The Red Chrysanthemum

by Laura Joh Rowland

  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 that’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 w
anted 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.

  At dawn, Sano was fast asleep, worn out from two days of nonstop work. Detective Marume called through the door of his bedchamber, “Excuse me, Sano-san, are you awake?”

  Sano stirred groggily and found Masahiro crowded into the bed between him and Reiko. The boy was usually content to sleep by himself, but sometime during the night, he’d crawled under their covers. Maybe he was insecure because of the recent, disturbing events. He didn’t move; nor did Reiko.

  “I’m awake now,” Sano said with a yawn. “What is it?”

  “Lord Matsudaira wants to see you at his estate.”

  Dragging himself out of bed, Sano anticipated another bad scene. In the next few very busy moments, he threw on his clothes, his valet shaved him and dressed his hair, and he was out his gate with Marume, Fukida, and his troops. They hurried on foot to the special enclave within Edo Castle where the important Tokugawa clan members lived.

  Soldiers patrolled the area or occupied guardhouses along the walls that separated the estates. The sky was overcast and barely light, the air waterlogged, the scene as devoid of color as if the rain had washed it away. Sano and his entourage stopped at Lord Matsudaira’s gate, which boasted a three-tiered roof and ornate double ironclad doors. The guards confiscated Sano’s swords and searched him for hidden weapons. Not even the chamberlain was exempted from these strict security precautions.

  “Your men will wait out here,” the guard captain told Sano.

  Guards escorted him into the estate and left him at a large wooden shed built along one side of an elegantly landscaped garden. Its skylights and wide doors were open. Inside, Lord Matsudaira stood at a table that held some hundred bonsai trees of various species and sizes, planted in ceramic dishes. He was repotting a tiny, gnarled pine tree.

  “Greetings, Sano-san,” he said. His voice was quiet, his manner subdued. Dressed in an old cotton robe and trousers, minus his swords, his hands working in dirt, he looked like a peasant instead of a powerful warlord.

  Sano bowed, returned the greeting, and entered the shed. It smelled of earth and manure. Why had Lord Matsudaira summoned him here?

  Lord Matsudaira said, “I want to talk to you alone.”

  Yet Sano knew they weren’t really alone. There would be guards stationed nearby, although out of sight and earshot. Lord Matsudaira took no chances with his safety.

  “Morning is the most pleasant time of day.” He gently set the little tree in a new pot and packed soil around its roots. “It’s the time before a man is caught up in business, when he can relax and enjoy life. Don’t you agree?”

  “… Yes.” Sano doubted that Lord Matsudaira had brought him here to share a peaceful moment.

  “I thought this would be a good chance for you to tell me what progress you’ve made on investigating the murder.”

  Sano obliged with a report that skirted the truth. He told Lord Matsudaira that he’d done preliminary interviews with the residents of the Mori estate, but didn’t say they’d confirmed Lady Mori’s story and contradicted Reiko’s. He described how Hirata had traced the anonymous tip and found the stash of guns in Lord Mori’s warehouse, but left out what else Hirata had found. He said he’d begun a search for the medium, who’d suspiciously vanished before he could interrogate her.

  When he finished, Lord Matsudaira was silent a moment, planting moss around the base of his tree. “Is there anything more?”

  Before Sano could answer, Lord Matsudaira turned to him, held up a hand, and said, “Stop. You’re going to lie, and I am sick of lies.” His mood turned suddenly vicious. “There’s no use trying to hide the truth from me. I know about the messages from you to Lord Mori that have come to light. I know they indicate that you and he were planning a rebellion.”

  A chord of dismay reverberated through Sano, and not just because Lord Matsudaira knew about the evidence he’d wanted to keep under wraps. “How did you find out about the messages?” he asked as calmly as he could manage.

  “That’s not important,” Lord Matsudaira said. “What have you to say for yourself?”

  The evidence must have been leaked to Lord Matsudaira by someone in Sano’s retinue or Hirata’s. “Those messages aren’t what they seem.” He should have told Lord Matsudaira about them himself, presented his side of the story, and cut off an attempt to use them against him. Maybe the leak hadn’t come from within his camp, but from the person who’d planted the messages in the warehouse. No matter what, Sano should have known he couldn’t keep them secret. “I can explain.”

