Snakehead (35 page)

On the stairs she heard the boots of police officers hammering up from the level below. She turned and ran up the next flight, past the suite level to the upper concourse, and out onto the terraces of seating where she had last seen Fuller heading. The whole stadium was laid out beneath her, brightly lit under the dazzle of floodlights, empty rows of dark green seats stretching away on all sides. A noise behind her made her turn, and she saw the bloody spectre of a man staggering down the steps toward her. It took a moment for her to realise that it was Li, and she let out a tiny gasp of horror. He reached the step above her and stopped, dark eyes staring out from his crimson mask. She could see no visible wound, and the blood was drying rust red on him already. His legs folded beneath him, and he sat down hard on the concrete steps, fumbling for his cigarettes. He pulled a crushed one from the pack and lit it.

‘Where’s Fuller?’ she asked in a small voice.

He took several pulls on his cigarette before blowing the smoke from his lungs. He looked up at her and said grimly, ‘He’s dead.’

III

It was a perfect morning. The sky was a clear, pale blue. Dew lay white on the grass of Sam Houston Park. The long shadows of downtown skyscrapers reached across the tiny patch of parkland like dark protective fingers. The sun peeped between the glass and concrete structures, flashing off windows, lying in long yellow strips. A mist rose off the pond like smoke, sunlight playing in the water of the fountain. A chatter of early morning birds flew screeching playfully between the spars of the old red-roofed bandstand that stood dwarfed and incongruous in the centre of the meadow.

They walked beneath the wet, shiny leaves of dripping trees, and Margaret saw that they each left trailing footprints in the dew. The first few cars were turning off the freeway into the grid system of streets in the city’s centre, the vanguard of the 137,000 people who worked in downtown during the day. The early morning air was chill yet, but they were warmed by the coffee they had picked up from a Starbucks, minutes after it opened.

Hrycyk’s face was a pasty, puffy white, and there were deep shadows under his eyes. He had refused to be taken to hospital for treatment, and the medics had cleaned and dressed his wound at the stadium and put his arm in a sling. He had found an overcoat in the trunk of his Santana and draped it now over his shoulders for warmth. The stadium manager had allowed Li access to the home team dressing room to shower, and got him pants, tee-shirt and a jacket from the Astros shop. He looked like a walking ad for the team. The long shadow of his peaked baseball hat hid the bruising on his face and the newly acquired gash in his cheek.

Margaret rubbed the goosebumps on her arm. She shivered in the cold each time they moved out of the sunlight, and she was glad of the hot, sweet coffee burning its way down inside her.

It had been Hrycyk’s idea to come here, a short fifteen-minute walk from the stadium. All hell was going to break loose in the hours ahead, he had said, and they were unlikely to have another chance like this to exchange information.

So far they had exchanged nothing. Soong had been taken, under armed police guard, for emergency treatment at a facility in medicine city. He would face hours and days of intensive interrogation when he was fit. None of them knew yet whether he would make it easy or hard. But Li suspected Soong would fight it all the way, although he had said nothing as they walked in silence through the deserted downtown streets. Now he accepted an offer of a cigarette from Hrycyk and struck a match to light them both.

Hrycyk sucked in a lungful of smoke and squinted at Li. ‘Jesus,’ he said, ‘I hate you people.’ He paused. ‘But I hate the FBI more.’ He rubbed his face with his left hand, cigarette pinched at the end of his index and middle fingers. ‘Thing is, it was you that put me on to him. Way back at Yu Lin’s house. When you said it was too big a coincidence that he got murdered the day we were going to pull him back in. That there had to be a leak in the agency.’ He pulled up a gob of phlegm from his chest and spat on the grass. He glanced self-consciously at Margaret. ‘Sorry, Doc.’

‘That’s alright,’ she said. ‘After two years in China I’m used to it.’

He gave her a look, as if he resented the implication that he might be guilty of behaving in some way like a Chinese. Then he turned back to Li. ‘Thing is, I spent my life in the INS. No way could I believe any of the guys I worked with would be capable of betraying one of their own like that.’

‘Even a Chinese?’ Li asked.

Hrycyk grinned reluctantly. ‘Even a Chinese.’ He paused, and the smile faded. ‘Only person outside the agency who knew we were bringing him in was Fuller.’ Some bitter thought flitted through his mind and soured his expression. ‘We had the bastard tailed. Tapped his phones, even his mobile. All strictly in-house, if you get my meaning.’

