"What about her?" Sano recalled her name from the dossier. She was thirty-three years old, the wife of a captain in the army of a rich, powerful daimyo. She'd married very late, at age twenty-seven. Informants had told Sano that she was her father's favorite and Major Kumazawa had delayed her marriage to keep her at home while he found her the best possible husband.
"She's missing," Major Kumazawa said.
Sano remembered that terrible winter when his own son had been kidnapped, and he and his wife, Reiko, had suffered the pain of not knowing what had happened to their beloved child while fearing the worst. His resistance toward his uncle began to crumble.
"I know Chiyo is none of your concern, but please hear me out," Major Kumazawa said with the gruffness of a man unaccustomed to begging.
"All right." Sano had to listen; he owed his uncle that, if nothing else.
"Chiyo disappeared the day before yesterday. She had gone to the Awashima Shrine." Obviously relieved that Sano had given him another chance, yet hating his role as a supplicant, Major Kumazawa explained, "She gave birth to a child last month. A boy." It was the custom for mothers to take their new babies to shrines to be blessed. "She went with her attendants. There was a big crowd at the shrine. One moment Chiyo was there, and the next…"
Major Kumazawa held up his palms. "Gone." Anguish showed through his rigid expression.
Whenever Sano thought of the night his son, Masahiro, had disappeared-during a party at a temple-he shivered. "What happened to the baby?"
"He was found lying outside the shrine. Thank the gods he's safe," said Major Kumazawa. "Chiyo's guards couldn't find her. They went home and told her husband what had happened. He told me. We both gathered all the troops we could and sent them out to search for Chiyo. They're still out looking, but there's been not a sign of her. It's as if she just vanished into the air."
Sano knew that his uncle commanded a Tokugawa garrison outside Edo, and Chiyo's husband must have many men serving under him, but the city was too big for them to cover thoroughly. "Did you report Chiyo's disappearance to the police?"
"Of course. I went to their headquarters. They took my report and said they would keep an eye out for her." Major Kumazawa expelled his breath in a disdainful huff. "They said that was all they could do."
The police had their hands full keeping order in the city, Sano knew. They couldn't drop everything to search for one woman, even if her father was a Tokugawa army officer. A major didn't rate high enough.
"Could Chiyo have run away on her own?" Sano asked.
"That's impossible. She wouldn't have left her children and husband without so much as an explanation."
"I suppose you've considered the possibility that Chiyo was kidnapped," Sano said.
"What else could I think?" Worry about his daughter showed through Major Kumazawa's sarcasm. "People don't just drop off the face of the earth."
"Can you think of anyone who would want to hurt Chiyo?"
"Nobody. She's a good, decent, harmless girl."
"Do you have any enemies?" Sano asked.
"Every man with some standing in the world has enemies," Major Kumazawa said. "You of all people should know that. I talked to a few men who have grudges against me, but they insisted that they had nothing to do with Chiyo's disappearance. I think they're telling the truth. They treated me as if I'd gone insane," he added morosely.
"There's been no ransom letter?"
"No letter," Major Kumazawa said. "I'm at my wits' end. You have a reputation as a great detective. That's why I've come to you-to ask you to find my daughter."
Sano could not refuse, for reasons almost as important as saving a woman in peril. His son, Masahiro, wasn't the only member of his family who'd been kidnapped. So had his wife, Reiko, seven years ago. Had Sano not managed to rescue her, he would have lost his wife and Masahiro his mother. Sano couldn't withhold his help from another family facing a similar disastrous situation.
"You don't owe me anything," Major Kumazawa said. "You're bitter about the past. But don't hold it against Chiyo. She wasn't even born when my parents disowned your mother. She had no say in the matter of our clan keeping ourselves apart from you. For her sake, not mine, please help me. Do you want me to beg? I will. I'll do anything to save my daughter!"
