The Assassin's Touch

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “How may I be of service?” Dr. Ito asked.

  “Chamberlain Sano has sent a body he’d like you to examine.” Hirata explained about Chief Ejima’s death. “I’m happy to oblige. Where is it?” Detective Ogata took the lid off the night soil cart. He lifted out the bin of stinking human waste and exposed Ejima, still dressed in his clothes, armor, and helmet, wedged in the hidden compartment. Dr. Ito called two of the eta outside to empty the waste bin. He told the third to carry the corpse indoors.

  “This is my special assistant. His name is Mura,” he introduced the man.

  Mura was gray of hair and stern of face. Hirata remembered Sano telling him that Dr. Ito had befriended Mura even though he was an outcast, and Mura performed all the physical work associated with Dr. Ito’s examinations. Now Mura laid Ejima’s corpse on a table. He positioned lanterns on stands near it. As Hirata, Dr. Ito, and the detectives grouped around the table, the smoky, flickering flames lit their faces and the dead man. Hirata thought they must look as if they were gathered to perform some weird religious ritual. His leg ached, and he hoped he could remain standing for the duration.

  “Please undress the body, Mura-saw,” said Dr. Ito.

  The eta removed Ejima’s helmet. The face that appeared was almost boyish, with sleek, unlined skin, although Hirata knew that Ejima had been in his forties. In life he’d worn a habitual sly look that proclaimed secret knowledge; in death, his countenance was blank.

  “Can you figure out how he died without cutting him?” Hirata asked Dr. Ito. “I have to return him to Edo Castle. It wouldn’t do for people to guess he’d been examined.”

  “I’ll try,” Dr. Ito said.

  Everyone watched Mura work the armor and robes off the body. So far, there seemed nothing gruesome about the examination. Mura handled Ejima with gentle, respectful care. Soon Ejima lay naked, his torso marked with bloody red hoof prints and gouges where the horses had trampled on him. Dr. Ito donned white cotton mitts to protect himself from bodily excretions and spiritual pollution. He inspected Ejima’s head, turning it from side to side. His hands moved, pressing and probing, over the torso.

  “I feel broken ribs and ruptured internal organs,” he told Hirata. “But did I understand you to say that the witnesses saw Ejima collapse in the saddle?”

  “Yes,” Hirata said.

  “Then he was probably dead before he fell, and these injuries are not what killed him,” Dr. Ito said. “Mura-san, please turn the body.”

  Mura rolled Ejima onto his stomach. A dark stain had spread across his back. “The blood has pooled,” Dr. Ito explained, then carefully examined Ejima’s scalp. “There are no injuries here. The helmet protected his head.” Circling the table, he pored over the body; he told Mura to turn it again, then continued his scrutiny. He shook his head and frowned.

  “Can’t you tell what caused his death?” Disappointment filled Hirata at the thought of returning to Sano empty-handed.

  Dr. Ito suddenly halted near the right side of Ejima’s head. He stooped, his gaze intent. An expression of surprise and heightened interest came over his face.

  “What is it?” Hirata said.

  “Observe this mark.” Dr. Ito pointed to a hollow in the facial bones between the eye and the ear.

  Hirata leaned close. He saw a small, bluish, oval spot, barely visible, on Ejima’s skin. “It looks like a bruise.”

  “Correct,” said Dr. Ito. “But it’s not from the injuries at the track. This bruise is more than a day old.”

  “Then it must have nothing to do with his death,” Hirata said, feeling let down. “Besides, a little bruise like that never hurt anybody.”

  But Dr. Ito ignored Hirata’s words. “Mura-saw, please fetch me a magnifying lens.”

  The eta went to a cabinet and brought a round, flat piece of glass mounted in a black lacquer frame with a handle. Dr. Ito peered closely through it at the bruise, then gave Hirata a look. Enlarged, the bruise showed an intricate pattern of parallel lines and whorls. Hirata frowned in disbelief.

  “It’s a fingerprint,” he said. “Someone must have pressed against Ejima’s skin hard enough to bruise it. But I’ve never seen such fine detail in a bruise. What’s the meaning of this?”

  As Dr. Ito contemplated the strange bruise, wonderment shone in his eyes. “In all my thirty years as a physician, I’ve never personally seen this, but the phenomenon is described in the medical texts. It sometimes appears on victims of dim-make.”

