The Red Chrysanthemum

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “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.”

  “And you think I stabbed and castrated Lord Mori? You think I knocked you out, stripped you naked, smeared you with blood, then left you beside him?” Colonel Kubota said, shaking his head in disbelief. “How am I supposed to have done that without anyone seeing?”

  “You tell me.”

  He waved off her prompt, dismissing her theory. “You think I would kill an important daimyo who was an ally of Lord Matsudaira, just to get even with you?” An incredulous laugh burst from him. “Don’t flatter yourself. You’re not important enough for me to take such a risk.”

  Reiko knew her theory was far-fetched, but she said, “You’re a violent man with a quick temper. When you beat your wife, you never expected to suffer any consequences. Maybe you didn’t think you would if you killed Lord Mori because I would take the blame.”

  “Maybe,” Colonel Kubota mocked her. “The fact is that I couldn’t have killed him. I wasn’t there.”

  Reiko remembered that Sano had said he’d found no evidence of outsiders, except for her, in the estate on the night of the murder. “You could have bribed one of Lord Mori’s retainers or servants to kill him.”

  Colonel Kubota chuckled. “You have all the answers, don’t you? Well, what you don’t have is proof that I killed Lord Mori and framed you.”

  “I’ll leave the proof to my husband to find,” Reiko said, although she was more convinced of her own guilt than Kubota’s. “He’s investigating the murder.”

  “You’re going to tell the chamberlain your crazy theory?” Fear shone through Kubota’s indignation as Reiko saw him imagine the persecution that Sano could bring to bear upon him.

  “He asked me to think of people who want to hurt me,” Reiko said. “He’ll be interested to hear about you.”

  “You mean that you and he will try to pin the murder on me, in order to save your pathetic skin.” The muscles in Kubota’s face twitched while his breath puffed loud with his rage. “As if you haven’t already done enough to ruin me, now you’re going to accuse me and drag my honor through the mud. Well, I won’t let you get away with it!”

  He lunged at Reiko, his hands extended to grab, his eyes filled with murderous intent. She reached inside her sleeve and whipped her dagger from its sheath.

  “Stop!” she ordered. “Don’t come any closer!”

  Even as she thrust the blade at him, her guards burst into the chamber. They seized his arms. He struggled, his face so distorted, so savage, that he looked like a monster. This must be how his wife had often seen him. Lady Setsu was safe now, but Reiko’s own heart thudded with lingering fright. He would have killed her had she not taken precautions.

  “Show Colonel Kubota out,” she told her guards. “We’re finished.”

  “Oh, no, we’re not,” he shouted as they hauled him toward the door. “You’ll be sorry you ever crossed me, you little whore! I’ll see that you pay for what you did to me!”

  Ueno Temple district was located at the northeast corner of Edo, the “devil’s gate.” Built to guard the city against evil influences from that unlucky direction, it occupied hilly, rural terrain. Houses and shops lined the road to the foot of the hill crowned by Kan’eiji, the main temple. Sano and his entourage joined crowds of pilgrims passing by the Kanda fruit and vegetable market and the quarters of the shogun’s infantry escort. Along a side road that skirted Shinobazu Pond, teahouses sold rice steamed in leaves from the pond’s famous lotus plants. On the firebreak outside the district, food stalls, souvenir and gambling booths, itinerant preachers, dancers, acrobats, and tightrope walkers abounded. As Sano crossed one of three small bridges over a stream, passed through the Black Gate, and rode up the hill along an avenue lined with cherry trees, a pang of nostalgia saddened him.

  Here at Kan’eiji, he’d met Reiko for the first time, at the formal meeting between their families. They’d strolled among blossoming trees while they covertly studied each other. How young and beautiful she’d been! He could hardly believe that nine years had passed since then, or that the love and happiness they’d found together might soon be destroyed.

