[Abby Kanem - SG 01.0] Suitcase Girl

by Ty Hutchinson

  “This will be your new home for the next couple of days,” Rosales said.

  The girl stood quietly at the threshold. I placed a hand gently against her back and ushered her forward. “Do you like it?”

  She looked up at me and smiled.

  Rosales said, “The shelter provided her with a few items of clothing and toiletries. That’s what’s in the bag.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, maybe I’ll take her shopping for more clothes.”

  After a quick tour of the house, Rosales removed paperwork from her handbag. “I’ll need you to fill in the contact information and answer these questions, and then sign here and here. I prepared most of it in anticipation of me finding the place suitable.

  It took about ten minutes for me to fill out the paperwork.

  “Here’s my card in case you need to reach me. I’ll touch base later, and we can arrange a time for me to pick her up two days from now.”

  “Yup, sounds like a plan.”

  I walked her to the front door and said goodbye. After closing the door, I turned around to find Suitcase Girl standing behind me. She hesitated to look directly at me. I knelt down and smiled at her. “You don’t have to be afraid. My family is very nice, and everyone is happy to have you here. Hmmm, but I do need to call you something. What name shall I give you?”

  She shrugged.

  I didn’t want to call her Jane. So sanitary. As I struggled for a proper name, Po Po appeared, speaking Chinese. Dinner was ready.

  “We need a name for her,” I said.

  Po Po looked at the little girl for a moment before saying, “Xiaolian.”

  Considering she was on the short side for her age. I thought it was appropriate.

  “Do you like the name Xiaolian? It means ‘little lotus.’”

  The girl smiled.

  “I want you to meet Po Po.”

  Po Po smiled and nodded at the girl. “She must be hungry,” she said, continuing to speak in Chinese. She took the girl’s hand. We usually spoke English in the house.

  “Why aren’t you speaking in English?” I asked as I followed them.

  She stopped, lifted the girl’s chin so she could look directly into her eyes. “Do you understand me?” she asked the girl in Chinese.

  The girl nodded.

  “She understand.”

  While I tried to comprehend what had just happened, Ryan appeared at the bottom of the stairs, freshly showered.

  “Ryan, I want you to meet Xiaolian.”

  “Hi, nice to meet you,” he said.

  Xiaolian took a step behind Po Po, but kept her gaze on the floor.

  “She’s shy,” I answered.

  Dinner was already on the table, and Lucy sat in her seat with wide grin. “She can sit here.” She patted the chair next to her. “My name is Lucy. Nice to meet you.”

  Xiaolian offered a meek smile as she took her seat. I had told everyone beforehand not to bombard her with questions and definitely not to ask her anything about her situation. I wanted us to have a normal dinner, one no different than we have every night.

  And that was exactly what happened.

  Chapter Eighteen

  After dinner, Ryan had some homework he needed to finish, so he headed back to his room on the second level. Po Po spoke on the phone with a friend. Lucy, Xiaolian, and I retired to the third floor to watch TV in the entertainment room until Lucy’s bedtime—eight o’clock. Ryan’s was at nine.

  I had purposely waited until after Ryan and Lucy were tucked into bed before talking to Xiaolian. We returned to her room on the first floor. The shelter had provided her with pajamas. They were old but would suffice. After she had a quick shower, I tucked her into bed.

  “Are you having fun?” I asked as I brought a chair over to the bed and sat.

  She smiled sheepishly.

  “You understand me?” I asked in Chinese.

  She nodded.

  I had to ask the next question. “Are you from China?”

  She shrugged.

  “Do you understand me?” I asked in English.

  She nodded.

  Very interesting. It wasn’t something that surprised me tremendously though. Ryan and Lucy were bilingual. In fact, many Chinese children at their school spoke and understood both Chinese and English. How did Po Po know?

  “Do you remember anything about where you are from? Or your mom and dad?”

  She shook her head.

  “Do you know the man who put you in the suitcase?”

  “No,” she said softly.

  She speaks!

  “Are you sure you don’t know the man?”

  She nodded.

  “What do you remember?”

  Her eyes fell to the side for a moment before she answered. “A man with a white coat.”

  “Were you in the hospital?”

  She shrugged.

  “But there were doctors?” I grabbed my phone and searched for an image of a doctor wearing a white coat. “Like this?” I showed her the photo.

  She nodded.

  “When we first met, you were in a hospital. Was the place you came from like that?”

  She shook her head.

  Hospitals can look different, but I had to imagine the interiors had similarities across the board. An institution perhaps? I wonder…

  I made a mental note to check the local hospitals that care for children with psychiatric problems.

  She yawned and her eyelids lowered.

  “I know you’re tired. We can talk more later.” I gave her a kiss on the forehead and then switched off the lamp on the bedside table.

