Sano Ichiro 7 The Pillow Book of Lady Wisteria (2002) Read online

  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, Sōsakan-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.

  “Is anything missing?” Sano asked Chidori.

  “... The outfit Lady Wisteria had on last night.” Chidori risked a glance at Sano, seemed to discern that he wouldn’t hurt her, and spoke up more boldly: “She wore a black kimono with purple wisteria blossoms and green vines on it.”

  Her conspicuous costume would aid the search for her, Sano thought, and saw the idea register on Hoshina’s countenance. Opening the cabinet’s other compartments, Sano revealed quilts, bath supplies, a tea service, a sake decanter and cups, a writing box containing brushes, inkstone, and water jar. A drawer held hair ornaments—lacquerware picks, silk flowers mounted on combs, ribbons. Chidori attested that all the possessions were present as she remembered from when she’d tidied the cabinet yesterday. This left Sano one last task for the girl.

  “Chidori-chan, I must ask you to look at the body.” Seeing her blench, he added, “You need only look for a moment. Try to be brave.”

  The kamuro gulped, nodding. Sano stepped to the bed and peeled back the cloth just far enough to reveal the upper part of Mitsuyoshi’s head. Chidori gasped; she stared in horror at the hairpin stuck in the eye.

  “Does the hairpin belong to Lady Wisteria?” Sano said.

  Emitting a whimper, Chidori shook her head. Sano experienced a cautious relief as he replaced the cloth. That Wisteria didn’t own the hairpin was evidence that hinted at her innocence. “Do you know who it does belong to?”

  “Momoko-san,” the girl whispered.

  The yarite again, thought Sano. Revealed as the last person to see Wisteria and Lord Mitsuyoshi, discoverer of the body, and now, owner of the murder weapon, she seemed a better suspect than Wisteria. He said to Chidori, “Look around the room again. Are you sure nothing is missing?”

  “Yes, master.” Then a frown wrinkled Chidori’s brow.

  Sano felt his instincts stir, as they did when he knew he was about to hear something important. Hoshina pushed himself away from the wall, eyeing the kamuro with heightened interest.

  “What is it?” Sano said.

  “Her pillow book,” said Chidori.

  A pillow book was a journal in which a woman recorded her private thoughts and the events of her life, in the tradition of Imperial court ladies. “What was in the book?” Sano said, intrigued to learn that Wisteria had followed the centuries-old custom.

  “I don’t know. I can’t read.”

  More questioning revealed that the pillow book was a pack of white rice paper, bound between lavender silk covers tied with green ribbon. Wisteria wrote in it whenever she had a spare moment, and if she heard someone coming, she would quickly put it away, as though fearful that they might read it. She took the book with her whenever she left the brothel, and Chidori had seen her tuck it under her sash yesterday evening, but although Sano searched the entire room, the pillow book was indeed gone.

  “Wisteria could have removed it when she left,” Hoshina suggested.

  Or someone had stolen the pillow book, Sano thought, resisting Hoshina’s attempt to draw him into a discussion and elicit ideas from him. He considered possible scenarios for the crime. Perhaps the killer had entered the room while Wisteria and Mitsuyoshi slept, stabbed Mitsuyoshi, kidnapped Wisteria, and stolen the pillow book. But perhaps Wisteria herself had killed Mitsuyoshi, then fled, taking her book with her. Each scenario was as plausible as the other, and Sano realized how little he knew about his former lover. What had happened to her since they’d parted ways? Was she capable of such a grisly murder? The idea alarmed Sano, as did the suspicion that this case would bring him and Wisteria together again, with unpredictable consequences.

  Hiding his uneasiness, Sano turned to the proprietor and said, “I’ll see the yarite now.”

  * * *

  2

  Sano went outside, summoned the troops he’d banished from the ageya, and told them they could take Lord Mitsuyoshi’s remains to the castle. He would have liked to send them to his friend and adviser, Dr. Ito, at Edo Morgue, but couldn’t subject the body of an important person to such a desecrating, illegal procedure as a scientific examination. When Sano went back inside the ageya, Hirata met him in the corridor.

  “We’ve interviewed everyone in the house,” Hirata said in a low voice that wouldn’t be overheard by Police Commissioner Hoshina, who loitered nearby. “The clients and courtesans say they were together in the bedchambers last night. There was a party here, and the servants say they and the proprietor and the kamuro were busy waiting on the guests the whole time.

