Mahogany's Dream Read online

  “It will be if those Chinese nutcases start killing innocent Americans.”

  “Our job is to prevent that from ever happening,” he said.

  “Then let’s start doing our damn job!”

  “What the hell do you expect me to do, Jill? Put electrodes on his nipples until he tells us everything? This is not Iraq. We respect the rule of law here.”

  “If you put those electrodes somewhere else, you won’t have to worry about any goddamed rules.”

  He just shook his head. “You’re a piece of work.”

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER

  44

  A technician from Star Satellite walked up to the front desk of Koxinga’s hotel. “Hey. I’m here for the installation in suite 610.”

  The front desk clerk looked at him quizzically. “There must be some kind of mix-up. Someone from your company came out and took care of that last week,” she said.

  The technician rechecked his work order. “Well, we don’t have a record of that. Lemme ask you a question: Did the guy who came out show you an I-D like this one?”

  The clerk examined the laminated card. “I honestly don’t remember. But he was wearing a uniform like yours.”

  “I don’t think so,” the technician said. “Any tech from Star would’ve closed out the work order by now. Listen, Mam, we’ve had some problems lately with illegal hookups in this area. Mostly over in Chinatown. The company wants us to get the transponder number off the dish when this happens so we can find out if it’s legit.”

  “I’m quite sure it’s legitimate. My manager setup the appointment herself,” the clerk said. “And I talked to the technician personally. A nice Asian fellow.”

  “Asian? Then he definitely wasn’t from the company.”

  Now the clerk was confused. “But I thought this was Chinese cable?”

  “It is. But in the States, all the installation techs are union. And there’s not a single one a’ them in the union. That’s kind of a problem over in Chinatown, where nobody speaks any goddamed English. But it’s the only way we can keep our jobs. Know what I mean?”

  “This is highly unusual,” the clerk said. “I’m going to have to get my manager. This is exactly why we don’t usually allow our guests to install their own cable service.”

  The technician examined his work order again. “Leslie Wells,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Leslie Wells. That’s you manager’s name, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well that’s who placed this order. It says so right here.”

  Leslie Wells emerged from her office and personally escorted the technician to Koxinga’s suite. Along the way, she railed against the idea of private cable service in a public hotel. When they reached Suite 610, she announced herself and rang the bell three times, just in case the guest was in. When she heard no response, she unlocked the door with her card key. She swung the door open and said, “Oh my God.”

  CHAPTER

  45

  The Taiwan Strait

  If he flew on the corporate helicopter, Tsang could get from his office in Taipei to his yacht in less than two hours. He kept the boat anchored in Kaohsiung Harbor because it made his frequent cruises down to the Spratly Islands a lot faster.

  But the yacht wasn’t headed to the Spratlys today. In fact, it wasn’t headed anywhere. It was anchored just off the coast, floating aimlessly in the Taiwan Strait. The boat had been in this same spot for three consecutive days.

  Dawa was going stir crazy. Three days earlier, when they were only a few kilometers from the port, the old man had abruptly ordered them to anchor. Then he had said nothing more. He just sat in his quarters, reading and drinking tea. Some of the crew joked that senility was setting in on Tsang. But Dawa knew better. It was clear to her that the trip had been planned because the old man’s wife had not called. Tsang’s wife always called the boat to check him whenever they were away from the Island for more than a day. And that wasn’t all. When Dawa had unpacked Tsang’s things, she’d found a stack of novels in one of his bags. Then two days ago, her suspicions aroused, she’d quietly checked the boat’s waypoint coordinates and discovered that they were precisely twelve kilometers from the Port. Something was happening.

  Because Tsang had not given the crew any advance notice of the trip, Dawa never had the chance to update her station officer on her whereabouts. She had already missed two check-ins. If she missed another, her team might assume she was under duress and blow her cover. To make matters worse, her contract with the yacht allowed Tsang to keep her away from Port for up to a week. She couldn’t wait that long. Her other problem was that her mobile phone couldn’t pick up a signal from their location, which she was knew was not a coincidence. To place a call, she would need to use Tsang’s satellite phone. But he hadn’t let the phone out of his site the whole trip. He’d even slept with it.

  She had already tried persuading the Captain to talk to the old man, but she’d been turned down. They were still close enough to shore to pick up Taiwanese television and that’s all that seemed to matter to the ornery seaman.

  Her time was running out. She had to do something.

  An hour later, she placed a steaming bowl of miso soup and a pitcher of hibiscus tea on a silver platter. She checked her appearance in the mirror one last time. She hated that skimpy maid’s uniform.

  She left the galley with the tray and strode down the narrow corridor leading to Tsang’s quarters. When she entered his spacious suite, she found him sitting peacefully at his desk, reading a dog-eared copy of The Art of War.

  She bowed. “More tea, sir?”

  He looked up and smiled. “Shi.” Yes.

  When she had poured the tea and served the soup, she stood before him, staring down at the floor.

  “O ko yee bong tao ni ma?” he asked her. What can I do for you?

  “Sir,” she said deferentially, keeping her eyes on the floor, “Do you know when we will return to Port? My mother is ill and I am concerned about her.”

