The Mia Quinn Collection

by Lis Wiehl

  Now the detective asked, “Do you have a daughter named Dandan?”

  “Yes?” A tiny seed of hope sprouted within her. For a moment, she thought he was here to tell her that the Chinese government had relented, that they could be reunited.

  His expression didn’t change. “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “Sixteen years ago.” A gulf of time. An eternity.

  “In China?”

  She nodded. It was impossible to find words, to form them with her tongue.

  “Any chance she could be here in Seattle?”

  Bo started to smile, but then something about his unsmiling face and shadowed eyes made the smile fall from her face like a plate from the shelf.

  “The thing is, the body of a young Asian woman has been found. And she had your address and this photo in her possession.” He took the tattered photo from his jacket pocket. It had been slipped inside a plastic sleeve. It was Bo’s family, the three of them, in a park, all of them smiling. All of them young. Taken when Bo was pregnant, although she hadn’t known it then. She held the photo and her fingertip touched her old self’s belly, then her daughter’s tiny face. Everything inside her was still. Holding its breath.

  “Could I show you a drawing of the girl’s face?”

  Bo didn’t think she had moved, but she must have nodded, because he was handing her a second plastic sleeve. Over the years her husband had managed to send her a few letters. About a year ago, the letter had been accompanied by a photo of the two of them. Even without that photo, Bo would have known her only living child’s face. In the drawing the girl’s eyes were closed, her cheekbones high, her face slim and somehow elfin.

  “That is my daughter,” she said. The words felt like she was hearing someone else say them. “That is Dandan.” This couldn’t be real. It must be a dream. Or a mistake. A terrible mistake. “How can my daughter be here? She is in China.” The words sounded as if someone else were saying them.

  “Somehow she made it over here, but we don’t think she’s been here long. She was working in a massage parlor when a client stabbed her.”

  In China her daughter worked in a roadside stand that sold soup. “But she doesn’t know how to give massages,” Bo said. A pulse of hope raced through her.

  “I’m afraid it wasn’t that kind of place. Only men went there. Do you understand what I am talking about?”

  She understood then. Through church, Bo had met other women from China, women who had been forced to pay back the human smugglers who had brought them here, pay with the only thing they had of value.

  At the funeral home, Bo asked the man who worked there if she could have some time with her daughter. He looked at her, his pouchy eyes sad and tired, and finally nodded.

  Then he opened the door to a small room where her daughter lay on a metal table. A white sheet had been pulled up to her chin. After the man left, Bo clambered up and tried to gather Dandan in her arms. Her daughter’s body was as cold and firm as the table. Like a doll. A perfect, life-sized doll, clumsily stitched in places. Bo had howled then, pressing one hand against her mouth so that only the faintest sounds leaked out.

  After she composed herself, she had cleaned her daughter’s body with a damp towel she had brought with her. She had dressed her body in the new white clothes she had purchased for her, including a long white dress. She had slipped shoes on her feet. They were too big, and for a moment she had caught herself worrying that they would blister her daughter’s feet. As if Dandan would again walk on this earth.

  Several months later, she had sat in the courtroom only a few feet from the man who had killed her daughter. Behind her tinted glasses, she had stared at him. Sweaty and red-faced and overweight. Older even than Bo. She had imagined Dandan under his weight. Listened to the lies told about her daughter and that pig of a man. Watched as Warren Paczkowski chose to ignore all the evidence of Leacham’s guilt. Paczkowski and Paczkowski alone.

  And here he was. Stepping out of his apartment building. Bo unzipped her jacket until it flapped open, pushed it back. Then she started walking, too fast, her face still tilted toward her phone, her thumbs moving as if she were texting, her hands slick on the plastic. Watching Paczkowski out of the top of her vision.

  Running into him so hard her face bounced off his chest. Her hand flew up to pin her glasses in place. She needed them for this to work.

  “Hey, watch it!” Instinctively he reached out to grab her as she teetered on her heels and started to fall.

