John Ball - Five pieces of jade

"Johnny Wu also displayed a considerable knowledge of jade and interested me until, somewhat by accident, I met Mr. Harvey. As soon as I had contact with him I knew that I had hit pay dirt"

"How?" McGowan asked.

"In the first place I delivered a valuable and very lovely jade to him, but he was remarkably disinterested in it. He

hardly looked at it before he put it aside. That seemed very strange. Next, after I had introduced myself as a poHce oflB-cer and specifically told him that I was working on the Wang murder, he pretended almost complete disinterest in the deceased and continued to patronize the hell out of me. That's about as far as you can get from rational behavior; most people are only too glad to clear themselves if they are anywhere near a homicide and aren't responsible for it"

"Granted. Anything else?"

"Yes. In view of the very casual way he had treated his new acquisition I made it a point to ask him if he had taken a long time in its selection. He answered me, *No, I never require time to make up my mind. That's one of the basic principles for success in the market' The hell it is; nobody has snap judgment that good. And who would look at more than a hundred magnificent jades and then pick one out as though it were nothing more than a candy bar?"

"So you had him pegged at that point."

"No, sir, not entirely, but I was interested enough to ask to see his jade collection. Any normal collector would be eager to display his acquisitions, but Harvey first wanted to know if it was necessary. When he finally did show me his supposed treasures, he had them in his oJB amp;ce, twelve of them, in a case where they were lined up like so many lead soldiers. I studied them for a Uttle while just to give him a chance to tell me about them, but he didn't have a word to say. As a jade collector he was a total miscast; he wouldn't have convinced a schoolchild. Later on I made it a point to look at several other private collections: the Finegolds', the Washbums', and Johnny Wu's. All of them were tastefully arranged and the owners were dehghted to display and talk about them. The question then was: why was Harvey buying jades when he so obviously was disinterested in them? Possibly for investment purposes, but that would be over a period of time and it was out of character for him to deal in fine art objects. When I learned about the drugs in the jade boxes, I didn't have to look any farther for an answer. But, danunit, I couldn't prove anything! I knew that he had knowledge of the murder, if murder it was, but I had no way to put the screws on him. Then, at last I found out about the two strong-arm types that were loose in town and the picture began to shape up."

"Is that why you set up a stakeout and threw a party with Bob Nakamura in the role of a jade buyer?"

"Yes, sir, of course. I remembered something Harvey had 162

told me. He said that he made his money taking advantage of the amateurism of many small investors who have no clear idea of the market or what they are doing. I thought that it might be profitable to reverse that principle and take advantage of his lack of understanding of homicide investigation. If I could get him to reveal himself, even to a minor degree, then he might construe that as meaning that it was all over and lower his defenses. It worked. I set him up for an apparently dead-safe breaking and entering which he might easOy have beaten in court if he had wanted to contest it. So right at that point I asked him a question that was calculated to trigger him into t hinkin g that it was all over. He fell for it and that was that."

Bob McGowan stretched his long legs and for a few seconds contemplated the toes of his well-shined shoes. Then he looked again at Tibbs. "So Harvey murdered Wang Fu-sen."

"No, sir, he didn't"

"Now wait a minute-I don't follow you." "I'll try to clarify it. The two hard cases we have in custody called on Wang Fu-sen and beat him up, trying to force him to remain quiet and cooperate. They throttled him, knocked him senseless, and left him lying on the floor. That's firm and established. He might have been dead at that time, but I seriously doubt it: the medical evidence will tell us one way or the other."

"I'll assume that he was stiU living."

"Good. Now Harvey may be ruthless, but he isn't stupid. The Chicoms take no chances and while he had played ball all the way, if Wang talked, he was in for it. So he didn't have to think very hard to figure out who would be the next to be silenced. Himself. He knew what was going to happen, so he went to the Wang house himself to find out the score. He was safe, he thought, he was presumably coming to buy jade. He found the door open, went in, and discovered Mr. Wang lying on the floor. He mistook him for dead. In that desperate moment he had the idea that he could get rid of the two Chinese by pinning it on them; by making it look Like a ritual killing or a tong murder. A lot of people still believe in those things, you know. He found one cabinet unlocked; Wang had been rearranging the contents. The stone knife, or what looked like a knife, was there. He took it and drove it into Wang's chest. In my opinion, that's when Wang was killed, but because Harvey thought that the man was already dead, it was technically accidental ho-

micide and not murder. The intent to kill wasn't there, or if it was, we can never prove it"

*'You told me it wasn't simple," the chief said.

"Someday, sir," Tibbs said, "I want to investigate a murder done in an English country house over the weekend with only six persons present and the outside roads impassable because of a sudden storm and flood. One where the victim is found in a locked room with an arrow through his heart and there isn't any question of multiple assault or lack of premeditation."

McGowan shook his head gravely. "I've heard of that case," he said. 'The butler did it."

Tibbs shrugged his shoulders. "Now you've spoiled all my fun."

"Not quite. Miss Nagashima was in to see me earlier today. You can do me a favor if you will-pick her up at four o'clock. ." he glanced at his watch". . fifteen min-tues from now at the parking lot across the street and drive her home. Then call it a day."

"I was going to see her anyway, sir. There's a little detail I want to discuss with her."

"Fine, you do that. Did Harvey talk?"

"I managed to persuade him that it would be in his best interests to be candid with us."

"One last question: where are the jade boxes with the dope in them?"

"Downstairs in narcotics."

"Good. Go get Miss Nagashima.'*

"Yes, sir."

Virgil cleared the top of his desk by putting things into a drawer that had served that purpose before, said goodnight to Bob Nakamura, and went out to collect his passenger. He used his own car to pick her up; she climbed in sUently and sat beside him. He remained quiet too until they had cleared the immediate downtown traffic, then he spoke to her. "Yumeko, you know what you did, don't you?"

She lowered her head. "Yes," she whispered.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

She fumbled with a miniature handkerchief, then swallowed hard. "I don't know," she answered.

"Chief McGowan almost asked me and if he had, I would have had to tell him."

"I know."

He guided the car aroimd a comer and slowed down for

the residential street. "If I hadn't studied that jade book, I might have been in trouble."

"Yes." She did not look up.

"All right, Yumeko, why did you put those four jades on the floor around Mr. Wang's head?"

When she looked up there were tears in her eyes. "You know," she answered. "You ask me if we have any funeral jades and I say no."

"But you're Japanese."

"Half," she corrected.

"If you want it that way. But why?"

She wiped her eyes. "I want to do him honor. I know we have no funeral jades to put on his tongue and in his ears, so I make honor for him that way."