The Iris Fan

by Laura Joh Rowland

  That was good for Dengoro, bad for Sano’s hope of proving that Lord Ienobu was responsible for the attack on the shogun and the witness’s death.

  Mura took up a knife and cut the robe off the body. Dengoro’s skin was smooth, unmarked except for the measles and a scab on a skinned knee. Mura turned the body over, with the same disappointing results.

  “Any wounds or blood on him?” Dr. Ito asked.

  “None,” Sano said.

  “He could have been poisoned,” Dr. Ito said. “That’s a common way of making a murder look like a natural death. Examine his mouth.”

  Mura laid the body on its back and used a bamboo stick to push back the flaccid lips. Sano peered at grayish-pink gums, tongue, and throat. “No burns or swelling.” Had his instincts steered him wrong? Were they, like his physical strength, compromised by age? Suspicious timing didn’t mean Dengoro’s death was in fact murder.

  “An autopsy might or might not reveal signs of poison,” Dr. Ito said. “Some poisons are undetectable.”

  Loath to subject Dengoro to an autopsy on the off chance that evidence would turn up, Sano said, “Let me take a closer look at him before Mura does any cutting.” He held a lantern near the body while he examined Dengoro, starting at his head and moving downward. Something on Dengoro’s thigh caught his attention—what looked to be a smudge of dirt in an odd place. His instincts quickened in spite of his cautioning himself not to imagine clues. He asked Mura for a magnifying glass and held it over the smudge. Enlarged, it took on a blue color and revealed a distinctive pattern of curved lines and whorls. Sano’s heart thumped.

  “What is it?” Dr. Ito sounded impatient because he sensed that Sano had found something he couldn’t see.

  “A bruise shaped like a fingerprint.”

  Recollection shone in Dr. Ito’s blind eyes. “I’ve seen that before. Once.”

  “Fourteen years ago,” Sano agreed. “During my investigation into the series of deaths of high-ranking officials. They were murdered by dim-mak.”

  Dim-mak, the touch of death. It was the ancient martial arts technique of delivering a light tap that the victim might not even feel but was nonetheless fatal—sometimes immediately, sometimes days afterward. The speed of death was directly proportional to the force the killer used. The energy from the tap traveled through the victim’s body to the brain and caused a hemorrhage that oozed blood until the victim dropped dead.

  “Very few people have ever mastered the technique,” Dr. Ito reminded Sano. “Could this be the same killer as in your previous case?”

  “No. He’s dead. I’m sure because I killed him.” This investigation seemed like a tangle of sharp-edged vines from which he’d been trying to fight his way out. Now a tendril he hadn’t noticed glowed with the red-hot light of revelation and slipped free of the tangle.

  “Do you know of anyone else who is capable of dim-mak?” Dr. Ito asked.

  “Yes.” The clue that Sano had never expected seemed to pulse like a cut vein, pumping out poisoned sap that burned his flesh. It wasn’t going to prove Lord Ienobu was responsible for the attack on the shogun, turn his allies against him, or stop the war. It explained so much, and in hindsight made perfect sense; yet it pointed Sano in a direction he was so loath to go.

  “Hirata.”

  31

  IN A SECLUDED garden inside Lord Mori’s estate, moonlight shone through the mist around a picturesque wooden cottage. Light from the windows gilded the snowy grass. Inside the cottage, Masahiro and his new bride stood on opposite sides of a bed laid on the floor. Kikuko smiled. Her eyes, her long black hair, her pale skin, and the white silk of her wedding kimono gleamed. Masahiro stared at her and gulped.

  He’d been ready to hate Kikuko because she wasn’t the girl he’d wanted to marry. But he felt a heart-pounding attraction to her. His promise to Taeko had been easy to make before he’d seen Kikuko, whom he’d barely remembered from when they’d been children, but he couldn’t tear his gaze off her. He grew erect at the very thought that she was his wife, that he could bed her tonight.

  He had to keep his promise. He was in love with Taeko, and he wanted to be true to her, but his guilt didn’t lessen his desire for Kikuko.

  Kikuko skipped around the bed. He couldn’t help turning toward her. She tilted her head, batted her eyes, and said, “I like you.”