  “Sorry.” She thrust her chest toward him. This was the man. The man who had chosen to let the killer go free. Freed the killer who felt her daughter’s life was worth less than a tissue.

  “You almost knocked me over.” The anger left his face as he looked down at her. Not at her face, but at her cleavage.

  “Sorry!” She smiled up at him through the thick layer of lashes she had painstakingly glued on top of her own this morning. It had been much harder than when the girl at the makeup counter had done it.

  He snorted a laugh. “For a little thing, you pack a pretty powerful punch.”

  “Sorry!” she repeated, toying with her hair. “It was an accident.”

  “That’s okay. I know you didn’t mean to.”

  She tilted her head. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee to apologize for my carelessness?”

  “Oh.” He blinked. “Um, I guess so.”

  “My name is Song,” she said. She put out her hand, but instead of fully shaking his, she just briefly pressed his fingertips.

  “Song,” he repeated. “That’s a pretty name. My name is Warren.” He gestured. “There’s a coffee shop down the street?”

  They started walking. She was freezing. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “I guess I didn’t dress right for the weather.” She made no move to zip her jacket.

  Bo had hoped for his arm, but instead he shrugged out of his own coat and put it around her shoulders, his hands lingering for a moment.

  “Thank you,” she said as it sagged heavily across her shoulders, smelling of cigarettes and sweat. It came down to her knees.

  Now Paczkowski was the one who walked with his arms folded against the cold. “You’re a tiny little thing, aren’t you? If you took off those shoes, you wouldn’t even come up to my chin.”

  “I’m little, but I’m strong.” Stronger than he knew.

  At the entrance he held the door for her, and she rewarded him with a smile.

  As they reached the counter, he said, “Even though I know you’re the one who almost knocked me over, why don’t you let me buy you a coffee? After all, it’s not every day I’m lucky enough to literally run into a beautiful woman.”

  She forced a smile while she looked down at her toes. “Thank you.” She ordered a house coffee, even when he encouraged her to order whatever elaborate drink she wanted. Bo normally only drank tea, but for now, she wasn’t Bo. She was Song. The former juror—she had to think of him as Warren now, instead of Paczkowski—got a mocha for himself.

  “Sorry if I was kind of rude back there,” he said as they waited for his mocha. “I work with just all guys. I forget what it means to be polite.”

  “No problem!” Bo giggled, trying to ignore how it stuck in her throat. The last time she had flirted had been before Dandan was born. “Here, let me give you back your coat.”

  “Are you sure you’re warm enough?”

  “I am now.” She gave the word now a special emphasis, as if offering him credit.

  After they got their drinks, he sat down at a booth. When she sat on the same side, his eyes widened. Bo kept her face blankly smiling, her face turned toward him.

  “So what do you do that you work with all guys? I’m a student.” She had prepared an entire back story if he asked her which college, what she was majoring in, etc. But he didn’t.

  “I’m an electrician. But I haven’t been at work recently. In fact”—he took a deep breath, his chest rising—“I might not go back.”

>   “Why not?” She moved a little closer.

  “I came into some money.” Warren shrugged, but his face was proud.

  “An inheritance?”

  “In a way. Now I’m thinking of getting my own business.”

  “Really? How will you do that?” She kept her face—and her glasses—turned toward him like she was a flower and he was the sun.

  Under the table, she adjusted her shirt, pulling it a little tighter, then leaned even closer to him. Weaving her web.

  CHAPTER 29

  The thought of how Lihong had tried again and again to turn to her for help haunted Mia. In the headlong tumble that was her life, she had forgotten him, but he had not forgotten her.

  Was his the body in the morgue? Or was it possible that he still might be out there someplace?

  Even though it was a Saturday morning, Mia and Charlie were trying again to find out by going to the last place they knew for sure Lihong had been: Perk Up.

  “No rest for the wicked,” Charlie said as Mia got into his car. They pulled away from her house, where everyone was still sleeping.

  “Weekends are for the weak,” Mia answered in her best imitation of Charlie’s growl.

