The Red Chrysanthemum

by Laura Joh Rowland

  “Neither did Lady Mori,” said the doctor. “Every day she asked me how her husband’s health was, but she never even spoke to him. And Lord Mori never asked for her or Enju. It seemed he knew they wouldn’t come.”

  It sounded to Hirata as if the widow as well as the heir had been on bad terms with Lord Mori. Perhaps Lady Mori and Enju had been so sorry he’d survived that they’d done away with him themselves. But Hirata needed more than just speculations to back up this theory. A motive would help.

  “Why do you think they acted that way?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. None of the family ever confided in me.”

  “What was the other event you remember?”

  “Something from when Lord and Lady Mori had recently married. Lady Mori and Enju had lived in the estate for just a short time. Enju was quite a lively, friendly little boy. He liked to watch me prepare medicines. He asked clever questions and seemed truly interested in the answers. But after a while he stopped coming to see me. I thought he’d found other things to do. Then one day Lady Mori summoned me.

  “She said Enju had been having bad dreams, waking up and screaming at night. And he’d been wetting his bed. She asked me to cure whatever was wrong with him. When she brought him to me, I was shocked at how much he’d changed. He was quiet, sullen. When I tried to examine him, he didn’t want me to undress him or touch him. He cried and fought so hard that I couldn’t perform an examination.”

  “What did you do?” Hirata asked.

  “I gave him tea brewed from mantis egg case, dragon bones, and oyster shells for incontinence, and licorice, sweet flag root, and biota seeds for nervous hysteria.”

  “Did he get better?”

  “I had only Lady Mori’s word for it. After I’d treated him for a few days, she told me to stop; that was enough.”

  “Did you ever find out what was wrong with Enju?”

  “No. But I had a distinct feeling that Lady Mori knew.”

  Hirata thanked Dr. Unryu. As he and the detectives rode away from the village, Arai said, “Something must have been pretty wrong between Enju and Lord Mori, if Enju wouldn’t even visit Lord Mori on what looked to be his deathbed. Do you think it had anything to do with his murder?”

  “I’m sure.” Hirata had a strong albeit unfounded hunch. It might have been the cause of the argument between Lord Mori and Enju, involving something Enju had been ordered to do but didn’t want to, overheard on the road.

  “What do you think Enju’s childhood problem was?” Inoue said. “Could it be related, too?”

  “I don’t know, but maybe,” Hirata said. “It sounds as if something bad happened to him after his mother married Lord Mori. But whatever it was, Enju lied about his relationship with his stepfather. He has a little explaining to do. So does Lady Mori.”

  “With all due respect, Lady Reiko, but maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” Lieutenant Asukai said.

  In the back entryway of the private chambers, Reiko put on a shaggy straw rain cape. “I can’t just sit home and wait any longer. I must help my husband find out who killed Lord Mori.” After her clash with Colonel Kubota had failed to prove that it wasn’t him, she felt more desperate to solve the mystery. “And I know of more people who need to be investigated.”

  “Tell Chamberlain Sano or Ssakan Hirata. Let them investigate,” Asukai suggested.

  “They have enough to do already.” Reiko slipped her feet into thick-soled wooden sandals that would raise her above the puddles in the streets. “If my clues don’t lead anywhere, it’s better that I wasted my time than theirs.”

  Concerned and protective, Asukai said, “Let me go find your suspects and bring them here to you.”

  “It will be quicker if I go myself.”

  “I could talk to your suspects for you. Just tell me what to ask them.”

  Yet Reiko thought this was no time for a solo test of his untried detective skills. “I appreciate the offer, but I’ve made up my mind.”

  “You shouldn’t leave the compound,” Lieutenant Asukai persisted. “If Lord Matsudaira finds out, he won’t like it.”

  “He won’t find out,” Reiko said, bundling her hair up inside a cotton kerchief.

  “If people should see you—”

  “They’ll never recognize me.” Reiko clapped a wicker hat on her head, picked up an umbrella and a basket. She looked for all the world like a maid going on an errand.

  Lieutenant Asukai frowned, troubled enough to oppose his mistress. “It’s dangerous outside.” He stood between Reiko and the door. “And it’s not just your own safety you’re risking.”

  “If we don’t solve this case, I’ll be executed. My baby will never be born,” Reiko said. And she couldn’t bear to think that it might be the child of a murderess. She must prove otherwise. “Either help me, or please stand aside.”

  Resignation drained the fight from Lieutenant Asukai. He opened the door to the wet, gray day, but he said, “You can’t take your palanquin. People will know it’s you inside. And you can’t walk far in your condition.”

  “There’s a place down the boulevard from the main gate where I can rent a kago.” The basket-chairs, suspended from poles and carried by men for hire, were a cheap form of public transportation. “You and my other guards will meet me there and follow me at a distance.”

  She made her way through Edo Castle’s passages and checkpoints without incident. She’d learned from past experience that maids were virtually invisible. Soon she was seated in the swaying, jouncing kago while its bearers trotted toward town. A sense of freedom exhilarated her. She felt buoyed by hope, vibrantly alive.

  Reiko tried to forget that she might not be free or alive much longer.

