Near the alcove knelt a woman dressed in a brown cotton kimono printed with lavender bush clover. A large white scarf shrouded her hair and draped diagonally across her face, the end wound around her neck. Two of Sano’s troops stood against the wall inside the door. Reiko approached the woman, who tensed visibly.
“Welcome, Namiji-san,” Reiko said, kneeling opposite her guest.
The woman bowed, her courtesy automatic yet graceful. “Who are you?” Her husky voice, muffled by her scarf, blended seductiveness with coarseness. Reiko could see only her right eye. Its flower-petal shape and long lashes hinted at beauty.
“My name is Reiko. I’m Sano-san’s wife. I believe you met him at Lord Tsunanori’s estate?”
“… Yes. Why was I brought here?”
Reiko deduced that Sano hadn’t told the nurse that Reiko was supposed to question her about her mistress’s death. He must have wanted Reiko to take her by surprise. “To meet me,” Reiko said. “May I offer you some refreshments?”
Namiji skipped the customary polite response. “Am I under arrest?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll be going.” Namiji started to rise.
“Not until we’ve talked,” Reiko said. The troops moved in front of the door.
Namiji sank to her knees again. A sigh puffed out the smooth white fabric of her scarf. “Talked about what?”
“An important matter that would be better to discuss face-to-face.” In order to gauge the woman’s veracity, Reiko needed to see more of her. “Would you please remove your scarf?”
Namiji’s hand flew to the scarf, as though she feared Reiko would tear it off her head. She wore cotton gloves the color of bare skin. Her visible eye narrowed with cunning. “I had smallpox when I was seventeen. I haven’t been contagious since then, but who knows? If I take off my scarf, I might infect you-and your baby.”
Reiko felt a visceral stab of fear that brought on a contraction. Although it was unlikely that she could catch smallpox from somebody who’d had the disease years ago, she realized that this investigation posed threats to her even if she never left home. “All right, leave your scarf on,” she said, angry because she knew Namiji was taunting her. She tried to sympathize with this woman, who must have endured terrible suffering. “I’m sorry you had smallpox.”
“You’re just glad it wasn’t you.”
Reiko saw that sympathy wouldn’t induce cooperation from Namiji. She matched frankness with frankness. “You’re right. I am glad. Just as you must be glad that the smallpox killed your mistress but not you.”
Surprise at Reiko’s remark dilated the dark pupil in Namiji’s visible eye. “So you think I should be glad to be alive? Well, you don’t know what it’s like.”
“No, I don’t.” Curious, and wanting to form a rapport with Namiji after a bad start, Reiko said, “Would you like to tell me?”
Namiji laughed, a sound coarser than her voice. “Where shall I start? With the children who throw stones at me in the street? The women who whisper and giggle behind my back? The men who yell insults? Or the fact that no one will ever marry me?”
Reiko had seen how badly people treated those with physical or mental defects. It must be more hurtful than she’d thought. She felt guilty because she’d never tried to stop the tormenting. Nobody else did; it wasn’t the custom.
“Is that why I’m here?” Namiji asked. “For you to pick at my wounds? Did your husband send me here as a toy for you?”
“Certainly not.” Offended by the accusation, Reiko said, “He sent you here for me to ask you about Tsuruhime.”
“Ah.” Mockery glinted in the nurse’s eye. “He couldn’t do it himself because Lord Tsunanori was getting in the way.”
Reiko began to understand what must have happened at the estate. Lord Tsunanori had interfered with Sano’s investigation. The reason must be that he was afraid of it. Had he, not Yanagisawa, killed his wife?
Namiji regarded Reiko with amusement and curiosity. “I’ve heard about you-you help your husband solve crimes. Your husband must think Tsuruhime was murdered. He must want you to find out if I know anything about it.”
“Do you?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t tell you.” Namiji added primly, “Lord Tsunanori doesn’t like his people to talk about his business.”
“You’re not leaving here until you answer my questions,” Reiko said. “Did you like Tsuruhime?”
“Yes. She was friendly and kind and not demanding.” Namiji’s manner suddenly turned gentle and sweet. “I shall miss her very much.”
The act might have fooled Reiko if Namiji hadn’t already shown her true, unpleasant self. “You’re lying.”
“All right, I admit it,” Namiji snapped, unable or unwilling to keep up the act. “I didn’t like Tsuruhime. When she married Lord Tsunanori, she refused to let me wait on her, even though my family has served his for generations. She said my scars were so ugly, they made her sick.” Namiji’s gloved hands clenched. “She wouldn’t allow me in the women’s quarters, where I’d worked all my life. She wanted me thrown out so she wouldn’t have to see me.”
Lady Nobuko had described Tsuruhime as a sweet, harmless woman. Now Reiko glimpsed a different side of the shogun’s daughter. Maybe she’d been a victim murdered for her own cruelty, not just political gain. And maybe Yanagisawa wasn’t the culprit. Reiko’s heart sank as she realized that the nurse had had good reason to want Tsuruhime dead and her first inquiry was leading her in the wrong direction.
“But Lord Tsunanori wouldn’t let her,” Namiji said smugly. “I had to work in the kitchen, and live in the servants’ quarters, and stay out of her sight, but he kept me on.”
“Why did he?” Reiko was surprised that Lord Tsunanori would side with a servant instead of his wife.
“There’s always a shortage of trustworthy servants, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“If Tsuruhime wouldn’t let you near her, then how did you come to be her nurse?”
“Because she got smallpox. I was the only person at the estate who could go near her without catching it.” Namiji laughed her coarse laugh. “She ended up with the same disease that made me so disgusting to her. And every time she looked up at me sitting by her bed, she saw what she would look like if she survived. Which she didn’t. Isn’t that funny?”
Reiko thought it more suspicious than coincidental. “Do you know of anyone who had smallpox shortly before Tsuruhime took ill?”
“No.”
“Did you see a stained sheet among Tsuruhime’s things?”
“Stained with what?”
“Pus and blood, from someone else’s smallpox sores.”
“Why? Was there one?”
Reiko analyzed Namiji’s puzzled, innocent manner. She couldn’t tell if it was genuine. Although Namiji had talked freely to her own detriment, she might be better at concealing knowledge than she seemed. “You tell me.”
“I don’t know anything to tell you. Is that how she got smallpox, from someone else’s infected sheet?”
“Suppose it is,” Reiko said. “You hated her. You’re obviously pleased by her death. Did you put the sheet in with her things?”
“I couldn’t have.” Namiji spoke as if the accusation were stupid as well as unjust. “I told you, Tsuruhime didn’t allow me in her quarters until she took ill and she didn’t have a choice.”
“Then who could have done it? Lord Tsunanori?”
“Not him,” Namiji declared.
“Then why did he interfere with my husband’s inquiries?”
Namiji ignored the question. “If I tell you who might have done it, will you let me go?”
Reiko was taken aback to learn that while she’d been trying to coax Namiji into incriminating herself, the nurse had been hiding a card with which to bargain for her freedom-the identity of a new suspect. Namiji had figured out that this was a murder investigation when Sano had started asking questions at Lord Tsunanori’s estate. But maybe she’d known beforehand that Tsuruhime had been murdered, and she’d squirreled away a tidbit of information in case she fell under suspicion and needed to protect herself.
“Who might have done it?” Reiko asked.