  He and his party arrived at the nunnery, which was secluded be hind a high bamboo fence. In a garden outside a building with half-timbered walls and a veranda overhung with wisteria vines, little girls chased one another around flower beds. They squealed with delight and high spirits. Sano thought they must be novices, or orphans taken in by the convent. A nun with a shaved head and severe features, dressed in a plain hemp robe, watched over them. She caught sight of Sano, clapped her hands, and said, “Girls!”

  They scrambled into a line and fell silently to their knees. The nun bowed to Sano. The girls followed suit.

  “Welcome, Honorable Master,” said the nun. “How may I serve you?”

  Sano introduced himself. “I want to talk to Lady Nyogo. Please bring her to me.”

  “I’m sorry, but there’s no one here by that name.”

  The nun’s tone was even, her manner sincere, but Sano perceived the lie they concealed. “Have you been ordered to hide Nyogo?”

  She hesitated, glancing at the girls frozen in their row near her.

  “Did someone threaten to punish them unless you kept Nyogo away from me?” Sano asked. “Was it Police Commissioner Hoshina?”

  Her face stiffened. She didn’t answer.

  “If you bring me Nyogo, I’ll protect your girls,” Sano said. The nun didn’t move; she obviously didn’t put much faith in his protection. Although he hated to threaten, he saw no expedient alternative. “If you refuse, I’ll punish you myself.”

  She inclined her head. “Girls, go inside and study your lessons.” They scrambled up and filed into the building. She followed them.

  Sano waited. Soon the nun appeared in the doorway shadowed by the wisteria vines. She had her hands on the shoulders of a small woman, whom she propelled onto the veranda. Leaving the woman there, she retreated. The woman stood, arms folded, her face averted from Sano, gazing sideways at him.

  At first he didn’t recognize Lady Nyogo. She wore a plain indigo cotton kimono instead of the bright robes he’d last seen on her. Her hair was knotted atop her head instead of hanging in a braid. She was a decade older than she’d looked at the séance—not a girl, but a full-grown adult in her twenties.

  As Sano walked toward Nyogo, her face took on the expression of a cornered dog. She sidled along the veranda, then turned and bolted.

  “Stop!” Sano bolted after her.

  Nyogo ran, skirts flying, across the garden toward the gate. She saw Sano’s entourage outside, veered, and raced to the wall. As she climbed it, Sano caught her sash. He yanked hard; she tumbled down onto the ground. She clambered to her feet and faced Sano.

  “Why did you tell that story full of lies about me yesterday?” Anger roughened his voice.

  “I didn’t,” Nyogo said. Her voice was deeper than during the séance, with a brazen tone. “It was Lord Mori. I only said what his spirit told me to say.”

&n
bsp; “Oh, I don’t doubt that you were told what to say. But it wasn’t by Lord Mori. You’re a fraud.”

  “No. I communicate with the dead. They speak through me.” Although Nyogo backed up against the wall, she met Sano’s gaze. Hers was bright with nerve and guile.

  They both knew she had nothing more to lose by defying him than by admitting her fakery. Well, Sano would give her more. “I could kill you for what you said about me.”

  Her eyes darted, seeking rescue. “You can’t. I’m the shogun’s favorite medium. He believes in me.”

  “The shogun isn’t here to save you,” Sano said. “Your life is in my hands.”

  “He won’t like it if you kill me.” Nyogo’s voice trembled.

  “He’s probably forgotten you already.” Sano spoke with conviction born of his knowledge of the shogun’s flighty mind. “The longer you’re away from court, the less likely he is to remember that you exist, let alone care about you.”

  Nyogo flung up her hands in self-defense. “If you touch me, he’ll punish you,” she insisted, although fear shone through her craftiness.

  Sano shook his head. “He won’t know I did anything to you. You’re going to disappear without a trace. No one will ever know what happened to you. Except you, and me.” He pointed his finger at her, then himself.

  Her mouth twitched. Calculation glinted in her eyes. “But if I cooperate with you …?”

  “Then I’ll spare your life,” Sano said.

  Nyogo hesitated, then said, “That’s not enough. If I tell you what you want to know, my life is worth nothing. Force me to talk, and I’m a dead woman.”

