by Sanchez, Bob
Sam touched his wrist without thinking, and felt the old scar from Callahan’s accident. God, he hated fire. “Maybe he wanted to see his target so he didn’t risk twenty or thirty homicides. He might have wanted revenge against a particular person.”
The ambulance arrived out front, and as Johnson escorted Mrs. Chea past the body, she averted her eyes.
For the next twenty minutes Sam inspected the apartment. In the bathroom, the medicine chest seemed to have the usual array of lotions and remedies. The bottles were lined up by size with the labels facing out, and the sink was dry and spotless. Sam could see how Mrs. Chea spent her time. Her knees must have been as red as her hands.
Something else seemed odd about this place besides the obsessive cleanliness, but Sam couldn’t figure out what it was. He walked back into the victim’s bedroom. The king-sized bed was made up, but rumpled from Mrs. Chea’s tight grip. Sitting on the telephone table was the current issue of Cambodian Voices, a weekly community newspaper printed in the flowing Khmer type. The mailing label was addressed to Bin Chea. In the headline, the Khmer Rouge threatened to disrupt the Cambodian elections. Voters risked death.
The bedroom floor was polished wood that was free of dust, but scuffed near the base of the bed. That seemed odd, a smirch in the midst of all the cleanliness in this room. Could there have been a fight? On opposite walls sat matching dressers. They didn’t look like anyone’s hand-me-downs donated by a church charity or bought at a second-hand store. They looked first class, like furniture that he and Julie couldn’t afford on their two salaries. There probably weren’t even dust balls under the bed. When he kneeled to look, he saw that he was right: the floor seemed equally clean almost everywhere. In the closet, he found clothes spaced evenly apart on hangers, and shoes lined up neatly. The effect was cold and unpleasant, as though the bedroom had never seen love. Had the victim and his wife gotten along?
In the other bedroom, a television and expensive-looking tape recording equipment stood against one wall next to orderly cardboard boxes of audio and video cassettes. Taped to one of the boxes was a piece of paper marked “Paradise” in English. A sideline business, maybe? Thirty thousand Cambodians in Lowell made a great market for bootleg entertainment. Thousands ached for home, dreamed of returning, clung to scraps of their culture. Some had returned to help with the elections, even to run for an assembly seat in the new government. They would return to rebuild their home.
But not Sam. Sam was already home.
So where was Paradise? Lowell’s refugees wouldn’t find it in the shattered temples along the Mekong River. They wouldn’t find it in the farmlands, where hoes still brought bones to the surface.
But they hadn’t found Paradise in Lowell either, especially with the rash of home invasions that plagued the immigrants. An Asian begins to make a little extra money, and a stranger waits in the hallway shadows for the key to open the door. Someone jams a .32 in the hollow of your cheek, of course you let him in. You let him take the stereo, you show him the metal box where you keep the cash. And when he leaves, you don’t call the police. You change your underwear and start again. If it happens too often, perhaps you move away from the city. Or perhaps you just disappear. No one files a missing persons report, and your name is spoken only in whispers.
Paradise? Not in this life.
And who was the third person? Who else was at the kitchen table tonight, eating kao poun with Bin Chea and his wife when the gunman came? Whoever he was, he’d apparently left down the front stairs after the murder, judging from a bloody running-shoe print not blotted out by the night shift’s boots. Mrs. Chea would know that, but he hadn’t had time to ask her. All right then, let her rest. Tomorrow he’d speak to her in the hospital.
Sam walked down the back stairs and joined several officers who were checking out the cellar. Light flooded the room. The ceiling left little headroom for Sam. The place looked almost as neat as the landlord’s apartment. There was no junk, no clutter anywhere. To Sam’s right was a large clothes washing machine. Through an open door, Sam saw a tool bench, a wheel barrow, and a variety of tools lined up like a regiment of soldiers. There wasn’t that dank smell that so many cellars have, of old books and clothes, of chopped wood, or of trash waiting to be put out for Wednesday pickup. It just smelled like the cement floor. There were no dark corners where a killer could hide himself or his weapon down here.
Soon Sam quit for the night, but the image of the dead man followed him home.
