The First Victim

CHAPTER 35

"Can get you nice suit cheap,’’ Mama Lu told Boldt. She occupied most of the doorway of a building marked only in Chinese characters. She wore a red cotton tent dress, and leather sandals and she carried a rubber-tipped bamboo cane that didn’t look right on her. In the daylight, out of her dim lair, Boldt saw her as much younger, mid-fifties perhaps.

‘‘You don’t like this one?’’ Boldt complained.

‘‘It okay. A little big on you I think. Bad color. Too dark for skin tone. I have cousin.’’

‘‘Skin tone?’’ He had bought the suit on sale too many years ago to remember. Her comments made him self-conscious. He worried about how his suit might play in his later appointment.

She struck Boldt as something of a Chinese Winston Churchill the way she held the cane and faintly bowed to him as he spoke.

Boldt had sandwiched the stop between the conclusion of the video session with LaMoia and his upcoming job interview, intending to work the woman for information on the location of sweatshops. But she had other ideas.

Sensing his impatience and urgency, Mama Lu demanded they meet at a location of her choosing: a nondescript building on a busy street in the heart of the International District.

‘‘I have an appointment,’’ he continued.

‘‘This not take long,’’ she told him. Mama Lu set her own pace, her own tempo. In the world of jazz, she was a ballad, not bebop. ‘‘You will be so kind,’’ she said, indicating the door.

Boldt opened the door for her, stepping close enough to smell a faint trace of jasmine and was reminded of her gender, something easily forgotten when enveloped by her commanding presence. As she passed, he said softly, ‘‘Another woman was found dead. Another Chinese. Head shaved. Bad shape.’’ He caught himself slipping into her clipped mode of speech.

‘‘Chinese, or Chinese-American? You see, to us there is much difference, Mr. Both. I show you.’’ She led Boldt down a short red hallway and through a bright pink door into a large, open room filled with fifty or more Asian children. They sat at low tables in groups of five or six. Finger paintings hung from the fabric-covered walls; a hand-drawn English alphabet was draped above the blackboard like a banner. There were beanbags, dollhouses, plastic forts and a wall of books. It was busy but not loud. Xylophones hammered out halftone Chinese melodies.

Boldt read a modest plastic sign mounted to the wall and understood immediately that she was playing politics. Beneath the prominent Chinese characters on the sign were the words Hongyang Lu Child Center and Woman’s Shelter. Mama Lu was sole proprietor.

As if on cue-and he had to wonder about that-several adorable children ran to greet the great lady, clutching to her tent dress and jumping for her arms. Little dolls. Boldt thought of his own Sarah, and how quickly her childhood was slipping away. He was working long hours again, a pattern he had broken during Liz’s illness, and though there were a million justifications for it, he suddenly wondered if he was working or running from something. Daphne had put these thoughts in him, and he couldn’t get away from them.

Mama Lu interrupted his thoughts. ‘‘These my children: American citizens. They born here, live here. Grow up, make money, pay taxes.’’ She spoke in Chinese to the half dozen children crowding her and they ran back to their stations. ‘‘Older girls upstairs,’’ she said, pointing to the ceiling. ‘‘Different problems.’’

Boldt counted ten young adult women supervisors, far more per child than at his own children’s day care. One of these young women approached and spoke softly and cordially, welcoming them. Unless a well-conceived act, Mama Lu was no stranger here. The woman shook Boldt’s hand and asked if the police would ever consider coming and talking to the students. He offered to do so himself.

Mama Lu glowed with his offer. The woman headed back to her kids and Mama Lu said to Boldt, ‘‘This girl once part of shelter. Now teacher, give back to community. This free day care. Anyone welcome.’’

‘‘You’re a very generous woman.’’

‘‘Not point! Pay attention! Children American. No illegal. Born here means American citizens.’’

‘‘Whether or not their parents were or are legals, yes, I understand the way the laws work.’’

‘‘The laws not work,’’ she countered. ‘‘Pay attention. These children are alive, Mr. Both. They grow up, pay taxes. American citizens.’’

‘‘I understand,’’ Boldt replied.

In a menacing tone she hissed, ‘‘You understand nothing.’’

Boldt told her, ‘‘We have evidence. A videotape. Other evidence as well. There’s a sweatshop. . The people doing this will be caught and punished.’’ He allowed that to hang in the air along with the clanging xylophones and the joyous squeals. ‘‘Those who cooperate with us,’’ Boldt told her, ‘‘are treated differently in the eyes of the law.’’

‘‘Law does not have eyes. Law is blind. Law does not see parents, only children.’’ She swept her pudgy hand across the room.

‘‘Lady Justice is blind,’’ Boldt corrected.

She squinted up at him like a person looking into the sun. ‘‘Why you make so much trouble?’’

‘‘These people did nothing to help these women when they became sick. You don’t need laws to tell you that is a crime! If one of these children became sick with the flu, would you simply allow the child to die?’’

‘‘You not sure of this,’’ she tested.

‘‘Oh yes, we’re sure.’’ He leaned in closely to her and whispered faintly. ‘‘The woman in the graveyard-buried without a casket, without a service, dumped into the mud-had been violently raped.’’ He added reluctantly, ‘‘Every cavity.’’

