Togakushi Legend Murders (Tuttle Classics)

by Yasuo Uchida

  "Yeah, that's about it."

  "Are you going to stand for it?"

  "Mhm. Not much I can do about it. It's not just me, of course. A couple of people above me tried to protect you, but there's just no way. We're replacing you, effective immediately, until the situation changes."

  "Were you told why he wants me replaced?"

  "Why he..." Miyazaki stopped, and Takemura could tell he was every bit as enraged as himself.

  "What do you mean, 'until the situation changes'? What kind of change are you waiting for?"

  "Don't put me on the spot like that. Let's just say, until there's some new development in the investigation."

  "Like another murder?"

  "We don't need that!" joked Miyazaki, smiling. He had been afraid Takemura would put up more resistance.

  "But it isn't normal to replace the officer in charge of a case when not even two months have passed. What are you going to tell the press?"

  "That you're sick. That's only for the press, though. As far as I'm concerned, you're working. I guess a week's sick leave should do, and I promise nobody will ask how you spend it." Miyazaki smiled, then added, "For instance, you could go sightseeing in Tokyo, or you could go to recuperate in Togakushi."

  Miyazaki was trying to make the best of an unavoidable situation, and perhaps he was succeeding, but Takemura could not accept it, and was badly offended.

  Political meddling might be common enough in cases of graft, but in a murder case it was extremely rare. Why had Shishido suspected Tachibana strongly enough to go so far? Takemura could not help but believe that therein must lie the key to the mystery. Exactly who was Tomohiro Tachibana? Takemura was finally beset by doubts. On the surface, he appeared to be just a timid college professor, but could it be that he held some power to rock the political and financial worlds? Takemura was filled with a new interest in Tachibana.

  * * *

  Getting off the bus at the top of the steep slope which effectively split the Hoko Shrine village in two, Takemura entered the gift shop right by the bus stop. The shop was simple, but the woman tending it seemed refined. She welcomed him with a pleasant smile.

  "Mind if I ask you something?" he said, showing her his badge.

  Her expression immediately turned tense. "Yes?"

  "Would there be anyone in the neighborhood old enough to remember things here during the war?"

  "You mean, the Pacific war?" she asked Takemura dubiously.

  "That's right. The Pacific war. Before I was born."

  "Same here. My mother might be able to tell you a few things, but I'm afraid she's out at the moment. You could talk to Grandma Kusumoto. She's lived here all her life."

  "Oh, that's great. Can you direct me to her house?"

  "Right over there," she said, pointing to a building on a slight rise across the road. "The Kusumoto Inn."

  Takemura looked over and saw the sign. Thanking her, he quickly crossed the road. In the open space in front of the inn were parked its microbus and three cars probably belonging to guests. Just as he was about to push the doorbell beside the entrance, four boys of college age emerged. One of them turned and shouted inside that there was someone at the door. The boys went on, and shortly after, a woman in her middle or late forties came to the door. Figuring she could not be Grandma Kusumoto, he showed her his badge and asked for the grandmother of the house. Asking him to wait, the woman hurried back inside. After some time, she returned, practically dragging along a reluctant old woman.

  "I'm Takemura, prefectural police," he said, automatically raising his voice, because the woman was so old. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but I hear you're familiar with things around here during the war, and I wonder if you'd mind my asking you a few questions?"

  "Lower your voice, young man. My ears are fine," she said, not in the least amused.

  "Excuse me, but I wonder if I may ask your name?" said Takemura, scratching his head.

  "My name is Haru, Haru Kusumoto," she said, and peered at the page in his notebook as he wrote it down. "No, no, I don't write it like that!" She corrected him. "Okay, so what do you want to ask me about? I'm kind of busy, you know."

  The old woman was so snappish that Takemura decided she must have something against the police. She reminded him of Takeda's widow, which led him to wonder if perhaps she too had been a shrew whose parents had had to find a husband for her.

  "It's about something that happened a long time ago, probably during the war, I think. Did you know a man named Tachibana who was here from Tokyo?"

