Assassin's Touch (13 page)

Hirata found it humiliating to stand withered and frail before his strong, healthy adversary. “I’m just as surprised to see you,” he retorted. “The last I heard, you and Lord Matsudaira were like this.” He held up two crossed fingers. “Why aren’t you with him? Have you fallen out of his favor?”

Hoshina’s jaw tightened, and Hirata was gratified to sec that he’d hit the mark. “What are you doing here?” Hoshina said, then raised his palms. “Don’t tell me: You’ve come to investigate the death of Treasury Minister Moriwaki. Chamberlain Sano is too important to do it himself, so he sent his faithful dog.”

“I bet you’re here for the same reason.” Hirata controlled his temper with difficulty. As Hoshina nodded, Hirata recalled the facts that the treasury minister’s wife had told him. “But didn’t you already investigate his death? Didn’t you arrest somebody who was executed for murdering him?”

Sullen silence was Hoshina’s reply. His attendants looked abashed for his sake.

“Then Chief Ejima died,” Hirata went on. “Now it appears that he may have been murdered by the same person who killed the treasury minister and you made a mistake.”

“So what if I did?” Hoshina said, flustered and defensive. “Anyone else might have done the same.”

“But you were the unlucky one. That’s why you’re in disgrace with Lord Matsudaira. The instant he heard that Ejima was dead and realized he’d just lost another high official, he knew you’d botched the investigation and he threw you out of his inner circle. My condolences.” Hirata pitied Hoshina not at all. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to do a proper investigation of Treasury Minister Moriwaki’s death.”

He and his detectives started toward the bathhouse door, but Hoshina blocked their way. “You’re wasting your time,” Hoshina said. “I’ve already reexamined the scene of death.”

“What, are you trying to correct your mistake by going over the same ground where you slipped up?” Hirata said.

Hoshina scowled. “There’s nothing to see in there,” he insisted, which convinced Hirata that the bathhouse contained important clues. Hirata and his men kept walking. Hoshina followed them into the bathhouse. Inside a vestibule, a woman dressed in a gray and white floral kimono knelt on a platform. Racks on the walls contained towels and cloth bags of rice-bran soap.

“Good day, masters,” she said, bowing to Hirata and the detectives. She looked to be in her fifties, stooped and slight, her hair dyed an unnatural shade of black, her face heavily powdered and rouged. But her eyes were bright, her features still pretty. When she saw Hoshina, her smile faded. “Back again so soon? Haven’t you caused enough trouble here already?”

She was the type of older woman who spoke her mind, even to male social superiors, who were probably intimidated because she reminded them of their strict mothers or childhood nursemaids. Now, as Hoshina glowered, she said to Hirata, “Welcome to my establishment. You and your men can undress in there.” She pointed to an adjacent room behind a curtain, where dressing gowns hung on hooks, clothes were folded into compartments on the wall, and shoes stood on racks.

“Thank you, but we don’t want a bath.” Hirata introduced himself, then said, “We’re here to investigate the death of one of your customers—Treasury Minister Moriwaki.”

The proprietress flicked her shrewd gaze from Hirata to Hoshina. “I’m glad somebody else has taken charge. How may I help you?”

“You can show me where the treasury minister died.”

“Come right this way.” Stepping off the platform, she smiled at Hirata and cut her eyes at Hoshina.

Hirata and his men followed her through a curtained doorway and along a corridor. Steamy air and splashing noises issued from chambers divided by lattice-and-paper partitions. Each contained a large, square sunken tub surrounded by a raised floor made of wooden slats. Naked men soaked in the tubs or crouched beside them. Female attendants scrubbed backs, poured buckets of water over the men, or sat naked beside them in the tubs. Some of the doors were closed; from these issued giggles and moans. Hirata knew that bathhouse prostitution was illegal but common, and the proprietress surely must pay the police to let her operate outside the law.

She opened a partition. “This is it.” The tub was empty, the floor dry. She stepped inside and opened the bamboo blinds. Dust motes glistened in the sunshine. “We haven’t used this room since Moriwaki-
san
died. None of the girls will work in here. They think it’s haunted by his ghost.”

“Were you on the premises when he died?” Hirata asked.

“Yes. I told
him
what happened.” The proprietress cast a baleful look at Hoshina. “But he wouldn’t listen.”

