by James Tucker
Three minutes later, Rachel Grove strode through the lobby. She wore a pair of snug black pants and a sky-blue shirt. Her heels clicked across the stone floor.
She got close to him, almost too close. She smelled like mint.
In a low voice, she said, “Malone left at six ten p.m. that night.”
That must be it, he thought. Malone called Tan Jacket. Malone has power and resources. He knew where I was and when. The chief’s being dirty would explain a hell of a lot. But how does Mingo fit into the scheme?
Yet Buddy wasn’t sure it had been Malone. He knew that even if Malone had left the building at 6:10, someone else might have had access to his desk or Alicia Bravo’s desk. Malone might have been in a meeting on a different floor. He didn’t know how to ascertain the chief’s whereabouts without broadcasting what he was doing. Being caught investigating the chief of detectives would end his career, unless he had proof Malone was dirty. And right now, he had nothing.
Rachel said, “What’s this about? This phone number? This call?”
Buddy looked her in the eye and shook his head. “I don’t want you involved.”
She laughed lightly and smiled. “But I am involved.”
“Not like I am,” he told her, stepping back. “You’ve done enough. And Rachel?”
“Yes, Buddy?”
“Thanks. I mean it.”
“You’re welcome. And I mean that.”
63
Fifteen minutes after Ben woke up, Mei ushered him out of the house on the bluff. They climbed into the Audi and headed down the serpentine road to Rockridge. She stomped on the accelerator.
“What is it?” Ben asked, his right hand gripping the passenger door handle as the SUV shot down the hill. “Why are you going so fast?”
She didn’t respond but focused on the road. Yet she felt his startled gaze on her.
“Mei? What’s wrong?”
“Your texts,” she said. “Your school texts. With one of your friends.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand. Which friend?”
“A. B.,” she said. “Who is A. B.?”
“Alan Blackman. He’s in my class. Why?”
Mei hesitated. Was she being irrational? Had the texts in which Ben had told A. B. approximately where they were staying been an innocent exchange? She couldn’t decide how to know for sure. She didn’t trust her instincts. “I’m sorry for looking at your texts,” she began. “I woke up in the night and wanted to check my email on your computer, and I saw the text conversation up on your screen. I texted the person who’d asked you where we’re staying for his name. He replied right away—at almost three o’clock in the morning!”
She looked over at him. His expression was one of disbelief.
He said, “Mei, it’s fine. Alan’s parents let him sleep with his phone. It’s on his pillow. You woke him up and he thought you were me, being stupid.”
“Don’t respond to any texts, no matter who they’re from,” she warned. “Okay?”
He said nothing but raised his left wrist and began looking at his new watch.
She reached over and touched his chest. “Ben?” she asked. “I’m serious about this. No texting, all right?”
At last he turned to her. “All right. I won’t.”
“Not to anyone.”
“I know. I won’t.”
He was quiet until she turned onto Main Street. Then he said, “So why are we here in town again? Wouldn’t it be safer to stay at the house?”
“We’re going,” she told him, “to the hardware store.”
He tilted his head, puzzled. “But why?”
She pulled the car along the curb in front of the hardware store, put the car in park, and switched off the engine. After taking off her seat belt, she rotated in her seat until she was facing him. She touched his arm and said, “Buddy isn’t here, but if he were, wouldn’t he say that we should protect ourselves? Just in case?”
Ben nodded. “Did you bring the gun? The one Ward gave you?”
“Yes, I brought the gun.”
Ben looked down and studied her jacket. “Is it here, in the car?”
“No, it’s at the house. But I want to do what Buddy would do. So we’ll check out the hardware store and see if we can find something. Okay?”
Ben stared at her, uncertainty in his eyes.
Inside the small store, they walked through the short aisles, the shelving on either side of them reaching to twelve or fourteen feet. The selection was good for a store in a town this small.
Mei wandered, unsure of her goal. At one of the shelving end caps, she saw a display of gloves, and she looked down at the pair she held in her hand. They were shearling gloves, soft on the inside and the outside. Good for warmth and style, but not so good for gripping something. In the display, she found Wells Lamont lined work gloves in bright-yellow leather. After tucking her shearling gloves in the side pocket of her parka, she took down the work gloves, size small, and tried them on.
A little big for her, but they fit well enough.
Well enough for what? she asked herself.
Ben tried on a pair of the same gloves, same size. He looked up at her and said, “May I get some, too?”
“Yes,” she told him, although his black North Face gloves were more than adequate. She walked down the store’s main aisle. Lights on motion sensors would be helpful, but she and Ben had discovered on arriving that the house was equipped with at least two of these. Seeing a display of axes and hatchets, she turned away. She knew she wasn’t strong enough to fight anyone with one of these, and they reminded her of terrible times in the past. God knew how Ben felt when he saw them. Realizing from his melancholy face that his thoughts were aligned with hers, she leaned over and kissed the top of his head.
To the right of the checkout, she saw, beneath a polished glass counter, a display of knives, their metal tips shiny against a spread of green baize. Hunting knives, pocketknives, carving knives for—what, eviscerating a deer? And other knives whose purpose she couldn’t guess. She began to move toward the checkout, and then stopped and turned around.
