Fortune Cookie (Culinary Mystery) (32 page)

“Do you think they were trying to protect you from her?”

Min pulled back slightly. “Protect me from what? She was an old lady. It’s not like she would ever hurt me or anything. And she was really sorry for not being a good mom to my dad. That day when she came into the restaurant to see him and he wasn’t there, she bought one of his jewelry boxes. She said that maybe that was the only part of him she would ever have. It was so sad.”

Sadie didn’t allow herself to get caught up in the sentimentality. “You say she wouldn’t hurt you, but she got mad at you when you said you couldn’t send the letters anymore.”

“Well, yeah, ’cause she had that game she was playing with her friend and I was messing it up.”

“Didn’t it seem strange that she didn’t mail the letters from her own building? Doesn’t it seem that if you were uncomfortable, she should have been okay with you not sending the letters?”

Min lifted her chin in defiance. “She was sick—like depressed and things. Like I said, no one understood her.”

Except Min. Somehow Wendy had managed to create this us-against-the-world feeling between her and Min. She might have been mentally ill or just mean or whatever, but she had power over people. “Can you tell me
anything
else about the letters? Maybe who they were addressed to?”

A flicker of guilt crossed Min’s face and she looked away.

“Min,” Sadie pleaded. “This is really important.”

Min looked back at her. “Why? Why does any of this matter? My grandmother is dead.” Her eyes filled with tears. “No one loved her, no one took care of her, and my parents would never understand if they knew that I at least tried. You’re supposed to help your family, and she needed help. I’m really glad I got to meet her before she died, but just because she’s gone doesn’t mean that everyone should talk bad about her and invade her privacy. She could write letters to whoever she wanted to.”

Sadie processed everything Min said through the filter of a twenty-year-old young woman with hardworking but controlling parents. Of course she saw Wendy as a victim, especially since Wendy played up that position. And of course Min would want the same respect of privacy for Wendy that she wanted for herself. Min was an adult living in her parents’ home, under their rule, their structure. Sadie needed to treat Min like the adult Min wanted to be, not the child she still was in many ways.

“I’m sorry,” Sadie said, lowering her chin and softening her tone. “I respect you for wanting to protect your grandmother. I have no doubt she was also glad to meet you; it must have been a great blessing to have had your help all those months. I would like to know who she wrote the letters to so I can talk to that person and see if they know anything that might help us figure out why this happened to Wendy. I don’t mean to make her out to be a villain. I just want to understand what happened. She was sending those letters to s
omeone
and that person might know something important. By helping me, you’re helping Wendy, Min.”

Min’s expression had changed during Sadie’s explanation, and she dropped her head before taking a deep breath. Sadie hoped it was meant to give the girl extra resolve to help her. “I didn’t pay attention to the address or anything except for the fact that it was in Nob Hill.”

“Okay, that’s helpful,” Sadie said, even though it wasn’t. She had no idea where Nob Hill was. Was it a district, like Mission and Chinatown, or a whole different city? But she could look it up later, so she didn’t push for details. “Thank you. And the name?”

“That part was kinda weird.”

“Kinda weird how?”

“Well, I asked her one time if it was her sister or something ’cause they had the same last name. I hadn’t thought about how her last name was actually her ex-husband’s until way later.”

“So the last name was Penrose,” Sadie concluded, another piece snapping together. “What was the first name?”

Min shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

“That’s okay,” Sadie said quickly, holding onto the fact that it must have been a woman’s name for Min to have assumed it was a sister. “This is so helpful. What did she say when you asked if it was her sister?”

Min looked uncomfortable and didn’t meet Sadie’s eyes. “She said she didn’t have a sister.”

It still stung, but Sadie nodded as though it didn’t.

Min continued. “Then she told me that Penrose was a pretty common name and it was no relation.” Min looked past Sadie toward a clock on the wall. “The other employees will be coming in soon. You should probably go.”

“Thank you, Min,” Sadie said, stepping forward to give her a quick hug. “I so appreciate your help.”

“And you’re not going to tell my parents about any of this?”

“I’m not,” Sadie said, slipping into a more motherly role. “But Wendy’s neighbors saw you coming and going from her apartment. The police are going to be looking into it.”

Min’s eyes went wide and her face paled.

“I won’t tell your parents, but they
are
going to find out you were visiting Wendy. It might go better for everyone if you take responsibility and tell them yourself.”

Min looked truly terrified at the suggestion.

“Min,” Sadie said, putting a hand on the girl’s shoulder and giving her a quick squeeze of support and comfort. “Regardless of whether you agree with the way they show it, your parents love you. It’s not easy on us parents when our kids grow up. We’re scared for them, and it’s hard to consider our life without them. However unfair you may think they are, know that they are doing what they believe is best out of love. Even when they know the truth they will
continue
to love you. If I can help you talk to them, just say the word.”

Min looked questioning, and Sadie hurried to rescue her from her thoughts. “I realize they don’t necessarily like me, but I think you’re a good girl . . . uh, young woman, and
if
I can help, I will. I have two children of my own who have grown up and left home. I know how your parents are feeling, but I understand your position as well.”

Min nodded and wiped at her eyes, still looking stunned by the unexpected turn. “I, uh, better show you out before anyone comes down.” She stepped past Sadie toward the back door.

Sadie followed her into the semidarkness. Min pushed open the door, lighting up the alcove and the boxes lined against the walls. Most of the boxes were labeled in both Chinese and English, and the open one on top caught Sadie’s eye—Fortune Cookies. Sadie thought about how helpful the other fortunes she’d read on this trip had been so far. “Could I have a cookie?”

“Sure,” Min said, still holding the door open.

