The Cloud Pavilion

by Laura Joh Rowland

  Joju uttered his boisterous laugh. “Then I needn’t warn you to think before you persecute me.”

  Sano returned to Edo Castle after dark, when the night watch patrol guards roamed the passages with torches that smoldered and hissed in the moist evening air. Thunder murmured. As Sano and his entourage dismounted at his gate, Hirata rode up. One look at his friend’s face warned Sano that things hadn’t gone well for Hirata either.

  In his office, Sano poured sake for himself and Hirata. “Any news?” Sano asked.

  “My men and I spent the day looking for the oxcart drivers, but we haven’t found them yet,” Hirata said.

  That was bad enough, but Sano could tell it wasn’t the worst problem Hirata had to report. “What happened with Ogita?”

  “He says he’s not guilty. He has alibis.” Hirata described his interview with the rice broker.

  “We expected as much,” Sano said. “Did you check those alibis?”

  Hirata hesitated, then said, “No.”

  “Why not?” Sano asked, surprised.

  “Ogita has three of your top allies deeply in debt to him. He said he would call in their debts unless I left him alone.”

  This was a serious threat with potentially dire political consequences, but Sano insisted, “I won’t be stopped by blackmail.”

  “I knew you would say that,” Hirata said, “but as your chief retainer, I must advise you to be careful with Ogita. Besides, maybe he’s innocent. I propose that we concentrate on the other suspects first.”

  “That may be a problem, too,” Sano said, and told Hirata about his encounters with the other suspects. “Nanbu is still barricaded inside the kennel with his dogs and refusing to talk. And unless I leave Joju alone, I could find myself in trouble with the shogun.”

  “That is a problem,” Hirata agreed. “I must remind you that your ultimate duty is to the shogun, not your cousin or your uncle. Think of what His Excellency will do if you displease him.”

  Sano didn’t have to think. The shogun had threatened him and his family with death often enough. “There must be a way to do right by the shogun and finish this investigation.”

  “Until we figure it out, we have three suspects we can’t touch,” Hirata said.

  “I did do some discreet inquiries,” Sano said. After a long day of meetings at the palace, he’d spent hours tracing Nanbu’s and Joju’s movements. “I didn’t find any evidence to prove that Nanbu and Joju aren’t the upstanding citizens they claim to be.” Already exhausted, Sano sensed that the day’s story of bad luck wasn’t over yet. “Have you any more news?”

  Hirata bowed his head. “The other day, while I was at Ueno Pond . . .”

  He described how a mysterious stranger had begun stalking him, had later invaded his estate, and had shown up while he’d been interviewing Ogita. As he confessed that he’d killed Ogita’s servant, Sano listened in dismay, and not only because of the innocent life destroyed.

  “Whoever’s stalking you, he has the power to manipulate people against their will, to make them do things they ordinarily wouldn’t,” Sano said. “You’re in extreme danger.”

  “That doesn’t make up for what I did.” Hirata’s stoic expression didn’t hide his misery. “And I can’t promise that it won’t happen again.” He said reluctantly, “I must ask you to take me off the investigation.”

  As much as Sano hated to lose Hirata’s help—or to see him suffering because he couldn’t fulfill his duty to his master—he knew Hirata was right. “Very well.” And he must take additional steps to protect Hirata and the public. “I’m also relieving you of your other investigations and duties until you’ve found out who’s after you and dealt with the situation. Your detectives can handle your work. If the shogun asks about you, I’ll tell him you’re ill.”

  Hirata looked stricken, but he bowed in agreement. “May I be excused?”

  Sano nodded.

  After Hirata had left, Sano went to look for his family. Perhaps Reiko had news of Chiyo. Perhaps the children could cheer Sano up. He found Akiko asleep in bed, but Masahiro was lying on his stomach in the parlor and drawing pictures.

  “Is that a cow?” Sano asked.

  “No, Father, it’s a cat!” Masahiro said. “Can’t you tell?”

  “Yes, I was just joking,” Sano said. “It’s a better cat than I could ever draw. What else have you been doing today?”

  As Masahiro chattered about his schoolwork, Sano’s mind wandered to the investigation. Then Masahiro said, “Father, what’s divorce?”

