The Woman in the Camphor Trunk

by Jennifer Kincheloe

  Before Joe could finish, she shoved him hard, and he fell on his biscuits in the mud. Then, she ran. She lost Joe in the stables, and hit crowded Marchessault Street, making her way through the crowd without a single, “excuse me.” Pictures of Joe’s women marched through her mind. The piano girl with her raven hair, songbird voice, and musical fingers. Joe’s third cousin, whom Anna had never met, but whom she imagined to be as tasty-delicious as he was. Wolf’s red-haired neighbor, whom Anna had only seen from behind, but whose behind was hard to miss. The mayor’s elderly daughter, and potentially all the other unmarried girls in Los Angeles. But it was the image of Miss Robins, with her golden curls and holy, wifely nature, which stuck in Anna’s mind. She was sure Joe had chosen Miss Robins. Saint Catherine, patron saint of old maids, had failed Anna, or perhaps Saint Catherine was simply better friends with the missionary. Or maybe Joe Singer loved Miss Robins more than he had ever cared for Anna.

  His love charm had worked, and he was leaving Anna behind. There was only one thing Anna could do. Go back to Mr. Melvin and see if she could exchange her gambling luck charm for a love charm.

  Anna stepped up onto the planks of the crowded sidewalk, weaving her way through the happy revelers, ignoring the bang of fireworks, the coconut drums, and the roar of voices emanating from inside. She stared up at the winter sky now swirling with a biting wind. The wishing stars of the Milky Way had closed their eyes, drifting to sleep in the lightening, wee hours of morning. A gray sun was rising, barely visible through the gloom, like a suffocated hope. Anna would never have Joe Singer because he loved another. She would never be a police detective because she was a woman.

  The detritus of the New Year’s celebration littered the muddy streets: sweet wrappers, cigar butts, a broken coconut drum. Red husks of the fireworks crackled underfoot. Across the road, Anna spied her father. Of course, he’d be there. He always attended the Chinese New Year’s celebration. He was ambling along with a fatherly arm across the shoulder of a younger man—perhaps his new protégé or a cousin of Anna’s from France. They were heading in the opposite direction. A glimmer of hope rekindled in Anna. She hurried after them calling out, “Daddy!” Mr. Blanc glanced over his shoulder and looked at her. His eyes briefly lost focus. They hardened, and he looked away as if he didn’t know her. He and the younger man kept strolling. Mr. Blanc said something to his companion, and they laughed. Anna shriveled inside.

  The sun brought a jubilee to Chinatown. All debts were discharged or canceled. Every Chinese man received his fresh start. Where was Anna’s fresh start?

  Anna had debts to pay. Perhaps it was too late to mend bridges with her father, but she could avenge Elizabeth, though the case appeared to be going nowhere. Even if she did solve the crime, what was left for her? She would be back to chasing truants, wiping rouge off the faces of young girls in dance halls, taking children from the brothels to the Orphan’s Asylum, and going home to her apartment alone.

  Anna charged straight to the station in her chinoiserie frock. Mr. Melvin was just getting in. She accosted him on the front steps. “Mr. Melvin. You know the talisman you gave me? The one for gambling luck.”

  He was staring at her muddy feet. “Yes, of course.”

  “I haven’t burned it yet. May I please exchange it for the peach blossom one? For the love luck?”

  He looked distressed and shifted on his feet. “I’m . . . I’m sorry Assistant Matron Blanc. There are only gambling charms left. There was only one love talisman, and I’ve already given it away.”

  “Oh.” Anna stepped backward, tripping on her hem. “Oh no.”

  Anna went home to sleep. She tossed and turned with frightening dreams of Miss Robins glowing in a wedding gown, and babies that looked like Joe Singer. They all held peach blossom love charms set ablaze. Late morning, she crawled out of bed still wearing last night’s yellow dress. Her body was sweaty from sleep, her eyes puffy from crying. She slunk to the bathroom, filled the tub, and slipped beneath the warm water. Why did she have to choose between independence and love? Men didn’t have to. They could do any job they wished, go anywhere they wished, and be their own masters even after marriage. Women had to choose, but her time to choose was over.

  Joe Singer loved another, and Anna wanted to die.

