Jack wanted to express his concerns from last night to Sarah but kept quiet. Jack looked at Emily, waiting for her to speak. But Emily just sat there frozen.
"What do you think of this?"
Emily just shook her head. She was evidently in shock and denial. Jack decided to give her time to process the tragedy. Emily was not used to people dying of suicide, even though she must have seen death several times.
"Let's get there now. Meet you downstairs in five minutes."
Emily nodded, her eyes still wide and frightened.
A half-hour later, they entered the hotel lobby. The place was flooded with local law enforcement. Every person entering was being questioned, and only the hotel guests were allowed inside. Neil, waiting in the hotel lobby, waived at Jack and Emily and let them inside the lobby.
"We are not legally allowed as this is an active crime scene, but I have an in with Wuhan Police Chief. Helped his daughter once to get out a tough situation". He winked at Jack. Jack returned a weak smile. He was not sure if joking and winking were appropriate at the moment.
Neil looked at Jack with a raised eyebrow, "So looks like those twenty-three Canadians will have to wait for an assessment?"
Jack felt slightly guilty, but Neil quickly smiled and said, "Just kidding. I know how it works."
The room was cordoned off with police tape. The evidence was already labelled. Jack saw Dr. Chung's lifeless body lying next to the bed, flat on his stomach. The .9 mm pistol was loosely held by his right hand. Dr. Chung was killed by a bullet wound, just an inch above his right ear. There was blood, and his brain splatter all over the side of the bedding. The bedding was made. He was in his nightshirt and pyjamas.
Jack saw Dr. Chung's laptop open on his desk. He saw Dr. Chung's briefcase from work next to the laptop. The briefcase had only one notepad in it. There was a cup of green tea on the desk next to the laptop. Dr. Chung's clothes were systematically arranged in the wardrobe which looked untouched.
Emily could not tolerate the visuals in the room and rushed to the bathroom to throw up. Four personnel from the Wuhan Police Department were working on wrapping up their work in the room. They were now bagging the evidence.
Neil asked them to stop in his broken Chinese. They obeyed to Jack's surprise.
Jack asked Neil, "Where is the suicide note?"
"It is a recorded video on his laptop. There seems to be no other data on the laptop. Probably wiped out."
Neil played the video. Dr. Chung was in his nightshirt and pyjamas. He was sitting on the chair by the desk and recording through the front camera on the laptop. Dr. Chung started the video in a straight face, his voice trembling,
"Dear daughter, I have done wrong by you since you were a child. All my life, I have tried to focus my work on bettering humanity. But I have failed. I have failed as a father and as a scientist. I could not keep my commitment to your mother, to you and now to my work. I do not have anything to live for anymore. I just wished to see you once more before I leave this world. Unfortunately, God is not willing to give me that opportunity. He is asking me to punish myself for my sins. Take care and be safe out there kiddo."
Jack played the video again. Emily and Neil were confused about what Jack was trying to look at.
Emily finally spoke for the first time since the breakfast, "He was serious about his commitment. Never crossed my mind that he was suicidal."
Jack just looked at her and acknowledged.
Jack thought it was a long shot, but asked anyway, "Neil, can we claim the right to his body? And his belongings? I would like to keep his laptop with me."
"Yes. Dr. Chung is a Canadian citizen, we will send his body to Shanghai for an autopsy, and his belongings will be examined and sent to his family in Canada. Anyway, local law officials are overwhelmed with the health crisis, so they want to offload as much as work possible."
Jack was surprised but happy, "That's perfect."
"Looks like he has an estranged brother and apparently a daughter. Funny, though, I do not see the information of his daughter in the file. Anyway, local police have concluded the cause of death as a suicide and probably will close the file on that note."
Jack and the team spent the next hour going through the evidence taking their own notes. Neil helped in translating the conversation with the Chinese officials. After a somewhat satisfactory analysis of the evidence, they went back to their hotel.
Chapter 11
"It is a murder and not a suicide."