  Masahiro knew she was feebleminded, but his body didn’t care. He wanted her with an urgency he’d never felt before. He backed away from Kikuko. It reminded him of the time he’d grabbed a metal spear during martial arts practice on a freezing day. His fingers had stuck to it, and when he’d pulled them free, pieces of his skin had ripped off.

  A frown wrinkled Kikuko’s smooth brow. “Don’t you like me?”

  This wasn’t her fault, and Masahiro didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She’d had no more choice in the matter than he. It was a good thing that she probably didn’t know what a bride and groom were supposed to do on their wedding night.

  “I’m just tired,” Masahiro said. “I’m going to sleep.”

  With an expression that was strangely adult yet disconcertingly childish, she placed her hand against his bare chest above the neckline of his kimono. Her fingers were soft and warm. Gasping, Masahiro flung her hand off him. “Don’t touch me!”

  “Why not?” Kikuko asked in a pouty, wheedling voice. “I can make you feel good. Don’t you want to feel good?”

  Masahiro was astonished. She sounded like the bathhouse girls he’d sometimes visited before he and Taeko had fallen in love. She squeezed his erection. The pleasure made him groan. She giggled. “You like that, don’t you?”

  “No! Leave me alone!”

  “Would you like to see me?” Kikuko untied her sash, let her white silk kimono and red under-kimono drop to the floor, and stood naked, preening like a little girl. Her body was slim, her skin sleek, her breasts bigger than they’d looked under her clothes. Her long hair fell over her narrow waist and curved hips, tickled her crotch. Masahiro was so hard that the pressure from his loincloth hurt. He breathed as if he were running too fast. He tried to avert his eyes from Kikuko, but they wouldn’t move.

  She cupped her breasts in her hands, teasing her nipples into pink buds. She dimpled with mischievous pleasure. “Wouldn’t you like to make me feel good, too?”

  Masahiro trembled with his desire and his effort to stanch it. His lips moved in a silent curse or plea. Kikuko inserted her finger between her legs, then held it up. It glistened wetly. As Masahiro watched, thrilled and horrified, she put her finger to her mouth, licked it, and purred. She seemed to know everything he liked, everything he would never ask of Taeko because Taeko was too good. As Kikuko tore off his clothes, he let her. He let her push him onto the bed. Crouching over him, she nuzzled, cooed, and murmured down his chest and belly. She took his erection in her mouth and sucked. The sensation was so arousing that Masahiro nearly climaxed right then. Shocked by her behavior, desperate not to betray Taeko, he pushed Kikuko away.

  “Where did you learn this?” he demanded.

  Saliva drooled down her chin as she smiled. “From Daiemon and Genzo.”

  “Who are they?”

  “They work for my papa. He doesn’t know they’re my friends. Neither does Mama. It’s a secret.” Kikuko positioned herself on her hands and knees on the bed, her bottom pointed toward Masahiro. Looking over her shoulder, she said, “Do you want to play dogs?”

  It was irresistible. Masahiro tried to think of Taeko, but her face was a blur in his mind. All he could see was Kikuko’s bare buttocks, the cleft between them, and her saucy smile. He tried to remember how much he loved Taeko, but only Kikuko was here now and real. Hating his weakness and faithlessness, Masahiro knelt behind Kikuko. As he plunged into her, his last coherent thought was that Taeko would never have to know.

  * * *

  TAEKO STOOD IN the snow outside the cottage, sobbing as she spied on Masahiro and Kikuko through a hole she’d torn in the paper windowpan
e. They didn’t hear her. They were moaning too loudly while Masahiro held Kikuko by her hips and rammed himself against her. Taeko watched in misery and disbelief.

  Masahiro couldn’t even keep his promise for one day! He’d said he loved her, but look at him! His eyes were closed, his mouth open. Sweat glistened on his skin. Taeko had never seen him so excited. Not that she’d ever really seen him while they’d made love; they’d always done it in the dark. He plunged so wildly that his penis slipped out of Kikuko for a moment. Taeko wailed. This was her first clear sight of Masahiro naked, and he was with someone else!

