Katherine cries out, “Ming, stop! You were a thousand miles away!”
“I didn’t have to be there!” Ming says, squaring his shoulders. “It’s the perfect murder, don’t you see? Dad was obsessed with that freezer. It was only Dad who could be killed. James is wrong. The key was gone. Anyone could have done it. No proof, no witnesses!”
“Ming, you know you didn’t do it,” Katherine says. “You had no motive.”
Ming smiles broadly. “We all hated him. We were all his bitches. Our motives lie in the past. It’s a dark room with the flayed corpses of animals in it. Nobody in their right mind wants to go there.”
James is struggling through the crowd to reach Ming. Worming his way between Katherine and Ken Fan and the other community men who have surrounded his brother, trying to grab him by the shoulders.
“Forget Alf! I’m the one who got away. Do you know what kind of person our father was? A terrible person…. He knew that about himself. But he wanted power, he needed to keep people around him. So he found a way. The key was marrying my mother, did you know what a fool my mother was? She fell for him, once to marry him and at least three times after that. Three dogs. Dagou is the big dog and I’m Ergou, the second dog. I’m the dog who ran away. I’ve gone into the wild. More than foaming at the mouth. I’ve become one of them. I’m a—”
“Ming, stop,” Katherine begs. She is sobbing.
“I knew she was my sister! Not in my conscious mind. But my unconscious mind knew she wasn’t normal, not like the others. She’s a wily one. She’s involved me in her drama, her wasted-life drama. The drama of her wasted life. It’s true I wasn’t in the state.” He pulls something out of his pocket. His hands are shaking. “It’s true, I have a boarding pass! But that’s no alibi!”
Ming turns, speaking to the gallery. “Villagers! Villagers, I arranged to be gone.” He turns to the prosecuting attorney. “Strycker, you think your case is watertight. But Dagou broadcast his plan. He isn’t the only one who knew about the key. James knew. I knew. I could easily have taken the key with me, flown to New York City, and dropped the key into the Hudson River. I am responsible for Ba’s death. I did it!”
Katherine’s voice rings out, “No, you didn’t! Ming, you didn’t.”
Katherine stands and turns to Ming, her face contorted with tears. She squares her shoulders. Then she takes a shuddering breath and says, “I have the key.”
For a moment, no one moves. As James, startled, turns in her direction, he glimpses Brenda in the gallery looking daggers at Katherine.
“It’s right here in my purse.” Katherine opens her purse, removes a key, and holds it up to the judge. The brass key, with its distinctive square head, glints slightly.
Stunned, Ming asks, “Where’d you find that key?”
Katherine says, “In Dagou’s jacket pocket. In the restaurant office. I was looking through his pockets, after the party. I—I was very upset that night. I thought it was her key.”
There is a single hoot of nervous laughter, followed by a shocked silence.
“Yes, it’s true. I swear to God, that is where I found it.”
“Mistrial,” Jerry is saying. “Call for a mistrial!”
Judge Lopate tells the lawyers to show up first thing in the morning. She says she’ll decide about the mistrial then. James and Ken Fan, after speaking to the bailiff, escort Ming out of the courtroom. James takes Ming by the arm and Ming, snarling, shakes him off. James takes hold of him again, more gingerly, and Ming doesn’t resist.
James’s Secret
At the nursing station in the psychiatric wing, James is told Ming needs psychotropic medication. He’ll be kept at least a night for observation, and if he’s not a danger to himself or others, he’ll be released. He was given a sedative and is now asleep, says the nurse. But when James enters the room, his brother is wide awake. Ming sits up too straight, and his eyes are too bright.
“Get me out of here,” he says.
“I think it would be good for you to stay here for a night. Nothing’s happening out there. Just deliberation by the jury.”
“A jury of villagers,” Ming snarls. “He doesn’t stand a chance.”
Ming’s bright eyes lock onto James’s eyes. James holds the gaze bravely, but Ming’s righteous anger sears into his mind.
“Forget it. Just forget the condescending medical bullshit, Mr. Premed. You’ve got a shitty bedside manner. You don’t want me out of here. You’ve always envied me, wanted to see me put down. Fine, I’ll get myself out of here. I know what to tell them. I’ll tell them. Get me a cup of coffee.”
“Ming, you’re not well.”
“Let me begin at the beginning, Doctor. She’s one of us. Our sister. Dad knew all about it. She has his jaw like a spade. She has his smile like a cat. He never was a dog, you know, as he claimed—he was a cat in dog’s clothing. It was she who had the dirty sneakers. I went to her apartment. I talked to her three times. She’s spent years in Singapore, I think. She speaks flawless Commonwealth English. She staked us out, she’s been living here and working at the restaurant, pretending all the while to be something else. I ate radishes cracked with her cleaver. I ate her lace bones. She told me I’m the murderer.” Ming sits even more straight, his hair mussed, but still elegant and oddly compelling in his hospital gown. “It’s I who knew it would happen. I foresaw—I knew it would happen! I wanted it to happen, and I didn’t prevent it. I let go of Dagou. Dagou took the rap. I let him take it. I thought he killed Ba, I thought he would kill Ba, but it was really me because I knew—”
“Back up,” says James, shaking his head. “Did you say, do you mean O-Lan is—”
“That’s why she never left. I’m pretty sure Dad once tried to fire her, and she wouldn’t go. I’ve got to get out of here, James. I’ve got to keep her from escaping. She’s a flight risk. Green card, indeed. She’d rather kill us all than be a citizen of any country.”
“You need sleep and rest.”
“I need coffee.”
“No more caffeine, doctor’s orders.”
“I’m getting out of here.”
“Ming, you’re having a nervous breakdown.”
Ming cocks his head and looks up to the left, as if a lamp has turned on in the corner of the room. “That would explain a lot.”
“Can I do something?”
“Go talk to her! Keep her here!” Ming, his eyes flashing triumphantly and angrily, recites directions to O-Lan’s room. “Now get out of here. Go. There’s no time.”