Frost unlocked the door and felt around for the light switch. Nothing happened. “Bulb must’ve finally burned out,” he said.
In the darkness beyond the threshold, something moved, startled by the sudden invasion. Maura turned on her flashlight and saw half a dozen roaches skitter away from the beam and vanish beneath the cash register counter.
“Ewww,” said Frost. “I bet there’s, like, a thousand of them swarming around under there.”
“Thanks a lot,” muttered Jane. “Now I’ll never get that picture out of my head.”
Their four flashlight beams sliced back and forth, crisscrossing in the darkness. As Jane had described, the room was bare walls and floor, but when Maura looked around the room images from the crime scene photos superimposed themselves. She saw Joey Gilmore sprawled near the counter. Saw James Fang crumpled behind the counter. She crossed to the corner where the Mallorys had died and pictured the corpses as they had fallen. Arthur slumped facedown onto the table. Dina stretched out on the floor.
“Hello?” a voice called from the alley. “Detective Rizzoli?”
“We’re in here,” said Jane.
A new pair of dueling flashlight beams joined theirs as two men from the crime scene unit entered the room. “It’s definitely dark enough in here,” one of the men said. “And there’s no furniture to move, so that’ll make things quick.” He squatted and examined the floor. “This is the same linoleum?”
“That’s what we’re told,” said Tam.
“Looks it, too. Stamped linoleum, lots of dings and cracks. Should light up really well.” He grunted as he stood up, his belly as big as an eight-month pregnancy.
His much thinner associate, who towered over him, said: “What are you hoping to find in here?”
“We’re not sure,” said Jane.
“Must have a reason you’re looking again after nineteen years.”
In the silence, Maura felt her face flush and wondered if the full responsibility for this outing was going to fall on her shoulders. Then Jane said, “We have reason to believe it wasn’t a murder-suicide.”
“So we’re looking for unexplained footprints? Evidence of an intruder, what?”
“That would be a start.”
His stouter colleague sighed. “Okay, we’ll give you soup to nuts. You want it, you got it.”
“I’ll help you unload the van,” said Tam.
The men carried in lighting equipment and video gear, electrical cords and chemicals. Although all the lightbulbs in the restaurant had burned out, the power outlets were still live, and when they plugged in the cord to illuminate the dining area, the glare of the lamps was as harsh as sunlight. While one of the criminalists videotaped the room, his partner unpacked boxes of chemicals from a cooler. Only now, in the light, did Maura recognize both men from the rooftop crime scene.
Slowly, the videographer panned the room with the camera and straightened. “Okay, Ed? You ready to start?”
“Soon as everyone gets on their gear,” Ed answered. “Masks are in that box over there. We should have enough for everyone.”
Tam handed Maura a pair of goggles and a respirator, which she pulled over her face to protect against the luminol fumes. Only after everyone was masked did Ed—at least she now knew the tall man’s name—begin mixing chemicals. He swirled the solution in a jar, then decanted it into a spray bottle. “Someone want to be in charge of the lights?”
“I’ll do it,” said Frost.
“It’s gonna be really dark in here, so stay by the lamp or you’ll be fumbling for the switch.” Ed glanced around the room. “Where do you folks want to start?”
“This section,” said Jane, pointing to the area near the cash register.
Ed moved into position, then glanced at Frost. “Lights.”
The room went black, and the darkness seemed to magnify the sound of Maura’s breathing in the respirator. Only faintly did she hear the hiss of the spray bottle as Ed released a mist of luminol. A geometric pattern of blue-green suddenly glowed on the floor as the luminol reacted with traces of old hemoglobin. Wherever blood drips or splatters or flows, it leaves behind echoes of its presence. Nineteen years ago, blood had seeped into this linoleum, lodging so stubbornly in cracks and crevices that it could not be eradicated, even with the most thorough mopping.
“Light.”
Frost flipped the switch and they all stood blinking in the glare. The blue-green glow had vanished; in its place was the same patch of floor they had seen earlier.