  Unfortunately, she was Catholic and had to wait to grow old or to be hit by a trolley or something. Even if she weren’t Catholic, she couldn’t die now. Not yet. She had to catch Elizabeth’s killer. And she would do it alone, without Joe, because he was faithless and being around him was terrible. She would be tempted to strike him all of the time.

  But Anna knew why he loved Miss Robins. Miss Robins had something that Anna lacked. Miss Robins was good.

  She forced herself to think about the case. She had two suspects— Chan Mon and Leo Lim. Neither the landlady, Miss Robins, nor Mr. Jones knew Chan Mon or where Leo Lim might be. It was possible that some of the other missionary ladies knew him. She could find them and ask, and she could continue to canvass Chinatown. She didn’t need Joe to solve this crime.

  Anna did her best thinking in the tub, and it was a shame when, after an hour, someone began banging on the door and continued to do so every ten minutes. She finally got out, wrapped herself in a robe, and passed a scowling line of girls waiting to use the facilities.

  Anna returned to Chinatown. The tourists were gone, and the streets were littered red with spent firecrackers. The Chinese were out and about, still dressed in their New Year’s finery, going on visits, bearing gifts. She approached everyone she encountered, showing Lim’s picture and asking if anyone knew his whereabouts or had knowledge of a man named Chan Mon. Very few of the men she approached spoke English, and those who did seemed afraid—possibly of the tong, possibly of Anna’s desperation. They had been so generous the previous night with their open doors and treats. Today, they told her nothing. After two fruitless hours, Anna found herself at the far end of Chinatown on Concha Street. She was exhausted from a lack of sleep, and from banging her head against the wall. She dragged herself back down Apablaza, passing a tin shop, a butcher, and a tailor. She knew all of them had men on stools calling out to passersby at night, inviting them to gamble. Most shops on Apablaza were also lotteries. There were four barbers in a row, which she imagined were really something else, because who needed four barbers in a row. They must be fan-tan parlors or opium joints. The police and the tongs seemed to be engaged in a sordid dance that Anna didn’t understand. There was a pretense of reform, yet these kinds of places remained. She wondered if she knew anything at all about the world.

  As Anna made her way toward Alameda, she heard voices singing in Chinese to the tune of “Amazing Grace.” Ahead she saw what could only be the missionary ladies—four women, unknown to Anna, hymnals in hand, standing on the street, proclaiming their god. At least she wouldn’t have to walk all the way to the mission. Miss Robins was not among them, another small mercy. A few Chinese men sang with the women, and Anna imagined they were converts. Could one of them be Chan Mon? At the conclusion of the hymn, and before they could start another, Anna laid her hand on the sleeve of the closest girl. “Excuse me, I’m looking for a man named Chan Mon.”

  The girl left the choir and drew Anna away so that she could be heard. “I’m sorry. What do you need?”

  “Do you know a Chan Mon? He’s a friend of Elizabeth Bonsor, and I’m looking for him.”

  “I don’t know any Chan Mon. Are you from Elizabeth’s church?”

  “No. I’m a police matron on official LAPD business.”

  The woman looked suitably impressed.

  Anna continued. “Does Elizabeth have any man friends?”

  “She’s a friend to all of the men at the mission. We all are. But none of them is named Chan Mon.”

  “Could it be a nickname?”

  She thought a moment. “It doesn’t sound like one. Chan Mon is a proper Chinese name.”

  Anna returned to her desk at the station, which was stacke
d with things to do. Fortunately, Joe was out, probably on purpose. There were five drunk women in the cells, whom she visited—victims of Chinese New Year. Two lacked suitable winter clothes. She gave them frocks and fresh drawers from Elizabeth’s trunk.

  Anna stayed in the rest of the day doing paperwork. She made a plan for how she could catch up on her matron’s duties, sorting tasks into things she must do, and things she could fake or lie about. She concocted cover stories that she could tell Wolf, explaining her absences—she had searched for a missing child. She had addressed a ladies’ club about holding men responsible for ruining vulnerable girls. The latter, she thought, was a good idea, and she might actually do it someday.

  There was nothing to do on Elizabeth’s case. She had reached a dead end.

  Anna went home at four o’clock, pleading a headache. She changed into a satin nightgown and ate Cracker Jacks in her big, soft bed. She drank whiskey, possibly too much. She was aroused from a fitful sleep by a knock at her door. Anna rolled out of bed, wiping drool from her cheek, and answered. Another resident stood in the hall wearing street clothes. Anna guessed it must still be early.

