by K. T. Tomb
“Defensive how?” Charlie asked.
“She adamantly said that Shi Jing had nothing to do with anything that was going on, but if she's the only one with access to the coins besides Lee, then either she or someone she let in took them.”
“The coins,” Mitch said. “You mean the collection that came down to him when Lee inherited the company?”
“I think so,” said Ella.
“Shoo! This is getting good,” said Mitch.
It had become apparent to both Ella and Charlie that the wine was loosening his tongue.
“Those coins are the whole reason the forgeries were discovered in the first place.”
“What do you mean?” Ella said, chewing on a red baby potato.
“The coins once belonged to an old acquaintance of Lee's, from the village that he grew up in.”
Ella gasped.
“Would you happen to know the name of that acquaintance?”
Mitch looked at her and chuckled. “Why would I know that? What do you think I am, some sort of information fountain?”
Ella shrugged and smiled. Mitch continued.
“I do know that there is a title of ownership of those coins. Mr. Lee has that in his files.”
Ella and Charlie exchanged a look that read: We've got to find those files!
They finished the rest of the meal, continuing the conversation and veering to more casual topics. Mitch explained that should they ever need him, he would be able to talk to them about anything else that might be helpful. One of the perks of working in resorts, he said. He was just a phone call away.
At the end of the evening, they said goodnight to Mitch, making sure he had a taxi after the amount of wine they had consumed over dinner. Ella and Charlie decided to walk along the edge of the pier and enjoy the ocean air, refreshing themselves after the rich meal and wine. Without realizing it, Mitch had given them most of the information that they needed to continue. They had to determine the connection between Carol and Jing. Old school buddies? Close friends? Something else entirely?
“Now you are just being weird,” Charlie said, when Ella suggested the idea.
“I think I'd like to talk to Shi Jing,” Ella said. “I wonder if I can do that.”
“Why not?” Charlie asked. “After all, Mr. Lee considers us friends. Why can't we befriend her as well?”
“Good point,” Ella said, as they walked into the night.
Across the cove, they could see the marina where Carol's boat was moored. In the darkness, they could only see the lights reflecting off of the surface of the dark sea water. The harbor itself remained hidden in the shadows. Ella wondered what had become of the boat since Carol had been arrested.
“It's been taped off as a crime scene. They are still chronicling the hidden pieces found on the vessel. Apparently she used the boat itself for smuggling quite often. They may even just submit the boat as evidence, but it's probably still there,” Charlie said.
“Interesting,” Ella mused. They walked on into the night, slowly heading back to the hotel.
Chapter Nine
“Benjamin Lee's office. How may I help you?” the crisp voice on the other end of the line answered.
Ella took a breath.
“Hi, my name is Ella Colton. Am I speaking with Shi Jing?”
“Yes,” the voice said. “Did you need to speak with Mr. Lee? I can connect you to his voice mail if you’d like.”
“No,” Ella said. “Thank you; actually I was hoping to speak with you.”
“With me?” The sound of confusion permeated her voice.
“Yes, I wondered if maybe we could have coffee together; if you have some time this afternoon.”
“I don't understand.”
Ella put as much smile as she could into her voice.
“It's a little bit embarrassing, actually. It seems we are going to be spending some time in the Caymans and I just wanted to... um... have a little bit of girl time.”
“I see. Okay. I can meet you at the lobby bar this afternoon. Two o'clock. I'll put it in my schedule.”
Jing remained professional the entire time she spoke with Ella. Ella imagined that was her tone anytime she scheduled something for Mr. Lee.
Ella arrived at the bar first later that afternoon. The small restaurant was sparsely populated and she was able to get a seat by the window overlooking the patio. The tropical heat had reached soaring temperatures and Ella was glad for the air conditioned indoor climate. A moment later, Jing arrived. She looked striking with her raven hair and professional attire. Ella could understand Mr. Lee's devotion. She stood to greet the woman with a light handshake. They ordered two iced coffees.
“How do you do?” Jing asked as she sat across from Ella at the table.
In person, Ella noticed she still had a slight lilt of the Chinese accent to her voice, almost imperceptible.
“How are you?” Ella said. “It's lovely to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
The woman's words were friendly, but Ella could see her demeanor remained cool and distant.
“So, I hear you are getting married soon. Congratulations!” Ella began, hoping to develop a rapport of trust. To Ella's surprise, Shi Jing very suddenly burst into tears.
“Oh no,” Ella said. “I didn't mean... I'm sorry.”
Ella scrambled to find napkins and fumbled, handing them to Jing.
“It is I who must apologize,” Jing said in halting words. “I am tired of lying. I need to tell someone.”
Ella sat back and considered for a moment.
“Okay. It's alright. You can tell me.”
“Ben and I knew each other as children. His father and my father were close work associates. Our families spent a great deal of time together and we were close in age. Over time, we became good friends. As we grew up, everyone assumed that we would marry, but that is not what I wanted.”
