The Killing Hands

by P. D. Martin

  I’m not used to hearing such harshness in my dad. He’s usually the laid-back one. And my ally.

  “But, Dad, I thought you guys understood now. You said you know why I do this. Why it’s so important to me.”

  He sits on the edge of my bed and his tone softens. “We do, Sophie. We understand. But our natural instinct is still to protect you. And your mum is talking sense—you will get better faster if you rest.”

  I sigh. “I don’t know, Dad.”

  “We don’t expect you to abandon the case. But just put your health first.” He places his hand on top of mine. “You’ve only got two more days in here, and then you’re back in your apartment, with your laptop.”

  “And what’ll Mum say when I open it up?”

  Dad’s silent. “Let’s make a deal. You rest today and tomorrow. Then, when you’re released, I’ll do my best to keep your mum off your back.”

  I smile. “Deal.”

  He holds up his hand. “Hold on, you haven’t heard the whole deal.”

  I raise my eyebrows, waiting for him to continue.

  “During the week we’re in your apartment, before we head back to Oz, you still have to pace yourself.”

  “Like?”

  “Two hours a day.”

  “Three,” I say, holding out my hand to shake on it.

  Dad looks unsure. “Two and a half…but that includes phone calls.” He takes my hand.

  I grimace. “Okay. But I need one hour today, after you’re gone, and then I’m done until Saturday.”

  Now his face screws up, but he shakes my hand, nonetheless.

  An hour later, Mum and Dad have left me to “rest”—which I will do, but first the long-awaited ViCAP searches. The first one I look for is the heart concussion. I’m not expecting ViCAP’s online system to return many hits. If our hit man used dim mak without any of the Ten Killing Hands, it’s possible the death would be passed off as accidental, and certainly not criminal. I type in heart concussion as the cause of death and leave all the other fields blank. I get one hit, from 1999 in Washington, D.C. The victim was a politician and the case was investigated as suspicious, but the unusual cause of death complicated things. The forensic pathologist noted small, circular areas of trauma in the chest region but couldn’t match it to a weapon and so the case went cold.

  In the absence of a printer, I save all the details to my BlackBerry’s internal memory and move on to the next search. I know there’s no point looking for generic organ failure, but the strikes that target the spleen could give me matches, so I enter in ruptured spleen as the cause of death. This time I get twenty matches, but all of them bar two look like regular muggings or beatings. The two that I flag as potentially related to our killer took place in Seattle in 2003 and New Orleans in 2005.

  Next is heart attack and ventricular fibrillation. I’m not expecting many results for these two either—not in ViCAP, which records violent and serial crimes—but it’s worth a shot. I get three matches for heart attack as cause of death, but they’re all drug-related cases in which the victim took too much cocaine or speed. All were classified as accidental deaths, but were entered into ViCAP because they were also investigated as potentially forced drug consumption. In the end, the police couldn’t prove anything criminal, and whether they were murder or not, they’re certainly not related to kung fu strikes.

  For ventricular fibrillation as the cause of death I get five matches. Of the first four, two were induced during drowning, one occurred from extremely low levels of potassium and one from a hit and run. While all had something suspicious or criminal about them, it’s only the fifth case of ventricular fibrillation that I believe is related to dim mak, to our killer. In this case, no specific cause for the ventricular fibrillation could be found by the forensic pathologist, but the victim was a very wealthy businessman whose new wife inherited five million dollars. The police flagged it as suspicious, but could never get anything on her or anyone else. While they had to let the case go, one of the detectives was concerned enough to lodge it in ViCAP. There could be many other cases just like this one, where the victim died of ventricular fibrillation with an unknown cause and so they were written off as accidental deaths. But I can’t look up every cardiac death in the US.

  Before getting some rest, I draft a quick e-mail to the team and send through my ViCAP search results. I’m not sure that the new murders I’ve potentially linked to our killer will do us any good in terms of the investigation, but it still had to be done. Besides, maybe the wealthy widow will somehow lead us to the hit man.

