Laura Rowland - The Perfumed Sleeve

He decided to try another tactic. Scanning the Matsudaira soldiers, he saw a heavyset samurai, clad in armor, galloping his horse across the field. The visor of his helmet was tipped back to reveal a youthful face with rosy cheeks and a square jaw. Hirata waved at him, calling, “Noro-san”.

Noro reined his mount to a stop beside Hirata and swung down from the saddle. “Hirata-san,” he said with a quick bow and smile. “What brings you here? Are you joining our side?”

“I’ve come on other business,” Hirata said. “By the way, my condolences on the death of your master.”

Noro’s expression saddened as he nodded in thanks. He had been a personal bodyguard to Daiemon.

Hirata steered Noro behind a range of archery targets, where they could talk unobserved. “I need a favor.”

“Just name it,” Noro said.

His willingness to oblige stemmed from an incident six years ago, when he and some friends had gotten into a brawl with a gang of peasant toughs. The gang had outnumbered and overpowered Noro and his friends. Noro had lost his sword in the scuffle, and one of the toughs had begun savagely beating him with an iron pole, when Hirata-a patrol officer at the time-had happened along. Hirata had broken up the fight and saved Noro’s life. That initial acquaintance had grown into friendship when Hirata came to Edo Castle. Noro had sworn to thank Hirata by doing him any favor he wanted.

“Who was the woman Daiemon went to meet at the Sign of Bedazzlement?” Hirata asked.

Noro’s eyes strayed. “I wish you’d asked me anything but that,” he said. “I can’t tell anybody, including you.”

“Can’t, or won’t?”

“I made a promise to Daiemon.”

Although a samurai’s promise to his master overrode any other, Hirata persisted. “What does it matter if you tell, now that Daiemon is dead?”

“I can’t tell you that, either,” Noro said, obviously ashamed to disappoint the man to whom he owed his life. “But believe me, it matters.”

“She may have killed Daiemon,” Hirata pointed out. “If you don’t tell me who she is, you could be protecting his murderer. And you’re also standing in the way of my duty to help my master solve the crime.”

Misery clouded Noro’s honest gaze, but he shook his head, refusing to be drawn into an argument.

“Could you at least get me inside the Matsudaira estate so that I can look for clues in Daiemon’s quarters?” Hirata said.

“Lord Matsudaira would kill me. I’m sorry,” Noro said.

“All right.” Hirata walked away, but slowly, giving Noro time to change his mind. Hirata felt his hopes hinging on Noro’s sense of honor.

“Wait,” Noro said.

Hirata turned expectantly.

“I can’t say who the woman is, but I must help you somehow,” Noro said. He rocked his weight from one armor-clad leg to the other. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, either, but… Daiemon had other quarters besides the ones in the Matsudaira estate. He kept a house in Kanda.” Noro described the location. “But you didn’t hear about it from me.”

Sano arrived in Okitsu’s room to find her kneeling amid scattered clothing, surrounded by Ibe and Otani’s troops. Her eyes were round, wide pools of fright; audible gulps contracted her throat. When she saw Sano enter with his detectives, his watchdogs, and their men, she blurted, “I didn’t tell everything I know about the night Senior Elder Makino died. Please allow me to tell you now.”

“Go ahead,” Sano said, surprised that Okitsu would volunteer information before he’d even asked.

Okitsu gulped, drew a deep breath, and picked at her cuticles, which were already red and raw. “That night, when it was very late, I- I went to the Place of Relief.” This was the polite term for the privy. "On my way back, I-I saw him.”

“Who?” Sano felt Ibe and Otani tense, alert, at his back. “Senior Elder Makino?”

“No!” Okitsu gasped. “It was Lord Matsudaira’s nephew.”

Now Sano sensed disapproval and concern in his watchdogs. Excitement flared in him, for here was the first evidence that anyone had seen Daiemon after his visit to Makino. “Where did you see him?”

“He was in the, uh, study. The door was open a little. I peeked in, and-and there he was.”

Sano scrutinized Okitsu. “How did you recognize Daiemon?”

She wriggled under his gaze. After a lengthy pause, she said, “I-I’d seen him before-at parties?” Her voice rose at the end of the sentence, as if she was uncertain that this was the right answer and wanted reassurance.

“What was he doing?” Sano said.

“He-he was standing by the desk? There was a, uh, pole in his hands?” Again came that questioning lilt in Okitsu’s voice. “He was looking down at something on the floor?”

“What was it?”

“I-I don’t know. I couldn’t see?”

Sano pictured Daiemon, the weapon in his hands, standing over Senior Elder Makino’s battered corpse, and Okitsu peeking through the door, a witness to the aftermath of the crime.

“You’ll stop this line of questioning right now,” Otani ordered Sano.

Lord Matsudaira wouldn’t want his nephew implicated in the crime, even now that Daiemon was dead, Sano understood, lest it harm his clan’s standing with the shogun.

“What else did you see?” Sano asked Okitsu.

“Nothing?” Her tone implored Sano to accept her word and leave her in peace.

Threatening stares from his watchdogs told Sano that he was pushing their forbearance. He said, “Okitsu-san, why didn’t you tell my chief retainer about this when he questioned you?”

“Because I was too afraid,” Okitsu said. Her fingers worried at her cuticles.

“And why did you choose to tell me about him now?”

Okitsu risked a furtive glance at Sano. “Now that Lord Matsudaira’s nephew is dead, he can’t hurt me.”

“How do you know he’s dead?” Sano said.

The girl mumbled, “I heard people talking.”

Perhaps she had seen Daiemon and feared what he would do to her if she incriminated him, Sano thought. But perhaps she had also feared to confess that she’d been wandering the private chambers that night and could have committed the murder herself instead of almost catching the killer in the act. What was the real reason for the alibi she’d given Hirata?

“What happened after you saw Daiemon?” Sano said.

“I went back to Koheiji. He was in his room.”

“What did you do then?”

“I don’t remember.”

Okitsu ducked her head. Sano bent down to peer into her face. Her eyes were so wide with terror that rings of white showed around the pupils. Her story now suggested that she and the actor had been apart long enough for him, as well as her, to kill Makino-if Daiemon hadn’t.

“There’s something else you neglected to tell my chief retainer,” said Sano. “Yesterday he visited Rakuami, your former master. Rakuami said you hated Senior Elder Makino so much that you tried to commit suicide rather than be his concubine. Is it true?”

A gulp that ended in a retch convulsed Okitsu; her arms wrapped tight around her stomach. “No.”

“Then Rakuami was lying?”

“No!”

“Either he lied about you, or you hated Makino. Which is it?” Sano said.

“I didn’t hate him. I mean, I did at first, but…” Okitsu babbled, “After I’d lived with him awhile, and he was so kind to me, I was grateful to him, and I didn’t hate him anymore, I loved him very much…”

She’d told Sano what he needed to know about her feelings toward Makino. “You said you knew Daiemon from parties. Were they parties at Rakuami’s club?”

“I don’t remember,” Okitsu said. She moaned while clutching her stomach.