The Assassin's Touch

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “Because he was one of Lord Matsudaira’s top officials?” “Not only that,” Sano said. “His position made him a target. He headed an organization that spies on people.”

  No one was safe from the metsuke, especially in this dangerous political climate, when a man’s most innocuous words or deeds could be twisted into evidence of disloyalty to Lord Matsudaira and cause for banishment or execution.

  “If Ejima was murdered,” Sano said, “the killer may be connected to someone destroyed by a metsuke investigation.” And Sano recalled that Ejima had enjoyed his dirty job a little too much. The relish he’d taken from ruining people might have angered their relatives and friends.

  “Talk about a man with a lot of enemies,” Marume said.

  “But motive doesn’t necessarily mean murder,” Sano reminded them both. “Not when there’s so little evidence.” He resisted his hunch that Ejima had been a victim of foul play: Even samurai instinct was susceptible to influence by personal bias. “Before we go any further, we should finish interviewing all the witnesses.”

  He looked across the track, where Detective Fukida was still busy with the spectators, then up at the soldiers along the walls and in the turrets. “Even more important, we have to determine the exact cause of Ejima’s death.”

  This was something that Sano, despite all his past experience and newfound authority, couldn’t do himself. And the scope of the investigation extended far beyond the racetrack, past the men present at the scene of the death, to include Ejima’s foes as well as Lord Matsudaira’s. That could mean hundreds of potential witnesses—and suspects. Sano needed more help than Marume and Fukida could provide, from someone he could absolutely trust.

  “Send for Hirata-^an,” he told Marume. ’Tell him to meet me here right away.”

  Chapter 4

  Hirata sat behind the desk in the office that had once belonged to Sano, inside the estate where he was now master. Into the room filed ten members of the hundred-man detective corps that he’d once supervised for Sano and now commanded for himself.

  “Good evening, Sosakan-sama” the detectives chorused as they knelt and bowed to Hirata.

  “What have you to report?” Hirata asked.

  The men described their progress on various cases he’d assigned them—a theft of weapons from the Edo Castle arsenal; a search for a rebel band suspected of plotting to overthrow Lord Matsudaira. The political climate had spawned many crimes to occupy the shogun’s new Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People. As he listened, Hirata tried to ignore the pain from the deep, barely healed wound in his left thigh. He tried to never let his expression reveal his suffering. But Hirata couldn’t hide that he’d lost much weight and muscle after the injury that had almost killed him. He couldn’t deny that all the honors that had resulted from his valor in the line of duty had come with a terrible price.

  Six months ago he’d stopped an attack on Sano and saved Sano’s life. The cut from die attacker’s sword, meant for Sano, had gashed Hirata’s leg so badly he’d thought his death was certain. As blood poured from him and he lost consciousness, he thought he’d performed the ultimate act of samurai loyalty—sacrificing himself for his master.

  Three days later Hirata had awakened, and learned that Lord Matsudaira had defeated Yanagisawa, Sano was the new chamberlain, and he himself was a hero. The shogun had declared that if Hirata lived, he would be promoted to Sano’s former post. Hirata had been thrilled by the honor, and amazed that he—a onetime police patrol officer—had ascended to such a high rank. But for two long months, the pain had been so bad that the doctors gave him large doses of opium, which kept him in a drowsy daze. Fever sickened and weakened Hirata. Once robust and active, he was an invalid until the New Year, when the evil spirits of disease finally left him, and he began to recover. Everyone said his cure was a miracle, but Hirata wasn’t so sure.

  Now the detectives finished their reports. Hirata gave his orders: “Find out if any of the missing weapons have turned up on the market. Put a secret watch on the teahouse where the rebels have friends.”

  The detectives bowed and departed. Hirata clenched his teeth against the pain. Today he would gladly trade his new post for the good health he’d once taken for granted. He was ashamed because he did little besides hear reports and give orders. Sano had done much more. Hirata knew that what he told the detectives to do, they probably could think of themselves, although they always pretended they needed his guidance. Loyal friends, they never showed that they knew he depended on them for everything; they acted as though he was in charge. They did the investigations he’d once done— because he no longer could.

