Bella’s apartment was clean. Far too clean. Jane stood in the living room, staring down at a carpet that still bore the parallel tracks of recent vacuuming.
“This is the way we found it,” said Tam. “Kitchen and bathroom are scrubbed spotless. Not even a stray scrap of paper in the trash cans. It’s like no one lives here. Either she’s obsessive-compulsive about housecleaning, or she was scouring away any trace evidence.”
“How did she know we’d be coming here?”
“Anyone who gets a call to visit Boston PD is going to figure out they’re a suspect. She must have realized we’d be coming.”
Jane went to the window and peered through spotless glass at the street below, where two elderly women hobbled along the sidewalk, their arms linked. It was quiet on this corner of Tai Tung Village, at the south end of Chinatown. Iris Fang’s residence was right up the street, a minute’s walk away. The neighborhood was very much its own universe, and Jane felt like the alien here. It was a feeling reinforced by every stare, every nervous murmur among the neighbors. With her badge and her authority, Jane was the alien wherever she went, the outsider who could be either your best friend or your worst enemy.
She turned from the window and went into the bathroom, where Frost was down on his knees scanning the cabinet beneath the sink. “Nothing,” he said and rose to his feet, face flushed from bending. “Not a single hair in the shower or sink. All I found in the medicine cabinet was aspirin and a roll of Ace wrap. It’s like no one lives here.”
“Are we sure she does?”
“Tam spoke to the neighbor next door. Old guy in his eighties. Says he hardly ever sees her, but he does hear voices in here every so often.” Frost rapped the wall. “They’re pretty thin.”
“Voices, as in plural?”
“Could be the TV. She lives alone.”
Jane looked around at the pristine bathroom. “If she lives here at all.”
“Someone’s paying the rent.”
“Looks like someone’s also been through here with the bleach and a vacuum cleaner.”
“Funny thing about the vacuum cleaner. We can’t find one, so we have no bag to look at, no trace evidence.”
Jane headed into the bedroom, where she found Tam talking on his cell phone. He gave a nod as Jane stepped into the room. The floor was wood, swept clean. The sheets and bedcovers had been pulled back, the mattress exposed. Dropping to her knees, Jane peered beneath the bed and saw that the floor under the box spring was just as dust-free. A pair of shoes walked into view and Jane popped up to see a Boston PD criminalist looking at her across the mattress.
“We didn’t find any weapon,” he reported. “Unless you count the cooking knives in the kitchen.”
“You didn’t see anything like a sword?”
“No, ma’am. We went through the closets and drawers. Pulled out all the furniture and looked behind it.” He paused, glancing around at the bare walls. “I’m guessing she hasn’t been here very long. Not long enough to settle in.”
“If she planned to stay at all.”
“Didn’t bring much in the way of clothes, either.”
Jane opened the closet and saw no more than a dozen items hanging there, all size two. Three pairs of black pants, a few dark sweaters and blouses, and one sleeveless summer dress of soft peach silk. It was the wardrobe of a temporary visitor who clearly planned to move on. A girl who remained a mystery to them. Jane stared at the dress, trying to picture Bella Li wearing something so feminine, so flirty, but could not see it. Instead she saw the girl’s fierce eyes, her spiky black hair.
“Sorry to tell you this,” said Tam, holding up his cell phone. “But her alibi for April fifteenth is solid. I just spoke to the program director at the cultural center. That night they hosted a martial arts demonstration. Bella Li performed with eight students from the Dragon and Stars Academy.”
“What time was it?”
“The group arrived at six PM, ate dinner, and went onstage about nine PM. They were there for the whole evening.” He shook his head. “This isn’t going to stick, Rizzoli.”
“She has no alibi for April twenty-first.”
“That’s not a reason to hold her.”
“Then let’s find a reason, goddamn it.”
“Why?” Tam’s gaze was so probing, it made her uncomfortable.
