sake.”
Anger at her sarcasm darkened his face. “You shouldn’t be. If Lord Mori wasn’t a traitor, that would leave us back at the beginning, with you at the scene of his murder and Lady Mori’s word against yours. And now that we can’t find Lily, people are more likely to believe that you killed Lord Mori during a lover’s quarrel than that you went searching for one lost child and witnessed him murdering another.”
Stung because he seemed to believe the first possibility, Reiko said, “Maybe Lily was an imposter. Maybe someone put her up to setting me after Lord Mori.” How she wished she could believe it herself! Desperation ignited her temper. “Except you would rather think I’m guilty, wouldn’t you?”
Sano threw up his hands, emitted a sound of disgust, and shouted, “You’re talking nonsense!”
“Please, stop,” Hirata said, obviously grieved to see them argue and hating to be caught in the middle. “We have to work together.”
Reiko knew he was right. She bit back another jab at Sano, who glared but compressed his mouth.
“Maybe nothing about this murder is what it seems,” Hirata said. “But whatever the truth is, this new evidence puts both of you in worse danger. What are we going to do about it?”
They all sat down in tense, brief, thoughtful silence. Sano said, “We continue with the investigation. Until we find out what’s going on, we keep the evidence a secret.”
“That’s a wise idea,” Reiko said, and Hirata nodded. Then she recalled something she’d forgotten to tell Sano. “I’ve thought of two more people who might have wanted to hurt me. Would it be all right for me to go out and investigate them?”
She watched Sano weigh his distrust of her against his hope for a solution to their problems. He said, “I told Lord Matsudaira and the shogun that I’d keep you at home. Can’t you send Lieutenant Asukai?”
“I’d rather not. He’s willing and clever, but I don’t know if I can count on him for something so important. And if I go, I won’t be in much more danger than I am now.”
“If your enemies get wind of her roaming around town, you could end up in even worse trouble,” Hirata told Sano. “Better that she should tell us who these people are and we investigate them.”
After pondering a moment, Sano said to Reiko, “You can go. Just don’t let anyone catch you outside this compound.”
“Thank you. I won’t.” But Reiko was as miserable as pleased that he’d given in. She knew he’d done it because he feared that her new lines of inquiry were as dubious as he suspected her story was. He would be glad if they proved helpful, but he didn’t want to waste his own time chasing false clues.
18
At dawn, Sano was fast asleep, worn out from two days of nonstop work. Detective Marume called through the door of his bedchamber, “Excuse me, Sano-
Sano stirred groggily and found Masahiro crowded into the bed between him and Reiko. The boy was usually content to sleep by himself, but sometime during the night, he’d crawled under their covers. Maybe he was insecure because of the recent, disturbing events. He didn’t move; nor did Reiko.
“I’m awake now,” Sano said with a yawn. “What is it?”
“Lord Matsudaira wants to see you at his estate.”
Dragging himself out of bed, Sano anticipated another bad scene. In the next few very busy moments, he threw on his clothes, his valet shaved him and dressed his hair, and he was out his gate with Marume, Fukida, and his troops. They hurried on foot to the special enclave within Edo Castle where the important Tokugawa clan members lived.
Soldiers patrolled the area or occupied guardhouses along the walls that separated the estates. The sky was overcast and barely light, the air waterlogged, the scene as devoid of color as if the rain had washed it away. Sano and his entourage stopped at Lord Matsudaira’s gate, which boasted a three-tiered roof and ornate double ironclad doors.
The guards confiscated Sano’s swords and searched him for hidden weapons. Not even the chamberlain was exempted from these strict security precautions.
“Your men will wait out here,” the guard captain told Sano.
Guards escorted him into the estate and left him at a large wooden shed built along one side of an elegantly landscaped garden. Its skylights and wide doors were open. Inside, Lord Matsudaira stood at a table that held some hundred bonsai trees of various species and sizes, planted in ceramic dishes. He was repotting a tiny, gnarled pine tree.
“Greetings, Sano-san,” he said. His voice was quiet, his manner subdued. Dressed in an old cotton robe and trousers, minus his swords, his hands working in dirt, he looked like a peasant instead of a powerful warlord.
Sano bowed, returned the greeting, and entered the shed. It smelled of earth and manure. Why had Lord Matsudaira summoned him here?
Lord Matsudaira said, “I want to talk to you alone.”
Yet Sano knew they weren’t really alone. There would be guards stationed nearby, although out of sight and earshot. Lord Matsudaira took no chances with his safety.
“Morning is the most pleasant time of day.” He gently set the little tree in a new pot and packed soil around its roots. “It’s the time before a man is caught up in business, when he can relax and enjoy life. Don’t you agree?”
“… Yes.” Sano doubted that Lord Matsudaira had brought him here to share a peaceful moment.
“I thought this would be a good chance for you to tell me what progress you’ve made on investigating the murder.”
Sano obliged with a report that skirted the truth. He told Lord Matsudaira that he’d done preliminary interviews with the residents of the Mori estate, but didn’t say they’d confirmed Lady Mori’s story and contradicted Reiko’s. He described how Hirata had traced the anonymous tip and found the stash of guns in Lord Mori’s warehouse, but left out what else Hirata had found. He said he’d begun a search for the medium, who’d suspiciously vanished before he could interrogate her.
When he finished, Lord Matsudaira was silent a moment, planting moss around the base of his tree. “Is there anything more?”
Before Sano could answer, Lord Matsudaira turned to him, held up a hand, and said, “Stop. You’re going to lie, and I am sick of lies.” His mood turned suddenly vicious. “There’s no use trying to hide the truth from me. I know about the messages from you to Lord Mori that have come to light. I know they indicate that you and he were planning a rebellion.”
A chord of dismay reverberated through Sano, and not just because Lord Matsudaira knew about the evidence he’d wanted to keep under wraps. “How did you find out about the messages?” he asked as calmly as he could manage.
“That’s not important,” Lord Matsudaira said. “What have you to say for yourself?”
The evidence must have been leaked to Lord Matsudaira by someone in Sano’s retinue or Hirata’s. “Those messages aren’t what they seem.” He should have told Lord Matsudaira about them himself, presented his side of the story, and cut off an attempt to use them against him. Maybe the leak hadn’t come from within his camp, but from the person who’d planted the messages in the warehouse. No matter what, Sano should have known he couldn’t keep them secret. “I can explain.”
Lord Matsudaira slashed his hand through Sano’s words. “Just tell me if it’s true.” Hostility set his features in angry lines. “Were you and Lord Mori conspiring to overthrow me? Are you still?”
“No,” Sano declared, as sick of wrongful accusations as Lord Matsudaira was of deceit.
Lord Matsudaira stepped closer to Sano. His direct, unblinking gaze measured Sano’s honesty; a twitch of his lips dismissed it as false. “Drop your pretenses. There’s no shogun here for you to trick. We might as well get to the bottom of this because there’s nobody here except ourselves.”
