The Lake Ching Murders - A Mystery of Fire and Ice

by David Rotenberg

  Back at the factory, Fong filled in the others on the murder at the jail. The phone beeped the code for an incoming long distance call.

  As Lily went to answer it she said, “A whole lot of death for a little place.”

  “I agree,” said Fong.

  “Where are the two brothers who avoided the serpent?”

  “They didn’t avoid it. They’d been moved several hours earlier,” Fong replied. Before they could question him he added, “That’s why there was only one cup by the water pitcher.”

  “More with the cups. You’ve become a specialist in disappearing drinking devices, Fong.”

  “Who took the brothers out of their cells, sir?”

  “Don’t know, Chen, but until it’s answered I’ve ordered the brothers kept in holding cells apart from each other.”

  “Do you think they had something to do with this snake thing, Fong?” asked the coroner. “Fuck, who kills with snakes?”

  “Farmers,” said Chen. “Farmers kill with snakes. By the way, the water on the floor was laced with insecticide.”

  “As a backup,” asked the coroner, “in case the snake got tired or something?”

  “The snake wouldn’t get tired. It would have been starved for days to get it ready to kill on sight,” said Chen.

  “Snake through the wall, insecticide through the bars,” Fong said softly.

  “What’s the sense in that?” asked the coroner.

  “Hesheng was ready to talk. He had fear in his eyes when I interrogated him.” Fong failed to mention that he hadn’t insisted on being alone to interview the man. Others had seen Hesheng’s fear. The politico, Chen, the warden and the thug. Chen had just saved his life so Fong was disinclined to finger him. The warden was just a labourer in a uniform. That left the politico and the thug. The old team reunited.

  “What, Fong?” asked the coroner.

  “Snakes from outside, insecticide from within. Dead bodies set up to be seen, but the boat torched,” thought Fong. “Parallel patterns,” he muttered.

  Before anyone could comment, Lily snapped into the phone, “Are you sure?” That drew every eye. She nodded her head. “Thanks. As long as you’re sure!” She waited for a moment, nodded again then hung up.

  “What is it, Lily?” Fong demanded.

  She raised her shoulders with a “here’s another mystery” look on her face. “The two American lawyers specialized in patent law dealing with DNA.”

  Chen asked Lily to clarify what she had said, but Fong wasn’t paying attention. He was staring out the grime-encrusted windows. The sun was fading. Another day was ending. More questions had presented themselves. Good questions. But it was a bad day. One more dead body. One more soul on his conscience.

  Fong divided up the assignments for the next day and retired to his sleeping mat. From his time west of the Wall he was used to falling asleep shortly after dusk and rising when the sun came up. But Lily had seldom been outside of Shanghai. Her day was only beginning when it got dark.

  She wandered around the grimy, emptied factory unable to find sleep. Somehow, the men had all managed to drift off without a problem. Their snores attested to that.

  Without thinking about it, she found herself in the far corner of the factory, where Fong had laid out his mat. She sat on the floor beside him and watched. He slept with his lids slightly open. It was eerie when his eyes began to move rapidly beneath. Eerie, but beautiful.

  She still remembered the day he had held her in his arms after she’d been assaulted. She remembered how he had tried to help. His rough, tactless kindness.

  She reached out and moved a strand of hair away from his forehead. Her nail traced a thin red line that appeared and then disappeared into his skin. Like love, she thought.

  His eyelids fluttered, then opened. He looked up at her. “Thanks for the telegram,” he said. Then his lids closed and his breathing deepened.

