Bundori: A Novel of Japan (9 page)

A new thought distracted Sano from his body’s need. “Maybe the killer considers the murders acts of war, like the shogun does,” he mused. “But was Kaibara his enemy, or Araki Yojiemon?” The battle scenario fit Araki’s time better than the present. “And if it was Kaibara, why not put that name on the label?”

“Maybe he wanted them both dead.”

Sano realized that Aoi didn’t know who Araki was. “General Araki died at least a hundred years ago,” he explained.

“Then perhaps the killer connected the two men in his mind. And attacked the living one.”

“It’s a thought,” Sano admitted, intrigued by her suggestion. The connection between Araki and Kaibara bore looking into when he questioned Kaibara’s family tomorrow. “But then why kill the man whose hair I brought you? He was an
eta
, with no conceivable link to two high-ranking samurai.”

Interest animated Aoi’s features as she rose promptly to the challenge. “And who better than an
eta
for a samurai to kill when he wants to test a sword or practice his technique?”

“Of course!” Sano regarded her with growing admiration. “The killer wanted to murder Kaibara, but he’d never taken a man’s head or prepared a trophy. So he practiced on a victim for whose murder he would never be punished, if caught.”

Discovery of Aoi’s perceptive intelligence increased Sano’s attraction to this mystic whose shocking, erotic ritual had yielded valuable clues. And her shining eyes, the eager forward tilt of her body, reflected her enjoyment of their collaboration. Fleetingly Sano thought of his prospective bride, about whose character and appearance he knew nothing. Then he forgot her as he sought a way to further his relationship with Aoi.

“Let’s meet again tomorrow night,” he said, enthusiastic in his pleasure at having a beautiful partner with whom to discuss his work. “I think your ideas will help me understand and catch the killer.”

But strangely, his enthusiasm caused Aoi to withdraw into her former calm, aloof stillness. “As you wish,” she said remotely. She scooped up the pouch, lock of hair, and label, and held them out to him, bowing.

It was a dismissal. She wanted him gone. Though Sano knew that a man of his position could order her to do anything he wanted, he would honor her wish. He couldn’t think of her as an inferior to be used at will. She’d already given him more than he’d expected: insight into the killer’s motives; a description of the man for whom to search. Reaching out, he accepted the relics.

Their hands touched. Hers was warm despite the cold night. From the faint blush that colored her cheeks, Sano suspected that the brief contact had stirred her desire too. But although he turned to look back at her as he left the clearing, she wouldn’t return his gaze.

Perhaps tomorrow he would begin to know her-and to draw from her the same response she awakened in him.

A low-lying fog veiled the city when Sano rode out through the castle’s western gate early the next morning. Ahead, he could discern only the rooftops of the
banchō
. The district where the Kaibara clan and other Tokugawa
hatamoto
lived looked like a village in a painting, floating on a lake of mist against hills softened by white haze.

This pleasant impression quickly faded as he entered the
banchō
. Hundreds of small, ramshackle
yashiki
stood crammed together, each estate surrounded by a live bamboo fence. Thatched houses rose above the leafy stalks. The smells of horse dung and sewage permeated the air. These Tokugawa vassals, however long and faithfully they’d served their lord, were by no means Edo ’s richest citizens. Rising prices and the falling value of their stipends kept them poor compared with their landed superiors and the affluent merchant class. Signs of poverty abounded: half-timbered walls bare of whitewash or decoration; plain, roofless wooden gates, each with a single shack for a guardhouse; the simple cotton garments and unadorned leather armor tunics of the samurai who occupied the guardhouses and thronged streets barely wide enough for four men to walk side by side.

Sano stopped a passing samurai and asked the way to Kaibara’s
yashiki
. But as he edged his horse through the crowds and down bumpy dirt roads, he quickly lost all sense of direction in the
banchō’s
tangled maze. Sano remembered an old saying: “One born in the
banchō
might yet not know his way around it.” Finally, after asking directions again and losing his way several more times, he arrived at the Kaibara estate. There, outside a gate hung with black mourning drapery, waited Hirata. His wide, suntanned face looked ruddy with health, and a boyish eagerness lit his eyes at the sight of Sano.

After they’d exchanged greetings, Sano said, “Find out if anyone saw Kaibara leave the
banchō
the night he was murdered, or saw anyone following him. Particularly a large, pockmarked samurai with a lame right leg.”

