Death by Dumpling

by Vivien Chien

  “Charles?” I asked.

  She looked at me blankly. “Charles An.”

  My mind fled back to the photo of the two young boys on the playground. So, the other boy was Charles An.

  She continued. “Charles and I had been dating, but he was always so quiet. He never laughed and he barely smiled. He was shy, and I wanted excitement. I wanted to feel in love.”

  I nodded with sympathy, urging her to go on.

  “I started to spend more time with Thomas, and soon we began to see each other in secret…” She gave me a pointed look, and that was all I needed to know. As far as I was concerned, my whole generation came from storks.

  “And then Mr. An found out?”

  She started to cry more. “He caught us together … and … I could see it in his eyes … I had broken his heart.” She paused. Her shoulders shook as she continued to sob.

  “It’s okay,” I assured her, placing a gentle hand on her back. “Then what happened?”

  She laughed, almost maniacally, and waved her hands around. “Then this plaza happened.”

  She must have read the confusion on my face because I didn’t have to ask her to explain.

  “Thomas loved this plaza more than me. More than anything. Then Donna showed up and she had a lot of money. She comes from a rich family, and I do not…” she said with spite in her voice. “My mother was a seamstress at a factory and she hardly made any money. I was lucky even to go to college.”

  I thought about my previous conversation with Donna and her need for people to believe that story. “So, he left you for Donna?” I asked, but hated to do so. I could see the pain on her face.

  “Things were going on that I didn’t know about,” she said. “Things were already in place and Thomas had made promises to her for money.”

  “And he didn’t know you were pregnant?” I guessed.

  She shook her head. “No, and I did not want to tell him. I knew that this was his dream, and I would just get in the way.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I went to live with my mother, and she took care of me. After she died, I had to take care of myself and things were very hard because I did not have much money. That’s when Thomas found out.”

  “You told him?”

  “No,” she said. “He figured it out by himself when he first met Peter.” After that, he helped me with money and we started to spend time together again.

  The tears continued to flow and I hoped that part of those tears came from relief. She had kept this secret for over thirty years. I took a moment to contemplate the weight of something like that. It seemed unfathomable.

  “Nancy…” I said softly. “I’m so sorry about all of this.”

  “I am too.” Her eyes became wild. “If this has anything to do with why he died, I will never forgive myself.”

  “You can’t blame yourself. You did the best you could.”

  She looked off into the distance at Ho-Lee Noodle House. “Every day I am thankful for having Peter in my life. Even though I am sorry for the way things happened, I would never take it back.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes, and I thought about how complicated life could be. The holes we could so easily fall into. And even though I was convinced that falling into my own holes and seeing things pan out for myself was the right way to go, I could see through Nancy why people tried so hard to protect their children from the pain of most realities. Some things were better left unknown.

  “Does anyone know the truth about Peter?” I asked.

  “Your mother and Esther know, but that is it,” she confided.

  “My mother!” I fumed. Here she’d known this whole time. And she didn’t think once to mention it.

  Nancy could read the anger on my face. “Please do not be mad at your mother for keeping my secret. She is a very good friend to me.”

  She had a point. If Megan had a secret like that, I wouldn’t tell anyone either. As much as I wanted to be mad at my mother, I really couldn’t blame her.

  Wiping away the tears on her face, Nancy said, “You can’t believe that it was Peter. He would never hurt anyone.”

  “Are you sure that he doesn’t know?” I asked her, keeping his strange behavior in mind.

  She shook her head. “I didn’t want him to find out after all these years. Thomas wanted to tell him about it, and we fought about it a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Fought about it where?”

  “What?” she asked.

  “Where did you fight about not telling Peter?”

  “We were in his office.”

  Puzzle pieces started clicking in my brain. Nancy must have been the woman Yuna heard and mistook for Donna. And it also might have explained Peter and Mr. Feng’s argument that Cindy had witnessed that day outside of the property office. Maybe that was why Peter didn’t want to see Mr. Feng and stuck me with delivering the food. But that didn’t necessarily mean that Peter was the one who killed Mr. Feng.

  “What will you do now?” Nancy asked, watching me.

  I sighed. “I don’t know … something is missing … I just can’t…” I looked down at the photos in her hand. “I almost forgot … can you tell me why some of these pictures are torn in half?”

  She looked down at her hands and plucked the torn photo from the stack. “It looks like these ones had Charles in them. Their fighting was very bad. Charles moved away to California. I don’t know why he came back…”

  As Nancy continued to ramble about the falling-out between the two men and all the events that took place after, more things began to fall into place and I realized that I’d been looking at this all wrong. There was just one more stop I had to make before I could say with certainty that I knew who killed Thomas Feng.

  * * *

  After I left Nancy, I drove straight to Peter’s apartment. If he could just answer a few questions for me, I could have the peace of mind I needed.

  He answered the door, surprised to find me on his doorstep. He stepped aside without saying anything.

  I whipped around to face him after he shut the door. “Did you know?”

  Peter tilted his head. “Know what?”

  “About Mr. Feng.”