  “He looks older,” she thought. Then she reached out and touched his face. His head rolled over, nestling his cheek in her palm. As she watched him sleep, she had only one thought in her head: “Why had they let that telegram get through. She’d sent many others and all had been turned back. But that one got through. Why?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  PARALLEL PATTERNS

  The vigorous old man shifted on his sitting mat and stared through the open doorway at the terraced fields of the island. He and his had built those terraces from nothing. Brought something — wealth — from barrenness. Every ridge they had built. Every water barrier. Every path hewn from the stone. Even the soil they had made. They had put into the land and then reaped from that land. And they had kept to themselves. For centuries they had kept to themselves. Unwanted by their Han Chinese neighbours on the mainland, they had turned inward. For their sustenance. For their mates. For their lives. The wind off the lake momentarily swirled into the hut. The dense aroma from the fermenting pails of human fecal matter wafted into the room. “Must never forget that we are nothing more than the stuff that passes through us,” he thought. Then he laughed. His many, many years entitled him to laugh without explaining why. The others waited.

  Finally he spoke. “You’re sure it was necessary, Jiajia?”

  “Hesheng was losing hope, Iman,” said his first greatgrandson.

  “And it is now done?”

  “Yesterday, Iman.” The old man looked at Jiajia. Many years divided them. Many years. But Iman felt for this one above his many other progeny. He had insisted at the boy’s birth that he be placed on the highest, most exposed, hill of the island for a full day — sundown to sundown — his life or death to be determined by his own strength. And Jiajia, unlike many others, had survived — without a whimper — just as Iman himself had done all those many years before.

  Like him, Jiajia had made contacts on the mainland as faraway as Xian. He was a patient learner and had a keen ear and sharp eye. He was even able to break down the sullen barriers of secrecy erected by the devious fishermen who lived on the island’s south shore.

  Then Chu Shi, Jiajia’s intended, became infatuated with the off-islander, took him as a lover, became ill and suddenly died. It had changed Jiajia — made him stand up to Iman on that matter of taking her from the Earth. Made him almost uncontrollable. But he had come around lately. Although his face was now hard and almost unreadable, Iman believed his first great grandson to be loyal, and reliable, and resourceful, and smart. “Like me,” Iman thought, “like me.”

  “We must collect Hesheng’s body,” Jiajia stated. “He must be buried with us.” Then he added, “Especially at a time like this.”

  Everyone in the room knew what that meant. A long silence entered the room like an unwelcome guest. Finally the old man spoke, “I will see to this.” He held Jiajia’s eyes.

  “It is the least we can do,” spat back Jiajia.

  Iman was shocked by the openness of the challenge in the younger man’s voice. Was it what happened or the unearthing of his beloved Chu Shi that bothered Jiajia most? It was the unearthing. The other seemed to have brought him back to life. A cold, angry life, but one that Iman understood. Loss did that to young men.

  Jiajia broke the silence. “Will Madame Minister . . . ?”

  “We are not slaves!” Iman shouted, furious that Jiajia dared to presume. “We made our island. We make our own choices. We will act in our interests, not those of any minister in Beijing. Is that clear, Jiajia?”

  Still stone-faced, Jiajia got to his feet and leaned against the mud wall of the hut.

  The old man shifted in his squat and waited until all eyes turned back to him. “Is everyone prepared for the arrival of this policeman?” Affirmative grunts in many forms came from around the room. “Good. The everneighbourly townsfolk of Ching will no doubt point him in our direction shortly. More now than ever be wary of the fishermen; they are never to be trusted.”

  Many nods. “We believe that others have arrived from Shanghai to help this police officer.”

 
; The old man nodded slowly, “He’s amassing his forces.” Iman didn’t bother saying out loud, “just as I would.” He grunted then asked, “What’s this policeman’s name?”

  “Zhong Fong, Iman.”

  “They brought this man here then drugged and beat him?”

  “So it seems, Iman, but he appears to be in command now,” his youngest great-grandson replied. The other men in the hut nodded agreement.

  “Fong?” They nodded. “He’s got a simple man’s name?”

  “Yes, Iman.”

  “I’d like to know more about him.” He tilted his head.

  A middle grandson looked at a first cousin. “It will be done.” The two men left.

  “Do we go for Hesheng’s body now, Iman?” asked his first-born.