As he explained how he’d gotten the suspect’s description, last night’s events seemed bizarre and dreamlike. But his belief in Aoi’s powers remained. As the young
doshin
set off to do his bidding, Sano glanced eastward at the castle. Mist still clung to its foundations, as if the spirits evoked in the ritual hadn’t yet ceased haunting it. Sano wondered what Aoi was doing now, and whether her sleep, like his, had been disturbed by the experience they’d shared…

Banishing this irrelevant thought, he dismounted, approached the Kaibara guardhouse, and identified himself to the elderly sentry posted there. “I must speak to Kaibara’s family.”

“Yes, master.” The guard shuffled toward the gate.

Sano wondered how a man so feeble could be charged with protecting his master’s estate. “Were you on duty the night before last?” he asked.

The guard opened the gate and stood aside for Sano to enter. “No,” he said sadly, hanging his head. “If I had been, I would have kept my master inside and prevented his death.”

This answer perplexed Sano. It sounded as though the gate had been unguarded-surely an unusual occurrence in the
banchō
, and one that eliminated a possible witness to Kaibara’s departure. And why should a retainer think it necessary to make sure his master didn’t leave home?

“I want to speak to the night sentry,” Sano said. “But first, tell me why you didn’t want Kaibara to go out.”

Shame filled the man’s eyes, and Sano understood: No one had been on duty, and the loyal retainer didn’t want to expose the private affairs of the Kaibara family.

“That will be all, thank you,” Sano said, leaving his horse with the guard and entering the gate. Perhaps the answers to these questions, and others, lay inside the house.

He got an inkling of the truth when he entered the bare, deserted courtyard. The house was fairly large, with a wide veranda and generous entry porch. But cracks veined the walls; broken window lattices rattled in the breeze; weeds sprouted up through the flagstones of the path. No servant came out to greet him, or announce his arrival to the Kaibara, whose failure to maintain their property suggested financial hardship, which would also explain why they lacked men to staff and protect the house.

Once inside, Sano had to pause and compose himself after removing his shoes in the entryway. The smell of incense, the sound of a woman weeping, the hollow drumbeats, the monotonous chanting, and the house’s shuttered gloom all reminded him of his father’s funeral vigil. He steeled himself to enter the main room and observe its occupants with professional detachment.

An orange-robed priest chanted Buddhist scriptures, punctuating them with strokes upon a gourd-shaped wooden drum. Before him stood the coffin-an upright wooden box painted white. A low altar held a funeral tablet bearing Kaibara’s name, a vase of flowers, burning incense sticks and candles, and offerings of rice, fruit, and sake. Although Sano had expected to see many mourners, only two women, one white-haired and elderly, the other about fifty, knelt near the priest. Both wore white mourning robes; the younger one wept as she clutched the stoic older woman’s hand. They looked up at the sound of Sano’s footsteps, while the priest continued chanting and drumming.

Sano introduced himself, adding, “I’m sorry to disturb you at such a time, but since the shogun has charged me with the task of capturing Kaibara-
san
’s killer, I must ask you a few questions.”

The room’s hushed emptiness and musty odor saddened him. Cobwebs laced the ceiling corners, revealing the same neglect as the house’s exterior. Sano sensed a desolation that predated the family’s recent tragedy.

“You were his wife?” he asked the older woman, who nodded. She had a deeply lined face with downturned eyes and mouth, and a hairline so high that her knotted white hair resembled a samurai’s, shaven crown and all.

“Whatever you wish to know, I will tell you if I can,” she said. Her voice had the deep, sexless quality of old age. To the other woman, evidently her maid, she said, “Fetch our honored guest some tea.” Then she fell silent, hands folded in dignified resignation.

Sano knelt opposite her and waited until the maid had placed a tray of tea and cakes before him and withdrawn. The memory of his father’s funeral made it hard for him to swallow, but he managed a few polite bites and sips. Then he said, quietly, so as not to interrupt the rites, “I’ve brought you something that belonged to your husband.”

From under his sash, he took Kaibara’s pouch and gave it to the widow. “Have you any idea who could have wanted to kill him?”

Slowly she shook her head, stroking the worn pouch. “No. You see, my husband had been dead for a long time already.”

Taken aback, Sano said, “I don’t understand.”

