“Any time,” Koemon said. “I’ll put the word out that you’re looking for Ozuno and send you any news I hear.”
When Sano left the school, he found his detectives at a food stall, drinking tea and eating noodles. He joined them, and as he ate, he told them about the mysterious priest.
Marume, interested yet dubious, was shoveling noodles into his mouth with his chopsticks. “Even if this fellow is still in good enough shape to kill at age ninety, it doesn’t sound as if he has any connection to Chief Ejima and the others.”
“Or to Lord Matsudaira,” said Fukida.
“Maybe one of his secret pupils does. At any rate, I think he’s worth talking to.” Sano finished his meal and set aside his empty bowl. “We’ll go back to Edo Castle and mount a search for Ozuno. And maybe there will be some news from Hirata and Detective Tachibana.”
17
Reiko paced around the room in her father’s estate where she’d interviewed Yugao two days ago. When she’d arrived this morning, she’d asked Magistrate Ueda to let her speak to Yugao again, and he’d sent men to the jail to fetch her. It was almost noon by the time the door opened. Two guards brought in Yugao. Her hands were shackled; she wore the same dirty robe. She seemed surprised and displeased to see Reiko.
“It’s you again,” she said. “What do you want now?”
The guards shoved her to her knees in front of Reiko, then departed, closing the door behind them.
“I want to talk some more,” Reiko said.
Yugao shook her head, obstinate. “I’ve already said everything I have to say.”
She looked the worse for another night at Edo Jail. Flea bites dotted her neck, and her eyes were crusted, pink, and swollen. Reiko felt both revilement and pity toward her. “We have some new things to discuss.”
Raising her bound hands to scratch her flea bites, Yugao waited in suspicious silence.
“I paid a visit to your house yesterday,” Reiko said.
Yugao’s swollen eyes blinked in shock. “You went to the hinin settlement?” She sat up straight and stared at Reiko. “Why?”
“You wouldn’t tell me what happened the night your family was murdered,” Reiko said, “so I decided to find out for myself. I talked with the headman and your neighbors.”
Yugao shook her head in evident confusion. Her hands rubbed together, and her knees clenched spasmodically. Reiko thought that perhaps her efforts had convinced Yugao that she sincerely wanted to help. Maybe Yugao was relenting toward her and would now trust her enough to talk.
“The headman told me why your father was a hinin,” Reiko ventured.
Now Yugao’s face turned ugly with sudden rage. “You snooped into my business! You samurai people do whatever you want and you don’t care about anybody else’s privacy. I hate you all!”
This outburst disconcerted Reiko, who was chagrined because this conversation wasn’t going the way she wanted. But she continued, “For a man to commit incest with his daughter is not only a crime but a betrayal of her love for him. Did your father do it to you that night?”
“I won’t talk about my father,” Yugao said with bitter indignation.
“Then let’s talk about your mother and your sister. Did they do something to hurt you, too?” A new theory evolved in Reiko’s mind. “Were they cruel to you because they blamed you for the fact that they had to live as outcasts?”
“I won’t talk about them, either,” Yugao said.
While Reiko controlled her exasperation, she saw a possible reason why Yugao had refused to talk. Maybe she was so shamed by her sordid life that she would rather die than reveal it. Maybe she blamed herself for it and wanted to be punished even if she hadn’t killed her family. Because the law treated people as guilty for the transgressions of their kin and associates, it was logical for them to believe they really were.
“You should reconsider,” Reiko advised Yugao. “If you stabbed your father while he was forcing himself on you, that’s different from murder. If your mother and sister attacked you because you were protecting yourself, you had a right to fight back against them. Killing in self-defense isn’t a crime. You won’t be punished. The magistrate will set you free.”
Any other accused criminal that Reiko had ever seen would have gladly seized on this explanation as a chance to save his life. But Yugao turned her face away and said in a cold, recalcitrant voice: “That’s not what happened.”
“Then tell me what did,” Reiko said.
“I stabbed my father until he died. Then I stabbed my mother and my sister. I murdered them. I don’t have to say why.”
Reiko’s mind flashed back to the vision she’d had of the murders at the hovel. She pictured Yugao wielding the knife, heard the screams, smelled the blood. But her imagination plus Yugao’s confession didn’t necessarily equal the truth.
“Listen, Yugao,” she said. “My father bent the law by delaying the verdict at your trial. I’ve gone far out of my way for you.” She’d even risked putting Sano in jeopardy. “That obligates you to tell me the truth.”
Scornful contempt wrenched Yugao’s lips. “I never asked you or the magistrate to save me. I’m ready to accept my punishment. So go away before I spit on you again.”
Reiko prowled the room, venting her impatience. She began to appreciate the benefits of torture. A little molten copper poured on Yugao would certainly improve her manners as well as break her silence. “I’m not going away until you convince me that you’re guilty,” Reiko said, circling Yugao. “And if that’s really what you want to do, you’ll need to do better than you have, especially in light of what else I learned yesterday.”
“What are you jabbering about now?” Yugao’s voice was insolent, but Reiko heard a current of fear in it.
“You and your family weren’t the only people in your house the night of the murders. Your sister’s friend Ihei has admitted he was there, sleeping in the lean-to with her. The boy on fire-watch duty saw him running away after the murders.”
Yugao sniffed, disdainful. “Ihei is a clumsy weakling. If he tried to stab anybody, he would cut himself.”
“What about the warden from Edo Jail?” Reiko said. “He was at your house earlier that evening. He and your father had a fight. Nobody can call him a weakling.”
“Do you really think Ihei or the warden did it?” Yugao demanded. Her gaze smoldered with animosity as it followed Reiko around the room. “Have they been arrested?” She read the answer on Reiko’s face and laughed. “You don’t have any more dirt on them than you’ve just said. If your father put the three of us on trial, he’d have to convict me before them. I was caught in the house, with the knife.”
None of Reiko’s experience with crime and criminals had prepared her to understand this woman who was so bent on dying for the murders. She tried a different strategy: “Let’s make a bargain. I’ll tell my father that you’re guilty if you tell me why you killed your family.”
In response to this bizarre deal, Yugao only laughed again. “I thought you had it all figured out. My father committed incest with me. My mother and sisters attacked me.”
“That’s only a theory,” Reiko said. “I’ve begun to doubt that there was any incest at all. In fact, I wonder if your father was unjustly condemned to be an outcast.”
Yugao scowled, leery of a trick.
“I went to the Hundred-Day Theater and met his former business partner. Did you know that Mizutani was the one who reported the incest between you and your father?” Reiko waited for Yugao to speak, but she didn’t, and her expression offered no answer. “Perhaps he made the whole thing up. Perhaps he hired someone to kill your father to prevent his coming back to the carnival and claiming his share of it, and the rest of your family because they witnessed the crime.”