The Lake Ching Murders - A Mystery of Fire and Ice

by David Rotenberg

  Fong took his eyes from the mirror and looked at the envelope. It was a standard issue postal item.

  He looked from the thug’s still tense shoulders to the politico’s forced casualness. “There’s some division here,” Fong thought. Another quote from The Art of War came to him: “Cause disruption among the enemy ranks and victory is more likely.” He smiled inwardly and said, “You dropped something back here.”

  “I didn’t drop anything, Traitor Zhong,” snapped the politico, his casual posture immediately a thing of the past.

  The thug’s eyes bored holes in the politico. “This was good,” thought Fong.

  “But you did,” he said. “This.” He tossed the envelope onto the front seat. The thug hadn’t taken his eyes from the politico.

  “Watch the road, you idiot.” Again the thug didn’t take the order like a man used to obeying commands. And only after a display of pique did he return his eyes to the road. “You’ll get us all killed before we even get to the lake.”

  “So we’re going to a lake,” thought Fong. “To take the waters or what?” But he ignored his own question and watched the tension grow between the thug and the politico.

  The last four years had taught him to enjoy the small pleasures life has to offer. Enemies at odds with one another was a small pleasure to be savoured.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE SPECIALIST

  More than three months earlier, a plane without markings prepared to land on a deserted runway on the military side of the Xian airport. The aged specialist on board was accompanied by a small contingent of federal troops, several crime scene officers and a high-ranking party member, although if you looked into the old man’s eyes you would see that he was utterly alone — as all specialists are.

  The specialist hadn’t been on a plane for quite some time. During the flight he’d marvelled at the ground passing beneath him, the intense, almost terrifying, beauty of China from the air, the densely packed landscape, the sudden shifts of colour — then, the crystalline ice-coated terrain around Lake Ching.

  It was the early morning of January 1.

  Captain Chen, all five-foot-four intensely ugly inches of him, stood at the front of the welcoming party of Xian police. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, trying in vain to keep the frigid cold of dawn out of his bones. Chen had responded to the initial, hysterical call from the lake just over three days ago. Since then the case had “become his.” He might have been nothing much to look at, but he wasn’t stupid. He was aware that the case had fallen to him because everyone above him knew the implicit danger to any officer investigating the murder of seventeen foreigners.

  So did he.

  The night of the murders had begun with freezing rain that was quickly followed by bitter cold. The icy roads had made the two-hour drive from Xian to Lake Ching take the better part of five. Just outside Ching’s city limits, Chen passed a broken-down Russian-made bus being pushed by the driver and several young, overtly attractive women. Whores. They flagged him down but the best he could do for them was radio for assistance. The night was tough on everyone.

  When he finally got to the docks of the small city, the man who’d called in the report was disappointed that he had come alone. Chen ignored the snide man’s protests and ordered him to arrange transport out to the boat that was now stuck far out on the lake.

  Temperatures continued dropping. The ice pelted down unmercifully. The ride out froze first his skin then his bones. But when they got close enough to see the large flat-bottomed boat, Captain Chen forgot his personal discomfort and stared in amazement.

  The ship had run aground on a shoal of rocks. Its running lights were refracting through the two-inchthick coat of ice that was continuing to build on its surface. The whole thing was like a bizarre beacon in the midst of the dark, frigid lake. It was an eerie sight the likes of which the young captain had never seen.

  Chen noted the painted 14K Triad markings on the outside of the hull just above the waterline and swore, “Damn Triads — things are getting out of hand. Now not only do they do the deed, they claim it.”

  He went aboard.

  The harsh emergency lights cast the multiple murders in livid contrast to the intended luxury and pleasure of the place. So much death in a small space.

  He did a body count and headed back to shore.

  Because the victims were foreigners, he immediately got in touch with the police commissioner of Xian, who told him not to go back to the boat but to stay put at the local police station in Ching. He did what he was told. Seven and a half hours later, as the ice storm abated and the milky sun rose on the morning of December 29, the commissioner’s office ordered him to secure the crime site then get back to Xian.

  Exactly how to secure a boat, now totally encased in ice almost three miles offshore, proved challenging. He began by ordering the Ching police to close the city’s docks and all access roads to the lake. Then he had all activities on the water banned until further notice.

  It was past noon before he ventured out to the boat a second time. It seemed bigger in the daylight and it glistened beneath its icy skin. On board, the obscenity of seventeen murders had not changed.

  Chen and the two local cops he brought with him festooned the boat’s exterior with yellow crime scene tape. It was while taping the vessel that Chen first saw the large black scorch marks underneath the thick coating of ice on the exterior of the starboard side of the ship.

  He looked at the markings closely. Fire? Had he noticed indications of fire the first time he’d been on board the ship? He didn’t think so. True, he’d never been anywhere with seventeen corpses so it was possible he’d overlooked things. But still. Fire?

  He reached down to the waterline of the pleasure boat. He took off his glove and ran his hand over the largest of the scorch marks. It sat in an indentation of the ice. Not a hole, just a gentle dip in the thick layer of ice. A second large burn stain had punctured the hull but was plugged by the ice. He noted its exact location and headed toward shore.

