Black Lotus Page 12

  11

  If a person should spurn faith in the Black Lotus,

  He will be plagued by many ailments.

  He will find himself plundered, robbed, and punished

  As he walks the evil path through life.

  —FROM THE BLACK LOTUS SUTRA

  Hirata splashed through the puddles in the courtyard of police headquarters, peering from beneath his umbrella at the crowd huddled in the dripping rain. He wondered what had brought so many people here in such bad weather. Under the eaves of the main building, he handed his umbrella to a servant; then he entered the reception room. It was packed with more people standing against pillars and seated on the floor, some puffing tobacco pipes, amid a loud babble of conversation. The warm, stuffy air was thick with smoke. Several doshin stood guard Hirata elbowed his way up to the platform where the clerks sat elevated above the crowd.

  “Why are all these people here?” he asked the chief clerk.

  Uchida grinned. “They’re responding to your notice asking for information about the dead woman and boy at the Black Lotus Temple.”

  “All of them?” Hirata, who had come to check on whether the notices had gotten any results, gazed around the room in astonishment.

  “Every one,” Uchida said, “and the folks outside, too.”

  The nearest bystanders spread the news that the man who’d issued the notices had arrived. The crowd surged toward Hirata, waving hands and shouting pleas.

  “Quiet!” Hirata ordered. “Stand back! I’ll see you one at a time.”

  Doshin coaxed and shoved the mob into a line that snaked around the room, while Hirata sat atop the platform. He saw the shaved crowns of samurai among the many commoners. He tried to count heads and stopped at a hundred. Surely all these people couldn’t be connected with the two mystery victims.

  The first person in line was a frail, stooped peasant woman. Looking anxiously up at Hirata, she said, “My grown son joined the Black Lotus sect last year. I haven’t seen or heard from him since, and I’m so worried. Is he dead?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know,” Hirata said. “The people in the fire were a woman and a little boy. That was explained in the notice.”

  “I can’t read,” said the woman. “I came because I heard you were looking for anyone with family members who disappeared at the temple.”

  “No. My inquiry doesn’t include adult males.” Hirata realized that his message had been distorted while spreading through the largely illiterate populace.

  “Maybe my son is still alive, then.” Hope brightened the woman’s wrinkled face. “Please, will you help me find him?”

  “I’ll try.” Hirata wrote down the woman’s name, where she lived, and her son’s name and age. Then he stood on the platform and addressed the crowd, explaining the purpose of his notice and describing the victims. “Everyone who’s here about missing persons who don’t fit those descriptions should come back later and make a report to the police.”

  Rumbles of disappointment stirred the crowd, but no one got out of line. A man with the coarse appearance of a laborer stepped up to the platform. “My daughter is missing,” he said.

  “How old is she?” Hirata asked.

  Before the laborer could answer, a burly samurai shoved him aside and said to Hirata, “I refuse to wait any longer. I demand to speak to you now.”

  “Get in line,” Hirata ordered. “Wait your turn.”

  “My three-year-old son disappeared in the spring.” The samurai, whose garments bore a floral crest that marked him as a retainer of the Kane clan, stood firm. “His mother took him shopping in Nihonbashi. She lost him in the crowd. Storekeepers saw three Black Lotus priests putting a little boy into a palanquin. They store my son.”

  “They stole my daughter, too,” said the laborer. “She was playing outside. The priests and nuns are always in our street, inviting people to join the sect and giving the children candy. When they left that day, they took my girl with them.”

  “How do you know?” Hirata asked, intrigued by the accusations.

  “Other children have disappeared after the Black Lotus visited. Everyone knows the Black Lotus steals them,” said the laborer.

  Shouts rang out along the line: “They took my child, too!” “And mine!” “And mine!”

  Amazed consternation jolted Hirata. It hardly seemed possible that the sect was involved in so many disappearances. Had mass delusion infected these people?

  “When I went to the temple to look for my son, the priests threw me out,” said the samurai. “I went to the police, and they said they would look into the matter, but they’ve done nothing. I came here hoping you could help me.”

