Laura Rowland: The Perfumed Sleeve

“Well, we’d better examine Makino while my luck holds,” Sano said. “I have to get his body home before its absence raises any questions.”

“I am ready to begin.” Dr. Ito ushered Sano and the detectives into the morgue.

Its single large room was furnished with stone troughs used for washing the dead, cabinets containing tools, a podium stacked with papers, and three high tables. One table held a prone figure shrouded with a white drape. Beside it stood Dr. Ito’s assistant, Mura. In his late fifties, Mura had hair gradually turning from gray to silver and a square face with a somber, intelligent aspect.

“Proceed, Mura-san,” Dr. Ito said.

Everyone gathered around the table, and Mura folded back the drape. He was an eta-a member of Japan ’s outcast class, whose hereditary link with death-related occupations such as butchering and tanning rendered them spiritually contaminated. Other citizens shunned them. They served Edo Jail as wardens, corpse handlers, torturers, and executioners. Mura, befriended and educated by Dr. Ito in defiance of class customs, performed all the physical work associated with his master’s studies. Now Mura and everyone else beheld Senior Elder Makino. He lay clothed in his nightcap and beige robe, his hands still on his chest, his thin ankles protruding. His knobby feet, shod in white socks, pointed at the ceiling. Permanent slumber shadowed his skull-like face.

“Death spares no one, not even the most rich and powerful,” Dr. Ito murmured.

Nor the most cunning and spiteful, Sano thought. He could imagine Makino’s outrage had he known he would end up in this place reviled by society. But Makino had asked Sano to investigate his death and left the methods up to Sano.

“Where did he die?” asked Dr. Ito.

Sano described the scene at Makino’s mansion, then said, “I have to return him in the same condition as when I confiscated him. Can you determine the cause of his death without dissection or other procedures that will show on his body?”

“I’ll do my best,” Dr. Ito said. “Mura-san, please undress him.”

Sano saw a problem. “How can we get his clothes off him and put them back on again when his body is stiffened into position? We can’t cut or tear them.”

“He isn’t entirely stiff,” Detective Marume said. “Fukida-san and I discovered that when we moved him to the palanquin.”

Mura straightened Makino’s arms at his sides. The wrists and fingers stayed rigid, but the elbows moved easily.

“The elbow joints were broken after the stiffness had set in to the upper extremities,” Dr. Ito explained.

Enlightenment struck Sano. “They were broken so that his body could lie neatly in bed. Even if that doesn’t mean Makino was murdered, it proves my suspicion that someone tampered with the death scene before I got there.”

Mura untied Makino’s sash and parted his robe, exposing the emaciated corpse with its visible ribs and shriveled genitals. He gently worked the sleeves off Makino’s arms.

“Here is more proof of your suspicion.” Dr. Ito pointed to a reddish-purple discoloration that ran along the left side of the corpse. “Blood pools beneath the skin on the parts of a dead body that lie nearest the ground. That means Makino lay on this side at some point after he died.”

“And before being placed flat in bed,” Sano said.

Dr. Ito told Mura to turn over the body. As Mura flopped the corpse onto its stomach, Sano’s attention was riveted on Makino’s back. Red and purple bruises marked the shoulder blades and rib cage.

“It looks as though he was beaten,” Sano said.

“And with violent force,” said Dr. Ito. “Observe the raw tissue where the blows broke the skin.” He wrapped a clean cloth around his hand, then palpated Makino’s ribs. “Some of the ribs are broken.”

“Did the beating kill Makino?” said Sano.

“Certainly the blows could have caused fatal internal injuries,” Dr. Ito said. “I’ve seen beatings less severe than this kill men much hardier than Makino was.” He turned to Mura. “Please remove the cap.”

Mura bared Makino’s bony, age-speckled scalp and thin gray topknot.

Sano saw another bruise that had dented Makino’s skull and split open the skin behind his right ear.

“If I must hazard a guess as to which injury killed him, this will be my choice.” Dr. Ito contemplated the damaged skull, then added, “It probably bled much, as head wounds do. But there’s no blood on Makino. He appears to have been washed, then dressed in clean clothing.”

“The head injury would account for the blood on the floor of Makino’s study,” Sano said. “The beating supports the theory that he died there, of an attack by an intruder.” Sano perused a mental picture of the study. “But I didn’t find a weapon. And the theory doesn’t explain why his body was moved, cleaned, and put to bed, while the evidence of an assassination was allowed to remain.” Sano had more reason for his reluctance to accept the scenario. Reporting that Makino had been assassinated would throw the bakufu into even greater turmoil.

“Maybe the killer didn’t have time to restore order in the study,” Dr. Ito said. “Maybe he needed to escape before he was caught, and he fled with the weapon.”

Sano nodded, as unable to discount these ideas as prove them. “But there’s still the sleeve to consider. I can’t help thinking it’s an important clue. I also have a hunch that sex, not necessarily politics, was involved in the murder.”

Dr. Ito walked with his slow, stiff gait around the table, scrutinizing Makino’s corpse. He suddenly halted and said, “You may be right.”

“What do you see?” Sano said.

“A different sort of injury. Mura-san, please spread the buttocks.”

The eta pried them apart with his fingers. The crack between the cheeks stretched open. Raw, abraded flesh circled Makino’s anus and extended into the orifice.

“When I was a physician, I saw this symptom in men who had been penetrated by other men during sex,” Dr. Ito said. “It’s most common in boys and young men.” Good looks, and relatively low status, made them fair game for older, wealthier, more powerful men who practiced manly love. “However, it does occur in older males.”

Accepted custom for manly love dictated that an elder partner should always penetrate a younger one. Ideally, the one penetrated should also be of inferior social status. When a man reached age nineteen, he should assume the role of the elder and never again experience penetration himself. But some men so enjoyed penetration that they continued receiving it as long as they lived. This was the case with the previous shogun, often criticized for his unseemly violation of custom.

“But Makino’s preference for women was well-known,” Sano said. “Besides, he would never have abased himself to anyone.”

“Men have been known to hide practices that would compromise their reputations,” Dr. Ito said. “However, there is an alternative explanation.”

“Makino was forced to submit?”

“Yes-by an attacker who overpowered and penetrated him.”

Shaking his head, Sano blew out his breath. “This case gets stranger with each new clue. The sleeve suggests that a woman killed Makino in the bedchamber. But the disorder and the blood in his study say he was beaten to death there. And the broken window latch suggests that an assassin entered his estate and killed him. Sometime during whatever happened, he was penetrated by a lover, or an attacker. The motive was sexual, or political.” Sano counted off possibilities on his fingers, then upturned his empty palm.

“But the evidence is misleading, or perhaps false. Maybe the vital clues were destroyed by whoever tried to make Makino’s death look natural in spite of all the signs to the contrary. Maybe none of those stories is true.”