Tattoo Murder Case

by Akimitsu Takagi

  By then, Usui was sorely tempted to call it a night. Fate did not seem to be smiling on his little enterprise. Not once but three times he had gotten an unlucky break, and he was beginning to think this night might be jinxed. Usui was a superstitious man and he hadn’t rushed into his plan without first checking the omens. Everything had indicated that today would be a lucky day for him, and the extremely auspicious fortune-paper he had bought at the Asakusa Kannon Temple earlier that day, which practically guaranteed success in anything short of a trip to the moon, had further bolstered his confidence.

  So he wasn’t quite ready to give up. For another hour he waited, concealed in the thick shrubbery across the street. Suddenly the other man came rushing out of Kinue’s gate, his face as pale as if he had seen a ghost, and went charging off in the direction of the train station. There was nothing in the man’s hands, so he obviously wasn’t a rival burglar. His behavior was very strange, though, and Usui wondered what had happened inside.

  If I fail this time I may never get another chance, he thought as he crept quietly into the garden. The storm shutters had not been closed. He found that a bit surprising but figured that Kinue had left them open on purpose because it was so hot. “Finally, a stroke of luck!” he muttered as he slipped into the house through an open window.

  There was no sign of activity inside, and Kinue Nomura was nowhere to be seen. Usui ran feverishly through the rooms, searching for the object of his love and his hatred. He couldn’t find her anywhere. At last he gave up his fantasy of seducing Kinue by force and reverted to being a sneak thief. He ransacked the tansu chests, drawer by drawer, filling a large furoshiki cloth with garments that could be resold to foreigners—mostly American soldiers—who were living in Japan. The truth was, rather than such troublesome, easily traceable goods, he had been hoping to find some hard cash lying around, but he didn’t find so much as a five-yen coin.

  He noticed that the light was on in the bathroom and the water running. He knocked on the door, and when there was no response, he assumed no one was inside, so he switched off the light from outside. Usui left then, carrying his sack of stolen clothes on his back. When he read in the newspaper the next day that Kinue’s body had been found in the bathroom he was so surprised that his mouth dropped open, and, as he put it, it was a very long time before he could get it properly closed again.

  ***

  When he had finished reading through the thick folder containing Usui’s sworn statement, Daiyu Matsushita raised his eyes and looked at Assistant Inspector Shinohara. “What do you think?” he asked. “Is this guy on the level?”

  “I believe so,” Shinohara responded in a confident tone. “He may be a lowlife scum-of-the-earth burglar, but I don’t think he’s a liar. In fact, he’s been unexpectedly docile and cooperative. If I had thought he was lying, I wouldn’t have prepared his statement.” Shinohara gestured at the bulky file that lay on the table in front of the chief. “The only problem is, we’re not certain what he was doing at eight o’clock, but since Kinue was still alive at that time, it isn’t really a crucial point. From then on his testimony is in complete accordance with that of Gifu Inazawa. No discrepancies at all.”

  “That’s certainly true. In fact, their testimonies are so identical that it bothers me. It could mean that they’re telling the truth.” Daiyu gave a wry smile.

  Shinohara smiled back at the chief. “Well,” he said, “fortunately we caught Usui in the act of committing larceny and we can bind him over for that. So at least we don’t have to worry about him slipping through our fingers.”

  “Yes, but I really doubt that he’s our man in this murder. I simply don’t think he’d be able to pull off anything as clever as that locked-room trick.

  If we had found the body strangled or stabbed with a knife, then Usui would definitely be a suspect, but frankly, I think he’s more of a dim bulb than an evil genius.”

  “There’s one rather interesting thing in his statement,” Inspector Shinohara said. “What do you make of this prostitute who supposedly resembles Kinue Nomura?”

  “One thing seems certain, it wasn’t Kinue. True, she was a rather licentious woman, but she was busy with other things.”

  “Suppose Kinue’s sister survived somehow, and returned to Tokyo?”

