Black Lotus

3

Edo Jail loomed above a filthy canal amid the slums of Kodemmacho, in the northeast sector of the Nihonbashi merchant district. Watchtowers topped its crumbling stone walls. Inside, dilapidated offices and barracks surrounded the fortified dungeon where jailers tortured confessions out of prisoners and criminals awaited execution. The morgue received the bodies of citizens who perished in natural disasters or from unnatural causes. Yet hidden within this realm of death, a small green oasis flourished. In a fenced courtyard, a garden grew in neat rows marked by bamboo stakes; butterflies and bees flitted. Here Sano found his friend Dr. Ito tending his medicinal herbs. Sano walked along the garden’s border, enjoying its fresh aromas. He could almost imagine himself in the countryside, rather than in a place shunned by society.

“Good morning, Ito-san,” he said, bowing.

A tall, thin man in his seventies, Dr. Ito bowed and smiled. His short white hair gleamed in the sunlight; perspiration filmed his lined, ascetic face. “Welcome, Sano-san. I have been awaiting your arrival.”

Dr. Ito, once a respected physician to the imperial family, had been caught practicing forbidden foreign science, which he’d learned through illicit channels from Dutch traders. Usually the Tokugawa punished scholars of Dutch learning with exile, but the bakufu instead condemned Dr. Ito to permanent custodianship of Edo Morgue. There he continued his scientific experiments, ignored by the authorities. He also administered medical treatment to the staff and prisoners, and his expertise had often benefited Sano’s investigations.

Wiping his hands on his dark blue coat, Dr. Ito rose with the stiff movements of old age. “How is Masahiro-chan?”

“Many thanks for inquiring about my miserable, inferior child,” Sano said, observing the polite custom of deprecating one’s offspring. “His size, his voice, and his demands grow daily.”

A twinkle in Dr. Ito’s shrewd eyes acknowledged the paternal pride behind Sano’s modesty. “I am glad to hear that. And I hope the Honorable Lady Reiko is well?”

“She is,” Sano said, but the mention of Reiko unsettled his thoughts.

During the trip from Edo Castle, he’d begun to have misgivings about asking her to help with the investigation. Might her over eagerness frighten Haru and ruin their chances of getting the truth from this important witness and possible suspect? Sano valued Reiko’s excellent intuition, but he needed an impartial judge to question Haru, and he belatedly understood how Reiko’s personal biases might interfere with her objectivity. Sano wished he’d asked Reiko to wait until they could go to Zōjō Temple together, so he could listen in on the interview with Haru. Although Reiko had never yet failed him, he feared what might happen with this investigation.

Dr. Ito said, “Is something wrong, Sano-san?”

“No, nothing,” Sano said, not wanting to burden his friend with his troubles. He turned the conversation to the purpose of his visit. “Have you received the bodies from the fire at the Black Lotus Temple yet?”

Dr. Ito’s expression turned serious. “Yes. And I regret to say that my examination has revealed some discoveries that may complicate your work.”

He led Sano to the morgue, a low building with peeling plaster walls and an unkempt thatched roof. Inside, a single large room held stone troughs used for washing the dead, cabinets containing tools, and a podium heaped with books and papers. Dr. Ito’s assistant Mura, a man in his fifties with gray hair and a square, intelligent face, was cleaning knives. He bowed to Sano and his master. Three waist-high tables each held a human figure covered with a white shroud. Dr. Ito walked to the largest body.

“Commander Oyama,” he said, then beckoned his assistant.

Mura stepped forward. He was an eta, one of the outcast class that staffed the jail as wardens, torturers, corpse handlers, and executioners. The eta’s hereditary link with death-related occupations such as butchering and leather tanning rendered them spiritually contaminated and barred them from contact with other citizens. Mura, who performed all the physical work associated with Dr. Ito’s studies, removed the shroud from Police Commander Oyama.

