Fortune Cookie (Culinary Mystery)

by Josi S. Kilpack

  On my way to Choy’s. Need to talk to you.

  Ji didn’t respond by the time the cab driver pulled up in front of the yellow-and-red sign. The tourists were already scattered along the sidewalk even though half of the businesses wouldn’t open until 10:00. Sadie scanned the front of the building that housed Choy’s, her eyes traveling to the windows of the second and third floors, one of which housed Ji’s apartment. How did she access the front door?

  Sadie walked along the sidewalk and within a few storefronts encountered an unobtrusive door the same color as the building façade. There was a buzzer next to the door similar to the one outside of Wendy’s apartment, but the names—assuming they were names at all—were written in Chinese. Plus, it was five storefronts away from Choy’s, which seemed kind of far away. Sadie turned around and walked the other direction.

  On the other side of Choy’s was a small souvenir shop, but on the other side of that was another door. This one happened to have a doorway painted the same red as the doorway to Choy’s, which seemed as good an indication as any that this would be the access point for Ji’s apartment. It also had an intercom system. The names were still in Chinese though. Sadie bit her lip, her finger hovering over the buttons. Eeny, meeny, miny . . . she pushed the first button. A woman’s voice come on a few seconds later, saying something in Chinese.

  Sadie leaned toward the speaker. “I’m looking for the Doang family.”

  She released the button to hear the response but the line remained quiet. After a few seconds, she pushed the button again. “Hello?”

  The woman’s voice said something else in Chinese and, though Sadie didn’t understand any of it, the sharp tone told her that she must have the wrong apartment. Sadie nearly pushed the button to apologize but then thought better of it.

  She took a breath and punched the next number. No one answered.

  Another woman responded in Chinese to the third button.

  “I’m looking for the Doang family.”

  “Number four,” the woman said with a thick accent.

  “Thank you,” Sadie replied.

  “You welcome. Bye.”

  Sadie pushed the button for number four. A young voice greeted her with the now-familiar Chinese greeting, “Ni hao.”

  “Hi, is your dad home?”

  The girl responded in English. “He’s unavailable. Would you like to talk to my mother instead?”

  “Um,” Sadie said, thinking fast before making her decision. “Sure.”

  “Just a minute,” the girl said. The speaker went quiet for a few seconds.

  “Hello?” Lin Yang said from somewhere above Sadie.

  Sadie pushed the button so she could speak. “Hi, Lin Yang, it’s Sadie Hoffmiller. I’d like to talk to Ji. Do you know when he’ll be available?” She was trying to sound both friendly and firm; she wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Not with so much at stake.

  Three seconds ticked by before Lin Yang answered. “Ji isn’t home this morning.” She still had that clip to her words that made Sadie feel like she was always angry with her.

  “Is he at the restaurant already?”

  “What do you need to talk to him about?”

  It was Sadie’s turn to pause. Talking about this over a speaker was worse than over the phone. She also didn’t necessarily want to talk to Lin Yang about this without Ji, but she was equally resistant to the idea of putting this off. “Could I come up and talk to you?”

  “I’ll come down.”

  Sadie stepped away from the intercom and moved toward the souvenir shop. She didn’t want to be standing front and center when Lin Yang opened the door. Thirty seconds passed before Lin Yang stepped out of the doorway and onto the sidewalk. She was wearing black cotton capris, an oversized black shirt, and bright pink flip-flops. Her hair was pulled up into her signature bun on the top of her head—like a dancer. Sadie found herself looking closely at her roots. There was no regrowth to speak of, but she could have colored her hair in the last couple of weeks.

  “What is it?” Lin Yang asked.

  Sadie didn’t have to wonder if Lin Yang just sounded irritated this time. She was irritated, and it radiated from the set of her jaw, the lift of her chin, and the tightness of her shoulders. Sadie absorbed all this information and figured the best approach to take would be the direct one. “Have you ever been to Wendy’s apartment?”

