“A son does not owe money to his father. It’s all family. All the same thing. He was…irresponsible. It was difficult at times financially. His mother was so concerned about our old age. About the grandchild. My wife worries so much about such things. She is very pragmatic. She is very good with the inventory, very good with the accounts. I miss her at the shop. Except that she drove off other workers and some customers.”
Mr. Zheng smiled and continued.
“Ted was a very happy boy. I wish he had inherited some of her common sense, her concentration. I wish she could have shared a little of his joy and his childish awe at the world and what it had to offer. Poor Gong Li. She has never left China.”
“Don’t you or your wife wonder who killed your son?”
“My wife knows.
America
. That was her last word on it.”
He took a sip of beer, then angled his body toward me. “Now you, Peter Strand. Just who are you?”
I
left Cheng Ye Zheng at the restaurant just past six. It was a short walk back to the Blue Dragon. I went around the block once to shake off the effects of the conversation. It had taken a few personal turns that I had hoped to avoid, but Mr. Zheng was convincing and forceful in his gentle way. I felt as if I’d said too much to him.
I was steady emotionally by the time I reached the apartment building and thought I was ready for May Wen. I
was
ready until she opened the door wearing a black slip and looking like a comic-book villainess—
a very sexy comic-book villainess. I went weak again quickly.
May gave me a face full of sensuous, dramatic boredom.
“A few more words, if you don’t mind,” I said without the nonchalance I had intended.
She stepped out of the way and shut the door behind me.
“No, leave it open,” I said.
She shrugged and put the door ajar.
I took one of the keys, the larger one, out of my pocket and slipped it into the first of the two locks. The thick brassy deadbolt emerged from the door like an eager lover.
She looked at me silently.
I held the key up for her to see.
“So?”
“Came from Ted Zheng’s secret box.”
“A little pervert, huh?” She was unfazed.
I shut the door. “I don’t know. Was he?”
“Maybe just a thief,” she said, a teasing smile dancing on her face.
“Anything missing?”
“You tell me. You’re the one nosing around,” she said. She went into the room, picked up her cigarette case from the coffee table, pulled one out and lit it. Waited.
“Who was he visiting? You or your husband?”
“Why would he visit David?”
“Why would he visit you?”
“Are you slow on the uptake or trying to put me in my place?”
“You pick.” I was getting stronger.
“Look, you are nobody I have to talk to,” she said. “And I just got off work, and I don’t feel like answering all your questions. All right?”
“Fine. Maybe your husband will answer them.”
“He’s out of town.”
“I can find him.”
Her eyes lowered briefly. “You a critic?”
“What was it? Drugs or sex? Or both?” I asked.
“People make much too big a deal out of both of them.”
“How about murder? Are we making too much of it?”
She did her best to give me an ironic grin. “We had a little thing. It was completely harmless.”
“Your husband know?”
“He knew I got some party favors from Ted.”
“Party favors?”
She gave me the look. “How could you be so stupid?”
“Drugs.”
“You make it sound so serious. A little something to enhance the music.”
“And you and Ted…”
“Yes. A little tit for tat. How detailed do you want me to get?”
“Tell me just what you told your husband about it.”
“You are a pain, Mr. Strand. He didn’t know. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t have to know. You are going down the wrong street altogether. Nobody around here would kill Teddy. Even if my husband knew, he’d be mad at me, not Teddy. I’ve done it before, Mr. Strand. David takes the guy’s side. Then he pouts for a day or two. Then we make passionate love and he starts thinking about his clients and…and…well…” She shrugged. “Listen, Teddy played around with drug dealers. Maybe he played a little harder than you think.”
“Maybe.”
“And me? Why would I do it? He was my source, and I enjoyed making payment.”
When I returned home, I did something rare. I poured myself a gin and tonic.
May Wen’s sexiness and nastiness had me twisted around. I paced awhile before remembering I still had the photograph of a naked man in my pocket. I took it out, and as I slid it back into the envelope for safekeeping, I discovered the check. It was nestled inside, against the back of the envelope. I’d missed it earlier.
The check was from the account of
Mrs. Kein Ho and Miss Barbara Siu
.
