Red Chrysanthemum (19 page)

He and Hirata and Detectives Inoue and Arai swung off their horses outside a building, one in a uniform row with whitewashed walls and steeply pitched tile roofs that fronted on a quay. Men rowed boats, laden with vegetables, along a canal. All the warehouses except the one that had belonged to Lord Mori bustled with activity as porters unloaded the boats and carried the goods inside. His was silent, its huge doors locked. The quay was crowded and noisy, but at night it would be deserted, a perfect place to receive contraband.

“Let us in,” Hirata told Chugo.

Chugo unlocked the warehouse doors and flung them open. Hirata and the detectives strode inside. The cavernous space was warm and dank, lit by barred windows near the roofline. The air had a faint, greasy, metallic odor. Wooden crates stood ranged, ten wide and three high, along one wall. Anticipation leapt in Hirata as he and his men hurried toward them. They raised the lid of one crate. The smell of iron wafted up. Inside, swathed in greased cloth, lay a pile of arquebuses, their long barrels gleaming dully.

Hirata, Inoue, and Arai burst into a simultaneous cheer. “I knew it! Lord Mori
was
plotting a rebellion,” Hirata exulted.

“These have to be the weapons you saw,” Inoue said.

“Proof doesn’t come much better than this,” Arai said.

Chugo slouched by the door, looking miserable. Hirata pitied this samurai who’d betrayed his master. “You did the right thing,” Hirata assured Chugo again. “Even now that Lord Mori is dead, the rebellion could have gone on without him if you hadn’t reported him. You may have prevented another war.”

The clerk didn’t seem any happier. “What are you going to do with the guns?”

“We’ll take them to Edo Castle. They’re evidence in the murder investigation.” Hirata told Inoue, “Go hire some porters to carry them for us.”

Inoue hastened off to obey. Chugo said nervously, “You won’t tell anybody that I was the one who led you to them?”

“Not anybody more than necessary,” Hirata said.

Unsatisfied yet resigned, Chugo said, “Can I go now?”

“Yes,” Hirata said. “Thank you for your cooperation.”

Chugo sped off like a rat with its tail on fire.

“It would be nice if we could discover who Lord Mori’s coconspirators were,” Arai said.

“Let’s see if there are any clues with the guns,” Hirata said.

They opened all the crates, removed the guns, but found no letters or other papers to show where they’d come from or who besides Lord Mori owned them. Hirata and Arai repacked the crates. Refusing to be discouraged, Hirata said, “We’ll search this whole place.”

That promised not to take long. The warehouse appeared empty except for the crates, its floor swept clean. “They were careful not to leave traces of themselves,” Arai commented.

“Don’t give up hope yet.” Hirata looked upward and noticed an enclosure built on a platform high in a corner. A wooden ladder led to it.

Hirata and Arai climbed the ladder. Inside the enclosure was an office with a view out a window that overlooked the canal. It contained a writing desk, a fireproof iron trunk, and a round, open bamboo basket. Arai lifted the lids of the desk and trunk.

“Empty,” he said.

“Wait.” Hirata gazed into the basket. A repository for trash, it held sunflower seed shells, dust balls, and wadded papers. He picked out the papers and flattened them. There were three, each bearing handwritten characters. Even before he read them, recognition jarred him.

“What do they say?” Arai asked.

Foreboding drummed a warning signal through Hirata. He read the first page: “ ‘Meeting on night after tomorrow. Observe usual precautions.”“

He shook his head.
It couldn’t be.
The dim warehouse echoed with his disbelief.

Arai looked over his shoulder at the second page, which was a roughly drawn sketch of Edo with the castle, river, and a few streets labeled. Hirata read aloud the third page, a list of four
daimyo
and three high-ranking Tokugawa officials. After each name were scribbled numbers in the thousands.

“It looks as if the leader of the conspiracy had scheduled a secret meeting of the men who were in on it,” Arai said. “The map could be their battle plan. The list must be their names and the amounts of money and troops they were pledging.” These ideas jibed with Hi-rata’s own. “This is good information. Now if only we can find out who wrote this, we’ll have them all.”

“No,” Hirata said, “no, it’s not good.” Agitated by horror, he thrust the papers at Arai. “This is Chamberlain Sano’s writing. If it’s what we think, then he’s the leader of the rebellion conspiracy.”

