Murder on Bamboo Lane Read online

  As far as political animals go, though, Missy Kim is one of the better ones. She doesn’t take herself too seriously and sometimes cracks jokes at press conferences—she’s a breath of fresh air.

  After leaving Nanda Ramen, I search her Facebook events page and see that Missy will be participating on a panel discussion on redistricting at the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center on San Pedro and Second streets tomorrow morning.

  Cortez has told me that he has interviewed her already, but I’d like to get a shot, too. After all my missteps, I figure I should keep him in the loop, so I text him.

  Do you mind if I talk to Missy Kim?

  be my guest

  His reply seems snarky, but I realize that everything from him seems to have an edge of snark right now.

  • • •

  I’m off this week on Thursday, and instead of sleeping in, I’m at the redistricting meeting on the basement level of the Japanese American community center, overlooking a beautiful Japanese garden. I didn’t have enough time to properly dry my hair or eat, but at least I’m wearing a clean pair of pants and I’ve brushed my teeth. Thankfully, there’s coffee, and I nurse a cup, checking out the small crowd.

  It’s still early, so people are slowly making their way in. Missy Kim is dressed like all the other panelists, in a blazer and black slacks. After she finishes her conversation with the moderator, I make my move.

  “Ms. Kim, I’m Ellie Rush. You spoke to my Asian American studies class at PPW last year.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Missy extends her hand and gives mine a firm shake. “Are you still at PPW?”

  “I graduated. I’m actually working at the LAPD now.”

  “Doing . . . ?”

  “Well, I’m an officer with their Bicycle Coordination Unit.”

  “You’re a bicycle cop? That’s pretty wild. How are you liking it?”

  “No complaints,” I lie. “Anyway, I’m working on the Jenny Nguyen murder case. I know that you spoke to Detective Williams already.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid that I couldn’t offer much information. So sad. I didn’t know her that well. Just saw her at meetings. She was at one of our panels that Thursday, the same day the police believe that she was killed.”

  “Did anything out of the ordinary happen at that gathering?”

  “No, not really. I mean, hey, we’re talking redistricting, not the Maury Povich show. These are pretty tame sessions.”

  “Her boyfriend claims that Jenny wasn’t really political.”

  “Really? That’s interesting, because she’d been at all of our meetings.” Missy takes a sip of her coffee, leaving a bright lipstick mark on the lip of her paper cup. “You know, come to think of it, I got into a weird conversation with her a couple of months ago.”

  “Weird how?”

  “She asked me some strange questions about a couple of the redistricting commissioners. Like who did I think was a stand-up guy. Who was happily married? Who was known to have affairs.”

  “Really?” Was Jenny targeting someone for something?

  “I mean, politicians do have their groupies, but these are commissioners. They were appointed by their city council representatives. They are mostly businesspeople, you know? Successful in their fields and definitely influencers, but not what I would call power brokers.”

  Missy places her cup on the table and then gestures, as if that helps her recall her conversation with Jenny. “There was something definitely strange about her . . . let’s say interests. Do you know Teena Dang of Councilman Beachum’s office? Jenny seemed to be asking her a lot of questions, too.”

  Seeing that the panel is beginning to start, I thank Missy and then go out into the garden to make a call to Cortez.

  • • •

  As I walk onto a round stone platform, I tell Cortez about Missy’s conversation with Jenny.

  “That is strange,” he says. “But remember that expensive underwear among her belongings? Maybe she had a benefactor.”

  I know what Cortez is implying. That Jenny was a gold digger. Yet, if she was such a gold digger, what was she doing living out of a borrowed 1994 Honda Accord?

  “The Jenny Nguyen that her Census boss described is completely different than the person everyone else is telling us. It’s as if she were two completely different people.”

  “Some people are just that way,” Cortez says, and I realize he means me.

  Before he can say good-bye, I hang up the phone.

  • • •

  I’m not quite sure where I should drive to next.

