A Loyal Character Dancer

Chapter 37

After Wen and Liu had retired, Catherine Rohn turned to Chen, who made an apologetic gesture to the remaining people.

“Now, it’s story time, Chief Inspector Chen,” she said dryly. The latest development had surprised her, though probably less than his Chinese colleagues. During the last few days, she had more than once sensed something going on with the enigmatic chief inspector.

“This has been an extraordinary investigation, Party Secretary Li,” Chen said. “I had to make decisions without being able to consult you or my colleagues, to act on my own responsibility. And I withheld some information because I was not sure of its relevance. So if you hear something you’ve not heard before, please be patient and let me explain.”

Li said expansively. “You had to make such decisions under the circumstances. We all understand.”

“Yes, we all understand,” Catherine felt obliged to echo, but she decided to take the questioning into her own hands before it turned into a political lecture. “When did you become suspicious of Wen’s intentions, Chief Inspector Chen?”

“I did not think about her motives at first. I assumed she was going to the United States because Feng wanted her to, it was obvious. But I was disturbed by a question you raised, the question about the delay in her passport application. So I looked into the process. It was slow, but there was also an inconsistency about the dates. In spite of Feng’s claim that she started in early January, Wen did not do anything until mid-February.”

“Yes, we discussed that briefly,” she said.

“From Detective Yu’s detailed report, I came to see a picture of her terrible life with Feng. From those interview tapes, I also learned that Feng called her quite a number of times in early January, and that on one occasion Wen was not willing to come to the phone. So I assumed that Wen was refusing to leave at that point.”

“But Feng said she was most eager to join him.”

“Feng did not tell you the truth. Too much loss of face for a man to admit his wife’s reluctance,” he said. “What caused her change of her mind? I checked with the Fujian police. They said they did not put any pressure on her. That I believed, considering their indifference throughout the investigation. And then I found something else in Detective Yu’s report.”

“What’s that, Chief?” Detective Yu did not try to conceal the bafflement in his voice.

“Some of the villagers seemed to be aware of Feng’s problem in the United States. Since the word they used-’problem’- could refer to anything, at first I thought that they might have gotten wind of Feng’s fight in New York, for which he was arrested. But then Manager Pan used another word, saying he had heard of Feng’s ‘deal’ with the Americans before her disappearance. ‘Deal,’ that’s unmistakable. If that information was available to the villagers, I did not see why the gangsters would have waited so patiently until Inspector Rohn was on her way here. They could have abducted Wen earlier.”

“And much more easily,” Yu added. “Yes, I overlooked that.”

“The gangsters had reasons for trying to beat us in the race for Wen. But as those accidents kept happening in Fujian and Shanghai, I started wondering. Why were they so desperate, all of a sudden? A lot of resources must have been tapped. And cops involved, too. After what happened in the Huating Market last Sunday, I became really suspicious.”

“Last Sunday,” Li said. “I suggested you take a day off, right?”

“Yes, we did,” Catherine replied. “Chief Inspector Chen and I went shopping. There was a raid on the street market. Nothing happened to us.” She equivocated, mindful of the fact that Party Secretary Li seemed surprised. “So you knew something then, Chief Inspector Chen?”

“No. I guessed, but things were not clear to me. To be honest, there are one or two things I do not grasp even today.”

“Chief Inspector Chen did not want to make a false alarm, Inspector Rohn,” Yu intervened hastily.

“I understand.” She did not think it necessary for Yu to rush to defend his boss, who had raised valid alarms-not false ones. “Still-”

“The investigation has been full of twists and turns, Inspector Rohn. I’d better try to recapitulate chronologically. We each had our suspicions at various stages of the investigation, and discussed them. It was your observations that more than once threw light on the situation.”

“You are being very diplomatic, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“No, I am not. Do you remember our talk in the Verdant Willow Village? You called my attention to a fact: Despite Feng’s request in his last phone call to Wen, she did not try to contact him when she reached an apparently safe place.”

“Yes, that puzzled me, but I was not so sure then that she was in a safe place. That was the seventh or eighth day of her disappearance, I think, the day we had that discussion in the restaurant.”

