The Weeping Buddha

by Heather Dune Macadam

  “In Japan, a woman whose husband dies will cut off her hair in grief,” Hans said from behind her.

  A chill traced its fingers down her spine. That was not what she had wanted to hear. “Did Beka know that?”

  “She had started to study Japanese and read Kanji.”

  That did not sound like the party-girl Devon had spent high school getting in trouble with.

  They moved back across the courtyard toward the small barn that housed the zendo. Devon had spent her early childhood in such ports as Honolulu, Taiwan, and Singapore, following her father’s naval career. It made sense that she should find solace here, even if she was not looking for it. Her father and mother had taken her to many temples as a child, and when they returned to the States her father had begun meditating in the barn with his friend Hans. That was how the Northwest Woods zendo started, in an old barn that now served as a spiritual haven to a burgeoning Buddhist community in the Hamptons. By the time she was sixteen, she and Beka were referring to themselves as Buddhists, and while back then it had mostly been for shock value and a desire to be cool at school, it had stuck. Well, almost stuck; Devon considered herself a part-time Buddhist.

  Hans held the door open for her, but she reached out to touch the wood. It was well-worn, soft as cotton under her flesh and oiled by the loving touch of hands that pushed it open in search of enlightenment … Devon was only looking for answers though—enlightenment would have to wait. She stepped inside trying to remember, should she bow or shouldn’t she? When around Buddhists one could always count on bowing. She bowed as she entered the foyer. Hans did not.

  The cloakroom was neat as usual—black robes belonging to the Sangha’s monks and novices hung in a perfect row on their proper pegs with a place for their black bib-like ruksas folded neatly overhead. Devon sighed at the sense of order and home that she felt just stepping inside.

  “Can you show me what you moved?”

  “Scissors, and I swept. I did not know it was important. I thought someone was being unmindful.”

  “It’s okay, Hans. Just retrace your steps and tell me what you did. We’ll go from there.”

  He went to the supply alcove, pulled back a small black curtain, and pointed to the scissors. She put on her plastic gloves, pulled out her print kit, and dusted them carefully; there was not a complete print anywhere on the handle or the blades. “Is anything missing?”

  “A knife.”

  She waited. Hans could be sparing with words, but she knew if she listened long enough he would give her the information she was seeking.

  “The knife we use to clean the wax out of the candleholders.”

  “Was it sharp?”

  “Sharp enough.”

  “I’m going to need to get your prints, Hans.” She took out her printless pad and pressed his fingers into their appropriate section. He looked at his hands, puzzled. “Inkless,” she explained. Then she pulled the gum sheet out from under the plate and looked at his prints. She was almost positive Hans’s were the same prints on the knife back at the station. She sighed. “I think we have your knife in evidence.”

  “It was used as a weapon?” His voice betrayed his innocence.

  “I’m afraid so.” She was always surprised when people did not believe that violence existed in the world. Maybe that was why she had stopped coming to the zendo—it seemed too removed from reality. She stood up, put her print pad back in her pack, and went into the main room to see if there was anything else missing.

  They entered the main meditation chamber where the Buddha of Compassion smiled serenely down on them. The mystery of the room was diminished by the brightness of the lights, but the Buddha at the front of the room remained a commanding presence. She bowed and approached the Buddha as she had seen Hans do back when she had frequented the zendo, before her job had taken over her life. With a small brush in one hand and a magnifying glass in the other, she began to search the rice mats for any trace evidence that might explain what Beka had been up to. Except for a few more strands of dark black hair and a few daddy longlegs, there was nothing out of the ordinary or out of place, and Devon wasn’t sure that anything would have been different had she gotten there before Hans cleaned up.

  “Any idea what time Beka came here last night?”

  “We went up to the North Fork about nine o’clock.”

  “What time did you get home?”

  “One-thirty or so?” Hans’s hands were folded neatly in his lap as he answered Devon’s questions.

