Soul of the Fire (34 page)

“There is no real evidence.”

“Odd, coming from someone whose job it is to systematically fabricate evidence. You've been doing it so long, you can't recognize the truth when you see it. There will be no real investigations. But the truth will stick. Think it over, Major. There's never been a dissident like Dawa. Too attractive. Too articulate. They call it charisma. With all that evidence, she would become unstoppable, a hero not just in Tibet but in all China. In all the world.”

“Pao doesn't trust me anymore. He may not even listen.”

Shan stared at the dead woman. “He'll listen. Just start by saying I know now that the man who killed Lin is the same man who killed that woman in Macau.”

*   *   *

The German Vice-Chairman wasn't at the Commission meeting the next morning. Shan quietly sat through the review of more case files, his gaze drifting toward Hannah Oglesby, who acknowledged him with a weak smile. As the other Commissioners turned toward Madam Choi for the introduction of a new case, Shan pulled out the notes he had taken about the murder in Macau and read them, then read them again. The best investigators, he had been taught in his first assignment, knew their job wasn't about assembling facts but about acquiring the right perspective on the facts.

As the attendants interrupted to serve more tea, he slipped out of the conference room and found an empty office at the back of the Commission's administrative suite. Detective Neto was obligingly prompt in answering his phone.

“This is Shan.”

Neto hesitated. “The invisible inspector from the nonexistent country. Things must be awfully dull in Tibet for you to waste time calling strangers in Macau.”

“The records say the Thai woman died of asphyxiation but nothing more.”

“Nothing more,” Neto agreed.

“How exactly?”

“That was never entered into the file.”

“You mean because someone shut down the file before you could complete it. Fine. We'll play our game again. You can call me a liar if you can. She was strangled with a wire from a lamp.”

Neto said nothing.

“And there was a name from the hotel. Cabral, another Portuguese. If you had stayed on the case, you would have entered your notes about the man. I think he was a maintenance worker who was asked to replace a cord on a lamp.”

“The next week, he bought a new car.”

“Seems extravagant. I bet a new bicycle would have bought his silence. And now the only question that really matters: Which room had the broken lamp?”

“Nothing in the file.”

“You mean the file that doesn't exist. Good. Let me tell you. He looked at his notes again. Room 914 was Lu's. Room 916 was Vogel. Room 918 was Pao. He had wanted so much to believe it was Pao. “Nine sixteen,” he stated.

“I have so enjoyed our conversations, comrade. Please don't call again.” The line went dead.

Shan pulled Judson away as they broke for lunch, leading him into the stairwell, where he spoke for several minutes, beginning with his discovery of Lin's body. The American shook his head repeatedly, first in disbelief, then in refusal, but eventually he let Shan lead him to the entrance to the Public Security offices. Shan left him staring at Sung's door.

Minutes later, Shan stood at one of the large visitor suites, trying his ring of passkeys. The Deputy Chairman's quarters consisted of a large suite no doubt designed for senior Party officials, with a kitchen, dining room, and sitting area. At first Shan thought the rooms were empty, then he heard the clink of glass near the bed. He pulled open the heavy drapes over the windows to find Vogel sprawled against the wall, filling a drinking glass from a bottle of Scotch. His shirt was stained with liquor and vomit. The teetotaler had rediscovered his alcohol.

“You?” Vogel muttered. “I thought it would be Pao,” he said, slurring his words. “Get me Pao!” he growled, then broke into a drunkard's laughter. “I've caught Lin's killer!”

Shan sat on the edge of the bed. “I can't understand how you managed with Deng. He was a big man. You must have had more help than just Lin.”

“She was something. My God. A wildcat in bed.”

Shan heard footsteps behind him but did not turn. “No doubt he misunderstood your intentions. My guess is you got some drugs in him before you went up the slope.”

Vogel tipped his glass toward Shan before replying. “One syringe at the bottom of the hill, one at the top. Lin was training as a nurse, very quick with a needle.” As he took a long swallow of whiskey, Shan saw the bruise on his jaw. “I had met her in Macau. Pao saw I had my eye on her. That first night in Lhasa before the Commission started, Pao said he had a reward for me, hardship pay for coming to Tibet. And there she was, waiting in my bathtub. God!”

“Someone had to carry the gas,” Shan suggested. “She wasn't very strong.”

