Little Mountain (6 page)

         Sam laughed. “No, thank you. I’m already married. I would like to meet her, though. There is some business to talk about.”

         “Then hold my hand,” she commanded, but he shook his head.

         This didn’t seem right, encouraging a little girl to hold a stranger’s hand. “I can’t do that. I’ll just follow,” he said. She frowned,
then
shrugged as though it was his loss. He sighed and held out his little finger. His big sister Sarapon used to do that. She would walk him to market where she bought fish caught in Tonle Sap and dried on racks. They would share an orange soda that she bought from a vendor on the
cyclopousse,
and then they would walk home, his small hand clasped firmly on her little finger.

         Sopheary took his finger and smiled. At least she didn’t cry. “I found a foot on the step,” she said. “Do you want to see it?” She pointed to the cement stoop that led up to her porch, where a work boot had made an impression on one of the stairs. “I wish I could do that,” she said.

         “The cement has to be wet,” Sam said. “And then people will get mad at you if you step in it.”

         “Did they get mad at him?”

         Sam ignored the question. Sopheary’s mother came to the door as her daughter and Sam approached. Sam showed his badge and introduced himself in Khmer. “I worry about your daughter approaching strangers,” he said. “A man died here last night.”

         “My name is Li Chang,” the mother said. “My landlord is dead. Yes, I saw the ambulance leaving when I came home from work last night.” The words struck Sam as flat, but compassion filled Li Chang’s eyes, and Sam had difficulty taking his eyes off her. The girl was right: Her mother was pretty.

         Li Chang’s eyes were wide and brown, intelligent and aware. Her look said she would slice anyone who messed with Pheary, and Sam sensed deep emotional hurt behind those eyes--but who didn’t hurt somehow? She had delicate arms and long fingers, the kind an
apsara
might have. Gold bracelets jangled as she motioned for him to come in. Costume jewelry, Sam assumed, just like the jade earrings. Li Chang sat down slowly on her living room couch and put a hand on her forehead. “Please sit down, sir,” she said in Khmer, but Sam remained on his feet.

         On the wall opposite the television were multicolored paper flowers like the ones his sister used to make in Battambang. They were like giant chrysanthemum blossoms with every petal a different hue. Twelve of them decorated the wall; they must have cost a fortune in construction paper. Childrens’ picture books were scattered on the couch, and a broken crayon lay in an ochre smudge on the carpet. A familiar-looking orange cat lay in front of the television--probably the mouse cop he’d seen in the hall last night. Mouse Cat was off duty, licking its paws. Here he sensed what seemed to be missing in the Lacs’ apartment: a family with a sense of unity, held together by caring and not by force.

         Sam looked around the living room. One thing about the tenements on this street: the layouts were all the same. The kitchen was off to the left of the entrance, with side-by-side windows that offered a view of the back stairs coming down from the upper floors. If Sam stepped through the doorway into the kitchen and looked to the far corner, he would see the back door. Exit to the left, basement stairs to the right. The bathroom and two bedrooms were off the living room. Each apartment took up an entire floor.

         “No, I don’t know him very well,” she said. “His wife comes by once a month to collect rent, and he was good about fixing smoke detectors and leaky faucets. But they never spoke much. Mrs. Chea is very shy, and they are both private people. Even so, lots of people come and go from this building. Except for the neighbors, I don’t know any of them.”

         “Did you ever hear him argue with anyone?”

         “Yes, I heard him yell at three or four Cambodian teenagers a few weeks ago. I don’t know what they had done, but he chased them toward the playground and used vile language I’ve never heard from him before.”

         “What was that about?”

         “I don’t know, sir. I mind my business.”

         “Did his neighbors seem to like him?”

         “Mostly they did. But sometimes there have been nasty whispers.”

         “Like what?”

         “Nothing I will dignify by repeating.”

         “Even if the stories are lies, I need to know what people are saying about him.”

         “But I hate to hear vicious stories about people. Where I work, I have heard customers say that Chea was--” Her voice caught on the phrase. “--Khmer Rouge. That he killed many people. It’s so easy to spread lies, and so hard to come along later and clean up the filth that people spout with their tongues.”

         So perhaps that was it: simple revenge.
Kum
, the Cambodians called it. Nearly fifteen years had passed since the collapse of communist rule in Cambodia, and vengeance was still on some people’s minds. Sam didn’t blame them, though he for one had put his past behind him and slammed the door shut. Since 30,000 refugees had begun flooding the city, two had been shot dead. No
suspects,
and no apparent motive. Could this have been
kum
? No one was sure--at least no one who was talking.

         “Of course you are right, Mrs. Chang. Anyone can accuse, and I won’t ask you to do that. But who is spreading the rumors?”

         “I’ve seen the person at my work, and heard someone call him Khem Chhap. He said Bin Chea made him kill his best friend while others were forced to watch.”

         Sam’s gut tightened. “When did you last see him?”

         “Three or four nights ago, I think. He sat by himself, smoking and watching the TV above the bar.”

