The Perfumed Sleeve (8 page)

Whimpering, Okitsu nodded. Her face was so pinched with fear that Hirata felt sorry for her. “Now tell me,” he said, “where were you that night?”

Okitsu flashed an anxious glance at Koheiji. “I was here,” she blurted. “Just like he said.”

Perhaps she felt more loyalty toward him than fear of punishment for lying. “What were you doing?” Hirata asked her.

She glanced again at Koheiji, and panic shone in her eyes.

“Never mind him.” Hirata gave the actor a glare that warned him to keep quiet, or else. “Just answer me.”

“I ... I don’t remember,” Okitsu said, looking everywhere except at Hirata.

“It wasn’t very long ago,” Hirata said. Koheiji must not have prepared her with a story to explain how they’d spent that night. “You can’t have forgotten.” Or maybe she’d just forgotten what he’d told her to say.

“I don’t remember,” Okitsu repeated in a timorous voice.

Hirata stood directly in front of her so she couldn’t look to Koheiji for cues. “Well, then, did you leave the room at any time?”

“... I don’t think so.”

“Then you might have left?”

“No! I didn’t!” Fresh panic filled Okitsu’s eyes.

“Was Koheiji-
san
ever out of your sight?”

She shook her head so hard that her plump cheeks quivered.

“Did he force you to lie for him?” Hirata said.

“No!” Okitsu wailed. “I wanted to.” She hastened to correct herself: “I mean, I’m not lying!”

“Hey, stop it!” Koheiji burst out. “You’re confusing her so much that she can’t talk straight.” He hurried to stand beside Okitsu and put his arm around her. She clung to him. “It doesn’t matter what we were doing,” Koheiji told Hirata. “The important thing is that we were together, and she’ll swear I didn’t kill Senior Elder Makino.”

“I believe them,” Ibe told Hirata. “We’re finished here.”

“Maybe you are, but I’m not,” Hirata retorted. He would bet his yearly stipend that Ibe didn’t believe the pair’s alibi any more than he did. “And you don’t dictate where this investigation should go.”

“Chamberlain Yanagisawa does,” Ibe said, “and he expects me to keep the investigation on the right path. So I’m telling you to stop bothering these people and move on to more likely suspects.”

Suspects in Lord Matsudaira’s camp, Hirata knew he meant. “If and when any more likely suspects turn up, then I’ll investigate them,” Hirata said. His patience toward Ibe snapped. “For now, just shut up.”

Offense flared Ibe’s nostrils. “Rudeness to me will do you no good,” he said with a mean smile. “When the chamberlain hears that you’re resisting supervision, he’ll punish your master as well as you.”

Now Hirata regretted speaking so bluntly. “My apologies,” he muttered, although his spirit rebelled at having to placate his adversary, and in front of onlookers.

Ibe sneered, pleased that he’d subdued Hirata, yet not mollified. “Be a dog who barks up a tree while his quarry hides elsewhere, if you like,” he said, “but be warned: Chamberlain Yanagisawa expects fast results from this investigation. If he doesn’t get them, your head can say goodbye to your body.”

But Hirata couldn’t yield to Ibe’s pressure to pin the murder on the Matsudaira faction. With great effort he pretended Ibe wasn’t there. He contemplated Koheiji and Okitsu, who stood united opposite him. The alibi that Okitsu had given Koheiji didn’t protect only him, but her as well. If the alibi was a fraud, as Hirata believed, then Koheiji could have had opportunity if not reason to kill Makino, but so could she.

“Let’s have a look at your room,” he said to her.

She glanced at Koheiji. The actor nodded, smiled in encouragement, then gave Hirata a smug look. He clearly thought Hirata would find nothing dangerous to Okitsu—or himself. Okitsu led the group to her room, which was on the same side of the building as Koheiji’s. Movable partitions allowed passage from her room to his through a bath chamber located between them. Hirata wondered if they really had been together when Makino died and doing what many a handsome entertainer and pretty girl did on the sly. Maybe they didn’t want to admit having a sexual affair that would cast a bad light on them, and that was why they refused to say what they’d been doing that night.

Inside Okitsu’s room, the floor was strewn with clothes and shoes and boxes of sweets jumbled among dolls and other trinkets. But Hirata hardly noticed the mess. He inhaled a familiar sweet, musky odor.

“I smell incense,” he said. On a table he saw, almost lost in a clutter of hair ornaments, a brass incense burner. He picked up the burner and sniffed the ash inside. “It’s Dawn to Dusk, isn’t it?” he asked Okitsu.

