“Did you see who was in the palanquin?” Sano asked patiently.
“No. The doors and windows were shut.”
“Did you see the bearers’ faces?”
Kenji shook his head. “It was dark, and they wore big hats. And I was running to get back to the dormitory before anyone noticed I wasn’t there.”
Disappointment descended over Sano. Grasping at the receding vestiges of hope, he asked, “Can you remember anything at all about the palanquin or the bearers?”
“I’m sorry, master.” Then Kenji’s drooping head snapped alert; his eyes brightened. “Wait-I remember now. The moon was shining on the palanquin. And I saw a big dragon painted on the side!”
This information was better than none, but not much. Elaborate decoration signified a private, rather than a hired vehicle. If the palanquin had, as Sano suspected, conveyed the Bundori Killer to and from the temple, he need only call on the several thousand Edo citizens rich enough to own personal transportation.
“What color was the dragon?” he asked, seeking to narrow the field.
Kenji shrugged. “It was too dark to tell.”
“Would you recognize it if you saw it again?” Hirata interjected.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” The novice shivered, beating his hands against his arms. “Can I go now? I’m cold.”
After ascertaining that Kenji remembered nothing more about the palanquin and had seen nothing and no one else in or outside the temple complex the previous night, Sano dismissed him.
“I’m sorry he couldn’t tell us more, sōsakan-sama,” Hirata said. “I wanted to bring you evidence to make up for not having done you any good so far.” Self-contempt laced his voice.
“Don’t underestimate your achievement, Hirata,” Sano said, fighting his own disappointment. “Kenji’s testimony might eventually place a suspect near the crime scene. You’re a talented investigator. You got facts from the boy that I might not have.” Then, seeing Hirata flush with pleasure, he regretted his impulsive praise. He mustn’t encourage the young doshin’s attachment to him.
“Keep searching the grounds,” he ordered. “I’ll join you after I’ve finished questioning… three thousand possible witnesses and suspects.”
Sano spent the next hours in the temple’s assembly hall, interrogating an endless parade of frightened, shocked clergy and servants. Some priests he recognized as former teachers, or classmates who had taken orders and stayed at the temple. By the time he finished, he’d verified the abbot’s statement. No one but Kenji had seen anything. And Brother Endō himself had publicized his occupation. A gregarious man, he’d often stationed himself at the main gate to greet and chat with visitors. Any pilgrim-the killer included-could have learned his schedule directly from him.
Afterward Sano joined Hirata and a horde of priests in searching the temple for evidence. Carrying torches, they inspected paths, gardens, monuments, stairways, graveyards, the ground around every building and gate, the forest…
And found nothing.
At dawn, Sano and Hirata mounted their horses for the ride back to Edo. In addition to the killer’s boards, spikes, and tools, Sano’s saddlebags held the mystery woman’s two kimonos-the sole tangible reward for their labors.
This night had forever changed his personal vision of Zōjō Temple. Now, when he thought of it, he would no longer picture a sunlit haven of prayer and learning, or recall the happy and sad times of his childhood. Instead he would see Brother Endō’s mutilated corpse, and remember his friends and teachers as potential witnesses and suspects. The investigation not only dominated his present and future; it had also damaged cherished memories.
“We got more from this murder scene than from any of the others,” Hirata said, as though trying to bolster his own spirits as well as Sano’s.
But what did they have? Confirmation of a theory that had as yet led nowhere. The description of a possible suspect’s palanquin. A missing witness, and only a pair of kimonos as clues to her identity.
And just four more days to catch the Bundori Killer.
Chapter 18
Back in Edo, Sano and Hirata parted ways outside the Nihonbashi produce market, a sprawling complex of stalls, where vendors haggled with customers and porters carried baskets of vegetables, fruit, and grain on their backs. Maneuvering his horse into a quiet side street, Sano gave Hirata orders for the day.
“After you’ve rested, visit all the palanquin builders in town and find out who made a palanquin with a dragon design on it. Ask who bought it, but don’t say why you want to know. If that really was the killer Kenji spotted last night, we don’t want him to know he’s been seen and destroy the palanquin before we can use it as evidence.”
He paused to stop a newsseller who was trudging toward the market with a stack of broadsheets under his arm. “Here’s some news for you: ‘The shogun’s sōsakan says that the Bundori Killer seeks to destroy only the descendants of Endō Munetsugu, who should beware.’ ”
As the newsseller hurried away shouting the words, Sano said to Hirata, “While you make your rounds, spread that message to everyone you can. We want as many people as possible informed before another night falls.” If they didn’t catch the killer, at least the potential victims would be forewarned, and the citizens calmed.
“I’ll start now,” Hirata said. “I’m not tired.”
Indeed he did look fresh and lively, as if he, like Sano himself, was functioning on the peculiar energy that sleeplessness can induce. Wistfully stroking his mount’s mane, he said, “I guess you want your horse back.”
“Keep her for now,” Sano said. “I’ll pay her board at the police stables.”
Amazement and gratitude lit Hirata’s face. “Thank you, sōsakan-sama!”
Sano realized that while he’d merely intended the horse’s loan as a means of allowing Hirata to cover more ground faster, the young doshin interpreted it as an expression of trust and a deepening of their relationship. Now he couldn’t retract the offer without hurting Hirata.
“Should I keep looking for the tall, lame suspect with the pockmarked face?” Hirata asked.
While he pondered the question, Sano let his gaze wander to the market. The morning was unseasonably warm, with a humidity that intensified the odors of vegetable refuse and open drains. Beneath a bright, hazy sky that presaged the summer to come, the market seemed quieter and less crowded than usual, its atmosphere of cheerful commerce conspicuously absent. How long before news of the latest murder spread throughout the city? Would his own message be enough to counteract it? Sano dreaded the escalation of civil unrest more than the threat to his own life.
“Forget about the suspect for now,” he said finally.
He still believed in Aoi’s mystical powers, and intelligence. Her evocation of his father’s spirit and the courtesan Sparrow, her knowledge of the hatamoto Kaibara’s sorrow, and the circumstances of the rōnin Tōzawa’s death had convinced him that she could communicate with the spirit world. She’d identified the eta murder as a practice killing, and Kaibara’s status as last surviving clan member as a reason for the killer to revive General Fujiwara’s feud. So Sano had to consider the possibility that she’d deliberately misled him by failing to predict the murder at Zōjō Temple, and sending him to the marshes instead. He also began to doubt her description of the killer. With alarm, he discovered that although he no longer trusted Aoi, neither could he think of her without experiencing a desire that clenched his heart as it warmed his body.
“What should I have my assistants do?” Hirata asked.