Assassin's Touch (14 page)

“Where can I find the warden?” Reiko asked.

“Where everybody in this place eventually shows up.” Kanai’s expression indicated that he was losing patience with her, but he said, “Come along; I’ll take you.”

They resumed traipsing through the settlement. Reiko questioned the inhabitants at hovels and passersby they encountered, to no avail. Her escorts looked bored and glum. A water-seller appeared, carrying buckets suspended from a pole on his shoulders, and Reiko longed for a drink but couldn’t bear to swallow water from this filthy place. She dabbed her perspiring face with her sleeve and squinted up at the sun that shone high and bright through the smoke. Against the sky rose the skeletal wooden structure of a fire-watch tower. On the platform under the bell that hung from its top stood a boy.

Reiko called to him, “Excuse me, were you on duty the night the Taruya family was murdered?”

Peering down at her, he nodded.

“Can you come down for a moment and talk?” Reiko said.

He shimmied down the ladder, agile as a monkey. He was perhaps twelve years old, with an elfin face and knobby bones. Reiko asked him to describe what, if anything, he’d observed that night.

“I heard screams,” he said. “I saw Ihei run away from the house.”

“Who is Ihei?” Reiko asked. Interest revived her energy.

“He lives by the river,” said the boy. “He used to visit Umeko.”

“He was a thief in his former existence,” Kanai explained. “Now he’s a street-cleaner.”

Reiko looked up at the tower, gauged its distance from Yugao’s house, and imagined how the settlement must look at midnight. “How did you recognize him?” she asked the boy. “Wasn’t it dark?”

“There was lightning. And Ihei walks like this.” He hunched his back and shuffled.

Reiko didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry that she now had two suspects placed at the crime scene besides Yugao. She thanked the boy, who bowed and darted around her guards.

Kanai shouted, “Wait just a moment!” He ran after the boy and grabbed him by his collar. “Give it back.”

The boy reluctantly took a leather drawstring pouch from his pocket. It was the kind in which men carried money, medicines, religious items, or other small valuables.

“Hey, that’s mine,” Lieutenant Asukai said, groping the empty place where the pouch had once dangled from his sash. He snatched it from the boy’s hand.

“You have to be careful around him, his parents, his brothers, and his sisters,” Kanai said. “Every one of them is a sneak-thief.” He released the boy and swatted his rear end. “Behave yourself, or I’ll have another year added to all your sentences.”

Soon Reiko and her companions reached their destination—a teahouse located in a large shack, enclosed by a thatched roof and plank walls, on the riverbank. Its front and back doors stood open to let the breeze refresh the men who lounged on the raised floor. The proprietor served liquor out of crude ceramic jugs. The teahouse appeared to be the social center of the outcast world. Down the river, boats housed brothels and teahouses for ordinary citizens; bridges led to neighborhoods on the opposite bank.

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?

“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.