  “Most likely it was just someone who happened to look like the Nomura sisters. I mean, we’ve all seen strangers who look like someone we know, right?”

  Shinohara nodded. “That’s probably it,” he said.

  “Still, we can’t afford to leave any lead unexplored,” Daiyu said. “Assign someone to check it out, would you?” Inspector Shinohara saluted and left the room.

  Daiyu Matsushita looked at the Tattoo Murder Case folders scattered on his desk and let out an enormous sigh. “What a mess,” he said. “What a bloody, blasted mess.”

  37

  It was just past six thirty, and the ruined city of Tokyo was already wrapped in the dark cloak of a moonless night. Outside the small Shibuya eatery called Peony, an unusual-looking woman was pacing back and forth. Two or three times she started to enter the restaurant, but each time she hesitated at the door, then withdrew.

  Finally, with an air of resolution, she ducked under the braided rope curtain that covered the top part of the sliding doors and called out in a low voice, “Excuse me, but do you by any chance have a person by the name of Tsunetaro Nomura living here?”

  The woman was quite well dressed. She wore a black kimono, and a black shawl was draped around her head and shoulders, even though it was a bit early in the autumn to be wearing such a dark color. When she raised her arms to push aside the rope curtain, it could be seen through the openings in her kimono sleeves that both her arms were wrapped in white surgical bandages from below the elbow to the wrist.

  “Tsunetaro? He’s here, all right,” the owner of the restaurant answered casually. She was busily wiping the tables with a damp cloth, although the place had no customers at all. “He’s been away for the past ten days or so, but he finally came back last night. He said he was making some house calls, or something.” The proprietor lowered her voice confidentially. “Did you want to have something done, too?”

  Surely there was only one reason why a woman would come alone to call on a tattoo artist. The restaurant owner prided herself on being a good judge of character, and of appearances, and she could tell from her costume and bearing that this woman didn’t live in the straight world. The bandages, she was sure, must be covering a multitude of tattoos.

  “No,” the stranger replied coolly, “I just came to talk to him about something.”

  “Well… he’s in the back right now, so please come in.”

  “I’m sorry to trouble you, but could you kindly ask him to come out here?”

  What a strange request, thought the landlady, but she asked politely, “And what is your name, please?”

  “That’s not important. If he sees me he’ll understand right away.”

  The landlady found the woman’s behavior rather odd, but since it was getting close to the hour when her restaurant would suddenly be mobbed with customers, her mind was on other things. She called his name into the back of the shop, and Tsunetaro appeared.

  “A female visitor? For me?” he asked. With an air of agitation, he slipped on his geta and rushed outside. Standing near the alley, Tsunetaro had a brief whispered conversation with the mysterious woman in black. Then, his face gone suddenly pale, he hurried back into the building and went straight to his own room.

  A few minutes later he emerged again, and the landlady noticed that he had changed into the khaki-colored uniform of a demobilized soldier. “Are you going out again?” she asked.

  “Mmm-hmm,” he said distractedly.

  “Are you going to make a house call?” Even as she asked that question, she realized that he wasn’t carrying any of his tattooing tools. “Oh, I see,” she said coquettishly, “you’re going out to have a good time.”

  “Don’t
be ridiculous,” Tsunetaro said sharply. He looked suddenly as if he might be about to cry. “It isn’t something frivolous like that. This is really a terrible world, you know that? I mean first we got our asses kicked in the war, and even though I was happy to come back to Japan in one piece, things have turned out pretty miserably since then. You know the old Confucian saying, the one about divided loyalties? Well, I’m living the truth of that right now, and it makes it difficult to try to do the right thing. Whoever invented the term ukiyo—floating world— knew what he was talking about. It’s like they say: Life is hell.”

  On the shelf above the counter was a row of whiskey bottles, each bearing the name of a customer. Tsunetaro reached up and took down a bottle of Castory whiskey with his name on it, poured a shot into a small glass, and drained it in one gulp. Then, without saying another word, he went outside and walked away with the woman in black, so close that their shoulders were almost touching.

