The Tokyo Zodiac Murders (12 page)

I reached Fukushima before sunrise on the 11th—I had barely eaten or slept for a whole week. I was nearly delirious; I could barely comprehend my behaviour. I wondered how I had managed to accomplish that extraordinary feat. After I returned to Tokyo that night, I slept like a log.

My excuse had worked perfectly. I had lost weight, and my eyes were sunken. I looked like I’d been through a terrible
ordeal caring for my sick wife, so I got the sympathy of my colleagues. But the stress of the week took a toll on me. I was overcome by dizzy spells, I felt nauseated and I felt profoundly tired. I was only able to carry out my task because of my relative youth and high position. If I had been older, I’m sure I wouldn’t have had the strength, and if I had been in a lower position, my boss wouldn’t have allowed me to take the week off. After that, I never took any sick leave.

I had done what I had been forced to do, but one question started to nag at me. Had I been tricked into doing this dirty deed? The secret agency might have set me up, creating the circumstances and then blackmailing me into performing whatever it needed done. To this day, I still don’t understand what happened. I only know what a powerful tool fear can be.

The last corpse I disposed of, at the Hosokura mine, was found on 15th April. When the police report came into my office, the guilt inside me started to grow. By the time the second body was found on 4th May, it was clear that the bodies I had buried were from the Umezawa serial murders. Although I knew about the case, I hadn’t made the connection between the Umezawa girls and the Kanemoto woman. I was horrified to learn that they were sisters. And while it was true that Kazue had been married to a Chinese man, could her sisters really have been spies because of that? I felt like a fool. I had been a victim. My pride was deeply hurt, because I had let myself believe that my mission was for national security, when really it was because I would do anything to save my reputation.

My colleagues were busy talking about the serial murders, but I could hardly keep myself in the office. It was not long afterwards that a woman named Sada Abe was arrested for
murdering her lover and cutting his penis off. Fortunately for me, her case took people’s attention away from the murder of the Umezawa girls. The Abe case is still fresh in my memory. She was apprehended at the Shinagawa Inn, while staying there under the name of Nao Owada. The case fell under the jurisdiction of the Takanawa police station, and my colleague Ando distinguished himself by being the one to arrest her. Detectives celebrated the end of the case, and a festive mood lingered in our station for a while, bringing my conscience a little relief.

In June, I read a copy of Heikichi Umezawa’s note, which the investigation had distributed to each police station. I couldn’t see how he could have committed the Azoth murders. The killer did everything just the way he had described it, but he himself was dead by the time the murders took place. But if it hadn’t been him, then who had done it? It had to be one of his followers, someone intent on making Azoth himself. My God, I had lent my hand to a maniac!

There were so many questions. Was astrology behind the elaborate plot? Was it the killer’s idea to arrange when the bodies would be discovered? If so, why were the bodies in Kosaka, Yamato and Ikuno to be found later than the others? If delay of discovery was the objective, why not other mines or more distant places? Was there a pattern?

Then there was that business about Chinese spies. If there was the least bit of truth to it, I had been drawn into the picture because of my encounter with Kazue. Was that all planned out ahead of time—just as the murders of the six girls were premeditated? If so, who would be the best person to bury the bodies? Of course, a police officer! He would have a driving licence, and the transportation of victims in a murder case
could be part of his job. No civilian—not even a doctor or a scientist—could do that. Nor would anyone think a policeman was capable of participating in such a horrendous deed. And so I had been chosen! And Kazue must have been involved as a conspirator, enticing me into having sex with her. But then she was killed herself—why? So that I could be threatened with blackmail? Did Kazue know that she would be killed? Or had she been betrayed, too? True, I slept with Kazue because she enticed me. But I would never have agreed to bury the bodies if she hadn’t been murdered.

Suppose it was Kazue who had killed her sisters? After killing them, she decided to seduce me so that I could be blackmailed, and then she killed herself. But what would be the point of committing suicide? Besides, the fatal blow was to the back of her head. It’s virtually impossible to commit suicide by beating yourself on the head from behind. And Kazue died on 23rd March; the six girls were still alive a week later. A dead woman cannot commit murder.

