by Vivien Chien
“Did she tell you what she knew?”
Penny took another sip of her drink. “Not in detail. She mentioned something about an argument she overheard. But she didn’t tell me anything more than that. She was afraid of someone, that much I know.”
“Did she happen to tell Joel any of this?”
“Joel? Why would you bring him up?”
“Because…”
“Have you talked to him?”
My cheeks flushed. “Maybe just a little.”
She huffed. “I suppose you didn’t have a choice. I know how you are … always trying to solve things happening around here. I just wish you wouldn’t have.”
“Why not?”
“Because that’s the main reason why I asked you here. I think it’s Joel … I think he’s been playing me this entire time. I think he could be the killer.”
CHAPTER
28
The expression on Penny’s face contorted after she’d said the words out loud. I could tell that it pained her to think that a friend could be capable of something so horrid. Even if that friendship had been lost over the years, it was still someone she’d spent significant time with and thought she knew.
While she attempted to collect herself, I considered the possibilities of what she was telling me. Focusing on the bottles of alcohol that were on the shelves behind her, I tried to let thoughts come as naturally as possible. The bottles were lined up neatly in three rows and a neon light from underneath the glass bottom illuminated the bottles in bright blue. Vodkas were grouped together, then rums, then whiskeys. Whiskey …
Penny broke my concentration. “I would never hurt anyone, Lana … no matter what they did to me. If anything, I wanted my success to shine through. That was my way to get back at Stella … to become better than her. In the meantime, I’ve been trying to keep an eye on Joel since Stella was killed, just to see if I could catch him in a slip-up, but so far nothing. I’m concerned about his behavior.”
“I think you’re just as crazy as I am,” I said. “Spending time with people you think could be guilty of murder.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that?”
“Oh! No.” I waved my hands at her. “Not you. I wasn’t talking about you. I meant when I was digging into what happened with the others.”
“Ah,” she said with an understanding nod. “Well, you know what they say about keeping enemies close and all.” She paused. “You know, so far no one has bothered to ask me, including your boyfriend, but I do have an alibi for that night.”
“You do?”
“I didn’t want to say anything because it’s still a little early, but I’ve been seeing someone. We were on a date that night, and I’m sure he’d have no problem verifying that.”
I was surprised to hear it, and under normal circumstances, I would have questioned her more on this potential beau. However, I needed to stay focused on the task at hand. “I have to ask … did Stella say anything to you about a fortune?”
“A fortune?” Penny asked. “What kind of fortune?”
I noted the genuine confusion on her face and sighed with relief. Alibis were great and all, but they weren’t too helpful until they could be verified. “A fortune-cookie fortune.”
“No, she never mentioned anything like that.”
“And you’ve never gotten one yourself, have you?”
She shook her head. “No … what is this about? What does any of this have to do with fortune cookies?”
I explained the fortune-cookie situation to her and said that both Norman and Stella received a cookie before their murders. I left out the part where I had gotten one too.
“Something about that rings a bell, but I can’t think of why.”
“I asked Mr. Zhang about it, and he said Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is referenced a lot in the business world. You’ve probably heard it in passing.”
“Ooh, no.” She snapped her fingers. “I know! Norman used a lot of Sun Tzu quotes when he was writing articles for some culinary magazine.”
“He did?”
“Yeah, other people in the food industry have told me he went through this whole phase of quoting Sun Tzu in almost all of his articles and he would sometimes use them in his reviews. I guess he stopped doing it a few years ago, but I’m sure you could still get your hands on some. I bet they’re online.”
I took a sip of my Blushing Dragon and considered what this could mean to the case. Clearly, someone had been trying to pass along a message to Norman before they killed him. But what was the purpose of giving me, Stella, and Ray a fortune as well? There was no apparent significance for us.
After I finished my drink, Penny and I spent a few minutes catching up before I had to get going. I left the Bamboo Lounge feeling a weight lift off my shoulders. It seemed safe to assume that Penny Cho was off my list.
* * *
I drove to the bank and noticed Officer Wilkins cruising a few car lengths behind me. He followed me to the bank, waiting in the parking lot, and continued on with me when I returned to the plaza.
If I went to see Ray, I wondered if he would think it was something unusual. When I’d gone to see Joel Liu, he thankfully hadn’t seemed suspicious about it. But I was almost certain Adam would have told him about Ray Jin and his fortune cookie of doom by now.
Back in the restaurant, I hibernated in my office, searching the Internet for proof of the Sun Tzu quotes that Penny mentioned during our conversation. Norman had written so many articles and reviews that it felt nearly impossible to find anything that would relate. I wished Megan was here to do the search instead; she was so much better at digging up dirt on the Internet than I was.
Perhaps if I typed in the actual quote that Norman received along with his name, I could find it that way. When the results came up, I blinked a couple of times to make sure I was seeing it right.
I was.
The quote had been used in one of Norman’s articles about running a restaurant and the difficulties in owning your own business in the current cultural climate when everyone wanted to be their own boss. He used examples of local entrepreneurs and among the names mentioned were Joel Liu and Ray Jin.