‘In other words you didn’t have the authority to do it,’ Margaret said.

Hrycyk shrugged. ‘I couldn’t comment.’

They walked past the perfectly preserved homes of Houston’s earliest worthies, saved from demolition and transplanted here by the visionaries of the Harris County Heritage Society. Pillars and balconies, white picket fences, shady terraces. An old log cabin, an ornate Victorian bungalow. They contrasted bizarrely against the downtown skyline.

Hrycyk said to Margaret, ‘My people got me out my bed last night after your call to Fuller. He came right off the line and called Soong at the stadium. I alerted the cops and went straight there.’ He looked at Li. ‘Lucky for you guys I did, otherwise you’d both be dead meat by now.’ He chuckled, amused by what he perceived as the irony of the situation. ‘Jesus. I can’t believe I actually saved the life of a Chinaman.’

‘So now you are stuck with me forever,’ Li said.

Hrycyk frowned. ‘How come?’

Margaret said, ‘There is an ancient custom in China, Agent Hrycyk, which says if you save a person’s life, you become responsible for them for the rest of it.’

Hrycyk stared at her. ‘You’re shitting me?’

Margaret said, ‘It is an obligation you cannot escape.’

And Li said, ‘So whenever I am in trouble you can expect a call.’

‘Jesus Christ!’ Hrycyk spluttered.

Chapter Thirteen

I

A gentle wind, warm now that the chill had been burned off it, blew across the parking lot as Li and Margaret walked from her car toward the terminal building. The dust it raised off the tarmac blew around their ankles. Li carried his overnight bag in his left hand, a cigarette in his right, and a silence laden with tension.

After Hrycyk left them, they had gone back to the hotel and eaten a light breakfast before collecting Li’s bag from his room and driving out to Hobby. There hadn’t been much to say. Li’s part in the investigation was effectively over. A message on his answering service had summoned him back to Washington to report to his Embassy. And then he had the whole mess of his family to deal with, to resolve somehow. Of course, he would have to return to Huntsville with Xiao Ling for the second hearing in front of the immigration court. Between now and then there was no reason for him to be in Houston, nor Margaret in Washington. They were still separated by half a continent, and neither of them appeared to know how to bridge the gap.

In the departures hall, Li collected his ticket, and Margaret walked with him to the gate. The first available flight went via Dallas and would take more than two hours. Li was not looking forward to it. They stood awkwardly before the entrance to the baggage check. Still neither of them knew what to say. Finally Li forced a smile and said, ‘I’ll e-mail you.’

‘Will you?’

He shrugged. ‘Sure.’

‘Why?’

He was puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’

She sighed. ‘What would we have to say to each other in an e-mail, Li Yan? If we’re not together, if we can’t say the things we want to face to face, what’s the point?’

He studied her features for a long time. ‘Do you want us to be together?’

‘More than anything in the world.’

‘But?’ He knew there was a ‘but’. Somehow there always was with Margaret.

‘I’m not sure it would work any better here than it did in China.’

‘Why?’

‘For all the same reasons. Because of what we are. An American and a Chinese. Oil and water. Because of where we are. Houston and Washington. Still a world apart.’ People always said if you were in love nothing else mattered. She wanted to believe that, but couldn’t. She wanted to tell him she loved him, but was scared that would only hurt them more. She said, ‘Tell Xinxin I’m thinking of her.’

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Then he laid his bag at his feet and took her in his arms, almost crushing her. They stood that way for so long that people were beginning to stare. When, finally, he let her go, her face was wet with silent tears. She reached up on tiptoe and kissed him, and then turned and hurried out of the building without once looking back.

II

Lucy looked up from her desk in surprise and said, ‘You look terrible, Dr. Campbell.’

‘Thank you, Lucy,’ Margaret said. ‘That makes me feel a whole helluva lot better.’ She stopped immediately and raised both her hands in instant apology. ‘I’m sorry. I forgot. Hell is very real to some of us.’

‘Particularly,’ Lucy said dryly, ‘those of us who have been left trying to keep the ship afloat with nobody at the helm.’

