The Killing Hands Read online

  “Yakuza?” Bailey puts his hands up and backs away. “No way, man. Mee’s not mixed up in anything like that. The guy’s not her dad.”

  I put my hand on his shoulder. “What if she didn’t know herself?”

  He considers my hypothesis. “I guess that’s possible. Like her mom lied to her about her dad?”

  “Maybe. We’re trying to link Saito and Mee, and so far this is the most logical connection. Unless she was doing something for him here in L.A. and the bank transfers were payments, a salary, or she was blackmailing him.”

  “Mee wouldn’t be involved in anything illegal, and no way could she blackmail someone.”

  That ties in with what we know about her to date, and my impression of her. Although the fact that she ran caught me by surprise.

  Bailey rubs his face. “I can’t believe she’s missing.”

  “You said she called you this morning. What time?”

  “It was around eight.” He pulls his cell phone out of his leather jacket and flips through the call log. “To be precise, 8:02 a.m. And the phone call lasted one minute and four seconds.”

  “From her cell?” Hana confirms.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did she say where she was?”

  “No. But there was music in the background, like she was in the car. I already told you all this.”

  I nod. “And she said she was on her way to San Diego?”

  “Uh-huh. Her cousin is sick and she was flying down there. She sounded upset.” He wrings his hands together. “But I still can’t get her on her cell.”

  Petrov puts his hands in his pockets. “She ever mention this cousin before?”

  Bailey hesitates and looks as if he’s been caught. “No.” He sighs. “I asked her what was wrong with her cousin, and she said she had a lump in her breast. That they were doing tests.”

  “And her mum died of breast cancer?” I say.

  “That’s right. I think that’s why Mee was flying down immediately. It would have touched a nerve, you know?”

  “Or it was the easiest lie that came to hand, given she’d been through that with her mother.” Petrov’s not sparing Bailey’s feelings.

  He shakes his head. “Mee? Lie? She doesn’t have it in her.”

  “Come on, Mr. Bailey,” Petrov says. “It’s obvious your girlfriend lied to you.”

  It’s a while before he says, “Mee isn’t unpredictable like this. She just isn’t. If she did lie, why? You think she’s gone on the run? From the Yakuza?”

  “That’s one possibility.” Petrov keeps his voice even.

  “Man.” Bailey blows out a long, slow breath. “This is not good. But I still don’t get why she wouldn’t tell me if she was in trouble.”

  “Maybe she didn’t want to involve you?” I suggest.

  He rubs his face again. “Maybe. That’s more like Mee than just taking off for no reason. So you think she’s in danger?” Bailey looks behind me and I follow his gaze. The computer guy’s carrying Mee’s computer out, ready to load it into his van.

  Bailey pushes his hands into his pockets and hunches his shoulders. “I hope she’s okay. You don’t think…you don’t think whoever killed this Saito guy is after Mee, do you?”

  “It’s too early to speculate,” Petrov answers honestly. “We’ll let you know as soon as any new information comes to hand. And please, if Ms. Kim contacts you, call us immediately.” Petrov hands him a business card. “I can’t stress the importance of this. If your girlfriend’s in trouble, we can help her.”

  Bailey’s brow is furrowed and he gives us small, multiple nods. But it’s still not sinking in, not yet. “Thanks…thanks.”

  “I’ve put out an APB on both Ms. Kim and her car, so hopefully we’ll get something that way.” Petrov gives Bailey a nod.

  We still don’t know why Saito suddenly came out of hiding and why he’d been working with the Asian Boyz. And maybe if we knew the answers to those questions, we’d know what Mee’s running from. It would also help us to know whether Mee and Saito were, in fact, related. We can’t get DNA directly from Mee to check against Saito’s, but we can swab her house and hopefully get her DNA that way to make the comparison.

  Petrov, Hana and I move away from the front lawn over to Petrov’s car.

  “You need a hand with those ViCAP files, Anderson?”

  “Nah, I’ll be fine. It’ll be easier if one person does the initial sort.”

