The Fire Kimono (12 page)

“I apologize for causing you so such trouble, Honorable Daughter-in-law,” Etsuko said humbly. “I beg your forgiveness.”

“There’s no need to apologize, nothing to forgive.” Yet Reiko experienced a stab of ill feeling toward Etsuko. The woman was, however inadvertently, the source of a serious threat to their whole family. Reiko thought of other wives she knew, whose mothers-in-law hated and insulted them, beat them and threw things at them. Those problems seemed trivial compared to Reiko’s, a mother-in-law who was accused of murdering a Tokugawa clan member, who could bring destruction upon all her kin.

Then Reiko felt ashamed of resenting Etsuko. The woman had always treated Reiko with respect, if not affection. She’d never done any ill as far as Reiko had firsthand knowledge to believe. Furthermore, she’d not deliberately endangered Reiko’s family. Lord Matsudaira was using Etsuko against Sano. If he didn’t have her, he would find some other weapon. Reiko pitied Etsuko, and she owed Etsuko all the aid she could give. That was her duty as a daughter-in-law, and in her own best interest.

She also owed Etsuko the benefit of doubt regarding the murder.

“Since you’re here, I welcome the opportunity to visit with you,” Reiko said, “even though it’s under difficult circumstances.”

“… Yes.”

This one word conveyed how averse Etsuko was to Reiko’s company and her acceptance of the fact that a guest must bow to her hostess’s wishes.

“My husband told me what happened,” Reiko began cautiously. She saw Etsuko fold her arms, shrink in bed. “I understand why you might not want to talk about it, but maybe I can help.”

Etsuko said nothing; she fidgeted with her bedcovers. Reiko wondered whether her mother-in-law knew that she helped Sano with his investigations. She’d never thought to ask. Reiko also wondered if Etsuko was aware of her suspicions, for she sensed that the woman was more intelligent than she’d previously thought.

“Have you remembered anything else since you talked to my husband?” Reiko asked. Sano hadn’t told her what he’d learned from his mother, but she would find out later, and she mustn’t waste time going over ground he’d already covered.

“No,” Etsuko murmured.

“Some things may be easier discussed between women, and between us rather than a mother and a son,” Reiko encouraged.

She’d hoped that Etsuko would talk about her family background, but Etsuko didn’t answer. And Reiko didn’t want to force the issue, lest she further strain their relations.

Changing tack, Reiko said, “What would help my husband clear your name is proof that you weren’t at the shrine near the time when Tadatoshi died. Can you think of anyone who can testify that you were someplace else?”

“There’s no one,” Etsuko said in a barely audible voice.

Did that mean she’d been alone someplace else, without witnesses to observe her, or that she had indeed been at the shrine? Reiko couldn’t help wondering. But the lack of an alibi didn’t necessarily mean Etsuko was guilty.

“Is there anything at all you can remember that might help my husband prove you’re innocent?”

“No,” Etsuko whispered.

“I see.” Reiko swallowed frustration. Her children’s fate depended on her mother-in-law’s; the least Etsuko could do was try harder to cooperate. “Is there anything that might get you in more trouble if it became known, that my husband should be prepared to counteract?”

“… No.”

Etsuko’s speech was often hesitant, but this time Reiko noticed that she’d delayed answering for a beat longer than normal. It could mean that Etsuko had paused to think, in the hope of recalling a forgotten fact, but it might mean that she was very well aware of some damning evidence that could resurface. But whatever the truth, Reiko realized that her mother-in-law was a tougher nut to crack than other suspects she’d met. Etsuko had shown her samurai blood, a hard core of resolve wrapped in her humble guise.

Yet Reiko still pitied Etsuko and still hoped desperately to exonerate her. This was no ordinary investigation. There would be no rewards for unmasking this suspect as a criminal.

Now Etsuko looked fatigued and weak. Reiko said, “Well, then, perhaps you’d better rest. We can talk some more later.” She counseled herself to postpone judgment about Etsuko, at least until more facts came to light.

