“You were aware of Winnie Chao’s will?”
At this question, there’s a rustle from the second row. Every one of Winnie’s friends is surprised. Did Winnie make a will, when Leo had not?
“Yes.”
Mary Wa turns to stare at Ken Fan. Lynn’s father raises his brows at Lynn’s mother.
“Have you seen the will?”
“No. Dagou said she told him about it in the hospital, when she was sick.”
Jerry raises his voice. “Do you recall William telling you that Winnie Chao left all of her property to a Mrs. Ling Gu, of the Haven Spiritual House?”
There’s a long moment in which time is suspended. “Yes,” says Brenda, but the word falls almost unheard into a canyon of amazed silence.
“No further questions, Your Honor.”
Cultural Differences
As Corinne Udweala gets ready to start her cross-examination, a clamor of speculation takes over the gallery. The community is on tenterhooks. How could Winnie possibly have made a will, when Leo did not? And how could she leave everything to the Spiritual House, forgetting her own children? Even Fang is surprised. Even Katherine is rattled from her calm. The nuns are whispering and murmuring in their chairs.
Ken Fan muses aloud that Winnie most likely assumed she’d never outlive Leo, with his physical strength and his immortal confidence. She must have assumed he would take over all of their property when she was dead: “So, why did she make a will?”
Mary Wa lifts one finger, replies, “The will is opportunity to set things right.” After decades in the U.S., pursuing profit and family fortune, Winnie would have come to see the property as a burden. She would have sought to rid the family of the restaurant: she might even have believed that the restaurant was founded on greed and dishonesty, that it was a cursed property. She must have wished to try, by letting go, to lift the Chao family out of this whole mess: the greed, the hatred, and the covetousness. To bring them, with her final act, toward tranquility. And now, as a result, Gu Ling Zhu Chi is the owner of the Fine Chao.
“Gu Ling Zhu Chi must have kept it a secret, must have decided to let the Chao brothers stay for the time being,” says one of the women from the Spiritual House. “She must be waiting until after the trial to decide what to do with the restaurant.” Everyone remembers Jerry’s presence at the forty-nine-day ceremony, his sequestered conversation with Gu Ling Zhu Chi and Dagou. But no one believes they could all keep such a secret.
It’s Katherine who brings them back to the moment. Jerry Stern has brought up Winnie’s will in order to exonerate Dagou from the plot to kill for the restaurant. But Strycker must also have known about the will. This would explain why the prosecution spent so much energy following the trail of smaller cash. Prompted by Katherine, everyone can see it: Winnie’s birthday gifts. The money for the ring. And ultimately, the blue carpetbag containing Zhang Fujian’s money. The prosecution doesn’t need the restaurant to make its case. The prosecution’s story takes on weight: On Christmas Eve, following the party, Leo accused Dagou of stealing the fifty thousand dollars, and threatened to call the police. Minutes later, in danger of losing his personal freedom over the only windfall of money he would ever have, Dagou locked his father into the freezer room.
James says nothing. So, the entire trial has circled back again: Back to the moment in the train station, when he had turned at the sound of the old voice. Please help, young man. If only he hadn’t heard. If only he’d rushed up the stairs, escaped. Or remembered to give the luggage to the EMTs. If only he had handed it over to the lost-and-found. Would none of this be happening now?
He longs to talk to Alice, but Katherine has sent Alice out to search for Ming.
Corrine Udweala begins Brenda’s cross-examination.
It’s most likely Udweala has been chosen with the jury in mind. Matching Strycker against Brenda might seem harsh, but Udweala has the no-nonsense manner of a vice principal chastising an oversexed teenager. Brenda is in danger, James can tell. Like a teenager, she wears her righteousness too close to the surface.
“You said Leo Chao was a ‘domineering’ man. Did he ever treat you this way?”
“No. He was different with me than he was with the others.”
“Why do you think this is?”
“I think because I wasn’t family. And because I’m white.”
“But you believe he was domineering toward his family?”
“Yes.”
“Did you consider your relationship with Leo Chao to be one of friendship?”
“We would sit and talk.”
“Did the two of you discuss his relationship with William?”
“Not specifically. He made general comments about how a child could never know a parent. That was it.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Lately he’d gotten to describing his regrets.”
“Please explain.”
“He talked about how, if he had stayed in China, just ‘stuck it out,’ he said, he might have been able to get truly rich. That there were too many people in business here already, and it turned out there was a limit to how rich he could get in the U.S., but in Asia things had opened up and it was possible to get rich without constraints. How he’d made this fundamental life mistake. Sometimes he asked me if I thought he was old.”
“How did you answer?”
“I just said no, not that old.”
“Were you aware at any point that Leo Chao had sexual intentions toward you?”
From the gallery, James studies Lynn’s juror. Her eyes are gleaming, her small mouth slightly open. Her expression is sterner, more righteous, than when the other witnesses were questioned. She’s judging Brenda.
“No.”
“Were you aware at any point of Leo and William vying for sexual access to you?”
“Objection, irrelevant.” The objection is overruled.
Brenda raises her voice. “What are you trying to say about me? Are you trying to say, did I lead them on? What are you implying here?”
At the outrage in her tone, everyone is uncomfortable. People cough, people look away, people cross their arms.
“You say you were physically involved with William Chao shortly after you became coworkers. Did you ask William to break up with Katherine Corcoran?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Objection, relevancy.” The objection is overruled.
“That sounds like a leading question to me. And none of your business.”
“Ms. Wozicek,” says Judge Lopate, “please answer the question.”
“If you must know, I could tell Dagou was in love with me, and it didn’t matter to me if he was attached. It was I who had the doubts, mostly. Other doubts.”
“Why did you have doubts?”
“Objection, relevancy.” The objection is overruled.
“Seriously, is this relevant?”
“Were there other things? What were your other doubts?”
Brenda looks at Jerry. “Objection,” he says.
“Objection overruled.”
Brenda’s nostrils flare. “I had reservations, I suppose, about our cultural differences.”