by Vivien Chien
“Is this the seventh sign of the apocalypse?” Anna May set her Louis Vuitton bag on the table and sat in the seat to the left of me.
Anna May had recently acquired an internship at a fancy-pants law firm, and since had upped her clothing and accessory game. I knew what she made at the restaurant, and considering she didn’t work as much because of her schooling, my guess was that she was paying for a lot of this through credit. Being a credit card abuser myself, I knew what a slippery slope she was teetering on. My only hope was that she could secure this job at the law firm. Plus, I had convinced her that a little sister like myself should have a nice Mercedes out of the deal.
“Ha ha,” I said. “No, I just happened to get up a little earlier today.”
“I can’t believe what happened last night,” my sister remarked as she turned over her teacup. She refilled my cup before filling her own. “Not to sound selfish, but I’m glad you let us leave early, because there is no way I wanted to be a part of that.”
“And I did?”
She placed the teapot back in the center of the table. “I’m not saying that at all. But, you know … you tend to enjoy the intrigue of it all.”
I snorted, even though I knew what she said was at least partially true. “I would have happily been in my pajamas by nine p.m. if that were an option.”
“Do you think Donna did it?”
“How can you even ask me that?”
“Oh, come on … at one time you thought she killed her own husband. Don’t act like it’s a completely unreasonable question.”
“Yeah, but that was different.”
“You’re right, she’s actually unhinged now.”
My sister had a point about that. Donna did seem to be unraveling, and last night she had been in rare form. But I had to hold on to the hope that it was all a matter of strange coincidence. Then again, did I even believe in coincidence? I’d have to say no.
My parents showed up with my grandmother, and my sister and I pretended like we were talking about something else. I knew that it wouldn’t last long since Donna was friends with my mother, but we had to at least try to steer the conversation away from the ordeal that had taken place.
My grandmother, A-ma, sat down next to me and gave me her customary pat on the cheek. Her salt-and-pepper hair was wrapped in a tight bun at the nape of her neck, she wore no makeup, and the only jewelry she ever wore was a gold necklace with a small pendant of the character for “double happiness” that was poking out over her mandarin-collar blouse. She was a simple woman who liked to meditate and pray in the mornings, get in a light aerobic workout, and if the mood struck her she’d play a little mahjong from time to time. Since she’d arrived in the United States, she’d been spending a lot of time with Mr. Zhang, the owner of Asia Village’s herbal shop, Wild Sage. Although my mother wasn’t a fan of her own mother having a boyfriend, she didn’t mind getting back some of her free time.
I didn’t really understand what the deal was with my grandmother being here. Originally my parents had gone to Taiwan because A-ma was ill. But through some miracle, she was cured of anything that had been ailing her since she’d left her home.
I had a feeling it had something to do with her being lonely. Even though there was plenty of family over there, I think she felt lost in the mix living with my uncle and his family. My mother hadn’t gone into much detail about it when they’d come back from Taiwan, but from the bits I’d gathered, that was my guess.
Now that everyone was present, my sister signaled for the dim sum cart and we started making our selections. My mother was usually in charge of this and requested more food than any of us could ever eat in one sitting. Today’s feast included: steamed pork dumplings, fried turnip cakes, fried tofu and vegetables in a black bean sauce, sticky rice, and my favorite—shrimp noodle rolls. I could barely contain myself as the plates were set on the table.
As soon as the server left, we all dug in, passing plates and plucking an item from each dish. My stomach rumbled as I removed my chopsticks from their paper sleeve.
“So, Lana,” my father asked. “How did the rest of the party go?”
The cubed tofu slipped from my chopsticks before it reached my mouth. My father wasn’t usually the one to initiate snooping. “As you would expect,” I said carefully.
“That’s a messy business Donna is mixed up in…” My father eyed me, waiting for a reaction.
Was he testing me? I knew he didn’t like it when I started poking my nose around things.
My mother gave my dad a side eye filled with suspicion. “Donna did not do this.”
She said this with so much conviction, I blushed at the thought of thinking anything outside of that statement.
“Of course she didn’t do anything to that poor girl,” my father responded. “I was just wondering if Lana thought anything about it.”
My mother looked between me and my father. “Oh, because she is nosy?”
“Mom!”
She turned back to me and shrugged. “Maybe now that you have a boyfriend, you are too busy.”
My cheeks reddened. Before I went on a tirade, I took a deep breath and told myself this could work to my benefit. Let my family think that I was “too busy with my new boyfriend” to get involved in solving anything that had to do with the murder that took place last night. Little would they know that I planned to get knee-deep in this one.
CHAPTER
6
We wrapped up dim sum about half an hour later, and I gave Donna a quick call from my car to ask if I could stop by. She told me the sooner the better, so I drove straight from dim sum to her house in Westlake.
Her maid Rosemary answered the door. She was a woman of little expression, her face showing no emotion, almost in a militant sort of way. Outfitted in a plain black dress and black loafers, she was as drab as they come. Her salt-and-pepper hair was pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck, and she wore no jewelry except a simple gold necklace with a small cross.