Tam looked up from his laptop, on which he’d loaded the Red Phoenix crime scene photos. “Corresponds with what I see here,” he said. “No surprises. That’s right where Joey Gilmore’s body was found.”
They moved the camera and tripod to the nook behind the counter, and everyone took their positions. Again the lights went out; again they heard the hiss of the spray bottle and more of the floor began to luminesce in checkerboard lines. Here was where James Fang died. The wall lit up as well, glowing spatters where traces of the waiter’s blood had splashed, like the fading echoes of a scream.
In this building, there were still more screams to be heard.
They moved on to the corner where the Mallorys had perished. Two bodies meant twice as many splatters, and here were the loudest shrieks of all, a horror show of splashes and smears that flared in the darkness and slowly faded.
Frost turned on the lights and they all stood silent for a moment as they stared down at the tired patch of floor that had glowed so brightly only a moment earlier. Nothing had surprised them so far, but what they’d seen was nonetheless unsettling.
“Let’s move on to the kitchen,” said Jane.
They stepped through the doorway. It seemed colder in the next room, so cold that a chill rippled across Maura’s skin. She looked around at a refrigerator, an ancient ventilation hood and stove. The floor was concrete in here, designed for easy swabbing in an area where grease and sauces would splatter. And blood, too. She stood shivering by the cellar door while the team transferred their equipment from the next room, bringing in their cameras and chemicals. With the room now brightly lit, Ed and his partner frowned at their surroundings.
“Got some rusty-looking kitchen equipment over there,” said Ed. “That’s going to react with the luminol and light up.”
“It’s the floor we need to focus on,” said Maura. “Right here is where the cook was found.”
“So we’ll find more blood. Big surprise,” said Ed, his note of sarcasm unmistakable.
“Look, if you think this is a waste of time, just give me the bottle and I’ll do it,” Maura snapped.
In the sudden silence, the two criminalists looked at each other. Ed said, “Do you want to tell us what you’re looking for, Dr. Isles? So this might actually make sense?”
“I’ll tell you when I see it. Let’s start with that doorway leading into the dining room.”
Ed nodded to Frost. “Lights off.”
The sudden blackness was so complete in the kitchen that Maura felt herself sway, disoriented by the lack of any visual cues, any sense of who or what surrounded her. In this darkness, anyone could be standing beside her and she would not know he was there. The spray bottle hissed, and as glowing streaks of blue-green magically spread on the floor, she felt another chill whisper across her skin, as if a phantom had just brushed past her. Yes, there are indeed ghosts in this room, she thought, the ghosts of spilled blood that still cling to this floor. She heard another hiss of luminol, and more glowing patches materialized.
“I see footprints here,” said Ed. “Maybe a woman’s size five, six.”
“Those are in the crime scene photos, too,” Tam said. “The cook’s wife was the first person to enter. She lived in the apartment right upstairs. When she heard the gunshot, she walked in through the alley door and found her husband. Tracked his blood into the dining room, where she found the other victims.”
“Well, that’s what it looks like here. Shoe impressions mov
e in the direction of the dining room.”
“The cook was right where I’m standing now,” said Maura. “We should focus here.”
“Cool your jets, Doc,” the criminalist said, and Maura could hear his irritation. “We’ll get to that spot.”
“I’ve got this section recorded.”
“Okay, moving on.”
Maura heard more spray, and new footprints appeared, a luminous record of the wife’s movements that night. They followed the prints backward, until suddenly a bright pool bloomed. Here was where Wu Weimin’s blood had collected, spilling from the wound on his temple. Maura had read the autopsy report, had seen the close-up photo of what was just a small punch through skin and skull, belying the devastation to the brain. Yet for a few moments, his heart had continued pumping, and blood had poured out to form a congealing halo. Here was where his wife had crouched beside him, leaving her shoe print. His body would still have been warm.
“Lights.”
Maura blinked at the floor where she now saw only bare concrete. But as Ed refilled the bottle with luminol, she could still see that pool, and the evidence of the wife’s presence.
