“We don’t know what you’re talking about.” Conviction steadied Enju’s voice as he spoke for Lady Mori. “My father did not entertain himself with children. He has certainly never hurt any.”
“Then why were boys brought into this estate at night?” Although Sano answered Enju, he looked to Lady Mori. “What did they do here?”
Lady Mori shook her head. “Perhaps someone else, perhaps one of the other men…”
“Not one of the other men,” Sano said. “Your husband. He enjoyed them in his private quarters. He took his pleasure from strangling them in his bed. And it looks as if he killed one and had the corpse buried over there, under the pine trees, the night he died.”
“No. It’s not true.” Flustered and aghast, Lady Mori said, “Where did you get these ideas?”
“From my wife,” Sano said.
“Ah. Lady Reiko. I see,” Enju interrupted. A glint of temper appeared in his eyes. “With all due respect, Honorable Chamberlain, but she misled you. She obviously didn’t want you to know the real reason why she was in my father’s chamber. So she made up a story to make him look bad and herself seem above reproach.”
Sano was reminded against his will of his suspicion that Reiko hadn’t been completely honest with him. He felt antagonistic toward Enju because he didn’t want to think the young man was right and he himself was wrong about Reiko’s innocence. Nor did he like realizing that if this were any other murder case, he might agree with Enju.
“It was your mother who fabricated her story,” he countered.
“Why would she say that your wife and her husband were lovers unless it were true?” Enju said, disdainful. “Why should she disgrace his memory and their marriage?”
“To avoid the worse disgrace of admitting that he was a cruel, evil pervert,” Sano said.
“My husband was a good, decent man,” Lady Mori protested.
“You want to hide the fact that you hated him and wanted to be rid of him because you found his bad habits immoral and disgusting,” Sano said.
“He had no bad habits! Anyone in this estate will tell you so. He had normal, proper, marital relations with me!” she exclaimed. “I loved him. Your wife-”
“When my wife came into the picture, you saw a perfect chance,” Sano continued. “You drugged her wine.” He wanted to believe that Reiko had fallen unconscious the way she’d said, that she’d done nothing during those hours she couldn’t remember. He wanted to put his doubts to rest and lay the blame for the murder on Lady Mori. “You killed your husband and framed my wife.”
“No! That’s not what happened!”
On the verge of hysteria, Lady Mori emitted breathy whimpers; her hands fluttered. Enju clasped them in his and patted them. The lack of warmth in his eyes made Sano wonder about his true feelings toward his mother. He resembled an actor playing a role with mechanical perfection but little heart. Yet his touch seemed to reassure Lady Mori. She froze into a brittle, dignified pose.
“Many apologies, but you are wrong, Honorable Chamberlain,” she said quietly. “Your wife seduced my husband that night. Then she killed him because even though he was infatuated with her, in the end he cast her off.”
Enju nodded. As Sano fought to control his temper in the face of their obstinacy and his worries about Reiko, a soldier hurried through the pine grove, carrying two shovels. “Come with me,” he said. “When we see what’s under that ground, you may want to consider changing your story.”
Momentary, unpleased surprise showed on Lady Mori’s and Enju’s faces. They followed Sano to the site and stood a short distance from him and his detectives. The soldiers began to dig. Sano felt surges of hope and apprehension, but he kept his expression neutral. Although he kept an eye on Lady Mori and Enju, he couldn’t tell whether they feared what would be found. Her gaze was vacant, her son’s opaque.
The soldiers had excavated a mere few scoops of earth before their shovels hit a solid surface beneath. They scraped mud off the top of a rectangular wooden crate. It was wet and muddy, but appeared intact.
“That hasn’t been underground long,” Fukida said.
“Maybe only since the night before last, when Lady Reiko saw Lord Mori with the boy,” Marume agreed.
“And it’s big enough to hold a child’s body.” Anticipation sped Sano’s pulse. He felt certain that he had evidence that would prove Reiko’s allegations against Lord Mori, would exonerate her. Sano could hardly contain his excitement.
His troops were digging around the sides of the crate, freeing it from the earth. “Don’t bother,” Sano said. “Just open it up.”
They inserted their shovels under the lid and pried. Sano sensed Lady Mori and Enju holding their breath. He held his own. The lid came up. The soldiers flung it aside, revealing a gray, cotton quilt, clean and dry, protected from the elements by the crate. Sano crouched. Braced for the sight of a dead child, he lifted the quilt.
Inside the crate was indeed a child, but not the youth he’d expected. It was a newborn baby girl, small and delicate. Withered, teeming with insects, but not yet putrefied, she lay curled, her eyes closed, as if still in the womb. The umbilical cord was still attached. Red and blue veins showed through her translucent skin. She’d been washed clean of blood, carefully laid to rest.
The detectives and soldiers exclaimed in surprise. Sano frowned, as much horrified as disappointed. He rose. Everyone stared at the baby.
“Some woman in the estate must have given birth to it, then buried it,” Marume deduced.
“She must not have wanted anyone to know,” Fukida said.
An estate as large as this harbored many secrets besides the ones Sano had come to uncover, and perhaps criminals other than the killer he sought.
“Maybe the child was born dead,” Marume said, “or maybe the mother killed it.”
“This might be evidence of a murder,” Fukida said.
“But not of the one we thought,” Sano said.
He turned to Lady Mori and Enju. The young man bowed with formal courtesy that verged on insolence. He led his awestruck, bewildered mother away without a word. His straight back expressed triumph over Sano.
“What now?” Marume asked.
“I can’t ignore this death just because it doesn’t pertain to our investigation. I’ll have someone tend to the baby and find out whose she is.” Sano covered the tiny corpse with the quilt. He felt beset by complications, overwhelmed by frustration. “Then we’ll talk to my informants and spies and find out what they know about Police Commissioner Hoshina’s doings. Maybe they’ll give us something to tie him to the murder, and Lord Mori to a plot against Lord Matsudaira.”
But more doubts and concerns undermined his hopes. With Lily’s son Jiro, the unnamed dead boy, and the cache of guns still missing, things were looking even worse for Reiko.
16
Hirata and detectives Inoue and Arai stood in an alley below a fire-watch tower in the daimyo district. This was, according to Reiko, where she’d spied on Lord Mori’s estate. On its platform high above the tile roofs, a peasant huddled. The wind scattered raindrops on him. The city was so wet that fires were rare, but the instant that people relaxed their vigilance, a blaze could break out and destroy Edo.
“Hey!” Hirata called. The peasant peered down at him. “Who does fire-watch duty at night?”
“Yoshi,” came the answer. “He works for Lord Kuroda.”