The Woman in the Camphor Trunk

by Jennifer Kincheloe

  Joe whispered, “Chinatown doesn’t belong to the Chinese, and the landlords don’t keep it up. The city won’t pave the streets, although I have heard they do plan to put in sewers. The rats are so bad, they’ve put a two-cent bounty on their scalps.”

  Anna nodded, thinking of her own rat-infested apartment.

  Some of the buildings, despite their dilapidated state, had been freshly painted bright red, yellow, or green in preparation for the upcoming Chinese New Year celebration, which Anna’s father had never allowed her to attend. Lanterns as round as the sun dangled from the eaves, and banners with Chinese writing graced the walls. The air smelled of garlic, dried fish, and incense. The people on the street, all of them men, stared at Anna like she was a goldfish in a bowl. It made her nervous.

  She peered down the road but could see no end to it. “Is Chinatown very big?”

  “Maybe fifteen streets, if you count the alleys, and a couple of thousand people.”

  “A proper town, then.”

  “It has everything they need, because the Chinese rarely leave.”

  “Like what?”

  “Temples, an opera theater, a newspaper. The kids have their own school. They have their own telephone exchange. The Hop Sing have their own jail.”

  “I see. You’re afraid I might get civilized.”

  Joe smiled. “Now that would be a shame.”

  They passed the window of the Cock of the Walk, a saloon with iron stools that spun. Sagging awnings draped across the windows. The floor was black from chewing tobacco, though spitting was against the law. Some bent rounder had his head down on the bar. Outside the beer joint, a wall of bulletins in Chinese fluttered in the breeze.

  Joe took her arm and eased her around a large reddish-brown stain on the sidewalk. He whispered, “Somebody shot their star here yesterday. Got his throat slit. I guess he’d won big at a fan-tan parlor and a loser didn’t like it.”

  Anna tensed and let him hold her arm. Not that she was afraid of ghosts. She slowed and looked back at the stain. “Did they catch the killer?”

  “No. He’s still at large.” Joe pulled her along.

  Smoke wafted from a door that opened like a maw into a dark interior. The scent was thick in her nose, floral and rich, like an odor of sanctity. He nudged her shoulder. “Smell that. That’s opium. It gives you beautiful dreams, but it can turn you into a dope. Then you can’t get enough. If you take too much, you’ll die.”

  Anna held her breath.

  Joe grinned. “There are opium joints for whites downtown, and there are opium joints for the Chinese, but the tongs supply everybody. It’s one of the ways they make their money.” He gestured to a two-story building. “This boarding house is run by the Bing Kong tong.”

  “It looks dingy.”

  “The rooms are crowded with bunks, and the men cook on stoves between the beds. The Bing Kong recruit men who are friendless and without family, help them find jobs, give them a place to stay.”

  “Hah. Like the Saint Vincent de Paul Society.”

  Joe smiled. “Sort of.”

  Anna wondered if she knew anything at all about the world.

  “The tongs are like that. They help people with one hand and exploit them with the other. And woe to anybody who gets in their way.”

  Anna shook her head. “I would never.”

  “Smell that?” he asked. “That’s hashish.”

  Anna nodded knowingly and resisted the urge to ask what hashish was.

  He pulled Anna to a stop when they came to Juan Street. “This is as far as I’ll guide you.”

  She examined each dingy storefront intently. “Don’t worry. I’ll find it.”

  Her eyes fell on an old woman cleaning a plate glass window under a crooked sign that read Most Lucky Laundry. The crone’s hair was slicked back from her wrinkled face in a tight, gray bun. A woman, Anna knew, was a rare sight in Chinatown. As women were more civilized than men by nature, she took advantage of this one. She called out, “Hello.”

  Anna waved and strode over, her heart brimming with sisterly feeling, leaving Joe where he stood. After all, Anna and the woman had much in common. Ladies were a rare sight in police stations just like in Chinatown. Anna was one of two women in a force comprising two hundred and sixty-eight men. Also, this woman must be brave to live in the most dangerous beat in Los Angeles. Brave like Anna.

  The woman washed the outside of the window, though the inside was clouded with condensation. It smelled as if the cleaning cloth had been soaked in vinegar. Through the steam, Anna could see a wrinkly dog and some sort of altar inside. The lady turned and gave Anna a toothless grin, replying in a heavy accent. “Hello.”