  “The touch of death?” Hirata saw his own amazement reflected on his men’s faces. The atmosphere in the room chilled and darkened.

  “Yes,” Dr. Ito said. “The ancient martial arts technique of delivering a single tap that is so light that the victim might not even feel it but is nonetheless fatal. It was invented some four centuries ago.”

  “The force of the touch determines when death occurs,” Hirata recalled from samurai lore.

  “A harder tap kills the victim immediately,” Dr. Ito clarified. “A lighter one can delay his death for as long as two days. He can seem in perfect health, then suddenly drop dead. And there will be no sign of why, except an extremely clear fingerprint where his killer touched him.”

  “But dim-make is so rare,” said Detective Arai. “I’ve never heard of anyone using it—or killed by it—in my lifetime.”

  “Neither have I,” said Detective Inoue. “I don’t know of anyone in Edo who’s capable.”

  “Remember that anyone who is would not publicize the fact,” Dr. Ito said. “The ancients who developed the art of dim-make feared that it would be used against them, or for other evil purposes. Hence, they passed down their knowledge to only a few favored, trusted students. The techniques have been a closely guarded secret, kept by a handful of men whose possession of it is known only among themselves.”

  “Doesn’t it take an expert martial artist to master the techniques?” Hirata asked.

  “More than that,” Dr. Ito said. “The successful practitioner of dim-make must not only learn to concentrate his mental and spiritual energy and channel it through his hand into his victim; extensive knowledge of anatomy is required to target the vulnerable points on the body. The points are generally the same as those used by physicians during acupuncture. The energy pathways that convey healing impulses through the body can also convey destructive forces.”

  He touched the bruise with his gloved hand. “This bruise is located on a junction along a pathway that connects vital organs.” He continued, ’The need for anatomical knowledge explains why the practitioners study medicine as well as the mystic martial arts.”

  “Do you really think Ejima died of murder by dim-mak?” Hirata said, skeptical though intrigued.

  “In the absence of any other symptoms besides the bruise, where the killer’s energy entered the body, it is probable,” Dr. Ito said.

  Hirata expelled his breath, awed by the import of Dr. Ito’s finding. “Chamberlain Sano will be interested to hear this.”

  “We should not be too hasty to inform him,” Dr. Ito cautioned. “The bruise isn’t definitive proof. If my theory is wrong, it could misdirect Chamberlain Sano’s inquiries. Before I can pronounce the cause of death, it should be confirmed.”

  “Very well,” Hirata said. “How do we do that?”

  Dr. Ito’s expression turned grave. “I must dissect the head and look inside.”

  A serious dilemma faced Hirata. He needed to tell Sano exactly how Ejima had died and establish beyond doubt that the death had resulted from foul play, but mutilating the corpse was a big risk. Hirata and Sano both had enemies who were waiting and watching eagerly for them to make a mistake. Should anyone notice signs of an illegal autopsy on a corpse from a case under their investigation, their enemies might get wind of it. Yet Hirata couldn’t fail in his duty to Sano. Casting about for a solution to his problem, Hirata found one that he thought would work.

  “Go ahead,” he told Dr. Ito. “I’ll take the responsibility. But please do as little damage
as you can.”

  Dr. Ito nodded, then said, “Proceed, Mura-san.”

  Mura fetched a razor, a sharp, thin knife, and a steel saw. He trimmed and shaved Ejima’s hair in a narrow band from ear to ear across the back of the scalp, then made a cut that circled the head just above the eyebrows. He peeled back the flesh, exposing the moist, bloody skull, then began sawing the bone. The rasp of the saw grated loud in the silence that fell over his audience. Hirata watched, fascinated and repelled.

  In his lifetime he’d seen all kinds of gory spectacles— men’s faces cleaved in half and their bellies slit wide open during swordfights, their heads lopped off by the executioner, blood and innards spilled. Yet this methodical butchery disturbed him. It transformed a human into a piece of meat. It seemed the ultimate disrespect for life. Hirata began to understand why foreign science was outlawed, to protect society and its values, at the cost of advancing knowledge.