  Walking or riding a horse was so uncomfortable that Hirata seldom went outside the estate. A brief martial arts practice each day exhausted him. Even sitting for long taxed his energy. At age twenty-eight, he was as feeble as an old man.

  His wife Midori entered the room. Young, plump, and pretty, she smiled at him, but her face had the worried look she’d worn ever since his injury. She said, “Taeko wants her papa. Can you come and see her?”

  “Of course.”

  Hirata rose laboriously. He leaned on his wife as they walked down the corridor. She was the only person he allowed to see his weakness. She loved him too much to think less of him. He loved her for her loyal, tender care. That his injury had brought them closer together was the only thing for which he was truly glad. He didn’t regret that he’d ruined himself to save Sano; he would again, if need be. But as much as he appreciated the honor and acclaim, he sometimes wondered if it would have been better if he hadn’t lived. Death would have gotten him all the glory and none of the suffering.

  In the nursery, his daughter Taeko sat on the floor, dressed in a red kimono, surrounded by toys and attended by a nursemaid. Eleven months old, she had round, bright black eyes and downy black hair. She cooed and bounced when she saw Hirata. His spirits lifted.

  “Come to Papa,” he said, kneeling down to hug her.

  Taeko flung herself into his arms. She landed hard on his bad thigh. Hirata yelled in pain. He shoved Taeko off him. Confused and hurt, she began to cry. Hirata hobbled into the corridor and lay gasping on the floor. He listened while Midori and the nursemaid soothed Taeko. When she’d quieted, Midori came to him.

  “Are you all right?” Midori said anxiously.

  “No! I’m not all right! What kind of man can’t even hold his own child?” Hirata spoke with the frustration and self-pity that he usually tried not to show or feel: “If Taeko can hurt me so badly, then what if I should have to fight a criminal who’s much bigger and stronger? I would be cut down like a blade of grass!”

  Midori knelt beside him. “Please don’t get upset,” she said. “Don’t think about fighting yet.” Her voice quaked with fear because she’d almost lost him once and she didn’t want him in danger again. She took his hand. “You must be tired. Come to bed and take a nap. I’ll bring your sleeping potion.”

  “No,” Hirata said, although he craved the opium that brought blessed relief from the pain. He resisted using the drug because it stupefied his mind, the only part of him not damaged.

  “It’s only been a short time since you were injured,” Midori said. “Every day you’re getting stronger—”

  “Not strong enough,” Hirata said bitterly.

  “You’ll soon be able to fight as well as ever,” Midori persisted.

  “Will I?” Despair filled Hirata.

  Midori hung her head; she couldn’t promise that he would ever be himself again. The doctors had told them he should be satisfied just to be alive. But she said sensibly, “There’s no need for you to fight, anyway.”

  Hirata exhaled. If he couldn’t fight, how could he call himself a samurai? “The detectives can do whatever needs to be done,” Midori said, “until—”

  “Until something important comes up that they can’t handle by themselves and I can’t manage from home,” Hirata said. “Then what?”

  He
heard someone call, “Sosakan-sama” He sat up as Detective Arai, his chief retainer, came toward him along the passage.

  “There’s a message from the chamberlain,” Arai said. “He requires your assistance on an urgent matter. He wants you to meet him at the Edo Castle racetrack immediately.”

  Honor, duty, and friendship propelled Hirata to the racetrack. It wasn’t far from his estate, but by the time he arrived with two detectives and they dismounted from their horses inside the gate, his wounded leg ached even worse than usual. He looked across the compound and saw Sano at the opposite end, talking to a group of officials. Hirata drew a deep breath. His infirmity magnified the distance between him and Sano tenfold. He gathered his strength.

  “Come on,” he told Detectives Arai and Inoue.

  As they began the long walk, Detective Arai spoke in a quiet, offhand voice, “We could ride.” His men always tried to make things easy for him. “No,” Hirata said.

  This was one of his rare public appearances. Most of his colleagues hadn’t seen him since he’d been injured, and he had to demonstrate that he’d made a full recovery. To show any weakness would diminish his status. While he labored toward Sano, the officials scattered around the track bowed to him, and he nodded in acknowledgment. He feared that everyone could see how hard he was struggling not to limp. Sano, Marume, and Fukida hurried to meet Hirata and his detectives.

