Red Chrysanthemum

25

Soon after daybreak, Sano joined detectives Marume and Fukida and the rest of his entourage in his courtyard. The wind moaned through the castle as they mounted their horses. Lightning stitched an incandescent seam through storm clouds. Thunder purred like a tiger creeping down the hills toward town.

Hirata arrived with detectives Inoue and Arai. In through the gate behind them rode a host of samurai who wore the Matsudaira crest on their armor.

“Greetings, Honorable Chamberlain. Are you going somewhere?” the leader said in a manner that bordered on insolence.

Sano recognized him as one of Lord Matsudaira’s top retainers. “As a matter of fact I am.” He was going to re-interrogate Lady Mori and her son. “What brings you here, Kubo-san?”

“A message from Lord Matsudaira.” Kubo gave Sano a bamboo scroll case. “I suggest that you read it before you go.” He and his men turned and departed.

Apprehension stole through Sano. He knew better than to expect good tidings in formal messages delivered by disrespectful envoys. He read the scroll and frowned because the news was even worse than he’d expected.

“What does it say?” Hirata asked.

Sano read aloud: “ ‘This is to inform you that a special court will be convened this afternoon at the hour of the monkey. You will be tried for treason and your wife for the murder of Lord Mori. Come prepared to defend yourselves. Your judges will be His Excellency the shogun, Police Commissioner Hoshina, and myself. We will question witnesses, examine evidence, establish your guilt or innocence, and decide your fate accordingly.

Hirata and the detectives looked as dismayed as Sano felt. “Why all of a sudden?” Hirata said.

“My position has weakened overnight,” Sano said.

“But our investigation’s not finished,” Hirata said. “We haven’t anything to prove you’re innocent.”

“That’s exactly the way Lord Matsudaira wants it,” Sano said. “He’s decided I’m a liability.” His allies must have put out the word that they’d deserted him. An official without allies was powerless, a pariah. “He wants to cut me loose before my bad air can contaminate him.”

Understanding and anger showed on Hirata’s face. “And he’s going to let Hoshina help him. Hoshina must be overjoyed.”

“Indeed,” Sano said, “because there’s no doubt about the verdict in this trial.”

“You can get the shogun on your side,” Marume said.

But he didn’t sound any more hopeful of that than Sano was that the shogun could stand up to both Lord Matsudaira and Hoshina working against Sano.

“If only I could have brought Hoshina down before this happened.” Anguish filled Hirata’s eyes because his mistakes had lost Sano the chance.

“There’s no time to waste on talking about what could have been,” Sano said. “We have only a few hours to prepare some kind of defense for my wife and me.”

“Do you still want to interrogate Lord Mori’s widow and stepson?” Fukida asked.

Sano thought a moment. “No. I can predict that if they killed Lord Mori, they’ll lie. Even if I force them to confess, Lord Matsudaira and Police Commissioner Hoshina won’t accept that as proof of my wife’s innocence. It’s time for a radically different approach. Come with me.”

“Where?” Hirata asked. “To do what?”

“I’ll explain on the way,” Sano said.

“Aren’t you going to tell Lady Reiko what happened?”

“I can’t,” Sano said, “She’s already left the house. I’ll leave a message for her. Let’s solve the crime before she gets home, so it won’t matter what a close call we had.”

A hired palanquin carried Reiko through the bancho, the district where the rank and file of the Tokugawa vassals lived. Live bamboo fences enclosed hundreds of small, rundown residences. The vassals were poor compared to their landed superiors and the rich merchant class, and the rains had reduced their neighborhood to a swampy slum. They rode and Reiko’s bearers trudged through ankle-deep puddles swimming with manure. Reiko kept the window of her palanquin open a mere crack so she could see where she was going. This was a place where she mustn’t show her face because people might recognize her.

Near a residence distinguished by characters carved on a wooden sign outside, she called for her bearers to stop, put her hand out the window, and signaled her escorts, who rode behind her. Lieutenant Asukai dismounted, ran up to the gate, and knocked. As he spoke to someone hidden by the leafy bamboo, she fought the despair that threatened to overwhelm her.

