The stains were dried blood.
A high, feminine, angry voice behind him demanded, “What are you doing?”
Taken by surprise, Masahiro yelled. He dropped the clothes and banged his elbow painfully on the cabinet as he turned.
Goza stood there, her fists clenched, a savage look on her mustached face. Masahiro stammered, “I was just looking-”
“For what?” Goza towered over him, trapping him against the cabinet.
Masahiro remembered that this was his house, he was a detective, and he was the one supposed to ask the questions. He snatched up the clothes he’d dropped and thrust them at Goza. She stepped back. Moving away from the cabinet, he said, “Where did this blood come from?”
Goza’s eyes were like a pig’s, small and mean, sunken into the thick flesh of her broad face. “None of your business,” she said, and grabbed the clothes.
“You have to answer,” Masahiro said. “Or I’ll get my father, and you can tell him.”
The piggy eyes glinted with fear and antagonism. “It’s from a bloody nose.”
“Whose nose? My grandfather’s? Did you beat him up?”
“Stupid boy,” Goza said. “You don’t know anything.”
“Where were you the night before last?” Masahiro persisted.
“Here. In the house.”
“No, you weren’t,” Masahiro said disdainfully. “I already asked the guards. They said you left and didn’t come back until the next morning. Where were you really?”
Goza muttered a curse. “I was out.”
“Out, where? What were you doing?”
A dirty, sly gleam crept into Goza’s eyes. “Do you like Okaru?”
Masahiro was taken aback by the change of topic. His first impulse was to lie rather than tell Goza to mind her own business. “No.”
“Yes, you do.” Goza regarded him with amused contempt. “I’ve seen the way you look at her. You want her, just like all the other men.”
His face aflame with embarrassment, Masahiro could only shake his head. If Goza knew how he felt about Okaru, who else did?
Goza grabbed him by the front of his kimono and yanked him close to her. Masahiro was so startled that he forgot to resist. She said, “Listen, stupid boy. Better not tell anybody what you found.” Masahiro recoiled from her hot, sour breath. “If you do, it won’t just be me that gets in trouble. It’ll be Okaru, too. Because I’m her servant. Whatever I’ve done, it was because she told me to. She’ll be arrested and killed. And it will be your fault.”
As Masahiro gaped in horror, the floor in the corridor creaked under footsteps. He heard the maid say, “I just saw Goza, she went in there.”
Goza released Masahiro, stepping back from him just before the maid and a guard entered the room. “You’re not allowed in here anymore,” the guard told Goza. “Come with me.”
Goza bent a warning look on Masahiro. “Remember what I said.”
Before she and the guard left the room, Masahiro caught a fleeting glimpse of two crude black tattoos on her wrist.
* * *
Okaru’s new room was a cubbyhole in the servants’ quarters, an outbuilding near the kitchens. Lieutenant Tanuma leaned against the wall in the corridor outside, guarding Okaru. Before Reiko left the estate, she looked in on her prisoner. Okaru knelt on the mattress on the wooden pallet, her sad face lifted to the sunlight that came through the paper panes of the barred window. When she saw Reiko, her eyes filled with hope and entreaty. Reiko shut the door, pulled her cloak tighter around herself, and left the servants’ quarters. Walking up the path to the mansion, she met Chiyo.
Chiyo fell into step beside Reiko and voiced the thought that was on both of their minds. “Did she do it?”
“I don’t know,” Reiko said. “But I don’t think so.”
“I must say that neither do I,” Chiyo said. “When we first met Okaru, I was distrustful of her, but I can’t believe she has it in her to deliberately harm anyone.”
Guilt distressed Reiko. “If she didn’t have anything to do with the attack on my father, then I’m being cruel to treat her like this.” Suspicion provoked a burn of anger. “If she did, then I’ll never forgive myself for bringing her into my family.”
Chiyo didn’t say she’d warned Reiko not to get involved with Okaru. She said soothingly, “You couldn’t have known what would happen to your father. It isn’t your fault, even if it is Okaru’s. You were trying to help someone in need. And maybe Okaru is innocent.”
Even if she was, she’d certainly opened the door to a lot of trouble. Without her story about Oishi and the vendetta, Sano’s investigation might not have taken the course that it had. Magistrate Ueda might not have been attacked.
But Reiko said, “You’re right. The assassin could be someone who has a personal grudge against my father. And if he was hired by someone, there are other people besides Okaru who could have done it. I’m going to see Oishi’s wife and Lady Asano.”
She and Chiyo reached the front courtyard, where her palanquin, bearers, and guards stood waiting. Chiyo said, “Shall I come with you?”
“I’d better go alone.” Reiko needed time to think.
The two women bid each other a stilted good-bye. Reiko climbed inside her palanquin, unhappily aware that she’d hurt Chiyo’s feelings. Even if Okaru was innocent, she had come between Reiko and Chiyo.
* * *
Riding away from Edo Castle, Hirata studied the list of repeat offenders. Their residences were scattered all over town. He wouldn’t have time to look for Tahara, Kitano, and Deguchi. Now that he’d slept on his encounter with them, it seemed unreal, the aim of their society a joke. Magic rituals to influence the course of fate, indeed!
He glanced backward at the palace, where Tahara had thrown the branch, and snorted. What did those men think was going to happen? The hill under Edo Castle would erupt like a volcano?
One repeat offender, named Genzo, lived near the blacksmiths’ district, where the
A man emerged onto a balcony. He had shaggy black hair; his gray kimono strained across his thick shoulders. He looked out onto the street, yawned, and scratched his head. Hirata saw two black tattoos on the man’s arm, at the same instant he sensed the sullen red aura with glinting sparks, the energy that bespoke weakness and brutality. A combination of Reiko’s detective work and Hirata’s supernatural powers had led to the culprit.
The man turned his head toward Hirata. Recognition flashed in his puffy eyes, even though he and Hirata weren’t acquainted: A perpetual criminal knows the law when he sees it coming after him. He rushed into the room behind the balcony. Hirata galloped his horse toward the house, stood in the saddle, and jumped.
He caught the wooden railing of the balcony and pulled himself up. He charged into a room cluttered with an unmade bed, heaps of clothes, and a bow and a quiver of arrows. The man was nowhere in sight. Hirata heard footsteps pounding down stairs. He sped through a curtained door, into a dim, narrow stairwell. Clearing the stairs in one leap, he saw the man run across a courtyard. Hirata caught the man by the shoulder just before he reached the gate. The man turned, his eyes wide with shock: He couldn’t believe Hirata had caught up with him so fast. Hirata squeezed a nerve in his shoulder. The man crumpled, howling with pain.
“Who are you?” He clutched his arm, which jerked in spasms. “What did you do to me?”
Hirata said, “Don’t worry-the damage isn’t permanent. My name is Hirata.”
The man gasped. He obviously knew Hirata’s reputation. “What do you want?”
“Are you Genzo, convicted twice for assault?” Hirata asked.