CHAPTER THREE
Sambath could not bear the sight of Father’s suffering. Flames tore at Father’s feet like knives. Sweat beaded on his face and trickled down his bare chest, leaving muddy trails. Sambath squeezed his eyes shut, but Father’s image burned deeply into Sambath’s core.
“The wheel of history turns, and now it crushes you,” Comrade Bin said. Firelight danced in his face. “Soon you will be safe. No one can harm you if you’re dead.” He turned and disappeared into the darkness.
Sam awoke thinking he had died again. Sometime last night a torch arced through the air and exploded with a dull whump in front of his face, wrapping him in a blanket of flames.
Until last night, he thought his nightmares had finally vanished, blown away with the autumn leaves, kissed away by Julie. They had been with him every night at the refugee camp at Khao-I-Dang until he stood in a federal courtroom and swore his allegiance to America more than five years later. Then one day his painful dreams slipped away quietly. They had been gone for quite a while.
He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the clock radio that was supposed to ease him into his first day in his new job on the force. Five fifty-five. The volume was low. “All day, all night,” the announcer said. “Four in a row of the music you want to hear. The world’s most beautiful music, and it’s right here in the Merrimack valley--” Right now, the gurgle of the automatic coffeepot was music enough. He pushed the OFF button on the radio.
Julie’s warm hand glided on the small of his back. “What’s the matter, Sam?” Her voice was dull with sleep.
“Nothing. I just didn’t sleep much.”
“Bad night?”
“Yeah, a homicide.”
“Oh, I know. You told me that before you left. I meant you were yelling in your sleep.”
“I woke you? I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. I’ll be up in a couple of minutes.” She pulled him down and kissed him; he loved the scent of her body, the trace of yesterday’s Ciara behind her ear.
Julie got up and poured herself a cup of coffee. She pulled up a chair and counted softly while Sam did push-ups on the kitchen floor. The linoleum felt cool on his hands and feet, and his skin glistened. On number forty-nine she brushed his hair with her toe. “One more, handsome. Save some of that motion for me.”
He stood up and smiled. “If you think I’m good looking, I respect your judgment,” he said. But “handsome” wouldn’t have been his word for the old scar on his neck, where a soldier had tried to separate his head and left a three-inch white scar that paralleled an artery.
After he showered, he put on slacks and a white short-sleeved shirt. Next to the bedroom window sat a bookshelf with Julie’s collection of Shakespeare and three spiral notebooks where Sam wrote new words. A box of filled notebooks collected dust in the closet. Sambath Long Conquers English, volumes 1-15, Julie called them. On his dresser sat a citation for bravery. Fancy wood frame, expensive parchment. A lot of fuss for saving a fellow officer. Hey, Cal would have done the same for Sam.
In the tiny kitchen, Julie handed him a cup of tea. Pulling back the lace curtains, Sam saw the Coppolinos’ roof already bathed in sun. Sam and Julie Long lived in the only apartment building in the neighborhood, eight units surrounded by the kind of one- and two-family homes the Longs dreamed of owning: with clapboard siding and shutters, a garage on the side, and Norwegian maples shading the porch.
He walked into the living room and sat down, careful not to spill tea on the
heirloom couch his in-laws had given them. Cream-white upholstery and four-year-old children weren’t an ideal mix, but how do you tell that to your mother-in-law? Besides, it made everything else in the apartment look cheap by comparison.
The news was on. The music station had a one-liner about the shooting in the Highlands part of town.
“In other news, a Lowell youth was killed last night when his vehicle hit a pickup truck on Westford Street. A female passenger is listed in stable condition.” The announcer did not mention how close it was to the murder scene. Then she mentioned a tenement fire on Fletcher Street, two dozen homeless. Then came a commercial for Desrosiers Insurance; good timing, right after the news.
Julie sat across from him as she clipped on an earring. She wore a flowery summer dress. “You be careful today, Sam. You know I worry.”
Julie was holding back, not saying all that was on her mind. Not saying once more how she feared police work since Callahan’s accident, how if anything happened--
“We’ve talked about this before,” he said gently.
--how she couldn’t bear to lose him--
“I’ll be all right,” he said.
--the way she’d lost her brother.
