by Scott Mackay
“Oh, and by the way,” said Telford. “The lab techs finally swabbed your glove.”
“And?” said Gilbert.
“Positive for barium and antimony,” said Telford.
“I don’t believe it,” said Lombardo, as if a lame nag had just trotted into the winner’s circle.
Gilbert turned to Lombardo, feeling as if this might be the high point of his day. “I find a glove in a tree, it’s dry on the inside, someone’s just recently thrown it there, and you don’t believe it?” One of the great pleasures of his partnership with Joe was making Joe eat his own words. “You must learn from me, my son.”
Lombardo’s handsome face twisted into a contrite but still incredulous frown. “Come on, it was a long shot,” he said.
“Not so long when you think of the experienced criminals we’re dealing with,” said Gilbert. “They’re going to know about barium and antimony. Shoot the victim wearing a glove, then throw the glove away. That way, when the police swab you, you come up dry. You’re running from the crime scene, you have to get rid of the glove, so you fling it into someone’s backyard. Only it lands in a tree.” He turned to Telford. “Tell them to keep working on it. See if they can turn up fibers or hair, or dead skin inside the glove, something that might give us a chance at a DNA match. And I guess we should check how many men’s beige Isotoners were sold city-wide, see if we can get names of purchasers from charge-card slips.”
“Sure,” said Telford.
Nowak’s office door opened. “Barry?” called the new staff inspector. “Joe?” Nowak beckoned with a finger, his face sleek and composed. Gilbert and Lombardo glanced at each other. They would weather this together.
“Up, up, and away,” said Gilbert.
The detectives went to Nowak’s office. Nowak introduced Gilbert and Lombardo to the two men. “This is Sergeant Frank Hukowich of the RCMP’s Asian Organized Crime Squad,” he said, “and this is Special Agent Ross Paulsen of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.”
Gilbert shook hands with the two men. He now recognized Hukowich, remembered him from an inter-agency baseball game three years back, how the man had been wearing a back brace at the time, nothing that interfered with his umping the game, just odd-looking, like the thorax of an insect. The brace was now gone. Hukowich was well over six feet, had his hair brushed back from his wide brow in a impressive wave. He had a bushy brown mustache and light green eyes that seemed unresponsive to their surroundings. Ross Paulsen, a far slighter man, had curly gray hair so short it reminded Gilbert of the nap on a tennis ball. He smelled strongly of cologne. The difference between the two men was like the difference between a wolf and a colobus monkey. Gilbert was anything but happy to see them. He knew these two men had come to run interference.
“Frank and Ross are here to help us with Edgar Lau,” said Nowak, casually, easily, as if they were all good friends, all part of the same club. Nowak turned to Hukowich and Paulsen. “Barry and Joe are two of my best detectives,” he said. “They’ve worked several gangland slayings over the years.”
They talked about some of the gangland slayings Gilbert and Lombardo had solved, Gilbert offering short, to-the-point replies, sensing manipulation in everything Hukowich and Paulsen said, wondering when they were going to get to the point. Hukowich suggested that murder investigations, important though they were, might yield greater and potentially more vital results if they were handled with an eye to netting other suspects involved in related criminal activities.
“We’ve been investigating Foster Sung for a long time,” said Hukowich. “Benny Eng’s case file is slim compared to ours.” He paused, looked at Gilbert with something approaching pride, like an avid golfer about to show off his best set of clubs. Gilbert wasn’t sure why Frank Hukowich eased toward Edgar’s murder through Foster Sung’s alleged criminal history. “We have intelligence photos of Foster Sung sitting with Bing Wu in a restaurant in Wiang Phran, in northern Thailand.” Maybe Hukowich meant to discuss Pearl Wu, their strongest suspect, by the oblique route of Foster Sung’s suspected association with Bing Wu, Pearl’s husband. “Bing Wu is believed to head a major drug smuggling operation in Southeast Asia, centered in Hong Kong.” Then again, maybe not. “And if you don’t know anything about the city of Wiang Phran, it’s heroin central, right in the middle of the Golden Triangle. I think you can guess why Foster Sung and Bing Wu were in Wiang Phran.” Hukowich slid his hands into his pockets and jangled his keys with the savoir faire of a self-appointed expert. “So you see, Barry,” he said, in the tones of an evangelist wearily converting a pagan, “this could turn into more than just an ordinary homicide investigation.” He stopped jangling his keys, gave Gilbert a pointed look. Gilbert felt as if he had missed something, couldn’t see how Foster Sung sitting in a restaurant in Wiang Phran had anything to do with Edgar’s murder. Hukowich’s speech struck Gilbert as nothing but a long pointless non sequitur.