  "Tachibana?" Her expression changed. "You mean, Viscount Tachibana?"

  "Viscount?" It was Takemura's turn to be surprised. "Was Tachibana a viscount? Tomohiro Tachibana, a man of about sixty now?"

  "You bet he was! Of course, he was only a boy back then. They called him 'young master.' Uh, what has he done?"

  "Not a thing. But there seems to have been some sort of connection between him and a recent murder victim, and we've been going around talking to people, trying to find out about it."

  "Well, this is no place to talk," she said, after scrutinizing his face for a while. She invited him in, leading him through a corridor to the left into an empty dining hall in the back which faced north toward the mountainside. Though the windows were closed, it was so cool as to feel almost chilly.

  As soon as they had sat down facing each other across a table, she asked with an uneasy look, "Are you talking about the Tokuoka murder?"

  "Tokuoka? Oh yes, he was known as Tokuoka around here, wasn't he? Yes, that's right. He had changed his name to Takeda, but that's who I'm talking about."

  "And what does Viscount Tachibana have to do with the murder?"

  "Nothing, but it's our job as police to investigate everybody." Seeing her relief, Takemura decided she must know something. "Anyway, may I ask you, what exactly was the connection between Professor Tachibana and Mr. Takeda— I mean, Tokuoka?"

  "The connection?" There was obviously something she hesitated to say.

  "Were they friends, for instance?"

  "Hah! Just the opposite!" said Haru violently. "Viscount Tachibana friends with a man like him? Why, that Tokuoka..." She spoke as though she could hardly bear to say the name.

  "Was there some trouble between them, then?"

  With that question, she seemed to decide that she had better be careful what she said. She clamped shut her mouth full of false teeth and looked like she was not going to say another word.

  Takemura was up against the stubbornness of age. He changed his approach. "Tokuoka seems to have known quite well who Professor Tachibana was, but the professor says he didn't know Tokuoka. Why would he lie about a thing like that?"

  "I don't expect he was lying. If he says he didn't know him, he probably didn't. To the villagers back then, the viscount was someone above the clouds. What reason would he have had to know some kid named Tokuoka?"

  "You mean, their social positions were different?"

  "That they were!"

  "So there couldn't have been any trouble because they didn't even have anything to do with each other, right?"

  With a sharp glance at Takemura, Haru Kusumoto clammed up again.

  "Okay then, would you just tell me this?" he said. "Where was Tachibana staying at the time?"

  "At the Tendohs'."

  "The Tendohs'? Where would that be?"

  "On the slope. But their house burned down in the great fire the year the war ended. It's not there anymore."

  "You mean, they moved?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you know where they moved to?"

  "No."

  This time she clammed up for good, obviously anxious for him to leave. Forcing a smile, he thanked her and got up.

  Leaving the Kusumoto Inn, Takemura returned to the gift shop to ask directions to the town hall. He was told it was ten minutes by bus back down the road toward Nagano City. The next bus not being due for a while, he strolled up the road toward the shrine.

&n
bsp; The Hoko Shrine, the most impressive of the three Togakushi Shrines, perfectly satisfies the condition that a shrine be majestic. Just a glance at the long staircase going up to it was sufficient to impress Takemura with its majesty—and to rid him of any desire whatsoever to climb up to it. Instead, he washed his hands and face with holy water from the trough at the bottom, then bowed in apology toward the top. He knew the gesture was rather silly, but the mood of the place was such that he just felt like doing it.

  * * *

  The Togakushi Town Hall was located on a stretch of tableland near the southern foot of the Togakushi Mountains, with the school, the post office, the agricultural cooperative and so on clustered around it, the area more or less forming the central part of Togakushi.

  Flustered by Takemura's badge, the young woman at the family-register window quickly called over a village official. The official sported a small mustache, which did serve to impress Takemura with the man's officialdom.

  "I'd like to ask you about the Tendoh family of the Hoko Shrine village," began Takemura.

  "Tendoh? You mean the Tendohs who were Shinto priests?"