  As I closed her bedroom door behind me, I didn’t hear any talking coming from Po Po’s room. I figured she had gone to bed. I checked the lock on the rear door and then walked to the front door and checked the deadbolt. I switched off the lamp near the bay window and then looked out across my front lawn for a moment.

  The moon that night shone bright, allowing me to see all the way over to my neighbor’s house across the street. In front of their lawn was a parked car. At least I thought it was parked until the headlights suddenly turned on and it drove off. I thought nothing of it and headed upstairs to my room.

  Later that night, I stirred in my sleep and, out of habit, checked the time on my phone. It was a little after three in the morning. I placed the phone back down. That was when I gasped

  Xiaolian was standing at the foot of my bed.

  I switched on a small lamp. “What’s wrong, sweetie? Did you have a nightmare?”

  The look on her face was a pretty good indicator that she had. I patted the bed. “Come here.”

  She climbed up on top and then slipped under the covers next to me.

  “Do you want to tell me about your dream?”

  She chewed on her bottom lip. “The girls,” she said.

  “Girls? Do you have sisters?”

  “No.”

  “Who are these other girls?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t know or don’t remember?”

  “I don’t know them.”

  “But you were with them?”

  “Yes.”

  “When were you with them?”

  “Before I was found.”

  “Hmmm, were they Chinese?”

  She nodded.

  My first thought was she may have been trafficked into the country. Of course if that were the case, why then stuff her in a suitcase and dump her outside the FBI offices? My second thought was that she spoke English without a noticeable accent. If she were from China, she would have some accent, unless she was raised around English-speaking people.

  I wonder…

  When Po Po and I spoke Chinese with her, we did so in Cantonese. I asked in Mandarin if she understood me. She nodded.

  “Do you remember flying on a plane?”

  “No.”

  “What about driving in a car?”

  “No.”

  “Were the other girls the same age as you?�
��

  She shrugged.

  “Did they look younger or older?”

  “Older.”

  “How many were there?”

  She shrugged again.

  “Three? Ten? Twenty?”

  “Not a lot.”

  “And you were with these girls before you were put in the suitcase?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know if they were put in suitcases too?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you try talking to them?”

  “No, but I heard one crying.”

  “Heard? You didn’t see them?”

  “Only when the light came on.”

  “You were in a dark place and sometimes a light turned on?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who turned on the light?”

  She shrugged.

  “You definitely heard crying in the dark?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever seen these girls before?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded.

  No planes. No cars. They were in a place where the lights were turned on and off but not by their control.

  “Do you think you traveled?”

  She thought for a moment. “We were moving.”

  I searched for an image of a typical eighteen-wheeler and showed her the picture. “Were you riding in a truck?”

  She pointed at the long trailer. “This.”

  “This is familiar? You were in a container like this?”

  “Yes.”

  “The other girls too?”

  She nodded.

  Well, that explained them having no control over the lighting situation. I made another mental note to check CCTV coverage of streets surrounding the office. It wouldn’t be hard to spot a semi-truck driving around at three in the morning.

  This investigation had quickly shaped up to be a case of human trafficking, but why would the traffickers leave her at the FBI offices? Were they trying to kill her? Did they think she was dead? It made no sense. Why not just dump the body if they believed she was dead? Did they want her to be found? What about the other girls? Did they drop them off at other places?

  I made another mental note to expedite the rape kit. There was only one reason young Chinese girls were trafficked into this country: prostitution. I also knew the men operating these prostitution rings tended to sell the girls to other rings. It was a way to keep fresh faces for their customers. Girls could easily be passed on for years. Some escaped, some ended up dead, and many ended up drug addicts. Rarely did I hear of them being let go, but there were girls who were discarded when the pimps felt like there was no value in them. I wondered if these girls were at the end of their product cycle?

  She yawned, pulling me out of my thought process, and cuddled into my side. Within seconds she fell asleep, and I had all the reasoning I needed to pursue the case.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The following morning I helped Xiaolian settle in at breakfast with the rest of the family before heading up to my home office on the third floor. Once there, I called Kang.

  “How was the first night with Suitcase Girl?” he asked.

  “I couldn’t introduce her as Suitcase Girl, so I’m calling her Xiaolian.”

  “Little lotus, huh? That’s much better.”

  “I made progress last night. She’s speaking. Oh, guess what? You’ll appreciate this. She understands Mandarin and Cantonese.”

  “Really?”

  “Po Po spoke to her, and she totally understood her. Don’t ask me why Po Po thought to speak Chinese to the girl, but she did. And when the girl speaks English, there isn’t any noticeable accent. I imagine she’s fluent in both Chinese and English.”

  “She’s educated.”

  “Yup.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Yeah, but that language thing, while impressive, isn’t the reason why I’m calling you. Turns out she’s not the only one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There were other Chinese girls with her. She said they were held in a dark container, most likely the trailer of a semi-truck.”

  “Trafficking?”

