Assassin's Touch by Laura Joh Rowland Page A

business regarding my husband is my concern.”
    “Actually, I want you both to stay,” Sano said.
    Lady Ejima gave Jozan a smug, vindicated smile. He hissed air out his mouth, flung her a look that promised she would be sorry later for insulting him, and turned, shamefaced, to Sano. “A thousand apologies for our disgraceful behavior,” he said. “We meant you no offense. How can we help you?”
    “I need to know who was with Ejima and every place that he went during the past two days,” Sano said. “Can you reconstruct his movements for me?”
    “Yes,” Jozan said. “I served as his secretary. I kept his schedule.”
    “Let’s start with the time before the horse race.”
    “My father and I had breakfast together, then worked on reports and correspondence in his office here at home.”
    “How did he spend the previous night?” Sano asked.
    Lady Ejima answered: “He was with me. In our bedchamber.”
    “The whole night?”
    “Well, no. He came home very late.”
    “We went to a banquet at the chief judicial councilor’s estate,” Jozan said.
    Sano saw the scope of his investigation expand to include many people besides Ejima’s family and the horse race crowd. “And before that?”
    “We spent the day at metsuke headquarters.” This was a complex of offices in the palace. “My father had meetings with subordinates and appointments with visitors.”
    More questioning revealed that Ejima had spent the previous night with his wife and the evening at another banquet.
    “In the afternoon, we went into town so that my father could meet with informants,” Jozan continued. “It wouldn’t do for them to come here or to headquarters.”
    Sano understood why they wanted to keep their role as informants a secret: They were bakufu underlings hired to report on their superiors, who would punish them harshly for spying. “Where did these meetings take place?”
    “At six different teahouses in Nihonbashi.”
    The investigation now expanded across even more territory, to include countless potential suspects. “I need the locations of those teahouses,” Sano said. “Also the names of everyone that Ejima saw.”
    “Certainly.”
    Jozan fetched his record book. Sano skimmed the neatly written characters. Jozan had recorded the names of the fifteen banquet guests, the twenty men who had meetings and appointments with his father, and Ejima’s informants.
    “Did you see any of these people touch your father here?” Sano tapped a finger against his head where the fingerprint bruise had appeared on Ejima.
    “No. But I wasn’t watching him every moment. I suppose they could have. And these appointments were private.” Jozan pointed to the names of three men Ejima had seen at metsuke headquarters and of all the informants. “He talked to them alone, while I stayed outside his office and the teahouses.”
    “Who else besides the people listed in this book was around your father during the past two days?” Sano said.
    Jozan visibly quailed at the prospect of trying to recollect. “His staff. Servants and guards, here and in the palace. People at the teahouses.”
    And the crowds in the city streets, Sano thought. “Write down everybody you can remember. Send me the list.”
    “Certainly,” Jozan said, daunted but game.
    Sano addressed Lady Ejima: “Can you think of anyone else who could have touched your husband?” She shook her head. Sano didn’t fail to note that she and Jozan had spent time alone with Ejima and had had the best opportunity to touch him. “Did any of the people Ejima saw have any reason to want him dead?” Sano asked them both.
    Jozan’s expression turned dubious; he clearly didn’t want to accuse important officials. “Not that I know of.”
    “I want the metsuke records on everyone who’s been executed, demoted, exiled, or otherwise harmed as a result of investigations by Ejima since he became chief. Get them to my office today.”
    Jozan hesitated; the metsuke was loath to