“But legends sometimes have an element of truth to them,” said Jane. “And there really were fighting monks in China.”
“Okay,” admitted Tam. “Maybe that part is real. There actually were fighting Shaolin monks from a mountain temple. They got famous for their combat skills after they defended the emperor against an uprising. But the art of wushu goes back long before those monks. It’s thousands of years old, so old that no one really knows its true history. And with every century that goes by, the tales get more and more outlandish. That’s how you end up with people thinking that wushu warriors are like ghosts. Impossible to kill.”
“After last night, I’d almost believe it’s true,” said Jane.
“Come on.”
“You weren’t there. You didn’t see it.”
“I’d almost believe it’s a ghost, too,” Frost said as he studied another video on the screen. “I pulled footage from cameras all over that neighborhood, and so far I haven’t caught a glimpse. It managed to slip through blind spots everywhere.” He pointed to the monitor. “This camera is mounted right across the street from Donohue’s warehouse. It was recording the whole time, yet nothing shows up.”
“If it’s flesh and blood, it’s going to turn up somewhere,” said Jane.
Frost switched to a different video. “Okay, now this camera’s about a block away, almost to Summer Street.” He hit Play, and a view of an alley appeared, a chain-link fence blocking the far end. Minutes passed and nothing moved, nothing changed. “Again, nothing.”
Jane gave Frost a sympathetic pat on the back and finally stood up. “Happy viewing. Call me if you spot anything.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
She was almost out the door when she heard Frost suck in a sharp breath. She turned. “What?”
“It went by so fast!”
“I didn’t see a thing,” said Tam.
Jane moved back to the monitor and watched as Frost rewound and hit Play again. The same static image reappeared. The same dimly lit alley with the chain-link fence at the far end.
“There.” said Frost.
The figure seemed to materialize out of darkness, its back to the camera as it moved in a blur down the alley. In one swift leap it launched itself up and over the fence and landed in a crouch on the other side. There it paused and straightened to its full height.
Frost froze the image.
It was garbed head-to-toe in black. They could not see a face, but the figure clearly stood out in silhouette, revealing a slender waist and the unmistakable curve of hips.
“It’s a woman,” said Frost.
BELLA LI STRODE into Boston PD’s Schroeder Plaza wearing low-slung blue jeans, tall boots, and a black leather jacket. Before stepping through the metal detector, she made a grand show of peeling off that jacket, a strip tease for all the cops who were watching, and revealed a skintight T-shirt that hugged every curve of her braless breasts. She returned their stares with a lethal smile and swaggered through security to meet Jane, who was waiting for her on the other side.
“Didn’t know I’d have to pass inspection,” Bella said.
“Everyone does. Even the mayor.” Jane waved her toward the elevator. “We’re going upstairs.”
As they rode up to the second floor, Bella stood with hip cocked, leather jacket slung over her shoulder. Her short hair stood up even spikier than usual, like the fur of a cat that’s been riled and is ready to fight. And this is one gal who could probably take me down, Jane thought. Bella might not be big, but she was all muscle and as lithe as a panther. Staring at her, Jane wondered: Are you the creature I saw perched on the rooftop? Are you the one who saved my life in that alley?
On the second floor, Jane escorted Bella to the interview room. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll let Detective Frost know you’re here,” she said, and left the young woman alone.
In the adjoining room, Jane joined Frost, who was watching Bella through the one-way mirror. Their guest appeared not in the least nervous, and was leaning back in her chair, boots propped up on the table. Head tipped back, Bella stared at the ceiling, looking bored.
“Did she say anything interesting on the way up?” asked Frost.
Jane shook her head. “Never even asked why we called her in.”
“That’s interesting. You think she knows that we know?”
“I think she’s trying to show us that she doesn’t give a damn.”
In the next room, Bella looked straight at the mirror and arched one eyebrow, her expression unmistakable: Can we get this over with?
“Okay.” Jane sighed. “Let’s go rattle her cage.”
As Jane and Frost walked into the interview room, Bella dropped her feet from the table but remained slouched in her chair, arms crossed, as she answered Jane’s questions in a monotone. The deceptively easy queries came first: Name? Bella Li. Date of birth? May 18. Occupation? Martial arts instructor. Bella sighed loudly, the picture of disinterest. But the next question made the muscles in her forearm twitch.
“Where were you last night, between the hours of six PM and nine PM?” Jane asked.
Bella shrugged. “I was home.”
“Alone?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“We want to verify your whereabouts.”
“I consider my love life private. I don’t see why I should have to share names with anyone.”
“So someone was with you that night?” asked Frost. “Could you tell us his name?”
“Why do you assume I’m interested in men? Do you really think a woman can’t do better?” She shot a provocative smile at Jane.
“Okay,” Jane said with a sigh. “What was her name, then?”
Bella looked down at her own hands, studying her close-clipped fingernails. “There was no one. I was home alone.”
“You could’ve said that earlier.”
“You could have told me why you asked me here.”
“So you were home by yourself. Did you leave your residence at any time?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Maybe if we showed you a photo, you would remember.”
“What photo?”
