The Fire Kimono (21 page)

“What happened?” Egen asked.

“A bell started ringing. I heard the firemen coming. Tadatoshi ran. I caught him and brought him home.” Doi cursed, as woeful and ashamed as angry. “My master is an arsonist!”

“What are you going to do?” Etsuko said.

“I’m going to tell his father,” Doi said.

Etsuko exchanged a relieved glance with Egen. Now they needn’t report Tadatoshi and face the consequences. Later that morning, they eavesdropped outside the door of the office while Doi told Lord Tokugawa Naganori what he’d seen Tadatoshi do.

Lord Naganori said, “I was afraid of this. When my son was younger, I caught him setting fires on several occasions. I thought he was just playing and didn’t know any better. I thought he would grow out of the habit, but it’s clear he has not. Thank you for telling me. I’ll take care of the problem.”

For the next eight days Lord Naganori assigned guards to keep a constant watch on his son. Etsuko and Egen didn’t have to stay up at night. But Doi began watching them. Once he caught Etsuko sneaking away from a rendezvous in the tea cottage with Egen. She put Doi off by saying she’d gone for a walk, but she feared he wouldn’t believe her excuses next time. And Tadatoshi grew restless. Egen said he couldn’t sit still during his lessons. His need to start fires seemed to be a compulsion that gave him no peace until it was satisfied.

Something had to happen.

On the eighth day Lord Naganori gathered Etsuko, Doi, Egen, and Tadatoshi in his office. He said, “I’ve brought you here to announce a decision I’ve made.” He nodded at Etsuko and Egen. “Since you were the ones who first called attention to my son’s problem with fires, you deserve to know.”

Doi smiled; he thought Etsuko and Egen should be pleased because he’d shared the credit. They couldn’t hide their horror. Tadatoshi turned a murderous gaze on them. Lord Naganori didn’t notice. He continued. “My son is obviously possessed by an evil spirit that drives him to set fires. Therefore, I’m sending him to Miyako, to a sorcerer who performs exorcisms. He leaves tomorrow.”

Relief flooded Etsuko; she saw Egen let out his breath. Tadatoshi was going away. They wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore. Doi nodded in satisfaction.

“Doi-san, you’ll go with him,” Lord Naganori said.

The young samurai’s expression turned to dismay. Etsuko saw Doi thinking that their wedding would have to be postponed. She rejoiced because she and Egen would have more time together.

“We can’t neglect Tadatoshi’s education,” Lord Naganori said. “You’ll go, too, Egen-san.”

It was Egen’s and Etsuko’s turn to be horrified. Who knew when they would see each other again?

No one dared oppose Lord Naganori. When he dismissed them, Etsuko fled, hiding tears. Doi and Egen hurried after her. Tadatoshi followed them outside.

“You told on me!” he shouted at Etsuko and Egen. “Now you’ll be sorry!”

Etsuko turned on him, furious and aghast. This was all his fault. “Shut up, you awful little boy!”

“Now I’m going to tell on you.” Tics wrenched Tadatoshi’s face; his body jittered.

“Tell what?” Doi demanded.

Tadatoshi pointed at Etsuko and Egen. “They’ve been meeting in the tea cottage at night and mating like dogs, behind your back.”

Their secret was out. Shamed to the core, Etsuko looked at the ground. She wished a hole would open and swallow her.

“So it’s true,” Doi said flatly. “Just as I suspected.”

“We didn’t mean for it to happen,” Egen said.

“Spare me the excuses.” Doi sounded even more hurt than furious. “I thought you were both my friends. Well, not anymore!” The next day, the Great Fire started.

Shocked by what his mother had said, Sano watched her eyes close. “Mother! Tell me what happened next!”

She didn’t respond. Her breath sighed quietly in and out of her as she slept on her bed in Edo Jail’s sickroom. Sano said to Dr. Ito, “Can you wake her up again?”

“That’s not advisable. Giving her more stimulant could have dangerous effects.” Dr. Ito paused, then said, “Are you sure you want to hear more?”

Although Sano had come to discover the truth about his mother and the murder of Tadatoshi, he saw Dr. Ito’s point: He’d already heard far too much.

