Flower Girl: A Burton Family Mystery Part 2

"I lived in this h.e.l.l from 1986 to 1997. I nearly went berserk with grief for most of that period, and then slowly I worked my way back to purgatory. Someday I'll tell you more about how and why I made my way back. For now let's say I had some help.

Matte nodded, not wanting to interrupt.

"My enlistment in the Marines was up a few weeks after Anne's and my daughter's deaths. I hadn't decided on whether to re-up. Meanwhile, I was flying back stateside with a stop-over at Hickam Air Force Base near Pearl Harbor. Never have thought of Hawaii as stateside. That's when the government approached me and, after contemplating their offer for a few days on the beach while downing a case of San Miguel beers, I signed on as a sniper and weapons instructor for the CIA. In-between training cla.s.ses, I was a.s.signed other duties."

When Reddy mentioned the date of 2 June, I froze, I think my heart stopped and I ceased hearing the rest of what he said. Instead, my head was flooded with my memories of a dream that has reoccurred every 2 June since I was four years old, the dream of the man in black climbing a mountain to lay flowers at two graves on the mountainside.

As I came out of my fog, Reddy was continuing his story. "My interest in rescuing children from slavery and worse began when a friend of mine from the PI came to me out of desperation. His wife and daughter had been kidnapped from a Christian mission in the jungles of one of the southern islands, and he feared that they were being sent to Macau or Hong Kong. That's how I first got into the child rescue business."

It took a lot of coaxing, but Matte finally got Reddy to tell a bit more about the two years he spent searching for the lost girl and her mother in the brothels of Hong Kong and Macau.

"I spent months at Chung King Mansion in Hong Kong. It's a notorious eight city blocks district in Hong Kong where crimes of all sorts are conducted under the not so watchful eye of local officials," Reddy told us. "I suspect the place will be shut down by the communist government sometime in the near future, but for now it's notorious as the world's center for drugs, especially heroin, prost.i.tution, child slavery, and pirated/ bootlegged/ knock-off products from Pink Floyd alb.u.ms to thousand dollar Italian leather purses." Reddy waited as if that was all he was prepared to disclose, at least until he got to know how trustworthy we all were. Matte prodded him, but to no avail.

I decided to deflect the situation a bit and started on a slightly different track. I'd take the pressure off Reddy and tell Matte some of our story, mine especially. As I talked, Reddy looked a bit relieved not to be the only one telling Matte about our past.

"For the first few years after Reddy rescued me and enrolled me at the Bush School for Girls in Seattle, I resented his taking me from the only home I had ever known. When he registered me at the school as Shannon Lee Burton, and not as Carrie Lee, I was really belligerent and I told all the girls, 'My real name is Carrie Lee or if you prefer, Carrie Li.' Even so, I was clearly not Korean.

Frankly, I was finding it easier to talk about my feelings with a third party monitoring the conversation.

"It wasn't until the man-in-black, that's how I referred to Reddy back then, told me about his own years in foster homes that I started to accept the name Shannon Lee Burton. Burton was the family surname of one of Reddy's foster families, and he didn't even know what his real surname was. His story about being an orphan swayed me. I also eventually learned to appreciate his knowledge of the Cheju-do culture and his descriptions of the beauty of my former home. Someday I'll go back there and see my mother's grave."

I risked glancing at Reddy with a look of antic.i.p.ation. No acknowledgement.

Still staring at him, I said, "I remember during my second year at the Bush School in Seattle, you sent me a package of counterfeit music alb.u.ms. The Fleetwood's 'Come Softly Darling' was the first American recording I ever heard. My roommate Angie insisted that we go to sleep by that song every night.

"Angie and I were the only orphans at the girls' school. Okay, so technically I wasn't an orphan. Until the man-in-black busted me out, I had been told I was an orphan, so I still felt like one. No one visited us on holidays or picked us up for a family weekend. I remember many a weekend when the two of us were the only girls in the dormitory. The other girls taunted us almost daily: 'You don't have a father! You don't have a father!' To combat their incessant teasing, we developed a secret language drawing on the Arabic and Chinese we knew.