17

When Sano arrived home late that night, he discovered that the roof above his office had given way under the constant rain. Servants were busy cleaning up pieces of soggy ceiling that had fallen, moving out his furniture, and rolling the drenched tatami. In the adjacent chamber Sano found Reiko spreading his wet books, scrolls, and papers on the floor to dry. Masahiro was blotting them with a cloth. Sano frowned because Reiko looked even worse than when Hirata had brought her home from the Mori estate. She wore no makeup to cover the shadows under her eyes, which brimmed with misery. Brushing back a strand of disheveled hair, she managed a wan smile at Sano.

“What a mess this is,” she said. “But I think we can save most of it.”

“Good. I’d hate to think that a little rain could bring down the Tokugawa bureaucracy by destroying my paperwork.” Because Masahiro was present, Sano matched Reiko’s light tone. “But never mind the mess. You should be resting. Let the servants clean up.”

Reiko sighed. “I need to keep busy, to distract myself.” Sano couldn’t help wondering if there was something more troubling her than he knew. She said, “Masahiro, it’s time for bed.”

“But I have to finish wiping the papers.”

“Tomorrow,” Reiko said. “Go. That’s a good boy.” When he’d left, she turned eagerly to Sano. “What’s happened?”

Sano hated to dash the hope that brightened her eyes. “I wish I had better news. But I spent most of the day checking with all my informants and spies, and they gave me no clues about Lord Mori, and no dirt on Hoshina.”

Trying but failing to hide her disappointment, Reiko separated a stack of wet pages. The thin rice paper tore despite her carefulness. “What about your inquiries at the Mori estate? Did you discover anything there?”

“No guns, no missing boy. For a while I thought we’d found the murdered one buried on the grounds, but I was mistaken.” Sano didn’t elaborate, lest the tale of the dead baby upset Reiko. “And I’m sorry to say there are no new suspects.”

“I thought I would have some by now, but I was mistaken, too,” Reiko said. “I sent Lieutenant Asukai to investigate the Black Lotus sect. But even though he managed to chase down some members, they didn’t seem to know anything about Lord Mori’s murder. And there have been no rumors that the Black Lotus is up to anything other than petty crime.”

Sano took the news in stride, but unwelcome thoughts preyed on his mind. He said, “Have you remembered anything else about that night at the Mori estate?”

“No,” she said. “I’ve tried, but I can’t.”

Her sincerity would have convinced anyone who didn’t know her as well as Sano did. He felt her withdraw into herself, as though shrinking from a threat. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” Her voice tightened. “What’s the matter? Don’t you believe me?”

“Of course I do,” Sano said, surprised by her defensiveness that made him more uncertain whether he really did.

She wrinkled her brow in a suspicious frown. “Then why are you pressuring me?”

“I’m not,” Sano said. “I just asked—”

Reiko faltered to her feet, away from him. “You think there’s something wrong with my story, don’t you? Because you couldn’t find Jiro or the dead boy, you think I made them up. You don’t trust me!”

“That’s not true,” Sano said, although his instincts denied his words. Years of detective work had taught him that too many protests often signified prevarication.

“Yes, it is!” Reiko obviously saw through him; she’d learned the same lesson while helping him investigate crimes. She was breathing hard, twisting her hands in agitation.

“Don’t get upset,” Sano tried to soothe her. “It’s not good for you or the baby.”

“ ‘Don’t get upset?” “ Incredulous, she exclaimed, ”How can I not get upset when you’re treating me like a criminal?“

The sound of a cough at the door startled them. They turned and saw Hirata poised at the threshold. He said, “Excuse me. I don’t want to interrupt you, but…”

“That’s all right,” Sano said. His conversation with Reiko could only go from bad to worse if it continued. She nodded, agreeing to postpone their disagreement, making a visible effort to calm herself. Come in.

As Hirata entered the room, the look on his face told Reiko he’d brought bad news, the last thing she needed to cap this terrible day.

The harder she’d tried to dismiss her new memories as false, sick delusions, the more real they’d seemed. The more she sought an alternate explanation for them, the less she could resist believing they meant she’d killed Lord Mori. The more she told herself that she’d only wanted to save Jiro, the more she wondered if he and Lily were creatures of her imagination. Her fear that she was not only a murderess but a madwoman scourged her. She shouldn’t have lost her self-control and reacted to Sano’s questions the way she had: If he hadn’t had doubts about her veracity before, he surely did now.