The wind tore clouds into streamers in the night sky. Fires burned like flares across the city and lit the figures of men who sat in fire-watch towers, peering through spyglasses. Within Edo Castle, gusts blew torches carried by patrol guards into twisting tongues of flame. Servants snuffed the fires in the stone lanterns with sand and placed buckets filled with water at every gate. Inside the parlor of Sano’s mansion, drafts fanned smoke from the charcoal brazier on which Reiko heated sake.

Sano, Hirata, and the detectives sat waiting for their drinks. Masahiro played with his toy soldiers while Sano summarized the story his mother had told him at Edo Jail.

“So little Tadatoshi was an arsonist,” Marume said.

So my mother had a secret lover, Sano thought. That part of the story had shocked him as much as the part about Tadatoshi setting fires. He wouldn’t have believed his mother had been so unchaste, so wanton, had he not heard it from her own lips. But that wasn’t the only disturbing thing.

“Why do people set fires?” Masahiro asked, lining up wooden horsemen.

“Maybe because they’re possessed by evil spirits, as Tadatoshi’s father thought,” Sano said. “We may never know.”

Something else troubled Sano. It had to do with his mother taking the initiative to spy on Tadatoshi, her enlisting the tutor and Doi in her scheme to prevent him from endangering innocent people. Her actions not only contradicted Sano’s whole image of his docile, quiet mother, but they also flouted propriety and tradition.

“Is Lord Matsudaira possessed by an evil spirit?” Masahiro asked.

The detectives laughed. “That would be a good excuse for what he’s doing,” Fukida said.

Sano was impressed that his son had drawn a parallel between the arsonist in the murder case and the man who’d given him his first personal taste of evil. Masahiro was more astute than most nine-year-olds. But Sano regretted that his insight had come with a price-the loss of innocence.

“Lord Matsudaira is mad for power,” Sano said. “Power is a kind of evil spirit. So you could be right.”

“An exorcism might cure what ails him,” Marume said. “Too bad he’s not about to get one.”

Reiko poured sake into cups and distributed them. Sano and his men drank while Masahiro marched his toy armies.

“It sounds as if Tadatoshi got his comeuppance,” Fukida said. “Whoever killed him did everyone a favor.”

Sano noticed that Reiko was very quiet, waiting on the men, effacing herself as conventional wives did. It seemed strangely out of character.

“Your mother’s story explains why she was spying on Tadatoshi,” Hirata said.

While relating her story, Sano had paused to tell his companions what Lady Ateki and Oigimi had said about her today.

“It also explains why Doi threatened him,” Fukida said, alluding to Hana’s statement, which Sano had related earlier.

“But it won’t help her,” Sano said unhappily.

If the story was true, his mother was slated for execution because of a boy who’d deserved to die. Arson was a capital crime, punishable by burning to death, but even if Tadatoshi had been guilty of it, that made no difference.

“Lord Tokugawa Naganori is dead, and Colonel Doi and Egen have taken sides against your mother. Even if they knew Tadatoshi was an arsonist, they’re not going to admit it and help her out,” Hirata concurred.

“It’ll be her word against theirs,” Masahiro piped up.

“Good observation, young master,” Fukida said. “Chamberlain Sano, we’ve got a future detective here.”

The gods forbid Masahiro to follow in his father’s tracks, Sano thought. He looked to Reiko for her reaction. She appeared to be listening hard, yet she had a preoccupied air.

“Who wants to be the one to accuse the shogun’s cousin of arson?” Marume said.

No one volunteered. Maligning the murder victim’s character wouldn’t serve the defendant’s interests in this case. To speak ill of a Tokugawa clan member was treason. Should Sano report this story to the shogun, his mother could be put to death for it even if she hadn’t killed Tadatoshi.

If she hadn’t.

“That’s one reason we can’t make this story public,” Sano said.

“Nobody will hear it from me,” Hirata said.

“Nor I,” chorused Masahiro and the detectives. Reiko only nodded.

“Here’s another reason,” Sano said. “Suppose Tadatoshi really was an arsonist. My mother admitted that she was part of a conspiracy to keep him from setting fires. We don’t know the rest of the story-she fell asleep before she could finish. What if she was determined enough to stop him that she did more than spy on him?”

“Arson doesn’t give his murderer an excuse for killing him,” Hirata said. “It gives your mother a motive.”

