Sano Ichiro 9 The Perfumed Sleeve (2004)

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “Well, it doesn’t matter whose spy you are,” he said. “Whatever you’ve seen or heard here, you won’t be telling anyone.”

  He drew the short sword at his waist. Panic shot through Reiko. He meant to kill her! Yasue grabbed her hair, tilting back her head, exposing her throat for Tamura’s blade. As Tamura advanced on her, Okitsu and Agemaki watched, their faces vacant with shock or confusion. Reiko felt her heart racing fast and hard, and the vertigo that heralded a bad spell. Through her mind flashed images of the ambush on the highway; screams echoed in her ears. Aghast that this should happen when she most needed her strength and wits, Reiko fought the evil magic. She jabbed her elbow into Yasue’s stomach. The old housekeeper grunted and let go. But even as Reiko lunged for the door, Koheiji caught her.

  “Hey, Tamura-san,” he said, “how about if I have a little fun with her before you kill her?”

  His cheerful voice was edged with malice. He yanked on her clothes. The flimsy cotton fabric tore, exposing her shoulders and bosom. As she struck out at him, Koheiji laughed and dodged. He seized her in a crushing embrace, grinding their bodies together. His snarling face was close to hers. As Reiko turned her head, pushed on his chest, and strained away from him, she saw the others ranged around her and Koheiji.

  Okitsu pressed her knuckles to her mouth and closed her eyes. Tamura frowned in disgust but said nothing; Agemaki’s expression was blandly indifferent. Yasue’s beady eyes glittered with vicarious lust and excitement. None of them intended to stop Koheiji.

  “Help!” Reiko shouted, in the desperate hope that Sano’s detectives were near and would come to her rescue.

  “When you watched me with Okitsu yesterday, you wanted some of what you saw, didn’t you?” Koheiji said, panting with his effort to quell Reiko’s thrashing arms and legs. “Well, I’ll give it to you now. You can die happy.”

  Reiko felt the hardness in his groin pummeling her. She dug her fingernails into his arms, but he held fast; he was too strong. The liquor on his breath and the heat of his body revolted Reiko. She screamed in terror as he forced her down on the floor. This was what she’d feared most of all—a reprise of that terrible scene in the Dragon King’s palace. The actor’s handsome, cruel face above her dissolved into the Dragon King’s strange, crazed visage. The thought of Senior Elder Makino, savagely beaten to death, flashed across Reiko’s dazed consciousness.

  Had Koheiji killed Makino? Was this man ravishing her the murderer she and Sano sought?

  Koheiji tore open her skirts. The panic and vertigo dizzied Reiko, weakening her as she fought him. But her instinct for survival ignited her resistance. Her wish to see her husband and child again, and her determination not to surrender to evil, infused her with new strength. She heaved forward and slammed her head into Koheiji’s face. Pain exploded through her brow. Her vision went momentarily black. Koheiji yelled, and the sound revived her. The vertigo was gone, her mind clear. She saw Koheiji recoil from her. Blood poured from his nose and mouth.

  “Hey, you like to play rough?” Koheiji said, grinning and licking the blood on his swollen lips. “Well, so do I.”

  As he remounted her, Reiko shoved her knee hard into his groin. He howled in agony, rolled off her, and lay curled around his injured manhood. Reiko jumped to her feet. Tamura stepped between her and the door, his expression murderous, his sword held ready to slash.

  “Get her!” Yasue shrilled.

  Reiko saw a charcoal brazier on the floor near her. She snatched it up and hurled it at Tamura, striking him across his knees. He staggered. Soot and live, glowing coals flew out of the brazier. Fire blackened Tamura’s robes where the coals touched them. He dropped his sword and beat his hands against himself to extinguish the flames. Reiko raced toward the door.

  “Stop her!” Tamura shouted, coughing amid a cloud of smoke.

  Okitsu collapsed, but Yasue and Agemaki chased Reiko. Agemaki caught her sleeve. Reiko grabbed Agemaki by the arm, whipped her around, and flung her away. Agemaki tumbled knees over head. Yasue charged at Reiko, hands spread, screeching like a crow gone berserk. Reiko picked up a lacquer tray table and bashed her across the face. The housekeeper fell, stunned. Tamura had his sword back in hand. Out the door Reiko raced.

