Lord of Death: A Shan Tao Yun Investigation (11 page)

Shan stopped breathing for a moment. He looked at Tsipon. The Tibetan had not planned on Shan’s joining his private breakfast. He had brought him as punishment for trespassing in his office, had brought him to demonstrate again that no matter how hopeless Shan’s plight might seem, Tsipon was always able to make it worse.

The Tibetan rose and poured more coffee for Xie. “I apologize,” Tsipon said in a generous tone, “if I gave the impression that Shan could be spared at this particular time. The entire climbing industry depends on a handful of skilled individuals. Of course, just a few insights for now from our envoy to the mountain people could be invaluable. Comrade Shan, you should point out on the map locations of the gompas that are active.”

Some might have thought it merely ironic that a Tibetan would force a Chinese to identify the location of monks targeted by Religious Affairs. But for Tsipon it wasn’t about intimidating monks, it was about intimidating Shan. Any number of people, including Tsipon, could have given Xie the location of the gompas, he could even have obtained them with a quick stop at the town’s library. But Tsipon meant to shove Shan into Xie’s scheme.

Shan swallowed hard, extracted a pencil, and began to draw little circles on Xie’s map.

“And that of the fugitives?” Xie asked. “Sarma gompa, I believe it is called.”

Shan hesitated, feeling Tsipon’s hard stare, and made one more mark on the map, down a dirt track a few miles off the road to Chomolungma.

Thirty minutes later, Tsipon having at last departed with Director Xie, Shan walked down the second-floor corridor of the guesthouse, attired in clean coveralls, carrying on his shoulder a canvas bag of tools borrowed from Kypo, whom he had found in the garage. As he expected, a Public Security guard sat on a chair outside the best corner room, eyeing him with idle curiosity. Tacked to the door was a sign declaring the room sealed by order of Public Security. A tray with dirty dishes lay on the floor beside the guard’s chair. He was not leaving for meals. Shan was not going to get past him.

Outside, along the edge of the parking lot, he found a ladder being used to paint the balconies of the second-floor rooms.

“Those guards will shoot you if they find you inside that room,” Kypo warned over his shoulder.

“I need you to switch the ladder to the adjoining balcony after I climb up, hang a bucket of paint on it. Then put it back ten minutes later.”

“Not a chance. Then they’ll know you had an accomplice.”

Shan eyed the old truck parked beside the rental shed. “Then get in the Jiefang. Start it up if anyone in a uniform comes around the front corner. I’ll hear it.”

Moments later Shan had the ladder up and was over the balcony. With a prayer to the protector deities he put his hand on the sliding door. It silently slid open.

Stepping to the inside wall he lowered himself to the floor, folding his legs underneath him, moving his head from side to side as he studied the room. From left to right he saw a writing table, a trash can, then the open bathroom door, a side table with a lamp, an unmade bed with a coverlet decorated with pandas playing on clouds, a stand holding an open suitcase bearing an Italian logo, and finally a small closet with a half opened door. He pressed his hands together, his index fingers raised like a steeple, focusing himself, then repeated the process, turning his head much more slowly. On the desk the writing pad supplied by the hotel had been used; a ballpoint pen leaned against a blue three ring binder beside a clear glass ashtray bearing two cigarette butts, both with smears of dark lipstick. On the floor beside the trashcan was a sheet of paper that had been wadded then later straightened out, probably by a Public Security photographer. The bathroom rug was askew, towels tossed on the floor. The lamp on the bedtable had something of red silk, a blouse or nightgown, thrown over the shade. On the floor beneath the open suitcase was a pile of clothes.

He rose and went to the desk, lifting one of the cigarette butts to his nose. Menthols. The front of the binder bore the imprint of the Ministry of Tourism arrayed over stylized mountain peaks. Inside the cover was the agenda for the conference, followed by other meeting materials. Shan quickly leafed through the pages. Maps of tourist attractions. Lists of proposed new attractions, including a new Museum of the Yeti. An attendance list. The minister was at the top of the listed attendees, followed by several national and Tibetan officials, then over a dozen county administrators, including Colonel Tan of Lhadrung County. Next came a keynote speech by the minister, to be presented the day of her murder, titled A Ten Point Plan for Converting Himalayan China to a Global Tourist Destination.