“You didn't love him?” Ella asked.
“On the contrary, for a while I loved him very much,” she continued. “But the older we got, the more I came to understand the relationship between our families. As you know, he was the heir to this great empire. My father was a merchant in a fishing village. The chasm between us was so great.”
“But I don't understand,” Ella said.
“In China, there is still a class system. The country has become very westernized in the last decades, but underneath that, there is still the undercurrent of imperialistic practices. My family was considered to be part of the lowest class, the farmers and fish merchants, but Ben insisted he could rescue me from that station. He wanted nothing more than to marry me so I would be considered upper class like him. I knew it would bring shame to his family, but his devotion to me never wavered.”
“Why didn't you marry him?” Ella asked.
“Even though I was considered low class, a fishmonger's daughter, I knew who I was. If I married him just to escape my class status, what would that make me? I had to prove to everyone that I was more than that. Prove to myself that I was more than that. I would not agree to become a pawn in someone else's game.”
Ella nodded, taking in every detail of the story. Jing continued.
“I went to Shanghai for business school and that was where I met Carol for the first time. We became friends almost instantly. She had the same drive as me, the same ambition. We both wanted to escape our past, to prove our worth to the world. I know I can’t marry Ben. In essence, I’ve achieved nothing without him. If he hadn’t given me this job, I’d still just be a nothing.”
“Ben told us everything the other day. He really admires you for everything you’ve done and who you truly are. In fact, when we were convinced that you had something to do with the missing coins, he stood up for you and told us that you couldn’t have had anything to do with it.”
Jing looked up slowly from the cluster of napkins in her hand.
“I wasn’t sure at first, but when I went to talk to Carol, she said the same. So, I doubt you have anythi
ng to worry about. There’s nothing to implicate you; I just would want to know if you could maybe point me in the right direction.”
At that Jing managed to crack a tiny smile. Ella knew she had struck gold. It was game, set and match. She looked at her watch and then back at Jing.
“Sorry to have taken up your time, Jing, but I’ve got to go meet Charlie now. We’re trying to see if we can get any help on this from the local police, so I have to go, but it was great talking with you. Let’s do this again sometime.”
“Sure, Ella,” was all she had to say.
***
It was especially dark in the marina that night. The sky was plagued with clouds and the tiniest amount of moonlight was blocked from view. Sergeant Laurent had been skeptical of what Charlie and Ella had theorized about Carol and Jing and what they had done with the coins. He told them that they had searched every nook and cranny of the boat and found nothing, but Charlie was not convinced. Something about how Carol had produced the gun to shoot him that night kept bothering him.
“It was as if it appeared out of thin air,” he had told the policeman. “She drew it from a hidden panel behind the wall or something.”
“I’m telling you, Colton,” he insisted, “we searched that thing high and low and in between. There aren’t any secret compartments on board that vessel. Maybe you just didn’t see where she was carrying it.”
Charlie shook his head in disbelief, but decided to let it go. After dinner with Mitch, when they had walked past the marina, Ella had come up with what they agreed was the only way to answer all their questions at once: bait Jing. If she was as innocent as Lee thought, then they wouldn’t have lost anything by trying, but if she wasn’t; the whole case would be blown sky high.
The three of them now sat crouched down on the deck of a vessel a few slips over from The Gemstone, watching it with night vision binoculars. Ella hoped that Jing would be the next person she saw walking down the marina so she could lead them all right to the stolen coins. She opened the top of the beverage canister she had brought with her and poured both men a cup of hot coffee. They would need to stay alert; who knew when, or if, anyone would turn up at the marina.
Ella sat down with her back against the side of the boat and sipped her cup patiently. Even though they had already been out there for four hours, she knew what she had seen on Jing’s face that afternoon; she doubted that they would be disappointed.
At midnight, Sergeant Laurent decided that they should take shifts watching while the other two could sit or lie down and rest on the deck. He decided to take the first watch, and it wasn’t long after that he saw a slender figure in black walking briskly down the quay toward them and The Gemstone. He tapped Charlie on the shoulder and nodded to him, signaling that it was going down. Charlie, in turn, woke Ella up. The three of them watched quietly as the figure carefully boarded the Gemstone and immediately went below decks.
“Swoop! Swoop! Swoop!” Laurent yelled into a walkie-talkie.
Instantaneously, the marina was flooded with light. A search boat from the Marine police unit trained its blinding spotlight directly on the vessel as uniformed policemen boarded the yacht by the dozen.
When Laurent, Charlie and Ella arrived at the bottom of the gangplank, they were bringing Jing up from below decks. The first officer held her handcuffed body upright by the arm and led her down to a waiting police car, while the second emerged, holding a black bag in his fist. He handed it to Sergeant Laurent and led the other policemen off the deck.
Laurent turned to look at the honeymooners. They both had expectant looks on their faces. Was this what they had been searching for? He pulled the string loose and poured the contents of the bag into his palm. Out fell the missing gold Cortez coins.