  “Die now, or take a chance on surviving later.” Sano stifled the pity he felt for her, a pawn of powerful men. “It’s your choice.”

  She wilted and sighed. Sano was as much shamed because he’d coerced this deceitful but hapless woman as relieved that she’d capitulated. This was exactly the kind of thing the former chamberlain Yanagisawa would have done. Sano stepped back from Nyogo and said, “Who told you to lie about me?”

  “It was Police Commissioner Hoshina,” she said reluctantly.

  It was just as Sano had suspected. Satisfaction eased his guilt at how he’d obtained her confession. “He told you to say I was plotting to overthrow Lord Matsudaira?”

  “… Not exactly. There wasn’t time before the séance for him to tell me what to say. But I’d been listening outside the shogun’s audience chamber. I had an idea of what was going on. And Hoshina-san had said I should use whatever chance I got to make you look bad to the shogun.”

  “When did he say that?”

  “Two years ago. When he brought me to the palace.”

  Sano felt a grudging admiration for Hoshina’s ingenuity. Hoshina had planted Nyogo inside the court to undermine his enemies’ influence with the shogun. Sano had underestimated Hoshina, whom he’d always deemed more rash than clever.

  “The séance was my big chance,” Nyogo continued. “So I made up that business about you and your wife and Lord Mori.” She smiled, mischievous and proud of herself. For a moment she resembled the child she’d appeared to be yesterday. “It was pretty good, wasn’t it? Hoshina-san was very pleased.”

  “No doubt.” Sano was as impressed by her inventiveness as by her performance. Now he knew the reason for that peculiar look he’d seen on Hoshina’s face when the shogun had suggested the séance. Hoshina had been hoping that Nyogo would perform to his advantage and afraid she would let him down. She’d acquitted herself so spectacularly that Sano’s interest in her went beyond the valuable information she’d just given him.

  “Who are you?” he asked. “Where did you come from?”

  “My name really is Nyogo,” she said, “but I’m not a noble lady. My parents are fortune-tellers in the Rygoku entertainment district. When I was young, they taught me their trade. I learned how to guess what people are thinking and what they want to hear. I pretend to be a little girl, because that way they trust me.”

  “I see.” Intrigued despite his distaste for such fraud, Sano asked, “Then you branched out into doing séances?”

  “Yes. My mother thought I would be good at it. And I am,” Nyogo said, matter-of-fact.

  “How did you meet Police Commissioner Hoshina?”

  “There was talk around the district that he was looking to hire a medium. He was offering lots of money. Anyone who wanted to apply should go to his house. I went. There were lots of other people. He tried us all out and picked me.”

  Sano imagined Hoshina auditioning mediums, looking for the one who could play upon the shogun’s susceptibilities, who could further his own aims. “Well, I think he chose well.”

  “Do you?” Nyogo’s eyes sparkled with cunning. She cocked her head and clasped her hands behind her back, in the pose of a small, beguiling child. “I could work for you instead of Hoshina-san, if you like.”

  “Oh, you could, could you?” Sano said, impressed with her quick-thinking audacity.

  “Yes. I can make the shogun think you’re wonderful and Hoshina is a traitor instead of the other way around. He listens to me—or rather, he listens to his dead ancestors who speak to him through me.”

  Sano inwardly shuddered to think that the day had come when he must resort to such deceit to keep his place at court. “No thank you.”

  “Are you sure?” Nyogo’s cheeks dimpled. “I can really help you.”

  “I’m sure.” Even though deceit had kept Yanagisawa in power for some twenty years, Sano couldn’t trust a turncoat like Nyogo.

  “You aren’t going to just leave me here, are you?” Fear turned her voice shrill, aged her face. “Police Commissioner Hoshina will find out I talked to you. He’ll kill me.” She extended her clasped hands to Sano. “You have to protect me. I beg you!”

  “Don’t worry,” Sano said. “You’re coming with me.”

