Jeffery Deaver - The Stone Monkey

"I didn't have much choice, did I? Jerry Tang abandoned me. There was no way I was going to escape from the beach without masquerading as Sung."

"What about your gun?"

"Stuffed it into my sock in the ambulance. Then I hid it in the hospital and picked it up after the INS officer released me."

"INS officer?" she mused, nodding. "You did get released awfully fast." The Ghost said nothing and she added, "Well, that's something else we'll look into." Then she asked, "Everything you told me about John Sung… you made it up?"

The Ghost shrugged. "No, what I told you about him was true. Before I killed him I made him tell me about himself, about everyone who was on the raft, about Chang and Wu. Enough so I could make my performance believable. I threw out his picture ID and kept the wallet and the amulet."

"Where's his body?"

Another placid smile was his response.

His serenity infuriated her. He was caught – and was going to jail for the rest of his life and might possibly be executed but he looked as if he were only being inconvenienced by a late train. Fury seized her and she drew back her hand to strike him in the face. But when he gave no reaction – no cringe, no squint – she lowered her arm, refusing to give him the satisfaction of stoically withstanding the blow.

Sachs's ringing phone intruded. She stepped away and answered. "Yes?"

"Everyone having fun?" Rhyme's voice demanded sarcastically.

"Having a picnic maybe? Taking in a movie? Forgetting about the rest of us?"

"Rhyme, we were in the middle of a takedown."

"I suppose somebody was going to call me eventually and let me know what happened. At some point… No, I won't, Thom. I'm pissed off."

"We've been a little busy here, Rhyme," she answered.

"Just wondering what was going on. I'm not psychic, you know."

She knew he'd already heard that none of their team was injured – otherwise he wouldn't be riddling her with sarcasm.

She responded, "You can stow the attitude -"

"'Stow'? Spoken like a true sailor, Sachs."

"- because we caught him." She added, "I tried to get him to tell me where John Sung's body is but he -"

"Well, we can figure that out, Sachs, can't we? It is obvious, after all."

To some people maybe, she reflected, though she was delighted to hear his characteristic barbs, rather than the flat-line voice of earlier.

The criminalist continued, "In the trunk of the stolen Honda."

"And that's still out on the eastern end of Long Island?" she asked, understanding finally.

"Of course. Where else would it be? The Ghost stole it, killed Sung and then drove east to hide it – we wouldn't look in that direction. We'd assume he headed west – into the city."

Sellitto hung up his phone and pointed to the street.

Sachs nodded and said, "I've got to go see some people, Rhyme."

"See some people? See, you are treating this like a goddamn picnic. Who?"

She considered for a moment and said, "Some friends."

She found the family standing outside a run-down house near Owls Head Park. The smell of sewage was heavy in the air – from the treatment plant that had both betrayed them and saved their lives.

None of the family was in handcuffs and Sachs was pleased at that. She was also pleased that two uniformed NYPD police were chatting good-naturedly with the boy who must've been the Changs' youngest son.

His father, Sam Chang, stood with his arms crossed, grim and silent, head down, as an Asian-American man in a suit – an INS agent, she assumed – talked with him, jotting notes.

At his side was an unhappy, stolid woman in her forties, holding the hand of Po-Yee. Sachs felt a huge thud within her when she saw the Treasured Child. The toddler was adorable. A round-faced girl with silky black hair cut in bangs and short on the sides. She wore red corduroy jeans and a Hello Kitty sweatshirt that was about two sizes too big for her.

A detective recognized Sellitto and walked up to him and Sachs. "The family's fine. We're taking them to INS detention in Queens. It looks like with Chang's record of dissident activity – he was at Tiananmen and has a history of persecution – he's got a good shot at asylum."

"You have caught the Ghost?" Sam Chang asked her in unsteady English as he joined them. He would have heard the news but understandably couldn't get enough reassurance that the killer was in fact safely in custody.

"Yes," she said, her eyes not on the man she was speaking to, though, but on Po-Yee. "He's in custody."

Chang said, "You were important with his capture?"

Sachs smiled. "I was at the party, yep."

"Thank you." The man seemed to want to add more but the English was perhaps too daunting. He thought for a moment and then asked, "I may ask you? The man, old man, killed in Ghost's apartment building? Where is body?"

"Your father?"

"Yes."

"At the city morgue. Downtown in Manhattan."

"He must have proper funeral. Is very important."

Sachs said, "I'll make sure he's not moved. After you're through with the INS you can arrange to have a funeral home pick him up."

"Thank you."

A small blue Dodge with a City of New York seal pulled up to the scene. A black woman in a brown pants suit got out, carrying an attaché case. The woman spoke to the INS agent and Sachs. "I'm Chiffon Wilson. I'm a social worker with Children's Services." An ID card was flashed.

"You're here for the baby?"

"Right."

Chang looked quickly at his wife. Sachs asked, "You're taking her?"

"We have to."

"Can't she stay with them?"

Wilson shook her head sympathetically. "I'm afraid not. They have no claim to her. She's an orphaned citizen of another country. She'll have to go back to China."

Sachs nodded slowly then gestured the social worker aside. She whispered, "She's a girl. You know what happens to baby girl orphans in China?"

"She'll be adopted."

"Maybe," Sachs said dubiously.

"I don't know about that. I just know that I'm following the law. Look, we do this all the time and we've never heard about any problems with the kids who go back to the recipient country."

Recipient country… The phrase troubled her as much as Coe's harsh "undocumenteds." Sachs asked, "Do you ever hear anything at all after they go back?"

Wilson hesitated. "No." She then nodded to the INS agent, who spoke in Chinese to the Changs. Mei-Mei's face went still but she nodded and directed the baby to the social worker. "She will…" Mei-Mei said. Then frowned, trying to think of the English words.

"Yes?" the social worker asked.

"She will be good take care of?"

"Yes, she will."

"She very good baby. Lost mother. Make sure she good take care of."

"I'll make sure."

Mei-Mei looked at the girl for a long moment then turned her attention back to her youngest son.

Wilson picked up Po-Yee, who squinted at Sachs's red hair and reached out to grip a handful of the strands with curiosity. When she tugged hard, Sachs laughed. The social worker started for her car.

"Ting!" came a woman's urgent voice. Sachs recognized the word for "wait" or "stop." She turned to see Chang Mei-Mei walking toward them.

"Yes?"

"Here. There is this." Mei-Mei handed her a stuffed animal toy, crudely made. A cat, Sachs believed.

"She like this. Make her happy."

Wilson took it and gave it to Po-Yee.

The child's eyes were on the toy, Mei-Mei's on the girl.

Then the social worker strapped the child into a car seat and drove away.

Sachs spent a half hour talking to the Changs, debriefing them, seeing if she could learn anything else that might help shore up the case against the Ghost. Then the exhaustion of the past two days caught up with her and she knew it was time to go home. She climbed into the crime scene bus, glancing back once to see the Changs climb into an INS minibus. She and Mei-Mei happened to catch each others eyes for an instant, then the door closed, the bus pulled into the street and the vanished, the piglets, the undocumenteds… the family began their journey to yet another temporary home.