The Red Lotus Read online

  And now the lab tech wanted to know if he should break open the packets and analyze the contents. It wouldn’t be all that expensive or all that time-consuming. It was an option.

  Quang sat back in his desk chair. The answer was yes, absolutely. Of course he should. It might be nothing; it might be a waste of time and money. Moreover, there was nothing in a chemical analysis of the energy gels that was likely to lead them to the driver in the hit-and-run accident that had killed the American. So why bother? Because the American had lied to his girlfriend and he had lied to the people on the bike tour about what he was doing in Vietnam. Because he had lied about why he wanted to be alone that afternoon. They never did find out where he had gone: no trace of him in any bars in Hue or Hoi An or Da Nang, or the snack shacks on the southern slope of the Hai Van Pass. No sign of him at any tourist attractions or beaches, no visit to the Linh Ung-Bai But Pagoda. It was as if he had vanished after stopping on that road and dropping the gel packs, before being hit by a vehicle on the switchback.

  And so Quang leaned forward, picked up the phone on his desk, and called the lab tech. He reached him right away.

  “So, how’s fatherhood?” he asked the younger man. “Getting any sleep at all?” Xuan’s wife had had a baby, their first, three months earlier.

  “A bit. My wife says the little guy’s lips are a vacuum and he eats all the time.”

  “So he’s not sleeping through the night yet?”

  “He doesn’t sleep ever. At least it feels that way.”

  “That’s a good sign, Xuan. Supposedly, babies that sleep a little bit less tend to be smarter than average.”

  “Then my guy is a genius. His parents, however, are delirious.”

  Quang kept a photo of his wife and daughter on his desk. He looked at the pair now. It reminded him how much he had enjoyed that period in his life when his wife was breastfeeding. He’d climb out of bed in the middle of the night, change Ly’s diaper, and bring the little girl from her bassinet—then her crib—to his and his wife’s bed, where his wife would nurse her. The world had never seemed more at peace to Quang than in those moments.

  “I read what you wrote about the American’s energy gel packs,” he said to Xuan.

  “Weird, right? I mean, it could be a factory defect. It probably is. It’s probably nothing. I hope I made that clear.”

  “Was it on all three packets?”

  “Nope. Just the two chocolate ones. My guess, if I had to guess, is that it had something to do with the crimping machine.”

  “Let’s suppose it wasn’t a defect. What do you think’s going on?” Quang asked. “What else would explain it?”

  “Product tampering, to begin with. Think about Tylenol in America in 1982. Or Alisea bottled water in Italy in 2003. Those are probably the most famous cases. There are others.”

  “You did your homework.”

  “I honestly don’t think we’re going to find poison. The expiration date suggests these packets are old. Not past expiration, but on the shelf a long, long time. There have been no other reports of people getting sick from this brand of gel—or any brand of gel. Not a one. I checked.”

  “Fair enough. If it isn’t tampering and it isn’t a packaging defect, what’s another reason, in your opinion?”

  “He was smuggling something. He was smuggling drugs,” Xuan answered.

  “Tell me more.”

  “He bought something here, a little souvenir, and he wanted to bring it home. Heroin. Fentanyl. And no one at airport security or baggage handling is going to think there’s anything strange about a couple of energy gel packs in a checked bag—or even a carry-on.”

  “Seems like a lot of work.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe there’s a business here we don’t know about.”

  “I’ve talked to addicts who’ve taken fen gel off the patch—the transdermal patch—but they said they never got quite the same rush,” Quang said.

  Xuan chuckled. “Then they weren’t doing it right.”

  “It works?”

  “For most people, it works just fine.”

  “But the autopsy didn’t show any signs of drug use. There was nothing in Austin Harper’s system but ibuprofen. Nothing illegal, no alcohol.”

  “Did the coroner look for signs of use?”

  “You mean on the body? Not sure, but I assume he would have seen them if they were there.”

  “As you know as well as I do, some addicts are very clever. They shoot between their toes, they shoot in their crotch.”

  “I know,” the captain agreed. Then: “His girlfriend is a doctor.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Not sure what I mean. But I didn’t get the vibe that she was dating an addict. Also? The American was a really, really good cyclist, I gather. And one thing was clear from the autopsy: he was in excellent shape.”

  “Not a junkie’s body,” said Xuan.

  “Nope. So let’s suppose he wasn’t using and he wasn’t planning to bring something home. Maybe he was bringing something here. Maybe the tampering occurred back in America.”

  “Yeah, because our junkies can’t get their shit on the streets,” the tech said sarcastically. “We depend on Americans on bike tours to import it.”

  “Well, the same goes for America. If he was using, it wouldn’t be hard for him to score his drugs back in New York City.”

  “Maybe he wanted to use it here. Before leaving.”

  “Maybe,” Quang said, but he didn’t think this was it. “And maybe it wasn’t drugs at all.”

  “Then what? My tampering notion?”

