“The day before Rutger died, she came back. She said there was something new, that he could film a different secret of Beijing. Rutger thought she meant he should go to the convent to film someone who had suffered at one of those gulag camps.” She pushed the embers and watched the sparks fly into the darkening sky.
“What did Jamyang ask you to do with the photos he saw?”
“He said we must keep them safe.”
“Did you?” Shan asked. “Did you keep them safe?”
“Sure. Rutger has special aluminum cases. Waterproof, even fireproof.”
Shan recalled the empty cases he had found at the campsite. They had not been demon proof.
* * *
“Om mani padme hum,” Meng intoned as she gave the prayer wheel a shove. “Isn’t that what they say?”
Shan nodded. He was not certain why she had asked him to go with her to the convent ruins. The things they needed to say were not for the police post but they had not needed to drive several miles to find a private place. “It invokes the compassionate Buddha,” he explained, and showed her how the words were inscribed in raised script along the rim of the bronze cylinder. “It makes a new prayer each time it spins.”
She replied with a strangely somber nod and spun the wheel again, then again. “I’ve been in Tibet for years,” she said, “and I have never tried to learn about such things.”
The police cleanup squads had been thorough. There were no more yellow police tapes cordoning off crime scenes, no more red paint and blood. A pile of fresh sand had been dumped by the front gate, with buckets and tubs beside it. A trail of footprints showed where the sand had been hauled and raked around the chorten. Even the loose stone at the base of the chorten had been pushed back in, though it seemed to be working its way out again.
“It was here,” Meng said, “here was where the abbess was killed. The first to die that day.” The lieutenant ran her hand along the wall, as if trying to remind herself where the arc of paint had been, then placed her palm at its center, where the blood had stained the wall. The surface had been scrubbed clean and painted. Everyone in the valley was doing their best to eradicate the murders.
“Lung Ma was the first to die,” Shan corrected her. “He was the most dangerous. He carried a gun.”
Shan led her to the rear of the compound and positioned himself at the crumbling gate. “The monk parked his bicycle outside, hidden in the rocks,” he said in a slow voice, considering the landscape as he spoke. “He took his time, watching at every step. The abbess had sent him a message, saying she wanted to speak of Dharamsala. Every Tibetan knows it like a code word. Speaking about it was always in secret. But she had never spoken to this monk about it. This one thought it was a warning, for he harbored his own secret about the exile capital. He was suspicious. I think he watched the convent from the hill and saw Lung’s truck arrive. There was no possible reason for the abbess and Lung to be together. Lung held the secret of the plan to smuggle the killer across the border. The abbess held the secret of the strange lama who had been roaming the hills, who the killer knew now to be a threat to his plans.”
Shan let the weight of his words sink in as he led Meng to the little chapel where the farmers had stored tools. “For some reason he suspects the message from the abbess, so he comes from the rear, for the advantage of surprise.” Shan stepped inside and showed Meng the brush hook he had found earlier. “He has no weapon but he knows of the heavy blades stored here. Lung was at the front, at ease, having a cigarette, considering his best angle for his target when the man comes in the front gate. On her own the abbess never would want to kill the man, just confront him, shame him. But Jamyang was certain he had caused a killing that day. He knew the leader of the Jade Crows carried a gun, and had told him who had killed his son. Jamyang used the abbess because he knew her message would bring the monk, and used Lung because he knew Lung would kill the man who killed his son.” It was the final agony Jamyang had suffered. The lama had been certain he had arranged a killing. He was convinced the killing was necessary, but also convinced he had to take his own life for doing so.
“So the killer has to be careful, ready for anything. He picks up the brush hook and steals along the far wall, using the cover of the buildings. The abbess has her back to him as she works on the prayer wheel, with the German helping her.” They walked in silence along the path Shan indicated, to the place by the corner of the front structure where the pool of Lung’s blood had been found. “He nearly takes Lung’s head off with his first blow. Then he takes Lung’s gun.”
“Why the front gate?” Meng asked “Why would Lung assume the man was coming in the front gate?”
Shan hesitated. It was point he had overlooked. “Because he didn’t expect the bicycle, or a man arriving on foot.”
“You mean he expected someone with a vehicle,” Meng concluded. “A monk who had access to a vehicle. How many monks in the monastery can even drive?”
“Probably only a handful,” Shan admitted. “Maybe just one or two.”
Meng set the pace now, back toward the prayer wheel. “He kills Lung, leaves the body to collect later and goes to the abbess. Just a terrible accident for Rutger to be there.”
“No. Rutger knew. The abbess invited him. Jamyang told Lung and the abbess because he needed both. The abbess would guarantee the monk would arrive, because no one turns down an abbess. And once there, Lung would exact his revenge. But Jamyang didn’t gauge the depth of the abbess’s anger. She had her own weapon in mind. She had become a believer in what the foreigners were doing, had grasped how painful it would be for the government’s covert plan to be exposed publicly. So she invited Rutger and his camera. Rutger would not have appreciated the risk. A photographer tends to think of his camera as a shield.
“The abbess and Rutger were together. Rutger was probably taking photos of her as she restored the wheel. The killer walked right up to them, immobilized Rutger with a quick shot, then shot the abbess an instant later. When he saw Rutger was not dead he dragged him to the chorten and finished him with the hook then took off his face so he could not be identified.”
“And the girl was here the whole time,” Meng ventured.
Shan nodded. “Always near Rutger. She was sketching the interior of one of the chapels in the back. She appeared in time to see the killer finishing his work.”
As they continued walking they fell into a heavy silence, as if feeling the presence of the killer.
Meng stopped and put her hand on the crumbling stucco of a chapel. “They say these old ruins are filled with ghosts,” she said quietly.
Shan hesitated, then realized they were standing exactly where they had first met. “People lived here for centuries,” he said, remembering his reply. “Lived and died.”
“It wouldn’t have been such a bad life,” Meng said after a moment, an odd longing in her voice. “Like a big reverent family. I had uncles who always went to the temple,” she added after a moment.
He said nothing.
“I’ve been thinking, Shan,” she said abruptly with an awkward glance. “I could get a job as a constable. Lower pay but I would stay in the county. No reassignments a thousand miles away.”
He knew how difficult it was for her to have said the words. It had been why she had brought him here. He offered a small, tight smile. “There’s still a murderer to catch.”
He wasn’t sure if Meng had heard. With a finger she traced the dim shape of the eye painted beside the door. “I remember being told by a teacher once about how the eye of the Chairman was always on us. But we knew he was dead. It scared us. This was different, I think.”