Raindrop
The ink was still wet. Satomi touched it, almost without thinking, then regretted the smudge blossoming on her fingertip. Beside the scroll, the renowned calligrapher lay sprawled amidst scrolls and brushes, a landscape utterly at odds with his famously precise nature.
The cause of death was obvious: a single, clean puncture wound at the base of his neck. The murder weapon, presumably, was still somewhere in this maddeningly ordered room.
Satomi, a librarian by trade and an occasional consultant to the Kyoto police, surveyed the studio. Everything was in its place, except for the inconvenient fact of the body. Master Uemura had been a creature of habit, a man whose life revolved around the delicate dance of brush and ink. Disturbing his routine, it seemed, had been a fatal error.
The character on the scroll was simple: 雨, “ame.” Rain. Its meaning was straightforward, its execution flawless. Too flawless, perhaps? Satomi frowned. Even in death, Uemura-sensei was a perfectionist.
Detective Tanaka, a man whose tie was perpetually askew, stood awkwardly near the doorway. “A robbery gone wrong?” he offered, hopefully.
Satomi doubted it. The studio, located in a secluded corner of Uemura’s estate, was not easily accessible. And nothing appeared to be missing. Besides, a thief would hardly pause to create a work of art before fleeing the scene.
“Unlikely,” she said. “What do we know about his relationships?”
Tanaka consulted his notepad. “Uemura-sensei was…reclusive. He had a few students, mostly elderly women. No known enemies.”
“Lovers?”
Tanaka cleared his throat. “He was…unmarried.”
Satomi raised an eyebrow. “That is not quite what I asked, Tanaka-san.”
The students, predictably, were distraught. They gathered in the main house, a gaggle of silk scarves and whispered condolences. Satomi observed them from a distance, sipping the lukewarm tea that Uemura’s housekeeper had insisted upon. It tasted faintly of dust and unfulfilled potential.
There was Mrs. Ito, a woman whose bonsai trimming skills were, according to rumour, far superior to her calligraphy. When Tanaka asked her where she was that morning, she directed him to the garden: "You'll find me with my bonsai," she said, as calmly as if ordering tea. There was Mr. Sato, a retired accountant who approached calligraphy with the same meticulous precision he had once applied to spreadsheets. And there was young Hana, a recent art school graduate, whose eagerness seemed almost…performative.
Satomi approached Hana. “You were close to Uemura-sensei?”
Hana’s eyes widened. “He was my mentor! He saw something in me that no one else did.”
“What did he see?”
Hana hesitated. “Potential. Raw talent. He said I had the soul of an artist.”
Satomi smiled faintly. “He said that to all his students, Hana-san.”
Hana flushed. “He…he was very encouraging.”
Satomi paused. “Did you know he was planning to…alter his will?”
The girl's hand went to her throat. "No! No, I didn't. Why would you ask such a thing?"
Uemura’s will, as it turned out, was a document of considerable interest. The bulk of his estate, including the studio and its valuable collection of calligraphy tools, was to be bequeathed to his students. But a recent codicil, unsigned and undated, suggested a different arrangement. A substantial portion of the estate would instead go to a newly established foundation dedicated to the preservation of traditional calligraphy.
Tanaka, predictably, saw motive. “One of the students killed him to prevent the codicil from being signed,” he declared, triumphantly.
Satomi considered the idea. It was plausible, but too…obvious. Uemura had been a meticulous man. Surely he would have kept the codicil in a more secure location. And why leave the character for "rain"?
She returned to the studio, leaving Tanaka to his paperwork. The rain character nagged at her. It was too perfect, too deliberate.
She examined the scroll more closely. The paper was expensive, handcrafted. The ink, a rare variety imported from Nara. The brushstrokes…flawless. But something was amiss.
She took out her own magnifying glass, a habit from her library days. Under magnification, the truth revealed itself. The rain character was not painted using the traditional style of Master Uemura. It was not a brushstroke at all. It was several. Miniscule overlapping strokes that gave the perfect illusion.
The thought arrived unbidden: tracing. And tracing, she knew, required steady hands, a familiarity both with ink and the lines to be followed. Hana was too theatrical, Sato too rigid. But Ito-san, with her bonsai, possessed the necessary delicacy and control.
Satomi sat in the main house, sipping at the lukewarm tea. She thought about the students, their motives, their alibis. Mrs. Ito, with her prize-winning bonsai and her simmering discontent. Mr. Sato, with his meticulous accounting and his repressed ambition. And young Hana, with her performative grief and her desperate need for validation.
But none of them felt quite right. Their motives were too obvious, their alibis too easily confirmed.
She looked at the photograph of Uemura-sensei. He was always smiling gently for the camera.
Her eyes drifted to the garden outside. Mrs. Ito was tending to her bonsai, her movements precise and deliberate. Satomi had been so focused, after Hana's distress, that she had forgotten to check the grounds.
An apprentice calligrapher would know that if they needed to trace a letter seamlessly, the overlapping strokes was a viable, albeit clumsy, solution. But a calligrapher would know that if they needed to trace a letter quickly, and without being detected, there was a quicker solution.
She walked out into the garden.
“Mrs. Ito,” she said, pleasantly. “Your bonsai are exquisite.”
Mrs. Ito smiled. "Thank you, Satomi-san. They are my…escape."
"I am afraid Uemura-sensei's death was also an escape, shall we say. A way to get to his money but keep your distance, perhaps?"
The woman's back tensed slightly.
"You were the one who had the most to lose. Master Uemura had intended to sign the codicil, yes? But he had promised you you would be his official partner. You were hurt, naturally, and even a little bit ashamed. How could the woman who trimmed the best bonsai dare show her flawed calligraphy in public?"
"And," Satomi picked a stray leaf from the tiny tree, "your alibi with the police was, as you said, that you would simply be at the bonsai. It was almost begging for investigation."
Satomi looked at the shears in Ito's hand. Tiny but sharp. Likely the murder weapon. It now made sense why she never saw the knife. It had been staring her in the face. Another leaf fell to the ground.
"The rain character, though, it was a mistake. You killed Uemura-sensei, didn't you? You thought you were alone, but he cried out. You asked him to trace the character afterwards, hoping to cover your tracks. You were too flustered by the murder to realize that an expert like him wouldn't make the same exact strokes."
"You were too far to see if he was dead, only that he was lying down by his desk. You made the tracing as perfect as you could to ensure that any suspicion would be deflected. You had your alibi, so you raced back to tend to the bonsai."
"But you forgot that any apprentice calligrapher would know that if they need to trace a letter seamlessly, the overlapping strokes was a viable solution. It was your last act, and it will be your final one."
It was silent for a moment, save the rustling of the trees. Then, Mrs. Ito snapped her shears and burst into tears.
Back in her hotel room, Satomi finally managed to make a decent cup of tea. She sat by the window, watching the rain fall on Kyoto. The case was closed, but a sense of melancholy lingered. Uemura-sensei was gone, his talent lost, his legacy tainted.
She took a slow, careful sip of her tea. It was still too hot, but she didn't mind. Some things, she reflected, were simply beyond repair.