Blood Passage (22 page)

“
All right then, if you could stop by I’d appreciate it.”

“
What’s the address?” He took out his pen and notebook as she recited it. “I’ll be there shortly.” When he put the phone away, Karen grinned.

“
Got a date, Lou?”

“
For Christ’s sake, it’s not a date. She got a call from Peter Mah. Are you coming with me?”

“
No thanks.”

Hank stood up, putting the notebook and pen in his pocket.

“
Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Karen said.

“
That gives me a lot of latitude.”

Sandy laughed.

Hank stopped at the bar. He caught the attention of the server and put two twenty-dollar bills on the bar. “That should cover the table,” he said, nodding toward Karen and Sandy. “I don’t think they’ll stay long. Put the rest in the kitty.”

“
Thanks, Lieutenant. Take care.”

“
I will. Could you call a taxi for me?”

“
No problem.”

As she reached for the telephone, Hank went out onto the sidewalk and inhaled the night air. When the taxi arrived Hank got in and gave the driver Meredith Collier’s address.

The taxi took twenty minutes to make its way through the heavy Midtown traffic. Hank paid the driver and stepped out in front of a high rise apartment complex on the harbor front. This neighborhood had been the subject of a recent multi-billion dollar development project to inject new life into the waterfront. There were four identical apartment towers in a row, glittering steel and glass monoliths affording a spectacular view of the river from the back and a panoramic cityscape from the front. Meredith lived in the second tower from the left. Hank walked through the large double glass doors into the lobby, found her number on the intercom panel and pressed the button below it.

“
Yes?”

“
Lieutenant Donaghue, Ms. Collier.”

“
Come on up.”

The door clicked and he went in, admiring the newness of the place. The building was no more than five years old and it seemed that no expense had been spared. The floors were laid with immaculate ceramic tile, the walls were clean and hung with works of art, and the light fixtures in the ceiling were tasteful and discreet. He walked over to the bank of elevators and pressed a button. The nearest elevator opened with a soft chime. He stepped in and pressed the button for the twenty-eighth floor. The doors closed gently and he felt the elevator begin to rise.

At the twenty-eighth floor the doors opened and Hank found Meredith Collier waiting for him at a door at the end of the corridor. She wore a discreet knee-length black dress, comfortable black shoes and a string of pearls.

“
Thank you for coming, Lieutenant,” she said, holding out her hand. “I’m very sorry to drag you away from your evening.”

“
Not at all,” Hank said, shaking her hand. He felt a jolt of electricity that he tried to ignore.

“
I appreciate it,” she said, closing the door and leading him through an open concept area down a hallway into a large living room with a spectacular view of the river.

“
Very nice place,” Hank said.

“
Thank you.” Meredith led the way to a seating area near a bar. “Please, sit down. Can I get you a drink?”

“
No thanks,” he said automatically, easing down into a leather armchair, his eyes moving to the lights along the river.

“
You’re off duty, aren’t you, Lieutenant?” she smiled at him. “I’m going to have a beer. Why don’t you have one with me?”

“
A beer would be fine, then, thanks,” Hank said.

She went behind the bar and opened a refrigerator. “Domestic or imported? I’m having a Bass.”

“
That’s fine.”

“
Glass?”

“
Just the bottle, thanks.”

Meredith brought over two bottles of Bass beer and handed him one. She sat down in a love seat across from Hank and looked at him seriously. “I wanted to talk to you about Peter.”

Hank set his beer aside and slipped his notebook and pen from his pocket. “When did he call?”

“
Late this afternoon, a few minutes after I got home from work.”

“
What did he say?”

“
He said he’d been meaning to call me earlier but had regrettably not found the time.”

“
Was that a veiled threat?”

“
No, not at all.” Meredith slipped off her shoes tucked her legs underneath her on the love seat. “You have to understand that Peter had a very traditional Chinese upbringing and adheres very closely to traditional cultural values. Family is very important to him, and the fact I was his cousin’s mother includes me in his family, however peripherally. So he’d feel it inappropriate to threaten me in any way. The purpose of his call was simply to suggest that I didn’t need to see Grace’s boy or have anything to do with the student’s research into these so-called memories of Martin.”

“
I see,” Hank said evenly.

Meredith raised her hand. “Indulge me for a moment. I should explain this in the context of the traditional cultural values Peter follows so closely. It may help you understand him a little better.”

Hank set his notepad and pen aside and picked up his beer. “Take your time.”

“
Thanks.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “I’m originally from California. I went to UCLA. I took courses in Asian culture and studied Cantonese. After I graduated I got a job teaching English as a second language in Hong Kong and spent a year there. I loved it. I met a man from here, Asian, who was in Hong Kong visiting relatives, and we started a casual relationship. When my contract was up, I moved back here with him. It didn’t last, but I met a friend of his, Stephen Liu, and I knew I’d found someone special. Stephen and I married, and Martin was our only child. We were very happy. Stephen had had a very non-traditional upbringing, and in fact his Cantonese was very poor, but none of that mattered. We were just very happy.

“
I mentioned before that his older sister was married to Jerome Mah, which was a source of considerable tension within the Liu family. We stayed away from the Mahs as much as we could, and so did Stephen’s younger sister Anna, who married a man named Warren Wong. Their daughter Grace, of course, was Martin’s cousin.”

Hank nodded, watching her thick blond hair slip over her left eye as she talked.