She did not bother addressing me, but instead led me to the back of the house opposite where the tragedy had happened. There was an enclosed patio out there, and Donna was sitting alone in silence staring out into the backyard. She had big sunglasses on, and a casual outfit—something I had never seen her in—of black stretch pants and a red fitted T-shirt.
“Rosemary,” she said, holding up a hand without turning to face us. “Will you bring us some iced tea and a few black bean cakes?”
“Yes, madam.” Rosemary bowed her head slightly and returned to the kitchen.
“Have a seat, my dear.” Donna gestured to the padded wicker chair directly across from her. “You’ll have to excuse the way I look today. I woke up without the slightest desire to put myself together.”
“What exactly happened after we left?” I asked, avoiding the subject of her appearance. I knew a woman like Donna would not want me to pacify her with compliments.
She adjusted her sunglasses, her focus on the yard just beyond the screened walls of the patio. “In a roundabout way, they accused me of killing Alice, of course. Which I clearly did not do.” She waved a dismissive hand. “They couldn’t prove anything, and when my lawyer arrived and reminded them they had nothing to hold me on, they had to let me go. They weren’t entirely happy about it, but there is literally nothing tying me to that poor girl’s murder. Not one thing.”
I thought about the thumb drive in my purse. Not one thing … that the police knew about.
Rosemary came back to the patio and placed a tray with two slender glasses of iced tea and a plate filled with almond wafers, black bean cakes, and egg tarts.
When she left and was out of earshot, Donna continued. “The whole situation is an absolute mess, Lana. I am so beside myself. As if I needed another thing to go wrong in this house.”
I took the glass of iced tea closer to me and sipped from the straw. It was chrysanthemum tea, one of my favorites. “Donna … why did you send me up to the bathroom before I left?
”
She gasped and leaned forward in her seat, finally looking at me. “I thought we understood each other. You did take that little soldier, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I just wanted to be sure that’s what you meant.” I produced it from my purse and showed her that it was safe and sound. “Where did it come from?”
“I don’t know. Someone left it on the vanity in my bedroom, sometime during the party I suppose,” Donna said, reaching for it. “Imagine my surprise when I opened the files.”
“So why was it in the bathroom?” I asked.
Donna sighed, flipping the soldier over in her hands. “I was intending to flush it down the toilet. But then I heard the screams downstairs and it jolted me. I was concerned the girls were causing more trouble, and I dropped it in the sink without giving it another thought. I had no idea what would come next.”
“I see. And nothing else was with it? Not a note or anything?”
“No, it was just standing upright on my vanity. It was the strangest thing. Before I even knew what was on it, it gave me chills.”
I found it interesting that Alice was murdered on the same night that Donna happened to find a thumb drive containing all of her best-kept secrets. The connection wasn’t lost on me, but I didn’t want to say too much. I wanted to hear what Donna thought, so I stayed silent, giving her the opportunity to speak.
“Lana, we have to find out where this came from. I think that Alice’s death was a message to me … a threat.” Donna looked frenzied as she said the words aloud. “I need your help. No one can know about this. No one.”
I found myself speechless—which, if you know me, is a rare occurrence—but I truly didn’t know what to say. My first instinct was to believe that Alice was the one who left Donna the thumb drive, and then Donna killed her and planned to get rid of the evidence. But the suggestion that Alice’s death had been meant as a warning to Donna was an interesting alternative theory.
I readjusted myself in the chair. What I needed to ask would not be pleasant. “I know you don’t like to talk about it, but I need to know a little bit more about what happened with your father back in China. I know you told me he was a bad man. But exactly how bad was he?”
She stared off into the middle distance, presumably reliving the buried memories of her past. Softly, she began to tell her story. “I was only six years old when we left for the United States. My father had been involved with a triad that extorted and laundered money. Of course, he never admitted to it, but my mother knew anyway. She would overhear conversations he had with some of his gang members. I shudder to think of the men I saw in my house. They were nice enough to me, but I always knew there was something dangerous about them.
“Anyhow, in the process of his involvement, he crossed paths with a rival triad who felt their turf was being taken advantage of by my father and his group. Threats began, and I noticed a change in my mother as time went on. When we left the house, we always hurried to our destination, and she was constantly looking over her shoulder as if someone was following us. She jumped at every sound in the house, and checked the doors and windows regularly throughout the day. To this day, I don’t know the extent of what she knew.
“One day we came home from the market, and a disheveled man was sitting at the dining room table, almost as if he belonged there. My mother sent me to my room. I could see the fear in her eyes. She told me to shut the door and not come out.
“After the man left, my mother came to tell me that we were leaving. She had a bag of money and passports along with some other false documents to help us change our identities. I asked about my father, but she said we would never have to worry about him again.
“The next morning, we left with only what we could carry. My mother told me that my father had died and we needed to be far away. She warned me that I could never speak of anything that really happened. I was to tell anyone who asked that I was born in California and that my father was killed in a car accident, leaving only the two of us to fend for ourselves. We would explain our money by saying that it was a settlement by the person who killed my father.
