computers?”
“Melted junk.”
“Inform Captain Chen that after I take a look the computer equipment will be brought over to him.” She wondered briefly how well Chen knew Kenneth Lo. Probably pretty well. She needed Chen’s expertise; he was the only other technical expert in Special Investigations. “Tape the scene. Clear out the apartments on both sides and above and below. This is a homicide scene.”
“What . . .”
“Just do it. And no one but no one is to touch anything until I get there. Is that clear?”
She hung up and called her lawyer. It was late but he agreed to meet her and they quickly settled the final arrangements for the sale of her condo. At first light she was at the airport, and by the end of rush hour she was heading towards the fire scene – towards Shanghai, towards a life with Fong. For a moment she recalled her first trip to Shanghai – six days dressed as a peasant working as a Dalong Fada courier and a troubling night when she slept with a peasant’s animals and awoke unable to catch her breath. But that was behind her, she hoped.
Joan stood very still looking at the scorched little girl with the plastic doll melted to her tiny chest. The smell of barbecued human flesh still lingered in the room but she knew it was not as overpowering now as it would have been the day before when the fire ate this place. Now the smell lurked in the charred drywall, hid in the carpets, hung from the ceiling tiles. Just a fire scene she told herself. Just like so many she’d seen before.
It was only when she went to take out her notebook that she realized she was crying.
She checked to make sure that the gas outlets were turned off and that all the electrical appliances were unhooked. She wasn’t surprised to see that the food in the small refrigerator had been cleaned out. “Cop’s privilege,” she thought. What did surprise her were three sweet confections called Hostess Cup Cakes that for some reason had been left. They had been torn from their wrappers and the centre squiggle of white icing removed. Aside from some rotting tofu, they were the sole occupants of the icebox. The refrigerator itself was dented but unharmed. It was clearly not in the line of the blast.
Once she was sure that the place wasn’t going to blow up a second time – something not unheard of in arson circles – she photographed the site in a practised manner. Slow, exact, meticulous. Then she began to go through drawers – and she came across another shock – there were baby clothes.
“Oh, Kenneth, you didn’t.” But she knew he must have. No one keeps baby clothes without a baby. She recalled that Kenneth had taken six months to arrive in Shanghai claiming that he had business to complete in Xian – or somewhere. What she remembered was how angry Fong had been when Kenneth finally sauntered into Fong’s office, six-plus months late for work.
She slammed the dresser drawer with the baby clothes shut and spun around. Where? She wanted to scream. They had only found the one child. Kenneth and his wife must have had a second child and hid it for fear of retribution for breaking the second child policy.
“Oh, Kenneth, once a cheat, always a cheat,” she mumbled and then turned slowly, with real trepidation, to examine the walls of the room. Joan touched the wall and felt the heat still in it. She forced herself to make the palm of her hand move slowly along the wall about three feet above the baseboards. She circumnavigated the kitchen and the bedroom but found nothing.
Then she took a deep breath and entered the room with the desk and the couch. She slowly pulled the burnt furniture away from the wallpapered wall. The design was badly scorched but it was a complex pattern of light vertical and horizontal lines on a dark field, with what seemed to be black dots wherever a vertical intersected a horizontal line.
Joan ran her hand over one of the “dots.” It wasn’t a dot – it was a hole. Every dot
“Melted junk.”
“Inform Captain Chen that after I take a look the computer equipment will be brought over to him.” She wondered briefly how well Chen knew Kenneth Lo. Probably pretty well. She needed Chen’s expertise; he was the only other technical expert in Special Investigations. “Tape the scene. Clear out the apartments on both sides and above and below. This is a homicide scene.”
“What . . .”
“Just do it. And no one but no one is to touch anything until I get there. Is that clear?”
She hung up and called her lawyer. It was late but he agreed to meet her and they quickly settled the final arrangements for the sale of her condo. At first light she was at the airport, and by the end of rush hour she was heading towards the fire scene – towards Shanghai, towards a life with Fong. For a moment she recalled her first trip to Shanghai – six days dressed as a peasant working as a Dalong Fada courier and a troubling night when she slept with a peasant’s animals and awoke unable to catch her breath. But that was behind her, she hoped.
Joan stood very still looking at the scorched little girl with the plastic doll melted to her tiny chest. The smell of barbecued human flesh still lingered in the room but she knew it was not as overpowering now as it would have been the day before when the fire ate this place. Now the smell lurked in the charred drywall, hid in the carpets, hung from the ceiling tiles. Just a fire scene she told herself. Just like so many she’d seen before.
It was only when she went to take out her notebook that she realized she was crying.
She checked to make sure that the gas outlets were turned off and that all the electrical appliances were unhooked. She wasn’t surprised to see that the food in the small refrigerator had been cleaned out. “Cop’s privilege,” she thought. What did surprise her were three sweet confections called Hostess Cup Cakes that for some reason had been left. They had been torn from their wrappers and the centre squiggle of white icing removed. Aside from some rotting tofu, they were the sole occupants of the icebox. The refrigerator itself was dented but unharmed. It was clearly not in the line of the blast.
Once she was sure that the place wasn’t going to blow up a second time – something not unheard of in arson circles – she photographed the site in a practised manner. Slow, exact, meticulous. Then she began to go through drawers – and she came across another shock – there were baby clothes.
“Oh, Kenneth, you didn’t.” But she knew he must have. No one keeps baby clothes without a baby. She recalled that Kenneth had taken six months to arrive in Shanghai claiming that he had business to complete in Xian – or somewhere. What she remembered was how angry Fong had been when Kenneth finally sauntered into Fong’s office, six-plus months late for work.
She slammed the dresser drawer with the baby clothes shut and spun around. Where? She wanted to scream. They had only found the one child. Kenneth and his wife must have had a second child and hid it for fear of retribution for breaking the second child policy.
“Oh, Kenneth, once a cheat, always a cheat,” she mumbled and then turned slowly, with real trepidation, to examine the walls of the room. Joan touched the wall and felt the heat still in it. She forced herself to make the palm of her hand move slowly along the wall about three feet above the baseboards. She circumnavigated the kitchen and the bedroom but found nothing.
Then she took a deep breath and entered the room with the desk and the couch. She slowly pulled the burnt furniture away from the wallpapered wall. The design was badly scorched but it was a complex pattern of light vertical and horizontal lines on a dark field, with what seemed to be black dots wherever a vertical intersected a horizontal line.
Joan ran her hand over one of the “dots.” It wasn’t a dot – it was a hole. Every dot
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