Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine 11/01/10 Read online

  It was the same man. Had to be. Ten years on the Chicago force, then moved out here. Immediately hired as a detective in 1990, rapidly rising through the ranks to the rank of captain by dint of being tough and inflexible in the application of the law. Real old school when old school was the way to go.

  There was only one ugly thing in his record, a reprimand for allowing officers under his authority to use excessive force and turning a peaceful immigration rights protest into a full-blown riot back in 2002. Lockhart remembered the incident well. Cracked heads, broken bones, and in the aftermath, the red-hot wrath of an indignant public. It had almost caused the downfall of the chief. At first, it looked like maybe Wieczorek had been singled out as a fall guy to insulate the men at the top. But then Wieczorek, unrepentant to the point of arrogance, filed an incendiary written protest, expressing his anger in the most immoderate language, essentially accusing the protesters of violating U.S. sovereignty and fomenting an alien revolution in the streets. The diatribe read like the product of an unhinged mind. The letter had been subsequently and anonymously leaked to the press, and took most of the heat off the administration. Wieczorek would have been put to pasture if he hadn’t suddenly died of heart failure first.

  Lockhart wondered what else the captain had brought with him from Chicago besides attitude.

  On a hunch, Lockhart went back to his office and looked up Roger McClardy’s name in the national criminal database on his computer. Bank robbery was a federal crime. The Feds were way ahead of everybody else in electronically archiving their records. It should be there. And it was, as advertised. In Indianapolis, in 1959. The name of the rookie patrolman who had shot McClardy dead at the scene was there, too. Officer Clement “Tiger” Curzon, age twenty.

  Lockhart leaned back in his chair, his elbows locked as he gripped the front edge of his desk.

  A chain. McClardy to Curzon to Wieczorek to . . . who?

  Ericson liked Neto Alarcón for the murders. But was a nexus between Wieczorek and Alarcón even conceivable? Wieczorek had made no secret of his contempt for Latinos. It didn’t add up.

  Didn’t Ericson say that Mindy Alarcón had a new boyfriend?

  Ericson had checked out Mindy’s recent conquest as a matter of routine and had put him at the bottom of the list of potential suspects. He was a little peeved when Lockhart asked about him.

  “Of course I looked at him,” he said, “but there’s nothing to tie him in. They’d only dated a couple of times and things between him and Mindy hadn’t gotten very far.”

  “Where was he night before last?”

  Ericson flipped open his notebook and examined what he’d written there.

  “Daniel Dell’Isola, thirty-six. General contractor. Active in his church and local charities. Says he was at a rehearsal at the Christian Community Little Theater until about eleven. They’re doing Guys and Dolls and he’s playing Harry the Horse. I checked with the director, Bill O’Hara, and he confirms that Dell’Isola was there.”

  “That’s no alibi. The murders weren’t committed until two A.M. Harry the Horse, you say. This guy on the large side? The M.E. said our murderer was big.”

  “So what? Guerra based his conclusion on the angle of the cut—but take it from me, an attack with a katana can be made from almost any angle. You’d know that if you ever saw a samurai movie. And psychologically, Dell’Isola just doesn’t fit.”

  “Reading minds now, are we?”

  “Look, partner, when I talked to the guy, he was in complete shock, total denial. Kept asking me if I was sure Mindy was gone, that’s the way he put it. No way he was faking it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m sure. I know he’s not any kind of brilliant actor because O’Hara said the only reason he got the part of Harry the Horse is because he’s one huge dude and the role can be played with a stilted delivery. Apparently that’s the very best Dell’Isola can give. O’Hara knows him pretty well, too—Dell’Isola has spent a lot of time with the group over the last five years, usually as a stagehand or an extra.”

  “Maybe he’s a better actor than he pretends to be.”

  “For God’s sake, Andy—Dr. Gutiérrez, Mindy’s father, was there too. He’s playing Big Jule. According to O’Hara, the two of them were very friendly and even hung out together when they weren’t on stage. Do you think Dell’Isola’s going to belt out show tunes with Papa all evening and then run off to behead Daddy’s little princess?”