The shelves of the closet looked like those of a department store. A new digital camera. A tiny white box into which earphones were plugged. A pair of binoculars. A new sweater from Tibetan looms. Several small boxes of jewelry. Some of the packages showed no sign of ever having been opened. The giving of tribute to high-ranking officials was one of the few ancient traditions Beijing had decided to tolerate.

Car ready at 9 a.m.,
said the crumpled paper on the floor, a note from the front desk. He quickly examined the clothes on the floor, then in the suitcase, finding denim jeans and running shoes along with many expensive foreign-made blouses and skirts. He eyed the red silk on the lamp by the bed. The minister had been at least as old as Shan, but she had lived young.

The drawer on the nightstand was slightly ajar. Using the tip of his finger on the bottom of the drawer he pried it open. On top of a small silk handkerchief lay an empty box of cigarettes into which a tightly rolled paper had been stuffed, its end extending from the box. Not just any paper. It was a parchment page from a Tibetan peche, one of the traditional unbound books of scripture. With a chill he extracted the page, unrolled it. It seemed to have no particular meaning, just a page extracted from the teachings of the great poet Milarepa, once a resident of the region.

Shan gazed, uncomprehending, at the parchment, turning it over, finding only spots of age on the reverse side. It was easily a century old, probably much more. He looked inside the package, finding nothing, then sniffed it. It had contained a strong, unfiltered brand, not the kind smoked by the minister. He rolled the paper again and was putting it back into its container when he saw words scrawled on the inside of the folding top.
Eight o’clock
tonight,
the note said, nothing more.

He quickly checked the rest of the chamber and the bathroom finding more of the minister’s expensive accoutrements, then returned to the bedside drawer. The cigarette package and page would have seemed like trash to anyone else in the hotel but the minister had placed them on a silk handkerchief and kept them by her bed. He closed the drawer then opened it one more time. The prayer rolled up like a cigarette filled him with foreboding.

Moments later he was outside, the ladder stowed away, surveying the parking lot again for watchers. Finding none, he went to the largest of the rental cars, in the rear of the cinderblock garage, a gray sedan with a yellow Public Security warning sticker on its windscreen and gray tape in a large X pattern sealing the driver’s door. Before taking a step closer, Shan rummaged in the mechanic’s bag and extracted a roll of similar duct tape, which he waved as he approached Kypo.

The Tibetan’s face drained of color. “If they found us touching that car they would leave us attached to the battery charger all night.”

“Which is why you are going to stand at the entrance to the garage and honk one of the car horns if you glimpse any uniform coming in this direction. If they ask why, it is because you are testing the rental cars.” Shan hesitated a moment before turning back to the car, wondering why it was Kypo not Jomo, the mechanic, who was working on the cars that day.

He worked quickly, stripping off the tape, opening the door to examine the seat, the seat belt, the position of the adjustable steering wheel, before slipping in behind the wheel. Minister Wu had driven her own car, Tsipon had said, spurning any escort. Shan tested his own legs in reaching the foot pedals, stretching to reach them. The car had been towed there, and he could rely on the knobs to have sense enough not to tamper with the interior. But he had seen the woman, knew that the minister was shorter than Shan. Someone else, not the minister, had last driven the car.

He opened the front passenger’s door, again examining the seat then, with a piece of the tape wrapped around his fingers, adhesive side outward, lightly brushed the fabric of the seat and headrest, picking up nothing but dirt and lint. He paused, glancing at Kypo at the entrance, then opened the rear door and repeated the process with new tape, quickly finding several black hairs on one side of the rear seat, then several blond hairs on the other. He stared at the hairs, the first tangible evidence that he not imagined the dead American. But he had been wrong to assume she had intruded, had been lying in wait for the minister. She had been in the car, riding up the mountain with Wu.