Sadie reached into the box and imagined that the right one would feel different than the others. After feeling around for a few seconds, however, she remembered that the employees would be there soon and grabbed a cookie. As she turned toward the door, the box beneath the cookies caught her eye. The word “chopsticks” had been crossed out and relabeled “lamps.”

“Do you sell lamps?” Sadie asked, thinking of the display case at the front of the restaurant and the fact that there were no lamps in it. She opened one end of the cellophane wrapper of her cookie.

“We used to have them on the tables. I think my mom’s going to sell them online or something.”

“Oh, like little oil lamps then, not plug-into-the-wall lamps.”

“Yeah, oil lamps. At dinnertime we’d light them and turn off some of the overhead lights. It looked really cool, kind of romantic.”

Sadie thought about her first impression of those over-bright fluorescent lights in the restaurant. Lamplight would create such a different ambiance. She removed the cookie from the wrapper. “Why did you get rid of them?”

“
Ma ma
just didn’t want them anymore,” Min said with a shrug. “She said they were dangerous.”

Sadie’s fingers stilled instead of breaking open the cookie. “Dangerous?”

“Yeah, because of the kerosene. She was worried one of us girls would get burned when we blew them out and refilled them at night. I guess she didn’t think about the fact that we’ve been filling and cleaning and lighting those lamps our entire lives.” Min rolled her eyes.

Kerosene?
Sadie looked at the box again. “You used kerosene in the lamps?”

“Well, a synthetic kerosene. It has a higher flash point for indoor use.”

Holy cow!
“When did your mother take the lamps off the tables?”

“I don’t know, a couple of weeks ago maybe?” A sad expression crept over her features. “A lot of stuff happened a couple of weeks ago, didn’t it?”

Sadie managed a kind of awkward laugh while thinking
I need to talk to Pete!
But she
couldn’t
talk to Pete. What was her next best option? “Min, where’s your dad right now?”

“I don’t know. He had a meeting this morning. He said he’d be in by the time we open at 11:00 though.”

Lin Yang’s voice could suddenly be heard from the kitchen, talking to someone in Chinese. Min gave Sadie a quick look of fear, and Sadie hurried through the open door. Min pulled the door closed without saying good-bye, leaving Sadie alone in the alley. Ji had pretty much dismissed her twice now—once over the phone and then again after their dinner last night. Sadie hated ignoring that fact, but she
really
needed to talk to him. More than ever.

Chapter 28

Sadie returned to Sacramento Street and walked toward Portsmouth Square, where there were some benches. She’d forgotten about the cookie in her hand until she reached for her phone. Suddenly, the cookie was a chore instead of a pleasure; she put it back in the cellophane wrapper and then in her purse. She didn’t have any room in her brain for it at this moment.

The park was full of people: tourists consulting maps, kids playing on the playground, and old Chinese men talking loudly while they played checkers. Sadie found an empty bench on the Washington side and sat down. She sent Ji a text telling him she needed to talk to him ASAP. She didn’t have high expectations of him responding since he seemed to ignore her texts far more often than he answered them, but she hoped the sense of urgency would help.

While she waited for him to reply, she thought about the name and address on those letters Min had been mailing for Wendy. She opened the Internet browser on her phone and went to the Next Faces website. She didn’t remember Rodger’s bio on the site saying anything about his personal life the first time she read it, but she read it again to confirm that there was no mention of a wife. She needed her laptop to do a thorough hunt for information, but it was at the hotel and she didn’t want to go too far for fear of missing her chance to talk to Ji.

Verifying if Rodger had a wife and then possibly finding out if she was the person who had hired Mr. Green Shirt was important. But was Sadie giving her suspicions about Lin Yang the proper attention if she could push them aside so easily? Lin Yang had something to do with either Wendy’s death or the fire—or both. Topics of focus couldn’t get much bigger than that. And yet until Sadie heard back from Ji, what could she do about it?

Feeling stuck reminded Sadie of the fortune cookie. That she would think of a silly cookie at a time of such serious consideration annoyed her. She was not a superstitious person, so as she fished the cookie from her purse she told herself she was simply being efficient and keeping it from getting crushed. After breaking the cookie in half, she pulled the paper out.

New people will bring you new realizations.

Sadie read the fortune a second time and then reviewed the other fortunes she’d received: one had spurred her to get to work, the other had told her to take a hunch seriously. Perhaps she would have done the same things with or without the fortunes—both of Pete’s fortunes had been worthless—but silly as it was, those little words of wisdom had given Sadie a bit more confidence in moments when she needed all the confidence she could get.

Sadie pondered the implications of this newest bit of advice found within a cookie shell and the fact that Ji hadn’t replied to her text, Pete hadn’t contacted her, and she was currently sitting on a bench doing absolutely nothing. Without her laptop she couldn’t access the investigative websites she used for background checks, but she didn’t need all the fancy access her laptop provided her to do a basic search for information. She might as well do what she could.

She opened up the browser on her phone and Googled “Wife of Rodger Penrose, San Francisco, California.” It took a few minutes of weeding through links and images until she found a picture of Rodger with a beautiful blonde woman who looked fifteen years his junior. Sadie followed the image to the website, which belonged to a charity organization that had hosted an event several months earlier. The caption read, “Rodger and Leann Penrose, silver tier boosters.”

With a name in hand, Sadie was able to do a more refined search, and a few minutes later she was on the website for a nearby upscale boutique which was owned and operated by one Leann Penrose. Consulting a different map that showed the neighborhoods of San Francisco—or districts—confirmed that the boutique was located in the Nob Hill district, the area Min had said the letters were sent to. According to the map, the boutique was just on the other side of Chinatown, and based on a rough calculation regarding the small blocks, Sadie estimated that it was about a fifteen-minute walk.