The address specified 3B, the vacant apartment. Mrs. Ho’s.
It was a canceled check, number 1221, made out to FastMail. The check had been signed by Barbara Siu.
I found the number for Barbara and her sister. I went to the phone and dialed immediately, pacing and growing more impatient with each unanswered ring.
How could I have missed it? I thought. I was angry with myself, and I passed on
a bit of that negative energy to Linda Siu when she answered.
“I’d like to speak with your sister,” I said when she identified herself.
“That might be difficult. She’s not here,” said Linda, not intimidated by my unintentional cold tone.
“I’m sorry. I need to talk with her.”
“There’s something going on at the temple. I expect her back before ten. Is there something I can help you with?”
I considered telling her. I decided not to. I didn’t want to give the two of them time to cook something up if something needed cooking.
“You mind if I come over then?”
There was a long pause. Finally a hesitant no. Then she added, “Are you sure you can’t tell me what this is about?”
“I’d rather address it with the two of you,” I said, but I wasn’t altogether sure
that was true. I’d just as soon not have Linda around when I brought up the subject.
Barbara Siu was exceptionally flighty. Linda Siu seemed to counter by being exceptionally tough and abrasive.
I politely refused the offer of tea, claiming it was too late. However, my reticence came from the manner in which Mrs. Ho might have met her death. Daily tea containing doses of any one of a number of poisons could drive a woman crazy. Crazy enough to venture into an empty elevator shaft. Crazy enough to be easily guided to an empty elevator shaft. Such a frail body could easily have thrown off its mortal coil with the help of the tiniest of shoves.
“What is it that you want of us?” Linda asked.
“I want to find out a little more about your relationship with Mrs. Ho.”
“Mrs. Ho?” Linda said, surprised, then indignant. “I thought you were investigating the death of the young man.”
Barbara seemed to cower from the increased volume of her sister’s thought.
Demurely, Barbara stepped closer and spoke in halting English. “In afternoon I take tea to her.”
“My sister cared for Mrs. Ho,” Linda said. “Helped her. Did her shopping. Cleaned her apartment. Gave her baths when it became necessary. Why are you questioning us?”
“Just trying to find out about Mrs. Ho and Ted Zheng.”
“You’ve talked to us once. We told you what we knew. That should be enough,” Linda said.
“I’m really sorry. But I wasn’t aware of the death of Mrs. Ho at the time.”
“Mrs. Ho’s death was an accident. What are you trying to do, Mr. Strand? Mr. Lehr pays you by the hour and you have to dredge up something more to keep busy?”
Linda wasn’t just impatient—she was angry.
“I found this check.” I showed it to both of them.
“So?”
“I found it in Ted’s belongings.”
“I don’t know why he had it, but I certainly don’t know what it has to do with anything.”
“He had it in a secret place where it would be away from prying eyes.”
“I don’t understand…”
Barbara said something in Chinese, then turned to me. “Mrs. Ho and I went to bank. She set up account so I can buy things for her.”
With that Barbara left the room, leaving me with a seething Linda Siu.
“Barbara is the most wonderful person in the world. She is also very easily upset. So help me, Mr. Strand, if…”
Barbara returned carrying a cardboard shoe box.
“You see,” Barbara said. “Everything in here.” She lifted the lid. There were checks in short stacks secured with rubber bands. There were two dozen or so envelopes containing what looked like bank statements. There was the checkbook. “You look carefully. I do not cheat Mrs. Ho.”
I felt ashamed, though I had done nothing other than ask what I thought were reasonable questions.
But Barbara’s eyes were pleading for me to believe her.
“May I take these with me?” I asked Barbara.
Barbara nodded.
I left feeling troubled. It is always troubling to see a relationship when one person
seems so dominant, so forceful, and the other so submissive, so weak. Was Linda a wonderful older sister protecting an innocent and shy person from the evils of the world? Or had she created it, denying the full expression of life from someone who could be dominated?
I turned back as I was leaving to see the tough sister comforting the other. If it was love…
A
bottle of Caymus Conundrum, uncorked. Music, soft but unobtrusive. Music to do accounting by. I had the checking-account statements and returned checks in front of me. Drinking and accounting might not normally be compatible activities, but this was far from high finance.