I’m not strong, she thought. But I can hide things. I can convince someone I’m not a threat, even when I am.
She glanced at Ben, who was watching her. His eyes met hers before dropping to the shiny knives.
The older man behind the checkout counter sidled up to the other side of the case. He had gray hair, a hearing aid in his right ear, and silver-rimmed eyeglasses. He didn’t smile at her, but his blue eyes were friendly. “Interested in a knife?” he asked in a rasping voice.
“Yes,” Mei told him. “I’d like a pocketknife. Maybe the one here.” She placed an index finger on the glass and pointed downward.
From an opening behind the counter, he reached in and touched a pocketknife with a smooth black grip. “This one, ma’am?”
She nodded.
His hands took hold of it. He straightened, closed the blade, and handed it across the counter to her.
The knife’s heaviness surprised her. It was compact, and yet it must also be strong. She turned it sideways and put her left fingernail in the groove where the blade peeked out of the grip and pulled on it.
The blade emerged and clicked into place.
She turned it in the light and moved it from one hand to the other.
The man said, “Any particular use for the knife?”
“For this and that,” she told him.
Ben said, “Can I see it?”
Carefully, she handed it to Ben, the blade still out.
He held it, put it in one hand, his right. His expression brightened. “I’d like this knife.”
She caught herself. As in the case of the yellow leather gloves, she wasn’t going to say no. It can’t hurt, she thought, for him to have a pocketknife. Not as long as we’re living in that house.
“Only the one?” the older man asked.
She said, “Do you have another?”
“Yes. Would y
ou like two?”
“Yes, please.” Then she turned to Ben. “You have to be careful with this knife, okay?”
“I know. I won’t use it. I just want it.”
A few minutes later they climbed into the Audi. Ben put his new gloves on his lap and then opened and closed his new pocketknife.
She put her new gloves in the pocket of the driver’s door and slipped her knife down into her right boot.
For a minute or two, the knife felt cool and strange. But then it warmed, and she hardly noticed it. Yet its presence gave her confidence.
64
Buddy pressed the buzzer and waited.
“Hello?” came the voice.
“It’s Detective Lock.”
“Please come up. I’m on the tenth floor.”
The door buzzed. He pulled it open and entered the small lobby. There was no doorman. He saw only limited furniture: four small black chairs, a wooden coffee table. The walls were white and contained abstract art. The floors were plain white stone. An understated but expensive condo building. He was in Chelsea on Twenty-First Street, near many art galleries, with the east side of the building along the High Line.
Buddy walked into the elevator and pushed the button for the tenth floor. A few moments later the door opened into a spacious foyer. Standing before him was Leo Sung. Buddy said, “Good morning, Mr. Sung. Thank you for meeting me.”
“Of course. Please come in.” Leo motioned him into the enormous great room.
Buddy glanced at the high ceilings. He estimated they were fourteen feet high, the same as in Mei’s place. Just as in the lobby, expensive-looking contemporary art hung on the walls. One large abstract canvas. One photograph of a naked man wearing nothing but a wolf mask and stiletto heels. A third painting of a seascape with nude bathers of both genders. Gray leather furniture. Along one wall, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, completely full. Enormous windows. Buddy knew this condo must be worth at least $10 million.
Leo pressed a button on a fancy coffee machine in the kitchen. “Coffee?” he asked.
Buddy said, “Yeah. Thanks.”
He stood by one of the chairs as Leo operated the machine, a stainless-steel miracle that made a low noise before dispensing the coffee. Buddy thought the machine must be grinding the beans, but he couldn’t be sure.
Buddy said, “You didn’t tell me anything when I met with you and your brother and sister.”
Leo’s face colored. At first he didn’t respond, only took two perfectly white cups and handed one to Buddy. Then Leo said, “Let’s sit down.”
Buddy took the chair facing the sofa, where Leo had sat. Buddy waited, allowing silence to fill the large room. He sipped his coffee. It was strong and full flavored. He liked it, but not enough to buy a machine that probably cost as much as a small car. He leaned forward and set the cup on the glass coffee table. He took his notebook and a pen out and looked up at Leo, waiting.
Leo drank his coffee, then set his cup down, too. He leaned back into the sofa and said, “I didn’t tell you anything because I don’t know anything.”
Buddy remained silent.
Leo watched him.
Buddy said, “But you think something. You suspect something.”
Leo nodded. “I’m younger than my brother and sister, and when I was a boy, my parents were tired of teaching hanzi, and I didn’t want to learn. So on my parents’ suicide note, I don’t know if the signatures are theirs or not.”
Buddy said, “You don’t trust your brother or sister to recognize the signatures for you?”
Instead of answering, Leo said, “My father was sick, yes, but my mother told me only a month ago that she’d never leave me.” Slowly, Leo shook his head. “I don’t think she killed herself.”
Buddy thought for a moment. He silently compared the modest condo of Leo’s parents with Leo’s home. He said, “How much were your parents paid for their unit?”
“Five million dollars.”
Buddy made a note and asked, “To be divided equally between you and your brother and sister?”
