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“Is it really one of the most important?”
Hom grunted. “Why do you think people have come here from all over the world and not gone to one of the other digs in the gorges? I go there and I see little pieces of nothing being pulled from the ground. I see my world about to be destroyed, but they see only that patch of barren land and the answers to the Four Mysteries that they think are hidden there.”
“You speak frankly.”
“Inspector, I have tried to speak frankly with you before. Perhaps you have not heard me.”
No, she hadn’t, and even though he seemed to be speaking honestly now, she didn’t trust him. After all, allegations of corruption didn’t spring from nowhere. She would listen to him, but she would remain aware that he was the most powerful man in a remote town operating completely unchecked until now.
“Dr. Ma and I drove out as far as we could, then walked down to the river,” Hom said, his cigarette bobbing in his lips as he mouthed the words. “Once I saw the boy’s things, I knew something bad had happened. No one—not even a foreigner—would leave a laptop computer sitting on a rock with his lunch. So we hiked back up to the car and I radioed for additional help. Some of my men went up into the hills, but the logical conclusion was that the boy had gone into the river. I came back here to notify the river authorities t
o alert ship captains. At about that time, Stuart Miller came in and offered the use of his hydrofoil in the search.”
“You didn’t note this in your report.”
“Dr. Ma said I shouldn’t. I had to obey, because he outranks me.”
“Ministry of State Security,” Hulan said, finally giving voice to what she’d suspected about Ma from the first day she’d met him.
Hom nodded almost imperceptibly.
“What’s he doing here?”
Hom’s lips turned down at the corners, and he lifted his shoulders slightly. He didn’t know and knew better than to ask.
He reached into his pocket for his keys, unlocked a drawer, pulled out a folder, and pushed it across the table. “This is the accurate record of what happened that day.”
Hulan opened the folder and began to read. The events had unraveled as Hom had just told her. “I assume Angela McCarthy came to you to pick up her brother’s things,” she said.
Hom blew smoke through his nose. “I brought his belongings back from the river and kept them here until she retrieved them.”
“Tell me about her.”
The girl was upset, but then what did the inspector expect? She had lost her last remaining relative.
“At the time no one suspected any criminal activity,” Hom explained, “but even if I had I still would have turned over his belongings. We’d found a backpack with his lunch, a bottle of water, some pencils, a notebook, and a couple of paperback books—nothing of real value beyond the computer.” Hom frowned. “Did I make a mistake, Inspector?”
She chose not to respond. Instead she asked, “Did you inquire how Miss McCarthy arrived here so quickly from the U.S.?”
“She’s a foreigner. She must be rich. People like that can do whatever they want.”
It was a simple explanation for someone who had probably never been on a plane.
Hom looked at her as though he hoped she’d be leaving now. When she didn’t move, another series of emotions played out on his face—recognition, a flash of anger, then defeat—and she thought how odd it was for someone in their shared profession to be so transparent. Unless, of course, he was doing it on purpose.
“I suppose you will you be putting a black mark in my dangan.” He sighed in resignation.
As he spoke, Hulan thought of the old saying that the fish was the last to know he lived in the water, meaning that you were a creature of the pond until someone pulled you out. Hom knew she could expose his inadequacies by pulling him out of his little pond.
“I’m not like that,” she said at last.
“You aren’t?” He sounded skeptical. “You’ve been looking into other business….”
“It’s true I’d still like to see the files on the other cases that I’ve asked you for.”
“I’ll tell you anything you’d like to know.”
“I’d prefer to read the files,” she insisted.