  Dad holds my elbow and forearm as we walk down the corridor to my apartment door. I think it’s overkill, but Mum insisted. On the outside of my apartment door Mum and Dad have put up a reindeer knocker. Christmas is in three days’ time—and I couldn’t feel less festive. It’s come so quickly this year, and being in hospital and out of my regular routine has left me feeling decidedly un-Christmassy.

  “The reindeer’s cute,” I say. “You just put him up?”

  “It was one of the first things your mum bought.” Dad keeps us moving forward.

  “Oh, Bob…” Mum turns to me. “Your father’s so excited about having a Christmas here in the States. He bought the reindeer, not me.”

  Dad shrugs. “Guilty as charged.” He nods at two yellow envelopes stuck under my apartment door. “Looks like you’ve had a delivery.”

  “I hope that’s not work, Sophie Jane Anderson.”

  A disapproving glare and the use of my full name…looks like Dad didn’t tell Mum about our deal. He must have decided to take each day as it comes. Brave man.

  “Just a few things, Mum. Not much.”

  She shakes her head, and then picks up the envelopes. “Not even in the door from hospital and she’s already working.” Inside, Mum places the keys on the hall dresser.

  “I haven’t even opened the envelopes.”

  “No, but you will.”

  “Come on, Jan. She is on the mend. Maybe an hour or two each day would keep Soph sane. She’s never been one to sit around.”

  Mum smiles. “No, she was always busy, our girl. Had to get into everything. You kept me busy as a toddler, that’s for sure.”

  I’ve heard the story before, but for some reason today it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

  “John was easy…you were work.” She says it fondly, but mentioning my brother’s name is always awkward in our family and we’re all silent for a few moments.

  Eventually Mum gives a tired, sad sigh. “I’d understand if this was a child-abduction case, or one of those nasty serial-killer cases you work on. Something time critical. But this is…” She shrugs and waves the envelopes in the air.

  I walk down the little hallway and into the main living space. “Wow, this place looks beautiful.” In the corner of the living room is a Christmas tree, decorated in purple and silver, with several presents underneath. My apartment windows have been stenciled with white Santas, reindeers and holly, and in the center of my dining-room table are two new red candle holders, with long green candles. “Thanks, Dad. It’s perfect.” I give him a hug. “It’s good to be home.”

  “Your mum did help a little.” He smiles but then shakes his head. “I’m just sad it won’t be a white Christmas. Darn West Coast.” Dad grew up in Boston and has always been very pro-East Coast and anti-West Coast. He couldn’t understand why I’d transfer from the Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, Virginia, to the West Coast—and L.A. of all places.

  “Mum and I will be happier without the snow.”

  He shrugs. “You haven’t had a real Christmas until you’ve had a white one.” Dad’s accent has broadened from being back in the States for the week. It doesn’t take long.

  “I haven’t forgotten about these, darling.” Mum places the envelopes on the dining-room table. “I really don’t think you’re up to working. And from the little you’ve told us about this case, it doesn’t sound like it’s time critical.”

&
nbsp; “It’s still murder, Mum. And a woman is missing.” It’s a little lie, a white lie. Mee is still officially missing, even though we know where she is through Agent Young.

  She gives a stoic nod. “You’re right, darling. I’m sorry.”

  I bite my lip, feeling guilty about my white lie already.

  “We can spare Soph for a couple of hours.” Again Dad steps in.

  “I guess.” Mum fingers the corner of one of the envelopes. “So do you know what’s in these?”

  “Yup. One’s everything we’ve got on the victim, including information that’s been forwarded to us from Japan and Singapore. The other one’s a list of Chinese nationals who entered the country four weeks prior to the murder, with photos.” It’ll be nice to look at the information in hard copy instead of on my tiny BlackBerry screen. Maybe then things will make more sense.

  “Looks like a lot of work, Sophie.”

  “Just reading, Mum.”

  “Mmm…” She takes my overnight bag into my room.

