Red Chrysanthemum

by Laura Joh Rowland

  The guard halted. Hoshina’s lips moved in a soundless curse. Sano said, “You’d have done better to kill her to keep her quiet. Did you think you could hide her until Lord Mori’s murder case was settled, then bring her back to court and use her again?”

  “Do you think you can hide her while you try to wiggle your way out of trouble?” Hoshina’s eyes gleamed with his intent to brazen his own way out of trouble. “I have an idea: Let’s both go visit Lady Nyogo and ask her what the truth is.”

  “Forget it.” Sano wasn’t allowing Hoshina near the only person who could remove suspicion from Reiko and himself and point it elsewhere.

  “If you expect her to do you any good, you can’t keep her under wraps forever. You’ll have to bring her forward to testify in your defense.” And I’ll get her before she can, said Hoshina’s grin.

  “You overestimate your abilities,” Sano said. “Do you really want to gamble that you can come out ahead of me? Miss your chance at Lady Nyogo, and she’ll reveal that you forced her to trick the shogun. He won’t like that you played him for a fool. And Lord Matsudaira won’t like that you clouded the waters around the murder case by using it to further your personal ambitions. You’ll find yourself kneeling on the execution ground with your hands chained behind your back and your head lying in the dirt in front of you.”

  “That’s wishful thinking,” Hoshina scoffed.

  But Sano saw through Hoshina to his weak core of insecurity. His cowardice trembled behind the nerve he wore like an armor suit that was too big. “If you want to die, fine. But I’m going to give you a chance to save your life.”

  Hoshina narrowed and shifted his eyes, suspecting a trick, calculating risks.

  “Admit to the shogun and Lord Matsudaira that Lady Nyogo falsely incriminated my wife and me in her seance because you ordered her to do it,” Sano said, “and I’ll lighten your sentence.”

  “My sentence? For what?” Hoshina seemed to realize that Sano was talking about more than the penalty for deceiving their superiors. Fright showed on his face.

  “For murdering Lord Mori,” Sano said.

  He’d hoped to surprise Hoshina into betraying some sign of guilt. But Hoshina’s mouth fell open in shock that was either genuine or such a good imitation of an innocent, wrongly accused man that Sano had underestimated his acting talent.

  “I didn’t murder him,” Hoshina said. “You must be insane!”

  “You stood to benefit from the murder,” Sano said. “Frame my wife, bring me down at the same time.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Hoshina demanded, “How would I have framed Lady Reiko? How would I have even known she was in the Mori estate?”

  “The same way you know many other things that happen around Edo,” Sano said, alluding to the police’s network of spies. “Accept my offer, and I’ll convince Lord Matsudaira to let you keep your head.”

  Hoshina spat air. “I was at a banquet at the treasury minister’s house that night. There were twenty other guests. They’ll tell you I was with them. It lasted until dawn. I couldn’t have killed Lord Mori.”

  This alibi didn’t alleviate Sano’s suspicions. “You have plenty of people to do your dirty work for you.”

  “Why would I have killed Lord Mori? He was an important ally of Lord Matsudaira.” Increasingly agitated, Hoshina stomped in a circle, as if trapped in the logic that Sano was weaving around him and trying to bull his way out. “Merciful gods, do you think I’m as mad as you are?

  “Give up now, and maybe you won’t even be banished,” Sano said. “I’ve heard that you’re having problems with the daimyo class. You’ve been charging them big fees for police protection, then harassing their troops unless they pay.” Sano had his own spy network to thank for the information. “The last thing Lord Matsudaira needs is trouble between his regime and the daimyo. The last thing you want is trouble between you and him. And trouble is what you’ll get if he should find out that you’ve been robbing his allies to pay for enlarging your house.”

  “Shut up!” Hoshina yelled. “That’s none of your business. It has nothing to do with the murder.”

  “Did Lord Mori threaten to report you? Is that why he had to die?” Sano added, “If you make a deal with me, I won’t tell Lord Matsudaira what you’ve been up to. I may even be generous enough to let you keep your post. This is your last chance.”

  Hoshina stopped circling; he faced Sano. There was a long moment of silence fraught with his urge to leap at immediate salvation rather than trust his ability to weather the future. Then he said, “For the last time, I didn’t kill Lord Mori.” Each word was spoken through teeth bared in a snarl and underscored with antagonism. “And you can’t prove I did. You can take your offer and shove it up your behind.”

  Detectives Marume and Fukida and Sano’s guards bolted toward him, ready to avenge the insult to their master. Hoshina’s men surged to restrain them. The room vibrated with tense muscles and breaths held.

  “You’ll regret that you turned me down,” Sano said evenly. “You’re not as good at covering your tracks as you think you are. When I’m finished with this investigation, we’ll see who wins this ridiculous feud that you’ve been waging with me.”

  Hoshina laughed, reckless. “Why wait until then?” Sweat droplets glistened on his forehead. “Let’s settle things right now. Bring Lady Nyogo before the shogun and Lord Matsudaira. I won’t stop you or lift a finger against her. We’ll just see who believes her or not.”