Frost said, “From a security camera on Jeffries Point. You’re very good at eluding surveillance cameras, Ms. Li. But you didn’t spot all of them.”
For the first time, Bella didn’t have a ready response, though her expression did not change and her eyes remained as unperturbed as forest ponds.
“We know it’s you in the video,” Jane lied. Leaning in closer, she saw the girl’s pupils twitch, a reaction that was both involuntary and telling. Bella might appear calm, but her internal fight-or-flight instincts were on full alert. “We know you were there at the warehouse. The question is, why?”
The girl laughed, an impressive rally of nerves in someone so clearly at a disadvantage. “You tell me. Since you seem to know everything.”
“You went there to scare Kevin Donohue.”
“Why would I?”
“First you placed a threatening note on his windshield. Then you broke into his warehouse. Disabled his security system and his phone line.”
“I did that all by myself?”
“You have extensive martial arts training. You were taught at one of the best academies in the world, in Taiwan.” Jane slapped a folder on the table. “The file on your travel records for the past five years.”
Bella cocked her head. “I have a file?”
“You do now.”
Bella opened the folder and flipped through the pages with feigned disinterest. “So I’ve been in and out of the country. Aren’t we Americans free to travel where we want?”
“Not many Americans spend five years in a Taiwan monastery, studying an ancient art like wushu.”
“Different strokes for different folks.”
“And here’s the interesting part. You were sponsored by Mrs. Fang. She’s not wealthy, yet she paid for those years of training. Paid for your plane flights, your tuition. Wh
y?”
“She saw that I had talent.”
“When did she recognize that?”
“I was seventeen and living on the streets when she found me. She dusted me off and took me on, maybe because I reminded her of her daughter.”
“Is that what you’re doing in Boston? Playing her surrogate daughter?”
“I teach at her studio. We practice the same style of martial arts. And we share the same philosophy.”
“What philosophy would that be?”
Bella looked her in the eye. “That justice is a responsibility shared by all.”
“Justice? Or vengeance?”
“Some would say that vengeance is simply another word for justice.”
Jane stared at Bella, trying to read her. Trying to decide if this was the same creature who’d saved her life in the alley, who’d perched on the warehouse roof. Bella was flesh and blood, like any other twenty-four-year-old, but she was definitely not ordinary. Looking into those eyes, Jane glimpsed a strangeness, a wildness. An animal spirit that made her suddenly draw back, a chill raising the hairs on her arms. As if she’d glimpsed something in those eyes that was not quite human.
Frost broke the silence. “Ms. Li, it’s time to tell us the truth.”
Bella gave him a dismissive look. “Which part isn’t the truth?”
“The part about why Iris Fang chose you in particular.”
“She could have chosen anyone.”
“But she didn’t. She flew all the way to San Francisco to find one particular seventeen-year-old girl whose mother had just died. A girl who ran away from her foster home and was living on the streets. What was so special about you in particular?”
When Bella didn’t answer, Jane said: “We have your school records from California. They don’t mention your mother’s immigration status.”
“My mother’s dead. What does it matter now?”
“She was an illegal immigrant.”
“Prove it.”
“What about you, Bella?”
“I have a US passport.”
“Which says that you were born in the state of Massachusetts. Six years later, you’re registered in a public school in San Francisco. Your mother is working as a hotel maid with a fake Social Security number. Why did you move there? Why did you two suddenly pull up stakes and run to California?” Jane leaned in close enough to see her own reflection in those bottomless eyes. “I have a pretty good idea who you really are. I just can’t prove it yet. But trust me, I will.” She glanced at Frost. “Show her the search warrant.”
Bella frowned. “Search warrant?”
“It authorizes us to enter your residence,” said Frost. “Detective Tam is at your address now, with the search team.”
“What do you think you’re going to find?”
“Evidence that will link you to the deaths of an unidentified female Jane Doe on the night of April fifteenth, and an unidentified male, John Doe, on the night of April twenty-first.”
Bella shook her head. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I have a rock-solid alibi for April fifteenth. I was onstage at a wushu demonstration in Chinatown. There were at least two hundred witnesses.”
“We’ll verify that. In the meantime, if you want an attorney, now is the time to call one.”
“You’re arresting me?” Bella snapped forward, a move so sudden that Jane flinched, fully aware of how quickly and lethally this girl could move. “This,” she said quietly, “is a very bad mistake.” Something deep in Bella’s eyes seemed to stir, like a creature awakening in the inky depths.
“Tell us why it’s a mistake, and maybe we’ll reconsider,” said Jane.
Bella took a breath, and someone else seemed to take possession of her. Someone who stared back with eyes as cold as polished stone. “I have nothing more to say.”
BELLA’S APARTMENT WAS CLEAN. Far too clean. Jane stood in the living room, staring down at a carpet that still bore the parallel tracks of recent vacuuming.
“This is the way we found it,” said Tam. “Kitchen and bathroom are scrubbed spotless. Not even a stray scrap of paper in the trash cans. It’s like no one lives here. Either she’s obsessive-compulsive about housecleaning, or she was scouring away any trace evidence.”
“How did she know we’d be coming here?”