Although Sano had learned to control his aversion to the dead during past examinations, he felt a sense of pollution as he beheld the pale, naked corpse with its thick torso and limbs. Oyama’s glazed eyes and gaping mouth gave him an imbecilic expression that belied the wits of a man recently responsible for enforcing the law in a city of one million people.

“Turn him over, Mura,” said Dr. Ito.

The eta complied. Dr. Ito pointed to the back of Oyama’s head. The hair had been shaved away, revealing a hollow in the scalp behind the left ear, with reddened, broken flesh in the center. “A blow cracked his skull,” Dr. Ito said.

Because the examination of corpses and any other procedures that smacked of foreign science were illegal, Sano had forgone a detailed scrutiny of Oyama while at the Black Lotus Temple; he’d looked just long enough to identify the commander’s face and hadn’t noticed the injury. Now he said, “Could it have happened after Oyama died?”

Dr. Ito shook his head. “There was blood in his hair and on his skin before Mura washed him, and the dead don’t bleed. Oyama was alive when the blow was struck by an object with sharp edges. An injury of such severity is usually fatal. He wasn’t burned, and his color exhibits none of the pinkness I would expect to see if he’d died from breathing smoke. Therefore, I conclude that the blow, not the fire, killed Oyama.”

“I found nothing resembling a weapon when I searched the site of his death,” Sano said. “But it’s clear that his murder was deliberate instead of an accidental result of arson. The fire must have been set to disguise the murder.”

Blowing out his breath, Sano shook his head in consternation. He’d hoped that Oyama’s death was a simple matter of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now Sano saw the scope of the case expand beyond the boundaries of the Black Lotus Temple. The list of potential arson suspects, previously headed by the orphan girl Haru and limited to the temple community, grew to include the associates of a man who must have made many enemies during his life.

As if reading his thoughts, Dr. Ito gave Sano a sympathetic look, then said, “I’m afraid that there wasn’t just one murder before the fire was set.”

Dr. Ito walked to the second table. Mura uncovered the body of the dead woman. A fetid odor of burnt, decaying flesh filled the air. Sano’s stomach lurched. He swallowed hard as he viewed the corpse. With her garments removed except for charred strips of cloth adhering to her, the woman looked even worse than she had yesterday. She lay on her right side, bent at the knees and waist, arms angled. Burns ranging in color and texture from blistered, scabrous red to black cinder covered her limbs, torso, face, and hairless scalp. When Mura turned the dead woman on her other side, Sano saw unscathed areas on the newly exposed portions of skin.

“The places on her body that lay against the floor escaped the fire,” Dr. Ito said, “as did this area here.”

He pointed to the base of her neck. In the dead flesh was a deep, narrow, red indentation. Sano bent close and discerned a pattern: the coils of a thin rope. He straightened, meeting Dr. Ito’s somber gaze, and voiced their shared thought: “She was strangled to death, then left to burn in the fire.”

Now Sano had not one but two deliberate murders, and while the second victim deserved justice every bit as much as Oyama did, her death posed extra difficulties. “How can I find out who wanted her dead and why, when I don’t even know who she is?” Sano said.

“Perhaps she was an acquaintance of Commander Oyama,” suggested Dr. Ito. “After all, they were in the cottage together. Perhaps his family knew her.”

“Perhaps,” Sano agreed, “but who could make a definite identification of her in her present state?”

Contemplating the body, Dr. Ito said, “She was of medium size and build.” With a thin metal spatula he probed the woman’s mouth, around which her burned lips formed a horrible grimace. ”Two back teeth are missing on the right side and one on the left. The others are in good condition and sharp on the edges. The unburned skin is firm and unblemished. I estimate her age at around thirty years.” Pointing at her foot, Dr. Ito added, “The sole is calloused, with dirt embedded in the creases, and the nails are rough. She was accustomed to walking barefoot outdoors, which suggests that she was from society’s lower classes.”

“I’m impressed that you can get so much information under these circumstances,” Sano said. “Now I have a description of the victim.”

