Mistress(37)

Not letting go of me, he allows me to peek in again. Mother’s eyes are lifeless, her lips have formed a soft O, her body is sprawled out along the tile next to the pool of blood. It’s the same scene I saw when I first walked in.

Only this time, the gun is in Mother’s hand.

Jonathan Liu has a nice love seat in the corner of his gigantic master suite. He is resting in it now, with his chin on his chest, the left side of his head blown off. In his limp right hand is a handgun.

Murder can be made to look like suicide, and suicide can be made to look like murder.

No doubt there is a note somewhere, not in his handwriting. I don’t know all the evidence that has been left behind. I don’t know what information Jonathan Liu could have given me.

All I know is that I have to get the hell out.

But instead, I walk into the room.





Chapter 42



I step slowly onto the hardwood floor of Jonathan Liu’s bedroom, my heart in my throat, my pulse echoing throughout the room, my limbs quivering. His bedroom is in tidy condition. The Oriental furniture—the two chairs by the bay window, the chest of drawers—is perfectly in place. The area rug is positioned evenly at the foot of the king-size bed. The bed itself is made up, complete with the turndown revealing maroon silk sheets. All that’s missing is the mint on the pillow.

The United States Mint was authorized by the Coinage Act, passed by Congress in 1792 and advocated by Alexander Hamilton. The Mint building was the first federal building constructed under the Constitution. Did you know it has its own police force—

Enough. Take a breath, Ben.

I walk carefully into the master bathroom, itself a model of cleanliness and order. The white hand towels are hung in perfect symmetry, like they’d been hung by the psychotic husband in Sleeping with the Enemy. The double vanity is empty save for an electric toothbrush resting in its cradle and a bottle of vitamins with a Chinese label.

I walk back over to Jonathan Liu, not focusing on him so much as on the scene surrounding him. The gun is resting in his lap. I don’t dare touch it.

Do you want a moment with Mother, Benjamin? Before the police and ambulance arrive? If so, you should go do it now.

Can I…touch her or kiss her or…

She’s your mother, Benjamin. You can do whatever you like. If you want to hug her one last time and say good-bye and tell her how much you love her, go ahead, son.

But son? Make sure you take the gun out of her hand first. Just slip it out and place it next to her. You can put it back in her hand when you’re done.

Stop, Ben. This isn’t…helping. Father isn’t here, and it’s long in the past.

To Jonathan Liu’s left, blood and brain matter have splattered against the wall above a dark pool that’s formed on the floor below. The bullet has lodged into the wall at a point just slightly below the point where Jonathan Liu’s head would be if his head were upright.

Statistically, less than 10 percent of suicides with an entry wound in the temple show a bullet path directed downward.

I look at Jonathan’s face. His eyes are hooded and vacant. His mouth is slightly parted. His skin has already begun to take on a waxy pallor.

When John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in the back of the head, he yelled, “Sic semper tyrannis.” What did they say to you, Jonathan Liu, before they shot you in the temple?

C’mon, Ben. Operation Delano.

I look under the bed. I enter the walk-in closet and open drawers, using my shirt to avoid fingerprints. I look behind his clothes, his shoes, the sweaters on top—

Nothing. Nothing in the closet, nothing in the—

Wait.

On a small desk tucked in the corner on the east side of the bedroom, there is a laptop computer that displays a screen saver—a cube bouncing around as if weightless, in orbit. I approach it slowly. This could be it. If Jonathan Liu has any information about Operation Delano, it would probably be on his computer.

I tap the mouse with my middle finger and the screen saver disappears, revealing the following text:

I cannot live with myself after what happened to Diana. She deserved better, and this is my just penance.



I read the note a couple of times. It reveals very little. It doesn’t say whether he killed Diana or whether she killed herself, but he somehow feels responsible. Whoever wrote this wanted to keep all options open.

But there’s no way Liu wrote this himself. Whoever wrote this wanted to convey regret. Jonathan Liu, the one time I spoke with him, was not regretful. He was flat-out scared.

I hear the squeal of a car’s tires outside. Not close, I don’t think, but no sense in waiting around to find out. I back away from the computer and do a final once-over of the room. There’s no sign of a struggle, and there’s a suicide note for good measure—one that doesn’t have to match Jonathan Liu’s handwriting, because it was typed.