She turned back to the closet, to avoid his eyes. “Something about her trips my sensors. I know she’s involved, but I don’t know how.”
“All we have is a surveillance video with a female figure. It might be her, but it might be someone else. We don’t have any weapon. We don’t have any trace evidence.”
“Because she blitzed this place with bleach before we got here.”
“So what do we have, besides your gut feeling?”
“It’s served me well before.” She reached into the closet and poked a gloved hand into pockets, searching. Not knowing what she was looking for. She found only stray change, a button, a folded tissue.
“You know, Tam’s right,” said Frost, standing in the doorway. “We have to release her.”
“Not till I know more about her. Who she really is,” said Jane.
“We’re just guessing.”
“Then let’s find what we need to prove it. There’s a trail somewhere, there has to be.” She crossed to the bedroom window and looked down at an alley. The sash was unlocked, the window open just enough to let in fresh air. A fire escape landing was right outside, and there was no screen on the window. Any other female tenant would feel nervous about this lack of security, but Bella Li was fearless, striding through life ready for battle. At night, in her bed, did she ever startle awake at the odd noise outside her window, the creak in the floor? Or did she sleep like a warrior as well, unafraid even in her dreams?
Jane turned from the window and suddenly stopped, her gaze on the curtain. The fabric was a polyester blend that never wrinkles, a print of beige bamboo stalks against a forest of green. On that multicolored background, the silvery streak was almost invisible. Only at that angle, with the room light glancing across the fabric’s surface, did Jane see the strand clinging to the fabric.
She pulled an evidence bag out of her pocket. Afraid to even breathe, she delicately plucked the strand from the curtain and slipped it into the bag. Holding the bag up to the light, she stared through plastic at the single hair. Then she looked at the window, and at the fire escape just beyond it.
It was here. The creature was in this room.
THIRTY-TWO
The hunter seldom realizes when he is the one being hunted. He walks in the woods, rifle in hand, eyes alert for his quarry’s prints on snow-dusted ground. He searches for spoor or sits perched in his tree blind, waiting for the bear to lumber into view. It never occurs to him that his prey might be watching him, biding its time until he makes a mistake.
The hunter who stalks me now would see little to fear. I appear to be merely a middle-aged woman, my hair streaked with gray, my gait slowed by weariness and the weight of the bags I carry, bulging with my weekly supply of groceries. I walk the same route I always walk on Tuesday evening. After shopping at the Chinese market on Beach Street, I turn right onto Tyler and head south, toward my quiet neighborhood of Tai Tung Village. I keep my head down, my shoulders drooped, so that anyone who sees me will think: Here is a victim. Not a woman who will fight back. Not a woman you need to fear.
But by now my opponent knows he should be wary, just as I am wary of him. So far we have sparred only in the shadows but have never actually connected, except through his surrogates. We are two hunters still circling each other, and he must make the next move. Only then, when he emerges into the light, will I know his face.
So I walk down Tyler Street as I have so many times before, wondering if this is the night. I have never felt so vulnerable, and I know the next act is about to begin. The bright lights of Beach and Kneeland streets fade behind me. I move through shadows now, past dark doorways and unlit alleys, th
e plastic grocery sacks rustling as I walk. Just a tired widow minding her own business. But I am aware of everything around me, from the mist on my face to the scent of cilantro and onions wafting from my bags. No one escorts me. No guardian stands watch. Tonight I am alone, a target waiting for the first arrow to come flying.
As I draw near my home, I see the light over the porch is dark. Deliberate sabotage or merely a burned-out bulb? My nerves hum with alarm and my heart accelerates, rushing blood to muscles that are already tensing for battle. Then I spot the parked car and see the man who steps out to greet me, and my breath rushes out in a sigh of both relief and exasperation.
“Mrs. Fang?” says Detective Frost. “I need to speak with you.”
I pause beside my front stoop, arms weighed down by groceries, and stare at him without smiling. “I’m tired tonight. And I have nothing more to say.”
