While she busied herself with hugging and kissing the rest of the family, I turned my attention to the three men standing at the table.
“Now this is a sight to see,” I said as I folded my arms across my chest and shifted my weight to one leg.
“Abby, it’s good to see you.” David Lee was the first to wrap his arms around me, followed by Francis Chun and Junior Ming.
Lee had been fresh out of the academy when he was assigned to OTCB under me. I had taken a liking to him and mentored him early on. He had a knack for gathering intelligence, which is the department he eventually gravitated to. Chun was a senior inspector when I joined the HKP. He was one of the few individuals who’d treated me with respect from the get-go. He retired shortly after I left. Lastly, there was Ming, my first and only partner with HKP.
“Man, it’s great to see you again,” Ming said, lifting me off the ground in an enormous hug. Ming wasn’t your stereotypical Chinese male; he was six feet tall and broad shouldered with a meaty chest and tree stumps for arms. I had saved his head from being blown off by a shotgun early on in our partnership. It was the turning point in my career with the force. I had begun to earn the respect of my colleges.
“My God, can you get any bigger?” I asked as he lowered me. I wrapped both hands around one of his biceps and still couldn’t close the gap.
“And you’re still the toughest woman I know,” he said in a lowered voice. “Don’t tell Leslie I said that. She thinks she’s the toughest woman I know.”
We both laughed, and everyone took a seat. Leslie sat to the right of me, Po Po to the left. The kids were mixed in with the others. Ryan immediately took a seat next to Ming. He couldn’t wait to meet him when I told him he was an accomplished martial arts expert—he still holds the academy’s record for the fastest takedown and pin.
“I’ve already gone ahead and put our order in,” Leslie said to the table. “We have eight courses coming our way, and the only thing I want to see at the end are plates that have been licked clean.”
The first dish to hit the table was Sichuan-style chicken noodle soup. The aroma alone was enough to make our mouths water and increase the rumbles in our stomach. Hunks of tender chicken and perfectly cooked noodles soaked in a complex broth with overlays of star anise, cinnamon, tangerine peels, and just enough Sichuan pepper to provide a bit of heat on our tongues. Each slurp begged for another, and everyone tilted the bowls against their lips to get the last drop.
Sliced drunken chicken—steamed chicken marinated in Shaoxing wine—was the perfect cold dish to follow the soup—delicate, juicy, and rich in flavor.
Other courses included Peking duck with pear and grapefruit, tiny river shrimps with tea leaves, steamed bean curd with stuffed pork, lobster yee mein, a noodle dish packed with sweet lobster, spring onions, ginger, garlic, and golden noodles coated with a light cheese sauce. This was a first for me—the cheese coating was unexpected, but my stomach was very happy with it. The highlight was the roasted suckling pig with perfect crackling: thin and brittle tiles that crunched with every bite. Stuffing a bit of the pork, crispy skin, and sweet hoisin sauce into a soft bun created a Chinese sandwich to die for.
We ended our meal with a selection of egg tarts and almond jelly. Once again I had to secretly undo the top button of my jeans. I suspect I wasn’t the only one—that was the life raft I chose to cling to.
Of course, eating wasn’t the only thing on my mind that night. Leslie and I managed conversation between bites.
“Wait, a 4.8 earthquake? That sounds huge. What was it like?”
“The best I can describe it is…it’s the same feeling you get with turbulence on a plane. It’s not so much the shaking. It’s the loss of control. Knowing you can’t do anything and are at the mercy of other forces is what makes it so frightening.”
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t cancel your trip,” she said, squeezing my arm. “I’m so happy you’re here. Oh, I meant to ask, how are your parents? Are they still in Northern China?”
After my father retired, he and mom moved to Harbin, a large city near the border of China and Russia. Why they decided to move there instead of staying in Hong Kong was beyond me. “They’re fine. Did I tell you that they manage the Harbin Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival?
“Get out of here. Your parents run an internationally famous ice festival? Who does that? How on earth did they score that gig?”
