Free Little Mountain by Bob Sanchez Page B

act? Acting had once been a survival skill. Act uneducated. Act stupid. Act happy. That way you survived.
             Why would she want to kill her husband, anyway? There were as many possible motives as there were sins. Of course, greed wasn’t a bad vice to start looking at. It would be worth finding out who owed what to whom, and for how long. How much did the widow stand to gain?
             And who owned the tenement house that had burned? Well, that was a job for arson investigators. Sam had enough to do anyway. Soon Fitchie could tell him about the insurance and the phone calls to Long Beach. Or the answer might lie in a business venture gone wrong. Or it might lie in unfinished business from half a planet away. Who were Bin Chea’s business partners over the years?
             It was something else to check.
     
    Gonzalez had told Sam about questioning Viseth, who had a sheet for hotwiring a Mazda and for breaking into the Asian Store. No one would testify against him, though. If Sam had his way, Viseth would be making license plates by now. Might have to cover his butt with one.
             He parked at the base of the hill and walked up to Teeda Kim’s apartment, which was two houses up the street and on the first floor. Floorboards creaked inside the apartment, but no one answered Sam’s knock.
             No one answered at the Lacs’ door either. Maybe they were avoiding him. Sichan Lac’s bruises suggested a lot about Nawath, and about whoever else lived in that apartment. Nawath was either beating her or simply not protecting her. Either way, he was a shit.
             Sam knocked on Li Chang’s door. She would be at work by now, but maybe he could speak to her brother or sister-in-law.
             Someth Chang answered the knock. He stood barefoot, and wore trousers and a tee-shirt; behind him, the apartment smelled like cooking rice.
             “Can you tell me who else lives on the second floor with Nawath and Sichan Lac?” Sam asked.
             “Sorry, but I don’t spy on my neighbors. You will have to speak to them yourself. His mother and their son Ravy live there, I can tell you that.”
             “Do they get along with each other?”
             “That is none of my business.”
             “Do you get along with them, sir?”
             “What are you suggesting?” Someth’s look turned wary.
             “Nothing. They are good neighbors, then?”
             “I have no complaints. I just avoid them.” Someth looked as though he wanted to close the door.
             Sam raised his eyebrows expectantly. “Why?”
             “They just are not my type.”
             “How are they different?” Mouse Cop rubbed against Sam’s leg, then slid quietly into the apartment, following the smell of the chicken from the kitchen stove.
             “As I said, I don’t interfere in other people’s business. But if any man treated my sister--” Someth left the words hanging in the hallway. “Never mind. It’s none of my business,” he said, and closed the door.
             Maybe Someth was more suspicious of the police than his sister was. Or maybe the neighbors were the problem.
             Sam waited for a few minutes on the second-floor landing, where a window faced out to the street. Soon an Asian man walked toward the house; he was about thirty years old and had thinning black hair. He looked over his shoulder as though he knew he was being watched, and flicked a cigarette into the gutter. He disappeared onto the porch. The front door slammed.
             Nawath seemed unpleasantly surprised to see Sam.
             “We have only four people in our apartment,” he said. “Me, my son, my wife, and my mother. Why do you want to know?”
             “I am investigating your landlord’s murder.”