  “Miss Blanc, there is a call for you on the tube. A missionary.”

  Miss Robins was calling.

  Anna tasted the bitterness of bile and whiskey and scrunched up her face. Did the missionary know that Anna loved Joe? Perhaps she was calling to comfort her. Or to gloat.

  “You’re welcome,” the girl said with irritation and huffed off.

  “Thank you,” Anna called. She changed into a tea gown and dragged herself corsetless into the hallway where the telephone receiver lay unhooked on a table. Anna steeled herself, summoning a false cheer. She would not betray her true feelings to Miss Robins. Ever. “Hello?”

  “Matron Blanc?” The voice was unfamiliar. Anna relaxed.

  “Yes.”

  “The clerk at the police station gave me your number. I’m calling about Elizabeth Bonsor. I heard you were interested in her man friend. Has he committed a crime?”

  Anna felt a rising, tentative hope. “I don’t know. I need to question him.”

  “I hope you don’t think I’m a gossip, or a bad friend. It’s just, I don’t approve of her man friend.”

  “Of course. I understand.” Actually, Anna didn’t. She would never give her friend’s lover up to the police, especially if he was Chinese.

  “Well, his name is Leo Lim,” she said.

  “Do you know where I can find him?”

  “No.”

  Anna’s fragile hope dashed like a dropped teacup. “I know about Leo Lim. There is another man I’m looking for. A Chan Mon.”

  “Chan Mon,” the girl repeated, thoughtfully.

  Anna waited.

  “I did see Elizabeth with a strange man one time. You can ask Miss Robins. I saw the four of them together in the street.”

  “Miss Bonsor, Miss Robins, Leo Lim, and this other man?”

  “Yes. I don’t recall his name, but they were all standing together, and I joined them. They were talking about how Miss Bonsor and Miss Robins wanted to hike to Sturtevant Falls. I said I would like to go, but we never did. And the man said he had a hunting cabin beyond the falls on the creek, but said it was too far to hike there and back in a day. It must be off the San Gabriel Trail.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “Tall, I suppose. I don’t see well, so I’m not good with faces. I would never recognize him now.”

  “And you think his name might have been Chan Mon?”

  The girl was silent for a moment. “I don’t know. Maybe not.”

  Anna closed her eyes and breathed out. “Thank you, Miss . . .”

  “Miss Perry.”

  “Thank you, Miss Perry. Good night.” Anna put down the phone. Her broken heart was beating faster. She tried to slow it down. The unknown man might or might not be Chan Mon, but if his cabin was on that creek, Anna would find it.

  If Chan Mon had been a white man, Anna could have looked him up in the land registry. But Chinese men could not own land. If the unknown man was Chan Mon, he was either squatting in the mountains or renting the place. If she could find his cabin, she might be able to discover a clue as to his location, or perhaps even the man himself. The question was, did she take that step alone? Anna had never spent the night in the woods before. There were cougars and bears, wild men and bandits. There were two murder suspects on the loose—many more if Mr. Jones was wrong about the tong not killing Elizabeth. But asking Joe to accompany her alone, overnight, was out of the question. And he would try to prevent her from going anyway. She could ask Wolf to assign another officer to help, but she would be taken off the case. Also there was the risk of their secret getting out, potentially causing a riot in Chinatown. Anna decided that this was her debt to pay, and she would solve the crime and make things right. If she perished, she perished. No one would miss her.

  In the morning, she would go to Sturtevant Falls and follow the San Gabriel Trail beyond, up to the cabin. All she really needed was a gun, a map, and a proper pair of walking shoes. A tent would be nice, but she couldn’t afford one. And hadn’t she always wanted to sleep out under the stars? She would find the cabin and perhaps the man. She would interview him at gunpoint. If he were Chan Mon, she would take him down the mountain and let Joe figure out what to do with him. She might be physically weaker than her suspect, but she had the element of surprise on her side. She would have to catch him unaware and far away from his hunting rifle.

