Sano entered the room. "Papa!" cried Akiko.
She ran to him, and he lifted her onto his shoulders. Masahiro jumped up and said, "Look at what I just wrote."
As Sano read and admired Masahiro's composition, Reiko took pleasure in the company of her family. She was glad to see Sano, for she was bursting with questions about his investigation and eager to tell him what she'd learned.
She was also relieved that he'd come home safely. She still felt a lingering anxiety from the dangerous days when they'd been threatened by war at every turn.
In walked Hirata. His children clung to his legs, and he trudged under their weight while they rode and cheered. Midori greeted him, smiling and giggly. Reiko knew they'd had marital troubles in the recent past. Hirata had been gone for the better part of five years, pursuing his mystic martial arts studies, Midori had suffered from his absences, and they'd grown apart. They'd since reconciled, and Reiko was happy for them. She wanted to enjoy the peace, however long it lasted.
"Have you eaten yet?" she asked Sano and Hirata. "Are you hungry?"
"I forgot to eat, I was so busy," Sano confessed.
"Same here," Hirata said.
"Oh, you men," Midori chided. "If it weren't for us, you'd starve to death."
Reiko ordered the servants to bring food. She made hot tea on the charcoal brazier and served cups to Sano and Hirata.
"Any luck today?" Sano asked Hirata.
Midori glanced at Reiko. Both women knew that talk about serious subjects was coming, and they didn't want the children to hear. "It's time for us to go," Midori said.
Her children groaned and protested. Hirata said, "I'll be home soon and tuck you into bed."
"Come along," Midori said, and departed with her family.
The nurse led Akiko away. Masahiro picked up his things and followed without argument. Reiko was surprised. He'd been so interested in the investigation that she'd expected him to beg her and Sano to allow him to stay and hear about it. She hoped he was outgrowing his penchant for detective work.
"Don't keep me in suspense," she said to Sano and Hirata. "What happened?"
"I went to see Jirocho," said Hirata.
"The gangster?" Reiko had heard about him from her father, Magistrate Ueda, in whose court Jirocho had appeared more than once. "How is he involved in the kidnapping?"
"There were two other women kidnapped before Chiyo," Hirata explained. "One is Jirocho's daughter."
"Is her case related to Chiyo's?" Sano asked.
"I don't know. Jirocho wasn't very cooperative. He wouldn't tell me anything." Hirata described his conversation with the gangster boss. "He wants to handle the case himself."
Concern showed on Sano's face. "So does Major Kumazawa. I talked to him today. He's not happy with my investigating two other crimes that we don't know for sure are related."
Reiko was offended that Sano's uncle would criticize Sano's work. To ask a favor after all these years of family estrangement, then object to how it was carried out! But Reiko kept silent. She didn't want to fan the fire that was obviously heating up between Major Kumazawa and her husband.
"Did you have any better luck with Fumiko?" Sano asked.
"Even worse." Hirata reported that her father had thrown the girl out and she was living in the marketplace.
"That's awful!" Reiko exclaimed. All day she'd felt bad for Chiyo. Now she deplored that a young girl's life had been destroyed. Which was crueler, the rapist or society?
"When I tried to talk to her, she tried to stab me, and then ran away." Hirata sounded rueful. "But I did turn up a witness-the man who found her by Shinobazu Pond. He heard an oxcart."
Sano nodded, gratified. "Maybe it was the same one that transported Chiyo."
"Speaking of oxcarts," Detective Marume said as he strode into the room with Fukida, "we went to the stables. The man in charge says there weren't any oxcarts assigned to work in Asakusa on the day we found Chiyo there-or on the day she was kidnapped."
"Whoever drove that oxcart, he wasn't there on legitimate business," Fukida said.
"We spent the rest of the day trying to track down drivers who hadn't been where they were supposed to be," Marume said. "But-" He turned up his empty palms.
"Maybe we can narrow down the search," Sano said. "Hirata-san, did you get a description of the driver who was seen near Shinobazu Pond?"
"No. The witness didn't see him. But he said it could be someone who'd been working in the vicinity-a fellow about twenty-five years old, with two teeth missing."
Sano frowned as he drank tea and pondered.
"But that's good news, isn't it?" Reiko said. "Now you have an idea of whom to look for."
"The problem is, I got a description of a suspect, too," Sano said, "and mine doesn't match Hirata-san's." He told of his trip to Zj Temple district. Reiko was aghast to learn that the third victim had been an elderly nun. "My suspect is a big, muscular man in his thirties, with a shaved head, an unshaven face, and a scab on his cheekbone. The novice who saw him outside the convent didn't mention any missing teeth."
"We could have two or three different criminals," Hirata agreed. "What did the nun say?"
"Nothing, unfortunately." Sano explained that she was apparently so distraught that all she did was pray.
At least Chiyo still had her wits, Reiko thought. But that was a mixed blessing. Chiyo couldn't escape her misery by withdrawing into religion.
Sano asked Reiko, "Did you learn anything from Chiyo?"
Reiko felt his hope. "I'm sorry I have so little to report." She told them about the man at the shrine who'd called to Chiyo for help. "But Chiyo doesn't remember actually seeing the man. She does remember what he did to her." Reiko described the bites on Chiyo's breasts, how the man had suckled on her and called her "dearest mother, beloved mother," and the threats he'd made against Chiyo and her baby.
Sano shook his head in horror and disbelief. "Chiyo didn't see him while all that was happening?"
"No. I think he wore a mask." Reiko explained about the demonic face and the clouds Chiyo had seen, or imagined.
"It sounds like she was drugged," Sano said.
"That's what I thought," Reiko said.
"When the mind is disturbed, it can play tricks on itself, with or without drugs," Hirata suggested.
"By the way, Chiyo is still at her father's house. Her husband has cast her off," Reiko explained.
Sano looked disturbed but not surprised. "As if she hasn't suffered enough already." Setting down his tea bowl, he added, "We've covered a lot of ground, but we only have an oxcart that might or might not be involved, and descriptions of two suspects who might or might not be the culprits in any of the kidnappings."
"I started a search for mine," Hirata said.
"So did I," Sano said. "I sent my whole army out on the street to post notices and circulate my suspect's description."
"I hope it works." But Reiko knew how many men among Edo's million people probably fit those descriptions. Personal regret weighed upon her. "I wish there were something more I could do."
"There is," Sano said. "Talk to Chiyo again. Maybe she'll remember something else. And I want you to interview Fumiko and the nun. Maybe you can get more information from them than Hirata and I did."
17
For a brief moment when the sun ascended over the hills outside Edo, the rooftops of the city gleamed bright as gold. Then clouds rolled down from the hills, chasing and overtaking the rays of the sun. Edo was cloaked in a silvery mist.
Inside Sano's estate, Sano and Masahiro knelt opposite one another, some ten paces apart, in a shadowed courtyard. Each wore white martial arts practice clothes, his hand on the long sword at his waist. They sat perfectly still, their expressions serene yet alert.
Sano drew his sword. In one fluid motion, he whipped his blade out of its scabbard, leaped to his feet, and lunged. Masahiro followed suit. They slashed at each other; they parried and whirled, attacked, and counterattacked. Their wooden blades never touched, never made contact with their bodies. At last they retreated, sheathed their swords, and bowed.