9 Dragons Page 5

  “I checked through our photo albums. Didn’t see our guy. But we’re making inquiries.”

  “Yeah, you keep saying that. What exactly does ‘making inquiries’ mean?”

  “It means that the AGU has a network of connections within the community and we will make discreet inquiries about who this man is and what Mr. Li’s affiliation was.”

  “Affiliation” Ferras asked. “He was being extorted. His affiliation was that he was a victim.”

  “Detective Ferras,” Chu said patiently. “You are looking at it from the typical western point of view. As I explained to Detective Bosch this morning, Mr. Li may have had a lifelong relationship with a triad society. It is called quang xi, in his native dialect. It has no direct translation but it has to do with one’s social network, and a triad relationship would be included in that.”

  Ferras just stared at Chu for a long moment.

  “Whatever,” he finally said. “Over here I think we call that bullshit. The vic had lived here almost thirty years. I don’t care what they call it in China. Over here it’s extortion.”

  Bosch admired his young partner’s adamant reaction. He was contemplating joining the fray, when the phone on his desk rang and he picked it up.

  “Bosch.”

  “This is Rogers downstairs. You’ve got two visitors, both named Li. They say they have an appointment.”

  “Send them up.”

  “On the way.”

  Bosch hung up.

  “Okay, they’re on their way up. This is how I want to play this. Chu, you take the old lady into one of the interview rooms and go over her statement and have her sign it. After she signs it I want you to ask her about the payoff and the guy on the video. Show her his photo. And don’t let her play dumb. She’s got to know about it. Her husband had to have talked about it.”

  “You’d be surprised,” Chu said. “Husbands and wives wouldn’t necessarily talk about this.”

  “Well, do your best. She could know a lot whether she and her husband talked about it or not. Ferras and I will talk to the son. I want to find out if he’s paying protection at the store up in the Valley. If so, that could be where we grab our guy.”

  Bosch looked across the squad room and saw Mrs. Li enter but she was not with her son. She was with a younger woman. Bosch raised his hand to draw their attention and waved them over.

  “Chu, who is this?”

  Chu turned around as the two women approached. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t know. As the two women got closer Bosch saw that the younger woman was in her midthirties and attractive in an understated, hair-behind-the-ears sort of way. She was Asian. She was dressed in blue jeans and a white blouse. She walked a half step behind Mrs. Li with her eyes cast down on the floor. The initial impression Bosch got was that she was an employee. A maid pressed into service as a driver. But the deskman downstairs had said they were both named Li.

  Chu spoke to Mrs. Li in Chinese. After she responded, he translated.

  “This is Mr. and Mrs. Li’s daughter, Mia. She drove her mother here because Robert Li is delayed.”

  Bosch was immediately frustrated by the news and shook his head.

  “Great,” he said to Chu. “How come we didn’t know there was a daughter?”

  “We didn’t ask the right questions yesterday,” Chu said.

  “You were the one asking questions yesterday. Ask Mia where she lives.”

  The young woman cleared her throat and looked up at Bosch.

  “I live with my mother and father,” she said. “Or I did until yesterday. I guess now I live with just my mother.”

  Bosch felt embarrassed that he had assumed she spoke no English and she had heard and understood his annoyed response to her showing up.

  “Sorry. It’s just that we need all the information we can get.”

  He looked at the other two detectives.

  “Okay, we are going to need to interview Mia. Detective Chu, why don’t you continue with the plan and take Mrs. Li into an interview room to go over her statement. I will talk with Mia and, Ignacio, you wait for Robert to show up.”

  He turned back to Mia.

  “Do you know how long your brother is delayed?”

  “He should be on his way. He said he was going to leave the store by ten.”

  “Which store?”

  “His store. In the Valley.”

  “Okay, Mia, why don’t you come with me, and your mother can go with Detective Chu.”

  Mia spoke in Chinese to her mother and they proceeded toward the bank of interview rooms at the back of the squad. Bosch grabbed a yellow legal pad and the file containing the print off the camera video before leading the way. Ferras was left behind.

  “Harry, you want me to start with the son when he gets here?” he asked.

  “No,” Bosch said. “Come and get me. I’ll be in room two.”

  Bosch led the victim’s daughter to a small, windowless room with a table in the middle. They sat down on either side of it and Bosch tried to put a pleasant expression on his face. It was hard. The morning was starting off with a surprise and he didn’t like surprises coming up in his murder investigations.

  “Okay, Mia,” Bosch said. “Let’s start over. I am Detective Bosch. I am assigned as lead investigator on the case involving the murder of your father. I am very sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you.”

  She had her eyes cast down to the tabletop.

  “Can you tell me your full name?”

  “Mia-ling Li.”

  Her name had been westernized with her given name first and the family name last. But she had not taken a wholly western name like her father and brother. Bosch wondered if this was because the men were expected to integrate into western society while the women were held back from it.

  “When is your birthday?”