When Masako Umezawa was arrested, the picture got even more confused. She confessed, but I couldn’t believe that she was telling the truth. I wished I could visit her in prison to talk to her, but I couldn’t come up with a reasonable excuse.

I was so unfortunate to get involved in this case in this terrible way, and I have been unable to rid myself of my guilt. As time passes, the public usually forgets. Even the shock of large-scale crimes fades, and people stop talking about them. But not this case. After the war, it came to be known as “the Tokyo Zodiac Murders”, when a book by that title was published. It became a fad to try to solve the mystery, and tips flooded in to the investigation. Day after day, my colleagues read these
letters. I shuddered every time they yelled out, “This information is worth taking a look at!” This fear lasted until my retirement. Even today, I have not been released from it.

Back then, there were forty-six detectives in Section 1 of the Crime Investigation Department. Today, Sections 3 and 4 are in charge of fraud, arson and violent crimes, but those used to be our responsibility, along with homicide and robbery. In 1943, I was transferred to Section 1 on the recommendation of Mr Koyama, assistant director of the Takanawa station, who praised me for my persistence and logic. I was to deal especially with fraud cases. To transport the six bodies, I had borrowed the Cadillac from a suspect in an earlier fraud case. After I transferred to Section 1, he kept calling me and asking for favours. I said yes every time.

The tide of the war was at its peak, and there were regular threats of air raids by American forces. Members of the Metropolitan Police Department were evacuated in small groups to different areas in the city. My section set up offices in Asakusa at the First High School for Women. I began thinking I would like to die in battle. Many of my colleagues joined the army, but my induction was suspended, causing me to feel more guilt.

At the time of the murders, my son Fumihiko was just a few months old. Now he is a detective himself, and my daughter Misako is married to a police officer, too. Although I felt like I was a prisoner, I continued to climb up the ladder of promotion. I took examinations for the sake of my son, did well on them and got promoted. Just before my retirement, HQ generously promoted me to superintendent. My professional life must have looked like a very successful one, but for me it had been many years of incarceration. The cancer within me
remained my secret. I retired as soon as I could—in 1962, after thirty-four years of service, at the age of fifty-seven. Two years after the death of Masako Umezawa, who was charged with the capital crime of killing her husband Heikichi and the six girls, public interest in the astrology murders was still going strong. I myself was reading all the material I could get my hands on, only to find nothing but what I already knew. After a year of retirement, I found myself slowly regaining energy. Then, late in the summer of 1964, I decided to dedicate the rest of my life to solving the mystery. I made an effort to interview all those still alive who were related in any way to the case.

Ayako Umezawa, then seventy-five, was the only surviving family member. She had built an apartment complex and was living there. She told me her husband Yoshio had recently died. With her two daughters murdered and with no one else left, she felt very lonely.

Yasue Tomita was seventy-eight. She was living alone in an apartment in Denenchofu, the exclusive area of Tokyo that’s rather like Beverly Hills. She had sold her old gallery after the war and opened a new one in Shibuya under the same name, “De Médicis”. After her son Heitaro’s death in the war, she had adopted the son of a relative, who was now running the gallery for her. He visited her occasionally, but she still seemed lonely.

Neither Ayako or Yasue were likely suspects, but there was no one else left from the inner circle. Heikichi’s ex-wife, Tae, had died, but Masako’s ex-husband, Satoshi Murakami, was still alive at eighty-two. Murakami had never been questioned—perhaps because the pre-war police were very class-orientated and he was from a wealthy family. It seemed to me that Murakami had a motive: revenge. Masako had had an affair with Heikichi
and then divorced Murakami to marry him. As an ex-police superintendent, I went to visit Murakami. He was retired, and living a quiet life puttering around in his garden. He was bent, and his bald pate made him look his age. But occasionally his eyes showed clarity and strength, and I could imagine him in his prime.

Our conversation was very disappointing. Murakami stated that, contrary to what I had thought, he had been interrogated—without reason—and that the attitude of the police had been offensive. He went on at tedious length about being treated like a suspect. I apologized and left. The Crime Investigation Department had been more thorough than I gave them credit for.

People continue to look enthusiastically for Azoth, but I now have doubts about its existence. Even so, I went to Heikichi’s grave to see if it was possible that Azoth was anywhere near it. The cemetery was very crowded. His grave was almost concealed by the close proximity of other family graves. I doubted Azoth could be there.

