Soon. It will all be over soon.
And when it was complete, she would be free to join her parents and brother in the afterlife. The crushing weight of years of planning and training for her vengeance would be lifted from her shoulders, and she would be forever free of terrestrial troubles.
For the first time in decades, she felt something else besides the pulse of anticipation that swelled in her breast.
She felt relief.
Content that her time would soon be up, she drove on, keeping the GTO in view whenever possible.
The homicide department at the stationhouse was vacant, so Ryker didn’t have much trouble getting Chee Wei to translate all the relevant facts pertaining to James Lin. Lin’s history with the Chinese Communist Party was interesting; while he had always known Lin was as corrupt as they could possibly come, he hadn’t ever thought he might have been a personal friend of Mao’s. And to find out that he was responsible for some very serious purges in China was something else. Ryker knew Lin was dirty, very dirty, but he hadn’t figured him to be a mass murderer. But hey, you learned something every day.
More compelling was the death of his eldest son, Lin Jong. Ryker questioned if Jong was even Lin’s real son, since China had a one-child policy. Chee Wei corrected him in that only eastern China had a one-child policy; Lin Jong was born in Chongqing, a huge city in southwestern China, and one where the policy was not in place. There was no data on Jong’s mother, but she was most assuredly a different woman than Lin Dan’s. A ‘second wife’, Chee Wei explained, something that was still acceptable in China even today.
“I might get myself one of those too,” Chee Wei said, with a toothy grin.
“You might want to get yourself a first wife before you start planning the second. And make sure you hide all the knives and frying pans, because the first will definitely find out about the second.”
Lin Jong had been killed pretty much the same way as his younger brother-he’d been sexually mutilated, and then stabbed. Unlike Lin Dan, there was no other woman involved as with Xiaohui. Lin Jong had been alone, in an expensive condominium he owned in Shanghai’s fashionable Bund district. The security cameras apparently captured an image of a female leaving Jong’s condo. A middle aged female.
“And of course, there’s no photo,” Ryker said.
“Nope. But she sounds a lot like our Amy Wong.”
“Who we already suspected wasn’t some middle aged matron to begin with. Okay, what next?”
“Not a hell of a lot. Like my cousin said, Shanghai police have the case pretty much closed up-nothing new was released to the rest of the law enforcement community after this, which is why he figures the Public Security directorate is calling the shots. Guess they’re just like the FBI, they don’t want to get involved with the rest of us.”
Ryker leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. He looked over at Wallace’s vacant desk, then across the room at Spider’s darkened office. Footsteps sounded in the hallway, followed by the squeak of the hinges on the men’s room door.
“We’re missing something,” he said.
Chee Wei rolled his eyes. “Duh. You think?”
“Thought you were going to work on not being such a smart ass all the time.”
“I am. I’m trying real hard to be a dumb ass.”
“Keep up the good work.” Ryker found his thoughts drifting to images of Valerie Lin, lying spread-eagled beneath him as he slammed into her again and again, her mouth forming a perfect O as she came, the muscles of her sex gripping him like a hot, wet glove. He squirmed slightly in his chair, then slowly leaned forward and rested his elbows on his desk. He was glad Chee Wei didn’t have x-ray vision, or he’d be able to see Ryker was still able to pop a boner almost on command.
But the younger detective still noticed something was wrong. “Dude, you all right? You look like you’re about to pass out.” Chee Wei favored him with a concerned look. “Or puke, maybe. You’re not going to puke, are you? That would really gross me out.”
“A couple of nights ago you saw a guy with his dick cut off, and that didn’t gross you out?”
“That’s different. I didn’t know that guy, and besides, he was a creep. But if you start puking, I might puke too. It always happens that way. When I was a kid, I puked all over my older sister when the girl in The Exorcist blew chunks on the priest. Jesus, I’m starting to feel queasy already. And that damned drink at Starbucks set me back almost six bucks, too!”
Ryker shook his head and put his face in his hand. “I’m not going to puke.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good.”
Ryker sat up straight suddenly and looked at the papers between them. “Hey. Did Jong live in Shanghai full time, or did he live in the U.S.?”
“Here in America. He has an address in Santa Cruz, I think. Family there, too.”
“All right. So what was he doing in Shanghai?”
“Visiting? Business? Who knows?”
Ryker thought about that for a long moment, then got to his feet. “Stay here. I’ll be right back, I just want to make a phone call.”
“You make phone calls all the time from your desk, why not now?”
“You ask too many questions.”
“Uh…I’m a detective, Hal.”
“Then stop acting like a dick and detect.” He pointed at the papers in front of Chee Wei. “Get a number for Lin Jong’s home in Santa Cruz and call over there.” With that, Ryker spun on his heel and headed for Spider’s darkened office. The lights were off, but the door was unlocked. He pushed inside and closed the door behind him, then pulled out his cell phone. He sat down in Spider’s high-backed chair and looked out at Chee Wei through the office windows as he paged through the phone’s dialed calls log. He found the one he wanted and hit the green CALL button.
“Hello.”
“Valerie. It’s Hal.” Ryker kept his voice low, but he could see Chee Wei practically cupping a hand to his ear to try and listen in on his conversation. Little creep, he thought.
She was silent for a long moment. Ryker was about to speak, to apologize, to ask if she was all right, anything to fill the void. He was thankful she beat him to the punch.
“I’m sorry I took so long this morning. I guess…I guess you had to go.”
“I did. But it’s not because of anything you did.”
“I know that. You said your partner called you, and that you had to leave anyway…isn’t that right?”
He breathed a silent sigh of relief. “Yes. Yes, that’s exactly right. Listen Valerie…I need to ask you some questions.”
“About my husband. Of course.”
“No. About his brother. John Lin.”
“Lin Jong…? What…what would you want to know about him?” She sounded confused, and Ryker imagined she was trying to correlate his intended line of questioning with the murder of her husband.
Maybe she doesn’t know Lin Jong is dead?
“Do you know John-Lin Jong?”
“Of course I do. He’s my brother-in-law. He also works for my father-in-law, though in a much more senior capacity than…than my husband did.” She paused. “Why do you want to know about him?”
“Where is he now?”
“The last I heard about him, he was in Shanghai. He was supposed to come back last month, but he had to stay longer than planned.”
“Was your husband close to him?”
“Close? They were rivals. They hated each other with a passion. Danny went almost insane with jealousy after Lin Yubo promoted Lin Jong to president of Lin Industries. It meant that John would take over the entire organization after Lin Yubo retired. Or died.”