The Blue Dragon

by Ronald Tierney

  I shook off the memories of the afternoon, leaving Mr. Zheng back in Chinatown. I walked through my dining room, clearing dishes. But I was drawn back to the check I’d retrieved from Ted Zheng’s secret spot.

  I knew. I suppose it had been brewing just beneath my consciousness. The answer seemed certain. It was all so simple. And if I was right, it was all so…provable.

  Morning came gray and threatening. Clouds swept in. I could see them coming, angry swirls sweeping through the gaps in the hills. I could feel the moisture on my cheeks as I descended the Saturn Street Steps. In moments I couldn’t see beyond the railing, and it seemed as if I were floating in a cold, barren limbo. At the bottom, a short, damp walk through a quiet residential neighborhood brought me to Castro and Market, a transportation hub minutes from the heart of the city.

  The Municipal Railway cars were crowded, and everything smelled of wet wool and influenza. Off the train at Powell station. All was quiet there. Perhaps for the first time, there was no tourist line for the cable cars. All the musicians had departed, and those who preached damnation had had their hellfires drenched.

  Only a few straggling souls scurried across the open area, umbrellas suddenly swept up like cups on stems.

  It could have waited, I told myself. I searched Market Street for taxis. Never in the rain. Never, never in the rain.

  I walked and walked until finally I was at the soft, undefined edge of the financial district. Here the cold, clean buildings buzzed with electronic debits and credits. Here too was the beginning of North Beach and Little Italy. All the great food and coffee and pastry and a sleazy sprinkling of X-rated video arcades and lap dancers.

  Here was FastMail the branch closest to Chinatown. It was a hole in the wall that had a counter at one end. The room was lined on one side with packing and mailing materials and on the other with rows and rows of keyed boxes with numbers on them. Personal mailboxes.

  The key in my pocket said 314. I followed the logical path to a medium-sized mailbox. There were letters inside addressed to Mrs. Ho—a newsletter from a hospital, envelopes from Pacific Gas and Electric and from Pacific Telephone. There was a postcard from a jeweler announcing a sale. The box was full. Advertisements mostly.

  More important, there was a large manila envelope containing several sheets of legal-sized paper.

  A will. Mrs. Ho’s will.

  I’d found what I was looking for. Maybe more. Instead of using a lockbox in a bank, Mrs. Ho had used her mailbox as a place to keep a copy of her will. Or someone had.

  My hands were cold as I unfolded the papers. There were two sets. One in English. One in Chinese. I moved quickly through the English version, skipping the words common to all wills.

  There was the name—the lone benefactor.

  Out in the cold rain and back in Chinatown, I walked up the street that ran by the sad, empty playground. The wind whipped the swings, the chains making a hollow sound as they clanged against the metal swing set. The rain was horizontal.

  The apartment building looked more ragged and old in the dismal light. I buzzed.

  Ray came to the door, smiling. “You are very brave detective,” he said. “You come out on a day like this. Very brave.”

  I climbed the steps. The door to 4B was ajar as usual. I called out his name. Wallace Emmerich didn’t answer. I edged inside.

  I looked around. He wasn’t there.

  I had started back down the stairs when I remembered the narrow stairway to the roof. At the top, the door to the roof was propped open. The rain was still strong, and now the wind was slashing out as well.

  Wallace Emmerich, in his long dark-blue robe, was trying to throw a sheet of plastic over some of his plants. It was sheer madness. As soon as he got one corner secure, he’d move to another only to have the first rip free again.

  “Mr. Emmerich!” I called out. The wind blew his name back against my own ears.

  He couldn’t hear me.

  I helped Emmerich secure the plastic over the plants. He didn’t question the act at all. We worked together until finally it was done.

  Then Emmerich looked at me. He knew then. He knew then that I knew.

  His look was one of pure anger.

  “So!” he yelled. “You’ll never prove it.”

  I went to him. The rain now drenched us both.

  “Oh yes I will. I have,” I said, guiding his body to the door and down the steps. “I found the will,” I said when we’d finally maneuvered our soaked bodies into his apartment. Inside, the sound of rain crashing against the windows was muffled some, but we could still hear the wind as the storm continued to rage.

  “The will?” Emmerich said. He looked confused.

  “Mrs. Ho’s.”

  His face went blank. His never prove it was aimed at the murder of Ted Zheng.

  “A little foxglove. Digitalis. In small doses with her evening tea. Not enough to kill her. Enough to drive her mad, however. Enough to fool her into signing a will. What did she think she was signing? A lease maybe? A petition? Could have been anything.”

  Emmerich was quiet. His eyes looked like glass.

  “And you killed Ted Zheng because he was either blackmailing you over her death or maybe because he found out and just didn’t like it.”

  “Even if all that were so, Mr. Strand, you could not prove what you say.”

  “Mrs. Ho’s body can be exhumed and tested. I guarantee you, they can find trace chemicals these days.”

  “Even if that were true, there is no way I can be singled out. I think you are venturing entirely beyond your capacity.”

  His narrow smile accompanied a bitter but triumphant stare.

  “Mr. Emmerich?” I was about to steal victory from him.

  He looked at me, his head high, eyes peering down, the cold smile still on his face.

  “How did your wife die?” I asked.

  Only his eyes gave him away. I went on.

  “The key here, Mr. Emmerich, is the exhumation of your wife. I’d be willing to bet—and you aren’t a betting man, are you, Mr. Emmerich?—that substantial traces of digitalis will be found in your wife’s remains as well.”

  He was quiet. Very quiet.

  “What we have, Mr. Emmerich, is all we need in a murder investigation. Means. Motive. Opportunity. Weapon. And bodies. Three of them.”

  The rain stopped. The wind stopped. It was strangely quiet.

