Laura Rowland - The Assassin's Touch

“After we finished, we fell asleep. I don’t know for how long. I was wakened by screaming and noises. Her mother shouted, ‘What are you doing?’ then ‘Stop!’ She was crying. There were loud thumps, and sounds like fighting and running, in the other room.” Ihei’s face showed confusion at the memory. “Umeko jumped up and ran out there. I heard her say, ‘What’s going on?’ Then she started screaming, ‘No!’ and calling me for help. I pushed aside the curtain. Umeko ran past me. Someone was chasing her. Stabbing her.” He raised his fist and pantomimed the frenzied, downward slashes. “I rushed out, and Umeko fell at my feet. The screaming stopped. I smelled blood.”

Ihei swallowed a retch; his eyes shone with remembered fear. “It was quiet except for the sound of someone panting. Then suddenly a shadow rushed at me. I saw the knife gleam in its hand.” He reeled backward, pantomiming his reaction. “I turned and ran out the door. I kept running all the way home.”

His broken body trembled; he sobbed into his hands. “Umeko is dead. If only I could have saved her! But all I did was run like a coward.”

Reiko could picture the scene he’d described; she could imagine his terror as he realized that his beloved and her family had been slain and he would be the next to die unless he fled. She could also imagine a different scenario. Maybe, after he and Umeko had made love, he’d again asked her to marry him, and again she’d refused. Maybe they’d argued, and he’d become so furious that he’d stabbed her, and when her parents tried to intervene, he’d turned the knife on them.

“Who was this person that you saw stabbing her?” Reiko asked.

“I don’t know.” The street-cleaner dropped his hands and raised his red, tear-swollen eyes to her. “It was dark; I couldn’t see much. At the time I thought some madman had broken into the house while I was asleep. But it must have been Yugao. I mean, she was arrested, wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” Reiko said. If she was the killer, that would explain the fact that she was the sole survivor of her family, not a wound on her. The murders could have happened the way he’d said; maybe he’d caught Yugao in the act. But Ihei wasn’t exactly a reliable witness; he’d had ample cause and perfect opportunity to commit murder himself.

“I’ve told you everything,” he said. “Can I go now?”

Reiko hesitated. He was as good a suspect as Yugao; there was enough evidence to convict him in court. She was tempted to have her guards take him to jail, but she remembered what Sano had said about her interfering with the law. It wasn’t her place to arrest suspects. Furthermore, she wasn’t particularly eager to clear Yugao, since she still hadn’t made up her mind about the woman’s guilt or innocence.

“You can go,” Reiko said, “as long as you stay in Edo. You may be needed for more questioning.”

“Don’t worry,” the headman said, “he’s not going anywhere. He hasn’t anywhere to go.”

The street-cleaner scurried off, picking up his broom, basket, and dustpan. Reiko asked Kanai, “Are you still convinced that Yugao killed her family?”

He wrinkled his brow and scratched his scalp. “I must admit I’m not so sure anymore. You’ve poked a couple of holes in my confidence. It’s obvious now that there was more going on that night than I thought.” He pondered a moment. “But suppose that Ihei or the warden, or somebody else, killed those people. Then why did Yugao confess?”

“That’s a good question,” Reiko said.

Yugao was a mystery that she must solve before she could solve the crime. Maybe the woman’s secrets lay in the life she’d led before she came to the hinin settlement.

“How are you going to answer it?” Kanai asked.

“I think I’ll take a journey into the past,” Reiko answered.

Temple bells boomed in a dissonant music across Edo, heralding noon. Colorful kites spangled the sunlit sky above the rooftops. On the street children played with broken spears dropped by warriors fallen during a clash between rebel outlaws and the army. Inside Edo Castle, Sano sat in his office, interviewing people who’d had contact with Chief Ejima in the two days before his death. He’d already spoken with the guests from the banquet as well as Ejima’s subordinates at metsuke headquarters. Now he dismissed the last of the men who’d had private appointments with Ejima. He turned to Detectives Marume and Fukida, who knelt near his desk.

“Well, this has certainly turned up enough potential suspects,” Sano said.

Fukida consulted notes he’d taken during the interviews. “We’ve got subordinates who were mad at Ejima because he was promoted over them. We’ve got the new metsuke chief, who benefited from his death. We’ve got names of men who were demoted or executed because of flimsy evidence that he brought against them, who left sons and retainers eager for blood.”

“He had lots of enemies,” said Marume, “even though they won’t admit knowing dim-mak. Any of them could have sneaked up on Ejima and touched him.”

“Everybody claims he’s innocent, as we might have predicted,” Fukida said. “Almost all of them dropped hints that incriminated somebody else. There are so many feuds left over from the war that I’m not surprised to hear people accusing each other.”

Sano was troubled because already the murder was fueling political strife that could lead to another war, and he was no closer to solving the case. “Too many suspects are as bad as too few. And we’ve had neither sight nor word of Captain Nakai, our best candidate.”

“I wonder why it’s taking so long to locate him,” Fukida said. “He should be on duty at his post in the Edo Castle main guard station.”

“Shall we start tracking down Ejima’s informants?” Marume asked.

Sano’s principal aide peeked in the door. “Excuse me, Honorable Chamberlain. The sōsakan-sama is here to see you.”

When Hirata entered the office, Sano was again dismayed at how ill he looked. He saw sympathy, quickly veiled, on Marume’s and Fukida’s faces as Hirata awkwardly knelt and bowed. But the most they all could do was ignore Hirata’s condition.

“What have you to report?” Sano said.

“Good news,” Hirata said, weary but satisfied. “I’ve investigated the deaths of Court Supervisor Ono, Highway Commissioner Sasamura Tomoya, and Treasury Minister Moriwaki. And I’ve discovered a suspect.” He described his visit to the bathhouse where Moriwaki had died.

Sano leaned forward, elated. “Now we know that at least one of those men was killed by dim-mak.”

“It’s not too far a stretch to believe that so were the others,” Fukida said.

“And Captain Nakai’s name has come up again.” Sano told Hirata that Nakai had had a private appointment with Ejima. “Now we know he had contact with two victims.”

“Captain Nakai might have accosted the other men on the street, too.” Hirata seemed proud that he’d linked the cases and turned up evidence against the primary suspect.

Sano was moved and pained by how much Hirata still wanted his approval, after everything he’d been through for Sano’s sake. “It’s more important than ever to find Captain Nakai.”

“Something else has come up that I should mention,” Hirata said. “Police Commissioner Hoshina is after your blood.”

Sano frowned. “Again?”

Hirata described his encounter with Hoshina at the bathhouse.

“Many thanks for the warning,” Sano said.

“What should we do about that scoundrel?” Marume said.

“If I were like my predecessor, I would have his head cut off. But I’m not, so there isn’t much we can do until he makes his move, and it’s more important than ever to solve this case fast. If we don’t, Hoshina will have more ammunition to use against me.”