‘Stormy waters, Lucy,’ Margaret said. ‘Forced me to abandon ship. But I’m back now, and I’ll try to sail us into calmer seas.’

‘Well, you’re going to have to do a lot of calming at the Houston Police department. Homicide has been agitating for twenty-four hours now for reports on two autopsies that have not even been carried out yet.’

‘I thought we arranged for Dr. Cullen…’

‘Called back to say he couldn’t make it.’ Lucy smiled sweetly. ‘Of course, that was after you’d, uh…disappeared…yesterday afternoon.’ She paused. ‘Something wrong with your cellphone?’

Margaret ignored the jibe and sighed. ‘You didn’t tell them the autopsies hadn’t been done, did you?’

‘Now you know I wouldn’t lie about a thing like that, Doctor.’ She hesitated. ‘I’ve been…stalling them.’

Margaret smiled. ‘Thank you, Lucy. Ask Jack to wheel them out, would you? I’ll do them now.’

She went wearily into her office and her heart sank when she saw her desk groaning under the weight of paperwork that had accumulated, even since yesterday. She sat down with her head in her hands and felt her headache returning. It was all she could do to stop herself bursting into tears. She was tired and sore and sorry for herself. She took a deep breath and sat up. There was nothing for it but to get on with it. On with life. On with death.

* * *

The body on the table was that of a young Caucasian male, Margaret guessed in his early twenties. He was short, only about five-seven, but powerfully built and covered with thick body hair. The hair on his head was already thinning. There was evidence of trauma around his face and neck. The knuckles of his right hand were bruised and deformed as though one or more might be broken. She would look at the x-rays in a few minutes. His penis had been severed, almost in its entirety, and was absent. There were multiple stab wounds in his chest and abdomen. Margaret counted thirty-three.

She looked at the photographs from the crime scene on the stainless steel counter behind her. It looked like someone’s bedroom, but not that of the deceased, according to the report. There was a lot of blood on the floor around the body, but not much of it seemed to have come from the stab wounds. Margaret guessed that the penis had been severed first, and that the victim might have bled to death even before the frenzied knife attack.

She returned to the body, and Jack helped her turn it over. Jack Sweeney was one of her autopsy assistants. He was in his mid-thirties and of indeterminate sexual orientation. He had been working for the Medical Examiner’s Office for nearly ten years. ‘Be careful with this one,’ he said. ‘I read the report. Apparently he was a male prostitute.’

Margaret glanced up, surprised. ‘He’s not what I would have thought of as typical,’ she said.

‘Some men like them rough,’ Jack said. Then added, smirking, ‘So I’ve heard.’

Margaret found evidence of trauma and semen in the anal passage and immediately felt herself breaking into a sweat. She ran a sleeve across her forehead and found her breath coming with difficulty. ‘Is it very hot in here?’ she asked.

Jack shrugged. ‘Usual, Dr. Campbell. Pretty cool.’ He peered at her. ‘You okay? You look a bit flushed.’

Margaret put both hands on the table to steady herself. She was light-headed now and starting to feel nauseous. The sweat turned cold on the back of her neck.

She made a dash for the sink and was violently sick into it. Jack was at her side instantly, arms around her shoulders. But she shrugged him off. ‘I’m sorry, Jack, I need a little space.’

‘What’s wrong, Doctor? Something you ate?’ He was concerned for her.

She saw her breakfast in the stainless steel sink and turned on the tap to wash it away. ‘Probably.’ She took off her latex gloves, filled her hands with cold water and sluiced her face, then stood, leaning against the sink, willing the trembling in her legs to stop. She remained like that for several minutes, until she began to feel some control returning. She snapped on a fresh pair of gloves and returned to the table.

‘You sure you’re up to this?’ Jack asked.

She nodded, but even as she turned her attentions back to the bloodless white flesh on the table, the sweat began beading across her forehead, and a further wave of nausea rose from her stomach. ‘Jesus.’ She made another dash for the sink and acid bile burned its way up her throat into her mouth.

Lucy looked up in surprise as Margaret hurried through the outer office, still in her green surgeon’s pyjamas and apron, hair tucked away under her shower cap. She was deathly pale. She stopped in the doorway to her office. ‘No one’s to come in here, Lucy. And I mean
no
one. Lock the door. Do not leave the office. Stay at your desk.’