“Then in Deda Cafe, you convinced me that Gu knew something more than what he had told us. That prompted me to explore further in that direction.”

“Oh no, I cannot take credit for that. At the club, you had already told Gu about your connection with the Traffic Control Office-” She stopped herself at a glance from Chen. Had he told Party Secretary Li about the parking lot deal? Or even the visit to the club?

“You did an excellent job in dealing with a man like Gu, Chief Inspector Chen,” Li commented. “ ‘You have to fish for a golden turtle with a sweet-smelling bait.’”

“Thank you, Party Secretary Li,” Chen said with surprise. “And then in the evening after the Beijing Opera, following your instruction, I walked Inspector Rohn back to the hotel. On our way, we had some drinks in Bund Park. There I mentioned the two cases I had been assigned to on the same day-the park victim case, and the search for Wen. She touched on the possible connection between the two. I had never thought about such a possibility until that evening. More importantly, she discussed the ax wounds on the body in connection with a Mafia novel, in which a murder was committed in such a way as to direct suspicion onto to a rival gang-”

“The ax wounds suggested a triad killing. It was a signature,” Li cut in, “as Detective Yu pointed out at the outset.”

“Yes, it’s called the death by Eighteen Axes,” Yu observed. “The highest form of punishment inflicted by the Flying Axes.”

“That’s true, and that’s exactly what made me suspicious. Wasn’t such a signature too obvious? So Inspector Rohn’s comment started me thinking of another possibility. The victim in Bund Park could have been killed by somebody in deliberate imitation of the Flying Axes to cast the blame on them. As a result, the Flying Axes had to look into the matter and lose their focus on the search for Wen. Besides, muddying the water diverted the attention of the police, too. Under that hypothesis, who benefited? Someone with an even higher stake in the race to find Wen.”

“I’m beginning to see, Chief Inspector Chen,” Yu said.

“So you deserve the credit, Inspector Rohn. In spite of my suspicions, I was as puzzled as anybody else, unable to put the pieces together into a comprehensible whole. Your comments really helped.”

“Thank you, Inspector Rohn. It’s a marvelous example of the fruitful collaboration between the police forces of our two countries. Almost like the tai chi symbol, yin in perfect match with yang-” Li stopped abruptly, coughing with a hand against his mouth.

She understood. As a high-ranking Party official, Li had to be careful in his speech, even in using a seemingly harmless metaphor, which nevertheless crossed the line, due to the male and female elements suggested by the ancient symbol.

“I also got a call from Old Hunter that evening,” Chen went on. “He told me that Gu had called to ask for information about a missing Fujianese. That was a surprise. Gu had told us about a mysterious visitor from Hong Kong. Why was Gu looking for a Fujianese? So that evening in Bund Park put me on the right track for the first time.”

“The park is a lucky place for you,” she said, “in accordance with the five-element theory. Little wonder, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“Explain, Chief Inspector Chen?” Li asked.

Apparently Li did not know so much about Chen’s life as she did, though the Party Secretary had hand-picked Chen as his successor.

“It’s a joke made by my father, Party Secretary Li,” Chen said. “Actually I had another idea that evening. Inspector Rohn happened to ask me about the two lines on my folding fan. Daifu’s couplet. My thoughts flowed to the mysterious death of Daifu, and then back to the body in the park. It further supported the supposition that the body had been placed there to distract attention or to shift the blame, as I had suspected in Daifu’s case.”

“But you did not mention that to me, Chief Inspector Chen,” she said.

“Well, these ideas did not coalesce until I got back home late that night. I dug out the poem in an attempt to recollect all the possibilities I had studied before writing it. As an unexpected result. I was able to recite those lines in Moscow Suburb the following day,” he said with a smile. “No, it’s not my favorite poem, Inspector Rohn, though it might have put me in a poetic mood at the Huating Market.”

Party Secretary Li looked at Chen, and then at Catherine, before he broke into a broad smile. “That’s how Chief Inspector Chen moves in his investigation-by leaps and bounds.”

