by Vivien Chien
Megan watched me fumble with the keys. “Do you know which one it is?” she asked.
“No, they weren’t marked.”
She threw her hands up. “Lana Lee, oh my God! What if none of them work? Then what do we do?”
“Shhh,” I hissed. “There’s like fourteen keys on here. One of them has to be it.”
I went through thirteen of the keys, and none of them fit. We looked at each other as I slipped the fourteenth key into the lock. I held my breath.
Nothing.
My head dropped. “Who has this many keys?”
Megan crossed her arms. “Well, now what?”
“I don’t know. Let me think.” I inspected the keys in my hand. They had to go to something. All of them looked similar to one another, except one. One key looked like it would fit into a security door. “Follow me,” I said, coming up with an idea.
“Where are we going?”
“Just follow me.”
We went back into Ho-Lee Noodle House, through the kitchen and to the back service door. It led out into a dingy hallway lit by fluorescent lights. The glow of lights on the dirty brick walls made it feel like something out of a horror film.
“I didn’t even know this was back here,” Megan whispered.
We stepped out into the hall and made our way around the bend, coming up to the door that was the back of the property office. “It’s mainly for deliveries. I never come back here but Cindy from the bookstore mentioned it the other day…”
I chose the security key and stuck it in the lock. It fit.
Megan and I looked at each, hopeful.
Slowly, I turned the key and the lock clicked. Megan gasped next to me.
I pushed open the door and we stepped into the office. Megan shut the door behind us, locking it. Not that it would help if anyone caught us. We’d be trapped inside.
I slipped the backpack I had brought along with me off my shoulders and set it on the ground by the door. We didn’t know if we’d find anything of importance, but best to be prepared. I’ve heard that’s what they tell you in the Girl Scouts.
Megan pulled two miniflashlights out of her bag and handed one to me. “So we don’t have to turn on the lights.”
Taking mine, I turned it on and pointed it toward the front. “That one over there is—was—Mr. Feng’s desk,” I said, pointing to my left. The packed-up boxes I had seen the other day while meeting with Ian were still there untouched. Small favors.
“Okay, you look there, and I’ll start looking around the rest of the office,” Megan said, pointing her flashlight to the opposite side near Ian’s desk.
I stared at the desk, feeling another bout of guilt for going through a dead man’s things. It didn’t make it easier even though I had already gone through the Feng house. After giving myself a mini pep talk, I squared my shoulders and got to work.
The boxes that had been on top of his desk didn’t prove to be all that interesting. Most of it was random books and notebooks dealing with business-type stuff. There were a couple bottles of vitamins and tins of tea. If Ian had been the one to pack this stuff up, he hadn’t organized it very well.
I rifled through the drawers and found papers and bank statements, nothing really that personal that could tell me anything new about Thomas. So far, all I’d learned about the man was that he kept everything and had no sense of order.
When I got to the last drawer, I found that it was locked. I pulled the ring of keys out again, looking for a key smaller than the others that would fit in a desk drawer. There weren’t any. Figures.
I popped my head up, looking at the random items on the desk. If I were Mr. Feng, and I had a locked drawer in my desk, where would I hide the key? I took another look through the random items in the boxes. Nothing stuck out. Then I rifled through the papers that were still lying out. Nothing.
“Dammit,” I whispered.
“What’s wrong?” Megan asked. She was standing over Ian’s desk, looking through his drawers.
“There’s a locked drawer in his desk and I can’t get it open. None of these stupid keys work.”
She cocked her head. “What about the underside of the desk, or a vase or something?”
I ran my hand under the desk. “Nothing. And I don’t see any vases here.”
Megan came over to help me look. “This guy seems complicated to me.”
“I’m going to agree with you on that one.” I stood up, placing my hands on my hips. “And I already gave my mom the keys to Donna’s house, so I can’t get back in.”
We stood and stared at the desk. Megan turned abruptly and went over to Ian’s desk. “Hang on,” she said, opening his drawers and digging around.
“Don’t mess up anything. He might notice.” I turned back to the desk, checking the bottoms of the tea tins, just in case.
She blew a raspberry. “Like he’s going to know it’s … aha!” She produced a tiny key from the pencil tray of his desk drawer and scurried back over. “Try this one.”
I rolled my eyes. “Why would that work if it’s from Ian’s desk?” With annoyance, I inserted the key, but to my surprise, the lock turned. I looked up at Megan, dumbfounded.
In return, she beamed at me. “See? And you didn’t want to try.”
Ignoring her, I opened the drawer and was disappointed to find another stack of papers. I pulled out a handful and flipped through them. “More bills,” I said, defeated. “Why would you even bother locking these up?”
“Maybe there’s just nothing that he’s hiding.”
I turned around and looked at her. “Megan … someone killed him, and they didn’t do it for no good reason. There has to be something.” I removed all the papers from the drawer and set them on the floor, shining my flashlight in the drawer. That’s when I saw it. “Jackpot!”
“What?”
“There’s more in here.” I stuck my hand in and removed the thin wooden board. “There’s a hole in here for you to stick your finger in.” I showed her the plank of wood.
