The Concubine's Tattoo Part 13

Eta corpse handlers placed the shrouded body on the table in Dr. Ito's workroom at Edo Morgue. Sano and Dr. Ito watched as Mura unwrapped the white folds of cloth from Lady Harume. Her eyes had dulled, and encroaching decay had blanched her skin. The foul, sweet odor of rot tainted the air. She still wore the soiled red silk dressing gown; blood and vomit still smeared her face and tangled hair. Hirata had indeed made sure that no one tampered with the evidence. Having known what to expect, Sano experienced only a momentary pang of revulsion, but Dr. Ito seemed shaken.

"So young," he murmured. As morgue custodian, he had examined countless bodies in worse condition; yet lines of pain deepened in his face, aging him. He said in a bleak voice, "I had a daughter. Once."

Sano recalled that Ito's youngest child had died of a fever at about the same age as Harume. He'd also lost contact with his other children upon his arrest. Sano and Mura stood silent, heads bowed in respect for their friend's grief, so seldom expressed. Then Dr. Ito cleared his throat and spoke in his normal brisk, professional manner. "Well. Let us see what the victim can tell us about her murder."

He walked around the table, studying Harume's corpse. "Dilated pupils; muscular spasm; vomiting of blood-symptoms that confirm my original diagnosis of poison by Indian arrow toxin. But perhaps there is more to learn. Mura, would you please remove her garment?"

Despite his unconventional nature, Dr. Ito followed the custom of letting the eta handle the dead. Hence, Mura performed most of the physical work of examinations, under his master's supervision. Now he took a knife and cut the robe away from Harume's rigid form. The dark nipples and tattoo contrasted harshly with her waxen pallor. Her limbs were smooth and shaved hairless, her skin without blemish. Sano felt rude to violate the privacy of this woman who had obviously taken care over her personal grooming.

Dr. Ito bent over the corpse's midsection, frowning. "There's something here." He spread a white cotton cloth over Lady Harume's abdomen, then pressed his hands against her, the cloth s.h.i.+elding him from the polluting contact with death. His fingers palpated and squeezed.

"What is it?" Sano asked.

"A swelling. It may be an artifact of the poison, or some other unrelated abnormality." Dr. Ito straightened, his expression grave as he met Sano's eyes. "But I've treated many female patients in my medical career. Unless I'm mistaken, Lady Harume was in the early stages of pregnancy."

A heavy weight of dismay thudded inside Sano's chest like an iron clapper in a temple bell. Pregnancy would have serious ramifications for the murder case, and for Sano as well.

Dr. Ito's gaze conveyed unspoken concern and understanding, but he was not a man to shy away from the truth. "A dissection is the only way to tell for sure."

Sano drew a deep breath and held it, containing the fear that burgeoned within him. Dissection, a procedure a.s.sociated with foreign science, was just as illegal as when Dr. Ito had been arrested. During other investigations, Sano had risked banishment and disgrace for the sake of knowledge. So far the bakufu hadn't discovered his involvement in taboo practices-even the most avid spies avoided Edo Morgue-but Sano feared that his luck would run out. He dreaded verification of Harume's condition, and the consequential danger. However, a pregnancy offered myriad possible motives for Harume's murder. Without exploring these, Sano might never identify her killer. And he never evaded the truth, either. Now he exhaled in resignation.

"All right, " he said to Dr. Ito. "Go ahead."

At a nod from his master, Mura fetched a long, thin knife from a cabinet. Dr. Ito removed the cloth from Lady Harume's abdomen. In the air over it, he sketched lines with his forefinger: "Cut here, and here, like so." Carefully, Mura inserted the sharp blade into the dead flesh, making a long horizontal slash below the navel, then two shorter, perpendicular cuts at each end of the first. He drew back the flaps of skin and tissue, exposing coiled pink bowels.

"Remove those," Dr. Ito instructed.

A strong fecal odor arose as Mura cut away the bowels and placed them in a tray. Nausea clutched Sano's stomach; the unclean aura of ritual contamination enveloped him. No matter how many times he observed dissections, they still sickened his body and spirit. He saw, within the cavity of Lady Harume's corpse, a fleshy, pear-shaped structure about the size of a man's fist. From this extended two thin, curved tubes, the ends fanning out in fibrous growths resembling sea anemones, meeting two grapelike sacs.

"The organs of life," Dr. Ito explained.

Shame exacerbated Sano's discomfort. What right had he, a man and stranger, to look upon the most private parts of a dead woman's body? Yet growing curiosity compelled his attention while Mura sliced into the womb, then laid it open. Inside nestled a frothy inner capsule of tissue. And curled within this, a tiny unborn child, like a naked pink salamander, no longer than Sano's finger.