  “Mum, you guys should stay in my room—I can use the sofa bed.”

  She pops her head out. “No. You’re convalescing, Sophie. You need a proper bed.”

  “Mum, I’m fine. Really. Besides, the sofa bed is comfy.”

  She pauses.

  “I insist. Plus there’s more room in there for your suitcases.” I point to my bedroom.

  “Okay. If you’re sure.”

  “I’m sure.”

  She nods. “I’ll still leave your bag in here. I’ll unpack it later.”

  She comes back into the living room. “I’ve made soup for lunch. You hungry?”

  Just thinking of Mum’s home cooking makes me hungry. “Sounds great.”

  She busies herself in the kitchen, heating up the soup and some Turkish bread, while I open the envelopes. My Dad raises his eyebrows and I mouth “Two and a half hours” at him.

  “Playing with fire first thing,” he says under his breath.

  He’s right and I would prefer to avoid my mother’s wrath, but curiosity is getting the better of me. I flick through Saito’s file, taking a seat at the table, while Mum’s getting everything ready. A quick pass tells me that in the five years leading up to his disappearance he was suspected of drug trafficking, money laundering and even a few murders, but no charges were ever brought against him. In addition to crime-scene photos of three homicides Saito is suspected of being involved in—all male victims—there’s also a photo of a beautiful Japanese woman with her throat slit. From the file, I soon gather she was his girlfriend—she was killed just before he disappeared and the police suspected him of that murder, too. In fact, his prints were all over the murder weapon. And as for his alias, Jo Kume, all Singapore had on that was a driver’s license and a small apartment in his name. As Jo Kume, he stayed under the radar…unless he used other aliases in Singapore, too.

  I’m still scanning documents when my mother comes over. “Sophie. We’re about to eat.”

  “I’m sorry, Mum.” I gather up the pages, glad that I’d been careful enough not to have any crime-scene photos on the top. I stack everything back into one pile and pop it on the sofa next to the other, unopened yellow envelope.

  “Fifteen minutes,” my Dad whispers in my ear while Mum brings another bowl of soup over.

  “What, you’re timing me?”

  “You better believe it, sweetheart.”

  I sit, glaring at Dad.

  “What’s going on, you two?” Mum puts her bowl of soup on the table and sits down with us.

  We both act innocent.

  “This looks beautiful, Jan.”

  “Yes, it does, Mum.”

  She smiles. “Well, eat up.”

  I’m scraping the bottom of my soup bowl when my BlackBerry buzzes. “Sorry. I better get it.” I fish it out of my handbag. “FBI, Sophie Anderson.”

  “Anderson, it’s Petrov. Can you talk?”

  “Sure.” I move away from the table, grabbing my notebook and pen from my handbag on the way.

  “First off, I’ve got some good news. I just got a call from the hospital. Ramos is out of intensive care.”

  “That’s fantastic news.” I only managed to visit Ramos a few times, and even though it was touch and go, I always believed he’d pull through. Or maybe I just couldn’t bear to think about the alternative.

  “Full recovery?”

  “It’ll take a while, but yes.”

  I breathe another sigh of relief.

  “You get the Saito information?” Petrov asks.

  “Yes, thanks. And Melissa also couriered the printouts of the State Department information, too.” I’m still hoping I’ll get something from the hard copy, from the photos. Despite numerous attempts to induce a vision or see something, I’ve had nothing for a week. Maybe now that I’m off the painkillers my head will clear enough to focus on my second sight.

  I take a seat on the couch. “Any news your end?”

  “No luck on a link between Saito and the other Yakuza death in 2000. De Luca has tapped all his contacts, we all have, and as far as we can make out Saito and Matsu never crossed paths. The only point of intersection is that they both knew Tomi Moto and his father. Matsu worked for Moto’s father, and Saito did business with him back in the late eighties and early nineties. Although even those ties haven’t been proven irrefutably. It’s all based on tips from informants and undercover operations from years ago. What about you? I bet you’ve looked at our list of Chinese nationals, haven’t you?”