  The trip to and from Ueno had taken Sano all morning and part of the afternoon. Now, eager for his confrontation with his enemy, he rode with his entourage through the Hibiya administrative district. He’d never been to Police Commissioner Hoshina’s house—they weren’t exactly on visiting terms. He was almost as curious to see how Hoshina lived as determined to wring some facts out of him.

  Hoshina had an estate near the edge of the district. It was one of the farthest from Edo Castle. Only a road and a drainage canal separated its perimeter wall from the Nihonbashi merchant quarter. This location could owe to Hoshina’s low seniority at court or the fact that police carried a taint of death from the executions they ordered. Furthermore, his position in Lord Matsudaira’s inner circle had always been shaky. But he’d made the most of his estate.

  Sano and his men dismounted outside a gate with triple-tiered roofs and double doors hung on polished brass pillars. Hoshina’s family crest adorned a huge banner that drooped in the rain. Sentries wearing flashy armor greeted Sano in a polite but cold manner. A horde of troops accompanied Sano and his men into the estate. If Sano hadn’t already known he was entering hostile territory, there was no mistaking it now.

  The troops led him inside a mansion so big that it dwarfed its ground. The corridors were floored with shining cypress, the coffered ceilings painted and gilded in the same style as the shogun’s palace. Servants hovered in rooms furnished with teak cabinets, metal filigree lanterns, and lacquer tables of the finest workmanship. The air smelled of expensive incense. Hoshina’s voice carried down the corridor toward Sano.

  “That’s not big enough.”

  “But if we make it any bigger, it will be practically right up against the wall,” said another man’s voice. “You won’t have any view.”

  “I don’t care about the damned view,” Hoshina said. “I want a reception room that’s fine enough for important guests.”

  “We’ll have to enlarge the foundation. That will cost a lot extra.”

  “To hell with the cost. I won’t have people thinking that I’m some rustic from the provinces who doesn’t know how to entertain. I won’t have them laughing behind my back at me.”

  Sano and detectives Marume and Fukida reached the threshold of a room of modest proportions
, filled with gray, humid, outdoor air. Inside, Hoshina stood with a samurai who held an architectural plan they were examining. The doors along one wall were open, revealing stone blocks set in the muddy ground, a base for an extension that would double the room’s size. Hoshina looked up from the plans at Sano.

  “What are you doing here?” His face showed offense that Sano would visit him without invitation, and fear that Sano had overheard him and he’d exposed himself.

  Sano felt a twinge of pity for Hoshina, who was so insecure, cared too much about other people’s opinions, and thought fine, expensive material things would make up for his lack of self-worth. But pity didn’t ease their mutual antagonism. And Hoshina’s human foibles didn’t make him any less dangerous.

  Quite the contrary.

  “I have news that you might find interesting,” Sano said.

  Hoshina raised his eyebrows in hopeful, exaggerated surprise. He clapped his hand over his heart. “Your wife has been convicted of murder. She’s on her way to the execution ground. And you’re soon to follow.”

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you,” Sano said. “What I’ve come to tell you is that I’ve had a talk with a friend of yours.”

  “Who would that be?” Hoshina glanced at the architectural plans as if impatient for Sano to leave so he could go back to his business.

  “Lady Nyogo,” Sano said.

  Hoshina’s head snapped up. He tried to conceal his dismay, but failed. “How—?”

  “It’s hard to keep a secret in Edo,” Sano said. “You should remember that the next time you want to hide a witness in a murder investigation. Especially one that has conspired with you to bear false evidence.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Hoshina waved his hand at the architect and said, “You’re dismissed. Redo those plans.” The architect left. Hoshina said, “I never conspired with Lady Nyogo. I don’t even know the woman.”

  “That’s not what she says. She told me all about how you planted her in the shogun’s court. Do you want to hear what else she said?”

  “She said all she needed to at the séance. She revealed your plot to overthrow Lord Matsudaira.”

  “She’s admitted that the séance was just an act,” Sano said, “and the story about me was pure fabrication. She also confessed that you put her up to it.”

  “That’s sheer, ridiculous rot.” Hoshina made a sound of disgust. “What did you do, beat her until she told you what you wanted to hear?”

  “Not at all,” Sano said. “I just convinced her that giving you up was in her best interests.”

  Hoshina stared in consternation, but recovered. “She obviously lied about me to save her own skin from you. It’s her word against mine. She’s a peasant woman; I’m the police commissioner. Nobody’s going to believe her.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Sano said even though Hoshina had a point. “Your plan to use Lady Nyogo to manipulate the shogun worked a little too well. She’s got him eating out of her hand. All she needs to do is hold a séance and have one of his ancestors tell him I’m innocent and you forced her to make up that story from Lord Mori’s ghost.” Sano added, “Incidentally, you shouldn’t have been so quick to trust Nyogo. She was quick to betray you and offer to work for me.”

  “According to you.”

  But Hoshina was clearly disturbed that his plan might have backfired. He gazed at the unfinished extension, as if wondering whether he would live to complete it. Then he turned to one of his guards; a glance passed between them. The guard started out of the room.

  “In case you’re going to the convent to silence Lady Nyogo, don’t bother,” Sano said. “She’s not there anymore.”

  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 séance 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 ev
en 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 séance 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!”