  “I can help out if you like,” Hana offers.

  “Thanks, but I don’t think it will take me very long.”

  “You sure? It’s just dinner and a DVD with little sis, tonight. I don’t mind.”

  I smile. “No, I’ll be fine.” The real reason I want to be by myself is to try to induce a premonition, and, as soon as everyone leaves I’ll be going back into Mee’s house.

  Hana nods. “Okay. You going back to the office?”

  “No. I’m going to take another look around inside, once the crime-scene guys are finished, and then head home to sort through the ViCAP files.”

  “Can I get a lift back to the office with you then, sir?” Hana asks Petrov.

  “Sure. Um…guess we may as well head off now. Anderson, I’ve organized a few agents to keep an eye on the place for the next forty-eight hours or so. Maybe Mee, or someone else, will come back here. The agents will be here by six.”

  “Okay. I’ll hand over to them when I leave.”

  Petrov gives me a nod. “See you tomorrow morning.”

  Two hours later, I finally get my privacy inside Mee Kim’s house. The forensic computer technician left shortly after Petrov and Hana, but the others only left five minutes ago. The two FBI agents are ensconced in their lookout position a few doors down.

  Ducking underneath the crime-scene tape, I take in the atmosphere and layout of the house, as if it’s the first time I’ve seen it. I can’t truly bring fresh eyes to the scene, but I can try to be as objective as possible. The front door has been extensively printed, and I can clearly see about ten prints around the handle area. Of course, they could all be Mee’s, or they could belong to ten different people. Most likely we’ll find Mee’s prints, Mr. Bailey’s and maybe one or two others. The hallway is free of print dust, but Mee’s bedroom is a different story. Most of the work has been concentrated on her chest of drawers, with print dust covering the top and each drawer. If someone else went through her clothes, we should find their print there, unless they wore gloves. I move into the living room, literally trying to breathe in all that is Mee Kim. I pick up one of the photos of her, focusing on her face. I picture her, in this room, talking to us, then relaxing by herself, then watching TV. Next I sit down, blank out all thoughts and focus on my breath…in and out…in and out…

  Mee’s dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, washing a bowl and coffee cup. The doorbell rings and she quickly rinses the dishes and puts them to drain before making her way through the small house to the front door. She leaves the chain on and opens the door a crack. Two men wait on the other side. Both wear baseball caps pulled down low over their faces, and sunglasses. Parked on the street behind them is a large black car.

  “Hello?” Mee says through the crack in the door.

  “Mee Kim?”

  “Yes?”

  “You need to come with us.”

  She looks down at the closest man’s hands, and then runs.

  The two men and Mee Kim are fighting out the back of her house. She’s winning, using her skill to fight the two men.

  Mee’s inside, throwing things into a small overnight bag. Her heart is pounding and tears run down her face. She runs into the living room, grabs two photos, and then runs out the front door.

  The vision ends abruptly, so abruptly that my body jolts. Mee did run, but she was being chased. My vision seems to tie in with our case to date, clearing Mee of any wrongdoing—unless she crossed Saito and the Yakuza in some way. But it’s more likely that she found herself in this mess and did everything she could to escap
e—including fighting two men. But why didn’t she call us for help?

  I go out the kitchen door and around the corner of the house into the backyard to take a look around. Her yard is a large grassed area, with garden beds running along the three fences bordering it. On first glance it looks untouched, but then I see a few tufts of grass that have been recently upturned. I slowly move around the garden beds, and notice one camellia with a few branches snapped off, perhaps where someone fell on it. Mee did well, damn well. She fought off two attackers and gave herself enough time to throw some clothes in her bag and run. And, given the men are not still lying in her garden, she did so without killing them. I don’t find any other evidence of the scuffle outside, so I go back in and sit on Mee’s bed. I slow my breathing again and try to induce another vision of the confrontation, but I’m unsuccessful.

