Michael Connelly - 9 Dragons

Harry pushed back from his desk and swiveled the chair to look at Chang’s big suitcase on the floor against the cubicle’s rear wall. Striking gold meant finding the murder weapon in your suspect’s possession or possessions. Bosch knew Chang was heading to a plane, so there would be no gold in the suitcase. If he still possessed the gun that killed John Li, it would likely be in his car or his apartment. Or it would be long gone.

But the suitcase could still yield valuable information and incriminating evidence-a drop of blood from the victim on the cuff of a shirt, for example. They could get lucky. But Bosch turned back to the desk and decided to go with the cell phone first. He would go for gold of a different kind. Digital gold.

It took Bosch less than five minutes to determine that Bo-Jing Chang’s cell phone would be of little use to the investigation. He easily found the call log but it contained a listing of only two recent calls, both to toll-free numbers, and one incoming call. All three were placed or received that morning. There was no record beyond that. The phone’s history had been wiped clean.

Bosch had been told that digital memories lasted forever. He knew a full forensic analysis of the phone could possibly result in the data wiped off the device being rebuilt, but for immediate purposes the phone was a bust. He called the 800 numbers and learned they belonged to Hertz Car Rental and Cathay Pacific Airways. Chang had probably been checking on his itinerary and his plan to drive from Seattle to Vancouver to catch the plane to Hong Kong. Bosch also checked the number from the incoming call in the reverse directory and learned it had come from Tsing Motors, Chang’s employer. While it was unknown what the call was about, the number certainly added no new evidence or information to the case.

Bosch had counted on the phone not only adding to the case against Chang but possibly providing a clue to where he was going in Hong Kong, and therefore to Madeline’s location. The disappointment hit him hard and he knew he had to keep his mind moving in order to avoid dwelling on it. He shoved the phone back into the evidence bag and then cleared his desk so he could place the suitcase on top of it.

He hoisted the suitcase onto the desk, estimating that it weighed at least sixty pounds. He then used a pair of scissors to cut the -evidence tape Chu had placed across the zipper. He found a small padlock was securing the zipper closed. He took out his picks and opened the cheap luggage-store lock in less than thirty seconds. He unzipped the bag and opened it across his desk.

Chang’s suitcase was partitioned equally into halves. He started on the left side, unsnapping two diagonal straps that held the contents in place. He removed and examined every item of clothing piece by piece. He stacked everything on a shelf that ran above his desk and which he had not had time to put anything on since moving into the new building.

It looked like Chang had thrown all his possessions into the suitcase. The clothes were bundled tightly together rather than folded as if for use on a trip. At the center of each bundle was a piece of jewelry or other personal possession. He found a watch in one bundle, an antique baby rattle in another. At the center of the last bundle he opened was a small bamboo frame containing a faded photo of a woman. Chang’s mother, Bosch presumed.

Chang was not coming back, Bosch concluded after searching only half of the suitcase.

The right side was secured with a divider that Bosch unsnapped and folded over the empty half. There were more clothing bundles and shoes here, plus a smaller zippered bag for toiletries. Bosch went through the bundles first, finding nothing unusual in the clothing. The first bundle was wrapped around a small jade statue of a Buddha that had a small bowl attached for burning incense or offerings. The second bundle was wrapped around a sheathed knife.

The weapon was a showpiece with a blade that was only five inches long and a handle made of carved bone. The carving was a depiction of a one-sided battle in which men with knives and arrows and axes slaughtered unarmed men who appeared to be praying instead of fighting. Bosch assumed this was the massacre of the Shaolin monks that Chu had told him was the origin of the triads. The shape of the knife was very much like the shape of the tattoo on the inside of Chang’s arm.

The knife was an interesting find and possibly proof of Chang’s membership in the Brave Knife triad, but it wasn’t evidence of any crime. Bosch put it up on the shelf with the other belongings and kept searching.

Soon he had emptied the suitcase. He felt the lining with his hands to make sure there was nothing hidden beneath and came up empty. He lifted the suitcase, hoping that it might feel too heavy to be empty. But it wasn’t and he was sure he had not missed anything.

The last thing he looked at were the two pairs of shoes Chang had packed. He had given each shoe an initial look but had then put it aside. He knew the only way to really search a shoe was to pull it apart. It wasn’t something he usually relished doing because it rendered them useless, and Bosch didn’t like taking away a man’s shoes, suspect or not. This time he didn’t care.

The first pair he zeroed in on was a pair of work boots he had seen Chang wearing the day before. They were old and worn but he could tell they were well liked. The laces were new and the leather had been oiled on repeated occasions. Bosch pulled the laces out so he could lift the tongue back all the way to look inside. Using the scissors, he pried up the cushioning in the instep to see if it hid any sort of secret compartment in the heel. There was nothing in the first boot but in the second he found a business card had been slipped between two layers of cushioning.

Bosch felt a kick of adrenaline as he put the work boot aside to look at the card. He had finally found something.

It was a two-sided card. Chinese on one side and English on the other. Bosch, of course, studied the English side.

JIMMY FONG

FLEET MANAGER

CAUSEWAY TAXI SERVICE

The card had an address in Causeway Bay and two phone numbers. Bosch sat down for the first time since starting the suitcase search and continued to study the card. He wondered what he had-if he had anything at all. Causeway Bay was not far from Happy Valley and the shopping mall from which his daughter was most likely abducted. And the fact that a business card for a taxi service fleet manager had been hidden in Chang’s work boot was cause to ask why.

He flipped the card over and studied the Chinese side. There were three lines of copy just like on the English side, plus the address and phone numbers in the corner. It appeared that the card said the same thing on both sides.

Bosch made a copy of the card and put the original in an evidence envelope so that Chu could take a look at it. He then moved on to the other pair of shoes. In another twenty minutes he was finished and had found nothing else. He remained intrigued by the business card but disappointed in the lack of returns from the search. He put all the belongings back in the suitcase as close to the way he found it all as he could. He then closed it and pulled the zipper.

After placing the suitcase back on the floor he called his partner. He was anxious to know if the search of Chang’s car had gone better than the search of his phone and suitcase.

“We’re only about halfway through,” Ferras said. “They started with the trunk.”

“Anything?”

“Not so far.”

Bosch felt his hopes beginning to ebb away. Chang was going to come up clean. And that meant he was going to walk the following Monday.

“Did you get anything out of the phone” Ferras asked.