Ellery Queen's Eyewitnesses

by Ellery Queen

  “Isamu”—the old man laid a gentle hand on his arm—“do you see how clear the pool is?”

  Ohara looked down at the golden koi, flashing like bright jewels beneath the water. “Yes, Ojiisan, it is beautiful.”

  Stooping quickly, the master picked up a handful of pebbles and dropped them one by one into the pool. The glassy surface was convulsed with rippling circles that obscured the watery world beneath.

  “You see, Isamu, the pool can no longer reflect a true image of what is there. It is like your mind. You, too, are restless and disturbed because you have dropped in too many pebbles. Come inside; we will have tea.”

  Ohara would have liked to protest that he could not stay for tea, but he could not find it in his heart to disappoint the old man. “Yes, Ojiisan, I should like that very much,” he answered and followed his teacher into the house, pausing only to remove his shoes in the small hallway.

  When he was led into the formal tatami room, Ohara knew that not only refreshment was intended, but the full treatment—the ritual tea ceremony. It was too late to back out now, so obediently he settled himself Japanese fashion on his knees. As he waited for Ojiisan to complete the prescribed preparations of the tea master, Ohara’s eyes passed over the exquisite simplicity of the room which was used only for the cha no yu ceremony.

  The beautiful simple utensils lay waiting on a small lacquer tray, to be handled with respect and love in the time-honored graceful movements. He admired the chrysanthemums in the tokonomo alcove, their flowery heads arranged to honor heaven, man, and earth. His gaze was drawn to the old Japanese print that adorned a side wall. Its glowing colors of blue and amber depicted two sturdy and bulging-calved bearers carrying a lady over a moon-arched bridge.

  He had long ago been trained by Ojiisan in the proper responses of the tea guest, so he carried off his part in the ceremony adequately. As he turned the brown glazed tea bowl the required three times and suitably admired its rich luster, he wondered briefly what the boys in the department would think of “the Irishman” if they could see him now.

  When it was over, Ohara found that the small perfection of time had calmed him and cleared his mind. As he put on his shoes and bowed a last sayonara, he felt new confidence that he would find the answers he needed.

  That evening, still amazingly relaxed, he enjoyed the football game and was proud of young Jim. Peggy had taken his announcement that he would have to work tomorrow quite well. She had by now accepted the realities of being a policeman’s wife. After the game they had indulged in a pizza and beer, and gone home.

  Peggy was warm and loving, and as he drifted toward sleep, his arms holding her tightly, he thought drowsily that he had truly emptied his mind. The pool was clear. The therapists, he reflected, should give the Japanese tea ceremony careful consideration. He saw again Ojiisan’s calm, measured movements, the quiet peace of the little tatami room, the bowing grace of the chrysanthemums, the rich glow of the old print. . .Suddenly he was sitting upright in bed.

  “That’s it! It could be nothing else!”

  Peggy, halfway between rude awakening and growing concern, touched his shoulder in alarm.

  “What is it, Sam? What’s wrong?”

  “Not what’s wrong—it’s what’s exactly right. Never mind, dear, go back to sleep. I’ll explain later.”

  Knowing him well, Peggy snuggled down again. Sam was all right, she knew, the rest didn’t matter. But Ohara lay awake mentally fitting new pieces into the jigsaw puzzle of his case.

  The next morning he called into the department and asked his partner, Jake Woszinski, to recheck the residents of the neighborhood where Zalba’s body had been found. He wanted to know about anything unusual they might have seen or heard as much as a week before the murder.

  After a fortifying breakfast of ham and eggs, he went down to Little Tokyo and visited the largest of the Japanese department stores. The answers he found there seemed to please him. Next he stopped at the office of the Japanese-language newspaper, Rafu Shimpo, and talked with the editor.

  Here he obtained a back copy of the issue he wanted. He had a quick bowl of noodles in a small café, then headed for Pacoima and the scene of Zalba’s killing. He knew now how it had been done, but he still didn’t know why. Instinct told him that the why of it was most important. Deliberately he turned his mind off, concentrating on his driving. As he turned the corner, a block away from where the body had been found, he suddenly stamped on the brakes and pulled his car to the curb.

