The Tokyo Zodiac Murders (7 page)

“Not much needs to be explained, really; the case seemed very simple. Kazue was found lying on the floor. She was dressed in a kimono, but she wasn’t wearing any underwear.”

“No underwear?”

“That wasn’t so unusual. Women didn’t wear panties under their kimono back then. The room was a mess. The drawers were all pulled out and her effects were scattered all over the room. If she had kept any money in the house, it was gone. Her three-mirror dresser was untouched. The vase that was determined to be the murder weapon was found on the floor in the next room beyond the
fusuma
sliding doors. Kazue’s body was found as shown, but of course she may have been killed somewhere else. There was an absence of bloodstains in the house, although you would imagine blood must have
splattered around when she was hit. The killer might have moved the body to rape her.”

“Hmm. You said he raped her
after
he murdered her. Are you sure of that?”

“That’s what I heard.”

“Hmm. I don’t get it. She was found dressed in a kimono. If the killer was merely a burglar who apparently didn’t care about leaving his semen as evidence, would he really have bothered to dress his victim up again after killing and raping her?”

“That’s a good point.”

“Anyway, please continue.”

“Strangely, the police couldn’t determine exactly where Kazue was killed. It had to have been somewhere in the house, not outside. According to the investigation, a small amount of blood was found on the mirror and it was identified as Kazue’s.”

“Could she have been attacked when she was applying her make-up?”

“She only had a little make-up on. The police supposed she was combing her hair when it happened.”

“Because she was facing the mirror?”

“Right.”

“But I still don’t get it. There were
fusuma
doors on one side of the dresser. If she was sitting at the dresser, and combing her hair facing the mirror, then the
shoji
doors—which opened on to the corridor—were right behind her. The
fusuma
and the
shoji
were the only ways into the room. If the burglar entered the room through the
shoji
doors, Kazue would have seen him in the mirror, and she would have tried to escape. If he entered through the
fusuma
, she would have seen him in one of the side mirror panels. At the least, she would have sensed that
someone had come in and turned her head towards him. Was she hit on the front part of her head as she faced the assailant?”

“No, I don’t think she was… Wait a second… No, she wasn’t. According to the report, she was hit on the back of her head while she was seated with her back to the killer.”

“Hmm, the same way Heikichi was murdered. Interesting. I don’t think it was a burglar at all. It was more likely an acquaintance, someone she knew. She never tried to protect herself; she just sat there, facing the mirror. She didn’t move even though she saw the killer approaching her. That suggests the killer was someone she knew very well. Yes, I’m sure it wasn’t a careless burglar. A burglar would never think of wiping the blood off the mirror. The reason the killer carefully wiped off the blood was to hide his relationship with his victim. Kazumi, this is a great lead! The victim and her killer might even have been intimate enough to be lovers, because, generally speaking, women don’t look into a mirror and show their backs to a member of the opposite sex—at least they didn’t in those days. Yes, the killer must have been her lover. But wait… Why did he rape her after she was dead, when they could have had sex while she was alive?”

“Beats me. The book doesn’t give any reason. It just says she was raped. I agree with you—it’s weird.”

“That would make him a necrophiliac. Anyway, he must have been intimate with her already. Kazue did have a boyfriend, didn’t she?”

“Sorry, but according to the police she had no known lover.”

“Hmm, so much for that theory! No, wait… Her make-up. You said she had only a little make-up on?”

“Right.”

“A woman in her thirties, getting ready to see her man, with hardly any make-up on… Ah, now I see. That changes the picture entirely. Do you know what I think, Kazumi? The killer was a woman! Oh, no, it couldn’t be—not if the victim was raped and there was semen inside her! But the whole thing would make more sense if it was a woman who did it. Kazue could easily have been looking into the mirror, showing her back to a woman, especially if she knew her well. And if it was a woman, Kazue wouldn’t care that she only had a little make-up on, would she? The female killer approached the victim with a smile on her face, and then—whack!”

“What about the semen?”

“Hmm. Well, what if the female killer brought a supply of semen along with her? Yoshio’s wife could have done that easily, using her husband’s… No, that doesn’t work. Yoshio’s blood type was A.”

“The police could check how old the semen was. It would’ve been clear if it was one-day-old stuff.”

