Part I: Hear No Evil
On the golden shores of Ventura, California, the waves rhythmically pushed and pulled against the sand. The clouds rolled in on the horizon, the detective noticed. He stood barefooted on the sand, hands in his pockets, silent, mulling. Jonathan Linebeck was born and raised in the beautiful beach town. Although he loved the beach, the beautiful landscapes, and extravagant homes, he was not ignorant to the darkness that lurked here. This darkness was specifically the reason he was called here this day.
Linebeck had been a detective for Santa Barbara for five years now. He often traveled to help solve other cases around the area. Today, he had been called to Ventura on a very serious homicide. There was something off about this case, he decided this morning on his way over the highway. He even hesitated getting in his car today. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe the date was too close to the anniversary of his mother’s death. Whatever it was, something troubling sat at the bottom of Linebeck’s stomach that day.
After taking in a few deep breaths of the ocean, he replaced his shoes on his feet and returned on his trip to the coroner’s office. Right when he arrived, his cell phone vibrated: Lizzie. He hesitated to answer; as if answering his girlfriend’s call would subject her to whatever fears had been brewing in his mind all day. But he knew she would be worried. He leaned against the hood of his car and put the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
Lizzie’s mouse-like squeak of a voice piped up from the other end. “Hey! You were supposed to call me when you got to Ventura!” She was more disappointed than angry. Lizzie had agreed to watch Linebeck’s cat while he was gone. She often did when he had to go away on business trips, happily so.
Linebeck scratched the back of his curly blonde hair. His eyes searched the sky for an answer. “Yeah, sorry, I took a detour and just barely got to the coroner’s office,” he told her. “But everything went fine. Don’t worry.”
Lizzie was a worrier, though, so of course that’s what she would do. She loved Linebeck, but didn’t agree with his profession. At the beginning of their relationship, she thought it was noble and found him so brave. But the dangers of reality finally hit her on his last assignment when he almost didn’t come home. He had come face to face with the barrel of a gun only two months ago. The thought of losing him had scared the life out of Lizzie, but Linebeck knew that this was what he was meant to do. So despite the stones in his throat and the weight on his shoulders, Linebeck told Lizzie he loved her and marched inside the office.
Inside the cold, gray room, a woman in scrubs turned to greet him. He held up his badge and shook her hand. She also introduced him to the corpse on the slab. An African American man, cut open directly down the middle of his torso. The doctor had already finished her examination of the body, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out what killed this man. To start, his chest was littered with lacerations, too clumsy to be made by a doctor. One, two, three…seven. Seven stab wounds marked the corpse, telling Linebeck all that he wanted to know. But that wasn’t all. The spaces where the corpse’s ears should be were nothing but holes. The coroner had already cleaned the area, but that didn’t make the gashes on the side of his head any less jarring to look at.
Linebeck swallowed, folding his arms across his chest. “So, what came first? The dismemberment or the stabbing?” he asked.
“The stabbing,” she replied. She handed him a folder of all her information. “A standard kitchen knife, it seems — seven times. The ears were cut off after the fact, with what seems to be an incision knife; the cuts are even and concise.”
“Did we find the ears near the body?” Linebeck asked as he flipped through the pictures and pages.
“No. The body was found at the beach.” She shook her head slowly. “Fully clothed, no signs of resistance, or sexual assault. Just missing his ears. We can’t figure out why…”
Linebeck read the report that had a picture attached to it of the vic in a graduation cap and gown. His name was Jayden White. 24, not much younger than Linebeck himself. White had recently became an RN at the Ventura hospital which was not too far from the beach at all. His parents had passed when he was very young, so his twin sister Jaynessa was the one to identify the body. They didn’t show her his corpse, they couldn’t. But once they discovered his identity from the wallet in his pocket, they were able to track down his sister. Jaynessa White was the one Linebeck would go to see next.
…
Jaynessa White lived in an apartment on the east side of town. When Linebeck opened the door, he was met with the bloodshot brown eyes of a beautiful woman with wild curly hair. She furrowed her brow at the sight of Linebeck until he showed her his badge and asked to come in. Her apartment was neat and tidy. From what he could see, there were two rooms — one for Jaynessa and one for Jayden. Sitting in her living room was a young, Asian-American woman about the same age as Jaynessa. This woman introduced herself as Joy Hana, a fellow nurse and Jaynessa’s best friend.
Jaynessa offered Linebeck a cup of coffee, which he accepted. He started off the conversation as gently as he could. “I’m very sorry this happened to you, miss White. I’m going to be investigating the scene and doing all that I can to find out who did this to your brother. But I need you to be as open and honest with me as possible. Now, did Jayden have any enemies?”
Both the women shook their heads. “No,” Jaynessa answered immediately, “Jayden was a friend to everyone. All of his patients loved him, and all of the doctors and staff are friends of ours.”