  “No. Is that everything?”

  The quickness of her answer threw Sadie off for a moment, but she grabbed on to her train of thought before it got away. “Are you sure?”

  This time Lin Yang paused. “Why are you asking all these questions? You’re bothering my family. Ji has asked you to leave us alone, and I think you should do as he says.”

  “Ji hasn’t asked me to leave him alone,” Sadie countered. At least, he hadn’t asked it in so many words. “Why do you think he did?”

  “Wendy is gone. You need to leave him alone.”

  “Wendy is gone, but I’m here, and I’m looking for answers about what happened to her. Did you know Wendy?”

  Lin Yang turned her head to the side and looked into the street for a moment before looking back. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

  She turned toward the door, and Sadie stepped forward. “Lin Yang, I know you went to her apartment and—” She grabbed Lin Yang’s arm in order to keep her on the sidewalk but as soon as Sadie touched her, Lin Yang immediately twisted out of her reach, turned around, grabbed Sadie’s wrist, and bent it back toward Sadie’s forearm. Pain like lightning shot up Sadie’s arm and into her shoulder, causing her whole body to tense up.

  “Ow!” Sadie screamed, eliciting looks from a couple of tourists passing by.

  Lin Yang let go, and Sadie backed up a step, cradling her aching wrist in her other hand. It had taken all of two seconds for Lin Yang to have bested her, and Sadie was reeling from it. She’d never encountered someone who knew her own moves like that, though Sadie didn’t know that particular one and was disappointed in herself for not countering automatically. She hoped she wasn’t losing the skills that had saved her life more than once.

  Lin Yang held her eyes without flinching or attempting an apology. “I don’t want to talk to you.” She turned and let herself into the door.

  Sadie paused for exactly one beat, then pushed the intercom button for number four.

  The same young voice from earlier came on with the same Chinese greeting.

  “Is Min there?” Sadie asked quickly. It had taken Lin Yang about thirty seconds to get down to the street, surely it would take her that long to get back to the apartment.

  “Just a minute.”

  Sadie held her breath and counted: one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand, four-one-thousand, five—

  “Hello?”

  Sadie pushed the button so she could speak. “It’s Sadie. I need to talk to you. Call me at this number as soon as you can do so privately.” She rattled off her cell number then added, “Don’t tell your mother.” She repeated the number again then let go of the button.

  “Okay,” Min said quickly, then broke the connection.

  Sadie took a deep breath that she hoped would calm her racing heart. She pulled her phone out of her purse and stepped underneath the souvenir shop awning so it didn’t look so obvious that she was loitering outside the apartment door. Her phone vibrated.

  Min: I can’t talk. What’s wrong?

  Sadie: I need to ask you some questions. Can you meet me somewhere?

  Min: I’ll meet you behind the restaurant in ten minutes.

  Sadie: Perfect.

  Sadie headed toward the alley where she and Pete had gone the night before. She looked warily at the windows on the upper levels of the building once she was in the alley, which was empty this time of day. Could Lin Yang look down and see her? Just in case, she stayed as close to the brick wall as possible.

  Sadie felt sure she knew which apartment belonged to Lin Yang when she saw three black aprons s
waying on a line stretching from the top. She leaned against the door she’d met Min outside of last night and tried to prepare for what to say and how to say it. She didn’t want to come between a parent and a child, but if that parent was a murderer . . . she stopped herself. Did she truly believe that? Did she think Lin Yang could have killed Wendy? Sadie thought of the cold expression she’d seen on Lin Yang’s face when she had twisted Sadie’s wrist, and Sadie shivered. Maybe Lin Yang could.

  Chapter 27

  Ten minutes came and went. Then fifteen. Sadie texted Min a single question mark. She didn’t respond. After another two minutes—seventeen minutes felt like forever when heavy thoughts were swimming in her brain—she was considering what her next move should be when the back door of Choy’s began to open.