  “That’s when a husband and wife stop being married,” Sano said absently.

  “What’s incest?”

  Sano’s attention snapped back to his son. “Where did you hear that word?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, someplace.” Masahiro scribbled on his drawing pad.

  “Well, you’d better ask your mother,” Sano said, not eager to tackle sensitive subjects.

  “She’s not home.”

  “Where is she?”

  “She went to visit Cousin Chiyo this morning. She said she would be spending the night.”

  Sano heard thunder, went to the door, and opened it. He and Masahiro looked at the rain streaming off the eaves. “Well, at least she won’t get caught in this weather.”

  White veins of lightning split the sky above the Kumazawa estate. Rain deluged the mansion. Thunder boomed. The sentries outside the gate stood beneath its roof, while patrol guards inside the grounds sheltered under the mansion’s eaves. They didn’t notice the man atop the back wall. The lightning illuminated his crouched figure for an instant before the sky went dark and the thunder reverberated. When the lightning flared again, he was gone. The next thunderclap masked the noise he made when he landed on the ground inside the wall.

  In the women’s quarters, Reiko played cards with Chiyo and Fumiko. The chamber was stuffy, the doors that led to the garden closed because of the storm. As Reiko dealt the cards, she listened to the rain clatter on the roof tiles. Lightning flickered through the paper windowpanes; thunder cracked.

  Although pale and anxious, Chiyo made an effort to smile at Reiko. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “So am I,” Reiko said, smiling back.

  Fumiko wasn’t much for conversation. Intent on the game, she snatched up the cards Reiko dealt her. The women laid out, matched, and picked up cards illustrated with cherry trees, cranes standing beneath red suns, and other suits. Reiko noticed that Fumiko won every round. She began to watch the girl and spied her slipping cards in and out of her sleeves. Fumiko was cheating! She must have learned how from the gangsters. Reiko decided against reprimanding her. Let the poor girl have some fun. And if Chiyo noticed, she didn’t seem to mind. There were issues more serious than cheating at cards.

  Reiko had a specific one on her mind. All day she’d wondered how to broach the delicate subject to Chiyo and Fumiko, but it couldn’t be avoided any longer. “There’s something I must tell you,” she began. “The nun who was kidnapped . . . she had . . . a disease.”

  “Oh?” Chiyo said, mildly curious. “What kind of disease?”

  “On her . . .” Reiko glanced down, at her lap. “It came from the man who kidnapped her.”

  Stricken by horrified comprehension, at first Chiyo didn’t speak. She looked at Fumiko, who was matching cards and seemed not to be listening. Then she said, “Fumiko is clean. I saw her when we bathed. But I—”

  “Do you . . . ?” Reiko couldn’t bring herself to ask Chiyo outright if she had symptoms.

  “No,” Chiyo whispered. “But . . .”

  But it was too soon to know whether the rapist had given her the disease or not. Reiko said, “If you find anything wrong, you must see a physician.”

  “All right,” Chiyo said unhappily.

  Her duty done, Reiko rubbed her eyes, which were bleary with fatigue. Some two hours ago, the temple bells in Asakusa had rung at midnight. Everybody else in the house had gone to bed.

  “If you’re
tired, you needn’t stay up,” Chiyo said.

  “No, I’m fine,” Reiko said. Chiyo had confided that she and Fumiko stayed up late because of their nightmares, and Reiko felt a desire as well as an obligation to keep them company.

  As she dealt the cards again, Reiko felt a warm, damp draft on the back of her neck. The flame in the lantern wavered. The sound and smell of the rain filled the room. Fumiko, who sat opposite her, dropped the cards she held. Fumiko gazed past Reiko, her eyes wide with terror.

  Reiko turned. A man stood inside the open door, his black garments streaming water from the rain. He wore a hood that covered his entire head, with holes cut out for his eyes and mouth. Raising a sword in both hands, he lunged across the room toward Reiko and her friends.

  Chiyo screamed.

  Fumiko jumped up to run, but tripped on her hem and fell.

