Laura Rowland - The Assassin's Touch

The headman called to one of the customers: “What are you doing here so early, Warden? Did Edo Jail shut down, or are you sneaking a holiday?”

“What’s it to you if I am?” said the warden. He was short, muscular, in his forties. His head was shaved bald and circled by a dirty white cotton band. He had heavy black eyebrows and whisker stubble, and a complexion rough with pits, swollen pores, old scars. Tattoos covered his arms.

Ignoring his rudeness, the headman said, “This lady is the daughter of Magistrate Ueda. He’s sent her to investigate the murder of Taruya and his family. She wants to talk to you.”

The warden turned his unblinking eyes on Reiko. The pinpoints of light reflected in them seemed abnormally bright. “I know who your father is.” He grinned, showing decayed teeth. “Not that I’ve ever met him, but I work for him.”

Reiko noted the stains on his blue kimono and straw sandals, and the grime under his fingernails. Was it blood from criminals he’d tortured at the prison? A shudder rippled through her. This investigation was showing her the dark side of her father’s job as well as the underbelly of Edo.

“Did you go to visit Taruya that night?” she asked.

“So what if I did?”

“Why did you?”

“I had business with him.” The warden ogled Reiko and licked his lips.

“What kind of business?” she said, trying not to flinch.

“Taruya had started a gambling ring at the jail. He’d been cheating people who work there.” The ire in his voice told Reiko that the warden himself had been one of Taruya’s marks. “I went and ordered him to give back the money he’d stolen. He said he’d won it honestly, and he’d already spent it. We got into a fight. I beat him up until his wife started hitting me with an iron pot and chased me out.”

He grimaced in disgust, then smirked. “But now Taruya is dead. He’ll never cheat anybody again. His daughter did the world a favor when she took a knife to him.”

His daughter wasn’t the only person who’d had reason to kill him, Reiko thought. “Where did you go after you left the house?”

“I went to see my lady friend.”

“She’s a nighthawk in the tent village,” the headman said.

Leeriness shrank the bright pinpoints in the warden’s eyes. “If by some chance Magistrate Ueda is thinking of pinning the murders on me instead of Yugao, tell him that I didn’t do it. I couldn’t have. I was with my lady all night. She’ll swear to it.”

Yet Reiko knew that a man who’d extorted money from merchants and beat them into paying wouldn’t balk at murder, and he looked capable of intimidating a woman into lying for him.

“Any more questions?” His grin mocked Reiko; his gaze wandered over her body.

“Not at the moment,” Reiko said. Unless she could find evidence against him, she had to let him go.

“Then if you’ll excuse me…” The warden ambled to the back door, reached under his kimono, and pulled his organ from his loincloth. After giving Reiko a good view of it, he urinated into a slop jar outside the teahouse. “Give Magistrate Ueda my best regards.”

Offense and embarrassment burned inside Reiko. The headman said, “I apologize for his bad manners.” He glanced down the street. “If you want another chance to save Yugao, here he comes now.”

A young man approached the teahouse, shoulders hunched, feet scuffling. He wore faded, torn clothes; a wicker hat shaded his face, which was scrunched in a frown that looked permanent. He carried a broom, dustpan, and trash basket.

“That’s Ihei,” the headman said.

The street-cleaner looked up as Reiko and her guards advanced on him. His face took on a look of alarm. He turned and scuffled rapidly away.

“Stop him!” Reiko ordered her guards.

They raced after the young man. Dropping his tools, he hastened down the street, but his awkward gait hampered his flight. The guards easily caught him and propelled him toward Reiko.

“Let me go!” he cried, struggling in their grasp. “I didn’t do anything wrong!” His voice was high and weak, his grimy face taut with panic.

“If you didn’t do anything wrong, then why did you run?” Reiko said.

His frown deepened with his surprise at seeing a lady of her class in the settlement. He glanced at her guards. “I-I was afraid they would hurt me.”

“Some samurai thugs beat him up,” Kanai said. “They broke a lot of bones. That’s why he’s deformed.”

Reiko was appalled by yet another tale of the hinin’s cruel existence. “No one’s going to hurt you. I just want to talk. If you promise not to run, they’ll let you go.”

His expression said he didn’t trust her, but Ihei nodded. The guards released him but stood ready to restrain him again if necessary. “Talk about what?”

“About the night that Umeko and her parents were murdered,” Reiko said.

Panic flashed in Ihei’s eyes. He backed away. The headman said, “Whoa!” and the guards grabbed Ihei, who cried, “I don’t know anything about that.”

“You were seen running away from the house,” Reiko said.

His features drooped in dismay. “I had nothing to do with it.” Guilty bravado tinged his voice. “I-I swear!”

“Then what were you doing there?”

“I went to see Umeko.”

“Why?” Reiko considered the possibility that Umeko had been the intended victim, despite the clues at the crime scene that indicated her father was killed first. She recalled that Yugao’s sister had been a prostitute. When Ihei hesitated, Reiko said, “Were you one of her customers?”

“No!” Ihei exclaimed, offended.

“Yes, you were,” Kanai said. “Don’t lie; you’ll get yourself in trouble.”

Ihei sighed in resignation. “All right-I was Umeko’s customer. But it was more than the usual thing. I loved her.” His voice trembled; tears trickled lines through the grime on his cheeks. “And now she’s gone!”

His grief seemed genuine, but sometimes killers did mourn the loss of loved ones they’d murdered. Reiko had watched them sob during their trials in her father’s court. “Why did you go to see her?”

“That morning I’d asked her to marry me. She-she said no. She laughed at me.” Ihei’s eyes burned with humiliation. “She said she would never lower herself to marry a hunchback outcast. I said I knew she was born higher than me, but I told her that we were both hinin now. Fate had brought us together here. I told her how much I loved her. I said I would make her happy. I earn enough money that she could have moved into my hut and not have had to sell herself. But then she got angry.”

His tone reflected the hurt and surprise he must have felt. “She said she wasn’t going to be here forever. She was mad at me for suggesting it. She said she was going to wait until her father had served his sentence, got his business and his house back, and then marry some rich man. She told me to leave her alone because she never wanted to see me again.”

She sounded callous and ill-tempered enough to provoke murder. “But you didn’t leave her alone,” Reiko deduced. “You went back that night. What happened?”

“I had to see her. I thought I could make her change her mind. That night I went to her house. I knocked on the door frame. When she answered, I tried to talk to her. She told me to be quiet-her family was sleeping. She said I could come in-for the usual price. All she wanted from me was my money.” The street-cleaner hung his head in woe. “I wanted her so badly that I agreed. She took me into her room. I made love to her.”

Reiko pictured them in the lean-to at the house. As Umeko serviced him, had his passion for her fueled his rage at her rejection? Had his love turned to hatred?