The Perfumed Sleeve

17

An hour’s brisk ride out of Edo brought Hirata to Asakusa Kannon Temple. Located near the Sumida River and on a main highway, the Buddhist temple was a popular attraction surrounded by inns, shops, and teahouses. The famous pagoda raised its five scarlet tiers and golden spire into the frigid blue afternoon sky. Bells pealed as Hirata dismounted and left his horse outside the temple grounds. He joined the crowds streaming through the main gate. By the time he entered the precinct, the joy of escaping his watchdogs had completely dissipated.

They would be furious. If only he’d just put up with them instead of running away like a bad boy playing a game! This murder case was no child’s play. Hirata didn’t want to think what might happen to him on account of his rash impulses. He decided that it was too late for regrets, and he would face the consequences when necessary. For now, he must concentrate on investigating Senior Elder Makino’s widow, Agemaki.

Inside the temple precinct, Buddhist and Shinto religion coexisted with commerce. Market stalls decorated with colorful lanterns and banners lined the main avenue. Vendors sold food, plants, medicines, umbrellas, toys, and rosaries. People haggled over prices; money changed hands. Roving entertainers performed puppet shows and acrobatics; monks begged alms. Fragrant incense smoke drifted over the crowds.

Hirata walked past the main hall to Asakusa Jinja Shrine, dedicated to the men whose discovery of a statue of Kannon, Buddhist goddess of mercy, had led to the founding of the temple. Painted woodwork and sculpture embellished the building. Sacred doves cooed from the eaves. Shinto shrine attendants dressed in white, and gray-robed Buddhist nuns with their heads shaved bald, flocked outside the shrine, accosting male pilgrims. Their shrill voices besieged the men with offers of their favors. At Asakusa Kannon, religion also coexisted with sex. Many nuns and shrine attendants lived by selling themselves as well as by begging alms, Hirata knew. Although the law forbade prostitution outside the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter, enforcement was lax in the temple districts.

A young nun, gawky and plain, rushed up to Hirata, caught hold of his arm, and said, “Do you want some company, master?”

A shrine attendant grabbed Hirata by his other arm. “Come with me,” she wheedled. “We can have fun together.” She was pretty, with long, streaming hair and a winsome smile.

“I saw him first,” the nun said, scowling at her rival. “Go away.”

The women began squabbling over Hirata, tugging him back and forth, cursing each other. An elderly, bald priest dressed in a gray cloak over his saffron robes, leaning on a cane, hobbled up to them.

“Are these girls bothering you, master?” he asked Hirata. He spoke in a loud voice that indicated he was deaf. Cloudy eyes denoted failing vision. The women let go of Hirata; they stood demure and respectful in their superior’s presence.

“Not at all,” Hirata said, then introduced himself. “I’m seeking information on a woman named Agemaki. She was once a shrine attendant here. She was the wife of Senior Elder Makino, whose murder I’m investigating.”

“I knew her. I can tell you all about her,” the pretty shrine attendant said with a sly, knowing look.

“Me, too,” the plain nun hurried to say.

The priest appeared not to hear them. “I am the caretaker of Asakusa Jinja Shrine,” he told Hirata. “I knew Agemaki quite well. Perhaps you’d like to come in from the cold and have some refreshment while we talk?”

“Yes, I would, thank you.”

Hirata, who also wanted to hear what the women had to say, was about to ask them to wait for him, when the priest said to the shrine attendant, “Come along, Yuriko-san, and help me serve our guest.”

Yuriko flashed a triumphant look at the disappointed nun. She trailed Hirata and the priest to the clergy residence, a rustic plaster and timber building secluded in a garden. The priest seated Hirata and himself in an austere chamber whose alcove held a vase of winter branches and a religious poem written on a scroll. Yuriko heated an urn of water on a hearth sunk in the floor. The tranquil atmosphere muted the bustle of the temple grounds outside.

“Agemaki was born and raised at Asakusa Kannon,” the priest said. “Her mother was a shrine attendant, too. She died many years ago. She was a very dedicated religious woman.”

Yuriko, kneeling at the hearth, spoke to Hirata in a low, covert tone. “Don’t believe it. Agemaki’s mother was a beggar and a whore, just like most of us. She came to Asakusa Kannon because the temple gives us a place to live and food to eat, and the law doesn’t bother us here.”

There were two different versions of the history of Senior Elder Makino’s wife, Hirata realized. Thanks to the priest’s deafness, he was going to hear both. “Who is Agemaki’s father?” Hirata asked the priest.

“He was a wealthy samurai official. He died in a fire the year she was born. His death left her and her mother to fend for themselves.”

“That’s what Agemaki told everyone,” Yuriko muttered. “She liked to put on airs. But everyone here knows her father was a rōnin who spent a few months with her mother, then left town, never to be seen again.” Casting a fond, apologetic glance at the priest, Yuriko added, “He always thinks the best of people.”

“Agemaki grew up to be as beautiful as her mother,” the priest continued, oblivious. “She followed in her footsteps.”

“Indeed she did,” Yuriko said while measuring powdered green tea into porcelain bowls. “She was popular with the men. Sometimes she had seven or eight customers a day.”

Hirata reflected that Senior Elder Makino had displayed a low taste in women for a man of his high rank. First his concubine had proved to be a former prostitute; now, his wife. Had his low taste-and dubious choice of female companions-led to his death?

“Agemaki had a rare, genuine spiritual calling,” the priest said. “She seemed not quite of this world.”

