Bamboo And Blood Part 3

"A complication. Let me guess. She had odd appet.i.tes."

"No, she was murdered overseas."

I gave it some thought. "That's a few hundred kilometers out of my district, isn't it?"

"We have less than a week. They want a nice thick dossier prepared. We hand it over, then it's not our business anymore. It goes to the Ministry, but I have a feeling"-he paused for the downbeat-"I have a feeling it doesn't stop there. You'd better get moving."

"How do we know she was really murdered?" Getting moving, as Pak put it, was not high on my list until he let me know a little more about what I was supposed to do. A person could fall into a deep hole unless he asked a question or two before he got moving. "Maybe she just died. People do that."

"We don't know anything other than what it says on this." Pak held up the piece of paper. "I'll a.s.sume it's right, and so will you. It doesn't matter anyway. The facts will be the same on this end, no matter what happened to her or if she liked ..." Pak paused. "It doesn't matter what she liked. All we need is a collection of the facts on this end. That's it. Nothing fancy, no hypothesizing, no grand framework. No essence. Just facts. Fact one, fact two, fact thirty-four. Sweep them up with a broom. Just think of yourself as a broom, Inspector. Now, go sweep. Most of it should be in files somewhere, so you can sit and keep your shoes dry." It was raining again, needle drops with icy tips that clattered against the window. "Don't bet some of the files haven't already been fiddled with, though. And where there are gaps, you'll have to go out and fill them."

"Isn't this a little odd? I can't remember being put on something like this before, worrying with events so far outside our jurisdiction."

"An unquestioning broom, a dumb, unthinking, uncomprehending broom. Shut up and sweep, can't you?"

"You don't think this smells right, I can tell. What do you know that you're not sharing?"

Pak got up and closed the door. When he sat down again, he crossed his arms. It made him look weighty-weighty and obdurate. He wasted another minute or so, hoping I would turn into a broom. I didn't, and finally he shrugged. When I first started to work in Pak's section, I thought that shrug was dismissive, a gesture meant to show that he was top dog and I wasn't. If I wanted to shrug, I thought, I'd have to find someone lower down the chain. Over time, though, I realized it wasn't deliberate and it wasn't aimed at me. It was part of a conversation Pak carried on within himself, an internal argument he had before deciding he didn't want to debate a point anymore. Some people grimace after they've made a decision they don't like. Pak shrugged. "The word is, this isn't just a simple murder. There are overtones. Or undertones. The sort of thing I don't like, and I tried to make the same argument you're making-that it's outside our jurisdiction. No luck."

"Not simple." I moved over to the window. "Murder may be a lot of things, but it's never simple." The icy rain had changed to snow, and would soon be piling up against the three ginkgo trees that stood in the courtyard. Pine trees took winter with a touch of grace. Not the gink-goes. They endured in a stolid, flinty sort of way, pursed lips, rigid and annoyed. One of the three was sick. It probably wouldn't last much past spring. It would never be replaced. We'd be down to two, and that would change the entire tone of the courtyard, change the light coming into the office, change everything. "You can't nurse a tree," my grandfather would say. "All you can do is say good-bye."

"I don't know how, but the whole thing seems mixed up with that funny group that works out of the party, you know, whatever they call themselves these days," Pak said. "The ones who deal in special weapons, and I don't mean infantry rifles or pistol ammunition. They're hooked up with this somehow, that's what I'm reading between the lines." He held up the paper again. This time I got a better look. There weren't many lines on it.

"Where did this a.s.sumed murder take place?"

"How should I know?" Which sometimes meant he knew exactly.

"So, we can a.s.sume they don't want us to guess where, and they certainly don't want us to find out. Agreed?"

Pak fiddled with his pencil.

"In this case," I said, "I'm going to take silence as a.s.sent. But you must realize, I'll certainly find out sooner or later some of the things we aren't supposed to know. It's inevitable. Maybe even by tomorrow. I mean, it won't be very hard to figure out where she was sent, and if we're unlucky I'll stumble over a lot more."

"You might, unless they've already pulled all of the files, not just fooled with them but pulled them and warned people to clam up."

