by David Dagley
Victoria got to the end of the hallway and took one last look back towards Cale’s room. She watched the nurse read a chart and head into a room adjacent to Cale’s. Satisfied, Victoria walked out towards the exit.
Rayman closed his book as he watched Victoria leave the building. He got up and crossed the hall from where he had been sitting, burying his face in his book but still watching, listening, and waiting. He looked in both directions before he swiftly slipped into Cale’s room and closed the door behind him with a click of the latch.
Cale opened his eye, turned his head, and saw Rayman standing at the door. Cale’s heart began to pound, and it registered on his monitor. He strained to open his eye wider.
Rayman came to the edge of Cale’s bed and smiled, saying, “Looks like you’re going to live.”
Cale grunted.
Rayman held up an envelope and waved it back and forth in his hand, “This envelope was stuck on the knife in your back when I found you at Monica’s. It had my name on it.” Rayman placed the letter on Cale’s stomach. It was considerably heavier than just a letter. “My father is dead. He spent the last fifteen years of his life in a cage on a remote Indonesian island near a Won pearl farm. Someone burned his body on a funeral pyre at the tide line a day before your first murder at the museum. Whoever it was left my father’s watch for me to find or just for identification. I don’t know for sure.” Rayman raised his arm and showed Cale the watch. “The Moguk stones that were in the victim’s mouth were some of my stones. I traded the stones for information of my father’s whereabouts. I got that information and left the building. I need you to know that I didn’t kill anybody. When I saw the newspaper the next day, I couldn’t believe it. I’ve been in contact with the Won family for a long time. We have a good rapport, and we’re still in letter communication. I sent a letter thanking the Won family for respecting my father enough to burn him. I’m under the impression that they had nothing to do with his funeral pyre. But they realized that I hadn’t been there until after he was gone. That was my main point I needed to get across to them. I was to be framed for their son’s death, but the letter and the fact that I didn’t run somewhat put me in a favorable spot and took me off the Won’s “Most Wanted” list. It turned out that your victim had been to the beach where my father was being held just before I met up with him. That’s where the pink sand came from that you asked me about at the ranch house. After you showed up at my place, I knew I was in a corner. I had a few silent night visitors in the recent past spying on my activities, and I didn’t want what happened to my father to happen to me, so I moved my essentials into the hayloft in the barn.
After you left, the night my house burned down, I was watching a movie in the living room with my cat and a shotgun across my lap. The cat’s movements, her ears and her tail swishing back and forth, told me someone was at the window again. I turned down the television volume and watched the cat as she followed the man around the house with her ears. I knew the cop was in my front yard, so I climbed out my bedroom window and saw tracks coming from behind the barn. I used the tracks to cover mine and to get to the barn. I climbed up the ladder to the loft and watched a man pour gasoline around the house and then light it. I thought maybe if I burned up, people would stop looking for me. Anyway, I had never seen this guy before; he was Asian, Korean most likely, but not a Won. He jumped off my porch and hid in the forest until the fire got pretty big. I was worried he was going to light the barn on fire next, but he didn’t. Eventually he got up from his hiding place and circled around the house with a gun in hand, pointing it wherever he looked. He must have grabbed my wallet off my desk while looking for my safe or something. The fire was loud, and I quietly grabbed my stuff and ran off through the backwoods, where I came across his tracks going towards the house. I followed his tracks to his car. The keys were in the ashtray, and I drove away.”
Cale mumbled out, “I heard your voice on Monica’s message machine.”
“Yeah, I had to let her know I was all right and that she wasn’t alone. She’s been alone too long,” Rayman admitted. “I was also hoping that with my house burning down, I would throw the Won family off my trail. No thanks to you, that didn’t work, and they found out about Monica.”
“Rayman, did you clean out and wipe down Monica’s house?”
“No. The place was empty when I got there. I saw the backdoors open, walked in, and found you while I was looking for Monica. Why?”