Neil was alone with Jack in his hotel room. He was staring at Jack, looking for more explanation on his latest claim. Jack had his head in his hands. He got up and started pacing back and forth in the room.
Neil was still waiting for an answer. Jack was lost in his thoughts. Ignoring Neil completely, he started muttering to himself. Neil was increasingly getting frustrated and snapped, "Can you please stop walking for a minute? It's driving me crazy. Please elaborate on your conclusion?"
"First observation, Chung was holding the gun in his right hand, but I saw him sign the check yesterday with the left hand. So, if he was left-handed, then how come he shot himself with the right hand?" Jack emphasized "shot himself" so loud that his voice was almost shrill.
"Second, who addresses your child as the daughter and not by name? So, either Dr. Chung was forced to make the video, or it was an edited video with voice over. Third, his work suitcase had only blank notepad. Which scientist carries a suitcase with only blank notepad and no other documents? Fourth, the cup of green tea was half full. If you are killing yourself, why not finish the tea? Why would you decide to die in between drinking the tea? Fifth, Dr. Chung shows no emotions in that message. I mean, he is talking to his daughter; he does not even sound sad that he has failed as a scientist, whatever that means. And again, there is a laptop which has only one video. The laptop is formatted. Things do not add up to suicide."
Neil was looking at Jack with some kind of fanboy expression. He had forgotten about Jack's analytical skills. Trying to play devil's advocate, he asked, "But there is no sign of forced entry, struggle, or anything."
"It is simple. Dr. Chung knew his killer."
Emily entered the room. She was looking distraught, partially blaming herself for the death of her hero. She convinced herself that she had pushed Dr. Chung into guilt, which had led to his suicide. Jack had tried to convince her that it was not her fault, but it did not help.
Jack looked at Emily's devastated face, and momentarily felt an urge to give her a tight hug. Immediately suppressing his feelings, he turned to Neil, "We need to get the complete evidence and investigation report from the local police. Do you think we can get it?"
"Sure, we can."
"Thank you. I have to call Sarah."
Emily desperately asked, "What can I do?"
"Do not worry. Just go to your room and rest."
Jack called Sarah. It was 4 AM in Ottawa, but Sarah answered in two rings. "Hey Sarah, sorry to wake you. It is a murder and not suicide."
"What makes you say so?"
Jack presented her with the same arguments as Neil.
Sarah seemed entirely convinced with his observations. "What do you need from me?" she asked.
Jack noticed a sincerity in her voice. He took this as an excellent opportunity to ask the question he was wondering since the first time he saw Dr. Chung's body. "How much authority do I have here?"
"That is a trick question, Jack. Unofficially you can do whatever you want. Officially you are still Dr. Roger's colleague assessing the situation of stranded Canadians in Wuhan. Do you understand what I am saying?"
Jack very much understood. "Great. I need someone to recover the contents of Dr. Chung's laptop. I want to get into his emails."
"We have a new IT guy. Give me some time. I will get back to you."
"Sure. Talk to you soon."
Jack looked at Neil, expecting some reaction from the conversation with Sarah. Neil ignorantly asked, "Can we recover the emails?"
Jack looked at Neil. "There must be some backup on the cloud. Let's see what we can find. Anyway, let's get some food. I loved the place across the road. It's good meat there. I will text Emily to meet us there."
Emily immediately replied to Jack, "Not feeling like food. I will see you later."
Jack was a little nervous about Emily. She had virtually shut down after the news of Dr. Chung's death. Jack's mind was jumping between the murder and Emily. He was trying hard not to focus on Emily. After all, Emily was just a temporary colleague to Jack. He did not want to cross the line and lose the potential of friendship with Emily.
As they started crossing the road, Jack turned to Neil, "Do we have CCTV footage from the hotel?"
"Nope. Hotel is saying there was a brief power shutdown in the area around midnight, so we do not have footage for about forty minutes".
Jack chuckled, "Of course. I am betting the time of death falls into that timeframe."