“At least let me help you with those,” he offers and before I can protest, he snatches the grocery sacks from my hands and carries them up the steps to my porch. There he waits for me to open the door. He looks so earnest that I don’t have the heart to reject his offer.
I unlock the door and let him in.
As I turn on lights, he carries the sacks into the kitchen and sets them on the counter. He stands with his hands in his pockets and he watches as I put pungent herbs and crisp vegetables in the refrigerator, as I stock pantry cabinets with cooking oil and paper towels and cans of chicken broth.
“I wanted to apologize,” he says. “And to explain.”
“Explain?” I ask, sounding as if I really don’t care what he has to say.
“The sword, and why we took it. In a murder investigation, we have to explore all avenues. Follow every line of inquiry. The weapon we’ve been looking for is a very old sword, and I knew you owned one.”
I shut the pantry cabinet and turn to him. “By now you must have realized the mistake you made.”
He nodded. “The sword will be returned to you.”
“And when will Bella be released?”
“That’s more complicated. We’re still looking into her background. Something I was hoping you could help us with, since you know her.”
I shake my head. “The last time we spoke, Detective, I ended up being considered a suspect, and my family heirloom was confiscated.”
“I didn’t want that to happen.”
“But you’re a policeman, first and foremost.”
“What else would you expect me to be?”
“I don’t know. A friend?”
That makes him pause. He stands beneath the harsh kitchen lights, which make him look older than he is. Even so, he is a young man, young enough to be my son. I don’t want to think about how those unflattering fluorescent lights must age my face.
“I would be your friend, Iris,” he says. “If only …”
“If only I weren’t a suspect.”
“I don’t consider you one.”
“Then you aren’t doing your job. I could be that killer you’re searching for. Can’t you picture it, Detective? This middle-aged woman swinging a sword, leaping around on rooftops and cutting down enemies?” I laugh in his face and he flushes, as if I’ve slapped him. “Maybe you should search my house. There could be another sword hidden here somewhere, a weapon you don’t even know I have.”
“Iris, please.”
“Maybe you’ll report back to your colleagues that the suspect has turned hostile. That she’s not going to be charmed into giving away any more information.”
“That’s not why I’m here! The night we had dinner, I wasn’t trying to interrogate you.”
“What were you trying to do?”
“Understand you, that’s all. Who you are, what you think.”
“Why?”
“Because you and I—because …” He gives a heavy sigh. “I felt like we both needed a friend, that’s all. I know I do.”
I regard him for a moment. He is not looking at me; his gaze is focused somewhere beyond me, as if he can’t bring himself to look me in the eye. Not because he’s untruthful, but because he’s vulnerable. He may be a policeman, but he’s afraid of my opinion of him. There’s nothing I can offer him now, not comfort or friendship or even a touch on the arm.
“You need a friend your own age, Detective Frost,” I say quietly. “Not someone like me.”
“I don’t even see your age.”
“I do. I feel it, too,” I add, massaging an imaginary kink in my neck. “And my illness.”
“I see a woman who’ll never get old.”
“Tell me that in twenty years.”
He smiles. “Maybe I will.”
The moment trembles with unsaid words, with feelings that make us both uncomfortable. He is a good man; I see that in his eyes. But it’s absurd to think we could ever be more than mere acquaintances. Not because I am nearly two decades older than he is, although that alone is a barrier. No, it’s because of the secrets that I can never share with him, secrets that place us on opposite sides of a chasm.
As I walk him to the door, he says: “Tomorrow I’ll bring the sword back to you.”
“And Bella?”
“There’s a chance she’ll be released in the morning. We can’t hold her indefinitely, not without evidence.”
“She’s done nothing wrong.”
In the doorway he stops and looks straight at me. “It’s not always clear what’s right and what’s wrong. Is it?”
I stare back at him, thinking: Could he know? Is he giving me permission for what I’m about to do? But he merely smiles and walks away.