Leo nodded.
Buddy glanced around the room, couldn’t help but see the large photograph of the naked man wearing the mask. Why put that in your living room? he wondered. He said, “But you don’t need the money.”
A statement rather than question.
Leo said, “No. I have enough.”
“What about your brother and sister. Do they have enough?”
Leo said, “They need the money. I’ve helped them in the past.”
Buddy pressed, “What do they need money for?”
“My sister, for her children’s tuition and peace of mind. She doesn’t have expensive tastes. My brother, for a place to live. He’s renting and can barely afford it. He’s told me he’s reserved a condo in Haddon House, and since he grew up on the site, I guess Wang knows and likes the location. He’s a bit of an asshole.”
Buddy thought Wang had made a deal. The possible murder of his parents might or might not have been part of it. He said, “Do you know who was pressuring your parents? Or your brother?”
Leo got up and went into the kitchen. Buddy watched the younger man flip through some papers on the counter. Leo picked up a business card, returned, and handed it to Buddy.
The card read: “Vance McInnis, Vice President of Development, Cromwell Properties.”
65
Later that afternoon, Mei heard a noise and looked out the windows of the great room. She saw woods and snow-covered farms spread over the rolling hills below, and a single car coming up the winding drive to the house.
Immediately she went to the door and set the dead bolt. Ben watched from the sofa.
Mei said, “Someone’s coming.”
Ben got up and came over to her.
They stood together by the window to the right of the door.
The car was small—not an SUV. A coupe, sporty and jet-black.
Ben said, “It’s a BMW, a three series. The new body style that looks like a shark.”
Which doesn’t belong here, Mei thought. Not in this town at this time of year. A chill slid into her chest.
She backed away from the window, turned, and hurried into the kitchen. One glance told her the revolver remained on top of the refrigerator.
Not yet, she thought. Not until I’m sure we’re in danger.
Her eyes scanned the counter. There it was, right where she’d left it. Her new pocketknife.
She grabbed it. As she returned to the window and Ben, she opened the blade.
The black car made the final turn toward the house. Under the gray clouds, the car’s headlights were on and shining at the door and the window beside it.
Mei squinted, trying to see the driver of the car, but the overcast sky impaired her vision, and large sunglasses obscured the driver’s face.
They waited. The small house was silent.
Mei gripped the knife. There was nowhere to run and no escape. She’d fight if she had to. She’d kill to keep Ben alive. He was her son, no matter how Judge Miles ruled.
They watched the small black car slow and stop. The driver’s door opened.
Out of the car stepped a tall woman with long blond hair.
“Thank God,” Mei said.
“Who is it?” Ben asked.
66
Mei unlocked the door and pulled it open. “Jessica!” she called. “Thank God it’s you!”
Her now-former coworker from Porter Gallery smiled but then frowned and pointed. “What’s with the knife?”
Thirty minutes later, the three of them went on a hike. Jessica wanted to show them the view from the top of the bluff and at the bottom of the ravine on the other side, where there was a walking path beside a stream. Mei and Ben wanted to get out of the house. In her delight at seeing Jessica and the prospect of vigorous exercise, she wasn’t thinking of danger.
Ben had put on boots as well, but he had left his pocketknife on the kitchen counter. He also wore the new yellow work glo
ves Mei had bought him at the hardware store.
Mei asked him, “Is your leg well enough to do this?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure? We could watch a movie instead.”
His eyes had filled with light. “I’m okay. I’m going.”
Mei wore her black hiking boots, her Moncler parka, and her yellow work gloves. She’d folded her new pocketknife and slid it into her right boot between the leather tongue and the lacing. It was held there, immobile and almost invisible, the black plastic grip camouflaged by the boot’s black leather. Jessica looked stylish in dark-blue jeans, a puffy white parka with a hood trimmed in sable, and Vuarnet glacier glasses with leather sides to prevent peripheral glare. They set out up the hill toward the ridge above the valley.
Having taken this route before, Jessica went first, followed by Ben and then Mei.
Ben said, “What about the coyote? What if he sees us?”
Jessica turned and looked back at him. She said, “He stays away from hikers. But if he gets too close, I’ll kick him all the way to Rockridge.”
Ben said, “He won’t bite you?”
Jessica stopped and raised one of her heavy Sorel boots. “Sure, if he wants this down his throat.”
Ben smiled.
Jessica continued leading them up toward the ridge and farther and farther away from the house.
67
Buddy put on latex gloves and took out his set of lockpicks. In the unlit corridor on the third floor of the Nanjing building, he crouched down and began working the lock on S. Richardson’s door. He’d had Mario check the address and unit number and learned her first name.
It was Sloan. Sloan Richardson, the young woman in her twenties he’d spoken to the day before. He recalled seeing her as he’d stood outside Chen and Lily Sung’s door not forty feet from here. Her winter clothes, fashionable boots, her glossy brown hair, and clear complexion. A beautiful young woman.
He felt the last pin rise, the lock draw back. Standing, he put his pick and tension wrench into a small nylon case that he zipped shut and dropped in the right side pocket of his suit coat, and opened the door.