She nodded. Perplexity showed on her face and the actor’s. Ibe twitched his nose, perturbed that Hirata seemed to be on to something. Hirata set down the burner, lifted a pink kimono from the floor, and sniffed the fabric.

“You perfume your sleeves with Dawn to Dusk,” he said to the concubine .

“So what if she does?” Koheiji said.

“When the
sōsakan-sama
and I searched Senior Elder Makino’s room yesterday, we found a torn sleeve perfumed with this same incense,” Hirata said.

He watched the concubine and actor look at each other. Okitsu’s expression was horrified; Koheiji’s combined confusion with dismay. Hirata strode to the cabinet and ransacked through the clothing jumbled inside until he pulled out a pale silk kimono embroidered with gold and silver flowers. He shook out the robe and held it up. The long, flowing right sleeve dangled. The left was missing. Unraveled threads hung from the ripped armhole edges.

“Does this belong to you?” Hirata asked Okitsu.

She didn’t speak, but her stricken eyes were answer enough.

“The sleeve we found came from this kimono,” Hirata said. “You were with Senior Elder Makino the night he was murdered.”

Such stark terror branded Okitsu’s face that Hirata knew he was right. “When you said you were with Koheiji, in his room, you lied,” he said. “You were in the senior elder’s bedchamber. You’d better tell me what happened there.”

Her mouth moved, uttering inarticulate sounds. She gave Koheiji a look that begged for help.

“She was with me. I swear,” the actor said, but his face had turned pale and tense.

Grasping Okitsu by her shoulders, Hirata said, “Then how did your sleeve come to be in Senior Elder Makino’s bedding?”

“It must have gotten there some other time.” Panic trembled in Koheiji’s insistent voice. “Let her go.”

Hirata shook Okitsu. “What happened?” he demanded.

Her breathing escalated to rapid, erratic gasps. Stammers burst from her: “I—he—we—”

“Be quiet!” Koheiji shouted. “Don’t let him scare you into saying what he wants you to say. Just keep calm. Everything will be all right.”

Compelled by his own urgency to learn the truth, Hirata shook Okitsu harder. “Did you kill Senior Elder Makino?”

Okitsu’s head fell sideways as her body sagged. Her weight slipped from Hirata’s grasp. She crashed to the floor.

“Okitsu!” the actor exclaimed.

She lay inert, her long eyelashes resting motionless against her cheeks, her mouth slack. As Hirata stared in dismay, Koheiji knelt beside her and caught up her limp hand.

“Speak to me, Okitsu,” he begged. When she didn’t respond, he glared up at Hirata. “Look what you did! She needs a doctor. I must fetch one immediately.” Koheiji ran from the room.

“Come back!” Hirata ordered.

The actor didn’t. Hirata patted Okitsu’s cheeks, trying to revive her. She was breathing, but she didn’t rouse. “Go catch Koheiji,” Hirata commanded Ibe.

Ibe just grinned. “That’s not my job. Remember what you said: I’m just supposed to observe.”

Hirata seethed inside.

“A lot you’ve accomplished here,” Ibe said snidely. “I hope you’re happy.”

Hirata swallowed a retort that would get him in deeper trouble with Ibe. He wanted to groan in frustration.

He’d weakened Okitsu’s alibi and connected her to the murder. But if, despite her lie, she hadn’t killed Makino, then he’d hurt an innocent girl. Even if Okitsu was guilty, Hirata couldn’t get any facts from her now. Hirata had also undermined Koheiji’s alibi, but the actor had escaped him.

It was an inauspicious beginning for the quest upon which his worth to Sano, and his own honor, depended.

8

Excuse me if I don’t understand what we have to talk about that we didn’t already discuss yesterday,” Tamura said to Sano.

They stood outside Makino’s mansion, on a veranda where Tamura had brought Sano when he’d requested a private interview. They leaned, facing each other, against the veranda railing that overlooked the garden. Mist and clouds obscured their view of the palace above the official quarter. Nearby, Otani loitered. Rain dripped from the overhanging eaves and wetted the floorboards. Sano suspected that Makino’s chief retainer had chosen this cold, uncomfortable place in order to keep their talk short.

“There are a few matters I need to clarify,” Sano said.

Tamura scowled as he intently watched Sano. “I told you that I found my master dead in his bed. What could be clearer than that?”

Your wish to limit your testimony to that one statement of fact, Sano thought. “Let’s talk about the time leading up to when you found Senior Elder Makino. When did you last see him alive?”

“It was after dinner the previous night,” Tamura said with a weary air of humoring Sano.

“What happened then?”

“I asked Senior Elder Makino if there was anything he needed me to do. He said no and retired to his private quarters.”

