Laura Rowland - The Assassin's Touch

Scornful contempt wrenched Yugao’s lips. “I never asked you or the magistrate to save me. I’m ready to accept my punishment. So go away before I spit on you again.”

Reiko prowled the room, venting her impatience. She began to appreciate the benefits of torture. A little molten copper poured on Yugao would certainly improve her manners as well as break her silence. “I’m not going away until you convince me that you’re guilty,” Reiko said, circling Yugao. “And if that’s really what you want to do, you’ll need to do better than you have, especially in light of what else I learned yesterday.”

“What are you jabbering about now?” Yugao’s voice was insolent, but Reiko heard a current of fear in it.

“You and your family weren’t the only people in your house the night of the murders. Your sister’s friend Ihei has admitted he was there, sleeping in the lean-to with her. The boy on fire-watch duty saw him running away after the murders.”

Yugao sniffed, disdainful. “Ihei is a clumsy weakling. If he tried to stab anybody, he would cut himself.”

“What about the warden from Edo Jail?” Reiko said. “He was at your house earlier that evening. He and your father had a fight. Nobody can call him a weakling.”

“Do you really think Ihei or the warden did it?” Yugao demanded. Her gaze smoldered with animosity as it followed Reiko around the room. “Have they been arrested?” She read the answer on Reiko’s face and laughed. “You don’t have any more dirt on them than you’ve just said. If your father put the three of us on trial, he’d have to convict me before them. I was caught in the house, with the knife.”

None of Reiko’s experience with crime and criminals had prepared her to understand this woman who was so bent on dying for the murders. She tried a different strategy: “Let’s make a bargain. I’ll tell my father that you’re guilty if you tell me why you killed your family.”

In response to this bizarre deal, Yugao only laughed again. “I thought you had it all figured out. My father committed incest with me. My mother and sisters attacked me.”

“That’s only a theory,” Reiko said. “I’ve begun to doubt that there was any incest at all. In fact, I wonder if your father was unjustly condemned to be an outcast.”

Yugao scowled, leery of a trick.

“I went to the Hundred-Day Theater and met his former business partner. Did you know that Mizutani was the one who reported the incest between you and your father?” Reiko waited for Yugao to speak, but she didn’t, and her expression offered no answer. “Perhaps he made the whole thing up. Perhaps he hired someone to kill your father to prevent his coming back to the carnival and claiming his share of it, and the rest of your family because they witnessed the crime.”

“No,” Yugao said flatly.

“No, he didn’t falsely accuse your father? Do you mean your father was guilty of incest?”

Yugao said with hateful vehemence, “I mean you can take your bargain and shove it up your sweet little rear end. I’ve had enough of you. As far as I’m concerned, we’re done talking.” She plopped her hands in her lap, compressed her mouth, and stared at the wall.

In desperation, Reiko voiced the only other theory that made sense to her: “Are you taking the blame for someone else? Are you trying to protect whoever it is?”

Yugao remained obstinately speechless. Reiko waited. Time passed. The angle and brightness of the sun through the window changed; people came and went along the corridors outside the chamber. But Yugao seemed ready to wait until they both died of old age and their skeletons crumbled into dust. Finally Reiko sighed.

“You win,” she said. “But I’m going to learn the truth, whether you like it or not, whether from you or someone else.”

Yugao’s expression disdained the words as bluffing. “Can I go back to jail now?”

“For the time being, while I look up your old friend Tama.”

“Tama?” Yugao blurted the name. Apprehension echoed in her voice. Her head swiveled toward Reiko. As their gazes met, Reiko saw Yugao’s defiant poise melt.

“Yes.” Gratified that she’d found a vulnerable spot in the woman, Reiko pressed her advantage: “You remember Tama, don’t you? What do you think she can tell me about you?”

Yugao’s jailhouse complexion turned even paler as she spoke between clenched teeth: “You stay away from Tama.”

“Why don’t you want me to talk to her?” Reiko said.

“Just leave her alone!” Yugao shouted.

“Are you afraid of what she might say?”

“Quit pestering me!” Yugao clambered to her feet and stumbled across the room. She beat her chained hands on the door, crying, “Let me out!” Curses and shrieks spewed from her.

The door opened. At the threshold stood Magistrate Ueda, flanked by two guards. His expression was severe, disapproving. “Put me to death,” Yugao begged him. “Make her leave me alone!”

Magistrate Ueda ignored her and said to the guards, “Keep watch on her while I talk to my daughter.”

His eyes signaled Reiko to follow him. They went outside to a courtyard enclosed by storehouses, whose thick plaster walls and iron roofs and doors protected valuable documents from fire. Sunlight bleached the walls and pavement. Reiko could hear Yugao screaming inside the building.

“May I assume that Yugao was no more cooperative today than before?” Magistrate Ueda said.

“You may.” The failure discouraged Reiko.

“Have you decided whether she’s guilty?”

Reiko mulled over her entire cache of knowledge, then said, “Sometimes the most obvious answer is the correct one. I believe Yugao did murder her family.”

“If you think she did it, that will suffice,” Magistrate Ueda said. “I trust your judgment, and it confirms my own. Furthermore, we’ve made a good-faith effort to discover the truth about Yugao.”

“But I still don’t understand why she did it.”

“Perhaps she’s deranged.”

Reiko shook her head. “Yugao certainly behaves as though she is, but I think she’s just as sane as anyone else. I think she has logical reasons for the things she does; if only I could figure out what they are.”

“The law doesn’t require that a motive for a crime be determined before an accused person is convicted,” Magistrate Ueda reminded her.

“I know,” Reiko said, “but I may be getting closer to finding out Yugao’s motive. She got very upset when I mentioned her friend Tama. I’m interested to know what Tama knows that Yugao doesn’t want her to tell me. I suspect that it pertains to the murders.”

“You haven’t yet talked to this Tama?” When Reiko described her fruitless search for Yugao’s friend, Magistrate Ueda looked concerned. “I cannot delay a verdict any longer. Three people have been brutally slain, and Yugao appears beyond rational doubt to be the killer. Until I put her to death, I’m avoiding my duty to administer justice, and I rightly deserve to be censured. I might add that it’s not fair that one among thousands of criminals should have an exception made for her, especially when she appreciates it so little.”

Reiko nodded; she couldn’t dispute her father’s point. But a sense of incompletion gnawed at her. Even if she’d made a strong case against Yugao, she didn’t want to cease her inquiries. She sought to articulate why they must continue. “I believe that the reason Yugao stabbed her parents and sister to death is even more important than the fact that she’s the killer. I believe that if we don’t find out what it is, there will be a greater threat to law and order and the good of the public than if you let her walk free.”

“On what do you base those beliefs?”