Lisa See - The Interior

"I think," Lo said in a menacing tone, "you will be wise to listen to what Inspector Liu has to say."

Out of the corner of her eye Hulan saw David edge toward her. He may not have understood the words, but he couldn't mistake the standoff that was taking place before him. Henry grabbed his shirtsleeve to hold him back. Captain Woo perhaps had not seen the foreigners. Their appearance could only complicate things.

"With great respect, I would like to ask you again." Hulan spoke evenly, hoping to temper the situation. "What do you think happened here?"

"It is very clear," Woo responded at last. "The boy must have fallen into the well. Either that or he committed suicide." Woo now addressed the neighbors. "We all know that he was engaged to Ling Miaoshan. He must have been despondent at her death."

"You did not look at the body," Hulan said. "How can you know this?"

"The boy drowned. Of that I am certain."

"What he says is true," Suchee said. "You saw him. He was wet, and his body came out of the well."

"That's right," Woo said. "You knew the boy. You knew the situation. Tell your nosy friend how it is."

Hulan looked at Suchee sadly. Of course, Suchee-even knowing what she did about her daughter-still was hoping to paint a picture of true love between Miaoshan and Tsai Bing.

"Captain Woo, please, come with me," Hulan said. She walked to the body and knelt at its side. Reluctantly Woo came to stand next to her. Hulan called out to Lo, "Keep the others away, but don't let anyone leave." Then she lowered her voice so that only Woo could hear. "I know you aren't familiar with corpses. I'm sorry to put you through this, but please, take a look with me." The policeman squatted beside her. She smelled his frightened sweat. Looking up from under her lashes, she saw that the color had drained from his face and she hoped that he wouldn't vomit. Any further loss of face would make what had to come next even more difficult.

Keeping her voice low, she asked, already guessing the answer, "Did you examine the body of Ling Miaoshan?"

Woo almost imperceptibly shook his head. Hulan sighed. What might have been found on the dead girl's body if only this policeman had had the courage and/or the experience?

"I will not go into the physiology of drowning, because Tsai Bing did not drown. Instead I will ask you to look at some other markers. Please note that his eyes are pricked with red. His chest and face too have broken capillaries. This is consistent with suffocation. Hanging, strangulation, garroting."

"But wouldn't that also be consistent with drowning? Don't you suffocate that way too?"

Good, Hulan thought. He's beginning to focus.

"I have already explained. Tsai Bing didn't drown."

"Then what?"

"Look at his hands, at his fingernails in particular," Hulan ordered gently. It was important that this appear as though Woo had made the discovery. "What do you see?"

"His fingernails are broken and bloody. He must have struggled to get out of the well."

"He was dead when he went in the well. I guarantee that," Hulan said. "What else do you see?"

"The color under his nails is good. Pink."

"Too good, wouldn't you say?"

Captain Woo didn't know. This was only the second body he'd ever had to deal with and only the first that he'd really looked at.

"Tsai Bing is cyanotic," she said.

"Do you mean cyanide poisoning?"

"Do you smell almonds?" she asked gently.

Woo shook his head.

"Neither do I," Hulan said. "But there is another possibility. Carbon monoxide poisoning mimics these symptoms. If we were somewhere else, I would say that Tsai Bing might have committed suicide by locking himself in his car and rigging the exhaust pipe to come back inside. He would have died quickly and nearly painlessly."

"Tsai Bing didn't have a car-"

"And wherever he was, he struggled to get out," Hulan added.

They were silent for a minute. Other than the cicadas there was dead quiet. Even Madame Tsai had stopped crying. Hulan let the silence drag out, hoping Woo would figure it out for himself. At last he spoke.

"In Da Shui Village the cars are all government-owned. Our police department has two sedans. The doctor also has a car. We have one other that is shared by a consortium for driving people to other villages for a small fee. Other than this, we have buses and trucks used for transportation of people and merchandise. However, we do have one other category of vehicle that uses gasoline."

"Farm equipment," Hulan said.

For the first time Woo's eyes met hers. Suddenly what had been clear to her from the moment she saw the body registered on Woo. His eyes widened and she nodded. Yes, his conclusion was correct, she seemed to say.

Woo heaved himself to his feet and addressed the assembled neighbors. "We have a saying in our government that I would ask you all to hear again. Leniency to those who confess, severity to those who don't."

The neighbors-all from the poorest class-looked nervously at their feet. Tsai Bing's mother began to weep again with the realization that her son's death had not been a horrible accident.

"Our neighbor and friend, Tsai Bing, was murdered by one of our own," Woo said. "The murderer has one minute to reveal himself." Woo looked at his watch, then around at the peasants. "When this minute is over, any leniency that I or the courts or your neighbors would see fit to treat you with will evaporate forever."

No one spoke, but instead of staring at their feet, the people had begun to look around the courtyard, checking the familiar faces of those they had known for years. Woo, now emboldened, circulated among the peasants.

"There is only one person here whom we all hold above reproach," he said loudly so that all could hear. "He has done much for our community. As his wealth has grown, he has shared his mechanized farm equipment with his neighbors. He is the only man who has the capability of killing Tsai Bing, and I'm sure when we inspect the garage where he keeps his equipment, we will find Tsai Bing's blood on the door, for this poor boy tried to scratch his way out until he was too weak to fight anymore."

The peasants knew of whom Woo was speaking but couldn't believe what they were hearing.

"There is only one person here who fits this description, and we all know who he is." Captain Woo stopped before Tang Dan. "The only remaining question your neighbors have is, why?"

Madame Tsai screamed in anguish and collapsed into her husband's arms.

Tang Dan stared proudly at the policeman. "Why!" Woo shouted.

Tang Dan blinked, then said, "I believe my minute is up, so it doesn't matter what I say." He held out his wrists to be handcuffed.

Woo glanced back at Hulan, unsure of what to do next. She nodded. He brought out his handcuffs, roughly clasped them on Tang Dan, then gave the murderer a shove toward the police car.

Suddenly Suchee rushed forward and slammed into Tang Dan's chest with both fists, sending him into the dirt. "Why? Why? Why?"

The other neighbors circled in closer, now gripping their hoes and other tools as weapons. Even those who were empty-handed crept closer, their bodies taut with anger and the desire for revenge. A boy, an only son, had been murdered by a man who had grown rich while they had remained poor.

"He comes from the landlord class," someone spat out. "You can't change a tiger's stripes," said another, quoting an almost universal epithet.

"Pig ass!".. * "Mother of a fart!"

Chinese villagers had five thousand years of precedence for dealing with such a crime. In the olden days a robber, kidnapper, or vandal was brought before the populace of a village and made to walk among them, where they might scream out his crimes and what they thought of him, where they might throw stones or beat the evildoer with sticks. The criminal might be made to wear a cangue, a huge wooden collar that made it nearly impossible to eat or even to shoo away flies. His wrists and ankles might be locked into a public stock so that everyone in the village might know that this was a bad person.