Chapter 3

When Susan got the call she was asleep in her room and she could hear the soft snoring of Grubby from the room opposite to her. As soon as the phone rang with a shrill ringtone, she cursed her fate for not being able to get any sleep at all.

“I am going to be there as soon as possible,” said Susan as she hung up the call and then found that James was standing in her doorway.

“Everything alright?” asked James as Grubby trotted inside and placed his chin on her bed.

“Yeah, I just got called on a possible homicide case in Chinatown. I need to go, since I am the only one closest to that area. Would you be alright alone for a few hours?” asked Susan as she scratched Grubby behind his ears and James nodded silently.

“It is quite late James. So no watching TV. And please sleep. You need the rest, you have taken quite a long drive today coming back home,” said Susan as she went towards her closet to pull out her jeans and dark t-shirt. She figured that she could do with some help regarding the clothes now looking at her closet. Shopping was a must for both of them.

“Come on Grubby,” called James and then they both were gone leaving Susan in the empty room. She did not waste much time in getting dressed and then told James that she had a key and he was not supposed to open the door for anyone under any circumstances before she left. She knew that he was a big boy and could take care of himself but he was her responsibility and she could never forget that. Before leaving she kissed her son and left the house.

Having James even though she had divorced and getting his custody was the best thing that could happen to her.

Thankfully she had been assigned a temporary partner for the time being when she was going to be doing cases which were not related to the serial murder cases.

“I had dinner there last weekend,” said Detective Bill as they drove towards Chinatown.” I took Elizabeth there for dinner. Before that I took her to the Grand Theatre for watching the ballet, I can’t remember the name of the performance but I have to say that it was so boring for me. I fell asleep halfway through that music but Elizabeth loved it. Then we went to the sea-food restaurant to have dinner.”

It was two am in the morning and Susan felt that it was quite early in the morning with no sleep at all to be so damn chatty about his past date but she figured that at least that would keep her awake. To her tired eyes, every streetlight seemed excessively bright and every horn seemed to blast through her ears making her cringe every single time. Just an hour ago she had been warmly cocooned in her bed and now she was in the cold as she navigated the traffic in the car listening to the dating life of the man who had been recently divorced and was trying very hard to get over his wife who was the love of his life.

She might be invested too much in her work but like every other single women she also liked to hear the gossip at work.

“You ever eat there?”

“Where?” asked Susan as she focused back on Bill when he brought her out of her own thoughts.

“The Chinatown Sea Food restaurant. Elizabeth ordered these great clams with garlics and black bean sauce, and those fried pork dumplings with the shrimp and mushroom curry, it is making my mouth water just thinking about it,” said Bill,” I can’t wait to go back there for more.”

“Who is this Elizabeth?” asked Susan as she was not interested but she figured it would lead him to discussing more keeping her awake till they reached the crime scene.

“I just met her last week at the gym that I work out. She has recently moved to the area,” said Bill.

“I thought that you were seeing someone named Mary,” said Susan as she fought back the urge to yawn and looked at the map on the navigation to see that they were running an hour late because of the traffic which should not be happening at this ungodly hour.

“Maggie,” he shrugged,” It did not work out.”

“I have been hearing that a lot of your dates have not been working out since quite long,” said Susan as she looked at her watch again. This was absolutely a nightmare out of which she had no chance of remotely getting out.

“Hey I am still trying to figure out what I want in a woman, you know? It is been like forever that I am in the market as a single man. Man, I had no clue that there were so many single girls all around and I have never even taken notice of them,” said Bill.

“Women,” Susan rectified him.

“Yeah yeah…Sally used to tell me that as well. You are supposed to say women now,” mimicked Bill as he recalled how his wife used to speak to him.

“You and sally speak a lot now a days?” asked Susan.

“What is there to talk about?” asked Bill defensively.

“Ten years of marriage maybe. The two kids you have from that marriage who are probably figuring out what is right for them since the divorce that they had to face along with both of you?” asked Susan as she tried reminding him of the things which were really important.

“No. We don’t talk. She has moved on,” said Bill as his face became an impenetrable mask of coldness where there was no space for the vulnerability of emotions.