“It’s a mystery to me. You know my father—man of a million talents.”
“Are you going to visit? It’s not that long of a flight.”
I shook my head. “I wanted to but the timing doesn’t work. They’re on holiday in Croatia as we speak.”
“Oh, that’s too bad. Have you seen them since you left Hong Kong?”
“We video chat, but you know…” I shrugged. “So tell me about this case that had you skipping lunch. It must have been important to make you forego food,” I said, smiling.
“A construction crew was demolishing a building when they discovered a skeleton buried in one of the walls.”
“Oh, wait, I heard about that on the news. Missing Mummy, right?”
“Yes, that’s the one. The body was partially mummified. There’s a joke floating around the office: Daddy’s had a sex change. He’s mummy now.”
I slapped my knee at Leslie’s joke, but Po Po didn’t seem to share our brand of humor as I heard a couple of tsks leave her lips. “You peg the developer as your guy?” I asked.
“I’d like to, but right now, the records for the building are MIA. We’re having to work our way back from the current owner and hope the trail leads us to the original developer.”
“I tell you, I don’t miss the disorganization of city records. At the FBI, we pretty much have access to everything we could want. It cuts down the amount of time spent on foot, knocking on doors and piecing together bits of information.”
“Are you offering to help me?” Leslie asked, raising her eyebrows.
“Ha, ha. Good one. Nah, I’m just having a little fun at your expense.” I elbowed her side.
“Keep it up, and I swear I’ll find a way to reel you in.” Her eyes sparkled.
I mimicked casting a fishing line across the table and started reeling it back in.
“Be careful, Abby,” she warned.
I continued with the fishing act and pretended to hook something. “Help me, Leslie. It feels like a big one.”
We both burst into laughter. No way I would let anything work related, FBI or HKP, encroach on my vacation. As far as I was concerned, Agent Kane was out of the office and not to be bothered.
Chapter 14
Immobile. Sloth-like. Lethargic. Those are the words I would use to describe the remainder of our evening. We rolled ourselves back to the hotel—well, we rolled ourselves into a taxi that dove us back to the hotel—and then proceeded to lounge around the suite like warm piles of putty. However, the next day was a different story. The Kane-Yee household was up early and ready to explore.
The itinerary involved taking a trip down memory lane. We planned to visit the old neighborhood where the kids and I lived before moving to America. Po Po had her own apartment during that time. I thought it would be a good way to reminisce about the time when their father was alive. I didn’t believe in hiding what had happened. The kids were aware of his murder.
Peng was a widower with two children when we first met. We had a fast and furious courtship, and within a year of meeting, we married. Our blissful life came to an abrupt halt six months later when a colleague pulled me aside and gave me the news. Peng was found dead, brutally murdered. In an instant, everything I thought I cared about had been ripped from me. I had never felt so much emptiness and hurt than at that very moment. If not for the children and Po Po, that hole would have never been filled. They helped me heal. They gave me a reason to carry on.
Peng and the children lived in a fairly large two-bedroom apartment located in the Mong Kok neighborhood near a flower marke
t. After their mother died, Po Po had temporarily moved in to help watch after the kids. It was a quiet residential area with a large park nearby—a perfect place for raising children.
Before we met, I lived in the Central district on Hong Kong Island, where HKP Headquarters was located, but after we married, I moved in with them, and Po Po returned to her apartment. Peng didn’t want to live in one of the high-rises on Hong Kong Island. “I feel like I’m in a cell block living with the masses,” he had told me. The move extended my commute, but I didn’t mind.
The building looked the same, except for a new coat of paint. “Remember the apartment, Ryan?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yeah, I remember playing out here. And I remember that Dad and I used to kick a soccer ball around over there,” he said, pointing to a small grassy area in front of the building.
“That’s right. You guys did.”
“Mommy, I don’t think I remember any of this,” Lucy said, disappointed.