  “No,” the old man replied and pushed himself to his feet. “Now we plant.” He strode out of the hut with remarkable agility and unhooked the two metal cans of shit on his doorposts and then slung them over his shoulder. “Six days of fermenting is enough. Now even this works for us,” he announced. His large brood laughed and grabbed their farm implements. They fell into line behind him, shovels, rakes, hoes and a collection of small hand-forged tools slung over their shoulders.

  As they headed toward the raised terraces of the island, Iman and Jiajia looked back at the beach. Two cormorant fishermen were readying their young birds for a first session on the water. Sensing they were being watched, the fishermen looked up. Wary nods were exchanged. The farmers and fishermen lived in a complicated truce worked out over the years but unsealed by marriages between the two groups.

  On the fifth terrace level, the men passed a small graveyard. Barely twenty discreet plots. Oddly small for a place that buried its own and had done so for as long as anyone could remember.

  One of the graves was freshly dug. The men looked away as they passed as if looking at the turned earth would bring Jiajia’s intended, Chu Shi, back to haunt them yet again.

  After two hours of grilling Hesheng’s brothers, Captain Chen and Fong met in the warden’s office to compare notes.

  “So, do you think they knew about this?” demanded Fong. The younger man hesitated. “Take a guess, Captain Chen!”

  “You really want me to guess, sir?”

  Fong looked at his ugly young colleague. He’d seen farm animals that were more attractive. But it was possible that Captain Chen was honest; maybe he’d been born that way. Maybe that’s why the mongoose chose him. “Yes, Captain Chen, I want you to guess.”

  “Fine. I guess they both — the two of them — they both knew and didn’t know.”

  Fong would have put it more elegantly, but that was his assessment too. “I agree.”

  “You do?”

  “I do, Captain Chen. I think they both knew that Hesheng was in danger, but neither knew how or when or even if an attack was going to take place.”

  “They didn’t murder their brother, then?” There was obvious relief in the statement.

  “Not by anything they did,” said Fong. “But that’s only my guess.”

  Chen’s anxiety increased. “Did they know about the insecticide in the water?”

  “No. I don’t think so.” Fong looked away, anxious that Chen not read his face. When he turned back, the ugly young man was staring at him.

  “Why bother bringing me along if you don’t trust me?”

  “Do you trust me, Captain Chen?” Before Chen could answer, Fong continued, “You remind me of a young detective in Shanghai. His name was Li Xiao.”

  After a breath of silence the younger man asked, “Was he a good cop?”

  “Yes, Captain Chen, he was a good cop.” Fong nodded, momentarily lost in a memory. He shook it off and said, “He was the chief investigator into my wife’s death. In fact, five years ago, his testimony was central to the case that sent me to jail. So I ask you again, Captain Chen, do you trust me, a convicted felon?”

  Captain Chen was cowed by Fong’s admission. He sat and looked at his stubby fingers. When he finally opened his mouth, his usually dark voice was light — breathy — as if he were about to faint. “I don’t think the world is a simple place, sir. I’ve often thought I should hand in my shield. I see both sides of everything. I can’t begin to understand how justice works.”

  Fong sensed that it was unusual for Chen to speak so openly, so personally. He took advantage of the moment to plumb for information on this strange young man. “Are you married, Captain Chen?”

  “I am, sir.”

  “What kind of woman is your wife?”

  “She’s a sad woman, sir.”

  “Sir, he called me sir,” thought Fong, “but this time, like I was his . . .” Before Fong could complete his thought, the young man spoke again.

  “She can’t seem to get pregnant. She wants a child. She blames me.”

  Three thoughts. Three short sentences. The end of a marriage — something that Fong knew a great deal about. Fong reached for a platitude and then rejected it. Instead he said, “I think we have two killers at work, Captain Chen. One sent the snake. The other poisoned the water.”

  “Both at the same time. A little far-fetched, isn’t it?” His voice still had traces of falling in it.

  “It was the first opportunity. It was the prisoners’ next scheduled shower, after my interrogation. The shower facilities only allow for two at a time. It was Hesheng’s turn to wait while the other two cleaned up.”