"For five years, including summers, Angie and I bonded. And, frankly, I didn't miss the man-in-black all that much. However, he occasionally sent a postcard from some exotic place like Macau or Singapore or Hong Kong and he did show up for my graduation from the Bush School. To celebrate, Reddy took Angie and me out to dinner at Ivar's Acres of Clams. What a place!

"Ivar was a Seattle icon, a notorious promoter in the vein of a P.T. Barnum and was eventually called the 'King of the Seattle Waterfront.' He opened a clams and seafood restaurant on Seattle's Pier 54 where his waterfront promotions included clam eating contests and an octopus-wrestling contest. Some say that the octopus-wrestling event was held next to where a child fell into the water and was pulled under by a giant octopus. They roped off the area and it became an instant tourist attraction, rather macabre I thought, but h.e.l.l I was only sixteen at the time."

Reddy broke his silence and piped in, "I remember when Angie leaned over the rope railing, daring the octopus to show itself and reach out to grab her with one of its tentacles. She was laughing all the while. She enjoys tempting the fates which reminds me of another teenage girl, who has the same walking on the edges spirit."

"Tell us about her," Matte said, seizing the opportunity to get him to tell us more about his child rescue cases.

Reddy almost grinned at Matte's less than subtle tactics. Then he said, "The story began a few weeks before I liberated Shannon. And, it involves one of those friends that helped bring me back from the depths of purgatory. I met Hamish MacIntosh at Chung King Mansion. He's a short, portly man of Scottish decent, a proud wearer of the Macintosh plaids, kilt and all, barrel chested and a rotund 280 pounds, shaved head, a pencil mustache, and wire-rimmed blue tinted gla.s.ses. Only the careful observer would notice his hands. They bore the calluses of a trained martial arts expert. He was an extraordinary fixer, trader, art broker. He was my number one source in my recovery of a kidnapped Philippine girl. You'll meet him some day."

"I would hope so," I replied. "What about the Philippine girl's mother?"

"I suspect that her mother is working as a household servant somewhere in Saudi Arabia," Reddy replied. "A Saudi colleague of Hamish's is investigating that further."

"Anyway, no one knows the dark side of Asia's port cities of Incheon, Busan, Hong Kong, Macau, and Singapore better than Hamish. He has all the contacts: port authority officials, dock workers, moneylenders, knockoff importers and manufacturers, art dealers and counterfeiters, drug dealers and drug manufacturers, pimps, casino and brothel owners, and street people. Once, when the U.S. Emba.s.sy failed to take an interest, he brokered the recovery of an American merchant marine who was imprisoned for two years in Pusan's notorious prison, simply for being an American in the wrong place at the wrong time.

"I discovered the first clues about a young girl working in a brothel in the Casino Royale Hotel in Portuguese Macau. At the time, there was no system to my search for the wife and child of my friend from Manila. I simply followed a lot of dead-end leads. In the process, though, I stumbled across a fifteen year old Amir-Asian girl in Macau who had been everywhere in Asia since she turned eleven. She had been sold by a Korean doctor who had stolen her after she was ostensibly stillborn as a six-month-old fetus. I told Hamish and that was when he found the name Dr. Evel Park and located Park's OB/GYN Clinic in Seoul. Hamish put a 7/24 surveillance on the Clinic. Eleven months later, Hamish tracked down a rumor of a white slave trade being run out of the Parks' Home for Girls and Women's Clinic on Cheju-do Island.

"The mere mention of Dr. Evel Park and his clinics lit a spark in me. At first, it was a small spark. After eleven years of h.e.l.l, I was pessimistic about the possibility that the b.a.s.t.a.r.d might have faked Shannon's death. However, he was the same doctor who had treated Anne and declared my daughter still-born, if treated is the right word." Reddy's jaw muscles tightened.

"Coincidentally, Hamish has had one of his agents glued to Edvard Grey and more recently his cousin Courtney Blaine Grey every minute during their visits to Seoul. They also tracked both Greys to Cheju-do Island. They went there to discuss their partners.h.i.+p with the Parks' Clinics and their planned expansion to Dubai. However, Edvard and Courtney are addicted to chasing virgins, and this droit du seigneur propensity was observed and photographed by Hamish's agents."

Matte said, "I told Shannon about Edvard Grey's propensity for virgins, it was all over the news. He got in some trouble when he was a graduate student at RVU."