Last night she’d promised Sano that she wouldn’t give up hope. Last night they’d gone to bed together knowing that it could be the last time. They’d made love, careful of the baby. Afterward, safe and cherished in Sano’s arms, Reiko had been able to think mat everything would turn out all right. But when dawn had come, defeat had slithered under her skin, cold and poisonous as a snake, hissing, You murdered Lord Mori. You will pay. Now she was forcing herself to go through motions that seemed pointless.

From behind the bamboo fence emerged a thin, gray-haired lady.

Asukai led her up to Reiko’s palanquin, opened the door, and said, “Please get inside.”

The woman saw Reiko, and dismay crossed her shriveled features. Reiko thought about how glad people were to see her when they wanted her help, and how they preferred to avoid her after she’d done what they’d asked but things hadn’t turned out the way they wished.

“Please don’t go, Madam Tsuzuki,” she said. “I only ask a moment of your time.”

The woman reluctantly climbed into the palanquin and knelt as far from Reiko as possible. She said, “I heard what happened to you.” She avoided Reiko’s gaze. Her gentle voice didn’t soften her obvious hostility. “What are you doing here?”

“I didn’t kill Lord Mori,” Reiko said. “I’m trying to find out who did and prove my innocence. I need your help.”

Obligation to Reiko weighed like a visible burden upon Madam Tsuzuki. She looked unconvinced, but she said, “My apologies. I shouldn’t judge you when I don’t know anything but rumors. And I shouldn’t blame you for what you found out about the girl who was engaged to my son.”

She and her husband, an Edo Castle guard, had asked Reiko to investigate the girl’s family. Although samurai usually married within their class and knew all about their prospective in-laws, the son had fallen in love with a woman whose parents were artisans. Owners of a lucrative business, they were eager to marry their daughter into the samurai class. The Tsuzukis had been willing to accept a social inferior into their clan because of her rich dowry. This was a not uncommon practice by which commoners rose in the world and samurai improved their finances. But first the Tsuzukis had wanted to make sure that the girl and her family were of good character.

Reiko had questioned their neighbors and learned that they’d moved to Edo from Osaka ten years ago. The man had started as a peddler, then opened a small market stall, which he’d built into his current large shop. They were well respected, but nobody knew anything of their past. They never discussed their life in Osaka, where Reiko had sent one of her attendants to inquire about them.

“It’s not your fault that the girl turned out to be eta,” Madam Tsuzuki said.

Reiko had discovered that the family were outcasts, shunned by society because their hereditary link with death-related occupations such as butchering and leather tanning rendered them spiritually unclean. Most eta were doomed to a miserable existence cleaning streets, hauling garbage, or working at other dirty, menial jobs, but the man had had rare ambition and talent. He’d moved himself, his wife, and their daughter to Edo, where no one knew about their disgraceful origins, and changed their names. But Reiko had given her attendant an example of the man’s distinctive work to show around Osaka, and an eta he’d met in the street had recognized it. The results of her investigation had put an end to the wedding plans: A samurai couldn’t marry an outcast.

“You did me a service,” Madam Tsuzuki said, “but why do you think I can be of service to you?”

“It’s about your son,” Reiko said.

Tears filled the woman’s eyes and ran down her face. “He married her anyway. His father and I disowned him. He is dead to us.”

Reiko pitied this woman who’d lost her son due to his defiance of a strict, centuries-old taboo. She regretted that her well-meant efforts had caused a family tragedy. “Where is he?”

Instead of answering, Madam Tsuzuki asked, “What does he have to do with your problems?”

“He sent me this,” Reiko said, taking a letter from beneath her sash.

The woman averted her gaze from her son’s handwriting. Pain closed her eyes. Reiko read aloud, “ ‘Lady Reiko, you are an evil, meddlesome witch. You have ruined our lives. Someday I will hurt you as much as you have hurt us.” “

Madam Tsuzuki turned a look of horror on Reiko. “You can’t think that my son is responsible for what happened to you?”

