The Interior Page 25

  Very aware that Sun’s papers were just a few feet away from her, Hulan ventured, “Maybe the products themselves are somehow dangerous and the papers have to do with shipments or something.”

  “I don’t think so. If there was a defect in Sam & His Friends, it would have been all over the American press. That’s something they really can’t cover up.”

  “The next level of crime would have to be the bribery,” Hulan said. “Except we know that Pearl made that up.”

  David didn’t respond.

  “I’m going to lay out a scenario for you,” she said. “Let’s suppose Pearl was right but didn’t know it. Could Sun have taken a bribe?” She held up a hand. “You needn’t answer, but consider this: Would your client not take one? This is China and Sun’s a smooth operator. If that’s the case, then how did Knight hide it in their financials?”

  David thought he knew the answer: Knight disguised the bribes as payments to dummy corporations. Hulan was close to the truth. Where would she go next?

  “I’m guessing they did it with the skim,” Hulan said suddenly. “We were told we’d be paid five hundred yuan. We actually get two hundred, which leaves three hundred yuan a month extra.” She reached over and grabbed a notepad off the nightstand. “Let’s figure some people do get paid more, because Knight has to promote sometimes, don’t you think?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “So let’s take an average of two hundred yuan off the salaries. With a thousand workers…” She scribbled furiously, then announced, “That would be a little over twenty-four thousand U.S. dollars a month, or almost three hundred thousand dollars a year.”

  She put the notepad down. “Would your client have killed Miaoshan if he thought she had papers that implicated him in a scheme that netted him hundreds of thousands of dollars a year?” Hulan asked, then answered the question herself. “Yes.”

  “You’re jumping to huge conclusions,” David countered. “Let’s remember that we still don’t know what Miaoshan’s papers actually mean. They don’t give a complete picture.”

  “Well, I’m guessing you’re holding a list of dummy corporations—”

  “You’ve got deposits and dates and toys that spell out a code name, but where is the money actually going?” David interrupted, trying to keep Hulan focused on Miaoshan’s documents. “All this”—his motion included the papers before him—“proves nothing unless you know where the money is. It could be down at the corner bank, in Beijing, or in Switzerland for all you know. And it could be going into anyone’s account. What if Sun’s been set up? You have to admit that was a pretty stupid code.”

  What he said next took Hulan completely by surprise. “We have to find a way to link the deaths of Miaoshan, Xiao Yang, and Keith.” He amazed her again by focusing first on Xiao Yang. Then, as he spoke, she realized that he was laying out a defense—one in which he pointed blame everywhere but at his client—as clearly as if he’d been in a courtroom before a jury.

  “Let’s assume that the woman in the factory was killed as you suggested earlier tonight.” David thought back to just three hours ago when that idea had seemed inconceivable. Now her death had become one more piece of the puzzle. “Was it to cover up the fact that Knight doesn’t use safety precautions with its machinery? Was it because she saw something? Was it because she made financial demands on Aaron Rodgers or someone else in the company? Was she one of Aaron Rodgers’s girls and now that he’d seen…what’s the new girl’s name?”

  “Tang Siang.”

  “Now that he’d seen Tang Siang, he wanted to get rid of Xiao Yang. Maybe he’s a serial killer who makes love to girls, then murders them when he’s ready to move on.” His questioning tone belied the implausibility of this scenario.

  Hulan asked gently, “And where does Keith fit into all this?”

  They hadn’t talked much about his death. Just after the accident David hadn’t been in contact with Hulan. Then when she’d finally called, they’d mostly talked about his coming to Beijing. Once he got there, he had been too happy to bring up Keith’s gory death.

  “I saw him die,” David said. He stood and began to pace. “I accepted responsibility for that. The FBI, Madeleine, Rob, we all believed I was the target. But what if we were wrong? What if someone believed that Keith truly was the subject of a federal investigation as Pearl had written?”

  “But what she wrote wasn’t true.”