  Anna smiled. “I am Assistant Police Matron Anna Blanc.” Anna graciously inclined her head. “There’s been a murder.” She smiled again. “And I’m looking for an apartment building near a chop suey restaurant owned by a man who holds his wife captive.”

  Behind her, she heard Joe choke on a laugh. She ignored him. The wrinkly dog growled at Anna through the glass.

  “I am Ma Yi-jun.” The old woman looked Anna up and down from her swirly hairpiece to her fine Paul Poiret shoes.

  Anna discreetly returned the favor, assessing the woman from her plain trousers and tunic to the black cloth shoes with soles as thick as watermelon rinds. She envied her the trousers for practical if not aesthetic reasons, and they were perfectly pressed.

  Ma Yi-jun nodded slowly. “Ah, yes. I know that man.”

  Anna sunk into a deep and courtly curtsy. “Thank you.” She glanced over her shoulder and smiled smugly at Joe.

  “One dollar.” Ma Yi-jun stuck out a boney hand, palm up.

  Anna frowned. This was a steep price for directions that Anna would gladly have given for free. A dollar fifty was all she had left after the seamstress fiasco, and she could barely make ends meet as it was. But she didn’t want Joe to know that, and it was important that she win the bet. She wanted to impress him, and chewing gum for a year would be a boon. Anna reached into her silver purse for her billbook and counted out a dollar in change. She held out the coins to Ma Yi-jun. The old woman bowed her head, pocketed the money, and returned to washing the clouded windows, ignoring Anna, cooing at her dog in Chinese.

  This put Anna out of sorts. She cleared her throat. “Excuse me, Madam. Could you please tell me where the apartment building is?”

  The woman waved Anna off with a withered hand. “You go home, sei gwai por.”

  Anna made a sound of objection. “You aren’t going to tell me? We are sisters. We are—”

  “No.”

  “Then, what did I pay you a dollar for?”

  The old woman wiped, leaving a clean streak on the dirty glass. “Advice.”

  Anna turned in disgust and strode off, past Joe, face burning. Joe caught up and his smile spread. “Well done, Sherlock. But save some of your money to buy my gum.”

  Anna didn’t answer but kept swishing down the sidewalk, past groceries, apartments, saloons, fortunetellers, and men rolling cigars in a shop. Men, men, and more men. No women, no children. Joe kept up, watching Anna as closely as she watched the street. Three blocks down, she stopped. A brick building displayed a sign that read Man Jen Lo. Behind the window, pretty strings of paper lanterns stretched from one corner of the room to the other in a crisscross, and Chinese symbols ran along the top of the wall in a border. Palm trees flourished in ornate pots and half a dozen men in black tunics sat at tables, eating with chopsticks. It smelled delicious.

  Above the establishment, on the second floor, three curtained windows lined up in a row—apartment dwellings. From an open window, she heard the faint cries of a baby. Babies, she knew, came from married women. Married woman, apartment building, chop suey. Anna pointed. “There.”

  Joe looked down at the address. He looked up and followed her gaze. He nodded in respect. “Well done, Sherlock.”

  Anna beamed. “You owe me gum.”

  CHAPTER 8

&nb
sp; A brand new red Cadillac stood in front of Man Jen Lo’s chop suey joint. The tires were brown with mud, and the paint on the sides was splattered. Anna whispered to Joe. “There’s money in Chinatown.”

  “There are some fine businessmen in Chinatown.”

  “Shouldn’t the rich people leave? It’s not exactly Bunker Hill.”

  “You think the Chinese can just move to Bunker Hill?”

  Anna realized how silly she sounded. Of course no one would ever welcome a Chinese man into the neighborhood, unless he was their cook and lived out back or something. “But surely they could start their own neighborhood.”

  “They can’t own land, and no one else will rent to them.”

  This seemed terribly unfair to Anna.

  Three white men leaned against the peeling apartment wall, ogling the elegant car. Each had the red face and unsteady bearing of a drunk. A Chinese man shuffled past them on the sidewalk carrying a toddler boy dressed in bright silks. They caught Anna’s eye because she hadn’t seen many children.