"I will bet."
"Let's get the footage of the hotel hallway and streets outside, before and after the power shutdown."
Jack had ordered the same steak from yesterday. He had not had any lunch and abandoned his breakfast. And of course, this steak came free with the government paying his trip expenses.
Neil booked a room in the same hotel. He had decided to take a shower and then meet with Jack to discuss the evidence they were about to receive from Wuhan Police in the next hour.
Jack met Emily in the lobby. He had almost forced her to leave the room and fed her the cookie he bought from the vending machine. Jack extended his arms towards Emily, offering a hug. To Jack's delight, Emily gave him a quick hug. It was a very professional hug, but Jack's heart felt a bliss. "How are you feeling?"
"Still feeling like shit. Are you sure we are not responsible for this death?" said Emily in a shallow voice.
"Listen, Emily, it is a clear murder and not suicide. All the evidence suggests that. Please do not blame yourself, we are not responsible for this"
Emily was shocked by hearing the word "murder." Her eyes were wide open, her mouth opening and closing trying to spit out the words in reaction, but her vocal cords seemed to not be working. Her heart sank fifty feet as though someone was stomping on it with the giant foot.
Jack continued in a consoling voice, "I understand how shocking and disturbing this situation is, but I want your expertise on something. Would you be able to help me?" Emily just nodded.
Jack pulled out his laptop and presented Emily with the research paper, Dr. Chung had authored two years back. Emily looked at the title of the document, "Mutation of Zoonotic Virus and its Effects," and was confused, "I have read this paper. What do you want to know?"
"Is it possible to trigger the mutation of these viruses in the lab?"
Emily was confused. She decided to reread the paper. The first time Emily had read the paper was about two years back when it was first published. She had just started working with Health Canada as a specialist in the contagious disease department. At the time, her thirst to gain knowledge meant she read all the research articles published in the world. Emily did not have much field experience to relate the theories in the paper to the real world. Now she could validate the hypotheses to real life. The current strain of virus or VD-19, as it was called, had lots of similarities from the paper. The effects of the mutation mentioned in the document had a striking resemblance to the current impact on humans. After twenty minutes of silence, she looked at Jack, with a worrying look on her face. She timidly asked him, "Do you think Dr. Chung was involved in some experiments to mutate this virus in Wuhan Pharma lab?"
"It is one of my theories."
Emily let out a gasp. "Even if he or someone else thought of practically mutating the virus to its current strain, it would need a huge amount of experimentation. The theory of the paper clearly states the mutation is possible in four strict controlled parameters - those are hemoglobin content in blood, blood cell temperature, red blood cell count, and white blood cell count. And all these parameters have almost no tolerance in the values. Like the paper clearly states that mutation would be achieved only hemoglobin levels need to at 14.9 mg/dL -"
Jack raised his hand to interrupt Emily. He gave her a weak smile, "Okay, I would request you to speak English. I had my share of a foreign language for the day already. Can you tell me if this mutation could be achieved if all the said parameters were controlled?"
"Theoretically, Yes. Jack, I would like you to consider the possibility that you are just looking to blame someone for creating this tragedy and causing the death of your grandfather."
Jack's emotions skipped a few steps to move from kindness to anger. He was raging with fury with that statement. How dare she bring up his grandfather? What the hell did she know about his relationship with his grandfather? She had no right to talk about his personal life.
He could not control his anger as he had in the flight, he just yelled at her, "You do not know my family or me. Do not bring them into this. I am just a good policeman. I am trying to consider all possibilities. And talking about assigning blame, why are you so distressed over Dr. Chung's death? Why are you blaming yourself over some stranger's suicide?"
Emily busted into tears as Jack's volume rose. She was not used to being yelled at. Emily was raised by over caring and loving parents. Her good looks and smart academics meant she had gotten her way through everything since childhood. She got up and rushed out of the room, covering her mouth, trying to silence herself.