“We’ll finish up over there,” said Ed, pointing toward the kitchen exit leading to the alley. “Did the wife leave the same way she came in?”
“No,” said Tam. “According to Ingersoll’s report, she ran out the front exit, down Knapp Street. Headed toward Beach Street to call for help.”
“So there shouldn’t be any blood at this end.”
Tam peered at his laptop. “I don’t see any in this crime scene photo.”
Maura saw Ed glance at his wristwatch, a reminder that it was growing late. What they had captured so far on video was exactly what they’d expected to find. She thought of what these two men would probably say to each other later, comments that would no doubt circulate among the rest of Boston PD. Dr. Isles sent us on a wild goose chase.
Was this a mistake? she wondered. Have I wasted everyone’s evening, all because I listened to the doubts of a sixteen-year-old boy? But Maura, too, had shared Rat’s doubts. After he’d returned to school, leaving her alone in a house that seemed sadly silent and empty, she had spent many hours combing through all the reports and photos from the Red Phoenix files. The baffling details that the boy had so quickly spotted became more and more troubling to her as well.
“Let’s wrap this up and go home,” said Jane, sounding both weary and a little disgusted.
The lights went out again, and Maura stood with hands clenched, glad that her face was hidden in the darkness. She heard the spray bottle once again deliver its mist of luminol.
Suddenly Ed blurted: “Hey, are you seeing this?”
“Lights!” Jane called out, and Frost turned on the lamp.
In the glare, they all stood silent for a moment, staring at bare concrete.
“That didn’t show up in any of the crime scene photos,” said Tam.
Ed was frowning. “Let me replay this video,” he said. As they crowded around the camera, he rewound and hit Play. Glowing in the darkness were three blue-green patches that moved in a line toward the alley exit. Two were smeared and misshapen, but the third was unmistakably a tiny footprint.
“Maybe they’re not related to the shooting at all,” said Jane. “These stains could be cumulative, over years.”
“Two bloody incidents in the same kitchen?” said Tam.
“How do we explain the fact that these footprints aren’t in any of the crime scene photos?”
“Because someone cleaned them up,” said Maura softly. “Before the police arrived.” Yet the traces remain here, she thought. Invisible to the human eye, but not to luminol.
The others looked stunned by what had just been revealed. A child had been in this kitchen, a child who had stepped into blood and had tracked it across the floor and out the door, into the alley.
“The cellar,” said Jane. She crossed to the cellar door and swung it open. As Maura moved beside her, Jane shone her flashlight down the wooden steps. From the blackness below rose the smell of damp stone and mold. The beam of Jane’s flashlight pierced shadows, and Maura glimpsed large barrels and giant tins of cooking oil, surely spoiled after two decades in storage.
“The cook died right here, blocking this door,” said Jane. She turned to Ed. “Let’s look at these top steps.”
There were no impatient looks this time, no sighs or glances at their watches. The criminalists moved swiftly to reposition the camera and tripod, aiming it down the cellar stairs. They all crowded in as the lights went out, and Ed unleashed a final hiss of luminol. Only then did they see that blood had trickled from the kitchen above and had dripped down onto the top step.
A step where they could see the treadmark of a small shoe.
SOMEONE WAS IN THE KITCHEN CELLAR THAT NIGHT, MRS. FANG. A child who may know what really happened,” says Detective Rizzoli. “Do you know who that child was?”
The policewoman studies me, monitoring my reaction as I absorb what she has just told me. Through the closed door I can hear the sharp clacks of fighting sticks and the voices of my students chanting in unison as they practice their combat maneuvers. But here in my office it is silent as I weigh my possible responses. My silence alone is a reaction, and Detective Rizzoli is trying to read its meaning, but I allow no emotions to ripple the surface of my face. Between the two of us, this has become a chess game within a chess game, played with subtle moves that Detective Frost, who also stands watching, is probably not even aware of.