"So you were right," Sano said. "She was pregnant."

The child's bulbous head dwarfed its body. The eyes were black spots in a barely formed face; the hands and feet mere paws attached to frail limbs. Threadlike red veins chased the skin, which stretched across ridges of delicate bone. A twisted cord connected the navel to the womb's lining. The vestige of a tail elongated the diminutive rump. As Sano stared at this new wonder, awe overcame him. How miraculous was the creation of life! He thought of Reiko. Would their troubled marriage succeed and produce children who would survive, as this one had not? His hopes seemed as fragile as the dead infant. Then professional and political concerns eclipsed Sano's domestic problems.

Had Lady Harume died because the killer had wanted to destroy the child? Jealousy might have compelled Lady Ichiteru or Lieutenant Kus.h.i.+da, rival and rejected suitor. However, a more ominous motive came to Sano's mind.

"Can you determine the s.e.x of the child?" he asked.

With the tip of a metal probe, Dr. Ito uncurled the infant and surveyed the genitals, a tiny bud between the legs. "It is only about three months old. Too early to tell whether it would have become a boy or a girl."

The uncertainty didn't alleviate Sano's worries. The dead child could have been the shogun's long-desired male heir. Someone might have murdered Lady Harume to weaken the chances of continued Tokugawa reign. This scenario posed a serious threat to Sano. Unless...

"Could the shogun have sired a child?" Dr. Ito voiced Sano's unspoken thought. "After all, His Excellency's s.e.xual preference is well known."

"Lady Harume's pillow book mentioned a secret affair," Sano said, then described the pa.s.sage. "Her lover could be the father of the child-if they didn't limit their activities to the kind Harume wrote about. Maybe I can prove it when I visit Lord Miyagi s.h.i.+geru today."

"I wish you good luck, Sano-san." Dr. Ito's face reflected Sano's hope. The stakes had risen; mortal danger now overshadowed the investigation. If the child belonged to another man, then Sano was safe. But if it was the shogun's, then Lady Harume's murder was treason: not just the killing of a concubine, but of Tokugawa Tsunayos.h.i.+'s flesh and blood, a crime that merited execution. And if Sano failed to deliver the traitor to justice, he himself could be punished by death.

12.

Through the streets of Nihonbas.h.i.+ moved a procession of soldiers and attendants, all wearing the gold flying-crane crest of the Sano family, escorting a black palanquin with the same symbol emblazoned on its doors. Inside the cus.h.i.+oned sedan chair sat Reiko, tense and anxious, oblivious to the colorful sights of mercantile Edo. To disobey her husband's orders would surely bring divorce, and shame to the whole Ueda clan. But she was still determined to pursue her illicit inquiry. She must prove her competence to herself as well as Sano. And to gain the necessary information, she must use every resource she possessed.

Under the surface of Edo society ran an invisible network composed of wives, daughters, relatives, female servants, courtesans, and other women a.s.sociated with powerful samurai clans. They collected facts as efficiently as the metsuke-the Tokugawa spy agency-and spread them by word of mouth. Reiko was herself a link in the loose but effective network. As a magistrate's daughter, she'd often exchanged news from the Court of Justice for outside information. This morning she'd learned that Sano had identified two murder suspects, Lieutenant Kus.h.i.+da and Lady Ichiteru. Social custom prevented Reiko from meeting two strangers without introduction by mutual acquaintances, and she dared not risk Sano's anger by approaching them directly. However, the strength of the female information network lay in its ability to bypa.s.s such obstacles.

The procession skirted the central produce market, where vendors manned stalls heaped with white radish, onions, garlic bulbs, ginger-roots, and greens. Memory brought a smile to Reiko's lips. At age twelve, she'd begun sneaking out of her father's house in search of adventure. Dressed in boys' clothes, a hat covering her hair, swords at her waist, she'd blended with the crowds of samurai who roamed Edo's streets. One day, here in this very market, she'd come upon two ronin who were robbing a fruit stall and beating the helpless merchant.

"Stop!" cried Reiko, drawing her sword.

The thieves laughed. "Come and get us, boy," they goaded her, weapons unsheathed.

As Reiko lunged and slashed, their amus.e.m.e.nt turned to surprise, then fury. Their blades clashed with hers in earnest. Shoppers fled; pa.s.sing samurai entered the melee. Horror filled Reiko. Unwittingly she'd started a full-scale brawl. But she loved the thrill of her first real battle. As she fought, someone's elbow slammed her face; she spat out a piece of broken tooth. Then the police arrived, disarmed the swordsmen, subdued them with clubs, bound their hands, and marched them off to jail. A dos.h.i.+n grabbed Reiko. While she struggled, her hat fell off. Her long hair spilled down.