  At the coffee shop there was just one girl at the counter, a blue-eyed blonde with a diamond stud in her nose that Mia presumed was fake. A family was already ahead of them: a mom and dad and a daughter. The girl looked ten or eleven. Her brown hair straggled down her back in long wet snakes. She was sagging against her mom.

  “We need a twenty-ounce coffee,” the mom told the barista.

  “Room for cream?”

  The mom looked down at her daughter. “Do you want any milk in it, honey?”

  The girl nodded, and the mom turned back to the barista. “Yeah, leave an inch or two at the top. Sophie had a swim meet this morning, and we don’t want her to be too tired for her basketball game this afternoon.”

  Mia bit her lip to stop herself from saying anything. Were the parents even thinking about the kind of message they were sending little Sophie? That you should ignore what your body was telling you loud and clear? That you did whatever you could to win the meet, be awarded the scholarship, get on the news highlights reel? Lance Armstrong hadn’t come out of nowhere.

  When it was their turn, Mia said, “I’m looking for another barista who works the early-morning shift during the week. I talked to her a few days ago. She’s Asian American and has blond hair.”

  “Laura,” the girl said. “She’s on break. Should I get her?”

  “Maybe I need my coffee first,” Charlie said. “I’ll have a twenty-four-ounce Mindsweeper to go. With an extra shot and whipped cream.”

  “That already comes with four shots,” the girl told him.

  “I know.”

  Maybe wrinkled, rumpled Charlie should be the cautionary example for the parents, Mia thought, not Lance Armstrong. Look, Sophie, if you drink all your coffee like a good girl, maybe you can grow up to be a homicide detective who doesn’t know the meaning of the term day off.

  “I’ll just have a sixteen-ounce nonfat latte.” Next to Charlie, Mia felt a little prim and proper. After the girl went to the espresso machine to make their drinks, she turned to Charlie. “Don’t you ever worry about your heart exploding?”

  “I’m just training it to work harder and faster.” He thumped a fist over his chest. “Besides, if I’m going to be working on a Saturday, I need a boost.”

  Sophie and her parents had just left, so Mia said, “At least you have a hundred pounds on that poor girl. Those parents were basically blood-doping their kid.”

  He shrugged. “We live in a quick-fix culture.”

  She pressed her lips together. “Maybe not everything needs to be fixed.”

  After the barista handed over their drinks, she went in search of the girl Mia had talked to earlier in the week. Laura was tying her apron when she came out but stopped when she saw Mia. “Are you here about that guy who was asking for you?”

  Mia nodded, and Charlie stuck out his hand. “I’m Charlie Carlson, Seattle Homicide.”

  Her face stilled. “Homicide? You mean like murder?”

  “I’m afraid so. A body washed up on the shore of Puget Sound. We’re wondering if it’s the same guy you talked to.”

  Laura’s mouth twisted and her eyes narrowed until her expression became a combination of fascination and fear. “So do you want me to go down to the morgue?”

  “That won’t be necessary. I’ve got a photo on my phone of his face.” Charlie scrolled back, then handed it over. “Tell me if it’s the same guy.”

  “Okay.” Cradling Charlie’s phone in her palms, she sucked in a breath. “Oh no!” She shook her head.

  Mia’s heart sank. “Is it him?”

  “It’s hard to say for sure because his face isn’t in the best shape, but I think it is.” Laura pressed her fingers to her lips for a moment.

  Why had Kenny—who had known Lihong well—not been able to identify him? Had he been hedging his bets, hoping the body would stay unidentified? Hoping that no one would show up asking awkward questions about Lihong’s papers, his provenance?

  Or was it that they had primed Laura so well that she was already well on her way to “identifying” Lihong before Charlie even handed over his phone?

  “Got any surveillance cameras in this place?” Charlie asked, scanning the walls.

  Laura shook her head.

  “I know you already told the story to Mia, but could you tell me everything you remember, starting from when you first noticed him?”