“What did you do after that?”

“I made my usual evening rounds of the estate. I checked that the guards were covering their territory and the gates were secure. My aide accompanied me. He can vouch for what I did.”

“And then?” Sano prompted.

Tamura hesitated for an instant, just long enough that Sano perceived he’d chosen to omit or alter something in the sequence of events. “I retired to my own room.”

After his talk with Makino’s wife, Sano had privately inspected Tamura’s quarters. These were two rooms—a bedchamber and adjoining office—located on the side of the building perpendicular to the one that contained Makino’s chambers. Sano had noted the movable wall panel that separated Makino’s bedchamber from Tamura’s office. He was not surprised that the search revealed nothing of interest. Tamura was smart enough to guess that Sano would search his rooms and to destroy anything that incriminated him.

The office contained only records pertaining to the management of the estate. The bedchamber housed Tamura’s few clothes, bedding, and other necessities, all stored with neat precision. A special cabinet held his armor and many weapons. Each sword, dagger, and club occupied its own rack. None of the racks were missing a weapon, Sano noted, and the weapons bore no traces of blood. If Tamura had used one of them on Makino, he’d cleaned and replaced it afterward.

“What did you do after you went to your room?” Sano asked.

“I worked in my office until midnight,” Tamura said. “Then I went to bed.”

“Did you hear any noises from Senior Elder Makino’s chambers?”

Tamura glared into the rain. “Not a one.”

“Senior Elder Makino was beaten to death in his chambers, which are right next to yours, and you didn’t hear anything?” Sano said skeptically.

A dour expression curved Tamura’s mouth downward. “I wish I had. Then I would have woken up and saved my master.”

Still doubtful, Sano said, “Were you and Senior Elder Makino on good terms?”

“Very good.” Pride rang in Tamura’s voice. “I served him well for thirty years, and I was his chief retainer for twenty. Our clans have been linked for three centuries. My loyalty to him was absolute. If you won’t take my word for it, just ask around.”

Sano would. He planned to check the statements and backgrounds of all the suspects. “Had there been any problems between you and Makino-
san
?”

Flashing Sano a look of exasperation, Tamura said, “Of course. No two people can live and work together for thirty years in complete peace. I’ll admit that he wasn’t an easy man to serve, but I revered him, no matter that he got crankier as he aged. That’s the Way of the Warrior.”

Sano contemplated the nature of the bond between master and retainer. It was the closest, most important relationship in samurai society, akin to marriage, and fraught with tension. The master gave orders, which the retainer must always obey. Their unequal footing, and the constant need to efface himself, often grated on a samurai’s pride. Sano thought of the trouble between himself and Hirata, and he could easily imagine that Senior Elder Makino had exceeded the limits of Tamura’s endurance.

“Had you any recent quarrels with your master?” Sano said.

“I would call them disagreements, not quarrels,” Tamura said. “When he did things that I thought were wrong, I advised him against doing them. That’s a chief retainer’s duty.”

“What were those wrong things he did?” Sano said, hoping for reasons that Tamura might have wanted him dead.

“Nothing important.” Tamura’s tone said he didn’t intend to elaborate.

“Did he reject your advice?”

A wry smile twisted Tamura’s mouth. “Often. He liked making his own decisions. He was difficult to sway.”

“Did you mind that he didn’t listen to you?”

“Not at all. A master has the right to do whatever he wants, regardless of what his retainer might say.”

Sano had the feeling that Makino had been a constant trial to Tamura, who didn’t seem the kind of man to appreciate having his advice ignored. “How did he treat you?”

“Usually with respect,” Tamura said. “But when he was in a bad temper, he shouted curses at me. I didn’t mind. I was used to it.”

Nor did Tamura seem a man to readily tolerate abuse. Sano said, “Did you ever want to punish Senior Elder Makino for mistreating you?”

“By murdering him, I suppose you mean.” Hostility narrowed Tamura’s eyes. “For a samurai to kill his master is the worst violation of Bushido. I would never have killed Senior Elder Makino for any reason.” Anger clenched his hand so hard on the veranda railing that his knuckles whitened. “That you would even suggest I did is the worst insult to my honor. I should challenge you to a duel and make you apologize for your accusation.”

Sano could tell that Tamura was serious, whether guilty of murder or not. The last thing Sano needed was to fight Tamura and either kill his suspect or lose his own life. “I’ll apologize right now for making any accusation that’s unjust,” he said mildly. “But even you can see that the circumstances suggest you killed Senior Elder Makino. You were one of a few people in his private quarters with him. Your rooms adjoin his. And you found his body.”