"No, not 'might.' I will. Even if I try not to, I'll find out. And when I do, we'll know too much, won't we?" It suddenly occurred to me that whoever ordered this a.s.signment either didn't understand much about investigations, or knew more than we realized. First the visitor had showed up, then Mun, and now this.

Pak opened a drawer and took out a piece of paper. "You don't mind if I doodle, do you?"

"You want to know what stinks about this? If it is really connected to that funny weapons group you just mentioned, then the investigation belongs in other circles, not with us. There are plenty of units outside the Ministry to handle something like this. Why not those guerrillas from the special section? It has nothing to do with us, does it, if a woman is killed in Pakistan?"

Pak's pencil stopped on the paper. He looked up and frowned. "Why would you think that?"

"That it has nothing to do with us?"

"Don't be coy, Inspector."

"Pakistan?" I thought about it. "I don't know, no reason, I guess."

Pak didn't look like he was going to take that for an answer.

"Alright, just thinking out loud. Why? Am I getting close?"

Pak's expression didn't change.

"Three Fingers, actually." I really didn't know for sure why I'd mentioned Pakistan. Maybe it was on my mind. Seeing Mun had brought back a lot of memories.

"Is that where he left the other two? Is that where someone didn't prop the door open for you?" His eyes bored into mine. "That's all? Just free a.s.sociation?"

"You mentioned something about special weapons. I've heard a few things about that, not much. When foreign visitors come through my sector, I get reports. I don't file everything I hear, you know that, but lately we've had some curious comings and goings. Even if I look the other way, people like to tell me things. Pakistan keeps coming up in what they say. Special weapons come up sometimes. I figured it was cracked, garbled, I don't know. It's cold and people are hungry, a lot of stuff is going around on the streets. Some people talk more than they used to."

"Forget whatever you've heard; forget it." Pak began to draw jagged lines on the paper. "Inspector, let's not make this any more complicated than it has to be. Empty your pockets of all of this speculation." He glanced up. "Never mind, forget what's in your pockets. You just gather a few facts for us tomorrow. We'll put them on a form, seal it up in a nice new envelope, and drop it into the bureaucratic river that flows through the whole of mankind's existence. It unifies us as a species. I think bureaucracy preceded speech. It may have even preceded s.e.x, normal s.e.x, anyway." He gazed thoughtfully into the courtyard for a moment. "Do us both a favor, O, and for once take my advice: Just be a broom."

"I don't think a broom is what we need."

"You don't." Pak sighed. "Naturally, you don't."

"No, I think we are in the realm of the shovel."

"You planning to dig?"

"If necessary. I do that sometimes, you know."

2.

As soon as I knocked on the door, I knew things weren't going right. From inside I could hear sounds, furniture sc.r.a.ping, someone clearing his throat, then footsteps.

"Who is it?" It was a man's voice, an old man. According to the file, this was her father, a widower, a former air force general. Leave it to a general not to open the door. "I said who the h.e.l.l is it? You hard of hearing?"

"No, sir. I'm just waiting. Would you mind opening the door so we can talk? It's cold in the hall."

Laughter. "Not any warmer in here, sonny." The door opened. He was old, sharp eyes, grizzled is probably the right word for the rest of him. "Say what you want and say it quick. I'm sick." He coughed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "Well, say it, what do you want?"

As soon as I'd left Pak's office, I got started on the investigation. I rummaged around in the Ministry's file room, traded an insult or two with the clerks, and then made a list of facts to sweep into a big folder to put on Pak's desk as soon as I could. No shovels, no digging-I heard a little voice repeating. The sooner I start, I told myself, the sooner it's done.

First on the list was the woman's father, the old general. "I've got to ask you a few questions, that's all."

"The h.e.l.l you do. You tell me who you are first, then we'll decide what comes next."

"Inspector O, Ministry of Public Security. I'm sorry about your daughter, but I have to ask you some questions, General."

He frowned. "You alone?"

"I am."

"Come in. Keep your coat b.u.t.toned, it's cold as h.e.l.l in here." He stood aside, and I walked past him into a dark room.

"Should I open the curtains?" I b.u.mped into a low table. "It will give us some light."