“The knob carried the gas, but he was dressed like one of the maintenance workers in town. Instructions were clear. No uniform. No guns. A reenactment, I kept telling Deng. We would take pictures for the Commission, just like Western policemen on television. What a fool he was.” Vogel looked up toward the bathroom. “Lin?” he called out, then cursed. “I keep thinking I hear her in the shower.”

“But the knob had a knife.”

“Even with the drugs, Deng realized what we intended when he saw that stake in the ground and Lin pulled out the rope. The fool was complaining to Pao about being forced to help kill Xie, said he must be allowed to resign or he would tell the foreigners. He wet himself. He tried to resist. Lin sank in the second syringe. That knob sank in the knife. It was easy after that. I told them to give me a quarter hour to get back to the Commission meeting.” Vogel drained his glass and gazed vacantly as Shan stepped past him to the windows to gaze out at the immolation site.

“We thought that monk was pointing to heaven as he burned,” he said as he turned back to the German. “But it was just Deng pointing here, to your apartment.”

Vogel's head rolled. “Where's my pipe? What I need is a good smoke.” He looked back up at Shan. “Did Choi send you? Tell the old battle-axe I saved her Commission for her. You can't do a thing, Shan, or you'll be taken in for murder. I am allowed to miss one session, to bask in my glory,” he added, and his head slumped onto his chest.

Shan turned toward the bedroom door, where Judson stood with an ashen-faced Sung. Suddenly Tuan was pushing past them, rushing to Vogel. He set the bottle and glass on the bed table, then lifted the German. “Here we go,” he said in the comforting tone of a servant as he leaned Vogel upright against the wall. “Time to clean up.” It was not the first time Tuan had tended to the German. When Tuan glanced at Shan, there was shame in his eyes.

Vogel stirred, recognized Tuan, and patted him on the shoulder. “That's my boy,” he said. “You always understand.”

Tuan began unbuttoning his shirt.

As Vogel's head lolled back and forth, he took notice again of Shan. “Pao needs me,” he stated with an impressive attempt to sound sober. “I can do things no one else would dare do. I showed him last night,” he said in a lower, conspiratorial tone. Suddenly he saw Sung and Judson and straightened, stretching out his syllables as he spoke. “Dip-lo-ma-tic fuck-ing im-mun-i-ty,” he declared as he saluted them.

*   *   *

By the time the Commission took its midafternoon break Shan had difficulty staying awake. Judson had taken the chair beside him after lunch and kept kicking him as he dozed off. Tuan took no notice, for all his attention was on the big German. Vogel had made his appearance after lunch, washed and shaved, leaning on Tuan every few steps until he settled into his chair by Choi.

“Take an hour or two,” Judson urged Shan as the others left the conference room. “You need sleep.”

“I don't think I can sleep again in my quarters.”

Judson extracted a key from his pocket. “There's a sofa in my rooms. Help yourself to the food. I bought a box of tea.”

Tuan, who knew Shan never took the elevator, waited for him, sitting in the stairwell. He glanced up at Shan and quickly looked away. “It's what I do for Pao,” he began in a forlorn tone. “Help his helpers. Pick up the trash. I didn't know anything about Lin or about them trying to kill you. You have to believe me.”

Shan sat beside him. “Vogel couldn't have been trusted to be alone. Someone had to help him clean up. That's not what bothers me. What bothers me is how I missed so many obvious signs. You were in Macau too.”

When Tuan finally spoke, his voice was tiny. “A reward for faithful service, Pao called it.”

“Did you help carry that body out of Vogel's room there?”

“I do what the Deputy Secretary tells me. Vogel was too drunk to help.”

“So Pao got you and Captain Lu to clean up the mess. What did Lu think about it?”

“At first he seemed grateful to be trusted by Pao. But by the end of the night, he was frightened. A detective showed up, started asking questions. A bartender saw the girl go into an elevator with Vogel.”

“There's a video of Pao killing Lu in the mountains. When he was done, he got in the back of his car and drove away. He never drives himself. You must have been at the wheel. There was someone else in the shadows. Who drove away with Lu's body, then faked the accident. Was that Lin?”

