Sano Ichiro 9 The Perfumed Sleeve (2004)

by Laura Joh Rowland

  Ibe hesitated and sucked his lips. Sano bet that the man’s cowardice would prevail. Ibe said, “All right—you win. But how do you propose to find the evidence you need?”

  “The Floating Teahouse is a place to start,” Sano said.

  “Let’s go, then.” Ibe headed for the door with Sano and Hirata.

  “I forbid you,” Otani said, grasping at the shreds of his authority.

  “You can come with us if you want,” Ibe said, “but you can’t stop us.”

  Otani reluctantly followed them out of the house.

  * * *

  30

  Reiko rode in her palanquin along the passage that led uphill from the official quarter to the palace. While her bearers negotiated turns and paused at checkpoints, her mind went over and over her conversation with Lady Yanagisawa. She desperately sought a way to evade blackmail and ruination.

  The moment when she’d considered obeying Lady Yanagisawa had passed; conscience had overridden self-interest. Reiko couldn’t interfere with Sano’s investigation on the chamberlain’s account. And she could never bring herself to assassinate Lord Matsudaira. Having realized that, Reiko must somehow protect her marriage from Lady Yanagisawa.

  The simplest way would be to tell Sano the truth about what had happened between her and the Dragon King, before Lady Yanagisawa got to him. But if Reiko did, he might still believe Lady Yanagisawa. Even if he didn’t divorce Reiko, he would never trust her again. Their love would be damaged beyond repair. Although Reiko knew that their love should matter less than resisting the evils that Lady Yanagisawa had asked of her, it was the most important thing in her life besides her child.

  Next, Reiko thought of discrediting Lady Yanagisawa in order that Sano wouldn’t believe anything she told him. But Sano already knew from Reiko that Lady Yanagisawa was a jealous, treacherous madwoman, and even that didn’t seem enough to counteract her lies. Sano hadn’t witnessed Lady Yanagisawa’s attempts to kill Masahiro or Reiko. One hint of suspicion about Reiko’s veracity might goad him to think that Reiko had invented the murder attempts, as well as her version of the story about the Dragon King. Yet despite these problems, discrediting Lady Yanagisawa—and getting the woman permanently out of her life—still seemed the best defense to Reiko. But how to do it?

  She rode through a gate and a garden of cherry trees whose bare, black limbs seemed unlikely to ever blossom in the spring. The bearers set down her palanquin outside the Large Interior, the wing of the palace where the shogun’s concubines, female relatives, and their attendants lived. Reiko forced herself to forget her personal problems and concentrate on the murder investigation. She climbed out of the palanquin and hurried up to the two guards stationed outside a door to the half-timbered, tile-roofed complex of interconnected buildings.

  After identifying herself to the guards, she said, “I wish to see Madam Eri.”

  Soon Eri came out the door. “Honorable Cousin Reiko!” she said with a friendly smile. A thin, middle-aged woman, she had hair dyed black and a gaunt face. Once a concubine to the previous shogun, she was now a second-rank palace official in the Large Interior. She wore a padded cloak thrown over the blue kimono of her rank. “How nice to see you!”

  “I need your help,” Reiko said, forgoing pleasantries in the interest of haste. “Can you spare a moment to talk?”

  “Certainly,” Eri said.

  Reiko beckoned Eri, and they walked among the cherry trees in the deserted garden. “I need to find out the name of the woman that Lord Matsudaira’s nephew Daiemon was having an affair with. Can you tell me?”

  Eri’s pleasant expression turned uneasy. She halted on the path. Averting her gaze from Reiko, she said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know who she is.”

  “I think you do,” Reiko said. “You know everything about the personal business of high society.” Eri was a notorious gossip who gathered news from the wives, concubines, servants, and other women associated with prominent men. “Who is she?”

  “All right. I do know.” Eri faced Reiko, her eyes troubled. “But I can’t tell you.”

  Reiko was surprised because Eri had often helped her with investigations. “Why not?”

  “The woman is beholden to a jealous, violent man. I don’t want to cause trouble for her.”

  “If she met Daiemon at the Sign of Bedazzlement and killed him, she deserves trouble.”

  Eri shook her head. “I can’t believe she killed him.”