  “No clue. Absolutely none,” he said. “But the American went off radar that afternoon. We have no idea where he was or why he lied to his girlfriend. But both things happened.”

  “So, we open up the packets and run some tests?”

  “Yup. Let’s find out what’s in them.”

  “Again, it may just be amino acids, sodium, and caffeine. Things like calcium carbonate. Green tea. Preservatives. I don’t want to get your hopes up. It may really be just an energy boost.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re the boss. I’ll let you know what I find.”

  “Thank you,” Quang said. After he hung up, he adjusted the photo on his desk and looked at what else was on his docket that afternoon. He presumed you couldn’t buy Psych brand energy gels in Vietnam, which was why the American had brought them with him. Harper had visited Vietnam a year ago, so he would know. But just in case, Quang thought he might call a couple of sporting goods stores—maybe even some of the bigger ones in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City—to see if they were available here.

  18

  In the morning, before breakfast, Alexis went online again and searched aggressively and methodically for the full research article about the Vietnamese rats, but for some reason, she couldn’t find even the abstract and brief summary—not in English and not in any other language. The article? It was as if it didn’t exist. And so all she had were the pages that she had discovered in Austin’s apartment, which meant that would have to do. Over black coffee and a bowl of yogurt and frozen blueberries she found in the back of her freezer, she read them again, but a lot of it was background and then biographies of the researchers in Vietnam who had conducted the study.

  The work had been done by scientists at Viet Nam National University in Ho Chi Minh City. She and Austin had flown into Hanoi on this trip—the tour had spent their first day together savoring different neighborhoods with their guides—and they had gone nowhere near the country’s other behemoth of a city during the excursion. Last year, however, Austin had gone to Vietnam on a different bike tour, and that one had begun in Ho Chi Minh City. Had he been to the school then—on his first trip? Until she got into his laptop or tablet, it was unlikely she would know. But the basic point of the study seeme
d to be this: there had been easily hundreds of generations of rats since Agent Orange had been brought to the jungles of Vietnam, and the descendants of the rats that hadn’t died of cancer were a very hearty bunch. They carried inside them diseases, some of which were usually fatal to rats, but not to these rats. And some of the pathogens were transmittable to humans. And some of them made very short work of antibiotics.

  She knew this was true of New York City rodents, too, and they hadn’t been exposed to Agent Orange. She presumed Austin was aware of this as well. There had been news articles about it, and he—just like her—worked in a university hospital. For all she knew, their own labs were looking into rat viruses and bacteria. She didn’t know anyone who worked there, but she made a mental note to ask around.

  At eight thirty, she called the name of the private investigator on the business card that Sally Gleason had given her and was relieved that his answering service was taking calls and a woman at the other end of the line had the PI’s calendar. She wanted to know if Alexis could come in that afternoon, but she explained that she was an ER doctor and had a shift that began at noon, and begged for a morning appointment. She was able to get one at nine forty-five, which meant that she would have to hurry. And so she did, throwing into her bag Austin’s laptop and tablet, their bike tour itinerary, the research abstract on rats, and the bike glove from his right hand. She also took with her the Speed Racer cycling jersey and the suit from Hoi An, but that wasn’t for the PI: she was going to bring them to the hospital with her and, when she met Austin’s parents, give them to the couple.

  * * *

  . . .

  The investigator had the dark, weathered face of a guy who’d watched one too many sunsets and drunk one too many margaritas at the dock in Key West. But he had a buzz cut: a gray buzz cut. His name was Ken Sarafian and, like Sally said, Alexis guessed he was in his early seventies. His accent—and it was strong—was all Queens. His office, when she stole a glance at the photos on his desk before sitting down across from him, gave her more clues into his background: there was indeed a black-and-white photo of him in Vietnam, a young man with three other soldiers, all in combat fatigues, smiling beside a massive water buffalo with two puppies playfully perched on its back. The water buffalo didn’t seem to mind; the puppies looked like they were in heaven. But there was also a formal portrait of him as a New York City cop. She saw him as a much younger man in both kinds of uniforms. And there were a couple of him with a woman with creosote-colored hair, then that same woman when her hair was streaked with silver, and graduation photos of two boys and a girl. The girl, Alexis presumed, was the woman Sally had mentioned who had died earlier that year. She had dark hair and eyes that were almost black, and magnificent cheekbones. She was beautiful.

  The PI had the build of a guy who had always been big and once been all muscle, but had allowed himself a little more slack as he had hit late middle age. Fewer days at the gym; fewer reps when he was there. Still, his blazer was straining hard not to tear right around his rotator cuff.

