Death by Dumpling

by Vivien Chien

  “Do you not check your cell phone these days or what?” she asked.

  “Ugh, I’m sorry, today has been a hell of a day.”

  She sat down across from me, resting her hands on the table. “I have been coming up with a plan for our … investigation. And really, I think we should call it an operation, don’t you? Like, Operation Dumpling … or Operation Save Peter…”

  I let out an exaggerated sigh. “Okay, you are way too into this. We’re not calling it that.”

  “Why not?” She pouted. “Do you want to name it?”

  “Can we talk about this at home?” I glanced over at the customers to see how they were faring. I’d probably have to get up in a few minutes and I didn’t have the mental capacity to have this conversation.

  “What happened today that is so horrible?” she asked.

  I gave her a quick rundown of the story, promising I would fill in the blanks later.

  “Wow, you’re right. That is one hell of a day.” She leaned forward in her seat. “Also, what did I tell you? I knew he was going to ask you out.”

  I grunted.

  “So, are you going to go out with him?”

  “Ian?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I mean … why not? It wouldn’t hurt to just go on a date with this guy. It doesn’t have to be anything serious.”

  I threw up my hands. “Why is everyone trying to set me up with someone?”

  “You like that detective guy, don’t you? You wish he would ask you out, don’t you?”

  “Really?” I stopped rolling the napkin in my hand and looked at her. “What is it with you today? How much coffee have you had?”

  She leaned back in the booth and shrugged. “I barely had any coffee. And nothing is with me today. I’m being observant, is all.”

  “Shouldn’t you be getting to work?”

  She checked the time on her cell phone. “In a few minutes … and don’t change the subject.”

  “Megan…” I whined.

  “Okay, fine,” she said, slumping in her seat. “Do you at least want to hear why I stopped by?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  She chose to ignore me and continued. “I’ve been coming up with a list of suspects and I think we need to get organized. You know, write everything down. I don’t know how you’ve been keeping everything straight in your head.”

  I wasn’t about to tell her that the inside of my head looked like a table at a flea market. “Okay, so who is on your suspect list?”

  “Kimmy Tran is at the top of my list. So far everything you’ve told me about that girl makes me believe she wanted to get rid of Mr. Feng before something happened with her parents’ store.”

  I nodded, thinking it over. Kimmy was definitely on my list, but I wouldn’t give her the number one spot.

  Megan went on. “Second on my list is Mrs. Feng. The spouse is always a suspect in these types of things. You know? Plus, that Yuna girl said she heard them fighting.”

  “We still don’t know that it was actually Mrs. Feng.” I reminded her.

  “True,” she said, sitting back in the booth. “So, who is your number one?”

  “Right now I’m going back and forth between Mr. An and Ian.”

  “Ian?”

  I grabbed another napkin to roll. “He seems a little too eager to take over the plaza, almost as if he’s been waiting for his chance.” I thought about what he’d said during our little meeting in regard to having these plans for a while. It made me cringe.

  “And this Mr. An guy?” she asked. “That’s the one who was going to close his store but is now staying in business, right?”

  “Yeah. The timing of it is just too weird for me. And, that conversation I had with him at the store … he definitely has some hard feelings toward Mr. Feng.”

  “And you said that Cindy mentioned talk of a woman. That woman and the crying woman could be the same person.”

  “I’ve thought that too. But who could it be?”

  The bells tinkled above the door and I looked up, Nancy was back and walking toward us.

  Megan turned to face the front door. “I suppose we’ll continue this conversation at home.”

  “Yeah, probably a good idea.” I smiled up at Nancy as she came to stand at the edge of our booth. “Have a nice lunch?” I asked her.

  “Yes, very nice,” she answered. “Hello, Megan, it is always so nice to see you.”

  “You too, Ms. Huang,” Megan replied.

  Nancy looked at my pile of wrapped silverware. “Let me help you.”

  Megan stood so Nancy could take her place. “We’ll talk when you get home tonight.” And off she flounced.

  Nancy watched Megan leave. “I hope she is not leaving because of me.” A small hint of sadness appeared on her face. “I feel that a lot of people are avoiding me because they think that Peter is guilty.”

  “Oh no!” I assured her. “She was just about to leave for work before you came. Believe me. She knows Peter better than that.”

  We sat in silence, folding napkins and occasionally getting up to tend to the customers. I was happy to say that the rest of the afternoon passed without incident. When the bells tinkled near five o’clock, I was surprised to see my sister walk in with her work clothes on.

  Anna May smiled. “Hey there, little sis. I’ve come to relieve you of your duties.”

  “What happened to Vanessa? I thought she was working tonight?”

  “She has an algebra test tomorrow, and of course did not study for it. So she’s cramming tonight and asked if I could cover for her.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Figures.”

  Anna May clucked her tongue. “Don’t be so hard on her. You remember what it’s like to freak out over exams in high school.”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Anna May crouched down and removed my purse from the cabinet, shoving hers in its place. She thrust it at me. “Now you go home and do whatever it is that you do,” she said, shooing me away.

