“I know that you didn't kill anybody, Mister Lee,” Kate says, “If you are guilty, the only thing you can be charged with is the obstruction of justice.”
“No need to make it complicated, Missis Bowen. I confess. I killed my neighbor, Mister Chen Te-Sheng. Do you want it in writing? I will sign it at once. After the sunrise, I will show you how I hid the body.”
“You hid the body in the irrigation ditch. Under a snag, yesterday – at midnight,” Kate pronounces suddenly.
“I suspected someone had seen it!” With a sigh, the host starts drying his brush, “Why did you need this show with the search? Admit, Deputy, our widow Lim did not sleep once again, spying on the neighbors, did she?”
“Mister Lee, I know that Chen Te-Sheng is alive,” Kate says.
“I don't want to disappoint you, Missis Bowen, but you're wrong. I stabbed Chen Te-Sheng with a screw-driver and I dumped the body. Victor must be released at once. The boy doesn't know anything.”
“You I still don't believe me, Mister Lee?”
“Why are you frowning?”
“It's irrelevant.”
“Oh, how I did not see it earlier? You have phantom pain, do you?”
“Yes, I have it sometimes. How did you guess?”
“Your left hand is in the air. As if you are touching the missing knee. Looking at your uniform, you are a recent vet. Traumatic amputations frequently result in phantom pain.”
“Are you – a doctor?”
“I was. A psychiatrist. But I haven't practiced, at least in any official capacity, for years and years. In America, it's not easy to convert the psychiatrist's foreign diploma. I didn't do it before the Meltdown, and now – nobody cares. Have you discussed a pain management plan with your doctors?”
“There was a short session. Just before they dumped me in the port. I was told to meditate and smoke marijuana.”
“Not a bad plan. Have your smoke immediately. And I'll make you my special tea.”
Kate pulls her box and start rolling her To-Ma-Gochi, while Mister Lee pulls out a lacquer tray with a tea set and a thermos. “Would you do stop guarding the doorway, Deputy?” He turns to me. “Please kindly take a seat. You don't mind sitting on tatami, do you? I have no chairs, don't like them.”
“Thank you,” I leave sandals at the top of the stairs and close the door.
Soon later, we sit with cups in our hands, and the room is full with strange smelclass="underline" the medicinal herb tea blend plus another medical medicinal herb from the Kate's smoke. Surreal. The Police came to a suspect for a roll of Grass and a cup of tea.
“Nice tea, Mister Lee,” Kate closes her eyes and exhales smoke through the nose.
“Chinese Medicine. I will write you a prescription. How is your pain? Better?”
“Almost gone. Let's talk about Mister Chen. Why do you stick your head in the noose for a murder you don't commit?”
“What makes you so sure I am innocent?”
“OK, fine. Let's have it this way. I will tell the entire story as I see it, and if something is wrong - you will correct me.”
“Ah! Playing Sherlock Holmes?”
I give Kate a nod. How has Lee guessed about Sherlock?”
“If you wish, we can call it playing Sherlock Holmes,” Kate agrees, “So the story goes like this. Yesterday, in the late afternoon, Mister Chen Te-Sheng ran into your shack. Where was he wounded, exactly?”
“In his left forearm. But the wound was superficial. As soon as I bandaged it, the blood stopped. I had to sacrifice a pillowcase.”
“I thought so. The wound kept you busy. After you had bandaged the wound, you looked out of the shack, just in-time to see Victor Chan running away with the screwdriver in his hand. Chen-senior begged you hide the dead body so to save his son from a murder charge. First you didn't agree, but then you saw the body and changed your mind. The killed was dressed exactly as Chen Te-Sheng, and was of the same build and height. From fifty yards away – a perfect double.”
“Correction. Chen Te-Sheng and I have been close friends for nearly two years. I believed him unconditionally and decided to help him no matter what. But about the double you're right. When I saw how the dead man looked like, I believed my neighbor even more.”
“You and Chen moved the body into this shack. You began to write a Chinese scroll to warn Victor not to talk to the Police. Then the first policeman came. Deputy Tan, on his bike. He looked around, found no dead body, and left. You hung the completed scroll in the Chen's shack. Why did you wash the drops of blood at the floor?”
“It was Chen's blood, but the screwdriver was covered with the blood of the other man.”
“Brilliant! You even thought about the blood types!”
“You have amazing abilities, Missis Bowen. I take it back. You are not playing Sherlock Holmes. You are the Sherlock Holmes, just a different incarnation. How did you know where I hid the body?”
“Because you volunteered for the search party. To be honest with you, I thought that the body was still in your shack, and you were looking for the place to hide the body tonight. But when I saw that the body was gone, I immediately knew you hid it yesterday. This automatically changes your motive for joining the search. You wanted to be in the group to place yourself at the right spot, above the dead body: it was in the irrigation ditch, under the snag. Next, you waited until Deputy Investigator Woxman was near-by, and screamed that the body was found. You calculated his reaction quite well. I didn't know you were a psychiatrist, but since you told me… everything matches perfectly! A psychiatrist is a psychologist too! Woxman was sinking in the mud, you were showing him the snag, and the kids were laughing. No wonder, the investigator didn't want to check the ditch a little deeper.”
“Most of all I was afraid of you, Deputy Kim,” Lee smiled, “After I saw the local deputy in shorts and barefoot, I realized that the ditch was not a very good place to hide a body. Fortunately, you and Deputy Woxman had some quarrel even before we started on the ditches. I was so lucky: the deputies did not want to break the fragile peace! Woxman did not ask Kim to double-check my ditch, and Kim was reluctant to show initiative. You got it spot-on, Missis Bowen. Just one thing I can't understand. How did you know I hid the body exactly at midnight?”
Indeed, how did our Sherlock Holmes-on-wheels guess about the midnight? It seems I will have to do the dishes all week long.
“It was a bluff,” Kate chuckles, “An unjustified spark of intuition.”
“This once again convinces me that I am facing the great detective,” Mr Lee made a short bow, “And because you know everything about this affair…”
“Not everything,” Kate interrupts Lee, “Could you tell us what kind of super-duper nuclear-space-strategic bomb your neighbor was inventing? If he told you about it, of course.”
“He told me all-right,” Lee sighs, “But it was not a bomb.”
“And what was it?” I ask.
“Does name Martin Fleischmann tell you anything at all?”
“N-no,” Kate says, “Who is it?”
“And Vincenzo Rossi?”
“Also no idea,” I say.
“In 1989, British chemist Martin Fleischmann discovered that by passing an electric current through a solution one can create a thermonuclear reaction. He claimed a new phenomenon: a Low-Temperature Nuclear Fusion. Or Cold Fusion, as some people preferred to call it.”
“And can you really make these reactions? The Cold Fusion?” Kate asks.
“It turned out that Fleischmann's design did not work. As we psychiatrists call it, Martin Fleischmann was clearly our patient, but unfortunately only in a hind-sight. Before he went after his Cold Fusion idée fixe, Fleischmann was an expert in the field of classical electrochemistry and held a professorship. A classic case of an overvalued idea disorder was superimposed on an individual with top-notch education and strong scientific authority. By that time, Fleischmann was over sixty, his health deteriorating with Parkinson's and Diabetes. The old man was so desperate to give his discovery to the humankind! He made no secrets and published it all in his scientific papers. Other labs tried to repeat the experiments, with no success.”