“Absolutely right. As they get old, sperm lose their tails. Now, Kazumi, I must ask you to give me the alibis for everyone who was related to the Umezawas.”

“Well, none of them had strong alibis, except for Heitaro. His mother, Yasue, had been at her gallery, but she was out in Ginza at the hour of the murder. At the Umezawa house, Masako, Tomoko, Akiko and Yukiko were all in the kitchen together. Tokiko was with Tae in Hoya again. Therefore, all the women had alibis, even though they were vouched for by family members. Reiko and Nobuyo had no alibis. They claimed they went to see a film,
The Age of Aerial Revue
, in Shibuya. The film finished at around 8 p.m., and then they returned to their
parents’ house at about 9 p.m. So those two could be suspects. Kaminoge is not so far from the Municipal High School Station on the Tokyo–Yokohama train line. But those two young women couldn’t have had much of a motive. Ayako and Yoshio had no firm alibis, either, but again we can’t find much of a motive for murder there. They knew Kazue, of course, but they were never close to her. Yasue and Heitaro had never met Kazue. And why would the Umezawa daughters want to kill their eldest sister?”

“Did Kazue often visit the Umezawas?”

“Well, sometimes. But none of them seemed to have a motive; that’s why I began to suspect a burglar. But we shouldn’t forget that we just got a new clue from Mrs Iida. So why don’t we move on to the Azoth murders?”

Kiyoshi wanted to hear more about Kazue’s case, but I’d had enough of that for a while and insisted we get on to the Azoth murders.

“As long as we come back to it later,” he said.

And so I began.

“Right after the murders of Heikichi and Kazue, the notorious Azoth murders occurred—perhaps the most grotesque and bizarre murders in Japanese history. After Kazue’s funeral, the Umezawa women all journeyed to the shrine at Mount Yahiko in Niigata Prefecture. They were hoping their visit would have the effect of purifying them. If you remember, it was the shrine that Heikichi had wanted to visit, and the family hoped that the journey there would put his soul to rest. In fact, they were afraid of being cursed by him.”

“Whose idea was it originally?”

“Probably Masako’s, but she said that they all had the same feeling. On 28th March, Masako and the six young women left Tokyo—Tomoko, Akiko, Yukiko, Tokiko, Reiko and Nobuyo. They were travelling together just as if they were on a school excursion. There was even a slight feeling of recreation among them. They arrived at their destination that night and stayed at the Tsutaya Hotel. They climbed the mountain the next day.”

“Did they visit the shrine?”

“Of course. From Yahiko, they took a bus to Iwamuro hot spring in Sado Yahiko National Park. That’s where they spent the night of the 29th. The surroundings were beautiful, and the young women said they would like to extend their stay. Masako wanted to visit her parents in Aizu-wakamatsu, which was not so far from Yahiko. She didn’t want to take all six girls with her, so she agreed they could stay on longer. The girls decided they would spend another night at the hot spring and then return home to Tokyo on the 31st. Masako left Iwamuro on the morning of 30th March, arriving at Aizu-wakamatsu that afternoon. She spent two nights with her parents and then left for Tokyo on the morning of 1st April. She arrived back in Tokyo that evening, expecting to find the girls already at home.”

“And did she?”

“No. When Masako got home, no one was there. In fact, they never showed up. By that time, they were all already dead. In time their bodies were found exactly as described in Heikichi’s note: each one in a different location, and each one missing a certain part. It was horrific. Masako was arrested on suspicion of murder.”

Kiyoshi sank into thought. He was clearly perplexed. “But why Masako? It wasn’t because they thought she might have killed Kazue, was it?”

“No. In fact, they arrested her as a suspect in the murder of Heikichi.”

“So the police had figured out how the killers pulled the bed up to the skylight?”

“They didn’t figure it out by themselves. Many people wrote to them, suggesting it.”

Kiyoshi snorted with superiority. “Well, Kazumi, that proves that amateur detectives can prove useful now and then! I would have done the same thing. Anyway, let me get this straight. The police had gone to the Umezawa home, found no one there, and concluded that the women had all fled. Then, when Masako arrived home alone, she was arrested as a suspect in the killing of Heikichi—and presumably also held for the apparent disappearance of the six girls.” Kiyoshi was about to add something, but he swallowed his words. He thought for a moment and then asked, “Did Masako confess to the crime?”