“As for what happened at the market, let me say a word about contingency. There’s no better way to describe it. I happened to be there, together with Inspector Rohn. As she put it, it’s a chain of seemingly irrelevant links. Daifu’s couplet, a light green cellular phone, the rain, the line of Oriole’s wet footprints, Su Dongpu’s lines. So I thought of the poetry anthology left at Wen’s home. If one link had been missing, we would not be sitting here at this moment.”

She wondered whether his colleagues could follow this cryptic explanation. She happened to be there, but even she did not understand all his references. The light green cellular phone, for instance. He had never mentioned that before.

Yu made an obvious effort to refrain from asking questions. Qian remained respectfully self-effacing throughout. But Li appeared eager to season the discussion with political clichés.

“You have performed brilliant work in the glorious tradition of the Chinese police force, Chief Inspector Chen,” Li declared, though perhaps he was still largely in the dark.

“I could not have made progress without the collaboration of Inspector Rohn, or the work of Detective Yu,” Chen said earnestly. “In his interview with Zheng, for example, Detective Yu pushed for the clarification of a gangster’s phrase-She changed her mind. What did he mean-changed her mind? That was a question I had in my mind while talking with Wen the following day.”

“You kept a lot of questions to yourself, Chief Inspector Chen,” Catherine said.

“I was not sure whether they were worth exploring, Inspector Rohn. After our visit to Wen, you asked me why I insisted on talking to Wen and Liu instead of bringing in the local police. For one thing, Wen’s cup is full. I did not want to put too much pressure on her. But there’s another reason. I tried to find some answers from my conversation with them.”

“Did you find any?”

“Not from Liu, except that Wen had not told him anything. Then we both talked to Wen. What she said about her life in Fujian was true, but she did not say a single word about the gang’s contact with her. Nor did she really answer my question about the delay in making her passport application. But what made me most suspicious was her insistence on going back to Fujian.”

“Was that so suspicious?” Li asked. “A mother wanted to see her son’s grave for the last time.”

“Did she go to visit his grave when we were there? No. She did not even mention it. Back home, the first thing she did was to take a small package of chemicals from under the table. To keep as a souvenir, she explained to me. That might make sense, but the fact that she explained her action to me did not. It was her home. She could have taken anything she wanted without comment. On the way, she had said little, and now she was volunteering explanations.”

“That’s true,” she said, “Wen hardly said anything during the trip.”

“After the battle in the village, she could have paid a visit to the grave, but she still didn’t. It no longer seemed important to her. Then I happened to hear one of the local policeman silence a wounded gangster speaking Mandarin. That was strange. Before I had time to inquire, however, Superintendent Hong’s request for elucidation of a proverb diverted my attention.”

“The Chinese proverb about justice eventually overcoming evil,” she said.

“Exactly. So it was not until we reached the airport, and heard the flight announcement in both Mandarin and Fujian dialects, that I realized what I had overlooked. The Flying Axes is a local gang. How come the wounded gangster spoke Mandarin? I decided not to stop to investigate because my top priority was to get Wen and you safely back to Shanghai.”

“That was the right decision, Chief Inspector Chen.” Li nodded.

“The moment I got back to Shanghai, I talked to Old Hunter, who had gathered information on Gu. I also had a discussion with Meiling. The parking lot could legally be granted to the club, according to her research. Then I went to meet Gu. At first Gu did not put much on the table, so I laid out my cards and Gu turned cooperative.”

Catherine stole a glance at Li, wondering whether Chen had discussed everything with his boss.

“Yes, you had to open the door to the mountain,” Li said.

“According to Gu, the victim in Bund Park was a liaison head of the Flying Axes, surnamed Ai. Ai came to Shanghai to look for Wen. He paid a formal visit to the Eldest Brother of the Blue, who was against a chicken-flying-and-dog-barking search in the city. As long as Wen was not in police hands, the Eldest Brother saw no danger for Jia Xinzhi. So Ai had no choice but to disclose the real plan of the Flying Axes-the plan to have Wen poison her husband once she had joined him. With a stinking rat like Feng, the Fujian gang considered it in their best interests to get rid of him once for all. The Green Bamboo learned of the plan. They need Feng alive; they want Jia eliminated. And they murdered Ai.”