  “Then help her clear herself,” Reiko said. “Tell me who she is so I can talk to her. If she convinces me that she didn’t kill Daiemon, I’ll tell my husband she’s innocent. Her affair will never become public.”

  “But what if she doesn’t convince you?” Eri said, defensive and obstinate. “You’ll drag her into the sōsakan-sama’s investigation. Her man will punish her for cheating on him. She’ll be a dead woman.”

  “As might I be, if my husband doesn’t find out who killed Daiemon,” said Reiko. “Would you shield Daiemon’s mistress at my expense?” In her desperation, Reiko had no qualms about using whatever means necessary to coax Eri. “Would you sacrifice your own cousin to protect a woman who may have murdered the shogun’s heir apparent?”

  Guilt and uncertainty colored Eri’s features. She clasped her hands and bowed her head over them, as if praying for good judgment. Then she leaned close to Reiko and whispered in her ear, “The woman’s name is Gosechi. She’s Lord Matsudaira’s concubine. Now do you understand why the affair had to be kept secret?”

  The Floating Teahouse was a boat moored on the Kanda River. It had a long, flat, wide hull enclosed by a cabin made of bamboo blinds and a plank roof. A red lantern painted with the characters of its name hung from a pole at the bow. Up and down the river were other, similar boats that contained brothels, drinking places, and gambling dens. The pleasure seekers who frequented these businesses during warm months were scarce today. Outside a floating brothel, a frowzy young woman greeted an old samurai. A trio of male commoners joshed and laughed on a bridge that led to warehouses on the opposite bank. Ferries and barges plied the muddy, rippling water.

  Sano, Hirata, Ibe, and Otani walked the path down the riverbank to the Floating Teahouse. Their troops waited on the slope above. A hunchbacked man wearing a gray kimono and leggings came out of the teahouse and hurried toward Sano and his companions.

  “Greetings,” he said, beaming at the prospect of customers with money to spend. “Welcome to my humble establishment. Come in, come in!” He shooed them toward the boat.

  “I could use a drink,” Otani said grumpily.

  They entered the boat’s cabin, which contained sake urns, a smoking charcoal brazier, and a tray of cups. Sano, Hirata, and the watchdogs knelt on a frayed tatami mat. Inside the boat was almost as cold as outside, but the bamboo blinds provided shelter from the wind. The proprietor served sake heated on the brazier. He hovered near Sano and the other men as they drank.

  After Sano introduced himself as the shogun’s sōsakan-sama, he told the proprietor, “I’m looking for information on two men who may have come here three days ago. One was a samurai.” He described Daiemon.

  “Oh, yes,” said the proprietor, “I remember them. The samurai was the only one I’ve had here in a while, until now.”

  “I’m particularly interested in the other man,” Sano said. “I want to find out who he is. Did you hear his name?”

  “No,” the proprietor said, “but I can tell you. He was Koheiji, the Kabuki actor.”

  “Koheiji?” Sano felt his surprise shared by his companions. “How do you know?”

  “He’s my favorite actor. I go to all his plays. I recognized him the moment I saw him.” The old man’s eyes shone with delight. “To think that such a great star drank in my teahouse!”

  Sano shook his head as his surprise reverberated through it. He’d expected at best a vague description of the assassin. His mind seethed with speculation. “Are you sure it was Koheiji and not just someone who looked like h
im?”

  “Absolutely sure, master. I’d swear on my life.”

  “Do you know who the samurai is?”

  The proprietor shook his head. “He didn’t say. And I’d never seen him before.”

  “Tell me what the two men did.”

  “The samurai was already here, waiting, when Koheiji came.” The proprietor’s expression said he wondered why Sano was interested in the pair’s meeting but didn’t dare question a bakufu official. “They each had one drink. They talked so softly I couldn’t hear what they were saying. The samurai gave Koheiji a pouch. Koheiji opened it. He poured out gold coins. I’d never seen so much money in my life.” Awe inflected the proprietor’s voice. “There must have been a hundred koban!”

  “What happened next?” Sano pictured Daiemon and Koheiji seated where he sat now, the coins glinting between them.

  “Koheiji counted the money. He put it back in the pouch and tucked the pouch inside his cloak. Then they left.”