  “Put that way, probably not, but let me have his particulars anyway.”

  “Help yourself.” Ericson sounded like he would rather have used different word than “help” and Lockhart felt a sudden urge to wipe the smirk off his face. But Ericson wasn’t smirking. Had Lockhart imagined the insult? Ericson flipped a couple of pages over in the notebook and showed Lockhart the address.

  Lockhart felt a thrum of electricity pass through him when read it. He had just seen that address himself, down in the basement. It was the same West Side condo complex where Walt Wieczorek had lived.

  Lockhart tried to imagine what the expression on his lieutenant’s face would look like if he told him he wanted a warrant to search Dell’Isola’s home, because Dell’Isola might have known Wieczorek who knew Curzon who shot McClardy who had been suspected of a murder in Japan fifty years before. It wasn’t pretty. He’d be laughed out of the office.

  He pulled Dr. Oda’s card out of his wallet. He needed to talk to somebody, and this was beyond even Beth’s capacity for sympathy.

  “Come in, please, Detective. Would you mind removing your shoes?”

  Oda’s home was much smaller than Lockhart had expected. He had imagined that the home of a senior diplomat would be big and ostentatious, and he hadn’t figured that Oda would be more comfortable in a place like the tiny apartment he had known in Tokyo.

  The decoration was sparse in the extreme, even given the limited space. This was not to say, however, that it lacked personality or suggested an air of transience, as was usually the case with near-empty lodgings. Instead, there was an atmosphere of studied simplicity. On a low table against one wall there stood a lacquered wooden stand horizontally holding two swords in shiny black scabbards, one shorter than the other.

  “I am glad you have come,” Oda said. “My wife is home visiting our children and I am grateful for the company. Will you have some beer?”

  “Sure. That’s your, uh, daisho, right?”

  Oda smiled. “Very good, Detective. You are right, daisho, the ‘large-and-small.’ The stand is called a katana-kake, after the katana, the long sword—the shorter sword is the wakizashi. It never left the side of the warrior who wielded it except in the battlefield, or when he slept. Do you see how the swords point to the right? That is so they must be lifted by the left hand, and thus difficult to draw. It shows peaceful intent.”

  “You didn’t tell me that your family were samurai.”

  Oda shrugged. “It is not important. My clan were daimyo, feudal lords. One of my ancestors was Ieyasu’s mentor. All very long ago. But these swords are not so old. They only date from the eighteenth century. Please, come in.”

  Lockhart followed him as he went into the kitchen, and leaned against the doorframe, watching as the little man busily played host.

  “I am very fond of beer, although I don’t much care for your American brands.” Oda’s refrigerator was a short, two-door compact model. He squatted in front of it and pulled out two bottles of Pilsner Urquell, and then fetched two tumblers to pour them into. He carried them in each hand into the constricted dining area. The table was barely large enough for four and Oda indicated that Lockhart should sit opposite him.

  They were silent for several seconds as they sipped their beers. Then both began to talk at the same time.

  “No, you go ahead, Doctor.” Lockhart felt vaguely ashamed for some reason.

  “You did not like me very much, I think, when we first met.”

  Lockhart didn’t know what to say to that, so
he settled for the truth. “No, not much.”

  Oda shrugged. “I am used to that, Detective. Japanese think Americans are cold because you are rude. Americans think Japanese are cold because we are polite. But where there is a common thirst for the truth, these things are nothing but shadows. I must confess, as well, that I deliberately misled you when I did not tell you everything I knew or suspected.”

  Lockhart raised an eyebrow. He shouldn’t have been surprised. When it came down to it, most people held something back from the cops. Or lied.

  “I told you that I had seen such crimes twice before. That was so you could confirm that these crimes had actually been committed, as I’m sure you did.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Then you will not be surprised to learn that there was another such crime, committed in Nagasaki in 1928. Sadly, all records of it were destroyed by the atomic bomb, but you may take my word for it.”

  “I don’t—” But Lockhart didn’t know what he was trying to say.