  “Which mother?” he said.

  She was confused. “What do you mean, Sir?”

  “Which of your mothers is ill? Is it the woman in Kaohsiung you sometimes mention, or the woman in Seattle you listed on your CIA application?”

  Dawa swung her head upright and Tsang began laughing hysterically.

  She bolted out of the room and back down the corridor. She headed straight for the Captain’s cabin. Just before she reached it, she removed a pistol from a garter holster hidden beneath her skirt. She kicked the door open, pointed the gun at the Captain and shouted, “Sen chau ni yao shih kai che ke chuan!” Move this boat now!

  CHAPTER

  46

  Philadelphia, PA

  An ice storm had passed through Philadelphia. The bright moonlight shining on the naked treetops gave them crowns of diamonds. At least that’s the way it looked from the window of Norma’s old office.

  After his unsettling conversation with Maris, it had taken Blake less than one day to conclude what he had to do. It had taken another day to work up the resolve to actually do it. He’d found most of his courage in a bottle of super premium scotch, the same one he’d been nursing for hours.

  It was chilly in that dark office, but the alcohol warmed his chest. All the furniture had been placed in storage, so he sat in the windowsill, looking out at the glittering icescape. Devoid of all its contents, the room had the eerie feel of a large prison cell.

  He had been in that room for nine long hours, four of them on the verge of drunkenness. Earlier that day, just before three o’clock, he had shown up at the security desk by the school’s main entrance. He told the guard, whom he knew from his days as Chairman, that he needed to stop in Norma’s old office and retrieve the last of her belongings. He’d said that he would only need about ten minutes. But he never came back down. The guard on the next shift never knew he was there, which was just the way Blake wanted it.

  He was
waiting for his watch to strike midnight. By that time, all the children would be asleep and Maris would be the only other adult in the building.

  Like his life, Blake had planned Mahogany’s murder meticulously. He had gone through Norma’s files and learned almost everything that he needed to know. He knew Mahogany’s suite number, when the guards changed shifts and how many other children he’d have to contend with. On that last item, the files had contained some good news. Although the suites in the new dorm could house up to five students, there were only two students in Mahogany’s suite. According to the file, this was due to Mahogany’s frequent “emotional outbursts”. Mahogany’s suitemate was a girl named Kiara Davis, whose family had orphaned her by dying in a house fire. Kiara wasn’t mute, but she apparently hadn’t spoken since the fire, which had been over two years ago. Blake figured that Norma had decided to put all the lunatics in one suite. The scotch made the notion seem even funnier than when he had first thought of it.

  He remembered thinking that Kiara was about to get the whole suite to herself.

  His plan was simple. He would smother Mahogany with Kiara’s pillow. Kiara wouldn’t, or couldn’t, tell anyone the truth. And even if she did, with her mental history, who would believe her improbable story about a strange man sneaking past the guard, finding the only suite with just two occupants and stealing her pillow.

  The luck of Mahogany having a made-to-blame suitemate almost seemed serendipitous to him. But he didn’t believe in serendipity. He believed in planning and execution. He felt sure that he had only gone wrong in the past by letting a lowlife like Damien carry out his well-conceived plans. He had no intention of repeating that mistake this time.

  Damien. Blake hadn’t heard from his inept assassin since he sent him to eliminate Conwell. The idiot hadn’t even come back for the rest of his money. He was probably running for his life, Blake thought.

  He got up from the windowsill and relieved himself into his empty scotch bottle. In the midst of his urination, the alarm on his wristwatch began beeping.

  It was midnight.

  He made his way from the administrative offices to the skywalk connecting the main building to the new dormitory. He was a little woozy, but not much. A sign hanging over the near side of the skywalk said:

  A Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins with a Single Step.

  He was certain the sign had been his wife’s idea. That was Norma: a walking pep rally. He dismissed the sign with a swooping wave that nearly knocked him off balance.

  He stumbled across the elevated walkway. The glass panels on either side were encrusted with ice, giving it the look of a dimly lit cave.

  He pushed through the swinging doors on the far side and collected his bearings. He had never actually been on the student floors before. In fact, he had never ventured further than Maris’ suite. The dorm still smelled like a hospital.

  He followed the directional signs to Mahogany’s suite. From the darkness beneath the door, he could tell that the lights were off inside. He removed a penlight from his pocket and gently eased the door open. The brand new door hinges made nary a sound. He entered what looked like some kind of study area. There were five desks, each fitted with a flat screen LCD. He waved his light around the room, bitterly noting that it was far nicer than any dorm he’d ever had in college.

  He moved down the short hall leading to the bedroom.

  Standing in the dark between two sets of bunk beds, he belatedly realized that he had no way of telling the girls apart. He couldn’t believe he had been so sloppy. Luckily, the wall over Mahogany’s bottom bunk was adorned with a collection of unframed drawings. All of the drawings had the initials M.B. in the lower right hand corner. They were stunningly good for a nine-year old artist. One of them, right above Mahogany’s head, was a movingly realistic portrait of Norma. Blake’s light lingered on the drawing for almost a full minute.

  It made him angry.