  David stopped in his pacing. “It doesn’t matter. People believe what they read in the papers.” He resumed walking, crossing the room in four long strides before pivoting and crossing the way he’d come. “And even if our murderer didn’t believe the story, what if he saw right through to the fact that Keith was about to become a whistle-blower either about the conditions in the factory or about the bribery you’re alleging?”

  “But you don’t know that he was.”

  “On that night he was worried about something. Maybe it was that he was going to be a whistle blower; maybe it was that he was going to violate attorney-client privilege. Either way, an ethical issue had torn him up. What if the killer or killers knew that?”

  “But the deaths were on two continents. Are you suggesting a network of some sort—a gang, the triads, some form of organized-crime syndicate—operating in China and Los Angeles that goes beyond Sun and Knight?”

  “It could just as easily be a couple of greedy people. Remember, the Knights, Aaron Rodgers, Sandy Newheart—all of them travel back and forth. They all had opportunity.”

  “Sun also travels,” she pointed out. “He also had opportunity.”

  But listening to the facts the way David had laid them out had shifted Hulan’s view. It was too easy, too obvious, to accept Sun as the guilty party, although she already had enough evidence for a conviction under Chinese law. Is that what the killers had planned all along?

  Even if Sun was innocent, David was still in an ethical bind. He’d presented different possibilities. If Keith had been bothered by an ethical issue, as David suggested, then that pointed to Tartan’s involvement. Tartan was David’s client, as was Sun. If, on the other hand, Henry Knight or the Knight company was the guilty party, then David had no obligation to keep quiet. In fact, he would need to expose whatever had happened to his client, Tartan. Although if Sun had accepted payments from Knight, then David was back in his ethical quandary because he couldn’t expose one client to another.

  “It seems to me I have four choices.” David held up his forefinger. “One, I can finish the deal and walk away. No one but you, Sun, Henry Knight, and I will be the wiser. That would be the easy way, maybe even the sensible way, but that’s not going to happen.” He held up a second finger. “I could tell Tartan an edited version of events. Obviously I wouldn’t be able to tell them anything about Sun.” He stopped. “I’m not saying he’s involved…”

  “I understand.”

  “So that would limit me to the child-labor issue and the unsavory working conditions, both of which may or may not be illegal in China. Three, I can go forward, continue representing Tartan and Sun, but ask the governor and the Knights straight out what this stuff is. Because here’s the thing: What if you’re wrong about the bribery? These papers could be nothing. Maybe Miaoshan committed suicide because she was pregnant and didn’t know who the father was. Maybe Xiao Yang, in shock from loss of blood, wandered out on the roof and fell. Maybe I was the target when Keith died, or maybe it was just a random drive-by and Keith truly was an innocent victim. Maybe Keith knew none of this stuff. That last night he said he was torn up about something personal and ethical, but maybe it was just his girlfriend’s death. I know I wouldn’t be able to think straight if anything happened to you. What if we’re seeing crimes where none exist because that’s what we’ve both been trained to do? What if there’s some logical explanation? I’ll admit it’s a remote possibility, but what if?”

  Before Hulan could say anything, David held up a fourth finger. “Four, I confront Henry and he tells me: (a) it’s none of my busin
ess, or (b) his company doesn’t have internal practices that are up to my standards, but so what? I go to Sun and he admits to crimes galore. Whatever he says is still privileged information.”

  Hulan waited as David thought. At last he said, “Again things are complicated by representing different clients doing and wanting vastly different things. In the U.S. we have a couple of exceptions to privilege. One is the crime-fraud exception, which is if you think your services are being used to help commit a crime—meaning if you have actual knowledge that a crime or fraud is occurring—then you can come forward. The problem is that I don’t have actual knowledge of that.”

  “What about the machinery?”