  He had almost forgotten the convalescent hospital that looked more like a ranch house than an institution. Jake had checked it, he was sure, but the question that had just occurred to him was a brand-new piece of the puzzle.

  After the usual protocol he found himself in the office of the nursing supervisor, a Miss MacPherson, who did not appreciate the intrusion of murder into her well ordered domain.

  When he had asked his question, she fairly bristled in defense of her staff.

  “Our people are carefully screened, Lieutenant Oh—Ohara.” She stumbled momentarily over the name and looked down at his card for reassurance.

  “I’m sure they are, Miss MacPherson. I merely want to talk to anyone who came on or went off duty or left the hospital between eleven and midnight on that night.”

  “Well, you’re out of luck then. Our staff shifts at three-thirty, ten, and six in the morning.”

  Ohara’s heart sank. The times were wrong. He stood up and his good-looking face relaxed into a smile. “Thank you anyway, Miss MacPherson. I’m sorry to have taken up your time. But sometimes even negative information can be of help.”

  Discouraged, he walked down the long corridor to the exit and was just going out the door when he heard his name called, and turned to see Miss MacPherson hurrying after him.

  “Oh, Lieutenant Ohara, I just remembered. We have two special nurses who have been coming on for the past three weeks. One of them, Ellen Murakami, comes on at midnight. I wrote down her address.”

  She handed him a slip of paper with a self-conscious smile brightening her angular features.

  Ohara, grateful, sensed what would please her. “Arigato gozaimashita, Okusan,” he said, then bowed low and went out the door. Miss MacPherson stood looking after him, her hand touching her cheek, which was pleasantly flushed. “So like James Shigeta in Flower Drum Song,” she sighed to herself and walked dreamily back to her office.

  Ohara glanced at his watch—almost four o’clock. Ellen Murakami’s address was close by, and she would be at home now if she went on duty at twelve. He decided to check first with Jake and find out if anything new had turned up. He stopped at a pay phone to make his call.

  Jake’s jovial response told Ohara that his partner was pleased with the results of his work.

  “How did you know I’d get a hit?” Jake asked.

  “I looked in a fortune cookie. What is it?”

  “A Miss Parker, who suffers from insomnia, says she has been hearing clicking sounds around midnight for the past two weeks. She thought it might be kids scraping her picket fence and looked out the window. But there was nothing to call the cops about, just a big fat guy going by in baggy clothes, a cap, and sandals.”

  Ohara felt a surge of elation. “Thanks, Jake. That’s a help.”

  “Well, you’ll need another fortune cookie. She didn’t hear it on the night of the murder. That everything?”

  “What’s her address? I think I’ll drop in and see her. I need to kill a few minutes before I talk to another possible witness. Was there anything new on the oil on Zalba’s hand?”

  “Yeah, the lab says it’s a special kind of hair dressing. They haven’t run across it before.” Then Jake gave him Miss Parker’s address and hung up.

  Ohara found the woman’s house a block down and knocked at the door. The sleepless lady volubly informed him that of course she didn’t hear or see anything on the night of the murder because she had gone to her sister’s to play bingo, and had stayed over
night.

  As soon as he could, Ohara disengaged himself and a few minutes later was standing in front of Ellen Murakami’s door waiting for someone to answer the bell.

  A frail grandmother type opened the door, and after showing credentials, Ohara asked to speak to Miss Ellen Murakami.

  “No, Engrishu,” the old lady muttered, looking scared. She began to shut the door, and he repeated his question in polite Japan. At this she looked even more frightened, but she opened the door and reluctantly motioned him to come into the living room.

  With a hurried bow she said she would find Murakamisan, and darted out of the room. Ohara heard muttering in the background, but could distinguish no words. One of the voices he was sure had been a man’s. Moments later a girl came through the old-fashioned archway that led into the small living room.

  Ohara stood up as she came toward him, studying her pale face, so like a Utamaro painting, under a lustrous sweep of black hair. She was dressed simply in a dark skirt and white blouse. The modest V of the neckline was filled in by a peach-colored scarf which was wrapped closely to her throat.