  "Oh? Were they Shinto priests?"

  "Yes, but they aren't there anymore."

  "I know. Can you tell me where they've moved to?"

  "There's one of them still living midway between the Hoko Shrine and the Middle Shrine, at a place called the Hall of Heavenly Wisdom."

  "What? Is that woman's name Tendoh?"

  "That's right. Taki Tendoh. She's the last survivor of eight hundred years of Tendohs."

  The information was so unexpected that Takemura found himself at a loss for a moment. If that was Taki Tendoh at the Hall of Heavenly Wisdom, he might suddenly have latched on to the thread that would make the intricate connection between people he had not so far been able to connect.

  "Has she done something again?" asked the official, looking suddenly worried.

  "Oh no... well, well, so that shrine maiden was Taki Tendoh. But you say she's the last surviving member of her family? She's pretty old, isn't she?"

  "Yes, she was born December 25, 1926."

  "Really?" Takemura was once again surprised. "You must have an awfully good memory!"

  "No, but that was the first day of the Showa Emperor's reign. You see that birth date once, you aren't likely to forget it."

  "Oh really? It was? What a strange coincidence! I've heard the shrine maiden is pretty strange, too."

  "Yes, she isn't exactly ordinary," said the official, pointing to his head.

  "You mean she has some sort of mental problem?"

  "Yes. The story is that she was raped by the military police during the war, and it drove her crazy," whispered the official.

  "The military police!" Takemura practically shouted, making the official's whisper useless.

  "Sshh, not so loud."

  "Oh, I'm sorry!" Takemura apologized meekly. "But what did she have to do with the military police?"

  "The family was hiding a college student who was trying to evade the draft. Times being what they were, that must have been an awfully serious offense, which got her into a lot of trouble. But what I'm telling you is rumor, and it happened a long, long time ago. So who knows?"

  "But what happened to the rest of the family? Was nobody left?"

  "No. She was already an orphan before that. I believe her parents had died a year or so earlier. So she was living with the draft evader and an elderly couple who took care of the house, I think."

  "What happened to them?"

  "I imagine they're long dead."

  "Do you know their names?"

  "I'm afraid not. They weren't from around these parts. If you want any more information along those lines, I would suggest you talk to Haru Kusumoto, at the Hoko Shrine."

  The official's expression indicated that he assumed the interview was over. Takemura, however, did not mind. He was already thoroughly satisfied that the hidden background of the case had all just come to the surface.

  Leaving the town hall, he sat down on a bench at the bus stop and opened his notebook. This new information about Taki Tendoh at the Hall of Heavenly Wisdom enabled him to connect everyone in a line diagram, with Hirofumi Shishido, Ryuji Ishihara, and Kisuke Takeda on one side, Kayo Ishihara in the middle, and Taki Tendoh and Tomohiro Tachibana on the other side. Then, crossing out the names of the three murder victims, he was left with Hirofumi Shishido on the one side, and Taki Tendoh and Tachibana on the other. With that, it became quite clear why Shishido was so afraid of Tachibana. To him, Tachibana had to be the murderer.

  But if Takemura could still trust his own senses, Tachibana was no murderer. On the other hand, the woman at the Hall of Heavenly Wisdom could hardly have brought off such an operation alone. She would have needed an accomplice. Could she and Tachibana be in it together, after all? He shook his head and stood up. The bus for Nagano was coming down the road between the fields of buckwheat, backed by the Togakushi Mountains.

  In the open space in front of the entrance to the Koshimizu Plateau Hotel, more than thirty people were lined up in rows, those in front holding a long banner that read, "Oppose Golf Course Construction!" and the rest signs with various other slogans. Low clouds directly overhead threatened a downpour at any moment, but the demonstrators stood there silently, looking every bit as ominous as the sky.

  From his hotel window, though, Hirofumi Shishido could hardly read even the large writing on the banner, and there were not enough demonstrators to seem threatening. Nevertheless, he frowned. "Damn! I hate demonstrations like that!" he said, nodding down at the crowd through the window. "They only make me want to win even more."

