Murder on the Cliff (15 page)

“What do Buddhist images symbolizing ecstasy look like?” asked Toni.

“Well.…”

“Like the male organ,” interjected the wife, who clearly wasn’t as reticent about such matters as her husband. “They’re phallic symbols; some of them are really very beautiful, carved out of wood or ivory. Unfortunately, Bob wouldn’t let me take any home. They sell them all over town.”

“The town’s really made a big deal of the Okichi legend,” her husband added. “In addition to these … phallic objects … you can buy all sorts of other Okichi souvenirs: postcards, towels, key chains.”

“Every time the tourist business starts to slacken, they think of some new angle of the Okichi legend to promote,” the wife added.

The husband looked up. “Here comes our dinner,” he said, obviously relieved to get off the subject of Okichi’s amorous exploits.

A parade of waiters had appeared, and were serving the guests their dinners. The dinner was typical banquet food, but with an Oriental touch: lemon sesame chicken or a shrimp stir-fry, served with rice and shitake mushrooms and carrots and snow peas in a ginger sauce.

“Did you know that Okichi’s descendant, the young geisha who was here for the Black Ships Festival, committed suicide this morning?” one of the city councilman’s wives asked the young man, Bob.

The news was apparently out.

“Yes, we heard about it,” Bob replied.

“I heard she did it because of her obligation to her patron, but I can’t say I really understand it,” said the woman.

“It’s a difficult concept for a Westerner to comprehend,” Bob said. “The Japanese call it
giri
, or obligation, but it’s easier to understand if you think of it in terms of guilt. Every time you receive a favor, you’re incurring a debt, which you’re then obligated to repay in kind, or better.”

The same story that Spalding had given her, Charlotte reflected.

“In Okichi-
mago
’s case, her obligations were so much greater than what she was owed that the only way for her to redress the balance was to kill herself,” Bob continued. “If you consider the suicide in her family history, you have a pretty potent motive.”

“But to take your life!” the councilman’s wife said. “It seems very extreme.”

It seemed so to Charlotte too, despite what Spalding and this young man had said. Yes, Okichi-
mago
was obligated to Tanaka. And, yes, she had seemed mildly depressed. She remembered the tears rolling down her white cheeks. But there was something not quite right about the suicide theory—something besides the point that it seemed like a drastic solution to a minor problem,
giri
or no
giri
. The image came to her mind of Okichi-
mago
’s body lying on the shingle beach, her green, turquoise-flecked eyes staring up at the pale dawn sky. And then it struck her what it was that wasn’t quite right: the broken pieces of the sake cup lying on the rocks. Why would she have retrieved the sake cup from the house if she already had one in her hand? It didn’t make any sense. As Okichi’s descendant, Okichi-
mago
would have been more familiar with the legend than anyone. First Okichi built the fire at the edge of the cliff and burned her possessions and her papers. Then she carefully set out the comb, the mirror, and the sake cup Harris-
san
had given her—the sake cup she had been drinking from for more than thirty years—and then she jumped. She didn’t set out one sake cup and then jump with another.

There was something else that wasn’t quite right about the suicide theory too: the scraped surface of the baroque pearl on Okichi-
mago
’s obi clasp. If she were going to throw herself off the gallery, she wouldn’t have leaned over the railing and kicked up her legs as if she were diving off a diving board. One, it would have been awkward; two, it would have been unpleasant: she would have been looking straight down at the rocks below; and three, it would have been difficult if not impossible to kick her legs up high enough to propel her over the railing. The natural approach would simply have been to climb to the top of the railing and jump. That’s why people who plunged from heights were called jumpers. But picking up her legs would have been a natural way to
push
her over the railing. Charlotte imagined Okichi-
mago
standing at the railing, just as she had been earlier in the evening, her sake cup cradled in her hands. Then she imagined someone sneaking up on her from behind and pushing her over. Finally she imagined that person trying to make the murder look like a suicide. Not realizing that she was already holding a sake cup—she would have been holding it in front of her—the killer sets out the cup, the comb, and the mirror next to the fire, just as Okichi had a hundred years before.

