she was leaving.
    "Nothing?"
    "She must have known we were on to her. Cleaned it inside out, not so much as a speck of dust."
    "Hmmm."
    "But we did find something kind of interesting in the trash."
    "What's that?"
    "You know those print kits? The ones you can make postcards and stuff with?"
    "Yeah."
    "Well, we found one tossed in with the nonrecyclables."
    "Think it's hers?"
    "We're looking into it now. But we're pretty sure it is. The landlord saw her taking out quite a pile of trash two nights ago. Apparently, most of it was paper, but the print kit turned up where she'd dumped her trash. She probably thought they'd take it away with the rest, but they can be awfully picky, you know."

    "What about the papers?"
    "A garbage truck passed yesterday morning. So we've contacted the municipal sanitation crew. Some of our people are already off to the dump."
    "Good. Nothing along with the print kit, then?"
    "Unfortunately not. But on the surface of the stand-you know, the place where you stick the paper-well, there's a fair amount of ink left on it, and a series of words that look like part of a sentence. The writing is incredibly small and cramped. Anyway, we're