  One of the inebriates raised a filthy hand and yanked hard on the man’s braid. The man’s head snapped back. His companions wheezed in merriment. The harassed man kept on walking, chin high, dignified, as if nothing had happened, but Anna could see his body tense. She narrowed her eyes. Pulling hair was rarely called for, but it was a terrible thing to humiliate a man in front of his own son.

  Joe’s jaw twitched, and he steered her through a green door belonging to the apartment building. “Wait here.” He went back outside.

  Anna peeked out the door and saw Joe flashing his shiny badge at the drunks. He growled something she couldn’t hear in a low, challenging voice. Anna felt both proud of him and afraid for his safety. It was three against one. But the men merely glared at Joe, unwilling to fight a strapping young policeman.

  Joe slipped through the door and joined Anna in the foyer, which smelled faintly of spoiled meat, and more powerfully of chop suey. The space was windowless and cramped for two. He shook his head, blew out a deep, disgusted breath, and gestured to a staircase. “After you.”

  The wood squeaked as they mounted warped steps and entered a hallway with three apartment doors. The rotten scent was more pronounced and sickly sweet, like death. The roof had leaked, staining the walls with damp in several spots along the corridor. Black mildew edged the stain marks. In contrast to the general decay, the plank floor was spick and span but for one set of muddy tracks.

  Anna peered down the hallway. A girl, slightly younger than Anna, in an embroidered blue silk tunic, squatted against the wall cradling a crying baby, her silky hair twisted into a tight bun at the nape of her neck. She convulsed and made whimpering sounds. Next to her, in plain black cotton, a woman cooed her consolation. The woman had the cracked hands of one who washed clothes with lye soap. Anna deduced they were mistress and servant.

  Joe stopped and gently addressed the women in Chinese. His words were halting, but confident. As Anna watched his lips form the strange sounds, her own lips parted in surprise. He had learned a thing or two on the Chinatown Squad. She was impressed. She tried not to show it.

  The women turned their faces away from Joe.

  Anna raised her eyebrows in a question.

  He shook his head. “I didn’t think they’d talk to me. They believe white men will cast a spell on them and make them do their bidding.”

  “They’re wise to be cautious,” Anna said, and squinted her eyes. “How is it that you speak Chinese?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t speak that much Chinese.”

  “It sounds like you’ve been studying—”

  He gave her a cocky grin.

  Anna asked, “Do the other members of the Chinatown Squad speak Chinese?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “I think they should.” Anna considered the girl. “Why do you suppose she’s crying?”

  “Maybe she’s afraid I’ll ask to see her papers and send her back to China, but I won’t. Maybe she’s just afraid of us. She probably doesn’t leave this building except for New Year’s. Or maybe she’s disturbed because there’s likely a dead body in one of her apartments.”

  “Oh.” Anna addressed the woman. “There, there. We won’t send you back to China.”

  Joe looked down the hall and smiled at a tall, broad-shouldered man who stood stoically before the door of one of the apartments. The man wore elaborate silk pajamas. His curved lips were set in a grim expression. The fingernails on his folded hands were manicured and long. His black eyes were large, his chiseled face smooth, and his hair fell to his waist in a glorious, thick, black rope.

  The man wasn’t just handsome. He was magnificent—like a statue. Anna wanted to stare. She whispered, “Jupiter.”

  Anna and Joe approached the imposing man, who Anna placed at about thirty. Joe bowed slightly from his shoulders, grinning. “Néih hóu, Mr. Jones.”

  Mr. Jones clasped Joe’s hand with a warmth that suggested intimacy, but he did not smile. His words were flavored with the barest hint of an accent. “Good afternoon, Detective Singer.”

  Joe said, “This is Assistant Matron Blanc. She’s here to interview the witnesses, and she’s the smartest man on the force.”

  Anna flushed with pleasure.

  Joe continued. “Assistant Matron Blanc, Mr. Jones is from the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Society. Let’s say he’s an informal liaison between Chinatown and the LAPD—a very distinguished man. He called this in and asked for me specifically.”

  Anna could tell this pleased Joe. She lifted her chin, trying to mimic Matron Clemens’s incontrovertible authority, and offered her hand.