  “She’s getting away!” Koheiji cried in a strangled voice.

  Reiko heard Tamura’s footsteps pounding after her as she sped down the corridor. She burst through the door and ran down the steps into the garden. Trees, shrubs, and boulders were monochrome shapes beneath the dull silver sky of late dusk. Icy rain lashed her; the cold instantly chilled the skin bared by her torn robes.

  Tamura shouted for the patrol guards. He called to Reiko, “It’s no use running. You won’t get out of Edo Castle alive.”

  Fortunately, Reiko didn’t need to get out of Edo Castle, only to reach her home in the official quarter, a few streets distant. Answering shouts came from the patrol guards; their hurrying footsteps drew close. Reiko dashed between buildings, around corners, groping in near darkness. Across a courtyard she spied a crooked pine tree. Behind it loomed the outer wall of the estate. Reiko launched herself up the tree’s low branches and climbed through cold, prickly needles. She crawled onto the top of the wall, lowered herself feetfirst over the outer side, then dropped down.

  In the private quarters of his estate, Sano sat drinking hot tea with Hirata in his office. Outside, temple bells tolled, summoning priests, monks, and nuns to evening prayer rites; the distant gunfire subsided as darkness fell. The watchdogs had left Sano to make their reports to Lord Matsudaira and Chamberlain Yanagisawa, but their men still occupied the house. Through open partitions that divided several rooms adjoining his office, Sano watched the maids feeding Masahiro his supper in the nursery. Two thugs sat near Masahiro, guarding him. The little boy didn’t chatter or laugh as usual; he and the maids were quietly somber. Detectives stood in the corridor, ready to protect the household from the unwanted guests. An ominous gloom infected the estate.

  “What have you learned?” Sano asked Hirata in a low voice that wouldn’t carry to the thugs in the nursery or elsewhere on the premises.

  Hirata also kept his voice low as he described his visits to Tamura and Koheiji. “After I left them, I checked their stories about what they were doing at the time of Daiemon’s murder. The other actors at the Nakamura-za say that Koheiji left the theater for more than an hour during the rehearsal last night. He didn’t tell them where he went, or why.”

  “Then he lied when he told you he was at the theater the whole night,” Sano concluded.

  “Yes. He was gone long enough to kill Daiemon,” Hirata said. “And Tamura’s alibi is almost as weak. His men confirmed that he went to the army camp, but I think they were lying.”

  “Did you find out whether anyone in the camp saw him?”

  “By the time I got there, all the troops had gone to the battlefield. But neither Tamura nor Koheiji admitted anything about the night Makino died. And there doesn’t seem to be any evidence to connect either of them to Daiemon’s murder.”

  Disappointment and fatigue, combined with his fears for Reiko, weighed upon Sano. “The same can be said for the women as for the men.” Sano told Hirata the results of his inquiries. “Agemaki stuck to her story about sleeping through Makino’s murder without seeing or hearing anything. Okitsu changed hers to include a glimpse of Daiemon standing over Makino’s corpse with the murder weapon in his hand, but I think she invented that.”

  “By herself, or with help from someone?” Hirata said.

  “The latter, I suspect, and I have a good idea who that someone is.”

  Hirata nodded in accord. Sano continued, “I spent the afternoon establishing the women’s movements of last night. Agemaki’s palanquin bearers say they carried her around town for a while, then took her to a teahouse. She went inside and drank, while they went to a gambling den around the corner. They picked her up and took her home about an hour later. The teahouse isn’t far from the Sign of Bedazzlement.�
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  “She could have sneaked over there while the bearers were away gambling,” Hirata noted.

  “When I questioned the owner of the teahouse, he said Agemaki is a frequent customer. She went out to the alley for a while, but he assumed she’d gone to the privy,” Sano said. “Later, I visited the Sign of Bedazzlement, under protest from the watchdogs. The proprietor didn’t recognize her name or my description of Agemaki. If Agemaki is the woman Daiemon met, she took care to conceal herself. But here’s an interesting fact I uncovered: A girl who matches Okitsu’s description was seen at the house by a maid who works there.”

