Eyeing the group in the parlor, Sano addressed the proprietor: “Were they in the house last night?”
“Yes, master.”
Sano ascertained that four of the samurai were Lord Mitsuyoshi’s retainers, then glanced at Hirata and the detectives. They nodded and moved toward the parlor to question the retainers, courtesans, other clients, and servants. The proprietor led Sano upstairs, to a large chamber at the front of the house. Entering, Sano gleaned a quick impression of burning lanterns, lavish landscape murals, and a gilded screen, before his attention fixed upon the men in the room. Two soldiers were preparing to move a shrouded figure, which lay upon the futon, onto a litter. A samurai clad in ornate robes pawed through a pile of clothes on the tatami; another rummaged in a drawer of the wall cabinet. Sano recognized both as senior police commanders.
“Yoriki Hayashi-san. Yoriki Yamaga-san,” he said, angered to find them and their troops disturbing the crime scene and ready to remove the body before he’d had a chance to examine either. “Stop that at once,” he ordered all the men.
The police halted their actions and bowed stiffly, gazing at Sano with open dislike. Sano knew they would never forget that he’d been their colleague, nor cease resenting his promotion and doing him a bad turn whenever possible. He said sternly, “You will all leave now.”
Hayashi and Yamaga exchanged glances with Chief Commissioner Hoshina, who stood in the doorway. Then Yamaga spoke to Sano: “I wish you the best of luck, Sosakan-sama, because you will surely need it.” His voice exuded insolence. He and Hayashi and their men strode out of the room.
The proprietor shrank into a corner, while Hoshina watched Sano for a reaction. Sano saw little point in losing his temper, or in regretting that his old enemies now worked for his new one. He crouched beside the futon and drew back the white cloth that covered the corpse of Lord Mitsuyoshi.
The shogun’s heir lay on his back, arms at his sides. The bronze satin robe he wore had fallen open to expose his naked, muscular torso, limp genitals, and extended legs. A looped topknot adorned the shaved crown of his head. From his left eye protruded a long, slender object that looked to be a woman’s hair ornament-double- pronged, made of black lacquer, ending in a globe of flowers carved from cinnabar. Blood and slime had oozed around the embedded prongs and down Mitsuyoshi’s cheek; droplets stained the mattress. The injured eyeball was cloudy and misshapen. The other eye seemed to stare at it, while Mitsuyoshi’s mouth gaped in shock.
Sano winced at the gruesome sight; his stomach clenched as he made a closer observation of the body and recalled what he knew about the shogun’s cousin. Handsome, dashing Mitsuyoshi might have one day ruled Japan, yet he’d had little interest in politics and much in the glamorous life. He’d excelled at combat, yet there was no sign that he’d struggled against his killer. A reek of liquor suggested that he’d been drunk and semiconscious when stabbed. Sano also detected the feral smell of sex.
“Who was the woman with him last night?” Sano asked the proprietor.
“A tayu named Lady Wisteria.”
The name struck an unsettling chord in Sano. He had met Lady Wisteria during his first case, a double murder. One victim had been her friend, and she’d given Sano information to help him find the killer. Beautiful, exotic, and alluring, she’d also seduced him, and memory stirred physical sensations in Sano, even though four years had passed since he’d last seen her and he’d married the wife he passionately loved.
Hoshina narrowed his heavy-lidded eyes at Sano. “Do you know Wisteria?”
“I know of her.” Sano wished to keep their acquaintance private, for various reasons. Now unease prevailed over nostalgia, because he had reason to know Wisteria had left Yoshiwara soon after they’d first met. He himself had secured her freedom, as compensation for wrongs she had suffered because she’d helped him. Afterward, he’d visited her a few times, but his life had grown so busy that he’d let the connection lapse. Later he’d heard that she had returned to the pleasure quarter, though he didn’t know why. Now he was disturbed to learn that she was involved in this murder.
“Where is she now?” he said.
