Anna stood on the sidewalk wearing a mannish police matron’s uniform, ghastlier even than her uniform from the convent school. She felt both honored and horrified to wear it. She carried the severed head now packed in lime and hidden in the bucket, which was covered with a red-checkered cloth in the manner of a dinner pail. It smelled less because of the lime, but it did not smell good. Like a very ripe cheese. If left behind, the scent would permeate her entire apartment building. Bringing the head into the station disguised as lunch was safer than leaving it in the bushes where a dog might find it.
While the LAPD might eventually hear that a head had been stolen miles away in the city of Long Beach, they had no reason to connect the theft with their own Assistant Matron Blanc or her lunch pail. She simply wouldn’t tell them about it. Except for Joe Singer, because he was in love with her and likely would not arrest her.
A familiar, yet unwelcome face accosted her before she reached the station door. Bill Tilly was a pockmarked newspaperman with a grudge against Anna. He often skulked about the station, itching for a scoop. Her father had gotten Tilly fired from the Los Angeles Times for printing a story about Anna that was absolutely true. He had retaliated by writing another story about her for the Los Angeles Herald, which was mostly true and far more damning.
Anna hated the man.
Tilly tipped his hat. “Good morning, Miss Blanc.”
Anna smiled tightly, a prisoner to her good breeding, and pretended there was chicken in her bucket. “Good morning, Mr. Tilly.”
“Well I’ll be. I didn’t think you would speak to me.”
Realizing this was an option, she said, “I’m not,” and brushed past him.
He followed her like a hungry dog. “Come on, Sweetheart. Give me a chance. You know I’m sweet on you.”
“You just want a story. I’m not working on any cases right now, but I assure you, you’ll be the last man I call when I do.”
“Let’s let bygones be bygones, Miss Blanc. You and I could help each other.”
“I can’t imagine how you could ever be of assistance to me.”
“Sometimes the best help a newspaper man can offer is his silence.” He put on the kind of innocent face that made a person look guilty. “Is it true that the police chief’s son visits your apartment at night unchaperoned? Because you’re breaking my heart.”
Anna laughed falsely. “No.” And it wasn’t. But she hoped it would be true soon.
He grinned. “That’s what I thought. But two sweethearts are better than one.”
“Good day, Mr. Tilly.” She swung through the station doors.
“I love you,” he called after her.
Anna filled her lungs with stale LAPD air. It smelled like cigarettes, bad coffee, and the sweat of nervous men. It smelled like her future, and she adored it. Lights dangled from the ceiling on long wires, illuminating a dust haze. The reception desk was fenced in with iron from floor to countertop. Three officers lingered, drinking the bad coffee—Smith, Clark, and . . . She forgot. They wore sharp, brass-buttoned uniforms, their hair neatly slicked back and parted on the side. Two glared at Anna. The third cop pursed his lips in a silent whistle, his eyelids lowered suggestively.
Anna’s “Good morning” died on her tongue.
A man in a gray suit caught her eye and sauntered toward her, wafting lavender cologne and brilliantine. He was handsome in an oily way. He grinned broadly. His teeth gleamed white. “Assistant Matron Blanc. Welcome back. Matron Clemens was looking for you.” He glanced down at the bucket and wrinkled his nose.
“Cheese.” She smiled sweetly. “Would you like some, Detective Wolf?”
“No, thank you.”
She bobbed a curtsy and turned her attention from Detective Wolf back to the three cops, puzzled by their hostile looks. Had she not just solved the most important crime in the history of Los Angeles?
Wolf was speaking. “How was Summerland? You were gone, what, two months? That’s a long time for a young lady to be alone.”
Anna turned to look at him. He licked his upper lip, and said, “You were, uh, alone weren’t you?”
“Summerland was spectacular, thank you.”
Anna had fled to Summerland because the story of her escapades had made the headlines, and she could get no peace. She only left Summerland because she had eaten everything in the pantry of the beach house where she was squatting and had almost no money left to buy food. Not that Anna wasn’t eager to return to her work at the station. She was. It was just that killing a man had taken something out of her, and she had needed to think. But there were little hoisters, hoodlums, and moll buzzers waiting for her to reform them.