“However, it is one that fits thousands of women,” Dr. Ito said. “Maybe her clothes will tell us more.” Using the spatula, he worked loose a strip of fabric stuck to the corpse’s stomach, folding it back to reveal the color and pattern: dark blue, printed with white bamboo branches. “It’s from the type of cheap cotton kimono sold all over town and worn by countless peasants.”

“But the fact that this woman was wearing it indicates that she wasn’t a nun, who would wear plain hemp,” Sano said. “Maybe she came from outside the temple, which would explain why no one there seems to know who she could be.”

Dr. Ito poked his spatula under the cloth. “There’s something in here.”

Sano heard the click of the tool against a hard surface. A small object fell onto the table. It was a round figure the size of a cherry, made of amber-colored jade and finely carved in the likeness of a curled, sleeping deer. A length of string protruded from a hole through the figure.

“It’s an ojime,” Sano said, recognizing the object as a bead used to connect the cords of the pouches or boxes that men hung from their sashes.

“She must have been wearing it around her waist,” Dr. Ito said, “perhaps as an amulet.”

“The design is unique, and it looks valuable,” Sano said. “Maybe it will help me identify her.”

Mura washed the ojime and wrapped it in a clean cloth. Sano tucked it into the leather pouch at his waist, then followed Dr. Ito to the table that held the third corpse, a pitifully small figure beneath its white shroud. “Was the child murdered before the fire, too?” he asked.

Dr. Ito nodded sadly. When Mura drew back the shroud, Sano felt the same powerful aversion to viewing the dead child as he had at the Black Lotus Temple. He hadn’t been able to look yesterday, and he couldn’t now. Abruptly, he turned away, but imagination conjured up a horrible picture of a burnt, wizened little body, its face a dreadful black mask with gaping mouth and empty eye sockets. Sano’s heart began pounding; his stomach constricted. His breaths came hard and fast, inhaling the smell of smoke and burnt flesh. He felt faint. This was his first case involving the murder of a child, and fatherhood had shattered his professional detachment.

Then Sano felt Dr. Ito propelling him out of the morgue. The fresh air in the courtyard revived him. Now he felt ashamed of his cowardly reaction. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m all right now.”

He started to go back inside the morgue, but Dr. Ito gently restrained him. “It’s not necessary for you to see the remains. I can summarize the results of my examination.” After giving Sano another moment to recover, Dr. Ito said, “The child is male. There are old and new bruises on the unburned skin of his back. His neck is broken, probably as a result of strangulation. I estimate his age at two years, but he could be older-his body is severely emaciated, and perhaps stunted in growth. I believe the boy was mistreated and starved over a period of time before his murder.”

Sano deplored the torture of any human, but since Masahiro’s birth, he found the idea of violence toward children particularly abhorrent. Of all the murders, this one disturbed him most. “None of the temple orphans is missing,” Sano said. “Did you notice anything that might help determine who the boy is or where he came from?”

Dr. Ito shook his head. “Because the child’s body was found with the woman’s, it would be logical to assume they were mother and son, but assumptions can be misleading.” He added, “Unfortunately, there are among the poor of Edo many such ill-fed, maltreated children who might end up dead under dubious circumstances. I am afraid that you must employ other methods to identify the woman and boy.”

“I’ve already begun.” Sano had given orders to Hirata before leaving his estate. “Now I’ll be on my way to Police Commander Oyama’s home to interview his family and staff.”

After bidding farewell to Dr. Ito, Sano left the jail. He mounted his horse and rode through teeming streets toward the city center, anticipating the work ahead with a keener determination than usual. Throughout his career, he’d dedicated himself to seeking truth and serving justice, a mission as important to his samurai honor as duty, loyalty, and courage. But fatherhood gave him an added incentive to solve this case. He must avenge the death of the unknown child.

If Haru was guilty of murder and arson, Sano would see that she paid for the crimes with her own life.