“An outcast?”
“No. Just a poor old man.”
“Still, someone who had nothing in common with the judge.” Akitada turned the small figure in his hand. Takechi’s murders were becoming more puzzling by the moment.
The chief said, “Exactly. It makes no sense. Perhaps a madman is at work.”
Akitada nodded slowly. “Such things have happened. And the fact that he left behind this very odd token of his visit may prove that he isn’t in his right mind.”
The coroner had listened with raised brows. “May I have a look, sir?” he asked.
Akitada passed over the carving.
Doctor Kimura said, “It’s a Jizo. They sell those at all the fairs. There must be hundreds about. Travelers and pilgrims buy them for protection.”
Akitada nodded. “Yes. I saw them for sale at a shrine fair. But why leave such a thing behind after a murder?”
Kimura frowned. “Perhaps it’s a message.”
The chief was unconvinced. “A message for whom? It’s not as if either old man had a large family.”
Akitada said, “And what does it mean? Why would a killer want us to know that it was his work.”
“Well, if he’s mad, he doesn’t need a reason,” the coroner offered.
Akitada frowned. “I don’t think he’s mad in that sense. You said, people buy these for protection if they are on a journey? Perhaps he is a pilgrim.”
Kimura said, “Women might do so because they’ve lost a child at birth. Jizo protects the children who had no chance to follow the Buddha. In fact, he helps all those suffering in hell.”
Takechi scratched his head. “That covers a lot of ground.”
Kimura asked, “Have there been other cases like this here or elsewhere?”
The chief and Akitada exchanged a glance. Takechi said, “Heaven forbid. I haven’t heard of any. Are you suggesting that this person travels about killing people?”
“I don’t know,” Kimura said with a smile. “I’m just the coroner.”
Takechi gave him a look and said again, “It makes no sense. What does he get out of it?”
Silence fell. They stood looking down at the pitiful thing on the mat. The first flies were gathering. Akitada hoped that the corpse had given up its story completely, for they could not keep him around much longer.
Takechi had the same thought. “I suppose we’d better release him for burial if you’re done, doctor.”
“I’m done.”
As they left the jail building, Akitada said, “I’d like to talk to the man’s neighbors. Do you mind? I have a very unpleasant feeling about this.”
Takechi did not mind. They walked through town and into the modest neighborhood where Tokuno had lived. Takechi stopped in front of small house that looked as though it needed a few repairs. The roof was missing boards and the door hung crookedly in its opening.
“The neighbor says the door had been like this for years,” Takechi said.” The killer didn’t force it.”
“The sweeper lived in a house? Did he rent this place?”
“No. It belonged to him. I know it looks in bad shape, but he got too old to take care of things.”
“Still, a sweeper usually doesn’t own a house.”
Takechi nodded. “This one was poor enough in spite of it,” he said, looking up at the house.
Next door, a woman came out to peer at them. She shaded her eyes against the sun, then approached, bowing. “I’m Mrs. Kagemasa. Can I be of service?”
Akitada thought her well-spoken and polite and smiled at her. “We are here because your neighbor has died,” he said. “I’m Lord Sugawara and this is Chief Takechi.”
She bowed again. “I recognized the chief. Is something wrong with Tokuno’s death? The constables didn’t say.”
Takechi said, “He may have been murdered. Were you home the night he died?”
“Oh, no,” she murmured. “Murdered! Oh, the poor man. These days, what with all the fairs, there’s so much riffraff about. We were home but asleep. We heard nothing. I blamed myself for not looking in on him the day before. I thought he got sick. He was an old man after all.”
It sounded much like the comments about the judge. He, too, was thought to have died of old age. Akitada asked, “Being a neighbor, you probably knew Tokuno for a long time. Has he always been this poor and lived alone here?”
“Oh, no. Tokuno used to work at the tribunal. He was a jailer. He had a family, but they all died, even his son. His son had an accident ten years ago. He fell off a boat and drowned. After that Tokuno wasn’t the same man anymore.”
Takechi and Akitada looked at each other. “When did he stop working at the jail?” Takechi asked.
“Oh, years ago. It must be nearly twenty years now.”
“Before my time,” Takechi said to Akitada.
“How did he manage to support himself all those years?” Akitada asked the woman.
“At first the son was still alive. He was a fisherman. After he drowned, Tokuno became a porter for a while until the work got too heavy for him. He was getting to the point where he couldn’t do much anymore. The neighbors would sometimes bring him food. But his health was so bad we thought we’d have to ask the monks to take him in.”
“Onjo-ji monks?” Takechi asked.
She nodded. “They’ll look after poor old people. Besides, he still had the house to pay for his keep.”
Akitada suppressed a snort. No doubt, houses paid off handsomely. The temple could sell or rent them, and the old people by that time did not have long to live.
They thanked the woman and went into Tokuno’s house. It revealed not only careless housekeeping, since there was no woman to look after it, but also great poverty. There was little food in the dirty kitchen area, and that was mostly cheap millet and a few wilted leaves of vegetables that had probably been given away by a market woman at the end of the day. Tokuno’s clothes were mere rags, but among them they found something interesting. Hanging from one of the hooks that held clothes were also a leather whip and a rusty chain and manacles. The whip was old and stained, and Akitada shuddered at the thought that they had once bitten deeply into prisoners’ backs and legs.
He pointed them out to Takechi who merely nodded. “He was proud of his former job, I guess.”
“He was the sort of brute who enjoyed hurting people, I think.”
“That, too. Very common among jailers.”
“Not such a nice man, then. And we know that Nakano was no saint either. Perhaps the killer had a reason to kill these two.”
Takechi paused in his rummaging in an old trunk and looked at Akitada. “An old grudge?” he asked uncertainly. “I don’t know. Most people who end up in court or jail wouldn’t dare raise a hand against those in charge.”
“I hope things have become better in Otsu.”
This met with silence, and Akitada flushed. “Sorry. Of course, they have. I wasn’t thinking. I know neither you nor the governor would employ men like these two.”
Takechi smiled. “Never mind. I get angry myself when I think about the way things used to be done.”
They were soon finished and had not found anything helpful. Takechi said, “I’ll have my constables talk to all the neighbors in case someone saw something, but I have no great hopes. Mrs. Kagemasa next door will have talked to them already. Now that she knows it was murder, she’ll be making the rounds again. Shall we go back?”
“Yes. I’m concerned about one of my men. I think he went looking for that porter the sohei abducted. He hasn’t come back. If he isn’t back by now, I’ll have to see the abbot about the situation.”
Takechi was curious, and Akitada told him what Tora had said.
The chief said angrily, “If we get proof of illegal arrests, maybe we can round up some of those brutes and put an end to that sort of thing. I’ve heard such stories before, but we could never prove anything.”