by Matt Lincoln
Alice smothered a laugh as she chose a set across the table from her cat and me. Holm didn’t bother to hide his laughter.
“I guess I get to fill out the forms,” Holm said with one last chuckle. He fetched a clipboard and folder from a filing cabinet along the far wall.
While he did that, I used my free hand to set my phone up to record the conversation. Alice fidgeted a little and studied her hands. The humor had faded from those dark eyes by the time she looked up, although she forced a smile.
“I know this is tough,” I began. River stretched, turned around on my lap, and then curled into a purring mass. I slid my phone closer to Alice to make sure it would pick up her soft voice. “Tell us, as best as you can recall, what happened that day.”
“Mr. Zhu has known… knew my grandfather for decades.” Alice sighed, and her shoulders drooped. “They’ve conducted business together on and off during that time. Mr. Zhu invited him, my parents, and me to visit the Seascape rooms before the hotel’s grand opening.”
“The Dragon Tide hotel,” Holm added for the sake of the recording.
“Yes,” Alice said with a nod. “I’ve been to walkthroughs at a few aquariums, and this was up there in quality. What made the tunnel special is that it had a natural view. The artificial reef is curated, but wild marine life was free to come and go. A manatee swam up close, and that’s never happened to me before.”
“Did anything look out of the ordinary?” I asked as I shifted in my seat. That cat was heavier than she looked. “Bags, boxes, anything like that?”
Alice shook her head. “They were ready for the public. All the construction stuff was packed away.” She stopped and frowned. “There was one thing that didn’t make sense.”
“How so?” Holm asked as he wrote a few notes.
“There was a small box on the outside of the glass.” She closed her eyes and drew on the table with her finger. I couldn’t visualize what she was doing, but I let her be until she figured it out. “I remember now. It was on the left side of the entry to the suites. The main door there.”
“Do you have any idea what it was?” I stilled.
The cat did not approve of my sudden lack of attention. She jumped to the floor and stalked toward Holm. He didn’t notice, and I didn’t warn him.
“I asked Mr. Zhu about the box,” Alice told us. “He said it had to do with monitoring sea life, but I didn’t think it looked right.” She pressed her lips together. “My family won’t know what I say here, will they?”
“Only if there’s a trial, and your statement is relevant,” I answered.
She lifted her chin and rolled her shoulders back. “You know what? I don’t care. Let them know… after Yéyé’s funeral.”
“Yéyé?” Holm cocked his head. “That’s what you call your grandfather?”
“Yes. Anyway, Mr. Zhu was lying about the box. I’m sure of it.” She crossed her arms. “I don’t know for sure, but I have a feeling it was an underwater beacon. Some of my family’s associates are working on a beacon that is hard to detect by authorities.” She made a wry grin and nodded toward us. “It’s been a few years, but I heard that Yéyé and Mr. Zhu worked together on a smuggling operation. My parents realized I was in the next room and stopped talking about it, so that’s all I know.”
“Have you ever seen one of these beacons?” They rang a bell, but we hadn’t dealt with anything like that.
“No, not even pictures.” She shrugged. “I avoid the hush-hush stuff. For the record, I am not involved in any of my parents’ businesses. They stopped trying to get me to join them several years ago.”
I liked that answer. She didn’t seem like the type to be in for syndicate work. “Do you see your parents often?”
“No, and I prefer it that way.” She sighed. “Unfortunately, they are staying at my house because that, in their infinite wisdom, is where they decided to hold Yéyé’s wake. They are putting a casket in my lanai and inviting a few people to fly in from New York and Hong Kong to parade past his body before they take him to be cremated.”
I glanced at Holm, and he looked as surprised as I felt.
“He lived in those two cities, right?” I asked with a frown. “Why wouldn’t they transport his body?”
Alice threw her hands in the air. “Right? It’s not like they don’t have the money. Yéyé would’ve wanted a service in China or New York City, but Miami?” She placed her hands in her lap. “I mean, I love it here, but this is only the second time he came to Florida since I moved here for university.”