"What had been a rumor about a child slavery operation soon became a reality," Reddy continued. "Hamish's agents managed to break-in to the Park's Seoul Clinic and photograph a series of doc.u.ments that included death certificates for several mothers and infants. One of these records reads: 'Father unknown- Mother (North American) died of malaria complications, 5 and month old fetus still-born, 2 June 1986. Attending Physician: Dr. Evel Park, Sr." Reddy hesitated. Matte sat patiently. I fidgeted.

Then he continued. "Hamish had discovered that my daughter's death fit the same pattern as the Philippine girl's case. The clues being that both were declared still-born at Asian clinics owned by the Park family; however, the Philippine girl had survived. Shannon Lee would be twelve years old. I thought, so who the h.e.l.l did I put in the grave next to Anne's on the side of the volcanic crater on Cheju-do Island? Then it dawned on me like a light s.h.i.+ning through the darkness of my purgatory. My daughter might be alive."

When Reddy disclosed this, all I could think of was the image of the man in black trekking up a volcanic mountainside on every second of June, to place flowers at the site of two graves.

"It isn't just a reoccurring dream," I blurted out to Matte. "Now I know why he never showed up for my birthdays. He was at my mother's and my graves on the island of Cheju-do every second of June. 2 June is my birthday and the date of my death as well as my mother's death."

"I'm a shrink, not a fortune teller," Matte smiled.

Once again, Reddy halted and seemed reluctant to continue. Perhaps this was the point where Reddy's own sense of revenge reached a crescendo, at least I should have recognized his anger. It just wasn't in his make up to reveal personal history to others, even friends. I sensed he had already divulged more than he wanted to and that we had opened up old wounds. However, it wasn't his fault. Dr. Matte was great at this sort of interrogation.

Matte glanced at me and said, "Why don't we take a break."

"This is your pilot speaking." Craft interrupted. "Please fasten your seat belts, including the dogs', and prepare for landing. The winds are minimal from the north so the landing will be smooth."

Matte was forced to cease her interrogation, excuse me, her psychological enquiry. "You two have been through a lot together, even if not as father and daughter. Thanks for sharing."

"How about a 360 over the lake; to give you a bird's eye view of the place?" Craft suggested.

Located in Northern Ontario's Muskoka Lakes region, Skeleton Lake looks to be pretty remote, most easily accessible by seaplane. "Does the lake freeze over in the winter?" Reddy asked, reconnoitering as he gazed out the starboard windows. Craft banked into the wind, finished the slow 360, and dropped alt.i.tude for a landing on the lake, which was as smooth as gla.s.s.

"Not many folks stay here in the winter. The lake is likely a meteor crater, couple of hundred feet deep, so it doesn't totally freeze over." Craft answered. "I landed the Cessna here in January one year."

I garnered from Reddy's few succinct comments and questions that he appreciated having a remote hideaway. I knew there were people he was evading. I already knew that he's a very private person and that a broken front tooth needed repair to protect his anonymity.

The pups scrambled out of the Caravan and headed across the dock for the woods with mother KC casually following. Craft could see that I was worried about them, so he said, "KC will guide them back to the cabin in time for supper."

We checked in with Freddy McAllister, the Skeleton Lake Waterdrome supervisor. He topped off the Caravan's gas tanks while Craft gave her a post flight once over and Laz helped tie her down to the dock. Reddy and Craft borrowed a four-wheeler with a trailer from Freddy and hauled the luggage over to the cabin. "You can bring it back in the morning," Freddy said.

As the sun began to set, we followed the four-wheeler, trekking the scenic half-mile route to the cabin, along the south edge of the lake. We reached the cabin as the loons began their eerie and wonderful calls to each other over the waters of the lake. I heard the faint sounds of a pack of wolves calling in the distance. Maybe KC was getting reacquainted or she was making sure they stayed away from her turf and out of the garbage cans.

When we all got to the cabin, Matte unlocked the padlocks from the doors and storm shutters while Reddy, Laz, and I helped Craft pull the iron rods from across the doors and storm window shutters securing the cabin.

Craft said, "That's step one. Now let's crank up the generator. Then we can charge up the Landcruiser for a morning supply run into Huntsville."

"Landcruiser, sounds like my cup of tea," Reddy said as I gave him the keys for the garage. "I was wondering why you filled up that five gallon gas can at the aerodrome."