  She quickly stepped out of the way and Min poked her head out. She beckoned Sadie inside. Sadie was quick to comply, then blinked several times to help her eyes adjust to the darkened restaurant kitchen.

  Min pulled the heavy door shut behind them. “Sorry, I had to wait long enough that it didn’t seem suspicious that I came down a little early. Luckily I’m opening today, but everyone else will be here in about twenty minutes.”

  “Thanks for meeting with me,” Sadie said.

  They stood in a little alcove, a kind of enclosed porch with boxes stacked on either side. Min turned and walked toward the interior of the room; Sadie followed. There was better lighting here, and Sadie scanned the ancient-looking grills and stoves, blackened through years of use. A commercial dishwasher was in one corner, a shelf full of pans and utensils in another, and the smell of grease and spices hung heavy in the air. The room was smaller than she expected.

  “What’s happened?” Min asked, worried. “Why did you need to talk to me?”

  Though Sadie would have liked to ease Min’s nervousness, she wasn’t sure that was possible. At the same time, staring into this girl’s face reminded Sadie that although Min was an adult, she was still a child—Ji’s child. Sadie would need to handle this with delicacy. “I just had some follow-up questions about our conversation last night.” Her explanation did nothing to ease Min’s expression. “Is there any chance that your mother knew you had met Wendy?”

  Min shook her head.

  “Are you sure?”

  “My parents would have killed me if they knew.”

  “Is there any way your mom could have known that letter was from Wendy?” If that were the case, however, it didn’t explain why Lin Yang would have gone to the apartment a couple of weeks ago, and not when she’d found that letter back in May.

  “No,” Min said emphatically. “There’s no way my parents knew. I told you it didn’t have Wendy’s name or address on it. Why are you asking this?”

  Sadie sidestepped the question. “What did you tell your parents you were doing during the times you saw Wendy?”

  “I would stop after class on days when I wasn’t scheduled to be at the restaurant right away. I never stayed long—an hour at the most. They would be working and never realized I came in late so long as I beat the dinner rush.”

  “You don’t think they suspected anything? I get the impression they pay pretty close attention to their kids.”

  Min shook her head. “My parents are very busy, and I’m careful not to make those types of things a habit. They are very strict, though. If they’d known I was seeing her—seeing anyone without their permission—they’d have grounded me to my room for a year.”

  “They hated her so much?” And trusted you so little? but Sadie didn’t say that part.

  Min frowned. “My parents didn’t talk about Wendy much, but when they did, it wasn’t good. Once I got to know her, though, I realized that they just didn’t understand her. No one did.” She paused for a moment. “She was just different. Like, stuff didn’t worry her and she just wanted to do whatever with her life, you know? She was a free spirit, and even though I know she wasn’t a great mom when Ba ba was little, she felt so bad about that. She tried to apologize to him several times, but he wouldn’t accept it. She used to travel a lot and met all these movie stars and things. She was so cool, and my parents are just . . . They just don’t understand.”

  “Do you think they were trying to protect you from her?”

  Min pulled back slightly. “Protect me from what? She was an old lady. It’s not like she would ever hurt me or anything. And she was really sorry for not being a good mom to my dad. That day when she came into the restaurant to see him and he wasn’t there, she bought one of his jewelry boxes. She said that maybe that was the only part of him she would ever have. It was so sad.”

  Sadie didn’t allow herself to get caught up in the sentimentality. “You say she wouldn’t hurt you, but she got mad at you when you said you couldn’t send the letters anymore.”

  “Well, yeah, ’cause she had that game she was playing with her friend and I was messing it up.”

  “Didn’t it seem strange that she didn’t mail the letters from her own building? Doesn’t it seem that if you were uncomfortable, she should have been okay with you not sending the letters?”

  Min lifted her chin in defiance. “She was sick—like depressed and things. Like I said, no one understood her.”