Sano, Marume, and Fukida ducked under the blue curtain that hung across the entrance of a dingy public bathhouse. They paid coins to the attendant, accepted towels and bags of rice bran soap, and strode into a room enclosed by mildewed walls, where naked people scrubbed and poured buckets of water over themselves or lounged in the sunken tub amid clouds of steam. Edo bathhouses came in various types. Some were for families who didn’t have space for tubs at home. In others, illegal prostitutes of either sex serviced male customers. This one, Sano noted, appeared to be a haunt of disreputable men.

As he and his comrades walked among the bathers, he saw ronin with black stubble on their faces and shaved crowns; he passed gangsters covered with tattoos. Sano took care not to look too closely at anyone while he sought the man he’d come to find. A bathhouse like this was ostensibly neutral territory in which the patrons had a tacit agreement to do one another no harm, but they didn’t always stick to the agreement. Surly gazes flicked over Sano. He heard his name spoken quietly and saw Toda Ikkyu, master spy for the metsuke-the Tokugawa intelligence service-sitting in the tub. At least Sano thought it was Toda; the spy had such a nondescript face, perfectly suited to his work. Although they’d known each other more than ten years, Sano never recognized Toda at first glance.

“Looking for me?” Toda said.

The world-weary voice and expression were familiar. Sano crouched and said, “Your people told me I could find you here. I don’t suppose you came for the pleasure of it?”

Toda smiled blandly. “Professional pleasure, one might say. Thank you for not storming in with your whole entourage. That would have foiled my operation.”

Sano and his men had come in garments without identifying crests, and they’d left his entourage down the street. While Marume and Fukida kept a covert watch on the other bathers, Sano said to Toda, “Who are you after?”

“Rebels, as usual,” Toda said. “In particular, the gang that attacked a squadron of Lord Matsudaira’s troops on the highway last month.”

Lord Matsudaira employed the metsuke to hunt down his enemies. So did Sano. The metsuke played both sides of their rivalry, ensuring its own survival no matter which ultimately won. Toda had weathered many political storms, and Sano would bet on him to emerge unscathed from this latest.

“We know who they are,” Toda said, “and we got a tip that they like to meet here. We’re waiting for them to show.”

“We?” Sano said.

“My colleagues are here with me. Don’t bother looking around-you won’t spot them. Neither will our targets.” Toda asked, “What are you after?”

“Information.”

Sano had no qualms about seeking it from this spy who helped maintain his enemy in power. Both Sano and Lord Matsudaira trusted Toda because he favored neither. Toda did his best for them both, for his own good.

“About Colonel Doi?” Toda said.

“How did you know?”

“If I were in your position, I’d go after Doi, too. He’s the one who’s got you and your mother in jeopardy. Take him down, and there’s a big problem solved.”

“So what can you tell me?” Sano said.

“Doi Naokatsu, member of a minor hereditary Tokugawa vassal clan. His father was an accountant to Tokugawa Naganori, father of Tadatoshi. The young Doi was a cut above average from the start, excelled at the martial arts, clever, too. He was appointed chief bodyguard to Tadatoshi at age fifteen, when ordinary samurai are just foot soldiers at the bottom of the ranks. After the Great Fire, with Tadatoshi’s father dead and Tadatoshi presumed to be, most of their retainers became ronin.”

They would have numbered among hordes of other new masterless samurai. The fire had ravaged military-class residences inside the Tokiwabashi and Kajibashi gates. Many Tokugawa vassals who’d had their own retainers had died or lost everything, leaving the retainers homeless and impoverished.

“All those new ronin caused trouble,” Sano remembered. “They banded together in gangs that marauded through the areas that hadn’t burned. They looted shops and squatted in abandoned houses.”

Many other survivors had done the same. The fire had virtually wiped out Edo’s food supply as well as its housing and created a mass famine. Thousands of people who hadn’t been killed by the fire had died of starvation.

“Doi made the best of a bad deal,” said Toda. “He volunteered his services to the shogun’s army, which was struggling to mount a relief effort. He led a brigade that took food to the people. He ferried rice bales across the river, cooked stew with his own hands, and fought off gangs that tried to steal the food. He became a sort of hero.”