  “February fourteenth, nineteen eighty.”

  “Valentine’s Day.”

  Bosch smiled. He didn’t know why. He was just trying to start the relationship over. Then he wondered if they even had Valentine’s Day in China. He moved on with his thoughts and did the math. He realized that while she was still very attractive, Mia was younger than she looked, and only a few years older than her brother, Robert.

  “You came here with your parents? When was that?”

  “In nineteen eighty-two.”

  “You were only two.”

  “Yes.”

  “And your father opened the store then?”

  “He didn’t open it. He bought it from someone else and he renamed it Fortune Liquors. Before, it was called something else.”

  “Okay. Are there any other brothers or sisters besides you and Robert?”

  “No, just us.”

  “Okay, good. Now, you said you have been living with your parents. For how long?”

  She looked up briefly and then back down.

  “My whole life. Except for about two years when I was younger.”

  “Were you married?”

  “No. What does this have to do with who killed my father? Shouldn’t you be finding the killer?”

  “I’m sorry, Mia. I just need to get some basic information and then, yes, I will be out there looking for the killer. Have you talked to your brother? Did he tell you I knew your father?”

  “He said you met him one time. You didn’t even really meet him. That’s not knowing him.”

  Bosch nodded.

  “You’re right. That was an exaggeration. I didn’t know him but because of the situation we were in when I…met him, I feel like I sort of knew him. I want to find his killer, Mia. And I will. I just need you and your family to help me wherever you can.”

  “I understand.”

  “Don’t hold anything back, because you never know what might help us.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Okay, what do you do for a living”

  “I take care of my parents.”

  “You mean at home? You stay home and take care of y
our parents”

  Now she looked up and right into his eyes. Her pupils were so dark it was hard to read anything in them.

  “Yes.”

  Bosch realized he might have crossed into a cultural custom and standard he knew nothing about. Mia seemed to read him.

  “It is tradition in my family for the daughter to care for her parents.”

  “Did you go to school?”

  “Yes, I went to university for two years. But then I came home. I cook and clean and keep the house. For my brother, too, though he wants to move to his own place.”

  “But as of yesterday, everybody was living together.”

  “Yes.”

  “When was the last time you saw your father alive?”

  “When he left for work yesterday morning. He leaves about nine-thirty. I made him his breakfast.”

  “And your mother left then, too?”

  “Yes, they always go together.”

  “And then your mother came back in the afternoon?”

  “Yes, I make the supper and she comes for it. Every day.”

  “What time did she come home?”

  “She came home at three o’clock. She always does.”

  Bosch knew that the family home was in the Larchmont area of the Wilshire District and at least a half-hour drive from the store. The direct route would have been on surface streets the whole way.

  “How long before she took the supper and went back to the store yesterday?”

  “She stayed about a half hour and then she left.”

  Bosch nodded. Everything was jibing with the mother’s story and the timing and everything else they knew.

  “Mia, did your father talk about anybody at work he was afraid of? Like a customer or anybody else?”

  “No, my father was very quiet. He didn’t talk about work at home.”

  “Did he like living here in Los Angeles?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Why?”

  “He wanted to go home to China but he couldn’t.”

  “Why not?”?

  “Because when you leave you do not come back. They left because Robert was coming.”

  “You mean your family left because of Robert?”

  “In our province you could only have one child. They already had me and my mother would not put me in the orphanage. My father wanted a son and when my mother became pregnant, we came to America.?”

  Bosch did not know the specifics of China’s one-child policies but he was aware of them. It was a population containment plan that resulted in a higher value being placed on male births. Newborn females were often abandoned in orphanages or worse. Rather than giving up Mia, the Li family had left the country for the USA.

  “So your father wished all along he could have stayed and kept his family in China?”

  “Yes.?”

  Bosch decided that he had gathered enough information in this regard. He opened the file and removed the printout of the image from the store camera. He placed it in front of Mia.

  “Who is that, Mia?”

  Her eyes narrowed as she studied the grainy image.

  “I don’t know him. Did he kill my father?”

  “I don’t know. You sure you don’t know who he is?”

  “I’m sure. Who is he?”

  “We don’t know yet. But we’ll find out. Did your father ever talk about the triads?”

  “The triads?”

  “About having to pay them”

  She seemed very nervous about the question.

  “I don’t know about this. We didn’t talk about it.”?

  “You speak Chinese, right”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you ever hear your parents talking about it”

  “No, they didn’t. I don’t know about this.”

  “Okay, Mia, then I think we can stop now.”

  “Can I take my mother home?”

  “As soon as she’s finished talking to Detective Chu. What do you think will happen with the store now? Will your mother and brother run it”

  She shook her head.

  “I think it will be closed. My mother will work in my brother’s store now.”

  “What about you, Mia? Will anything change for you now?”

  She took a long moment to consider this, as if she had not thought about it before Bosch had asked.

  “I don’t know,” she finally said. “Perhaps.”