Holm blinked and shook his head. “Did they even ask you before planning the wake?”
“Of course not.” Alice scoffed. “But it’s not like I’d refuse. He was far from perfect, but he was my Yéyé.” She looked down and touched her sky blue blouse. “We don’t follow strict tradition, but I’m observing some of it by wearing blue.” She looked up and placed her hands on the table. “Grandchildren are supposed to wear blue following a patriarch’s passing.”
“You mentioned cremation.” I tapped my forefinger on the table. “I don’t know much about Chinese traditions, but I thought that cremation went against some beliefs.”
Alice nodded. “Some families are more traditional than others. My parents choose what’s convenient and toss what they don’t like or doesn’t make sense to them.” She leaned back in her seat and set arms on the armrests. “You asked why they wouldn’t fly him to Hong Kong or New York. Like I said, they could afford it, but my mother won’t let my father spend a penny more than they have to for anything. It’s cheaper to transport ashes than to move a whole body.”
She wasn’t wrong. I’d seen families make funeral choices based on cost. That happened all the time, but rarely for someone so respected in certain circles. The Liu leadership of the Bamboo Dragon tong was thought to be solid, but Ken and Mei Liu’s apathy toward their patriarch suggested things weren’t as peachy as they seemed. Then again, family dynamics in crime organizations were among some of the most complicated I’d ever seen. That brought me to the difficult part of the interview.
“Alice, I’m sure you love your parents, but I need you to be honest about this.” The preface to my question got her attention. “Can you think of any reason either one or both of your parents might benefit from your grandfather’s death?”
Alice took a deep breath. “Besides my dad inheriting Yéyé’s position in the family? Yes.” She leaned over and picked up her cat, who had wandered over. Once River was in her arms, she sucked in her lips and then blew out a long breath. “Yéyé threatened to disinherit my father. My dad has never shown the kind of ambition that would make him a good head of the family. He delegates everything, and I mean everything. A good leader needs to be willing to do some of the hard work themselves. Bàba? Not so much. He doesn’t seem to care whether he gets the lead or not.”
“Are there any other motives your dad might have?” I glanced toward my partner, but he was busy taking notes.
“Life insurance, maybe, but Bàba has more than enough money. As far as I know, he’d just as soon keep the role he has.” She cleared her throat. “My mother isn’t so happy, though. She married into the family in hopes of being the boss’s wife. Most of that delegation my dad does goes to her.” Alice cringed and caught my eye. “I love my mom, okay? I hope she’s not involved.”
“Okay. Is there an heir apparent?” I watched her face as she petted the cat.
“I might have a few guesses, but I don’t know anything for sure.”
She gestured toward the cat carrier, and Holm slid it across the table. The cat pulled away, but Alice got her into the cat cab with practiced ease. I got the sense that she was stalling as she avoided eye contact.
“Alice?” I prompted.
“I know. It’s just…” She looked up. “The other night after he got in from Hong Kong, Yéyé asked me to take over. He said he was healthy and had time to teach me how to run the business.”
I raised a brow. “I thou
ght you weren’t involved in it.”
“I’m not, and that’s why it stunned me.” She blinked several times. “I mean, of course, I said ‘no.’ He told me he didn’t trust my parents. My dad doesn’t have the ambition, and my mom has too much ambition.”
Not many people came to me to say that one of their parents could’ve killed someone. It happened sometimes, but there generally wasn’t a lot of love lost between those witnesses and those parents.
“Do you folks know that your grandfather asked you to inherit his role?” Holm asked as he wrote.
“I don’t know.” She stuck her finger between the wires of the cat’s carrier door and petted a white paw. “The only person with us was his assistant, Pete Patrone. Pete’s always been good at keeping his mouth shut. Besides, he was all for me accepting.”
“That’s who you were with at the time of the incident, right?” That was another person who could be worth a look.
Alice nodded. “We went upstairs together after we saw the suite. I had a gift for his baby, so we went up to get it. I’d planned to go home after that.”