  It’s 8:30 p.m. by the time I turn the lights off in Mee’s house and make my way back to the car. I give the agents a small nod before getting behind the wheel. On the drive home I go through the vision in my head again. At the door, Mee was focused on the man’s hand. Why? I visualize that moment over and over again…the two men at the door, Mee looking down…the two men at the door, Mee looking down…the two men at the door, Mee looking down…Finally I see what she saw—part of his pinky finger was missing. He was Yakuza. A Yakuza member cuts off part of his pinky as an offering of penance to his boss, or sometimes the boss takes it as punishment. The guys were Yakuza and Mee knew it.

  I decide to call Sifu Lee before making myself a quick dinner. Even though I’m starving, if I wait much later to call, it’ll be downright rude. I scroll through to his cell number and hit the dial button.

  It only rings three times before he answers. He seems a little surprised to hear from me at nine on a weeknight…fair enough.

  “Sorry to bother you, but I’d like to ask your professional opinion on a case I’m working. I think the perpetrator might be trained in kung fu. Highly trained.”

  “Really?” Now he seems interested. “Go on.”

  Ideally I’d like to be sitting across from Lee with my eight ViCAP files and Saito’s file, so we could more easily discuss the injuries and details, but a phone call will have to do for the moment—I want to speak to him before I brief the team tomorrow and make this more formal.

  “There have been eight deaths and one attack over the past twelve years that I think may be related. And I believe they all involve the Ten Killing Hands.”

  “What?” I have Lee’s full attention. “Tell me more.”

  I take Lee through an overview of the cases, focusing on the victims’ injuries and causes of death. For the moment, I leave off the two cases I’m not sure about—the 1996 New York victim and the guy in San Francisco whose elbow was broken but who died from a cardiac arrest.

  “Was death instantaneous in these cases?”

  The question seems strange, but I go with it. “As far as I know. I haven’t read the full autopsy reports yet.” He’s silent, and then it hits me. “You’re thinking dim mak?” I ask.

  “Yes.”

  Dim mak is often referred to as the death touch, and is based on the premise that striking certain acupoints can cause instant or delayed death. At Lee’s school it’s something we study as part of our fifth dan—something I haven’t done yet. But I always thought it was more legend than science.

  “There are two other deaths…two cases where the victims showed signs of the Ten Killing Hands but one survived and one died of a cardiac arrest. I wasn’t sure whether to include them.”

  “Tell me more about these two.”

  “There was a victim in New York in 1996 who had both eardrums burst and broken ribs.”

  “Tiger Leopard Fist and Heaven Piercing Fist.”

  “Yes, that’s what I thought.” I flick the ring on my little finger. “But the guy survived. It’s entered into ViCAP as a violent attack, not a homicide.”

  “Have you checked whether he’s still alive?”

  “Not yet, no.”

  “Many of the dim mak strikes can cause death hours, days or even years later.”

  “How?”

  “Take the many pressure points around the left ribs. A hard strike to this area can rupture the spleen, but the bleeding can be contained by a membranous capsule that surrounds the spleen for days. So the person can be without symptoms for days until the capsule bursts, causing death.”

  “There was an L.A. victim from 2002 who died of a ruptured spleen, but I assumed it was from the strike to his ribs, Heaven Piercing Fist. He was dead when he was found and the forensic pathologist noted that the injury would have killed him within an hour or two.”

  “In that case the direct force was probably enough to do the damage. But other strikes can cause much more of a delay between the attack and death.”

  I’m silent, but I wish Lloyd Grove was here to weigh in. I guess that conversation will be tomorrow.

  Lee continues. “Take a strike to stomach point nine, on the carotid artery. If you strike an older person or someone else with plaque build-up in their arteries, they can have a heart attack or stroke instantly, or days later when the loosened plaque makes its way to their heart or brain. A hard strike, even on a healthy person, can cause degradation of the artery.”

  Again, I take mental notes to run all this by Grove.

  “So it’s really possible?” I try to check my disbelief. “To kill someone using acupoints?”

  “Yes.” Lee doesn’t hesitate.

