Mandarin Yellow (Socrates Cheng mysteries)

by Steven M. Roth

  But what he’d rather do would be to leave the gallery without being seen, act as if he hadn’t been there today, not call in the crime, and hopefully be uninvolved in whatever happened next. In that event, he could claim, if it ever became necessary to explain the presence of his DNA, that he had visited the gallery on other occasions and had spoken with the director on one other occasion.

  It was too late for that approach, he realized. He was involved, no matter how he tried to rationalize it away. If he tried to avoid his responsibility and his presence today at the gallery was later discovered, he’d risk having his intentions and his role in the crime misinterpreted. They would call it ‘consciousness of guilt’, leaving the crime scene and not calling the cops.

  Socrates walked out of the gallery and lowered himself onto the curb. He’d call 911.

  Socrates opened his cell phone to place the call, then closed it. He had another thought.

  There was one more thing for him to do before he called in the police. He would re-enter the gallery and retrieve a copy of the exhibit catalog from the pile in the alcove —a complete copy since he couldn’t be sure the coverless one left on his bed was complete. After all, he rationalized, Bing-fa had said the director was going to fully cooperate with him, and this would have included having the director give him a catalog.

  For the first time since he’d entered the gallery this morning, Socrates smiled. I’m thinking like a defense lawyer at trial, he thought, the irony of this not being lost on him since he had been a business transactions lawyer, not a trial attorney.

  Socrates looked up and down the street to see if anyone was nearby. He seemed to be alone, so he reentered the gallery.

  He walked across the exhibit room and headed right for the stack of auction catalogs he’d seen the day before. He took his handkerchief in his hand and lifted the corner of the pile to expose a catalog part way down in the pile. He didn’t want to disturb the top catalog in case there were relevant fingerprints or a palm print on it.

  Socrates teased out a catalog, then, clutching it in one hand, did an about-face and walked a straight line from the stack to the front door. As he stepped outside, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed 911. When the emergency call operator came on the line, Socrates said, “I’m calling to report a murder.”

  SOCRATES HEARD THE approaching sirens long before he saw the red, white and blue striped Metropolitan Police Department vehicle careen around the corner, fishtail toward the distant curb, and then, in authentic animated cartoon style, regain its traction and lurch up the street toward the gallery.

  Two uniformed police officers exited the patrol car with their weapons drawn. One officer approached the gallery’s front door and waited there. The other ascertained that Socrates was the civilian who had called in the crime, and that Socrates believed there was no one in the gallery other than the victim. The officer asked Socrates his name and entered the information into a spiral-bound notebook. He told Socrates to wait for him by the patrol car. The two officers then entered the gallery. They came out twenty minutes later.

  One officer walked over to the patrol car, opened the trunk and pulled out a roll of yellow crime scene tape which he then stretched across the gallery’s entrance. The other officer walked over to Socrates.

  Socrates smiled sheepishly and moved away from the front fender he’d been leaning against.

  The officer opened his notebook. “You called this in, Sir, right?”

  Socrates nodded.

  “I need to see your photo ID.” He extended his palm toward Socrates.

  Socrates handed over his driver’s license. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other while the officer copied his ID information.

  The officer returned the license, and said, nodding first toward the gallery, then back at Socrates, “Tell me how you came to be in there, Sir, and what you saw and heard. Start from the time you arrived until we got here.”

  Socrates described his account of events at the gallery. He did not mention his investigation for Bing-fa as his reason for being there or that he had left the gallery, reentered it, and removed a catalog before calling 911.

  The officer wrote down Socrates’ statement. He didn’t ask any follow-up questions.

  As Socrates finished giving his account of events, a second MPDC patrol car arrived, followed immediately by an unmarked white Chevy IMPALA sedan, an EMT bus carrying two emergency medical technicians, the evidence technician’s van, and the medical examiner’s crime scene laboratory vehicle.

  The uniformed officer told Socrates to wait by the scout vehicle again. He left Socrates and walked over to the two plain clothes officers who had climbed out of the unmarked IMPALA. Socrates assumed they were the homicide detectives who would handle the investigation.

  Socrates watched for almost ten minutes as the uniformed policeman, referring to his notebook from time-to-time, talked to the detectives. The officer and two detectives occasionally turned their heads and glanced over at Socrates, indicating by their collective action that he was the subject of their discussion at that moment.

  Eventually, the patrolman nodded at the detectives, flipped his notebook closed, and rammed it into his back pocket. He left the detectives and joined his partner at the gallery’s entrance, standing vigil while the forensic team and medical examiner worked inside the building.

  The detectives walked over to Socrates. They looked him up and down as if they were mentally frisking him as they approached.

  One detective reached inside his suit jacket — a faded grey garment that once had been married to a pair of matching trousers, but now was paired with pants that had been cannibalized from some other worn suit — and extracted a billfold from his inside pocket. As he came close to Socrates, he flipped the billfold open exposing a gold shield and an ID card, then closed the wallet with the same practiced motion before Socrates could read the badge or ID.

  Socrates nodded, and said warily, “Detective . . . .”