  He walked past me into the living room and slumped on the couch. “I’m not ready to talk about this, okay?”

  I was done playing nice. “We need to talk about this now!”

  “Why?”

  “Because I am trying to clear your name, and I can’t do that if you don’t tell me the truth.”

  Peter let out a heavy sigh and in place of the little boy he had appeared to be only a few days ago, he looked like he’d aged about ten. “If you’re trying to ask me if I knew that Thomas Feng was my father…” He stopped, folding his arms across his chest.

  “You did know!”

  He looked up at me with surprise. “How did you know?”

  “Trust me,” I said, sitting on the arm of the couch. “It’s a long story…”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes. I tried to think of something to say, but came up empty.

  Peter saved me from racking my brain any further. He turned to face me. “A few weeks ago, Mr. Feng … Thomas…” He threw his head back on the couch. “He ordered takeout like he always did, and I took it over there like I always did.

  “Only this time, he told me he needed to talk to me about something. He said he couldn’t take me not knowing anymore and that he felt bad I had grown up without a father.”

  My heart lurched.

  “He told me all about him and my mother and how they fell in love.” He laughed to himself. “He told me more than I needed to know.

  “So I yelled at him and told him to leave me alone. But he wouldn’t. A few days later, he cornered me again and said he wanted to make things right.”

  “That must be when everyone saw you guys fighting.”

  “Yeah, man, it was totally embarrassing. Everyone came out of their stores to see what was going on … Es
ther … Mr. An … even the Yi sisters.”

  “And that’s why you didn’t want to deliver his food that day?”

  “Yes,” Peter admitted. “I told him I needed more time and he wouldn’t listen. I thought the only way for him to leave me alone was if I avoided him.”

  I nodded. “Makes sense.”

  “I’m sorry that I got you into this mess, Lana.”

  “It’s okay,” I told him. “I just don’t understand why you didn’t tell all of this to Detective Trudeau?”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered, man. I would still look guilty.” Peter brushed stray hairs from his eyes. “Plus, I didn’t want anyone to find out about my mom and … Thomas. I don’t even know what to call him…”

  “You need to cut your mother some slack, by the way. Imagine how hard this was for her.”

  He huffed. “I know … I just need some time to get things straight in my head.”

  “Well, I think you should come back to work,” I said. “Things aren’t the same without you, and it might be better if things go back to normal in your life.” I looked around the apartment. “You can’t hide in here forever.”

  He laughed. “What are you talking about, dude? This place is a palace.”

  After we’d made amends and the air felt clear and breathable between us again, I got up to leave. I stopped at the door, turning back to look at him. “Just one more thing…”

  “What?”

  “This whole thing with Kimmy? What’s that all about?”

  He blushed. “I started hiding out in strip clubs to get away from everyone. I knew no one would think to look for me there. I never expected to run into Kimmy.”

  “So, all the strange behavior between the two of you?”

  “She’s worried I’m going to rat her out or whatever. She thinks I told you about it. She mentioned something to me about you snooping around asking about her second job.”

  “Oops.” I winced. “Well, her secret is safe with me. I plan to take that secret with me to the grave. The fewer people who know I’ve gone to a strip club, the better.”

  * * *

  I left Peter’s with all the confirmation I needed. I reworked the puzzle pieces swirling in my head as I drove home. Despite the number of people I had suspected along the way, there was only one person who seemed to keep showing up at the most interesting moments. I thought about the times he had stopped at the restaurant or the times he had shown too much interest in what was going on with me or Peter for no apparent reason. I thought how he just so happened to be at our banquet table right before Donna had her episode at the memorial. He’d been standing right there at the seat he’d thought was mine. I hadn’t thought much about it at the time.

  My hands gripped the steering wheel tightly as I thought about the things Mr. Zhang had told me about him stopping by the herb shop to ask questions about yellow jasmine. But it was when I thought about the appointment book from Mr. Feng’s office that I could have really smacked myself.

  The letters AC were initials!

  Because of the way I was brought up, I didn’t think in terms of Asian versus American, which reminded me of the time Esther had told me she still thinks in terms of the way she was brought up even though she’s been in the U.S. for decades. So it wasn’t until that moment in the car that I realized Mr. Feng had written the initials the Chinese way … the surname initial first. To someone like me, it would have read CA.

  And there was only one person I knew with those initials … Charles An.

  CHAPTER

  33

  I should have called Trudeau the very minute that I came to my conclusion. But there was that niggle of doubt and denial that crept into my brain. That annoying voice that said, no, you have it all wrong.

  So instead, I compiled everything I knew and wrote it down in my notebook, preparing all of my facts and ensuring that I hadn’t missed anything. Kikko sat diligently at my side, watching my pen fly across the page. I had meticulously written out everything I’d learned from start to finish in an outline of sorts, ready to present to Trudeau.

  Part of why I didn’t want to talk to him right away was because of the way we’d left things outside the Black Garter. He had told me to mind my own business and stay out of trouble, and I’d failed to do so.