  Even though some of the medical stuff Lee’s run by me sounds legit, I’m having a hard time buying the concept of dim mak…How am I going to sell it to Petrov and the others?

  “What sorts of things can I look for to verify this? To prove it?”

  “Death using dim mak can occur in many ways—one or more of the organs fail such as the liver or kidney, internal bleeding, or cardiac arrest…like this other victim.”

  “He was sixty-two. The pathologist assumed the stress of the attack induced a heart arrhythmia that led to death.”

  “That’s one possibility. The other one is that he was struck on the many pressure points that target the heart, effectively shutting it down.”

  “But the killer would need to be certain of death,” I say. A hit man has to make sure his mark is down, and for good. “Is dim mak foolproof?”

  “If the killer is skilled and focuses his attack on the heart, yes.”

  “Oh, God,” I say, suddenly realizing that if Lee’s right, anyone who died of a heart attack or heart problem in the past fifteen years or so could be one of our guy’s victims. “This is—”

  “A nightmare.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  We’re silent for a few moments before I bring us back to the effects of dim mak. “So cardiac arrest would be the cause of death if the heart was targeted?”

  “Not necessarily. The pressure points attack the heart in one of three ways—heart attack, ventricular fibrillation or something called heart concussion.”

  “Heart concussion?” This time I can’t hide the disbelief in my voice.

  “It’s real. You want the Latin name?”

  “I don’t think that’s going to help me.”

  “Can we meet, Sophie? Tomorrow morning? I’ve got some books you should take a look at, including one written by a doctor about how the effect of striking certain pressure points can be explained medically. It talks about how the strikes affect the nervous system, blood pressure, heart…everything.”

  I’m silent, still trying to process it all.

  “You there?” Lee’s voice brings me back to the immediate.

  “Can we meet tonight?” I ask, thinking of my 9:00 a.m. briefing.

  “I’m sorry, Sophie, I can’t tonight. But early tomorrow is fine.”

  “How early?”

  “I could be at the studio with the books by 7:00 a.m.”

  “Great. Thanks, Lee. I’ll see you then.”

  I cook dinner on remote, still t
hinking about dim mak and the victims. I shake my head. If Lee’s right…I’ll never be able to trace those symptoms back. Reopen every case that involved a heart attack of someone involved in gangs or organized crime? It’s not going to happen. And that’s assuming our hit man only targets this subset of individuals.

  I’m in the middle of dinner when I stop thinking about dim mak and its effects on the heart long enough to remember Corey Casey. I leave my dinner on the table and go through his file in search of a phone number. I find one and dial it.

  “Hello.” A woman’s sleepy voice.

  I suddenly realize I’ve dialed a New York number, and they’re three hours ahead of us. It’s after midnight there. “Hi. I’m sorry to bother you this late at night but my name’s Agent Sophie Anderson from the FBI and I’m trying to track down a Corey Casey. Have I got the right number?”

  “Corey Casey was my husband. But he died four years ago.”

  It hits me like a slap in the face, even though Lee prepared me for the possibility of a delayed death.

  “Hello?”

  “Sorry,” I say. “Do you mind me asking what he died of?”

  “You’re from the FBI?” She confirms my identity.

  “That’s right, ma’am. I’m sorry, I know the accent’s confusing.”

  She gives a little snort of air. “Yes.”

  “I work in the L.A. field office and we’re investigating a death that we think may be related to your husband’s 1996 attack.”

  “Oh.” She pauses. “My husband died of liver failure.”

  Fourteen

  I pull into the kung fu studio’s parking lot right at 7:00 a.m. I spent part of last night doing a few Internet searches on dim mak, but then decided to focus on the ViCAP files purely in light of the Ten Killing Hands, not pressure-point strikes, too. Besides, I want to see Lee’s books firsthand. If I truly believe dim mak is in the equation, I’ll need to go back to ViCAP anyway.

  The doors are locked when I arrive, so I ring the buzzer. Within a few minutes the heavy double doors open and I’m greeted by Lee. He looks like I feel—tired.