  “Then Okitsu could be Daiemon’s mistress,” Hirata said.

  “The girl came in a palanquin,” Sano said. “She went inside one of the rooms—the maid isn’t sure whether it was Daiemon’s. But the maid is sure the girl was gone by the time Daiemon was found dead and the police came.”

  “What do Okitsu’s palanquin bearers say?”

  “They took her to four different houses last night,” Sano said. “At each place, she went inside, then came out a short time later. They don’t know what she was doing, and they’re not sure of the locations.” Edo was a maze of houses similar in appearance, where even a person who knew the city well could become confused. “Tomorrow I’ll send a detective out with the bearers to retrace their route and see if they can point out the places Okitsu visited. The best thing that happened to me today is that I exhausted Otani and Ibe while leading them around Edo and resisted letting them rush me into a premature arrest.”

  Sano exhaled through his teeth. “I’m more certain than ever that the women are withholding information about what happened the night Makino died. And their movements the night of Daiemon’s death are as suspect as Koheiji’s and Tamura’s. But if there’s any evidence that they’re guilty of either murder, I’ve yet to find it.”

  “I did find one lead,” Hirata said, and he reported learning about the house Daiemon kept. “After I finished investigating Tamura and Koheiji, I went there and had a look. It seemed empty, but I didn’t go in. I decided I should tell you first.”

  “Well done,” Sano said. A glimmer of hope at a potential source of new clues brightened his spirits. “And a wise decision.” The fact that Hirata had chosen to consult him instead of rushing ahead on his own meant that Hirata was learning self-discipline. “I want a look inside that house, but the question is how.”

  He and Hirata looked across the connecting rooms at the men watching Masahiro eat. Otani and Ibe would never allow Sano to investigate a clue concerning Daiemon that might lead to Lord Matsudaira or Chamberlain Yanagisawa. And if Sano left his house without them, his men would tell them.

  Just then, Sano heard footsteps pelting down the corridor, accompanied by rapid, labored breaths. Reiko burst into the office. Her eyes were wild, her hair and clothes in disarray.

  “Reiko-san!” exclaimed Sano. He was so glad to see his wife that at first he barely noticed her condition. “Thank the gods!”

  He leaped up and enfolded her in his arms. She was cold, wet, and shivering. A closer look at her told Sano why his detectives hadn’t been able to find her at Makino’s estate: She’d disguised herself so well that they’d not recognized her. Now concern for her encroached upon Sano’s joy. “What happened to you?” he said.

  Reiko was so winded after her mad dash through the official quarter that she couldn’t speak. As she struggled to catch her breath, she clung to Sano, overjoyed to be with him again, relieved to be home. Then she heard Masahiro call, “Mama!” and saw the little boy run toward her through the adjoining rooms. With a cry of delight, she pulled away from Sano and rushed to meet their son. The sight of two strange samurai in the nursery halted her. Masahiro collided against Reiko and threw his arms around her knees. Embracing him, she turned to Sano and Hirata in puzzlement.

  “Who are those men?” she said. “What are they doing here?”

  “I’ll explain,” Sano said, but first he gently detached Masahiro from her. “Go and get ready for bed, Masahiro. Mama will come to you soon.”

  The boy toddled off with his nursemaids. The two strangers followed them. Sano seated Reiko by the charcoal brazier in his office and wrapped a warm quilt around her. Hirata poured her a bowl of tea. As she sipped the hot, invigorating liquid and warmed her icy hands on the bowl, Sano told her what had happened since she’d left home. Reiko listened in shock.

  “But what happened to you?” Sano repeated with anxious concern.

  “I had to leave Senior Elder Makino’s estate because his people figured out that I was a spy,” Reiko said.

  She described how Yasue had caught her eavesdropping. But she didn’t say that Koheiji had tried to ravish her, Tamura had meant to kill her, or she’d fought her way out of the estate. Nor did she mention that she’d barely reached her own gate before Tamura’s troops came rushing up the street after her. If Sano knew, he would never let her spy again. Not that Reiko was eager to repeat the experiment, but she might need to in the future.

  “Did the suspects find out who you are, or that you were working for me?” Sano said.

  “No,” Reiko said. “And I managed to observe some interesting things before I left.”

