The Interior by Lisa See

said nothing that would indicate that there had been any hard feelings between herself and Miaoshan. Twenty-five years was a long time, but could Suchee have changed so much that she could hide her emotions and motives so cleverly that Hulan wouldn’t be able to see through them? If Suchee had felt guilt or remorse, would she have asked Hulan to come out here at all? No, Hulan decided, the mother was convinced that something had happened to her daughter, and the longer Hulan spent out here in this shed, the more convinced she became as well.
    Without obvious physical evidence Hulan knew that the only way to understand what had happened was to take steps back from the scene of the crime. With each step a clearer picture would emerge. Her first step would be to interview Tsai Bing, since so often murders were committed by husbands or boyfriends. Nothing in what Suchee had said about Tsai Bing suggested any animosity between him and his fiancée, but mothers could be blind when it came to such personal matters.
    Hulan stood, pushed open the door, and went back outside. She scanned the fields and spotted Suchee. Hulan walked along a raised berm running between a field of corn and a field of budding sunflowers until she reached her friend, who was working the soil with a hoe.
    “I’ve been thinking, Suchee,” Hulan said. “It would be a mistake for me to talk to people as an investigator for the Ministry of Public Security. They would be too scared.”
    Suchee frowned. “My daughter’s murderer deserves to be scared.”
    “Yes, of course, but if you want him caught, then we can’t frighten him into hiding. Let him think he’s gotten away with it. Let him think I’m merely a relative or friend who’s come to visit. He’ll let down his defenses. When he does, I’ll be there.”
    “But who?”
    “I don’t know yet, but for me to flush him out, I must understand him. To understand him, I must understand Miaoshan. To understand her, I believe I must blend in.”
    “Not like that,” Suchee said, nodding at Hulan’s clothes. “You can wear Miaoshan’s things, at least until that baby you’re carrying gets bigger.”
    Back in the house, Suchee opened a low cabinet. On two shelves were neatly folded cotton clothes. “These were Miaoshan’s. She was thin like you.”
    Many times in Hulan’s life she’d been required to change personas. On some occasions these had been at the whim of politics, as when she’d been thrust out of her routine as a model child of privilege and sent to the countryside. Other times had been the result of geographical circumstance—from Chinese countryside girl to Connecticut boarding school student. Jobs and money had also affected her attire—as a law student, then as an associate at Phillips, MacKenzie & Stout. In recent years she’d changed her dress to meet the needs of a particular case. Hulan thought of this less as working undercover than simply blending into a landscape so she could hear people’s real voices.
    Hulan stripped off her dress, then pulled on a simple short-sleeve white blouse worn soft by years of wear and washings, and pants that came to just above her ankles. Suchee then handed her a pair of homemade shoes. Slipping these on, Hulan thought about the kind of life that a person wearing them would have out here in the countryside. She felt her body losing its attitude of self-possession and assuredness, to be replaced by a woman who had survived only at the caprice of nature. Within minutes, and aided by these few garments and a change in demeanor, Liu Hulan devolved from Red Princess to peasant.
    “Can you tell me the way to the Bing farm?”
    “They won’t know anything,” Suchee said.
    “I’m going to see Tsai Bing,” Hulan clarified, then added, “but if you want me to do this, then you’ll have to let me do it my way. Please don’t question me.”
    After a brief discussion, Suchee reluctantly agreed.
    “One more thing,” Hulan said as they left