  Reiko snatched up her dagger, which lay in its sheath on the floor beside her. She usually wore it strapped to her arm under her sleeve when she left home, but she’d thought she would be safe here. The man rushed at Chiyo. She raised her hands to protect herself, and his sword came swinging downward at her. Reiko whipped out her dagger and slashed at the man. Even as he faltered and turned his weapon on Reiko, her blade cut him across his belly.

  He uttered an awful yowl. He dropped his sword, sank to his knees, and bent over the wound. Blood mixed with rainwater spilled onto the floor.

  Fumiko huddled nearby, hands over her mouth, staring at him. Chiyo called, “Help, help!”

  The intruder glared at Reiko through the holes in his hood, his eyes blazing with hatred and anger. He groped for his weapon, but toppled sideways. The emotion faded from his eyes as he collapsed amid playing cards stained red by his blood.

  Reiko heard men shouting and running in the corridors and outside the house. Then Major Kumazawa and his guards were in the room. Major Kumazawa wore a night robe; his feet were bare. He carried a sword, which he pointed at the dead man.

  “What happened?” he demanded. “Who is this?”

  Reiko couldn’t answer. She was suddenly dizzy, gasping for breath. She had a frightening sense that time had folded back on itself and she was reliving an earlier attack, during which her children had almost been murdered.

  Fumiko pointed to the mask that the corpse wore. “It’s the man who kidnapped us!” she shrilled. “He came back to get us, just like he said he would!”

  Sano roused groggily from a sound sleep. Into his dark chamber spilled light from a lantern held by Detective Fukida, who stood in the doorway. “I’m sorry to bother you,” Fukida said, “but there’s an urgent message from Lady Reiko.”

  Instantly wide awake, Sano said, “What?” He bolted upright in bed. “Is she all right?”

  “Yes,” Fukida said, “but there’s been an attack at the Kumazawa house. She asks you to come at once.”

  Sano threw on some clothes. Heading for the door, he met Masahiro, rubbing his sleepy eyes, in the hall. “Where are you going, Father?”

  “To fetch your mother,” Sano said. “Don’t worry, she’s fine. Go back to bed. We’ll be home soon.”

  He rode through the dark, slumbering city with Marume and Fukida and some troops. The neighborhood gates had long been closed for the night, but Sano and his men wore the Tokugawa crest, and the watchmen let them pass. After a hard ride along the highway, they reached the Kumazawa estate.

  It was lit up like a house on fire. Flames burned in metal lanterns along the wall and at the gate; more lights flickered from within the courtyard. Smoke melted into the misty night. The guards let Sano’s party through the gate. As they dismounted in the courtyard, Reiko came running out of the mansion. Dressed in a night robe, she was agitated and disheveled, her face bare of makeup, her long hair carelessly braided. But she was indeed alive and well, to Sano’s relief.

  “What happened?” Sano said.

  As Reiko told him about the attack, he listened in horror that didn’t ease much when she told him she’d killed the man. Killing was a traumatic experience. Reiko must have been terrified, and she hadn’t been the only one in danger.

  “Where is Chiyo?” Sano said. “And Fumiko?”

  Out of breath from excitement and speaking too fast, Reiko gestured toward the house. Chiyo and Fumiko stepped out onto the veranda. They looked shaken but unharmed. Major Kumazawa appeared behind them, fully dressed in his armor tunic, his swords at his waist, as if ready for battle.

  “My daughter and her guest weren’t touched,” he said. “But they would have been killed if not for your wife.”

  His tone conveyed some admiration and gratitude toward Reiko but more fury at the attack on his house hold. “The man climbed over the wall. We found the rope he used. He got past my guards—he killed two of them. He must have been a professional assassin.”

  “Where is the assassin now?”

  “In the backyard,” Major Kumazawa said. “Your wife insisted on keeping his body until you arrived.”

  Sano cast a thankful glance at Reiko. She smiled briefly through her distress. He was proud of her for having the presence of mind to save the evidence.

  “Come,” Major Kumazawa said, lifting a lantern off a stand and walking down the steps. “I’ll show you.”