“No confrontations? Nothing stressing him out particularly?”
Now the women looked to each other, tight-lipped. They hesitated. “He did seem upset lately,” Joy answered slowly.
“But I thought that it was because he got rejected by his crush,” Jaynessa interjected.
Linebeck raised his eyebrow. “That could be something. When was this?”
“About, uh…a month ago,” she answered. She looked to Joy who nodded slowly. “She’s a coworker of ours.”
“Why did she turn him down?” Linebeck asked, writing this down in his notepad.
“We don’t know… But now that I think about it, I bet she had something to do with it.” Jaynessa wrung her blouse in her fists.
Linebeck calmed her and said that he would definitely get a hold of this woman. The nurses didn’t have much else to tell him. They insisted that Jayden was a good person, no enemies, and a very tightly knit friend circle. In fact, he mostly hung out with his sister and Joy. They spent most of their days at the hospital, and when they weren’t there they would go out to the movies or out to drink. Linebeck got specific names of their usual hangouts and the name of the woman who turned Jayden down. But by the time he left, he didn’t feel any closer to discovering the truth. He mulled over the very little information he got from Jaynessa and Joy. Their testimony pointed straight to the female coworker who rejected Jayden. Perhaps there was another man involved, who was angered by Jayden’s romantic advances? Or perhaps there was something deeper… Could Jayden have attempted to hurt this woman and she killed him in self defense? If she did, that didn’t explain why she would cut off his ears. Nothing was adding up just yet. Also, there was something that bothered Linebeck about that interview.
Yes, the women looked distraught, as one might expect. But the way they hesitated…finished each other’s sentences…and looked at each other during pauses… Something wasn’t right. But Linebeck had no way of pressing them for more information, and no real reason to doubt them yet. So he kept these doubts in the back of his mind until he was able to speak to them again.
…
At the hospital, it was easy to locate the female coworker because she was working that day. Although she seemed willing to speak with Linebeck, their conversation was interrupted by a doctor. “Peter Hana,” he introduced himself, cutting off the conversation. “I am the chief physician here. Is there anything I can do for you, detective?”
Linebeck gave the doctor a once-over. Hana. He was also Asian American. So was he related to Joy Hana? “I’m here investigating the death of one of your employees. Mr. Jayden White? I just needed to speak with this young woman.”
Dr. Hana gave a deep sigh, and asked for Linebeck to follow him to his office. At the top floor, Dr. Hana had an incredible view of the city. Past all the buildings and bustling streets, the ocean sparkled. “Please, have a seat,” the doctor said, and so Linebeck did. “Losing Jayden White remains a tragedy for this entire facility. Let me ask you, sir, what brought you here to interview that nurse specifically?”
Linebeck tilted his chin upward. “I was given a confidential tip that Mr. White and your nurse might have been involved romantically. I’m crossing my T’s and dotting my I’s.”
“I can tell you now that she is not the one to be speaking to,” Dr. Hana replied with surprising quickness. “Have you been in contact with Mr. White’s twin sister, Jaynessa? She is
also a nurse here, and…I do hope this will stay between you and I, but, you see, I know things about her that may surprise you.”
Linebeck’s heart began to race. Could he have been right about Jaynessa? That she was suspicious? “I have been in contact with Miss White…and her best friend, Joy Hana. Any relation?”
Dr. Hana nodded solemnly. “It is not hard to connect the resemblance, I’m sure. Joy is my granddaughter. She met the Whites when they were hired here at the same time. Joy was very close with the twins, although I’m sure that will change very soon.”
“And why do you say that?”
“Death certainly puts a strain on relationships.” Dr. Hana paused. “Jaynessa White and her brother have a history together. Why, it was only a month ago that death plagued this hospital before. The Whites threw a large party and one of our other nurses was murdered while driving home drunk. Rumor has it that Mr. White forced this person to drink and drive home-”
“De mortuis nil nisi bonum,” Linebeck murmured.
Dr. Hana raised his hands. “I am only trying to help you. Do not be deceived by appearances, Detective. Jaynessa White may seem like a nice girl, but she and her brother have been in trouble before.”
Linebeck said nothing. He surveyed the office with his eyes. A picture of Joy and the doctor at her graduation sat on his desk beside a tiny maneki-neko. Two large scrolls flanked either side of the desk on the wall behind Dr. Hana. They portrayed cherry blossom trees by the moonlight and had Japanese characters scrawled down the page. Atop the bookshelves that lined the walls, various figurines sat in a row. The one that caught his eye was a jade porcelain sculpture of the Three Wise Monkeys. Linebeck’s eyes strayed on the knickknack. See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil.
Hear no evil.
