His daughter wasn’t the only person who’d had reason to kill him, Reiko thought. “Where did you go after you left the house?”
“I went to see my lady friend.”
“She’s a nighthawk in the tent village,” the headman said.
Leeriness shrank the bright pinpoints in the warden’s eyes. “If by some chance Magistrate Ueda is thinking of pinning the murders on me instead of Yugao, tell him that I didn’t do it. I couldn’t have. I was with my lady all night. She’ll swear to it.”
Yet Reiko knew that a man who’d extorted money from merchants and beat them into paying wouldn’t balk at murder, and he looked capable of intimidating a woman into lying for him.
“Any more questions?” His grin mocked Reiko; his gaze wandered over her body.
“Not at the moment,” Reiko said. Unless she could find evidence against him, she had to let him go.
“Then if you’ll excuse me…” The warden ambled to the back door, reached under his kimono, and pulled his organ from his loincloth. After giving Reiko a good view of it, he urinated into a slop jar outside the teahouse. “Give Magistrate Ueda my best regards.”
Offense and embarrassment burned inside Reiko. The headman said, “I apologize for his bad manners.” He glanced down the street. “If you want another chance to save Yugao, here he comes now.”
A young man approached the teahouse, shoulders hunched, feet scuffling. He wore faded, torn clothes; a wicker hat shaded his face, which was scrunched in a frown that looked permanent. He carried a broom, dustpan, and trash basket.
“That’s Ihei,” the headman said.
The street-cleaner looked up as Reiko and her guards advanced on him. His face took on a look of alarm. He turned and scuffled rapidly away.
“Stop him!” Reiko ordered her guards.
They raced after the young man. Dropping his tools, he hastened down the street, but his awkward gait hampered his flight. The guards easily caught him and propelled him toward Reiko.
“Let me go!” he cried, struggling in their grasp. “I didn’t do anything wrong!” His voice was high and weak, his grimy face taut with panic.
“If you didn’t do anything wrong, then why did you run?” Reiko said.
His frown deepened with his surprise at seeing a lady of her class in the settlement. He glanced at her guards. “I-I was afraid they would hurt me.”
“Some samurai thugs beat him up,” Kanai said. “They broke a lot of bones. That’s why he’s deformed.”
Reiko was appalled by yet another tale of the hinin’s cruel existence. “No one’s going to hurt you. I just want to talk. If you promise not to run, they’ll let you go.”
His expression said he didn’t trust her, but Ihei nodded. The guards released him but stood ready to restrain him again if necessary. “Talk about what?”
“About the night that Umeko and her parents were murdered,” Reiko said.
Panic flashed in Ihei’s eyes. He backed away. The headman said, “Whoa!” and the guards grabbed Ihei, who cried, “I don’t know anything about that.”
“You were seen running away from the house,” Reiko said.
His features drooped in dismay. “I had nothing to do with it.” Guilty bravado tinged his voice. “I-I swear!”
“Then what were you doing there?”
“I went to see Umeko.”
“Why?” Reiko considered the possibility that Umeko had been the intended victim, despite the clues at the crime scene that indicated her father was killed first. She recalled that Yugao’s sister had been a prostitute. When Ihei hesitated, Reiko said, “Were you one of her customers?”
“No!” Ihei exclaimed, offended.
“Yes, you were,” Kanai said. “Don’t lie; you’ll get yourself in trouble.”
Ihei sighed in resignation. “All right-I was Umeko’s customer. But it was more than the usual thing. I loved her.” His voice trembled; tears trickled lines through the grime on his cheeks. “And now she’s gone!”
His grief seemed genuine, but sometimes killers did mourn the loss of loved ones they’d murdered. Reiko had watched them sob during their trials in her father’s court. “Why did you go to see her?”
“That morning I’d asked her to marry me. She-she said no. She laughed at me.” Ihei’s eyes burned with humiliation. “She said she would never lower herself to marry a hunchback outcast. I said I knew she was born higher than me, but I told her that we were both hinin now. Fate had brought us together here. I told her how much I loved her. I said I would make her happy. I earn enough money that she could have moved into my hut and not have had to sell herself. But then she got angry.”
His tone reflected the hurt and surprise he must have felt. “She said she wasn’t going to be here forever. She was mad at me for suggesting it. She said she was going to wait until her father had served his sentence, got his business and his house back, and then marry some rich man. She told me to leave her alone because she never wanted to see me again.”
She sounded callous and ill-tempered enough to provoke murder. “But you didn’t leave her alone,” Reiko deduced. “You went back that night. What happened?”
“I had to see her. I thought I could make her change her mind. That night I went to her house. I knocked on the door frame. When she answered, I tried to talk to her. She told me to be quiet-her family was sleeping. She said I could come in-for the usual price. All she wanted from me was my money.” The street-cleaner hung his head in woe. “I wanted her so badly that I agreed. She took me into her room. I made love to her.”
Reiko pictured them in the lean-to at the house. As Umeko serviced him, had his passion for her fueled his rage at her rejection? Had his love turned to hatred?
“After we finished, we fell asleep. I don’t know for how long. I was wakened by screaming and noises. Her mother shouted, ‘What are you doing?’ then ‘Stop!’ She was crying. There were loud thumps, and sounds like fighting and running, in the other room.” Ihei’s face showed confusion at the memory. “Umeko jumped up and ran out there. I heard her say, ‘What’s going on?’ Then she started screaming, ‘No!’ and calling me for help. I pushed aside the curtain. Umeko ran past me. Someone was chasing her. Stabbing her.” He raised his fist and pantomimed the frenzied, downward slashes. “I rushed out, and Umeko fell at my feet. The screaming stopped. I smelled blood.”
Ihei swallowed a retch; his eyes shone with remembered fear. “It was quiet except for the sound of someone panting. Then suddenly a shadow rushed at me. I saw the knife gleam in its hand.” He reeled backward, pantomiming his reaction. “I turned and ran out the door. I kept running all the way home.”
His broken body trembled; he sobbed into his hands. “Umeko is dead. If only I could have saved her! But all I did was run like a coward.”
Reiko could picture the scene he’d described; she could imagine his terror as he realized that his beloved and her family had been slain and he would be the next to die unless he fled. She could also imagine a different scenario. Maybe, after he and Umeko had made love, he’d again asked her to marry him, and again she’d refused. Maybe they’d argued, and he’d become so furious that he’d stabbed her, and when her parents tried to intervene, he’d turned the knife on them.
“Who was this person that you saw stabbing her?” Reiko asked.
“I don’t know.” The street-cleaner dropped his hands and raised his red, tear-swollen eyes to her. “It was dark; I couldn’t see much. At the time I thought some madman had broken into the house while I was asleep. But it must have been Yugao. I mean, she was arrested, wasn’t she?”
“Yes,” Reiko said. If she was the killer, that would explain the fact that she was the sole survivor of her family, not a wound on her. The murders could have happened the way he’d said; maybe he’d caught Yugao in the act. But Ihei wasn’t exactly a reliable witness; he’d had ample cause and perfect opportunity to commit murder himself.