Laura Rowland - The Perfumed Sleeve

Makino had become his patron and raised him to fame and fortune. But the brightest phase of his star gave way to the darkest after Makino’s death. Somehow Koheiji had always managed to blunder along until good fortune shone on him again, but now his adversaries weren’t just jealous actors; they were the sōsakan-sama and his henchmen, backed by the might of the Tokugawa regime. Two murders doubled the likelihood that he would be the one punished. If he didn’t act fast, his star would burn out for good.

Impatient, Koheiji looked out the window of his palanquin to gauge his progress toward Edo Castle. He saw, crossing an intersection ahead of him, a familiar palanquin and entourage. Koheiji called, “Let me off here!” He jumped from his vehicle, tossed coins to the bearers, ran after the palanquin, and banged on the window shutters.

They opened, and Okitsu and Agemaki peered at him from within the palanquin as he trotted alongside it. Okitsu smiled and cried, “Koheiji-san! I’m so glad to see you!”

“Get out,” Koheiji said, barely looking at her.

“What?” Confusion wiped the smile off Okitsu’s face.

Koheiji flung open the palanquin’s door and yanked Okitsu out. As she squealed protests, he climbed in, took her seat opposite Agemaki, then shut the doors and window.

“I need to talk to you,” he said. “There’s bad news.”

Agemaki sat, prim and quiet as usual, her tranquil face averted from him. She waited for him to speak.

“First, I must thank you for not telling the sōsakan-sama about me and the night Senior Elder Makino died,” Koheiji said, his voice lowered to a loud whisper.

“I promised I would say nothing,” Agemaki murmured. “And I kept my promise.” She paused, then said, “Please allow me to thank you for not telling the sōsakan-sama about me.”

The morning after Makino’s murder, they’d agreed to protect each other. So far their bargain had held; their guilty secrets were safe from the sōsakan-sama, who hadn’t arrested either of them. But Koheiji wanted to ensure that Agemaki didn’t fail him now.

“It’s more important than ever that we honor our bargain,” Koheiji said. “Something has happened that puts us both in more danger than before.”

Agemaki turned her head slightly toward Koheiji, signifying interest, although her tranquil expression didn’t change.

“Daiemon was stabbed to death last night,” Koheiji said.

“How do you know this?”

“The sōsakan-sama’s chief retainer told me,” Koheiji said. “He came to see me at the theater this morning. I must warn you that he and his master aren’t finished asking questions yet. Now that they have two crimes to solve, I’m guessing they’re under twice as much pressure from their superiors. They seem to believe that whoever killed Makino also killed Daiemon. That makes you and me suspects in both murders.”

He watched to see what effect the news had on Agemaki, but she hid her emotions so well that he never knew what she was thinking. Koheiji despised her cold, remote demeanor. He preferred women like Okitsu, who were as transparent as water. But circumstances had thrown him and Agemaki together in mutual dependency.

“The sōsakan-sama or his retainer will surely call on you again,” Koheiji said. “And when they do, you must keep your silence about me.”

Shrouded by her impenetrable thoughts, Agemaki sat unmoving, hands clasped and eyelids lowered, as the palanquin jounced along the street. The voices of beggars pleading for alms and the smell of decaying garbage filtered through the shutters. Koheiji squirmed, eager for reassurance from Agemaki.

Her gaze slid toward him, not quite meeting his. She murmured, “When the sōsakan-sama does call on me, I may be forced to tell him what you did.”

For once Koheiji could read her mind. She thought that if the sōsakan-sama accused her of murdering Daiemon, she could save herself by breaking the bargain and revealing the knowledge that would condemn Koheiji instead. Koheiji had always sensed that Agemaki was smarter, crueler, and more self-serving than she appeared; now he was certain. But if she thought she could betray him, she wasn’t as clever as she believed. Even while she held his fate in her hands, Koheiji held hers.

“If you tell the sōsakan-sama what I did,” Koheiji said, “I’ll have to tell him all about you.”

She seemed unruffled by his counterthreat. A hint of a smile touched her lips. “Whose story do you think the sōsakan-sama would consider more important? Yours or mine?”

The tinge of superiority in her voice nettled Koheiji. The danger that her betrayal posed struck dread into him. He felt sweat dampening his armpits and smelled his sweet stench of nerves filling the palanquin. Maybe the sōsakan-sama would think that what Agemaki knew was indisputable evidence that Koheiji had killed Makino, while Koheiji’s story didn’t prove Agemaki had. Agemaki obviously believed so, and maybe she was right. Yet Koheiji mustn’t let her intimidate him.

“If you think the sōsakan-sama would listen to a former shrine attendant and whore like you rather than a Kabuki star like me, I think you’ve got a lot to learn,” he said. “But, hey, there’s a way to settle the question. Let’s go to the sōsakan-sama, together, right now. We’ll each tell him our story and see which of us he arrests.”

He was bluffing; he didn’t dare take such a gamble. But Agemaki swiveled and raised her head until their gazes met. Koheiji saw fearful uncertainty, and hatred toward him, in her eyes. She looked away first.

“Perhaps it’s best that we keep our bargain,” she said.

Gladness and relief flooded Koheiji. He drew his first easy breath since Hirata had interrupted his tryst in the theater. “Oh, indeed it is best,” he said. “That way, the sōsakan-sama will have to pick somebody else to blame for the murders instead of either of us.”

And soon Koheiji’s darkest season would end. His star would shine once more.

As Reiko trudged behind the palanquin bearers, along the avenue outside the wall and moat of Edo Castle, she saw Koheiji jump out of the vehicle. Okitsu, who’d been walking alongside the maids and pouting, ran to him.

“Koheiji-san!” she cried petulantly. “What’s going on?”

“I’ll explain later,” he said, shaking her hand off his sleeve. “I have to get back to the theater.”

He whispered in Okitsu’s ear, then hurried away, cut between two squadrons of marching soldiers, and disappeared. Okitsu hesitated, obviously upset and wishing to go after him, then clambered into the palanquin. Reiko thought about the conversation that had just passed between Agemaki and Koheiji. Her keen ears had heard enough to know that the pair were engaging in a conspiracy of silence. Each appeared to have evidence that implicated the other in Makino’s murder. Questions teemed in Reiko’s mind. Was one of them the killer?

The conversation she’d overheard in Yanagiya suggested that it was Agemaki. Or were the actor and widow conspirators in the crime as well as in subterfuge?

Reiko remembered the scene she’d witnessed between Koheiji and Okitsu last night, which had almost convinced her that the guilty party was one or both of them. She felt as though her suspicion were a ball that kept bouncing from one person to another. Upon whom would it finally land?

Rain spiked with ice stippled the courtyard of Senior Elder Makino’s estate and clattered on the roofs of the surrounding barracks. In the courtyard, Sano greeted one of the detectives he’d assigned to watch the estate.

“Did Senior Elder Makino’s widow or concubine leave the premises yesterday evening?” Sano asked.

“Yes,” the detective said. “They went out separately, in palanquins, at around the hour of the boar.”