“Little by little, with each passing day, my husband’s spirit had been leaving his body. He lost his memory. Sometimes he didn’t recognize the servants, our friends, or even me.” The widow gave a barely audible sigh. “He cried and babbled like a child, and I had to feed and wash and dress him as if he were one. When he went outside, he got lost. Sometimes the police brought him back. We tried to keep him inside… ”

Her gaze wandered toward the door, and Sano now understood the guard’s words. Senility had destroyed Kaibara’s mind, leaving behind only a failing body: a common tragedy-

“I must apologize for receiving you so poorly,” the widow added. “In recent years, we’ve discharged most of our servants and retainers.”

– and one that had evidently brought such shame to the family that they had accepted reduced living conditions rather than expose it to the eyes of others. No wonder they had only one guard, not enough staff to tend the house, and few mourners at Kaibara’s funeral.

“So you see, there was no reason for anyone to hate my husband enough to kill him. But until last year, he still had days when he was himself again. Then our only son died.”

She looked toward the room’s far end, where Sano saw another memorial altar. His skin rippled as he remembered the words that the spirit had spoken through Aoi. Was the son’s death the “great sorrow” that had plagued Kaibara?

The widow closed her eyes and clamped her mouth into a tight line, as if the memory of her son’s death had joined with the fresh shock of her husband’s to inflict unbearable pain. She clutched the pouch, making no sound, but the priest’s mournful chanting, and the sound of the maid weeping in the other room, echoed her grief. Hating to cause her more anguish, Sano asked gently, “What was your husband doing in the pharmacists’ district the night he died?”

This brought tears coursing down her cheeks. Then she opened her eyes, dried them with her sleeve, and composed herself. “Our son served as a captain in the city’s fire brigade, as did my husband in his day. Last year there was a terrible fire in Nihonbashi.”

Sano remembered that some two hundred people had died in the blaze.

“Our son was killed when a burning house collapsed on him. Afterward, my husband returned again and again to the site. We tried to keep him home, but he always managed to sneak out.” Her voice broke as she added, “In the end, his sly escapes were the only sign that he could still think.”

Now Sano knew why Kaibara had gone to Nihonbashi, and why he’d been such easy prey for the killer. But the widow had failed to identify anyone with a motive for the murder.

“I’d like to speak with the other members of your family,” he said. A needy relative might have killed in hopes of inheriting Kaibara’s meager property, and arranged the crime so as to conceal the motive behind it.

A spasm of pain stiffened the widow’s features. “There are no other family members. Most of them died in the Great Fire of Meireki. Others have died of fever, in accidents. And with our son’s death, my husband was the last of his clan.”

“I’m sorry.” Sano allowed a moment of silence to lapse in respect for a venerable family line now ended. He was beginning to believe that the Bundori Killer had chosen his victims out of pure convenience. How tragic for the Kaibara clan! And how much harder for Sano to find the killer.

The widow was literally sagging under the weight of her grief, and Sano concluded the interview with a last question. “Does the name Araki Yojiemon mean anything to you?”

He didn’t expect the name to have any connection with the Kaibara, or the old woman to possess a knowledge of history. So he was surprised when she said, “Why, yes. Araki Yojiemon was my husband’s great-grandfather. He was head of the clan and served Tokugawa Ieyasu during the wars.”

As a history scholar, Sano knew that tracing samurai lineages was complicated because members of his class frequently changed their names for various reasons: Perhaps Araki’s son had done so to celebrate a rise in status, to mark an important family event, or because a more auspicious set of syllables might bring good luck. And the new names often bore little similarity to the originals.

“The family name was changed to Kaibara after the Battle of Sekigahara, when Ieyasu became shogun and the clan came to Edo with him,” the widow explained, confirming Sano’s guess. “But what has this to do with my husband’s murder?”

That Sano couldn’t answer, but he intended to find out. He thanked the widow for her help, repeated his condolences, and bid her farewell.

Out in the street again, he mounted his horse, glad to leave the gloomy estate. He breathed deeply, willing away griefs debilitating onslaught. Once more he prayed to his father’s spirit, seeking the wisdom to understand the new mysteries he’d uncovered. Again the spirit remained silent. He slapped the reins and started down the street in search of Hirata.

He didn’t have to look far. When he turned a corner, he saw Hirata running toward him, shouting and waving. Hard on his heels followed what looked like half the samurai in the
banchō
.

“
Sōsakan-sama
!” Hirata called. “There’s been another murder! The Bundori Killer has struck again!”