"Every man in Edo isn't a suspect in three rapes and possibly four." Sano turned to the next picture. Here, the man straddled the woman. Her legs were spread, his erection thrust into her. She lay limp, her eyes closed, as if unconscious. "Maybe you do more than just look at these pictures."
Obstinacy veiled fear in Ogita's expression. "So what if I do?" He waved his hand at the book. "That doesn't prove I have the shogun's wife."
Marume and Fukida stood in the doorway, craning their necks to get a look at the pictures. "We've finished searching," Fukida said. "She's not here."
"See? I told you," Ogita said triumphantly.
Sano was disappointed, but not ready to consider Ogita exonerated. "What other properties do you own?"
"I have a villa across the river in Honjo and a summer house in the hills outside town," Ogita said. "But you won't find the shogun's wife there, either."
"Excuse me, Lady Reiko, this message just came for you," said Lieutenant Tanuma.
Reiko sat on the veranda, arranging flowers in a vase and worrying about Sano. "Is it from my husband?" Hoping the message said he'd found Lady Nobuko, she accepted the bamboo scroll case from her bodyguard. When she unfurled the scroll, she saw the red signature stamped beneath the characters written in black.
"It's from Chiyo." Reading the message, she raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Chiyo says Fumiko has left the Kumazawa estate. Her father came and took her. I can't believe it! He was so adamant about not wanting her back."
Reiko continued reading, and her surprise turned to concern. "Chiyo says there's trouble. She begs me to come at once. She'll explain when I arrive." Beset by anxiety, Reiko said, "What can be wrong? What should I do?"
"Your husband doesn't want you going back to the Kumazawa house," Tanuma said.
Reiko knew how displeased Sano would be if she went. "But Chiyo needs me. I can't refuse to help."
"Major Kumazawa would probably not let you in the door even though Chiyo invited you," Tanuma said.
"I'll take the chance." Reiko stood. "Are you coming?"
"If you say so." Tanuma had worked for her long enough to understand that arguing with her when she'd made up her mind was a lost cause.
As they hurried off, Reiko hoped she wouldn't be too late to help Chiyo.
Sano and his entourage gathered in the street outside Ogita's house. He assigned a few troops to follow Ogita, in case the rice broker could lead them to the shogun's wife. Fukida said, "Should we go search Ogita's other properties?"
"No," Sano said. "If the shogun's wife were there, he wouldn't have told us about them. I suspect those aren't his only other properties."
"Shall I find out what others he owns?" Fukida asked.
Sano envisioned a long, tedious search through Edo's mountains of property records. "No. We don't have time."
What they did have was two other suspects to investigate.
As they rode down the street, Marume said, "I heard what Ogita said about spring books. He's right-a lot of men have them. You should see the ones in the barracks at home."
Edo had an overabundance of men without women. They were samurai retainers who were single or had left their wives in their lords' provinces, as well as merchants, artisans, and laborers who'd come to seek their fortune in the city and couldn't afford to marry. Under these conditions, prostitution and erotic art flourished. And even rich men, who could have all the women they wanted, enjoyed spring books. But that didn't clear Ogita, not in Sano's opinion.
"I skimmed through the rest of Ogita's book," Sano said. "All the other pictures showed men raping women. Even if Ogita didn't kidnap the shogun's wife, I think he's responsible for one or more of the other crimes."
But so could the other suspects be guilty.
"Where are we going now?" Fukida asked.
"We're going back to the exorcist," Sano said.
36
A group of beggars in ragged clothes loitered in the street outside the exorcist's temple. When they saw Sano's party coming, they held out their hands for alms, but without much hope. Sano and his men proceeded to the hall where he'd seen Joju the day before yesterday. Again, the monks at the door tried to prevent them from entering.
"His Holiness doesn't want to be disturbed."
"Try to keep us out, and he'll be worse than just disturbed," Marume said.
Sano and his detectives went inside the hall while his troops swarmed the grounds and other buildings. He found the hall drastically altered since his last visit. Daylight poured through open skylights. The black drapes, suspended from rods, were drawn back to expose windows cut high in the walls. From one window protruded a wooden bracket that held the painting of bloody fetuses. Through another Sano saw a drum, lute, and samisen in a room where musicians evidently played during rituals. Some windows opened onto platforms. There, monks crouched, setting up flares, rockets, and smoke bombs. More monks leaned out of a hole in the ceiling and lowered a dummy, dressed in white veils, on thin cords. Like puppeteers, they manipulated the dummy; it flew and dived. The scene reminded Sano of a theater undergoing preparations for a new play.
Spying Sano and the detectives, the monks hauled up the dummy, scrambled to close the drapes, and fled through the windows. Marume called, "It's too late." He and Fukida laughed. "We've seen everything."
Joju strode into the room so fast that his saffron robe whipped around his ankles like flames. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded, his handsome face dark with anger. "Your troops are invading my temple. They say I'm hiding the shogun's wife. That's ridiculous!"
"You've been hiding plenty of other things." Sano gestured around the room.
Joju stopped short, but quickly recovered. "Those are just tools for my rituals."
" 'Tools'? Is that what you call it?" Sano said. "I call it 'fraud.' "
The priest put on a dazzling, condescending smile. "The spirits are real. My exorcisms are real. But they work best if people believe in them. The props help people believe."
"I wonder if the shogun will continue to believe in you when he finds out about this," Sano said.
"You wouldn't tell His Excellency." Joju's intonation made the words a blend of question, statement, and threat.
"He deserves to know when someone is taking his money and playing him for a fool."
"Before you do, you should understand that people want to believe in what I do," Joju said. "His Excellency would rather think that I can communicate with evil spirits and solve problems by driving them out, than hear that my exorcisms are fakery and there's no help for people who are ill and troubled."
"You have a good point," Sano said, "but I have influence with the shogun."
"Then let us present our cases to him and see whose side he takes."
"I'll take my chances," Sano said, although he knew the superstitious shogun might well come down on Joju's side. "Are you ready to gamble that His Excellency will continue his patronage of you when he finds out that you kidnapped his wife?"
"I didn't." Joju spoke with obstinate defiance, but Sano sensed his fear that he would be framed.
"Then you should be able to prove you're innocent," Sano said. From outside came the sounds of his troops overrunning the temple grounds, calling to one another, tramping in and out of buildings. "Where were you early yesterday?"
"Here at the temple."
"Have you seen or heard from Jinshichi and Gombei?"
"The oxcart drivers? No."
Sano glanced at Marume and Fukida. He read on their faces the same concern that had arisen in his mind: If Joju did have the shogun's wife, she was hidden somewhere else. All Joju had to do was keep quiet, and Sano wouldn't find her until he let her go. By then, the damage would have been done to an innocent woman, and the shogun would never forgive Sano.
As much as Sano hated to admit it, this was a time for him to compromise. "Listen," he said to Joju. "Give me the shogun's wife, and I won't tell the shogun that you're a fraud. I won't tell him how I found her, either."