“Well, you were very young, but you lived here until you were four. I used to walk with you right along here.”
“Oh yeah.” Lucy smiled.
“Po Po, do you remember?” Ryan asked.
She seemed lost in thought when Ryan asked the question. It took a moment or so for her to answer. Her eyes were locked on the far balcony of the eighth floor—our apartment.
“I remember. Your father liked living here, and everyone know him.”
I couldn’t agree more with Po Po. Everyone from the butcher to the shoeshine boy who roamed the streets knew my husband. Peng always said hello to people he passed. And he always remembered their names.
“You a lot like your father,” Po Po said, turning to Ryan. “He very good in martial arts at your age.”
“Maybe that’s why I’m best in my age group at my dojo.” He then did a series of strikes.
I laughed.
When I first met Peng, I wasn’t initially attracted to him. He wasn’t my type. But the next day, I found myself thinking about him. It confused me because I wasn’t interested, but he continued to consume my thoughts. By the third day, I found myself angry with him for not trying to contact me. Forget the fact that I gave him no indication I was even remotely interested. Yup, crazy Abby. Angry with a man I met only once for not asking me out on a date at a later time when I did nothing but rebuff his every advance at our one and only encounter. Poor Peng. He didn’t even know me, and I had already started filing away ammunition for a future argument.
“Your father had impressive skills,” I said as I walked over to him. “I first met him at the dojo. He spent two hours trying to impress me with his moves.” I moved into an offensive position and gave a playful kick toward Ryan. He took a step back, arms raised in defense.
“Really?” Ryan asked with inquisitive eyes.
“It took some time but yeah,” I smiled, messing up Ryan’s hair.
We spent the next half hour or so relaying stories to the kids, filling in details they had forgotten or especially in Lucy’s case, weren’t even aware had happened.
Afterward, we hopped into a taxi and made our way to the northern part of Kowloon, where the Shek Kip Mei public housing complex was located. The government built it in 1953 to solve the migrant problem flowing in from mainland China. It encompassed twenty-six blocks.
“This is where your father live as a little boy,” Po Po said as we exited the taxi and stared at the buildings. “I remember it bigger and not as nice,” she added.
The government had done extensive renovations to the complex since Po Po had lived there. Some of the high-rises had been demolished and replaced with small ones.
“How long did you and Dad live here?” Ryan asked.
Po Po pursed her lips as she thought. “He was baby when we move in and teen when we move out.”
“Which apartment was yours, Po Po?” I asked.
“I don’t think building still here,” she said.
“Your building might have been one the government knocked down during their renovation.”
“Each room only big enough for five people,” Po Po said, holding up her hand. “We had eight people. So crowded.”
“Wow,” Lucy said, drawing the word out.
Po Po nodded. “We have simple life. When your father can work, he take job washing dishes. He was only twelve. He come home from school, do homework, then go to restaurant.”
“When did he have time to practice kung fu?” Ryan asked
“After work, he practice one hour and then I make him sleep.”
“Your father never shied away from hard work,” I added.
“Why did he work?” Lucy asked.
Po Po turned to her. “He want better place to live. Each time we move, we have better apartment.” Her voice cracked a bit, and her eyes turned glassy for a moment—one of the rare instances where she showed emotion. “After he finish university, he was very successful. He always tried hard to make me comfortable.”
“By the time we met, you were living in a very nice apartment with views of Victoria Harbor,” I said.
We spent a bit more time walking around the complex while Po Po continued to talk about life there. It was nice to see the kids hang on her every word.
Chapter 15
At HKP headquarters, Leslie had spent the better part of the morning with her head buried in paperwork when a knock on the door grabbed her attention.
“Got a minute?” Lee asked, leaning halfway through the doorway. He held a small cardboard box that had a large oil stain on one of the sides and a delicious aroma emanating from it.
“Yeah, I’m just trying to catch up on these reports. Seems like every damn thing needs to be written up for some obscure filing cabinet.”
