A strange, sad note crept into her voice. She swallowed audibly, then continued. “Winter came. Living and begging in the streets, I was hungry and cold and desperate. All my life, I’d heard my father talk about our great cousins. So I went to ask their help.
“I tried Matsui first, at his moneylending shop. He gave me enough coins for a meal and sent me on my way, with orders never to return. Chūgo refused to see me at all. And Chamberlain Yanagisawa… ”
Her sigh trembled like wind through dead leaves. This woman who lived in luxury hadn’t forgotten her harsh past.
“He was the shogun’s new plaything. He took me to his private chambers in the castle, where he gave me food and heard my story with great sympathy. I was so thankful I wept. He was so handsome, so kind. He was going to help me. But then-”
O-tama’s voice broke. “He violated me,” she whispered. “From behind. And then threw me out without a zeni. That same day, the Water Lily’s proprietor saw me wandering the streets and offered me work as a yuna. I had no choice but to accept, and no pride left to prevent me doing so.
“And so you see, sōsakan-sama, why I have no loyalty toward those who would deny mercy to a helpless girl. My story has a happy ending, of course. But I’ve always dreamed of taking revenge on Matsui, Chūgo-and especially Chamberlain Yanagisawa. Now I have. One of them is the Bundori Killer. And by speaking the forbidden secret, I hope I’ve delivered him to you.”
Despite the timbre of truth in O-tama’s words, Sano grasped at the slim hope that she, not Yanagisawa, was the murderer. He knew women were capable of killing, and it was they who had traditionally prepared trophy heads after battles. O-tama bore her grudge and spoke of revenge with a keen relish that even General Fujiwara would have been hard pressed to match. And there was one other reason.
“The secret incriminates you, too,” he reminded her.
O-tama laughed again, but this time mournfully. “Sōsakan-sama, I have nothing to fear.”
“If that’s so, then where were you on the nights of the murders?”
“Here at home, where I always am.” A pause; her shadow tilted its head in thought. “You wish proof?”
“Please,” Sano said.
He expected her to summon Mimaki to back her alibi, but O-tama called the maid and said to her, “Remove the screen.”
“But my lady… ” The maid gasped in alarm. “The master… ”
O-tama’s shadowy hand rose, silencing her protests. “Do as I say.”
Casting a nervous glance toward the door, the maid dragged the screen aside.
Sano’s jaw dropped. Revulsion followed shock.
Supported on piled silk cushions, O-tama’s small, thin body was twisted like a gnarled tree. Her right arm, bent and drawn up against her side, ended in a leathery stump. Only one dainty stockinged foot protruded from beneath her rich red satin kimono. Most horrible was her face, a shocking contrast to the perfect black wig on her head. A mass of puckered, mottled scar tissue had obliterated the features of the right side. On the intact left side, the half-open eyelid revealed a cloudy, sightless eye.
Sano, glad that she couldn’t see his reaction, bowed his head in pity and awe. The fire at the Water Lily had freed O-tama from a sordid profession, but had ravaged her body. The public had no idea just how great Mimaki’s love for her had been. He’d taken the blind, disfigured, and crippled prostitute into his home, to cherish and care for, to live with her in seclusion not because of jealousy, but to hide her terrible secret. He’d planted the fragrant garden and hung the birdhouses and wind chimes so she could enjoy its smells and sounds, if not its sights. He pushed her in the strange wooden seat along paths she couldn’t walk. And, from the way his face had looked after he’d spoken to her, he loved her still. No one could have imagined a more poignant ending for the scandalous romance.
Or a better alibi for the murders.
“So you see, sōsakan-sama.” The charming voice that so richly evoked O-tama’s lost beauty issued from her deformed mouth. “I couldn’t possibly be the killer you seek.”
Chapter 28
My informant claims he knows who the assassin was, sōsakan-sama,” Hirata said. “Gomen nasai-I’m sorry to make you walk so far, but he wouldn’t come to the police compound. He doesn’t want anyone to know he works for me.”
“That’s all right, Hirata, you’ve done well,” Sano said. After the interview with O-tama, he desperately needed any evidence that might identify the Bundori Killer as someone other than Chamberlain Yanagisawa.
They were walking through Nihonbashi, toward their noon rendezvous with Hirata’s cautious informant, in hastily improvised disguise. They both wore wide wicker hats, and had left Sano’s expensively equipped horses at the police stables. Sano wore an old cloak of Hirata’s to hide the Tokugawa crests on his own garments. With his single short sword, shabby kimono, and no jitte, Hirata made a convincing rōnin. Beneath his hat, his eyes glowed; his white smile flashed in boyish delight at Sano’s approval. Sano, in his excitement at receiving the news, had forgotten to discourage Hirata’s attachment. Now, though hating to hurt the young doshin again, he tried to counteract his spontaneous praise.
“Let’s just hope your informant is telling the truth,” he said coldly.
Hirata turned his face away, but not before Sano saw his smile fade. “This way, sōsakan-sama,” he said in chastened tones.
They cut through the woodworkers’ district, where carpenters sawed, hammered, and nailed in open storefronts. Along with more wild tales about the murders, newssellers distributed reports on the continuing fire, whose smoke filtered the sunlight.
“The fire must have spread,” Sano said, concerned despite his relief at seeing the fearmongers’ attention focused on something, besides the murders. Edo ’s fire brigades usually managed to contain and extinguish the frequent blazes with admirable efficiency. “I wonder why it hasn’t been put out yet.”
“There’s trouble in that district,” Hirata said. “People have been burning candles and incense, to drive away the ghost. Last night, a house caught fire. And some men formed a gang to patrol the streets. They killed what they thought was a ghost carrying a severed head. But it was an old man with a jar of pickles. His sons went looking for revenge. A riot started. The fire spread because the fire brigade can’t get in to put it out.”
His worst fears realized, Sano looked away, speechless. The simmering tensions caused by the murders had finally erupted. All because he hadn’t caught the Bundori Killer soon enough. Sano knew that other factors had contributed to the disaster-Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s sabotage; the townspeople’s superstition and unruliness; the police’s failure to maintain order. But Sano couldn’t help feeling responsible. Guiltily he wondered whether, fearing what he must do if Yanagisawa was the killer, he was expending his best effort on the investigation.
He and Hirata followed an eerily quiet street that Sano couldn’t remember ever seeing before. The open storefronts contained unappealing merchandise: cheap, mismatched crockery; trays of stale cakes. The few pedestrians-all disreputable-looking samurai and male commoners-eyed them warily. Outside empty teahouses, the proprietors sat smoking pipes and lazing in the sun. Instead of trying to entice Sano and Hirata inside, they glared.
“This is it.” Hirata stopped before a teahouse. To the proprietor, he said, “Wild Boar is expecting us.”