“Pao called it a field exercise. Her first one was Macau. I saw Vogel before he attacked you. He had begun to drink again. You terrified him. You thought you were just shaking up Pao through him, but Pao wasn't the killer. Lin was a witness to what Vogel did in Macau. Killing her must have suddenly seemed a convenient way to solve his problem. Like they say, two birds with one stone.”

“Lin died,” Shan said. “Lu died. Deng died. Xie died. But you never get frightened of him.”

“Why kill a monkey after training him for so many years?”

“No. You are not a monkey. You are a monk who never had a chance to take the robe. That's why you are sitting here. That's why you can't look me in the face.”

When Tuan finally did look up, his face was desolate. “He loathes you, Shan. He went on a tirade for a quarter hour about how people like you are ruining this country. You have to run. He will send you to prison when it is over.”

“I can't run. I won't run.”

“I'm begging you. Are you really so dense, you don't know to be terrified?”

“It's a lesson it took me five years in prison to learn. The umbrella of the spirit, one of the old lamas called it. Stay focused on the true things, and everything else will bounce off like raindrops.”

Tuan looked down again, clenching his fists. “I told him about her, Shan. What Lokesh said. That she would be the mother of the next leader. I don't know why. It was like something inside me needed to goad him. He was like a rabid dog when he heard. He began throwing things.” When Tuan looked up once more, there was pleading in his eyes. Shan finally understood why he'd waited in the dank stairwell.

“It is not for me to forgive you, Tuan.”

Tuan opened his palm to reveal the little clay
tsa tsas
given to him by Lokesh on their journey to Taktsang. When he saw that he had crushed it, he seemed about to weep. “There are good demons and bad demons. Are there secret monk demons?” he asked the broken god.

Shan left Tuan behind and found Judson's spacious quarters, another of the suites reserved for Party members, let himself in, and collapsed onto the sofa. It was late afternoon when he woke. He stepped to the kitchen alcove and splashed water on his face, then stood at the window. The prison loomed on the slope above. Below, the Tibetan market stretched along the wall. Threads of smoke rose beyond the ridge, marking the braziers and hearths of Yamdrok. It wasn't more rest he needed. He needed Lokesh.

As he stepped to the door, he noticed a stuffed pillowcase on a nearby chair. At first glance, he thought it was laundry, then he saw something angular stretching the cloth. Remembering Judson's mention of a box of tea, Shan opened it. Inside was one of the T-shirts with the Commission logo that had apparently been distributed at the launch of the Commission, which itself was wrapped around several objects. Shan hesitated, then unrolled the shirt. Inside was a box of gauze, medical tape, scissors, women's makeup, and a set of the small dark pearl earrings he had seen the American woman wear. He puzzled over the items, then decided Hannah must have come back to Judson's quarters after her night at the infirmary. He rolled up the contents, returned the bundle to the chair, and left the apartment.

Only a single nurse appeared to be on duty when Shan entered the infirmary, and she quickly looked away as if hoping he would disappear. He found the bed where the American woman had been sleeping. The bedding was cleaned and neatly folded in the center of the bed. Tonte lay sleeping on the pillow. Shan sat on the bed, stroking the dog, who woke and looked up with the melancholy contentment he often saw on Tibetans' faces. Tonte licked his hand and laid its head on Shan's palm as he studied the room.

Something about the American woman nagged at him, a secret that was always just out of his reach. He closed his eyes and tried to visualize the room the way he had seen it the night before. A bag had hung from a scaffold on wheels, feeding her intravenous tube. Foreigners not used to high altitudes often let themselves get dangerously dehydrated. The chemical smell of a cleanser had not quite masked the smell of vomit. There had been a little Buddhist
tsa tsa
charm on the night table. In the corner had been a rolling tray table bearing a chessboard.

Someone called out in pain from the adjoining ward. The nurse ran down the corridor. Shan gently pulled his hand from under the head of the now sleeping dog and slipped away.

Outside, some of the Tibetan vendors were beginning to pack up under the watchful eye of two uniformed knobs, stationed to keep the Tibetans from entering Zhongje. Shan wandered along the row of goods laid out on blankets and small tables, nodding at the weary but cheerful vendors. He bought a stick of roasted crabapples and was nibbling them when he saw the Americans at the far end, examining the small rugs of a bearded vendor. Hannah unexpectedly turned and pointed toward the prison as if explaining something to the confused vendor.