Her query seemed like neither nosy impertinence nor an avaricious ploy, but genuine concern. Sano could see how she’d coaxed Tōzawa’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 Tōzawa 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 Tōzawa out of hatred. “Did he speak of his family background?” Sano asked without much hope. He hardly expected Tōzawa 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 Tōzawa with Endō 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 Tōzawa, 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 Tōzawa mentioned. Was it Endō Munetsugu?”
“No, Tōzawa-san didn’t tell me his ancestor’s name.”
Sano clung to the fragile hope that Endō could still be Tōzawa’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.
Evidently perceiving Sano’s frustration, Sparrow leaned forward and placed a consoling hand on his arm. “Don’t be sad, sōsakan-sama. Tōzawa told me other important things about his ancestor. He said he was a brave general who won many battles for Lord Oda Nobunaga.”
Chapter 11
Sano finished his inquiries in Yoshiwara, where the Great Joy’s other occupants didn’t supply any useful information, and a search of the quarter turned up no one who’d seen the lame, pockmarked suspect. Back in Edo, he traced and questioned the men listed in Uesugi’s ledger with no better results. Still, these dead ends failed to discourage Sano.
Sparrow’s statement supported his belief that the rōnin Tōzawa was descended from Endō Munetsugu, as the hatamoto Kaibara was from Araki Yojiemon. Endō’s and Araki’s lords, Tokugawa Ieyasu and Toyotomi Hideyoshi, had been generals and allies under Oda Nobunaga. The historical records might reveal a link between past events and the murders. Sano decided to search the castle archives for this link before his meeting with Aoi.
As he traveled through Nihonbashi, the day’s brightness faded from the sky, drawing after it a ragged quilt of clouds that gradually immersed Edo in a gray twilight. The strengthening wind swept dust through the streets, and an odd, silvery light edged the castle’s ramparts and the peaks of the western hills. Sano, walking beside his horse to rest it after the day’s hard travels, observed with dismay the effect that the murders were having upon the city.
Although full darkness wouldn’t arrive for another hour, all the shops had closed for the night. The usual crowds of homebound merchants, artisans, and laborers had already vanished, leaving the streets in the possession of Edo ’s worst rabble. Idle young samurai and townsmen roved in trouble-seeking gangs. Itinerant rōnin and other drifters loitered. Many frightened citizens, loath to leave the safety of their homes while a killer roamed, peered out from barred windows. But others catered to the menacing traffic and encouraged the depravity that could turn excitement into violence. Sake sellers did a brisk business, as did seedy teahouses- the only establishments still open. Illegal prostitutes flirted from doorways. On every corner, newssellers hawked broadsheets.
“The Bundori Killer claims his third victim! Will you be next?” they shouted.
At an intersection, a crowd gathered around an old crone with long, tangled white hair who squatted before a pile of smoking incense sticks. Eyes shut, hands raised heavenward, she keened, “The invisible ghost walks among us. Tonight another man will die!”
As Sano had feared, the ghost story had spread, borne on a wave of contagious superstition that swelled unchecked because no other explanation for the murders had been found, and no human culprit identified. An evil carnival atmosphere pervaded the always unruly merchant quarter while Edo faced a threat the like of which it had never before experienced. Appalled, Sano tried to defuse the volatile situation before it turned dangerous.
“Give me those!” He snatched the broadsheets from a news-seller and skimmed the sensationalized accounts of Kaibara’s, the eta’s, and Tōzawa’s murders, accompanied by lurid drawings of the trophies. Outraged, he tore them up and scattered the pieces. “You’re scaring people. Go home!”
Cutting through the crowd to the elderly mystic, he seized her arm. “Show’s over. Get out of here.” To the bystanders, he shouted, “Go home, all of you!”
But more newssellers and seers continued to spread panic. The crowds ignored Sano’s pleas. He looked around in bewilderment. Where were the police?
A doshin and two assistants strode past him. The doshin escorted a wild-eyed samurai whose hands were bound behind his back, while the assistants carried between them another, this one bleeding from a wound on his shoulder and moaning in pain.
Sano hurried after the police. “What happened?”
“These fellows each thought the other was the Bundori Killer, and they fought,” the doshin explained. To the gawking crowds: “Let us through!”
Sano grew increasingly disturbed when he came to a gate, where he found two guards following his orders by questioning pedestrians. But at least three slipped by for every one halted.
“You’re supposed to stop everyone,” Sano reproached the guards. “Do you want to let the killer get past?”
The guards only shrugged helplessly. “There are too many people,” one said, “and they won’t answer questions or let us search them without a fight.”
In more haste than ever, Sano continued toward the castle. The police could control the mounting hysteria for just so long. Only catching the killer would end it.
As he hurried along the streets, leading his horse, he passed through deserted districts where dark warehouses and buildings razed by recent fires offered a hostile environment for the loitering crowds. A new thought took shape in his mind. He hadn’t yet felt personally endangered by the killer, and he shouldn’t now. Unlike Tōzawa, he was armed. Unlike Kaibara, he was young, strong, and capable of self-defense. And he firmly believed, albeit without proof, that the killer chose his victims because of who they were or what they represented to him.
But fear is contagious. The killer preyed on samurai who traveled alone at night, as he did now. Madness often confers a peculiar strength-enough, perhaps, for the Bundori Killer to conquer the most formidable, forewarned adversary. Was he pursuing a new trophy tonight? Memory served up images of the bloody, mutilated bodies and gruesome trophies Sano had seen. The gathering darkness added danger. Rational thought couldn’t keep dread from taking root and growing within Sano.