  The next morning, on my way in to the restaurant, I called the number he’d given me. He didn’t answer, so I left a message telling him I needed to talk and asked him to meet me at the restaurant when he had a chance. I was hoping to hear back from him before I even got to the plaza, but my drive ended in silence.

  Absentmindedly, I opened the door to the restaurant and shuffled through my morning tasks. As I busied myself with wiping down tables, lost in thought, I didn’t hear the door open and shut behind me. The bell tinkled, but I was so preoccupied that the sound didn’t fully register.

  The next thing I heard was a gun being cocked. “You couldn’t leave things alone, could you?” an angry voice accused from somewhere behind me.

  I whipped around, fearing that I knew who was behind me, and sure enough, there he was … Charles An.

  I held my hands up in defense and backed away. He matched my steps and gave me a tsk. “Stay right there.”

  “Okay,” I said, eyeing the kitchen door. “Just calm down…” If I could make it through the swinging doors, I could at least barricade myself in my parents’ office and call for help. I cursed myself silently for not having locked the door behind me. “You don’t need to use that.”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down,” he spat. “I have been calm for a long time now. I have watched you be nosy.” He took a step forward. “Asking too many questions…”

  I took another step back. “I don’t know what you mean…”

  “Oh, just shut up,” he yelled. “I saw you talking with my Nancy yesterday. That is when I knew you know too much, little girl. You should have minded your own business.”

  “Nancy and I were just—”

  “Don’t lie to me! I’m not stupid.”

  “I didn’t say you were. I’m just trying to explain—”

  “Explain it to someone else!” He laughed to himself, his gun shaking with the movement. “But you will never get the chance. It really is too bad too. I liked you very much when you first came here.”

  “You can’t shoot me,” I said, trying to sound rational. “They’ll figure out it was you.”

  “Oh, no they won’t,” he replied smugly. “And you know why? Because they are going to think it was Peter. I have plans for him too. He was supposed to take the blame for Thomas dying. That bastard.”

  I stared at him. “You knew?”

  He laughed. “Yes, I knew. That stupid traitor, he took away my girlfriend, and then he got her pregnant.” His lip curled in disgust. “Then he would leave her to be a mother by herself? For what?” He held his arms out. “For this plaza?”

  I eased myself around a table while he had his gun pointed elsewhere.

  He continued to rant, fixing the gun back on me as he noticed my movement. “And I left for so many years. But it followed me. Everywhere … everywhere I went, I saw her … and him … together. It makes me sick.”

  “Well, now you can have her back … now you can go find her and be with her…” I offered.

  He snorted. “I tried, but she doesn’t want me. Not anymore. Not after him. I thought, maybe if he goes away, she will change her mind.” He looked off in the distance, and I took it as another chance to make further progress. “So I came up with a way to get rid of him,” he admitted. “I asked him to have lunch with me. I told him I wanted to make up, that we should not fight anymore. All these years…” He cackled. “All these years…”

  I took a small step back.

  “I came to your restaurant early that day and ordered shrimp dumplings. I already knew he would have his own dumplings from your restaurant. Every week, he orders the same thing. So boring of him. And I knew that Peter would deliver them…”


  A thought passed through my mind that Trudeau had only checked the to-go receipts and Mr. An had ordered in that day.

  “But you had to get in the way.” His eyes slid back to me. “I thought it would ruin everything, but you making the delivery helped Peter look even guiltier.”

  I inched my heel back a little. “So, you did want Peter to take the blame … not me.”

  “Of course, how perfect for the son to kill the father, right? The father he didn’t know all his life.”

  “But how did you switch his dumplings?”

  “I spilled my tea. He got up to get me napkins,” he said, laughing. “And when he turned away, I switched my dumplings with his. No one would know, they all look the same.”

  “What about his EpiPen?” I asked. If I was going to get shot, I at least wanted to know the full story.

  “He tried to use it. He tasted the shrimp right away. I took it from him before he had the chance!” he said, staring off again. “I did it for her … I did it for my Nancy. But that only made it worse … now all she does is cry for him. She cries more for him than his own wife does.”

  My leg bumped a chair and the sound brought him back to reality.

  “Stop moving!” he yelled.

  “Okay, okay…” I said, surrendering. My legs shook uncontrollably and I felt like I would collapse at any moment. Right then, I made a promise to myself that if I made it out alive, I would change my life. I would listen to Megan and my mom and stop moping around the house watching sad romantic movies. I threw the promise out into the universe, hoping that someone out there was listening.

  “I hope you know this is your own fault. You should have minded your own business. Everyone else does. No one will miss Mr. Feng. People will forget about him.” He focused the gun at my chest. “Now you will learn your lesson for being so nosy!”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. This was it. I was done at twenty-seven. I was going to die a server at my parents’ restaurant with no man to call my own and a dog named after soy sauce.

  “I’d put that gun down if I were you,” a voice said calmly from somewhere near the entrance. I popped an eye open and was both surprised and relieved to see Trudeau standing behind Mr. An with a gun in his hand. “I’ve got one just like it pointed at your head, and I can guarantee you, I’m a hell of a better shot than you.”