“She’s vanished,” Hoshina said. “No one seems to have seen her go or knows where she went.”
Sano’s first reaction was relief: He wouldn’t have to see Wisteria, and the past could stay buried. His second reaction was dismay because an important witness-or suspect-was missing. Did her disappearance mean she’d stabbed Mitsuyoshi? Sano knew the dangers of partiality toward a suspect, yet didn’t like to think that the woman he’d known could be a killer.
“Who was the last person to see Lady Wisteria and Lord Mitsuyoshi?” Sano asked the proprietor.
“That would be the yarite. Her name is Momoko.” The man was babbling, overeager to please. “Shall I fetch her, master?”
A yarite was a female brothel employee, usually a former prostitute, who served as chaperone to the courtesans, teaching new girls the art of pleasing men and ensuring that her charges behaved properly. Her other duties included arranging appointments between tayu and their clients.
“I’ll see her as soon as I’m finished here,” Sano said, conscious of Hoshina listening intently to the conversation. The police commissioner was a skilled detective, but glad to take advantage of facts discovered by others. “Did anyone else enter this room during the night?”
“Not as far as I know, master.”
But if Lady Wisteria had left the house unobserved, so could someone else have entered secretly, and committed murder. Sano drew the cloth over the body and rose. “Who found the body, and when?”
“Momoko did,” the proprietor said. “It was a little after midnight. She came running downstairs, screaming that Lord Mitsuyoshi was dead.”
All the more reason to question the yarite, thought Sano. She might have noticed something important, and in some murder cases, the culprit proved to be the person who discovered the crime. He bent to sort through the clothes on the floor, and found a man’s surcoat, trousers, and kimono, presumably belonging to the victim, and a woman’s ivory satin dressing gown. The gown was soft to his touch, and Sano recognized its odor of musky perfume. Closing his mind against memories of Wisteria and himself together, he moved to the dressing table behind the screen. The table held a mirror, comb, brush, jars of face powder and rouge. On the floor around the table lay a red silk cloth and a few strands of long black hair.
Sano addressed Hoshina: “What have you done to locate Wisteria?”
“I’ve got men out searching the quarter, the highways, and the surrounding countryside.” Hoshina added, “If she’s there, I’ll find her.”
Before you do, said his inflection. And Hoshina might indeed, because he had a head start. Sano felt an urgent need to find Wisteria first, because he feared that Hoshina would harm her before her guilt or innocence could be determined.
“Did Lady Wisteria often entertain clients here?” he asked the proprietor.
“Oh, yes, master.”
Then she would have kept personal possessions at the Owariya, instead of just bringing a set of bedding with her for a night’s visit, as courtesans did to houses they rarely used. “Where is her kamuro?” Sano said.
A kamuro was a young girl, in training to be a prostitute, who waited on the courtesans to learn the trade and earn her keep. Her chores included tending the courtesans’ possessions.
“In the kitchen, master.”
“Please bring her up.”
The proprietor departed, then soon returned with a girl of perhaps eleven years. Small and thin, she had an oval face made up with white rice powder and red rouge, and wispy hair. She wore the traditional pine-leaf-patterned kimono of her station.
“This is Chidori-chan,” the proprietor told Sano, then addressed the kamuro: “The master wants to talk to you.”
Her frightened gaze veered around the room, then downward; she bobbed a clumsy bow.
“Don’t be afraid,” Sano said in a reassuring tone. “I just want you to look over Lady Wisteria’s things with me.”
Chidori nodded, but Sano saw her tremble. He pitied her, trapped in Yoshiwara, destined for a life of sexual slavery. She might someday attract a patron who would buy her freedom, but could instead end up begging on the streets, as did many courtesans when they got too old to attract clients. Sano gently led Chidori over to the cabinet, where they examined the folded garments and pairs of sandals on the shelves. Hoshina watched, leaning against the wall, his expression attentive.