  Now Mura finished cutting the skull all the way around and through the bone. He took hold of Ejima’s head and worked the top free, as though removing a tight lid from a jar. He inserted the knife blade into the skull and scraped the tissue that held its cap in place. Hirata watched Mura lift off the skullcap. Blood oozed out, red and viscous, thickened with clots. It bathed the grayish, coiled mass of the brain, glistened wetly in the lantern light, and soiled the table.

  “Here is our proof,” Dr. Ito said with satisfaction as he pointed to the blood. “When a death-touch is struck, its energy travels along the internal pathway that connects the point of contact to a vital organ. Ejima’s murderer targeted his brain. The touch on his head caused a small rupture to a vessel inside his brain, which gradually leaked blood and enlarged until it burst and killed him.”

  “And he had no other injuries that could have caused the bleeding?” Hirata said.

  “Correct,” said Dr. Ito. “Dim-make was the cause of death.”

  Hirata nodded, but he felt as much apprehension as relief that they knew how Ejima had died. “We’ll go back to Edo Castle and report the news to Chamberlain Sano,” he told the detectives.

  “What about the body?” Inoue said. He glanced at Ejima’s corpse, which lay with its brain exposed, the skullcap beside it on the bloody table.

  “It goes with us.” Hirata turned to Dr. Ito. “Please have your assistant put Ejima’s head back together, wrap a bandage around it, clean him up, and dress him.”

  This was only the beginning of the effort to cover up the examination.

  Chapter 7

  When Sano finished inspecting the racetrack and questioning the witnesses there, he and Marume and Fukida interviewed the sentries and patrol guards who’d been in the vicinity at the time of Ejima’s death. By the time they returned to his estate, night had fallen. Sano was glad to see that the crowd of people outside his gate and in his anteroom had disappeared—they’d given up on seeing him today. But when he stopped at his office to see what had happened during his absence, his aides besieged him with urgent queries and problems. Sano found himself sucked back into the whirlwind of his life, until a servant brought him two messages: Lord Matsudaira demanded to know what was taking him so long, and Hirata had arrived.

  Sano went to his audience chamber and found Hirata kneeling on the floor. He was shocked to see how ill Hirata looked. Fresh guilt needled Sano.

  “Would you like some refreshment?” Sano said. He regretted that the usual courtesy due any guest was all he could offer Hirata; apology or sympathy would only hurt Hirata’s pride.

  “No, thank you, I’ve already eaten.” Hirata tacitly denied his obvious discomfort while reciting the polite formula.

  “Well, I haven’t, and I insist that you join me,” Sano said, although time was short. He summoned a maid and told her, “Bring us dinner, and put some healing herbs in the tea. I’ve got a headache.” He didn’t, but perhaps the medicine would make Hirata feel better. After the maid departed, Sano said, “What did Dr. Ito find out?”

  As Hirata told him, astonishment filled Sano. “Ejima was killed by dim-mak? Is Dr. Ito certain?”

  Hirata described the fingerprint-shaped bruise, the dissection, and the blood in the brain.

  “Well, I suppose there’s a first time for everything,” Sano said. “And Dr. Ito’s news jibes with what I’ve learned. All the witnesses say Ejima dropped dead for no apparent reason. The guards who were watching him through spyglasses during the race didn’t see anything hit him. No one fired a gun anywhere near the track; no bullet was found. Ejima wasn’t killed by any conventional means.” Sano felt trepidation as well as excitement. “We now know that Ejima was murdered, and how it was done. But this seriously complicates the case.”

  Hirata nodded. “It means that the racetrack isn’t necessarily the crime scene. The death-touch could have been delivered to Ejima hours or days before it took effect.”

  “And the suspects aren’t limited to the people who were around the track when Ejima died,” Sano said.

  He and Hirata sat in silence, listening to the temple bells ringing and dogs barking in the night, the wind rising and insects singing in the garden. Sano said, “The killer is out there.” He anticipated the thrill of the hunt, but also an unprecedented challenge in the shape of an adversary who was far more skilled at martial arts than himself. “And we have no idea who he might be.”

  The maid brought them a dinner of rice balls, sashimi, and pickled vegetables. Sano noticed that Hirata hardly touched the food, but he gulped the tea and seemed to revive a bit. “We have two problems that are more immediate than catching the killer,” Sano said. “First, how are we going to hide the fact that Ejima’s body was dissected?”