  “How did . . .?”

  Fong held out a prison schedule.

  Chen took it, saying, “And anyone could get hold of these?”

  “Anyone who knew someone in the prison or even knew the basic workings of the place.” Fong sat in the wooden chair and drummed his fingers on his knee.

  “So there was opportunity. What about motive?”

  “I may have supplied that.”

  Chen’s mouth dropped open. He had bad teeth as well as everything else. “How did you . . .?”

  “You saw me interrogate Hesheng the first time. I was out of practice but anxious to show everyone that I hadn’t lost my skill. Well, I hadn’t totally lost my skill and you all saw. Saw Hesheng about to break. After all he’d been through, I just nudged him over the edge. Everyone knew I’d be back for more. And when I came back he’d tell me everything. He had that much weariness in him. It was like he was holding a terribly heavy rock high over his head. His knees were shaking from the strain. He wasn’t capable of bearing the load much longer.”

  Chen let Fong sit with his thoughts for a moment then said, “So both groups were set into motion at the same time.”

  “That’s how I see it, Captain Chen. One responded with the snake, the other with the poison.”

  “You asked me to guess, so I guess that the one who used the snake killed those men on the boat and set it up as an object lesson. The poisoners tried to burn the boat,” said Chen. His voice had returned to its lower register. “It’s just a guess, sir.”

  Fong looked at the younger man and smiled. He could learn to like this ugly fellow. Silently he congratulated the mongoose on his choice. “So let’s go find out who they are.”

  Chen smiled and said, “And administer a little justice?”

  “No, Captain Chen, let’s leave justice out of this. Let’s just find out who did this.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then . . . then we’ll see what to do next.”

  A chorus of shouts and wails in the corridor drew their attention. Fong opened the warden’s door and peered out. Three women and a vigorous old man were shouting at the officer. The gist was clear. They wanted Hesheng’s body for burial. The officer looked to the warden who in turn looked to Fong.

  Fong nodded.

  “Don’t you want Grandpa to open him up?” Chen whispered over his shoulder.

  “It’s not necessary. We know how he died and why he died — all we don’t know is who killed him,” said Fong as he continued to stare at the old man.

  While an officer cleared the
corridor, the warden returned to his office. “Who was he?” Fong asked.

  “He’s the elder out there on the Island of the Halfwits. They call him Iman.”

  Fong looked away. He didn’t need the mongoose to tell him that danger was near. Iman’s coal-black eyes were enough. But it wasn’t just danger he sensed. It was something else. Something ancient. Wordless.

  “Who the hell kills with snakes?” screamed Madame Wu in her Beijing office. Then she remembered her youth. Of course — farmers killed with snakes. “The fools acted on their own,” she thought. “Call the warden,” she ordered her assistant, “the body’s not to be allowed to return to the island.” “Idiots,” she thought, “they don’t know where this could lead.”

  As her assistant made the call, Madame Wu looked out at the capital. How far she had come from her peasant roots. How desperately important it was that they all go back to those simpler times.

  Her assistant hung up the phone and turned to her. He kept his eyes down. “The body’s already been released, Madame Minister.”

  “Well, that might bring this Zhong Fong to the island,” she thought. “Perhaps that’s best.” She raised her eyes to meet the assistant’s. “I want Zhong Fong’s file on my desk.” The man looked like he was about to kow-tow. “Now!” she shrieked.

  As the man scrambled from her office, all she could think was that when she screamed she sounded like her mother, hands burnt from the boiling water from which she plucked the silkworm cocoons, and angry — her mother, so angry at her wasted life.

  Then she picked up her private line and hissed, “Find Chen — find my son.”

  Chen turned the factory lights off, plunging the space into darkness, then joined Fong, the coroner and Lily at the oval table. Once the coroner’s grumbling died down, Chen turned on the first of his overhead projectors. The transparency of the wide-angle shot of the bar room appeared full size against the wall east of the table.