“That’s all true,” said Kyosuke, “and it was all part of the setup she planned with Mogami. Oh, by the way, I assume you’ve realized by now that the ‘mystery fingerprints’ belonged to Kinue herself. The prints the police ascribed to Kinue, thinking she was the victim, actually belonged to Tamae. The ever-meticulous Mogami had taken the time to plant Tamae’s fingerprints at the scene, probably by using one of her severed hands.” Kenzo shivered involuntarily at that ghoulish image as Kyosuke began to sketch the next chapter of the story.
When Mogami was released from jail, he was consumed with worry about what had happened overnight. Disguising his voice, he placed a call to Kinue’s house, hoping to kill two birds with one stone. That is, he wanted to check whether things were going as planned, and also to introduce a “mystery man” into the equation. He did get Kenzo wondering: Who is this guy who knows Kinue so well that he addresses her by her first name?
Once the police started wandering down that kind of diversionary side street, the already complicated case became increasingly convoluted and confused, and they ended up in a quagmire.
After Mogami had confirmed that Kenzo was at the crime scene, he was able to relax a bit. Later, he was happy to receive a call from the wife of Professor Hayakawa, his aunt, because that provided an ideal pretext for going over to Kenzo’s house to find out what he knew about the murder and its aftermath. During that visit, Hisashi managed to underscore his own alibi and put on a show of concern for his missing brother and his uncle, Professor Hayakawa. He was also able to ferret out details of the investigation from Kenzo. Still, when he heard about the bizarre presence of a slug in the bathroom, Hisashi couldn’t help shuddering at the symbolism, since the slug tattoo, Tsunedahime, was associated with his murder victim, Tamae Nomura. In his nervous state, he may have wondered whether that live slug might be her ghost, come back to haunt him. The fact that Tamae didn’t actually have the slug tattoo didn’t make any difference, because at that point nearly everyone believed that she did.
Kyosuke looked from Kenzo to Daiyu, as if to make sure he had their Attention. Both brothers were listening raptly, leaning forward slightly with hands gripping the edge of the table. Apparently satisfied, Kyosuke continued his monologue.
“No doubt the startling appearance of that slug was just Fate’s way of putting the finishing touch on this most artistic of crimes: what painters call ‘adding the eyes to the dragon.’ It became an uncanny symbol for the case, as did the riddle, ‘The slug dissolves the snake.…’ That magical formula turned out to be eerily accurate. Another curious thing is that Tamae—the elusive Tamae, also known as Sumiyo Hayashi—led a rather sluglike existence, almost as if she had the power to appear and disappear at will.” Kyosuke paused, dipped a piece of mackerel sushi in some soy sauce, chewed reflectively for a moment, ate a couple of slices of pickled ginger, took a gulp of strong green tea, and resumed his account.
“Hisashi Mogami was discreetly calculating the time when Takezo’s body would be found. If it was discovered too soon, they would find traces of the anaesthetic, but too long a lapse might have made it harder to verify Hisashi’s alibi and could also have interfered with Hisashi’s inheritance. So he chose to stage that part of his play at the so-called haunted house in Mitaka, which was slated to be torn down in a few days, and both those problems were brilliantly resolved.”
Hisashi’s carefully constructed plan yielded excellent results, from his point of view. The police quickly jumped to the conclusion that Takezo had killed Kinue, then turned his gun on himself. However, since they had no actual proof of that, they were obliged to follow every other lead, as well. In the meantime, Takezo’s huge fortune fell into Hisashi’s hands, and the double murderer must have been laughing—quite literally—all the way to the bank. Everything seemed to be going smoothly when an unexpected person appeared on the scene: Kinue’s brother Tsunetaro, repatriated from the southern front, surfaced in Shibuya, practicing his outlawed trade.
Kyosuke paused. “Tsunetaro might eventually have become involved in the case by some other means,” he said, “but we have to face the unpleasant fact that his involvement, if not his death, was hastened by Kenzo’s visit to his tattoo studio.”
Kenzo, who was already feeling as remorseful as a man can feel, hung his head. Kyosuke shot him a sympathetic glance, then proceeded with his conjecture.