That quote and their names, and the fact that Norman received that specific fortune, could not be a coincidence. And if Ray also received a fortune, then that left one guilty party. Joel.
I could smack myself for even believing his story. But he’d been so convincing. And he’d kept to the truth, piggybacking off Penny’s story the entire time. He was probably using her to see how close she was to figuring things out. When I’d spoken with him, he was very gently trying to steer me in the direction of blaming her.
“Ugh!” I slammed the cover of the laptop down and started to pace the small area behind my desk. Now what?
I decided to do the responsible thing and call Adam right away. With this new evidence, there was no reason not to fill him in as soon as possible.
Adam picked up on the second ring. “Everything all right, babe?”
“Yeah, it’s better than all right. Wait … why did you ask me that?”
“You hardly ever call me during the day; I assumed something was wrong.”
“Oh.” I shook my head as if he could see me. “Anyway, I know who the killer is.”
There was silence on the other end.
“Did you hear me?” I asked.
“Yes, Lana, I heard you.” He sighed. “I thought we both agreed you would stay out of it and let me handle this.”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“No, Lana … no buts.”
“Oh, come on, don’t you wanna at least hear who I think it is?”
He groaned into the phone. “Okay, tell me, who do you think it is?”
“It’s Joel Liu. I have proof. There’s an article with the same quote that was in the fortune that—”
“Let me stop you there. Joel Liu has an alibi for the night of Stella Chung’s murder.”
“He does?”
<
br /> “Yeah, he was at the movie theater in Valley View. He has the ticket stub, and we have him on camera.”
“But he could have left the movie theater.”
“We thought about that, but we see him on the tape again leaving shortly after the movie is over.”
“But he could have left and come back. How long was the movie?”
“Lana, it’s not possible. The time to get to where he needed to be and back would not have worked out. Look, I’m sorry your theory didn’t pan out, but I really have to go. We can talk more later tonight if you want, okay?”
“Okay,” I said, pouting.
After I hung up with Adam, I continued to pace. It had to be Joel. It just had to be. I needed to get home, and check my notebook. I was close to something, I could feel it. If scouring over everything again, piece by piece, was what I needed to do than that’s what I would do.
* * *
On the way home, I called Megan to tell her about the recent developments.
“I still think he was working with someone. We should revisit there being two murderers and them killing one person each,” Megan said.
“Who would Joel work with though?” I asked as I pulled into the parking lot of our building.
“Penny.”
“No, she’s not involved. After talking with her today, I am almost one hundred percent certain she has no part in this whatsoever. Plus she said she was on a date.”
“Almost is not good enough, Lana. And besides, she could have lied about the date. Don’t believe her wholeheartedly just because you don’t want it to be her. We have to stay objective, remember?”
I huffed. “You’re right. I’m home. I’ll call you back later.”
“Just come see me at work. Are you going to sit there all night staring at that notebook? We can go over stuff together later. Two heads are better than one.”
“I don’t know, I’ll think about it.”
We said our good-byes, and I rushed inside to let the dog out. When we were back from our short walk, we both sat on the edge of my bed, and I started from the first page of my notes and worked my way through.
There were a couple different angles I could entertain. One was the bribery angle. Stella had mentioned hearing something going on between two people. Was Joel bribing someone? Could it be Ray?
I thought about the rumors that had circulated after last year’s contest. All of a sudden, after insisting on his claims of contest tampering, Joel had dropped the whole thing and disappeared into the proverbial shadows. And even with all of his shortcomings regarding the restaurant business, he’d managed to stay afloat. Of course, the rumors continued to exist on their own, but they began to die down as time passed, nothing new came of it, and people got bored.
Maybe Joel was bribing Ray about knowing last year’s contest was rigged, and Norman found out about it; that would explain Stella overhearing things and getting involved. Being a previous friend of Joel’s, she might have tried to convince him not to participate in illegal activities and maybe she thought enlisting another old friend—Penny—would help convince him to do the right thing. But little did she know that Penny was on the wrong side of it. If Penny was working with Joel, that would give Joel an alibi. Penny could have easily gone to Stella’s hotel, and later claimed that she’d been on a date. Like she said, no one had even bothered to ask her anything yet … because all eyes were focused on Joel.
And a guy like Ray? He would never admit to being blackmailed by someone like Joel Liu. You could see it in the way he looked at him. Ray definitely thought he was superior.
This new theory led me to believe that Penny was involved somehow, after all. Maybe Megan was right. Joel took out Norman … and Penny … Penny took out Stella. She already had reason to, after everything that happened between them in the past.
I smacked the notebook shut, and the sound scared Kikko who flounced off the bed. I knew what needed to be done. I had to talk to Ray and get him to admit that he was being blackmailed by Joel. My only hope was that Joel was working alone and I was wrong about Penny.