  I don’t feel like going to my parents and letting them know that I’m no longer with Cortez. I can’t speak to Benjamin. I don’t want to be around Rickie, and I even need a break from Nay after sharing a living space with her for the last few days.

  I go next door to the Artist’s Loft and get a green tea latte from the organic café. I take a careful sip as I study a bulletin board full of flyers advertising Bikram yoga classes and poetry workshops. Hanging on with tape is the old promotion for Tuan Le’s panel at the Goldfinger Gallery.

  I look for his business card, which I’ve stapled to my notebook. Handwritten in pencil is an address on Vignes Street, a block away.

  At least three realty lockboxes are connected to the metal grating by the door to Tuan Le’s loft.

  I press Tuan’s button on the intercom.

  “Hello?” a static-laden voice responds. It must be Tuan.

  “Hey,” I wave to the camera. “It’s me.”

  “Who?”

  “Ellie Rush.”

  “Ellie, oh yeah.”

  The buzzer sounds and I walk up to the third floor.

  Tuan has already opened his door. He’s wearing a wife beater and, in the light of day, I notice that Rickie was right: Tuan is ripped.

  “So the cameras aren’t working?” I say.

  “Nope. This development took a hit during the recession, but it’s coming back up.”

  He gestures for me to come in. Facing the floor-to-ceiling windows are abstract oil paintings hung on an expansive white wall. I see the edge of a futon up in the loft upstairs.

  “Wow, this is nice,” I say.

  “I don’t actually own this place. It’s my friend’s. But I’ve been able to crash here rent-free while he’s been living in Tokyo for the past nine months. That ride will be ending now that the unit is officially up for lease.”

  I sit down on a black leather couch. The leather is so soft that it feels like it’s melting around my body. I stroke its arms a couple of times before I realize what I am doing.

  “Hey, I was meaning to call you,” Tuan says. “Thanks for the introduction to Sally Choi. Man, the girl worked gangbusters for me. Saved me from going to the joint, that’s for sure. I heard you did your share for me, too.”

  “Well, you didn’t kill Jenny,” I say too loudly and definitively. Who am I trying to convince? “Actually, I’m here because I wanted to get Jenny’s contact information back in Vietnam. Her boss at the Census wanted to send her family a card.”

  “Oh yeah.” Tuan rifles through some papers on a drafting table. Tearing off a piece of butcher paper, he consults his phone and then writes a name and address with a felt tip marker.

  I look over his shoulder and see that there’s also a phone number listed. “Can I get the phone number, too?”

  “Why? Can you speak Vietnamese?” he asks me.

  I shake my head.

  “You won’t be able to communicate with them, then.”

  “Well, let me have it anyway. In case her boss needs it to send a care package or something.”

  Tuan seems a little annoyed with my request but still goes along with it. He folds the butcher paper and hands it to me. “Hey, a friend gave me some great soju. You want some? It’s cooling in the frig.”

  That’s the last thing I need. Strong yam wine with an available bachelor who happens to be ripped? I say my good-byes and a quick prayer, asking God to keep me
away from any more temptation.

  Once I’m outside, my phone rings. “Where are you? You wanna meet?” Nay asks.

  I say nothing for a moment. I wonder, What time is it in Vietnam?

  • • •

  I arrive at the church first. The light in the parish office is on, which means Father Kwame is probably in.

  As always, he seems happy to see me. I warn him a friend of mine is on her way, too. Within fifteen minutes, Nay comes knocking on the door.

  “Nay Pram,” I introduce her.

  “Pleased to meet a friend of Ellie,” Father Kwame says. He can tell by looking at her that she’s Cambodian. “Do you speak Khmer?”

  “I only know the bad words,” Nay explains, making the priest laugh before he excuses himself to get us cups of tea.

  We sit in his study.

  “He’s kind of cute,” she hisses to me.

  “Nay, he’s a priest. Like, he’s celibate.”

  “Oh.”

  Father Kwame then reenters the cozy office, carrying a tray with two cups and saucers, a bowl of sugar and a mini-pitcher of milk.