Hoshina slouched against the wall, his hands in his armpits, his expression stormy. But Hirata knew he’d stick around to see if Hirata would turn up something he’d missed, which he could use to get back in Lord Matsudaira’s good graces. He was the sort of man who would rather take credit for someone else’s work than take pains to do his job right in the first place.

“I’ll listen,” Hirata said. “Tell me.”

“I was out front when Moriwaki came for his bath,” the woman explained. “He was a regular customer. Came in almost every day. I called Yuki to wait on him. She was his favorite girl. She brought him in here. After a while, I heard a loud crash. Yuki screamed. I ran to see what was wrong. I found Moriwaki-
san
lying there, naked.” She pointed at the floor beside the tub. “Yuki said he’d fallen down. His head was bloody where it had hit the floor.”

She pursed her lips. “First time a customer ever died here. Very bad for business. But it was an accident.”

Hirata observed that this sounded just like Chief Ejima, suddenly dropping dead for no clear-cut reason. Had the treasury minister been another victim of
dim-mak
?

“I sent a message to Moriwaki’s family. His retainers came and told Yuki and me not to worry; they didn’t blame us. They took his body home. But the next day,
he
showed up.” She shot a bitter glance at Hoshina. “He took Yuki into a room and asked her what had happened to Moriwaki. When she tried to tell him she hadn’t done anything wrong, he called her a liar. I heard him hitting her. I heard her crying.”

“That’s enough,” Hoshina interrupted angrily.

“Go on,” Hirata said.

The woman gave Hoshina a vindictive smirk. “He thought Yuki had pushed Moriwaki. He made her say so. He arrested her and took her to jail, even though I told him Yuki was a good girl who’d never hurt a fly. Next day, her head was cut off.”

Hirata regarded the police commissioner with disgust. “That was good, quick detective work.”

Nettled, Hoshina hurried to justify himself. “It was standard procedure.” Torture of suspects was legal and often used to obtain confessions. The disadvantage was that it tended to produce as many false confessions as true ones.

“And today he comes back,” the woman said. “It’s plain to see that he’s found out that Yuki didn’t kill the treasury minister, because he’s poking around again, looking for some other innocent person to blame.”

“Shut up, old woman!” Hoshina said, goaded to a rage. “I’ll close down your bathhouse, or—”

Fists clenched, he advanced on her. Hirata’s detectives pushed him away. Hirata said, “This woman is an important witness, and if you do anything to hurt her, you’ll be in more trouble than you already are.”

Hoshina subsided, impotent but seething. Hirata took a petty pleasure in making Hoshina pay for insulting him today and sabotaging Sano in the past. He addressed the woman: “I intend to see that the real killer is caught. I need to ask you some questions about Treasury Minister Moriwaki.”

Smug under his protection, the woman said, “Go right ahead.”

“Did Moriwaki have any unusual bruises that you saw?”

“As a matter of fact, he did.”

Hoshina spoke through gritted teeth: “I ordered you to keep quiet about everything pertaining to this investigation.”

“I can’t refuse to talk to the shogun’s detective, can I?” The woman feigned helpless innocence. She told Hirata, “He had a bruise right here,” and pointed to a spot near her temple.

Hirata felt a ripple of excitement. “What did it look like?”

“It was blue. Oval-shaped. Kind of like a fingerprint.”

At last Hirata had definite evidence that connected one of the previous murders to Chief Ejima’s. Hoshina looked displeased; obviously, he’d wanted to hoard this important fact for his own use.

“When did you see the bruise?” Hirata said.

“Right after Moriwaki died. I washed the blood off him before his retainers took him home.” She added, “Whenever I bathed him, he would suckle on my breasts while we sat in the tub. Some men his age like to do that, you know. I’d spent so much time looking down at his head that I couldn’t help but notice the bruise because it hadn’t been there before.”

That was more detail than Hirata needed, but it added veracity to her statement. “You said the treasury minister was a regular customer. Had he come here during the two days previous to his death?”

Hoshina made angry, shushing gestures. The woman ignored him. “As a matter of fact, he was here just the day before.”

Now Hirata could account tor some of the time Moriwaki had spent away from Edo Castle. “Did you see anyone with him that day?”

“I already asked her that,” Hoshina interrupted. “She doesn’t know anything. She’s inventing lies to please you.”