  She gathered the hair follicles and a few other pieces of trace fibers, then they walked out of the meditation room in awkward silence. She turned to the door to the anteroom. “Anything happen in there?”

  Beka always chose to sit in the smaller room. She had always loved the way the sun came in through the round window, and in the summer she loved the way the roses bobbed their peach and pink heads outside. She loved it most though because it was the room of the Weeping Buddha.

  The Weeping Buddha looked diminutive, swallowed up by the twilight and perhaps further burdened by the weight of death on its shoulders. Smuggled out of Tibet in the 1960s, it had journeyed long and hard to reach such an affluent resting point, but the Weeping Buddha did not look serene. Carved out of teak, its spine and ribcage were so finely detailed that Devon found her own ribs aching at the sight of it. Captured in time, this Buddha was somehow bowing forever over his legs with his forehead touching the floor and the flat of his hands pressed against his eyes in what could either be prayer or despair. From where she stood Devon felt compelled to bow, remembering the motion as most Catholics remember how to cross themselves—automatically. Her knees buckled as she knelt to the floor and touched her forehead to the ground. Palms upturned, she raised her hands to the sky as she breathed in the faded scents of hay, mildew, and sandalwood incense. Three times she knelt in gassho.

  Hans waited silently.

  She could almost see Beka sitting in front of the Weeping Buddha, imitating the painful posture of submission. Submission had never been one of Beka’s strong points, Devon mused.

  It had been a stupid fight.

  Devon sighed. She did not bother explaining herself to her Zen teacher.

  The past still haunted them, but it was past. If Devon had learned anything back in 1984 it was to always tell those you care about how you feel, just in case you never see them again. It may have seemed like a fatalistic philosophy, but it was practical considering all they had been through. How could she have forgotten such a simple rule? Why hadn’t she called Beka and apologized?

  She turned away from the figure and looked the monk in the eye. “Do you think Beka could’ve killed Gabe?” she finally asked.

  Hans’s sigh was long, almost labored. “Who can say what one is capable of when provoked?”

  “Was Gabe provoking her in some way?”

  “She wanted to talk to me about something. It could have been her koan. It could have been anything.”

  “What koan was she working on?”

  Hans stepped into the room with the Weeping Buddha, pulled a book out, and handed it to her. Devon opened the book randomly, read from something called “Chao-Chou’s Mu,” then paraphrased aloud, “Has a dog the Buddha-nature?” She looked at him and laughed. “That’s a koan?”

  “Mu.”

  “Moo?”

  “Mu. It is the word of all words, in Rinzi. It is like Ohm in Tibetan Buddhism. Mu …” The sound resonated through his mouth from deep within his chest until the vibration filled the room with two tones. She felt the furrows on her forehead relax and she shut her eyes as he chanted the holy word. When the sounds finally died away the silence around them had changed into something deeper and substantial, as if silence itself had become a sentient being. They stood in the foyer of the zendo barely moving.

  Hans opened the book to the section on more advanced koans, and read out loud:

  A monk takes a vow of silence to remain in a tree at the fork in a road until he r
eaches enlightenment. However, a traveler does not know which direction to take, and asks the monk for directions. In order to fulfill his dharma the monk must tell the man which direction to take, but to tell the man which way to go means instantaneous death. If the monk doesn’t tell the traveler his path, he will live but never fulfill his reason for being.

  It seemed like a waste of time to ponder for long. Devon knew that koans, like any puzzle, had a trick to them and that any sharpminded intellect—with or without enlightenment to aid it—could solve any koan. The question was, did she care?

  She had a lot to do in the next few hours: sleep, eat dinner, go back to work. She smiled to herself: You must solve a murder case but do not have time to eat or sleep, but if you do not eat or sleep, you cannot solve the case. That was her life’s koan.

  “Can I keep this for a few days?” she asked, referring to the book. He nodded. “Detective Brennen and Detective DeBritzi will need to speak with you.”

  “Any time is a good time.”