  “I’m Ellen Murakami,” she said softly. “You wanted to see me?”

  Her hands tore nervously at a handkerchief, and she seemed scarcely to breathe. Ohara sensed her fear and felt a momentary pity, but his hunter’s instincts were alerted. She was very much on guard. He smiled reassuringly. “Just a few questions. May we sit down?”

  He led her through routine questions as to her hours and what she might have seen or heard on the night in question. When she began to relax, Ohara asked suddenly, “What time is it, Miss Murakami? My watch has been running slow today and I do have another appointment.”

  She looked automatically at her wrist, whitened, and turned her head toward the clock on the mantel. “It is five o’clock, Lieutenant.” The fear was back again and it showed in her voice.

  At that moment the grandmother came in with two small cups of green tea. The girl smiled, relieved. “My Obachan thought you would like tea—” She paused, uncertain. Ohara murmured polite thanks as the old lady set down the tea tray and darted away.

  “How long ago did you lose your watch, Miss Murakami?” Ohara asked as he picked up the fragrant cup of tea.

  “I—I—don’t know.”

  “I noticed that you looked first at your wrist, so it must have been fairly recently.”

  “Perhaps, I can’t remember.” Suddenly Ohara felt uneasy, sensing another presence, unseen, listening. In the silence the sibilant sound of breathing was barely audible.

  As he drained the tiny teacup, Ohara deliberately let his notebook fall to the floor, along with his pen. Instinctively polite, Ellen Murakami dropped to her knees to retrieve it.

  Profuse with apologies, Ohara switched to Japanese and she answered him. His eyes never left her face and as she reached under the chair for the pen, he saw what he had expected to see. The peach-colored scarf, pulled slightly askew with the reach of her arm, showed a jagged red line against the ivory skin of her throat.

  As Ohara accepted the pen and notebook from her hands with grave thanks, he said, still in Japanese for the benefit of the unseen listener, “I have found your watch, Miss Murakami. It was under the body of the man who was murdered two nights ago, not far from the hospital.” He was stretching a point, he knew, since the smashed fragments in the lab were barely identifiable, but she could not find words to deny it. Her eyes, filled with terror and despair, were all the answer he needed.

  He pressed his advantage. “I notice that you have been injured.” He indicated her throat. “Did the man attack you? Was that how you lost your watch?”

  He hated to bully her, but he knew it was necessary. With a sob she broke, but her words were unexpected. “Not murder—not murder—”

  “Will you tell me about it, Ellen?”

  “Iie. . .” she sobbed, shaking her head; the brief Japanese negative seemed her only defense.

  Ohara raised his voice and made it threatening, doing what he had to do.

  “Then I will have to bring you into the station for questioning, Miss. You are implicated in a murder.” The staccato Japanese hammered the words home.

  The small cruelty to the girl did the trick. Suddenly the archway was filled with the figure of a man—immense and powerful. His head, with a high formal topknot of hair glistening with oil, barely cleared the curve of the entrance. Ohara caught his breath as his eyes took in the huge bulk of him, straining the dark-blue kimono that covered three hundred pounds or more. The man’s hands hung loosely, ready at his sides, and beneath the kimono his bare calves showed like young tree trunks.

  Ohara’s eyes slid down to the feet and lingered. As he had known they would be, ever since he had remembered Ojiisan’s Japanese print of the litter bearers, the man’s feet were thrust into a pair of Japanese geta. Heavy thongs between the toes held the sturdy wooden platforms secure on top of two parallel blocks which raised them a good two inches from the ground. The same blocks, Ohara knew, which had left the peculiar indentations in the earth beside Zalba’s body.

  The wooden geta clicked on the bare floor as the man moved to stand in front of Ellen.

  The inherent menace in the huge figure made Ohara step back into the defensive Aikido stance, his body loose, his mind concentrated to anticipate the expected attack.

  But there was no attack. Instead, strangely soft yet guttural Japanese spewed out at him from the man’s throat. At the sound another piece of evidence fell into place—the man spoke with the bruised vocal chords of a Sumo wrestler.