"We also have a beat up old CAT snowmobile in the garage, but it hasn't been up and running for years," Craft said with a grin.

Reddy got the Landcruiser coughing and sputtering back to life in record time."She's good to go, but that snowmobile ain't going nowhere, not now, never."

The generator was frustrating Craft and he said, "We'll likely need to buy a new generator in town tomorrow."

"These old generators need a little love," Reddy said. "Mind if I try?"

Matte had boiled water, and the hojicha tea was steeping. She covered the iron teapot, then heated up some beans and franks. I poked the fire in the potbelly stove and added another log. We all just hung out on the back porch, sipped the hojicha, and dined on soda crackers, beans and franks for supper. Reddy and I had dish duty and, as we finished, I was about to turn on some New Orleans jazz when Reddy's keen ears were the first to hear the sounds of "Shame, Shame, Shame on You W" coming from out on the lake.

"They've probably been out fis.h.i.+ng, trying to make it home before dark," Reddy said. We all began to hear the song's refrain then, and together we sang the chorus of "Shame, shame, shame on you W."

"Fishermen headed to the Lodge for a couple of beers. And, they have a good sense of humor," Matte said. "They always head home to the sound of the loons."

KC's white curl tail reappeared coming down the trail by the lake with a gang of tuckered out and hungry pups trailing. I reckon she knows about the loons too.

Matte changed the subject to Rhyly, wanting to finish her interrogation of Reddy. She started by summing up the two attempts on her life.

"So, Rhyly was shot with a 223 caliber rifle from a distance of a couple hundred meters both times. Sure wish I could get a look at the slugs and compare them," Reddy said.

"I'll send Sgt. DeRosa an email at RVPD. She can check on the match between the two slugs and send us the lab results," Craft replied.

"Good start," Reddy said, "and if you'd like, I can scout out the Moose Factory dig and adjacent town of Moosonee and set up any needed security. I'd like to check the place out before Rhyly sets up shop up there."

"You and I can fly up there in the Caravan in two or three hours from here at the lake," Craft answered.

"Are there any roads or other ways to access the area?"Reddy asked.

"The Polar Express rolls in regularly but in the winter it's mostly snowmobiles," Craft replied. "Pretty remote, didn't have an airfield until recently, only a waterdrome on the Moose River at the north edge of town. Roads are pretty much impa.s.sible due to the rivers and snow melting." Reddy decided on tomorrow as a good a target date for Craft to fly the two of them up to reconnoiter Moosonee for a couple of days. I was curious as to why he never asked any questions about Laz. Maybe it was because he already knew all he needed to know about him. I let it drop.

The next day Rhyly and Laz flew up to Moosonee with Reddy and Craft to reconnoiter the place. When they got back to the cabin, Reddy told us what they'd done. It sounded a lot like what he did to secure my home in Berkeley.

To my way of thinking, being so remote would make the island in the middle of the Moosonee River a near perfect hide-away, but Reddy, being the personal security expert, had other thoughts and walked to the town of Moosonee, then went by canoe to the island campsite and the archaeological dig site at Moose Factory on the island. He inspected every entry and exit point to and from the area. I asked Reddy if a secluded island didn't make security easy. That's when he told me he'd teach me "six direction recon" some day.

Reddy did conclude that the only way to get onto the island was by canoe or some other river craft and most approaches were visible in all directions. Even so, he decided to install a communication system center in the main tent and issue walkie-talkies to Rhyly and Laz as well as a satellite phone, and more walkie-talkies to the other team members. He didn't think anyone was going to sneak up during daylight, but after dark presented a challenge. He placed sunset to dawn laser detectors at fifty foot intervals around the campground and a.s.signed someone to the communications tent on a 7/24 basis, with s.h.i.+fts of six hours each, to alert the whole campground if the laser detectors were tripped. Then he left instructions for everything, once set up, to be tested twice. I thought all these measures might prove unnecessary, but Reddy said, "That's the very definition of a security job well done."

