Tess Gerritsen - The Silent Girl

“You make amok sound like a clinical term,” said Frost.

“It is. It’s a Malaysian word for something Captain Cook described back in the late 1700s, when he was living among the Malays. He described homicidal outbursts without apparent motive, in which an individual-almost always male-goes into a killing frenzy. The killer slaughters everyone within reach until he’s brought down. Captain Cook thought it was a behavior peculiar to Southeast Asia, but it’s now clear that it occurs worldwide, in every culture. The phenomenon’s now got the unwieldy name of SMASI.”

“And that stands for?”

“Sudden Mass Assault by a Single Individual.”

Jane looked at Frost. “Otherwise known as going postal.”

Zucker shot her a disapproving look. “Which is unfair to postal workers. SMASI happens in every profession. Blue-collar, white-collar. Young, old. Married, single. But they’re almost always men.”

“So what do these killers have in common?” asked Frost.

“You can probably guess. They’re often isolated from the community. They have problems with relationships. Some sort of crisis precipitates the attack-loss of a job, collapse of a marriage. And finally, these individuals also have access to weapons.”

Jane flipped through her copy of the Boston PD report. “It was a Glock 17 with a threaded barrel, reported stolen a year earlier in Georgia.” She looked up. “Why would an immigrant on a cook’s salary buy a Glock?”

“For protection, maybe? Because he felt threatened?”

“You’re the psychologist, Dr. Zucker. Don’t you have an answer?”

Zucker’s mouth tightened. “No, I don’t. I’m not psychic. And I had no chance to interview the one person closest to him-his wife. By the time Boston PD requested my consult, she had left town and we had no idea how to find her. My psychological profile of Mr. Wu is based on interviews with other people who knew him. And that list wasn’t long.”

“One of those people was Iris Fang,” said Jane.

Zucker nodded. “Ah, yes. The wife of the waiter. I remember her very well.”

“Any reason in particular?”

“For one thing, she was a beautiful woman. Absolutely stunning.”

“We’ve just met her,” said Frost. “She’s still stunning.”

“Really?” Zucker flipped through the pages in his file. “Let’s see, she was thirty-six when I interviewed her. Which makes her… fifty-five now.” He glanced at Frost. “Must be those Asian genes.”

Jane was beginning to feel like the ignored and ugly stepsister. “Getting beyond the fact you both think she’s gorgeous, what else do you remember about Mrs. Fang?”

“Quite a lot, actually. I spoke with her several times, since she was my primary source of information about Wu Weimin. That was my first year working with Boston PD, and that particular incident was so horrific, it’s hard not to remember it. You go out for a late-night dinner in Chinatown, and instead of enjoying kung pao chicken, you end up getting slaughtered by the cook. That’s why the story attracted so much attention. It made the public feel vulnerable because anyone could have been a victim. Plus, there was the usual hysteria about dangerous illegal immigrants. How did Mr. Wu get into the country, how did he get a gun, et cetera, et cetera. I was only a few years out of my doctoral program, and there I was, consulting on one of the splashiest cases of the year.” He paused. “That was a poor choice of words.”

“What did you conclude about the shooter?” asked Frost.

“He was a rather sad character, really. He came over from Fujian province and slipped into the US when he was maybe twenty. It’s impossible to be certain about the dates, because there’s no documentation. All the information came from Mrs. Fang, who said Mr. Wu was close friends with her husband.”

“Who died in the shooting,” said Frost.

“Yes. Despite that, Mrs. Fang refused to say anything negative about Wu. She didn’t believe he did it. She called him gentle and hardworking. Said he had too much to live for. He was supporting his wife and daughter, as well as sending money to a seven-year-old son from a previous relationship.”

“So there was an ex-wife?”

“In another city. But Wu and his wife, Li Hua, had been settled in Boston for years. They lived in the apartment right above the restaurant where he worked, and pretty much kept to themselves. Probably afraid to attract attention, because they were illegal. Also, language may have made life difficult since they spoke Mandarin plus their very local dialect known as Min.”

“While most of Chinatown speaks Cantonese,” said Frost.

Zucker nodded. “Those dialects are incomprehensible to each other, and that would have isolated the Wu family. So the man’s got multiple sources of stress. He’s hiding his illegal status. He’s isolated. And he’s got a family to support. Add to that the long hours he’s working, and anyone would agree that’s a lot of pressure for any man.”

“But what made him snap?” asked Jane.

“Mrs. Fang didn’t know. The week of the shooting, she was out of the country visiting relatives. I interviewed her after she returned home, when she was still in a state of shock. The one thing she kept insisting on, again and again, was that Wu would never kill anyone. He certainly wouldn’t have killed her husband, James, because the two men were friends. She also claimed that Wu didn’t even own a gun.”

“How would she know that? She wasn’t married to the man.”

“Well, I couldn’t ask Wu’s wife. Within days of the shooting, she and her daughter packed up and disappeared. There was no Homeland Security tracking aliens back then, so it wasn’t hard for illegals to slip in and out of view, or vanish entirely. That’s what Wu’s wife did. She vanished. And even Iris Fang had no idea where they went.”

“You’re going entirely by Mrs. Fang’s word. How do you know she was telling the truth?” said Jane.

“Maybe I’m naïve, but I never doubted her sincerity, not once. There’s just something about her.” Zucker shook his head. “Such a tragic figure. I still feel sorry for her. I don’t know how anyone survives as many losses as she’s had.”

“Losses?”

“There was also her daughter.”

Jane suddenly remembered what Iris had said, about living alone. About no longer having a family. “Did her daughter die?”

“I guess I didn’t put that in my report, since it wasn’t relevant to the Red Phoenix incident. Iris and James had a fourteen-year-old daughter who’d vanished two years earlier. No trace of the girl was ever found.”

“Jesus,” said Frost. “We had no idea. She didn’t say anything about it.”

“She’s not the kind of woman who’d welcome anyone’s pity. But I remember looking in her eyes and seeing the pain. The kind of pain I couldn’t even imagine. And yet, such incredible strength.” Zucker fell silent for a moment, as though still moved by the memory of the woman’s grief.

This was pain that Jane could not imagine, either. She thought of her own daughter, Regina, only two and a half years old. Thought of trying to go on, year after year, not knowing if her child was dead or alive. That torment alone could drive a woman to madness. And then to lose a husband as well…

“In the wake of any tragedy,” said Zucker, “there are always aftershocks. But what happened after the Red Phoenix went beyond the devastation to the immediate families. It’s as if the massacre had a curse attached to it. And it just kept claiming more and more victims.”

The room suddenly felt colder. So cold that Jane’s arms prickled from the chill. “What do you mean, a curse?” she asked.