  The locals naturally grumbled about the inconvenience of not being able to use the lake but were, in fact, more curious than annoyed. The fringes of the lake were beginning to freeze. Who could work in this kind of weather except those damned cormorant fishermen anyway?

  Death was an accepted part of a rural community like this, but murder — murder of foreigners — murder of many foreigners made for wonderful hours of gossip, speculation and inevitably both colourful and hateful accusations against “those half-wit islanders.”

  Because it was Chen’s case he would be the big city specialist’s guide to the crime site. He stamped his feet on the tarmac and swore under his breath at the cold. Then the specialist emerged from the plane.

  The old guy looked frail leaning heavily on the arm of a young uniformed soldier as he made his way slowly down the steps from the plane. He hadn’t dyed his hair. It was snowy white — an oddity in China where hairdying was one of the few accepted vanities. As the specialist stepped onto the ice-slick pavement, Chen stepped forward. Before he could speak, the specialist held up a hand and nodded.

  For the first hour of the drive the old guy didn’t say a word — it was spooky. Finally, Chen asked, “Are you hungry, sir?”

  The man shook his head. Then he reached into his coat and took out a small pad and pencil. He quickly slashed the characters for, “How far to the lake?”

  Chen tried not to show his surprise and answered, “It depends on the roads after the ice storm, sir.”

  A scowl crossed the old man’s face.

  Chen realized that he’d spoken slowly and loudly as if to a hard-of-hearing or slow-witted child. He opened his mouth to apologize, but the older man wasn’t paying any attention. He was staring at the passing fields. Later he breathed on the window to produce a mist on the surface within which he’d etch figures with the long nail of his right baby finger.

  The affectation of long fingernails surprised Chen. This old guy was
street cop incarnate. It was etched all over his features. Even the distance in his eyes was clear to see. Classic.

  “It’s very cold here,” the specialist wrote.

  “Yes, sir.” Chen made sure that he was speaking normally.

  “How long?” the characters on the pad demanded.

  “Two days now. Very cold. It began with a sudden ice storm. Odd for these parts.”

  “And the murders were two days ago?”

  “Two days and three nights, sir.”

  The older man didn’t reply. He just pulled his coat more tightly around himself, folded his arms across his chest and stared out the window.

  When they finally got to the lake the wind was howling and the blown snow stung like needles when it hit exposed skin. Pockets of ice were already forming on several sections of open water near the shore. The older man took his pad from his pocket and wrote: “Will the lake freeze?”

  “It hasn’t frozen for decades. There are strong currents in the lake and it’s fed from underground hot springs. Only the very old recall it ever being even ice covered. But there’s no telling with this freak cold snap.”

  “The boat is still out there?” the specialist wrote.

  Chen nodded as he put his gloved hands to his ears trying to shield them from the rising wind. Two Jeeps pulled in behind them. The second had the specialist’s crime site team. The first, the covered one, had the party man. Somewhere farther back would be a truck with the soldiers. The party man was on a cell phone.

  On the other end of the phone a silence greeted the party man’s report. Machines whirred, collecting the data from the ether while a tall Han Chinese male stood beside a speaker phone staring out at the beauty of Beijing. At what he and his had built. At what was now foolishly endangered by the doings on a boat in the midst of far-off Lake Ching. He had a long distance look in his eyes and a copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War in his hands. He reread it every three months. He had done that since he had first begun his rise to power. He had read the book many, many, many times.

  He depressed the speak button on the phone. “So the boat didn’t sink? That’s not good. Is it?”

  “No, sir,” said the party man as he drew a locked metal case from beneath his seat.

  “I assume you came prepared for such an eventuality?”

  “I did, sir.” The party man in the Jeep opened the case and set the timer.

  “Good.”

  The party man’s voice began to bleat about bad luck, freak cold spells and ice storms. The man in Beijing walked away from the speaker phone on his desk. He’d review the tapes later.

  After that damned boat was sunk — and the danger to China’s future passed.

  Chen pointed toward the small motorboats he had arranged for them. “Shall we go, sir?”

  The specialist looked at the boat then at the young officer. He hadn’t noticed before but Chen was one of the squattest, ugliest men he’d ever seen. “It inspires confidence,” the specialist thought. “Odd, but ugliness in a man inspires more than that. It inspires faith.”

  Two hours later, Chen sat behind the specialist by the motor of the rocking boat. Before them the partially burnt boat’s skin of ice sparkled in the hazy light. An oddly fascinating beauty.

  The ice that seemed to grow up the side of the large flat-bottomed ship had secured its purchase on the shoal.

  The irony of a burnt boat encased in ice wasn’t lost on either Chen or the specialist. It seemed to escape the crime site team and the federal troops who hunched down in their open boat and the party man who followed in a covered cabin cruiser. The party man was still talking on his cell phone — as if he were narrating a sporting event or something.

  The wind howled.

  “I’m too old for this crap,” the specialist thought. But he wrote nothing, just signalled that he wanted to go on board.

