Free The Shanghai Murders - A Mystery of Love and Ivory by David Rotenberg

Mackenzie River—still ice bound, etching its glacial path to the Arctic Ocean. She watched in fascination as the frozen striations passed beneath the plane. And then the plane veered west again and range after glacier-capped range of towering mountains leading to Alaska glided beneath the belly of the aircraft. Finally the Bering Strait yawned ahead. Three hours had passed as if in a minute. Amanda’s forehead bore a large round red mark where she had pushed up against the Plexiglas window. There was a wildness down there, the likes of which Amanda Fallon had never even dreamed. As the plane crested the Bering Strait and headed south along the Russian coastline, she reached into her bag and took out a pen and a piece of scrap paper. Without preamble or overt thought she began to jot down notes.
    She hadn’t written for years. She hadn’t grown for years. But now she was writing, at first tentatively, but shortly with growing confidence—writing about the glory of what she saw. What she saw after all those years of blindness as Mrs. Richard Fallon.

    The second day of a murder investigation was all about what you didn’t know. It tended to be depressing, and as Fong entered the musty meeting room with the large round table he looked into the faces of his investigation team and found little to give him solace. Lily was handing out copies of her forensic report, while people were glancing through the file on the coroner’s findings. Wang Jun’s time chart was on the wall along with several of the photos of the alley—with and without the pieces of Richard Fallon’s body. Several of the younger officers held large jars of Tang that they had filled with lutsah, green tea leaves. As the meeting progressed they would refresh the leaves regularly with boiling water from the omnipresent thermoses. The sting of cigarette smoke was in the air. For a moment it occurred to Fong that just such a gathering must have been convened upon the death of his wife. Charts of the construction site would have been hung and pictures of Fu Tsong’s . . . He let the thought go and moved to the chair at the head of the table. He had never found out who led the investigation into Fu Tsong’s murder but he suspected that it was Wang Jun, who now stood up to go through the crime scene data.
    He did it with his normal efficiency. The statement of the doctor confirmed the warden’s report. The physician had in fact been at the sick man’s side for less than five minutes (evidently proclaiming loudly, “He’s dying, what do you want from me?”) and then headed back down the length of the alley. He had, as expected, seen nothing out of the ordinary. The man who had been reported for causing a disturbance had ended up in jail that night and hence was easy to locate. He claimed he was so drunk he didn’t know where he was, let alone what he was doing. Further coroner and forensic reports added little. The nature of the ambidextrous killer held the table’s interest for some time. Fong assigned his best young detective, Li Xiao, to cover this area of the investigation. He was to check into martial arts academies and see what was known about this kind of fighting skill. The coroner suggested that the kind of knife, twosided and with a significant thrusting point, might be a place to start. Detective Li Xiao took a note and headed out. Lily’s analysis of the tiny crystalline shards in Richard Fallon’s lungs was still inconclusive. She made the point that with the equipment available to her she might never be able to identify them. Fong authorized a contact with the Hong Kong constabulary and a request to use their facilities. The table was surprised by Fong’s willingness to break with tradition and reach out for help to the despised Hong Kong Protectorate.
    Wang Jun’s people had still not been able to locate the street sweeper so Fong assigned two more people to help in the search and then dismissed the meeting except for Lily, Wang Jun,