  “Is that a riddle or are you telling me the truth?”

  “What is truth?” His eyes twinkled at her, then he added, “I’m up by five.” He turned off the lights and placed his hand on the small of her back as they headed outside. Such a simple gesture, yet she felt stronger, and the weight of Beka’s death seemed somehow lighter.

  “What would you have done, Hans? Give directions and die?”

  “One only knows what one would do when faced with the decision.”

  “Beka died, did she leave me directions?”

  Hans bowed but said nothing.

  Walking back across the courtyard to the edge of the privet, Devon thought only that she needed to call Loch and tell him what she had not found. It suddenly seemed to her that the clues for what had happened to Gabe and Beka lay in what was not there—not in what was.

  “Come back to us anytime, Devon Halsey.” She heard Hans’s voice amid the wood chimes and tree limbs clicking in the wind.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Four Vows: Sentient beings are numberless; I vow to save them.

  —THE FOUR VOWS IN ZEN

  Loch answered Devon’s call on the first ring. He was disappointed that the prints on the knife appeared to be Hans’s and even more disappointed that there was a logical explanation for them being on the weapon. It looked like the zendo was not a crime scene per se, but perhaps it was the last place Beka had visited. According to Devon, Hans and his wife had left for the Buddhist ceremony of two hundred gongs, held at a North Shore zendo. So why would Beka Imamura leave her house on New Year’s Eve to cut her hair in an empty zendo, and then return home and kill her husband? “Why, if she was really a Buddhist, wasn’t she up on the North Shore with the rest of them?” he wondered out loud.

  “I don’t know.” Devon sounded as confused as he felt. “Hans says that in Japan, a woman cuts her hair when her husband or a loved one dies.”

  “But Beka cut her hair before Gabe was dead.”

  “Exactly.” Her phone hiccuped, cutting off his next words.

  “… any reason … cut her hair … you can think of?”

  “None.” She tried to stress the possibility that someone might have cut it for her; although there was no proof of another’s presence, Devon did not want to rule it out completely. “Hair floats, and despite Hans’s clean-up I found enough hair in the vicinity of the altar to indicate that she cut, or had it cut there.” He appreciated her keen eye. Her voice sounded suddenly distant, as if she was driving through an underpass.

  “Thanks for taking care of that scene so quickly,” he said loudly. “Gary and I will follow up with this monk character in the morning. Get some rest.” Loch hung up the phone and scribbled in his note-book. Did Beka drug Gabe, then go to the zendo? But why drug him first, unless that was her initial m.o.? What if the drugs hadn’t worked on him? She came home. He confronted her. They fought. She finished him off, realized she’d screwed up, and killed herself to save face—that’s what they called it in Japan, right? Saving face? He stopped writing and started making doodles on the page, his mind busily working through the ins and outs of three different scenarios at the same time.

  If that was the way it had happened, then that meant she had pre-meditated bringing the knife from the zendo. He scribbled in a circle until it was black. The zendo knife bothered him—it didn’t quite work as the weapon. He could see her planning an OD, going to the zendo, and cutting her hair—perhaps that was going to be her alibi, but Hans had left already. Had she then returned home only to find Gabe not only conscious, but irate? He began to write again. She might have killed him in self-defense, but why kill herself if that was the case? But what if Gabe had been out cold? That didn’t make sense—why so much violence if he was already dying? Unless she was staging something … Was that it? Had she staged a scene, choreographed it down to the last detail—the aria on the stereo? He hated theater people, give him a cop any day, anything but an actress or a dancer, they were just too high-maintenance. Everything rested on the toxicology report and he wouldn’t have that until late the next day, at the earliest …

  Devon had kept a few strands of hair from the scene unbagged so she could check them under her microscope at home. It was specially equipped with a high-powered lens for just this kind of work and she was eager to use Loch’s Christmas present. She checked the hair, which was plated and secured, then took the scissors she had borrowed from the zendo and began to cut her own hair at the angle she saw in Beka’s sample. She peered at the follicles, one black and belonging to her best friend, the other pale in comparison. She tried to follow the line of the hair, but Beka’s follicle seemed frayed or blunted—she needed a better match. Someone with Asian hair to compare with, not her own frilly locks. She stared at the hair, willing it to be the clue that would answer all of her questions. If only she knew … A cold wet nose pressed against her hand. Boo sighed. It was time for bed.

