that nothing was to be disturbed.”
Sano felt hindered by the troops, who lingered too close, waiting to see what he would do. “Wait over there,” he told them and Oyama, gesturing down the track.
When they’d moved off, Sano said to Marume, “Supposing Ejima didn’t die of a bad heart, the fall could have killed him. But then the question is, what caused the fall?”
“Maybe someone in the stands threw a rock at him, hit his head, and knocked him unconscious. Everyone else there would have been too busy watching the race to notice.” Marume paced around the body, kicking at a few stones that lay scattered on the dirt. “One of these could be a murder weapon.”
Sano listened to sporadic gunfire that emanated from the distant martial arts training ground. He rotated, looking beyond and above the track. Soldiers peered down at him from windows in covered corridors and watchtowers atop the walls that enclosed the compound and rose up from the slope higher on the hill. “Someone up there could have shot a gun at Ejima.”
“Who would have noticed one more shot?” Marume agreed.
“I don’t see a bullet wound on him, but he could have been hit on his helmet and stunned.” Crouching, Sano examined Ejima’s helmet. Its metal surface was covered with scratches and dents.
“I’ll have the area searched for a bullet,” Marume said.
“In any case, the witnesses aren’t limited to the people inside the compound when Ejima died,” Sano said. “We’ll have to round up all the soldiers who were on duty anyplace with a view of the racetrack. But first I want to question the other witnesses who were closest to Ejima.”
He and Marume walked over to the racetrack master.
“Are you finished inspecting the body?” Oyama asked. “May I have it removed?” He sounded anxious to rid his domain of the physical and spiritual pollution conferred by death.
“Not yet,” Sano said, because he needed a more thorough examination of the corpse than could be done here, and he didn’t want it whisked off for the funeral and cremation. “I’ll take care of its removal. Right now I want to talk to the riders who were in the race with Ejima. Where are they?”
“In the stables,” Oyama said.
Inside the long wooden barns with thatched roofs, horses stood in stalls while grooms washed and wiped them, combed their manes, and bandaged wounded legs. Manure and hay scented the air. The five riders squatted in a corner, conversing in low voices. They’d stripped oft their armor, which hung on racks that also held their riding gear. When Sano approached them, they hastily knelt and bowed.
“Rise,” Sano said. “I want to ask you some questions about Chief Ejima’s death.” He observed that the riders were all robust samurai in their late twenties or early thirties. They were still grimy from the race, and reeked of sweat. As they rose, he said, “First, identify yourselves.”
Among them were a captain and a lieutenant from the army, a palace administrator, and two distant cousins of the shogun. When Sano asked them to describe what they’d seen during the race, the army captain spoke for them: “Ejima crumpled in his saddle. He fell off his horse. Our horses ran him over. By the time we’d stopped and dismounted, he was dead.”
This matched the story told by the spectators. “Did you see anything hit him before he crumpled?” Sano said. “Such as a rock or a bullet?”
The riders shook their heads.
“Did you touch Ejima?”
They hesitated, eying one another with uneasy expressions. Sano said, “Come on. I know that horse racing is a rough sport.” He moved to the rack and fingered a riding crop, which consisted of a short, stout leather whip with an iron handle. “I also know that the horses aren’t the only ones to take the brunt of these. Now speak up.”
“All right. I hit him,” the captain said reluctantly.
“So did I,” said the lieutenant. “But we were just trying to slow him down.”
“We didn’t hit him that hard. He got me a lot worse than I got him.” The captain gingerly touched his face, which was swollen around his jaw.
“We play rough, but we never intentionally hurt a fellow rider,” said the lieutenant. “That’s the code of honor at the racetrack.” The other men nodded, united against Sano’s implied accusation. “Besides, he was a friend. We had no reason to kill him.”
“Although I bet that a lot of other people did,” the captain said.
Sano thanked the men for their help. As he and Marume walked away from the stables, Marume said, “I think they’re telling the truth. Do you believe them?”
“For now,” Sano said, reserving judgment until evidence should indicate otherwise. “The captain was right when he hinted that Ejima was a good candidate for murder.”
“Because he was one of Lord Matsudaira’s top officials?”
“Not only that,” Sano said. “His position made him a target. He headed an organization that spies on people.”
No one was safe from the metsuke, especially in this dangerous political climate, when a man’s most innocuous words or deeds could be twisted into evidence of disloyalty to Lord Matsudaira and cause for banishment or execution.
“If Ejima was murdered,” Sano said, “the killer may be connected to someone destroyed by a metsuke investigation.” And Sano recalled that Ejima had enjoyed his dirty job a little too much. The relish he’d taken from ruining people might have angered their relatives and friends.
“Talk about a man with a lot of enemies,” Marume said.
“But motive doesn’t necessarily mean murder,” Sano reminded them both. “Not when there’s so little evidence.” He resisted his hunch that Ejima had been a victim of foul play: Even samurai instinct was susceptible to influence by personal bias. “Before we go any further, we should finish interviewing all the witnesses.”
He looked across the track, where Detective Fukida was still busy with the spectators, then up at the soldiers along the walls and in the turrets. “Even more important, we have to determine the exact cause of Ejima’s death.”
This was something that Sano, despite all his past experience and newfound authority, couldn’t do himself. And the scope of the investigation extended far beyond the racetrack, past the men present at the scene of the death, to include Ejima’s foes as well as Lord Matsudaira’s. That could mean hundreds of potential witnesses-and suspects. Sano needed more help than Marume and Fukida could provide, from someone he could absolutely trust.
“Send for Hirata-san,” he told Marume. “Tell him to meet me here right away.”
4
Hirata sat behind the desk in the office that had once belonged to Sano, inside the estate where he was now master. Into the room filed ten members of the hundred-man detective corps that he’d once supervised for Sano and now commanded for himself.
“Good evening, Sosakan-sama,” the detectives chorused as they knelt and bowed to Hirata.
“What have you to report?” Hirata asked.
The men described their progress on various cases he’d assigned them-a theft of weapons from the Edo Castle arsenal; a search for a rebel band suspected of plotting to overthrow Lord Matsudaira. The political climate had spawned many crimes to occupy the shogun’s new Most Honorable Investigator of Events, Situations, and People. As he listened, Hirata tried to ignore the pain from the deep, barely healed wound in his left thigh. He tried to never let his expression reveal his suffering. But Hirata couldn’t hide that he’d lost much weight and muscle after the injury that had almost killed him. He couldn’t deny that all the honors that had resulted from his valor in the line of duty had come with a terrible price.
Six months ago he’d stopped an attack on Sano and saved Sano’s life. The cut from the attacker’s sword, meant for Sano, had gashed Hirata’s leg so badly he’d thought his death was certain. As blood poured from him and he lost consciousness, he thought he’d performed the ultimate act of samurai loyalty-sacrificing himself for his master.