It hit me that for being born into wealth and power, Alice acted more like a regular person than a trust-fund kid. Then again, she wasn’t a kid anymore, and she’d lived her entire adult life away from her family’s influence. Being the person she wanted to be must have taken strength and commitment.
Holm stopped writing for a moment. “Can you think of anyone else who might want to harm your grandfather?”
“You know who he was. He had plenty of enemies.” She hid her mouth behind her hand, but not before I saw a smirk. “He used to joke that he got more death threats in a day than commendations the FBI gave out in a year.”
“The FBI gives out a lot of commendations,” Holm pointed out.
“Exactly.” Alice’s wry laugh snuck past her hand. “He had a strange sense of humor.”
According to some of the files I saw about Liu, I’d gathered that. The man’s sense of humor often bled over into his more nefarious deeds. I didn’t think Alice would care to hear about the report I had on file that detailed a grisly find set to resemble a Blues Brothers scene. Liu had never been formally charged because the only evidence prosecutors had was an eyewitness who disappeared before arraignment.
It was difficult to believe this charming, smart, kind woman was related to such a monster. Then again, her parents couldn’t have been more unlike her, either.
“Alice, what led you to distance yourself from your family?” Even though I had to ask the question, it felt invasive, especially this soon after she’d lost her grandfather. At her wince, I added, “Take your time. We understand that this is a sensitive subject.”
“It’s tough, but I’ve never shied away from it.” She met Holm’s eye and then mine. “I wasn’t supposed to read the newspaper when I was a child. My parents said it was too negative. My father read it and then threw it away each evening. I snuck to the kitchen for a snack one night and saw that he’d left it out, so I took the paper to my room.”
“Sounds like something I would’ve done,” Holm said with a chuckle.
I looked at him and nodded. “Accurate.”
“I was nine, maybe ten, at the time.” She pulled the cat’s carrier a little closer and rubbed at River’s toes with her finger. “The front-page story was about a big mafia trial. One of the boss’s lieutenants was accused of slaughtering the family of a rival syndicate. Parents and kids, including a baby. The article said he tortured them first.”
I knew the story. One of my dad’s friends had gone on to work in the FBI and worked the case. The last I’d heard, he still had nightmares and drank every night to drown his worst memories, and that scene was one of them.
“That was a hell of a situation,” I acknowledged.
“Yeah.” She shifted in her seat. “Even though it gave me bad dreams, I didn’t tell my parents I read that. They would’ve been angry I’d disobeyed. So, I was afraid someone would kill my family and me, but I would tell myself that my family was safe. We weren’t bad guys who made other bad guys mad. The people in the story were Irish and Italian, not Chinese.”
“When did you learn the truth about your family’s business?” Holm asked.
“My parents sat me down and told me on my twelfth birthday.” She shook her head. “Happy birthday to me. They glossed over a lot of it, but I was smart enough to read between the lines. I was also one of the first kids my age to get an internet connection. It wasn’t hard to figure out what to do from there.”
“What did you find?” I kept my voice neutral despite knowing where the story would go.
“The Bamboo Dragon tong was mentioned in a few forums run by true crime fans.” Her brows furrowed. “The stories I found were awful, and they talked about people I knew and loved. One of my uncles who had ‘moved to China’ was found on the shore of the Hudson Bay. A second cousin’s husband went to jail for shooting a rival, and so on. These were the kind of people who would kill a young family without a second thought.”
I rubbed at the back of my head. No kid should have to learn their family was a bunch of hardcore criminals.
“I’m sorry you went through that,” I told her. Something about her haunted expression made me want to protect her from her family’s sins. It was far too late for that, but if we solved the case, that would be a big step in that direction. “It must be difficult to dredge up these memories.”
She shrugged. “It’s the die I was cast. None of us gets to choose where we were born or how we were raised. We do get to choose what happens when we grow up.”
“Here, here,” Holm agreed.
“How did you get out?” I pressed.