         “Can you describe him for me?”

         “He’s an older man with gray hair.”

        
“How about scars or jewelry?”

         “He had a scar under his left cheek. I think I remember a wedding ring and a watch.”

         “The watch was on his left arm?”

         “No, on his right arm, I think.” Maybe the killer was left-handed, then.
If Khem was the killer.

         “Notice any tattoos or other marks?”

         She shook her head.

         “Where do you work, ma’am?”

         “I’m a waitress at the Pailin Jewel. I start at three.”

         “What about your daughter?” Sopheary sat next to her mother with a coloring book and a lap full of Crayolas.

         “I’m too young to be a waitress,” Sopheary said. “I found a shoelace.”

         “He means who takes care of you when I’m gone,” Mrs. Chang said, and she looked back at Sam. “My brother and his wife come home before I leave. Pheary isn’t alone at all.”

         “What time did you get home last night?”

        
“About twenty past eleven.”

         “Mrs. Chang, what has this Khem fellow been saying about your landlord?”

         Li Chang placed a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Pheary, I want you to go into your bedroom,” she said.
“Right now.”
The tone was clear: no back talk, no delay. Sopheary looked hurt, but she left the living room immediately.

         “Detective Long,” she said. “I don’t know how digging up garbage on a dead man will help anyone. A dozen people may tell you the same thing about Bin Chea, but I think the stories all came from the same man. As far as I can tell, the story is that Bin Chea was a monster who cut people’s bellies out and roasted them for supper. That he grew flowers in the eye sockets of a human skull. That is what I heard. Now let me tell you what I know.

         “Last summer, my husband disappeared. We had just moved into this apartment, and--” Her voice caught for a moment, but she recovered. “Mrs. Chea brought us food and kept us company for days while I waited for my brother and his wife to come from Providence to live with Pheary and me. My brother Someth gave me money for the next month’s rent, and Bin Chea refused to take it. ‘Skip this month,’ he told me. He got me a job at his restaurant. For as long as I have known him, he has shown me nothing but respect. And he’s never asked for anything in return.”

         “Did you call the police for help?”

        
“To find my husband?
He’s not a criminal.”

         “You could have filed a missing person report. We can still try to find him.”

         “I think he’s just tired of me.”

         “You think he left you?”

         “For another woman, a better one, I suppose.”

         “Why do you say that?”

         She looked away.
“Because I didn’t make him happy.”
Li Chang seemed like a woman who’d have no trouble pleasing her husband, but that depended on the husband as well, didn’t it? Short of the obvious distress signs such as bruises or black eyes or restraining orders, how did you judge what went on in a marriage?

         Sam thanked her, and she walked him to the door. “By the way,” he said, “have you ever heard of Paradise? Maybe it’s a business of Mister Chea’s or someone he knew?”

         She said she hadn’t.

         “Oh, just one more thing,” he said. “Your daughter is a good girl, but she’s a little too friendly with strangers.”

         Sam stepped back outdoors and into the oven, glad to have a possible motive for the killing. The note that said “we know” must have referred to Bin Chea’s Khmer Rouge past. Li Chang’s story--no, the story she repeated--troubled him. She considered the accusations utterly worthless, and maybe she was right. Then what about the note, what else could it mean? Of course, Li Chang might also know more about Bin Chea than she let on.

         Meanwhile, Sam wanted to question Khem Chhap, and he still hadn’t spoken to Mrs. Chea in the hospital. Across the street, his car now had plenty of room on both sides. They sat alone, just the Ford and the fire hydrant.

         On the sidewalk next to his car lay a rock about the size that must have hit his car. Sam ran his finger over the ding, where a flake of paint had chipped off and exposed the bare steel.
It felt rough and blistering hot, like a battered skillet.
It also felt like a hundred-dollar repair bill.

         He lifted the windshield wiper and removed the ticket, which had an illegible signature. He jammed the ticket in his shirt pocket and drove back to the station. Damn, it was about the last thing he needed.

CHAPTER SIX

Back at the station, Sam filled out a report and pretended not to listen as Wilkins complained to Superintendent Corcoran. “This is the worst hot spell in twenty years, Chief. So how come we work with the frigging a/c off?”

         “Sorry,” the Chief said, “but the city’s got us by the short and curlies.” Sam wasn’t sure exactly what the Chief meant, but he got the point: real men didn’t need a/c to stay cool, and the department’s performance was expected not to suffer.

         “Damn voters want protection,” Wilkins said. “But they more or less don’t want to pay for it.”

         But Sam had no complaints. With Gitman, Cerullo, and Danfil all
laid
off in the last week, he felt lucky to have moved up instead of out. Merit, Chief Corcoran said. Reverse discrimination, Lieutenant Wilkins said.

         Wilkins and the Chief drifted toward Corcoran’s office. “You been the best chief Lowell’s ever had,” Wilkins said. They had matching flat-top crew cuts. The Chief’s hair was white, while Wilkins’ looked like poorly mixed cement: gray with sandy clumps.