A Perfect Cover Page 5

  His voice made it a challenge.

  Anger cleared my head and I pulled away from his support. I lifted my chin, swallowing the bitter liquid that had pooled at the back of my throat, and took a deep breath. The sharp whiff of menthol made it possible for me to ignore the smell that accompanied the oxygen.

  “I’m okay,” I said shortly. “Get on with it.”

  “Nguyen Tri,” Beauprix said. “Five foot five. One hundred twenty-five pounds. Body found below the I-10 bridge on the east side of the Inner Harbor Canal.”

  He said the words as if he was reading from a clip board, as if the boy was nothing more than a number on a toe tag. I wondered if the fate of this child was nothing more to him than a job. Curiosity compelled me to lean forward and turn my head so that I could look directly into Beauprix’s face. Our eyes met.

  “Tomorrow, we’re releasing the body. His family will be burying him on his eighteenth birthday,” Beauprix continued without pausing. But I knew, without a doubt, that his indifference was feigned.

  I looked away, refocusing on the boy’s face. But some detached part of me was still thinking about Beauprix. About what I had glimpsed in his eyes. Could I capture that suffering, I wondered, with pen and ink? And that thought led me to wonder if I wasn’t the coldhearted monster in this vignette.

  “The trauma to the head—” I began and was surprised when the words emerged as a whisper. I cleared my throat. “The trauma to the head,” I repeated. “Was that the cause of death?”

  Beauprix used a gloved hand to part the young man’s longish hair.

  “You see how little blood there is here, in spite of the relatively large wound? That’s an indication that the blow was delivered after the time of death. Judging from this mark here, he was struck with a sharp—”

  “What killed him?” I interrupted.

  “It isn’t going to be pretty….”

  “I need to know.”

  He pulled the sheet away.

  “He was tortured. Then dumped.”

  Beauprix’s voice mixed oddly with the ringing in my ears. I saw brown-encrusted punctures and slashes. Distorted hands with mutilated fingers. And a deep wound just over the heart.

  My head throbbed, my cheeks and ears burned, tears blurred my eyes. Bile rose in my throat, filled my mouth. I gagged and turned blindly away, seeking escape.

  I felt Beauprix’s hands on my shoulders.

  “Hang on,” he murmured, and there was nothing but sympathy in his tone. “Bathroom’s just around the corner.” He guided me through the door near Joe’s desk, across the foyer and into a tiny rest room. “Go ahead. Throw up. You’ll feel better.”

  Chapter 5

  I entered Uncle Tinh’s hotel through a locked door on a narrow alley. The word Private was stenciled on the door, which was just a few feet removed from the entrance to the restaurant’s kitchen. During my first visit to New Orleans, Uncle Tinh had given me a key to the private door.

  Unlocked, the door swung open to reveal a small foyer and a smooth wall of marble hung with two simply framed photos. One photo was in color, taken of Uncle Tinh standing in front of Tinh’s City Vu. Matted in the same frame was a newspaper article about the hotel’s recent renovation and the restaurant’s grand opening.

  The other photo was older, black-and-white, and looked like a candid shot. In it, a middle-aged Vietnamese man, who I recognized as Uncle Tinh, sat at a sidewalk café sharing a meal with a group of American soldiers and journalists. He wore a uniform shirt, but the camera angle made it impossible to see his rank. Everyone in the photo was laughing or smiling.

  The photo had been taken just weeks before Saigon fell to the Vietcong, Uncle Tinh had told me. Uncle Tinh was among those taken by chopper from the rooftop of the American embassy to an aircraft carrier bound for Hong Kong. From there, he had immigrated to the U.S. and settled in Evanston, Illinois. In all the years I’d known him, I had never heard Uncle Tinh speak of who or what he’d left behind.

  To the left of the foyer entrance was a highly polished wood panel that, at the push of a button, slid silently open to reveal an elevator large enough to accommodate two people comfortably. I tapped a five-number code onto the keypad inside, the elevator door closed and I was taken upstairs to Uncle Tinh’s apartment—the entire fourth floor of a seventeenth-century Creole town house.

