David Rotenberg - The Lake Ching murders

“The hotel bill may have been picked up by the Taipei government, but I doubt that even those pimps would pay for an extra room for the girls.” Fong turned away from them. He shivered as the mongoose circled the base of his spine. Tiny claws tore the ground with anticipation. Fong’s teeth clacked. They did that now when he got excited. He looked up and they were all looking at him.

“Sharing time, short stuff?”

Before the coroner could complain again about the use of English in the Middle Kingdom, Fong replied in English, “Not yet – tall glass of water.” Lily’s confusion pleased him. Then in Shanghanese he quickly said, “You’re up, Lily.”

Lily hesitated then laid her notes on the table in front of her. She liked the spotlight. “The boat was filled with clues, but some of the investigation at the crime site is debatable. Whoever this specialist was, he knew his stuff, but the locals are amateurs.” Before Chen could defend himself she added, “It’s probably not Chen’s fault, but soldiers are soldiers and cops are cops.” She looked at Fong, a churlish smile on her face. In English she said, “East is East. No?”

Fong had no idea what she was trying to say. So he responded in Shanghanese, “I’m sure you’re right.” Then to the men’s querying looks, he simply shrugged his shoulders. A gesture a Chinese man uses in circumstances varying from learning that his wife has given birth to quintuplets to being told that the bus he is waiting for is going to be late.

The other men shrugged back at him. It was used for that too.

Lily didn’t shrug. She threw an evidence bag with two spent cartridges on the table. It landed with a thunk. Then she splayed seven photographs of the large bar indicating exactly where the cartridges had been found. Chen picked up the evidence bag and turned it slowly in the light.

“Give that to your grandpa. You’re way too young to identify those.”

Chen handed the bag to the coroner who held it at a distance from himself to get a good look. Fong marvelled that the man’s vanity still prevented him from wearing glasses. Fong wondered when vanity finally left a man alone. Gave him some peace. Then he realized that when vanity left, so did a part of life – a part he wasn’t ready to let go of just yet.

“These belong in a museum,” the coroner said. “I’m surprised they actually fired. Doesn’t gunpowder deteriorate or something?”

“It does, Grandpa,” said Lily.

“So, how did they fire?” asked the coroner.

“They’re new,” said Lily.

“What? He just said they were ancient, Lily,” Fong said.

“They were. And Grandpa is right that gunpowder deteriorates. These were the original shells – probably from the 1860s or 1870s. I’ll have to check that. But they’ve been recharged with modern powder, although no doubt fired from the original weapon. If you look at the markings on the shells, I think they were made in Japan, Tokugawa era or some such.”

“Why? Why bother? Weapons aren’t that hard to get. Why bother filling old gun shells with new powder? Why would Triads bother with that?” asked Chen.

Fong was happy when the coroner jumped in, “More important, why leave them there to be found?” His old face was a mask of confusion. “There were at least five gunshots fired in that bar room. But the specialist only found these two shells. Why? And look where the shells were.” He shuffled through the photographs and found the wide-angle shot of the room with the two shells circled on the floor. “Right in the middle of the room. Why would they end up there? It doesn’t make sense.”

Fong felt their eyes move toward him. He kept his face as neutral as he could but his mind was racing. The bar room. The faceless Chinese men. Each countenance one large dark mouth, screaming. Gunshots. Knife wounds. A man hog-tied and allowed to bleed to death from the wounds on his face – one awful red cry.

“Good questions,” said Lily. “Here are some more mysteries to ponder. The splatter patterns on the walls of the bar indicate that some of the other shots were from modern weapons. The distance between the deceased and the marks on the mirrors indicate that a high-powered, definitely modern, handgun was used. Without the real bodies, we’ll never be able to know exactly what kind of weapon it was. Apparently the lake is filled with eels. By the time they’ll be able to retrieve the bodies there won’t be enough left to bury, let alone autopsy. But the issue remains. The splatter marks indicate that there was at least one high-powered weapon on the boat. Why bother using an antique when you have a modern gun?” Without waiting for discussion, she reached into the box with the evidence bags at her side. She tossed the bag with the Triad medallion on the broken chain onto the table. “Typical ‘14K’ stuff. I’ll check, but my guess is that it’s pretty low in the hierarchy. A foot soldier would be my guess. Then there are these.” She tossed out the four photos of the amulet on its chain. “A lot of pictures for. . .” Lily never completed her thought.

“Film’s cheap. He took a lot of pictures of all the Triad markings,” said the coroner.

“Next,” said Fong, not wanting to deal with Triads just yet.

Lily pulled out the Hong Kong video and tossed it onto the table. “Standard issue pornography – of the hetero variety. I guess we could track down where in Hong Kong it was made but I doubt that there’s anything to it.” She looked at her male company. “Just guys having their boyish fun.”

The men averted their eyes as if looking at the black rectangle implicated them somehow in the event.

Lily held the plastic bag with the set of Parisian glasses taken from the Japanese man. “I have no idea why the specialist insisted that they be itemized. There are no doubt prints on them but whose is beyond our ability to determine. Same for the CD from the runway room.” She tossed it onto the table.

Fong picked it up. It was American. He wasn’t much on Western music but Fu Tsong had insisted that he listen to all sorts of things that her lover, the Canadian director Geoffrey Hyland, had given her. He allowed the thought to dissipate into the thinness of the air. It’d been a long time since that jealousy had haunted his thoughts. He looked at the CD and forced himself to remember his English sounds. Somehow they were easier when he spoke than when he read. Counting Crows. He wondered if that was the name of the artist or if it was a group. Surely “Counting” was an odd first name. His English didn’t extend to bird nomenclature. He had no idea what “recovering the satellites,” which was written in odd print on the cover, meant. He turned the casing over and read the names of the songs. His eyes landed on title after title: “Angels of the Silences,” “Daylight Fading,” “Children in Bloom,” “Millers Angels,” “A Long December.”

The shiver again – the mongoose was running.

Fong understood synchronicity. He understood it in his bones. And he didn’t believe totally in human will. At times he knew that accidents were caused by nature. That two things in one place often meant something. He would totally deny that he was superstitious – but serendipity was a way of conveying meaning. Angels, silences, children, bloom and December – clues as far as Fong was concerned.

He put the CD back on the table. “What does it say?” asked Chen.

“Nothing important,” Fong answered.

The coroner laughed deep in his throat. All eyes swung to him. “I just love the way he lies, don’t you?” he said. “What does it say, Fong?”

Fong translated every word on the CD. “Satisfied, or would you like me to translate the liner notes, too?”