Red Chrysanthemum

by Laura Joh Rowland

  He began rattling off names, starting with last night’s. Behind him, the sentries at the gate rolled their eyes: They’d been entertained in this fashion more times than they liked. At any other time Kushida would have seemed an intolerable bore to Hirata, but now he was priceless.

  “Not the whole month,” Hirata interrupted, “just the names from the night in question.”

  Kushida paused long enough to say, “I have to go through the whole list to get to that one,” and continued. He rattled the names faster and faster, then stopped, breathless. He held up his finger and slowly recited each name.

  Hirata recognized the first eight, which belonged to his neighbors and their retainers. Kushida identified the next three as servants. “There’s only one more. It was somebody I’ve never seen inside the castle before. Chugo Monemon.”

  “Who is he?” Hirata’s pulse quickened with excitement.

  “A samurai I know from a teahouse where I go to drink. I said hello to him, but he didn’t answer. He acted as if he didn’t want to be seen. He’s a clerk at Lord Mori’s estate.”

  At Lord Mori’s estate, Hirata and his detectives found Sano’s troops stationed outside, preventing the residents from leaving and turning away visitors while the murder investigation continued. Hirata told them, “I want to talk to a clerk named Chugo. Find him and bring him to me.”

  Soon Chugo came out the gate. In his thirties, he had a square face, a solemn expression, and a chunky build. When he saw Hirata, he quailed and stepped backward. Hirata’s detectives caught his arms to prevent him from fleeing, but he didn’t resist; he muttered, “Can we talk someplace else?”

  They walked through the daimyo district. Chugo jittered, casting furtive glances over his shoulder, his expression hunted. Hirata and his detectives sat Chugo in a teahouse on the street that marked the boundary between the daimyo district and the Nihonbashi merchant quarter.

  Hirata ordered a cup of sake and handed it to Chugo. “Drink up and calm down.”

  Chugo obeyed, then licked his lips, expelled a gusty breath, and said, “I’ve been expecting you.”

  “Then you know what this is about?” Hirata asked.

  “The letter I put under your gate.”

  “Did you write it?”

  Chugo nodded. “How did you know it was me?”

  “Your friend Kushida told me he saw you.”

  “Oh. I was hoping he would forget.” Chugo mumbled, “I wish I’d never written that letter.”

  “It’s a little late for that,” Hirata said.

  “Lord Mori was my master, and I should have been loyal to him no matter what he did. But treason was too serious for me to look the other way. I had to report it.” His gaze begged Hirata to agree.

  “You did the right thing,” Hirata said.

  Chugo still looked worried. “If Lord Mori’s other retainers find out that I told on him, they’ll kill me. You won’t tell anyone, will you?”

  “I can’t promise,” Hirata said, “but if you’ll cooperate with my investigation, I’ll keep your secret as best as I can.”

  “All right,” Chugo said even though he seemed far from satisfied.

  “First, what made you think Lord Mori was a traitor?” Hirata asked.

  “I overheard him talking with his friends. They said they were sick of the way Lord Matsudaira treated them. The tributes he demanded were too high. They’re tired of absorbing the cost of a war that was supposed to end three years ago but drags on and on. They’re afraid that if he goes down, so will they. They were planning to band together against him.”

  Anticipation excited Hirata. It sounded as if there had been a conspiracy after all. “Who are these friends?”

  “I don’t know,” Chugo said. “I didn’t see them. I happened to be walking past Lord Mori’s office. The door was open, but not enough for me to see them.”

  “What else did they say? Did they discuss their plans?” Hirata asked urgently. Perhaps the conspirators had fallen out and one of them had killed Lord Mori.

  “I don’t know. Lord Mori said, ”Somebody’s outside. Be quiet.“ They stopped talking. I left because I didn’t want them to catch me eavesdropping.”

  Disappointment lowered Hirata’s spirits. Vague hearsay didn’t equal proof of treason, although men had been put to death for less. “How do you know it wasn’t just idle talk?”

  “Because of what happened a few nights later,” Chugo said. “Some big boxes were delivered to the estate. I was curious, so I peeked inside one. It was full of guns. There would be no reason for Lord Mori to have them, unless…”

  Unless he was planning an armed insurrection. Hirata’s excitement flared anew. “When was this?”

  “About two months ago,” Chugo said. “I heard the guards say that more guns were expected.”

  Here was indication that Hirata had seen what he thought he’d seen while spying on Lord Mori. “What happened to the guns? Are they still in the estate?”

  “I don’t think so. I never saw them again.”

  Without them, Hirata had no evidence that Lord Mori had been a traitor, nothing to convince Lord Matsudaira that his death was no loss, and no new suspects to draw attention away from Reiko. And nothing to convince Sano that he’d seen what he’d said he had and his powers of observation weren’t slipping.

  “But I know a place they might be,” Chugo said.

  “Where?” Hirata demanded.

  Chugo looked unhappy because his obligation to Hirata was going to take more time than he liked, as well as incriminate his dead master even more. But he said, “I’ll show you.”

  “Lord Mori rents this warehouse,” the clerk said. “This is it.”

  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 ye
t 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.”