  Her anger at his faithlessness turned on herself. She wasn’t beautiful or exciting enough for him. She hadn’t even known that people did the things she was seeing! Kikuko was beautiful, and she was giving Masahiro what he liked, so why shouldn’t he want to be with her? Taeko cried so hard that she choked. Self-hatred consumed her as she beheld her rival.

  Kikuko panted. Her breasts jiggled while Masahiro coupled with her. She rocked forward and backward, her buttocks meeting his thrusts, crying, “It feels so good!”

  Taeko moaned, tore at her hair, and clawed her face. Kikuko was married to Masahiro. She didn’t have to sneak around to make love to him, and she could be as noisy as she wanted. Taeko couldn’t console herself with the thought that she was the one Masahiro loved. Masahiro threw back his head, arched his back, rammed Kikuko hard, and shouted as he climaxed and shuddered. Kikuko squealed, “Yes, yes, yes!” Taeko’s tears blurred their images. They were so passionate, they would surely fall in love, and Taeko would be where she was now—alone in the cold. She felt an ache in the pit of her belly, as if the baby was also suffering.

  Masahiro and Kikuko collapsed onto the bed together. Kikuko stroked Masahiro’s heaving chest and cooed. Taeko wanted to rush into the cottage, tear them apart, and yell, “You can’t have him! He’s mine!” But he wasn’t. He never would be. Taeko couldn’t bear to watch any longer. She turned and ran.

  * * *

  WHEN SANO AND Marume returned from the morgue, Yanagisawa was waiting for them, tapping his foot as they crawled up through the trapdoor. They joined him in the chamber in which a lacquer chest, now pushed aside, had concealed the secret exit. His nose wrinkled at their odor of cesspools.

  “What did you learn?” He sounded skeptical yet hopeful.

  “Nothing,” Sano said. He and Marume had agreed not to tell Yanagisawa about the fingerprint. Yanagisawa wouldn’t care; the fact of the boy’s murder wasn’t ammunition against Lord Ienobu. And Sano still felt compelled to protect Hirata, bound by a loyalty that persisted in spite of everything. Although Marume disliked Hirata and wouldn’t have minded holding him accountable for the murder, he disliked Yanagisawa more. He saw no good in giving Yanagisawa ammunition against someone Sano cared about. And both Sano and Marume realized that Hirata’s role in the boy’s murder put the attack on the shogun in an entirely different light.

  “The boy died of the measles,” Sano said.

  Yanagisawa looked as if he’d expected as much but was disappointed anyway. “No more wild-goose chases. I’m going to bed. I suggest you do the same.” Striding out the door, he called, “It might be our last chance of sleep for a long time. Tomorrow we attack Lord Ienobu.”

  Sano had failed again—failed to protect his family and the shogun, failed to solve the crime. He and Marume exchanged troubled yet elated glances. The war they’d never thought to see in their lifetime was nigh. They hurried to their quarters. Marume went to tell Sano’s other men. A lamp glowed in the chamber where Sano found Reiko. She sat up in bed, put her finger to her lips, and pointed at Akiko, asleep beside her; she started to turn away from Sano.

  “I have to talk to you,” Sano said in a quiet, pleading voice.

  Reiko’s expression warned him not to try to placate her with futile apologies. They both felt the absence of Masahiro, who was with his new bride. Sano said, “We’re attacking Lord Ienobu at the castle tomorrow.”

  She merely nodded, unsurprised.

  “Hirata murdered the boy.”

  “What?” Reiko exclaimed, startled out of her aloofness. Akiko stirred. Reiko lowered her voice. “How do you know?”

  At least she was finally willing to talk to him. Sano explained about the bruise. Reiko put her hands to her cheeks, dropped them, and said, “But why do you think it was Hirata? Why not one of his friends from the secret society?”

  “It’s as if they’ve disappeared from the face of the earth. But there have been sightings of Hirata. It has to be him.”

  “Not some other martial artist?” Reiko sounded anxious to exonerate Hirata.

  “Maybe some other martial artist is able to kill with a touch, but Hirata is the one who’s in league with a ghost that wants to make Lord Ienobu the next shogun.”

  “How would killing the boy accomplish that?”

  “I think Dengoro really did see or hear something when the shogun was stabbed. Something that implicates Lord Ienobu and that he would have remembered eventually.”