“I don’t see how,” he said.
Hukowich frowned, as if he thought Gilbert was obtuse. “Because Foster Sung is a suspect in this murder.”
Gilbert looked at Tim Nowak, feeling as if he had just been forced to go the wrong way down a one-way street, then glanced at Joe. Lombardo’s dark Mediterranean brow settled into a lethal line.
“He’s one of our weaker suspects,” Gilbert finally said, because even Gilbert had to acknowledge that Sung had been near Edgar Lau’s apartment in and around the time of the slaying. “But we’re really treating him like a witness. I’m afraid I don’t see your logic. If you’re at all familiar with the case file”—he gave Nowak a sour look—“you’ll see that Pearl Wu is actually our strongest suspect.”
Ross Paulsen spoke up. “Foster Sung’s of great interest to us,” he said, like an entomologist speaking of a rare bug. “He was at the scene in and around the time of the murder. He has suspected criminal connections to Bing Wu. We want to somehow put pressure on Foster Sung as a way of getting through to Bing Wu, and your murder investigation might give us the opportunity we need.” Paulsen’s faced was tanned, unnaturally so, with that freakish orange color that came from obsessive tanning appointments. “We know it’s probably too early to write a warrant on Foster Sung, but we would certainly appreciate it if you concentrated your efforts in that direction.”
Even to talk of warrants, especially one against Foster Sung, was so far removed from reality, Gilbert wondered how they could be talking about the same investigation. He glanced at Lombardo again, knew his young partner sensed the exact same thing, as if a trail had been blazed for them and they were now expected to follow it. But if Paulsen and Hukowich wanted to get through to Bing Wu, wouldn’t Pearl be their obvious choice, especially since she was Gilbert’s number-one suspect already? Foster Sung might know a lot about Bing Wu’s organization, but wouldn’t Pearl, as Wu’s wife, know a lot more?
“About the most we can do right now is hope Foster Sung cooperates as a witness,” said Gilbert.
All three men stared at Gilbert.
Tim Nowak shifted, and, with no appreciable change in his demeanor, managed to lift the corners of his lips into a patient grin. “Frank and Ross would really like you to work the Sung angle,” said Nowak, as rationally and calmly as a senior accountant reporting fourth-quarter earnings to company board members.
So. They were going to force him to be blunt. He loved being blunt. “I don’t think Foster did it,” he said.
“Why not?” asked Hukowich.
“For one thing, when Joe saw him at the crime scene, he didn’t have rain on his clothes, and one of the theories we’re working with is that our suspect came in the back through the rain. The other theory, and possibly the stronger theory, is Pearl.” Gilbert shook his head in mystification. “I don’t know why you’re asking me to go after Foster Sung. Why not ask me to go after Pearl? Wouldn’t she be just as useful to you as Foster? She’s married to Bing Wu. I don’t know why you’ve decided on Foster Sung.”
Paulsen looked away, disg
runtled. “Just take a close look at Foster, will you?” he said. The man obviously had his reasons. “Gather whatever evidence you can against him and we’ll do the rest. You won’t need much for a warrant. Not with the judge Frank has in mind.”
Did the man have to be so obvious about the way he planned to bend jurisprudence for the sake of arresting Foster Sung? “Look, we’ll talk to Sung,” said Gilbert. “That’s the most we can do for now.”
Hukowich’s face reddened. Gilbert didn’t like the look he saw in Hukowich’s eyes.
