Dragon Bones (15 page)

Lily lay atop the bedcovers. Her naked body was in calm repose, her hands folded delicately over her heart, her eyes and mouth closed. This peaceful tableau was covered in what looked like a layer of rust-colored paint, but the dried blood was only on the body and nowhere else—not on the bed linens or the floor.

Hulan stepped into the room, and David followed in her tracks to a couple of feet inside the door. From where they were standing, they could see that Lily’s feet were gone. Her stumps rested in two small puddles of coagulated blood. She had to have been killed and drained elsewhere. Even the smearing—the careful coating of blood over Lily’s body—had to have been done somewhere else, then her body posed in its peaceful aspect.

Otherwise the room appeared tidy. Lily’s clothes were put away and the drawers shut. A pile of papers sat in a neat stack on the left side of the desk. The phone was on the hook. The room had the same furnishings as David and Hulan’s, right down to the thermos for hot water that stood on the nightstand. Nothing was askew; nothing seemed out of order. Again, at least to the unassisted eye, there were no pools or even spatters of blood.

“Are you okay?” Hulan asked at last.

“Yes. And you?”

She nodded.

“Have you seen anything like this before?”

“Other mutilations, yes. But this coating? Never.” She stood still in deep concentration. Finally she shook her head and said, “Let’s work quickly before the others arrive.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I want to take a closer look. Go around to the other side of the bed….”

“What about my footprints?”

“It’s a wood floor. There’s no blood. We may pick up microscopics later, but there’s nothing obvious that we’ll be corrupting. I think it’s fine. Don’t touch the bed.”

As though he’d want to….

He went right as Hulan went left.

“Start at her head,” Hulan directed. She leaned forward, putting her hands on her knees for balance. He did the same. “Tell me everything you see, no matter how insignificant.”

What could possibly be classified as insignificant here? he wondered.

He forced himself to focus on Lily’s head. Seeing how her blood-coated hair lay in a thick, rusty helmet against her skull, David felt a wave of nausea sweep through him. He tried to use the same clinical tone that Hulan had adopted and found it helpful.

“Her hair looks like it’s been combed,” he said.

“I think so too. It’s like the blood was poured over her hair and combed through to get every hair exactly in place.” She added, “I’m assuming it’s blood. It smells like it.”

David’s nausea worsened. Then, as his eyes traveled down, his stomach rolled again. “Her nose—”

“Cut off. What would do that so cleanly?” Hulan leaned in even closer until she was just inches from Lily’s face. “No jagged edges, no ripping. Whatever was used was very sharp. And, David, what do you make of this on her forehead?”

At first he saw only blood, and the truth was he didn’t want to look much closer. But as he made himself focus on that few square inches, he did begin to see something.

“Is it a clot?”

“I don’t think so. The blood is spread so evenly everywhere else. Why make a mistake here on her face? No, it’s something
under
the blood. It looks like a pattern of some sort. The pathologist will need to be careful with that.”

Hulan fanned out her hand a few inches above the body and used it as a guide as she traveled down from the neck.

“She’s naked,” David observed.

“Is that because the killer wanted to paint blood over the entire corpse? Painted in some way, don’t you think, not dunked?”

“She wasn’t dunked. You can see the smearing. A cloth, a brush, maybe even hands.”

“Let’s hope it was hands. We might be able to pick up prints.”

They’d almost reached Lily’s ankles when they heard the footsteps of several people running down the hallway. The sound was a tremendous relief to David. Lily’s sawed off stumps were well out of his league.

Hulan swiftly moved to the door and let David out ahead of her. Then she pulled the door shut, stood with her back against it, and waited for the clerk and three other men—presumably from the local Public Security Bureau—to come to her. She introduced herself, speaking more slowly than usual and clipping her Beijing accent to account for any misinterpretations that might be caused by differences in dialect.

“I’m here on special assignment for Vice Minister Zai of the Ministry of Public Security. This is my husband, Attorney Stark. He is a foreigner, but he’s here on official business from the State Cultural Relics Bureau. You must pay him the highest respect, as though he were a black-haired person.” Her tone was authoritative and offered no room for argument. “I will be handling this case.”