Before either man could speak up again, the office door swung open. It was Joy Hana. She took one look at Linebeck and went completely still. Dr. Hana greeted her, but she looked like she had seen a ghost. Linebeck knew then that it was his time to go. He looked back to Dr. Hana and thanked him for his time. It was getting late and he knew he had to report to the chief of Ventura police before the night was up. So he excused himself and took his leave.
Part II: See No Evil
Linebeck had already had a theory about what was going on. Things were beginning to come together in his mind. That night, he lay on his back, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling of the hotel room that was provided for him. The air conditioner was on full blast and the television played a late news program, but he had turned the volume down almost all the way, until it was nothing but whispers in the room. Linebeck needed this silence to think.
Jayden White was found on the beach, stabbed to death, with his ears missing.
His twin sister Jaynessa pointed to a nurse who is a coworker at the hospital, yet her boss pointed the finger right back at her. Because of the party she and her brother threw that ended with the death of another coworker.
There was one thing unsaid that kept reverberating in Linebeck’s mind. The Three Wise Monkeys.
He had looked into the brief history of the Three Wise Monkeys, though he did know what they represented. While the origins were unclear, it was believed that the Three Wise Monkeys originated in China before moving to Japan. They represented an old proverb of virtue. Speak no evil, see no evil, and hear no evil. What if — just maybe — Jayden White’s ears were taken because of the golden rule, hear no evil? What if this was the first of three attacks? It was a stretch, but one that Linebeck couldn’t shake. If this theory had any merit, that would mean two things for certain.
1) Two more deaths could follow
And 2) Jayden White heard something that he shouldn’t have.
The ceremonious act of removing Jayden’s ears certainly must have represented something he heard that he wasn’t supposed to. For why else would this killer start with hear no evil instead of one of the other two options? And if this theory turned out to be true, what did this context mean for the Japanese doctor who sported the monkeys in his office? For this, Linebeck came to a disturbing thought. Dr. Hana could be trying to cover for his granddaughter, Joy.
What if Joy had been at the party where another nurse had died? What if she knew what Jayden White had done to cause a young person to lose their life? Or, what if Joy was the one who had been the one who influenced the other to drink and drive? Dr. Hana could have very well put Linebeck on target to suspect foul play from Jaynessa. But it was a very real possibility that Joy was hiding something, too. There was too much in the air, but finally something seemed to be a lead here. It was weak, but now Linebeck had a handful of people to question, and backgrounds to investigate. He decided that the first person he would speak to in the morning was Joy Hana. He would get her story and then go and speak with Jaynessa. Compare their stories.
The catch was that he was now running out of time. If his theory proved true, two more people might die.
…
The next day, Linebeck was awoken by a call from the chief of police. He was too late.
When Linebeck arrived at the scene, the police had already quarantined the area with yellow tape. They did their best to hold the crowd of onlookers and reporters at bay. He pushed through the ranks of police officers until he finally saw a sight that made his heart drop. Lying face up on the sand was Jaynessa White. If it weren’t for her wild, black curls splayed about her, he might not have recognized her. For where her amber eyes once shone now sat empty, black pockets. The blood around her eyelids crusted and surrounded the vacant holes the way the petals of an anemone surround the center of the flower.
Linebeck’s breath caught in his throat; he blinked and suddenly found himself collapsed on his behind. His whole body shook. See no evil.
He now knew that his conspiracy theory had been right. Now he knew that Joy Hana must be taken into custody.
He was able to get Joy’s address, although it took longer than it should have. The office was especially busy that day for some reason. Probably because the public had caught wind of the homicides and their significance. Linebeck probably wasn’t the only one who put the pieces together. Now everyone was waiting for the third murder. It was up to Linebeck to make sure that that didn’t happen.
Joy wasn’t home when Linebeck went to pay her a visit. Nor was she at the bar, the movies, or the hospital. She was scheduled to work early that morning, but she never showed up. Linebeck barged into Dr. Hana’s office. “Doctor, I need to find your granddaughter immediately. I have a warrant for her arrest.”
Dr. Hana spun from his place at the window to stare at Linebeck in surprise. “What? What has Joy done? Why would you have her warrant?” It wasn’t true; there wasn’t enough time or evidence to get a warrant, but he needed the doctor to understand the severity. “Jaynessa White was found murdered this morning. Joy is a suspect now, but no one seems to know where she’s gone. Might you know?”
Dr. Hana fumbled with something in his pocket. “I don’t, unfortunately. She has not come into work today, and no one has heard from her. You see, her parents live out of the country, so not even they would be able to help.”
Linebeck nodded slowly. “Here’s my card, then.” He handed a small white card to Dr. Hana. “Please give me a call if you hear from her.”