  One detective walked directly up to Socrates and stopped in front of him. The other detective moved off to Socrates’ side, and took a position slightly behind, but facing him.

  “I’m Detective Harte,” the detective in front said. “That’s Detective Thigpen.” He indicated the detective behind Socrates by pointing his finger.

  Detective Harte clicked open a ballpoint pen, wet the tip of his finger and used it to turn a page in his notebook. He looked back at Socrates. “Tell us what happened here,” he said, cocking his head in the direction of the gallery. “What you saw, and anything else you know about it.”

  Socrates told the detectives the same story he’d told the uniformed officer, withholding the same information as before. When he finished, Harte asked some questions about his reason for coming to the gallery and his relationship with the victim.

  Socrates didn’t lie, not blatantly at least, but he told the detective only enough of the truth to satisfy him that Socrates wasn’t holding back information, just enough to avoid teasing the detective’s appetite to know more.

  Harte listened to Socrates, asked a few more questions, wrote more notes, and said, “So you didn’t see or hear anyone? Not when you arrived? Not after?”

  “No one.”

  Harte looked off in the distance as if contemplating his next move, then looked back at Socrates. “Run through it again, Mr. Cheng. All of it.” He paused and glanced briefly at his partner, then again at Socrates. “But this time start with why you came here today. The part you left out before.”

  The detective now listened to Socrates without taking notes or interrupting him with questions. He also didn’t take his eyes from Socrates’ eyes the entire time Socrates repeated, and slightly expanded, his original account of events.

  “You say you came here to meet with the director? Be more specific about why,” Harte said.

  “To talk to her about something I’m working on, like I said.”

  “What would that be?”

>   “The Chinese cultural exhibit — the postponed exhibit — and the burglary at the gallery. I wanted to see what she could tell me about them.”

  Socrates noticed Harte furtively glance at Detective Thigpen. Something silent had just passed between them.

  “Here’s what I don’t get, Mr. Cheng. I need you to help me out here,” Harte said. “You say you came to the gallery to talk about a burglary and art show. Okay, I get that. But what you still haven’t told us is why.” He paused. “Are you an art critic or art dealer, something like that? Maybe a collector?”

  “I’m trying to locate the stolen property, specifically, the historic Parker Company fountain pen called the Mandarin Yellow. And the stolen art and the historic documents, too, if I can, although my focus is on the missing pen. I wanted to ask the director some questions about gallery security.”

  “That’s strange,” Harte said. “I don’t remember seeing you around the 2D. Where’s your Gold Shield, Detective Cheng? I need to see it to make sure you’re not impersonating an MPDC detective.”

  Socrates blushed. “I’m not a detective,” Socrates said. “You already know that.”

  “A private dick, then?” Harte said. “Let me see your license card.” He reached out to take the card.

  “I’m not private either,” Socrates said. “The point is, Detective, I don’t need a license. I’m not breaking any law doing what I’m doing, helping an interested party, an acquaintance. Informally helping him. I’m within my rights as a citizen.”

  Harte suppressed a smile. “Don’t be so sure you’re right about that. You might be interfering with an ongoing investigation, maybe something worse. Who’s the interested party?”

  Socrates realized he’d deftly maneuvered himself into a tight corner. He and Bing-fa had never discussed whether Socrates could reveal his name if the need came up. Socrates assumed, based on what he’d learned over the years from his father concerning the overseas Chinese community’s fervent insularity, that Bing-fa would want to remain anonymous. Bing-fa had as much as said this when he explained to Socrates why he had turned to him to recover the stolen objects rather than go to the police for help. Yet Socrates did not want to cast suspicion on himself merely to protect Bing-fa’s identity. He thought about what he needed to do to extricate himself.

  He said to Harte, “I’ll be glad to tell you, Detective, but first I need permission. If you can wait a minute,” he said as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket, “I’ll call and get the okay.”

  Without waiting for a response, Socrates turned from the detectives and walked a few feet away. But he didn’t call Bing-fa. Instead, he dialed his own home landline.

  This way, he thought, he’d protect Bing-fa’s telephone number from possible discovery by the cops and disclosure later on.

  As Socrates punched in his own home number and listened to it ring, a taxi pulled up and stopped a few feet from the detectives and him. The backdoor of the taxi opened and Linda Fong stepped out. She stared across the sidewalk at the crime scene tape blocking the gallery’s entrance.

  Fong looked around and frowned, then crossed over to Socrates. She stopped in front of him, and said in heavily accented English, “What is the matter here? Where is Honorable Director Hua?”

  Without waiting for Socrates to answer, she turned toward Detective Harte. “Please . . . what is going on here?”

  Detective Thigpen quickly stepped from behind Socrates and inserted himself between Socrates and Fong. Thigpen flashed his ID and shield at her.

  “Over here, Miss,” Thigpen said, taking her by the elbow and guiding her to a place on the sidewalk several feet away from Socrates and Harte.

  Socrates looked at Fong and said to her, “I came for my 10:00 o’clock appointment with the director. She was already dead when I got here.”