He was as good a suspect as Colonel Kubota and better than the family of the clerk that had been executed for murder because of Reiko. “He belonged to a gang that included men from Lord Mori’s retinue.” Such samurai gangs spent their idle hours roving the town, drinking, brawling, and chasing women. “They were a way into the Mori estate. And he’s intelligent enough to invent an elaborate murder scheme.” Besides, the fact that he’d been disowned gave him all the more reason to hate Reiko. “What do you think? Could he have done it?”

“I don’t know.” Madam Tsuzuki shook her head helplessly. “I don’t know what my son is capable of or who he is anymore. I haven’t seen him in a year, since he told us he was going to marry that woman against our wishes and his father told him to leave our house and never come back.”

“Where did he go?” Reiko said.

“I don’t know. But her family might. Ask them.”

Sano, Hirata, and their detectives and entourage gathered in the neighborhood where Reiko had claimed she’d met Lily and all her problems had begun. Rain dripped off sagging roofs and balconies; mildew and green moss infected damp, dingy, plaster walls. The streets were deserted, but as Sano and his men dismounted and tied their horses to posts, people peeked out windows at them.

“There’s the Persimmon Teahouse,” Hirata said, pointing at the drab storefront overhung with a wet blue curtain.

Sano gave it scant attention as he walked by. “Never mind that for now.”

“Do you want us to round up all the residents for questioning?” Hirata asked.

“That probably won’t work any better than before.” Sano kept moving, past shops and a little shrine.

“What are we looking for?” Detective Marume asked.

“I’m not sure,” Sano said. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

He attuned himself to his surroundings. Instinct told him that the answers were here. He opened his mind to all stimuli. He smelled nightsoil bins in an alley, heard voices chanting prayers inside houses, tasted garlic in charcoal smoke that wafted from a kitchen. He felt new hope as he continued along the street, alert for whatever he’d come to discover.

His men followed him silently. They came to a shop halfway down the block, whose door was open a crack. It seemed to beckon Sano. He went up to the storefront, stood under the overhanging eaves, and looked inside while Hirata and the detectives peered over his shoulder.

It was a stationer’s shop, filled with writing brushes, ink stones, ceramic water jars, scroll cases, and stacks of paper. An old man knelt at a desk. Opposite him sat a young woman. “The baby was sick with a cold, but he’s better,” she said. “My husband is working hard. I’m well, but I miss you.” The old man wrote down her words as she continued dictating, “Good-bye for now. With love from your daughter, Emiko.”

Sano pictured a different, older woman sitting in her place; he heard another voice: Dear Lady Reiko, please excuse we for imposing on you, but I need your help. The old man was probably one of the few literate people in his neighborhood. Shops like his were patronized by folks who needed letters written or read for them. Sano felt the tingling sensation of excitement that told him he was on the right track. He slid the door open wider and stepped into the shop.

The proprietor bowed to him. “I’ll be right with you, master.”

Sano nodded, but was looking at the letter that the man carefully blotted dry. The inked characters were square-shaped, neat, precise, and familiar. The man rolled the page into a bamboo case and handed it to the woman; she paid, thanked him, and left. He asked Sano, “How may I serve you?”

“I want to talk to you about a letter you once wrote,” Sano said. “It was for a dancer named Lily.”

The old man’s courteous smile faded. “I respectfully beg to disagree; I’ve never had a customer by that name.”

“Yes, you did,” Sano said. “I’ve seen the letter. It was sent to Lady Reiko, my wife. I recognized your calligraphy.” It was proof at last that Lily existed, that Reiko hadn’t imagined her in a fit of madness.

Fear crept into the old man’s withered features. “A thousand apologies, but I don’t know any Lily.” He turned to Hirata, who’d crowded into the shop with Sano. “I told you so the other night, when you were here.”

“Yes, you did. I remember you.” Hirata said to Sano, “I threatened to beat him if he didn’t tell me where to find Lily, but he wouldn’t. Neither would the other folks in the street.”

And Hirata had backed off because he’d believed them rather than Reiko’s story and didn’t want to hurt innocent people, Sano thought. But now the old man had unwittingly furnished proof of a conspiracy of silence. Now Sano and Hirata were desperate.

“Today we’re going to give you another chance to tell the truth,” Hirata told the old man.