“That doesn’t prove I killed him,” Tamura scoffed.

“If indeed you are innocent, and you want to protect your honor—and your life—you’d best tell me everything you know about that night,” Sano said.

An intense frown contracted Tamura’s forehead, slanting his brows so sharply that they formed an inverted chevron over his eyes. Behind them, Sano saw thoughts churning. Then Tamura relaxed his features and blew out a gust of resignation.

“All right,” he said. “There was somebody else besides Senior Elder Makino’s wife, concubine, houseguest, and myself in the private quarters.”

Sano regarded Tamura with disbelief. None of Hirata’s interviews with the residents had placed a fifth person near Makino. Had Tamura been holding this fact in reserve, like a wartime general hoarding ammunition in case the enemy got too close? Or was he inventing a new suspect to cover his own guilt?

“Who was it?” Sano said.

“It was Matsudaira Daiemon,” said Tamura. “Lord Matsudaira’s nephew.”

The young man was the shogun’s latest favorite paramour and rumored to be his intended heir to the regime. He was also a strong supporter of his uncle’s bid for power and a vocal opponent of the Yanagisawa faction to which Makino had belonged.

Concern struck Sano as the investigation took a perilous turn. Dismay sharpened Otani’s features because he understood that his master had just been connected to the murder.

“Why would Daiemon come here?” Sano said.

“He was visiting my master,” said Tamura.

Sano couldn’t imagine Makino allowing a member of the enemy camp into his estate, let alone his private quarters. “Why didn’t you mention this earlier? Why didn’t anyone?”

“Senior Elder Makino ordered us to keep the visit a secret,” Tamura said. “We had to obey him, even after his death.”

“So why are you telling me now?”

“Because I’ve decided that an occasion like this justifies disobedience.” Tamura exuded self-righteousness. “Lord Matsudaira’s nephew might have killed my master. I can’t keep quiet about his visit any longer.”

While Sano scrutinized him, trying to gauge his veracity, Tamura added, “The guards will confirm that Daiemon was here, as soon as I let them know they should.”

Sano intended to talk to them, although he expected they would say whatever Tamura ordered them to say, whether it was true or not. “Suppose you tell me about this visit. When am I to believe it occurred?”

“Just after dinner ended,” Tamura said, ignoring Sano’s skeptical tone. “Everyone was leaving the banquet hall, when a servant came to tell me that Daiemon was at the gate, wanting to see Senior Elder Makino. I went outside and asked Daiemon why he’d come. He said Senior Elder Makino had sent him a message that invited him for a visit. I left him waiting and went to tell Senior Elder Makino. He said to bring Daiemon to his private chambers. I advised against letting in someone from the opposition.” Tamura shot Otani a hostile look. “But it was one of those times when Senior Elder Makino chose to shun my advice. He ordered me to bring Daiemon. He said they had private business, and they were not to be disturbed. So I fetched Daiemon, delivered him to Senior Elder Makino’s office, and left them alone.”

“What happened then?” Sano said.

“I began my rounds. Later, the guards at the private quarters told me that Daiemon had just seen himself out.” Tamura grimaced in disgust. “The fools let him go, even though we have a strict rule that no outsider goes unescorted. I immediately gathered the patrol guards and mounted a search for Daiemon. He was nowhere to be found. The guards at the gates never saw him. No one knows how he got out.”

“So you’re saying Lord Matsudaira’s nephew had free run of the estate?” Sano perceived the implications.

“Yes. Maybe, while we were busy looking for Daiemon, he sneaked back to the private quarters.” Insinuation echoed in Tamura’s voice. “Maybe he finished his business with Senior Elder Makino.”

“Or maybe your story is pure fabrication,” Sano said. Not only did he distrust Tamura’s motives for telling it, but there were too many unexplained details, including why Daiemon had come and how he’d vanished without a trace afterward.

“But you’ll have to check into it, won’t you? That should keep you occupied for a while.” Obviously aware and pleased that he’d given Sano a clue that pointed him straight toward peril, Tamura said, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I must get back to my master’s funeral rites.”

He bowed and went into the house. Sano turned to his watchdog. “What do you have to say about this?”

“Tamura was lying.” Although Otani’s brusque voice rang with conviction, fear gleamed in his shrewd eyes. “My master’s nephew never visited Senior Elder Makino.”

“Do you know that for a fact?” Sano said.

“No,” Otani admitted. His puffy face was slick with sweat, despite the cold. Clearly he knew that if suspicion should taint the Matsudaira clan, all its associates would be in trouble. “But I think Tamura killed Makino himself, and he’s trying to save his own skin by blaming Makino’s enemies.”