Laura Joh Rowland - Sano Ichiro Samurai Detective 02 - Bundori

by Bund

  "Here, sosakan-sama," the lead officer said. He skidded down the steep slope into the field.

  Sano secured his horse to the willow and followed. Tall grass whipped his legs. At the foot of the embankment he saw two more Yoshiwara officers standing guard over a blanket-covered form. Ravens, crows, and gulls, drawn to the fresh kill, swooped and screeched overhead, periodically alighting nearby. In the field, rough dirt clods crumbled under his feet. He stopped a few paces from the body.

  Blood darkened the surrounding earth. Sano could smell the cloying odors of death masking those of fertile earth and night soil. His stomach spasmed when the men, grim faces averted, gingerly peeled back the blanket.

  The paunchy, headless man lay on his back, knees bent, arms splayed. Drying blood reddened his kimono, leggings, split-toed socks, and straw sandals. Already insects swarmed over the corpse; flies seethed thickly upon the severed neck. The unclean feeling of defilement stole over Sano. As he bent to examine the cut, he found relief in envisioning Dr. Ito's face, and in imagining his friend at his side.

  "A clean and expert single slash," he said, "just like the last."

  Wondering how the killer had lured the man off the road, he caught a whiff of liquor. Had the man been drunk, and thus, like Kaibara, unable to defend himself? Sano examined the rest of the body and found no other wounds. But two unexpected sights surprised him.

  "Where are his swords?" he asked the officers. Had the killer taken them? Would their presence among a suspect's possessions eventually establish his guilt?

  When the officers professed ignorance, Sano turned his attention to the strip of unwound loincloth protruding from the man's kimono. Then he understood. The victim had left the road to defecate; the killer had seized the opportunity to attack. This murder, too, had the look of a bizarre but meaningless act of violence against a handy victim. Yet Sano couldn't believe that the killer had picked Endo Munetsugu's name at random, from among those of all Japan's great war heroes. He doubted that Kaibara's relationship with Araki Yojiemon was pure coincidence, either. Now he must prove this, first by exploring the connection between the new victim and Endo.

  Sano told the officers, "Send the remains to Edo Morgue." Perhaps Dr. Ito would find clues he'd missed. "Now I want to question everyone who was at the Great Joy last night."

  As they followed the dike's final, zigzagging slope down toward Yoshiwara's gates, reluctance dragged at Sano. In the pleasure quarter, prostitution of all kinds was legal; food, drink, and other diversions-music, gambling, and others less innocuous-were available in abundance for a price. Men went to have fun. But for Sano, Yoshiwara had painful associations.

  A recent night of violence and death had colored his view of the quarter, obliterating pleasant memories. When he approached the armored guards stationed at the gate's roofed and ornamented portals, their polite greetings couldn't make him forget their primary function: to make sure no yujo escaped. Most of the women had been sold into prostitution by impoverished families, or sentenced to Yoshiwara as punishment for crimes. Many, mistreated by cruel masters, tried to flee through the gates disguised as servants or boys. Sano swallowed his distaste as he addressed the jailers who enforced women's misery.

  "The man who was murdered last night. Did you see him leave?"

  "How could we have missed him?" one said. "He was so angry he cursed us and kicked the gates." But neither knew the reason for his early departure, or his anger.

  "Did anyone follow him?" Sano asked.

  "No. He was the last one out before closing."

  Asking the guards whether they'd seen a tall, lame, pockmarked samurai brought another negative reply. Sano saw the futility of trying to establish an individual's presence in the busy quarter, where many men-including priests, daimyo, and high-ranking bakufu officials-came in disguise. Some did so in compliance with the seldom-enforced law that forbade samurai to visit the pleasure quarter. Others merely wanted to preserve their privacy. One furtive, cloaked figure would have attracted little attention.

