Laura Rowland - The Assassin's Touch

“How generous of you,” Reiko said. “But he won’t be coming back. Did you know he was murdered?”

“Yes, I heard. What a terrible thing to happen.” The regret in Mizutani’s voice sounded false; his eyes showed no emotion, only his wish to know the purpose of Reiko’s visit. “There was some gossip that his daughter Yugao stabbed him and her mother and sister.”

“There’s some doubt about that. Do you think she did it?”

Mizutani shrugged. “How should I know? I hadn’t seen any of them since they moved to the settlement. But I wasn’t surprised to hear Yugao had been arrested. That girl was strange.”

“Strange in what way?” Reiko said.

“I don’t know.” Mizutani was clearly growing vexed by the conversation. “There was something just not right about her. But I really didn’t pay her much attention.” He chuckled. “She probably got fed up with Taruya in her bed.”

“But perhaps she wasn’t the only person to want him gone,” Reiko said. “Were those monthly payments a burden to you?”

“Of course not.” Mizutani spoke as though insulted by the suggestion. “He was my friend. I was glad to help him out.”

Shouts suddenly erupted down the passage: A fight had started. As men flung punches at each other and spectators egged them on, Mizutani strode toward them; his rōnin followed.

“Hey! No fighting in here!” he shouted. “Break it up!”

The rōnin waded into the fray, separating the combatants, while he bustled around and supervised.

“Do you want me to fetch him back?” Lieutenant Asukai asked Reiko.

A bright spot of color in the street outside the carnival caught her eye. She saw, through the milling crowds, the woman that Mizutani had beaten, stooped over a horse trough, bathing her face.

“No,” Reiko said. “I have a better idea.”

She led her entourage out of the carnival. The woman turned at their approach. Her mouth was swollen where Mizutani had hit her; blood trickled from her lip. Reiko took a cloth from under her sash.

“Here,” she said.

The woman looked suspicious that a stranger should offer her solicitude, but she took the cloth and wiped her face.

“What’s your name?” Reiko said.

“Lily,” the woman answered. She was older than Reiko had at first thought-in her thirties. Hardship had coarsened her voice as well as her pretty features. “Who are you?”

When Reiko introduced herself, fear shone in the dancer’s eyes. “I only took a few coppers from him. He didn’t need it, and I did-he pays me so little.” She stepped backward with a nervous glance at Reiko’s guards. “I saw you talking to him. Did he tell you to arrest me?” Tears wavered her voice; she clasped her hands in entreaty. “Please don’t! I’ve got a little boy. It’s bad enough that I’ve lost my job, but if I go to jail, there’ll be no one to take care of him!”

“Don’t worry; you won’t be arrested,” Reiko said. She pitied the woman and deplored Mizutani. This investigation kept reminding her that many people lived on the brink of survival, at the mercy of their betters. “I only want to talk.”

Lily cautiously relaxed. “About what?”

“Your former employer.”

“Is he in some kind of trouble?” Hope brightened Lily.

“Maybe,” Reiko said. “Were you working at the carnival when his partner Taruya was running it with him?”

“Yes. I worked there fourteen years.” A bitter expression came over Lily’s swollen, bruised face. “Fourteen years, and he throws me out because I took money that I earned myself!”

“How did they get along?” Reiko asked.

“They were always fighting over money.”

And the fight had been resolved in Mizutani’s favor. Reiko said, “How convenient for Mizutani that someone reported Taruya for having incestuous relations with his daughter.”

“Is that what Mizutani told you-that somebody reported Taruya?” Snide amusement inflected Lily’s voice. “It was him. He did it.”

This certainly put a different twist on the matter. “How do you know?”

“When Mizutani had parties at his house, I used to wait on the guests. I would overhear things they said. One night his guests were two doshin. He told them he’d caught Taruya and his daughter Yugao in bed together.”

A thought disturbed Reiko. “Was Mizutani telling the truth when he said he’d witnessed the incest?”

“I don’t know. But I’d never heard of anything funny going on between Taruya and Yugao. Neither had anyone else at the carnival. We were all shocked.”

Reiko wondered if Mizutani had invented the whole episode. Without the incest, Yugao had no apparent reason for murder.

Lily’s expression turned eager. “Can Mizutani get in trouble if he lied?”

“If he did, he’ll be punished,” Reiko said. Her father abhorred false accusations and wouldn’t stand for one that had made outcasts of an entire family.

“I heard that Yugao killed her father. Did she really do it, or could it have been Mizutani?” The dancer practically salivated at the thought of her former boss convicted and executed.

“That’s what I’m trying to determine.” Now Reiko recalled something the headman of the outcasts had said, and another thought occurred to her. “Taruya’s sentence would have been finished in six months if he hadn’t been killed. How did Mizutani feel about that?”

“He wasn’t looking forward to Taruya getting out of the hinin settlement. It was no secret,” Lily said with a sardonic laugh. “The carnival had a bad time during the war. Mizutani lost money. He’s run up big debts, and the money-lenders have been threatening to break his legs unless he pays them. I’ve heard him say that the last thing he needed was Taruya coming back and claiming his half of the business. And that’s not all he’s said.”

She paused, and Reiko said, “Well?”

“I can’t talk anymore. I have to find a new job, or my little boy will starve.” She fixed a nervous, entreating gaze on Reiko. “If I help you, then you should help me.”

Reiko hated to imagine herself and Masahiro losing their livelihood and trying to fend for themselves. Furthermore, she sensed that the woman had important evidence to relate. “If you help me, I’ll pay you.”

Lily nodded, grateful and pleased at her own cleverness. “Last month I saw Mizutani and his two rōnin talking inside the dance stall. I stood outside and listened. You never know what interesting things you’ll find out.” A crafty smile lifted her swollen lip. “Mizutani said, ‘I saw Taruya today. He’s anxious to get back his share of the carnival. I told him that’s not fair, after I’ve been running it all this time. But he said a deal is a deal.’ One of his rōnin said that Taruya still has friends here, and they’re gangsters who could make trouble for Mizutani if he backed out. Mizutani said, ‘There’s one way to break that deal. What if he were to die?’ ”

A thrill of excitement tingled Reiko’s blood. “What else did they say?”

“I don’t know. Mizutani saw me eavesdropping and told me to go. I didn’t hear the rest.”

A new vision of the crime took shape in Reiko’s mind. The rōnin steals into the outcast settlement that night. He sneaks into Yugao’s house and stabs her father in his bed. When her mother and sister awaken and try to stop him, he kills them. He means to kill Yugao, but the street-cleaner Ihei comes out of the lean-to and surprises him. The street-cleaner flees in terror. The rōnin doesn’t want to leave any witnesses, but he hears people gathering in the streets. He slips out of the hovel. He hides in the backyard while the headman arrives, until Yugao has been arrested, then he vanishes into the night. In the morning, at the carnival, he tells his master that the deed is done.