“You think he had your son killed?”
“It’s what I’ve wondered from the start.”
“There was no evidence for it, Mrs. Gilmore.”
The woman hacked out a cough, noisy and bronchial. “You think Donohue couldn’t buy off a few cops? He could throw any investigation.”
“That’s a serious charge.”
“I’m a Southie girl. I know what goes on in this town, and I know what money can buy.” Her eyes narrowed, her stare fixed on Jane. “I’m sure you do, too, Detective.”
The implied charge made Jane stiffen. “I’ll give your concerns the attention they deserve, Mrs. Gilmore,” she said evenly and slid into her car. As she and Frost drove away, she saw the woman in the rearview mirror, still standing in the driveway and glaring after them.
“That,” muttered Jane, “is not a nice old lady.”
Frost gave a disbelieving laugh. “Did she just accuse us of taking bribes?”
“That’s exactly what she did.”
“And she looked so sweet.”
“To you, they’re all sweet. You’ve never met one you didn’t like.”
Frost’s cell phone rang. As he answered it, she thought about how easily Frost always managed to charm the older ladies. He certainly seemed to have made inroads with Iris Fang, a woman who was still young enough to be both handsome and formidable. She remembered what Patrick had said about her:
Frost sighed as he hung up the cell phone. “Guess our day’s not over yet.”
“Who was that?”
“The realtor for the Knapp Street building. I’ve been trying to get hold of him all day. He says he’s on his way out of town tonight, but if we want to see the place, he’ll meet us in an hour.”
“I take it we’re headed back to Chinatown?”
Frost nodded. “Back to Chinatown.”
SIXTEEN
IN THE FADING TWILIGHT, KNAPP STREET WAS A SHADOWY CANYON, cast in gloom between four-story brick buildings. Jane and Frost stood outside what had once been the Red Phoenix restaurant and tried to peer inside, but beyond the barred windows, Jane saw only thin curtains that were tattered and almost translucent with age.
Frost looked at his watch. “Mr. Kwan’s now fifteen minutes late.”
“Don’t you have a cell number for him?”
“I don’t think he has a cell. I played phone tag with him all day through his office.”
“A realtor who doesn’t have a cell phone?”
“I just hope we understood each other. He had a pretty strong Chinese accent.”
“We could really use Tam here. Where is he?”
“He said he’d be here.”
Jane backed into the street and peered up at the rusting fire escape and boarded-up windows. Only last week, she and the crime scene unit had walked this same block of rooftops searching for bullet casings. Just around the corner was the alley where Jane Doe’s severed hand had been found. This street, this building, seemed to be ground zero for everything that had happened. “Looks like it’s been abandoned a long time. Center of town, you’d think it’d be prime real estate.”
“Except for the fact it’s a crime scene. Tam says that in this neighborhood, they really believe in ghosts. And a haunted building’s bad luck.” He paused, staring up the alley. “I wonder if that’s our man coming?”
The elderly Chinese man walked with a limp, as if he had a bad hip, but he moved with surprising alacrity in his bright white Reeboks, easily stepping over a trash bag as he negotiated his way along the uneven pavement. His jacket was several sizes too large, but he wore it with panache, like a nattily dressed professor out for a night stroll.
“Mr. Kwan?”
“Hello, hello. You Detective Frost?”
“Yes, sir. And this is my partner, Detective Rizzoli.”
The man smiled, revealing two bright gold teeth. “I tell you now, I always follow the law, okay? Okay? Everything always legal.”
“Sir, that’s not why I called you.”
“Very good location here, Knapp Street. Three apartment upstairs. Downstairs, very good space for business. Maybe restaurant or store.”
“Mr. Kwan, we’d just like to look around inside.”
“Behind, two places for tenant to park car…”
“Is he going to show it or sell it to us?” muttered Jane.
“… development company in Hong Kong doesn’t want to manage anymore. So they sell for very good price.”
“Then why hasn’t it sold?” asked Jane.
The question seemed to take him aback, abruptly cutting off his sales patter. Eyeing her in the gloom, his wrinkles deepened into a scowl. “Bad thing happen here,” he finally admitted. “No one wants to rent or buy.”
“Sir, we’re here only to look at the place,” said Frost.
“Why? Empty inside, nothing to see.”
“This is police business. Please just open the door.”
Reluctantly, Kwan pulled out an enormous set of keys that clanked like a jailer’s ring. In the dim alley, it took an excruciatingly long time for him to find and insert the correct key in the padlock. The gate swung open with a deafening screech, and they all stepped into what had once been the Red Phoenix restaurant. Mr. Kwan flipped the light switch, and a single bare bulb came on overhead.
“Is that the only light in here?” Jane asked.
The realtor looked up at the ceiling and shrugged. “Time to buy lightbulbs.”
Jane moved to the center of that gloomy space and looked around the room. As Kwan had said, the place was empty, and she saw a bare linoleum floor, cracked and yellow with age. Only the built-in cashier counter offered any hint that this had once been a restaurant dining room.
“We have it cleaned, painted,” said Mr. Kwan. “Make it just like it was before, but still no one wants to buy.” He shook his head in disgust. “Chinese people too superstitious. They don’t even like to come inside.”
I don’t blame them, thought Jane as a cold breath seemed to whisper across her skin. Violence leaves a mark, a psychic stain that can never be scrubbed away with mere soap and bleach. In a neighborhood as insular as Chinatown, everyone would remember what had happened in this building. Everyone would shudder as they walked past on Knapp Street. Even if this building were torn down and another erected in its place, this bloodied ground would remain forever haunted in the minds of those who knew its ugly past. Jane looked down at the linoleum, the same floor where blood had flowed. Although the walls were repainted and the bullet holes plastered over, in the seams and nooks of this floor, chemical traces of that blood still lingered. A crime scene photo that she had earlier studied suddenly clicked into her head. It was an image of a crumpled body lying amid fallen take-out cartons.
She looked across the cashier counter, and the memory of another crime scene photo superimposed itself on that patch of floor: the body of James Fang, his glasses askew, dressed in his trim waiter’s vest and black pants. He