  Sano thanked the guards and entered Naka-no-cho, the quarter's main street. It, too, had suffered an unhappy alteration in his eyes. The wooden buildings, once picturesque, now looked shabby and sad. The bold signs advertising the teahouses, shops, restaurants, and brothels failed to stir anticipation. The pleasure houses' empty barred windows, where the courtesans sat and solicited customers at night, seemed less like showcases for female beauty than like cages for trapped animals. The lushly flowering potted cherry trees that decorated the street only reminded Sano of the transience of pleasure, of life.

  And the murder had cast a pall over the quarter. Visitors clustered in nervous groups along the street and in the teahouses, their customary boisterousness restrained. Servants slunk about their business. Samurai strode warily, hands on their sword hilts. All seemed loath to meet one another's gazes, or Sano's. A palpable aura of fear and mutual suspicion hovered in the air. Sano felt an increasing pressure to conclude the investigation quickly, before violence could erupt in this place where men's passions were already overstimulated by drink and sex.

  The Great Joy, located on a side street off Naka-no-cho, was one of the most prestigious pleasure houses. The wooden window lattices, walls, and pillars looked freshly scrubbed and polished. Scarlet paint brightened the balcony railing. Curtains of the same shade, emblazoned with the house's white floral crest, hung over the entrance. As Sano and his escorts reached the house, these parted and a man dressed in gaudy silk garments stepped out.

  "Greetings, sosakan-sama," he said, bowing. Of some indeterminate age between forty and sixty, he had a fattish, pear-shaped body and a head to match. His knotted hair was streaked with gray. Yet his face, with its flat nose and cheeks, was unlined, perhaps preserved by the oiliness of his complexion. "I'm Uesugi, proprietor of the Great Joy."

  His bow-shaped mouth seemed fixed in a permanent smile, but his shiny black eyes were like the counting beads on an abacus- hard, cold, calculating. "This murder is a very serious matter. However, let me assure you that the Great Joy has played no part in it."

  To Sano, Uesugi's hasty disclaimer indicated the opposite. Was he hiding something? His uneasiness might result from a combination of class consciousness and concern for his business. While prominent Yoshiwara brothel owners held high places in peasant society, samurai snubbed them as money-worshipping flesh merchants. Uesugi wouldn't welcome an encounter that could embarrass him. And his establishment would suffer from association with the Bundori Murders.

  "I've no reason to believe that the Great Joy is at fault," Sano said mildly, wanting to put Uesugi at ease and off guard. "I only want to know who the murdered man was, and with whom he spent the time up until his death. Can you tell me?"

  As a pointed hint, he directed his gaze to the curtained entrance, then back to the proprietor.

  Uesugi's smile remained, but his eyes jittered back and forth as he assessed his options. In a flat voice stripped of its former unctuousness, he said, "Is this really necessary?"

  Sano didn't bother arguing. Uesugi was just stalling; he knew he had no right to refuse a request from a bakufu official. "Your house will get less bad publicity if we talk inside," Sano said, gesturing toward the swelling crowd of gawkers in the street.

  Admitting defeat with a curt nod, Uesugi stood aside and lifted the curtain for Sano. On the right side of the entrance hall the watchman's bench stood vacant. Uesugi opened a door in the lattice partition to the left and ushered Sano into the main parlor, where two maids were sweeping the floor mats. This room, the scene of many gay parties of courtesans and clients at night, looked drab and unwelcoming by day. Uesugi's smile grew strained, though whether only because he disliked having a potential customer see the house in this unglamorous light, Sano couldn't tell. He let the proprietor show him into an office behind the parlor's wall mural.

  "Please be seated," Uesugi said stiffly.

  Kneeling behind the low desk, he called a servant and ordered tea, w
hich came almost immediately. While they drank, Sano studied the room and its owner. The office was not unlike that of any prosperous shopkeeper. Sunlight filtered through a wall of paper windows, opposite which stood wooden cabinets and fireproof iron chests for storing records and money. Uesugi seemed even more ill at ease here than in the street; he sat unnaturally still, and his gaze wouldn't quite meet Sano's. Was he ashamed of the sordid side of his business-or fearful that he might incriminate himself?

  "Who was the dead man?" Sano asked.