She extended her hand. The eldest of the men shook it and responded in heavily accented English. “I am Captain Hom,” he said, a Magnificent Sound cigarette dangling from his lips. “These are my officers, Su Zhangqing and Ge Fei. We handle our own cases in Bashan, even those dealing with foreigners.”

Now Hulan switched to English. “Not this time. However, I welcome your advice.”

This was the alleged corrupt police captain they’d heard about. David had expected a typical “fat rat,” someone who would be heavier from living the good life. Perhaps Hom had been fat at one time, but his jaundiced skin now hung on his bones like a deflated balloon. In a pathetically obvious gesture, Hom swelled his chest in an attempt to gain the upper hand. “A foreigner and an inspector from Beijing may not know what constitutes a crime in our town,” he coughed out.

“I can assure you, Captain, that a crime
has
taken place in that room. If you’ve had others of this sort, I’d be most interested in hearing about them.”

“Let us see then.”

Hom’s tone managed to be both confrontational and dismissive. Hulan’s eyes narrowed, and David almost felt sorry for the man.

“Have you agreed to my conditions?”

Hom grunted noncommittally.

“I need to hear the words,” Hulan pushed.

“Inspector Liu, you are in charge,” Hom conceded at last. He threw his cigarette on the ground and stubbed it out with his boot. “For now.”

Hulan’s eyes moved to the other two officers—young men dressed in rain-spotted uniforms. “No one touches anything. Understand?”

“Yes, Inspector,” one of the young men mumbled, while the other stared mutely at the floor.

“One last thing,” Hulan said. “I can see you two are inexperienced. No one will think less of you if you decide not to see this.”

“My men,” Hom declared indignantly, “are professionals! They are also men. Perhaps a woman such as yourself—”

Hulan didn’t wait for the rest but opened the door and gave it a solid push. Hom marched past her, with his two minions right behind him. The one who hadn’t had the nerve to address Hulan before came reeling back out the door and vomited. A moment later the other young man came running out of the room with his hand over his mouth. He looked frantically from left to right, then ran down the hall and around the corner. The sound of heaving cut through the air. David’s stomach churned, the added smells doing nothing to help his own unsteady state. Hulan let out a deep breath and met his gaze. Her wordlessness was eloquent, filled as it was with a combination of sadness, resolve, and duty. Then she stepped back into the room with David and the desk clerk right behind her.

Hom stood by the side of the bed. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. The desk clerk mewled but held his ground.

“I think we can agree that something unique has happened here,” Hulan said gently. “I’d like to have our pathologist come to Bashan. I hope this won’t complicate your procedures.”

“We have no procedures to deal with something like this. Is she a foreigner?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Hom groaned.

“Do you have a lab?” Hulan asked.

“There’s a morgue in the town. Not an official morgue, do you understand? Our quarter of town has electricity for only a few hours a day. If someone dies, the body is turned over to the family very quickly.”

“Even for murder?”

“We’ve had murders, of course, but we know very soon who the killer is. A husband, a jealous boyfriend. We get a lot of help from the Neighborhood Committee.”

“And for foreigners?”

“They are new to Bashan Village. We are not a stop for cruises, and the people who are here for Site 518 are few and quiet.”

David listened carefully. Hom, despite his incongruous wasted appearance, may indeed have been corrupt in letting his brother-in-law get away with the fatalities caused by the collapse of the bridge, assuming those accusations were true, but he was also either stupid or inept, because he wasn’t seeing the overall situation very clearly.

“This is not the first time a foreigner has died in Bashan,” Hulan pointed out.

“If a foreigner is stupid and falls in the river,” Hom retorted, “this is not grounds for investigation, but it does cause me a lot of paperwork.”

“I’d like to see your file on that case,” Hulan said, “as well as the files for the other accidents that have occurred in Bashan recently. But first, let’s deal with immediate problems. Miss Sinclair’s body will decompose very quickly in this heat. I suggest we find someplace cool, and soon.” She paused, considering. “No, on second thought, leave her here. Maybe the pathologist will be able to tell us something—”

“This room will be a stinky mess….”

Hulan ignored Hom’s observation. “I’m hoping you can call in a couple of other men to secure the building.”

“You think the killer’s still here?” Hom asked.