The rest of the vehicle offered nothing else except two cigarette butts in the rear ashtray, bearing smudges of dark lipstick. He sniffed the cigarettes. Menthol again.

“Who else was in this car just before the minister took it?” he asked as Kypo helped him tape the door again.

“No one. Tsipon said save it for her, clean it like new before she arrived. Put in some peaches.”

“Peaches?”

“She was from Beijing. He read in a book somewhere about how the imperial family always liked peaches. So Tsipon ordered a little basket of peaches from Shigatse for her.”

“Were you here to present the car to the minister?”

“Not me. Tsipon wouldn’t let any of us near her. She was like a visiting deity. He probably had the hotel manager do it.”

Shan paced slowly around the car. “Guests can charge a car to their hotel account?”

Kypo nodded.

“How do you know if they are registered at the hotel?”

“They send a list each morning from the front desk. Guests get special rates.”

“What happens to the list?”

“The hotel has only been open two weeks. No one’s going to worry about filing until piles of paper cover the desk.”

Two of the guest lists Shan sought were hidden under a repair manual, the third, covered with stains of grease and tea, lay beside a bulky cloth-draped object. The day of the killing, and for two days before, Minister Wu had been booked as a guest. Colonel Tan had arrived the day before the killing. Megan Ross’s name appeared nowhere, though the American Yates had been a guest the night before the murders, when there had been a banquet to launch the tourism conference.

Shan studied the vehicles in the garage. “How many other cars are there?”

“These three. But Tsipon is arranging for more vehicles. He’s betting big on tourism. Last week I found him looking over brochures for apartments in Macau.”

“What kind of vehicles?”

“Utility vehicles mostly, for climbers and base camp organizers. When my grandfather took climbers, they walked with packs for miles, from the highway to Rongphu gompa to sit with the gods before climbing. It’s no wonder so many die today.”

Shan studied the Tibetan, wondering whether he meant it was the long acclimatizing trek or the worshipping that saved lives, then noticed the cloth-draped object again. He had assumed it was an engine part under repair. But now he saw a small naked foot protruding from the oil-stained cloth.

Kypo, noticing Shan’s gaze, sprang into action, turning out the desk light, taking a step toward the old blue truck that waited for them, suggesting they leave. Shan gestured for him to lead and stood as if to follow, then flung off the cloth.

The bronze statue of Yama, the Lord of Death, was perhaps eight inches tall, atop a heavy base set with a ring of turquoise stones.

“Is this the secret of Tsipon’s success, a god in every car?”

Kypo muttered a curse and trotted to the bench, lifting the cloth to cover the figure again. “It’s nothing, just an old thing that nobody cares about.”

“It’s one of the stolen statues.”

“Not stolen. They’re wandering back now.” Kypo, like many Tibetans Shan knew, tended to speak of their deities as if they were members of their households.

“You’re saying the thief is bringing them back?”

“More or less. The first one that went missing was found on the doorstep of an old weaver at the edge of the village, a couple days ago. Half a dozen were taken from the village, and most have been brought back now. Found on a doorstep, in a hay manger, one inside a butter churn, one down at the flour mill.”

“Sort of a Yama scavenger hunt,” Shan mused. “But surely this one wasn’t returned here.”

“No. But I need to fix it before my mother sees it. She would call it an omen, that this happened to one of deities from the altar behind her house.”

“One?”

Kypo nodded. “There was a much older, more valuable statue of Tara, the goddess, beside the Yama. But only the Yama was taken. Then last night he came back, left on the wall behind my house. He was changed like the others,” Kypo added in a voice full of worry. “Her altar is special, people come there from all over the village. She might tell the villagers something through her dice that—” Kypo stopped, glancing uneasily at Shan. What was he saying about his mother’s use of her astrological powers?