I lock the door behind him. The conversation has left me off balance, unable to focus. What to make of such a man, I wonder as I head up the stairs to change my clothes. Yet again, he makes me think of my husband. His kindness, his patience. His open mind, so ready to welcome possibilities. Am I a vain fool to entertain such an unlikely friendship? I am distracted, mulling over the conversation, and I miss the clues that should have warned me. The tremor in the air. The faint scent of unfamiliar flesh. Only when I flip my bedroom light switch and nothing happens do I suddenly realize I am not alone.
The bedroom door slams shut behind me. In the darkness, I cannot see the blow hurtling toward my head, but my instincts spring to life. Something whooshes just above me as I duck and spin toward the bed, where my sword is concealed. Not the decoy reproduction that I surrendered to the police, but the real Zheng Yi. For five centuries she has been passed down from mothers to daughters, a legacy meant to protect us, defend us.
Now, more than ever, I need her.
My attacker lunges, but I slip away like water and roll to the floor. Reach under the box spring for the niche where Zheng Yi is hidden. She fits into my hand like an old friend and makes a musical sigh as she slides from her scabbard.
In one fluid motion I rise and whirl to face the enemy. The creak of the floor announces his location, to my right. Just as I shift weight to attack, I hear the footfall, but this one is behind me.
Two of them.
It’s the last thought I have before I fall.
THIRTY-THREE
Jane crouched down beside Iris’s bed, reading the evidence and not liking what it said to her. There were red splatters on the floor and on the edge of the sheets where a body had fallen. The blood loss was minimal, certainly not enough to be fatal. Rising to her feet, she stared down at smeared drops, across which a body had been dragged. She had already spotted more blood on the stairs, and on the front porch where the door had been left wide open, alerting Iris’s neighbors that something was very wrong.
Jane turned to Frost. “You’re sure about the time? It was nine PM when you left last night?”
He nodded, a dazed look in his eyes. “I didn’t see anyone else around when I came out of the house. And I was parked right outside.”
“Why were you here?”
“To talk to her. I felt bad about what happened. About taking the sword.”
“You
came to apologize for doing your job?”
“Sometimes, Rizzoli, the job makes me feel like an asshole, okay?” he shot back. “Here’s a woman who was already a victim. She lost her husband and her daughter. And we turn her into a suspect. We interrogate her. We made her a victim all over again.”
“I don’t know what Iris Fang is. I do know that she’s been at the center of this from the beginning. Everything that’s happened seems to revolve around her.” Jane’s cell phone rang. “Rizzoli,” she answered.
It was Tam on the line. “Kevin Donohue says he has an alibi for last night.”
“And his men?”
“That’s the problem. They’re each other’s alibis. All three swear they spent the evening together in Donohue’s residence, watching TV. Which means we can’t believe a word from any of them.”
“So we can’t rule them out.”
“We can’t prove it in court, either.”
Jane hung up and turned in frustration to the window. On the street below, a trio of elderly Chinese women stood staring up at her, chattering among themselves. What do they know that they’re not telling us? Nothing about Chinatown was ever straightforward, nothing was as it seemed. It was like peering through a silk screen, never getting a clear image, a complete picture.
She turned to Frost. “Maybe Bella will finally talk to us. It’s time to put all our cards on the table.”
Bella looked even more hostile today, her hands closed in fists, gaze hard as diamonds. “It’s your fault this happened,” she said. “I should have been there. I would have stopped it.”
Jane looked into those glittering eyes and suddenly imagined the young woman springing up like a wildcat, attacking with teeth and claws. But she kept her voice calm as she said: “So you knew this would happen? You knew they would take her?”
“We’re wasting time! She needs me.”
“How will you help her when you don’t even know where she is?”
Bella opened her mouth to speak, then glanced at the one-way mirror, as if aware that others were watching.
The Rizzoli & Isles Series 11-Book Bundle Page 270