  She was tired and knew that she’d never find any answers if she couldn’t keep her eyes open tonight, when her shift began. She barely felt Boo jumping in beside her. He propped his head on her hip and stared at her for so long that she had the feeling he was trying to tell her something.

  “Go to sleep,” she whispered. He picked up his head and placed it back on the bed atop his paws. Just like a kid, his tail thumped softly on the down comforter. Devon suddenly felt the enormity of regret—everything she should have done to make up with Beka—and now it was too late. Her mind swirled, flipping memories like flashcards: the first time she met Beka, their last argument, the dorms where they roomed together senior year of high school, their first New York apartment, the summers they’d spent at the Halsey farm in Sagaponack, back to the first time they met …

  The dormitory hallways were packed with trunks and bicycles and girls caught between puberty and adulthood trying to find their rooms. Devon was already settled and unpacking her record collection when the new girl burst through the door dressed in a long flowing silk skirt and scarves. They stared at each other, neither sure what to make of the other.

  “O-hio,” Devon had said, and bowed from the waist.

  “Is that where you’re from?” Beka looked at her quizzically.

  “No. I just said ‘Hi’ in Japanese.” Devon spoke slowly, making sure to enunciate her words for the foreign student.

  “Get outta here! That was Japanese?” Beka laughed. “How come you speak Japanese?”

  “How come you don’t?”

  “Because I’m American,” Beka said matter-of-factly, and ran over to the window to look out at the expansive oak whose branches just reached their window. “How far to the boys’ dorms?”

  Within minutes they were the best of friends, planning their escape route across the tree’s limbs and their future husbands’ lives. Beka told Devon all about living on Oahu, and Devon told Beka she had been born in Honolulu when her father was stationed there. They couldn’t believe they had a Hawaiian connection. Devon had only liv
ed in Oahu until she was two and the family moved to Taiwan, though. She had never been back. Beka felt it was her duty to change all of that. For the next four years Beka spent Thanksgivings in the Halsey household in the Hamptons, and Devon spent New Year’s in Hawaii with the Imamuras.

  They had always seemed more like sisters than friends, and as they grew up they had grown apart somewhat, as sisters often do, until they were bound by a common past but little else. Still she had not really noticed the distance between them until this past year.

  Devon fell asleep and woke up, fell asleep and woke up again, until her dream and waking states were indiscernible, a blend of near and far past, a montage of what she dreamt and thought. And between these two states, Beka and Todd floated in a realm she could barely reach with her mind.

  Velvet hung on the walls of Beka’s bedroom to help stop the drafts outside from coming through the bricks. Still, wind wended its way into the room, and Devon felt like she was camping outdoors. She could see her breath in the air.

  Beka stirred in the loft bed above her head. “He’s not back.”

  “How do you know?” Beka could blow an arctic wind across a guy’s heart and never even notice the frostbite on his face.

  “You tell the guys you like to leave you alone and they do. And the ones you can’t stand won’t go away no matter what you say! Why is that?”

  Devon knew Beka enjoyed feeling like the shark, stalking her prey in the dangerous waters of her bed, until no one was safe from her hunger. She wasn’t really like that, she just pretended to be—that’s what she was upset about. Todd had taken her rejection seriously.

  “What do I have to do, be easy?”

  “You’re already a slut; wouldn’t want you to be easy, too,” Devon teased from the futon below. Beka dumped a pillow on her head as Devon sat up and looked at the clock. It was one in the afternoon.

  “He probably went back to Yale.”

  “Did you sleep with him?”