  Reiko followed Sano’s logic. “If he’d talked about it, the shogun might have heard and believed it and put Lord Ienobu to death.”

  “Hirata killed the boy to protect Lord Ienobu.” Sano knelt, sharing a rare moment of rapport with Reiko as they saw the cold-blooded murder of an innocent child added to their friend’s list of misdeeds.

  Reiko cautiously broached the subject they both would rather avoid. “What else might Hirata have done?” She was finally willing to admit that Hirata had turned bad.

  His discovery that Hirata was involved in the case forced Sano to view it in a new light. “I think he planted the evidence against Tomoe and Lord Yoshimune. Putting the blame for the stabbing on them would get Lord Ienobu off the hook.”

  “It would get Lady Nobuko off, too.” Reiko frowned at the thought of her enemy benefiting from Hirata’s crime. “Do you think…?” She hesitated, reluctant to voice the next logical question. “Could it be Hirata who tried to kill the shogun?”

  The awful possibility had occurred to Sano. Perhaps everything he’d thought he’d learned during his investigation was wrong; perhaps Hirata—not Lord Ienobu—was responsible for the stabbing. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you think Hirata would draw the line at murdering his lord?”

  “I think that if Hirata had wanted to kill the shogun, he wouldn’t have failed. Then again, he wouldn’t have wanted anyone to know it was him. Maybe he tried to make it look as if the shogun was stabbed by someone who didn’t know how.” Sano was still reluctant to believe Hirata had stooped so low and Lord Ienobu was innocent.

  “We thought Lady Nobuko, Madam Chizuru, and Tomoe were the only suspects. Hirata is a new one we almost missed. What else might we not be seeing?”

  “I have to find out, even if it means starting the investigation over.” Sano looked ahead to a formidable challenge at the worst conceivable time. “I’ll start with Hirata.”

  Hostility crept back into Reiko’s expression. “This is bad for Midori and the children.”

  Her sympathies clearly still lay with them. Sano felt the fragile rapport between him and Reiko disintegrate as he said, “If Hirata is guilty of the assassination attempt on the shogun as well as Dengoro’s murder, then I have to bring him to justice. I’ve already let him slide for too long.” Whatever Hirata had done since Sano had learned about his treasonous activities was, in effect, Sano’s fault. “But if he’s innocent, I must clear his name.”

  “How can you investigate anything? Didn’t you say the war is starting tomorrow?”

  “I don’t have much time, but I have to try. The shogun ordered me to find out who’s responsible for stabbing him.” Sano believed that investigating Hirata would lead him to the truth, whatever it was. “It could be his last order to me.”

  The demands of Bushido had never seemed so urgent—or so onerous. Thus far the truth Sano had thought would save the day had only made things worse for his family and Hirata’s. But
Sano could no more ignore his duty than live without air to breathe.

  “What are you going to do?” Reiko lay down in bed and turned away from Sano.

  Sano imagined how angry she would be if she knew he’d turned down the final deal with Lord Ienobu, the one offered when he’d gone to fetch Ienobu back to Edo Castle. “Yanagisawa won’t like it, but I feel another wild-goose chase coming on.”

  32

  THE MORNING MIST in the air condensed into drizzle as Taeko stood alone on the veranda of the guest quarters. Her eyes were red and swollen, her cheeks puffy under the white makeup she’d put on to hide the scratches she’d gouged on them last night. She shivered despite her heavy cloak, but she couldn’t go back inside the house, where she would have to face her family. If they showed her any sympathy, she would start crying again, and she didn’t want to cry. She knew Masahiro would come to her, and she had to be strong enough to do what must be done.

  The door behind her opened, and she heard his steps. Her body tensed. She glanced sideways at him, and his smile stabbed her heart.

  “No chaperone today,” Masahiro said. “We’re in luck.” He put his arm around her. She flung it off. “Hey, what’s the matter?” He sounded puzzled, hurt.

  She drew a deep, shaky breath. “I’ve been thinking.” Her voice came out barely audible. She cleared her throat. “I’ve been thinking … it’s best if we don’t see each other anymore.”

  “What?” Fear tinged the shock in Masahiro’s voice. “Why?”