Tess Gerritsen - The Silent Girl

“She did it to protect you, didn’t she?” said Jane. “Because you saw what happened, and she was afraid for you. Afraid that someone would come after you.”

Bella shook her head. “I didn’t see it.”

“You were there.”

“But I didn’t see it!” Bella cried. For a moment her outburst seemed to hang in the air between them. Her head drooped and she whispered: “But I heard it.”

Jane didn’t ask any questions, didn’t interrupt. She simply waited for the story she knew would now be told.

Bella took another breath. “My mother was asleep in bed. She was always so tired after working all day at the grocery store. And that night she was sick with the flu.” Bella stared at the table, as though she could still picture her mother huddled in bed under blankets. “But I wasn’t tired. So I climbed out of bed. I went downstairs to see Daddy.”

“In the restaurant.”

“He was annoyed with me, of course.” A sad smile tugged at her mouth. “There he was, juggling pots and pans. And I was whining for attention and ice cream. He told me to go back upstairs to bed. He was busy, and he didn’t have time for me. Uncle Fang didn’t have time for me, either.”

“Iris’s husband?”

Bella nodded. “He was in the dining room. I looked through the door and saw him sitting at a table with a man and woman. They were drinking tea.”

Jane frowned, wondering why the waiter would be sitting with two patrons. It added to the other puzzle about the Mallorys: Why were they in a Chinese restaurant when their autopsies showed they had just dined on Italian food?

“What were they talking about?” asked Jane. “Mr. Fang and the two customers?”

Bella shook her head. “It was too noisy in the kitchen to hear anything in the dining room. My father banging his pots. The fan blowing.”

“Did you see Joey Gilmore come in to pick up his take-out order?”

“No. All I remember is my father, working at the stove. Sweating. And his old T-shirt. He always worked in his T-shirt…” Her voice faltered and she wiped a hand across her eyes. “My poor father. Working, always working. His hands scarred from all the burns and cuts from the kitchen.”

“What happened then?”

Bella’s mouth twisted in a rueful smile. “I wanted ice cream. I was whining, demanding attention, while he was trying to fill the take-out cartons. Finally he gave in. Told me to go downstairs and choose an ice cream from the freezer.”

“In the cellar?”

She nodded. “Oh, I knew that cellar very well. I’d been down there so many times. There was a big chest freezer, tucked in the corner. I had to climb onto a chair to lift the lid. I remember looking inside for just the flavor I wanted. They were in these little cardboard cups, just big enough to hold one scoop. I wanted the one with stripes of chocolate and vanilla and strawberry. But I couldn’t find any. I kept digging and digging through those little cups, but they were all vanilla. Nothing but vanilla.” She took a deep breath. “And then I heard my father shouting.”

“At whom?”

“At me.” Bella looked up and blinked away tears. “He was screaming at me to hide.”

“Everyone in the restaurant must have heard him.”

“He said it in Chinese. The killer couldn’t understand, or he would have come looking for me. He would have known I was in the cellar.”

Jane glanced toward the one-way mirror. She couldn’t see Frost and Tam, but she imagined their astonished faces. Here was the tale’s missing chapter. The clues had been there all along on the cellar step and on the kitchen floor, but footprints are silent. Only Bella gave them a voice.

“And you hid?” asked Jane.

“I didn’t understand what was happening. I climbed off the chair and started to go up the steps, but then I stopped. I heard him pleading. Begging for his life, in his broken English. That’s when I understood this wasn’t a game, wasn’t some trick he was playing on me. My father didn’t play games.” Bella swallowed and her voice dropped even lower. “So I did what he told me to do. I didn’t make a sound. I ducked underneath the stairs. I heard something fall. And then a loud bang.”

“How many gunshots in all?”

“Just the one. That single bang.”

Jane thought of the weapon found in Wu Weimin’s hand, a Glock with a threaded barrel. The killer had used a suppressor to muffle the sound of those first eight gunshots. Only after dispatching his victims did he remove the suppressor, place the grip in Wu Weimin’s lifeless hand, and fire the final bullet, ensuring that gunshot residue would be found on the victim’s skin.

A perfect crime, thought Jane. Except for the fact there was a witness. A silent girl, huddled under the cellar steps.

“He died for me,” whispered Bella. “He should have run, but he wouldn’t leave me. So he stayed. He died right in front of the cellar door. Blocking it with his body. I had to step in his blood to get past him. If I hadn’t been there that night, begging for my goddamn ice cream, my father would still be alive.”

Jane understood it all, now. Why Wu Weimin did not flee when he had the chance. Why there were two bullet casings on the kitchen floor. Had the staged suicide been a last-minute idea, something that occurred to the killer as he stood over the cook’s body? It was such a simple thing, to wrap a dead man’s fingers around the grip and fire the last round. Leave the gun behind and walk out the door.

“You should have told the police,” said Jane. “It would have changed everything.”

“No, it wouldn’t. Who would believe a five-year-old girl? A girl who never saw the killer’s face. And my mother wouldn’t let me say a word. She was afraid of the police. Terrified is a better word.”

“Why?”

Bella’s jaw tightened. “Can’t you guess? My mother was here illegally. What do you think would have happened if the police focused on us? She had my future to think of, and hers as well. My father was dead. Nothing we could do would change that.”

“What about justice? That had no part in the equation?”

“Not then. Not that night, when all she could think about was keeping us both safe. If the killer knew there was a witness, he might come looking for me. That’s why she wiped up my footprints. That’s why we packed our suitcases and left two days later.”

“Did Iris Fang know?”

“Not then. Not until years later, when my mother was dying of stomach cancer. A month before she died, she wrote Sifu Fang and told her the truth. Apologized for being a coward. But after so many years, there was nothing we could prove, nothing we could change.”

“Yet you’ve been trying, haven’t you?” said Jane. “For the past seven years, either you or Iris has been mailing obituaries to the families. Keeping their memories and their pain alive. Telling them that the truth hasn’t been told.”

“It hasn’t been. They need to know that. That’s why the letters were sent, so they would keep asking questions. It’s the only way we’ll find out who the killer is.”

“So you and Iris have been trying to draw him out into the open. Sending notes to the families, to Kevin Donohue, hinting that the truth’s about to be revealed. Taking out that ad in The Boston Globe , hoping the killer will get worried and finally attack. And what was the plan then? Turn him over to us? Or take justice into your own hands?”

Bella laughed. “How could we possibly do that? We’re only women.”

Now it was Jane’s turn to laugh. “As if I’d ever underestimate you. ” Jane reached into her briefcase and pulled out the Arthur Waley translation of Monkey , the ancient Chinese folk novel. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the Monkey King.”