"Miss Reiko!" the dos.h.i.+n exclaimed.

He was a friendly man who often stopped to talk to her when he visited the magistrate's house on business. Thus Reiko soon found herself not in jail with the other troublemakers, but kneeling in her father's courtroom.

Magistrate Ueda glared down at her from the dais."What is the meaning of this, daughter?"

Quaking with fear, Reiko explained.

Her father's face remained stern, but a proud smile tugged his mouth. "I sentence you to one month of house arrest." This was the usual punishment for brawling samurai when no fatalities were involved. "Then I shall provide a more suitable outlet for your energy."

Hence the magistrate had begun letting her observe trials, on the condition that she stayed off the streets. The broken tooth, though an embarra.s.sment, was also Reiko's battle trophy, the symbol of her courage, independence, and rebellion against injustice. Now, as the palanquin carried her into a lane of shops with colorful signs above curtained doorways, she felt the same thrill that she'd known during that long-ago battle and the trials she'd watched. She might lack detective experience, but she knew instinctively that she'd at last found the right use for her talents.

"Stop!" she commanded her escorts.

The procession halted, and Reiko alit from the palanquin. As she hurried down the street, her escorts tried to follow. But Reiko soon lost them in the crowd, which was composed mainly of women, like flocks of chattering birds in their gay kimonos. These shops sold beauty potions and hair ornaments, makeup and perfume, wigs and fans. The few men present were shopkeepers, clerks, or ladies' escorts. Reiko ducked under the indigo doorway curtain of Soseki, a popular dealer of unguents, and stepped inside.

The showroom, lit by barred windows and open skylights, contained shelves, cabinets, and bins of every imaginable beautifying substance: medicinal balms, hair oils and dyes, soap, and blemish removers, as well as brushes and sponges for applying them. Clerks waited on their female customers. Reiko left her shoes in the entryway, then moved through the crowded aisles. She halted at the bath-oil display.

There stood a woman in her late thirties, wearing the blue kimono of a joro-second-rank palace official. Thin to the point of emaciation, hair piled atop her head, she addressed the clerk in an authoritative manner. "I'll take ten bottles each of the pine, jasmine, gardenia, almond, and orange-scented oils."

The clerk wrote up the order. Gathering her attendants, the joro prepared to leave. Reiko approached.

"Good morning, Cousin Eri-san," she said, bowing.

This was a distant relative from her mother's side of the family, once concubine to the last shogun, Iemitsu. Now Eri was in charge of supplying the personal needs of the women's quarters, and thus a minor functionary whom Sano would no doubt relegate to the bottom of his list of witnesses. But Reiko knew that Eri was also the center of the Edo Castle branch of the female gossip network. Through the servants, Reiko had traced Eri to Soseki, and she meant to benefit from her cousin's knowledge. Still, Reiko addressed Eri with cautious diffidence.

"Might I please have a word with you?" Since her mother's death, the Ueda clan had maintained infrequent contact with Eri's family. Eri's position had further isolated her, and Reiko guessed that she might resent a younger, prettier, and well-married relative.

But Eri greeted Reiko with a gasp of delight. "Reiko-chan! It's been such a long time. You were just a little girl the last time I saw you; now you're all grown up. And married, too!" A former beauty, Eri had lost her youthful good looks. Middle age showed in the gray roots of her dyed hair and the gaunt planes of her face. Yet the warmth of her eyes and smile was undiminished. When Eri looked at you, Reiko remembered, you felt special, as though you had her complete interest. No doubt this was how she'd charmed her lord-and how she got people to tell her secrets. Now Eri said, "Come along, where we can talk in private."

Soon they were settled comfortably in a back room of the shop, with sake, dried fruit, and cakes supplied by the proprietor. Since high-ranking ladies couldn't drink in public teahouses or eat at food stalls, many establishments in this district provided areas in which customers could refresh themselves. These rooms, where men were not allowed, often served as stations for the exchange of gossip. Through the paper walls, Reiko could see other women's shadows, hear their chatter and giggles.

"Now tell me everything that's new with you," Eri said, pouring them each a cup of heated liquor.

Soon Reiko had told her cousin all about the wedding, what gifts she'd received, and how her new home was furnished. She only just managed to stop herself before revealing her troubles with Sano, marveling at Eri's talent for extracting personal information. What a fine detective she would make! But Reiko couldn't afford to go away having told more than she'd learned.

