She donned her new police bloomers and matching overskirt, which was slit in front, almost to the waist. She tied the ribbons that decorated the ankle of each bloomer, and wandered over to a gilt wall mirror to admire the ensemble. She froze in horror. The man’s fist had left a bruise on her eye that was now a proper shiner. She looked like a wife with an angry husband. Part of her wanted the cops at the station to know she could take a punch, that she wasn’t weak. But the memory was too horrific. She wanted to forget it. More importantly, her bruise screamed that Joe Singer had been right. She frantically rubbed her cheeks and eyelids with glycerin, and brushed on chalk dust to whiten her haggard face, but the marks couldn’t be disguised by powder alone. She simply looked cadaverous. Anna groaned. She would have to resort to a veil, which hardly anyone wore, except for people’s mothers. She would have to give her hair extra attention to make up for it. Anna found her own mother’s veil in a trunk. She twisted her long locks up into a bun, and capped it with an elaborate yak hairpiece. She attached the veil to a grand hat trimmed with ribbon and artificial berries and settled it atop her coiffure.
Anna rode her personal bicycle to the station; her lace veil clung to her bruised, powdered face like a spider’s web. She had two goals for the day—to return to Chinatown to persuade the witnesses to give her an interview, preferably with Joe, and to find the laundry where Lim had left his clothes—possibly Most Lucky Laundry, possibly not. While she was in Chinatown, she would also keep her eyes and ears open for the stolen singsong girls, though she wasn’t sure what to look for. Joe would know. Then there was Ko Chung. Anna felt no need to find justice for the man, yet she was curious. And since she would be in Chinatown already . . .
She arrived at the station and found Wolf leaning with his elbow down on the shiny oak counter. He grinned. “Well, good morning, honeybun.” He looked her up and down and wrinkled his brow. “That’s an, er, interesting uniform. Has Matron Clemens seen it?”
“Yes, of course,” Anna lied. “It enables me to ride my bicycle with greater freedom. I’m sure she’ll have one made, too.”
Wolf grinned. “And the veil?”
“It looks nice.” It didn’t.
Wolf nodded but seemed unconvinced. “How is that sweet little boy?”
Anna’s eyes expanded to the size of bicycle wheels, her panic concealed by the veil. She’d forgotten about him. She gasped, then stammered, “Fine.”
“I noticed he’s not with you.”
Anna nodded her head up and down, up and down, until she settled on a fabrication. “He went home.”
Wolf nodded too, squinting. “Good.”
“Excuse me.” Anna bobbed a curtsy and marched rapidly toward the back of the station, holding her head up high as if she wasn’t in a hurry. She swished through the door, around the corner, into the jail, and up the stairs.
The girl’s cell was vacant but for a chamber pot, cots, and two empty boxes of Cracker Jacks.
Anna made a sound of distress. With great trepidation, she slunk out across the station, to the reception counter where Mr. Melvin typed furiously at his desk, fingers flying like a whirligig in a windstorm.
The storm stopped. His eyes rested on his Remington. He spoke softly to the keys. “The little boy was reunited with his mother last night.”
Anna shifted on her feet. “The young lady offered to watch him for me, because Joe needed me to . . . Joe needed me. And she’s very good with children. I meant it to be just for a little while.” Anna’s eyebrows formed a teepee. “You aren’t going to tell Matron Clemens are you? Or Wolf? Or the Captain? They’ll wipe up the floor with me.”
“I would never.”
“And the girl?”
“Wolf released her after the boy had gone.”
Anna let out a huge breath of relief. Wolf sauntered over carrying a steaming cup of coffee, wafting his lavender cologne.
She quickly changed the subject. “Detective Wolf, has the Chinatown Squad found the missing singsong girls yet?”
“No, but they’ve been searching diligently for weeks.”
“Good. When they do find them, I suppose they’ll deliver them into my care since Matron Clemens is gone.” And the girl in the cell could no longer offer her services. Actually, Anna looked forward to the task, though she had no idea what one did with singsong girls. Maybe they would send the girls to stay with her until they found a safe place for them. Maybe they would make her chop suey. Then Anna remembered her tiny apartment and frowned. It would be awfully crowded.