  8

  Back in the squad room, Mrs. Li had already finished her interview with Chu and was waiting for her daughter. There was still no sign of Robert Li, and Ferras explained that he called and said he could not get away from his store because his assistant manager had called in sick.

  After escorting the two women out to the elevator alcove, Bosch checked his watch and decided there was still time to get out to the Valley and speak to the victim’s son and then get back downtown for the scheduled 2 p.m. autopsy. Besides, he didn’t need to be at the medical examiner’s office for the preliminary procedures. He could roll in late.

  It was decided that Ferras would stay behind to work with forensics on the return of evidence gathered the day before. Bosch and Chu would go out to the Valley to talk to Robert Li.

  Bosch drove his Crown Vic with 220,000 miles on the odometer. The air conditioner worked but just barely. As they got closer to the Valley the temperature started rising and Bosch wished he had taken his suit jacket off before getting in the car.

  Along the way, Chu spoke first and reported that Mrs. Li signed her statement and had nothing new to add to it. She had not recognized the man from the store video and claimed to know nothing about paying off the triad. Bosch then relayed what little information he had gleaned from Mia-ling Li and asked Chu what he knew of the tradition of keeping an adult daughter home to care for her parents.

  “She’s a chinderella,” Chu said. “Stays home and does the cooking and cleaning, stuff like that. Almost like a servant to her parents.”

  “They don’t want them to get married and leave the house?”

  “No, man, it’s free labor. Why would they want her to get married? Then they’d have to hire a maid and a chef and a driver. This way they get them all and don’t have to pay.”

  Bosch drove silently for a while after that, thinking about the life Mia-ling Li lived. He doubted anything would change with the death of her father. There was still her mother to care for.

  He remembered something relating to the case and spoke again.

  “She said the family would probably close the store now and just keep the one in the Valley.”

  “It wasn’t making any money, anyway,” Chu said. “They might be able to sell it to somebody in the community and make a little bit.”

  “Not much for almost thirty years there.”

  “The Chinese immigrant story is not always a happy one,” Chu said.

  “What about you, Chu? You’re a success.”

  “I’m not an immigrant. My parents were.”

  “Were?”

  “My mother died young. My father was a fisherman. One time his boat went out and it never came back.”

  Bosch was silenced by the matter-of-fact way Chu had told his family tragedy. He concentrated on the drive. Traffic was rough and it took them forty-five minutes to get to Sherman Oaks. Fortune Fine Foods & Liquor was on Sepulveda just a block south of Ventura Boulevard. This put it in an upscale neighborhood of apartments and condominiums below the even more upscale hillside residences. It was in a good location but there didn’t seem to be enough parking. Bosch found a spot on the street in front of a fire hydrant. He flipped down the visor, which had a card clipped to it showing a city vehicle identification code, and got out.

  Bosch and Chu had worked out a plan during the long ride up. They believed that if anyone knew about the triad payoffs besides the victim, it would be the son and fellow shop manager, Robert. Why he would not have told the detectives about this the day before was the big question.

  Fortune
Fine Foods & Liquor was something completely different from its counterpart in South L.A. This store was at least five times bigger and it was brimming with the high-end touches that befit its neighborhood.

  There was a do-it-yourself coffee bar. The wine aisles had overhead signs displaying varietals and world regions of wine, and there were no gallon jugs stacked at the end. The cold cases were well lighted with open shelves instead of glass doors. There were aisles of specialty foods and hot and cold counters where customers could order fresh steaks and fish or precooked meals of roast chicken, meatloaf and barbecued ribs. The son had taken his father’s business and advanced it several levels. Bosch was impressed.

  There were two checkout stations and Chu asked one of the women behind them where Robert Li was. The detectives were directed to a set of double doors that led to a stockroom with ten- foot-high shelves against all the walls. To the far left was a door marked office. Bosch knocked and Robert Li promptly answered the door.

  He looked surprised to see them.

  “Detectives, come in,” he said. “I am so sorry about not getting downtown today. My assistant manager called in sick and I can’t leave the place without a supervisor. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Bosch said. “We’re only trying to find your father’s killer.”

  Bosch wanted to put the kid on the defensive. Interviewing him in his own surroundings put him at an advantage. Bosch wanted to bring some discomfort to the situation. If Li was on the defensive he’d be more forthcoming and willing to try to please his interviewers.

  “Well, I am sorry. I thought all I needed to do was sign my statement, anyway.”

  “We have your statement but it’s a little more involved than signing papers, Mr. Li. It’s an ongoing investigation. Things change. More information comes in.”

  “All I can do is apologize. Have a seat, please. I’m sorry the space is so tight in here.”

  The office was narrow and Bosch could tell it was a shared office. There were two desks side by side against the right wall. Two desk chairs and two folding chairs, probably for sales representatives and job interviews.

  Li picked up the phone on his desk, dialed a number and told someone he was not to be disturbed. He then made an open-hands gesture, signaling he was ready to go.