“How did Gu get all this information?” Yu asked.

“The Eldest Brother of the Blue was upset that without his permission, Ai had brought Fujian problems to Shanghai. But then what the Green Bamboo did-planting Ai’s body in Bund Park-was even worse. So Gu learned from the Eldest Brother not only about the Green Bamboo, but about the Flying Axes as well. The moment I had all this from Gu, I decided to go to Suzhou. Wen was determined that if she had to go to the United States, she would kill Feng. I did not think I could change her mind. If there was anyone capable of doing that, it would be Liu. Liu agreed to accompany me here. That was early this morning.”

“You made the right decision, Chief Inspector Chen,” Li said, loud with official approval. “As one of our old sayings goes, When a general fights on the borders, he does not have to listen to the emperor all the time.’ “

It was then that a phone started ringing in the meeting room. Qian produced his cell phone in embarrassment. With his hand cupped over the receiver he hurriedly said, “I’ll call you later.”

“A light green cell phone. Almost bamboo-colored. It’s a rarity,” Chen said deliberately. “The only other one of the same color I have ever seen was in the Huating Market.”

“It’s a coincidence.” Qian seemed to be flustered.

“That could explain all suspicious incidents,” Chen said.

There had been many coincidences during the course of the investigation, Catherine reflected, but she did not know what Chen was hinting at.

“There’s no telling what people are capable of-” Chen paused emphatically, looking directly at Qian.

“Indeed, there’s no telling what people are capable of doing.” Li quickly joined in and shook his head sadly. “Imagine Wen getting involved in such a murderous scheme!”

“I want to say something on behalf of Wen-in the light of the revelation made by Chief Inspector Chen.” Catherine spoke with a passion surprising to herself. “The Flying Axes had left her no choice. So she started applying for her passport, but I don’t think she was necessarily going to carry out their plan. When she arrived in the United States, she might have tried to seek help from the American police.”

“That’s what I think, too,” Yu said, nodding.

“But when Feng telephoned to warn her to run for her life, she was panic-stricken. Who were the ‘people’ referred to in the message? The Flying Axes? If so, had Feng discovered the plot? She fled, but after ten days in Liu’s company, she was resurrected-as a woman.”

“Resurrected! That’s the very word Liu used,” Chen said.

Catherine said, “After all those wasted years, she suddenly had hopes. She looked so changed from the woman in that passport picture. Alive, I mean. I could hardly recognize her in Suzhou. When she realized that she had to leave Liu, she could not bear the thought of living with Feng anymore. The realization of how Feng had ruined her life filled her with hatred. And a desire for vengeance, too. That was why she insisted on going back to Changle Village. She wanted to get the poison she had left there. This time she was determined.”

“I agree,” Yu said. “This also proves that she did not want to carry out the gang’s plan at first. She did not take the poison with her when she left the village on April fifth. Thank you, Inspector Rohn.”

“Inspector Rohn has summed up that part well. And the rest of it,” Chen said, taking a drink of his water, “you learned when Wen was in the room.”

“A wonderful job, Chief Inspector Chen!” Li clapped his hands. “The American Consul has called the city government, expressing thanks, but he did not know what a great job you have done.”

“I could have done nothing without your firm support throughout the investigation, Party Secretary Li.”

She could see Chen was more than willing to let Li share the laurels. After conducting such an unorthodox investigation, the chief inspector had to be diplomatic.

“If we were not already at the airport, we would have a grand banquet to celebrate this successful conclusion,” Li said with warmth. “Indeed, all’s well that ends well.”

“I’ll make a report to our government, Party Secretary Li, about the outstanding work of the Shanghai Police Bureau,” she said before turning to Chen. “In the meantime, I would like to ask you a few more questions, Chief Inspector Chen, over a cup of coffee. Last night, I worked quite late writing up my case summary. You must also be worn out after spending the night traveling.”

“Now that you mention it,” Chen said.

“Yes, you two go to the airport cafe. It’s the bureau’s farewell treat.” Li was all smiles. “We will keep an eye on Wen.”