The woman put her hands on her hips while her eyes shot angry sparks at Hoshina. “I’m not a liar. And if you think I am, then why were you so excited when I told you who I’d seen with Moriwaki?”

Hoshina spat out a breath of frustration. Amused, Hirata said, “Tell me what you told the police commissioner.”

“A samurai came into the bathhouse with Moriwaki. He begged to talk to him. Moriwaki said he was busy, but the samurai followed him into the dressing room. They started arguing. I didn’t notice what they said, but I think the samurai wanted a favor. Moriwaki told him to leave. He did.”

Hirata sensed that he was on the verge of learning something critical. “Do you know who this samurai was?”

“Yes. I asked Moriwaki, ‘Who was that rude fellow?’ He said it was a Captain Nakai, from the Tokugawa army.” She grinned triumphantly at Hoshina.

He stalked, cursing and furious, out of the room. Now Hirata understood why he’d wanted to keep the proprietress’s information a secret. Captain Nakai was an excellent suspect, who’d demonstrated his martial arts skills during the faction war. Connecting him with Treasury Minister Moriwaki was a stroke of luck, for he hadn’t appeared on the lists of people who’d had contact with any of the previous victims.

“Was Captain Nakai alone with the treasury minister?” Hirata asked.

“Yes. While Moriwaki was undressing.”

“Did he touch Moriwaki?”

“I don’t know. The curtain was closed.”

Hirata was elated nonetheless. When he and the detectives left the bathhouse, he found Police Commissioner Hoshina waiting for him in the street, still fuming.

“I just wanted to tell you that you won’t get away with making a fool of me in there,” Hoshina said. “And if you think you and Chamberlain Sano are going to solve this case and win more honors at my expense, you’re sadly mistaken. I’m going to ruin you both.”

He shoved his hand against Hirata’s chest. Hirata lost his balance; his lame leg buckled. He fell into a pile of horse manure. A cry of indignation burst from him at this public humiliation. Hoshina and his attendants laughed.

“That’s right where you belong,” Hoshina said as the detectives helped Hirata to his feet and wiped the manure off him. “Next time I strike, you’ll stay down.”

Hoshina and his men mounted their horses and rode away. Detective Inoue said, “Don’t pay any attention to that loser, Hirata-
san
. He’s not worth worrying about.”

But Hirata knew that Hoshina was dangerous as well as desperate to regain his status at court. Their skirmish was only the first round in what promised to be bloody political war. Hirata limped toward his horse. “Come on, we’re going back to Edo Castle. I want to tell Chamberlain Sano about Captain Nakai.” And he’d better warn Sano to expect trouble from his old enemy.

12

The weather turned warm and muggy as Reiko and her escorts trudged through the
hinin
settlement. Smoke and sweat filmed her skin; ashes stung her eyes and parched her throat; and she felt as though she was absorbing contamination from the outcasts. Her visits to the first few houses nearest Yugao’s produced no new suspects or witnesses.

“If you want to find the killer, you should look no further than Edo Jail,” the headman said as he and Reiko skirted a garbage heap in an alley.

Reiko had begun to think Kanai was right. The rising temperature increased the stench; she was more than a little tempted to give up. The insolent Yugao hardly seemed worth this effort. But Reiko said, “I’m not finished here yet.”

They circled, through lanes where ragged laundry dripped from clotheslines into overflowing gutters, around to the hovel behind Yugao’s. A yard filled with washtubs, broken tools, and other junk separated the two properties. The outcast who lived in the hovel was an old man who sat in his doorway, fashioning sandals out of scrap straw and twine. When Reiko asked him if he’d seen anyone at Yugao’s house besides her family on the night of the murder, he said, “There was the warden.”

“From Edo Jail?” Reiko said.

The old shoemaker nodded; his gnarled hands deftly plaited the straw. “He was Taruya’s boss.”

“He’s a former gangster,” the headman told Reiko. “He was demoted for extorting money from merchants in the vegetable market and beating them up when they didn’t pay.”

“When did you see him?” Reiko asked, excited because she’d discovered a new suspect, and one with violent tendencies.

“I didn’t see him,” the shoemaker said, “but I heard his voice. He and Taruya were arguing. It was just after sundown.”

“When did he leave?”

“The shouting stopped a little while later. He must have gone.”

Reiko felt a pang of disappointment because the timing of his visit didn’t coincide with the crime. Yet perhaps the warden had returned later to settle his score.