Tsunetaro learned the details of the case from Kenzo, and when he saw the photographs that Kinue had given to Kenzo, he immediately understood what had happened. Tsunetaro, of all people, would have been well aware that Tamae didn’t have the Tsunedahime tattoo. He may even have been the artist who drew that temporary tattoo on his youngest sister as an adolescent prank. Realizing right away that something suspicious was going on, Tsunetaro began spying on Mogami. Perhaps he saw Kinue sneaking in and out of the laboratory, but somehow he managed to track her down. By following Kinue, Tsunetaro was able to confirm his horrible suspicion that his other sister, Tamae, had been the actual victim. He must have been shocked and horrified. Without considering the possible consequences, he made the tragic decision that cost him his life.
If Kinue had turned herself in to the police at that point, she would probably have been sentenced to life imprisonment rather than hanging, and she might eventually have been released on parole. That was Tsunetaro’s last brotherly gesture, trying to talk his sister into doing the right thing. He evidendy gave a deadline of three days. After that, he told her, he would have no choice but to go to the police himself.
When Kinue told Hisashi Mogami about Tsunetaro’s ultimatum, he must have shuddered at this unexpected blow from Fate. Tsunetaro had been listed as missing in action, which for a soldier usually meant he had been killed. It was a surprise, and a major inconvenience, to have Jiraiya suddenly appear on the scene. Mogami probably spent some sleepless nights trying to figure out what to do. He didn’t have the luxury of time.
“From Mogami’s morally bankrupt point of view,” Kyosuke concluded, “he had no choice but to commit a third murder in order to cover up the first two.”
Kenzo let out a sorrowful sigh and shook his head. “If only I had told my brother what was going on, it never would have turned out this way.”
“Well, there’s nothing you can do about it now,” Kyosuke said. “It’s easy to have the wisdom of the gods after the fact. As Goethe says in Faust, all we can do as humans is to bumble along as best we can.” Giving Kenzo another reassuring glance, Kyosuke resumed his dissertation.
“Because the third murder was unanticipated, Hisashi didn’t have time to concoct a meticulous plan as he did with the first two. However, he did see the chance to implicate Professor Hayakawa by removing the tattooed skin and leaving the body to be discovered. By rushing to Yokohama by car, he somehow managed to provide himself with a serviceable alibi. He then rushed back to Shibuya at top speed, and he used Kinue to lure Tsunetaro out. Mogami probably told her to say something like ‘I’m going to turn myself in to the police now, so will you please come with me?” However, this plan required Kinue to show herself in public. Mogami decided to have her wrap her forearms in bandages in order to suggest that she was Tamae, covering up her tattooed arms. Kinue probably told her brother that she needed to stop off at the room where she was living, and there she must have given Tsunetaro a drink laced with cyanide. Mogami showed up then and put the dead body in the car. He drove it to the warehouse in Yoyogi, stripped off the tattoos, and left the corpse behind. Then he sped back to Yokohama, making it in time so that his alibi would stand up.”
“That alibi was by no means perfect,” Kyosuke concluded, “but luckily for Mogami, Professor Hayakawa’s alibi wasn’t exactly a thing of beauty, either. And thus it was that the curse was fulfilled, and the snake ate the frog. Or in this case, the toad.” Orochimaru, the sorcerer with the giant serpent familiar. And Jiraiya, the rival sorcerer with his enormous toad.
The amateur detective paused and surveyed the selection of fish-and-ric
e tidbits that remained on the platters. While he had been explaining the sinister secrets of the killers, Kenzo and Daiyu had made short work of the sushi spread. Kyosuke finally settled on an oblong piece of vinegared rice topped with sea urchin. He washed this exotic morsel down with a sip of tea, and then he began to speak again.
“Chief Matsushita, I hate to say this, but you had your chances to solve this case along the way. For example, when you figured out that the running water and the electric light showed that the murderer didn’t really intend to hide the body, that was a truly splendid deduction. But if you had taken it one step further and realized that in fact the killer’s aim was to call attention to the body, this case might have been solved then and there. The same thing is true of those bandages. It was because Kinue had no tattoos below her elbows that she had to wrap her lower arms in bandages, not the other way around. The trick of making something appear to be hidden when the real intention is to call attention to it was used two or three times in this case. It’s almost painfully obvious, in retrospect.” Kyosuke shook his head and gazed reflectively into his mug of tea before taking another small sip.