"I'm very interested in the murder of Lady Harume," she said, nibbling a dried apricot. "What do you know about it?"

Sipping from her cup, Eri hesitated. "Your husband is investigating the murder, isn't he?" A sudden wariness cooled her manner, and Reiko sensed Eri's distrust of men in general, and the bakufu in particular. "Did he send you to question me?"

"No," Reiko confessed. "He ordered me to stay out of the investigation. He doesn't know I'm here, and he would be furious if he did. But I want to solve the mystery. I want to prove that a woman can be as good a detective as a man. Will you help me?"

A mischievous sparkle lit Eri's eyes. She nodded, then held up a hand. "First you must promise to tell me everything you can learn about your husband's progress on the case."

"Done." Reiko suppressed a twinge of guilt over her disloyalty toward Sano. Fair was fair; she must pay the price of the information she needed-and by refusing her a.s.sistance, hadn't Sano earned the punishment of having his activities known to every woman in Edo? Even as the memory of her desire for him fluttered Reiko's heart, determination steeled her resolve. She reported the news gleaned from the maids who eavesdropped on Sano's detectives while cleaning the barracks: "Today my husband interviews Lieutenant Kus.h.i.+da and Lady Ichiteru. Could they have poisoned Harume?"

"The women in the Large Interior are laying bets that one or the other did," Eri said, "with most of them favoring Lady Ichiteru."

"Why is that?"

Eri smiled sadly. "Concubines and ladies-in-waiting are young. Romantic. Nave. The plight of a rejected suitor touches their soft little hearts. They don't understand how a man can love a woman as much as Kus.h.i.+da did Lady Harume, and at the same time hate her enough to kill her."

"But there must be evidence that has persuaded other women to believe Kus.h.i.+da is guilty?"

"My, you sound just like a police officer, Reiko-chan. Your husband is a fool not to accept your help." Eri laughed. "Well, I'll tell you something he probably doesn't know and won't find out. The day before Lieutenant Kus.h.i.+da was suspended, a guard caught him in Lady Harume's room. He had his hands in the cabinet where she kept her undergarments. Apparently Kus.h.i.+da was stealing them."

Or planting the poison? Reiko wondered.

"The incident was never reported," Eri continued. "Kus.h.i.+da is the guard's commanding officer, and he forced the man to keep quiet. No one would have known about it, except that a maid overheard them arguing and told me. The guard will never talk, because he could lose his post if the palace administration found out he protected someone who broke the rules." Eri paused. "And I never spread the story because Kus.h.i.+da had never made trouble before, and it seemed like a minor, harmless thing. Now I wish I'd gone to Madam Chizuru. If I had, Harume might not have died."

Through Eri's excuses, Reiko saw her real reason for keeping silent: Despite her worldly experience, her heart was as soft as those of the young concubines; she also sympathized with Lieutenant Kus.h.i.+da. But she'd established his opportunity for murder.

"Why is Lady Ichiteru considered the better suspect?" Reiko asked.

Eri's mouth tightened; she evidently disliked the concubine as much as she pitied Kus.h.i.+da. "Ichiteru hides her emotions well-from her manner, you'd never guess that she felt anything toward Harume besides disgust for a lowly peasant. She'll never admit how furious she was when the shogun stopped sleeping with her because he preferred Harume.

"But one day last summer, the ladies went on an outing to Kannei Temple. I was rounding them up for the trip home, when I heard screams in the woods. I hurried over and found Ichiteru and Harume on the ground, fighting. Ichiteru was on top of Harume, hitting her, shouting that she would kill Harume before she took Ichiteru's place as the shogun's favorite. I pulled them apart. Their clothes were dirty, their faces scratched and b.l.o.o.d.y. Harume was crying, and Ichiteru mad with rage. I separated them, then told everyone they'd hurt themselves by falling down in the woods."

"And this incident wasn't reported, either?"

Eri shook her head. "I might have lost my post for failing to keep order among my charges. Ichiteru didn't want anyone to know she'd behaved in such an undignified manner. And Harume was afraid of getting into trouble."

In Reiko's opinion, Lady Ichiteru had a much clearer motive for murder than Lieutenant Kus.h.i.+da. The concubine had also threatened Harume, and might have followed up the attack by poisoning her. "Did anyone see Lady Ichiteru in or near Harume's room shortly before she died?"

"When I asked the women, they all said no. But that doesn't mean Ichiteru wasn't there. She could have sneaked in when no one was looking. And she has friends who would lie for her."

