“I, too,” Sano said. “I wouldn’t ask you to examine another body now if I had any choice.”

The Black Lotus disaster had taken its toll on Dr. Ito even though he hadn’t been at the temple that night, when over seven hundred people had died. Their bodies had been taken directly to a mass funeral outside town, but many nuns and priests had died from injuries or committed suicide in jail, and Dr. Ito had prepared their corpses for cremation. His horror at the Black Lotus carnage had put a halt to his work-the one solace that made his imprisonment bearable-and the spiritual pollution from so many deaths had weakened his health.

Dr. Ito smiled reassuringly and gestured for Sano to enter the morgue. “Justice for a murder victim takes precedence over personal feelings.”

Inside the morgue, a large room held stone troughs used for washing the dead, cabinets containing tools, a podium stacked with papers and books, and three waist-high tables. Upon one table lay a figure draped by a white cloth. Beside this stood Dr. Ito’s assistant, Mura, a man of some fifty years, who had bushy gray hair and an angular, intelligent face.

“We’re ready to begin, Mura-san,” said Dr. Ito.

Mura was an eta, one of the outcast class from which came the wardens, torturers, corpse handlers, and executioners of Edo Jail. The eta’s hereditary link with death-related occupations such as butchering and leather tanning rendered them spiritually contaminated. Most citizens shunned them, but Dr. Ito had befriended Mura, who performed all the physical work for Dr. Ito’s studies.

As Sano went to stand near the table, he battled an impulse to run away. He’d not yet recovered from the horror and nausea he’d experienced upon finding the body. He dreaded examining the corpse of a woman he’d known intimately.

Mura peeled off the white cloth from the corpse, beginning at the feet. The rigidity of death had passed, and the woman lay flat on her back, limbs straight. Her feet were bare, their skin a bluish white; dirt and cuts marked the soles. As her clothes came into view, Sano observed red-brown splotches on the kimono’s purple and green floral pattern. The woman’s fingernails were broken and crusted with dried blood. Mura uncovered her top half, exposing the hideous mutilation where her head should have been. The sweet odor of rotting meat struck Sano; his stomach lurched.

“Where did you find her?” Dr. Ito asked.

Sano related the details of the murder investigation, explained how he’d discovered the body, and described the scene.

“Was there blood around the body?” Dr. Ito said.

An indelible picture of the room haunted Sano’s mind. “Not much. Some spatters on the floor, the wall, the futon, and the mosquito net.”

He knew Reiko was worried about him, and he’d wished to act normal in front of her last night, but all his energy had gone toward keeping sickness and emotion at bay. Closing himself off from Reiko would drive them farther apart, but he couldn’t explain the murder’s extreme effect on him without telling her what would make matters worse.

“To determine exactly what happened, we must view the rest of her.” Dr. Ito gestured to Mura.

The eta fetched a knife and cut the kimono off the woman. He removed the white under-kimono, exposing her naked body. It was an ugly patchwork of huge red and purple bruises that had erupted under the pale skin on her abdomen, breasts, and ribcage. Smaller bruises blotched her neck, arms, and thighs. Sano inhaled sharply through his teeth; Dr. Ito murmured in dismay, and even the stoic Mura looked shaken.

“Please turn her on her side, Mura-san,” said Dr. Ito.

Mura obeyed, and they silently viewed the bruised back and buttocks. Then Dr. Ito walked around the table, his expression pitying as he studied the corpse. “This brutality indicates a male rather than a female attacker, because it required considerable strength. Those bruises were made by fists. The small ones on the arms and neck are fingerprints.”

“She fought back,” Sano said, observing the woman’s hands. “Her fingernails are broken and bloody because she clawed her attacker.”

In his mind he saw the blood on the floor and walls, smeared with two sets of handprints and footprints, one large, one small-the victim’s and the killer’s. If this was Wisteria, what responsibility did he bear for her death?

“Note these dark, deep bruises along her back. After she fell, he kicked and trampled her,” Dr. Ito said. “She probably died from the rupture of internal organs.”

“So he beat her to death.”

Sano wished more than ever that he’d bothered to find out what had become of Wisteria after their affair ended, and not just because he might have saved her life. His sense of responsibility extended to what she might have done, as well as what had been done to her.

“The removal of the head was performed after death,” said Dr. Ito, “because otherwise, there would have been copious blood in the room.”

“The dead don’t bleed,” Sano concurred, forcing a matter-of-fact tone even as he saw bits of gore clinging to mosquito net. “After he killed her, he laid her on the bed, then decapitated her.”

“And see how the neck is hacked and ragged at the edges.” The concern in Dr. Ito’s eyes said he guessed that something troubled Sano. “Whoever did this must have been in a violent frenzy of rage.”

From the jail drifted the howls of the prisoners. Sano envisioned Wisteria, her beautiful face contorted in terror, trying to ward off a shadowy attacker. He heard her scream as fists hit her, saw her clutch the wall as she went down under a storm of blows and kicks…

With an effort Sano said, “Now that we know how she died, we just have to figure out if this really is Lady Wisteria, and whether Fujio killed her.”

“Let us first determine whether this woman matches the missing courtesan’s description.” Dr. Ito paused, clearly on the verge of asking Sano what was wrong; but either Sano’s expression stopped him, or courtesy precluded prying. “How old is Wisteria?”

“Twenty-four years,” Sano said. Her age was the one thing she’d told him that he thought he could take as fact.

“This woman was young,” Dr. Ito said, studying the corpse. “Her flesh is smooth and firm. Twenty-four years is a reasonable estimate of her age.”

The similarity in age could be a coincidence, Sano thought; but the spreading hollow in his stomach said otherwise.

“What is Wisteria’s physical size and shape?” Dr. Ito said.

“She’s small.” Sano raised his hand at shoulder height, assailed by a memory of embracing Wisteria. He tried to compare his knowledge of her naked body to the dead woman’s, but the absence of a face, as well as the bruises and the pall of death, made recognition impossible. He swallowed and forced himself to continue: “She’s slim, with narrow hips and small breasts.”

“As is the victim.” Dr. Ito glanced at the part of the woman’s body where Sano had avoided looking and said, “Her pubis is shaved. She was a prostitute.”

So many points of resemblance indicated that the dead woman was Lady Wisteria, even if they weren’t final proof. Sano felt his hope that Wisteria was still alive yield to desolation; he turned away from the body.

“Cover her, Mura-san,” Dr. Ito said quietly.

Whatever lies Wisteria had told or evils she’d committed, she’d been a proud, courageous woman. Sano recalled her aloof behavior the last time he’d seen her. Might she have had a premonition that her remaining time on earth was short?

“Do you think the hokan killed her?” Dr. Ito asked.

“It’s hard to imagine Fujio being capable of such brutality. Hirata went to question him this morning. We’ll see what happens.”

Sano stared grimly out the window as he pondered the consequences that the second murder held for him. His investigation could now continue, because even if the shogun believed that the killer of his heir had already been punished, he would expect Sano to solve the case of the decapitated woman. New inquiries might turn up new evidence to prove who had killed Lord Mitsuyoshi. Yet this prospect caused Sano dread as well as satisfaction.