  He marched over to Kiara’s bed and roughly yanked the pillow from beneath her head. Kiara stirred in her sleep. Then he crossed the room in three big steps. He jammed the pillow down into Mahogany’s face with more force than was necessary. After a few seconds, Mahogany began flailing wildly, kicking the blanket off her body. He pressed down harder. The pillow muffled her gasps. He pushed down harder still.

  Suddenly, he felt freezing water on the top of his head. Then the water was all around him, showering the whole room. A piercing alarm began wailing. He spun around to find Kiara standing on the top bunk, holding a lighter under one of the smoke detectors in the ceiling.

  “Geeet dooown!” he slurred, letting up on the pillow smothering Mahogany and lunging toward the other girl. Although Kiara looked terrified, she didn’t make a sound. She tried to avoid Blake’s grasp, but he caught the bottom of her nightgown and threw her off the bed. Her small body slammed against the hard floor. The lighter popped out of her hand and bounced away.

  Cold water pelting him, Blake covered his ears to mute the incessant blaring of the alarm. Then he remembered Mahogany.

  Most of her body was already hidden underneath her bed. Blake dove across the room and grabbed her ankle before she could pull it to safety. Mahogany screamed and kicked his hand with her free foot. Her skin was slippery from the water and Blake lost his grip. Her legs swiftly disappeared under the bed. She curled up in a far corner, shivering and crying. He swung at her twice but she was beyond his reach. In frustration, he threw his penlight at her.

  He heard Maris yelling for everyone to get out of the building. He knew he was out of time. He knew he had failed.

  He tore Norma’s portrait off the wall and fled.

  CHAPTER

  47

  Two Days Later

  Over the years, Mancini had learned to do his legwork upfront. He found that when he did his research first and his interviews last, he could catch people in lies right on the spot.

  And Maris was definitely lying to him. She wasn’t good at it either. Every time she told him less than the truth, she looked down at her hands. He thought it was pathetic, like a clown fish trying to hide inside an empty fishbowl.

  She was covering for Blake too, and he was pretty sure he knew why. He hadn’t yet informed her that her boyfriend had left behind a boatload of evidence the other night. Hell, he’d even been thoughtful enough to leave a urine sample in a scotch bottle.

  But that was just gravy to Mancini. Even before he actually met Blake Hawthorn, he knew two things about the man: One, he almost certainly had something to do with his wife’s murder. And two, he had at least one mistress.

  Mancini hated to admit it, but a private investigator buddy had taught him the trick. His buddy had said that there were probably thousands of mistresses in Philadelphia, but there were only a handful of florists. Like deer to a drinking pond, a cheating husband was bound to show up at one of them sooner or later. All you had to do was obtain the florists’ records and do a little crosschecking. Mancini had used this technique so often that he didn’t even need subpoenas anymore. All the florists knew him.

  They knew Blake too. Said he was a big spender, a real connoisseur. Blake had sent a lot of flowers to Rittenhouse Academy. But not all of them were for his wife.

  At first, Mancini had suspected it was one of the teachers. But then some of his more conventional legwork paid off. There was a bank branch located directly across the street from the school. The bank had a security camera that recorded its Spring Garden Street entrance twenty-four hours a day. He thought the camera might’ve captured Norma’s killer lurking around the school. It hadn’t. But over several months, it had frequently captured a black BMW with a license plate he recognized. The car only showed up on the tapes after ten at night, when all of the teachers but one were long gone.

  Even though Maris could be placed at the scene and had motive, Mancini knew she wasn’t the killer. The CSI had determined the height of the killer from the impact angle of the blow to Norma’s face. Maris was too short. Plus the timid
woman sitting in front of him was likely to catch a coronary from her own damn shadow.

  “Why don’t you tell me about you and Blake,” Mancini said to her.

  “What do you mean?” she answered, startled.

  Mancini flashed his I-got-you smile. “I mean tell me if he likes to be spanked or what kind of faces he makes when you take him to the top of Mt. Ecstasy.”

  Maris broke down in tears.

  CHAPTER

  48

  Dyson double-parked his Range Rover at the corner of 7th and Arch Streets, in front of the African American Museum. It was as close as he could get to the Federal Building.

  In the back seat, Mahogany played Super Smash Brothers on the built-in video game system.

  Dyson scrolled through a menu on the dashboard LCD until he found Janaya’s work number. He instructed the vehicle’s bluetooth phone to dial the number.

  She answered on the second ring.

  Without preamble, Dyson said, “I love you, I miss you and I want you to come with us.”

  “Dyson?” Janaya asked, slightly confused.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Someone assaulted Mahogany last night.”

  Janaya gasped. “No,” she said. “Is she okay?”

  “Physically, yes. Emotionally, that’s another story. She’s in the car with me right now.”

  “Hi Ms. Janaya!” Mahogany called out.

  “Hello, Mahogany. Are you all right?”

  “I’m playing Super Smash Brothers,” she answered evasively.

  “Dyson, what happened?”

  “I’d rather not get in to that on the speakerphone. I’ll tell you about it on the way. We’re waiting for you.”

  “Waiting for me? What are you talking about? Where are you?”