  “Honorable Chamberlain,” Hirata said, trying not to gasp for breath.

  “Sosakan-sama” said Sano.

  They exchanged bows; their men, once comrades in the detective corps, greeted one another. Hirata was glad to see Sano because he rarely did; perhaps a month had passed since they’d last met. Although Hirata was technically still Sano’s chief retainer, their new duties kept them apart. Now, a stiff formality had replaced the camaraderie they’d once shared. Relations between them had been awkward since Hi-rata’s injury.

  Sano signaled their men to move off and allow them some privacy. “I hope all is well with you?” Sano said. Concern sobered his gaze as he regarded Hirata.

  Perhaps the fact that Hirata had saved Sano’s life should have brought them closer together, but it had had the opposite effect. That Hirata had done only what a samurai owed his master didn’t exempt Sano from guilt because he was whole and Hirata maimed. Sano’s guilt and gratitude, and Hirata’s loss, filled a wide gulf between them.

  “All is very well with me.” Hirata stood as straight as he could; he hoped Sano wouldn’t read his pain etched on his face. He didn’t want Sano to feel worse; for Sano to suffer distressed Hirata deeply. “And you?”

  “Never better,” Sano said.

  Hirata noticed that Sano had lost the anxious, careworn air that had marked him in his early days as chamberlain. Indeed, he looked like himself in the old days when he and Hirata had first worked together. But Hirata didn’t want to think about those days.

  “What happened?” Hirata said, gesturing around the track.

  “Ejima Senzaemon, chief of the metsuke, died during a race,” Sano said. “Lord Matsudaira suspects foul play and has asked me to investigate.” He described his meeting with Lord Matsudaira, and the preliminary inquiries he’d conducted.

  “So far it doesn’t sound as if Ejima’s death was murder,” Hirata said, interested yet skeptical. “Can it and the earlier deaths really be part of a plot against Lord Matsudaira, or is he imagining a plot in a set of coincidences?”

  “That’s what I mean to find out,” Sano said. “I called you here because I need your help.”

  Even as Hirata experienced an ardent wish to work with Sano on such an important case, he worried that it would require more strength than he had. Hirata saw Sano appraising his gaunt figure, and realized that Sano feared he was physically unable to work. Mortification sickened Hirata. He couldn’t let Sano think him weak and useless.

  “It will be an honor to serve you,” Hirata said. He would help Sano or die trying. “Where do you want me to start?”

  You can start by taking Ejima’s body to Edo Morgue,” Sano said in a low voice that the witnesses and soldiers wouldn’t overhear. “Ask Dr. Ito to examine it.”

  Once a prominent, wealthy physician, Dr. Ito had been sentenced to lifelong custodianship of Edo Morgue as punishment for conducting scientific experiments that derived from foreign lands, a crime strictly forbidden by Tokugawa law. He’d helped Sano on past investigations.

  “Have him find out the exact cause of death,” Sano clarified. “That’s key to establishing whether it was murder.”

  “I’ll go right away,” Hirata said.

  He sounded as eager as ever to do Sano’s bidding. But Sano saw the pain and worry he tried to hide, and sensed him wondering if he could withstand the journey to Edo Morgue, all the way on the other side of town. Sano, who hadn’t seen Hirata in a while, had been dismayed to observe how fragile he still was. Sano didn’t want Hirata taxing his health or getting hurt again for Sano’s sake. But although Sano would rather go to Edo Morgue himself, it was too big a risk: Should the chamberlain of Japan be caught participating in the forbidden science of examining a corpse, he would fall much farther than Dr. Ito had. Nor could Sano take back his request and shame Hirata. He needed Hirata as much as Hirata apparently needed to prove himself capable of the duty that the bond between samurai and master required.

  “Bring the results of Dr. Ito’s examination to me as soon as possible,” Sano said. “If I’ve finished questioning witnesses by then, I’ll be at my estate.” He couldn’t let the government collapse while he investigated a murder that might not be murder. “Then we’ll report to Lord Matsudaira. No doubt he’s anxious for news.”

