Chapter 15: Chapter fourteen

Present day

 

Detective Mike Jones pushed aside a bead curtain and stepped inside the small, out-of-the-way shop. His nostrils were immediately assaulted by the smells of herbs and pungent incense. It was a small room to begin with and someone had gone to significant effort to fill what space there was with shelves displaying oils, herbs, joss sticks, and other things the purpose of which Mike couldn’t even guess. Every wall was lined with jars full of strange things that seemed to have been dried or pickled in roughly equal measure with faded labels written in Chinese stuck to their front. The end result of packing that much merchandise into such a small space was to leave it feeling cramped to the point of claustrophobic; barely big enough for him and Alesha to stand side-by-side.

Presiding over it all was a woman who had a face like a prune that had eaten a lemon. She looked to be at least in her seventies, but her back was straight and her voice was strong as she asked what she could do for the pair.

“Detectives Price and Jones ma’am. We’re here looking for a girl,” Alesha said, flashing her badge and then taking out the sketch to show to the old woman. Mike had thought they weren’t supposed to say ‘girl’ anymore. Politically incorrect or something. But he could never keep track of what was what in that regard. He figured if you treated people with respect until they gave you a reason not to, you couldn’t go too far wrong.

“No,” the woman said, barely looking at the picture. “No girl here. Herbs. You want girl, you go down street. Upstairs, red sign, they have many girl. Pretty.”

“That’s not what we’re looking for,” Alesha said patently. “This girl has been abused and we want to help her.”

The woman scowled what, Mike was fairly sure from the deep wrinkles of her face, was a common scowl. “You deaf? No girl here. Just herb. You want herb, you buy. You want girl, not here.”

Mike eyed the woman suspiciously.

“Ma’am,” he said. “May I ask where you’re from? You have a very… interesting accent.”

The woman gestured around her. “Chinese medicine. Chinese writing.” She pointed at herself and gave Mike a look like he was being dense. “Chinese.”

“That’s funny,” Mike said, leaning closer. “Because you sound more like an American playing to a stereotype. That, combined with the fact you have been subtly moving yourself to be between us and that door behind you tells me you know more than you are letting on. So drop the broken-English routine and tell us the truth.”

The woman’s face changed from grouchy to appraising, well, grouchy and appraising at any rate, and when she spoke again she sounded markedly different. “I’m from Salt Lake City. And yeah, I found your girl. She was crying in an alley. She was terrified, like she’d seen a ghost. But I’ve seen how much cops care about anyone ‘Asian’ around here. They’ve even threatened to deport me a couple of times­.” She snorted.

Mike nodded. “Lot of idiots out there alright. We aren’t here to threaten her though. We think she witnessed a murder and the killer might come looking for her. Talking to us is going to be the best thing for her.”

The woman grimaced at that and opened the door behind her, gesturing for the detectives to follow. They walked through a small kitchenette and found a pretty Asian girl huddled in a supply closet.

“It’s okay,” the woman said. “These two are here to help you. You can go with them. They will keep you safe.”

Alesha approached the girl, speaking softly to her. Reassuring her that they were there to help.

The girl said something in a language Mike didn’t understand.

“Do you speak Chinese?” he asked the woman. “Can you tell us what she just said?

“Enough Mandarin to get by,” she answered. “But that wasn’t Mandarin. Cantonese I think.”

Mike nodded. “Do you know her name?”

The woman shook her head. “Haven’t been able to get more than a couple of words out of her.”

It was Mike’s turn to grimace. This was going to be a tough one. “Thank you for your help.”

Half an hour later, they had gotten the girl back to the station, gotten her a hot drink, and found someone who could speak Cantonese to help with translating. They were talking to her in the captain’s office. Mike had commandeered it when it became obvious that being around a lot of people was freaking the girl out. He could have used an interrogation room, but seemed unlikely to help matters either.

“Can you tell us your name?” Alesha asked. The translator, a speccy lad who looked like he needed a sandwich, then repeated the question in Cantonese.

“Mei,” she said, looking down and having another drink of her tea.

“Hello Mei,” Alesha said, using her best calming tones while Mike sat away from the two women and made notes. “My name is Alesha. I’m a police officer and I’d like to help you.”

The translator repeated this and Mei looked up at Alesha with hope in her eyes.

It was then that Mike saw just how young the girl was. She looked fifteen or sixteen, maybe seventeen at the oldest. Mike suppressed a growl as he felt a deep understanding for whoever had put that bastard Bryson in the ground where he belonged.

Alesha continued talking, putting Mei at ease, working her way around to the important questions.

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“Did you see what happened to Lance Bryson?” she asked eventually.

The translator had barely opened his mouth when words started pouring out of Mei in a torrent.

“Uh,” the translator said. “She says a man opened the door to Mr. Bryson’s secret room and shot him in the head. The man said four-hundred and thirty-two and then he left.”

“Four-hundred thirty-two?” Alesha said to Mike.

Mike frowned and thought out loud. “Confirmed kills maybe? This guy got past some serious security. Makes sense he would be a pro.”

“You ever heard of a pro with that many kills?”

Mike shook his head, hoping that idea was wrong. The worst serial killers and assassins in history didn’t even come close. He really didn’t to meet anyone who had personally murdered more than four hundred people.

“Did he see that you were there?” Alesha asked, turning back to Mei.

More Cantonese.

“Yes,” the translator said. “He saw she was there. She was sitting on the bed right in front of him. But he didn’t seem to care.”

 “Can you describe this man?” Alesha asked.

Mei got a far off look in her eye as she spoke.

“He wore black,” the translator said. “He was a white man. Normal. Not short or tall.”

Something about the way she said it unnerved Mike.

They had a sketch artist come in to work with Mei, see if they could do better than a white guy that looks normal. What they got wasn’t much better. The sketch artist listened to Mei’s instructions through the translator and eventually he produced a picture of a non-descript man with bland features. He showed it to Mei.

She shook her head and said something in Cantonese.

“She said the eyes were more vacant,” the translator said.

“No,” Mei said, switching to English and shaking her head. “His eyes were empty.”

Something about the way she said it unnerved Mike. She didn’t sound like she was describing a man. She sounded like she was describing a monster.

 

 

A sketch of the man was on television. The likeness wasn’t even that bad, though he didn’t think they had gotten his eyes quite right. A woman spoke in a professional tone while they showed the picture.

“Suspect was last seen wearing a black suit on the 14^th of February in Emerald Glades. He is wanted in connection with the death of Lance Bryson, a local financial manager. If you have any information relating to the whereabouts of the suspect, please contact the police immediately. Do not attempt to approach the suspect yourself. He is considered armed and extremely dangerous.”

Well, that was less than ideal. That was the problem with not having a hero suit and a world-class team of operatives to run interference for you. The police went looking for you when you killed people.

He would have to be more careful from now on.

He supposed he could have worn a disguise to deal with Bryson, but he had wanted him to know it was his ‘school-friend’ that had done him in. The man had always had a flare for the dramatic and after spending so long listening to that rapist talk about how great his life was to a man he thought he had grown up with, the man had wanted Bryson to know who had killed him.

The man could have silenced the girl of course. He could have put her on a ship somewhere, tied her up and locked her in a room, terrified her into silence, or just put a bullet between her eyes. But none of those were things that heroes did.

Then again, he wasn’t sure that word really applied to him anymore. If he was honest with himself, he wasn’t sure it ever had.

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