I soon learned that all the precautions had, in fact, been needed. Two days after Craft and Reddy returned to the cabin from Moosonee, Rhyly and Laz called Reddy on the satellite phone. They had found some fresh boot prints, men's size 9-10, behind the communication center. The person who left them was pretty good at getting past the perimeter security electronics in the middle of the night. He tried to cut the main power line to the communications center tent, but the backup generator kicked in immediately and set off a silent alarm. Laz raced over, but by the time he got there, the intruder had taken off. Reddy wanted a photo of the boot prints to compare with information the RVPD had given him about the two shooting attempts on Rhyly. Otherwise, Reddy concluded that the location of the island in the middle of the river didn't provide the intruder with any really good sniper sites and whoever it was would probably await Rhyly's return to civilization. He was right. No one broke through the security system again all summer.

Reddy and I stayed the rest of the summer at the cabin with Matte and Craft with KC making an effort to keep the pups in-line, most of the time. Every morning began with an hour or two of Reddy's training me to shoot. I soon mastered his modified 223 sniper scoped rifle and graduated to some of Reddy's best long range sniper rifles. I'm an excellent shot. It doesn't hurt that I have 20-14 vision, as good as Ted Williams.

We planned to make the return flight to River View as soon as Rhyly and her crew b.u.t.toned down the Moose Factory dig site. Reddy and I took off in one of the canoes for a final fis.h.i.+ng and a picnic lunch on the big island, a rock in the north central part of the lake. The rest of the week, the two of us practiced shooting and tracking skills.

Summer 1 at Craft's cabin at Skeleton Lake brought some answers to who I am and how and why the man-in-black came into my life, why and where he disappeared to, and how we began to bond as a family. The CIA definitely did not know all there was to know about this daunting man.

As we loaded into the Caravan, I whispered to Matte, "I'm starting to think of him as my father."

Chapter 3: Summer 2 at Skeleton Lake.

My concept of Reddy as my father and Reddy's and my concepts of family are definitely changing; however, maybe they are not morphing. Since he went off the reservation and since we returned from Skeleton Lake, he has begun to take on private contracts. After setting up security at Moosonee and the search for Rhyly Raincrow's shooter(s), I think, he got involved in at least one rescue of a kidnapped child other than me.

Most relevant to our family bonding, some of Reddy's cases led him to Singapore, the Philippines, and the Caribbean. Matte deftly extracted the first of these stories from him last summer on our flight to Skeleton Lake. I was soon looking forward to a second summer vacation at Skeleton Lake where Reddy planned to teach me more survival and shooting skills. Hopefully, he'll tell me more stories about some of his a.s.signments, sans names of course, government security and all.

Recently he seems restless. I really didn't have a clue as to what he had on his mind until after the CIA came for that visit last year. After we returned from our first visit to Skelton Lake, I half expected the CIA to be waiting on my front porch in Berkeley. After all, Reddy was now officially off the reservation and he still had something or someone they wanted, Michaela. However, he had antic.i.p.ated their surveillance, vanis.h.i.+ng at irregular intervals for weeks at a time. He rarely apprised Angie and me of his whereabouts. I wasn't sure whom he was hiding from this time, in addition to the CIA, or if he was on another a.s.signment.

"Agent Clemson Rapier has been by the house on a regular basis, that's probably why Reddy hasn't been around much lately." I said, adding, "Clemson seems more and more interested in you girl friend."

"We've been out together a few times, no big thing." Angie replied.

"Un huh, if you say so!"

Angie glared at me, stating without words that it was none of my business.

However, she never talked about Clemson, and that is her tell. The ones Angie doesn't talk about are the ones she really digs.

"Looks to me like you've finally given up on computer dating services."

That wise crack got me a glare that almost singed my eyebrows.

Berkeley Hills After our morning run in an eerie creeping fog bank that seemed to follow us along the cypress lined ridge up to Grizzly Peak and back, Angie and I, and the pups took a break at our favorite watering hole. We were sipping a macchiato and a dry cappuccino respectively and arguing over the differences in the two drinks at the Beastro Coffee House. Then we turned to our favorite guessing game, 'Where in the world is Reddy Burton?' Speculating on where my mostly absent father had disappeared to for the past two weeks.

"I think Reddy is off dodging the CIA," I said.

Angie added, "He might be chasing after clues to finding some kidnapped child."

A bell chimed, my smart-phone alerting me to a text message: "Dr. Evel Park Senior a.s.sa.s.sinated. Call me soonest, Matte."