  She was his only witness against Hoshina, his only source of evidence that he was not a traitor nor Reiko a murderess. He wasn’t about to let any harm come to Nyogo.

  While his men took her to a good, safe hiding place, he would have a little talk with Police Commissioner Hoshina. It was high time they settled a few matters.

  A ferryman rowed Hirata and Detectives Inoue and Arai across the Sumida River. The rain-stippled waters lapped high against their banks. The men huddled under the windblown canopy until the boat docked at the eastern suburb known as Mukojima—”Yonder Isle.”

  Across the embankment spread a pleasure resort where crowds viewed the cherry blossoms in spring, the harvest moon in autumn, and the snow in winter. It was drenched and desolate now. Hirata and his men rented horses at a stable. They rode past the Mimeguri Shrine, into countryside that had once been the Tokugawa hunting grounds. The current shogun, a devout Buddhist sworn to preserve animal life, had banned hunting. Now vegetable gardens and rice paddies lay quiet and peaceful under the gray sky. Peasants no longer dominated by game wardens worked their fields. Hirata and his men dismounted near some thatched huts.

  They’d spent the morning on a hunt for people formerly employed at the Mori estate. Archives in the ministry that supervised the daimyo class had yielded the name of the Mori clan physician who’d left the estate two years ago. Physicians to high society were a small, exclusive group, and Hirata had tracked Dr. Unryu, through his friends, to this village.

  After knocking on a few doors, Hirata found a middle-aged woman who said, “Dr. Unryu is my father. Please come in.” She led the way to a backyard where an elderly man crouched by a pond, dropping crumbs into the water. “Father, you have visitors.”

  Dr. Unryu’s face was benign, creased with many wrinkles, and marked with age spots. He smiled and bowed. “Greetings.”

  Hirata and his men joined Dr. Unryu by the pond. Gigantic orange carp surfaced amid lily pads and gobbled the food. “Those are nice fish,” Hirata said.

  The doctor nodded, gratified. He strewed the remaining crumbs and rose shakily to his feet. “Breeding them is my
hobby since I retired. I used to work for the Mori clan. I was their physician for twenty-eight years.”

  “That’s why we’ve come to see you.” Hirata introduced himself and his men. “We’re investigating the murder of Lord Mori, and we need your assistance.”

  “Murder? Lord Mori? How terrible.” Concern deepened the wrinkles around Dr. Unryu’s eyes, which were still clear and intelligent. “How did it happen?”

  Hirata explained that Lord Mori had been stabbed to death, but omitted the details. “Everyone in the household is a suspect. That includes Lord Mori’s wife and stepson. I need to know about their relations with him.”

  Dr. Unryu hesitated.

  “How did he treat them?” Hirata prompted. “How did they get along?”

  “When I left his employ, he told me to keep everything I’d seen or heard at his estate to myself,” Dr. Unryu said.

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind your disobeying his order if it could help us catch his killer,” Hirata said.

  Dr. Unryu shook his head; his brow creased in thought. “I presume that Enju is Lord Mori’s heir?”

  “Yes.”

  “Lord Mori has been paying me a pension since I retired. It’s not much money, but it supports my daughter and me. If Enju should find out I talked to you, he might take it away.”

  “If Enju takes it away, I’ll pay it.” Hirata sensed that the doctor had information well worth the expense.

  Reassured, the doctor nodded. “I should mention that I didn’t have much to do with Lord Mori, his wife, or Enju. They were blessed with good health; they didn’t need me very often. I mostly treated other people at the estate. But I recall two things that you might like to know about. The first happened the year before I retired. Lord Mori took ill with severe chest pains. It was heart trouble. He almost died.

  “I was constantly at his bedside. So were his chief retainers. But Enju never came near him.” Disapproval inflected Dr. Unryu’s voice. “His heir should have comforted him, or at least paid the respects due to him. I thought it very strange that Enju didn’t.”

  Hirata thought that Enju’s behavior didn’t jibe with his mother’s story about their idyllic family life.