  Sano thanked the proprietor. He paid for the liquor that he and Hirata and the watchdogs had consumed. They joined their troops on the cold, windy riverbank.

  “It was Koheiji whom Daiemon hired to kill Senior Elder Makino,” Hirata said in a tone of amazed revelation.

  “So it appears,” Sano said, “if the samurai Koheiji met was indeed Daiemon.” Ingrained caution prevented him from drawing conclusions even when evidence supported them.

  “The murder was committed by someone inside Makino’s household, on the orders of someone outside,” Hirata said.

  “Who was in a better position to assassinate Makino than a man he trusted, who lived with him?” Sano remarked.

  “Daiemon must have thought of that when he chose Koheiji,” said Hirata.

  “He might have known that Koheiji wanted money and could be bribed into killing his master,” Sano said.

  “Maybe Daiemon promised to become his patron after Makino was gone,” said Hirata.

  “Daiemon’s story that Makino defected was a lie,” Ibe said with conviction. "Obviously, he’d failed to persuade Makino to join Lord Matsudaira’s faction. He had the actor assassinate Makino to get him off the Council of Elders and weaken Chamberlain Yanagisawa’s influence over the shogun.”

  Otani looked at the ground, his head bowed, humiliated by further evidence that his lord’s nephew had died a criminal. His expression was stoic, but fear for his own fate emanated from him like a bad smell.

  “That Daiemon appears to have conspired with Koheiji to assassinate Senior Elder Makino sheds a new light on Daiemon’s murder,” Sano said.

  “Daiemon was a threat to Koheiji because he knew Koheiji assassinated Makino,” said Hirata. “Maybe Koheiji killed Daiemon to keep him from telling.”

  “But if Koheiji got accused of the murder, all he needed to do was say that Daiemon hired him,” Ibe objected. “Neither of them could have incriminated the other without endangering himself. They’d both have been in trouble.”

  “Koheiji would have been in deeper trouble than Daiemon,” said Hirata. “If we hadn’t found the note and come to the Floating Teahouse, it would be Koheiji’s word against Daiemon’s. The shogun wouldn’t believe that his heir apparent had conspired to murder his old friend Makino.”

  “Perhaps Koheiji thought that if there was any chance he might take the blame for the crime, Daiemon should share the punishment, and therefore he stabbed him just in case,” Sano said. “And perhaps Koheiji didn’t act alone, even if he was the one who got paid to kill.” Sano recalled the scenes that Reiko had witnessed between the suspects in Makino’s household. “Perhaps he had an accomplice.”

  “If so, was it Okitsu?” said Hirata. “Or Agemaki?”

  “They’re both possibilities,” Sano said. “But this is all unfounded speculation. To learn the truth, we need to talk to Koheiji.” He addressed the watchdogs: “In view of everything that’s happened, may I assume that you’ll no longer prevent me from investigating him?”

  “I won’t,” Otani said, subdued by dejection. “If he killed my lord’s nephew, he deserves to be exposed and punished no matter how many high-ranking friends he has.”

  “Nor I,” said Ibe. “Do with him what you will.”

  “May I also assume that you’ll now remove your troops from my house?” Sano asked.

  “You may not,” Ibe said with a derisive laugh. “I still want assurance that the outcome of your investigation doesn’t put my master or me at a disadvantage. Don’t push your luck. Now let’s go see what the actor has to say for himself.”

  * * *

  31

  The search for Daiemon’s mistress led Reiko to Zōjō Temple.

  After leaving her cousin, she’d gone to the Matsudaira estate. Eri had said that a certain lady-in-waiting there, who owed her a favor, would get Reiko inside to see Lord Matsudaira’s concubine, Gosechi. But when Reiko had arrived, the lady had said Gosechi had gone to the temple. After Reiko had explained that she had urgent business with Gosechi, the lady had sent a servant along with Reiko to help her locate the concubine.

  Reiko now traveled in her palanquin through the Zōjō district, administrative seat of the Buddhist Pure Land sect. Zōjō was the Tokugawa family temple, where the clan worshipped and its ancestors lay entombed in lavish mausoleums. This vast district encompassed hills and pine forest, more than one hundred buildings of Zōjō proper, and many smaller, subsidiary temples. Here lived some ten thousand priests, monks, nuns, and novices. As Reiko and her entourage passed through the crowded marketplace along the approach to the temple, her spirit darkened with memories of violence.