Some of the payees were impossible to make out. But by and large the names were evident in the endorsements—grocers, pharmacies and the like. The only major expense was the rent, which was paid on the last day of the month.
There was never enough money in the account to do any real damage—rarely much more than enough to cover the month’s expenses. Periodically there was a deposit. A standard amount at a regular frequency. Obviously, money came from somewhere else. A savings account, an investment portfolio or a trust. Whatever. But as far as I knew, these other funds were not accessible by Barbara Siu.
It didn’t take long. When the account was balanced, there was still half a bottle of wine left.
I went to the garden and looked out into the twinkling night. Something was changing. This whole thing, this investigation, had been more than what it appeared. I wasn’t just investigating other people. What I’d told Cheng Ye Zheng that afternoon in the bar…these were things I’d never told anyone. I’d told him about being four years old and standing outside
the wrecked car and seeing my parents. Remembering them not as humans but simply as masks. As pretend.
At first he’d said nothing. He just put his arm around me. Finally he said, “They were dead. The spirits were gone. They really were masks. But you will know them again one day. They are you, you know.”
He took his hand away, took another sip of his beer. “Poor Gong Li,” he said. “She sees Ted in the boy. She is determined to get it right this time. It is not so easy, I tell her. Love is not like a business.” He laughed.
He took a last sip, threw some bills on the counter and pulled me off the high seat. “Ah,” he said, “it all depends on how you look at things. Sometimes you are looking at the right thing but in the wrong place.”
I’d walked him back to his shop then, seeing all those faces, all those people,
more directly connected to their pasts. Ancestors. Families.
I shook off the memories of the afternoon, leaving Mr. Zheng back in Chinatown. I walked through my dining room, clearing dishes. But I was drawn back to the check I’d retrieved from Ted Zheng’s secret spot.
I knew. I suppose it had been brewing just beneath my consciousness. The answer seemed certain. It was all so simple. And if I was right, it was all so…provable.
Morning came gray and threatening. Clouds swept in. I could see them coming, angry swirls sweeping through the gaps in the hills. I could feel the moisture on my cheeks as I descended the Saturn Street Steps. In moments I couldn’t see beyond the railing, and it seemed as if I were floating in a cold, barren limbo. At the bottom, a short, damp walk through a
quiet residential neighborhood brought me to Castro and Market, a transportation hub minutes from the heart of the city.
The Municipal Railway cars were crowded, and everything smelled of wet wool and influenza. Off the train at Powell station. All was quiet there. Perhaps for the first time, there was no tourist line for the cable cars. All the musicians had departed, and those who preached damnation had had their hellfires drenched.
Only a few straggling souls scurried across the open area, umbrellas suddenly swept up like cups on stems.
It could have waited, I told myself. I searched Market Street for taxis. Never in the rain. Never, never in the rain.
I walked and walked until finally I was at the soft, undefined edge of the financial district. Here the cold, clean buildings buzzed with electronic debits and credits. Here too was the beginning of North Beach
and Little Italy. All the great food and coffee and pastry and a sleazy sprinkling of X-rated video arcades and lap dancers.
Here was FastMail the branch closest to Chinatown. It was a hole in the wall that had a counter at one end. The room was lined on one side with packing and mailing materials and on the other with rows and rows of keyed boxes with numbers on them. Personal mailboxes.
The key in my pocket said 314. I followed the logical path to a medium-sized mailbox. There were letters inside addressed to Mrs. Ho—a newsletter from a hospital, envelopes from Pacific Gas and Electric and from Pacific Telephone. There was a postcard from a jeweler announcing a sale. The box was full. Advertisements mostly.
More important, there was a large manila envelope containing several sheets of legal-sized paper.
A will. Mrs. Ho’s will.
I’d found what I was looking for. Maybe more. Instead of using a lockbox in a bank, Mrs. Ho had used her mailbox as a place to keep a copy of her will. Or someone had.
My hands were cold as I unfolded the papers. There were two sets. One in English. One in Chinese. I moved quickly through the English version, skipping the words common to all wills.
