“Warlords would not hesitate for a moment to kill, mutilate, or torture if it became expedient. But in this case I doubt it. The verse was written by someone here in the city. It is in reaction to the notices we just posted. Uesugi could not have known in time to set up an elaborate scheme, dead body and all, even if he had not been preoccupied with his father’s funeral. I’m afraid someone else is acting independently but with the same purpose. I shall have another look at that corpse when the coroner arrives.”
“He should be here by now, sir.I’m afraid that crowd will not leave. I ordered the constables out to guard the gate.”
Akitada shook his head. “Like setting the cat to guard the fish. The sooner we come to grips with this situation, the better. I don’t like such open defiance of authority. Let’s go and see about that monk.”
The mutilated corpse lay on a plank table in an empty jail cell. A short fat man was about to remove the deadman’s tattered robe.
“Stop that!” Akitada saidsharply. “Who are you?”
The man turned around and looked at Akitada from bleary eyes. He was dirty from head to toe: his hair greasy and matted, his gray gown stained, and his sandaled feet caked with mud.“Yasa … Yasakichi, the cor’ner,” he mumbled, and a strong smell of sour wineand rotten teeth greeted their noses. “And who might you be, young man?”
Hitomaro growled, “Bow to the governor.” When the man merely gaped, he pushed him to his knees.
“Ouch. Let go,” the fat man whined, pulling away from Hitomaro’s grip. “How was I to know? It’s too early in the morning to see clearly.”
“Let him be,” Akitada said. “Ge tup, Dr. Yasakichi. Did you check the dead man’s clothing carefully beforere moving it?”
“Well, no need, is there?” The coroner staggered to his feet. He tugged at his robe, which was coming apart across his belly, and shook his head as if to clear away the fog of drunkenness. “Mere rags. Obvious what killed him. Mut’lated, then bludgeoned to death. Vicious but common crime among vagrants. I was just about to look for other wounds, though it won’t matter one way or ‘nother. Anything you can see with your naked eye is ‘nough to kill a man. I’ll get a report ready.”
“Hmm. What did you make of therice husks on his robe and”-Akitada bent over the body and pointed at the mass of torn flesh and bone that had been a face-”in those wounds?”
“What? Ah. Wouldn’t worry about‘em. Look at his rags. He’s slept in all sorts of dirt.”
Akitada glanced at the coroner’s stained gown, but made no comment. He lifted the hem of the victim’s ragged robe and looked at the thin legs and thighs. They were as pale-skinned and flabby as the frail arms. Stepping back, he gave the coroner a thoughtful look and said, “I think perhaps we’ll dispense with your services in this instance.Hitomaro, send a constable for Dr. Oyoshi! And tell him it’s urgent!”
“What?” The coroner swelled with outrage and his robe parted again. “This is
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
