This at least explained how Makino had gotten there, Sano thought, if not everything.
“I took off his clothes and rolled him over on his stomach. Then I fetched a jade phallus from a collection he had. I rammed the phallus into his rear end. I wanted him to look as if he’d died while playing one of his games. I wanted all the people who curried his favor to see what a disgusting fool he was. And I wanted Okitsu blamed for his death. That would be my revenge on her, for stealing my husband. I fetched her torn sleeve. It stank of sex and her incense perfume. I laid it beside him.”
She smiled fleetingly at her cleverness. “But I worried that someone might guess that an intruder had killed him. I hurried back to the study and closed the window, but the latch was broken. I couldn’t fix it.”
And she hadn’t noticed the trampled bushes outside, Sano deduced.
“Then I thought I heard someone coming. I didn’t want to be caught. So I blew out my lamp. I carried the wooden pole through my husband’s room to my own. I waited until the house was quiet, then went outside and threw the pole into the water.” Agemaki gestured, indicating the pond beneath the chapel. “Then I went back to bed. I fell asleep at once. The next thing I knew, Tamura came into my room. He told me that my husband had died in the night. I pretended to be surprised. But when Tamura took me to him, I really was surprised.”
A soft, incredulous laugh issued from Agemaki. “He was lying in his bed, dressed in a clean night robe, as peaceful as could be. I couldn’t figure out what had happened to him.”
Hirata said, “Tamura must have fixed him up.”
Sano nodded. He could imagine Tamura duped into thinking Makino had died during a sex game and wanting to preserve his dignity. Tamura must have removed the phallus from Makino, then dressed him and put him to bed, breaking his bones in the process. He’d overlooked the torn sleeve and the signs that an intruder had broken into the study, and he’d been unable to hide Makino’s injuries; yet if not for Makino’s letter to Sano, the murder would have gone undetected. So would the rearranging of the crime scene.
“Then Koheiji came into the room,” said Agemaki. “He said, ‘When a man as important as Makino dies, people may suspect he was murdered. There may be questions asked. You and I need to get our answers ready.’
“I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ And he said-” Agemaki paused, obviously afraid to say what had happened next.
“You’d better tell us the whole story before Koheiji tells us his version,” Sano warned her.
Agemaki inhaled a deep breath for courage. “Koheiji reminded me about a banquet held in this house a month ago. I’d given him wine to serve to my husband. He said he’d seen me pour some powder into the cup, and he’d guessed that I’d poisoned the wine. He knew I wanted him to serve it to my husband, and he would die, and Koheiji would be blamed. Well, my husband didn’t die then. I’d always wondered why not. Koheiji said he’d given the wine to a servant and told him to throw it away. But instead, the servant drank it. He became very ill the next day. He almost died.”
This was her guilty secret, Sano understood. She’d tried to kill her husband long before his murder.
“Koheiji said, ‘If I were to tell what you did, you could get in a lot of trouble. People would think you’d succeeded in killing your husband this time,’ ” Agemaki said. “I asked him, ‘What do you want?’ He said, ‘You know that Okitsu and I entertained Makino last night. You must have heard us. I could get blamed for his death just on account of being near him. I want you to promise that you won’t tell anyone. In exchange, I won’t tell anyone you tried to poison Makino.’ ”
“And you agreed,” Sano said, remembering what Reiko had overheard.
“What choice did I have except to protect Koheiji so that he would protect me?” Agemaki’s voice was plaintive with self-justification. “That’s why I lied to you. It wasn’t because I’d done any harm to my husband. I desecrated his body, but he was already dead when I found him.”
In her eagerness to persuade, she leaned toward Sano. Her features sharpened with the cunning that had raised her from her humble station as a shrine prostitute to the rank of wife to a high bakufu official. “Koheiji assassinated my husband. You said so yourself. He’s the murderer, not I. That’s why he was so anxious to keep me silent. If he had an accomplice, it was that little whore Okitsu. She was with him and Makino that night.”
Agemaki’s eyes gleamed with malevolent pleasure at the chance to incriminate her rival. “She must have helped Koheiji kill my husband. She should be punished along with him.”
“Arrest the actor first,” Ibe told Sano. “The girl can wait her turn.”
Sano envisioned the murder case as an onion whose layers he’d peeled only to find more layers concealing the solution at the heart. What Agemaki had told him, and the evidence that Daiemon had hired the actor to assassinate Senior Elder Makino, wasn’t the whole story.
“The girl has information I need,” Sano said, then addressed his detectives: “Bring in Okitsu.”
32
Reiko found Gosechi in a minor, seldom-used sanctuary inside the main hall of Zōjō Temple.
Lord Matsudaira’s concubine knelt alone before the altar, a roofed enclosure with carved gold columns. Her bronze silk cloak and long, lustrous black hair gleamed in the light from the candles burning in front of the gold Buddha statue. She was small and slender. With her back to the door and her head bowed, she seemed isolated in private thought, oblivious to the chanting of other worshippers in the main sanctuary or gongs pealing outside. Reiko quietly approached her, through shadowy dimness saturated with the odors of incense and burnt wax.
“Gosechi-san?” Reiko said.
The woman turned. Reiko saw that she was very young and stunningly beautiful. Her face was wide at the brow and tapered at the chin, blessed with petal-soft skin and dainty features. Reiko could understand how she’d attracted both Lord Matsudaira and his nephew. Her eyes, as open and innocent as a child’s, brimmed with grief, and confusion because a stranger had addressed her.
Reiko introduced herself, then said, “I’m the wife of the shogun’s sōsakan-sama.” She knelt beside Gosechi. “I’m sorry to bother you, but there are urgent matters that I must discuss with you.”
Wiping tears on her sleeve, the girl murmured, “Perhaps some other time… if you would be so kind.” Her voice was raw from weeping. “Please don’t take offense, but I’m very upset right now.”
“I understand,” Reiko said with pity. “You’re mourning for Daiemon.” She hated that she must disturb Gosechi after she’d just suffered what appeared a devastating loss.
The alarm in Gosechi’s eyes confirmed that she’d had an illicit affair with Daiemon and still feared the consequences should Lord Matsudaira find out. “No-I mean, yes, I’m sad because he died. He was my lord’s nephew.”
“He was more than that to you, wasn’t he?” Reiko said gently. “You and he were lovers.”
Gosechi shook her head in vigorous denial, but her face crumpled. She wept into her hands while her body convulsed in paroxysms of grief. “I loved him more than anything else in the world,” she said between sobs and gasps. Reiko sensed relief in her, as though she found solace in speaking at last to someone who knew her secret. “I can’t bear that he’s gone!”
Reiko put her arm around Gosechi while she continued weeping. After a long while, Gosechi grew calmer. She said in a soft, desolate voice, “I knew I was wrong to love Daiemon. I should have been faithful to Lord Matsudaira. I owe him so much. My parents couldn’t afford to support me. They sold me to a broker who supplies women to the pleasure quarter. If Lord Matsudaira hadn’t bought me, I would have become a prostitute. He’s kind and generous to me. He loves me. He deserves my loyalty.”