Yuriko snorted as she poured hot water into the tea bowls. “That holy, mysterious manner was just an act. Some men like that. It excites them. But we girls knew the real Agemaki. She was crude and selfish. She loved money and the things it bought.”

Hirata remembered the widow he’d seen. Had her refined dignity, her grief for her murdered husband, and her desire to help apprehend his killer also been an act? “Agemaki left the temple to marry Senior Elder Makino,” Hirata reminded the priest. “That doesn’t suggest a very strong religious faith.”

The priest smiled gently and spread his hands. “When a man as important as the senior elder wanted her, Agemaki was powerless to say no.”

“Ha! She had no intention of resisting him.” In her vehemence Yuriko spoke too loudly. The priest squinted at her. Ducking her head, she stirred the tea with a wooden whisk. She murmured to Hirata: “Agemaki wanted a rich patron. When Makino came here looking for girls, she was eager to latch onto him.”

“Senior Elder Makino was captivated by Agemaki’s virtue,” said the priest.

Hirata raised his eyebrows at Yuriko.

“It wasn’t her virtue that he liked best about her,” Yuriko said with a sneer. “He was weak. He’d lost his manhood. I know because he once hired me to entertain him, and no matter what we did-” Yuriko’s finger pantomimed a limp penis. “But Agemaki knew ways to excite men. She knew potions for curing their weakness. Her mother taught her. She made Makino feel young and strong again. That’s why he wanted her. But she wouldn’t let him have her unless he took her away from here, to Edo Castle.”

“So he married Agemaki,” the priest said. “She went to live in his house as his wife.”

“Not quite so,” Yuriko said, handing bowls of tea to Hirata and the priest. While they drank, she said, “Makino was still married to his first wife when he took Agemaki from the temple. Agemaki was the senior elder’s concubine at the beginning. They married later on.”

“What happened to Makino’s first wife?” Hirata said.

“I heard she died of a fever,” said the priest.

“Don’t be too quick to believe it,” Yuriko said. “Agemaki set her heart on becoming the wife of an important official. She wasn’t satisfied to be a concubine. She begged Makino to divorce his old wife and marry her, but he refused. I know because I overheard them arguing. But her mother also taught Agemaki about poisons. There were rumors that Agemaki poisoned Makino’s first wife so that she could take her place.”

Hirata glanced sharply at Yuriko, whose expression said that she believed the rumors. If they were true, then a woman who’d bloodied her hands in the past might have the inclination to kill again. Yet Hirata couldn’t take the word of a jealous, spiteful gossip. And even if Agemaki had killed her predecessor, why would she later kill the man she’d wanted so badly to wed?

“Agemaki is a suspect in the murder of her husband,” Hirata told Yuriko and the priest. “Can you think of any reason why she might have wanted Makino dead?”

“None,” the priest said. “Perhaps she had little affection for her husband, but she was dependent on him.”

“He’s right about that,” Yuriko said. “Old Makino gave Agemaki food, clothes, servants, and a fine place to live.”

“But he granted her a fortune,” Hirata said.

“I know,” said Yuriko. “After he married her, she came back here to show off. She bragged about the money she would get when he died.”

“I’m glad to hear that she wasn’t left destitute,” the priest said, still unaware of the two conversations taking place simultaneously.

“Maybe Agemaki killed Makino for the money,” Hirata suggested.

As the priest protested, Yuriko said, “Now that Makino is dead, Agemaki will have to move out of his house because his family won’t want a common whore around. She won’t be a high-ranking lady any longer. She would have hated to come down in the world.” Yuriko made a moue of distaste, as though hating to speak in favor of Agemaki’s innocence. “If money is the only thing she would get by killing him, then I don’t think she did.”

The priest regarded Hirata and Yuriko with his cloudy gaze. A mild frown puckered his face, as though he’d finally noticed the communication between them and wondered what he’d missed. “Have I told you what you wanted to know?” he asked Hirata.

“Yes,” Hirata said. “A thousand thanks.”

“I’m glad to be of assistance,” said the priest.

Hirata bid him farewell, then walked outside and across the temple precinct with Yuriko. Pilgrims strolled and doves swooped around them. The sunlight had dimmed, casting a bronze glow on the tile rooftops; the air had turned colder with the declining afternoon.

“I’m glad to be of assistance, too,” Yuriko said with a saucy smile. “Have I told you what you really wanted to know about Agemaki?”

Reserving judgment, Hirata said, “I’ll have to talk to other people who know her.”

“Let me go with you,” Yuriko said. “I can introduce you to people. Afterward, we can have some fun together.” She took Hirata’s arm. Her eyes shone with her need to attach herself to a man who could rescue her from poverty and degradation.

“Introductions would be appreciated. I’ll pay you for your trouble, but I can’t accept your other kind offer.” Happily married, Hirata had no desire for women other than Midori. “I must get back to town as soon as my work here is finished.” And he was eager to find out what Sano had discovered today, if not to face Sano’s reaction to his escaping his watchdogs.

Yuriko accepted the rebuff with the nonchalance of someone who’d survived many disappointments in life. “Maybe next time.”

As she led him toward the nuns and shrine attendants who still flocked outside Asakusa Jinja Shrine, Hirata reflected that he’d unearthed compromising evidence against both Agemaki and Okitsu. It might justify his misbehavior and please Sano, if not solve the murder case. There remained suspects in Senior Elder Makino’s household who were still unknown quantities to Hirata. He would give much to know what was going on inside that estate now.