  Oda smiled tightly. “A third-hand account exists of another such crime committed in 1901, in Nara. Finally, there was a detailed description of a murder bearing Muramasa’s mark in 1873 in Kyoto. Before that, there are no records at all, only rumors—the Meiji Restoration, which opened up Japan, did not occur until 1868, and before that the shogun’s secret police would have handled such matters. They were adept at keeping secrets.”

  “You’re saying there’s a long history of identical crimes going back who knows how far. You think the katana is genuine, that it really was fabricated by the hands of Muramasa. And you believe in the curse too. You believe that this sword is the—the thing that killed all those people.”

  Oda closed his eyes and breathed deeply. When he opened them again, he began to speak with deliberate calmness.

  “There is a story, a legend that tells of a challenge between Muramasa Senzo and another, even more famous swordsmith. His name was Goro Nyudo Masamune, the most esteemed of them all. The legend assumes that Masamune was the master and Muramasa his pupil. In fact, the two could never actually have met because Masamune lived a hundred years before Muramasa, but the story is nevertheless not without merit.

  “The shogun is said to have ordered each to fashion his finest sword, to prove who was the greater smith. Muramasa’s sword was called Juchi Yosamu, the Ten Thousand Cold Nights. His master’s sword was called Yawaraka-Te, the Tender Hands. When the swords were finished, both smiths were told to hold their swords under a waterfall.

  “Everything that came over the waterfall was cut by the Ten Thousand Cold Nights: fish, leaves, even the air. The pond below was fouled with blood. The leaves adhered to Muramasa’s blade, limp and brown. The sword destroyed all it touched.

  “But when the Tender Hands were placed in the waterfall, the water cleared. Fish passed it by, and the leaves, when they were cut, reformed and floated like the boats of pearl divers on the pond below.

  “Muramasa scoffed at his master for forging a sword that would not kill. But the shogun asked a monk, who was there as an observer, what it meant, and the monk said, ‘The sword of Muramasa Senzo is sharper than the winter wind, but it craves blood and death. It cares nothing for who or what it will sever, so long as there is destruction. It might as well cut the wings of butterflies as the necks of the shogun’s foes. But the blade of Masamune is the better, for it will not needlessly cleave the innocent and the undeserving.’”

  Oda drank his beer. Lockhart stared at his hands, his heart pounding.

  “Detective,” Oda said quietly, “there are those who think that evil does not materially exist, that it has no force, that it is an intangible fantasy. I am not one of them. I think evil seizes every opportunity to corrupt men’s hearts, to foster hatred, to engender harm. I feel that you believe this too.”

  “I thought I had some questions for you,” Lockhart said at length, “but now I only have one. Does uragiri mean anything in Japanese?”

  Oda inhaled sharply. “Where have you heard this word?”

  “That’s not important—but I must know what it means.”

  “At Sekigahara, most of Mitsunari’s allies abandoned him and joined Ieyasu’s side. They betrayed him, and cost him everything—the battle, his life, and even his clan. That is uragiri.”

  Lockhart felt suddenly cold. He stood.

  “Thank you, Dr. Oda. I have to go now. I have work to do.”

  “Yes, of course. Only one more thing, Detective. Ten thousand nights—that is just over twenty-seven years. Look at the dates of the crimes. They are each them exactly ten thousand days apart.”

  Lockhart turned it over in his mind again and again. There was no way he could claim probable cause. He would have to get Dell’Isola to invite him in. Once inside, he’d find some pretext to look for the sword. He would create the opportunity. He must create the opportunity.

  He punched the doorbell with his thumb and waited.

  If Oda was right, the katana’s lust for blood had been sated by Mindy’s and her brother’s murders for another twenty-seven years. But if Dell’Isola felt cornered, there was no telling what he might do.

  “Who is it?”

  “Police. I’m Detective Lockhart. I’m just following up on some questions you answered for my partner, Detective Ericson.”

  The door opened a crack.

  Dell’Isola was even taller than Lockhart had expected. Lockhart had to look up to make eye contact.

  “Badge?”

  Lockhart already had it out and held it up to Dell’Isola’s face.

  The door opened all the way. “All right. Come on in.”

