Lisa See - The Interior

Hulan raised her voice. "The rest is as Captain Woo told you. Tang Dan enticed the boy to his farm, set his machinery to running, locked the boy inside, and let him die. To cover his tracks, he threw him in the well. Why?" She gestured to the Tsais. "Could this couple now drink from the well where their son died? Never! That, combined with being end-of-the-liners, would leave them no choice but to abandon this land. You all have seen Tang Dan with his sympathetic face. He would have come here. He would have made promises. And soon this land and its well would have gone to him."

Hulan stared at Tang Dan. His face showed no remorse, but he did look frightened, knowing he might be dead in a few minutes. Hulan, however, thought this outcome too good for him. He deserved to suffer longer as a small repayment for all the misery he'd caused.

"Captain Woo," she said, once again adopting her most official tone, "please take the prisoner to your jail."

Tang Dan began to shake as the reality of her words hit him.

"We will let the courts decide his punishment," she continued. "In the meantime, we all trust you to make sure he's treated like the low dog he is."

With a curt signal from Woo the other officers roughly hauled Tang Dan to his feet. On the way to the police car he wordlessly accepted a few blows to his head and a couple of kidney punches. Tang Dan would be dead in a week, but it would be a painful week.

Once the police cars had driven away, David rushed forward to Hulan, who hadn't moved from her spot in the middle of the courtyard. When he reached her, she sank into his arms. Holding her, he felt her heart fluttering against his chest. Then she pulled away from him, staggered to the side of the Tsais' house, bent over, and retched.

Not for the first time today David worried about her. She shouldn't be out in this ghastly heat. She shouldn't have the stress of flying back and forth to Beijing, of tracking down criminals, of crowd control. But as he stood there with his hand on the small of her back, he couldn't help but be impressed with what she'd just accomplished. He'd known her for a long time now. First as a young and shy associate at Phillips, MacKenzie, then as his quiet and pensive lover, now as a woman who even still kept her secrets. But God, he'd never seen her like this!

How beautiful she looked standing there under the bleaching rays of the sun as she spoke to the crowd! How powerful she looked with her right arm raised like a revolutionary heroine exhorting the peasants to revolt! Always he'd seen her authority as a professional attribute, something cultivated over many years in a career that demanded and constantly received respect. But her family had also been imperial performers. The actress, the avenger-both of these characteristics were in her blood. He realized that this was how she must have looked all those years ago when she was at the Red Soil Farm, proclaiming, inciting, denouncing, that she had always carried this authority in her, that sometimes it had worked to her advantage but more often to her detriment and that of others. This woman he loved was always willing to pay the physical and emotional price of her nature.

She slowly straightened and rested her head in the crook of her arm against the wall. He leaned in close and whispered, "Are you okay? Is there something I can get you?"

She shook her head. A moment later she asked, her voice weak, "Henry?"

David looked around. Investigator Lo wasn't taking any chances. He held Henry by the back of the neck.

"Lo's got him," David said.

Hulan didn't respond, just kept her head buried. David waited at her side and watched as the neighbors gradually dispersed. The Tsais resumed their positions next to their son. Suchee knelt beside them, speaking soothingly. Just as the thought that they'd have to get the boy out of the sun crossed David's mind, the threesome stood. Tsai Bing's father picked up his son's shoulders, while the two women each took a leg. As they started for the house, David turned away, uncomfortable at the sight. A year ago he had not seen a dead body. But since January he'd seen nine. What struck him-beyond the horrible and cruel images of what had been done to once living, breathing creatures-was the matter-of-fact way these peasants handled their dead. In America he'd seen policemen and FBI agents and coroners and forensics experts and paramedics and minimum-wage drivers from funeral homes. The physicality of death was something that was kept far away from the surviving loved ones. But here in the Chinese countryside the body was given over to the family to be washed, clothed, and cremated or buried. And David thought if this were Hulan or his own child, he might not have the strength to take that lifeless form into his arms and touch it so intimately, even as a last act of love.

He felt Hulan move. She turned and faced him. Her cheeks were drained of color.

"Let's go back to Beijing," she said.

She pushed away from the wall and, while David waited, went inside the Tsais' house to say good-bye to Suchee. She reemerged quickly, headed across the dirt expanse, and stepped into the cornfield. David, Lo, and Henry followed swiftly. When they reached Suchee's farm, Hulan took one last look around, then ducked into the front seat of the car Lo had commandeered. Once David and Henry settled in the back, Lo started the engine and they pulled out of the little compound.

Each person seemed lost in his or her thoughts as they bumped across the rutted dirt road leading back to the main highway. Hulan slumped in the front seat, her head resting against the window. She felt hot, sick, exhausted. Next to her, Lo drove with his usual quiet determination, yet his thoughts were very much on the report he would give to his superiors back in Beijing. How would he explain Hulan's actions at the Tsai farm? In the backseat, Henry stared morosely out the window. David contemplated Henry, thinking.

When they reached the crossroads, Lo asked Hulan where she wanted to go. "Back to Beijing," she muttered in Mandarin. When his eyes continued to question her, she expanded. "On the expressway. We can't take Knight's jet. The man is a criminal of the worst sort. Once we get in the air, we are with his people. We can't allow that to happen. Just drive, Investigator. We'll be back home soon enough." Lo turned right and began to speed along.

David sat forward and asked, "How'd you know about Tang Dan?"

Hulan sighed tiredly. "It always bothered me that the killer didn't take Miaoshan's papers. He took Guy's and those were only copies, which verified that Miaoshan hadn't been killed for them. She'd been killed for another reason altogether."

David leaned back. How had Miaoshan gotten the papers? Guy said an American gave them to her. She didn't get them from Keith; she gave them to him. Was Aaron Rodgers still a possibility? Or Sandy Newheart? They came to the turnoff to Knight International. The compound was hidden behind a low rise, but David glanced in that direction and saw Henry looking suddenly alert. His dreams and his failures lay just over that rise, and as soon as they passed it Henry drooped down once again, looking more dejected than before.

"Lo, turn around," David said.

"Attorney Stark?"

"Stop the car and turn around."

Lo slowed, and Hulan said, "No, keep going. Let's get home."

The car sped up again.

"No! We have to turn around!" David put a hand on Lo's shoulder. "Please!"

Lo pulled over. Hulan turned in her seat to look at David. Her face was ashen and covered with a thin sheen of sweat.

"We've done what we came to do," Hulan said, utterly exhausted. "I solved Miaoshan's murder. You found the person behind the bribes. I suspect that with further questioning at Beijing Municipal Jail Number Five, Mr. Knight will confess to killing or hiring someone to kill your friend."