  The specialist had investigated many crime scenes, but nothing like this. Seventeen corpses. Gunshots. Knife wounds. Violent rippings. Mutilations. And a body swinging.

  Only the virulent colours of the whorehouse decor of the boat stopped the victim’s blood from standing out like insults to heaven. As it was, the partially frozen dark blood had seeped into the bright red carpets, making them crunch under the specialist’s feet as he moved from the large bar to the ornate bedroom to the private video room to the peculiar room with the makeshift runway.

  The death rooms.

  Seventeen men. Two Caucasians. Five Japanese. Three Koreans — no doubt South Koreans — and seven Chinese who, by the labels on their clothing must have been Taiwanese.

  The specialist had an awful taste in his mouth. He spat.

  The boat groaned and rolled to one side. The specialist looked to Chen. “It’s not solidly held by the shoal, sir. The fires onboard weakened the hull. It could very well sink. Only the ice seems to be keeping it together and afloat.” The specialist nodded but his face showed neither concern nor comprehension. “We have all the victims’ documents at the Ching station, sir. But we were told to leave the bodies for you . . . to see.” The specialist nodded again then scrawled on his pad and turned it to Chen. “How many people have been on board since this happened?”

  “Just me and the two officers who helped me collect the documents, on my second trip to the boat.”

  A sour look crossed the specialist’s face. Chen was about to speak but the old man walked away from him. He slashed a single character on his pad. Since he didn’t turn the pad to Chen, there was no way of knowing if the man thought him a liar or thought that two officers to help him was too many — or for that matter — too few.

  The specialist knew it was a lie. It couldn’t be just Chen and two officers. There were indications everywhere that more men had been on the boat. What he didn’t know was whether Captain Chen knew that or not.

  The specialist filed it away under: politics. And he was old enough to know better than to get involved in that.

  The slashed word on the pad had nothing to do with politics though. The specialist had written: “Carnage.” It was the first thing that came to him. These men weren’t just killed. They’d been annihilated. As if someone was trying to wipe them off the face of the Earth.

  The specialist flipped the page and wrote again. This time he turned the pad to Chen. “I need to go back outside.”

  Chen followed the specialist as he walked carefully along the icy deck. He helped the old man down to the motorboat where the crime scene photographer was waiting.

  The specialist directed the shooting of the exterior of the boat starting with the 14K Triad markings on the hull. He was extremely specific about what he wanted in each shot. After over three-quarters of an hour in the brutal wind and bounding waves, during which time he’d had shots taken from all the cardinal directions, close-ups of the ice formations at the base of the boat, context shots taken of the portals and many, many different shots of the scorch marks on the starboard side, he ordered the photographer to follow him back onto the boat.

  He started in the bar — with the Chinese. Seven bodies. All male. Each more rotund than most mainland Chinese. From the texture of the skin on their arms and their cuticles he guessed that they were all between fifty and seventy-five years old. From their personal effects that Chen had collected, he knew they were Chinese. He couldn’t use their faces to discern their ethnicity because none of the men had faces.

  Their features had been carved off with some sort of wide-bladed sharp tool. Wide-bladed because the damage seemed to have been inflicted with one stroke. The specialist couldn’t even venture a guess at the implement’s name or normal use. A face remover. “I’d like two AK-47s, five banana clips and a face remover for good luck.” He didn’t laugh at the thought. It could happen in the New China.

  He scanned the room. Where the facial skin and cartilage were now, he had no idea.

  Three of the Chinese men had been shot from behind while they stood against the mirrored wall. The splatter lines were consisten
t with the pattern of a small weapon’s discharge.

  The specialist took out a handkerchief and rubbed it across his face. He was freezing cold but the sweat on his face was hot and stank of dark places. “Have them start up the boat’s generator. I want the electricity on in here,” he wrote on the pad. Chen immediately relayed the orders.

  The specialist took a deep breath. He began showing the photographer the pictures he wanted of these three faceless men. Straight on close-ups. Full body shots. Profile body shots. Wide-angle shots of each body taken from the cardinal points of the compass. Lastly, he ordered shots showing where the bodies were in relationship to each of the glass portals.

  The overhead lights flickered on.

  He had the bodies turned over and repeated the process. It took more than an hour to finish photographing these three. The position of the fourth dead figure drew his attention. This man had been stabbed with a knife while he was on his knees. The depressions on the carpet and the collection of blood around the depressions suggested that the man had been killed and then held in that kneeling position while . . . while what had been done to his face?

  He instructed the photographer to repeat the process with the kneeling man and the two dead men on the barstools.

  As the photographer did his methodical work, the specialist prepared himself then moved to what he believed was the oldest of the faceless figures. A knife had been used on him too but this time just to sever the tendons behind the ankles and knees. The man had been tied like a hog then lifted by a foot to dangle from the chandelier. Thickness in the rug beneath the dead man once again told the tale. The man had bled to death, but not from the knife wounds. There were no slashes or gunshot holes in his torso. Just the attempt to obscure, no, erase the face. He must have screamed through the curtain of blood or maybe he was lucky and fainted. The specialist stopped himself. He’d been away too long. Thoughts like that were senseless — worse — they were useless.