“Don’t think Foster Sung’s a saint, Barry,” said Hukowich. “Benny told you about the immigration scam a few years back. But Ross has new sources who say he’s smuggling human cargo into the country like cattle, at forty to fifty grand a head, refugees from China who work off their passages in illegal sweatshops south of the border. He’s no Mother Teresa, Barry. Before he fled Vietnam he ran several prostitution rings as well as numerous illegal gaming houses. Extortion was his big thing—beating the crap out of laundry-shop owners for protection, threatening factory workers, paying bribes so the police would cooperate. You’re not achieving anything by trying to protect him, Barry. He’s no saint.”
Gilbert stared at Hukowich expressionlessly. “I’m not trying to protect anybody, Frank,” he said. “And believe me, in my line of work, saints are few and far between.”
His meaning couldn’t have been clearer.
Seven
Doncliffe Tower stood on University Avenue south of Dundas Street in the heart of Toronto’s Chinatown, a twenty-five-story office building of black stone and reflective glass owned by New Asian Holdings Incorporated, a Foster Sung assets management company. Sung’s office was on the top floor, an expanse of teak and mirror, rosewood furniture, handwoven throw rugs, jade and brass statuary, a fully stocked bar, and a private sauna. A hundred-gallon aquarium, recessed into the wall, glittered with tiger barbs, neon tetras, and a half dozen other exotic breeds.
Sung greeted Gilbert cordially—a crisp handshake, a practiced smile—then asked the detective to sit down. Sung was in his late fifties. Impeccably groomed, he wore an expensive and elegantly tailored blue pinstripe suit, a fashionable silk tie, and a dress shirt from Harry Rosen’s. His watch, tie clip, and cuff links were gold, each studded with a profusion of tiny diamonds. He looked robust, energetic, and forceful, the kind of man with an indefatigable capacity for work. The view from Sung’s office would no doubt be spectacular on a clear day, but all Gilbert saw today was an uninterrupted layer of gray mist obscuring the large downtown bank buildings, hotels, and insurance towers, the cloud cover swallowing them at around floor thirty.
“There’s not much I can add to the statement I gave Detective Lombardo on Friday night,” said Sung. His English was good. The man had been in Canada since 1981. “I was sitting in the restaurant with some associates around ten o’clock when May came downstairs and told me her son had been shot. I asked her whether Edgar was still alive and she said she thought he was. I knew the situation might be dangerous, but I also knew I had to act. I climbed the stairs to give Edgar immediate assistance, even though I knew his attacker might still be in the apartment.”
Sung’s account was complete and succinct, a set piece, like a memo he might dictate to his secretary, with all the commas and periods in place, polished, yes, but also rehearsed, too perfect not to stir some doubt in Gilbert’s mind.
“And Edgar was still alive when you got there?” asked Gilbert.
“Still alive but unconscious,” said Sung. A man with all the answers. But then a faint tremor of concern played over his face. “I told May to stay downstairs.” His polish evaporated and Gilbert saw a flicker of sorrow pass through his eyes. “Edgar was lying on the dining room floor. He was bleeding badly.” Sung looked at Gilbert. “I’ve seen men bleed this badly before, back in Vietnam. I worked in a field hospital during the war. I knew Edgar was in bad shape.” Sung shook his head, his concern and sorrow now capitulating to his genuine bereavement. “He had a ball of crumpled tissue paper clutched near his stomach, but as he was unconscious by the time I got there, he wasn’t pressing it tightly to his wound anymore. I knew I had to stop that bleeding before I did anything else. So I took a dish towel from the rack under the sink, folded it several times, and pressed the dressing against Edgar’s wound. Then I called nine-one-one.”
The detail of the dish towel snagged Gilbert’s attention.
“You say you stopped his bleeding with a dish towel?” said Gilbert.
Sung nodded. “Edgar was in bad, bad shape.”
“We didn’t find any dish towel when we got there.” The fact of the dish towel blurred the emerging picture of the crime scene into sudden distortion. “Did you take it away?”
Sung raised his eyebrows, as if he were surprised by this news. “No,” he said.
“A dish towel?”
“A yellow dish towel,” said Sung. “Fresh. From the towel rack under the kitchen sink.”
Gilbert thought about this. He was certain Officer Donald Kennedy had made no mention of this dish towel in his crime scene report. “You stayed with Edgar until the police arrived?” he asked Sung.