She looked past Wolf to the floor of the station. “Is Officer Singer here? I’m sure he would like to welcome me on my first day back.”
Wolf hesitated. “He’s coming in this morning. But I don’t imagine you’ll see him all that much anymore. Just after you left, he volunteered for the Chinatown Squad. He’s been working that beat for two months under Captain Dixon.”
Anna frowned. Why would Joe join the Chinatown Squad? Especially if it meant he wouldn’t often see her.
“Matron Clemens has some mail for you.”
Wolf’s words barely registered. She contemplated Joe’s new assignment as she clipped upstairs to the office of her superintendent, Matron Clemens. Joe loved Anna. Shouldn’t he want to be with her every minute? Actually, Anna didn’t want to be with him every minute, but she wanted to be with him a lot. And she certainly wouldn’t have signed up to work in Chinatown, not when cops worked long days, seven days a week.
The office door stood open. Anna poked her head into a windowless room, which somewhat resembled a parlor but for an imposing oak desk and typewriter. A rag rug turned circles on the floor. A rocking chair waited for the next abandoned baby. She found Matron Clemens wearing reading spectacles, the paperwork of some delinquent child splayed out before her.
Anna admired Matron Clemens and wished to emulate her in all things, except for being plain and almost forty. Also, Anna objected to her taste in uniforms. Even so, Matron Clemens projected an air of authority, something Anna was still perfecting. But after her victory last summer, Anna could at least hold her head up high.
She did so. “Good Morning, Matron Clemens.”
Matron Clemens scooted back her chair and rose, her thin lips twitching in an almost smile. “Congratulations, Assistant Matron Blanc. You managed to make the entire police force look ridiculous.” She shook Anna’s gloved hand.
Anna inclined her head in acknowledgement. “Thank you, Matron Clemens.”
“Are you ready to return to work?”
“Police work is my everything.”
“Good.” Matron Clemens reached into a drawer and took out packets of letters tied with string. She handed them to Anna. “These came for you while you were gone.” The older lady returned to the drawer, withdrawing three more bundles of envelopes.
Anna looked puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
“They are mostly from men.” Matron Clemens’s face remained blank. “Now, I need you to go collect a Miss Jane Godfrey and take her to Whittier State School. It’s a reform school. She’s wanted for shoplifting, and she’s a treat girl. She’s been trading her attentions for gifts, and she’s only fifteen.”
Matron Clemens gathered the papers before her, stuffed them in a large envelope, and handed them to Anna. She glanced down at the smelly bucket and frowned.
Anna took the file, the bucket, and the armful of envelopes, bobbed a curtsy, and quickly headed for the door before her higher up could ask questions. She deposited the envelopes on her desk and tip-tapped down the stairs. She passed Smith, Clark, and the other one, and ignored them, focusing rather on not dropping her load. She had hoped the men would afford her more respect now that she had cracked a major case. Apparently, they still viewed her as a lying, sheltered, ruined, decorative socialite. Which she was. But she couldn’t help her upbringing or her beauty
. She had made her choices for a noble reason, namely to save the day. The truth was, Anna didn’t care what those baboons thought, but for a single exception.
The nameless officer called out, “Morning, Joe.”
Joe Singer ambled from the back door wearing a blue wool uniform coat, looking fresh-faced and rather like the man in the Arrow Shirt Collar ads. His eyes briefly met Anna’s. He stiffened and made a beeline for the kitchen.
