Lord of Death: A Shan Tao Yun Investigation by Eliot Pattison Read Free Book Online Page A

confirmed. The trails belonged to the Tibetans, the road to the government. “After a few hours there were too many uniforms on the mountain to continue.”
    “The body was lost during the confusion here,” Shan explained in a patient tone. “Because of what happened here.”
    The lean, athletic Tibetan, something of a local hero for having twice ascended Chomolungma, winced. “They raked it,” he announced. The sullen expression behind his sunglasses had not changed.
    “Raked it?”
    “It’s the road the tourists come up. All that blood was bad for business. They brought in a load of dirt and raked it.” Kypo turned and paced once around the small clearing, then wandered around the high outcropping that concealed it from the road below.
    Shan stared in disbelief at the fresh soil at his feet. Once an investigation had been turned into a melodrama scripted for the Party, nothing could be relied upon. Even here, all he could do was grab at shadows. The knobs had buried the crime scene.
    He shook his head then stepped to the rocks where he had found the women and with his heel dug two outlines, the shapes of the bodies as he had seen them. When he looked up the mechanic was standing in the middle of the raked dirt, gazing fearfully at the outlines. It was as if Shan had brought back the dead.
    “Who did it, Jomo?” he asked. “Who was the killer?”
    The Tibetan cast a longing glance toward the truck, as if thinking of bolting. “I never thought it was you,” he offered.
    For a moment Shan considered the mechanic, who was such a wizard at coaxing life back into old engines that he was in demand at every garage in town. “What does your father say?” he asked, seeing the expected wince. Jomo’s father, the tavern keeper who was more often drunk than not, often professed publicly that he hated his son, had even named his son the Tibetan word for princess. But Jomo, well into his forties, had kept the name, and dutifully cared for his father, the town jester, often conveying him home at night in a wheelbarrow.
    Jomo looked up apologetically. His father, Gyalo, occupied the rundown house closest to Shan’s stable, and more than once had entertained himself by throwing empty beer bottles at Shan’s door. “Some men in the tavern said they should drag you out of the jail and give you what you deserve, because killing the minister was going to ruin the season for everyone. My father said we pay taxes so Public Security could have bullets, and he wanted his money’s worth.” Jomo shrugged and looked away. “He was drunk.” Several times Shan had found Jomo in the dawn outside his door, sweeping up shards of glass. Suddenly Shan realized that if it had not been Tsipon or Kypo who had made the little altar by his pallet there was only one other possibility.
    “I didn’t thank you, Jomo, for the prayers when I was injured, for summoning the Medicine Buddha.”
    The mechanic glanced up nervously, not at Shan but toward the road, as if worried Kypo might have heard. “There aren’t any good doctors in town,” he muttered.
    “What do they say in the market about the killing?” Shan asked. In such a place, in such a case, Public Security would have operatives, disguised as merchants or even truck drivers, not just to pay for secrets but to plant rumors.
    “Someone from away. A private grudge. The minister was a great hero in Beijing. Someone said she was fighting corruption back in the capital and paid with her life when she was about to expose it.”
    Not particularly original, Shan thought, but effective enough for one of the morality tales that always accompanied assassinations.
    “It’s not the killing most talk about,” Jomo added in a conspiratorial tone. “It’s the monks in hiding, who refused to kowtow to Beijing. People who haven’t flown them for years are stringing up new prayer flags.” He stopped, grimacing as if frightened of his own words, then turned back to the truck and busied himself