She didn’t answer his question directly. “Several guests in the hotel should be finishing their breakfasts right about now. They all knew Miss Sinclair. I want them held in the dining room. I want everyone else in the hotel brought there too. No one leaves without my approval.” She held up her palm in caution. “No one is to mention what he’s seen in this room. Is that understood?”

The men nodded. Hulan turned to the desk clerk.

“How many exits do you have?”

“Four, one at each of the four compass points in our exterior wall,” he answered. “We use only two of them. The east and west gates on the sides are always locked. The back gate is for employees and deliveries. Guests always have to pass by the front desk to come or go.”

This was typical procedure for keeping track of people in China. Even Charlie Freer at the American Embassy relied on watchers like this desk clerk to find Americans on occasion.

“Then, Captain Hom, I suggest you post officers at the front and back gates,” Hulan said. “Again, no one may leave, and everyone must be brought to the dining hall. Also, send some men to search the hotel. I want to know if she was killed here or if her body was brought in. Make sure they check the perimeter, including all windows and doors, for traces of blood. Do you have enough men to cover all of that?”

“Not in the bureau, but there are some others I can call.”

“Let me make this very clear, Captain. You will be held one hundred percent responsible for those men.”

Hom fumed but said nothing.

Hulan went on. “I also need to make some phone calls. Do you have a secure line down here?”

Hom shook his head.

“Maybe with the headman?”

Hom again shook his head. He looked increasingly glum.

“We can’t worry about what we don’t have,” Hulan said. “David, can you guard the door until we find someone to relieve you? Captain, let me say that this can be your most aggressive man. Do you understand what I’m saying? I don’t want
anyone
entering this room. Are we set then?”

“What about Dr. Ma?” David asked.

Hulan frowned. “Yes, where is he?” Then, “I’ll stop downstairs and bring him in. David, I have to call Lo and Zai. I need Lo to get me some additional files, and I want to see if we can get Pathologist Fong down here. As soon as Hom sends someone to guard the door, join us in the dining room.”

The others departed, leaving David to stand watch. But it wasn’t long before he relinquished his post to a heavyset man who looked like he’d done a fair amount of arm-twisting in his day. David threaded his way back toward the second courtyard. Except for the constant beating of rain, an eerie stillness had settled over the hotel.

By now everyone had been pulled together in the dining room. What had been a peaceful oasis last night was filled with the jabbering of different languages and dialects. The foreigners sat together. The hotel employees stood in a large cluster, and—between the maids, bellmen, kitchen workers, laundry workers, and waitresses—they outnumbered the guests about ten to one. Policemen were stationed along the walls.

Hulan addressed the crowd in Chinese first. “I am Inspector Liu Hulan. I come from Beijing, so I hope you will forgive my accent.” Though her tones were pure, David suspected that many of these people could barely understand her. “One of your foreign guests has been found dead.”

A low murmur rose from the employees, and David saw the foreigners exchange glances.

“I don’t need to remind you of the laws of our country,” Hulan cautioned. “‘Leniency to those who confess, severity to those who hide.’ But I want to make myself very clear. I do not suspect any of you. However, because you work here you have special information. Together you are the eyes and ears of the guesthouse. If you have seen or heard something, I need to know what that is so I can help our foreign friends. In this way we can show our superiority to the outside world.”

Hulan always knew the right times to haul out nationalism, and this was one of them, which became even clearer as she continued.

“You are Chinese. You are responsible for the welfare of our foreign guests. For this reason I must ask of you a profound favor. I hope you will let me speak to our foreign guests first.” Naturally no one protested. “I would like you all to wait here. The men from the Public Security Bureau will begin interviewing you. You will be cooperative. I will return later, and we will speak together again.”

Hulan switched to English. “Miss Sinclair has been murdered. Although Dr. Ma has told you that Brian’s death was an accident, I hope you will now believe me when I tell you that these are not random acts.” If they had any remaining doubts, she added, “The deaths of two foreigners from one small hotel cannot be a coincidence. I hope you will listen to me this time when I tell you to be careful. I am also asking for your help. I want to speak with each of you individually. In the meantime, you’re not to discuss this among yourselves. David, Captain Hom, please come with me.”