  Sano was vexed because Hoshina had called his bluff. Lady Nyogo was the only card he held, and it was too risky to play. Even if she did admit the truth about the seance to their superiors, it was anyone’s guess how they would react. In the past Sano had always managed to bring them around to his point of view, but there was always a first time. And Sano had goaded Hoshina into fighting for survival just as hard as Sano would. To take his stand now was tantamount to riding into battle with an untested sword. And the stakes—Reiko’s life as well as his own—were too high.

  Especially with mounting evidence that Reiko was guilty and his own worsening doubts that she was hiding facts that could incriminate her.

  “We’ll see,” was all Sano could say.

  He and his entourage strode from the room with as much dignity as they could muster, on a burst of Hoshina’s laughter. “You’re afraid,” Hoshina called after them. “You’re afraid you’ll lose!”

  Outside, while they mounted their horses, Detective Marume said, “Good try, but mat didn’t go exactly how we planned.”

  “Thank you for pointing it out,” Sano said as they rode through the administrative district and the rain showered them. For that one moment he’d almost had Hoshina!

  “If you don’t mind my saying, you should have gotten rid of that bastard a long time ago,” Marume said. “It would have saved you a lot of trouble.”

  “Maybe.” Even though he saw the benefits of political assassination, Sano felt bound by honor to resist the temptation. He was sick of Hoshina’s schemes, but sicker at the thought of becoming as corrupt, self-serving, and destructive as his predecessor.

  “It’s not too late,” Fukida said.

  Sano smiled wryly. “Hoshina is worth more to me alive than dead right now, even though I agree that I’ll have to eliminate him somehow and very soon.” He could feel a showdown coming like a distant fire through a forest. “He’s my primary suspect. I can’t kill him before I can place the blame for the murder on his shoulders—if in fact he deserves it.”

  “Well, I don’t think we’ll get any further with him,” Marume said. “What’s our next move?”

  “We’ll try another path to the truth,” Sano said. “If Hoshina is guilty, it’s bound to lead us back to him.”

  22

  An uncomfortable ride in the kago took Reiko to the south end of the Nihonbashi Bridge that spanned Edo’s main canal. Here was the geographical center of the town, the spot from which all distances in Japan were measured, and the starting point
of the Tokaido, the road that linked Edo with the Imperial Capital in Miyako. Travelers arriving in or leaving town crowded around large wooden placards, bearing official notices, that were erected near the foot of the bridge. At quays spread along the canal, dockworkers hauled bamboo poles, vegetables, barrels of sake, lumber, and bales of rice from boats to warehouses. The kago bearers stopped at Reiko’s destination, the entrance to a road beyond a wholesale market.

  Lieutenant Asukai and her other escorts, who’d ridden on horseback some fifty paces behind her, caught up with her as she heaved herself out of the basket-chair. She asked the bearers to wait for her. Her escorts walked with her past the shops and food stalls along the street, which was divided at midpoint by a deep, narrow drainage canal. Crossing the bamboo bridge, she paused to gaze at the brown water that flowed sluggishly between steep stone embankments, the scene of a murder two years ago.

  A dead thirteen-year-old girl named Akiko had been pulled out by garbage collectors who’d spotted her floating corpse.At first it seemed an unfortunate accident—she d slipped on the muddy path, fallen in the water, and drowned. But when her family had prepared her body for the funeral, they’d discovered bruises around her neck. She’d been strangled to death, then dumped in the canal.

  “It’s a disgrace that somebody could do that,” Lieutenant Asukai said, echoing Reiko’s thoughts. “Especially since she was with child.”

  Her family had also discovered that Akiko was pregnant, a fact she’d hidden beneath loose clothing. Reiko felt her stomach muscles tighten around her own unborn child as she said, “He was desperate. But that’s no excuse for murder.”

  “At least he didn’t get away with it,” Asukai said.

  They proceeded to a building that contained a barbershop in which men sat smoking and chatting while barbers trimmed their hair or shaved their faces. Reiko and her guards went down a passage to the rear of the building, which faced the backs of other shops across an alley. When she knocked on the door to the proprietor’s living quarters, a maid answered.

  “I’ve come to visit your mistress,” Reiko said.

  The maid looked down her nose at Reiko’s humble garments. “Whom should I tell her is calling?”

  “Lady Reiko.”

  The name dissolved the maid’s haughtiness: She knew Reiko was always welcome in this house. “Please come in.”

  She seated Reiko and Lieutenant Asukai in a parlor that contained modest but good-quality furnishings—fresh tatami and cushions covered with tasteful, printed fabric on the floor, a wall of polished wooden cabinets. An altar in the corner held an unlit candle and incense burner, a rice cake and sake cup, and a doll with a rosy china face, dressed in a red kimono.

  A woman hurried in. She was small and fragile, in her thirties but with hair streaked with gray and soft skin lined by hardship. “Lady Reiko!” she exclaimed. “How wonderful to see you again.”

  Reiko saw as much pain as pleasure in her smile. She regretted the bad memories that the sight of her had surely revived in the woman.

  “I’m sorry to arrive without warning. I hope I’m not causing you too much trouble.”