“Interesting…” she said, shining her flashlight in the drawer.
Inside, I found a manila envelope marked “confidential”; I passed it over to Megan for inspection while I finished digging through the drawer. Along with that envelope, I found another, smaller envelope stuffed with photographs, an appointment book, and another key. It was attached to a key ring that had a logo from the Hidden Den, a local bar. My eyes ran over the items I’d pulled from the drawer. We’d have to take all of it with us; I couldn’t risk leaving anything important behind. And I certainly wasn’t coming back again unless it was to put everything back where we’d found it. Although I doubted anyone would miss it.
I gathered everything up and stuffed it into my backpack, careful not to bend the photos.
“Um, Lana…”
“What?”
“I don’t really understand what I’m looking at yet, but what do you know about Donna?”
“What do you mean?” I asked, looking up from my bag.
Her eyes were fixed on the papers from the manila envelope that she held in her hand. “I think she was up to something?” She flipped the papers around for me to look at. “I don’t know, but it looks like Mr. Feng was doing some kind of investigation on her…”
I took the papers from her hand and skimmed through them. It was some kind of background check. Why was Thomas doing a background check on his own wife?
I took a deep breath. “We’re taking it with us. Let’s get the hell out of here.” I shoved the rest of what we had in my backpack and then straightened up the desk to the way it looked before I went digging through it. I was confident that the area was such a disaster to begin with that Ian wouldn’t even know anything was touched.
We left as quietly as we’d come in, locking the door behind us. We didn’t say a word as we made our way back down the service hallway and through Ho-Lee Noodle House, both of us lost in our own thoughts. Megan stood behind me as I locked the door to the restaurant for
the final time that night.
I was so distracted, looking through my purse for my keys, that I wouldn’t have noticed anyone if Megan hadn’t put her hand on my arm.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
We both stopped in mid-step, standing exposed in the plaza as Kimmy Tran came waltzing out of China Cinema and Song in a red sequined dress and stiletto heels. Her hair was, for the first time, perfectly straight and not up in a ponytail or bun. We stood frozen watching her lock up the store.
Megan hissed in my ear. “I thought everyone was gone.”
“So did I,” I whispered from the side of my mouth.
Kimmy must have sensed us standing there because she froze at the door and turned her head very slowly to face us. It took a second for recognition to set in, but when it did, her face set into an angry scowl. “What the hell are you two doing here?”
CHAPTER
25
Kimmy Tran stomped over in her stiletto heels and sized us up. She crossed her arms over her chest and eyed us with suspicion. “The plaza has been closed for a while now, what are you two doing lurking about?”
I tried to come up with a million and one excuses for why Megan and I were standing in the middle of the plaza with backpacks, looking as thick as thieves. But before I had the chance, Megan answered for both of us.
“And what exactly are you doing?” Megan pointed an accusatory finger at Kimmy. “You look like you’re about to stand on a corner somewhere.”
Kimmy gasped. “Did you just imply what I think you did?” She took a step closer to Megan, her hands balling into fists.
Megan lifted her chin. “If the shoe fits…”
“Like you have room to talk, you blond little—”
“Okay!” I yelled. “Ladies, let’s not get crazy.” I stepped between the two of them with my back to Megan. I gave Kimmy an apologetic look. “I think what Megan was trying to say is that we’re surprised to see you so…”
“So what?” Kimmy asked, folding her arms back over her chest.
“Dressed up…” I said.
She looked down at her outfit and back at me. “If you really want to know…” Kimmy smoothed the lines of her dress. “I have a date.”
“Well, we wouldn’t want to keep you then,” Megan spat from behind me.
Kimmy’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lucky I have somewhere to be right now.”
Megan snorted. “Yeah, real lucky.”
Kimmy groaned and spun around, hitting me in the face with her hair. She stomped off toward the main entrance of the plaza leaving me and Megan standing there in shock.
After she’d left the building, both of us relaxed and headed toward the exit.
“I’m going to take a stand and say I don’t like that girl,” Megan declared.
I laughed. “Yeah, I kinda got that impression.”
* * *
Back at the apartment, Megan and I sat on the living room floor with the contents of the hidden drawer laid out between us. On the way home we’d splurged on a pizza and were in the process of stuffing ourselves while investigating what we’d found. Kikko sniffed at the closed pizza box on the coffee table, wishing she had thumbs.
Megan had the confidential envelope in front of her, mumbling to herself as she read the report. “So, it looks like Mr. Feng started this investigation about a month before he died. Not only did he have a background check done, but someone was following her around.” She passed me a few photos. “She didn’t seem to be caught doing anything exciting.”
I flipped through the photos, which had clearly been taken without Donna’s knowledge. Megan was right, nothing about them was exciting. She was captured going to the store and meeting with other Asian community members, most whom I recognized. Not exactly anything suspicious. I handed the photos back to Megan. “What could he have been looking for?”
“Wait a minute…” Megan said, flipping between two pages. She put the rest down and held the pages side by side. “Look at this…” She took the photos from me and handed over the papers she’d been inspecting.
“What is this?” I asked, looking between the two pages. “Two birth certificates?”
