I. Parker - Death of a Doll Maker

“Hush, Kichiro. We’re not hungry. Auntie has cooked a very good gruel for us.” She paused, her eyes on the sweets. “But we might manage a sweet.”

Tora and Mrs. Kimura laughed, and he passed his present over.

The children made him deep bows and ran outside into the garden, their cheeks bulging with the treats.

“Has something happened?” the old lady asked, eyeing Tora shrewdly.

He flashed her his big smile. “I came for the pleasure of seeing you, Mrs. Kimura.”

“Nonsense. I could see it in your face.”

Tora sobered. “As it happens, there is some news. Did you know Okata has been relieved of his post and Maeda appointed chief in his stead?”

“Oh!” she cried, clapping her hands. “That’s wonderful news! Thank you, Tora. You’ve made me very happy.” She paused. “But there’s something else?”

Tora nodded. “Your neighbor killed himself in jail.”

Her face fell. “Poor Mitsui, though he wasn’t a very nice man. His sentence was too much to bear, I suppose. That good-for-nothing son of his has already moved his family into his parents’ house. He looks very smug and goes out drinking every night. His wife fights with her neighbors, and the children are little savages. I’m still amazed that his father doted on the boy. He wasn’t a very nice child either.”

“I’m not surprised. They had a falling out before the murder, though. I think the old man must’ve berated him for gambling and losing his job. “

They went out on the veranda. Kichiro was spreading some paste on twigs with a piece of wood. He already had four or five small branches laid out along the edge of the veranda.

“What are you doing?” Tora asked.

The boy looked up. “It’s glue I made from bean paste. I put the branches into trees or shrubs. The birds get stuck on them, and I catch them. I only keep the ones that sing.”

Mrs. Kimura said softly, “It seems quite cruel. But children don’t think about such things. He tells me he learned this from a man in the market. I confess I like all those birds singing in my garden.”

Tora looked at the cages hanging from tree branches and the house eaves and listened. The birds sounded quite happy. They were singing their little hearts out. Or maybe they were mourning the loss of their freedom. He asked the boy, “How do you know where the best birds are?”

Kinchiro grinned. “I watch them. Two days ago I heard a warbler in the big cedar in the alley behind us. I was looking up into the tree, when a man digging his garden got mad and screamed at me.”

Tora smiled. “Every craft has its troubles.” He turned to Mrs. Kimura, “Any more thoughts about Yoko leaving?”

“So you haven’t found her?”

“Not yet. Maeda is posting notices. If she sees one or hears about them, she’ll show up. Or maybe her boyfriend will.”

She shook her head. “Yoko can’t read or write. And what makes you think a market porter can?”

Tora sighed. “Why is it people just disappear here? It’s weird.”

“Who else disappeared?”

“The last governor seems to have vanished.”

As he explained that the governor’s ship had not touched land since he had left, her eyes grew round. “How strange! I think I saw him the day he left Hakata. He was with two other men on horseback. It was getting dark, but one of them is quite distinctive looking with his elegant mustache and beard and those eyebrows like two small roofs above his eyes.”

Tora smiled. “Roofs?”

She moistened a finger with her tongue and drew a pair of slanting lines meeting at an apex on the boards they sat on.

“So you could see his face?”

“Just for a moment before they turned the corner.”

Given the way Lord Tachibana had left things for them, Tora did not really care. “Well, I expect he’ll turn up eventually unless the fish ate him. I’d better be on my way. Do you need money?” He saw her expression and added quickly, “What with the extra mouths to feed.”

“Thank you, but we manage quite well,” she said primly. “In fact, the children are a big help to me and I’m growing fond of them. I shall ask them to stay. I have no one else to care for.”

As soon as he could do so, Akitada sent for Maeda and made his promotion official. He liked what he saw when he met the former sergeant. Maeda was well-spoken but modest about his education. He had a military background, something which would serve him well in his new role, and he expressed a concern about protecting the peaceful lives of the ordinary people in Hakata. He also impressed Akitada with a good knowledge of forensic practices. They parted pleased with each other.

Two days later they found Yoko.

By the time someone came to report a nauseating smell coming from an abandoned well, the rain had stopped and the weather had turned unseasonably warm. The smell and the number of flies around the wooden cover of the well had attracted the attention of some dogs who scrabbled at the wood, releasing more flies. Competition led to a noisy dog fight, which brought some boys, who obligingly moved the lid and looked down the half-filled shaft. Below lay a dead woman wrapped in a pale green quilt covered with cherry blossoms.

After verifying that the body was Yoko’s, Maeda sent a message to the provincial tribunal. By the time Tora arrived at Hakata police station, Yoko was already in the capable hands of the coroner, Dr. Fujita. Tora and Maeda went to watch him at his work.

In spite of all the horrors he had seen, Tora’s stomach turned. The beauteous Yoko was unrecognizable in the naked, swollen, and discolored corpse that lay on a stained grass mat while Dr. Fujita knelt beside it, probing various openings with a silver instrument which he raised to his nose from time to time.

Tora covered his nose with a sleeve and swallowed hard. He glanced at Maeda, who seemed absorbed in the coroner’s probings. “How long?” Tora asked.

“Who knows?” Maeda answered. “Most likely since the day she disappeared.”

The coroner looked up. “Deterioration is well advanced. Several days, I’d say.”

“What killed her?” Tora tried next.

Fujita snorted and pointed to Yoko’s chest.

Holding his sleeve over his nose, Tora stepped closer. Below Yoko’s left breast were two blood-stained wounds, two additional openings for Dr. Fujita to probe. He promptly inserted his instrument as far as it would go into one of these. A trickle of foul-smelling liquid appeared. Tora stepped back quickly. The coroner repeated this with the second wound.

“A knife,” Fujita said, frowning at the slender probe. “Fairly long and sharp. It went deep. The first one missed the vital organ. The second killed instantly.”

Maeda asked, “The same sort of knife as the one used in the last murder?”

Fujita nodded. “Yes, it could be same. But such knives are common in people’s kitchens.”

Maeda glanced at Tora and took his arm. “Thanks, Doctor. Let me know if you discover anything unusual.” He led Tora outside and closed the door on the scene behind them. Tora gulped a few breaths of clean air.

“Delicate stomach?” Maeda grinned.

Tora glared at him. “Recent large meal.”

“I expect seeing the object of your amorous desires in such a state had something to do with it.”

“Shut up!”

Maeda chuckled, then sobered. “Sorry. Poor Yoko. You think the husband killed her?”

“No, I think whoever killed Mitsui’s wife did.” He paused as a memory surfaced. “Hiroshi,” he said in a tone of wonder. “It was him. The boy saw him digging a few days ago. I bet he was burying the knife.”

Maeda said nothing.