“Did you try to do anything else for her?”

“I don’t know what you are driving at, Detective Yu.”

“I’m not driving at anything. What about the work she took home?”

“Theoretically, the parts and chemicals are not allowed to be taken home, but she was so poor. A few extra Yuan made a difference to her. Since she was the best in the workshop, I made an exception for her.”

“When did you learn about her plan to join her husband in the United States.”

“About a month ago. She wanted me to write a statement about her marital status for her passport application. When I asked about her plans for the future, she broke down. Only then did I learn about her pregnancy.” Pan said after a pause, “I was curious about Feng’s efficiency. It normally takes years before people can begin the process of getting their families out. So I asked some other villagers. And I learned he had a deal there-”

There was a light tap on the door.

Detective Yu rose to open it. There was no one outside. He saw a tray of covered dishes on the ground, with a card saying, “Enjoy our special.”

“What great timing! This hotel is not bad. Have lunch with me here, Manager Pan. We can continue our talk over the meal.”

“Well, I owe you one then,” Pan said. “Let me buy you Fujian wok noodles before you leave.”

Yu took away the covering paper disclosing a large bowl of stir-fried rice, fresh and colorful, with scrambled egg and Chinese barbecued pork, a covered urn, and two side dishes, one of salted peanuts, one of tofu mixed with sesame oil and green onion. He was surprised to smell something like liquor as he pulled the paper lid off the urn.

“Crab marinated in wine,” Pan said.

There was only one pair of plastic chopsticks on the tray. Luckily, Peiqin had packed several pair of disposable chopsticks in his bag, so Yu handed a pair to Pan.

Pan picked up a loose crab leg with his fingers.

“I love crabs,” Yu shrugged his shoulders, “but I do not eat them raw.”

“Don’t worry. There won’t be any problem. Soaking the crab in the strong liquor takes care of it.”

“I just can’t eat uncooked crab.” It was not exactly true. In his childhood, a bowl of watery rice with a piece of salted crab had been his favorite breakfast. Peiqin had made him give up raw seafood. Maybe that was the price of having a virtuous wife. “You have all the crab, Manager Pan,” Yu reluctantly offered.

The rice smelled pleasant, the pork had a special texture, and the small side dishes were palatable. Yu did not really miss the crab. They talked more about Wen.

“Wen did not even have an account in the bank,” Pan said, “All her earnings were taken by Feng. I suggested that she keep some money at the factory. She did.”

“Did she take it out before she disappeared?”

“No. I was not in the factory the day she disappeared, but she took none of her money,” Pan said, finishing the golden digestive glands of the crab with relish. “It must have been a decision made on the spur of the moment.”

“During all these years, has anyone come to visit Wen here?”

“No, I don’t think so. Feng’s insanely jealous. He wouldn’t have encouraged visitors.” Turning the crab’s entrails inside out, Pan had something like a small old monk sitting on his palm. “The evil guy, you know.”

“I know. In the White Snake legend, the meddlesome monk had to hide in the crab entrails-” Yu left the sentence unfinished as he heard a faint moan from Pan.

Pan was already doubled over in pain, pressing a hand to his stomach. “Damn. It feels like a knife piercing me here.” His face was beaded with perspiration and had turned a livid color. He began to moan.

“I’ll call for an ambulance,” Yu said, jumping up.

“No. Take the factory pickup,” Pan managed to say.

The pickup was parked in front of the hotel. Yu and a hotel janitor lost no time carrying Pan on to the truck. The county hospital was several miles away. Yu had the janitor sit beside him to give directions. Before he started the engine, however, Yu ran back to his room and picked up the urn of wine-soaked crab to take with them.

Three hours later, Yu was ready to head back to the hotel, alone.

Pan had to stay in the hospital, though he was pronounced out of danger. The doctor’s diagnosis was food poisoning.

“In an hour,” the doctor said, “it would have been too late for us to do anything.”

The result of the tests of the contents of the crab urn were highly suspicious. The crab contained bacteria-many times more than was allowable. The crab used must have been dead for days.

“It’s strange,” the nurse said. “People here never eat dead crab.”

It was more than strange, Detective Yu reflected, as he plodded along the country road. There was an owl hooting somewhere in the woods behind him. He spat a couple of times on the ground, a subconscious effort to ward off the evil spirits of the day.

The moment he got back to the hotel, he checked at the hotel kitchen.

“No, we didn’t send that food to you,” the chef said nervously. “We don’t have that kind of room service.”

Yu dug out a hotel brochure. Room service was not mentioned. The chef suggested that the lunch might have been delivered by a nearby village restaurant.

“No, we never got such an order,” the restaurant owner whined over the phone.

They could have made the delivery by mistake, and were now trying to deny responsibility. But that was unlikely: the delivery man would have asked for payment.

Detective Yu was sure that he had been the target. If he had stayed alone in the hotel and eaten all the food himself, he would have ended up in the hospital, or the morgue. No one would have bothered to test the leftovers in an urn. The gang would not have had to worry. Food poisoning accidents happened every day. The local police wouldn’t even have been called in. The schemer could not have known that Yu did not eat raw crab.

So he was getting on someone’s nerves. Someone wanted to put him out of the way. This was now a battle for Detective Yu. He was determined to fight, though his enemy had the advantage of prowling in the dark, watching and waiting, striking out at any opportunity. Like the lunch-

Suddenly, he detected an alarming hole in his theory. The gangsters should have seen Manager Pan come into his room. They should not have made the attempt. Had they received incorrect information that Detective Yu was alone in his hotel room?

Nobody but Sergeant Zhao had known his plans for the day. He had told Zhao he would be alone. And the lunch tray was meant for one, with only one pair of chopsticks.

Chapter 10

Leaving Zhu Xiaoying’s place, Inspector Rohn started to grope her way down the stairs with Chief Inspector Chen in the lead.

Following Lihua’s list, they had interviewed several of Wen’s schoolmates: Qiao Xiaodong at Jingling High School, Yang Hui at the Red Flag Grocery, and finally Zhu Xiaoying at her home. None of them provided any relevant information. People might have been emotional at their class reunion, but they were too busy with their daily lives to really care for a schoolmate with whom they had long lost contact. Zhu was the only one who had kept sending New Year’s cards to Wen, but she, too, had not heard anything from her for years. If there was anything new, it was about why Wen had failed to come back to Shanghai after the Cultural Revolution. Zhu attributed it to her brother Lihua, who had balked at the prospect of Wen having to squeeze in with his family in that same single room.

Moving down the ancient staircase, Catherine raised one foot when a step suddenly caved in under her. She stumbled, lost her balance, and pitched forward. Before she could stop herself, she bumped into Chief Inspector Chen. He reacted by positioning himself in front of her, his hand grasping the rail. Pressed against him, she tried to steady herself as he turned back so that he was holding her in his arms.