This news clearly struck her. Red-hot anger flashed behind her dark eyes.

‘‘Starved to death, raped and buried,’’ Boldt repeated before leaning farther away. ‘‘They froze her body-we’re not sure for how long, or why. We know she was a part of a sweatshop. Her fingers. .’’

Mama Lu stood, leaning on the cane in stunned silence, the gleeful sounds of children swirling about them.

‘‘A sweatshop could not operate in this city without your knowledge,’’ Boldt said boldly. ‘‘I’m not suggesting your participation, only your awareness.’’ He added, ‘‘Can you continue to condone such behavior? Help me stop them, Great Lady. You will be a hero, a great friend to this city.’’

‘‘People arrive from overseas,’’ she said, equally softly. ‘‘They have no place find work. Government no allow them work. Much need this work, Mr. Both. What to do? Make lady favors? This kind of work? Die of disease? This not fair. Very much not fair.’’

‘‘They starved her and they raped her.’’ Boldt was struck by the severity of their discussion, especially when contrasted to the gleeful enthusiasm that surrounded them. ‘‘This is fair?’’

‘‘Horrible,’’ the lady gasped. ‘‘Your visit much appreciated.’’

‘‘No, no, no!’’ Boldt corrected. ‘‘We believe this sweatshop is in a cannery-an old cannery perhaps. We have evidence to support this.’’

‘‘Many canneries, once upon a time. Big city. Big area.’’

‘‘Exactly,’’ he said. ‘‘Help me, Great Lady. We find the sweatshop, we stop looking,’’ he suggested. This won her attention. He nodded his insistence. ‘‘If we don’t find the right sweatshop, we’re going to be conducting a lot of raids. Bottom line: The people who did this are going down for it.’’

‘‘And these children?’’ she asked. ‘‘Their mothers once made the clothing you speak of. This is how they survived. What of them?’’

‘‘Four women are dead. Medical Examiner says three had given birth. Their children have no mothers. Is that what you want?’’

‘‘You have two children,’’ she said, surprising Boldt with her knowledge. ‘‘One boy, Miles. Daughter, Sa-ra,’’ she mispronounced. ‘‘You love your daughter, Mr. Both?’’

He didn’t answer. He glared at her, his heart racing, suddenly wishing he’d never met her. He swallowed hard, recalling the time Sarah had been kidnapped. He understood that hell firsthand; he relived it almost every night, the unspoken source of his insomnia.

‘‘You see child?’’ she asked, pointing out a small girl no older than two. ‘‘Her mother give birth this child, yes? In China-one child only. If boy, he grow up, keep family home, take care parents. Girl moves away with husband. Girl child no good. Many daughters born, but left in street, never seen again. Yes?’’

Boldt could think only of Sarah and Miles. Why had she mentioned them? How had she known?

‘‘Many daughter sent to cousins in America. Here, Seattle. Yes? Mother pay much money for this. Mother come later, in bottom of ship. In container. Yes? American government say she not political refugee, has no right live in America. You, Mr. Both? You refuse her chance to be with own daughter? She work hard many years, no papers. Earn much money. Find green card. Citizen now.’’ She added with a faint smile, ‘‘This America. Everything for sale.’’

Boldt held his tongue, still thinking about Sarah and the idea of daughters abandoned at birth, or shipped away to a distant land. He felt cold. Sick to his stomach.

‘‘We don’t know her name,’’ he finally said. ‘‘The woman we found in the grave. Raped, starved. No name. She won’t be buying her freedom. She won’t be buying anything.’’ He tried once again to get his point across. ‘‘There are people who say there’s no way a sweatshop can operate in this city without your knowledge.’’

She craned forward ominously. ‘‘You believe such things?’’

‘‘A woman is missing. I must find her. I must stop these people who treat these women this way. It’s going to stop, Great Lady, with or without you. I would be most grateful for any guidance you could give me in where to look for this sweatshop. Believe me, no one need ever know my source for such information.’’

‘‘Leave this alone, Mr. Both,’’ she said. ‘‘This dangerous, everyone involved. Yourself too. You help me very much coming here, tell me these things.’’

‘‘I didn’t come here to help you. I came here to ask you to help me.’’

She pointed to the door. ‘‘Of course I help you. No problem. But you must listen, yes? This woman who make the news on the TV, she make wrong people mad. Your name too get mentioned. You make her listen-no make so much trouble. Bad for everyone.’’ She warned ominously, ‘‘You watch for shadows, Mr. Both-shadows not cast by you. Wrong people make mad.’’

Boldt felt his throat go dry as he restated, ‘‘Our evidence is growing. We will find the people responsible. We will put them out of business.’’ He caught himself reducing his sentences to clipped English, pandering to her in ways he did with few others. For all he knew she spoke fluent English. ‘‘They, and anyone associated with them, are going to prison.’’

She said, ‘‘Go home your children, your wife, Mr. Both.’’

‘‘It doesn’t work like that,’’ Boldt objected. ‘‘Lady Justice may be blind, Great Lady. The police are not. We are the law, no one else. Not you, not anyone else.’’

‘‘We both idealists. Yes?’’ When she grinned her dentures showed, as perfect as a picket fence. Those teeth didn’t belong in such a face. They robbed her of character. ‘‘Too bad for both of us.’’