  Lockhart walked into the living room of the apartment. Dell’Isola waited at the door as he entered. Lockhart didn’t like having Dell’Isola behind him.

  “Do I smell beer on your breath?” Dell’Isola asked. “You’re not drunk, are you, Officer?”

  “No. I’m not. I just had one, to make this old guy comfortable.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “What?”

  “Since you’re not drunk, this is going to hurt a lot more.”

  Dell’Isola’s huge right fist hit him in the kidney with the force of a piledriver. Lockhart folded like a paper napkin.

  He could barely move from where he had fallen. He tried reaching for his pistol, but Dell’Isola swatted his hand away and pulled the weapon out of the holster.

  “I don’t like guns,” Dell’Isola said. “They are artless.”

  He tossed the gun on the sofa. His left hand grabbed Lockhart by the jaw, the long thick fingers pushing Lockhart’s cheeks painfully into his teeth.

  “Knives, though. They’re like—like a sculptor’s chisel. You carve away what isn’t art.”

  Lockhart tried to free himself but Dell’Isola only laughed and slapped him until his head rang.

  “Swords are even better. But you know that. You came for that.”

  He jerked Lockhart up off the floor and flung him down hard in an armchair.

  “Sit.”

  Dell’Isola moved toward the bedroom and Lockhart tried to get up, but he was too slow. Dell’Isola almost casually punched him in the solar plexus and the air left Lockhart like a freeway blowout. He fell back in the chair.

  Dell’Isola ducked into the bedroom and returned with a naked katana.

  “Tell me, Officer. Does the man hold the sword, or does the sword hold the man?”

  It was a thing of singular, sinister beauty, long and slender, gleaming like a mirror, a wavelike temper line extending down its length. It was . . . seductive.

  “You wonder how I knew you were onto me. Well, here’s a secret.” Dell’Isola put his lips against Lockhart’s right ear. “It talks to me. Tells me things. It knew you were coming before you did.”

  Dell’Isola stood erect and posed in front of Lockhart as if he were Conan the Barbarian. “Watch, Officer.”

  Dell’Isola then proceeded to execute a routine intended to show off his control of the blad
e. He danced around the living room like a circus bear, ridiculous but dangerous.

  “Okay, show’s over.” Dell’Isola lifted the katana in both hands over his head and tensed.

  The blow was obviously intended to cut Lockhart in half. But as he brought the sword over his head, the sword bit into the ceiling plaster, struck a beam, and imbedded itself fast.

  As Dell’Isola tried to tug the weapon free, Lockhart exerted every muscle, every particle of his sapping willpower, to lurch over to the sofa and his pistol. Dell’Isola half turned, torn between trying to liberate the sword and stopping Lockhart. The slight hesitation was all Lockhart needed. His fingers closed on the pistol grip and he flipped over. He pointed the gun at Dell’Isola and emptied the magazine. Dell’Isola collapsed like an imploding derelict high-rise.

  Lockhart knew he was going to pass out. The beating he had taken must have caused serious internal injuries. He could taste blood in his mouth. He pulled his cell phone out, dropped it, picked it up, and noticed he couldn’t focus on the numbers. He was slipping away.

  And then he heard the faint voice.

  “Andy!—Andy!—”

  Although he didn’t remember closing them, he opened his eyes.

  It was Elaine.

  Consciousness did not return all at once, but in episodes. There was Elaine, sitting by his hospital bed and reading the book about Japanese weapons he’d bought. Then there was Dr. Oda, standing in the doorway talking to Elaine and a nurse. John Ericson asking him if there was anything he wanted.

  Eventually, he felt good enough to talk for several minutes at a time before tiring.

  “The katana was recovered by your criminalists,” Oda told him, “although they had to cut through the wood in the ceiling to free it. It has been returned to the custody of the Japanese government and is now safe. I had the opportunity to examine it.”

  “Your suspicions were right, weren’t they? It was a genuine Muramasa.”

  Oda shook his head. “No, I was quite wrong. Although the sword is several hundred years old, the ornamental file marks on the blade’s tang could not have been made by Muramasa. The katana is a forgery after all.”