Wolf said, “No, I’m afraid they won’t. They’re going to return them to their owner.”
Anna gave Wolf a confused smile. “What?”
Detective Snow lumbered up, fingering a pimple on his neck. A cluster of ugly scars marred his face like cracks in shattered glass. He snorted. “The Bing Kong president has offered a one-thousand-dollar reward to the person who returns them, and the Chinatown Squad wants the money. That’s a lot of money for a couple of Chinks.”
“Hah!” Anna said. Joe was on the Chinatown Squad. He did lots of stupid things, but he wouldn’t trade girls for a reward. She said, “That’s preposterous. Joe Singer is not a slave trader.”
Wolf said, “Slave trader is such a harsh way to put it.”
Anna smiled and shook her head. “But Joe hasn’t been hunting the slave girls. He’s not going to turn them in no matter what the others do.”
Snow snorted again and lumbered off to do whatever he did for his money.
Wolf cleared his throat. “Joe’s just trying to keep the peace.”
“What could you possibly mean?”
The detective’s brow folded like an accordion. “Honeybun, if they don’t return the girls to their owner, there’s going to be a tong war. Innocent people will die in the crossfire. Captain Dixon has decided the squad has to return the girls, so they may as well keep the money.”
Anna frowned hard, trying to grasp the idea that her Joe, or the man who was once her Joe, could do anything so vile as deliver girls into the hands of an evil slave owner. And for money. Anna quickly decided he could not.
She tilted her chin heavenward. “I don’t believe it. Where is Officer Singer? I’m going to ask him.”
He grinned. “He’s in the hoosegow. Would you mind bringing him his lunch?”
Anna walked the two blocks between Central Station and the Los Angeles County Jail. The benefits of nepotism had a flip side. The police chief was grooming his son for greater things and gave him special opportunities, but he also held Joe to a higher standard, especially when it came to the appearance of impropriety. Chief Singer had an inconvenient habit of throwing his son in jail whenever he caught Joe going to a certain parlor house to play piano, even though half the cops, all the police commissioners, and even the mayor, were regulars. Anna knew this from her time investigating undercover in the brothels, for which she had been shamed, groped, and temporarily sacked.
Anna almost understood Joe’s behavior. He was as passionate about music as Anna was about trapping criminals, and when Joe played ragtime, even Baptists danced. There were two Steinway grands at Canary Cottage, while Joe’s tinny wreck of a piano had no middle C. Joe said he never, ever went with the girls, and Joe Singer was truthful to a fault. Anna believed him. Even so, she fumed. He should have been with her solving the crime last night, not out making love to his sweetheart and playing piano.
The jailer escorted Anna into the concrete and iron cave where horse thieves and bank robbers served their sentences. A mesh of bars enclosed the long corridor, even the ceiling. From the smell of things, the chamber pots needed to be emptied. The chief always sent Joe here, and not to the jail at Central Station, where he might get preferential treatment.
As Anna walked the length of the corridor, the inmates greeted her with whistles, welcoming words, marriage proposals, and vile suggestions. Anna adored the jail, which was full of fascinating criminal minds, as long as she stood on the right side of the bars. She con
tinued down the row, past the cage where she herself had once languished, and easily found Joe’s cell. He looked hungover from the night before. His red eyes widened when he saw her coming in her veil and police bloomers, and he moved to the door of the cell. He looked happy to see her. “Is that you, Sherlock?”
Anna laid one hand on the iron bars, and said nothing. She had nothing to say. She set down his lunch pail.
“What? No, ‘Hello, I’m sorry you’re in the hoosegow?’” He had stubble on his dimpled face. He smelled like a saloon.
“You went on a bash last night instead of meeting Mr. Jones to interview the apartment manager and his wife. You should be out getting busy, but here you are rum crazed. And how am I going to get my Juicy Fruit?”
“I sent Jones a message and said I had a supper engagement and I’d meet him later at his apartment. I looked for you at the station, but Mr. Melvin said you had gone. I went to Mr. Jones’s home, but nothing doing. I looked for him in every saloon on Alameda Street.”
