Red Chrysanthemum

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?”

Sano was looking at her, a strange expression on his face. “What are you doing?”

She realized with a jolt that she’d moved to the far side of the room and opened a cabinet on the wall. But she didn’t know how, or why. It had happened again, another lapse of time and awareness. Concealing her fear and horror from Sano, she waved away his question. She fixed on the last thought she remembered.

Supposing her story were true, what had become of Lily? Now Reiko was afraid not just for herself.

“You have to find Lily,” she entreated Sano and Hirata. “Something bad must have happened to her.”

“We’ll keep looking,” Sano said without much hope or conviction.

Hirata’s face was a picture of distress.

“What?” Sano said.

“I think I’ve found the guns that I saw delivered to Lord Mori’s estate.” Hirata told how he’d traced the anonymous letter to its source and then inspected the warehouse that the writer had shown him.

Reiko dared to hope that at last something about this investigation was going right, despite Hirata’s expression.

“That’s the best news I’ve heard all day,” Sano said. “You’ve found proof that Lord Mori was plotting a coup. It should make Lord Matsudaira and the shogun a lot less inclined to persecute my wife and me. Why aren’t you pleased?”

Hirata took a handful of papers from under his sash and gave them to Sano. “Please tell me you didn’t write these.”

As Sano examined them, Reiko stood beside him and peeked at the three notes. She recognized his writing in the notations that hinted at a secret meeting, a battle plan, and a war chest and armies raised from co-conspirators. “Yes,” Sano said. “I did. Why? Where did you get them?”

“From a trash basket in the warehouse where I found the guns.” Hesitation marked Hirata’s words. “They make it seem as if you were part of the conspiracy. Or even the leader.”

“What?” Reiko exclaimed. Shock filled her as she stared at Sano.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, his voice harsh with anger. “I’m not part of any conspiracy. I’m certainly not leading this one.”

But Reiko saw confusion in Hirata’s eyes, and she didn’t know whether to believe Sano herself. It had been bad enough that Sano didn’t trust her version of events, but now she had reason for misgivings about him. Ambition and power had swayed many a samurai off the honorable course of loyalty to superiors. The nightmare had taken the drastic, unexpected turn she’d dreaded. Yet Reiko experienced relief that the discovery in the warehouse had distracted Sano from her possible guilt, and spiteful pleasure that their positions were reversed. Now came her turn to challenge his innocence.

“Then what are these papers?” she asked.

“They’re notes I wrote to myself.” Sano flung them on the floor one by one as he said, “This is a reminder of a meeting with the Council of Elders. ”Observe usual precautions’ means don’t let it devolve into an argument between Lord Matsudaira’s supporters and detractors. This map is a plan for road repairs in town. And this list is taxes owed by these men.“

“But how did they get in that warehouse?” Hirata said, still dubious.

Sano gave him a look that reproached him for his lack of trust. Reiko saw their comradeship undermined even as her marriage crumbled. The murder case was wreaking havoc with all their ties.

“I threw those notes away; I was finished with them,” Sano said. “Someone must have stolen them from the garbage and put them in the warehouse with the guns to incriminate me.”

“My, but that’s a convenient explanation.” Reiko couldn’t help wanting to pay Sano back for disbelieving her. “Who could have done it?”

His expression said he understood her need to wound him as he’d wounded her. But as he answered, “I’d put Police Commissioner Hoshina at the top of the list of suspects,” his tone censured her for her implied accusation.

Hirata seemed readier to believe him than Reiko was, but not much. He frowned as if at a new, upsetting idea. “If your notes were planted, then the guns could have been, too.”

“If that’s the case, then there was no rebellion brewing.” Reiko cut her eyes at Sano. “How glad I am for your sake.”

Anger at her sarcasm darkened his face. “You shouldn’t be. If Lord Mori wasn’t a traitor, that would leave us back at the beginning, with you at the scene of his murder and Lady Mori’s word against yours. And now that we can’t find Lily, people are more likely to believe that you killed Lord Mori during a lover’s quarrel than that you went searching for one lost child and witnessed him murdering another.”

Stung because he seemed to believe the first possibility, Reiko said, “Maybe Lily was an imposter. Maybe someone put her up to setting me after Lord Mori.” How she wished she could believe it herself! Desperation ignited her temper. “Except you would rather think I’m guilty, wouldn’t you?”

Sano threw up his hands, emitted a sound of disgust, and shouted, “You’re talking nonsense!”

“Please, stop,” Hirata said, obviously grieved to see them argue and hating to be caught in the middle. “We have to work together.”

Reiko knew he was right. She bit back another jab at Sano, who glared but compressed his mouth.

“Maybe nothing about this murder is what it seems,” Hirata said. “But whatever the truth is, this new evidence puts both of you in worse danger. What are we going to do about it?”

They all sat down in tense, brief, thoughtful silence. Sano said, “We continue with the investigation. Until we find out what’s going on, we keep the evidence a secret.”

“That’s a wise idea,” Reiko said, and Hirata nodded. Then she recalled something she’d forgotten to tell Sano. “I’ve thought of two more people who might have wanted to hurt me. Would it be all right for me to go out and investigate them?”

She watched Sano weigh his distrust of her against his hope for a solution to their problems. He said, “I told Lord Matsudaira and the shogun that I’d keep you at home. Can’t you send Lieutenant Asukai?”

“I’d rather not. He’s willing and clever, but I don’t know if I can count on him for something so important. And if I go, I won’t be in much more danger than I am now.”

“If your enemies get wind of her roaming around town, you could end up in even worse trouble,” Hirata told Sano. “Better that she should tell us who these people are and we investigate them.”

After pondering a moment, Sano said to Reiko, “You can go. Just don’t let anyone catch you outside this compound.”

“Thank you. I won’t.” But Reiko was as miserable as pleased that he’d given in. She knew he’d done it because he feared that her new lines of inquiry were as dubious as he suspected her story was. He would be glad if they proved helpful, but he didn’t want to waste his own time chasing false clues.