“Once we arrived in San Francisco, she hired a tutor to help me master the English language and remove any remnants of an accent. It was important to her that no one knew where we came from. She made it very clear that if anyone found out what she’d done, they would come for us out of revenge.”
She paused, and I took the silence as time to gather my thoughts. This was a lot more involved than I’d originally thought.
“So what is it that your mother did … what did she talk about with that man?”
Donna inhaled deeply. “We have never discussed this at length. She said he offered her safety. My guess is that she made a deal with him to hand over my father in exchange for an escape from the country. But she will never discuss it with me, and if I dare bring it up, a scolding is inevitable. She often reminds me that we are not those people anymore.”
“Donna … I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing to say. Nothing I do now can change what happened, or take away who I truly am. All I can do is protect my family. Now can you see why I think Alice’s death was meant as a message to me? This is how they operate. Who will be next? I’ve already contacted my mother just in case she’s in danger. I asked if she’s received any type of threats, but so far nothing out of the ordinary has happened. She is making plans to move again. I wish that I could be there with her in California to help, but if I left now, something bad could happen.
“Please, Lana … will you help me?”
Instead of responding to her request for help, I asked, “How did you end up hiring Alice?”
“She came highly recommended to me by a good friend of mine, Brenda Choi. She knew that I was scouting for someone to deal with the girls and handle some extra tasks around the house. Rosemary made it perfectly clear she would only do so much when I hired her. And watching the girls is not part of our agreement.
“Alice was willing to work for room, board, and a reasonable salary comparable to other nannies I had interviewed. Brenda decided to let her go because she felt her kids were too old for a nanny and Alice had nowhere to go. I figured, What perfect timing.”
I didn’t want to tell her that I thought her own children were too old for this much supervision; it wasn’t any of my business. Plus, I knew that Donna had been overwhelmed with everything since her husband’s murder. “What exactly did you know about her?” I asked.
“Are you asking me because of general curiosity, or because you plan to help me with this situation? And why does any of this matter anyway?”
I couldn’t admit to her that I thought Alice was implicated in a different way than she was suggesting. “So far, in my experience, I’ve found it’s best to consider every angle.”
“That’s a very good point, Lana. See? This is exactly why I’d want your help with this sort of thing. Besides, I can trust absolutely no one else with this. No one can find out about this, not even the police. This could jeopardize the safety of my entire family.”
Looking at the desperation in her face, I couldn’t help but feel myself caving. It was Donna, after all, whom I’d known my whole life, and who—despite everything—I couldn’t help but trust. And I truly was the only one who knew her secret. I inhaled deeply. “Yes, of course, I’ll help, Donna. I’ll do whatever I can.”
She flopped back in her chair, throwing her hands up. “Well that, my dear, is a giant relief. I know if anyone can help figure this out, it’s you.”
I sipped my tea wondering if that were true. Would I be able to figure this out? Especially when I still had doubts of my own? “We’re going to have to consider all the guests at your party as suspects. Do you think that someone maybe took advantage of the situation?”
“What do you mean?”
“Everyone witnessed … the outburst. Do you think any of your friends could have used it as their opportunity to get even with you? How well do you
know all of your guests? Is there anyone who would have a way to get this type of information on you?”
Donna blushed. “I am so ashamed of myself for the way I acted. I was trying really hard to force myself into having a good time. Truth is, this birthday devastated me.”
My mother taught me when I was very young to never question a woman’s age. So I always guessed in terms of five-year increments. I had placed Donna to be somewhere around early to mid-fifties. “I can understand that. My sister is not a fan of her birthdays, either.”
“No, I don’t mean for that reason,” she replied. “I mean because this was my first birthday without Thomas.” She ended the sentence on a long sigh without offering more explanation.
I understood well enough and decided to bring her back around to the topic of her guests. “I’ll need a list of everyone who was here. And what affiliations they have with one another and you. I know it’s a lot, but I’m sure that the police have asked you for something similar?”
“They have,” she said, nodding.
A lightbulb turned on in my head. “What about the surveillance cameras you have around the house? You know, the ones that caught me snooping around your house a few months ago.”
“They’re only focused on certain areas of the house. The police confiscated the recordings and are reviewing them.”
My stomach dropped. I wondered what they would see on the tapes and if it would incriminate Donna further or let her off the hook.
“While you finish working on the list, could you start me out with a couple of names? Anyone that you think could be capable of doing something like this. Anyone that might have something against you. Even if it seems petty.”
“Of course. I’ll have it to you by tomorrow. I’m totally washing my hands of any public involvement with Asia Village for the time being so I have extra time on my hands. Ian is already worried about the bad publicity this will bring to the plaza.”
I rolled my eyes. Ian Sung was the property manager and Donna’s partner. He was the active one of the two and saw to the daily function of the Asian shopping center while Donna took the backseat and handled the other small rental properties that she and Thomas had owned together. At first I’d had a hard time imagining Donna as a landlady, but I quickly learned that she “had people for that.”