  Hirata took pity on the samurai, whose son’s age fell in the range Dr. Ito had specified for the dead boy in the cottage. He wrote down the samurai’s name and information, then turned to Uchida “This is going to take forever. Will you help out?”

  “Of course,” Uchida said.

  Hirata announced, “Everyone who’s here about missing children and the Black Lotus sect, form a new line.”

  A general shift divided the crowd in two roughly equal portions. Hirata remembered the story that Sano had told him this morning, about a novice monk who’d accused the Black Lotus of imprisoning followers. Sano should be interested to hear of this new development.

  Hirata and Uchida spent the next several hours on interviews. Many people wanted to talk about missing relatives who bore no resemblance to the murder victims, just to register complaints about the Black Lotus sect.

  “With so many incidents, why didn’t the police begin investigating long ago?” Hirata asked Uchida.

  “Maybe they didn’t know about the situation,” Uchida said. “It’s news to me, and I thought I knew everything that happened around town.”

  Upon questioning the citizens, Hirata learned that most had reported the disappearances to local doshin instead of coming to police headquarters. Perhaps the higher officials hadn’t yet reviewed the reports and discerned the magnitude of the problem or a connection between the incidents. But Hirata, who knew about the rampant corruption in the police force, suspected a cover-up.

  By noon, Uchida had compiled forty listings of missing young boys. Hirata amassed even more possibilities for the dead woman, but no one had recognized the jade sleeping-deer amulet found on the body. The line seemed endless; as people left the room, more streamed in from the courtyard. With a sigh, Hirata greeted the next person in line.

  It was a carpenter in his thirties, who carried a box of tools. His eyes and mouth turned down at the corners in a permanently sad expression; wood shavings clung to his cropped hair. He took one look at the amulet and began to weep.

  “That belongs to my wife. It was made by her grandfather, who was a jade carver.” The carpenter wiped his eyes with a calloused hand. “Chie used to wear it on a string around her waist for good luck.”

  Hirata experienced a thrill of gratification, tempered by pity. “My sincere condolences,” he said, climbing off the platform. “Please come with me.”

  Over the crowd’s protests, he led the carpenter to a small vacant office with a barred window overlooking the stables. Hirata invited the carpenter to sit, and served him tea.

  “Tell me about your wife,” Hirata said gently.

  The carpenter clutched his tea bowl in both hands and drank thirstily, as if drawing sustenance from the hot liquid. Then he spoke with sorrowful nostalgia: “Chie and I have been married twelve years. We have two sons. My business has prospered. Chie had learned the art of healing from her mother, and she earned money by treating sick neighbors. We were very happy together. But four years ago, everything changed.”

  Grief twisted his face. Hirata poured him more tea. He gulped it, then said, “Nuns from the Black Lotus Temple came to our street. They said that their high priest could show us the path to enlightenment and invited us to the temple. I was too busy working, but Chie went. And she came home a different person. She went back
to the temple again and again. At home, she spent hours chanting. She stopped keeping house. She ignored the children. She wouldn’t let me touch her. I begged her to tell me why she was acting so strangely, but she wouldn’t talk. I scolded her and ordered her to do her duty as a wife and mother. I forbade her to leave the house.

  “One night, she ran away. She took all our money. I knew she’d gone to the Black Lotus Temple.” The carpenter explained sadly, “It had happened in other families, you see. The high priest would cast a spell over people, and they’d forsake everything to join him. He would steal their souls and all their worldly property.”

  “And you just let your wife go? For four years you did nothing?” Hirata couldn’t believe this.

  “I tried my best to get Chie back!” The carpenter’s eyes blazed with his eagerness to convince; his words rushed forth: “I asked the neighborhood headman and the police for help, but they said there was nothing they could do. I went to the temple and begged Chie to come home. She refused. The priests told me to stay away. But I went back the very next day, with the children. Chie wouldn’t even look at them. The priests chased us out. I vowed never to give up, but then …”

  Despair quenched the carpenter’s animation. “Bad things started happening. My brother fell off the roof of a house we were building and broke his leg. Later, some thugs beat me up. Then there was a fire in a cloth shop where I was doing repairs. It burned all the goods, and I had to pay for the damage. I borrowed from a moneylender and went deeply into debt.