“I’m sure.”
“Canary Cottage was on the way home, but I didn’t go in. I didn’t get that far. Officer Clark was going in at the same time. He arrested me on the doorstep.”
Anna bowed her head and rubbed her tender temple. “You knew if your father caught you you’d get thrown in the hoosegow. You jeopardized the case by going to the brothel. You could have played my piano. It’s as good as the ones at Madam Lulu’s Canary Cottage. Better even.”
“Sherlock, I’m terrified of playing your piano. I’d never set foot in your apartment. Not unless I had a chaperone. Anyway, I needed to play.” His brows drew together. “I don’t like courting. I needed to blow off steam. You’ve got the opposite effect.”
Anna lifted her chin. “You’ve got nothing to fear from me. I have no intention of steaming you up.” Actually, she couldn’t think of a single time in all of their acquaintance when they had been alone together in private and didn’t end up kissing. Even the first time. Especially the third time. And the fifth time . . . Thinking about it made her feel steamy.
Joe considered her ensemble and smiled, his lips cocked to one side, making his dimples even deeper. “Sherlock, you look like a cross between a harem girl and a nun.” He stuck one arm through the bars, and lifted her veil.
“No.” Anna grabbed for his wrist too late.
When he saw her pale, bruised face, the rosiness left his dimpled cheeks and his sideways smile melted away. “Holy cow.” He took her chin in his hand, gently moving her head from side to side and narrowing his eyes. “Who did this to you? Because I’m going to kill him.”
Anna felt pleased at his distress, and considered swooning, but they had a crime to solve and a villain to catch, so she exercised restraint. “I walked into a pole.”
“Sherlock, you gotta be more careful.” He felt her cheek, caressing it like a very gentle, very thorough doctor. It made Anna’s eyelids heavy. If she had known how he would react to her bruises, she would have gotten a black eye sooner. She would have gotten a black everything. She leaned into his hand. His brows were drawn in concentration as his fingers traveled down her cheek, to her jaw, feeling to make sure everything was right. Anna’s whole body thrilled. She liked playing doctor with Joe Singer.
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
“A little. I can’t believe your father threw you in jail. Isn’t he concerned about the case? Chinatown’s about to blow up, etcetera.”
Joe dropped his hand from Anna’s face. “He doesn’t believe in wearing gum shoes and analyzing cigarette ash. We’re putting Leo Lim’s picture in the paper and sending wanted posters to every train station, harbor, post office, and police station in the state. The whole country if we have to. My pop says the rest of the investigation can wait.”
“But it can’t wait. What if Leo Lim is in hiding here in Los Angeles? We need to canvass Chinatown. What did your cousin say? Did he do the autopsy?”
“No apparent cause of death.”
“Maybe he poisoned her tea.”
“Don’t go to Chinatown. It’s dangerous. Things are heating up. Captain Dixon just got another death threat. The Bing Kong president is still mad about his missing singsong girls. It’s just a matter of time before bullets fly . . .”
“We can’t both abandon the case.” Anna hitched the strap of a tooled leather purse up into the crook of her elbow and turned to leave.
“Stop. Anna. I’ll go with you. We can solve it together.”
“I can’t wait for you to get sprung from the hoosegow. We don’t have time. How long before Wolf assigns the case to another dick? Someone else might not keep it secret. You said yourself that if word gets out, Chinatown will explode.” Anna began to walk away.
“Come on, Sherlock.”
Anna waved her hand in the air dismissively.
“What can I do to change your mind?”
“Nothing.” She flipped her veil down and stopped as she had an afterthought. She walked to the cell. “Tell me. What does ‘sei gwai por’ mean?”
Joe chuckled. “Why?”
“The old lady called me ‘sei gwai por.’”
He grinned. “White devil. She must know you.” Then his face became serious again. Anna was holding the rusty bars. He covered her hands with his own. “It can also mean ghost. Don’t go to Chinatown.”
She tugged to free her fingers. “How many suits of clothing would a Chinaman have?”