“No, she maintained she was innocent right up until she died in prison in 1960 at the age of seventy-six. They used to call her the ‘Lady Monte Cristo of Japan’. In the Fifties and Sixties, she was the subject of sensational reportage in the media. That was one reason why trying to solve the Zodiac Murders became such a fad. Can you imagine the fame that would be bestowed upon the person who cracked the case?”

“Hmm. And was she a suspect in the Azoth murders, too?”

“The fact was, the police didn’t really have a clue. They arrested her because she seemed suspicious, and then beat a confession out of her—which she later recanted.”

“Ah, they’re savages, those cops! How could they get an arrest warrant based on sheer guesswork?”

“I have no idea.”

“They must have been desperate to make any kind of arrest. But what did the prosecutors say? Did they make a clear case?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“What was the verdict?”

“Guilty. She was sentenced to death.”

“Was that the decision of the Supreme Court?”

“Yes. Masako asked for a retrial over and over again.”

“And the courts rejected her each time?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, Kazumi, from what I’ve heard, I don’t believe Masako was capable of killing her own daughters. Only a witch—an
onibaba
—could do that!”

“But she might have been capable of it. She did have a reputation for being cold-hearted.”

“Maybe. But if we think in purely practical terms, did she really have enough
time
to commit the murders?”

“That was thrown around for a long time, of course, with quite a lot of faulty reasoning. But it does appear that really she couldn’t have killed them, no matter how much she juggled the train schedules. Employees at the Tsutaya Hotel testified that Masako and the six young women stayed there just as she claimed. No one saw the girls after they left the hotel.

“The times of death were not so precise, because of the time it took to find the bodies. Tomoko was found much earlier than the others, and is believed to have been killed between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. on 31st March. Given the circumstances, it’s highly possible that the others died at the same time and the same place.

“Masako’s alibi was weak. Her parents said she was with them in the house on the evening of 30th March, but family members are never considered 100 per cent reliable. To make matters worse, Masako hadn’t left her parents’ house the whole time she was there. Her face was well known from Heikichi’s murder, and she didn’t want to be an object of attention. So
she stayed indoors all day on the 31st and saw no one. That meant she couldn’t prove that she hadn’t gone back to Yahiko early on the 31st.”

“Uh-huh. But the bodies were found in different places, weren’t they? If Masako couldn’t drive, she couldn’t possibly have done it.”

“Right. Few women had driving licences back then—it was comparable to having a pilot’s licence today. In fact, among all those involved in the case, only Heikichi and Heitaro had one.”

“So, by that reasoning, if the crime was done by only one person, it’s unlikely it was a woman.”

“You’re right.”

“Can’t we trace the path the girls took at all? There were really no witnesses? The six of them were travelling together. Someone must have seen them, surely?”

“No. No one saw them.”

“They were supposed to be back home in the evening of 31st March; maybe they changed their mind and stayed another night?”

“The investigators enquired at all the inns and hotels in Iwamuro, Yahiko, Yoshida, Maki, Nishikawa, and then extended their search to neighbouring areas. None of them had had a group of six girls as guests. So there was even speculation that some of the girls were killed before the 31st.”

“The six stayed at the Tsutaya Hotel on that day, didn’t they?”

“Yes. If one of them had suddenly disappeared, you’d think the others would have reported it to the police—which suggests that the killer must have killed them all at once!”

“Maybe the girls took the ferry to Sado Island?”

“I don’t think so. The police checked that out, too. The ferries to Sado only went from Niigata or Naoetsu, both of which were quite a distance from Iwamuro.”

“Well, we’re sure about one thing: the girls had no reason to hide themselves while travelling. So someone must have seen the six of them travelling together, wherever they had gone.”

“That’s right.”

“The police must have found something after interrogating Masako, even if they didn’t have any hard evidence.”

“Yes, they found some rope with a hook tied onto it in her house.”

“What? Rope?”

“Yes, but only one piece. I imagine it wasn’t meant to be left in the house.”

“I don’t believe it. She must have been framed.”

“Well, that’s what she said, but she had no idea who might have done it.”

“Hmm. That’s strange. Now, let’s go back to the skylight. When the police checked it out, was there any indication that the glass had been removed?”