"I don't want any d.a.m.ned light, what do you think about that? I want it dark. I want to sit in the dark and think. That meet with your approval, Inspector?"

"Fine. Mind if I sit?"

"Ask your questions, why don't you?"

I sat down and tried to figure out how to deal with the man. The air in the room was so laden with grief, it was hard to think. I wasn't going to get much out of him, no matter what tack I took, and he wasn't going to give me much time. Since he wouldn't tell me what I needed to know, even if he knew it, I might as well not even bother to ask him directly. Just take it easy, I told myself. Stay in control. "About your daughter. Did you have any communication with her in the last few months?"

"The last few months? No."

"Few means many, several, something more than two but less than six. Does that help?"

"We spoke once or twice."

"On the phone?"

"Stupid question. Yes, on the phone. How else would we speak? Once, she was in an emba.s.sy; she called my office. The other time"-he said this very softly-"was from New York. She was real excited. She didn't say much, but I could tell by her voice. She said she was happy. I told her to be careful, to listen to the security people."

An emba.s.sy. Well, it was a start. Curious, that hadn't been in any file on her I'd seen so far. No mention of being attached to the Foreign Ministry. "At the emba.s.sy, she was happy with the surroundings? Weather was okay, food alright, and so forth?" I didn't want him to realize I had no idea where the emba.s.sy was. Maybe it was Pakistan, maybe it wasn't. If he sensed I was guessing, he certainly wouldn't tell me. If he smelled a hunch, he'd smile grimly and sit back, as I imagined he used to do in a roomful of generals-each one suspicious of the next and all of them scared of him. He'd go silent all of a sudden. Nothing would make him open up then. I softened my tone a little. "Did she mention anything that caught your attention? Insects, trees, trouble sleeping? Anything?"

"Pretty fine-grained questions for a cop. You sure you're not one of those security snakes?" I shook my head and pulled out my ID. He didn't bother to look. That wasn't what generals did. Other people, guards at the gate, checked IDs.

"We didn't talk long." He was changing the subject. "She just wanted to know if I would send her something."

"What was that?"

"Got your attention now, don't I?" He went silent, so I waited. I could wait as long as he could. We stared at each other for a couple of long minutes. Finally, he walked into the next room and emerged with a book. "She wanted one of these. One of her books." He held it out for me to see. "Something about music. By the time I found someone to carry it out to her, she was dead." He felt bad about that, I could tell, but he wasn't going to say to me that this or anything else on earth bothered him. "Dead," he said again. "I don't remember where I put the d.a.m.ned book, if that's what you're going to ask me next."

"That's not the book?" I pointed to the one he was holding.

"I told you, I can't find that one now. I put it somewhere when I heard she was dead. I have this one, that's all. It was hers. I look at it sometimes."

Time to change the subject. If he sank any deeper into melancholy, I'd never get him back on dry land. I should have seen it coming as soon as he said he'd told her to be careful in New York. "You still go to the office? I thought you were retired."

"How long you been at this job, Inspector?"

"A while."

"A while. You were in the army?"

"I was."

"They boot you out?" The melancholy had been vaporized.

"No."

"Why'd you leave? Army not interesting enough? Too tough?"

"Maybe I should go out and come back in, so we can start this all over."

"Maybe you should just go out and not come back."

I looked around the room. "No, I don't think so. I think I have some more questions to ask, and I think you're going to answer them."

"If I don't?"

"But you will. Sit down, General. I don't really want to be here, and you don't really want me here, so we're on equal footing. I said sit down."

The old man squinted at me. When he was younger, it was a steely look; now it was just a squint. "You have a h.e.l.l of a nerve." He paused. "No, I'm not going to sit. But I'll answer three questions. Then you're done. And don't think I'm not serious, because I am. People in the army still stand at attention when I break wind." He grinned. "You want to test me?"

"No. Three questions are fine, for now." I let that sink in for a moment. "First, when you spoke to your daughter, you said she sounded excited. Do you mean agitated? Did she sound worried about anything, anything seem to be bothering her, any concerns she voiced to you about her personal safety? That's all one question, by the way."

