Teetering on the balls of her feet, Mei wasnt sure if she should leave or stay. Ultimately she decided to return her teapot and cup to the Archer kitchen. Shed almost reached the door when she heard Cullen say explosively, You want me to wire how much? I know what a pearl and jade necklace is likely to cost. Why not pay with one of your credit cards?
Mei let the door close on his next comment, but she thought it sounded as if he was questioning how she could max out three cards. There was no mistaking his fury when he virtually bellowed, All of them? Dammit, Jana, what kind of junk did you buy? As quickly as hed flared up, he appeared to calm down, and he promised to phone his banker on his cell while she spoke with the twins.
Mei actually might have lingered at the door to eavesdrop longer had Freda not bustled out of a room at the end of the hall.
Ms. Ling. ErLieutenant. Have you come looking for more tea?
No. I figured while Mr. Archers on the phone with his wife, Id return my dishes to the kitchen and perhaps find the bathroom.
Ex-wife. The housekeeper stared over Meis shoulder at the door behind which they could hear the childrens excited chatter. Its a crying shame that woman can reach out from across the world and turn this household upside down. Freda relieved Mei of the dishes and pointed her toward a bathroom.
Will he be long? Mei asked before the woman rushed off.
Freda shrugged. Hard to say. Ms. Jana was clearly in a state about something. Im sorry the kids broke up your meeting. I answered down here, and they happened to pick up on the upstairs extension. Theyve been waiting for their mothers call for days. They expected to hear this weekend, and theyve moped since Friday.
Um, well, their father may need some extra time with them. Ill just run back to headquarters and check my morning messages. Could you tell Cullen, uh, Mr. Archer that I need to talk to Chief Tanner so Im clear on how much time she wants me to devote to this case? Truthfully, Mei needed to ask how Catherine thought she should handle the situation with her father. She couldnt barge into his gallery, introduce Cullen Archer as an insurance investigator helping Interpol, and watch Cullen start throwing out questions about smuggled Chinese artifacts. Good Chinese daughters didnt act that way. Not even if the daughter was a cop. Such discourse moved slowly in her culture and rarely involved women. Westerners didnt understand that there was an order to things, a process to work through to answer even the simplest questions.
Mei felt comfortable explaining that to Catherine. Not to Cullen Archer.
Normally Mei Lu didnt hesitate when it came to dealing with influential men. Actually, shed dealt well with many of them when she ran the Hong Kong gallery.
So, admit its this particular man. He only had to look at her with those gray eyes and her stomach turned cartwheels.
Mei knew if she was going to continue to work with Cullen, it was a reaction she needed to quash. Besides, it was a reaction that made no sense. Ask anybody who knew her well. Mei Lu Ling didnt lose her composure over men.
Suit yourself, dear, Freda was saying. She still held Meis teapot and cup. Ill give Mr. Cullen your message. Cant say as I blame you for hitting the road. Ordinarily you cant find a more affable man. But after weeks of phone calls from her nibs, hes a bear. Ah, there I go, running off at the mouth again. Sorry. I should keep my thoughts on that subject to myself. Its not as if Mr. Cullen doesnt frequently remind meand himselfthat Ms. Jana is the mother of his children.
By now Mei was getting used to Fredas slips of the tongue. And to the way she darted in and out like a hummingbird. As she left the house, Mei began to wonder if there was another reason Cullen might want to steer the investigation toward Ling Limited. If he had a high-maintenance ex-wife and a lifestyle to keep up among Memorials upper crust, might smuggling be a lucrative way to increase his cash flow? After all, he wouldnt be the first of his stature to succumb to the lure of easy money. Shed exposed more preposterous crimes in Houstons white-collar community. And Archer had an ex running around Thailand. How simple would it be for a man with his connections to arrange contacts in the Asian underworld? As simple as itd be for him to shift the blamefor instance, to an unsuspecting Houston art dealer.
If nothing else, her stomach stopped fluttering over Archers looks. She had a whole lot more to keep herself occupied on the drive downtown. Such aswhich of these musings was she duty bound to share with Catherine?
CHAPTER FOUR
MEI LU FOUND A PARKING PLACE in the precincts always-busy garage. One thing she loved about the main police station was the amount of activity going on day and night. Men and women rushed in and out of the historic building, some in uniform, others in street clothes, a few in disguise. If their disguises were good, no one except close friends recognized them. The ones easily seen through provided fun for weeks.
Police work, the nitty-gritty part of keeping a city the size of Houston safe from crazies, derelicts and all-around bad folks, took an emotional toll on the psyches of everyone on the force. Laughter was the best cure. Everything, from the smallest oddity to the most bizarre occurrence became fair game to pass around from department to department. After the weeks at the academy, during which Mei Lu took such a drubbing over her deficiency in martial arts, she was careful to avoid being the butt of their jokes.
As a result, no matter how harried or hurried, she sauntered through the building, occasionally stopping to chat, but leaving in her wake an aura of calm efficiency. At least that was her objective.
Cops on all the floors used to stare at her anyway. Partly because at the time she went through the academy, Mei was one of only three Asian Americans with the Houston PD, and the only Asian female. Gradually, no doubt due to the recent influx of Asian immigrants, department numbers had begun to reflect the recent diversity.
Chief Tanner, always big on women walking their own path, used to give Mei Lu pep talks about how she had a golden opportunity to be a model cop. So what if she happened to be Chinese? Except that her minority status had made her the go-to authority anytime there was a disturbance in the Asian quarter. And she didnt always feel like an authority. At times she felt quite removed.
It was Crista who helped her see and come to accept that there would always be cops to whom race mattered a lot. Everyone could name them. Crista confronted them, while Mei did her best to steer clear. It was increasingly evident, however, that as the Asian community expanded, unrest rose among those cops whod rather everyone of color simply went away.
As she sat outside Catherines office waiting for the chief to wind up a mid-morning meeting, she considered the various things that could trigger an upsurge of racial violence in the city. Reports of a suspected rapist at large, or a serial killer, or gang activity. She worried that if news of this smuggling operation broke or, worse, became widely known, patrols would triple along Bellaire. Families in Meis neighborhood, law-abiding for the most part, would be subtly harassed.
Suddenly, Catherines door burst open and two men in suits and ties stormed past, causing Mei to glance up and forget the concerns running through her head. The shorter of the chiefs visitors had a red face and bulbous nose. He was chunky around the middle. The other, taller and leaner, had a pasty complexion. He sported a bushy mustache that made his angry eyes overpower a weak chin.