  38

  Later that same night, Daiyu Matsushita returned home from work to find his younger brother grinning from ear to ear. This was a surprise, since Kenzo had been downcast for the past week and a half.

  “You’re looking absurdly cheerful, for a change,” Daiyu said. “Did you find a wallet full of cash on the way home, or what?”

  “Actually,” Kenzo said, smiling even more broadly, “something rather good seems to have happened.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Unfortunately, it’s a secret, and I’ve sworn on my honor not to reveal it.”

  “So, what? Did the daughter of a millionaire fall in love with you or something?”

  “Hardly! Who would fall in love with a bum like me?” The brothers looked at each other and laughed out loud. After a moment Kenzo said with a suddenly serious face, “By the way, whatever happened with Usui?”

  “Oh, yeah, speaking of bums. Well, we just finished the preliminary investigation.” Daiyu proceeded to summarize the interrogation of Ryokichi Usui.

  “So that’s his story,” Kenzo said when his brother paused.

  “Kenzo, tell me honestly, what do you think?”

  “Well, on the surface at least, Usui’s story seems to hold together. He sounds like a nasty piece of work, and I’m sure he wouldn’t hesitate to stab someone to death or strangle somebody with a kimono sash. I don’t think he would be capable of anything much more sophisticated than that, though I certainly don’t see him pulling a stunt like dismembering a body and then leaving parts of it locked in a room.”

  “That’s exactly the same conclusion I came to. But the really maddening thing is that Usui was our prime suspect. Now that we’ve pretty much eliminated him, we don’t have a clue who the murderer really is.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Well, Takezo Mogami is dead, and there isn’t a shred of hard evidence that he killed Kinue Nomura. Hisashi Mogami has a perfect alibi from nine o’clock on Gifu Inazawa was seen leaving the house empty-handed, so he couldn’t have made off with the torso. The most suspicious person would seem to be Professor Hayakawa, because we know he didn’t get home until just before midnight. However, no one left the Nomura house between nine and twelve. Damn. Oh well, at least we found out why the light was off in the bathroom. Usui switched it off.

  “There seems to be no problem with Inazawa’s statement. So the question becomes, when did the killer escape? Somehow, in the very small gap between eight-forty and nine o’clock, the murderer managed to kill someone, dismember the body, and escape with the torso, leaving the bathroom locked behind him. Even if we’re talking about some evil genius, that simply doesn’t seem possible. So let’s assume the killer was Takezo Mogami, and he was hiding somewhere in the house after killing Kinue. Then when Usui came sneaking in, Mogami grabbed the torso and made his escape while Usui was prowling around in the dark. I really don’t see any other possible explanation, do you?”

  Kenzo felt trapped. Even when confronted by Daiyu, who combined the authority of an elder brother with that of a chief of detectives, he still couldn’t persuade himself that it would be all right to break his promise to Tsunetaro. Not knowing what else to do, Kenzo gently nudged the conversation m another direction. “What about the prostitute who was seen in Yurakucho? Who on earth could she be?” he asked.

  “Well, the only thing we know for sure is that she wasn’t Kinue,” his brother replied, exhaling a smoke ring shaped like a hyotan gourd.

  “So what does that mean?”

  “Oh, I see, you’re trying to drag Kinue’s dead sister into the picture again. Even if she managed by some miracle to survive the A-bomb, my instinct tells me she isn’t involved in this case.”

  “Then who was the mystery woman? What about the photographic plate with a picture of the Tsunedahime tattoos on it, and the pictures in the envelope Kinue sent to me before she died? They must have some significance.”

  “What on earth are you getting at? Surely you aren’t going to tell me that the two tattoos, Orochimaru and Tsunedahime, got into some sort of a supernatural battle, and the slug melted the snake?”

  “No, I’m not saying anything of the sort. Never mind. It’s just that I have a feeling everything will be revealed in the next few days.”

