Officer Gray nods slowly. “That could be a sign, though I would really urge you to not jump to conclusions. There could be a dozen reasons why the glass was broken. Is there anything else you can think of that might be relevant to this investigation?”
“What about drugs?” she blurts out.
Officer Gray stares at her. “Drugs? What do you mean? Ma’am, did you touch the victim? Did you go through his belongings?”
Only very carefully, Vera wants to snap out, but she manages to hold herself back and say, “Of course no. I just think he look like the kind that have drugs, you know? I can tell, very bad sort.”
Officer Gray’s eyes narrow and Vera feels like a wayward child being reprimanded by an elder. Oof, she hasn’t had that feeling in a looong time, and she is not a fan.
“We’ll see about the drugs.”
Doubt bubbles up from the pit of Vera’s stomach, but she swallows it back down. She peers into her teahouse, where from her dusty window she can see two officers looking around the shop. She’s further disappointed to find that neither is brushing the shop carefully to collect prints, nor doing any sort of fancy investigative work. Shouldn’t they be radioing it in and calling for backup? Can’t young people do anything right these days? Must she do everything?
The answer to that is, of course, a resounding yes. And that is why Vera sighs and shakes her head. “No,” she says to Officer Gray. “There is nothing else.”
Later, after the police have left, and much later still, after the medical examiner has retrieved the body and taken it away, Vera stands in the unsettling quiet of her teahouse, looking down at the spot where the body was. Aside from the broken glass, there are no signs of a dead body having been there. Well, there is Vera’s very helpful outline, of course, but other than that, nothing. Not even a drop of blood.
The medical examiner hadn’t even been that perturbed when he came to take the body away. His team had refused Vera’s tea as well, but she’d managed to corner one of the underlings and terrified the poor kid into telling her that they’re just going to take the body to the morgue, but right now it looks like a heart attack, no foul play involved.
“No foul play?” Vera barked. “It’s clearly murder!”
“Uh, no, I don’t think—uh—it doesn’t look like it? But we are unable to—uh—confirm until further—uh—investigation,” he’d said before scampering away.
Oh, honestly. It seems she must do everything herself, including find the man’s killer. Though, Vera admits to herself as she sips the untouched Longjing and ginkgo tea, maybe she isn’t being fair. She drinks her mind-sharpening tea every day, after all, so can she blame everyone else for not being as astute as her?
Okay, perhaps the fact that she’s taken something out of the dead man’s clenched fist has given her a bit of an unfair advantage.
But no, it’s likely to be the tea.
* * *
• • •
Now, as Vera sits in her kitchen, she takes out the thing she’s hidden in the tissue box. It’s a thumb drive, its casing black and shiny. What came over her to take it out of the dead man’s hand like that? She should’ve left it for the cops to find, then maybe they would’ve taken it more seriously.
But, Vera argues with herself, we all know how useless the cops are. Just look at them today, so casual and dismissive. Vera knows they won’t do anything. Well, okay, she doesn’t actually know that. But she’s sure she would do a better job than they possibly could, because nobody sniffs out wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands, and what does Vera have but time, now that Jinlong is gone and Tilly is off doing god knows what?
Yes, she did the right thing by taking the flash drive. And she knows, of course, that the killer will be back for the flash drive. In fact, Vera is going to take out a space in the local paper to put out an obituary ASAP. And she will post about it on the TikTok and the Twitter. No doubt the killer will be watching. They will know that it’s strange for an obituary to come out so soon after the death. They will know it’s a message. And when they come, Vera will be ready for them.
VERA WONG’S MURDER CASE
Victim: Marshall Chen, 29
Cause of death: Unknown
Suspicious signs:
Bruise on left cheek (someone punch him??)
Scratches on right cheek (someone scratch him!?)
Holding a flash drive (WHAT IS INSIDE?! Maybe nuclear code? Is he spy? KGB?)
His fingers swollen. Everything swollen. Like me in third trimester.
He has baggie full of DRUGS. You see? Must be a bad person. This is not Hollywood, why is he carrying drugs around?
So scary! EXCITING! I am helpless old lady. What to do? Is my duty to find killer before killer go on rampage. Killer will come back for flash drive. I will identify killer and catch him her them!
FIVE
RIKI
Riki wasn’t sure what to expect from a place called Vera Wang’s World-Famous Teahouse, but it certainly wasn’t this tiny, very sad-looking shop. In fact, it looks so forlorn and so forgotten that he actually walked right past it, going all the way to the little souvenir shop down the block before realizing he’d gone past the little dot on his Google Maps. He doubles back and walks very, very slowly, examining each shop sign as he passes. When he finally spots the teahouse, words like “dilapidated” and “forgotten” and “covered in dust” pop to his mind. He’s not quite sure how he feels about Marshall dying in a place like this.
A decent person would think, Poor Marshall, he didn’t deserve to die here in this sad little teahouse, or at the very least, Poor Marshall’s wife and kid, even though I don’t know either of their names, but they must be really sad, so I am sad for them also.
But Riki isn’t a decent person, is he? No, because his first thought is: Bastard deserved it. I’m glad he died here.
Then, of course, the startled realization comes. That was a horrible thought to have. What kind of person has thoughts like this? Then, of course, follows the usual barrage of thoughts, as though Riki’s mind is made of two individuals who are arguing with each other. Let’s not pretend you’re too good for these thoughts. You know what you did.
I did what I had to in order to survive. And at the end of the day, it was all for Adi’s sake.