Laura Rowland - The Perfumed Sleeve

Inside Okitsu’s room, the floor was strewn with clothes and shoes and boxes of sweets jumbled among dolls and other trinkets. But Hirata hardly noticed the mess. He inhaled a familiar sweet, musky odor.

“I smell incense,” he said. On a table he saw, almost lost in a clutter of hair ornaments, a brass incense burner. He picked up the burner and sniffed the ash inside. “It’s Dawn to Dusk, isn’t it?” he asked Okitsu.

She nodded. Perplexity showed on her face and the actor’s. Ibe twitched his nose, perturbed that Hirata seemed to be on to something. Hirata set down the burner, lifted a pink kimono from the floor, and sniffed the fabric.

“You perfume your sleeves with Dawn to Dusk,” he said to the concubine.

“So what if she does?” Koheiji said.

“When the sōsakan-sama and I searched Senior Elder Makino’s room yesterday, we found a torn sleeve perfumed with this same incense,” Hirata said.

He watched the concubine and actor look at each other. Okitsu’s expression was horrified; Koheiji’s combined confusion with dismay. Hirata strode to the cabinet and ransacked through the clothing jumbled inside until he pulled out a pale silk kimono embroidered with gold and silver flowers. He shook out the robe and held it up. The long, flowing right sleeve dangled. The left was missing. Unraveled threads hung from the ripped armhole edges.

“Does this belong to you?” Hirata asked Okitsu.

She didn’t speak, but her stricken eyes were answer enough.

“The sleeve we found came from this kimono,” Hirata said. “You were with Senior Elder Makino the night he was murdered.”

Such stark terror branded Okitsu’s face that Hirata knew he was right. “When you said you were with Koheiji, in his room, you lied,” he said. “You were in the senior elder’s bedchamber. You’d better tell me what happened there.”

Her mouth moved, uttering inarticulate sounds. She gave Koheiji a look that begged for help.

“She was with me. I swear,” the actor said, but his face had turned pale and tense.

Grasping Okitsu by her shoulders, Hirata said, “Then how did your sleeve come to be in Senior Elder Makino’s bedding?”

“It must have gotten there some other time.” Panic trembled in Koheiji’s insistent voice. “Let her go.”

Hirata shook Okitsu. “What happened?” he demanded.

Her breathing escalated to rapid, erratic gasps. Stammers burst from her: “I-he-we-”

“Be quiet!” Koheiji shouted. “Don’t let him scare you into saying what he wants you to say. Just keep calm. Everything will be all right.”

Compelled by his own urgency to learn the truth, Hirata shook Okitsu harder. “Did you kill Senior Elder Makino?”

Okitsu’s head fell sideways as her body sagged. Her weight slipped from Hirata’s grasp. She crashed to the floor.

“Okitsu!” the actor exclaimed.

She lay inert, her long eyelashes resting motionless against her cheeks, her mouth slack. As Hirata stared in dismay, Koheiji knelt beside her and caught up her limp hand.

“Speak to me, Okitsu,” he begged. When she didn’t respond, he glared up at Hirata. “Look what you did! She needs a doctor. I must fetch one immediately.” Koheiji ran from the room.

“Come back!” Hirata ordered.

The actor didn’t. Hirata patted Okitsu’s cheeks, trying to revive her. She was breathing, but she didn’t rouse. “Go catch Koheiji,” Hirata commanded Ibe.

Ibe just grinned. “That’s not my job. Remember what you said: I’m just supposed to observe.”

Hirata seethed inside.

“A lot you’ve accomplished here,” Ibe said snidely. “I hope you’re happy.”

Hirata swallowed a retort that would get him in deeper trouble with Ibe. He wanted to groan in frustration.

He’d weakened Okitsu’s alibi and connected her to the murder. But if, despite her lie, she hadn’t killed Makino, then he’d hurt an innocent girl. Even if Okitsu was guilty, Hirata couldn’t get any facts from her now. Hirata had also undermined Koheiji’s alibi, but the actor had escaped him.

It was an inauspicious beginning for the quest upon which his worth to Sano, and his own honor, depended.

Excuse me if I don’t understand what we have to talk about that we didn’t already discuss yesterday,” Tamura said to Sano.

They stood outside Makino’s mansion, on a veranda where Tamura had brought Sano when he’d requested a private interview. They leaned, facing each other, against the veranda railing that overlooked the garden. Mist and clouds obscured their view of the palace above the official quarter. Nearby, Otani loitered. Rain dripped from the overhanging eaves and wetted the floorboards. Sano suspected that Makino’s chief retainer had chosen this cold, uncomfortable place in order to keep their talk short.

“There are a few matters I need to clarify,” Sano said.

Tamura scowled as he intently watched Sano. “I told you that I found my master dead in his bed. What could be clearer than that?”

Your wish to limit your testimony to that one statement of fact, Sano thought. “Let’s talk about the time leading up to when you found Senior Elder Makino. When did you last see him alive?”

“It was after dinner the previous night,” Tamura said with a weary air of humoring Sano.

“What happened then?”

“I asked Senior Elder Makino if there was anything he needed me to do. He said no and retired to his private quarters.”

“What did you do after that?”

“I made my usual evening rounds of the estate. I checked that the guards were covering their territory and the gates were secure. My aide accompanied me. He can vouch for what I did.”

“And then?” Sano prompted.

Tamura hesitated for an instant, just long enough that Sano perceived he’d chosen to omit or alter something in the sequence of events. “I retired to my own room.”

After his talk with Makino’s wife, Sano had privately inspected Tamura’s quarters. These were two rooms-a bedchamber and adjoining office-located on the side of the building perpendicular to the one that contained Makino’s chambers. Sano had noted the movable wall panel that separated Makino’s bedchamber from Tamura’s office. He was not surprised that the search revealed nothing of interest. Tamura was smart enough to guess that Sano would search his rooms and to destroy anything that incriminated him.

The office contained only records pertaining to the management of the estate. The bedchamber housed Tamura’s few clothes, bedding, and other necessities, all stored with neat precision. A special cabinet held his armor and many weapons. Each sword, dagger, and club occupied its own rack. None of the racks were missing a weapon, Sano noted, and the weapons bore no traces of blood. If Tamura had used one of them on Makino, he’d cleaned and replaced it afterward.

“What did you do after you went to your room?” Sano asked.

“I worked in my office until midnight,” Tamura said. “Then I went to bed.”

“Did you hear any noises from Senior Elder Makino’s chambers?”

Tamura glared into the rain. “Not a one.”

“Senior Elder Makino was beaten to death in his chambers, which are right next to yours, and you didn’t hear anything?” Sano said skeptically.

A dour expression curved Tamura’s mouth downward. “I wish I had. Then I would have woken up and saved my master.”

Still doubtful, Sano said, “Were you and Senior Elder Makino on good terms?”

“Very good.” Pride rang in Tamura’s voice. “I served him well for thirty years, and I was his chief retainer for twenty. Our clans have been linked for three centuries. My loyalty to him was absolute. If you won’t take my word for it, just ask around.”