He shut the door. He and Sano stood over the old man, who shrank behind his desk. “Please don’t hurt me!” he cried, raising his hands to fend off blows.

“Just tell us where Lily is,” Sano said, “and we won’t touch you.”

“I can’t!”

The small, stuffy room reeked of the man’s old age and terror. Sano said, “Who threatened you into keeping quiet?”

“Some samurai. I don’t know who they were. They came here two days ago.” Anxious to placate Sano and Hirata, the old man babbled, “They went from house to house, looking for Lily. They didn’t find her; she was already gone. They told us that if anyone asked about her, we were to say we didn’t know her, or they would come back and kill us all.”

“Don’t be afraid of them. I’ll protect you.” Urgency mounted in Sano. He grabbed the old man by the front of his robe. “Now where is she?”

Even though the old man whimpered and quaked, he cried, “I promised her I wouldn’t tell!”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Hirata said.

“Why did she disappear?” Sano asked.

“She heard that those samurai were after her. She came hurrying into my shop, all frightened. She begged me to write a letter for her.”

“A letter to whom?”

When the old man didn’t answer, Sano turned him to face Hirata, who drew his sword. Hirata held the blade to the man’s chest. They didn’t have time to waste on gentle persuasion. The man shrieked, then blurted, “It was to Lady Reiko.”

Sano was surprised because Reiko hadn’t, as far as he knew, received a second letter from Lily. “What did she tell you to write?”

“That some bad men were after her, and she had to hide. She begged Lady Reiko to save her.”

“If she expected help, she would have said where she would be,” Sano said. She must not have had a chance to send the letter to Reiko. “Tell me!”

“I can’t!” The old man pressed his back against Sano, shrinking away from Hirata’s blade. “I would never forgive myself if anything happened to her.”

“Listen,” Sano said, turning the old man, “those people will find Lily eventually. My wife would want me to rescue her, and I will, but first you have to tell me where she is.”

Fearful hope battled defiance in the man’s eyes and won. “All right,” he cried. “Just please let me go!”

Sano did. The old man crumpled onto the floor. Ashamed and woeful, he said, “I guess I can’t do any more harm than I’ve already done. Lily said she was going to Ginkgo Street. There was a fire there before the rains started. She was going to hide in a building that hadn’t quite burned down.”

“Exactly where is this building?” Sano demanded.

The man gave complicated directions through Edo’s maze of neighborhoods.

“Thank you,” Sano said. “You did the right thing. I’m sorry we were so cruel to you.”

He opened the door and called to some of his troops who were waiting outside: “Take this man to my compound. Guard him with your lives. He’ll testify on behalf of Lady Reiko at her trial.” He assigned more men to protect the residents of the street, then said to Hirata, Inoue, Arai, Marume, and Fukida: “Come with me. We have to find Lily. She’s the most important witness of all.”

As the troops led the old man out of the shop, he began to weep. “It’s too late. You can’t save her. And it’s my fault.”

Sano was about to ignore him and go, but he realized there was more to the situation than he’d thought at first. “Wait. What do you mean?”

“There was another samurai who asked me where Lily went. Just before you came. I told him.” The man sobbed, overcome by guilt and grief. “I shouldn’t have. But my granddaughter was with me. He threatened to cut her throat.”

Someone had beaten Sano to the witness. Sano demanded, “Who was he?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t give his name, and I’ve never seen him before. He rode off as if demons were chasing him.”

His hysterical voice followed Sano, Hirata, and the detectives as they raced down the street toward their horses: “Merciful gods, he’s going to kill her!”

The palanquin bearers let Reiko out on the wide main street that ran through Edo. Here were located the city’s best stores, which served the richest citizens. Today the weather had kept most customers at home. The usual displays outside the storefronts were absent, the shutters partially closed to keep the rain off the fine household furnishings inside. Reiko was glad to find the street so deserted; she didn’t want to run into anyone she knew. The longer the time she spent sneaking around like a fugitive, the more she feared getting caught. But she had to keep moving, had to keep trying to exonerate herself no matter how sure she was that she never would.

