“What are Miaoshan’s papers actually proof of?” David asked. “What’s the crime? I see so many levels, but which is the right one?” He paused, then said, “You didn’t tell me before about the child labor.”
“I didn’t think it mattered. It’s not really a prosecutable offense.” She shook her head, then clarified, “What I mean is, child labor is against the law. The official labor age is eighteen for government factory work, but private companies can hire younger people.”
“How young are we talking, Hulan?”
“At Knight I’d say the youngest I’ve seen is about twelve, but, David, you have to understand that if this was reported, Knight might be fined and those girls let go. I think the only way an owner might go to jail was if there was an international scandal, a story in the press…” Her breath came out in a disgusted rush. “Pearl Jenner.”
“But Guy Lin said Miaoshan’s papers were ‘proof.’ They may be proof of something, but it isn’t child-labor violations. And despite the SUN GAN code, I see nothing that would tie my client to child labor. Neither are the papers proof of the factory’s conditions. You and I and Guy Lin may think they’re deplorable, but they’re still within Knight’s rights, which means, I hate to say it, they’re also within Tartan’s rights. Then there’s the dangerous machinery and the possibility of improper chemical use. But again, I didn’t see anything in Miaoshan’s papers that pointed to that or to my client.”
Very aware that Sun’s papers were just a few feet away from her, Hulan ventured, “Maybe the products themselves are somehow dangerous and the papers have to do with shipments or something.”
“I don’t think so. If there was a defect in Sam & His Friends, it would have been all over the American press. That’s something they really can’t cover up.”
“The next level of crime would have to be the bribery,” Hulan said. “Except we know that Pearl made that up.”
David didn’t respond.
“I’m going to lay out a scenario for you,” she said. “Let’s suppose Pearl was right but didn’t know it. Could Sun have taken a bribe?” She held up a hand. “You needn’t answer, but consider this: Would your client not take one? This is China and Sun’s a smooth operator. If that’s the case, then how did Knight hide it in their financials?”
David thought he knew the answer: Knight disguised the bribes as payments to dummy corporations. Hulan was close to the truth. Where would she go next?
“I’m guessing they did it with the skim,” Hulan said suddenly. “We were told we’d be paid five hundred yuan. We actually get two hundred, which leaves three hundred yuan a month extra.” She reached over and grabbed a notepad off the nightstand. “Let’s figure some people do get paid more, because Knight has to promote sometimes, don’t you think?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “So let’s take an average of two hundred yuan off the salaries. With a thousand workers…” She scribbled furiously, then announced, “That would be a little over twenty-four thousand U.S. dollars a month, or almost three hundred thousand dollars a year.”
She put the notepad down. “Would your client have killed Miaoshan if he thought she had papers that implicated him in a scheme that netted him hundreds of thousands of dollars a year?” Hulan asked, then answered the question herself. “Yes.”
“You’re jumping to huge conclusions,” David countered. “Let’s remember that we still don’t know what Miaoshan’s papers actually mean. They don’t give a complete picture.”
“Well, I’m guessing you’re holding a list of dummy corporations—”
“You’ve got deposits and dates and toys that spell out a code name, but where is the money actually going?” David interrupted, trying to keep Hulan focused on Miaoshan’s documents. “All this”—his motion included the papers before him—“proves nothing unless you know where the money is. It could be down at the corner bank, in Beijing, or in Switzerland for all you know. And it could be going into anyone’s account. What if Sun’s been set up? You have to admit that was a pretty stupid code.”
What he said next took Hulan completely by surprise. “We have to find a way to link the deaths of Miaoshan, Xiao Yang, and Keith.” He amazed her again by focusing first on Xiao Yang. Then, as he spoke, she realized that he was laying out a defense—one in which he pointed blame everywhere but at his client—as clearly as if he’d been in a courtroom before a jury.
“Let’s assume that the woman in the factory was killed as you suggested earlier tonight.” David thought back to just three hours ago when that idea had seemed inconceivable. Now her death had become one more piece of the puzzle. “Was it to cover up the fact that Knight doesn’t use safety precautions with its machinery? Was it because she saw something? Was it because she made financial demands on Aaron Rodgers or someone else in the company? Was she one of Aaron Rodgers’s girls and now that he’d seen…what’s the new girl’s name?”
“Tang Siang.”
“Now that he’d seen Tang Siang, he wanted to get rid of Xiao Yang. Maybe he’s a serial killer who makes love to girls, then murders them when he’s ready to move on.” His questioning tone belied the implausibility of this scenario.
Hulan asked gently, “And where does Keith fit into all this?”
They hadn’t talked much about his death. Just after the accident David hadn’t been in contact with Hulan. Then when she’d finally called, they’d mostly talked about his coming to Beijing. Once he got there, he had been too happy to bring up Keith’s gory death.
“I saw him die,” David said. He stood and began to pace. “I accepted responsibility for that. The FBI, Madeleine, Rob, we all believed I was the target. But what if we were wrong? What if someone believed that Keith truly was the subject of a federal investigation as Pearl had written?”
“But what she wrote wasn’t true.”
David stopped in his pacing. “It doesn’t matter. People believe what they read in the papers.” He resumed walking, crossing the room in four long strides before pivoting and crossing the way he’d come. “And even if our murderer didn’t believe the story, what if he saw right through to the fact that Keith was about to become a whistle-blower either about the conditions in the factory or about the bribery you’re alleging?”
“But you don’t know that he was.”
“On that night he was worried about something. Maybe it was that he was going to be a whistle blower; maybe it was that he was going to violate attorney-client privilege. Either way, an ethical issue had torn him up. What if the killer or killers knew that?”
“But the deaths were on two continents. Are you suggesting a network of some sort—a gang, the triads, some form of organized-crime syndicate—operating in China and Los Angeles that goes beyond Sun and Knight?”
“It could just as easily be a couple of greedy people. Remember, the Knights, Aaron Rodgers, Sandy Newheart—all of them travel back and forth. They all had opportunity.”
“Sun also travels,” she pointed out. “He also had opportunity.”