  Chapter 5

  One wing of the Court of Justice contained rooms where the magistrate and his staff conferred with citizens seeking to resolve disputes that involved money, property, or social obligations. Here Magistrate Ueda had sent Yugao. As Reiko walked down the passage, she heard raucous male laughter from an open door. She peered inside.

  The room was a cell enclosed by sliding paper-and-lattice walls, furnished with a tatamifloor and a low table. Yugao stood between the two guards that Reiko liked the least in her father’s retinue. One, a thickset man with squinty eyes, pawed Yugao’s cheek. The other, athletic and arrogant, groped under the skirt of her hemp robe. Yugao scrambled away, but the men caught her. They yanked at her robe, squeezed her buttocks and breasts. She strained at the shackles that bound her hands while she kicked her bare feet at the men. They only laughed more uproariously. Her face was tense with helpless anger.

  “Stop that!” Reiko exclaimed. Bursting through the door, she ordered them, “Leave her alone!”

  They paused, annoyed at the interruption. Their faces showed dismay as they recognized their master’s daughter.

  ’The magistrate will be displeased to hear that you’ve been taking advantage of a helpless woman in his house,” Reiko said, her voice sharp with ire. “Get out!”

  The guards slunk off. Reiko shut the door and turned to Yugao. The woman slouched, her face concealed behind her tousled hair, her robe hanging off her shoulder. Pity filled Reiko.

  “Here, let me fix your clothes,” she said. As she touched Yugao, the woman flinched. She tossed back her hair and stared at Reiko. “Who are you?”

  Reiko had expected Yugao to be thankful for her protection from the guards, but Yugao was wary, hostile. Seeing her at close view for the first time, Reiko noticed that her complexion was ashen from fatigue and malnourishment, her flinty eyes shadowed underneath, her lips chapped. Harsh treatment by the jailers had surely taught her to be leery toward everyone. Although she was accused and perhaps guilty of a serious crime, Reiko felt her sympathy toward Yugao increase.

  “I’m the magistrate’s daughter,” Reiko said. “My name is Reiko.”

  A long gaze of mutual curiosity passed between them. Reiko watched Yugao appraise her tangerine-colored silk kimono printed with a willow tree pattern, her upswept coiffure, he
r carefully applied white makeup and red lip rouge, her teeth blackened according to fashionable custom for married women of her class. Meanwhile, Reiko perceived Yugao’s jailhouse stink of urine, oily hair, and unwashed body, and saw resentment and envy in Yugao’s eyes. They looked at each other as though across a sea, the highborn lady on one shore, the outcast on the opposite.

  “What do you want?” Yugao said.

  Her rude tone surprised Reiko. Maybe the woman had never been taught good manners. Reiko wondered what station in society Yugao had originated from and what she’d done to become a hinin, but it didn’t seem a good time to ask.

  “I want to talk to you, if I may,” Reiko said.

  Suspicion hooded Yugao’s gaze. “About what?”

  “About the murder of your family,” Reiko said.

  “Why?”

  “The magistrate is having trouble deciding whether to convict you,” Reiko said. “That’s why he postponed his verdict. He’s asked me to investigate the murders and find out if you’re guilty or innocent.”

  Yugao wrinkled her brow, clearly perplexed by the situation. “I said I did it. Isn’t that enough?”

  “He doesn’t think so,” Reiko said, “and neither do I.”

  “Why not?”

  This conversation reminded Reiko of the time when Masahiro had stepped on a thistle and she’d had to pull the spines from his bare foot. “One reason is that we need to know why your parents and sister were killed,” Reiko said. “You didn’t say.”

  “But...” Yugao shook her head in confusion. “But I was arrested.”

  Reiko could sense her thinking that her arrest should have guaranteed a conviction, as everyone knew it would have under ordinary circumstances. “Just because you were caught at the scene of the crime doesn’t prove you did it,” Reiko explained.

  “So what?” Anger tinged Yugao’s query.

  “That’s another reason my father wants me to investigate the crime.” Reiko was increasingly puzzled by the woman’s attitude. “Why were you so eager to confess? Why do you want us to believe you killed your family?”