A Tokugawa soldier rode by. Reiko hastily ducked inside a shop whose entrance curtains bore a picture of bamboo canes. Lieutenant Asukai followed her into a showroom filled with articles made from bamboo. Screens lined the walls; baskets sat on shelves; lanterns hung from the ceiling. All featured the intricate designs that had made the shop famous. Near the door was a display of its specialty-cricket cages. They weren’t the simple type in which children placed crickets they’d caught so they could take them indoors and listen to them sing. They were elaborate miniature houses, pagodas, and castles, made for wealthy connoisseurs. The talent that had gone into them had raised their creator from outcast to artisan to successful merchant, a transformation virtually impossible.

The store was empty except for three clerks kneeling at a counter strewn with ledgers for recording sales and sorobon for calculating prices. One of the men rose and approached Reiko. “Welcome,” he said, bowing. “May I serve you?”

It took Reiko a moment to recognize him. The last time she’d seen him had been at his parents’ home, when they’d asked her to investigate his prospective bride. Then his crown had been shaved in samurai fashion; now his hair was cropped short all over his head. Then he’d worn silk robes and two swords; now, cotton robes, no weapons. His face, which she recalled as handsome but childish, had a new, mature strength.

“Greetings, Tsuzuki-san,” Reiko said.

He took a second look at her, and emotions played across his features in a sequence too rapid for her to sort them out. Lieutenant Asukai put his hand on his sword, in case Tsuzuki should attack Reiko.

“Well,” Tsuzuki said, smiling with sardonic merriment. “Funny meeting you again.”

Reiko cautiously relaxed, but Asukai stayed close to her. She said, “My congratulations on your marriage.”

“So you know about it. Did my mother tell you?”

“Yes,” Reiko said. “I asked her where to find you, and she said your in-laws might know. I came to see them. But I didn’t expect you to be here.” She’d thought he and his bride had run away together, as star-crossed lovers did.

He pantomimed a laugh: His smile opened and his eyes narrowed, without sound. “Oh, I’ve been here ever since my parents disowned me. My father not only cut me off with no money, but he got me kicked out of the army. Luckily, my wife’s parents were more accepting. They took me in even though I was a worthless ronin. Now I’m a clerk and apprentice.”

Roaming around the shop, he touched several baskets. “These are my work. Not bad, eh?” Genuine pride underlay his self-mocking tone. “But it’ll be a long time before I can do anything like this.” His manner turned reverent as he pointed to the cricket cages. “My father-in-law did those.”

Tsuzuki tilted his head and studied Reiko. “Say, why are you here? To see what became of me?”

“That’s one reason. This is the other.” Reiko handed him the letter he’d written.

As he read it, bitter nostalgia darkened his face for a moment before he smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry,” he said, giving the letter back to Reiko. “But I was so mad at you, I had to get it off my chest.”

“You’re not mad anymore?” Reiko suggested.

Again came his soundless laugh. “Oh, I was for a while. But pretty soon I started to think you did me favor.

“I used to be a good-for-nothing lout. My friends were just like me. We didn’t care that we were wasting our lives. Now I’ve lost my gang as well as my family. I don’t get drunk every night, or pick fights, or gamble and run up debts. I earn my own living instead of mooching off the Tokugawa regime. And you know what? I used to think merchants were beneath samurai, but my in-laws are fine people.” His voice expressed genuine respect for them. “Finer man my parents, who care more about status and customs than what’s inside people’s hearts.”

Looking over his shoulder, he said, “I’d like you to meet someone.”

A young woman hovered in a doorway that led to the rear of the shop. She cradled a baby in her arms. When Tsuzuki beckoned, she shyly approached.

“This is my wife, Ume,” he said, “and our son.”

Ume bowed; he introduced Reiko to her. As they murmured polite greetings, Reiko noticed that Ume was strong, robust, and beautiful, the child plump and rosy with good health. She also noticed the affection with which Tsuzuki regarded them.

“I’m glad you came,” he told her. “If not for you, things wouldn’t have turned out this well. I’m glad for a chance to thank you.”

“I must thank you for keeping my family’s secret,” his wife said. “If there’s anything we can do to repay you, just ask.”