  Emmerich stood in the middle of his apartment, dripping water on the floor. I went into the bathroom and grabbed a towel. I helped him change and dry off before I called the police.

  “I don’t want my wife’s body exhumed. Oh, please don’t.”

  “It’s not up to me. But I doubt if they’ll need to if you confess.”

  He looked around his apartment. He looked forlorn. Lost. Suddenly, he pulled himself together. He looked at me angrily.

  “How was I supposed to live?” he asked.

  Wallace Emmerich was docile when the police came. Foolishly, perhaps, and despite the reading of his rights, he made a complete statement. I stayed to listen because there was one important question left to answer.

  Why, precisely, was Ted Zheng killed? Ted had put the pieces together as well. The discovery of the will. Ted had wanted to verify his suspicions with Wallace Emmerich. Emmerich baited him to the basement to show him proof that the elevator death was an accident. That’s where and when Emmerich had struck him with a lead pipe.

  TWELVE

  A month, perhaps more, passed before I realized I still had the key to apartment 3A. Maybe it was only an excuse to go to Chinatown. I’m not sure. Besides returning the key, I really had no other reason to go to that part of the city.

  This time, my trip down the Saturn Street Steps was in the sunshine. Out in front of me was the blue sky. Absolutely clear. The jacaranda trees were in bloom with their royal-blue flowers. Below them, a bed of flowers also exploded with blue blossoms. What a wondrous day! I thought. It was summer now.

 
The narrow street where the Blue Dragon lived was lit by the noon sun too. And there was Ray Leu, standing outside saying goodbye to an elderly Chinese couple.

  Ray shook his head in disbelief. He laughed.

  “Mr. Chan. Mr. Private Detective. You did good job, eh?”

  “I have that key,” I said, fishing it out of my pocket. “For 3A.”

  Ray nodded. “The Wens. Gone now.”

  “Really.”

  He shook his head. “Much change. You know Mr. Emmerich is gone. Sandy Ferris is gone. Mr. Chinn’s boyfriend…pfft. All white people gone.” He laughed.

  I didn’t know whether the white people being gone was bad or good, but apparently it was notable.

  “Wens move to Russian Hill somewhere.”

  “The sisters?”

  “Here. So are Cheng Ye Zheng and his wife and the little boy.”

  “Good,” I said. “So you have lots of apartments to rent?”

  “Yes, you want one?”

  For a moment I tried to imagine myself living in Chinatown.

  “That would be an adventure,” I said.

  “Cheng Ye ask about you. You should go see him. He like you very much. He said you are ‘fine boy.’ ”

  Ray patted me on the back.

  Once out in the narrow street, I turned back. Mrs. Zheng was with the child. She looked down at him, saying something I couldn’t hear as they walked hand in hand.

  I felt warm and sad.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A special thanks to Guolin Tao. Thanks also to the usual suspects—brothers Richard and Ryan as well as Jovanne Reilly and David Anderson.

  RONALD TIERNEY'S The Stone Veil introduced semi-retired private investigator “Deets” Shanahan. The book was nominated for the Private Eye Writers of America’s Shamus Award for Best First Novel. The most recent, Killing Frost, is the eleventh in the series Booklist said was “packed with new angles and delights.”

  Before writing mysteries, Tierney was founding editor of NUVO, an Indianapolis alternative newspaper, and the editor of several other periodicals. The author lives in San Francisco, where he continues to write. For more information, visit www.ronaldtierney.com.

  Scenes from The Black Tortoise,

  book two in the Peter Strand series

  I’m a little bit of a puzzle, I’m afraid. I look Chinese. That’s because I’m half Chinese and half Cherokee. Unfortunately, I never knew my parents, a story for later maybe. I was adopted by an elderly white couple from Phoenix. I speak English, no Chinese. But in keeping with the stereotype, I’m very good at math. I became an accountant, one who specializes in forensic accounting, which means I investigate criminals, people who try to cook the books. I also acquired a private investigator’s license when I moved to San Francisco.

  I’ve never met Mr. Lehr, though he is my major client. I talk to him on the phone, or we converse by email. He is an important man in the city. He owns a lot of property, from which he earns a handsome living. I help him by looking into his investments for signs of fraud, embezzlement or kickbacks— any criminal behavior tied to the handling of money.

  My private investigator’s license allows me to look into the past behavior and associations of people with whom Mr. Lehr does or might do business.

  “Strand, listen,” Lehr said in a gravelly whisper. “You know the Fog City Arts Center? I’m on their board. Some crazy shit is going on down here. The staff is ready to mutiny. I told the board you’d go down, look into things.”

  “What things?”

  “The crazy stuff. You need to see Madeline Creighton. She’s the executive director. So arrange things and straighten it out.”

  A good walk clears the brain, I’ve found. As I was walking to the arts center the next morning, I mulled over the events of the evening before. I realized that aside from mad Madeline, Emelio had already introduced me at his party to the key players—the family-oriented sales guy Craig Anglim, the attractive events overseer Vanessa Medder and down-to-earth architect Marguerite Woodson—the people I most wanted to interview. These three—five, including Madeline and Emelio—were in the best position to have access to substantial amounts of money.

  The doors to the foundation were locked. The hours of operation painted on the glass doors told me I was fifteen minutes early.

  I heard the water lapping at the pilings. I went to the edge and looked over. To my surprise there was a large turtle, a sea turtle. Its dark, shiny shell might have been five feet long. When our eyes met, it disappeared.

  What a strange creature. A living being with its own mobile home. The moment it is observed, it hides— in the ocean or in its shell. We can see it, but only as much as it wants us to see. As is the case with all of us, it cannot completely ignore reality, but, more than most of us, it can withdraw from it.