With that, he spun on his heel and left. But he didn’t go very far. He waited outside the hospital’s entrance, sitting in his car for hours. It was about four o’clock when Dr. Hana finally exited the hospital. He looked over his shoulders as he strode to his car, no longer wearing his white coat. Linebeck waited until the fancy black car belonging to the doctor peeled out of the employee parking lot. Keeping a distance, he followed behind the doctor for miles. Until finally, the black car pulled up to a long driveway leading up to a large home on the hill by the ocean.
Linebeck parked around the corner from the mansion and contacted the chief of police. He gave the address, loaded his gun into his holster, and tread up to the house. Dr. Hana knew where Joy was, that was for sure. Linebeck had already read in the background check for Joy that her parents did live in Japan, but they also died there over three years ago. Dr. Hana had no way of knowing that Linebeck knew this, and so had no reason to lie to the detective. Dr. Hana definitely knew that Joy was guilty and so he was harboring his granddaughter to protect her.
Part III: Speak No Evil
The sun had set beyond the horizon by the time that Linebeck followed Dr. Hana to his home and was able to get close to the front door. He knew that he should have waited for backup, but he was impatient. The nightfall would open an opportunity for Joy to attack again. Who was her third victim going to be? The nurse who turned down Jayden’s advances? Or perhaps an unknown nurse who was also at the party the day someone died? Or maybe…it was the doctor! Linebeck began to run up to the house.
All the lights had been turned off. He tried the front door, but it was locked. The back door, however, opened easily at his touch. Linebeck swallowed hard and brandished his gun. He raised it as he carefully stepped into the doctor’s home. He said nothing, but kept alert. His flashlight shone on the tatami floor, the valuable plates and bowls that sat on the kitchen counter, and more scrolls and knickknacks that lined the walls of the living room. The house was pitch black, except for a light that came from a door beneath the staircase. The basement.
Linebeck searched around for a moment more, for a sign of any struggle that might have taken place. There was none. The basement door opened without a creak. The staircase led down and to the right, blocking Linebeck’s view of anyone or anything that might be down there. He listened intently. A metal scraping was the only sound in the room. Linebeck carefully, painstakingly crept down the steps. Until finally, he reached the last flight, took a deep breath, and jumped from the plane to the floor on his feet. “Freeze, Joy! Don’t move!” His gun trained directly to the one standing in front of a metal cart, drying a bloody incision knife on a white towel. But it wasn’t Joy he pointed his gun at. No. Joy Hana sat in the corner of the room, stabbed to death, with blood dripping down her chin. Her tongue was placed on the same metal cart he had just noticed.
Slowly, scowling, Dr. Peter Hana turned. His light purple button-up was completely soaked through with crimson blood. He held the scalpel in his red, red hands. Fresh blood dripped from his fingers to the floor.
Linebeck almost dropped his gun. But then he regained himself when a sudden fire of fury ignited within him. “Get on your knees, Hana!” he roared.“Now!”
The doctor sighed deeply. He raised his arms above his head. “You weren’t supposed to be here, Jonathan. That’s too bad.”
“What have you done?!” Linbeck shouted, stepping closer. “Get on your knees!”
But Hana remained standing. Though he kept his hands in the air, the knife stayed in his fist. “You don’t understand, detective. These rotten children didn’t deserve the life they led.”
Linebeck adjusted his sweaty grip on the gun, tightening his lips.
“They killed one of the best nurses we had at that party. They cheated their way through the school. They used and abused everyone to get where they wanted to be. So many of our patients suffered because of their negligence-”
“That doesn’t give you the right to take their lives like this. And the way you did it? You’re a goddamn monster,” Linebeck barked. “Drop the knife and get to your knees or I’ll shoot you, I swear I will.”
Hana ignored him. “I tried to raise Joy to follow the proverbs, to live a good life. But then she listened to that Jayden who told her to do…awful things. And that Jaynessa, always standing by and watching her brother ruin lives.”
“So what did Joy do to deserve this then?” Linebeck demanded. His eyes briefly flickered to the mangled corpse of Joy Hana in the corner.
“She knew I did it to Jayden. But when I attacked Jaynessa, she threatened to turn me in.” He paused, slowly lowering his hands to his sides. “I was originally going to make myself into Iwazaru — the monkey of speak-no-evil. So that I would never be able to speak of what I’ve done. But Joy forced my hand. And now…it is all over.”
He began to bring the knife to his throat. Linebeck acted quickly and shot the doctor’s hand. Blood splattered across the walls as Hana’s right hand fell limp at his side. Suddenly, with his other hand, the doctor grabbed another knife which was on the cart, and with a roar charged toward Linebeck. The detective’s fingers seemed to move on instinct. He shot the doctor once, twice, and the third time hit the heart. Dr. Hana collapsed into a pool of blood.
Outside, red and blue lights flashed. Sirens wailed in the distance. But Linebeck could only stand there and stare at the massacre before him. It was all over.