  “Sounds like it, but she also mentioned a doctor, or at least a man in a white coat. I don’t quite know how that fits.”

  “So she and a bunch of other girls were trafficked into the States from China.”

  “Yes, but if you bring the suitcase back into the picture…”

  “I see what you’re saying, Abby. Why ditch the merchandise, first of all? Secondly, why do it at the FBI offices?”

  “Exactly, unless these girls have been in the States for a while and were considered unwanted goods by the ring. Even if that’s true, why ditch the girl at our office? You see how the information wants to point toward trafficking, but the suitcase says otherwise?”

  “I do.” Kang let out a breath. “The good news is I think our case for taking on this investigation is growing stronger.”

  “Are you kidding me? It’s a slam dunk.”

  “What can I do?” he asked.

  “Expedite the rape kit. If she was here for a while, working… well, they might find something. Also, let’s run the prints on the suitcase through every database we have access to. This ring may not be local. Also, have the lab check the inside and outside of the suitcase for DNA. One last thing, we need to look at CCTV footage of the surrounding street and see if a semi-truck rolled up to our offices that morning. Pull Hansen and Pratt in on this if you need to.”

  “Will do. I’m heading in now,” Kang said.

  “I’ll be in a little later. I want to talk with her a bit more.”

  After the call, I headed back downstairs and joined everyone at the table. Xiaolian had made a nice dent in a healthy serving of Po Po’s pancakes.

  “Is it good?” I asked.

  She grinned and nodded.

  “Of course it good,” Po Po quickly reaffirmed with a few tsks.

  I saw that the pancakes were made with bananas so I munched on one, dry.

  “Po Po, do you mind walking the kids to school today? I want to talk to Xiaolian for a bit before I go to work.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  A little later I said goodbye to Po Po and the kids. Xiaolian had taken a seat in the living room. I grabbed a pen and a small notepad and joined her.

  “Are you having fun here?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  My priority that morning was to see if she could identify any of her captors or the truck they were riding in.

  “I want to talk about the time you spent in the dark with the other girls. Is there anything you can tell me about the inside of this space? Was it cold? Was it hot? Did it smell funny?”

  “No.”

  “No what?”

  “It wasn’t cold or hot. I had a blanket.”

  I jotted her answer down. “What about food or water?”

  “We had food and water.”

  “Anything else you can remember about the truck? Did you hear any strange noises? Did it stop for any extended period of time?

  Xiaolian just stared at me.

  “We’ll come back to the truck later. The man who put you in the suitcase, do you remember what he looked like?”

  She shrugged.

  “What about his voice? Would you recognize it?”

  She shrugged again. “Maybe.”

  “Was there more than one man?”

  “Yes, there were three.”

  “Did these men speak English or Chinese?”

  She nodded.

  “They spoke both languages?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  I found the same image of the semi-truck I had shown her last night. “Do you remember anything about the outside of the container? The color, or if there were words or pictures on it?”

  “It was a light color.”

  “But no words or pictures?”

  “
No.” She looked off to the side.

  “Think hard. It’s very important.”

  She closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated. A few moments later, she let out a defeated breath before opening her eyes.

  “It’s okay, sweetie. Maybe you’ll remember later.”

  But she closed her eyes again, tighter this time. Suddenly she gasped and jerked her head. “I remember numbers.”

  “Okay, what were they?”

  She rattled off four letters and seven digits.

  “You remember all of that?”

  She nodded.

  I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. She had just provided me with a solid lead.

  I called Kang and told him Xiaolian had identified the shipping code of the trailer. “There’s got to be some way to track it down,” I said.

  “I’m sure there is. I’ll get on it. Any chance it might be a logo or a name instead?”

  “Looks like an identification code. I would start there, and if you feel like you need to cross-reference, do so. I’ll be in soon to help.”

  The rest of my conversation with the girl went nowhere. It seemed that was the only real detail she could recall about the container. Same with the men and the doctor she had mentioned.

  By then, Po Po had returned from the school. She had agreed earlier to watch Xiaolian while I went to work. I contemplated bringing her to the office, but I felt the progress we made was connected with her staying at my home. I didn’t want to screw it up.

  “I might swing by during lunch to talk to her again,” I said to Po Po. “I’ll call beforehand.”

  Chapter Twenty

  When I arrived, Kang was already at his desk talking on the phone.

  “Good news?” I whispered as I removed my jacket and draped it over the back of my chair.

  “More like no news,” he said as he hung up. “There is a standard numeration on trailers, but it differs depending on the type of shipping container it is. We also need to factor in if it’s independent or company owned. If it’s part of a drop-container program, then hundreds of different companies will have access to it. Worst-case scenario is that it’s independently owned. It’ll be hard to track. The numbers might even be fake.”

  “So this will take time,” I said.

  He nodded. “Finding that container would help make our case to Reilly.”