  “Soon afterward, a Black Lotus priest came to my house. He said my bad luck was caused by a spell that the high priest had cast upon the enemies of the sect. If I didn’t stay away from the temple, worse misfortunes would befall me. I’d heard of the same thing happening to other people who tried to get relatives out of the temple. I couldn’t risk my family’s safety or livelihood. So …”

  A ragged sigh issued from the carpenter. “I let Chie go. I hoped she would someday regain her senses and the sect would lose its power over her. But now my hope is gone. I’ll never see my wife again in this world.”

  Hirata contemplated what he’d just heard. Assuming that the carpenter was telling the truth, how did this scenario relate to the murders? While the superstitious part of Hirata believed in magic spells, the policeman in him thought it more likely that human hands had caused the carpenter’s troubles. The Black Lotus must have sent members to menace people who interfered with their business. They used violence and fire as weapons. Perhaps they’d strangled Chie and tried to burn her body in the cottage; but if so, then why?

  He posed the question to the carpenter, who said, “I don’t know. My Chie was a good, kind woman who loved helping people and would never have hurt anyone. But maybe she changed during those four years at the temple. Maybe she made enemies.”

  Hirata wondered whether these might include an orphan girl named Haru. Thinking of the two other victims, he said, “Did your wife know Police Commander Oyama, the man whose body was found in the fire?”

  “If she did, she must have met him after she ran away, because I’ve never heard of him before.”

  “Have you any idea who the dead child was? You said that you and your wife have sons … ?”

  “Chie left both our sons behind. So the dead child isn’t ours. I don’t know who it is.” The carpenter bowed his head over his empty tea bowl. “I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.”

  “You’ve been a tremendous help,” Hirata said. The carpenter had put a name to the mystery woman, and he’d also identified her as a Black Lotus member, known to the priests and nuns who’d denied knowing her and claimed that no one was missing from the temple. Surely their lies and their dark reputation implicated them in the murders.

  Hirata wrote down the carpenter’s name and the location of his home. “I’ll do my best to deliver your wife’s killer to justice,” he promised, then escorted the man out through the reception room.

  The crowd hadn’t diminished at all. Ascending the platform, Hirata braced himself for more tales of woe. He had an uneasy feeling that the fire and murders represented a tiny part of a larger evil. Almost certainly, the case involved much more than a troublesome orphan girl.

  12

  The Law of the Black Lotus

  Is of a single flavor.

  All beings, regardless of origin or nature,

  Can gain the fruits of its truth.

  —FROM THE BLACK LOTUS SUTRA

  In the Hibiya administrative district, located south of Edo Castle, Reiko and Haru disembarked from the palanquin into thin, cold rain. An attendant held an umbrella over them while they hurried to the roofed gate of one of the walled estates that lined the street. Reiko exchanged friendly greetings with the sentries, but Haru eyed them fearfully and hung back.

  “Don’t be afraid.” Reiko put a reassuring arm around the girl. “You’re among friends here.”

  Accompanied by the attendant with the umbrella, she propelled Haru through the wet courtyard. There a crowd of police and shackled prisoners huddled under the eaves of the guardhouse. Haru shrank against Reiko. They entered the low, half timbered mansion. A maid greeted them in the entryway and helped them remove their cloaks and shoes.

  “Where is my father?” Reiko asked the maid.

  “In his private office, Honorable Lady.”

  Reiko led Haru down the angled corridor, past chambers where clerks worked at writing desks. She knocked on a door.

  A deep, masculine voice called, “Enter!”

  Sliding open the door, Reiko stepped inside a chamber lined with shelves and cabinets full of books, ledgers, and scrolls, pulling Haru after her. They knelt and bowed to the man seated behind a desk on a low platform.