Motive, and possible opportunity, Reiko decided. Lady Ichiteru was looking better and better as a suspect, but to prove her guilt, Reiko needed a witness, or evidence. "Can you let me talk to the other women and help me search Ichiteru's room?" she asked.

"Hmmm." Eri looked tempted, then frowned and shook her head. "Better not take the chance. It's against the rules to bring an outsider into the Large Interior. Even your husband will need special permission-though I doubt that he'll find anything. Ichiteru is smart. If she's the murderer, she would have gotten rid of any leftover poison."

Reiko was disappointed, but not unduly. She would just have to find a way around the rules, lies, and subterfuge that protected the Large Interior.

Eri was watching her with concern."Cousin, I hope you won't go too far with playing detective. There are other men in the bakufu besides your husband who don't like women interfering in matters that are none of their business. Promise me you'll be sensible."

"I will," Reiko promised, though Eri's slighting reference to her pursuit bothered her. When a man investigated murder, it was considered work, for which he earned money. But a women could only "play" at the same job. Impulsively, Reiko said, "Eri, I think it would be wonderful to have a real job in the castle, the way you do. Are you glad you became a palace official instead of marrying?"

Her cousin's mouth twisted in a smile of affectionate pity for her navet. "Yes, I'm glad. I've seen too many bad marriages. I enjoy my authority. But don't idealize my position, Reiko-chan. I got it by pleasing a man, and I serve under the rule of other men. Really, I'm no more free than you, who serve only your husband."

This depressing truth further convinced Reiko that she must find her own path through life. Then, seeing a sudden distracted expression on Eri's face, she said, "What is it?"

"I just remembered something," Eri said. "About three months ago, in the middle of the night, Lady Harume became violently ill with stomach pains. I gave her an emetic to make her vomit, then a sedative to put her to sleep. I thought that her food must have disagreed with her, and didn't bother reporting the illness to Dr. Kitano because she was better by morning. And Harume was almost struck by a flying dagger in a crowded street in the Asakusa district, on Forty-six Thousand Day." This was a popular temple festival. "No one knows who threw it. I never thought the two events were related, but now..."

Reiko saw Eri's point. In hot summer weather, spoiled food often caused sickness. Weapons let loose during battles between gangsters or dueling samurai endangered innocent bystanders. However, in view of Harume's murder, another possible explanation connected her two earlier misfortunes.

"It looks as though someone had been trying to kill Harume even before yesterday," Reiko said.

But was it Lady Ichiteru, Lieutenant Kus.h.i.+da, or some other, unknown person?

13.

After leaving the Satsuma-za puppet theater, Hirata rode aimlessly around town. Hours slipped by while he relived every moment spent with the woman he desired but could never have. He couldn't think of anything except Lady Ichiteru.

Eventually, however, his physical excitement subsided enough for him to grow aware of his actions. Instead of working on the murder investigation, he'd wasted a whole morning on hopeless daydreams! And he'd automatically traveled to his old territory: police headquarters, located in the southernmost corner of Edo's administrative district. Seeing the familiar high stone walls and the stream of dos.h.i.+n, prisoners, and officials pa.s.sing through the guarded gates restored Hirata's wits. He realized what had happened, and cursed himself for a fool.

Lady Ichiteru had avoided answering every single one of his questions. How would he explain to Sano why he'd failed to establish whether Ichiteru had motive or opportunity for Lady Harume's murder? He'd made a complete mess of the crucial interrogation of a prime suspect. Now he could admit that Ichiteru's evasion indicated her guilt. And, Hirata thought miserably, a woman of Lady Ichiteru's cla.s.s wouldn't dally with a man of his, unless for unscrupulous purposes.

Still, the knowledge didn't stop Hirata from wanting her, or from hoping she was innocent-and that she wanted him, too. Though he feared another episode of failure and humiliation, he longed to see her again. Should he go back to the theater and demand straight answers? Hot blood filled his loins at the thought of being with Ichiteru, of finis.h.i.+ng what they'd started. Reluctantly he decided he was in no shape to conduct an objective interrogation; he must first regain control over his feelings. And Hirata had other leads to investigate besides Lady Ichiteru. Fortunately his detective instincts had brought him to a good starting place.

Hirata entered the police compound. After giving his horse to a stableboy, he crossed the yard lined with the barracks where he'd once lived as a dos.h.i.+n, then went inside the main building, a rambling wooden structure. Officers signed on or off duty and delivered criminals in the reception room. From a raised platform, four clerks dispatched messages and dealt with visitors.

"Good day, Uchida-san," Hirata greeted the chief clerk.