thorough search.”
While Marume cleared out the cabinet and probed the walls, seeking hidden objects or drawers, Fukida lifted the tatami to check for secret compartments in the floor. Sano and Hoshina went into the office. Hoshina sifted through official reports in search of stray personal papers. Sano pulled books off the shelf, shaking each one upside down in case Konoe had hidden something between the pages. Then, on a bared space of wall behind the shelf, Sano saw two horizontal cracks, a hand’s span apart, crossing a vertical wooden wall panel. He inserted his fingernail into the top crack and pulled. Out popped a rectangular section of panel. From the shallow space behind it Sano withdrew a sheaf of papers.
“What’s that?” Hoshina asked.
Sano examined the documents. “Letters,” he replied with a thrill of gratification. “There are more than a hundred in all, with dates going back ten years.” So carefully preserved and hidden, the letters might represent the key to the elusive Konoe’s life, and murder. All bore the signature and seal of the left minister. All were addressed to the same person: Lady Kozeri, at Kodai Temple.
“Who is Lady Kozeri?” Sano asked Hoshina.
The yoriki’s eyes widened in recognition. “After Konoe died, I reviewed the metsuke dossier on him.” The intelligence agency kept records on all prominent citizens, and Hoshina had again demonstrated his initiative. “Kozeri is his former wife. She left him to become a nun.”
Sano scanned a few pages. “These are love letters.” As he continued reading, he discovered that the one-sided correspondence consisted of endless variations on the same theme. He read sample passages aloud:
‘How could you leave me? Without you, every day seems a meaningless eternity. My spirit is a fallen warrior. Anger corrupts my love for you like maggots seething in wounded flesh. I long to strangle the wayward life out of you. I shall have my revenge!’
‘We are two souls distilled from the same cosmic essence. I knew as soon as I looked upon you. When I held your body close to mine, our union made us one spirit, one self. How can you not value my love and understand that I only did what was right?’
‘Yesterday I came to you, but you refused to see me. Today another of my letters came back unread. But your attempts to sever our connection will ultimately fail. For I mean to have you, and someday I shall!’ ”
Hoshina grimaced. “Ten years of that?”
Sano marveled at the strength and longevity of this unrequited love. “Such obsessive passion can be dangerous. Might it have somehow led to Left Minister Konoe’s death?”
Hoshina said, “Kozeri left the palace a long time ago. Nuns cease all contact with their worldly lives when they enter the convent, and it sounds as if that’s what Kozeri did.”
“There are no replies from her to Konoe,” Sano admitted.
“Nor have we evidence of any relationship between Kozeri and the left minister besides the one that existed in his mind,” Hoshina said. “And remember, there were no outsiders in the compound on the night Konoe died. I can’t imagine that Kozeri is relevant to the murder.”
Sano again sensed the potential for trouble between himself and the yoriki, even as he concurred with Hoshina’s logic. Turning to the last page, he silently read more repetitive ramblings of love, lust, and rage that ended with a passionate declaration:
‘Resist me, defy me, torture my heart all you wish, but we are destined for each other. Soon the forces of defense and desire will clash upon the lofty, sacred heights where spires pierce the sky, feathers drift, and clear water falls. Then you shall be mine again.”
The letter’s overblown sexual symbolism offered nothing new, but Sano said, “This is dated just seven days before Left Minister Konoe died. We can’t ignore the possibility that Kozeri spoke with him during that critical period, or that she knows something important.” He tucked the letters inside his kimono. “I’ll call on her after I interview the suspects.”
“Yes, Sosakan-sama,” Hoshina said, yielding once again. Sano checked the secret compartment for more clues, but it was empty. He and Hoshina systematically dismantled the rest of the office, examining walls, furniture, and ceiling, to no avail. Then Detectives Marume and Fukida joined them.
“We found these sewn inside the padded lining of a winter cloak,” Marume said, holding out his open palm. Upon it lay three identical round copper coins. “There was nothing else.”
Sano took a coin. Its face bore the crudely stamped design of two crossed fern leaves. The reverse side was blank.
“This isn’t standard Tokugawa money,” Fukida said, then turned to Hoshina. 'Maybe they’re local currency?”
Studying a coin, the yoriki shook his head. “I’ve never seen any like these before.”
“Marume-san, Fukida-san: Each take a coin and show them around town tomorrow,” Sano said. “I want to know what they are, where they came from, and why Left Minister Konoe had them.”
Hoshina slipped the third coin into the leather drawstring pouch at his waist. 'I’ll make some inquiries, too.”
Sano surveyed the shambles they’d made of Konoe’s quarters. A sudden tide of fatigue swept over him. “We’d better restore some order here,” he said. “Then we’ll go to Nijo Manor for food and rest. We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.”
4
Is there anything you need, Honorable Lady Sano?” said the wife of Nijo Manor’s innkeeper.
A middle-aged woman with bright, avid eyes, she hovered in the doorway of a suite inside the inn’s complex of guest chambers. There, enclosed by walls decorated with painted scenes of Mount Mikasa, Reiko peered through the window at the torch-lit courtyard. Since her arrival at Nijo Manor, she’d bathed, changed into a yellow silk dressing gown, dined, and sent her maids to bed. Now she anxiously waited for Sano to come.
“No, thank you,” Reiko told the innkeeper’s wife, who had inundated her with offers of service all evening.
Still, the woman lingered. “You needn’t fear for your safety here,” she said, obviously seeking an excuse to stay and misinterpreting Reiko’s interest in the view. “We have security guards, and the ‘nightingale floors’ in the corridors will squeak to let you know if someone’s coming. And look!” She bustled across the room and opened a panel in the wall. “Here’s a secret door, so you can escape during an attack.”
Nijo Manor, a hybrid between a commoner’s house and a fortified samurai estate, had been established to fill a need for this unique type of accommodation. Tokugawa law forbade the daimyo to have estates here, thus limiting their contact with the Imperial Court; but Nijo Manor gave the feudal lords a safe place to stay while in Miyako. Yet Reiko, who’d heard the history of the manor from the innkeeper’s wife earlier, also craved privacy, which was in short supply.
She realized that she must be the most interesting guest ever to stay at Nijo Manor, at least in the opinion of the women here. The innkeeper’s wife had watched her constantly. The maids had helped unpack her baggage, whispering together as they examined her silk kimonos and exclaiming over the pair of swords she’d brought. Later, Reiko overheard them gossiping:
“I’ve never heard of a lady with swords!”
“What’s she doing here?”
“Let’s find out.”
When Reiko went to the privy and the bathchamber, giggles and stealthy footsteps followed her. She heard furtive noises outside her window. The innkeeper’s wife asked prying questions. Reiko had tried to discourage nosiness by explaining that she’d come to visit Miyako’s famous temples-a dull, respectable reason to travel-but the news about the strange lady from Edo spread through the neighborhood. When Reiko peered out the gate to look for Sano, a crowd of curious peasant women stared back at her.
Now the innkeeper’s wife continued extolling the virtues of Nijo Manor. Through the window Reiko saw the maids in the courtyard. They waved to her, tittering. Reiko fought annoyance as she waved back, then forced herself to smile at the innkeeper’s wife. If there proved to be no part for her in Sano’s investigation, she would be