"No, she said everything was fine." I thought he might just shrug off the question again, but he seemed to take it seriously. "Something funny that I recall: When she called from New York, she said she'd walked in his footsteps and now she could die happy. That's all she said before we were cut off. The second time, it was a few months later. It wasn't a good connection, but I'd say she sounded tired. Trouble sleeping. The chants or singing, whatever it was, woke her early. It made her edgy, she said, everything being so foreign. One more thing, she said that fool husband of hers was going to get her in trouble with the locals. I'll save you a question. No, she didn't say why and I didn't ask."

"You saved me two."

The old man grunted and walked over to the window. He moved one curtain to the side. The light didn't exactly spill into the room-it was already late afternoon and there wasn't much left-but the gray from outside crept along the walls until I could see that the place hadn't been cleaned in a long time. We fell back into silence. I figured I'd give him a chance to say something else, if that's what he wanted to do.

Finally, I stood and walked to the door. "I have a few other things to check, but I'll be back for the last two questions. If you remember something that you think you ought to tell me, something you forgot, let me know."

"Don't bother coming back. There's nothing else. You'll be wasting your time." He closed the curtain again. "I told her not to get into this stuff, but she wouldn't listen to me."

"What stuff?"

He moved over to the door. "I'm done talking to you, Inspector. Your people want something from me, tell them to put it in writing."

3.

I spent the rest of December sweeping up a few inconsequential facts about the woman who had been murdered. Or not murdered. Anything was still possible, based on what little I knew. Maybe she'd just dropped dead. I didn't actually have a single fact about what happened to her, and the paper we had on her case told me exactly nothing. It a.s.serted she'd been murdered. That didn't mean anything to me. But I was starting to lean. That happens sometimes. A few facts here and there, a feeling stirs an intuition, and the next thing that happens, I'm leaning in the direction of a hypothesis.

Her father told me she said she couldn't sleep because of the chanting in the morning. She wouldn't tell him it was the call to prayer, but that's what it could have been. This was circular, I knew. I a.s.sumed that what she was complaining about was morning calls to prayer for no good reason other than that Mun had suddenly shown up. Circular logic isn't wrong, it's round. If it was a call to prayers, it could have been any Islamic country, but again, not if I threw Mun into the equation. True, I didn't know where Mun had been for all of these years. I knew where he and I had been, though, and it wasn't a cosmic coincidence that he had suddenly appeared and wanted to talk over "old times" with me. Or that he had showed up just after someone had delivered an Israeli or a Swiss Jew, or whatever Jeno was, on our doorstep. If I had to choose, I'd choose circular logic over cosmic coincidence.

This is how I get when I start to lean, even when I know it would be better to a.s.sume things are unconnected. I looked, I swept, I dug into the woman's background, but there wasn't a lot of information about her where there should have been, and every time I found a gap, even a little one, I leaned a little more. She was dead. People had a habit of doing that, and afterward, there were always gaps. Some gaps are natural. That's how people live their lives-gaps, empty places, silences. But not like what this woman left behind.

I had no description of where she'd been when she died, or what time of day it was, or what color clothes she was wearing, or which way her legs crumpled when she hit the ground for the last time, a.s.suming she'd been standing just then, at that moment. If I knew some of that, I might have some sense of where to start filling the gaps. So I dug into holes that already existed, and swept small voids into bigger ones. That's when it hit me, the pattern. Someone had given us this a.s.signment, and then nothing. No pressure to finish the report. None. Mun had showed up out of nowhere, then disappeared again. No more contact. The special section had paid us two visits, and then they were off our backs. Not even a phone call. Gears were turning somewhere and then getting stuck. Not my business why, and as far as I could see, Pak didn't think it was his business, either.

To my surprise, it didn't turn out to be such a bad way to spend the end of the old year and the first weeks of the new one, poking around files, gathering odd facts, staring into the blank spots in the dead woman's life. There wasn't much else to do, and I wasn't in the mood to do nothing. The folder I was supposed to be a.s.sembling was still on the thin side, and I was wondering how to make it appear fatter one morning when Pak walked in and dropped some orders on my desk. Normally, he says something when he gives me a set of orders. This time, he walked out again without saying a word. Not happy, I thought as I tore open the envelope.