“Because it was a searched mess when I got there. Her clothes were everywhere upstairs, empty picture frames on the floor, torn cushions, message machine, and a box of photos in the upstairs closet. It looked like she left in a hurry. Some of her neighbors said that someone else showed up before me and left before you got there. And you have no idea who this person could be, if not your uncle?”
“It’s not my uncle. It’s someone who calls themselves the Hun,” answered Rayman.
“How do you know that?”
“It’s who signed the letter in the envelope. They were after her key. They would have killed her and taken it; I’m sure.”
Cale felt compelled to tell Rayman, “Monica’s in Seoul now—with the Won family.”
Rayman’s eyes welled up. “I know. Read this letter when you can.” Rayman looked sad and pointed at the letter. He took a deep breath and explained, “It all started when I was young. Do you remember the photo of all of us in costumes and my uncle as a mummy?”
Cale nodded, “Yeah, the bleeding mummy.”
“Yeah, well that photo was taken three days after my uncle shot and killed a Won family member in London. I was very young, but unfortunately I witnessed it from a basement window. Uncle John swore that I saved his life, but I don’t remember all of it. I blanked it out like trauma victims sometimes do. Like a dream, I remember my uncle walking with me, putting me in a basement flat, and told to stay put. I climbed up on a sofa and walked over to a four-paned window at ground level. It was all covered in condensation. I wiped the window and watched people walk by in trench coats and umbrellas. It was really raining outside. I heard gunfire down the street. I saw the man in the trench coat run out of a doorway, shooting a gun back into what I now know was an antique shop owned by another Won, actually Mr. Won senior’s brother. The man got shot as he came out into the street and fell to the ground off the curb. I remember there were two police officers running down the street, blowing their whistles. This guy got up, shot both police officers, and started running again—right at me. He saw me. You should have seen his face. He ran into the basement and fell over, passed out and bleeding. It was my Uncle John. I grabbed him by the coat and pulled him into a large double door closet. I don’t remember much more than that. My dad returned with my mother, and I remember a huge argument between my dad and my uncle; I mean hours. My dad was pissed off,” explained Rayman. His eyes were terrified and serious as he touched the letter, “Whatever you do, don’t let on that you have the contents of this envelope. I’m not sure my Uncle John is the guy who stabbed you at Monica’s place. That’s who the Wons really want, and now they have Monica. I think they will use her to get to him, like they tried to use my father, to bring him out in the open. In the envelope there’s a pair of earrings. They are supposed to be a message to you. There’s a letter, but it’s not my uncle’s handwriting. It may be Mr. Bower. In any case, whoever it was who left this envelope wants me to use the contents, and I can’t do that right now. There’s a gold key in there, which opens a vault. My uncle gave me and my father both one key. The keys belong to the Won family. The Wons took back the key my father carried.”
“What’s in the vault?” asked Cale.
“That depends on the vault and key, or keys. Each key opens a corridor. Some corridors lead to other corridors and hidden rooms; some are full of old scriptures in extinct languages. Some have booty from the Hun conquests in large amounts. Some of the vaults were used at some point in time as armories, which means that many people may have used these corr
idors and actually do battle against other groups, invaders or whatever; I don’t know. This stuff is older and bigger than I am. But you are in research, and I thought maybe we could work on this together. The Stells, the Wons, Mr. Bower—we are all involved. We all have keys, and there are more people who have held onto them through the ages and haven’t surfaced, but I have figured out that their keys are in use. It’s like packs of rats in an abandoned apartment building all figuring out a maze of food, or in our case, wealth and power. I could really use your help. Are you heading back to San Francisco when you’re better?” Ray-man heard someone come in the door.
Cale nodded and said, “Yeah, in a few days.”
“Can I look you up?”
“Yeah. Call the cop shop and ask for research. Ask for Victoria Short. She’ll be expecting you. There’s one more thing, Rayman.”
“What’s that?”
“I found a map in the museum victim’s belt. I have photos of it that I’ll have to show you.”
“Does it look like the layout of the museum?” asked Ray-man excitedly.
“Yeah, it’s similar but with more rooms and different connections.”
“That tells you which keys open which vaults and where they are! That’s huge news. Does anybody know you have it?”
