David Rotenberg - The Hamlet Murders

A knock at his door. “The commissioner wants to see you in his office now, sir.”

Li Chou nodded. Of course he does. After the report he put on the man’s desk about Fong’s history with the dead Westerner, what else could he possibly want?

Li Chou stood up and did his best to straighten his jacket. His weight was beginning to show. “That damned cheese my wife likes so much,” he thought. It never occurred to him that he was not being forcefed the Western-style sweet dairy confection. Be that as it may, he now had girth where there did not used to be girth.

“I want Chen followed,” he said to his men. “He may lead us to even more interesting information.”

This was a good day. A very good day. Passing by Fong’s office, he nigh on clicked his heels and Shrug and Knock smiled broadly. But when he got to the commissioner’s office, his joyful bubble burst all over his puffed-out chest.

“This report is garbage. Nothing more than speculation. Why are you wasting your time on this?”

Li Chou couldn’t believe it. He was sure that the commissioner was as anxious to rid the police force of Zhong Fong as he was. Here was the perfect opportunity and the man was letting it pass by. Why?

“Have you shared this with your men?”

“No, sir,” he lied.

“Good. Don’t. And that’s an order.” The commissioner slid Li Chou’s report into the shredder beside his desk and flipped a switch. A brief electric humming followed and shortly thereafter Fong’s comeuppance was little more than strips of indecipherable text.

But why? Then Li Chou looked at the commissioner’s desk. There had always been two phones there – one internal, one external. But now there was a third phone that had no keypad. A direct line, no doubt scrambled. Such things in the People’s Republic of China only went to one place – Beijing. Li Chou covered his new knowledge with a smile and backed out of the commissioner’s office. So there was more to this than Li Chou had first seen. Fine. But was that to Li Chou’s advantage or not?

An hour later, there was a light tapping on Fong’s office door. “It’s open.”

The door swung open slowly revealing the figure of Shrug and Knock leaning against the door jamb. “There’s a really white Long Nose here who says he needs to speak with you. Or at least I think that’s what he’s trying to say. His Mandarin is awful.”

“Take a name and get his phone number and tell him I’ll get back to him,” said Fong, returning to the dossiers on his desk.

“Fine,” said Shrug and Knock as he closed Fong’s office door.

Two minutes later, he returned with a baby-blueand- yellow business card and a small oblong leather case. “He said to give these to you. Something about he was concerned you were going to bump into things without them.”

Fong looked at the business card with the sickening colours – he’d seen more attractive baby puke – and couldn’t help but smile. Dr. Morris Wasniachenko – the Ukrainian optometrist. Then he flipped open the small leather case. What he saw there took the smile from his face. Eyeglasses.

More proof that he was getting old.

“Nice,” said Shrug and Knock with a big smile. “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, your ‘interrogatees’ are here. The people who had keys, those who were last in the theatre and those coming to rehearsal are ready for you, as you wanted, Detective Zhong.”

Fong nodded then indicated that Shrug and Knock should close the door.

Fong slid the glasses out of their case and put them on. They made a difference. He caught a reflection of himself in his office window. He didn’t like what he saw. He took off the glasses and slid them into his pocket.

He looked again at the dossiers of the “interrogatees.” He really didn’t think these folks were very promising suspects. Geoff’s death smacked of real intricacy. Something that linked more logically to his Beijing keepers and what they wanted him to find in Geoff’s room. But he hadn’t found anything of any particular interest. He loosened the tension in his shoulders and read through his notes on the people waiting for him in the various interrogation rooms around the station one more time.

An hour later, he realized that he hadn’t heard from Captain Chen since he reported his key findings to Li Chou. When he contacted the front desk, he was told Captain Chen had booked off sick. Fong didn’t like it but he put it aside and completed his preparations for the interrogations.

The young man playing Hamlet was, well, young. And vacuous and “really sorry that Mr. Hyland was gone.” The man was so wrapped up in himself that Fong cut him short with a demand for an alibi for the night of the murder. The young man supplied both the name of an all-night dance club and those of five of his dance partners. For a second time Fong noted that the man looked like a younger Chinese version of Geoff but there was nothing in Hamlet’s words or actions that was even remotely revealing. Fong ended the interrogation early. After all, how many times could he hear “What am I going to do without him, you know, like, what am I going to do?”

Fong’s second interrogation was more complicated. Hao Yong had been an admirer of his wife and for a very brief time had been Geoff’s lover. “I was young but not a child. I take full responsibility for my actions. I am sure that I gained more from our relationship than he did. The time we spent together was very important to me both as a person and as an artist.”

“Do you still . . . ”

“See Mr. Hyland? Only professionally. I would work for him at any time . . . ” then she stopped herself, evidently realizing for the first time that she would never again be guided through a play by Geoff.

Fong surprised himself with his next question. “Was Geoff sad or upset?”

“The Screaming me-me’s got to him.”

“The who?”

“The me-me’s are what Geoff called the two Canadian lady producers.”

Fong nodded, “I’ve met them.”

She nodded back and a gentle smile creased her lips for a moment. Then she bowed her head. Fong thought she might cry. But she didn’t. She raised her head. Her eyes glistened. “Detective Zhong, if you could go through your loss and not take your life, what could possibly cause Mr. Hyland to take his?”

“But Geoff did not take his own life,” Fong thought.

She stood. “Anything else, Detective Zhong?” she asked.

“Was Geoff ‘seeing’ anyone this time?” He knew the question would hurt Hao Yong and he had no desire to inflict any pain on her but he needed to know.

“I am a married woman, Detective Zhong, with a baby girl. I mind my own business and do my own work so I would not know the answer to your question.”

After a sigh, he requested her alibi. She supplied her husband’s phone number to corroborate her story, turned and left the room.

Fong felt her absence the moment the door closed behind her. “Artists do that,” he thought, “leave a room wanting when they leave.”

The third interrogation was with the actor playing Horatio. The young man was clearly conflicted. He thought Geoff was an extraordinary artist and was thrilled to work with him but was angered that he had been consigned to playing what he called “Hamlet’s best bud.” “There’s just not a lot of latitude in the role and I really wanted to show Mr. Hyland my stuff. He’s amazing. Have you seen the show? Look what he can do.” He stopped himself, realizing that he was speaking of Geoff in the wrong tense.

Then suddenly he was speaking very loudly. “Why him, Detective Zhong? There are hundreds, maybe thousands of awful directors. Power-mad maniacs who don’t know anything. Then there was Geoff. You know what I mean?” Fong did but he dodged the question then requested and received a substantial alibi for the hours in question. He took his leave of the young actor and headed to the next room.