  I clutched my purse against my chest like a teddy bear. “I do stuff.”

  “Oh yeah? Like what?”

  I contemplated for a minute, thinking about what exactly I did with my time after work besides watch random movies and make Kikko dance for treats. “I do stuff … and things … lots of things.”

  She snorted. “Lana, you don’t do anything anymore. Ever since what’s-his-name broke up with you, you’ve been a mess and you need to get yourself together. It’s time to move on.”

  “I have moved on. And for your information, I was the one that broke up with him.” I clutched my purse tighter. “Plus, I do a lot of things.”

  “Yeah, you said that ‘things’ part already. Still wasn’t convincing the second time.”

  “Whatever.” I couldn’t think of a cleverer comeback.

  “I’m telling you, a guy like Ian Sung is not going to go for a girl who doesn’t have something going on in her life.”

  “What?” I asked through clenched teeth.

  “Yeah,” Anna May said with satisfaction. “Mom called me today and told me all about your little lunch date with Ian.”

  “Oh my God, I can’t believe her,” I grumbled.

  “It’s a step up from the trash you were dating before … and if you ask me, you could do a lot worse.” She patted my shoulder. “Trust me on this, Lana, you don’t say no to a man like him.”

  “Then why don’t you go out with him?” I asked. Yeah, take that, I thought.

  She shrugged. “He hasn’t asked me out. But if he did, I wouldn’t waste time thinking about it.”

  CHAPTER

  13

  “Uh-oh,” Megan said, freezing in the open doorway to our apartment. Her hand was holding the key that was still in the lock. She observed me from my position on the couch. “What happened after I left?”

  My eyes slid toward her. “Anna May.” I crossed my arms over my chest.

  Megan rolled her eyes and shut the door behind her. “Lana, what did I tell you
about listening to your sister?”

  I huffed in response.

  She dropped her purse on the floor and headed for the kitchen. “Let me get situated and we’ll talk this out.”

  I listened to her rummage around the kitchen, and she returned to the couch with a bag of chips and two bottles of beer.

  Megan plopped down next to me, on top of my mound of blankets. Kikko sat on my other side. Her head stuck out of the blankets and she eyed the bag of chips. “So, tell me exactly what happened.”

  I gave her a full recap.

  “She’s just jealous you’re getting the attention. I think it might also be the added stress of the recent … passing of Mr. Feng that is getting to both of you.”

  I turned to face her. “I do stuff though, right? I mean, Anna May’s not right about that.”

  “Uh-huh,” Megan mumbled.

  “What?” I asked, setting my untouched beer on the table.

  Megan looked away. “Well, you know, you have been kind of moping around the house lately.”

  “You said it yourself,” I reminded her. “Mr. Feng just passed away.”

  “Even before that.”

  “Oh, so you’re going to just take Anna May’s side like that?” I folded my arms back up. “This is ridiculous.” Kikko hopped off the couch, disappearing down the hallway.

  “I’m not taking anyone’s side. There are no sides to take. I’m only saying that it’s true you’ve been on the inactive side lately.”

  Kikko came back with a stuffed duck and jumped up on the couch, plopping her toy on my lap. She looked at me expectantly. “You’re the only one who understands me,” I said to my flat-nosed friend.

  Megan snorted. “Oh please.”

  I threw the stuffed duck across the room and Kikko happily raced after it. She gave it a good shake in her mouth and then pranced off.

  “Do you want to hear the rest of my plan?” Megan asked, trying to change the subject.

  I sank farther into the couch. “I guess.”

  “Oh, don’t be like that.” Megan repositioned herself on the couch to face me. “Okay, so my plan … first, we have to make a list of all the people and potential scenarios like we started to earlier today. And I mean everything, even the silly ideas.” She gestured with her hands. “Then we cross out the completely ridiculous ones. Whatever’s left is what we investigate, and we can split that list in half, you look into your people and I’ll investigate mine.”

  I thought about the list that had been forming in my head.

  She watched me, waiting for me to agree with her. “There have to be things that stick out more than others. There’s no one that’s liked by everyone. He had to have enemies somewhere and I think if we split it up like this, we can cover more possibilities.”

  Her idea wasn’t bad. It couldn’t hurt to map everything out. The only problem was those darn dumplings. “What about the fact that the dumplings came from Ho-Lee Noodle House?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” she replied, bouncing on the couch. “Which is one of the things I wanted to tell you earlier today when I stopped by, but we ran out of time.” She sat forward, leaning toward me. “What if the dumplings were switched?”

  “How? I’m the one who delivered them.”

  “Yeah, but what if someone came to see him after you? Maybe he was having lunch with someone.”

  “Or maybe it really was Peter,” I concluded. Even as I said it, I wasn’t convinced. “Maybe there’s something we don’t know about the two of them. I feel like Nancy has been acting strange ever since it happened. As if she’s upset about more than just Peter.”

  “What has she said about the whole thing? Anything interesting?”

  “Not a whole lot. All she told me is that Peter refuses to talk to anyone, including her. And she seems devastated about Thomas, more so than everyone else. She started to cry when I brought it up.”