  While Sano and Hirata listened avidly, Reiko told them about finding Makino’s trove of sexual paraphernalia and seeing Tamura replace the jade phallus that she thought was the murder weapon. She described the conversations she’d witnessed.

  “It could be that Tamura was hiding evidence that implicated him in Makino’s murder,” Sano said. “And the affair between Koheiji and Okitsu is the strongest reason we’ve found for them to want Makino dead.”

  “That Agemaki is jealous of Okitsu and was afraid that Makino would throw her out and marry his concubine gave her a reason, too,” Hirata told Reiko. “What you heard contradicts the image she presented to us.”

  “And there surely is a conspiracy of silence involving Koheiji, Okitsu, and Agemaki,” Sano said.

  “It’s looking more and more as if the killer was someone in Makino’s household,” Hirata said. “Maybe they were all in the murder together.”

  “I don’t think so. There’s so much bad feeling among them that I can’t imagine them cooperating in anything. Maybe some of them together, but not all.”

  “We might have suspected all this but not had any verification, except for you,” Sano said to Reiko.

  His warm, praiseful look rewarded Reiko for the hardships she’d suffered. She said eagerly, “Does my information help you identify the killer?”

  Sano and Hirata pondered, then told Reiko what their investigations had uncovered while she’d been away. She realized with a sinking heart that although each of them had found pieces of the puzzle, the picture didn’t add up to a solution to the crime. They had an abundance of suspects, motives, and theories, but no culprit.

  “I wish I could have spied longer,” Reiko said.

  “You might have spied forever and not proved that someone from Makino’s household is guilty,” Sano said in an attempt to console her. “Remember that Lord Matsudaira, Chamberlain Yanagisawa, and their factions are still suspects. We haven’t ruled them out of either murder.”

  “If Ibe and Otani have their way, we won’t be able to rule them in, even if they are responsible,” Hirata said glumly.

  “What shall we do?” Reiko asked, thinking how hopeless the situation appeared.

  Sano told her about Hirata’s discovery. “That Daiemon had quarters outside the Matsudaira estate suggests he had a private life that may be related to his death.”

  “But you can’t investigate Daiemon’s business with Otani and Ibe shadowing you,” Hirata reminded Sano. “Do you want me to search the house by myself?”

  After a long moment’s thought, Sano said, “I have an idea.”

  He confided his plan. Reiko and Hirata nodded in approval, yet Reiko despaired because she couldn’t do more to help. Then sudden inspiration elated her.

  “
Even if Otani and Ibe forbid you to look for Daiemon’s missing woman, I can look,” she said. “They won’t even notice me.”

  Sano regarded her with consternation. Reiko knew he was wondering what more had happened to her at Makino’s estate than she’d told him, and he was hesitant to further involve her in the case. “What do you propose doing?” he said.

  “I’ll ask around and see if any of my friends can tell me who was Daiemon’s mistress,” Reiko said. “Women talk. The romantic affairs of an important man like him are hard to keep secret. Someone is bound to know.”

  “All right,” Sano said. “That sounds harmless enough for you. But be careful this time.”

  * * *

  28

  Sano found Otani, Ibe, and their troops waiting for him outside his gate the next morning. The rain had stopped, but moisture still darkened the walls and buildings of the official quarter. The sky showed pale blue streaks between bands of cloud, but the air still had a frosty tang. Overnight, the portals of the estates had sprouted banners bearing the Matsudaira or the Yanagisawa crest. The banners snapped in the wind. Only Sano’s gate was unadorned. Up through the passages of Edo Castle reverberated the pounding of hooves and footsteps as troops marched off to battle.

  “What’s he doing here?” Otani said, frowning as he spotted Hirata among the detectives who accompanied Sano.

  “He’s helping me with my inquiries today,” Sano said.

  “No, he’s not,” Ibe said. “We banned him from the investigation.”

  “If you want any more cooperation from me, you’ll let him come along,” Sano told the watchdogs.

  He thought Hirata had earned his reinstatement in the investigation. As Ibe and Otani began to protest, Sano said, “My son is your guarantee of Hirata-san’s good behavior as well as mine.”

  “I don’t care. I want him gone,” Otani said, angry that Sano would defy him.