  “Good afternoon, Honorable Father,” Reiko said. “Please excuse me for interrupting your work, but I’ve brought you a visitor. We have urgent business to discuss with you.”

  Magistrate Ueda, one of two officials responsible for settling disputes among citizens, conducting trials of criminals, overseeing the police force, and maintaining order in Edo, laid down his writing brush. He was a stout, middle-aged samurai with heavy-lidded eyes and a ruddy complexion, dressed in formal black silk kimono.

  “What a pleasant surprise to see you, Daughter,” he said, regarding Reiko with affection. “I’m eager to make your friend’s acquaintance.”

  Reiko introduced Haru. The girl kept her head bowed and her hands clasped tightly in her lap. She whispered, “It’s a privilege to meet you, Honorable Magistrate.”

  When Reiko explained who Haru was, a slight frown marred Magistrate Ueda’s genial expression. Undaunted, Reiko said, “Haru needs a safe place to stay, so I brought her here. I hope you’ll agree to take her in.”

  For a moment Magistrate Ueda contemplated Reiko in thoughtful silence. Then he turned to Haru. “Certainly you must accept my hospitality while you rest after your journey.” His voice, while gentle, lacked warmth. “May I offer you refreshment?”

  “Thank you, Honorable Magistrate, but I’ve already eaten.” Haru mumbled the polite, conventional reply.

  “But I insist.” The magistrate summoned a maid, to whom he said, “Take my guest into the parlor and serve her some tea.”

  Haru shot a terrified glance at Reiko.

  “Go on,” Reiko said with an encouraging smile.

  After Haru and the maid had left, Magistrate Ueda folded his hands atop a stack of papers on his desk. His grave expression heralded a scolding, and Reiko felt a stab of anxiety. He said, “Why did you bring Haru here?”

  “She can’t stay at Zj Temple any longer,” Reiko said, describing Kumashiro’s attack on Haru. “She’s alone in the world, with nowhere to go and no friends except me. And I can’t bring a guest into Edo Castle without official permission, which would take forever to get. This is the only place I could put her.”

  “You should have at least consulted me in advance instead of putting me on the spot,” said the magistrate.

&nb
sp; “I know, and I’m sorry,” Reiko said contritely, “but there wasn’t time.”

  “So you want me to take into my house the prime suspect in a case of arson and triple murder, hmm?” Ueda said. When Reiko nodded, disapproval drew his thick eyebrows together. “How can you ask such an outrageous favor? What can you be thinking, Daughter?”

  “Haru hasn’t been proven guilty and may very well be innocent,” Reiko said, disconcerted by her father’s reaction. Although she hadn’t expected him to rejoice at the prospect of sheltering Haru, she hadn’t foreseen opposition because he rarely refused her anything. “And I know she’s in danger.”

  Magistrate Ueda shook his head. “If she did commit those crimes, then she’s a danger to other people. I can’t risk the safety of my household by bringing her under my roof. And what makes you think she’s innocent?”

  Reiko described her theory that Haru had been an intended victim of the fire and was now being framed as a scapegoat She related her suspicions about the Black Lotus sect’s practices. “I believe that the sect may be behind the murders and arson.” Reiko added, “Does Haru look capable of smashing a man’s head and strangling a woman and child?”

  “We’ve both seen many criminals who look as harmless as Haru,” Magistrate Ueda said, alluding to the numerous trials he’d conducted while Reiko watched through a screen in a room next to the Court of Justice. “You know better than to judge a person by appearance. And you offer proof of neither your theory about Haru’s role in the crimes nor your accusations against the Black Lotus.”

  “At the moment, the sect seems as likely to be guilty as Haru does, and my intuition tells me I’m right,” Reiko said. “I can remember times when it guided you.” She’d often told him when defendants were guilty and to push for a confession, and when they were innocent and he should look elsewhere for the culprit. She’d whispered her advice through the screen, and her father had followed it with good results. “Do you doubt me now?”