  “Actually, Father, I need your help in a case that I’m working on,” I begin.

  “Oh, yes?” The priest’s eyes are shiny with interest.

  I tell him about how I had to identify Jenny’s body and all the events that followed. The discovery of the Ratmobile and the contents in the trunk.

  “That was through one of my contacts,” Nay interjects, and when I mention how I spoke with Jenny’s ex-roommate, Susana, she adds, “That was my contact, too.”

  I glare at Nay, and tell Father Kwame about interviewing Jenny’s Census boss.

  “Rickie helped her with that,” Nay says.

  And, finally, about clearing Tuan of murder, and visiting the projects, and talking to Missy Kim.

  “She did all that on her own.”

  Thank you very much, Nay!

  I put down my cup and saucer on a side table. “Anyway, from what I hear, Jenny literally has no relatives here. But I just got the phone number of her aunt in Ho Chi Minh City.”

  Father Kwame raises his eyebrows. I know that he served in a Vietnamese parish in the 1970s.

  “I believe they are fifteen hours ahead there.”

  He nods his head.

  I unfold the butcher paper and reveal Jenny’s aunt’s name. “Father, can you help me?”

  He nods again.

  Before dialing the number, I explain what information I’ll need. Nay helps me make the international call on my cell phone: I know that it’s going to cost me an arm and a leg, but it’s worth it.

  The call connects, and I hand the phone to Father Kwame, who seems transformed as he speaks into the phone and occasionally writes some things down on the back of an envelope. I just hope that it’s actually Jenny’s aunt we’ve reached.

  “His Vietnamese is good,” Nay whispers to me.

  “It is? Can you tell what he’s saying?”

  “No idea. But it sounds authentic.”

  He finally says good-bye in Vietnamese—tam biet, which even I can recognize—and returns my phone to me.

  Both Nay and I sit breathless, waiting.

  He delicately presses the tips of his fingers together. “The mother was found dead four months ago in Ho Chi Minh City,” he finally says. “They believe her death was at the hands of an American from Los Angeles.”

  SEVENTEEN

  NORTH FIGUEROA

  Neither Nay nor I say anything as Father Kwame tells us what he has heard from Jenny’s family. Nay keeps bringing her cup to her lips, even though it’s obvious that she’s all out of tea. I, on the other hand, have retrieved my notebook from my backpack and am furiously writing down everything Father Kwame is reporting.

  “I spoke to Jenny’s aunt, her mother’s sister. She told me that Jenny’s mother, Kam Hanh, was found dead in her bedroom last October. She had obviously been with someone. A white man, she says.”

  Shiiit, I think. The mother, Kam Hanh, was possibly killed, I write.

  “This was at the same time a trade mission from Los Angeles was in Ho Chi Minh City. Kam Hanh had been excited because she used to live in Los Angeles, and thought she could make some good connections. She had started a clothing manufacturing business a few years ago upon returning to her homeland.”

  Father Kwame adjusts his glasses to read the notes that he himself had taken during the call. “She had volunteered to be part of the welcoming committee. Apparently, things were going well. She told her sister that she had made an important contact that would lead to very big things. Then the morning after a social event, she was found dead by her sister.”

  “What happened?” I ask.

  Father Kwame hesitates before he tells us. “She was strangled.”

  “Damn,” Nay says.

  “Did they find who killed her?”

  Father Kwame shook his head. “Not even a witness.”

  “How about DNA?” Nay asks eagerly, educated on forensic television programs.

  I turn on my phone and connect to the web so that I can do some quick and dirty research on DNA facilities in Vietnam. Just like at my place, though, the wireless connection here is super slow.

  Meanwhile, Father Kwame takes the time to ask Nay some questions about her and her family.

  “I was born in Long Beach,” she tells him. “We moved to Lakewood when I was in elementary school.”

  Nay spends an inordinate amount of time listing her older brother’s bad habits and expressing how relieved she is that he and his family have finally moved out.

  “It’s just you and your mother now?”

