As Mei parked in front of her duplex just after six, she actually paused to wonder if Catherine would attach that label to Cullen Archer. Hot. In Mei’s opinion, it certainly fit. Flustered, she grabbed her purse, notebook and keys, and flew into the house. Thankfully Foo’s effusive greeting steered her priorities in another direction.
“Yes, I’m glad to see you, too, mutt.” Shedding her suit coat, Mei locked up her weapon, then hung her jacket in the closet. The next thing she did was find one of Foo’s squeaky toys to toss across the room. It was a nightly ritual. His ambling gait on stubby legs too short for his big feet never failed to make Mei laugh. The shelter had said no one there wanted to venture a guess as to the breeds in his background. Built low to the ground like a basset, his soft fur, perky terrier ears and pug-like face expelled him from that breed. To say nothing of his waving plume of a tail. But he almost smiled, and Mei had loved that about him from the minute she set eyes on him. Life held enough sorrow; she liked surrounding herself with bright colors and silly offbeat objects that always lifted her spirits.
She changed into jeans and a T-shirt, and took Foo out into her compact backyard so he could chase a ball around. She supposed her propensity for lots of color and things her parents would call junk came from having lived amid such order all her life. The Ling home could grace the pages of Architectural Digest or House Beautiful. On the high-ceilinged, ice-toned walls hung rich brocade tapestries that provided splashes of color. However, her mother rarely spoke of their beauty; rather, she added up their monetary value. Mei and Stephen had grown up in a veritable museum. Stephen, Mei’s elder by two years, had slipped easily into the family habit of collecting for the sake of owning. Once close, the siblings had a clash of principles the last year Mei spent in Hong Kong at the family business. Leaving the firm had been heart-wrenching, one of the hardest decisions she’d ever made. But it’d been for the best. She’d found her true niche in police work.
She heard her phone ring. Aware that Catherine’s meeting might let out around seven o’clock, Mei raced inside to scoop up the receiver before her answering machine kicked in. “Hello,” she said, still out of breath.
“Lieutenant?” a male voice inquired. A vaguely familiar one, too, but Mei couldn’t quite place it.
“Yes,” she said more hesitantly. Her home phone number was unlisted, as were most officers’.
“You sound like I caught you running a marathon or something. This is Cullen Archer.”
“Mr. Archer?” Mei found it even harder to breathe normally. “I haven’t been home long. You caught me playing with my dog.”
“Ah. Well, I’m down at the Port of Houston.” He rattled off a dock number, and Mei automatically stored the information. “We have a second corpse. A second dead courier, I’m betting.”
Mei’s thundering heart nearly stopped beating. “Oh, no! How? Why? Did you call Homicide?”
“They contacted me,” he said. “There’s a second photograph and another note in Chinese. If I might interrupt your play, I’d like you to come and have a look. I’ll see that security lets you drive straight in.”
Mei bit her lower lip.
“Well?” he demanded impatiently.
“Of course. I already turned my report in to the chief, though. I’d assumed you wouldn’t require my services again.”
“You thought wrong. Do I need to call your chief first?”
Mei realized she was squeezing Foo’s ball out of shape. She tossed it lightly across the kitchen and closed the back door after the dog streaked in and dived after the blue ball. “I’m more than half an hour away. Shall I meet you at the morgue, instead?” She hadn’t applied to Homicide because she’d never gotten used to the smell of death. The morgue, while sterile, gave her the creeps, too. She had huge respect and great empathy for what Crista and Risa did.
Her caller spoke to someone out of Mei’s hearing. He came back almost immediately. “The team says we’ll be here at least another hour trying to figure how the courier and his assailant breached security. Get here as fast as you can, okay?”
Mei pulled the phone away from her ear and frowned at it. “Yes, sir,” she said in a syrupy sweet voice. “Am I to report to you, then? I don’t know your rank. Or does Interpol naturally take precedence in local investigations, kind of like the FBI?” She heard Archer clear his throat several times.
“Please come, Lieutenant. I have extensive experience in tracking down international art thieves and next to none when it comes to murder.”
She bent a little. “On that score we’re even. If you don’t mind, I’d rather leave that particular aspect of the case in the very capable hands of our homicide squad. But I’ll head out right away. I admit I’m curious about the photo and this note. See you in about forty-five minutes.” She hung up, debating only a moment as to whether she ought to change back into the suit she’d worn earlier, or go as she was. Vetoing the suit, deciding it would take too long, she did pluck her revolver from its locked box and secured it under her belt at the back of her jeans. To heck with packing a Taser. The docks were spooky at night. She felt more secure with an equalizer.
Mei grabbed a cherry-red blazer to throw on over her white T-shirt. Red might not be appropriate attire for a murder investigation in progress, but it gave her confidence. And to face Archer and a dead man, Mei Lu needed all the confidence she could muster.
“Sorry, Foo. I’m abandoning you again.”
The dog sank to his belly and put his chin on his ball, gazing up at her with soulful eyes.
“All right, come on, then. But I’ll have to leave you in the car.”
He didn’t appear to care. The little dog loved riding in cars. Mei kept a water bowl and bottled water in her vehicle because most of her trips with the dog were impromptu, whether for strolls in the park or quick visits to the grocery store.
Her Toyota choked and sputtered, but the engine finally turned over. Mei patted the dash and gave thanks to the car gods. Once she got under way she never worried about breaking down. That was her father’s everlasting concern. So many times Michael Ling had tried to buy Mei a new car. She appreciated that, but repeatedly pointed out that she wanted to succeed or fail in this job on her own.
Aun Ling had plainly never understood her daughter. Of course, Mei’s mother had gone from a huge Chinese household in a manufacturing sector of mainland China to a strange land where her arranged husband worked night and day, especially when Mei and Stephen were little. If Mei had rightly deciphered the Wong family history, her mother’s once prominent family had, like many others in China, fallen on hard times. While Aun rarely brought up her girlhood, she let slip enough things for Mei to know the Wongs had enjoyed great wealth and prestige.
Aun courted no American friends. She derived immense pleasure from her home, and from entertaining her husband’s Asian associates and their wives. Aun also felt duty-bound to arrange suitable marriages for her children. Stephen was more important, because as Aun said often, a woman’s purpose on earth was to produce a male heir to carry on the family name. Mei never was quite sure how her mother viewed her position, and she’d adroitly sidestepped Aun’s attempts to have her meet the sons of visitors from Hong Kong or, later, mainland China. Mei would have liked a closer relationship with her mother. They always seemed to be at odds, and Mei sincerely regretted that.
She found a parking space shortly after passing Security, having easily identified the proper dock from the gaggle of police cars parked nearby. Mei checked her purse to make sure she had her shield and saw it gleam in the nearly spent sun. She poured Foo’s water, lowered her windows a few inches to give him air, and slid from the car. She surveyed the scene as she locked her doors and pocketed her keys.
Mei Lu spotted Cullen