“Lord Matsudaira would certainly use that to his advantage,” Marume said.

An idea occurred to Sano. “Tadatoshi never went to Miyako. Because of the Great Fire, Lord Naganori’s plan fell through. We still don’t know where Tadatoshi was or what he-and my mother-did during the fire.”

Hirata frowned as he caught Sano’s drift. “The fire started by accident at Honmyo Temple, before Tadatoshi disappeared,” he reminded Sano. “He couldn’t have set it.”

“The city was burning,” Sano said. “Everyone was terrified. My mother could have decided Tadatoshi was too dangerous to live. Maybe, when she went searching for him, she found him-and saw a chance to put him out of action for good.”

“That would be Lord Matsudaira’s interpretation,” Fukida said. “He’d rush to foist it onto the shogun.”

“So we keep the story quiet,” Marume said. “What else do we do?”

“Tomorrow I’ll go back to Edo Jail and try to get the rest of the story from my mother. Maybe it will help us.” Sano was already dreading that it would do the opposite. “In the meantime, what have you learned?”

“I’m sorry to say we haven’t located any of the people who lived at Tadatoshi’s estate before the Great Fire,” Marume said.

“They’re all dead or scattered,” Fukida explained.

“I haven’t found anything against Colonel Doi,” Hirata said. “So far he’s got the cleanest record I’ve ever seen.”

“I think that’s suspicious,” Masahiro said.

Sano nodded, proud yet not exactly pleased that his son had absorbed some basics of detective work. That road led to peril as well as the post of second-in-command to the shogun. “Nobody climbs as high as he’s done without getting dirt on his hands. But too clean a record isn’t evidence that Doi has a murder in his past.”

“So we’ve come up empty,” Fukida said with regret.

“Worse than empty.” Sano related what Lady Ateki, Oigimi, and Hana had told him about his mother.

“Tadatoshi’s mother and sister not only recant their statements but throw dirt at her, and so does her own maid. That is worse,” Marume said. “But we’re not giving up, are we?”

“Not while we still have another witness whose story I’m not ready to let stand,” Sano said.

“The tutor?” Masahiro guessed.

“Right,” Sano said.

“Look out, Marume-san, the boy’s wits are quicker than yours,” Fukida joked.

“I want a little talk with Egen,” Sano said.

“Good idea,” Marume said. “Make the bastard eat his words.”

“I feel responsible for what he did, because I found him,” Hirata said. “May I go with you?”

“All right,” Sano said. “We’ll leave at daybreak. Marume-san and Fukida-san, you keep searching for other witnesses and for evidence against Colonel Doi.”

“Will do,” Marume said.

The men bowed and rose to depart. Reiko gathered empty wine cups. Sano thought it odd that she’d participated in the discussion not at all.

“Aren’t you interested in the investigation?” he asked her later as they prepared for bed.

Seated at her dressing table, Reiko brushed her hair. She looked in the mirror instead of at him. “Of course I am.”

“You could have fooled me.” Sano tied the sash of his night robe. “While we were talking, you didn’t offer a single opinion or suggestion. That’s not like you. What’s wrong?”

Outside, the wind scraped tree branches against the roof and tossed dry leaves against the walls of the mansion. It sounded to Sano as if malevolent external forces were trying to breach their safe, cozy chamber.

When Reiko didn’t answer his question at once, he knelt behind her. Their worried faces reflected in the mirror together. Their eyes met, and Sano belatedly recalled that Reiko had wanted to speak with him and he’d put her off. He had an idea as to why.

“What happened between you and my mother today?” he asked.

Reiko lowered her eyes and concentrated on brushing a tangle out of her hair. “I talked to her about the murder, as you said I should.”

“And?” Sano braced himself. This was a day for news he didn’t want to hear.

“I asked her about the alibi that Hana gave her. She changed her mind and said Hana was with her, and she couldn’t have killed Tadatoshi.”

Sano rubbed his temples, wondering if the flow of bad news would ever stop. “As I said earlier, Hana has changed her mind, too. She admitted she’d lost track of my mother for eight days during and after the fire.” And he was more inclined to believe Hana’s new story than his mother’s. But he didn’t like Reiko’s expression, which made it clear that she, too, thought his mother was the liar yet again.