Meredith drained the bottle of beer and set it aside, flicking her hair back with a toss of her head. “Stephen considered himself American first and foremost, and we raised Martin the same way, but I want you to understand that I have a very sound appreciation of the traditional cultural values that are so important to Peter. I studied them closely in school and while I was in Hong Kong. I was something of an intellectual back then, I guess, and I took my work very seriously. I immersed myself in the culture, improved my grasp of the language, and applied what I learned to my teaching methods.”

“
So you speak Cantonese?”

She nodded. “It’s a little rusty now. I also speak some Mandarin and I even know a little Shanghainese, the dialect of Wu that’s also heard in Hong Kong. Anyway, I want you to understand Peter’s point of view. It may help your investigation because I’m convinced Peter was connected to Martin’s murder. If you understand Peter, it may help you manipulate him into revealing the truth.”

“
You said Peter wasn’t threatening when he told you to stay away from Taylor Chan.”

“
Correct. He was very polite.”

“
I see.”

“
Perhaps not fully, Lieutenant.” She moved her hair back with her fingertips and looked at him. “Politeness is a strategy that traditional Chinese use to preserve face in situations which may be complicated. It’s a signal to someone that says, ‘I know what I’m about to ask may potentially cause us both to lose face, but I’ll try to proceed in such a way as to minimize that risk.’ Everything he said after that was geared to minimize causing negative face for either of us.” She laughed lightly. “He was a little uncomfortable because these strategies are used between males much more so than between a male and female.”

“
So he asked you politely to stay away from Taylor Chan.”

Meredith looked at him, amusement in her eyes. “You’re just teasing me, Lieutenant, but that’s all right, I don’t mind. As I’ve been trying to explain, he didn’t ask me politely to stay away from Taylor Chan. He said that Taylor was a very fine young boy who had a great future ahead of him. He said Grace was a very fine mother to the boy and that Michael was an excellent provider who would ensure that Taylor would lack for nothing as he grew up. He expressed regret that Michael didn’t embrace his own heritage and said he himself would always be available to the boy, should he wish to learn the traditional Chinese ways when he became older. He said Taylor seemed to like him and that he’d always be looking out for the boy. He then went on to say that with the police asking people questions about Martin and examining possible connections between Martin and Taylor, it was natural I might become concerned about the welfare of Taylor and feel a need to take some kind of future action involving the boy. He said this would not be necessary, that he, Peter, would ensure no harm would come to the boy as a result of these activities of the police. I could rest easy in the knowledge that no action whatsoever would be necessary on my part.”

“
Well,” Hank said, “that’s a very indirect way of telling someone to butt out.”

Meredith laughed. “Since I want nothing whatsoever to do with this student or Grace or the boy, it was pretty easy to respond to Peter’s roundabout request. I told him I appreciated his interest in Taylor. I said he had far greater means than I to assist Grace in looking after the boy’s best interests, and that I had no wish to worry him further that any action of mine might cause Taylor distress or discomfort. I told him I’d explained to the student I couldn’t help him in his research and that I considered the matter closed. It was a way of responding to Peter’s request that didn’t cause any negative face for him, and it also signaled to him that his request did not cause any negative face for me.”

“
That’s a pretty complicated dance,” Hank remarked.

“
Face is a pretty complicated concept,” she replied, “and it’s extremely important to Peter Mah.”

“
I see,” Hank said.

“
There are actually two kinds of face in Chinese culture,” she went on, “
mianzi
and
lian
.
Mianzi
relates to a person’s social status as they become rich and powerful. The more successful business transactions they achieve, for example, the greater their
mianzi
. Failures, on the other hand, may lower it. We would say gaining face or losing face. So Peter is very conscious of his status within his network of friends and associates, and he’s very careful to maintain a high level of
mianzi
.

“
The other type of face,
lian
, has more to do with a person’s moral reputation. A person of much
lian
is known to be reliable and trustworthy. He’ll fulfill his obligations to his network regardless of the cost, he can always be depended on to do what’s expected of him, and he’ll always be seen to behave properly. If he has a particular role within his network and is known to have failed to act in that role when needed, for example, it’ll cause him to lose considerable
lian
. On the other hand, if he were to perform these actions unfailingly, particularly at some sacrifice to himself, he’d gain
lian
in the eyes of others.”

“
I like the way you use the word
network
,” Hank smiled. “That’s very good.”

Meredith’s face clouded over and she turned away to look out the window. “Network, Triad, whatever.”

“
I’m sorry,” Hank said hastily, “I didn’t mean to sound sarcastic.”

“
Never mind.” She put her feet back down on the floor and slipped them into her shoes. “I’m just trying to help you understand Peter Mah and his motivations.”

“
I understand that. I’m sorry. Why did Mah show so much interest in Martin? You said before you thought he was helping Martin regain his cultural heritage?”

She folded her hands on her lap. “Yes.”

Hank slid forward in the chair and raised his hand. “Look, I offended you and I’m very sorry. It’s my cop sense of humor, I guess. You’re being a big help to me here and I really appreciate it. Feel free to hit me over the head any time you like.”

“
It’s tempting,” she said, looking away.

Hank thought he saw a smile playing around the corners of her mouth and his heart stopped pounding. He reached for his notebook and pen. “How did the conversation end?”

“
Peter said that should I ever wish to call him back, at any time or for any reason, I should feel completely free to do so.”

“
What did he mean by that?”

Meredith tossed her hair back. “That I should understand there was a relationship between us, that I should consider myself part of his
network
, that he appreciated my willingness to do nothing related to Taylor and that the relationship between us could be beneficial to me in the future.”