  “Yeah, Pops took off when I was born. Guess he thought that I might be too much to handle.” Nay, as always, tries to make a joke of it, but I know that being abandoned by her father is a sensitive subject.

  I let their conversation continue for a while before I finally jump in.

  “It looks like Ho Chi Minh City just got a DNA testing center a couple of years ago. It’s probably just in its infancy.”

  “But they do have one,” Nay says. “So there could be a chance . . . ?”

  “Well, you would also need the DNA of the suspect to make a match,” adds Father Kwame.

  Good point. “It wouldn’t surprise me if the police over there glossed over the whole thing,” I say. “I mean, here’s a delegation of politicians and businesspeople who want to invest in your city and country. There’s not much incentive to accuse one of them of killing a local woman.” I’m sure the mayor’s trade mission didn’t force any of its members to donate any bodily fluids or tissues to aid a foreign police investigation. They may not even have bothered asking.

  Nay is deep in thought. This is a new look for her. “How many people were on the trip?” she asks.

  I go back to my phone and look it up. “A lot. Thirty-five,” I say. Nay and Father Kwame’s faces fall in unison. “But only twenty were men.”

  I scan the list. It includes the mayor, and other political leaders and businesspeople. Could one of them have really left Kam Hanh for dead and come back to the States as if nothing had happened?

  Nay excuses herself to go to the bathroom. Actually, she announces, “Have to pee.”

  I blush, but Father Kwame smiles and points a finger down the hallway.

  After Nay is gone, he says, “Well, it seems that your friend problem has largely resolved itself.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your last visit. You said that some of your friends were holding you back.”

  “Oh yeah. Well, it was actually my ex-boyfriend. Not Nay.”

  “It’s good to have friends who can hold you lightly.”

  “What do you mean, lightly?”

  “Hold you light enough so you can change, grow. Give you enough room to evolve.”

  Does Nay hold me lightly? I’ve never really analyzed our relationship. She doesn’t judge me, that’s for sure. But she also tells me if I’m doing wrong. I don’t real
ly think about how good of a friend I’m being to her. I mean, I offer my couch to her, buy her the occasional lunch or snack. But emotionally? Not sure.

  When we leave, Father Kwame extends his hand to Nay. “Good to meet you,” he says.

  “You’re the coolest celibate man I’ve ever met.”

  Father Kwame doesn’t know what to do with Nay’s compliment. I just cover my eyes.

  • • •

  I can’t wait to call Cortez with this information, but Nay and I decide to hang out afterward to debrief. She has her mother’s car back—I guess her brother couldn’t handle Nay’s bellyaching. I think that she was also practically stalking her brother, calling and leaving messages every fifteen minutes: “Give me back my car, you stealer!” When she wasn’t calling, she was texting: SCUMBAGSCUMBAGSCUMBAG. In that way, Nay and my Aunt Cheryl are similar. They usually get what they want by any means necessary.

  I buy Nay a mocha at Café de Leche. While she slurps, I take out my notebook and study some of its pages.

  She glances at my notes. “That’s not how you write it.”

  “What?”

  “Jenny’s mom’s name. It’s Cam with a C, not a K.”

  “Thanks,” I say. Nay’s definitely more savvy about Southeast Asian languages than I am.

  “I just don’t get it,” I say.

  “Get what?”

  “Who Jenny really was. I mean, at first I was thinking that she was some activist like Benjamin, you know? Looking out for the little people at the projects. But the people there seem to think that Jenny was nothing like that. The project’s tenant organizer even claimed that Jenny was pretty much only looking out for herself.”

  “Well, she was all alone here. She needed the money. The girl was living out of a car, and not even a car she owned. She needed to look out for herself.”

  That was true.

  “Tuan insists that she wasn’t seeing anyone else, but then she has these expensive panties in her trunk.”

  Nay purses her lips.

  “Let me see those again.”

  I turn on my phone and locate the photos of the box of French underwear. Nay brings the screen close to her face to study the images.

  “You know, I didn’t notice this before, but this is last season’s packaging.”