  “Believe it or not, no.” I don’t tell Petrov about my deal with Dad. All he needs to know is that I haven’t found anything in the list.

  “Maybe we should send it to your teacher’s cousin in Beijing?”

  “There are too many names on it at the moment—I don’t want to burn that bridge with such a wide search.”

  “Fair enough. So we need to eliminate some names.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Silence.

  “Sir, what if we cross-reference our hit man’s visit this time with the other ViCAP entries? Aliases or not, the guy’s killed in the US at least eight times, nine if you count Corey Casey. Plus there are the other ViCAP matches I found for heart concussion, ruptured spleen and ventricular fibrillation. He can’t have thirteen different aliases. And by cross-referencing Chinese nationals’ details with those from around the dates of the murders, we might get a match.”

  “Sounds good, Anderson.”

  “Sorry, I should have thought about it days ago.” I shake my head.

  “Anderson, you’re still recovering. And you’re not the only one working on the case…we should have thought of it, too.” He sighs. “Although our resource issues certainly haven’t helped.”

  Poor Petrov. He’s down two people and he’s trying to find a mole. Plus I can’t imagine it would have been easy for the rest of the team, finding out about Ramos and me and still trying to keep their heads in the game.

  “I’ll call Rodriguez now. Anything else?”

  “Saito’s hotel and Mee’s apartment. All the prints in Saito’s hotel room have been eliminated, verified as either his or hotel employees’. There were two extra sets of prints, but we managed to locate the last two visitors in that room and both agreed to give us samples. They were a match.”

  “Trace?”

  “Nothing useful. It doesn’t look like Saito had any visitors in his room.”

  “And Mee’s house?”

  “All the prints on Mee’s front door and her chest of drawers belonged to Mee or her boyfriend and there was nothing strange from trace.”

  “What about her computer?”

  “Just the usual stuff—her work for school, a few personal letters and e-mails. The only big news is that the lab’s come back with a paternal DNA match between our victim and samples we collected from Mee’s phone. Mee’s definitely Saito’s daughter.”

  “Which isn’t news to you…or me.”

  “No. But now it’s official, on the
books.”

  I nod—so in other words Hana and Williams know, too, as well as the wider Gang Impact Team. “About that, sir…”

  “Yes?”

  “I might be able to help with your search.” I keep my language vague, reluctant to say straight-out “the search for the mole,” especially in front of my parents.

  “You sound confident.”

  I’m not sure whether I’ve offended Petrov—perhaps by suggesting that I can find the mole when no one else has been able to—or if he’s relieved that fresh eyes might actually identify the culprit.

  “Confidence is an overstatement. But I’m hoping my specific skills as a profiler and my psychology training may give us some new insights. And fresh eyes never hurt, do they?”

  “I’m all for fresh eyes,” Petrov responds. “Especially if you can point the finger at someone. There are a couple you might want to start with.” He pauses. “Or does that defeat the purpose of fresh eyes?”

  “Good question.” On the one hand, there’s no point in me duplicating work that’s already been done. Poring over twenty-four detailed personnel files will take time, and if Petrov, Brady and De Luca already have suspects or have some people they’ve eliminated…Not to mention my work quota of two and a half hours per day.

  We’re both silent, thinking.

  In the end, I speak first. “What sort of info rang bells for you?”

  “People who’ve worked undercover, perhaps gone bad during their time. Agents and officers who have some affiliations or informants within our target gangs. Mind you, most of the task force members have built up contacts, that’s part of their job.”

  “Is that all in their files? Their undercover work, and so on?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Okay, let’s do the completely objective thing.”

  “Your call.” Petrov shuffles papers in the background. “But you’re right. It will be interesting to look at it from the psych angle. See if anyone sets off alarms from a behavioral perspective. I’ll get the docs couriered over to you. Call me to confirm receipt.”

  Petrov is being careful.

  “Will do. Can you also send me copies of the info on the Yakuza here in L.A.? I’d like to have a closer look at that.”