  Uesugi glanced toward a ledger on the desk, which he'd probably consulted before Sano's arrival. "His name was Tozawa Jigori, and he'd just arrived from Omi Province. When the watchman questioned him at the door, he admitted he was a ronin. He engaged the company of a courtesan named Sparrow."

  The proprietor delivered these facts willingly enough, but his face now shone with nervous sweat as well as oil. Sano, remembering his examination of the corpse, thought he knew why; Anger stirred within him. "When did Tozawa arrive?" he asked evenly.

  Uesugi hesitated. "The day before yesterday."

  "Then he was entitled to stay in Yoshiwara until this morning. Why did he leave last night?"

  The disappearance of the proprietor's smile validated Sano's suspicions. "I was only following standard procedure," Uesugi huffed.

  "You searched his possessions and found out that he hadn't enough money to pay his bill. So you threw him out. After confiscating his swords, of course." Sano's ingrained disgust for the venal merchant class fed his anger. "You know there's a killer on the loose, and you sent an unarmed man to his death!"

  Uesugi folded his arms in defiance. "I would go bankrupt if I let customers get away without paying. And how was I to know he would die?"

  Self-revulsion sickened Sano. He could despise Uesugi for valuing money over a man's life, but the blame belonged to him alone. His failure to catch the killer had doomed Tozawa-as it might others. And part of his rage stemmed from the fact that Uesugi's statement had weakened the scenario he'd begun to construct.

  There had been no robbery; the missing swords would never prove a suspect's guilt. The penniless Tozawa could have fallen prey to a predator who didn't care-or even know-whom he killed. Furthermore, the likelihood of a connection between Kaibara and Tozawa seemed minimal. Tozawa was a lowly ronin, far beneath Kaibara's status. Sano doubted whether Tozawa's family records would reveal a relationship between two men from such different backgrounds, though they might link the ronin to Endo Munetsugu. But Sano had far too much work in Edo to make a long research trip to Omi Province.

  Then he saw a way to eke value from this interview, punish Uesugi, and protect Yoshiwara's guests.

  "Give me Tozawa's swords," he said.

  "But, sosakan-sama-"

  "Now." He would take them to Aoi, who might be able to divine some clues from them-and whom he longed to see again.

  Fury hardened Uesugi's eyes; his tongue rolled behind his compressed lips. Then he stood and opened a cabinet with an angry jerk that expressed his reluctance to part with valuable loot. From among at least twenty confiscated swords he selected a pair and thrust them at Sano.

  "Thank you," Sano said. "Also, you'll convey this order to your Board of Administrators." This governing body was composed of all the Yoshiwara pleasure house proprietors. "Until the Bundori Killer is caught, no swords will be confiscated as payment for debts. No guests will be forced to leave the quarter after dark. If you and your colleagues don't comply, you'll pay a large fine for each violation. Is that understood?"

  "Yes, sosakan-sama." Uesugi spoke politely enough, but his angry glance toward the door made clear his wish to throw Sano through it.

  "Good. Now I'll speak to everyone in the house who was here last night, starting with the courtesan who entertained Tozawa. As to those guests who've already left, give me their names."

  "That's impossible!" Uesugi sputtered, his controlled courtesy shattered. "The privacy of the yujo and guests-"

  "Is more important than catching the killer? I don't think so."

  In a rapid about-face, Uesugi's smile returned, and he conceded, "As you wish. I'll write out the names for you. Then I'll bring everyone to the parlor."

  Sano realized that Uesugi planned to give him phony names and smuggle the clients out the back door. "Excuse me a moment," he said.

  He walked to the front door and called to the security officers waiting in the street: "See that no one leaves this house." Returning to Uesugi, he picked up the ledger from the proprietor's desk and tucked it under his arm with Tozawa's swords, then said, "Now I'll help you collect your employees and their clients."

