"But what you ask is extremely difficult– "

"Mr. Ishiguro."

"You see, for us this is going to cause– "

"Mr. Ishiguro, I'm sorry. I've just told you what police procedure is going to be."

He stiffened. There was a pause. He wiped some sweat from his upper lip and said, "I am disappointed, Lieutenant, not to have greater cooperation from you."

"Cooperation?" That was when I started to get pissed off. "Mr. Ishiguro, you've got a dead woman in there, and it is our job to investigate what happened to– "

"But you must acknowledge our special circumstances– "

Then I heard Graham say, "Aw, Christ, what is this?"

Looking over my shoulder, I saw a short, bookish Japanese man twenty meters beyond the yellow tape. He was taking pictures of the crime scene. The camera he held was so small it was nearly concealed in the palm of his hand. But he wasn't concealing the fact that he had crossed the tape barrier to take his pictures. As I watched, he moved slowly back toward us, raising his hands for a moment to snap a picture, then blinking behind his wire-frame spectacles as he selected his next shot. He was deliberate in his movements.

Graham went up to the tape and said, "For Christ's sake, get out of there. This is a crime scene. You can't take pictures in there." The man didn't respond. He kept moving backward. Graham turned away. "Who is this guy?"

Ishiguro said, "This is our employee, Mr. Tanaka. He works for Nakamoto Security."

I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The Japanese had their own employee wandering around inside the yellow tapes, contaminating the crime scene. It was outrageous. "Get him out of there," I said.

"He is taking pictures."

"He can't do that."

Ishiguro said, "But this is for our corporate use."