  He led Sano around the mansion, across the garden, and through a gate. The detectives accompanied Sano and Major Kumazawa past the kitchen building, to a small, fenced yard. Major Kumazawa’s lantern illuminated wooden bins that reeked of rotten fish, and a blanket-covered shape that lay on the ground. Fukida drew back the blanket. Underneath lay a youngish man with the shaved crown of a samurai, a wiry build, and an oval face with long, thick lashes that fringed his closed eyes. His gray kimono and trousers were drenched with blood from the wound Reiko had inflicted on his belly. The clothes had no identifying crests on them. The man was a stranger to Sano.

  “Do you know him?” Sano asked Major Kumazawa.

  “Never seen him before. Neither have my daughter or your wife, so they say. At first the girl thought he was the kidnapper, but she was fooled by the mask. It must be like the one the kidnapper wore. When she saw his face, she changed her mind and said she didn’t recognize him after all.”

  Marume and Fukida shook their heads; they didn’t know the assassin, either. Fukida covered the corpse.

  “Do you know of anyone who would want to hurt your family?” Sano said.

  “No one with enough nerve to break into my house.”

  “We need to find out who he is.” Concern filled Sano because he was starting to get an idea about the reason behind the attack.

  “It’ll be day soon,” Fukida said. “Do you want us to take his body around the neighborhood and see if anyone recognizes him?”

  “Have some of my troops do it,” Sano said. It was hardly standard procedure, but there seemed no other way to identify the dead man. Sano hoped it would work better than his experiment at Edo Jail. Envisioning the gory corpse paraded through the streets, he added, “Tell them to keep the body covered and just show the face.”

  The detectives went off to obey. Sano and Major Kumazawa walked back toward the mansion.

  “It’s no coincidence that this happened after you started your investigation.” Major Kumazawa spoke as if stating a distasteful fact.

  “No. I don’t believe it is, either.” Sano experienced a bad, familiar feeling. Once again, he hadn’t solved a case soon enough. “I think the assassin came to kill Chiyo so that she could never identify the man who raped her.”

  “Do you think he did it?” Incredulity vied with hope in Major Kumazawa’s voice.

  Sano knew why Major Kumazawa wasn’t ready to accept the idea. The dead assassin seemed so ordinary, not an evil monster. And Sano had other reason to doubt that the man had acted alone, on his own behalf. “No. I think he was sent by the guilty party.”

  “Those oxcart drivers?” Major Kumazawa turned to Sano, his disbelief clear in the light from the brightening sky.

  “Not them
,” Sano said. “While I was looking for them, I found three new suspects.”

  He told Major Kumazawa about the kennel manager, the rice broker, and the exorcist. Surprise halted Major Kumazawa in the courtyard. “This happened when?”

  “Their names came up yesterday,” Sano said.

  “And you didn’t tell me?” Vexed, Major Kumazawa said, “I expected you to keep me informed about your progress.”

  “I’m informing you now.” Although Sano could understand that Major Kumazawa didn’t like being kept in the dark, he’d wanted to prevent his uncle from confronting the suspects himself and causing trouble again.

  “Nanbu, Ogita, and Joju.” As Major Kumazawa turned their names over on his tongue, he looked stunned to think they could have stooped to kidnapping and rape. Then he nodded, aware that even three such important men could have perverted tastes and no scruples. “If one of them wanted my daughter and hired those oxcart drivers to kidnap her—if one of them sent the assassin to kill her—how can I get my revenge?”

  Despair pervaded his stern manner. “If I should go after Nanbu, I’ll have to kill his dogs. I’m in debt to Ogita. He could make my clan paupers. And Joju is the shogun’s protégé.” He said bitterly, “I can’t touch them any more than you can. I don’t care what happens to me, but I can’t let my family suffer.”

  Sano had been in the same position, blocked because his family would share whatever punishment he incurred, too many times to count. But he said, “Let’s not give up. Whichever man is guilty—and I’m sure one or more of them is—he shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.”

  “Shouldn’t, but will.” Major Kumazawa faced Sano with determination. “Because the investigation stops now.”

  People had tried to stop his investigations before, but Sano shook his head. “You don’t have the authority to call off my investigation.”

  “Yes, I do,” Major Kumazawa said. “I requested your help. Now I’m withdrawing my request.”

  “You can’t just dismiss me as if I were an unsatisfactory servant,” Sano said. “I’ll continue the investigation until the criminal is brought to justice.”