CHAPTER
29
It was close to nine P.M., and Ray would be closing his restaurant soon. I got ready as quickly as possible, throwing on a T-shirt and jeans. Anything that I hadn’t worn to work would do. Wilkins was out in the parking lot, and I wanted to give him some type of story about why I was going to Ray’s restaurant, but I wasn’t supposed to approach his car. There was no real way to communicate with him, and I would just have to wing it. Hopefully he wouldn’t choose to follow me into the restaurant this time.
While I drove, I kept an eye on the rearview mirror, and sure enough, he followed behind at least two car lengths away. When I turned into Ray’s restaurant parking lot, he did not turn in with me. Instead, he opted for the next parking lot over and it happened to be a bar. Good thinking on his part.
As I got out of the car, I slid an eye in his direction, and he stared back at me without making any type of acknowledgment.
The restaurant was nearly empty and a woman about my age was busy wiping down tables when I walked in.
She turned in my direction when she heard the bells above the door chime. A soft smile spread over her lips, and she sauntered up front, abandoning her cleaning supplies at the table. “Good evening, just one tonight?”
I smiled in return. “Actually, I was hoping to speak with Ray. Does he happen to be here still?”
“Of course, he’s always here.” She chuckled. “There aren’t any problems with a takeout order, are there?”
“No, no, nothing like that. I just really need to talk with him if he’s free.”
“Sure, I’ll go get him.”
Next to a booth for waiting customers, there was a fish tank with a couple of exotic fish and I watched them swim around, rehearsing the story I had planned in my head. First, I would tell Ray about the fortune cookie and how I had gotten one too. Then depending on what he said, I would either get straight to the point or I would take the scenic route, and explain all the strange behavior going on with Joel. They weren’t friends anyway, so I wouldn’t have to worry about Ray being offended or sticking up for him.
A few minutes went by before the woman returned with Ray trailing behind her. He seemed a little surprised to see me, but didn’t make any mention of it.
“Miss Lee,” he said, giving me a slight nod. “What brings you by?”
I glanced at the woman, who’d returned to her cleaning duties. “Would you mind if we talked in your office?”
His brows crinkled low over his eyes. “What’s this about?”
“I think it would be best discussed in private.”
He stared at me for a minute, not sure what to make of my request. With resolve, he shrugged and extended a hand toward the door leading to the back room. “After you.”
His office was a mess. Stacks of papers, books, and folders were lying on his desk, on top of his filing cabinets, and on the two guest chairs he had on the opposite side of his desk. On top of one of the filing cabinets that was stacked with folders and books sat a half-wilted plant in desperate need of water. The other filing cabinet was topped with various half-empty bottles of liquor.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said, shutting the door behind him. “I don’t usually have anyone back here besides staff.”
I felt sorry for the staff. “No problem.”
He shuffled around in the cramped space, and removed a stack of magazines off one of the guest chairs. The top magazine was the latest copy of Cleveland. “What’s all this about? You seem pretty … concerned.”
Immediately, I noticed that he wasn’t. I would think after getting a menacing fortune cookie like the one I had received, he would at least be a little unnerved. “I wanted to talk to you about the fortune you got the other day.”
He raised an eyebrow. “The fortune I got? How do you know about that?”
“Ad— Detective Trudeau told me about it.”
“He did, did he?” He smirked. “The perks of dating a cop, I suppose.”
“That’s not why he told me.” I sat down in the seat he’d cleared while he took the stack of magazines over to the other side of the desk, turning his back to me. “I received one as well.”
He slowly rose from his bent position, but didn’t say anything. “You did…”
“Yeah … so I wanted to talk to you about it. I think I might have some ideas on what’s going on.”
Ray’s shoulders visibly tensed, and he turned, his eyes meeting mine. “And what exactly do you think is happening?”
My stomach dropped. What if I was wrong about the bribery angle? I would sound completely stupid if Joel wasn’t actually bribing Ray. “Well … Joel, he’s been acting pretty strange, don’t you think? He clearly had a problem with Norman Pan. And Stella, she must have seen or heard something that made Joel nervous…” Even though she was dead, I felt weird outing her secrets to Ray.
“Interesting theory. I can see how you would come to that conclusion.” He moved around the desk, leaning against the edge of it right in front of me. “Have you told your boyfriend this theory of yours yet?”
“Sorta. We don’t talk much about his work or any of the cases that are still active. He doesn’t like for me to get involved.”
“I don’t blame him.” He folded his arms across his chest. “A young girl like yourself … you shouldn’t meddle in such horrible things.”
“I can handle myself.” My chin rose a little. I hated when people told me what I shouldn’t do. I tried to ignore it. “He did say that Joel has an alibi for the night that Stella was murdered, but I think he could have easily faked it.”
He was staring at me so intently that I had to look away. My eyes roamed around the office and I noted the decent collection of liquor bottles that he had lined up. Guess someone really liked to let loose during work hours on the regular. I paused, one of the bottles caught my attention. A whiskey bottle to be exact. It was the same brand of whiskey that Adam had been reluctant to tell me was found in Stella’s room. And, it was the exact brand that Ray asked for during the meeting at the Bamboo Lounge. Yamazaki was pretty distinct.
