[Abby Kanem - SG 01.0] Suitcase Girl

by Ty Hutchinson

  “You didn’t cost out everything?

  “I did, but—”

  “Well, that means you have to know the intimate details of everything. Who else would have that knowledge but the guy who thought it up in the first place?”

  “You’ve got it all wrong.”

  “So you’re not involved? You just happened to swing by to visit your buddy at the wrong time? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Whatever.” Sticks waved off my accusation. “I’m not hearing any of that.”

  “Well, you better because with all the federal charges stacked against you, life in prison with no chance for parole is exactly what you’ll get. We’re handing the attorney general a slam-dunk case. And he loves putting away the heads of criminal organizations.”

  “I’m not the head. Darren needed someone to figure out the costs for this operation, so I did exactly what he wanted.”

  “Wait. Are you telling us that he’s the real mastermind behind all of this?”

  “It’s his idea. He got the rest of us involved.”

  “Why should we believe you? Haven’t you two been best friends since you were kids?”

  Sticks let out a breath as he shook his head. “This is all screwed up. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”

  “Why don’t you tell us exactly how it should have happened?”

  “If I do, what do I get in return? I don’t want to go to jail.”

  “That’s a tall request. We know so much already and have the evidence to prove it.” I turned to Kang. “What do you think?”

  He shrugged and then buried his hands in the front pockets of his slacks. “I guess if he tells us everything, that’s gotta count for something.”

  “Yeah, it should,” Sticks added.

  Sticks went on to tell us how Chow approached him with the idea of developing a trafficking business.

  “He said gangs that needed prostitutes could get them easily outside of the US but faced the hassle of bringing them into the country. They also didn’t put much thought into it either. The result is unhealthy girls and unreliability. He figured if we could nail the transport, we could then service these people.”

  “But you guys were also prostituting those girls back at the building,” I said.

  “It was temporary. We needed to make our money back, plus we wanted to understand their aspect of the business. Once we paid off our debt and built up a cash cushion, we planned to stop and just focus on transporting. The end game was to always sell the operation off to the highest bidder and walk away and start up a legitimate business. And those girls aren’t being forced. They were recruited. They stay here for a month, make a bunch of money, and then we ship them back. They signed up for it. We would never force someone.”

  “But you were eventually willing to transport girls who might have been kidnapped and forced into prostitution, isn’t that right?”

  Sticks said nothing and looked away briefly. “Our goal was to deliver healthy girls on a reliable schedule. We can’t vet every girl who is brought to us. It’s like FedEx can’t be expected to look inside every package they ship, right?”

  “They’re not shipping human beings illegally into this country.” I shook my head, pursed my lips for a moment, then said, “I don’t know if you’ve made a strong enough case for us to cut you a deal. What do you think, Agent Kang?”

  “I think someone is heading to jail for a long time,” Kang said.

  “I don’t know what else to tell you. You already know everything.”

  “Who do you guys really work for?” I asked.

  “What do you mean? We don’t work for anyone. We don’t have any customers. I mean, we were pretty much still beta-testing and working out the kinks.”

  “You and your partners, with the exception of Mr. Chow, don’t have criminal records. I find it hard to believe that you four somehow figured this all out with absolutely no experience.”

  Sticks told us about the others and the specialties they brought to the group. To be honest, I was impressed—even with those backgrounds, what they’d pulled off was incredibly sophisticated. We had never seen a smuggling operation like this. Even Customs and Border Protection was caught off guard. The ability to consider every detail so thoroughly was mind blowing. If it wasn’t for Xiaolian being left outside our building, I believed they would have gone unchecked and fulfilled their goals without anyone finding out. Which raised the question: why did they do something so dumb?

  “Tell me about the girl in the suitcase.”

  “What girl in the suitcase?”

  “The one you guys left outside our offices.”

  Sticks crinkled his brow. “Are you talking about the girl who looks like you?”

  “So you do know about her?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I mean, yeah, I can see the resemblance. Are you family or something?”

  “That girl was stuffed into a suitcase and left outside this office building in the early morning, the day after your shipment arrived.”

  “That’s impossible. We would never do something like that. It’s stupid. It would jeopardize…”

  “That’s right, your operation. Start talking.”

  He sighed loudly and stared at the ceiling for a moment. “She was a last-minute addition to the shipment. A customer had approached us… well, approached Darren. He vouched for the person. They were willing to pay triple what he originally asked for to bring the girl to the US.”

  “Why not just fly her to the States?”

  “I dunno. Maybe she has passport problems.”

  “The other girls have passports?”

  “Some do. But that’s why I have a checklist with their names and pictures. It’s how I know we received what was shipped.”

  “So your organization didn’t arrange the shipment in Taiwan.”

  “Sort of. Angie flew there about a month ago, recruited the girls, and then left instructions with her ex-boyfriend. He gets everybody on the ship for a fee.”

  “Angie had nothing to do with the recruitment of this particular girl?”