  “I’ve already taken care of that,” Hirata said. “I had Dr. Ito’s assistant wrap up its head. Then I took it home and had my servants dress it in a white silk robe and lay it in a coffin filled with incense. When I delivered it to Ejima’s family, I told them that I’d prepared it for the funeral. The reason I gave was that I wanted to spare them the sight of Ejima’s terrible wounds. I also said I would pay for a grand funeral. I gave the family a quick look at Ejima, then sealed up the coffin. They were so grateful that I don’t think they’ll open it for a closer look.”

  “Well done,” Sano said, impressed by Hirata’s ingenuity. “But I’ll pay for the funeral.” That was a small price for keeping the examination a secret.

  “What’s the second problem? How to tell Lord Matsudaira that Ejima was murdered by dim-make without saying how we found out?” Hirata said.

  Sano nodded as he set aside his chopsticks. “But I have a solution. I’ll tell you on the way to the palace.”

  A waxing crescent moon adorned the indigo sky over the peaked tile roofs of the palace. Flames glimmered in stone lanterns around the complex of half-timbered buildings and along the white gravel paths that crossed its lush, still gardens. Frogs sang in ponds while gunshots echoed from night target practice at the martial arts training ground. Patrolling guards wore Lord Matsudaira’s crest, asserting his place in the heart of the Tokugawa regime.

  When Sano, Hirata, and detectives Marume and Fukida arrived in search of Lord Matsudaira, the sentries at the palace door directed them to the shogun’s private quarters. There they found a party in progress. Handsome boys dressed in gaudy silk robes played the samisen, flute, and drum; others danced. The shogun lolled on cushions while more boys chattered around him and plied him with wine. His taste for young males was public knowledge. That he preferred them to his wife and concubines explained why he’d failed to produce a blood heir. Near the shogun sat Lord Matsudaira and two members of the Council of Elders, which comprised the shogun’s chief advisors and the regime’s principal governing body. Lord Matsudaira knelt with his arms folded and his expression grim: He disapproved of such frivolous entertainment. The elders sipped wine and nodded their heads in time to the music.

  “Well?” Lord Matsudaira said eagerly as Sano and his companions approached, knelt, and bowed. “Was it murder?”r />
  “It was,” Sano said.

  The elders frowned in concern. The shogun dragged his attention away from the dancers and regarded Sano with befuddlement. His face was flushed from the wine; his hand fondled the knee of the boy seated beside him.

  This was Yoritomo, the shogun’s current favorite. He was a youthful, strikingly beautiful likeness of his father, the former chamberlain. Although Lord Matsudaira had exiled Yanagisawa and his family, Yoritomo remained in Edo because the shogun had insisted on keeping him. He had Tokugawa blood—from his mother, a relative of the shogun—and rumor said he was heir apparent to the dictatorship. The shogun’s fondness protected Yoritomo from Lord Matsudaira, who wanted to eliminate everyone connected to his rival. Yoritomo smiled shyly; his large, liquid black eyes, so like his father’s, glowed with happiness at seeing Sano.

  “So I was right.” Gratification swelled Lord Matsudaira’s countenance. “I knew it.”

  “Who are you talking about?” the shogun said.

  “Ejima, chief of the metsuke” Lord Matsudaira barely hid his impatience. “He died this morning.”

  “Ahh, yes,” the shogun said with an air of dim recollection.

  “I thought Ejima took a fall at the racetrack,” said one of the elders. He was Kato Kinhide, who had a broad, leathery face with slit-like eyes and mouth. The other was Ihara Eigoro. They’d opposed Lord Matsudaira and supported Yanagisawa during the faction war. They, and some of their allies, had survived the purge by latching on to Yoritomo, who was alone at court and depended on his father’s friends for protection. But Sano knew that the protection worked both ways: Yoritomo’s influence with the shogun protected Kato, Ihara, and their clique from Lord Matsudaira. He was their foothold in the regime, the promise of another chance at gaining control over it.

  “The fall didn’t kill Ejima,” Sano said.

  “Then what did?” Ihara said. Short and hunched, he had a vaguely simian cast. He and Kato resented Sano because he’d declined to take their side during the faction war, and now worked closely with Lord Matsudaira. They envied him for rising above them in rank.