It would have been proper for Reiko to tell the authorities that the family were eta, which would have resulted in them losing their business and being sent to the outcast slum. But she’d not wanted to destroy everything they’d worked so hard to achieve.

“Please forget the letter I wrote you,” Tsuzuki said. “That’s not how I feel anymore. You don’t have to be afraid that I’ll hurt you.” He regarded Reiko with curiosity. “What else did you want?”

“I’m not going to find it here.” Despair washed through Reiko because she’d finished her inquiries and they’d come to nothing. Owing Tsuzuki an explanation, she said, “Maybe you’ve heard that Lord Mori has been murdered and I’m the principal suspect?”

“No, I haven’t. News from up high takes awhile to trickle down here.”

“I’m looking for the person who killed Lord Mori and framed me,” Reiko continued. “I thought it might be you.”

She’d been counting on that, but Tsuzuki was truly happy with his lot in life. She believed that he had indeed cut his ties with samurai society and would have had no way inside the Mori estate. Her search for the murderer must end at herself.

“Well, I’m sorry I can’t oblige,” Tsuzuki said. “There must be other people who had it in for you. Who else did you run afoul of with your investigating?”

“There’s Colonel Kubota.”

“I know him. A powerful man, and pretty mean. What did you do to him?”

When Reiko explained, Tsuzuki whistled in amazement. “You really know how to offend people. You’d better watch out for Kubota.”

“There’s also the family of a clerk named Goro. He was executed for a murder that I investigated,” Reiko said. “But I haven’t been able to locate them.”

Tsuzuki started to shake his head, then stopped. “Wait. Did he strangle a pregnant girl?”

“Yes,” Reiko said. “How did you know?”

“It was in the news broadsheets,” his wife said. “I remember.”

“That’s not how I heard about it.” Tsuzuki lit up with surprise and glee. “Hey, I may be able to help you after all.” Irony twisted his mouth. “Who’d have thought I would ever want to? But listen to this:

“One night about a year ago, in the old days, my gang had a party at Lord Mori’s. I drank a lot, and I passed out in the garden. When I woke up the next morning, I heard two women talking. One was complaining that her son, Goro, had been put to death for strangling a girl that he’d raped and gotten pregnant and throwing her body in a canal. The other woman said maybe he deserved it. But the first one insisted that he was innocent even though he’d confessed.”

Reiko stared in astonishment. “His mother was inside the Mori estate? How can that be?”

“I don’t know,” Tsuzuki said.

“Who was the woman she was talking to?”

“Sorry.”

A wisp of memory from her visits to the Mori estate solidified in Reiko’s mind. She pictured the gray-haired woman who’d seemed familiar, whom she hadn’t been able to place. Revelation exploded in her mind like a bomb.

She had an enemy inside that estate, one who’d been plotting retribution against her for two years, and had somehow ended up in the right position to exact it. The clerk’s mother was Lady Mori’s personal maid. Here was the connection between her past experiences and her present troubles.

Ginkgo Street resembled an abscess in a line of rotting teeth. The fire had burned an entire square block in a poor neighborhood on the edge of the Nihonbashi merchant quarter, which was hemmed in by canals that had kept the blaze from spreading. Buildings were reduced to black fragments of walls, charred beams, broken roof tiles, and cinders. Ashes blackened the puddles through which Sano and his men rode. The odor of smoke lingered. The area was deserted; the rains had delayed the rebuilding. It was eerily silent, as though haunted by the spirits of people who’d died in the fire. It was a good place for fugitives to hide.

Lightning crooked a finger down the heavens; thunder crashed. Drops pelted Sano as he noticed one building in better shape than the rest, located across the ruins by the canal at the northern edge. It looked to have all its walls and part of its roof, which was made of heavy, fireproof tiles.

“That must be where Lily is hiding,” Sano said. He pulled back on the reins. “We’d better not let her see us coming.”

He and his men jumped off their horses. Sano, Marume, and Fukida ran along the road, past the burned houses, to approach the building from the front. Hirata, Inoue, and Arai stole through the ruins toward the back. Sano slipped around the corner, treading softly on the footpath by the canal, above houseboats battened down against the storms. The building rose above piles of debris. The roof had caved in; the remains of a balcony dangled from the front. During a lull in the thunder, a high-pitched, frantic scream shrilled from the building.