  “No, it was arranged through Darren. Someone we don’t know met up with Angie’s ex at the ship. And this person sent a picture of the girl to Darren so we could cross-check on our end.”

  “So that’s why you singled her out from the other girls when you unloaded the container?”

  “Uh, yeah. Someone was supposed to meet us at the port so we could hand her off and be done with it.”

  “But…”

  “Darren said the plan changed. The person who was supposed to pick up the girl couldn’t and—”

  “Wait, was it one person or a group?”

  “I’m not sure. Anyway, whoever was supposed to pick her up asked that we hold on to her for a few hours, so we did. Later we got another call to drop her off at a meeting point. Darren said he would deal with it.”

  “He went alone?”

  “Yeah, it was late. We were tired.”

  “And you thought nothing of it?”

  “It was late,” Sticks said with a raised voice. “We were all tired. No one argued. The next morning when we woke, Darren had already returned. He said everything went as planned. He showed us the payment. Eighteen thousand in cash.”

  I turned my back to Sticks and looked at Kang with raised eyebrows. He motioned toward the door, and we exited the room.

  ‘Didn’t see that coming,” Kang said.

  I agreed, and then I shared what Chow had told me earlier: that I had it all wrong. “Maybe he really did make a hand-off to another person.”

  “And that person is really the person who dropped Xiaolian off outside our office building,” Kang said.

  “We all assumed that they dropped Xiaolian off because they unloaded her from the container, and she identified the tattoo on Chow’s arm, and we found his DNA in the suitcase. It’s a logical conclusion.”

  “So maybe delivering her in a suitcase was part of the request.�
�

  “Hold that thought.”

  I poked my head back in the room and asked Sticks if Darren had left for the meeting point with a suitcase.

  “I didn’t see him leave with one,” he answered.

  I shut the door.

  “Maybe he picked one up on the way or had it stashed in the van,” Kang said.

  “Well, if he didn’t, then we have another party involved.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  We met up with Hansen and Pratt after they finished with their questioning.

  “According to Lim and Dickson, they all met while attending Stanford,” Hansen said. “These two lovebirds are still enrolled but took a semester off.”

  All in all, the three who talked told the same story. Chow, on the other hand, remained tight-lipped.

  “Abby, maybe it is what it is,” Kang said. “We got three of them giving us the exact same story about the operation and Xiaolian. Chow not talking is most likely him trying to cover his butt. He knows he’s screwed.”

  “So someone spends a lot of money to smuggle her into the US only to turn her over to the FBI,” I said. “That just makes no sense. Who? Why?”

  “Chow’s the only one who talked to this mystery person or persons,” Kang said. “We need him to talk, which he isn’t doing. Unless we cut him a deal, there’s no reason for him to say anything.”

  “How badly do you want to find the person who dropped off Xiaolian?” Hansen asked.

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Well, the way I see it, we took down what was heading toward a huge trafficking scheme. We got in early and not because we were investigating these four. They weren’t even on our radar. We stopped a beast in its first few steps. Would you really want to cut a deal to the guy who organized all of this just to find out who dropped the girl off? I mean, she’s fine. She’s not hurt. She wasn’t forced into prostitution. She was just dropped off. Maybe she came from a bad home and someone wanted her out and far from that environment. Far enough to smuggle her into the States and then turn her over to the FBI in hopes we file for asylum status.”

  Hansen had a good point. “You’re right. We did end up catching the big fish. Agent Hansen, Agent Pratt, your hunch about Craigslist paid off. Excellent job.”

  “We just might make investigators out of you two.” Kang chuckled.

  I had Hansen and Pratt take the lead on questioning the girls and notifying CPS. Depending on their situation, CPS could lobby to have them stay in the country, but I doubted that would be the case. They apparently came over willingly and had expected to go home after a month or so. Unless something significant arose from questioning them, I expected them to be deported swiftly.

  That also meant Xiaolian would be deported. She had entered the country illegally and had no family connection here. With the investigation winding down, there was no need for the FBI to retain her.

  I spent the remainder of my time at the office writing up a report until Lucy called asking if I would be home in time for dinner. “Of course I will. See you soon.”

  I bade goodbye to Kang and then stuck my head into Reilly’s office to let him know I would have a report on his desk the following morning.

  “And the girl… are you handing her over to CPS?” he asked, reminding me again we had no need to hold Xiaolian.

  I knew deep down Reilly wouldn’t support cutting Chow a deal to find out who Xiaolian’s handler was. We had scored a big bust for the department, and the investigation could be neatly closed.

  If anything, I could question Chow after he spoke with his lawyer to see if he could help with Xiaolian, but even then, what was the point? Eventually she would be deported. Whether she was forced or had come willingly to the US, she’d arrived illegally. Plus Reilly was under the impression we would now be winding down the investigation. Xiaolian was a non-issue for him.

  I arrived home to Lucy moaning she was starving and near death. She feigned dizziness and dragged her feet as she walked to the dinner table. “My God, I could never survive a hunger strike,” she said.

  I asked her why on earth would she face a hunger strike.