  Except Min. Somehow Wendy had managed to create this ­us-against-the-world feeling between her and Min. She might have been mentally ill or just mean or whatever, but she had power over people. “Can you tell me anything else about the letters? Maybe who they were addressed to?”

  A flicker of guilt crossed Min’s face and she looked away.

  “Min,” Sadie pleaded. “This is really important.”

  Min looked back at her. “Why? Why does any of this matter? My grandmother is dead.” Her eyes filled with tears. “No one loved her, no one took care of her, and my parents would never understand if they knew that I at least tried. You’re supposed to help your family, and she needed help. I’m really glad I got to meet her before she died, but just because she’s gone doesn’t mean that everyone should talk bad about her and invade her privacy. She could write letters to whoever she wanted to.”

  Sadie processed everything Min said through the filter of a twenty-year-old young woman with hardworking but controlling parents. Of course she saw Wendy as a victim, especially since Wendy played up that position. And of course Min would want the same respect of privacy for Wendy that she wanted for herself. Min was an adult living in her parents’ home, under their rule, their structure. Sadie needed to treat Min like the adult Min wanted to be, not the child she still was in many ways.

  “I’m sorry,” Sadie said, lowering her chin and softening her tone. “I respect you for wanting to protect your grandmother. I have no doubt she was also glad to meet you; it must have been a great blessing to have had your help all those months. I would like to know who she wrote the letters to so I can talk to that person and see if they know anything that might help us figure out why this happened to Wendy. I don’t mean to make her out to be a villain. I just want to understand what happened. She was sending those letters to someone and that person might know something important. By helping me, you’re helping Wendy, Min.”

  Min’s expression had changed during Sadie’s explanation, and she dropped her head before taking a deep breath. Sadie hoped it was meant to give the girl extra resolve to help her. “I didn’t pay attention to the address or anything except for the fact that it was in Nob Hill.”

  “Okay, that’s helpful,” Sadie said, even though it wasn’t. She had no idea where Nob Hill was. Was it a district, like Mission and Chinatown, or a whole different city? But she could look it up later, so she didn’t push for details. “Thank you. And the name?”

  “That part was kinda weird.”

  “Kinda weird how?”

  “Well, I asked her one time if it was her sister or something ’cause they had the same last name. I hadn’t thought about how her last name was actually her ex-husband’s until way later.”

  “So the last name
was Penrose,” Sadie concluded, another piece snapping together. “What was the first name?”

  Min shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

  “That’s okay,” Sadie said quickly, holding onto the fact that it must have been a woman’s name for Min to have assumed it was a sister. “This is so helpful. What did she say when you asked if it was her sister?”

  Min looked uncomfortable and didn’t meet Sadie’s eyes. “She said she didn’t have a sister.”

  It still stung, but Sadie nodded as though it didn’t.

  Min continued. “Then she told me that Penrose was a pretty common name and it was no relation.” Min looked past Sadie toward a clock on the wall. “The other employees will be coming in soon. You should probably go.”

  “Thank you, Min,” Sadie said, stepping forward to give her a quick hug. “I so appreciate your help.”

  “And you’re not going to tell my parents about any of this?”

  “I’m not,” Sadie said, slipping into a more motherly role. “But Wendy’s neighbors saw you coming and going from her apartment. The police are going to be looking into it.”

  Min’s eyes went wide and her face paled.

  “I won’t tell your parents, but they are going to find out you were visiting Wendy. It might go better for everyone if you take responsibility and tell them yourself.”

  Min looked truly terrified at the suggestion.

  “Min,” Sadie said, putting a hand on the girl’s shoulder and giving her a quick squeeze of support and comfort. “Regardless of whether you agree with the way they show it, your parents love you. It’s not easy on us parents when our kids grow up. We’re scared for them, and it’s hard to consider our life without them. However unfair you may think they are, know that they are doing what they believe is best out of love. Even when they know the truth they will continue to love you. If I can help you talk to them, just say the word.”