  Quietly enduring Shishido's contempt, Fusao Ochi was sitting on the sofa behind him as he stood at the window. On the table in front of Ochi was a document entitled, "Please Do Not Construct the Golf Course," which Ochi had presented to Shishido and which Shishido had simply flung down on the table.

  "Blast it," said Shishido, finally turning around and sitting down deep in the chair facing Ochi, "if you wanted to ask me for something, you shouldn't have brought a mob like that along with you." He leaned his head backward over the back of the chair and glared at Ochi through the lower part of eyes open to slits.

  There were two other people in the room, two men named Suzuki and Shirai, who served as both secretaries and bodyguards to Shishido. Both were wearing the same kind of well-tailored dark-blue summer suit, and both were standing there without a word.

  "This is the first time the people of Togakushi have ever done anything like this," said Ochi. "That in itself should let you know how strongly they feel."

  "Strongly? Look, that's just a handful of people! Most of the people around here are in favor of development."

  Ochi, with the objection common among writers to using the same phrase too often, had done his best to reword his attempts at persuasion as frequently as possible. Shishido, on the other hand, well endowed with the audacity, obstinacy, and coerciveness so necessary to a politician, had no such qualms. Filled to overflowing with the kind of confidence that made him care not a fig for such a puny protest, he had used those same words over and over again.

  Having found out that the real ringleader behind the golf course proposal was Representative Hirofumi Shishido, Ochi knew he was facing a real crisis. The promoters might already have gotten the government to sell off to private ownership the national forest land Ochi had believed would present an impenetrable wall to developers. Shishido might be right that the situation had already progressed beyond the powers of any protest Ochi could organize to stop it.

  "Or perhaps you'd like to have a village referendum or something?" With Ochi's silence, Shishido became even more overbearing. "Then we could really find out which side most of the people are on, couldn't we?"

  * * *

  The pep rally for Representative Hirofumi Shishido was such a success that the banquet room of the Koshimizu Plateau Hotel was filled to overflowing with Shishido suppo
rters from Nagano City and every other city, town, and village in his constituency. There were far too many overnight guests to be accommodated in the same hotel, and the overflow turned into a boon for the neighboring hotels and inns, whose operators had been somewhat unhappy with the ill effect of such a cool summer on their business.

  Many important people were present besides Shishido, and the police had provided a fair number of guards. There was, however, no real trouble—only the tiny demonstration of the golf course protest group, and that broke up before evening. The party took place without incident and ended as scheduled, shortly before 9 P.M. Everyone left except those guests spending the night at the hotel, and quiet returned to the plateau.

  In high spirits, Shishido was relaxing in his room over a few drinks with Izawa, who had assumed control of the Takeda Firm. Kisuke Takeda's death had made it even easier for Shishido to exert power over the firm, which served as the main source of his political funds. It was true that Takeda's widow, Sachie, hated him, but she would have employed the devil himself to save the firm. And Izawa made the perfect puppet for Shishido.

  They drank until 11 P.M. ., at which time Izawa left the room along with Shishido's two secretaries.

  "Breakfast is at 8:00 tomorrow," said the secretary named Suzuki.

  Shishido nodded, shaking hands with Izawa. "You've worked hard," he said. "Things look real good. Well, good night."

  "Good night," said Izawa, bowing politely.

  Shishido closed the door, and they heard him lock it. Suzuki took the precaution of trying the knob. Then the two secretaries and Izawa said their goodnights outside the door, and went each to his own room.

  That was the last time any of them saw Hirofumi Shishido alive.

  * * *

  Just before eight the next morning, Suzuki knocked on Shishido's door. There was no answer. He tried the knob. It turned, and the door opened. The living room was empty, so he called into the bedroom, but got no answer from there either. He stood waiting for some time, thinking Shishido might be in the toilet, but he heard no sound. Timidly, he opened the doors to both the toilet and the bath, but both were vacant. Wondering if they could have missed each other, he rushed down to check the second-floor restaurant.