“Yes, in fact there was. Several days before the murder, the glass in one skylight had been damaged—perhaps by kids throwing stones—and it was replaced. It was put back on with putty. So when the police got around to examining the glass, they couldn’t make a clear determination as to whether the glass had been removed during Heikichi’s murder or not. Anyway, over a month had already passed.”

“Very clever!”

“Clever?”

“I suspect it was the killer who threw the stones.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll explain later. The police should have thought of that. There must have been a lot of snow on the roof that night. If they’d climbed up a ladder to check the roof, they would have found shoe prints, handprints or something. Oh, wait a minute!” Kiyoshi exclaimed.

“What is it?”

“The roof must have been covered with a layer of snow. When Heikichi’s body was found, the studio must have been dark, with no light. But if the glass had been taken out of one skylight and then put back in, it would have had less of an accumulation of snow. And more light would have been coming into the studio from that one skylight. Anything in the record about that?”

“No. Both skylights were covered with snow.”

“Well, I suppose the killer, being so devious, would have been smart enough to cover the glass with snow after it was put back in the frame… Did the Umezawas own a ladder?”

“Yes. It was kept alongside the wall of the main house.”

“And had the ladder been moved?”

“It was hard to tell. It was kept under the eaves, where there was no snow. We do know that the repairmen used it when they replaced the glass, but, as I said before, the police didn’t conduct a full search of the property until over a month after the murder.”

“If Masako and her daughters killed Heikichi, they would have had to use the ladder, but you said there weren’t any prints in the snow…”

“There were ways around that. They could have taken the ladder through the main house, gone out from the front door, and gone around the property to the back gate.”

“Yes, that’s possible. They could have done that
if
they killed him.”

“You think it was someone else? Then how do you explain the arsenic compound in the house?”

“Arsenic compound? What are you talking about?” Kiyoshi asked, surprised.

“Arsenious acid was used to kill the six girls: 0.2–0.3 grams of the stuff was found in the stomachs of all six of them.”

“What? There’s something’s not quite right here. According to Heikichi’s note, every girl was supposed to be killed with a different metal. And a bottle of poison being in the house doesn’t make sense—weren’t the girls killed elsewhere before Masako got home?”

“Ironically, that was the excuse the police used to detain her. The poison enabled them to acquire an arrest warrant. As for the metals described in Heikichi’s note, different metals were indeed detected in the victims’ mouths and throats, but they were not what killed them. It was definitely arsenious acid that did it—a lethal dose is just 0.1 grams. Among murderers, potassium cyanide is the poison of choice, but that requires 0.15 grams. Arsenious acid is more toxic. Arsenic trioxide dissolves in water to become arsenious acid. The more alkaline the water, the easier it is to dissolve. The equation is As
₂
0
₃
+ 3H
₂
0
2H
₃
As0
₃
. By the way, the antidote for arsenic poisoning is iron oxide hydrate.”

“Thank you. I guess that could be valuable to know.”

“The victims drank fruit juice that had been laced with the poison. Now fruit juice was not sold in markets at that time, so the killer must have prepared it himself—or herself. All six girls drank from the same batch, because exactly the same
amount of poison was detected in them all. So it’s reasonable to assume that they were killed when they were all together.”

“I see.”

“Then the killer put different metal elements into each one’s mouth. Tomoko, the Aquarius, had lead oxide in her mouth. It’s a yellow powder which doesn’t dissolve in water easily, and it’s also a deadly poison. But that wasn’t what killed her. Presumably the killer couldn’t use different metal elements as poison if the girls were all to be killed at the same time.”

“You may be right.”

“Akiko, the Scorpio, was found with red ochre in her mouth. It’s a kind of red mud that is often used in paint; it isn’t toxic, and it’s a very common substance. Yukiko, the Cancer, had silver nitrate in her throat; it’s colourless and toxic. Tokiko, the Aries, was decapitated, but red ochre was smeared all over her body. Reiko, the Virgo, was found with mercury in her mouth. And Nobuyo, the Sagittarius, had tin in her throat.

“One question that arises is: where did the killer get the chemicals? Mercury can easily be obtained from thermometers, of course, but the other chemicals are not so easy to acquire, unless you’re connected to the medical field or a university lab or a pharmacy. You’d also need some working knowledge of chemicals. Heikichi was clearly passionate enough about these killings to acquire the necessary knowledge and materials.”