Jack felt like an ass. He had just shouted at a beautiful young lady for a stupid reason. Maybe Emily was right. Jack had been in denial about his loss this whole time. To be fair, he was never allowed to mourn and come to terms with it. He just dropped down on his bed with a hand on his forehead like he had a bad headache.
Neil entered Jack's room with a box and a file. They were marked in the Chinese language, which to Jack, was just some art. He assumed that it was the evidence and reports. Neil placed the box of evidence and file on the desk, "Where do you want to start?"
"Let's get Dr. Chung's laptop patched to our RCMP server so they can try to recover the contents of his laptop. Also, any fingerprints match in the report?"
"They are still running the analysis, but their preliminary study shows two sets of prints. It is safe to assume that one of them is Dr. Chung, and we need to wait for second prints to come back."
"What is the time of death?"
"They have estimated the time of death to be around midnight. I really think CCTV footage would have made it easy, huh."
Jack thought it would be fruitless to go through the evidence without further analysis reports. He was pacing to and fro in the room, thinking about the reason why Dr. Chung was killed. Assuming Dr. Chung knew the secret to the vaccine, the secret would have been protected by a legal contract between Dr. Chung and his employers. He could not have just given the secrets to other competitor companies. There had to be a significant motivation behind this murder. And who was this mysterious daughter, and why had she not been notified or why has she not shown up to mourn her father's death.
Neil was sitting on the bed, staring at Jack, expecting some instructions. "What do you think about our next steps?"
"I think we should visit the restaurant; Dr. Chung ate at every night. And also, let's go back to the hotel. I think you speak a little Chinese, right?"
Neil puffed his chest in pride and winked at Jack, "Sure. I can order food in any restaurant you want. Do you want to text Emily to join us?"
"No. This is detective work; not sure she will add any value." Jack did not want to talk to Emily after their little burst out but did not wish to tell Neil about it.
Chapter 12
As they were driving to the restaurant, Jack told Neil about a shadow in Tokyo and the mysterious tall Asian man in the restaurant.
"Is it possible that you are being prejudice about connecting the pandemic to the murder?", Neil carefully said, trying not to h
urt Jack.
Jack did not react to Neil's concern. His confidence to be a proper police officer was shaken since his demotion incident.
Neil continued, trying to explain his concerns, "I mean, in Tokyo, you had a long flight and no sleep. You could have imagined it. Or it could have been just some hotel staffer."
Neil paused, trying to study Jack's emotions. Jack showed none.
"And in the restaurant, it must have been some weirdo, freaked by seeing two white people in an entirely Chinese joint."
Jack looked out of the cab window. He let out a sigh of disappointment. He thought to himself if his friend and a fellow police officer was not believing him, how can a commoner like Emily trust his judgement.
He looked at Neil, "Maybe I am being prejudice." He said, putting an end to the conversation.
They entered the restaurant. The receptionist approached them, in broken English, he said, "Welcome. I am Bo. Here for early dinner? Only American people eat early. We Chinese like to eat late" He then recognized Jack and said, "Welcome back, good sir."
Jack smiled at him. He was relieved that the person spoke English, however, broken it was. He was not dependent on the translation.
"Hello Bo, do you work here every night?" The person smiled proudly. Proudly, he said, "Every night for the last fifteen years. Before me, my father was cook here. Very good food. You should try our Ramen. Best dish."
Jack thought this guy is one of the best salespeople he has met for a small restaurant. Jack pulled out the picture of Dr. Chung from his pocket and showed it to him. "Have you seen this person before?"
"Yes. Yes. Very good customer. Here every day. Orders the same food."
"Does he come alone, or does someone accompany him?"
"Always alone. Only one time, a pretty lady joins him. Very young. You not going to eat?"
"Sorry, Bo, Not today. We are his friends and looking for him. Can you describe this young lady to us?" Jack did not want Bo to know that his loyal, pleasant customer was no longer in the condition to eat anything.
The Hidden Agenda Page 6