  His anger and frustration somewhat relieved by his exercise of authority, Sano accompanied the glowering proprietor on a tour of the Great Joy's private rooms. These occupied the rear ground floor and the entire upper level of the house, forming a square around the garden, with servants' quarters facing the alley. Sano covered every corridor, knocked on every door. Cries of surprise greeted his summons. Frantic scufflings followed. Doors slid open, and a disheveled parade of sleepy-eyed, hastily frightened men and women straggled toward the parlor.

  In Uesugi's office, which he'd appropriated for his interviews, Sano beheld with surprise the woman who knelt opposite him. Sparrow, Tozawa's companion of last night, was clearly one of the house's second-class courtesans, and hardly the delicate creature that her name suggested. Long past her prime, she'd lost whatever physical charms she'd once possessed. Her figure was heavy and shapeless under the blue and white cotton kimono, the skin beneath her eyes puffy. White strands dulled the hair piled sloppily on her head, and she had a double chin. The Great Joy certainly offered its clients a wide range of female attractions.

  "You entertained Tozawa last night and the night before?" he asked.

  "Yes, master, that's right."

  Smiling, Sparrow arranged her skirts around her like a hen settling on a nest. Sano suddenly understood the allure Sparrow held for men, and why Uesugi considered her well worth keeping. She exuded maternal kindness. A client in need of solace could pillow his head on that soft bosom, take comfort from that warm, reassuring voice and smile, and sleep like a child in those cushiony arms. All for the same high price as the wildest sex. Sano was glad to find Tozawa's last companion such a woman.

  "Did Tozawa talk to you?" he asked her.

  "Oh, my, yes. All my men do." A cozy chuckle jiggled her body. "Because I like to listen."

  Just as he'd guessed. "What did Tozawa talk about?"

  "Losing his position when his lord fell upon hard times and had to let many retainers go. The hardships and shame he'd faced. How he hoped he could find work in Edo." Sadness clouded Sparrow's eyes: She, unlike the Great Joy's proprietor, sympathized with the unfortunate Tozawa. "He annoyed everyone with his loud clowning because he needed to make himself feel big and important. And when Uesugi told him to leave, he was angry, because everyone knew he was poor-that's why he started a fight with Uesugi's watchman and threw a tray of food against the wall. " She clucked her tongue."Poor man."

  That her years as a courtesan had given her insight into men, her next words further proved: "And yourself, sosakan-sama. You're troubled, aren't you? Would you like to tell me about it?"

  Her query seemed like neither nosy impertinence nor an avaricious ploy, but genuine concern. Sano could see how she'd coaxed Tozawa's life story from him. She would make an excellent police detective-or spy.

  "No, thank you," he said, smiling to take the edge off his refusal. "Did Tozawa mention having any enemies in Edo?"

  Sparrow's chin wobbled as she shook her head. "He said he was quite alone here."

  So much for the idea that the murderer had killed Tozawa out of hatred. "Did he speak of his family background?" Sano asked without much hope. He hardly expected Tozawa to have recited his lineage, complete with the names of ancestors going back four generations.

  Therefore a shock of excitement ran through him when Sparrow said,
"Oh, yes. He said that the disgrace of losing his master was even harder to bear because his ancestor was a great war hero. But then most samurai claim such ancestors, don't they?" Her fond smile took the sting out of her implication that they were lying braggarts.

  In Sparrow's statement, Sano found supporting evidence for his theory that joined Tozawa with Endo Munetsugu and drew a parallel between this murder and Kaibara's. Had both men been killed because of the murderer's animosity toward their ancestors? Sano entertained the theory that the killer, stalking Tozawa, had seen the commotion at the Great Joy, guessed its outcome, and waited on the dark causeway for his victim. Sano put forth his next question in a deliberately nonchalant voice, as if by pretending indifference he could elicit the desired answer.

  "The ancestor Tozawa mentioned. Was it Endo Munetsugu?"

  "No, Tozawa-san didn't tell me his ancestor's name."

  Sano clung to the fragile hope that Endo could still be Tozawa's unnamed family hero. But he had no evidence to confirm it, and even if a link between the two men existed, it shed no immediate light on the murderer's identity-or his motive for killing the unrelated Kaibara.