She Walks the Line. Roz Fox Denny

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      “These look like real tears,” Cullen said after a cursory assessment. Taking out a snowy handkerchief, he dabbed the girl’s tear-streaked cheeks.

      Nodding, the child managed to sob out, “Bobby punched a hole in my sea horse float. He was playing monster, but I told him I didn’t wanna play. He wouldn’t quit even when Freda told him to stop, Daddy. Bobby knows I hate it when he makes monster noises. I slipped on the pool steps and fell and cut my knee.”

      Mei watched Cullen inspect the injury. The tender manner in which the big man ministered to his child impressed her. If she or Stephen had ever interrupted her father when he was holding a meeting, they’d have spent a full day in their rooms contemplating their grievous infraction of the house rules. It wasn’t that she and Stephen weren’t loved; it was more that all things in the Ling home had an order. The adults’ privacy held the highest priority.

      Mei listened as the girl Archer introduced as his daughter, Belinda, begged her father to punish the offensive Bobby. Cullen didn’t barter, which also impressed Mei. He washed her cut at a sink behind the bar, dressed her knee and gave his daughter a hug. After which, he advised her to go back and settle her differences with her brother.

      “Belinda and Bobby are twins,” Cullen remarked to Mei. He filled a tea ball, which he placed in a flowered cup, then poured hot water into a small metal teapot. He set the cup and pot on his desk. “By and large they’re great kids for eight-year-olds,” he said, returning for his pottery mug. “Belinda, though, is the original drama queen. I suspect sometimes she only wants to check out my guests. If she’d really come to complain about her brother, he’d have flown in right behind her to defend himself.” Grinning, Cullen sat down again opposite his guest. “Do you have children?” he inquired suddenly.

      She shook her head, but her hand quivered pouring her water. “I’m not married,” she murmured, casting her eyes down as she dunked the infusion ball. The aroma of jasmine enveloped her, instantly settling her jumpy stomach. She managed to gain a firm grip on the cup’s handle.

      “I didn’t mean to embarrass you by getting personal. I’m divorced with kids, and I’ve found that having children in common is often an icebreaker.” Cullen had seen the tinge of red creep up her neck. “I…uh, I’ve wasted enough of your time, not to mention taxpayer money. Shall we get straight to it?”

      Mei nodded, replacing her cup without ever tasting the fragrant tea. She was afraid her unsteady hands would make her appear too flighty for a law officer. Normally, she wasn’t giddy around men, a fact her friends teased her about unmercifully. One by one, Mei had watched those same women fall in love. Risa, Lucy, Crista, and the latest, Abby, who’d twice given up her career to follow Thomas Riley. This time to North Carolina. The women had spoken over the weekend, Abby had sounded happy with her move, and Mei hoped she was.

      Mei didn’t exactly envy Abby or the others. Rather, she was confused by the changes that had come over all her friends with the entry of lovers into their lives. Lately, she’d felt less connected to them. Mei tried, but she didn’t understand how the women all juggled love and their police careers. Because of that, she sometimes felt as if she stood outside their old circle, looking in.

      Cullen regained Mei Lu’s wandering attention by pulling a manila file folder from his drawer and flipping it open. “I assume your chief briefed you.”

      “Not really. She said you needed me to translate…something. Some document having to do with artifacts smuggled out of Beijing?”

      Separating a glossy eight-by-ten photograph from papers in the file, Archer slid it silently across the desk.

      Mei leaned forward to see better, and also to avoid a glare from the window. When a picture of a glazed earthenware warrior painted in exquisite detail came into focus, an involuntary gasp escaped her lips. “The Heavenly King,” she breathed, running a fingertip over the colorful statue. “Tang Dynasty, 709. Excavated in 1981 from the tomb of An Pu in Henan province.”

      “Right on all counts.” Cullen was admittedly floored by the woman’s knowledge. “A member of the Houston Art Buyers’ Guild received this photo in the mail, accompanied by a typed memo—in English—asking if he might know of a buyer for the piece. The memo also said he’d be contacted within the week by a courier who would supposedly bring him the statue to authenticate. No courier came, so the dealer, suspicious anyway, sent the packet to Interpol. To an agent who, with my help, had recovered a stolen carving for him last year.”

      “Then no one’s seen this statue?” Mei dropped the photo on the desk.

      “No. But a second, smaller print turned up, along with this note, in a belly band worn by a man dressed in old-style Chinese garb. His body’s gone unclaimed in the morgue. Interpol was combing U.S. newspapers and chanced on a small article from Houston. It described how police, stopping to investigate a disturbance in the parking lot of an Asian nightclub, scattered a group of men. Someone in that group apparently shot our guy. I’ve viewed the body and the evidence. I think he’s probably the courier.”

      “May I see the note? I assume it’s what needs translating?”

      Cullen hesitated, although he wasn’t sure why. “I spent time in Guangzhou last year, tracking a forged silk tapestry. I had to work from police notes jotted in Chinese. I’m moderately familiar with what’s called grass Chinese. Very informal scribbling. Shorthand, if you will. This appears to be a formal letter, Lieutenant Lu.”

      Mei’s head shot up. “Lieutenant Ling. Lu is my middle name. My surname is Ling.”

      Cullen held tight to the letter. “You wouldn’t be related to Michael?” Even as he asked, Cullen wanted her to deny the connection. But then, he hadn’t expected a police translator to be so familiar with Chinese art.

      Mei deliberately took her first sip of tea. “Michael Ling is my father,” she said eventually. “Stephen, my brother, also works in the family business. For a time, I headed our Hong Kong office.” Setting her cup back in its saucer, she pried the note out from under Archer’s hand.

      He wanted to snatch the page back, but realized too late that she’d begun to explain what the note said. And he needed to focus on her soft voice.

      “It’s a simple introduction of the bearer, named Wang Xi, to an unnamed cousin of the person who wrote this. The cousin is being asked to see to Wang Xi’s comfort during his brief stay in Houston. He’s asked to…to…help Wang Xi knock on the right doors. Complying will remove one debt from the cousin’s book.” Chewing her lower lip, Mei sat back to mull over what she’d read.

      Across the desk, Cullen steepled his fingers. “What book?” he asked abruptly.

      Mei shrugged. Even if she’d been inclined to fill Cullen Archer in about the book the writer referred to, she doubted he’d understand. Such books weren’t real, but figurative. In traditional and extended Asian families—including aunts, uncles, cousins and dear friends—it wasn’t uncommon for heads of households to keep unwritten lists of debts, which weren’t always paid monetarily. Favors often sufficed as payment. But that was difficult to explain to non-Chinese.

      “Who do you think has the Heavenly King now?” she asked. “Are you quite sure your art-dealer friend didn’t end up with the statue?”

      “Why would he notify Interpol?” Cullen asked curtly.

      “To make himself appear innocent? To turn questions elsewhere after the courier—if that’s who Wang Xi СКАЧАТЬ