  “Nobody noticed anything unusual, until the commotion when the body was discovered. I’m inclined to believe they’re telling the truth. They knew Lord Mitsuyoshi was in the house, but they weren’t personally acquainted with him. I didn’t find any reason why they would kill him.”

  “What about his retainers?” Sano asked.

  “They were at the party, according to them and the other guests. If they know anything about the murder, they’re not talking.”

  “We’ll interrogate them again later,” Sano decided.

  Hoshina gave Sano and Hirata a faint smirk that said they needn’t bother trying to hide anything from him because he could find it out on his own. Then he slipped away.

  “It would have taken only a moment for someone at the party to go up and stab Lord Mitsuyoshi, especially if he was unconscious.” Sano described the murder scene. “We’ll have to investigate all the guests.”

  Fortunately, Yoshiwara was a small, gossipy community, and any hostilities involving Lord Mitsuyoshi shouldn’t be hard to discover. But the party complicated Sano’s work by increasing the number of potential witnesses and suspects.

  “I sent the detectives to ask people in neighboring houses if they observed anything that might help us,” Hirata said.

  “Good.” Sano told Hirata that Lord Mitsuyoshi had spent the evening with Lady Wisteria, who’d disappeared along with the pillow book. As Sano described the book, he realized he should tell Hirata about his past relationship with Wisteria, but now was not the time; he didn’t want Hoshina or the other policemen to overhear. “Please go out and see if you can find any leads on Wisteria or the book.”

  “Yes, Sōsakan-sama. By the way, when I interviewed the servants, they said Wisteria’s yarite found the body. She’d gone back to the Great Miura—the brothel where she lives—so I brought her here because I knew you’d want to speak with her.”

  “Well done,” Sano said, grateful to have such a capable, trustworthy retainer as Hirata. “Where is she?”

  Somewhere in the house, a female voice burst into a strident harangue. Hirata rolled his eyes toward the sound. “Momoko made sure to tell me that she was once a great taju, but I can’t imagine that her manner ever would have pleased many men,” he said, then took his leave.

  Sano followed the voice to the rear of the ageya, where a door stood open to a guest room. Inside were two women. The younger was in her teens, and Sano recognized her as one of the courtesans he’d seen in the parlor. She knelt on the floor before the older woman, who wore a brown kimono with the black girdle and cap of a chaperone. The latter, Sano deduced, was Momoko. She thrust a silk quilt at the courtesan’s frightened, babyish face.

  “You should be careful when you drink wine in bed!” she exclaimed, shaking the quilt, which exhibited a large purple stain. Her voice had a brassy edge, as if she often shouted. Her hair, knotted above her long, thin neck, was dyed a dull, unnatural black. “This will never come clea
n. You’ve completely ruined an expensive quilt, you little fool!”

  The courtesan cringed and mumbled.

  “Don’t blame your client,” Momoko said. Her profile was elegant, but vicious. “And how dare you talk back to me?”

  She smacked the courtesan hard across the face. The courtesan shrieked in pain. Momoko hurled the quilt at her. “The price of this quilt will come out of the fee you earned last night. Forget about buying your freedom, because at this rate, you’ll never leave Yoshiwara until you’re so old and ugly they throw you out. Now go home!”

  The courtesan sobbed as she scurried out the door past Sano. The yarite turned and saw him; the anger in her expression gave way to surprise, then dismay. “Oh! Are you the shogun’s sōsakan-sama? The words came in a gasp, and when Sano nodded, she quickly bowed. “I’m honored by your presence. Your retainer said you wanted to see me. How may I serve you?”

  Sano noted that she must have once been beautiful, but the passage of perhaps forty years had sharpened the bones in her cheeks and narrow figure. Her coy smile showed decaying teeth and failed to hide her fear of Sano. Obviously, Momoko knew why he wanted to see her, and how precarious was her situation.

  “I’m investigating the murder of Lord Mitsuyoshi,” Sano said, “and I must ask you some questions.”

  “Certainly. I’ll do my best to help you.” Momoko minced closer to Sano, her posture sinuously provocative, her smile rigid as a shield. “Shall we go to the parlor? May I give you a drink?”

  Perhaps her garrulity was merely an outlet for her nervousness, Sano thought, as might be her attack on the courtesan. Or was the yarite a cruel killer, chattering to hide her guilt? Reserving judgment, he accompanied Momoko to the parlor, where she seated him in the place of honor in front of the alcove. She bustled around, fetching the sake jar, warming it on the charcoal brazier, and pouring a cup for Sano.