The fire had created many heroes who’d risen to the challenge of helping their fellow man. That was the bright side of a disaster. But although Sano could admire Doi, he wondered if the man’s efforts had been motivated by something besides valor, and there was a gap in the story.

“Do you have any information about what Doi did during the fire?” Sano asked. “Or about his relationship with Tadatoshi?”

“No.” Toda watched the door while people came and went. “During the fire and for quite a while afterward, the metsuke wasn’t functioning as usual. Neither was the rest of the government. There was utter chaos. And before the fire, we didn’t bother watching Doi.”

“He was pretty much a nobody,” Sano supposed.

Toda nodded. “But after the fire, his accomplishments caught the eye of Lord Matsudaira’s father, who took him in. Doi went to work at the Matsudaira provincial estate, as a guard captain. Before he was thirty, he was manager of the estate. Later he came back to Edo and joined the current Lord Matsudaira’s inner circle of command.”

“Did he ever marry?” Sano asked, thinking of his mother’s broken engagement with Doi.

“Yes. His wife is a cousin of Lord Matsudaira’s.”

She’d been a much better match than Sano’s mother. Her connection with Lord Matsudaira had helped Doi further his ambitions. It looked as though Doi had broken the engagement because he’d wanted a more socially advantageous marriage.

“Any children?” Sano asked.

“Two sons and a daughter. The sons are both high-ranking officers in Lord Matsudaira’s army. The daughter married into the rich and powerful Niu daimyo clan. Doi has twelve grandchildren, all slated for great things.”

Doi couldn’t complain about how his life had turned out. Sano’s theory that Doi had accused his mother because he had a grudge against her was losing ground fast.

“Doi had his latest triumph in the war against the former chamberlain, Yanagisawa,” Toda said. “His regiment led the Matsudaira army in number of enemy troops killed.”

His career seemed one of the most laudable that Sano had ever heard of, his reputation spotless. “Hasn’t Doi ever been in trouble?”

“Not to our knowledge. He doesn’t gamble, whore, or drink too much. We’ve never smelled a whiff of corruption.” Toda smiled, rueful yet amused by Sano’s disappointment. “I’m sorry. It seems I’ve put you right back where you started.”

With only one visible reason for Doi’s accusation-the man’s allegiance to Lord Matsudaira. “Well, I don’t intend to stay there,” Sano said. “I’m going to do my own checking into Doi.”

The metsuke didn’t know everything, and Toda had admitted that the Great Fire had temporarily put them out of business. Their lapse had created a chance for people to do as they pleased, unobserved. Sano meant to shine a light into that dark havoc in which Tadatoshi had met his death. Sano was certain he would see Doi there with a hand in the murder.

“Good luck,” Toda said.

Suddenly he tensed. Sano looked at four men who’d just walked in the door. They were ronin, their faces and clothes worn rough by hardship. Toda put his fingers to his lips and whistled. The loud, shrill noise vibrated the steamy air, echoed off the walls. The ronin froze. Nine bathers erupted from the tub. In a tumult of dripping, naked bodies, they assaulted the ronin, who didn’t even have time to draw their swords. Sano, his comrades, and the other bathers watched in amazement as fists flew, limbs thrashed, and bodies thudded. In a mere instant the four rebels were wrestled into submission.

“Good work,” Sano said.

Toda smiled, watching his colleagues march the rebels out the door. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

A thought nudged Sano. “Have you heard any news about Yanagisawa?”

“He’s still wasting away on Hachijo Island, according to reports from the officials.” Interest animated the smooth, opaque surface of Toda’s eyes. “Why do you ask?”

Sano felt his suspicions dwindle. If there was any cause for them, Toda of all people should know. “Just curious.”

When Sano returned to his estate, he sought out Hana, his mother’s maid. He tracked her to the building that housed the kitchen, where the meals for his family, retainers, and servants were prepared. Inside, the cooks labored amid a din of chopping, sizzling, voices, and banging. Hana was alone in the courtyard where storehouses held coal, rice, and other supplies. She stood by a frame with a horizontal crossbar. From the bar hung a dead duck, suspended from a rope tied around its legs. Blood trickled from the duck’s cut neck into a pot on the ground.