She squeezed his hand and smiled, the doubt lingering in her slate-blue eyes. “I know,” she said. “Check the white bag in the fridge.”
The refrigerator had the Longs’ family portrait, three stick figures finger-painted in blue and signed by the artist with a “T.” The inside smelled a little, like milk gone sour. What would Mrs. Chea charge to scrub it out? No, that wasn’t funny. In the bag he found a chocolate donut with a chocolate coating, just about the best kind on the planet. One was enough for breakfast.
When he finished, he went into Tricia’s room and kissed his four-year-old good-bye as she slept. An oscillating fan sat on her dresser, cooling her face and tickling pink curtains. Tricia had brown hair and freckles, with eyes that turned down slightly at the bridge of her nose. “God, you’re a beauty,” Sam whispered. For a moment he listened to her soft breathing and watched her eyes dart back and forth behind her eyelids, following a dream.
“Image of her dad,” Julie said at the door. From her cassette player on the kitchen table floated the sound of Vivaldi. The Four Seasons, a present to Julie from her mother. Sam couldn’t tell the musical seasons apart if he tried.
Which he wouldn’t.
“Good luck with More or Less.” Julie used her favorite name for Wilkins. She’d met him once at a party and talked for five minutes, and he walked away with a nickname that spread through the department and stuck like flypaper.
Sam kissed her and left early for the day shift.
If Sam could have picked his own boss, he wouldn’t have picked a two-face like Lieutenant Wilkins. But who asked Sam? For that matter, who asked Wilkins to take Sam?
Sam stood in the doorway of Wilkins’ office and said good morning. The wall clock said 7 a.m., straight up.
“Sit,” Wilkins said without looking up from his newspaper. He took two telephone calls and made one while Sam waited. On the wall were the usual memorabilia: thank-you’s from the Little League and the mayor; a photo of Wilkins and a bowling trophy. Wilkins looked as though he lifted weights the size of Sam every morning. He had a big, solid gut and a few small scars on his face, as though someone had tried to etch granite.
“So what did you find out?” Wilkins finally said.
Sam recounted the basics while Wilkins drummed his fingers on the desk and drank from a coffee cup that said “World’s Greatest Dad” on the side. The asshole bought it for himself was what Fitchie claimed. On the lieutenant’s desk was a Venus fly trap in a white plastic pot, drooping as though it had swallowed a bad fly.
“Don’t waste my time, Detective. I more or less know what happened. Tell me who did it.”
“I have no idea, sir.”
“Theories?”
“Could be a business acquaintance. A tenant he evicted. An angry wife who wants to collect insurance money. Or someone settling an old score from Cambodia. Too early to rule out anything.”
Wilkins gave Sam a wide-eyed look. “No shit? Thanks for that advice. What kind of old score?”
“About a million people died--”
“Which is why you people are here. You can spare me the history lesson.”
“--murdered, which means a lot of revenge.”
“Against who? Didn’t we screen out the communists?”
“Some of them blended in.”
“Wonderful. The city’s got communists on welfare.”
Sam sat quietly, not rising to the bait. Inside, his temperature rose.
“Smile, it was a joke,” Wilkins said, but Sam didn’t care to smile. “How is this like other home invasions, that’s what you want to find out. Anybody out there bragging, driving cars they can’t afford? Some little shit’s gonna talk, I promise you that. And if he talks in Cambodian, you better be listening.” Wilkins leaned forward. “So tell me your plan.” As though you could have one, Wilkins’s look said. A dusting of powdered sugar stuck to the corner of his mouth.
“I have to talk to Mrs. Chea again. She was in bad shape last night and wasn’t much help. Somebody else was in their apartment. Whoever it was, I need to talk to him.”
“Or her. Could have been a woman, more or less. Two sisters, maybe. Or they might be neighbors. Catch the neighbors early, before they go to work.”
“But Mrs. Chea won’t be in the hospital very long. She may leave and go stay with friends. I should talk to her while Fitchie starts interviewing neighbors.”
“Don’t buck me, all right? She’ll stay put till you get there. I’ll see to it. Now go see Fitchie. He more or less can’t give you his full energies, ’cause of his family situation. You work with him on this.”