Unlike the suicide hypothesis, this was a theory without any holes; all the pieces fit together. There was another element of the original hypothesis that didn’t fit either, Charlotte thought. She had found Okichi-
mago
’s body lying several feet to the side of the place where her obi clasp had scraped the railing. If she had dived off the gallery, she would have landed directly below. But if she had been pushed, any twisting movement would have resulted in her landing off-center.

The conversation at the table had drifted off to the price of food in Japan—something about cherries costing sixteen dollars apiece and cantaloupes a hundred and twenty-five. As her tablemates talked, Charlotte turned the pieces around in her head, trying to fit them together in some other way. But they added up to only one conclusion: Okichi-
mago
had been murdered. But who would have wanted to murder her? she wondered.

Excusing herself, she went off in search of the geishas. She wanted to speak with Keiko, who, as Okichi-
mago
’s younger sister, might be able to give her some clues. Thank goodness it was Keiko and not one of the other geishas who was Okichi-
mago’s
younger sister. After the labored conversations she’d had with some of the other Japanese at the ball, she welcomed talking with a Japanese who spoke good English. Keiko had grown up on Okinawa, and had learned English at a United States military base. From the library, Charlotte wandered out to the Great Hall, where an orchestra was playing Cole Porter. For a moment, she stood and watched the couples dancing, and the people who were watching them. Not seeing the geishas, she headed over to the bar and asked the bartender if he had seen them. He directed her to a morning room adjoining the library. The room was empty except for Keiko, who sat despondently in a gilded armchair, drinking Scotch.

“Keiko?” she said. She hadn’t really expected to find her at the party, but then parties were a geisha’s natural habitat; she probably felt more at home with her grief here than she would have upstairs in her room.

The girl nodded. She was wearing the same gorgeous kimono as the night before, on which geishas embroidered in gold and silver thread strolled among the willow trees and teahouses of the floating world.

Charlotte took a seat next to her. “I’m very sorry about Okichi-
mago
’s death. I know you’ll miss her very much.”

Tears leaked from the corners of the narrow eyes of her round, white kitten’s face, and she bit her carmine lip in an effort to keep from crying.

“Keiko, several people have suggested to me that Okichi-
mago
committed suicide because she felt that she had betrayed her patron through her love affair with Shawn Hendrickson. Do you think that’s true?”

Keiko shook her head emphatically, the glittering pendants of her hair ornaments tinkling as she moved her head.

“Why not?”

“Tanaka-
san
didn’t care. To him, it was strictly a business arrangement. He liked Okichi-
san
, but he will find another geisha. In what way did she betray him? For six years, she has been fulfilling her end of their agreement.”

Perhaps Spalding had been naive in interpreting Okichi-
mago
’s death in terms of cultural stereotypes, Charlotte reflected. Okichi-
mago
had been a guardian of tradition, but she had also been a modern career woman.

“But then, why did she cry when she sang ‘Raven at Dawn’?”

“I don’t know,” said Keiko. “Maybe she was sad. Everyone is sad sometimes. Okichi-
san
could be happy one minute, and sad the next. Why not? Life can change from one minute to the next. I’m sad right now”—she blinked her tears away—“but I’m not going to jump off a cliff.”

“Okichi did.”

Keiko looked almost angry. “Yes, but Okichi committed suicide because Townsend Harris deserted her, not because she deserted him. Also, she was a wreck of a woman when she died. An alcoholic, a beggar, and a cripple. She was paralyzed from syphilis, you know.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Okichi-
san
was the first person to take advantage of the Okichi legend. But she didn’t like to be compared with her. Okichi-
san
thought she was pathetic.” She paused to take a swig of Scotch, and then shook her head. “She would never have chosen to die in the same way.”

“Then she didn’t have a melancholy temperament?”

“Not at all,” said Keiko. “She was very happy. She was in love with Shawn. They were going to be married.”

Charlotte thought again of the Japanese novelist who had committed suicide, the only example she had to go on. But judging from everything she had read, he was a little crazy. By contrast, Okichi-
mago
was a model of stability: disciplined, dedicated, successful, and, as Keiko pointed out, in love.

“Besides,” Keiko continued, “if she were going to commit suicide, she never would have done it by jumping. She would have taken pills. Jumping would have been too undignified for her. She couldn’t even have been sure of succeeding. What if she’d just broken her legs?”

Keiko was right. Jumping wasn’t the way Okichi-
mago
would have chosen to die. She was too neat: the perfect English, the perfect hair, the perfect makeup—Charlotte remembered the touch of gilding outlining her underlip. She would have wanted to die as immaculately as she had lived.

“Then if she didn’t commit suicide, she must have been murdered.”

“Yes,” said Keiko quietly.

“Do you have any idea who might have wanted to murder her?”

Keiko shook her head.

Fujiko and Sumire were returning from the direction of the bar. Fujiko was carrying another Scotch for Keiko. After offering her condolences—with Keiko serving as translator—Charlotte excused herself and wandered back to the bar. She felt as if she could use a drink herself.

After the dessert course, the orchestra started playing livelier music, and the older couples turned over the dance floor to the young. Manhattan in hand, Charlotte headed back out to the loggia at the rear of the house. In the distance, the sea was a deep blue green against a night sky tinged with pink. The lights of Middletown twinkled across the water. The view reminded her of another famous Newport story. A Newport hostess was giving a White Ball, a
Bal Blanc
. Everything was to be white: the china, the tablecloths, the flowers, the doves in white birdcages on the tables. The guests were asked to wear white gowns, white suits, and white powdered wigs. But despite the hostess’s elaborate plans, the view at night over the ocean hadn’t a glimmer of white. To remedy the affront to her color theme wrought by the orbiting of the heavenly spheres, the hostess decided to engage a fleet of twelve full-sized ships with white hulls and sails and order them to anchor offshore. But it proved impossible to anchor a dozen fully rigged ships in the Atlantic, so instead she had a dozen all white, full-sized ships anchored at the foot of the lawn, where they made a tableau of white against the deep blue sky. Looking out into the starry night, Charlotte could easily imagine how lovely they must have looked, floating down the Cliff Walk. Leaving the loggia behind, she wandered out to the lawn and down toward the cliff’s edge. Behind her, the lights of Edgecliff blazed against a background of dark trees. Resting her elbows on the balustrade at the foot of the lawn, she gazed out to sea. From this position, she could just see the spot where she had found Okichi-
mago
’s body. It had only been that morning, but it already seemed like ages ago. The waves lapping at the rocks created ribbons of white on the shoreline. She thought again of the position of the body. She was sure of it—Okichi-
mago
had been murdered.

Turning back toward the mansion, she saw Lew and Toni heading toward her, arm in arm. A few minutes later, they joined her at the balustrade.

“Checking out the scene of the death?” asked Lew.

“Yes, as a matter of fact.”

“I know all about your reputation as an amateur detective,” he said with a smile. “I read
Murder at the Morosco
.”

Nine years ago, Charlotte had solved the case of the murder of her co-star in the Broadway play
The Trouble With Murder
. She had shot him on-stage with a bullet that had been planted in a stage prop. The memory of seeing real blood oozing from the wound still gave her the shivers. Her role in solving the case had been publicized in a best-selling book called
Murder at the Morosco
(the play had been showing at the lovely old Morosco Theatre, which was torn down the next year despite the protests of the historical preservationists). Since then, she’d successfully helped solve several other murders.

“He’s a crime buff,” Toni explained, her lovely brown eyes gleaming. “He reads all the books about real-life crime.”

“I work very closely with the police department, both as city solicitor and in our business: Toni and I run a security business, Viking Security. If you ever want to give a party in Newport, just let us know. We’ll make sure that no one steals the guests’ jewels or makes off with the silver.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Charlotte.

“I heard that it was you who discovered Okichi-
mago
’s body this morning,” Lew continued. “We get a body at the foot of the cliff from time to time—accidental deaths. Kids partying on the cliff who drink too much and fall off. Or people walking along at night who mistake the edge for the path.”