“I told you there were panels in there. You didn’t find everything that’s there, Laurent. I could bet money on it.”
“I guess we’ll be finding out a lot more about this yacht and its secrets from her, not to mention from Ms. Chapman.”
“I guess you will.”
Chapter Ten
Charlie, Ella and Sergeant Laurent sat around the conference table in Benjamin’s office a few mornings later. The policeman had brought over something that he thought would give them all some much needed answers; the tapes from Jing’s interrogation.
They all sat around the table listening.
“…Carol and I, we started something during that time that we held onto for the last ten years, a business venture. That is the secret. Carol and I have been associates since the beginning. She is just a lackey. I am the one behind the forgeries and the smuggled goods. I have eyes everywhere. I wanted the jade necklace smuggled to the states and I needed you to do it. Carol sensed that the two of you would mark her, and so she threw herself at Charlie as a distraction so no one would suspect me. She made herself the biggest target in the room. Neither one of us counted on how observant you both turned out to be.
“It is such a relief to even just say all of this to someone. We used the black market to our advantage since we couldn’t start a legitimate business together. My family name meant that I was recognized nearly everywhere I went. No one wanted to hire me. The Shi name is a known fish merchant name. I could not find legitimate work despite my education and connections. Desperate people do desperate things. The whole time I struggled as well, because I knew that at a moment’s notice I could agree to Ben's proposal and it would all go away. But I knew that if I did that, I would be a kept woman. I did not want that. Also... I...”
Jing stopped talking for a moment.
“The feelings that I should have had for Ben, I had for someone else,” she whispered.
“Carol?” the investigator asked.
Jing confirmed the assumption.
“Carol convinced me that it would be the only way to gain his trust completely. Once I married him, I would have easier access to the museum pieces. The coins belonged to my father. That collection was the one thing of value that our family possessed. The relationship between our families was always rife with tension regarding our status. Ben's father eventually bought my father's company and along with it, my father agreed to sell him the coins. With the money from that sale, my family could send me to a good school. They wanted to give me a chance at a different life, a better life. But even the degree from the prominent Shanghai business school could not allow me to save my family. That was when I became involved with the black market; smuggling goods and relocating money.”
There was a long, pregnant pause and then they heard Ella’s voice come over the tape saying,
“We will have to tell Ben about this. You know that, right?”
“I welcome it,” Jing said with finality.
***
The next morning, Charlie loaded the last of their bags onto the luggage cart outside the door of their hotel room. Ella checked the drawers for any last items, and walked over to pull the blinds closed. She paused at the patio window, taking in one last view of the islands as the sun had just begun its descent into the sea.
“It really is beautiful here,” she mused.
“Yes, it is,” Charlie said. “I'm certainly enjoying the view.”
Ella turned to see Charlie looking her over and laughed.
“Of course you are! We'd better get going.”
They exited into the hallway. When they arrived in the lobby, they found Benjamin Lee waiting for them with Mitch Berger.
“Oh, good,” Mr. Lee said. “I caught you before check out. Please, do you have a moment?”
“Of course, Mr. Lee,” Charlie said, greeting the man.
“I wanted to thank you after everything. One for returning the necklace to me; I plan on putting it on display for the summer season as part of the Mayan collection. Even beyond that, you helped me realize the truth of something that I had known for a long time. For that I can't thank you enough.”
“I am so sorry, Mr. Lee,” Ella said. “About Jing.”
“You have no reas
on to be sorry,” he said, waving his hands. “It is better to know the truth. Of course I am saddened, but I wish Shi Jing the best of luck. I am certain that we will remain close after all this is over.”
Ella gave him a warm smile.
“We want to thank you for the wonderful stay at the Elysium. Everything is so beautiful. This truly is a remarkable resort.”
Lee bowed his head at the compliment.
“My sincerest thanks.”
“Uncle Mitch,” Ella said, throwing her arms around her uncle's neck. “I'm going to miss you so much. It was so nice to visit with you outside of the family Thanksgiving scenario. Not having to share you with all the rest of the family.”
He laughed and returned her hug.
“You too, kiddo. Remember what I said. If you are ever in this part of the world, you have a room.”
“Thanks, Uncle Mitch.”
“We'd better head out. Our flight is in an hour and we still have to go through customs,” Charlie said.
He took Ella by the hand and together they walked toward the awaiting taxi which would take them to the airport.
“So,” Ella said. “Colton and Colton, Incorporated.”
“First case?” Charlie said. “We've been working together for five years.”
“Yeah, but this time was different.”
“How so?”
“Well, for one, when we get back we’ll be able to add the words ‘Relic Recovery’ to the list of accolades on our door.”
“That's the only difference?” Charlie asked.
“It's a big one, wouldn't you say?” Ella responded.
Charlie leaned in and put his arm around her and Ella lowered her head onto his shoulder. They both smiled as the taxi left the grounds of the Elysium and drove toward the airport.
The End