Roz Fox - She Walks the Line

Cullen absently read off the address. “Doug Whitsell said they open at noon.” He glanced up and narrowed his eyes as he watched Mei jotting it down in her notebook. “Listen, I don’t want you going into that part of town alone. Not even in daylight. It’s too dangerous.”

At first Mei thought he was teasing. But the minute she stopped writing and looked up, she realized he was dead serious. “Cullen.” His name rolled easily off her tongue. Too easily. “The address you gave me is two blocks north of the market where I do my grocery shopping.”

“Impossible. I’ve been there, remember. This area is run down. According to the lead investigator, it’s a high-crime neighborhood.”

Mei pursed her lips. “Honestly! Now you sound exactly like my parents.”

He seemed taken aback by her vehemence. “Let’s forget the nightclub for a moment and discuss your parents. Your father, anyway.”

Mei tried to control her nerves. It was clear that Cullen intended to say more. But his office door banged open and two excited children came thundering in, shouting and trying to see who could gain their father’s attention first.

“Daddy, Daddy.” The twins ran past Mei’s chair. Instead of grappling a white rabbit as they had on her previous visit, they were now in a tug-of-war over a portable phone.

“It’s Mom!” Belinda screeched loudest, but her brother succeeded in wresting the instrument out of his sister’s hands.

“She’s calling from way far away,” Bobby declared importantly. “Freda said Bangkok.”

“Yes, and Freda said Mom wants to talk to you before Bobby and me get to say a word.” Cullen’s daughter slipped anxiously between the desk and her father’s chair and somehow managed to drape herself over his arm. “Hi, police lady!”

Bobby, too, said hello, and Mei smiled at them both.

When she looked at Cullen again, he had the phone pasted to one ear.

“Jana?”

Mei shut her notebook and stood, fully prepared to give the family privacy.

“What’s so important that you have to speak with me before you talk to the twins? You missed calling from your last stopover.” Cullen combed his fingers through Belinda’s over-long bangs and gazed at his son, who raptly awaited news.

Teetering on the balls of her feet, Mei wasn’t sure if she should leave or stay. Ultimately she decided to return her teapot and cup to the Archer kitchen. She’d almost reached the door when she heard Cullen say explosively, “You want me to wire how much? I know what a pearl and jade necklace is likely to cost. Why not pay with one of your credit cards?”

Mei let the door close on his next comment, but she thought it sounded as if he was questioning how she could max out three cards. There was no mistaking his fury when he virtually bellowed, “All of them? Dammit, Jana, what kind of junk did you buy?” As quickly as he’d flared up, he appeared to calm down, and he promised to phone his banker on his cell while she spoke with the twins.

Mei actually might have lingered at the door to eavesdrop longer had Freda not bustled out of a room at the end of the hall.

“Ms. Ling. Er…Lieutenant. Have you come looking for more tea?”

“No. I figured while Mr. Archer’s on the phone with his wife, I’d return my dishes to the kitchen and perhaps find the bathroom.”

“Ex-wife.” The housekeeper stared over Mei’s shoulder at the door behind which they could hear the children’s excited chatter. “It’s a crying shame that woman can reach out from across the world and turn this household upside down.” Freda relieved Mei of the dishes and pointed her toward a bathroom.

“Will he be long?” Mei asked before the woman rushed off.

Freda shrugged. “Hard to say. Ms. Jana was clearly in a state about something. I’m sorry the kids broke up your meeting. I answered down here, and they happened to pick up on the upstairs extension. They’ve been waiting for their mother’s call for days. They expected to hear this weekend, and they’ve moped since Friday.”

“Um, well, their father may need some extra time with them. I’ll just run back to headquarters and check my morning messages. Could you tell Cullen, uh, Mr. Archer that I need to talk to Chief Tanner so I’m clear on how much time she wants me to devote to this case?” Truthfully, Mei needed to ask how Catherine thought she should handle the situation with her father. She couldn’t barge into his gallery, introduce Cullen Archer as an insurance investigator helping Interpol, and watch Cullen start throwing out questions about smuggled Chinese artifacts. Good Chinese daughters didn’t act that way. Not even if the daughter was a cop. Such discourse moved slowly in her culture and rarely involved women. Westerners didn’t understand that there was an order to things, a process to work through to answer even the simplest questions.

Mei felt comfortable explaining that to Catherine. Not to Cullen Archer.

Normally Mei Lu didn’t hesitate when it came to dealing with influential men. Actually, she’d dealt well with many of them when she ran the Hong Kong gallery.

So, admit it’s this particular man. He only had to look at her with those gray eyes and her stomach turned cartwheels.

Mei knew if she was going to continue to work with Cullen, it was a reaction she needed to quash. Besides, it was a reaction that made no sense. Ask anybody who knew her well. Mei Lu Ling didn’t lose her composure over men.

“Suit yourself, dear,” Freda was saying. She still held Mei’s teapot and cup. “I’ll give Mr. Cullen your message. Can’t say as I blame you for hitting the road. Ordinarily you can’t find a more affable man. But after weeks of phone calls from ‘her nibs,’ he’s a bear. Ah, there I go, running off at the mouth again. Sorry. I should keep my thoughts on that subject to myself. It’s not as if Mr. Cullen doesn’t frequently remind me—and himself—that Ms. Jana is the mother of his children.”

By now Mei was getting used to Freda’s slips of the tongue. And to the way she darted in and out like a hummingbird. As she left the house, Mei began to wonder if there was another reason Cullen might want to steer the investigation toward Ling Limited. If he had a high-maintenance ex-wife and a lifestyle to keep up among Memorial’s upper crust, might smuggling be a lucrative way to increase his cash flow? After all, he wouldn’t be the first of his stature to succumb to the lure of easy money. She’d exposed more preposterous crimes in Houston’s white-collar community. And Archer had an ex running around Thailand. How simple would it be for a man with his connections to arrange contacts in the Asian underworld? As simple as it’d be for him to shift the blame—for instance, to an unsuspecting Houston art dealer.

If nothing else, her stomach stopped fluttering over Archer’s looks. She had a whole lot more to keep herself occupied on the drive downtown. Such as…which of these musings was she duty bound to share with Catherine?

MEI LU FOUND A PARKING PLACE in the precinct’s always-busy garage. One thing she loved about the main police station was the amount of activity going on day and night. Men and women rushed in and out of the historic building, some in uniform, others in street clothes, a few in disguise. If their disguises were good, no one except close friends recognized them. The ones easily seen through provided fun for weeks.

Police work, the nitty-gritty part of keeping a city the size of Houston safe from crazies, derelicts and all-around bad folks, took an emotional toll on the psyches of everyone on the force. Laughter was the best cure. Everything, from the smallest oddity to the most bizarre occurrence became fair game to pass around from department to department. After the weeks at the academy, during which Mei Lu took such a drubbing over her deficiency in martial arts, she was careful to avoid being the butt of their jokes.