  Mr. Jones took it. “Good afternoon, Assistant Matron Blanc.” Fatigue pulled at the handsome planes of his face, as if he hadn’t slept in days. His perfect English seemed strange coming from his celestial mouth, only slightly flavored by his homeland. “This is a Chinese matter. I’d happily send you away, but I have a strong aversion to blood.”

  Joe nodded. “Then you haven’t opened the trunk.”

  Mr. Jones groaned and looked up at the ceiling. “No,” he said, then gestured to a wooden nameplate nailed to the door. “This says that the occupant’s name is Leo Lim. The landlady confirmed it.”

  CHAPTER 9

  The reek of the apartment was worse than the stench in the hall. Anna coughed, buried her face in the sleeve of her blouse, and held her breath.

  The room needed a good scrubbing. Anna supposed that this was because Leo Lim was a man. She knew one thing for certain. The person who cleaned the hall so meticulously did not clean this room.

  Her shoes stuck to the floor, making crackling sounds. She waved her hand before her face to swat away the buzzing flies that soared about the apartment like little vultures. Parlor furnishings, a dining table, and a kitchen stove for cooking languished, covered in a thin layer of dust. A small jade dragon sat on a table by a door—presumably the entrance to a bedroom. Across the space, she saw a trunk bound with rope. It was a Chinese trunk made of camphor wood, painted lucky red. Every old Los Angeles family had one, at least in Anna’s circles.

  Joe strode past her to the trunk, took out a pocketknife, and began sawing at the rope.

  “So we don’t really know what’s in there?” Anna asked.

  “We know it smells dead.” The rope fell into a frayed pile on the plank floor. Joe hefted the lid and sprung back, contorting his face. “Oh God.” He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and clamped it to his nose.

  The smell hit Anna like hot steam. She removed a perfumed hanky from her silver serpentine purse and pressed it to her face, though the linen didn’t really help. It was all she could do not to succumb to a gagging fit. She tried to calm her senses and slowly moved closer to what she knew would be a hideous and interesting sight.

  A body was folded inside the trunk like a fetus, the ghoulish face eaten away by insects, the flesh purple and oozing. The profusion of wiggling larvae gave the impression that the form wa
s moving. It was a horror, worsened by the fact that the body wore a French satin corset with playful pink trim, lacey cotton drawers, and brown ladies’ walking shoes. Anna choked on a gasp.

  “That’s not Leo Lim,” Joe said.

  “She’s white.” Anna strode to the table, and moved aside a porcelain tea set. She pulled the cloth off the table and used it to cover the body from décolletage to knees.

  “Anna, she’s dead. I don’t think she cares,” Joe said.

  “I care.”

  Joe exhaled into the foul air. “I want to know where her dress is.”

  Anna leaned closer to the corpse and squatted. The woman’s hair was a deep black tangle, cut badly, and shorter than the fashion. There were no pupils to examine on the body, no readily evident cause of death, no discernible patterns of lividity given that all of the flesh, everything left, was dark purple—almost black. Plump brown pupae, and the shells of pupae, revealed the source of the flies.

  Anna said, “She’s been dead at least nine days. It’s takes nine days for flies to hatch. I read it in Legal Medicine.”

  “So you’re the one who stole the coroner’s books.”

  She replied absently, more absorbed in the crime scene than his well-founded accusation. “I, um . . . How dare you.”

  She stared down into the woman’s ruined face. The dead lady’s chin was tilted up as if she were listening. Anna listened in return, slowly surveying the body. She squinted in concentration, trying to think without breathing. “What do we know about you, except that you aren’t Leo Lim?”

  Joe said, “She’s either a prostitute or a missionary.”

  Anna glanced up at him. “Why?”

  “She’s either a girl from one of the brothels, or she’s come to spread the gospel. They’re the only white women who go this far into Chinatown.”

  “She’s a missionary.”

  Joe tilted his head. “How can you tell?”

  “The shoes are this season’s fashion, but the soles are worn. Obviously, she walks a lot. Prostitutes don’t walk a lot. They’d get slapped with a vagrancy charge. So, she’s a missionary, not a prostitute.” Anna settled back on her heels.” Surely you know all the missionaries in Chinatown. It’s not that big, and you spend enough time here. Have any brunettes gone missing?”