As Hirata doggedly persevered, Midori came hurrying toward him. “Husband! What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Hirata said, annoyed by the interruption.

“Oh.” Midori’s face took on a familiar look of reluctant forbearance. She understood how important his training was to him, but she thought it kept him away from home and his duties too much and the risks outweighed the benefits.

“What do you want?” Hirata asked.

“Here’s Detective Oda.” Midori had brought the samurai with her. “He wants to tell you something.”

She flounced away. As Oda approached him, Hirata tried an experiment. He formed a mental image of himself lunging at Oda and projected his mental energy in a wordless, violent threat toward the detective.

Oda joined Hirata in the pavilion. “What’s the matter?” he said with a laugh. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Never mind,” Hirata said curtly. His mental attack should have frightened Oda, but his powers weren’t working any better than they had at the temple.

Maybe Midori was right.

“Tell me the news,” Hirata said.

“I’ve investigated Lord Mori’s stepson’s alibi,” Detective Oda said. “I rode to Totsuka and found that Enju seems to have spent the night of the murder at an inn there. His name was signed in the guest book. It’s also in the records at the checkpoints along the highway between Totsuka and Edo.”

“When do the records say he came back to town?”

“The afternoon of the day you discovered Lord Mori’s body.”

“So it looks as if Enju didn’t have opportunity to kill his stepfather.” Hirata was disappointed, but Enju wasn’t cleared yet. Records didn’t tell the whole story. “Did you find anyone along the road who actually recognized him and remembers seeing him?”

“I asked hundreds of people, but no,” Oda said. “The innkeeper and some checkpoint officials recalled a man who went by the name Mori Enju. Their descriptions seem to match him. But we can’t be sure that it was really him they saw, or someone else using and signing his name.”

“He could have sent someone else out there while he stayed home and murdered Lord Mori. The estate is so big he could have hidden there with no one the wiser.” But Hirata knew this was pure speculation.

“There is a bit of news that might please you,” Detective Oda said. “I talked to a patrol guard who knows Enju and remembered him, but not from this trip. He ran into Enju and Lord Mori traveling from their province to Edo just after the New Year. He overheard them arguing on the road.”

“Oh? What did they say?”

“The guard thinks Enju said something like, ”No. I won’t do it. Not ever again.“ Lord Mori said, ”You’ll do as I say.“ Enju was furious. He rode off, calling over his shoulder, ”You’ll be sorry.“ ”

“Well,” Hirata said, gratified, “it sounds as if things weren’t as perfect between them as Lady Mori said. Enju certainly bears more investigating.”

“That may be difficult because nobody inside the Mori estate will talk about the family,” Detective Oda said.

“Even if nobody inside wants to talk, someone outside might,” Hirata said.

Seated on the dais in the audience chamber, Reiko took a deep breath, steadying herself for a confrontation that would not be pleasant.

Two guards walked into the room, escorting Colonel Kubota. He was a samurai in his forties with a proud carriage that compensated for his short stature. He wore an ornate armor tunic and metal leg guards, but Reiko knew it was all for show. He spent his days inspecting and drilling troops; he rarely practiced martial arts himself. During the war he’d sat on his horse at the edge of the battlefield, yelling orders to the soldiers; his sword had never left its scabbard.

He used what combat skills he had in more intimate quarters.

He had bland, soft features, his mouth upturned in a permanent smile. Wrinkles around his eyes signified good humor. But his gaze was hard and cruel as he beheld Reiko.

She nodded at her guards. They left, but she’d given them orders to wait outside the door in case she needed them.

Colonel Kubota dispensed with formal courtesies required of a visitor. “How dare you have me dragged away from my work and brought to you?” His voice was quiet, but threatened to blare into furious shouting. Reiko had heard it happen before. “What’s this all about?”

“Greetings. Please be seated.” Suppressing her revulsion toward him, Reiko gestured to the floor below and opposite her.

He knelt, bristling with resentment. “If you weren’t the honorable chamberlain’s wife, I wouldn’t have come. I’d just as soon spit on you.” Although his features remained set in their pleasant lines, anger burned in his eyes. “Isn’t it enough that you destroyed my marriage? What more do you want with me?”

“I must remind you that you were the one who destroyed your marriage,” Reiko said evenly. “You beat your wife for twenty years. When I met her last summer, she had bruises all over her body. She had dizzy spells because you’d banged her head against a stone floor.”

“A man can treat his wife however he pleases,” Colonel Kubota huffed. “It’s her duty to submit to him. Setsu had no right to bring you into a private family matter.”

His wife had heard of Reiko’s services to people in trouble and turned to her for help. Reiko remembered how the small, frightened woman had sat in this very room, whispering her tale of torture at the hands of her husband. When Reiko had agreed to rescue her, Lady Setsu had wept with gratitude. She’d also warned Reiko that the colonel would turn his wrath on her.

“You had no right to interfere,” he said. “You had no right to take the law into your hands and get Setsu a divorce.”

“Someone needed to interfere. And the law should protect innocent citizens from harm.” Reiko had gone to her father the magistrate, explained Lady Setsu’s plight, and asked him to intervene on her behalf. Magistrate Ueda had granted the divorce, against Colonel Kubota’s wishes, in the Court of Justice. He’d also decreed that if Kubota went near his wife, he would be sentenced to live as an outcast for three years. The decree was not just unconventional, but unheard of. Colonel Kubota had exploded in a fit of rage and shouted curses at his wife, at the magistrate, and most of all at Reiko.

“You took Setsu away from me.” His smile was ugly, distorted by animosity. Reiko knew he wasn’t angry at her because he loved and missed his wife. “Now she’s living in my country villa that you had the magistrate steal from me, on money that he forced me to settle on her.”

“It was only fair that you should return the dowry she brought to your marriage,” Reiko said. “That villa was part of it. She deserved some compensation for her years of suffering.”

“You did more than compensate her.” Kubota bunched his fists, as though ready to strike Reiko. “You severed my connection with an important clan. You disgraced me in public.” Fury tensed the sinews in his neck. Hatred blazed like flames from him. On the verge of exploding as he had in the Court of Justice, he said, “Someday I’ll take my revenge on you.”

“Maybe you already have,” Reiko said.

Perplexity mingled with his rage. “What are you jabbering about now?

“Lord Mori has been murdered, and I’ve been framed. I’m wondering if you had something to do with that.”

“Oh. I see.” Colonel Kubota’s eyes kindled with malicious enjoyment. “You’re in trouble, and you think I’m to blame.”

“Are you?” Reiko asked.

“What in the world gave you that idea?”

Other than the fact that you hate me? “You knew Lord Mori fairly well,” Reiko said, aware of court gossip.

“Yes. So what?” Disdain and impatience tinged his voice.

“If you paid him a visit, he would have let you into his private quarters.”

“If I did,” the colonel said.

Reiko watched Kubota closely, but all she saw was his familiar rage behind his bland, smiling features. “Perhaps you saw me there. Perhaps you saw a good opportunity to pay me back for the problems I caused you.”