“My dad refused to pay for me to come to Miami for school.” She smiled a little. “Yéyé found out. He paid with a cashier’s check for my entire education. It pissed my mom off big time because she’d hoped to marry me off to some triad type to connect our families. My dad didn’t say anything, but I don’t think he was too happy, either.”
Holm tapped his pen on his notepad. “So your grandfather paid to get you out of the life years ago, but then he asked you back in the other night?”
Alice spread her hands. “I don’t get it, either. He said he’d hoped never to ask it of me, but times were perilous. And my dad was a lazy bastard.” She tried to hide a laugh. “He was right. My dad is a lazy bastard. He only does what he has to do to get by.”
“And he delegates to your mom.” At her nod, I continued. “Do you see your mom doing anything extreme to cause your grandfather’s death?”
“I don’t know how she could’ve pulled this one off…” Alice’s thoughts trailed, and I wondered how many jobs she knew of that her mother might have succeeded at. “If she did and Mr. Zhu found out, it could start a war with some of his business associates.”
“Is he part of a syndicate?” Holm asked as he paused in his notetaking.
“Not that I know of. I think he used to be, but he’s more of an independent contractor these days.” She jumped a little and then fished her phone from her pocket. The device vibrated as she held it, she swiped at the screen, and then she stuffed it into her bag. “Ugh. My mom wants to know where I am. She’s convinced I’m here talking to you.” She winked. “Anyway, all I know is that Mr. Zhu and Yéyé knew each other for a long time and have done business over the years.”
“Regular business or family business?” I was sure I could find out, but I wanted her take on it.
“You mean legal or illegal?” She needed to trademark those wry grins because she excelled at them.
“You might say that,” I answered.
“As far as I know, it’s mostly been aboveboard.” She held up a finger. “Don’t get me wrong. Mr. Zhu is shady as hell, I just don’t know anything in particular.” She put her hand on the table. “I wish I could tell you more, but that’s all I have.”
I stood. “Thank you for your time, Miss Liu.” She raised her brow, and I amended what
I said. “Thank you for your time, Alice.”
We set her up with the forms we needed her to fill out and then left the room. Diane met Holm and me in her office.
“Talk,” she ordered.
“She had some interesting things to say about her family,” I told her as I sat in a seat across from her desk. “At this point, we’re looking at her mother.”
Holm’s slow nod didn’t fill me with confidence. “Assuming Alice is being truthful about everything.”
“What do you mean?” Diane asked.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” I added.
Holm regarded me with a cautious look. “You’re into her, Ethan. I can tell. Be careful. As much as I want to believe what she says, we have to treat her with just as much suspicion as anyone else.”
Diane skewered me with a sharp look. “Is this true?”
I started to deny it, but I realized I couldn’t. Alice’s good-natured personality in the face of her upbringing had gotten to me. I liked to think I had a good feel for people, but yeah, I found pretty faces and kind smiles appealing.
“You can’t afford to give her the benefit of the doubt,” Diane warned. “If I believe for one second that you’ve lost your objectiveness, I’ll take you off the case.”
I glared at Holm. He’d done the right thing, but I couldn’t help the resentment that flared in my belly. Worse, I wasn’t sure if I could be objective. There was something about Alice that made me want to believe in her. The question was whether she was the real deal, or whether it was the act of a syndicate heiress.
CHAPTER 11
Michael James had an office at the university in the environmental studies department. He put a sign on his door that read, “Where on Earth is MJ? Not Here,” and closed it. The decades-old metal blinds clacked against the window, and his office smelled like books… and a tree. In place of a window, he had a hooded growing light at the back of the office where a small oak grew with Spanish moss hanging from its limbs.
“I keep my office open to students,” he told us in a tired tone as he led us in and gestured toward a couple folding chairs. He had at least two inches on Holm but was rail thin. His hair hung in a low ponytail halfway down his back. On his desk, I saw a photo of him wearing it up in the so-called “man bun” that went with a beard he’d since shaved off. “There’s an exam coming up, so I get random visits when I’m not in class.”