“Juvenile records aren’t sealed or expunged unless requested, Mr. St. John.” Sanchez’s sympathetic look set Miki’s teeth on edge. “A lawyer can help you with the process, but for right now, what’s in here is relevant to the case. I only have a few questions. Then you can go. Let’s start with the last time you saw Tingzhe Shing?”
“I haven’t seen Shing in years.” Miki closed his eyes, trying to repress the shudder threatening to take over his body. He shoved Shing into a box a long time ago, hammering it shut in the hopes of never seeing the man again. Finding the interior of his car painted with Shing’s guts shocked him deeper than he thought possible. Miki looked up at the detective. “I told my cop… the other cop that. The one who… found him. Shing wasn’t someone I wanted to keep in touch with.”
“But you worked for him when you were younger, about fourteen or fifteen, right? Even lived over the restaurant his family owns when you and your foster father were fighting?” It wasn’t really a question but rather a probing, as if the man was searching for a broken tooth or open nerve. He found it, and Miki bit the inside of his cheek to keep from swearing. “Can you tell me about then?”
“Nope.”
Sanchez looked up, surprised at Miki’s soft whisper. Leaning forward, he placed his hands on the table and relaxed his shoulders, doing everything he could to appear as nonthreatening as possible. Miki wasn’t fooled. He’d been a pawn for cop games for as long as he could remember.
“I just need to know what your relationship with Shing was. Was it a good one? Did you have a falling-out? We’ll just go over a few things. Then you can leave.”
“We didn’t have a relationship,” Miki replied, leaning back in the uncomfortable metal chair he’d been given to sit in. “There never was a falling in. End of story.”
“His son was surprised to find out his father’s body was in your garage. He said you and Shing weren’t close, but he wasn’t sure,” Sanchez pressed. “Have you been in touch with anyone from the Shing family? Perhaps to pay them back for giving you a place to live when you had problems with your foster parents?”
“Shing got everything he was ever going to get from me.” The sourness returned to Miki’s throat, and he swallowed, wishing for a glass of water to wash away the past choking him. “I don’t know how he got into my… car. I started it up because I’m supposed to do that every month or the engine goes to shit. I was inside. Then the dog came in, so I grabbed him to give him a bath. I was filling the tub up when your guy came through the garage door.”
“Do you have any idea who’d want to kill Shing?”
More papers were shuffled out of the folder, and Miki looked away, not wanting to see his life spilled out onto the table. He didn’t know why it bothered him. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know what was in there. Miki had no delusions of where he came from and who he was. Damien had been the one with the plan to wash the street off of him, but Miki didn’t think there was enough soap in the world to get rid of the filth he was born into.
“Maybe he finally ticked someone off who could do something about it.” Miki shrugged. “You want to ask someone about Shing? Start with his son, then work your way around the neighborhood. You’ll find a lot of people in Chinatown Shing pissed on.”
“No one’s talking, Mieko,” the detective said softly. “I was hoping you’d be the one who spoke up.”
“You’d be wrong. I’ve got nothing to say.” Miki kept his voice flat as he met the cop’s steady gaze. “So can I go now?”
Chapter 3
Picked up a piece of silver from the ground,
Used it to end a bit of my strife.
If I’d known I’d need it to get into Heaven,
I’d have carried it with me all of my life.
—Going Over The River
“THAT boy’s a mess.”
Lt. Mark Casey’s booming voice rattled Kane’s eardrums, and he grunted a greeting at the man, meeting his lieutenant’s eyes in the reflection of the glass. The barrel-chested black man strolled closer to the glass and unwrapped a piece of gum. The senior Inspector folded it into his mouth and chewed at the strip until it was tucked into the corner of his cheek. Within seconds of discarding the foil wrapper, another slice joined the mass in his mouth, its sweet, fruity odor nearly strong enough to cover the stink of Kane’s bitter coffee.
Kane couldn’t do anything but nod. His lieutenant was right. Miki St. John was a hot mess. Unfortunately, he was all they had at the moment.
“He knew Shing.” Kane flipped through the file folder he’d gotten from Sanchez before his partner went into the interview room. “St. John’s got to be connected to this somehow. No one just randomly dumps a body into the front seat of a car, even if it’s owned by a rock star. There are better ways to say I love you.”