"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.
"Hey! You stole it!" Masahiro said. "Give it to me!"
As he stalked toward Akiko, she ran. "Come here, you little thief!" He chased her while she waved the dagger and laughed, her pigtails and the skirt of her pink kimono flying. She was happy to have the attention of the big brother she adored, who was always too busy to play with her. Reiko gasped in alarm.
"That's a real dagger! Masahiro, you know you shouldn't leave weapons lying around where your sister can get at them. She could hurt herself!"
Reiko joined the chase. When she finally caught Akiko, she was breathless and perspiring, her hair windblown. She took away the dagger and said, "The game is over."
Lieutenant Tanuma got to his feet, bowed, and made a quick exit. Masahiro said, "But Mother-"
"Don't you have lessons to study?" Reiko said.
"I'm finished."
"Then practice martial arts."
"I already did."
"Can't you play other games that don't involve weapons or murder?"
"Yes, but this is the most exciting." As he traipsed off toward the house with Akiko tagging after him, Masahiro added wistfully, "It's been a long time since anything exciting has happened around here."
It had been more than a year, Reiko thought, since Lord Matsudaira's death had put an end to the political strife that had threatened their family. Reiko shuddered to think of that dreadful time, when she and her children had lived in a state of siege, prisoners in their own home, under constant guard. Lord Matsudaira's final attack had come from assassins he'd planted in the house hold. Reiko and the children had barely escaped death. She still had nightmares. She didn't miss those days, and she was disconcerted to see that Masahiro did.