  “Taisho, Officer. You will not take her. She has done nothing. It is I who have done this thing.”

  Before Ohara could answer, Ellen Murakami spoke in rapid English, her hands outstretched in appeal.

  “Oh, no, please. It is not what you think. Jiro”—she placed her hand gently on the huge arm of the man beside her. “Jiro was trying to save me. That—that man grabbed me as I passed the driveway and held a knife to my throat.” She pulled the scarf aside to show the ugly wound. “He said he was going to—he meant to—but Jiro had followed me.” The glance she turned toward her silent protector was rich with love, then she continued. “Jiro pushed the man’s hands away and told me to run. But I didn’t. Then—then—” She hesitated and the involuntary shift of her eyes told Ohara her next words would not be all truth. “You must believe me. It was an accident. Jiro fell against him—an accident—not murder.”

  Gently, but with a reproachful look, the giant moved Ellen aside. “This is not woman’s business. I will speak,” he said in Japanese.

  Ohara became suddenly formal. He bowed low. “I am glad, Onamisan.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  In answer Ohara drew from his pocket a folded page from Rafu Shimpo with the story of the great Sumo wrestler, Onami, and his visit to California.

  The famous wrestler grunted and asked in his soft slurred voice, “How did you find me? Did someone see?”

  Ohara, pocketing the newspaper clipping, shook his head and answered in the Japanese honorific style that befitted the man who stood before him.

  “No one saw the struggle, Onamisan, but someone noticed you several times the week before, passing by near the place where it happened.”

  The big man almost smiled. “I did not wear kimono, but I am too big to hide much. It was very dark. Do Americans not sleep at night?”

  Ohara gestured toward Onami’s feet. “The sound of your geta on the sidewalk woke someone who noticed you. Then, too, beside the dead body, I found the marks the geta make. When I knew what the marks were, I knew the man I was seeking was Japanese. No gaijin walks in geta on the street. When I saw how deep the marks were, I knew he must be a very heavy man.”

  “There are many such heavy men,” Onami said impassively.

  Ohara smiled. “True, Onamisan, but the oil on the victim’s hand we found to be a kind of hair oil used only in Japan, only by Sumo wrestler.” He allowed his eyes to glance
at Onami’s oiled topknot of hair.

  “You are right, Taisho,” Onami acknowledged, “but how did you come to this house?”

  “The hospital told us Miss Murakami arrived about midnight that night. We found the remains of a woman’s watch under the body. These two facts pointed here.”

  Onami moved suddenly and Ohara was on his guard again.

  “Taisho, I have killed this animal, but I did not intend to kill him. Miyuki—” The wrestler turned to Ellen and gently wiped the tears from her cheek with one huge finger. “Miyuki is my friend’s sister. I came from Japan to visit her. I have asked to marry her. I do not like that she goes to work at night, so I follow her. That night I saw the man and what he tried to do. I pulled Miyuki from his hands. Then with his knife he ran against me.

  “I am Sumo. I know only one way to fight.” The dignity of the simple statement said it all, but Onami continued, “So I charge him and he goes down. When I charge this way in the Sumo ring no one dies. I am thrown down myself sometimes, yet I am alive.”

  Ohara could visualize the bulletlike launch of that massive body, the shoulder thrusting into Zalba’s scrawny throat until the momentum of Onami’s three hundred pounds bore him down, until his skull cracked like an egg on the concrete driveway.

  Onami looked down at Ellen reproachfully. “I have told her to run away, but she is not yet obedient. She did not go. She came and touched the man and said he was dead. She warned me we must not say anything or I would be sent away and we could not marry.”

  Ohara, American as he was, felt his ancestral Samurai blood stir. It was like a tale out of old Japan. It seemed almost impossible that it could have happened on a quiet residential street in California. He looked at Onamisan, whose name meant Great Wave, waiting quietly for him to pass sentence. He kept his feelings out of his voice and used the polite formal phrases of Japanese officialdom which he knew were expected.

  “Onamisan, I believe you did not intend to kill this man. Miss Murakami’s testimony and the other evidence will show this. There will be some formalities, but you will not be detained longer than necessary.”