“I left the apartment only to get May,” he said. “I was afraid that Edgar might die while we were waiting for help to arrive. I thought his mother should be there.”
“And the dish towel was still there when you got back?”
“Yes.”
“And when Officer Kennedy got there he asked you to leave the apartment?” said Gilbert.
“Yes,” said Sung. “He wished to maintain the integrity of the crime scene. He was afraid we might inadvertently destroy evidence.”
Normal police procedure. Any first officer at the scene would have done the same. Only now there was no yellow dish towel. Nor was there any mention of the dish towel in Officer Kennedy’s report.
“And Officer Kennedy’s partner stayed downstairs?” asked Gilbert.
Sung nodded. “Constable Szoldra took statements from diners in the restaurant,” he said.
Gilbert thought of the other discrepancy in Kennedy’s report, that there had been a Chinese man behind the restaurant, not a white one such as the cook Dock Wen had told them. One discrepancy was an anomaly. Two were suspicious.
“I understand you own the Laus’s building,” said Gilbert.
“I do.”
“And that you’re a longtime friend of the Laus.”
“I am.”
“And that you helped them escape from Vietnam twenty-four years ago.”
“I did.”
Gilbert glanced out the window at the gray sky. A few blocks to the south on Queen Street, he saw a streetcar rumble west across University Avenue. “Do you have any idea who might have murdered Edgar?”
“No.”
“Do you know Pearl Wu?”
“I do.”
“A waiter says he saw her leave Edgar’s apartment around the time of the shooting.”
“Yes, I saw her.”
“You saw her?”
“Yes.”
“You saw her leave?”
“Yes,” said Sung. “I saw her arrive as well. As a matter of fact, she came to our table to say hello.”
“But when she left, she left by the front door?”
“Yes.”
“Because we think our perpetrator might have fled through the back,” said Gilbert.
“Pearl left by the front door,” said Sung.
Which didn’t necessarily eliminate Pearl as a suspect. “Did Edgar use the back way often?” asked Gilbert.
“I have no idea,” said Sung. “But he shouldn’t. It’s old. It’s rusting through in spots. I’ve had the fire marshal look at it and he says I’ll have to replace it next year. I don’t like the Laus living in that old place. I plan to tear it down. I have much better buildings, but they won’t move.”
“Why not?”
“Because May will never take anything from me unless she absolutely has t
o,” said Sung, with some irritation. “I tell her she can live wherever she wants. In any building I own. And pay me whatever she wants. But she refuses. She won’t even let me pay for her son’s funeral.”
Gilbert stared at the suspected triad member. Did Sung feel a particular fondness for May Lau? He certainly seemed like a good friend to the Laus, a protector, there to support them, to lend assistance; but Gilbert now sensed something more, a tie between Foster and May, not a passion, exactly, but something that linked each to the other, a bond that balanced between Foster’s persistent kindness and May’s proud refusals.
“I understand Mr. Lau lost his life on your boat escaping from Vietnam,” he said. He wanted more background, something that in the long run might help him in his search for Edgar’s killer.
Sung nodded sadly, easing back into his chair, as if preparing to deliver another set piece. “Seven men, five children, and two women lost their lives on that boat.” Sung rubbed his forehead, took off his glasses, and looked at the small mauve cockleshell inside his glass paperweight. “We all have our stories, detective, we who come to Canada as refugees. We all have good luck, we all have bad luck. We all take risks, we all gamble, and sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Ying Lau was unlucky. He was a strong man, but even strong men, when they push themselves too hard, wear themselves out. Some men make their own luck. He never knew how to do that. He had a penchant for making wrong choices. About the luckiest thing he ever did was marry May. He never understood just how lucky that was. Our boat sprang a leak and he bailed night and day. He wouldn’t take a rest no matter how hard May and I tried to make him. He pushed himself too hard and he died.” He paused, reflecting on this tragic outcome, then turned to Gilbert with a little more brightness, as if he had learned to deal with the tragedies of the past. “We Chinese value family above all else. I suppose it’s the same for everyone. For Edgar to lose his father like that…I tried to do what I could for the Laus once we reached Hong Kong. But as far as May was concerned I was a rough man, and she didn’t want any help from a rough man.”