Major Kumazawa dropped heavily to his knees, as if the tendons behind them had been slashed. Alone on the muddy field, he looked like a general who'd lost a battle and must commit suicide rather than live with the disgrace. He took off his helmet. The damp wind ruffled gray hair that had escaped from his topknot. For once he seemed human, vulnerable. He gazed up at Sano, his eyes fierce with entreaty and humiliation.
Sano had once imagined forcing his uncle to kneel to him, subjugating the man who'd maintained his mother's banishment from her family. But now he felt no satisfaction. He had too much sympathy for Major Kumazawa's plight.
"Very well," Sano said. "I'm at your service."
He had wanted a chance to know his new clan, and here it was. Perhaps he could even re unite his mother with her family, which he knew she'd always longed for.
Major Kumazawa bowed his head. "A thousand thanks." His tone held less relief than resentment, as if he'd done Sano a favor. Although Sano understood that his uncle had lost face, a painful blow to a proud samurai, he was offended at being treated with such a lack of respect or appreciation. Then again, what else could he have expected?
"Don't thank me yet," Sano said. There was no guarantee that he would find Chiyo alive. She'd been gone two days, long enough for the worst to happen. "I'm not making any promises."
3
The corpse of a young samurai lay amid the irises and reeds beside a pond coated with green algae. Blood covered the front of his kimono. A mosquito alighted between his closed eyes.
His hand flew up and swatted the mosquito.
"Don't move!" cried Chamberlain Sano's son, Masahiro, from behind a nearby tree. Almost ten years old, dressed in kimono, surcoat, and trousers, with two swords at his waist, he bore a strong resemblance to his father. He wore his hair in a forelock tied above his brow, the custom for young samurai who hadn't reached manhood. "You're supposed to be dead!"
"I'm sorry, young master, but these bugs are eating me up," the samurai said contritely. "How much longer do I have to lie here like this?"
The boy tiptoed slowly across the grass toward the samurai. "Until after I discover your body."
From inside the mansion whose wings enclosed the garden, Lady Reiko stepped out onto the veranda. She was beautiful in a green silk summer kimono patterned with dragonflies and water lilies. Lacquer combs anchored her upswept hairdo. "What's going on?" she called.
"I'm playing detective," Masahiro answered. "Lieutenant Tanuma is the murder victim."
"Not again!" Reiko sighed.
She wasn't sure what to make of her son's game. On the one hand, she was proud of his cleverness, his imagination. Most boys his age only played ball or fought mock battles. On the other hand, Reiko was concerned about his preoccupation with violent death. He had seen too much of it in his short life, and had even killed, in self-defense. Reiko and Sano blamed their life at the center of political turmoil, and their habit of talking too freely about the murder cases they'd investigated together. They'd thought Masahiro was too young to understand what they were saying, but they'd been wrong.
Masahiro pretended to stumble upon Lieutenant Tanuma. "What's this?" he exclaimed, and laughed. "Oh, a corpse!"
Reiko didn't know whether to be glad he had a sense of humor after everything that had happened to him, or worried that his experiences had made him callous, or simply horrified that he'd invented such a ghoulish pastime.
"What is that red substance on Lieutenant Tanuma's clothes?" she asked, hoping it wasn't actually blood.
"It's ink," Masahiro said.
"You shouldn't make Lieutenant Tanuma play with you," Reiko said. "It's not his job."
Tanuma was her chief bodyguard when she went outside the estate. "I don't mind," he said. A homely, serious young man, he'd replaced Reiko's favorite, Lieutenant Asukai, who'd died last year in the line of duty. Reiko still missed the handsome, gallant, and adventurous Asukai, who had saved her life more than once. But Tanuma did his own, solemn best. "Anything to entertain the young master."
"Don't spoil him," Reiko protested.
Masahiro was rummaging through the reeds. "Where's the murder weapon? I put it right down here."
Giggles issued from behind a flower bed. Out peeked Masahiro's two-year-old sister, Akiko. She held up a dagger whose blade was stained red.