David Rotenberg - The Lake Ching murders

“Do it, Chen.”

Chen nodded and headed out.

The coroner spat a wad across the room then said, “So who does he work for, Fong?”

Fong didn’t respond. Everything about Chen was confusing. A good cop, but a yes man. In charge, but obviously a junior officer. Fong could see him as a party man, but there was something wrong about that too. It didn’t sit well. “Didn’t stack well” was the phrase that came to him and, with a smile, he filed it away. “I don’t know, Grandpa. What’s your guess?”

The coroner cleared his throat. “He’s connected, but not like the commissioner back in Shanghai or the guy who put that leg cuff on you.”

“Then how is he connected?”

“Have you been to Beijing, Fong? No, course not, you’re just a stupid cop when all is said and done.”

“Thanks.”

“Think nothing of it.” Something sad crossed the old man’s features. “Beijing is set up in boxes, Fong. Then boxes within those boxes. And each box is kept apart from all the other boxes. Mao understood revolution, after all. And he, and those who followed him, knew how to prevent further revolutions. Stop the boxes talking to each other and make them do all their communicating through the chairman’s office. Then be sure that only the chairman’s office deals with the outside world. But sometimes boxes get it in their heads that they can make their own connections without the chairman’s office – first to other boxes and then to the world beyond boxes – beyond Beijing. Sometimes they even try to spawn boxes of their own. They’re called rogues.” He said the word rogues a second time but this time it was in a hoarse, pained whisper. “Very Chinese if you think about it. I was called once from one such box.” He paused as if something sour had touched his tongue. When he spoke again, his voice was thin. Uncertain. “A man had been decapitated in a party hotel suite. The wife had called me. She was a powerful government minister. Head of a box.” He chuckled briefly, but the sound was as dry as the air from a hot kiln. “She’d found her husband down in Shanghai with a younger woman or a boy – it really doesn’t matter. What matters is that I was called in. At first I thought it was through official channels. But quickly it became apparent that wasn’t the case. The wife was acting on her own – as a rogue. She wanted a death certificate stating death by natural causes. I laughed at her and told her, ‘Sure – he came so hard his head fell off.’ She didn’t laugh.”

The old man paused. Pain passed over his features like a cloud obscuring the sun. He spat angrily.

“I’m a diabetic. She knew. She told me that if I didn’t give her the death certificate, my supply of insulin would be cut off.”

Fong thought he’d never seen anyone look so old.

“I signed the papers. I got the insulin. I’m still here.” His voice was light as dust in the wind.

Fong thought about it. The coroner had covered up a murder. A crime. But if he hadn’t, he’d have died a long time ago. Would it have been worth dying to punish the party woman? Fong didn’t know. In the years since the incident, the coroner had been invaluable in bringing hundreds of cases to successful completion. Without him – who knows? Fong shook his head, but said nothing. He just filed it under “another case of relative justice.”

“So you figure Chen may be on a leash from one of those Beijing boxes, Grandpa?”

“I don’t know, Fong.”

Fong didn’t figure Chen to be with the people who set up the exhibit on the boat and killed Hesheng with the snake or with the people who tried to burn the ship and poison Hesheng.

Then a bit of logic that had escaped him fell into place. Someone sets up an exhibition of dead foreigners. What would the reaction be to that display? “How far are we from Xian?” he asked.

“It took us two hours to get here from the Xian airport,” answered Lily.

Before she could question him further, Fong continued, “And there are lots of foreigners in Xian. No?”

“Yes, stupid foreigners like clay Chinese better than living ones,” the coroner commented, smirking.

“What about foreign press?” Fong asked.

“Got to be some there,” said Lily as she leaned in closer to Fong.

“So, whoever killed those foreigners on the boat and set them up as an object lesson would want the world outside of China to know what they did. Agreed? The dead were all foreigners, after all. Chinese wouldn’t care. This would have to be for foreign consumption.”

Heads nodded slowly. Carefully.

“And what would be the world’s reaction to this sort of thing?” Before anyone could reply, Fong answered his own question, “They’d freak. All their suspicions about us, their fears of us would rise to the surface.”

“And they’d pack their bags and head back to wherever they came from,” said the coroner.

“Taking all their money with them,” added Fong.

That settled in the air of the room like something hot and heavy.

“Not something the Triads would encourage,” said Lily.

“Not at all.”

Fong’s teeth clacked.

“So, whoever did the killings on that boat and killed Hesheng with the snake wants foreign money out of China?” asked the coroner.

“Whoever did the killings, Grandpa, or whoever in Beijing induced the killings to be done,” hissed Fong. His anger surprised the others. It crackled in the air.

“A rogue,” said the coroner in a sad voice.

“That makes sense to me,” said Fong.

“I’m not sure . . .” The coroner didn’t complete his thought. He didn’t need to. Everyone in the room understood. The coroner wasn’t sure that this was worth pursuing, that he wasn’t up to another meeting with a Beijing rogue.

“And the burn marks on the ship, Fong?” asked Lily.

They all realized that they were near something very dangerous.

When Fong opened his mouth, he spoke slowly. “Beijing wants to bring foreign money into China. That’s been the government’s party line since Deng Xao Ping.” Fong folded his arms and thought, “The order to burn that boat could have come from the highest levels in Beijing.”

“How does it work, Fong? What’s the sequence?” asked Lily guiding them away from the terror of the big picture and back to the actual events of a crime.

“Chen gets the report, Lily, about the ship . . .”

“Or he claims to get the report, Fong,” said the coroner.

Fong nodded. “Agreed. He reports back what he finds – what the rogue in Beijing did – or had done – the dead foreigners set up, awaiting an audience of journalists to spread the word around the world. Beijing has a problem. Seventeen dead foreigners. Influential foreigners. No way to hide it. But seventeen dead foreigners is better than seventeen dead mutilated, gutted, castrated and decapitated foreigners.”

“So Beijing tries to burn the boat, hoping to claim that the seventeen died in a boating accident?” asked Lily.

“Right, but they got unlucky with the ice storm and the sharp rocks of the shoal.”

“So Beijing brings in the specialist and blames the three half-wit brothers?”

“So why were you sent for, Fong?” asked the coroner. “To prove they’re serious to the foreigners?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“So who sent for you? The murderers or the burners? The rogue or official Beijing?”

“The burners – Beijing.”

“Why, Fong? Why would the ones who burned the boat send for you?” asked Lily.

“Because they want to know what really happened out there,” stated the coroner and looked to Fong. Fong didn’t reply.

“So you can find the murderers, right, Fong?” asked Lily.