26

Sano arrived in Okitsu’s room to find her kneeling amid scattered clothing, surrounded by Ibe and Otani’s troops. Her eyes were round, wide pools of fright; audible gulps contracted her throat. When she saw Sano enter with his detectives, his watchdogs, and their men, she blurted, “I didn’t tell everything I know about the night Senior Elder Makino died. Please allow me to tell you now.”

“Go ahead,” Sano said, surprised that Okitsu would volunteer information before he’d even asked.

Okitsu gulped, drew a deep breath, and picked at her cuticles, which were already red and raw. “That night, when it was very late, I- I went to the Place of Relief.” This was the polite term for the privy. "On my way back, I-I saw him.”

“Who?” Sano felt Ibe and Otani tense, alert, at his back. “Senior Elder Makino?”

“No!” Okitsu gasped. “It was Lord Matsudaira’s nephew.”

Now Sano sensed disapproval and concern in his watchdogs. Excitement flared in him, for here was the first evidence that anyone had seen Daiemon after his visit to Makino. “Where did you see him?”

“He was in the, uh, study. The door was open a little. I peeked in, and-and there he was.”

Sano scrutinized Okitsu. “How did you recognize Daiemon?”

She wriggled under his gaze. After a lengthy pause, she said, “I-I’d seen him before-at parties?” Her voice rose at the end of the sentence, as if she was uncertain that this was the right answer and wanted reassurance.

“What was he doing?” Sano said.

“He-he was standing by the desk? There was a, uh, pole in his hands?” Again came that questioning lilt in Okitsu’s voice. “He was looking down at something on the floor?”

“What was it?”

“I-I don’t know. I couldn’t see?”

Sano pictured Daiemon, the weapon in his hands, standing over Senior Elder Makino’s battered corpse, and Okitsu peeking through the door, a witness to the aftermath of the crime.

“You’ll stop this line of questioning right now,” Otani ordered Sano.

Lord Matsudaira wouldn’t want his nephew implicated in the crime, even now that Daiemon was dead, Sano understood, lest it harm his clan’s standing with the shogun.

“What else did you see?” Sano asked Okitsu.

“Nothing?” Her tone implored Sano to accept her word and leave her in peace.

Threatening stares from his watchdogs told Sano that he was pushing their forbearance. He said, “Okitsu-san, why didn’t you tell my chief retainer about this when he questioned you?”

“Because I was too afraid,” Okitsu said. Her fingers worried at her cuticles.

“And why did you choose to tell me about him now?”

Okitsu risked a furtive glance at Sano. “Now that Lord Matsudaira’s nephew is dead, he can’t hurt me.”

“How do you know he’s dead?” Sano said.

The girl mumbled, “I heard people talking.”

Perhaps she had seen Daiemon and feared what he would do to her if she incriminated him, Sano thought. But perhaps she had also feared to confess that she’d been wandering the private chambers that night and could have committed the murder herself instead of almost catching the killer in the act. What was the real reason for the alibi she’d given Hirata?

“What happened after you saw Daiemon?” Sano said.

“I went back to Koheiji. He was in his room.”

“What did you do then?”

“I don’t remember.”

Okitsu ducked her head. Sano bent down to peer into her face. Her eyes were so wide with terror that rings of white showed around the pupils. Her story now suggested that she and the actor had been apart long enough for him, as well as her, to kill Makino-if Daiemon hadn’t.

“There’s something else you neglected to tell my chief retainer,” said Sano. “Yesterday he visited Rakuami, your former master. Rakuami said you hated Senior Elder Makino so much that you tried to commit suicide rather than be his concubine. Is it true?”

A gulp that ended in a retch convulsed Okitsu; her arms wrapped tight around her stomach. “No.”

“Then Rakuami was lying?”

“No!”

“Either he lied about you, or you hated Makino. Which is it?” Sano said.

“I didn’t hate him. I mean, I did at first, but…” Okitsu babbled, “After I’d lived with him awhile, and he was so kind to me, I was grateful to him, and I didn’t hate him anymore, I loved him very much…”

She’d told Sano what he needed to know about her feelings toward Makino. “You said you knew Daiemon from parties. Were they parties at Rakuami’s club?”

“I don’t remember,” Okitsu said. She moaned while clutching her stomach.

“Was he a client that you entertained for Rakuami?”

“I don’t remember.”

Her favorite answer didn’t convince Sano, for he observed the blush that reddened the back of her neck above her kimono: Even Okitsu, who must have served many men at the club, hadn’t forgotten that she’d served Daiemon. “When was the last time you saw him?”

Okitsu moved her head from side to side, then up, then down, as if trying to catch thoughts that sped and jumbled in her mind. “It was-it was the night Senior Elder Makino died.”

“Think again,” Sano said. “Was it yesterday evening instead?” No.

“Where were you last night?”

“I was… with Koheiji.”

Her favorite alibi didn’t convince Sano either. “He went out alone. You left here after he did.”

“I was with him. I was!” Okitsu began sobbing.

“Did you meet Daiemon at the Sign of Bedazzlement?” Sano said. “Were you his mistress?”

“No!”

“Did you go to him there last night? Did you stab him to death?”

“I didn’t meet him! I didn’t kill anyone!”

A terrible stench of diarrhea arose: Okitsu’s bowels had moved. Ibe grimaced in disgust. “Let’s get out of here,” he said. He and Otani and their troops herded Sano and his men outside, where they gathered on the veranda. Hemmed in by his watchdogs, Sano stood at the railing. In the garden, the sand was pocked by raindrops, the boulders dark and slick with moisture. Distant war drums throbbed; distant gunshots cracked die cold air.

“The girl lied about seeing Daiemon the night of Makino’s death,” Ibe said. “Her alibis for both murders stink like fish ten days old.”

Sano agreed, but he said, “That doesn’t mean she’s guilty.” And he didn’t think she was. She seemed incapable of stabbing or beating a man to death-at least without help. Yet she could be the common factor in both murders, if indeed they were connected.

“Why else would she lie?” Otani said with disdain.

“To protect someone else,” Sano suggested. “To hide secrets that have nothing to do with the murders.”

“Well, as far as I’m concerned, she’s as good as guilty,” said Ibe, “and so is the widow.”

“Arrest one or the other,” said Otani.

“Choose now. Waste no more time,” Ibe said.

Sano didn’t budge, although he could feel the pressure of their wills against his and he envisioned Masahiro, tiny and helpless, surrounded by their thugs. “Not yet,” he said. “Not based on such flimsy evidence.”

Ibe expelled a curse. “You’ve got two women who hated Makino, had the opportunity to kill him, and gave unsatisfactory accounts of their actions on the nights of his murder and Daiemon’s. What more do you want?”

Sano wanted to assure himself that he wasn’t persecuting an innocent person, subverting justice, and compromising his honor, but he didn’t expect his watchdogs to have any sympathy for that. “At the very least, I must prove what the women were up to during the time when Daiemon was killed. That means tracing their whereabouts last night. Until I’ve done that, I’ll not arrest anyone.”

Ibe and Otani leaned over the railing and looked at each other across Sano. He discerned their reluctance to use the threat they held over him. Cowards both, they were as afraid of hurting Masahiro and provoking Sano’s wrath as Sano was of having his son harmed. A deadlock paralyzed everyone. In a lull of battle noises, Sano heard rain trickling down a drain spout.