There was the name—the lone benefactor.
Out in the cold rain and back in Chinatown, I walked up the street that ran by the sad, empty playground. The wind whipped the swings, the chains making a hollow sound as they clanged against the metal swing set. The rain was horizontal.
The apartment building looked more ragged and old in the dismal light. I buzzed.
Ray came to the door, smiling. “You are very brave detective,” he said. “You come out on a day like this. Very brave.”
I climbed the steps. The door to 4B was ajar as usual. I called out his name. Wallace Emmerich didn’t answer. I edged inside.
I looked around. He wasn’t there.
I had started back down the stairs when I remembered the narrow stairway to the roof. At the top, the door to the roof was propped open. The rain was still strong, and now the wind was slashing out as well.
Wallace Emmerich, in his long dark-blue robe, was trying to throw a sheet of plastic over some of his plants. It was sheer madness. As soon as he got one corner secure, he’d move to another only to have the first rip free again.
“Mr. Emmerich!” I called out. The wind blew his name back against my own ears.
He couldn’t hear me.
I helped Emmerich secure the plastic over the plants. He didn’t question the act at all. We worked together until finally it was done.
Then Emmerich looked at me. He knew then. He knew then that I knew.
His look was one of pure anger.
“So!” he yelled. “You’ll never prove it.”
I went to him. The rain now drenched us both.
“Oh yes I will. I
have
,” I said, guiding his body to the door and down the steps. “I found the will,” I said when we’d finally maneuvered our soaked bodies into his apartment. Inside, the sound of rain crashing against the windows was muffled some, but we could still hear the wind as the storm continued to rage.
“The will?” Emmerich said. He looked confused.
“Mrs. Ho’s.”
His face went blank. His
never prove it
was aimed at the murder of Ted Zheng.
“A little foxglove. Digitalis. In small doses with her evening tea. Not enough to kill her. Enough to drive her mad,
however. Enough to fool her into signing a will. What did she think she was signing? A lease maybe? A petition? Could have been anything.”
Emmerich was quiet. His eyes looked like glass.
“And you killed Ted Zheng because he was either blackmailing you over her death or maybe because he found out and just didn’t like it.”
“Even if all that were so, Mr. Strand, you could not prove what you say.”
“Mrs. Ho’s body can be exhumed and tested. I guarantee you, they can find trace chemicals these days.”
“Even if that were true, there is no way I can be singled out. I think you are venturing entirely beyond your capacity.”
His narrow smile accompanied a bitter but triumphant stare.
“Mr. Emmerich?” I was about to steal victory from him.
He looked at me, his head high, eyes peering down, the cold smile still on his face.
“How did your wife die?” I asked.
Only his eyes gave him away. I went on.
“The key here, Mr. Emmerich, is the exhumation of your wife. I’d be willing to bet—and you aren’t a betting man, are you, Mr. Emmerich?—that substantial traces of digitalis will be found in your wife’s remains as well.”
He was quiet. Very quiet.
“What we have, Mr. Emmerich, is all we need in a murder investigation. Means. Motive. Opportunity. Weapon. And bodies. Three of them.”
The rain stopped. The wind stopped. It was strangely quiet.
Emmerich stood in the middle of his apartment, dripping water on the floor. I went into the bathroom and grabbed a towel.
I helped him change and dry off before I called the police.
“I don’t want my wife’s body exhumed. Oh, please don’t.”
“It’s not up to me. But I doubt if they’ll need to if you confess.”
He looked around his apartment. He looked forlorn. Lost. Suddenly, he pulled himself together. He looked at me angrily.
“How was I supposed to live?” he asked.
Wallace Emmerich was docile when the police came. Foolishly, perhaps, and despite the reading of his rights, he made a complete statement. I stayed to listen because there was one important question left to answer.
Why, precisely, was Ted Zheng killed? Ted had put the pieces together as well. The discovery of the will. Ted had wanted to verify his suspicions with Wallace
Emmerich. Emmerich baited him to the basement to show him proof that the elevator death was an accident. That’s where and when Emmerich had struck him with a lead pipe.