  “One machine, one injury. Maybe Xiao Yang didn’t know how to use it properly. Maybe she was tired. No, it’s not enough on its own. It’s probably not even a crime. Anyway, Knight isn’t using my services to do anything, and my client has no knowledge of the problems with the machinery. I could try and get Henry to admit he’s injured, dismembered, and murdered employees. He’s not a client, but even if he was, I’d be compelled to protect others. Besides, do you honestly believe he’d admit such a thing?”

  David didn’t wait for an answer. Instead he moved to a second option. “I can try to withdraw as counsel for Tartan and Sun, but I still wouldn’t be able to say anything, because privilege goes with the firm. Finally, I have to remember that there’s a financial transaction going on. Knight International is a publicly held company. The Securities and Exchange Commission expects the lawyers to sign off on the truth of the disclosures of a company in the event of a sale. Maybe I just won’t be able to sign.”

  “What about Sun?”

  “I don’t know, but I think I need to find someone who really understands the subtleties of Chinese law.” He sank back down on the bed. “It seems to me I can either let it all go, in which case I’d have abandoned any personal integrity that I ever had—”

  “Or you could go to the press—”

  “Pearl Jenner?” David asked, shocked.

  “The New York Times. The Washington Post.”

  “That only happens in the movies. This is real. I can’t go to the press. I’d lose all control of the situation, and it would be totally unethical. If this is something more and somehow Tartan or Sun is connected to the deaths of Miaoshan, Xiao Yang, or Keith—I’ll lose my license to practice law, for I will have violated the law’s most sacred trust.” He seemed at a loss for words, then added, “And if any of this stuff is true, it’s going to be dangerous. We’ll be dealing with people who have no compunctions about killing.”

  “What should I do?”

  “Are you asking as an investigator or as the woman I love?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted.

  His first suggestion seemed banal given what was at stake. “Look up everyone’s travel schedules. At least we’ll know where everyone was on the crucial dates.”

  “Including Sun’s?”

  “I know you’ll do that whether I ask you to or not. It’s your job.”

  “Okay then, I’ll do the travel inquiries as soon as we get back to Beijing.”

  “And Miles will arrive there tomorrow afternoon. He’s nothing if not a good lawyer. He’ll know what to do.” His meaning was clear to both of them. David would be able to confide everything to Miles because Tartan and Sun were firm clients. He kept his gaze steady on her to gauge her reaction to his next question. “Can you go back to the factory tomorrow?”

  “I’d already planned on it,” she said.

  “We need to know more about Miaoshan, about the way she was speaking to the women, about what she really had in mind with her inquiries. Did she love any of those men? Did one of them fit into her future plans? You can also watch and ask about Aaron Rodgers.” He hesitated, then added, “If you smell anything…”

  David saw his apprehension mirrored in Hulan’s eyes as she put a hand protectively over her stomach. “I’ll get out somehow.” Her face made a subtle adjustment as she buried her feelings, then said, “I also want to see Suchee again. As soon as I’m free to leave, I’ll go to the farm.” Then she asked, “When’s our flight?”

  “Henry said we should all meet at the airport at five o’clock.”

  Thinking aloud, she said, “I’ll have Lo pick me up at Suchee’s at four; then he can drop us at the airport before driving back to Beijing. Wait! Can you even have me with you? Is that ethical?”

  “I won’t let you ask any questions.”

  “Agreed.”

  “How will you introduce me?”

  “As my fiancée,” he answered. “But I mean it, Hulan, no questions. No investigating in front of me.”

  She agreed to his terms, then asked, “Where will you be tomorrow?”

  He smiled grimly. “Randall Craig and others from Tartan are arriving tonight. Tomorrow there’s some sort of celebration; then we have more meetings before flying to Beijing.” He thought for a moment, then added, “I’ll try to talk to Randall first thing in the morning. Later I’ll try to see Sun. You never know. He may just tell me what’s happening.”

  They had a plan, but they’d left much unsaid. For both of them there was no question that they should go forward no matter what the physical, psychological, or professional danger. But they were on separate tracks now, on opposite sides. The more they pursued their own investigations, the more obvious they would become. The more they asked questions, the more likely they would be targeted just as Keith and Miaoshan had been.