Sam found his desk with a wave from Sergeant Fitch, who had sandy hair surrounding a large bald spot on top. DeVito said it looked like a horseshoe when Fitchie bent over. Sam said he would take DeVito’s word for it.
“Welcome to days, Hot Dog. Looks like your night crawler buddies left you a present.”
It was a marble paperweight with an inscription that read:
Detective Sambath Long
“Illegitimi Non Carborundum”
“It’s Latin,” Fitchie said. “Don’t let the bastards grind you down. You could put it in your notebook.” Seemed everyone knew about Sam’s notebooks.
“How’s Ellen doing?”
Fitchie’s voice quavered. “Not good, Sam. She’s skin and bones now. I’ll be in and out of the station for a few days. Help you where I can, but--”
“You take care of Ellen and the boys, I’ll be fine.” Sam was not at all sure how he’d be without a full-time partner, but Fitchie’s dying wife was more important.
By seven thirty, Sam drove his Ford along 11th Street, his Vanillaroma air freshener swinging from the rear-view mirror. Children dashed across the narrow street that separated a row of four-deckers from a playground and its jungle gyms, and he eased his car along until he found an empty space. Today was going to be one of those three-alarm scorchers where the older kids opened the fire hydrants and the little kids mobbed the Good Humor trucks. Young men wiping their tee shirts on their faces would ogle the young women in halter tops and tight cutaway jeans. Married detectives would try not to stare.
In front of Bin Chea’s house, he walked up to a white picket fence. Climbing roses cascaded over the top of the fence, and blossoms poked between the slats. The bush stretched from the chipped cement steps to the edge of the asphalt driveway. In the enclosed yard, a gas-powered lawn mower sat untended on a patch of grass hardly big enough for a person to stand on.
A sign in Khmer said “Keep out.”
The door to the third-floor apartment creaked as the chain stretched taut. A short Asian woman looked out, her eyes filled with suspicion and fear. Her hair was white with streaks of gray, and hung limply over her ears. In the middle of her forehead was
a purple welt the size of a half dollar. The woman must have been new to America, or else why didn’t she just use aspirin for her headache? Sam’s mother used to treat his headaches the same way, with a glass cup and vacuum created by a lighted match.
A stale smell of camphor drifted out the door. The woman opened her mouth as if to say “I don’t know anything.” She had no teeth. Sam held up his badge and spoke in Khmer. “I am detective Sambath Long from the Lowell police,” he said. “May I ask you and your husband a few questions?”
She stared at him as though he were speaking a foreign language, as though she were deaf. Her husband came to the door, his mouth a toothless cavern. Why wouldn’t they answer him? Finally they spoke to each other, and he remembered that the Cambodians weren’t the only Southeast Asians around. These folks weren’t speaking Khmer. “Are you Lao?” he asked in English. Suddenly the woman and her husband nodded. “Do you speak English?”
“No, no. Just little,” the man said, and that was the last that Sam understood.
In the second-floor apartment, he sat at a kitchen table and spoke to a pair of women. “I am Sichan Lac,” the younger woman said in Khmer, “and this is my mother.” A Super Mario video game beeped and screamed in the living room, where a young boy pushed down on a control pad in front of the biggest television Sam had ever seen. A bookcase was filled from floor to ceiling with videos. The older woman had gray hair cropped short, gold-capped teeth, and wore a loose-fitting tee shirt that said “Aloha.” Hawaii was an expensive trip, but anyone could buy a shirt.
Light shone past an open door and into a bedroom where drawn shades kept out the sun. Inside, a man dressed only in boxer shorts lay on a bed with rumpled sheets. Two more mattresses lay flat on the floor, signs of a crowded apartment. The living room had a sofa with a bit of bed sheet that jutted out from underneath the cushions. Hanging on the wall was a plaster apsara, one of the mythical dancers from heaven who were immortalized in the stone temple of Angkor Wat. A pair of palm leaves crossed the corner of the bas-relief. Sam couldn’t see how they were attached, but he liked the effect the palm and the apsara made together. The traditional Cambodian image made him think of his sister Sarapon. In the front window, an air conditioner hummed softly.