“Look at the note attached,” Megan instructed, stuffing the pictures back in the envelope.
The note read: “Country of Origin: China.”
I looked between the two birth certificates again. “From what I remember, my mom told me that Donna came from California.”
Megan tilted her head. “Well, obviously not. But why would she lie about where she was born?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, but maybe that was what Mr. Feng was trying to figure out.” I gave her back the documents and she put them back in the envelope. I moved my attention to the envelope full of pictures. “Let’s see what else we come up with.”
Some of the pictures had been taken with black-and-white film. From their texture and style, I could tell they were pretty old. The top picture was of two little Asian boys in a park, wearing similar clothing, in front of a swing set. The back of the picture was dated 1967. “I think one of these little boys must be Thomas.” I held out the picture, showing it to Megan.
“Oh, look how cute,” she said, taking the picture and inspecting it. “Wow, 1967, are they all this old?”
I flipped through the pictures. “No, not all of them. There are some that look more recent.”
The next ones that caught my attention were of two young-looking men and a beautiful Asian girl standing between them. One of the men was taller and resembled Mr. Feng. I didn’t recognize the other man. Behind that photo was a picture of just the girl in what appeared to be a student headshot. She was absolutely stunning. Her raven hair was curled in the classic Farah Fawcett style. Her makeup was minimal, but she didn’t really need it. She had a natural beauty about her. Her eyes spoke of happiness and she was so familiar to me that I felt almost as if I knew her, but I couldn’t place the face.
The next picture after that was a school photo that reminded me of my own school pictures. A little Asian boy sat smiling uncomfortably at the camera. Behind him, on the backdrop, were neon blue and pink lasers. My parents had a similar photo of me hanging in their living room, despite my protests.
“Look at these.” I passed the photos to Megan.
“Who are these people?” She flipped through the photos.
“I have no idea. Maybe family or something?”
I riffled through the remaining pictures and found one that intrigued me. “What the heck?” In my hands was an old faded color photo that was torn in half. Several Asian people stood huddled together outside of a nondescript building, all smiling happily at the camera. There was one white guy in the mix, and I inspected the photo more carefully. No doubt about it, I’d seen that face before. It was my dad. He had his arm wrapped around my mom and she leaned into him, her head barely reaching his chest.
There were a couple other torn photos mixed in, all taken around the same time.
Megan leaned forward to look at the pictures in my hand. “Why do you think those are ripped?”
“I don’t know, but here’s one with my parents in it.” I handed her the picture I’d been scrutinizing.
“Wow…” Megan eyed the picture closely. “Look at your mom! She was a fox!!”
I gave her the rest of the pictures to look at while I went through the planner. As I flipped the pages, I realized that everything was written either in Chinese or some kind of code.
I cursed myself for not trying harder to learn how to read Chinese. I could only recognize a couple of characters, but I had a feeling I was taking them out of context. One character put with another could completely change the meaning of a word or sentence.
I skipped ahead to the day of Mr. Feng’s death. He’d had an appointment that day for 12 P.M. Next to the time were a string of Chinese characters, and the letters AC. Below that, he’d scribbled Cindy’s name, a few more Chinese characters, and 1:30 P.M.
I thought back to whe
n I’d delivered his lunch; it had been shortly before noon. This was proof that he’d met with someone after I had delivered the food. Which meant that I was not the last to see him alive. I felt a twinge of relief. There had been someone else. Now the question was … what did AC stand for? Were they initials or an abbreviation?
“So what now?” Megan asked, breaking my concentration.
I looked up from the planner and shrugged. “I don’t know. We can’t start asking people questions because how would we know this stuff. It’s not like we can go up to Donna and say, ‘Hey, were you really born in China? We found your husband’s papers hidden in a drawer.’”
“True,” Megan replied. “I suppose we can try and find out from your mom. Maybe she knows something and just never mentioned it before.”
“If she knew, I think she would have mentioned it already. She’s made it a point to tell me where everyone from the plaza originally came from.”
She looked at me, confused. “Why does that matter?”
“To some, it makes all the difference,” I said, digging to the bottom of my backpack. “But what I really want to know is … what do these go to?” I pulled out the key ring that I’d found and dangled it in front of Megan. Kikko’s head snapped up, her attention momentarily broken from the pizza box. She waddled over to give the keys a good sniff.
Megan looked between me and the keys. “That was locked in the drawer?” She took them from my hand and inspected the key chain. “The Hidden Den? Isn’t that on the east side somewhere? Sounds familiar.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard of it too.”
“Maybe we should go there and check it out.” She dropped the keys back in my hand and I returned them to the bag with the rest of our lifted goods.
“Maybe we should.” I zipped up the bag, propping it against the wall. I let out a groan as I checked the readout on my cell phone. “Ugh, it’s already almost two in the morning, and I have to get up for the morning shift.” I stretched my legs out in front of me, wiggling my toes. “I thought this would help answer some questions, but it’s really just generated more questions.”
Megan picked up our empty beer bottles and leftover pizza from the table. “Are you planning on telling your detective boyfriend about all of this?”