The Assassin's Touch

17

Reiko paced around the room in her father’s estate where she’d interviewed Yugao two days ago. When she’d arrived this morning, she’d asked Magistrate Ueda to let her speak to Yugao again, and he’d sent men to the jail to fetch her. It was almost noon by the time the door opened. Two guards brought in Yugao. Her hands were shackled; she wore the same dirty robe. She seemed surprised and displeased to see Reiko.

“It’s you again,” she said. “What do you want now?”

The guards shoved her to her knees in front of Reiko, then departed, closing the door behind them.

“I want to talk some more,” Reiko said.

Yugao shook her head, obstinate. “I’ve already said everything I have to say.”

She looked the worse for another night at Edo Jail. Flea bites dotted her neck, and her eyes were crusted, pink, and swollen. Reiko felt both revilement and pity toward her. “We have some new things to discuss.”

Raising her bound hands to scratch her flea bites, Yugao waited in suspicious silence.

“I paid a visit to your house yesterday,” Reiko said.

Yugao’s swollen eyes blinked in shock. “You went to the hinin settlement?” She sat up straight and stared at Reiko. “Why?”

“You wouldn’t tell me what happened the night your family was murdered,” Reiko said, “so I decided to find out for myself. I talked with the headman and your neighbors.”

Yugao shook her head in evident confusion. Her hands rubbed together, and her knees clenched spasmodically. Reiko thought that perhaps her efforts had convinced Yugao that she sincerely wanted to help. Maybe Yugao was relenting toward her and would now trust her enough to talk.

“The headman told me why your father was a hinin,” Reiko ventured.

Now Yugao’s face turned ugly with sudden rage. “You snooped into my business! You samurai people do whatever you want and you don’t care about anybody else’s privacy. I hate you all!”

This outburst disconcerted Reiko, who was chagrined because this conversation wasn’t going the way she wanted. But she continued, “For a man to commit incest with his daughter is not only a crime but a betrayal of her love for him. Did your father do it to you that night?”

“I won’t talk about my father,” Yugao said with bitter indignation.

“Then let’s talk about your mother and your sister. Did they do something to hurt you, too?” A new theory evolved in Reiko’s mind. “Were they cruel to you because they blamed you for the fact that they had to live as outcasts?”

“I won’t talk about them, either,” Yugao said.

While Reiko controlled her exasperation, she saw a possible reason why Yugao had refused to talk. Maybe she was so shamed by her sordid life that she would rather die than reveal it. Maybe she blamed herself for it and wanted to be punished even if she hadn’t killed her family. Because the law treated people as guilty for the transgressions of their kin and associates, it was logical for them to believe they really were.

“You should reconsider,” Reiko advised Yugao. “If you stabbed your father while he was forcing himself on you, that’s different from murder. If your mother and sister attacked you because you were protecting yourself, you had a right to fight back against them. Killing in self-defense isn’t a crime. You won’t be punished. The magistrate will set you free.”

Any other accused criminal that Reiko had ever seen would have gladly seized on this explanation as a chance to save his life. But Yugao turned her face away and said in a cold, recalcitrant voice: “That’s not what happened.”

“Then tell me what did,” Reiko said.

“I stabbed my father until he died. Then I stabbed my mother and my sister. I murdered them. I don’t have to say why.”

Reiko’s mind flashed back to the vision she’d had of the murders at the hovel. She pictured Yugao wielding the knife, heard the screams, smelled the blood. But her imagination plus Yugao’s confession didn’t necessarily equal the truth.

“Listen, Yugao,” she said. “My father bent the law by delaying the verdict at your trial. I’ve gone far out of my way for you.” She’d even risked putting Sano in jeopardy. “That obligates you to tell me the truth.”

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?”

“On my intuition.”

Magistrate Ueda’s gaze tilted skyward. Reiko remembered many times when, during her childhood, she’d made statements that she’d insisted were true because her feelings said so. Before he could argue, as he had then, that emotions weren’t facts and women were flighty, irrational creatures, she said, “My intuition has been right in the past.”

“Hmm.” Her father’s expression showed grudging agreement.

During the murder investigation at the Black Lotus Temple, Reiko’s unfounded suspicions had proved true. Now she said, “I think that whatever Yugao is hiding is too dangerous to let her take to her grave, and if she does, we’ll regret it. Please give me a little more time to find Tama. Please wait at least until I hear what she has to say before you convict Yugao.”

Magistrate Ueda smiled with fondness and vexation. “I’ve never found it easy to say no to you, Daughter. You may have one more day to investigate. At this time tomorrow, I’ll reconvene Yugao’s trial. Unless you can present evidence that exonerates Yugao-or justifies continuing to investigate the crime-I must send Yugao to the execution ground.”

One day seemed not enough time to solve the mystery in which justice and a young woman’s life hung in the balance. But Reiko knew she’d pushed her father to overstep his authority too much, and Sano would be even more displeased than when he’d first heard about her investigation.

“Thank you, Father,” she said. “I’ll have the answers for you by tomorrow.”