  “Hey, hey, hey! Don’t talk so big! What are you trying to do, show me up in my own line of work? Seriously, though, do you have some sort of clue, or is it just a hunch?”

  “A little of both,” Kenzo said cagily.

  “What is it? Tell me!” His brother leaned forward across the table with an intense expression on his face. His cigarette hung from his lower hp, momentarily forgotten.

  “It’s that… you know.” Laughing as if it had all been a joke, Kenzo pointed at the framed calligraphy that was hanging from the lintel joist. The characters had been written by the prewar home minister, Kenzo Adachi, in a facile, fluent hand.

  Kyakka Shoko: “The answer is right before your eyes.”

  39

  Kenzo woke up very early the next morning in a highly optimistic mood. He felt certain that the Tattoo Murder Case would be solved in the next day or so, and he would be a hero. As he lay in bed savoring this feeling of anticipation and well-being, Kenzo heard his brother shouting on the telephone downstairs.

  “Hey, what is this, some kind of a lousy joke? You’re telling me that the victim is a naked male, and his skin has been peeled off? This is too much.” Daiyu put his hand over the receiver and let out a groan. Then, snapping into superefficient detective-chief-inspector style, he said, “Right, I’m on my way.” As usual, he slammed the telephone down without saying good-bye.

  “What’s going on?” Kenzo stood in the hall, sleepily rubbing his eyes.

  “Mmm,” said his brother distractedly, as he lit his first cigarette of the day. “They’ve just found the body of a man in a burnt-out building in Yoyogi. The weird thing is that the skin has been removed from his torso, and his arms, and his thighs.”

  “Do you think that could be because he was tattooed all over?” Kenzo asked, struggling to remain calm. After all, Tokyo was full of tattooed men.

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Daiyu said. “Maybe this could have something to do with the other case. Do you want to come along?” His tone was oddly urgent.

  Kenzo’s mind was in turmoil, but he nodded his assent. The two brothers rushed back to their respective rooms and quickly jumped into their street clothes, then set off for Yoyogi.

  The place where the body had been found was a ten-minute walk from Yoyogi Station. After leaving the main street and walking for five minutes or so along a narrow alley, the brothers came to the crime scene. It was a half-collapsed building of red brick, set back fifteen or sixteen feet from the curb. The concrete walls made it difficult to see inside, but some urchins playing hide-and-seek had stumbled upon the body by the first light of morning. If not for the children, the crime might have gone undiscovered for weeks.

  The naked corpse was lying face down on the dirt floor inside the ruined buil
ding. It was wrapped in straw matting, with the head sticking out at one end. Trembling with fear and dread, Kenzo bent down to look at the face. “Oh my God,” he moaned, “it’s him!” He staggered off to the other side of the building and slumped against a wall, feeling as if he might vomit.

  “Kenzo, what’s wrong? Pull yourself together.” Daiyu Matsushita grabbed his brother by the shoulders and shook him roughly. “Kenzo!”

  Kenzo stood up straight and struggled to compose his face, but Daiyu continued to glare at him. “What’s with you, anyway? For God’s sake, you’re supposed to be a forensic doctor, not some squeamish schoolboy! Doctors aren’t supposed to fall apart at the sight of a dead body! If you’re feeling ill, why don’t you go home and get some rest?” The words sounded solicitous, but Daiyu’s tone was devastating.

  “Don’t give me that condescending bullshit!” Kenzo bellowed. All the police officers and forensics experts stopped what they were doing and looked up in surprise. “You don’t understand,” Kenzo went on in a small voice. “Something really terrible has happened here I know who this is. This man… this corpse… this is Kinue Nomura’s older brother, Tsunetaro Nomura!”

  40

  Everyone in the building gasped and stared at each other in astonishment, as if they had heard Kenzo’s words but couldn’t quite grasp the meaning. In the next instant, the chief of detectives turned on his younger brother, his face flushed with anger.