“You think it’s bad here? You should see the amount of documentation we have to produce in Criminal Intelligence,” he said as he took a seat and placed the box on her desk. “Sometimes I feel like I’m writing a modern version of War and Peace.”
Leslie chuckled as she watched Lee open the top of the box. “I figured you hadn’t eaten yet. Pork dumplings,” he said.
“You figured right.” She leaned forward and eyed the half-moon-shaped morsels briefly before plucking an extra-plump one from the box. A mixture of tender, oily pork goodness spewed into her mouth with the first bite.
Lee did the same and spoke in between chews. “I did more digging, and I got a name on the company that built the building: Lotus Development.”
“All right, now we’re getting somewhere.” Leslie popped the remaining dumpling into her mouth, and her left cheek bulged like a chipmunk. She chewed and wiped her fingers with a napkin while waiting for him to continue with the good news.
Lee swallowed. “Sadly, that’s all I got. They’ve since gone out of business, and I can’t locate any other information on them. It appears they built one building and called it quits.”
“Seems unlikely,” Leslie said, pulling her head back and crinkling her brow. “Who was the owner?”
“Good question. That part of the paperwork was left blank.”
“Like never recorded?” She helped herself to another dumpling.
“No, more like the record was updated without the owner’s name. It’s dated a year after the building was constructed. Seems like an afterthought to cover up loose ends. I’ll continue to poke around and see if the original record still exists.” Lee bounced both of his legs as he worked on his third dumpling.
“Your conversation with Sheila Yang—did it turn up anything useful?”
“I’m not so sure she’s the person responsible,” Leslie said, brushing a piece of dumpling off the front of her blouse. “She’s a typical slumlord operator, except her tenants are small businesses, not families. She buys buildings and then squeezes every ounce of value from them before selling the land. That lady doesn’t sink a single dime into those properties. I doubt she broke down a wall, stuck a body in it, and then patched it up. It’s cost prohibitive.”
“A
lot of people kill for money. And if she’s the capitalist you peg her to be, perhaps she found a way to capitalize on a previous tenant. Insurance payout. Extortion. Maybe the business owner was dirty, and she found out and blackmailed the guy. He refused. Things got out of hand, and someone ended up dead.”
“Nah, she’s the type who would find a new tenant and when the old one came to the office the next day, he would find the locks changed with a new business already in place. She wouldn’t do anything to purposely disrupt her cash flow. She squeezes those tenants like she does the building. Unless we can determine a financial benefit to killing someone, I not so sure she’s responsible. But hey, talk to Sheila and see if she can provide a list of all the businesses in the building, and look at the ones that had their offices near that wall.”
Lee crossed a leg over the other. “We need to find out who owned Lotus Development. It’s the obvious questions that are the hardest to answer. I do have some good news about the skeleton. I spoke with Dr. Fang. He found two separate strands of DNA.”
Leslie’s eyebrow perked. “We have the killer’s DNA.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. Unfortunately, he already ran both profiles through our database. No match.”
“Still, this changes things. Let’s keep Roger Song and Sheila Yang in play. See if they’re willing to submit a DNA sample. We might get lucky and get a hit on the second profile. While you’re at it, talk to them about business associates, family members, and boyfriends or girlfriends. Let me know if anybody interesting comes to light.”
“Your comment about the tenants,” Lee said as he wiped his fingers and mouth with a napkin. “You think one of them did this and Sheila is totally oblivious to it?”
“It’s a possibility. Let’s dig deep.”
Chapter 16
After leaving Shek Kip Mei, food was the next stop on our itinerary. Po Po knew of an excellent noodle shop nearby that she’d frequented when she and Peng lived in the area. It was family run, three generations in the making, with a menu consisting of thirty varieties of chow fun and lo mein noodle dishes. Half the fun would be choosing one—foreplay for my stomach. At least some part of my body would get some action.
Kowloon Bay (Abby Kane FBI Thriller Book 3) Page 5