Did he have any followers? Friends? Casual acquaintances? He was not a sociable person, apparently going out only to the gallery “De Médicis” and the bar “Kakinoki”.

At Kakinoki there was Satoko, the owner, who had introduced Heikichi to Genzo Ogata, the owner of a mannequin factory. At the time, Ogata was forty-six and Satoko—a widow—was thirty-four. Heikichi seemed to enjoy Ogata’s company, despite their very different occupations. The police had spoken to Ogata and cleared him of any suspicion. On the other hand, Tamio Yasukawa, a craftsman at Ogata’s mannequin factory, seemed like someone who should have been investigated
further—Heikichi met Yasukawa at Kakinoki, too, and as Yasukawa was in the business of constructing mannequins, the two may have had matters of common interest. Yasukawa was twenty-eight at the time of the murders. He is one of the few possible suspects still alive. He served in the military for a short while and has been living in Kyoto ever since. I must see him before he dies—or before I die.

Among the other people Heikichi knew at Kakinoki, the only person I have met is Toshinobu Ishibashi, a painter who was living near the bar. He was thirty at the time of the murders—coincidentally almost the same age as me. His family ran a teahouse, and painting was his sideline. Perhaps Ishibashi worked in the family business and entered his art in competitions when he could. As his dream had been to travel to Paris, which few people then could afford, he loved talking with Heikichi about his adventures in France. I visited Ishibashi at the teahouse in Kakinokizaka, which his family still ran. He said he had fought in the war, narrowly escaping death. He no longer painted, but his daughter had graduated from an art college. And he had just returned from a trip to Paris, where he was excited to find a restaurant that Heikichi had told him about. Ishibashi was pleasant to talk with, his wife was polite and kind, and their female employee was very friendly. Ishibashi also had an alibi, and nothing would have given him reason to commit the murders. As I prepared to leave, Ishibashi invited me to come back to the tea house at any time. He sounded sincere, and I thought I would.

As regards Kakinoki, it no longer exists. Satoko, who had been cleared of any suspicions, closed the bar when she became Ogata’s lover. Ogata had a wife and family, so things must have
been complicated. His son took over the mannequin business, moving the factory to Hanakoganei.

Thanks to Yasue’s social skills, the gallery De Médicis was a popular place for middle-aged artists: painters, sculptors, models, poets, playwrights, novelists and filmmakers. They would gather there and have heated discussions about the arts. Even though a frequent visitor himself, Heikichi didn’t socialize much with those artists—he thought them snobs.

But one friendship that he did maintain was with Motonari Tokuda, a sculptor. Tokuda was a sharp-eyed intellectual who had a studio in Mitaka. By the age of forty, he was already well known. Heikichi had been fascinated by Tokuda’s sculpture, causing investigators to suspect his influence on Heikichi’s notions about Azoth. I saw Tokuda when he was being questioned by the police. He had long, grey unkempt hair and hollow cheeks, which made him look like a crazy artist. However, Tokuda established his alibi and was released. The fact that he didn’t have the slightest idea how to operate a car was in his defence. Moreover, he had never visited Heikichi’s studio, nor had he known Kazue. If anyone viewed Tokuda’s artwork, it would be clear that such art could not come from the heart of a killer. He died suddenly in early 1965. His studio was converted into the Motonari Tokuda Museum.

Gozo Abe was a painter Heikichi met through Tokuda. He was a pacifist, his artwork carrying an anti-establishment message even in 1936, and he was ostracized by his fellow artists—a feeling that he and Heikichi may have shared. Abe was in his twenties then, a generation younger than Heikichi, and it seems unlikely they knew each other very well. He lived in Kichijoji, far from Meguro. He never visited Heikichi’s studio.
He had no firm alibi, but he had no reason to commit the crime. During the war, Abe was dispatched to China. Military officials treated him badly, labelling him an “unfavourable ideologue”, and he remained a private the entire time. When he returned to Japan, he divorced his wife, married a younger woman, and then travelled to South America. He died in Japan in 1955, having gained a small reputation among artists. His wife runs “Grell”, a cafe for artists. Abe’s paintings hang on the wall.