  “None at all,” the woman said. She knelt and bowed to Lieutenant Asukai. “May I offer you both some refreshments?”

  “No, thank you, we’ve already eaten,” Reiko said in customary, polite response.

  “Oh, but you must have something. And I must fetch my husband.”

  “I wouldn’t want to take him away from his work.”

  “Don’t worry. He’ll want to see you.”

  She summoned servants, who spread a lavish repast of tea, cakes, and wine before Reiko and Lieutenant Asukai. Reiko was moved yet shamed by the generosity that she felt she’d done little to deserve. After they’d eaten, the barber joined them.

  “Greetings!” His voice was hearty, his face a likeable blend of intelligence and good nature. He smelled of the camellia oil he used to dress his customers’ hair. “It’s been a long time since we last met. I hope you’re well?” His gaze noted her thickened figure. “Shall I wish you congratulations?”

  Reiko saw memory dim his eyes. “Yes. Thank you.”

  The sight of a pregnant woman must forever cause him pain. The sad shadow of Akiko darkened the room. Her baby had died with her; she would never give her parents grandchildren. Everyone looked at the altar that enshrined her favorite doll.

  “It is we who should thank you, Lady Reiko,” the barber said. His wife nodded. “You brought our daughter’s killer to justice when no one else would.”

  The police had given Akiko’s murder scant attention because they were busy helping the army hunt fugitive rebels. After a few cursory inquiries, they’d concluded that Akiko had been killed by a stranger passing through the neighborhood. Her parents, unsatisfied, had written to Reiko.

  Upon questioning folk in the neighborhood, she’d learned that a certain young man had been seen near the canal the night Akiko died. He was a clerk named Goro, employed by her father; he had a reputation as a bully and womanizer. At first the other workers at the barbershop had been too afraid of Goro to speak against him, but Reiko had convinced them that if they did, they wouldn’t have to worry about him anymore. They’d told her he had bragged that he’d taken advantage of Akiko. Reiko and her guards had taken him aside for a little talk.

  Cornered, he’d claimed that the girl had been his willing partner in sex. He’d claimed he hadn’t known she was pregnant and hadn’t killed her. Reiko hadn’t believed him; rather, she’d suspected he’d raped Akiko, and when she’d told him she was expecting his illegitimate child, he’d wanted to be rid of her, Reiko had convinced Magistrate Ueda to charge Goro with murder. During his trial, Goro had broken down and confessed that he’d killed Akiko because she’d threatened to tell her parents what he’d done to her and he didn’t want to lose his job.

  Now Akiko’s father said, “After Goro was convicted, I promised that I would do anything I could to repay you. If you ever need my help, all you have to do is ask.”

  “I need your help now. That’s why I’m here,” Reiko said. “Perhaps you’ve heard that Lord Mori has been murdered, and I am the chief suspect.”

  The couple exclaimed in astonishment: The news hadn’t yet trickled down the social scale to them. The barber said, “But of course you’re innocent.”

  His wife said, “No one who knows you could think you would ever do such a thing.”

  Their faith in her moved Reiko, especially since friends of her own social class had abandoned her and she’d lost faith in herself. Tears she’d kept under control threatened to flow. She said, “I’m trying to find out who killed Lord Mori and framed me. It has to be someone who wanted to hurt me or my husband or both of us.”

  “It can’t be Goro. He’s dead,” the barber said. The clerk had been executed soon after his trial.

  “I was thinking of his family,” Reiko said.

  As soon as Magistrate Ueda had pronounced Goro guilty, his parents had exploded into loud, hysterical rage. His mother had shouted at Reiko, “My son is innocent! You hounded him into confessing! May the gods strike you down and your spirit be reborn into a life of misery!” Both parents had been dragged from the court, still cursing Reiko.

  “Where are they now?” Reiko asked.

  “They moved away from the district,” said the barber.

  “Their son’s disgrace was too much for them,” his wife clarified. Her expression showed pity. “They were shunned by everyone in the neighborhood.”

  Reiko admired her generous spirit that had sympathy to spare for the suffering of their daughter’s murderer’s kin. “Can you tell me where they went?”

  The barber shook his head. “They left in the night. No one saw them go. They didn’t even tell the neighborhood headman where they were moving.”

  As she fought disappointment, Reiko said, “If you hear anything about where they might be, will you let me know immediately?”

  “Of course,” the barb
er said.

  Reiko thanked the couple for their kindness. They accompanied her and Lieutenant Asukai to the door, where the wife said, “I’ll chant prayers for good luck for you, Lady Reiko.”

  “I hope the gods listen to her,” Asukai said as he walked Reiko down the path. “What do you want to do now?”

  “Look for Goro’s family. Maybe the neighbors have heard news of them.”

  Asukai’s expression was dubious, skeptical. “They certainly had a grudge against you, but I can’t see them as capable of killing Lord Mori or setting you up. They’re just simple, merchant-class folk. How could they have gotten close enough to a daimyo to kill him, never mind think up a scheme to get you in trouble for it?”

  “I’ve already thought of that.”

  “Then how can you believe they’re responsible for what happened to you? Why spend any more time on them?”