  “I’m just saying, if I had to, I wouldn’t last very long.”

  “What about you, Xiaolian? Are you starving too?”

  “Yes, Po Po’s cooking is the best.”

  Po Po waved her off playfully.

  The two seemed to genuinely get along. Whenever I asked Xiaolian what they talked about during the day, she would always shrug and say, “I dunno. A lot of things.”

  The only people I’d known Po Po to have engaging conversations with were her friends. She talked to Ryan, Lucy, and me, but it was nothing like the nonstop chatter she had with her group. And they always spoke in Chinese, shouting over one another, with a lot of finger pointing and dismissive hand gestures. They seemed happier that way.

  After dinner and spending time with Lucy and Ryan, Xiaolian and I retreated to her room for our nightly conversation. Part of me felt I really didn’t need to have the talk. It wasn’t imperative that we find the person who had abandoned her. And so far, that seemed to be the only thing that had happened, outside of being brought illegally into the country. Even if I did lobby CPS to take her in permanently, they would have to file for a T-1 visa, and even then it wasn’t a guarantee she would be issued one.

  Why I even had those thoughts were a mystery to me. Xiaolian wasn’t family. She wasn’t my responsibility. She just looked a lot like me.

  She climbed onto her bed, and I sat on the edge of the mattress.

  “Today we caught the men who took you out of the container,” I said rather bluntly.

  “Oh? What will happen to them?”

  “They will go to prison. They did a very bad thing.”

  I didn’t think I needed to explain what happened with the other girls, even if they had supposedly volunteered.

  “The leader of their group had a dragon tattoo like you described, so you helped us catch them. His name is Darren Chow. Does that sound familiar?”

  “No.”

  “It’s okay. I’m just asking. However, there is something I wanted to clarify with you. When you told me about the tattoo, you said you saw it when he injected you. Are you sure about that?”

  Xiaolian’s crunched her brow. “Yes, I think so. But maybe I saw it when he put me in the van. Now I’m confused. I’m not sure anymore.”

  “Okay, let’s start from the beginning. There’s no rush, so let’s take our time. After leaving the container, you got inside of a van, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You may have seen the tattoo then, but you can’t quite remember right now?”

  “Sorry.”

  “You’re doing fine. Okay, once you’re in the van, where did you go? Do you remember?”

  She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The van stopped, and we waited for a long time before they told us to get out. We went into a building and took the elevator to the top floor, and then they put me in an apartment by myself.”

  “And the other girls?”

  She shrugged.

  Probably the building where we busted Chow’s organization.

  “Then what?”

  “I fell asleep. Later one of the men woke me.”

  “Did you see his face?”

  “He had sunglasses and a big coat that covered his head.”

  “Was it the man with the tattoo?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t remember seeing one.”

  “Okay, so what happened next?”

  “We went back to the van.”

  “Just the two of you?”

  She nodded. “I remember it was still dark outside. We drove around, but I don’t know where. He made me lie down in the back. I think I fell asleep again.”

  “So you think maybe you don’t remember him giving you an injection?”

  Her eyes shifted from side to side as she sat quietly for a few moments. “No, I remember him giving me a shot. I did
fall asleep, but I woke up. He told me he had to give me my medicine. After that, I felt really tired.”

  “Do you remember getting inside of a suitcase?” I quickly found the picture of the suitcase on my phone and showed it to her.

  She took a closer look.

  “Take your time.”

  “I remember.”

  “What? What do you remember?”

  “He put me in the suitcase.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, because that’s when I saw the tattoo on his arm.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The ’77 Monte Carlo sped north on the Interstate 580. Its golden paint had long ago surrendered to the elements and was now faded and patchy beyond repair. Its hood extended out, like a long snout, sniffing the road ahead. The short trunk helped to enhance it.

  In the driver seat, with one arm resting on the top of the steering wheel, the other hanging out the window, a young man stared absentmindedly ahead. His black hair was neatly slicked back, cropped short on the sides. He wore black jeans, leather dress shoes, and a navy-blue designer button-down shirt, the top two buttons undone. A gold chain, rings on every finger, and a bracelet completed his outfit, along with a heavy application of cologne.

  Another man sat next to him. He wore a similar outfit but with a black dress shirt and silver chain, rings, and bracelets instead. The cologne was different, but equally heavy.

  Their features were the only thing identical about them.

  The Chan brothers, Walter and Alonzo, had flown into Reno from Singapore. They preferred the small town over its larger sister city, Las Vegas.

  They’d hailed a taxi at the airport and told the driver to take them to the nearest used-car dealer. There they purchased the Monte Carlo in cash for three thousand dollars. They then drove into town.

  Flashing neon signs burned brightly on both sides of the strip, enticing gamblers into the casinos. A welcome arch outfitted with two thousand LED bulbs sparkling around the city’s slogan, “The biggest little city in the world,” stretched across the street.

  They stopped at an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet in one of the hotels. Walter gorged on Alaskan king crab, Alonzo preferred to fill up on raw oysters.