“What is it?” Sano asked Hirata.

Hirata spoke with hesitant reluctance: “I went looking for Lily the dancer.”

Reiko’s nerves tensed even tighter. Her pulse, already racing so fast that she felt shaky, sped faster. “Well? Did she tell you that I went to Lord Mori’s estate to look for her son?” She was anxious for confirmation of her own story.

“No,” Hirata said. “I mean, I couldn’t find her.” He explained how the people at the teahouse and in the neighborhood had acted as though they’d never heard of Lily. “She and her son don’t seem to exist.”

More horror than astonishment struck Reiko. This was what she’d feared yet expected Hirata to say. Her gorge rose; the muscles of her throat clenched against it. She saw Sano watching her. He didn’t speak, yet the suspicion in his eyes demanded a response.

“That’s absurd,” she heard herself say in a voice that didn’t seem to belong to her. Such things as this happened only in nightmares! “Of course Lily and Jiro exist.” If they didn’t, then she must have gone to the Mori estate for some other reason than for their sake. Lady Mori’s allegations came back to mind. Had she gone to make love with Lord Mori? Instead of spying on him, had she quarreled with him, then stabbed and castrated him? “Those people are lying.”

An uncomfortable silence ensued. Hirata looked to Sano, as if expecting him to come to Reiko’s defense. But Sano averted his gaze, frowning. Desolation filled Reiko because Hirata’s news had dealt another cut to her husband’s trust in her.

Sano said, “Why would they all lie?”

Reiko’s hands involuntarily fluttered. She clasped them tight, holding them still. “Maybe they’re afraid to tell the truth. Maybe someone threatened them.”

“Who?” Sano asked.

His challenging tone dismayed her. “I don’t know. Maybe whoever killed Lord Mori and tried to frame me.”

“Maybe. But there’s the question of proving it.” Sano addressed Hirata: “Did you come up with any evidence at all that things happened the way she described?”

“Unfortunately not.” Hirata described how he’d failed to prove that Reiko had spied from the fire-watch tower. “I couldn’t find anybody who got a good look at her. Fire-watchers might as well be invisible.” He hesitated, turned to Reiko, and said carefully, “Lady Reiko, may I ask you if you spoke to anyone else at or around the Persimmon Teahouse besides Lily? Any people who witnessed that you went there and you can call on to testify what your business was?”

Reiko’s heart sank deeper because she realized that Hirata didn’t trust her either. “No. But Lieutenant Asukai and my other escorts can vouch for me.”

“Yes. I know,” Hirata said. “I spoke to them a little while ago. They did vouch for you.”
But of course they would,
said his tone.

And he distrusted her enough to have double-checked her story. Reiko was devastated to think that both the men she’d thought her mainstays were losing faith in her. Yet how could she blame them?

Sudden excitement filled her. “Wait—I’ve just thought of something.” She hurried to her chamber, rummaged through her writing desk, snatched out a paper, and returned to Sano and Hirata.

“This is the letter that Lily wrote me.” She handed it to Sano. “This is proof that she asked for my help and mat’s why I went to the Mori estate.”

But as the men studied the letter, they didn’t seem at all relieved. Sano said, “I wonder how a dancer was able to write. Most women of that class can’t.”

Reiko’s excitement deflated. Of course she’d known the fact that most female commoners were illiterate, but she hadn’t thought of it in connection with Lily.

“These characters are so rigid and uniform,” Hirata said, “as if the author was trying to disguise his handwriting.”

He and Sano raised their eyes to Reiko. She gaped at them. “I didn’t write that letter myself!”

“No one said you did,” Sano said, but his manner was grave, disturbed.

“It was delivered to me at the house!” Reiko had another thought. “Midori was there when it came. I read it to her. She’ll tell you.”

“We’ll look into that,” Sano said.

Yet Reiko could feel him thinking that Midori, her friend, would lie for her. And the letter had arrived along with many others; probably no one else had noticed it.
I could have slipped it in among the rest.
Reiko shook her head in denial. She thought back on her trips to the teahouse, her talks with Lily. Although her memories of them were so hazy they seemed like a dream, how could she have not only unwittingly invented such an elaborate fiction, but forged the letter to back it up? She struggled to make sense of the nightmare.

“Reiko-san?”