she exclaimed. “I loved him. Your wife-”
“When my wife came into the picture, you saw a perfect chance,” Sano continued. “You drugged her wine.” He wanted to believe that Reiko had fallen unconscious the way she’d said, that she’d done nothing during those hours she couldn’t remember. He wanted to put his doubts to rest and lay the blame for the murder on Lady Mori. “You killed your husband and framed my wife.”
“No! That’s not what happened!”
On the verge of hysteria, Lady Mori emitted breathy whimpers; her hands fluttered. Enju clasped them in his and patted them. The lack of warmth in his eyes made Sano wonder about his true feelings toward his mother. He resembled an actor playing a role with mechanical perfection but little heart. Yet his touch seemed to reassure Lady Mori. She froze into a brittle, dignified pose.
“Many apologies, but you are wrong, Honorable Chamberlain,” she said quietly. “Your wife seduced my husband that night. Then she killed him because even though he was infatuated with her, in the end he cast her off.”
Enju nodded. As Sano fought to control his temper in the face of their obstinacy and his worries about Reiko, a soldier hurried through the pine grove, carrying two shovels. “Come with me,” he said. “When we see what’s under that ground, you may want to consider changing your story.”
Momentary, unpleased surprise showed on Lady Mori’s and Enju’s faces. They followed Sano to the site and stood a short distance from him and his detectives. The soldiers began to dig. Sano felt surges of hope and apprehension, but he kept his expression neutral. Although he kept an eye on Lady Mori and Enju, he couldn’t tell whether they feared what would be found. Her gaze was vacant, her son’s opaque.
The soldiers had excavated a mere few scoops of earth before their shovels hit a solid surface beneath. They scraped mud off the top of a rectangular wooden crate. It was wet and muddy, but appeared intact.
“That hasn’t been underground long,” Fukida said.
“Maybe only since the night before last, when Lady Reiko saw Lord Mori with the boy,” Marume agreed.
“And it’s big enough to hold a child’s body.” Anticipation sped Sano’s pulse. He felt certain that he had evidence that would prove Reiko’s allegations against Lord Mori, would exonerate her. Sano could hardly contain his excitement.
His troops were digging around the sides of the crate, freeing it from the earth. “Don’t bother,” Sano said. “Just open it up.”
They inserted their shovels under the lid and pried. Sano sensed Lady Mori and Enju holding their breath. He held his own. The lid came up. The soldiers flung it aside, revealing a gray, cotton quilt, clean and dry, protected from the elements by the crate. Sano crouched. Braced for the sight of a dead child, he lifted the quilt.
Inside the crate was indeed a child, but not the youth he’d expected. It was a newborn baby girl, small and delicate. Withered, teeming with insects, but not yet putrefied, she lay curled, her eyes closed, as if still in the womb. The umbilical cord was still attached. Red and blue veins showed through her translucent skin. She’d been washed clean of blood, carefully laid to rest.
The detectives and soldiers exclaimed in surprise. Sano frowned, as much horrified as disappointed. He rose. Everyone stared at the baby.
“Some woman in the estate must have given birth to it, then buried it,” Marume deduced.
“She must not have wanted anyone to know,” Fukida said.
An estate as large as this harbored many secrets besides the ones Sano had come to uncover, and perhaps criminals other than the killer he sought.
“Maybe the child was born dead,” Marume said, “or maybe the mother killed it.”
“This might be evidence of a murder,” Fukida said.
“But not of the one we thought,” Sano said.
He turned to Lady Mori and Enju. The young man bowed with formal courtesy that verged on insolence. He led his awestruck, bewildered mother away without a word. His straight back expressed triumph over Sano.
“What now?” Marume asked.
“I can’t ignore this death just because it doesn’t pertain to our investigation. I’ll have someone tend to the baby and find out whose she is.” Sano covered the tiny corpse with the quilt. He felt beset by complications, overwhelmed by frustration. “Then we’ll talk to my informants and spies and find out what they know about Police Commissioner Hoshina’s doings. Maybe they’ll give us something to tie him to the murder, and Lord Mori to a plot against Lord Matsudaira.”
But more doubts and concerns undermined his hopes. With Lily’s son Jiro, the unnamed dead boy, and the cache of guns still missing, things were looking even worse for Reiko.
16
Hirata and detectives Inoue and Arai stood in an alley below a fire-watch tower in the
“Hey!” Hirata called. The peasant peered down at him. “Who does fire-watch duty at night?”
“Yoshi,” came the answer. “He works for Lord Kuroda.”
Moments later, Hirata and his men were at the portals of Lord Kuroda’s estate a short distance away. The guards summoned Yoshi, a droopy-faced young manservant. Hirata introduced himself, then said, “Did you let someone kick you out of your tower for a night two months ago?”
Yoshi looked at the guards, fearful mat they would punish him for shirking his duty. His fear of lying to Hirata won out. “Yes. I didn’t want to, but a samurai ordered me to come down.”
The samurai must have been Lieutenant Asukai. Hirata was glad that finally a small part of Reiko’s story was confirmed. “Did you see a lady climb up the tower?”
“No. I was scared. I got out of there as fast as I could.”
“Didn’t you ever think to see if somebody was in your place, covering your shift?”
Yoshi shook his head. Hirata couldn’t fault him for not bothering to look at Reiko. He’d spotted the figure in the tower himself while spying on Lord Mori’s estate, then ignored it. Now he was disturbed that neither he nor Yoshi could verify that it had been her. He thanked Yoshi; then he and his detectives mounted their horses.
“There must be someone who saw Lady Reiko in the tower,” Inoue said as they rode through the pelting rain.
“I hope so,” Hirata said. “We’ll go back to Edo Castle and put every available man out here, and around the Persimmon Teahouse, to look for witnesses who can prove that she was where she was when she said. Then I’ll do what I should have done before we ever started our surveillance on Lord Mori.”
“That would be…?”
“Tracking down whoever sent that anonymous tip.”
Hirata and his detectives spent hours visiting estates in the official quarter of Edo Castle. At each he obtained the names of soldiers who’d been on guard duty when the anonymous letter had been delivered. He asked them whether they’d seen anyone sneaking around who had no business in the quarter, or had otherwise looked suspicious that night. At first the search for the letter’s author seemed futile; the guards couldn’t recall anything that had happened almost a month ago. Then, at the estate behind his, Hirata met one man who did.
His name was Kushida. He had horsy teeth that protruded when he grinned at Hirata. “Oh, yes. I remember who was around that night. I memorize everybody I’ve seen during the past month.”
“Why?” Hirata controlled his hope because this witness seemed too good to be true.
“It’s my hobby.”
Hirata supposed it was one way to relieve the monotony of long night shifts.
“Do you want to know how I do it?” Kushida said, tickled by Hirata’s attention. “I recite the names over and over in my mind, every spare moment I have. I don’t forget the people until a month has gone by since the night I saw them. Would you like to hear my list?”
He began rattling off names, starting with last night’s. Behind him, the sentries at the gate rolled their eyes:
