Murder on the Cliff (10 page)

Just past the turn was The Breakers, which looked oddly deserted in the morning stillness. Usually the huge pile of limestone was crawling with tourists. After The Breakers came Edgecliff, the Japanese-owned mansion that would be the scene of the Mikado Ball. She was nearly at the end of her walk. As she crossed the lawn at Edgecliff, she came upon the first sign of life aside from the fisherman at Rough Point: it was Miako, Paul’s frisky Japanese spaniel. He was running toward her at full speed. Reaching her, he began barking furiously. Then, still barking, he ran ahead, and then-back. And again: ahead, and then back. He wanted Charlotte to follow. Charlotte complied: she was going in that direction anyway. The temple stood above her, on top of the Cliff Walk. When Paul Harris had pulled it out of the ocean, he had built a tunnel under it to keep the Cliff Walk traffic out of sight. It wasn’t a unique idea: several other Cliff Walk property owners had done the same thing. Charlotte couldn’t blame them: although the Cliff Walk traffic at Briarcote was light by comparison, Connie and Spalding were still reluctant to sit out on their terrace because they didn’t like being on display.

Just past Edgecliff, Miako stopped at the head of one of the pebbly channels that had been carved out of the cliff by water runoff, and began barking again. Charlotte followed him down the channel, which was overgrown with underbrush. It ran sideways across the cliff toward a promontory, and then turned downward. As she rounded the promontory, Charlotte saw what Miako had been barking about. She found herself looking out over a small shingled cove that stretched from the promontory above her to the one on which the temple was perched. At the far end of the cove, a body lay on the shingle beach at the foot of the temple. From this distance, it looked like an elegant porcelain Japanese doll. But; she realized with alarm, it wasn’t a doll, it was a geisha. Following Miako, she scrambled down the channel to the foot of the cliff, hoping that whoever it was, wasn’t dead, only injured. A few minutes later, she had crossed the cove. Even from some distance, she could tell that the geisha was dead, but it wasn’t until she got up close that she saw it was Okichi-
mago
.

She was lying on her back, slightly twisted to one side, with her knees bent. The tide had covered her lower legs. She was still wearing the seashell kimono; the clams, whelks, and periwinkles seemed to shimmer under the pale pink surface of the water. Catching sight of her broken ankles, Charlotte realized with a pang what had caused her death. Glistening white shards of bone had punctured the heels of her white socks. She had jumped from the temple gallery, landing feet first. Stepping over a piece of driftwood, Charlotte moved closer, and touched a hand lightly to the dead geisha’s face. Her skin was ice-cold and her jaw was stiff: rigor mortis had already begun to set in, indicating that she had been dead for some time. Charlotte shivered; the balmy air suddenly seemed cold and malevolent. Though the shards of bone protruding from her heels were grotesque, there was surprisingly little blood. Maybe it had been washed away. Her left hand lay under her body and her right was stretched out. Lying on the rocks near her right hand were several broken pieces of green porcelain—the sake cup. Charlotte also noticed that the lustrous surface of the baroque pearl on her obi clasp had been scraped off. But apart from the broken cup, her obi clasp, and her ankles, there was no other evidence of a fall. The surface of her white makeup was cracked from the dampness, but the rest of her makeup was still perfect. She was as beautiful in death as she had been in life; even her camellias were still fresh.

But in spite of the neatness of the body, Charlotte was shocked at its appearance. There was something about it that was deeply disturbing, apart from its being dead. Charlotte had seen dead bodies before. What was it? Her head was tilted back and her mouth was open, exposing small white teeth that next to the porcelain white of her makeup looked more yellow than they actually were. Her sea-green eyes stared vacantly at the dawn sky. The seaweed, that was it! Entwined around her long, white neck was a slimy greenish-brown filament of ribbon weed. The seaweed looked like the tentacle of an octopus.

The body reminded Charlotte of the geisha in the ghoulish Hokusai print.

She remembered her sense of unfulfilled expectation from the night before. Was this what fate had had in store? The anticipated climax of the evening’s events? Tomorrow would be the hundredth anniversary of the day on which Okichi had plunged into the sea. She remembered what Okichi-
mago
had said about the camellia being considered an omen of death because of its tendency to drop prematurely from the branch. She also remembered Okichi-
mago
’s tears as she sang the ballad about the pitiless floating world. “Ah, for the man I love, my life I’d gladly give—what could I regret, leaving this evanescent life?” It must not have been long afterward that she had jumped; she was still wearing the seashell kimono. But Okichi had had good reason to commit suicide. What was Okichi-
mago
’s? Charlotte checked her watch; it was just after six. She would have to notify the police. Leaving the body as it was—she had learned that much from police work—she clambered back up the cliff, hanging onto the vines that clung to the lichen-studded rocks. Miako followed at her heels. She would call the police from Shimoda. She was about to cut through the Edgecliff property out to Ochre Point Avenue, when Miako showed her a shortcut. After charging between the posts of the balustrade and across the lawn, he disappeared through a hole in the hedge between the two properties. Charlotte followed, and found herself emerging at the rear of the Shimoda property, near the temple. Though she knew she should notify the police, she found herself being drawn to the temple. She wondered whether Okichi-
mago
had left a note, and if so, what it said. After crossing the lawn, she climbed the stone path to the temple. The tinkling of the wind chimes hanging from the pines sounded otherworldly in the morning stillness. The temple looked just as it had the night before except for a single pair of unclaimed shoes on the stepping stone at the foot of the stairs: Okichi-
mago
’s delicately rounded black-lacquered
geta
.

The morning dew was still wet on the polished boards as Charlotte made her way around the building to the rear of the gallery. The spot from which Okichi-
mago
had jumped was on the south side, near the old pine tree whose branches stretched out so splendidly over the face of the cliff. Peering over the railing, she could see the body far below. A fresh scar on the wooden surface of the railing marked the spot where the pearl on Okichi-
mago
’s obi clasp had scraped against it as she went over. Turning away from the railing, Charlotte took off her shoes and entered the temple hall. The room had been cleaned up, but otherwise it was unchanged. The only evidence that a party had taken place there was the indentations that Dede’s heels had made in the tatami matting. And the smell: the sharp odor of stale beer hung in the air along with the faded scent of sandalwood incense, and … something else. It was the acrid smell of a charcoal fire. Looking around again, Charlotte noticed that the square tatami-covered board that concealed the sunken charcoal pit had been removed. A straw basket of charcoal sat on the floor next to it. Circling the low, lacquered table, she walked over to the pit. Arranged on the floor next to it were three objects: a green-glazed sake cup, and a gold lacquer comb and mirror, both inlaid with a camellia design in mother-of-pearl. Charlotte recognized them as Okichi’s mementos from the display cabinet inside the house. Inside the lacquered frame of the charcoal pit were the remains of a fire: a few blackened pieces of charcoal on a bed of white ashes. Among the remains was a singed business card with Japanese characters. Picking it carefully out of the ashes, she turned it over. The other side read: “Hiroshi Tanaka, president and chief executive officer of Yoshino Electronics, Inc.”

It was a re-staging of Okichi’s death, right down to the business card. Charlotte remembered the scene from
Soiled Dove:
carefully laying the fire on rocky headlands, then burning her few possessions and her personal papers, including Harris-
san
’s business card. Setting out the sake cup, the comb, and the mirror. And finally, plunging off the edge of the cliff. In the final scene her things are discovered by a village official. “What does it mean?” asks a baffled onlooker. “The comb is the symbol of leave-taking, the mirror is the symbol of the soul,” the official replies. “These symbols mean Okichi has left us forever.” Pan to the waves lapping against the rocks at the foot of the cliff. “What does it mean?” Charlotte asked herself, just as the baffled onlooker had asked in the movie. Why had Okichi-
mago
burned Tanaka’s business card? Had she taken her life because she was ashamed at having humiliated the man who was her patron? If so, why hadn’t she stayed with him in the first place? And why make such a production of her suicide? She remembered what Okichi-
mago
had said about capitalizing shamelessly on the Okichi legend. Was she taking advantage of the legend even in death? Leaving the brazier, Charlotte went back out to the gallery to retrieve her shoes. Then she headed toward the house, Miako trotting along purposefully beside her, his agitation allayed now that his mission was completed. As she walked along the gravel path, she imagined the sensation the Japanese scandal sheets would make of Okichi-
mago
’s suicide. In Japan, there was a long history of appreciation for suicide as an art form. It was said that the Japanese were as obsessed with suicide as Americans were with murder. She thought of the novelist who had committed ritual disembowelment after an impassioned appeal for the revival of Japan’s ancient heroic spirit. According to the ritual, a second was supposed to have stepped in and chopped off his head with a sword, but the second had botched it, and a third had finally had to finish the job. It was forty minutes or more before he finally died. At least Okichi-
mago
had had style enough to succeed. For that matter, her death had style enough to land her a permanent place in the annals of Japanese suicide.

As Charlotte approached the rear of the house, Paul emerged from the front parlor. He was wearing a cotton kimono and holding a mug of coffee. He awaited her on the long wisteriashaded veranda with a look of bewilderment.

“What is it?” he asked as she drew near, seeing from her manner that something was wrong.

“It’s Okichi-
mago
,” Charlotte replied. “She’s dead. I found her body lying down on the rocks below the temple a few minutes ago. It looks as if she jumped from the gallery.”

The blood drained from his face. “Are you sure it’s her?” he asked. “Maybe it was one of the others.” His brown eyes searched her face, not wanting to see the truth.

“I’m sure,” she replied softly. “She still had the camellias in her hair. Her ankles were broken in the fall. I’m very sorry,” she added.

His hand shaking, he set his coffee mug down on a table, and then seemed to lurch from one piece of furniture to another, like a drunk hanging onto the wall of a building. Finally he headed over to a hydrangea bush at the end of the veranda and quietly threw up.

Charlotte took a seat and waited. His vomiting was probably as much hangover as it was shock.

After a few minutes, he returned and slumped into an old-fashioned wrought-iron garden chair. For a few minutes, he stared quietly at the floor. Then his face crumpled in sorrow, and he began to cry. Wrenching sobs racked his small frame. Sitting at his ankles, Miako whined in sympathy.

“Can I get you a drink of water?” she asked once he had stopped.

He shook his head. “When?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. I think it must have been last night, after the party.” She waited for his response, but there was none. He stared blankly at the floor, his hands clasped tightly between his knees. “We’ll have to notify the police,” she continued. “May I use your phone?”

He waved an arm vaguely toward the inside of the house.

Charlotte found the phone on an antique desk in the front parlor—Paul’s parlor—and, after making the call, rejoined him on the veranda. He was still staring blankly at the floor.

“Someone will also have to notify the family,” she said. “I understand from what you said last night that there’s a guardian in Japan.”

“Yes,” he said quietly. He sat motionless for a moment. Then he shook his head, and started to cry again.

He seemed oddly affected for a man who barely knew her. But then, people often reacted to death, especially sudden death, in strange ways. Charlotte had seen more than one family become unhinged in such circumstances. If he was in love with her, as everyone else seemed to be …

She sat quietly, looking out at the sea, which was framed by the wisteria vines. Although most of the flowers had already bloomed, a few tardy blossoms lingered, and bumblebees hovered around the long, fragrant flower clusters.

“Did she leave a note?” he asked after a while.

“Not a note exactly.” She described finding Okichi’s mementos and the half-burned business card. “I thought she might have been distraught over the scandal involving Mr. Tanaka,” Charlotte said. “Do you have any ideas?”

He shook his head.

In the distance, they could hear police sirens wailing.

After lunch, Charlotte set off with Spalding in his old Chevy down Bellevue Avenue. They were heading to the Newport Casino, the scene of a Meet the Sumos reception, which would be followed by the sumo tournament, the second in the two-day exhibition match. Connie had elected to stay at home. In her opinion, watching a sumo match was like watching “two elephants wrestling each other to death.” Bellevue Avenue was slow going: on weekends—starting on Friday afternoons—Newport was crowded with day-trippers and weekenders who came to go to the beach or to visit the half a dozen or more mansions that were open to the public. Long lines of people waited for admission to Marble House, Beechwood, and Rosecliff. Ahead, a tour guide blared out anecdotes about Newport’s Gilded Age over a public address system to a busload of tourists. It reminded Charlotte of Beverly Hills. As the tour guide described the dogs’ dinner, Charlotte and Spalding talked about Okichi-
mago
. Now that she was dead, Spalding had spent the latter part of the morning conferring with the other members of the Black Ships Festival Committee on what to do about the Afternoon of Japanese Culture scheduled for the next day. Finally they had decided that the show must go on: the other geishas would perform without her. Charlotte had been drafted to take her place as mistress of ceremonies. With the practical matters out of the way, Spalding was now trying to explain Okichi-
mago
’s suicide in terms of the cultural concept of
giri
.