  During the disaster at the nearby Black Lotus Temple last autumn, she’d faced evil and narrowly escaped death. Seven hundred people had lost their lives. Today, while the factions warred outside Edo, a new shadow hung over Zōjō Temple. Reiko found the precinct crowded with pilgrims seeking blessings to protect them from misfortune. They flocked around the pagodas and shrines. The grand main hall appeared under siege by the hordes that streamed around and through it. Alighting from her palanquin near the huge bronze bell, Reiko wondered how, amid so many people, she would ever find the one woman she sought.

  “I want to see Koheiji,” Sano told the detective who met him outside the door to Senior Elder Makino’s mansion when he arrived with Hirata, the watchdogs, and all their troops.

  “Koheiji went to the theater,” said the detective.

  “Then we’ll get him there,” Ibe said, turning to leave.

  “Not so fast,” Sano said.

  Ibe regarded him with surprise. “I thought you were so eager to confront Koheiji. Why hold off now?”

  “Koheiji is sure to deny everything. While I’m here, I may as well get some more ammunition to use against him besides the note and the teahouse proprietor’s story.” Sano asked the detective, “Where is Agemaki?”

  “She’s in the family chapel.”

  The chapel was located in a wing of the mansion built over a pond fringed with reeds. Inside, a niche contained a Buddha statue on a dais. Narrow alcoves each contained a butsudan—a memorial shrine in the form of a small cabinet—and offerings of food and flowers that honored a Makino clan ancestor. Agemaki knelt before a table that held a painted portrait of Senior Elder Makino, a funeral tablet bearing his name, incense in a brass burner, and a lit candle that would burn for seven days after his death. She wore plain gray robes; a white drape covered her hair. Her head was bowed, her face serene as she murmured the prayers that would ease her husband’s transition to the spirit world. When Sano and his companions entered the chapel, Agemaki started; her voice broke off. She rose, and caution hooded her gaze.

  “Please excuse us for interrupting your funeral rites,” Sano said, “but we have important news. We’ve found evidence that Koheiji killed Senior Elder Makino.”

  Shock tightened Agemaki’s elegant features. Her hand went to her mouth.

  “It seems that Lord Matsudaira’s nephew Daiemon hired Koheiji to assassinat
e your husband.” Sano showed Agemaki the note, explained what he thought it meant, and told her that he had a witness who’d seen Daiemon pay the actor. He waited while she stood rigid and mute. Hirata and the detectives, Ibe, Otani, and their troops watched her in silence. Outside the chapel, footsteps creaked as someone hurried down the corridor.

  “Have you anything to say?” Sano prompted Agemaki.

  “I thank you for finding out who killed my husband.” Her toneless voice hid whatever she was thinking. But Sano sensed that she was wondering whether she could relax now that he’d determined that someone else was guilty, or whether she still had cause for fear. “Now his spirit can rest in peace.”

  “Not quite yet,” Sano said. “First the people responsible for his death must be brought to justice.” When she made no response, Sano said, “Perhaps you can help me.”

  She glanced sideways at him, her hand still clasped over her mouth. He felt her wondering what he expected of her.

  “A witness heard you and Koheiji talking. Each of you promised to say nothing about what the other did in connection with your husband’s death.” Sano heard Agemaki’s breath catch with a small, ragged sound. “That suggests you conspired in the murder that Koheiji was hired to do. If he’s guilty, then so must you be—as his accomplice.”

  Sano saw the watchdogs frown, trying to guess where and how he’d gotten the evidence that he hadn’t discovered while with them. Agemaki dropped her hand from her mouth. Her lips parted and the gaze she lifted to Sano was filled with dismay.

  “That maid who ran away last night... I was afraid she’d been eavesdropping on me. She was your spy.” Panic crept into Agemaki’s voice as she said, “But I never conspired to kill my husband. I wasn’t an accomplice. I had nothing to do with his death. That’s not what Koheiji and I were talking about.”

  “Then what were you?”

  Agemaki pressed her lips together. They twitched and strained, as though with the effort to contain her knowledge.