Ed nodded to Frost. “Lights off.”
The sudden blackness was so complete in the kitchen that Maura felt herself sway, disoriented by the lack of any visual cues, any sense of who or what surrounded her. In this darkness, anyone could be standing beside her and she would not know he was there. The spray bottle hissed, and as glowing streaks of blue-green magically spread on the floor, she felt another chill whisper across her skin, as if a phantom had just brushed past her. Yes, there are indeed ghosts in this room, she thought, the ghosts of spilled blood that still cling to this floor. She heard another hiss of luminol, and more glowing patches materialized.
“I see footprints here,” said Ed. “Maybe a woman’s size five, six.”
“Those are in the crime scene photos, too,” Tam said. “The cook’s wife was the first person to enter. She lived in the apartment right upstairs. When she heard the gunshot, she walked in through the alley door and found her husband. Tracked his blood into the dining room, where she found the other victims.”
“Well, that’s what it looks like here. Shoe impressions move in the direction of the dining room.”
“The cook was right where I’m standing now,” said Maura. “We should focus here.”
“Cool your jets, Doc,” the criminalist said, and Maura could hear his irritation. “We’ll get to that spot.”
“I’ve got this section recorded.”
“Okay, moving on.”
Maura heard more spray, and new footprints appeared, a luminous record of the wife’s movements that night. They followed the prints backward, until suddenly a bright pool bloomed. Here was where Wu Weimin’s blood had collected, spilling from the wound on his temple. Maura had read the autopsy report, had seen the close-up photo of what was just a small punch through skin and skull, belying the devastation to the brain. Yet for a few moments, his heart had continued pumping, and blood had poured out to form a congealing halo. Here was where his wife had crouched beside him, leaving her shoe print.
“Lights.”
Maura blinked at the floor where she now saw only bare concrete. But as Ed refilled the bottle with luminol, she could still see that pool, and the evidence of the wife’s presence.
“We’ll finish up over there,” said Ed, pointing toward the kitchen exit leading to the alley. “Did the wife leave the same way she came in?”
“No,” said Tam. “According to Ingersoll’s report, she ran out the front exit, down Knapp Street. Headed toward Beach Street to call for help.”
“So there shouldn’t be any blood at this end.”
Tam peered at his laptop. “I don’t see any in this crime scene photo.”
Maura saw Ed glance at his wristwatch, a reminder that it was growing late. What they had captured so far on video was exactly what they’d expected to find. She thought of what these two men would probably say to each other later, comments that would no doubt circulate among the rest of Boston PD.
Was this a mistake? she wondered. Have I wasted everyone’s evening, all because I listened to the doubts of a sixteen-year-old boy? But Maura, too, had shared Rat’s doubts. After he’d returned to school, leaving her alone in a house that seemed sadly silent and empty, she had spent many hours combing through all the reports and photos from the Red Phoenix files. The baffling details that the boy had so quickly spotted became more and more troubling to her as well.
“Let’s wrap this up and go home,” said Jane, sounding both weary and a little disgusted.
The lights went out again, and Maura stood with hands clenched, glad that her face was hidden in the darkness. She heard the spray bottle once again deliver its mist of luminol.
Suddenly Ed blurted: “Hey, are you seeing this?”
“Lights!” Jane called out, and Frost turned on the lamp.
In the glare, they all stood silent for a moment, staring at bare concrete.
“That didn’t show up in any of the crime scene photos,” said Tam.
Ed was frowning. “Let me replay this video,” he said. As they crowded around the camera, he rewound and hit Play. Glowing in the darkness were three blue-green patches that moved in a line toward the alley exit. Two were smeared and misshapen, but the third was unmistakably a tiny footprint.
“Maybe they’re not related to the shooting at all,” said Jane. “These stains could be cumulative, over years.”
“Two bloody incidents in the same kitchen?” said Tam.
“How do we explain the fact that these footprints aren’t in any of the crime scene photos?”
“Because someone cleaned them up,” said Maura softly. “Before the police arrived.” Yet the traces remain here, she thought. Invisible to the human eye, but not to luminol.
The others looked stunned by what had just been revealed. A child had been in this kitchen, a child who had stepped into blood and had tracked it across the floor and out the door, into the alley.
“The cellar,” said Jane. She crossed to the cellar door and swung it open. As Maura moved beside her, Jane shone her flashlight down the wooden steps. From the blackness below rose the smell of damp stone and mold. The beam of Jane’s flashlight pierced shadows, and Maura glimpsed large barrels and giant tins of cooking oil, surely spoiled after two decades in storage.
“The cook died right here, blocking this door,” said Jane. She turned to Ed. “Let’s look at these top steps.”
There were no impatient looks this time, no sighs or glances at their watches. The criminalists moved swiftly to reposition the camera and tripod, aiming it down the cellar stairs. They all crowded in as the lights went out, and Ed unleashed a final hiss of luminol. Only then did they see that blood had trickled from the kitchen above and had dripped down onto the top step.
A step where they could see the treadmark of a small shoe.
TWENTY-FOUR
SOMEONE WAS IN THE KITCHEN CELLAR THAT NIGHT, MRS. FANG. A child who may know what really happened,” says Detective Rizzoli. “Do you know who that child was?”
The policewoman studies me, monitoring my reaction as I absorb what she has just told me. Through the closed door I can hear the sharp clacks of fighting sticks and the voices of my students chanting in unison as they practice their combat maneuvers. But here in my office it is silent as I weigh my possible responses. My silence alone is a reaction, and Detective Rizzoli is trying to read its meaning, but I allow no emotions to ripple the surface of my face. Between the two of us, this has become a chess game within a chess game, played with subtle moves that Detective Frost, who also stands watching, is probably not even aware of.
The woman is my true opponent. I look straight at her as I ask: “How do you know there was someone in the cellar?”
“There were footprints left behind in the kitchen, and on the cellar steps. A child’s footprints.”
“But it happened nineteen years ago.”
“Even after many years, Mrs. Fang, blood leaves behind traces,” explains Frost. His voice is gentler, a friend’s, patiently explaining what he believes I do not understand. “With certain chemicals, we can see where blood has been tracked. And we know that a child came out of the cellar, stepped in Wu Weimin’s blood, and walked out of the kitchen, into the alley.”
“No one told me this before. Detective Ingersoll never said anything.”
“Because he didn’t see those footprints,” says Detective Rizzoli. “By the time the police arrived that night, the prints were gone. Wiped away.” She moves in closer, so close that I can see her pupils, two black bull’s-eyes in chocolate-brown irises. “Who would do that, Mrs. Fang? Who would want to hide the fact a child was in the cellar?”
“Why do you ask me? I wasn’t even in the country. I was in Taiwan visiting my family when it happened.”
“But you knew Wu Weimin and his wife. Like them, you speak Mandarin. The child in the cellar was their little girl, wasn’t it?” She pulls out a pocket notebook and reads from it. “Mei Mei, five years old.” She looks at me.
