Akitada eyed him coldly. “You are insubordinate. In fact, I believe you are drunk on duty. Consider yourself dismissed.”
The coroner opened his mouth to argue, but Hitomaro took him by the arm and marched him out the door. When he returned, he said, “I think the fellow was drunk when he was at the Golden Carp. We both smelled wine on his breath as he passed us.”
Akitada was bent over the body.“I would not be surprised,” he muttered. Straightening up, he added, “Still, a slit throat is fairly simple to identify as cause of death. This, on the otherhand, is no vagrant. With that pale skin on his arms and legs, he has spent his life indoors, and fully clothed. The muscles are also underdeveloped. An itinerant monk does a lot of walking. He should have muscles in those shanks.”
“Yes, I see. What about therice husks?” Hitomaro asked.
“The body was kept somewhere where rice was being threshed.”
“Maybe he slept in a granary.”
“If so, he was probably killed there. The husks have stuck to the lacerated flesh of his face. But there wasreally very little bleeding from those wounds, don’t you think?”
Hitomaro frowned and scratched his head. “If he’s no vagrant monk, then those are not his clothes. And if the killers changed his clothes after death, there wouldn’t be much blood on them.”
“Yes, you’re quite right, but that still does not explain … Ah, there you are already!” Dr. Oyoshi hadentered and was bowing politely. “You are more than prompt, my dear Doctor.”
“I happened to be passing the tribunal on my way home from a patient, Excellency. I trust you are fully recovered?”
“Yes.” Akitada smiled at the ugly little man. “I’m much obliged to you for your medicine. Both my wife and my secretary are knowledgeable about herbal remedies and most curious about the ingredients. My wife used to have a fine garden and raised many medicinal plants at her home in the capital. Now she wishes to learn about the medicines of this region.”
“I shall write out the recipe for her, but I’m afraid some of the ingredients come from plants which grow only in remote mountain regions.” Oyoshi cast a curious glance at the body on the table. “How may I serve you today?”
“As coroner. I just dismissed the incompetent sot who held that office.”
Oyoshi bowed. “Thank you for your confidence, but I must warn you that Yasakichi has powerful friends. He was appointed by the high constable.”
“I need competence, not influence. Have a look and tell me what you think.”
Oyoshi set down his case androlled up his sleeves. He stared at the wounds on the face and the stumps ofthe arms and legs, and shook his head. Reaching into his case, he took out aset of pincers and a sheet of paper, on which he carefully placed tiny bits ofdebris from the wounds. Next he checked the man’s rags, even feeling andsmelling them.
When he was done, he looked upat Akitada. “Would you like a preliminary report now before I remove theclothing and wash the body?”
“If you please.”
“This man was about fifty years old and in poor health. In fact,” he said with a puzzled frown, “there is something oddly familiar about him. His head is shaven, so I assume he is a monk. Perhaps he belongs to our temple and I have had occasion to treat him in the past. But I don’t think the clothes are his. They are too large and too dirty, for one thing, whereas the body seems quite clean. The wounds to his face and the mutilations were inflicted several hours after death. I cannot speak to the cause or time of death until I have made a more thorough study,and it is possible that the mutilation will make a definite diagnosis impossible.”
“How do you know he was already dead when this was done to him, Doctor?” Hitomaro asked.
“There’s hardly any blood in the wounds, Lieutenant. A dead man does not bleed. Most likely the mutilation happened in a place where rice is threshed or stored. There are husks in the wounds.”
Hitomaro glanced at Akitada and was about to say something, but at that moment a loud clanging came from the tribunal gate.
“It’s that bell again!” Akitada said. “And to think that only a short while ago I complained about a lack ofofficial business.” He told Oyoshi, “I must go. Please continue your examination. Later Hitomaro will show you another body. You may report when you have finished with both.”
Oyoshi raised his brows, but said nothing and bowed.
Outside, Akitada and Hitomaro found a small group of people standing in the main courtyard. More people pressed curiously forward at the gate. The armed constables made a halfhearted effort to hold them back, while carrying on an exchange of crude jokes. The courtyard group stood around a stocky man who wore only a stained shirt and loincloth. A powerful odor of fish emanated from him.
Sergeant Chobei detached himself from the group and greeted Akitada with a grin. “This man has acomplaint, Excellency,” he announced loudly. “A local fishmonger, name of Goto.His shop’s at the western end of the market.”
Goto spat, stuck out his chest,and glanced around importantly. He said in a belligerent tone, “I want to seet hat dead man.”
“Why?” Akitada looked thefishmonger and his supporters over. They appeared the type that scraped by with a minimum of work and a maximum of resentment for authority. As a rule the yproved too cowardly to cause real trouble.
“My brother’s missing and I’mthinking it may be him,” the fishmonger said. “And if it’s Ogai, you’ve got to arrest that bastard Kimura for his murder.” He looked at his companions, who muttered in agreement.
Akitada frowned but decided not to make an issue of the man’s disrespectful manner. “Is your brother a monk?”
“A monk? Not Ogai!” Goto and his companions burst into raucous laughter.
Akitada was about to send them away, when Goto said, “Ogai’s a soldier. On leave from the garrison.”
Akitada considered this. Asoldier? True, not only monks shaved their heads. Soldiers did also, to preventlice, a common plague in close barracks quarters.
“Come on then. Just you.”Akitada strode off toward the jail, Hitomaro following.
In the jail cell, Dr. Oyoshiwas just sponging the nude body. “Oh,” he said, “you’re back already.” His eyesfell on Goto. “Is there a problem?”
“No. Just a matter of identification. Well, man? Is it your brother?”
The fishmonger peered, turned green, and slunk back, nodding. “Yes, that’s him. P-poor Ogai! That bastard Kimura did that to him! It’s terrible!” He wiped his eyes with filthy hands.
“Come outside. Hitomaro, a cupof water.”
In the yard, the fishmonger took some deep breaths and drank. “Thanks,” he said. “Made me sick, to see that. Ogai’s been the best brother a man ever had. We were as close as a snail and his house, Ogai and me. But him and that Kimura-” He shook a fist. “May a hundred demons tear out his guts and scatter them on the mountaintops. They got into a fight over a dice game. Kimura said he’d kill him and he did. I can show your constables where Kimura lives so they can arrest him.”
“When was that quarrel?”Akitada asked.
“Two weeks ago, and the very next day Ogai was gone. The garrison says he never signed in. They came to arrest him for desertion and searched my house and asked the neighbors questions. Only nobody’s seen him.” He jerked his head toward his companions. “They’ll tell you.”
“No doubt,” Akitada said dryly.“Why did you not report your brother’s disappearance earlier?”
Goto looked down at his bare feet. “Ogai was home on leave. I thought he’d just gone on a little trip before going back. But then the soldiers came for him and I got worried. Then I heard about the body at the tribunal gate…Holy Buddha! What that animal did to my poor brother!”
“Hmm. How did you recognize him? Any special marks?”
The man shook his head. “No,but I’d know my brother anywhere.”
Akitada regarded the man through narrowed eyes. “How old was your brother?”
Goto suddenly looked nervous. “Thirty-five.But-he looked older.”