  “Dead? Oh, my God,” Fong said. She turned and faced Harte. “I heard this man threaten Director Hua when he came here before.” She pointed at Socrates. “The director said that after he argued with her, she was frightened of him.”

  LINDA FONG’S ACCUSATION stunned Socrates. He wasn’t able to respond except with the most feeble of protests. He turned to Detective Harte and blurted out, “It’s not true, what she said. It didn’t happen that way. I didn’t threaten the director. We didn’t even argue. You’ve got to believe me.”

  Even as he demurred, Socrates instinctively stepped backwards, away from Fong, and pushed out his palms as if to fend off her accusations. He looked at Harte and shook his head. “She was dead when I got there, just like I said. I didn’t . . . .”

  Harte held up his hand, signaling Socrates to stop talking. “Go over to the IMPALA, Mr. Cheng.” He tilted his head toward the unmarked vehicle. “Wait there.” He paused, then realizing Socrates hadn’t moved, said, “Go, Mr. Cheng. Now.”

  Harte turned back to Fong. “Please go with Detective Thigpen. He’ll take your statement.”

  Socrates waited by the unmarked IMPALA, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He dug his hands deep into his pants pockets and gripped the exhibit catalog between his right arm and armpit. He kept his eyes on the detective as Harte now walked toward him.

  As he neared Socrates, Harte said, “I’d like you to come with us to the station house, Mr. Cheng. We’ll take your statement in writing.” He paused, waiting for Socrates’ assent. When Socrates failed to respond, he added, “You don’t have a problem with that, do you?”

  Socrates shook his head. “No, detective, not at all.” This is crazy, he thought. They can’t really think I killed that woman.

  “IN HERE,” HARTE said. He held the door open for Socrates, making Socrates enter the interview room first.

  The room was just what Socrates expected based on his limited TV exposure to interview/interrogation rooms. Not warm and inviting, but not quite foreboding either. Private and isolated, to be sure, but not a place to expect to receive the so-called third degree.

  A rectangular table, constructed from synthetic veneer imitating wood, and flanked by three chairs — one of which was bolted to the floor — occupied the center of the room. A beige commercial grade carpet covered the floor. The kind of carpet that probably looked tired the day the installers put it down, Socrates thought. He could feel the floor underneath the thin pile as he walked into the room.

  Stock photographs of national monuments and well known federal government buildings were randomly splashed across three walls. The fourth wall contained a 5’x 7’ mirror that Socrates assumed was a one-way looking glass masquerading as a normal mirror.

  Socrates had learned the value of mirrors in interview rooms from a Bar Association course he and two of his former law partners attended years before. By the time the one week class ended, Socrates and his partners were so impressed with the benefits of mirrors as negotiating and interviewing tools, that they’d had one (although not a one-way looking mirror) installed in their conference room. From that time forward, they always made sure that their opposite-number-attorney sat facing the mirror so he could see himself in it.

  This seating strategy reflected their understanding that a mirror’s utility extended beyond its possible one-way looking capacity, which enabled the people on its other side to observe the room’s occupants. If this had been their goal, Socrates and his partners could have achieved this by using cameras, microphones and other technology surreptitiously placed around the room. Instead, as business transactions lawyers, their goal was to use the presence of the mirror to deter the attorney they were negotiating with from lying, bluffing or otherwise misleading them. The presence of the mirror would achieve this, they learned in their course, because people who could see themselves as they spoke were less likely to tell lies. The MPDC subscribed to this same belief.

  Harte pointed to the bolted-down chair which faced the mirror. “Sit there,” he said. The detective eased himself into a chair at the head of the table so he would not block Socrates’ view of himself in the mirror.

 
Harte stared at Socrates, but now said nothing. He used his hard gaze, his silence, and his dominant position at the head of the table as his manipulation props to establish his authority in the room.

  The detective’s silence continued for so long Socrates was tempted to say something just to break the accumulating tension. But he knew better than to do this and thereby surrender his will to Harte, so he remained quiet, softly tapping his foot under the table, waiting, and staring back at the detective.

  Socrates knew Harte was testing him to see how easily he could be manipulated. The technique was right out of INTRODUCTORY INTERROGATIONS 101. Once Harte established himself as the alpha dog in the room, he would next define a truth-response baseline by asking Socrates innocuous questions to which Harte already knew the answers. As he did this, he would watch Socrates’ physical tics and other body language clues to see how Socrates behaved when he responded truthfully or when he lied. Harte would carefully note any anomalies, watching for visual and verbal tells that demonstrated nervousness or dissembling, looking for indicators the person usually had no idea he was expressing, but that were apparent to a trained observer.

  Socrates also knew he’d have to be careful not only with the truthfulness of his answers, but also how he phrased his responses. Vague answers, particularly to questions that called for a yes or no, would scream deceit even if he did not intend to be deceitful. It would not do to respond, I guess, I think, or not really when a question called for an unequivocal reply. It also wouldn’t do to use such phrases as You’ve got to believe me or You have to understand and the like when answering questions. Such phrases shouted out deception.

  Harte’s silence continued for another few minutes at which point he said, “I appreciate your cooperation in coming in, Mr. Cheng.” Harte was now established as the alpha dog.