The windowsills were painted yellow. He wasn't overly fond of the shade: it reminded him of police tape. Other omens as well. Someone in the household had thought to add the dash of color, though. No doubt the same someone was responsible for the potted plants on said windowsill -- the effect bright and cozy under the late-morning sun -- and the artfully Zen flowerbeds he could glimpse beyond the cedars to his left. A caring person. He could hear water from somewhere in back. It was a traditional house, not large. Not unlike his own.

There were worse places to spend one's last days.

"Saitoh-san...?"

The police officer glanced at his subordinate, then at the cloth-covered stretcher before them.

"Name," he said curtly.

"Hasegawa Rena. Age twenty-seven, unmarried," the junior officer recited in a dutiful monotone. "Secretary in a medium-sized manufacturing firm. Parents next of kin -- they own the house. Neighbor found her at about nine-oh-five this morning in the back garden. Floating in the ornamental pond." Saitoh reached absently for the breast pocket of his jacket, his eyes lingering on the stretcher.

"Not quite the same inspired presentation as the others, then?"

"No, sir." Pause. "However..."

"However?" Pack, shake, cigarette, lighter. Slow inhalation. "You think it's our man, Masada."

"Ha...hai, sir. The body -- well..."

Saitoh made an impatient signal with his head, and Masada stopped, wincing. After a moment he reached for a corner of the dissimulating sheet and twitched it aside.

No real change of expression on the ascetic face: a narrowing of the golden eyes perhaps, or a deepening of the lines. Masada -- who'd experienced the detective's legendary intuition only as a series of caustically delivered non-sequiturs -- glanced away uncomfortably.

"That's not what they look like when they drown," he said. "The fifth, sir..."

Saitoh grunted, exhaling smoke. "Get it to the coroner's. Where's the neighbor?"

"They're treating her for shock." Masada gave a can't-really-blame-her grimace. "As for the family, they seem to be out of town. Fujii's trying to locate them."

"The depositions on my desk when you get them." Masada began to give orders. Saitoh glanced up beyond the house, beyond the trees and the crawl of authorized vehicles and the magnesium flares of police photographers, into the sky barely veiled by the smoke wreathing about him. Blue sky. But the metallic taste in his throat was overly familiar.

Five. Five already this month. And it would not stop there.

Why should it stop?

"Arashi... ka." He felt Masada turn confused eyes on him.

"Sir...?"

Saitoh's smile was feral, and humorless. "It's in the air, Masada-kun." Turning his back on the younger man, he set off toward the yellow tape strung between the cedars. Metal -- taste of storm, and lightning. He knew it well.

Taste of blood.

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