“You mean Leo Lim? I don’t know. He looks like kind of a dandy in his photographs.”
“How many do you have? No, that won’t work. You’re not a dandy. You’re just the opposite. How many undergarments?”
“You’re asking me about my underwear?”
“Don’t be coy. This is for police purposes only.”
“Six.”
“Then they would last you six days.”
“That depends. I don’t always wear underwear. Not if it’s hot.”
Anna’s eyes opened wide. “Taffy.” She grinned and knew it was a silly grin. She put a hand over her mouth to hide it. “Then why do I have to wear so many?”
Joe blushed. “Men just don’t. Why are you asking me this?”
Anna was glad that he could not read her mind, because she was trying to picture Joe Singer in his drawers. And out of them. She lassoed her wayward mind and tried to think about the crime. “Do you save up all of your underwear and then take them to the laundry, or do you make frequent trips?”
“I save up. Anna, what’s your point?”
“I found a laundry ticket on Mrs. Lo’s shoe. I believe it belongs to Leo Lim.”
“Or it belongs to Mrs. Lo.”
“No. Her servant girl washes her clothes. She couldn’t have picked it up in the streets because she never goes outside. The hall was very clean. Lim’s floor was sticky. Thus, she probably picked it up in Leo Lim’s apartment.”
“Go on.”
“He’s a dandy and has very nice clothes, undoubtedly custom made. If most of his clothing is at the laundry, I don’t think he’d leave them behind. I wouldn’t. Especially if I’m out of clean drawers. I plan to find the laundry and see if he’s picked up his clothes. If he hasn’t, and he’s still in Chinatown, he might return for them or send someone to bring them to his hiding place. We can lie in wait and . . .”
Joe’s eyes flashed. “Wait. You went back to Chinatown last night? Without me? Is that where you got the bruise?”
“No.”
“Promise me you won’t do that.”
“I won’t. Promise.” Anna crossed her fingers.
Joe sighed and laid his forehead against the bars. “You make me crazy, Sherlock, but I don’t know what I’d do if anything ever happened to you. I need you in the world. Do you understand?”
A warm, confused feeling flooded Anna’s whole body. She said, “No.” She didn’t understand.
“Never mind.”
She said, “What do you know about the missionaries?”
“There are
eight churches active in Chinatown. They have a sort of consortium, the Chinatown Society for Christian Evangelism. It’s run by a missionary lady who used to work in China. Her name is Eunice Puce. Her husband was beheaded during the Boxer Rebellion, and she’s a little bit cuckoo. Mrs. Puce would know Elizabeth.”
“Address, please?”
“That’s where I draw the line.”
“You can’t stop me from hunting Elizabeth’s killer, especially not with you in the hoosegow. I’ll interview the missionaries, even if I have to deduce their address. I found the crime scene, didn’t I?”
Joe growled.
The jailer came by with a mop and bucket and began cleaning the floor behind Anna.
She lowered her voice. “Wolf says you’re hunting the singsong girls so you can give them back to their owner, and the Chinatown Squad plans to split the reward. But I didn’t believe him.”
The jailer hovered about them, an unwelcome third party. Anna wondered if he was spying for Joe’s father, or if he simply had bad manners. She gave him a pointed, dirty look.
Joe glanced at the jailer and said cautiously, “Those are the captain’s orders.”
Anna gaped, bedoozled. “So it’s true? You’re a slave trader?”
“That’s one opinion.” Joe’s face was reddening.
Anna let out a cry of disbelief and wondered if she knew anything at all about the world.
He groaned. “Sherlock, I’m on the Chinatown Squad. We exist to keep the peace.”
“You don’t have to sell those girls to keep the peace. There are plenty of other ways to prevent a tong war.”
“Well, I’d like to hear them.”
“You could arrest the tong presidents.”
“They’d never get convicted. They have too many judges in their pocket.”
“You could shoot the tong presidents.”
“They’d get new presidents and send a hatchet man to kill me. When Captain Dixon shut down one of their gambling joints, they poisoned his milk. Anna, his cat died from it.”
The Woman in the Camphor Trunk Page 10