Dr. Matte Morgan was my favorite teacher when I was doing graduate studies in psychology at River View University and she has since become my clinical psychologist and confidante. She is also the only person I have ever told about my messed up thoughts on family ever since I was four and about Reddy's rescuing me from the orphanage on Cheju-do Island. She is the only one other than Angie that I feel secure in confiding to about my absentee father.

I hit contacts, scrolled to Matte and returned her call. Angie asked, "Want some privacy? I'll take my espresso out on the back porch with the dogs."

I motion for her to stay and hit the speaker b.u.t.ton on the kitchen phone.

"Hi, Shannon, have you folks in Berkeley heard the latest news about Dr. Evel Park Senior?" Matte said as she came on the line. Matte's usual calm tone of voice was enraged. "Check out what's trying to pa.s.s for objective reporting about Dr. Evel Park's death, what they're saying about 'the world has lost a great humanitarian today; the perpetrators of this vile deed must be brought to justice.'

"We clinical psychologists have a technical term for this sort of lies; we call it 'bull s.h.i.+t.' What in the h-e-l-l is all that about? The b.a.s.t.a.r.d's a child-slaver and pervert, and they're treating him like he deserves the n.o.bel Peace prize." Matte was almost shouting. "To top off the farce, it's Edvard Grey, another pervert, who's doing the virtual awarding. You remember my showing you that newspaper article about his being tried for raping a 17 year old co-ed; the journalists called it the 'droit du seigneur case'? You all need to see this newscast; it's a load of BS."

Call it kismet or karma or serendipity, or simply recognize that the same news appears across the nation on TV screens, iPads, and smart-phones everywhere, including on the 60-inch screen over the Beastro Coffee House bar.

"We have the same news item on the plasma screen as you speak," I told Matte. While she was winding down, Angie and I watched and listened. The headline read: "30 April 2012-Prominent Korean Doctor a.s.sa.s.sinated!" The announcer followed: Sources in the picturesque honeymoon resort of Cheju-do Island report that police are searching for at least two gunmen suspected of killing Dr. Evel Park Senior who is the CEO of Parks' Clinics. These Asian clinics are renowned for their charitable works and services to obstetrics and their worldwide adoption services.

There are no suspects at this time. Two American partners and a Saudi partner of Dr. Park are known to have been at the Cheju-do clinic that morning for a business meeting ostensibly to expand and open a fifth clinic in Dubai. The Americans are Professor Edvard Grey and Courtney Blaine Grey, prominent members of the Grey Oil family clan and an unnamed Saudi, thought to be a son of one of Saudi Arabia's richest oil billionaires. The partners were celebrating the announcement of the Dubai opening of their new clinic and planning to fly there together later this same day to make the announcement public. Professor Grey was interviewed by the local police who told this reporter that, "The world has lost a great humanitarian today, and the perpetrators of this vile deed must be brought to justice."

Angie asked, "Who is Dr. Evel Park Senior?"

"He's the doctor who p.r.o.nounced my mother and me dead," I answered. Angie went silent while my thoughts turned immediately to wondering if this a.s.sa.s.sination was Reddy's handiwork. After all, I just learned that he was a sniper and that he did work for the CIA; however, was this a sanctioned hit, or was it revenge?

Matte's voice broke my chain of thought, coming through the phone in a softer tone. "Sorry Shannon, I know how you worry about Reddy's absences. Please ignore my outburst. Besides, my friend Princess Zubaida urgently needs Reddy's help on another matter, as soon as you locate him."

All my thoughts about what my father does for a living and whether I need a father who is in the business of a.s.sa.s.sination came to a crescendo in my brain.

I feel stunned and afraid for Reddy at the same time. My confusion over the concept and reality of family that I have borne mostly alone roars back. I was four when I was told by the Doctors and nurses at the Park's Clinic and Home for Girls on Cheju-do Island, South Korea, that my father and mother had died in a traffic accident in Seoul. I think it was that very year or the next that I began to be haunted by what I think of as the dream. Then I was rescued from a life as a child bride by the man in black.

After our summer at Skeleton Lake, just as I was feeling that we were bonding as father and daughter, Reddy again went absent and now Matte calls with the news of Park's a.s.sa.s.sination. I can think of nothing else for days.