  Uncle Tinh and I sat in a pair of upholstered, high-backed chairs at one corner of the long dining table. It was just past noon but, as was Uncle Tinh’s custom, he ate his primary meal before the start of his busy business day. Downstairs on the first floor, in the bistro atmosphere of Tinh’s City Vu, he worked nonstop and was completely devoted to serving his customers. But in the privacy of his home, he indulged himself. That meant having a live-in staff, including a chef. As far as I knew, Uncle Tinh rarely stepped into his ultra-modern kitchen except to pour himself a cup of coffee or a glass of wine.

  The meal was, by Uncle Tinh’s standards, informal. I had dressed appropriately in a simple black sheath topped by a red linen jacket and wore the string of pearls that Uncle Tinh had given me on my twenty-fifth birthday. Tiny silver clips just behind my temples anchored my long, unruly hair back from my face. Uncle Tinh wore a white shirt, tan slacks and leather sandals. Despite the simplicity of his outfit, the quality and cut of the fabric made me wonder if he and Beauprix shared the same tailor.

  A uniformed male servant I didn’t recognize from my last visit carried a large silver chafing dish into the dining room and brought our conversation to a halt. With a quick bow—first in Uncle Tinh’s direction and then in mine—the servant placed the dish on the table.

  “Thank you, Vin,” Uncle Tinh said in Vietnamese.

  Vin reached to lift the chafing dish’s lid, but Uncle Tinh stopped the motion by laying the fingers of his left hand lightly across his wrist. Vin stiffened at the unexpected touch and his eyes widened. Uncle Tinh casually moved his hand and lifted the linen napkin that lay beside his plate.

  “My niece and I will serve ourselves,” he said as he carefully arranged the napkin in his lap. “I will call should we need anything.”

  Vin, who now held his arms rigidly at his sides, bowed again, this time only to Uncle Tinh. And his fear made me wonder anew if Uncle Tinh was, as Uncle Duran had often insisted, the anh hai for the central region of the United States. Anh hai was a traditional title of respect that Vietnamese gangs had co-opted for their most senior leaders.

  As the kitchen door swung shut behind Vin, I said in English, “He’s new. And obviously intimidated.”

  I raised an eyebrow, making it a question, wondering if this would lead prematurely to the questions—the confrontation—that I dreaded. It never crossed my mind that Uncle Tinh would lie to me.

  But Uncle Tinh’s long-suffering sigh hinted at an explanation that had nothing to do with crime—organized or otherwise. I found myself swallowing laughter that was directed not only at Uncle Tinh, but at myself and my suspicions.

  “Lee Leng hired him because she felt Odum was too—I think her words were ‘coarse and common’—to wait at table. Odum splashed soup on her dress.”

  Lee Leng was my uncle Tinh’s mistress. She had glossy, raven-black hair, large, dark, almond-shaped eyes set above high cheekbones, a slender nose and a delicate, rosebud mouth. A dozen years my senior, she had been educated at one of France’s most prestigious finishing schools and, in her best moments, was disarmingly sweet and charming. In a different time, spilling soup on one such as Lee Leng would have been punished by death.

  “What happened to Odum?” I asked.

  “He now assists Cook.”

  I bit my lip, but couldn’t keep a chuckle from escaping.

  “I’m surprised he still has a job.”

  Uncle Tinh sat up very straight and lifted his chin.

  “I say who works and who doesn’t work in this household.” Then he slumped into his chair and shook his head sorrowfully. “Unfortunately, I say it quietly so as not to offend
my beautiful young mistress.”

  Then, I did laugh.

  Uncle Tinh sighed again, then reached over to lift the lid of the chafing dish. A waft of ginger and pineapple scent accompanied the sight of a whole red snapper resting in a nest of pale white scallops and surrounded by a sauce that was colored with slivers of vivid pea pods, toasted almonds and bright carrots.

  “Ah, I see Cook has outdone himself,” he said with great dignity. “Shall we eat before the rice grows cold?”

  “What about—”

  “We will continue that conversation after dinner. For now—because my lovely Lee Leng is shopping in Paris this week—I will take the opportunity to describe the difficulties of living with such a woman. You will listen sympathetically and offer advice, my dear Lacie.”