  “So,” he began, steepling his fingers and leaning back in a leather desk chair that looked a little tired, “you’re a friend of Sally Gleason’s, I gather. She’s the referral?” The office was in an older building on lower Broadway that could have used, inside and out, a face-lift. The window was narrow and filled with an old-fashioned air conditioner, which meant that the little afternoon light the office was likely to get was cut in half. Now, in the morning? The place needed desperately the hundred-watt bulbs in the standing lamp in the corner and on his desk. There were steam pipes running up the wall and along a part of the ceiling. She was sitting in one of the two chairs on his side of the desk, both of which were eerily reminiscent of the Naugahyde seats in the ER waiting room. The principal difference? The ER chairs were dark blue and this pair was orange. It was clear that he worked alone. This room was all there was.

  “I wouldn’t say that Sally and I are friends,” Alexis replied. “I barely know her. But we work at the same hospital and she gave me your card.”

  He nodded. “Are you here about a lover or a spouse? I’m guessing the former because I don’t see any rings on your fingers.”

  “Boyfriend,” she said.

  “Must be a very long-term relationship if you’re here about infidelity.”

  “No, it’s not about that. He’s dead. He died last week in Vietnam.” And so she began, telling him what had happened and all that she knew: the lies, the disappearance, the hit-and-run, the research into rats and the possible rat bites on his fingers, and the wound on his hand that didn’t match the cycling glove. He didn’t seem especially interested until she got to the glove. But then? He sat forward, his elbows on his desk. She could see that she had his full attention now. Occasionally he interrupted her with a question, and he took a few notes on a yellow legal pad. When she was done, he said, “Vietnam isn’t exactly my neighborhood. It hasn’t been for nearly fifty years.”

  “I know.”

  “What precisely do you want me to find out?”

  “I want to know why he lied. I told you, his parents had no explanation. I want to know what he was doing.”

  “The day he disappeared? Before he was killed?”

  “And here—in New York. Maybe there’s a connection. Maybe not.”

  He put down his pen and sat back in his chair. “You talk to his friends? You talking to them will cost a lot less than me doing it.”

  “I know. I will.”

  “You love this guy?”

  It was, perhaps, the most important question. She answered honestly, almost as if she were alone and speaking aloud. “I’m not sure if I did. But I always had fun with him. I know that,” she said. “I thought he was a good boyfriend. And I told you: I think someone hurt him before he started back to our hotel on the bike.”

  He seemed to think about this: “So you don’t believe it was an accident? You called it a hit-and-run when you were telling me what happened a couple minutes ago.”

  “I…” She stopped as she pondered what he was suggesting.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I assumed it was. But now…”

  He nodded. “Someone sticks something hard enough into his hand to break a bone? Someone takes his phone? Then his body is found over a ridge with a bunch more broken bones and a traumatic head injury? Sounds a little suspicious to me.”

  “No,” she said, recalling that awful afternoon when she had ID’d the body at the morgue. “There was a grill mark—from a truck, most likely—on his leg. And the coroner looked at the helmet and the head wound. He said it was clear that Austin was hit by a vehicle.”

  “Okay, he was hit by a vehicle. But maybe it wasn’t an accident.”

  “Can you—”

  “Of course you can. Run someone over on purpose? Easier than you think. Especially at night.” He looked at his watch. “So, you want to know why he lied. I get it and that makes sense. That would be as good a place as any to begin, because then we might understand why he really wanted to go back to Vietnam and why someone might have wanted to hurt him.”

  “Yes,” she said, but her mind was only partly with the detective now. She was also processing the planning—the blocking—that would have gone into running Austin over. To send him hurtling over the guardrails on the switchback. It would take two people, she concluded. One to drive the vehicle, of course, and one to alert the driver when Austin was on his way down that hill.

  “Have you looked at his email?” Ken was asking. “Seen whatever was on his computer and in the history of his search engines?”

  She pulled out his laptop and tablet from her bag and put them on the desk, the smaller iPad stacked on top of the MacBook. “I tried. I couldn’t get in.”

  “He’s your boyfriend and you don’t know his passwords?”

  “Sorry. I don’t.”

 
“But you say you two were serious?”

  She toyed with one of her bracelets. “You really would get along well with my mother.”

  He smiled, and it was good-natured and apologetic. “My bad. Got it. You don’t know his passwords.”

  “No.”

  “Can I ask you something else?”

  “Sure.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-three. Why?”

  His face grew mournful: she could see it in his eyes. “Your joke about your mom. It reminded me of my daughter—but in a good way. It was the kind of joke she’d make. She was about your age. You two would have gotten along.”

  “Sally told me she passed away. May I ask how?”

  “Ovarian cancer. We thought the odds were in our favor. I mean, I guess they were in our favor. But, still, sometimes you don’t beat the odds. You don’t win, even then.”

  “No, you don’t. I’m sorry. I really am.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Was she married? Did she have any children?”

  “No and no.” Then, almost abruptly, he gathered himself and returned to the case. “So, you don’t know your boyfriend’s passwords. Not a big deal—at least not usually.” He motioned for her to slide the devices across the desk to him. “Mind if I try something?”

  “Not at all,” she told him. “I was hoping you would.”

  “Let’s start with his MacBook. You know about TDM? Target Disc Mode?”