His response hit Anna’s belly like a bad kipper. She might have made a mistake telling Joe Singer that she had no intention of marrying him. Far more beneficial would have been to eagerly accept his proposal but insist on a long engagement. With a little finesse, she could have stretched it out ten or even twenty years. But Anna hadn’t crossed her old-world father and gotten disowned just so she could be subjugated to a different man. Marriage would mean surrendering her self-determination and her property. Also, married women had babies. How could she do police work with a baby in tow? She’d sacrificed too much for her freedom—a fortune, a good reputation, a position in society, a mansion on the hill. If she married Joe, he would own her, and Anna didn’t believe in slavery. She also hadn’t believed Joe when he’d said he was done with her, when he’d left her alone at the beach house in Summerland. Joe Singer loved her. Truly loved her. He didn’t need marriage for that. Unforgiveness was a terrible sin, even for Protestants, and she would have to remind him of it.
To fortify herself, Anna looked down at the bucket in her hand. Matters of the heart aside, she had a job to do and problems to solve, namely figuring out who had killed this man and how she would avoid being pegged for the theft of his head if anyone saw it and heard about the missing head from the Long Beach cops. She hoped that Joe would be her partner in crime, and not just because he looked like the Arrow Collar Man. As the son of the police chief, he got away with all kinds of things.
Anna toted the head into the kitchen.
The kitchen had been designed more for storing than for cooking. Shelves marched up the wall, crowded with a hundred dinner pails—provisions for the officers’ long days, which sometimes stretched into nights. A table held coffee, bread, peanut butter, and preserves.
She found Joe leaning against a chair, eating a strange rice dish from a bowl, and singing in between bites: “Oh how I do love you. Say that you’ll love me, love me, too . . .” He glanced up briefly and sniffed, wrinkled his nose, and then looked down at his rice dish.
She smiled at him with dazzling sunshine. “Hello.”
Joe swallowed. “Welcome back, Sherlock.” He glanced toward the exit. Anna shut and locked the door. She pulled aside the checkered cloth and spread it on the floor, setting the bucket on top of it like they were going to have a picnic.
Joe looked dubious. “What’s that?”
Anna’s eyes sparkled and her eyebrows lifted. “It’s a case.” She struggled to remove the lid, which she had pounded tight into place. It popped off and the face stared up, caked with lime.
Joe dropped his rice dish.
His bowl hit the floor and shattered, and a flood of words tumbled from Anna’s lips. “I was in Long Beach on a pleasure trip, because I missed the ocean.”
Joe gave Anna a sideways look. He was turning crocodile green. She continued more rapidly. “A woman found him washed up on the shore, just south of the river mouth. I thought I knew him, but I don’t.
“The local cop said a great white shark did it and they were planning to bury him with no inquest at all. I told the cop he was wrong, but he dismissed me like I was some little fool. He didn’t listen to a single word I said. Clearly, it could not have been death by shark unless the shark used a hatchet. They cut off his ear. It looks like torture to me. The cops were incompetent or they didn’t care, and the man, who I didn’t know after all, would never get justice. You need a body to have a crime.” She took a deep breath. “So I stole it. I thought you might like to help me investigate.”
Joe put a palm to his forehead. “Did you tell the cop you were a police matron?”
“Of course not. Not that he’d listen.”
“Merciful Lord.”
“The cop said the head was an abalone fisherman, but I disagree. There are two Chinese settlements in Los Angeles—the abalone fishing village north of Santa Monica, and, of course, Chinatown, which is, as you know, inland but near the river. Santa Monica is some forty plus miles from Long Beach along the coast. The ocean current travels less than a tenth of a yard per second or one-point-six miles per day. I looked it up.”
Joe plucked up a page of newspaper from the table and wiped lime from the face of the head, looking hard at the caverns that once held eyes.
Anna sped on. “From his state of decay, he’s been dead four or five days, taking into account the cold water temperature, et cetera. So let’s say five days. Thus the head, if chopped in Santa Monica, would have traveled only eight miles and would not have even reached Manhattan Beach. But if you make similar calculations using the LA River from the point nearest to Chinatown—distance, speed, it’s dead on target. Obviously, he came from Chinatown.”
Joe peered at the face, his head cocked to the side. “That looks like Ko Chung. But his skin is kind of dissolving. It’s hard to tell.”
“You know him?”