Susan knew that it was going to be pointless talking to him any longer so she remained silent. They turned on towards Hartford Street driving inside the heart of Chinatown and were nearly blinded by the lights of the Scotland Yard Cruisers which had lit up the area like a Christmas. Despite the bone-shilling weather there were several onlookers who had gathered in both sides of the street-walk and she heard murmurs in accented English and Chinese as well.

She and Bill walked down to the middle of the Street where the yellow police tapes had been pulled across the area where a patrol-man stood guard.

“Detective Rollo and Palmer, homicide,” said Susan as she showed her card and announced herself.

“It is over there,” said the man in a terse manner. He pointed down the alley near a dumpster where another man was standing guard. As Susan and Bill approached she realized that the thing was not lying in the dumpster that the cop had been guarding, but something lying on the pavement. She halted down and then looked at the severed hand.

“Whoa!! That is sick man,” commented Palmer who looked at the hand as well.

The cop laughed,” My reaction exactly when I found it here.”

“Who found it?” asked Susan not finding the entire thing in the least amusing.

“Folks in the Chinatown Ghost Tour. They are all American tourists. One kid in the group picked it up and thought that it was a prop or something and the hand was fresh enough to splatter blood on his jacket and then all hell broke out. The jacket has been also left in the evidence bag, the mother said that she wanted nothing to do with that piece of clothing any longer. Guess they never expected this on the tour,” grinned the man and Susan had a bad feeling about this.

It was like she was seeing something but this was not complete. There was something else which was lurking behind and she was not being able to put her finger on it quite.

“Where are these tourists now?” asked Bill.

“They were pretty freaked out. All of them wanted to go back to the hotel but I managed to get all their names and contacts in case we wanted to ask them something. There was this Chinese boy as well who takes and guides these tours. He said that he would be happy to help at any point of time. No one saw anything except the hand, so the cop who got the call thought that it was practical joke or something,” answered the cop.

“And what happened then?” asked Bill.

“Well it took us some time to reach here because we were dealing with some rowdies in the Old Fleet Street but that did not pose any problem for us,” said the cop.

Susan switched on her flash light and then knelt down to look at the severed hand. It was a clean cut and there was a crust of dried blood and some congealed as well from the position where it had been cut off. The hand appeared to be a man’s.

There was no ring or watch on the hand but there were tattoos on it. That was not the strangest part. It was a heavy hand which meant that it would take considerable amount of skill and strength in order to slice the hand in this way.

“So it was just lying here in this way?” asked Susan as she looked at the hand still not convinced that this was all the part of one incident which had no head or tail whatsoever.

“Yeah, fresh and warm meat like that with the scent of blood that would mean that rats would have been pretty quick to make a nice clean work of it,” replied the cop whose name Susan did not even bother to remember.

“No nibbles here, as I can see,” said Susan and she turned towards Bill who had crouched down beside her as well and he said,” This means that it has not been here for that long.”

“And I also spotted something else here,” said the cop as he directed the spotlight in a different direction and Bill went and walked towards it.

“This is a Browning .32. It has got a suppressor in it. This is a really nice piece,” said Bill as he pulled it up and dropped it in the evidence bag.

“There is a severed hand here and also a gun with a suppressor. So who would guess that this would go together?” asked Susan as she chewed her bottom lip. She still could not shake the feeling that they should not be here wasting time and there was something bigger waiting for them.

“None of the tourists who came here tonight on the Chinatown Ghost tour had a gun, did they?” asked Bill as he tried to figure out what possibility there might be.

“But why would a man use such a small weapon in the first place? I mean, a Browning is essentially considered to be a woman’s weapon and that means that there was a female here. Some way or the other this is not adding up and I am not really feeling it. Did you find the rest of the body?” asked Susan as she looked at the cop who had been guarding the hand.

“No Ma’am. I have not left the spot. And I figured that a severed hand would mean that it was more than enough to call you guys to check this out. Did not want to contaminate anything at all before you guys had made your investigation,” said the cop and Susan slightly nodded at him.

“Let’s check the dumpster first. And then we can do a recce of the rest of the area. I am sure that the body must be here somewhere and the dumpster would be my first choice to hide a dead body after all,” said Bill and Susan nodded at him. It made sense but something told her that they were not going to find the body in there.