This village was the fourth station along the Tōkaidō highway, about half a day’s journey away. Sano bade farewell to the Kushida family. Then he and Hirata mounted their horses outside the gate.
“Dispatch messengers down the highway to warn the post station guards to be on the alert for Kushida,” Sano told Hirata. “But I’m not convinced he’ll leave town.”
“Nor am I,” Hirata said. “I’ll have the police circulate Kushida’s description around town and tell the neighborhood gate sentries to watch for him. Then…” Hirata sucked in a deep breath and blew it out. “Then I’ll meet Lady Ichiteru.”
They parted, and Sano headed back toward Edo Castle to launch troops on a citywide manhunt before attending the trial that Magistrate Ueda wanted him to see. Whether or not Kushida had killed Lady Harume, he was a danger to the citizens. Sano felt responsible for his capture, and any crimes the lieutenant might commit before then.
The trial was already in progress by the time Sano arrived at the Court of Justice. He slipped quietly into the long, dim hall. Magistrate Ueda occupied the dais, his somber face illuminated by lamps on the desk before him, with a secretary on either side. He caught Sano’s eye and nodded a greeting. The female defendant wore a muslin shift. Wrists and ankles bound, she knelt before the dais on a straw mat on the shirasu. A small audience knelt in rows in the center of the room.
While a secretary read the date, time, and the names of the presiding officials into the court record, Sano recalled how Reiko had told him about observing proceedings in this court during her youth. He wondered if she was here now, watching from some hidden vantage point, still defying him. Would they ever come together as true husband and wife? Why had her father wanted him to witness this trial?
Then the secretary announced, “The defendant, Mariko of Kyobashi, is charged with the murder of her husband, Nakano the sandal maker. This court shall now hear the evidence. I call the first witness: her mother-in-law.
As the defendant wept, an old woman rose from the audience. Hobbling up to the dais, she knelt, bowed to Magistrate Ueda, then said, “Two days ago, my son suddenly became ill after our evening meal. He gasped and coughed and said he couldn’t breathe. He went to the window for some air, but he was so dizzy that he fell on the floor. Then he began vomiting-at first the food he’d eaten, then blood. I tried to help, but he thought I was a witch who wanted to kill him. I, his own mother!”
The old woman’s voice cracked in anguish. “He began thrashing and screaming. I hurried out and fetched a doctor. When we got back to the house just a few moments later, my poor son was lying dead. He was as stiff as that pillar.”
Excitement eased the weight of Sano’s worry and fatigue. The sandal maker had died of the same symptoms as Lady Harume! Now Sano understood why Magistrate Ueda had summoned him.
“Mariko cooks and serves all our meals,” the witness said, glaring at the defendant. “She was the only person to handle my son’s bowl before he ate. She must have poisoned him. They never got along. At night she refused to do her wifely duty by him. She hates housekeeping and shopping and sewing, and helping in the store to earn her keep, and taking care of me. We starved and beat her, but even that wouldn’t make her behave properly. She killed my son so she could go home to her parents. Honorable Magistrate, I beg you to grant my son justice and sentence that wicked girl to death!”
Then followed the testimony of more witnesses: the doctor; neighbors who confirmed the unhappy state of the defendant’s marriage; the police who had found a bottle hidden under the defendant’s kimono, tested the contents on a rat, observed its quick demise, and made the arrest. A solid case, Sano thought.
“What have you to say in your own defense, Mariko?” asked Magistrate Ueda.
Still weeping, the woman raised her head. “I didn’t kill my husband!” she wailed.
The magistrate said, “There is much evidence of your guilt. You must either refute it, or confess.”
“My mother-in-law hates me. She blames me for everything. When my husband died, she wanted to punish me, so she told everyone I poisoned him. But I didn’t. Please, you must believe me!”
Stepping forward, Sano said, “Honorable Magistrate, I beg your permission to question the defendant.”
Heads turned; a buzz of surprise swept the audience. It was rare for anyone except the presiding official to conduct interrogations during trials. “Permission granted,” Magistrate Ueda said.
Sano knelt beside the shirasu. From behind a tangled mop of hair, the defendant eyed him fearfully, like a captive wild animal. She was emaciated, her face covered with bruises, both eyes blackened.
“Did your family do this to you?” Sano asked.
Trembling, she nodded. Her mother-in-law said righteously, “She was lazy and disobedient. She deserved every beating my son and I gave her.”
Anger blazed in Sano. The fact that this situation occurred often made it no less reprehensible to him. “Honorable Magistrate,” he said, “I need information from the defendant. If she provides it, I shall recommend that the charge against her be modified to murder in self-defense, and that she be returned to her parents’ home.”
Protests rose from the audience. A doshin said, “With all due respect, sōsakan-sama, but this sets a bad example for the citizens. They’ll think they can kill, claim self-defense, and get away with it!”
“She murdered my son! She deserves to die!” shouted the mother-in-law.
“You and your son mistreated that girl,” Sano retorted, though he wondered why he was interfering in business that had nothing to do with his own investigation. Dimly he realized that his rage stemmed from his new awareness of the plight of women, a need to somehow make amends to Reiko for society’s cruel treatment of her sex. “Now you’re paying the price.”
“Silence,” Magistrate Ueda thundered over the audience’s clamor, which subsided after the guards dragged the cursing, shrieking mother-in-law out of the room. To Sano, he said, “Your recommendation shall be accepted if the defendant cooperates. Proceed.”
Sano turned to the girl. “Where did you get the poison that killed your husband?”
“I-I didn’t mean to kill him,” she sobbed. “I only wanted to make him weak, so he couldn’t hurt me anymore.”
“You’re safe now,” Sano said, but he could only hope her parents wouldn’t punish her for the failed marriage-or wed her to another cruel man. How little he could do to correct centuries of tradition! Especially when he wasn’t willing to begin at home. “Now tell me where you got the poison.”
The defendant sniffed mucus up her nose. “I bought it from an old traveling peddler.”
Choyei! Sano’s heart leapt. “Where did you meet him?”
“At Daikon Quay.”
Canals gridded the district northwest of Nihonbashi. Flagstone quays fronted warehouses; along these, dockworkers carried firewood, bamboo poles, vegetables, coal, and grain to and from moored boats. Sano knew the area from his police days, because the yoriki barracks were located in adjacent Hatchobori, on the edge of the official district. He rode down Daikon Quay, past porters laden with bundles of the long white radish. Everyone’s breath formed clouds of vapor in the bright, chill air; a stiff breeze rippled the waters of the canals, which reflected the sky’s wintry blue. Shouts, crashes, and the clatter of wooden soles rang out with sharp clarity. Sano could smell the distinctive blend of charcoal smoke and distant mountain snows that for him poignantly heralded the year’s final season.
The defendant had given him directions to the place where she’d met Choyei: “He has a room in a house in the third street off the quay.”
Sano steered his mount into the street. Rows of two-story slum dwellings lined a space barely wide enough to accommodate Sano’s horse. Overhanging balconies blocked the sunlight; from clotheslines stretched across the narrow gap, laundry flapped. Night-soil bins, overflowing trash containers, and a privy shed befouled the air. Oily smoke rose from chimneys. Closed doors hid whatever activities the one-room apartments sheltered. The street was empty, permeated with a dreary quiet.