The woman is my true opponent. I look straight at her as I ask: “How do you know there was someone in the cellar?”
“There were footprints left behind in the kitchen, and on the cellar steps. A child’s footprints.”
“But it happened nineteen years ago.”
“Even after many years, Mrs. Fang, blood leaves behind traces,” explains Frost. His voice is gentler, a friend’s, patiently explaining what he believes I do not understand. “With certain chemicals, we can see where blood has been tracked. And we know that a child came out of the cellar, stepped in Wu Weimin’s blood, and walked out of the kitchen, into the alley.”
“No one told me this before. Detective Ingersoll never said anything.”
“Because he didn’t see those footprints,” says Detective Rizzoli. “By the time the police arrived that night, the prints were gone. Wiped away.” She moves in closer, so close that I can see her pupils, two black bull’s-eyes in chocolate-brown irises. “Who would do that, Mrs. Fang? Who would want to hide the fact a child was in the cellar?”
“Why do you ask me? I wasn’t even in the country. I was in Taiwan visiting my family when it happened.”
“But you knew Wu Weimin and his wife. Like them, you speak Mandarin. The child in the cellar was their little girl, wasn’t it?” She pulls out a pocket notebook and reads from it. “Mei Mei, five years old.” She looks at me. “Where did they go, the mother and daughter?”
“How would I know? I couldn’t catch a flight home until three days later. By then, they were gone. They packed up their clothes, their belongings. I have no idea where they went.”
“Why did they run? Was it because the wife was illegal?”
My jaw tightens, and I glare back at her. “Are you surprised that she would run? If I were illegal, Detective, and you thought my husband had just killed four people, how quickly would you put me in handcuffs and have me deported? The girl may have been born here, but Li Hua wasn’t. She wanted her daughter to grow up in America, so can you blame her for avoiding the police? For staying in the shadows?”
“If she wiped away those footprints, then she destroyed important evidence.”
“Maybe it was to protect her daughter.”
“The girl was a witness. She could have changed the course of that investigation.”
“And would you put a five-year-old girl in a courtroom and have her testify? Do you think a jury would believe a child of illegal immigrants, when the w
hole city has already called the father a monster?”
My answer takes her aback. She falls silent, thinking about the logic of what I’ve said. Realizing that Li Hua’s actions were in fact reasonable. It was the logic of a mother desperate to protect herself and her child from authorities whom she did not trust.
Frost says, gently: “We’re not the enemy, Mrs. Fang. We’re just trying to learn the truth.”
“I told the truth nineteen years ago,” I point out. “I told the police that Wu Weimin would never hurt anyone, but that wasn’t what they wanted to hear. It was so much easier for them to think he was a crazy Chinaman, and who cares what goes on in a Chinaman’s head?” I hear the bitterness in my own voice, but don’t try to suppress it. It spills forth, sharp and grating. “Searching for the truth is too much work. That’s what the police thought.”
“It’s not what I think,” says Frost quietly.
I stare back at him and see sincerity in his eyes. In the next room the class has ended, and I hear students departing, the door whooshing shut again and again.
“If Mei Mei was in that cellar,” says Detective Rizzoli, “we need to find her. We need to know what she remembers.”
“And you would believe her?”
“It depends on what kind of girl she is. What can you tell us about her?”
I think about this for a moment, looking back through the fog of nineteen years. “I remember she was afraid of nothing. She was never still, always running and jumping. The little tiger, her father called her. When my daughter, Laura, would babysit, she’d come home exhausted. She told me she never wanted to have children, if they were going to be as wild as Mei Mei.”
“An intelligent girl?”
I give her a sad smile. “Do you have children, Detective?”
“I have a two-year-old daughter.”
“And you probably think she’s the cleverest child ever born.”
Now it was Rizzoli’s turn to smile. “I know she is.”
“Because all children seem clever, don’t they? Little Mei Mei was so quick, so curious …” My voice fades and I swallow hard. “When they left, it was like losing my own daughter all over again.”