  Lie. See. As always, he spoke my name as no one else in America did, emphasizing both syllables equally, making it sound much like Lai Sie, the Vietnamese name from which my American name had been derived.

  We resumed our more serious conversation as we sat in a pair of deep leather armchairs in the study. Behind us, French doors opened onto a balcony that overlooked the manicured front lawn of the Old Ursuline Convent. Between us was a low, leather-topped table. At the moment it held an open bottle of wine and two nearly full glasses.

  “So, I embarrassed myself by getting sick at the sight of the body. That went a long way toward proving to Beauprix that he was correct. I might be good at cloak-and-dagger stuff, he said, but I was obviously too refined for the reality of street crime. Especially murder. He suggested—politely, mind you—that I go back to Washington where I belonged.”

  Uncle Tinh’s eyes widened momentarily. Then he shook his head and reached past the table to briefly pat my hand.

  “Obviously, I misjudged the man. Without his cooperation…” As he shook his head, Uncle Tinh raised his hands, palms upward. A very American gesture of hopelessness. “I apologize, chère, for dragging you into this. I will call Senator Reed, thank him for your services and ask him to bill me for any expenses incurred on my behalf.”

  I hadn’t told my Vietnamese uncle about my American uncle’s suspicions. Nor had I told him that agreeing to help him had cost me my job. Fortunately there was still no need to bring up either subject.

  “Actually, Detective Beauprix has agreed to work with me. For a time, anyway.”

  “That’s very good news,” Uncle Tinh said. He looked less surprised by my success than he had when it seemed that I’d failed in my mission. “Please, explain how you accomplished this miracle.”

  “After the bathroom…incident…I returned Beauprix’s gun and he offered to drop me off at my hotel. I agreed, intending to use the time to convince him that I could help. But his cell phone rang before we left the building. As he talked, I stood waiting in the hallway near the entrance, trying not to eavesdrop. And I found myself thinking about the dead boy. Recalling details.”

  I paused, wondering how best to explain what I’d done. The hollow ticking of the clock on the mantel above the fireplace filled several minutes.

  “And?” Uncle Tinh prompted.

  I sighed and lifted the delicate wineglass. The multicolored facets of an ornate Tiffany lamp were reflected in the pale liquid the glass held. I took a sip, swirled the Chardonnay in my mouth, savored its grassy, slightly astringent taste and swallowed.

  “So much that is bright and beautiful to build a lifetime around,” I said softly. I set the glass aside, searched my uncle’s face. “And yet—”

  “And yet the dark and grisly holds a certain appeal,” Uncle Tinh said matter-of-factly. “I assume you went to look at the body again.”

  I nodded.

  “Uh-huh. You know that I always carry a drawing tablet and pencils with me….”

  Uncle Tinh didn’t bother answering. Instead he swept his hand toward the opposite side of the room, in the direction of a series of matted and framed drawings hanging behind his desk. All studies of Uncle Tinh. All done by me. They ranged from an early and very childish sketch of him frying a duck in a deep wok to a formal pen-and-ink portrait I’d drawn a few Christmases earlier.

  “Well, I walked back down the hallway to the morgue and grabbed a pair of latex gloves as I passed Joe’s desk. He looked confused, but didn’t try to stop me. I remembered which drawer Nguyen Tri’s body was in and walked directly to it. I opened the drawer, peeled back the sheet and began drawing.

  “It was awful, Uncle Tinh. Almost worse than the first time. I was almost sick again, but I forced myself to look at the boy as if he weren’t really human. As if all the horrible things that had been done to him were merely elements of an elusive pattern.

  “I concentrated on specific areas. First I sketched his face, then his torso. And then his arms and legs, hands and feet. I asked Joe to help me roll the victim over and repeated the process. Then I stepped away from the body and worked from my sketches, reassembling the pieces into a whole, trying to discover…”

  Uncle Tinh’s expression remained bland as his dark eyes studied me.

  “And you found…?”

  “A pattern so clear that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it right away. And what I saw made me angry. Angrier, I think, than I’ve ever been in my life. I looked up, wanting to tell someone. Wanting someone to catch the fu—”

  Uncle Tinh arched an eyebrow.