  “He came in before we get really busy. It was still full dark outside.” Laura looked up, remembering. “He was walking toward me, but he kept turning and looking behind him. I thought maybe he was meeting a friend here. Then, when he focused on my face, his face lit up, and he started rattling off a bunch of stuff in Mandarin. Even if I knew how to speak it, I think he would have been hard to understand, he was talking so fast. I told him the only phrase I really know, other than food words, which is ‘I don’t speak Mandarin.’ ” She bit her lip. “Then he said something like, ‘You know Mrs. Scott?’ and I said I had no idea who he was talking about. I said that in English. That’s not that complicated of a sentence, but he didn’t even understand that. So I simplified it and just said no. He took out your business card”—she pointed at Mia with her chin—“put it down on the counter, and started trying to ask me about you. I think he wanted directions to your office. I don’t think he understood that you wouldn’t even be there at that time of day.”

  “And his friends came in while you were talking?” Charlie asked.

  “Yeah. One white and one Chinese.”

  Mia saw this story in a new light. Where had Lihong made these so-called friends? According to Kenny and Chun, he didn’t have friends. “Why did you think they were his friends?” she asked.

  “The Chinese one was talking to him in Mandarin. The white guy slung his arm around his shoulders. I thought they were buddies, like maybe they had been out all night drinking.” She rolled her eyes. “You see that a lot when you work the opening shift. Sometimes it’s people who didn’t even know each other but just spent six hours together at a strip club or something. Then the Chinese guy said something to me in Chinese, but I told him I only spoke English. Then all three of them walked out the door. And after that the morning rush started and I stopped thinking about them.”

  “There wasn’t one word of Chinese they said that you understood?” Mia asked.

  “The second Chinese guy did say one thing to the guy who was looking for you that I understood, because my mom used to say it to me when she was really mad. It was ‘Don’t be so troublesome!’ Lo sow—that’s troublesome. And the guy who’s dead now, he did say this other word I knew. A couple of times. It was bù. Basically, it means no.”

  Charlie and Mia exchanged a look.

  “What was his expression like?” Mia asked. “Did he look happy to see them?”

  “
He was kind of, I don’t know, grinning. But looking back, it was a weird grin.” She stretched her mouth wide, baring her teeth. More rictus than smile.

  Any hope Mia had had died. “What did these men look like?” she asked.

  “Like I said, one was white, one Chinese. The white guy, he had a shaved head, and I’d say he was in his thirties. He was built like a square. About my height, but really muscular. The Chinese guy was skinny and younger.” She looked from Mia to Charlie. “I guess they really weren’t his friends, were they?”

  “Probably not.” Mia felt queasy. She wished she hadn’t ordered coffee.

  “I should have noticed that.” Laura bit her lip. “I should have done something. Asked him if he was okay.”

  “It sounds like you were all alone here when it happened,” Charlie said. “If you had said anything, it could have been both of you dead. They would have opened your till, made it look like a robbery gone bad.”

  “What about my business card?” Mia asked suddenly. “You said it was lying on the counter. Did either of the men notice that?”

  “I sure hope not.” Laura put her hand to her mouth. “Only the thing is, I don’t remember what happened to it afterward. I could have put it in the recycling, but I don’t remember picking it up. It’s possible—it’s possible that one of them took it.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Charlie pulled up at Mia’s house, put his foot on the brake, and waited for her to get out.

  Only she didn’t.

  “Do you want to come in?” she said, surprising him. “Maybe we can keep brainstorming.”

  Was there a hidden message in what she was saying? Mia played her cards close to her vest, and Charlie never knew quite what she was thinking.

  He liked that.

  “Sure.” He threw the car into park and told himself not to get his hopes up. They were working on a case together, that was all.

  When they came in, Kali and Brooke were in the living room, around which were scattered dozens of pink toys, from a doll’s convertible to a shopping cart that was the right size for Brooke. Kali was sitting on the couch, but she was fast asleep. In her lap was a plate and in her loose hand was a bagel with a bite gone. Sitting inches from the TV and wearing a pink tutu, Brooke was engrossed in some kind of cartoon about superheroes.