“What was that?” Sano said.

He and the detectives were already running toward the doorway. A samurai stepped out of it. Sano bumped smack into him. He slipped on the muddy path and went down on one knee and hand. He looked up at Sano. Their gazes met in surprised recognition.

“Captain Torai,” Sano said.

Dismay showed on Torai’s face. Marume said, “What are you doing here?” At the same moment Sano noticed bright red splotches on the white collar of Torai’s under-robe.

Torai scrambled upright and fled in the opposite direction. An awful suspicion gripped Sano. “Stop him!” he ordered Marume and Fukida.

They bolted down the path after Torai. Sano hurried into the house. Dim, cavernous space smelled of dampness and burnt wood. The faint light that came through holes in the ceiling illuminated rain dripping onto dirty, warped floorboards. Partitions divided the house into sections where different families must have lived. These were open to Sano’s view as he ran past them; the doors had been removed. All were empty except for wet debris. Sano hastened down the passage to a chamber away from the worst damage to the roof. In a corner lay a faded quilt, a bundle of clothes, and a basket of rice balls- signs of habitation.

“Lily!” Sano called.

His voice echoed through the house. No answer came. Sano spied a straw sandal lying on the floor, its toe pointed at the threshold where he stood. He turned. A line of red splotches led farther down the passage. As he followed them, he smelled iron in the dank air. The splotches grew larger, running into the puddles, then into a pool of blood that spread, glistening crimson, across the floor of the last room.

In the center of the pool a woman lay like a broken doll. Her coarse, black hair was thick with blood, her cheap floral kimono drenched red. Her hands were flung up. Bloody gashes marked their palms. Her head was beneath a window whose paper panes had burned. Light from it bathed her white face, her open mouth revealing teeth awash in more blood. Her eyes seemed to stare in terror at her last sight, the attacker who’d cut her throat from ear to ear.

Horror at this violent death, pity for the victim, and fury at her murderer rose up in Sano. Shouting a curse, he pounded his fist against the door frame.

Hirata, Inoue, and Arai joined Sano. “What happened?” Hirata said. They saw the corpse and exclaimed in unison. Lightning flashed outside, searing the gory spectacle of death into Sano’s eyes. “Is that Lily?”

“As far as I can tell,” Sano said. Her age and gaudy clothes matched Reiko’s description. His triumph at learning her whereabouts turned to the disappointment of utter failure.

Bending down, Hirata touched the blood. “It’s still warm. She must have been killed just now.”

“Yes,” Sano said. “We were too late. He beat us to her by only a few moments.”

“Who?” Hirata asked.

“Captain Torai.” Sano explained how he’d met Captain Torai coming out of the building. “There was blood on his clothes. He ran. Fukida and Marume are chasing him.”

“So it was Torai who threatened the people around the Persimmon Teahouse into keeping quiet about Lily.”

“With help from his friends, on Police Commissioner Hoshina’s orders, no doubt.”

“But why did he go to the trouble of tracking her down and killing her now?” Hirata asked.

“To tie up a loose thread,” Sano said. “Hoshina wants to make very certain my wife is convicted and I’m ruined at our trials today. The last thing he wants is for me to bring in Lily as a witness for our defense and make Lord Matsudaira change his mind about us. Which I could have done, if we’d found her trail sooner. But there’s still hope. Even though we’ve lost Lily, there’s one witness left.”

“Captain Torai?”

“None other. He’s been in on Hoshina’s plot to cover up evidence in the murder investigation. He knows all about it. I’ll bring him before Lord Matsudaira and the shogun and tell them he murdered an important witness.”

“The blood on him should help convince them,” Hirata said.

“They won’t care about the death of a peasant woman, but they won’t take kindly to being tricked,” Sano said. “I think Torai will finally betray Hoshina to save his own skin. That should help clear my wife.”

“And good-bye to Hoshina in the process,” Hirata said.

“That should knock some wind out of the campaign to make me out as a traitor,” Sano said. “But let’s go give Fukida and Marume a hand, because first we need to catch Captain Torai.”