  Lord Matsudaira slashed his hand through Sano’s words. “Just tell me if it’s true.” Hostility set his features in angry lines. “Were you and Lord Mori conspiring to overthrow me? Are you still?”

  “No,” Sano declared, as sick of wrongful accusations as Lord Matsudaira was of deceit.

  Lord Matsudaira stepped closer to Sano. His direct, unblinking gaze measured Sano’s honesty; a twitch of his lips dismissed it as false. “Drop your pretenses. There’s no shogun here for you to trick. We might as well get to the bottom of this because there’s nobody here except ourselves.”

  Ourselves and your hidden guards who are ready to jump on me as soon as you call them. Sano said, “I told you yesterday that I wasn’t plotting against you. I’ll tell you again today that I wasn’t—and I’m not. Believe me or don’t; it’s your choice.”

  An abrupt change of expression transformed Lord Matsudaira. Now he looked torn between wanting to believe Sano and wanting to prove his suspicions correct. He shook his head, turned away from Sano, and leaned with his hands on the table.

  “I don’t know whom to trust anymore,” he muttered. “I used to pride myself on my instincts, but now I can’t tell whether someone is friend or enemy.” A sad chuckle heaved his body. “Every day I seem to have more enemies and fewer friends.”

  Sano felt an unexpected pity for Lord Matsudaira, perched on a mountaintop surrounded by people trying to push him off. But although the crisis had passed, Sano knew he wasn’t out of danger yet.

  “Merciful gods, how did things come to this?” Lord Matsudaira said in a voice hushed with astonishment.

  You overstepped yourself when you made your bid for power, Sano thought but didn’t say.

  “I made my bid for power because I thought it was the right thing to do, not just for me, but for the country. I wanted to foster prosperity, harmony, and honor.” Lord Matsudaira gazed at his array of bonsai. The trees stood aligned in perfect rows, like troops at attention. Their limbs were bent and tied into unnatural positions by his hand.

  “I thought I could do a better job running the country than my cousin has done. He let that scoundrel Yanagisawa take over.” Contempt for them both wrenched Lord Matsudaira’s mouth. “I thought that bringing Yanagisawa down would end the corruption and purify the regime. But too many people preferred things as they were. They opposed my efforts instead of working with me to rebuild the governme
nt after the war.”

  And you underestimated your opponents.

  “They’ve forced me to crush them or die,” Lord Matsudaira said.

  Sano marveled at his combination of intelligence and naïveté, idealism and ruthlessness, all crowned by arrogance. Perhaps those were the very qualities that transformed a samurai into a warlord.

  “They’ve all but destroyed my dream of forging a new, better, more honorable Japan.”

  In a sudden fit of violence, Lord Matsudaira swept the pine tree he’d just repotted off the table. It crashed onto the stone floor. The dish shattered. The tree lay with its roots exposed amid spilled dirt. Sano noticed that it was a valuable living antique, perhaps as old as the Tokugawa regime, which had been founded ninety-five years ago. Lord Matsudaira gazed down at the tree as though appalled by what his temper had wrought. Then he turned to Sano, his features contorted by emotion.

  “If those messages aren’t proof that you’re a traitor to me, what are they?” he said.

  “Trash scavenged from my garbage and placed out of context,” Sano said.

  “Then why didn’t you tell me about them instead of letting me find out from other sources?”

  Sano spoke the truth: “Because I thought you would jump to conclusions without listening to my side of the story. Because it seemed wiser to keep the messages a secret than risk that you would send me and my family straight to the executioner.”

  Wry self-awareness lightened Lord Matsudaira’s mood, although not much. “Fair enough. But that leaves us right where we started. Are you a traitor or aren’t you? Do I believe you or heed my suspicions?” His gaze measured Sano. “Give me a reason why I should let you continue investigating Lord Mori’s murder even though you’re a suspect yourself.”

  Sano recognized this as a critical juncture where one wrong step could irretrievably doom him, Reiko, their son, and all their close associates. While he pondered his options, he picked up the pine tree. Its branches were intact, but it wouldn’t survive if not properly tended. He could say, Because I’ve saved you in the past, which was true; had he not slain the assassin known as the Ghost, Lord Matsudaira’s regime might have fallen before now. But Lord Matsudaira wouldn’t like this reminder of his vulnerability.