net, an arm that extended to a hand with curled fingers. The bundle was a human body, slender and curved and female, dressed in a patterned kimono and sprawled on the futon. That she lay so still, in this freezing, isolated house, could mean only one thing.
“Merciful gods,” Sano said.
He and his comrades rushed into the room. Sano flung back the mosquito net, and everyone exclaimed in horror. The body was headless, the neck an ugly stump of mangled flesh, clotted blood, and hacked bone. In his memory Sano heard a girlish voice saying, “She wore a black kimono with purple wisteria blossoms and green vines on it.” The garment on the dead woman was surely the one described by the kamuro, Chidori.
“Lady Wisteria,” Sano said, aghast.
Reiko lay in bed, where she’d fallen into a restless sleep hours after Sano left for Fujio’s house. Quiet footsteps in the corridor impinged on her consciousness, and she jerked awake, breath caught, eyes widevopen in the darkness of her room.
She knew the estate was well guarded, but ever since the Black Lotus case, noises at night conjured up terror of attack. She snatched up the dagger she kept beside the bed. Silently she crept down the corridor, shivering with cold and fear. Lamplight glowed from the bathchamber; a human shadow moved inside. Peering cautiously through the open door, Reiko saw Sano. He was undressing. Her body sagged in relief. She lowered the dagger and entered the room.
“I’m glad you’re home,” she said.
Sano nodded without looking at her, his features set in a frown. He dropped his sash on the slatted wooden floor, then stripped off his trousers. He tore off his robes and socks. Reiko noticed his hands shaking; the sculpted muscles of his stomach contracted in spasms as he shed his loincloth. He squatted, emptied a bucket of water over himself, and shuddered in the icy splash.
Worried by his strange behavior, Reiko laid down the dagger and crouched near Sano. “What happened at Fujio’s house?”
Sano picked up a bag of rice-bran soap and violently scrubbed his torso. His voice emerged from between chattering teeth: “We found the dead body of a woman.”
“Oh.” Reiko now understood why Sano would bathe in the middle of the night. He wanted to cleanse himself of the spiritual pollution from his contact with death. Postponing more questions, she said, “Let me help you.”
She lit the charcoal braziers. Luckily, the water in the round, sunken wooden tub was still warm, heated earlier for her own bath. She washed Sano’s back and rinsed him. He climbed into the tub, groaning as he immersed himself up to his chin and closed his eyes. Reiko knelt beside the tub. Moments passed. Gradually Sano ceased shuddering.
“The body was wearing the kimono that Lady Wisteria had on the night she vanished,” he said wearily.
Dismayed, Reiko said, “But you don’t know for sure if the body is hers?”
“The woman’s head was missing.”
Reiko sucked air through pursed lips. “Did she die from decapitation?”
“I don’t know yet. I had my men take the body to Edo Morgue for Dr. Ito to examine. But this clearly wasn’t a natural death. She was murdered.”
“Was there a weapon?”
Sano opened hollow eyes that looked unfocused, as if he saw the murder scene instead of Reiko. “We searched the house,” he said, “but we didn’t find anything. Her killer could have taken the weapon, or thrown it away in the woods. The same possibilities apply to her head.”
A feeling of distance between her and Sano troubled Reiko. Tonight the investigation, which she’d hoped would unite them, seemed to have separated them further. But perhaps this was just a temporary effect caused by Sano’s upsetting experience.
“Do you think Fujio killed Wisteria?” Reiko asked.
“She was in his house,” Sano said. “That implicates him.”
Reiko sensed that Sano was upset about more than discovering the body and losing a witness. She wanted to ask what it was, but his reticence prevented her. Instead she said, “How did Wisteria get there?”
“Fujio could have smuggled her out of Yoshiwara and hidden her in his house.” Sano spoke as if forcing out each word; he stared at the water before him.
“Wouldn’t he have known better than to kill her on his own property, leave her corpse there, and incriminate himself?”
“He might have thought no one would find her there. I never would have, if not for that message.”
Reiko also sensed that Sano wasn’t telling her everything. “If Fujio did kill Wisteria, does that mean he also killed Lord Mitsuyoshi?”
“Perhaps.”
“Could someone else have found Wisteria and killed her?” Reiko hated coaxing Sano to talk when he would obviously rather not; but they needed to determine what the new murder meant to the case.
“Anything is possible,” Sano said in that same reluctant tone. “But who besides Fujio would have known she was in the house?”
“Perhaps a traveler who happened upon her?” Reiko said.
“There aren’t many travelers in the hills this time of year, though she could have been killed by bandits robbing summer homes. Her death must be connected with Lord Mitsuyoshi’s murder, and so must the killer.”
Reiko had hoped that if they kept talking, Sano would open up about what was bothering him. “Who would want Lady Wisteria dead and Fujio blamed?” When Sano didn’t answer, Reiko suggested, “It could be the person who sent the message.”
Sano rested his head against the rim of the tub and closed his eyes, exhaling a tremulous breath.
Increasingly worried, Reiko said, “Are you ill? Shall I prepare you a medicinal tea?”
His throat muscles clenched as he swallowed. “No. I’m fine.”
“If you’d rather be alone…?” Although unwilling to leave him like this, Reiko rose.
“Don’t go.” With an obvious effort, Sano opened his eyes, lifted his head, and met her gaze. “We need to talk.”
Reiko waited, nervous about what she might hear. A heartbeat passed in ominous suspense. Then Sano said, “Maybe the dead woman isn’t Wisteria, and the scene at the house was arranged to mislead me.”
“And her head could have been removed so you would think she was Wisteria.” Reiko guessed that this topic wasn’t the one Sano had originally intended to broach. “But if it isn’t Wisteria, then who is it?”
“I hope Dr. Ito can provide some answers,” Sano said.
“Doesn’t this murder cast doubt on Treasury Minister Nitta’s conviction?” Reiko asked.
“If the victim is Wisteria, and it happened after Nitta was arrested, yes. Her disappearance from Yoshiwara and Lord Mitsuyoshi’s death are linked, and if Nitta is innocent of one thing, he may not be guilty of the other.”
Sano’s melancholy seemed unrelieved by this theory that justified continuing his investigation. “All this time I’ve felt so sure Wisteria was alive,” he said.
Reiko detected in him a concern that seemed deeper than she would expect him to feel about a stranger who was a murder suspect. A vague, disturbing notion crossed her mind.
Sano’s shoulders moved in a gesture that expressed doubt and anxiety. “Whether or not this murder is what it seems, there’s no use drawing conclusions until we hear what Fujio has to say about what we found.”
He climbed out of the tub, and as Reiko draped a cloth around him, she rejected her notion. It was surely a product of the distrust instilled in her by the Black Lotus. Whatever secret Sano was keeping from her, that couldn’t be it.
“Let’s go to bed and try to sleep for what’s left of the night,” Sano said. “In the morning, Hirata will question Fujio while I go to Edo Morgue and see what Dr. Ito’s examination of the corpse can tell us. What we learn might help me persuade the shogun to let the investigation go on.”
His face was haggard with exhaustion. “Or it might not.”