  15

  THE NEXT MORNING BEFORE DAWN, INVESTIGATOR LO drove Hulan out into the countryside and left her by the side of the road, where she found a rock on which to wait. Even before the pink streaks of dawn had faded into the dull white of day, the family that worked this tract of land emerged and began the long, slow process of watering the field. The mother, wearing a wide-brimmed, conical straw hat, carried a pole across her shoulders from which two buckets of water were suspended. The father and son each used a ladle to scoop out the water and carefully pour it on the roots of the individual plants.

  The air stirred not at all this morning, and Hulan felt already that she was sitting in a steam room. Still, people went on with their lives, slowly but with increasing numbers appearing on the road’s horizon. Some pushed wheelbarrows piled high with corn. Others pedaled past with baskets of produce strapped to the sides of their bicycles. But most carried their goods in large baskets lashed to their backs. One man was dwarfed by the load of hay he carried that rose a good five feet above his head and stretched out another couple of feet on either side of him. His back was bent double from the size if not the weight of his load, which bounced with each step.

  At 6:30, as several unencumbered men walked past, Hulan stood and joined the parade. A few minutes later she reached the Knight compound. Each time she came here she marveled at how it rose up out of the landscape and stood starkly against the red soil and the hot white sky. Outside the gates over a hundred men milled about. As she had done yesterday evening, she drifted into the center of the crowd.

  The gates opened and the men surged forward. Hulan felt herself pushed along. Once inside the compound, she stuck with the men as they walked to the warehouse. At the last moment she drifted apart to stand in the shadow of the Administration Building and take her bearings. Unlike the day before, this morning there was a lot of activity in the courtyard. Some of the men who’d entered the warehouse immediately reappeared with poles which they stuck into pre-set holes in the ground, while others began unrolling canvas for the canopy which would shade the hand-over celebration.

  At quarter to seven the women began leaving the cafeteria. Seeing Peanut, Hulan swung into step with the young team leader. “I was scared you wouldn’t come back,” Peanut said. Then she took one of the two smocks that were draped over her arm, handed it to Hulan, and added, “Here, put this on quickly.”

  The two women slipped the pink material over their arms and buttoned up. Hulan tied her matching
bandana over her hair.

  As they wound through the Assembly Building’s maze of corridors, Hulan whispered, “Can I ask you something about Miaoshan?” When Peanut nodded, Hulan asked, “You said she was a troublemaker. What did you mean by that?”

  Peanut slowed, turned her head, and looked up at Hulan. “Always you are asking questions! What are the men doing? How do you get out of here? Now you ask about someone you never met. Why? Did the foreigners send you inside here? Is that why you were able to leave last night and sneak back in so easily? Am I going to lose my job because I helped you?”

  “No, no, and no.”

  Someone behind them called out, “Hey! Hurry up! We don’t want to be late because of your slow walking!”

  Hulan and Peanut picked up their pace. Hulan leaned her head toward Peanut’s and spoke softly. “Remember when I came into our room the first time and you said no one wanted that bunk because of the ghost spirit? Since I slept there, I can’t stop thinking about this girl. Even now she troubles me.”

  “Because her ghost spirit is the same as her live spirit. Miaoshan only brings trouble to people.”

  “Did she report others for their transgressions or complain to Madame Leung about the other women?”

  “You are going in the wrong direction,” Peanut said. “It was the other way. All the time she is complaining to us about the machines, about the long day, about the food we eat. She says to us, ‘We can go on strike. We can make the company improve things.’ All the time she is pestering Madame Leung and reciting all of the things that are bad in here. You know what she says? That our toilets are not good. I can’t understand that. In my village no one had a toilet inside the house. In fact, I had never even seen a toilet like this until I came here. When I first saw those things, I didn’t know what to do. One of the women had to show me.”