“Anyone who gets a call to visit Boston PD is going to figure out they’re a suspect. She must have realized we’d be coming.”
Jane went to the window and peered through spotless glass at the street below, where two elderly women hobbled along the sidewalk, their arms linked. It was quiet on this corner of Tai Tung Village, at the south end of Chinatown. Iris Fang’s residence was right up the street, a minute’s walk away. The neighborhood was very much its own universe, and Jane felt like the alien here. It was a feeling reinforced by every stare, every nervous murmur among the neighbors. With her badge and her authority, Jane was the alien wherever she went, the outsider who could be either your best friend or your worst enemy.
She turned from the window and went into the bathroom, where Frost was down on his knees scanning the cabinet beneath the sink. “Nothing,” he said and rose to his feet, face flushed from bending. “Not a single hair in the shower or sink. All I found in the medicine cabinet was aspirin and a roll of Ace wrap. It’s like no one lives here.”
“Are we sure she does?”
“Tam spoke to the neighbor next door. Old guy in his eighties. Says he hardly ever sees her, but he does hear voices in here every so often.” Frost rapped the wall. “They’re pretty thin.”
“Voices, as in plural?”
“Could be the TV. She lives alone.”
Jane looked around at the pristine bathroom. “If she lives here at all.”
“Someone’s paying the rent.”
“Looks like someone’s also been through here with the bleach and a vacuum cleaner.”
“Funny thing about the vacuum cleaner. We can’t find one, so we have no bag to look at, no trace evidence.”
Jane headed into the bedroom, where she found Tam talking on his cell phone. He gave a nod as Jane stepped into the room. The floor was wood, swept clean. The sheets and bedcovers had been pulled back, the mattress exposed. Dropping to her knees, Jane peered beneath the bed and saw that the floor under the box spring was just as dust-free. A pair of shoes walked into view and Jane popped up to see a Boston PD criminalist looking at her across the mattress.
“We didn’t find any weapon,” he reported. “Unless you count the cooking knives in the kitchen.”
“You didn’t see anything like a sword?”
“No, ma’am. We went through the closets and drawers. Pulled out all the furniture and looked behind it.” He paused, glancing around at the bare walls. “I’m guessing she hasn’t been here very long. Not long enough to settle in.”
“If she planned to stay at all.”
“Didn’t bring much in the way of clothes, either.”
Jane opened the closet and saw no more than a dozen items hanging there, all size two. Three pairs of black pants, a few dark sweaters and blouses, and one sleeveless summer dress of soft peach silk. It was the wardrobe of a temporary visitor who clearly planned to move on. A girl who remained a mystery to them. Jane stared at the dress, trying to picture Bella Li wearing something so feminine, so flirty, but could not see it. Instead she saw the girl’s fierce eyes, her spiky black hair.
“Sorry to tell you this,” said Tam, holding up his cell phone. “But her alibi for April fifteenth is solid. I just spoke to the program director at the cultural center. That night they hosted a martial arts demonstration. Bella Li performed with eight students from the Dragon and Stars Academy.”
“What time was it?”
“The group arrived at six PM, ate dinner, and went onstage about nine PM. They were there for the whole evening.” He shook his head. “This isn’t going to stick, Rizzoli.”
“She has no alibi for April twenty-first.”
“That’s n
ot a reason to hold her.”
“Then let’s find a reason, goddamn it.”
“Why?” Tam’s gaze was so probing, it made her uncomfortable.
She turned back to the closet, to avoid his eyes. “Something about her trips my sensors. I know she’s involved, but I don’t know how.”
“All we have is a surveillance video with a female figure. It might be her, but it might be someone else. We don’t have any weapon. We don’t have any trace evidence.”
“Because she blitzed this place with bleach before we got here.”
“So what do we have, besides your gut feeling?”
“It’s served me well before.” She reached into the closet and poked a gloved hand into pockets, searching. Not knowing what she was looking for. She found only stray change, a button, a folded tissue.
“You know, Tam’s right,” said Frost, standing in the doorway. “We have to release her.”
“Not till I know more about her. Who she really is,” said Jane.
“We’re just guessing.”
“Then let’s find what we need to prove it. There’s a trail somewhere, there has to be.” She crossed to the bedroom window and looked down at an alley. The sash was unlocked, the window open just enough to let in fresh air. A fire escape landing was right outside, and there was no screen on the window. Any other female tenant would feel nervous about this lack of security, but Bella Li was fearless, striding through life ready for battle. At night, in her bed, did she ever startle awake at the odd noise outside her window, the creak in the floor? Or did she sleep like a warrior as well, unafraid even in her dreams?
Jane turned from the window and suddenly stopped, her gaze on the curtain. The fabric was a polyester blend that never wrinkles, a print of beige bamboo stalks against a forest of green. On that multicolored background, the silvery streak was almost invisible. Only at that angle, with the room light glancing across the fabric’s surface, did Jane see the strand clinging to the fabric.
She pulled an evidence bag out of her pocket. Afraid to even breathe, she delicately plucked the strand from the curtain and slipped it into the bag. Holding the bag up to the light, she stared through plastic at the single hair. Then she looked at the window, and at the fire escape just beyond it.