“That’s easy for you to say, Kyosuke, you’re a genius. But there’s no hope for an ordinary guy like me. If you hadn’t come along, I don’t know if I would ever have solved this case.” So saying, Daiyu Matsushita cracked his first smile of the day. “Seriously, that was really something the way you went after Kyoko Kawabata yesterday.” The chief picked up his chopsticks and held them poised above two equally enticing morsels of seaweed-wrapped nori-maki, trying to decide which to devour first.
“I just hate to see anyone get away with lying like that,” Kyosuke said with a wry smile. “But think about it. Of all the people who were questioned about the day of the first murder, the only one who came up with a foolproof, documented alibi for the time of the crime was Hisashi Mogami. Aside from him, I noticed right away that everyone else had the usual vague, sloppy explanations. Natural human alibis, in other words. That much was deduction, but I was bluffing the rest of the way. I just got lucky with a few of my guesses.”
Kenzo was only half-listening, for he was thinking about the Tsunedahime photograph. What a terrible role that harmless-looking photo had played! First it was used to create the impression that Tamae’s dead body belonged to Kinue, then it became the indirect agent of Tsunetaro’s destruction. Just one small rectangle of paper, light and shadow, ink on skin.…
The three men fell silent as they finished up the last of the sushi and drained their mugs of tea. “Kyosuke, I really don’t know how to express my gratitude,” said Daiyu Matsushita in his hearty way. “Thanks to you, all the facts of this strange and baffling case have become clear at last. But the one thing I still don’t understand is why Kinue would have wanted to be Mogami’s accomplice, to the point where she was willing to kill her own brother and sister and let herself appear to have been murdered.”
“That perplexed me, as well.” Kyosuke gave a rueful smile, but his tone was serious. “A single person like me really doesn’t have the proper qualifications to speculate about the delicate mysteries of love, or the mystical abyss of sexuality. But I think it’s obvious that Kinue was deeply in love with Hisashi Mogami. For all her experience with men, for all her femme fatale appeal, I think it was probably the first time that she met a man she couldn’t bear to live without. Her passionate attachment to that man was really a scary thing, and I believe it was exacerbated by the criminal blood that was flowing in her veins, the outlaw legacy of her adulterous mother. Oh yes, Kinue had motivation galore in allowing Hisashi to stage her own phony death to bind him to her, to get a share of Takezo’s huge fortune, and to gain freedom for both of them. If they were accomplices in crime, there was no way he could discard her. Like that giant serpent on her back, she had him entangled in her coils.”
“And Mogami? What do you make of him?”
“Whatever you may think of his character, you have to feel a grudging admiration for the sort of mind that could conceive and carry out a sophisticated crime like this. However, somewhere along the way his genius became warped, and he took a wrong turn into the realm of pure evil. At the end, he was left without a shred of humanity.” Kyosuke’s voice was filled with emotion, and a rosy flush mantled his fair skin.
Daiyu Matsushita’s face was fairly brimming with gratitude. “Kyosuke, I can’t begin to thank you enough. With your inspired help, we were finally able to solve this baffling case, and I am deeply grateful. Tell me, how can I ever repay you?”
Kyosuke raised his pale hand in a dismissive gesture. “There’s no need for any sort of repayment,” he said. “Ever since I was a child I’ve had a strong abhorrence for the forces of evil, because of the way my… because of something that happened to someone very close to me. Come to think of it, that’s probably part of the reason why I went into the field of forensic medicine. If my humble efforts help to rid society of one evildoer, that’s reward enough for me.”
Kyosuke untangled his long legs from under the table and stood up. He extended his hand to Daiyu Matsushita, who had also gotten to his feet. The detective chief inspector’s eyes were filled with deep emotion as he took Kyosuke’s small-boned hand in both of his large ones, and gave it a long, tight squeeze.