Cale shook his head.
“I’m sorry, sir, visiting hours are over. You’ll have to come back tomorrow or some other time,” said a nurse as she held the door open and ushered Rayman out, making sure he went down the corridor to the exit. The nurse returned to Cale’s side, “I’m sorry I had to send your friend off, but it’s time for your medications and evening morphine dose.”
“Can we wait a little while? I want to look at what he brought for me,” asked Cale.
The nurse smiled and said, “That’s funny. Most patients would rather I double their dose and do it sooner than later. But it turns out that my answer is the same either way. No. I’ve got a schedule to keep, and so do you if you want to get out of here anytime soon.” She pulled a tube out of Cale’s arm, and replaced it with a new one, and compassionately explained, “You have about fifteen minutes before your eyes close for six to eight hours, so get busy. Good night.” The nurse made some check marks on Cale’s chart, put it on a hook at the foot of his bed, and walked out. Her shoes squeaked as she pirouetted at the door and closed it behind her.
Cale moved his left arm with great effort out from under the covers and held up the envelope. It had a knife blade hole in the middle of it with a blood stain surrounding it. He turned the envelope to read to whom it was addressed. It had Rayman’s name on it. Cale laid the envelope against his body, put his hand inside, and dumped the contents on his stomach. He strained to see a piece of folded paper, a photo, a gold key, and two Moguk stone earrings.
Cale shook the piece of paper open so he could read it: “Rayman, if you made it in time you can save Detective Dixon’s life. Just dial 911. If not, then you can read this letter in peace, knowing the Wons killed your father and now have your cousin. What are you going to do about it? Let her die? We wondered for a moment who was in your burning house. It didn’t make sense that it would be you. Then there is the matter of the stones. I’m sure you still have them. Maybe we can still do business together. Your uncle landed your whole family in the middle of a war that has been raging along behind the scenes for ages, and you have no idea who you are fighting against. Now you’re alone and in the light. We’ll be watching. And when you’re ready, I’ll meet you in your vault. Happy hunting.”
Cale picked up the photograph. It was a picture of a man in a steel cage on a vacant beach with pink coral sand down to the water’s edge, where small waves brushed. The man was emaciated and dead in a heap. His long white hair hung in disarray, bordering a drawn and weathered face. It was the shell of Robert Stell.
Cale dropped the picture, reached for the key, and turned it over in his hand. It reminded him of one he had seen in the Cho Museum when he and Martin had first walked into the building at the beginning of the case.
Cale felt the effects of the morphine and languidly turned his attention to the two ruby earrings, looking at one of them closely. He had seen them before, “The metal is imported platinum. I think you call it ‘white gold’ where you come from, Mr. Dixon.” Cale thought of the jewelers and Dutch couple in Mandalay. He held one of the earrings by the tapering stem and moved it between himself and a light to his side. The stone sparkled off the multiple cuts at each end of its waistband, and the light energized a glow deep inside the stone. Cale thought of the jeweler, his brothers, and their children all working diligently with the Dutch couple patiently waiting for their jewelry. Both of the Moguk stones in the earrings were about the size of his thumbnail. He stared into the stone as the nurse came back in to check on him. Cale couldn’t pull away from the thick blood luster as his mind swaggered blindly into the dark.
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44
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The agima and her two daughters crept quietly into Father Won’s empty study and went straight to the picture with the safe behind it. It was the picture of a Won ancestor sitting at a desk studying the chart of the vaults with his Cho wife standing obediently behind him with her head bowed and the shadow of the knife in his back on the wall. The agima and her daughters bowed their heads to the painting and clasped their hands together as the agima spoke softly, “Mother of mothers, your knife is returning to the house, and we vow to reclaim all keys for the Cho bloodline. Be patient and guide us in the teachings of our new ally, Monica Won Cho Stell. May we show her the ways of the swift and silent warriors of Cho. We will be avenged.”
The three of them walked out of the study, and one of the daughters asked, “When will she be here?”
The agima responded as she shut the doors to the study, “She’s all ready here.”
“I can’t wait to meet her.”