  I bit back the obscenity as a sudden chill made me shudder and huddle back into my chair. Beauprix was right, though that was something I hadn’t told him. Nothing in my work for Uncle Duran had prepared me for this.

  Uncle Tinh frowned slightly. He stood, walked over to the liquor cabinet and poured two fingers of Glenfiddich into the bottom of a chunky tumbler. He recrossed the room and wordlessly handed me the glass.

  “Thank you,” I said as he settled back into his chair.

  He nodded, lifted the wine bottle to refill his mostly full glass with more wine when something about the bottle seemed to demand his attention. After opening a drawer on a nearby side table, he found a pair of reading glasses and cleaned them thoroughly on the edge of his shirt before putting them on his nose. He turned the wine bottle slowly, examining its label.

  I was grateful for the time he was giving me. I sat quietly sipping his expensive Scotch, letting it trickle its way down my throat and warm my belly. Then I returned the nearly empty tumbler to the table. At the slight sound, Uncle Tinh looked up, put the wine bottle aside and tucked his glasses back into the drawer.

  “When I finally looked away from the body and drawing pad, I discovered that Beauprix was standing just inside the doorway, leaning against the wall near Joe’s desk, watching me. I suspect he had been there for quite a while. When he saw that I was done, he crossed the room and took the drawing pad from me.”

  “And you told him what you saw.”

  I shook my head.

  “Not then. When you called me in Washington, you said that three people had been killed. I asked Beauprix about them, asked what they had in common. Nothing, he said, except that they were all Vietnamese immigrants living in the same small community. And each of their bodies was dumped in New Orleans East, below I-10 where the Inner Harbor Canal meets the Intercoastal Waterway.”

  The area that Beauprix had described was sprawling, isolated and very industrial. Built to accommodate river-and ocean-going vessels and the cargo they carried, the canal and the waterway linked Lake Pontchartrain with the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico beyond. Heavy industry and Port of New Orleans container terminals spotted the marginal land east of the canal and on either side of the waterway with busy, sprawling complexes. Every day, billions of dollars’ worth of imports and exports were created, transferred, stored and transported.

  “According to Beauprix,” I continued, “bodies tend to turn up in that area with some regularity.”

  “And so?” Uncle Tinh said, sounding distressed.

  “And so, the official view is that the killings are unrelated. They are an unfor
tunate coincidence in a city where it’s not all that unusual for strangers of the same race living in the same neighborhood to end up dead. Not that Beauprix believes that. But he was working on instinct. The sketches—my observations—gave him something more substantial than his gut feeling.”

  I paused and, as I finished the Scotch remaining in my glass, I recalled how Beauprix had stopped speaking and simply stared at me when he’d turned over the last page in the drawing pad, the page that put all the pieces back together. What he had seen on the paper, or perhaps what he’d seen in my face, convinced him that his investigation needed me. Undoubtedly he was relieved to have his hunch confirmed by someone else. But, at that moment, he had looked at me as if I were something…alien.

  That reaction was nothing new to me. Most of the people I’d worked with over the years had eventually been able to overlook my gender, my size and my appearance. But few were able to accept that which they didn’t understand. And they didn’t understand how observation, talent and memory could intertwine to produce insight. Witchcraft, a federal prosecutor had once judged it.

  When I’d come to live in the U.S., I’d left behind the taunts that I was dust beneath the feet of true Vietnamese. No longer Vietnamese but not quite American, I struggled to find my place in a society where I was neither black nor Asian, but had Caucasian parents. It was my adopted uncles who taught me to value myself for who I was, to stand alone by choice. Thanks to both of them, I had grown into an adult who found it easy to ignore people’s reactions to who I was and what I could do.

  But when Beauprix had looked at me that way…

  Why should I care what he thought of me?

  Agitated, I stood, stepped out through one of the French doors onto the balcony. I braced my hands against the decorative wrought-iron balustrade and leaned forward, looking out over the convent grounds. On the wide brick promenade leading to the building’s front door, the alabaster statues of three Ursuline nuns knelt in perpetual prayer. Deliver us from evil, I thought, thinking about the horrors that I’d seen that day and adding my silent petition to theirs.