61
Kyosuke and Kenzo left the police station together, turning up their coat collars against the chilly air. After passing under the Bridge of the Cherry-Blossom Fields, they headed down the wide pedestrian boulevard that ran alongside the Imperial Palace, with its high stone walls, medieval moat, and flocks of long-necked swans. The two men walked for a while in thoughtful silence, until Kenzo suddenly blurted out, “Kyosuke, I owe you an apology.”
“Why is that?”
“There’s something I’ve been hiding from you. It’s about that woman, Kinue Nomura. The thing is, we, um, she and I—“
“There’s no need to tell me that sort of thing now,” Kyosuke interrupted gently, holding up his hand. “The truth is, I had an inkling about that from the very beginning. Your story about receiving the photographs at the tattoo competition just seemed too unnatural. I can only imagine the sort of contrivance she must have staged in order to get the photos into your hands. You mustn’t blame yourself, though. That woman chose the road to ruin of her own free will. Your only fault was being a bit naïve and trusting, but she was a very clever and desirable woman. You were simply out of your league with someone like her.”
Kenzo shot a quick glance at Kyosuke’s face. He wasn’t sure that he liked being described as naive and trusting, as if he were some gold-toothed country bumpkin. The thing that bothered him most, though, was the realization that Kinue had merely been using him, that all her sweet words and sighs of passion had been part of a diabolical, coldblooded charade.
Kyosuke was already off on another subject. “Actually, you probably thought that my logic today was in perfect order, but there was one flaw. As a rule, the artist just sketches the portion that he’s going to be tattooing that day onto the skin. For example, if he’s going to be drawing a human figure, he might just sketch the face on a given day. So a completed design like that of Tsunedahime in the photos wouldn’t have been an under-sketch at all.”
“Well, if that’s the case, where did those photographs come from?” Just when he thought all the mysteries had been solved, Kenzo found himself confounded once again.
“The truth is, I arrived at my conclusions with the help of a certain woman. She’s the wife of a man who has some standing in society, so I can’t tell you her name. At any rate, the day after we visited Professor Hayakawa at his home in Yotsuya, I went with that woman to the house of the artist who had done her tattoo. I ended up staying there for most of the night, observing the process. I’ve never been a fan of tattoos, but I have to admit, it was absolutely mesmerizing.”
Kenzo stopped in his tracks and put his hand on Kyosuke’s sleeve. “Kyosuke, who is she, that tattooed woman?” he asked excitedly.. �
�Is it Mrs. Hayakawa?”
Kyosuke gave an eloquent shrug. “I’m afraid I’ll have to leave that to your imagination,” he said. “A matter of chivalry, you know. It was quite a remarkable evening, I must say. The tattoo artist lived in an old house with lots of small rooms, and all the walls were plastered with photographs of people with tattoos. There was one entire room devoted to pictures of Westerners with their untidy-looking sushi tattoos. After seeing that unsightly display I realized that the art tattoo is one area in which Japan can still claim to be the best in the world.”
“Wait,” Kenzo said. “Did you find out why they call them sushi tattoos?”
“I gather it’s because they’re scattered about on the skin like pieces of sushi, with no artistic continuity or coherence. At any rate,” Kyosuke said, “there was a big book of tattoo sketches, but they weren’t what I expected at all. I was disappointed at first. Then I came across something else in that album, an entirely unexpected harvest. It was a photograph that depicted dozens of tattooed men and woman, naked at a public bathhouse. I think it must have been a meeting of the Tattoo Society. Among those people, there was an eleven- or twelve-year-old child. The child had an adorable face, even with his eyes closed against the flashbulb, and on both his arms and over his chest, there were delicately shaded tattoos in a chrysanthemum pattern. Of course, there’s no way an elementary-school student would have such a splendid tattoo. His parents or someone must have had it drawn onto his skin for the occasion, just for fun. But no matter how hard I scrutinized that photograph, I couldn’t see any difference between that child’s fake tattoo and the real ones on the adults.”
“I see,” said Kenzo, stopping in his tracks. A passing U.S. Army truck honked its air-horn and a cloud of gray doves that had been roosting in a nearby tree suddenly flew up into the air with a communal squawk and a great flapping of wings.
Tattoo Murder Case Page 32