“Anna, I’ve been working in Chinatown for two months. I know the criminals.” Joe squinted at the face. “He’s a highbinder. A henchman for the Hop Sing. My Lord, that was a painful death.”
Anna gave a confused shake of her head.
“The Hop Sing is a tong—a Chinese gang—like a clan but without blood ties. They control vice in Chinatown. You don’t cross them or you end up like this. Looks like they cut off his head slowly.”
Anna dropped the lid back on the bucket, covering the ghoulish face, topping the tin with the checkered cloth. She noted Joe’s furrowed brow. “Don’t worry, I’ll find his killer.”
“He was probably killed by another assassin.”
“So, we arrest them all, and—”
“Anna, men like that don’t stay in jail. Nobody will testify. And even if they would, which they won’t, the tongs have so many judges in their pocket, it might not ever go to trial.”
“So you’re suggesting I just quit? Just walk away?”
“Yes, because you’re not on the Chinatown Squad, and you’d be in all kinds of trouble if anyone caught you stealing body parts.”
Anna threw back her head in a cynical, wide-mouthed laugh. “Hah hah hah. I’m never going to be on any squad, no matter how good I am, and you know it. You’re just like the other cops.” Anna flapped her hand toward the door. “Those men out there won’t even say hello to me.”
“You’re smarter than they are, and you made them look bad.” He ruffled his hair with his fingers. “Listen Anna, we have a big, big problem, and this dead man—Ko Chung—is just one part of it. He was Hop Sing, probably killed by the Bing Kong, their biggest rival. The two are vying for dominance. Things are tense. People are scared, and they should be. The Bing Kong president’s favorite singsong girls are missing. The rumor is that the Hop Sing president stole them. If Ko Chung is dead, that means somebody believed it.”
“They think Ko Chung kidnapped the girls on orders from the tong?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, is it true? Does the Hop Sing have the girls?”
“I don’t know who else would have the nerve to take them.”
“So they are fighting over musicians?”
“They’re singsong girls, Anna. Chinese slaves. They’re used for sex.”
Anna’s features hardened. “Then I don’t give a rap about the Bing Kong and the Hop Sing. Let them kill each other.” Anna turned heel and marched toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To throw the head back in the river before I get caught.”
CHAPTER 4
Aring encircled the moon. The roots of a giant fig tree flowed out from its trunk like oil, spillin
g down into the Los Angeles River. Usually, the river merely trickled, but now it flowed hard from recent rains and was chocolate brown with silt. Anna heard the rattling chirps of frogs.
Joe carried the bucket. He extended his hand to Anna, helping her navigate down the muddy bank and then along the river. Like always, he sang softly, unconsciously, and he sounded wonderful.
My darling Lou
Lou, how the birds are calling
And the morning glories miss you too,
My honey Lou, Lou how my tears are falling
For there never was a gal like you.
Anna leaned into his hand. “I’m surprised you’re not trying to stop me.”
“If anyone sees you with the head, you’ll get fired and possibly arrested.”
“It’s very gallant of you.”
“And, when the Hop Sing find out this man’s been murdered, they’ll retaliate. Let them think he left town. We can try to defuse things—work with the tong presidents. This buys us time. No body, no crime.”
“There’s still a body out there.”
“Harder to identify. But I promise you, Anna, I’ll look into it.”
“I want to look into it.”
“I know.” Joe squeezed her hand. The touch of his fingers comforted her, even through the leather of her glove. She expected that soon he would forgive her, finally hold all of her, and make her forget about the head. But at the edge of the bank, when she stood firmly on level ground, he let go of her hand.
Joe said, “Frogs are calling. It’s going to rain again.”
“I like the rain.”
He looked down at the muddy ground. “Me, too.”
She stopped when they reached a copse of trees where they couldn’t be seen from the field above. “This place will do.”
It began to sprinkle. Anna moved to the very edge of the river and scanned the vicinity to make sure they were unseen. No one was fishing. No one stood on the banks. People avoided the river when the water ran so hard and there was a risk of flash floods.
The Woman in the Camphor Trunk Page 2