  “Okay, let’s try this instead,” she said, tapping her chin. “First, gut instinct, who do you think did it?”

  I looked at her blankly. “Well … Kimmy Tran.”

  She cocked her head at me. “Okay, that’s different than your answer earlier today. What makes you pick her above Mr. An and Ian?”

  “Well, you said first instinct. And she was pretty mad at him. When I think about who had the mental space to do it, it’s her. Plus, she mentioned that someone should make him pay. That’s been bugging me this whole time. I’ve never seen her that angry before.” I let the thought develop for a minute. “But, at the same time, she isn’t killer material.”

  “Okay … that’s a good start.” She stood up from the couch and started pacing in front of the coffee table. “Now go back to the Ian angle. How do you feel about that?”

  “Well, it was that conversation we had that got me thinking. Listening to how anxious he was to get started with his ideas, I realized how much he has to gain. Also, he didn’t seem too upset with the fact that Mr. Feng is out of the picture.”

  “And then Mr. An goes on our list too.”

  “My talk with him at the Painted Pearl gave me the heebies and that’s what put up the initial red flag. Something about the way he looked when I mentioned Mr. Feng’s name. Plus, he stopped by the restaurant to ask what was going on the day that Peter left with Detective Trudeau.”

  “He did?” Megan asked. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “It must have slipped my mind with everything else going on. At the time, I didn’t think anything of it.”

  “Okay, and then let’s circle back to Peter since he seems to be at the front of this. What do you think about him?”

  I looked at her with apprehension. “I really don’t think…”

  She held up her hands. “Okay, I know. I don’t think he did it either. But that’s part of our problem. We know these people too well and we’re not looking at this objectively. We said we would talk about all of the possibilities even if they were ridiculous, so let’s just say he did it for the sake of this argument. What reason would he have?” she asked.

  I sat thinking, twirling a piece of my hair. “I can’t come up with anything really … except…”

  She stopped pacing and sat down next to me. “Except what?”

  “Well, he seemed pretty worried about what would happen to the plaza now that Mr. Feng is gone. He was the only one that thought to bring it up and it was one of the first questions he asked after we found out. The rest of us were more upset about the death. That part didn’t seem to bother him all that much.”

  “Do you think there’s any reason why he wouldn’t want Mr. Feng in charge anymore?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing I can think of.”

  “What about this whole rent-increase thing that’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure that Peter knew about it. Plus, the restaurant isn’t in trouble, so there should be absolutely no reason for him to worry about that.”

  She tapped her chin. “We need to find out more about these people and their relationships with Mr. Feng. And … Mrs. Feng.”

  “Right … Mrs. Feng.”

  “I know you like her, but there are oddities there that I don’t think we should ignore.”

  “I know, you’re right. If we’re going to include Peter in this, then we should include Mrs. Feng too.” I felt slimy even saying it out loud, but I couldn’t dismiss the fact that Megan had a point. Mrs. Feng had been so quick to give Peter’s name to the police; that could have been a way of diverting attention away from herself. Nor could I dismiss the fact that even for a well put-together woman, she was holding up a little too well for a widow.

  “We might have to find some other ways to get information too. Maybe some less direct ways.”

  Another good point. Whether I liked it or not, all the people we’d discussed had potential motives.

  It was still hard to think of these people that I’d known for so long being capable of anything like murder. It was one thing to hate someone or even sabotage them
, but it was something else entirely to end their life.

  After talking with Megan, I felt a million times better, and I’d almost forgotten the awful things that Anna May had said. Almost. Right now, I had bigger things to worry about.

  * * *

  The following day, I showed up at the plaza in a black peacoat and sunglasses. Detective Lee was on the case. At least, that’s what I told myself when I was getting dressed that morning. I was getting in the zone.

  Mr. Zhang, the owner of Wild Sage herbal shop, noticed me when I walked in. I had a feeling my detective ensemble wasn’t doing the trick.

  As I approached his store, he waddled over to me, with his hands behind his back, his glasses on the tip of his nose. He tilted his head to look up at me.

  “Lana Lee, you look like a movie star,” he said with a big smile.

  I took my sunglasses off, feeling silly. “I thought it was supposed to be sunny today,” I lied.

  He shook his head. “No, no. Today is a dark sky.” He looked up at the skylights and sighed. “But it matches my heart.”

  I cocked my head at him. “What do you mean?”

  “My heart is heavy and sad like the clouds.” He pointed with a crooked finger at the skylight.

  I looked up and noticed the storm clouds passing by. It was threatening to snow any minute now. “Why are you so sad today, Mr. Zhang?” I asked, even though I had a feeling I knew the answer already.

  “I am sad for my friend Thomas. He was too young to die…” He bowed his head. “I watch many people die.”

  I didn’t have a hard time believing he’d seen a lot of loss in his life. Mr. Zhang was so old that no one had any clue exactly how old he was. No one dared ask. My guess was that he was at least one hundred. I liked to believe it was all his herbs that kept him young.