A Cruel Season for Dying Read Online Free Page A

near the sea.
    Slowly he lifted the covers and sat up, swinging his feet to the
tatami
-covered floor. Standing, he caught his reflection across the room. The watery gray light drained the remaining color from
     his already too pale skin. He moved his hand down his chest, loosening his pajama bottoms. His naked image always surprised
     him.
    He remembered another day, another reflection. He had been visiting his Kyoto cousins; his uncle Ikenobo, a Shinto priest,
     had traveled from Nagasaki. It was early spring and his uncle wanted him to make a pilgrimage to Fushimi Inari with him. Thousands
     of vermilion-colored stone
torii
marked the path as they climbed up the steep mountain to the shrine. It was a difficult journey, but he wanted to please
     his uncle and was anxious to offer prayer at the holy place. However, when they neared the summit, he became both confused
     and disappointed. Beyond a single large
torii,
there was nothing at the mountaintop but a pile of stones. He searched his uncle’s face, but it was empty of all expression,
     as fixed as the stones before him.
    He moved closer. A glint of pale sunlight flickered in his eye. Resting at the center of the stones was a mirror, reflecting
     blue sky, thegreen edges of trees, clouds moving as in a dream. A single bird soared across the silver glass. Again he looked at his uncle,
     who had waited below. Their eyes met. Then his uncle raised his hands to his chest, made three quick claps—
kashiwade,
the highest sign of respect at a Shinto shrine.
    With the sharp explosions still ringing in his ear, he understood why Uncle Ikenobo had led him to Fushimi Inari. Shinto was
     more than worship or ritual. It was experiencing the universe itself. He bent over then, examining his eight-year-old face
     in the round mirror. And this, too, he had understood.
    The day he had earned his gold shield as an NYPD homicide detective, he received a letter from his uncle Ikenobo. His uncle
     wrote of
honne,
one’s true intentions, and
tatemae,
expected behavior. He prayed his nephew would always know the difference, and hoped that the two would not often be at war.
     As he had shifted the pages, a
konusa
leaf fell to the floor. The leaf had been used by his uncle to scatter drops of water to dispel
tsumi
—impurities of wounds, blood, death—an inevitable part of his job as a police officer.
    Yet he knew his uncle understood the other reality of his job. The reality that had made him ultimately choose police work—his
     need to restore order to the universe. To create harmony out of chaos. This principle of renewal was as much a part of Shinto
     as avoidance of
tsumi.
Had not this concept of restoration been the driving force that had led his uncle as a young monk to Suwa Jinja? The ancient
     shrine with its hundred-year-old gates and sanctuaries, with its clear stream and sacred grove of trees, had been for the
     burned bodies and scorched souls of the people of Nagasaki a place of purification after the horrors of the bomb. His uncle
     had embraced the impurities of war in order to reconcile human existence with the changing world. He believed this letter
     had been Uncle Ikenobo’s way of letting him know he understood why he had chosen the life of a cop.
    In the mirror he saw that Hanae had awakened and was smiling. “You look like a cat with a belly full of cream.”
    “I am satisfied.”
    He walked toward the bed, climbing back under the covers. “And why are you so satisfied, Wife?”
    She reached up and pulled his face close to hers. “Because my husband is such a good lover.”
    He laughed. “You’re a wicked woman.”
    “The alarm has not gone off.”
    “I shut it off. It’s already after six.”
    Her lips closed over his, her tongue slipping easily inside his mouth. “My husband will be late this morning.”

    The apartment in SoHo was tiny. Detective Walter Talbot sat forward on the lumpy sofa, trying to visualize that the person
     standing in front of him