  CHAPTER 18

  The next morning, Anna padded barefoot into the cold hallway and used the phone to call the station. She feigned a coughing fit and told Mr. Melvin that she would not be into the station that day as she had influenza. She gathered four boxes of Cracker Jacks, a tin of kippers, a tin of sardines, a whiskey bottle filled with water, a silver flask filled with whiskey, a carved ivory matchbox, her toothbrush and tooth powder, soap, bullets, a sterling mirror and brush set, and a cloth for washing. She added a pair of handcuffs she had lifted from the station. Anna wrapped them all up in a thick cashmere blanket, which she planned to use for sleeping, and tied it like a present. She donned a second pair of drawers over the ones she already wore. Tomorrow morning, she would simply switch them so the clean pair was on the inside. She slipped her tired feet into bicycling boots, because they were her most sensible shoes and would protect her legs from snakebites almost to the knee. She changed into her matron ensemble for extra authority, strapped on her holster, and tossed a Frederick Worth wool coat with a mink collar over her arm. She topped everything with a feathered hat.

  Anna still longed for a tent, though carrying it would be like carrying the twelve-foot brocade drapes from her father’s living room, including the curtain rods. Both sets. Luckily, if the weather was foul, Anna could build a lean-to. She’d seen it in a book.

  She paused before departing, set down her bag, and scratched out a will on gilded monogrammed stationery. She left everything to her best friend, Clara Breedlove, even, after some hesitation, her baby grand.

  Anna took a Red Car heading for the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains and Poison Oak Flats, the trailhead leading to what might be Chan Mon’s cabin. She had been to the trailhead once before with Clara and Clara’s husband, Theo, and they’d hiked to Sturtevant Falls. Anna still had the map. That day, it had not been forty frigid degrees outside.

  The three other passengers who braved the cold morning shivered off in the town of Sierra Madre, leaving Anna alone on the Red Car with a bleary-eyed conductor with a day’s growth of beard who only half-filled his uniform. At Poison Oak Flats, he stopped the trolley. She slung her blanket of supplies over one shoulder and stepped from the car. The driver drawled after her. “You’re crazy going hiking alone. There are mountain lions, coyotes, rattlesnakes—”

  Anna tossed her head. “Hah. They’re afraid of men.” At least Theo Breedlove had said so. And besides, she hardly ever heard of people getting eaten by bears and m
ountain lions.

  “You’re not a man.”

  Anna ignored him because he was both rude and right.

  He further intruded. “It’s winter, Missy. If you get caught in the rain, you could die from exposure. You won’t even know it’s happening. You’re cold, and then suddenly you’re hot. But you’re still truly cold, but you don’t know it. Then, you go crazy. I’ve seen freezing men strip off their clothes in the snow, right down to their underwear. You wouldn’t want that to happen.” Clearly he did. He peeled her with his eyes.

  Anna squirmed. “That’s taffy. I know when I’m cold. And it’s not going to rain. I checked the weather forecast.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Soon the trolley rolled off leaving Anna alone, wrapped in the warmest of wool coats with the prettiest of fur collars, and her chin lifted high. Still, thanks to the trolley driver, she felt a little naked. She exhaled a cloud of white breath.

  Anna surveyed her surroundings. The grass was edged with morning frost. Flea-bitten mules slept standing up at a lonely pack station. She could rent one for riding, but the proprietor was nowhere to be seen, and Anna didn’t have the money anyway. She slipped across the muddy road, sliding in her slick boots, to a wooden sign that presided over the trailhead. It announced various paths and distances in burned letters—Sturtevant Falls, two miles, the Mount Wilson Observatory, six miles, Mount Disappointment, fifteen miles, and thirty miles to Rubio Pavilion on the San Gabriel Trail. How many miles to Chan Mon’s cabin? More than a day’s walk. Was that ten miles? She could walk ten miles; more if she had to. In Summerland, she’d walked for hours on the beach, combing the coastline up toward Santa Barbara every single day.

  Anna poked around in the brush, looking for a long stick. When she found one, she tied her bundle on the end and threw it over her shoulder. She buttoned her wool coat and embarked. The trail had seen better days and now featured tiny barrancas where rainwater had carved its way down the slope. The heels of her bicycle boots sunk into the wet earth, smeared with mud. But the wind smelled of sage, and she hoped that at the top of the hill she would be able to see the ocean. Oak trees offered shade from the glare of the silver sky, their upper branches hung with mistletoe. Every so often Anna rested, swigging water from her whiskey bottle and refilling it whenever the trail crossed a stream.