Murder In Chinatown

by Victoria Thompson

“When did they leave this morning?”

  “I don’t know. Early.”

  “What about your daughter?”

  “She’s, uh…she’s in school.”

  “She’s young then,” Frank guessed.

  “Fifteen,” she admitted reluctantly.

  Same age as Angel, Frank remembered. Few girls in this neighborhood were still in school at fifteen, though. She’d be helping out with the piecework unless she was lucky enough to get a job at a factory. What was her mother hiding?

  Frank turned to the younger woman. “When did you see Angel last?”

  Iris frowned. “I don’t know. I didn’t pay attention. She was here when we all woke up this morning. After that, I don’t remember.”

  “Where were you?”

  “When do you mean?”

  Frank realized he didn’t know exactly when Angel had died, so he said, “Tell me everything you did today.”

  She glanced at her mother-in-law, but Mrs. O’Neal offered nothing. “We all got up, like I said. I ate a roll for breakfast, then tied up all the vests to take to the Sweater,” she said, using a slang term for the man who provided the raw materials for their piecework. “Then I took them over to Broome Street and delivered them.”

  “At least tell me you got paid!” Mrs. O’Neal interrupted.

  Iris refused to meet her eye.

  “Holy Mary,” Mrs. O’Neal lamented. “You let them have the goods and didn’t get any money at all!”

  “I got some!” Iris defended herself. “He said they weren’t as good as usual, though, so he gave me a dollar less.”

  “Stupid cow!” Mrs. O’Neal screeched. The child in her arms puckered up his face and began to cry, and so did his mother.

  Frank sighed. “I’ll be back later to talk to the rest of the family,” he shouted above the din and made his way to the door.

  The two women were screaming at each other, so no one really noticed his departure.

  Once outside, Frank consulted his notebook, where he’d jotted down Mrs. Lee’s address earlier, before Sarah had arrived and things got out of hand. With a sigh, he headed over to Chinatown.

  He found the building a block off Mott Street. Mott was the heart of Chinatown, where all the businesses that catered to the Celestials—as the Chinese were called—were located. Real estate there was too valuable for living space. Gambling houses and opium dens mingled with dry goods stores and laundries, all of them doing a brisk business and making their owners rich. The building where the Lee family lived contrasted sharply with the one he’d just left. It was new and well kept, the hallways and stairwells neatly swept. Chinatown as a whole was almost eerily clean, even the streets, as if it didn’t really belong to the rest of the city. Mrs. Lee answered his knock.

  Her expression lightened the instant she recognized Frank. “Did you find out anything yet?”

  “No, I’m sorry, I haven’t,” he said. “I need to ask you and your family some questions, though. Do you mind if I come in?”

  “No, not at all,” she said, stepping aside so he could enter. “We’ll do anything we can to help.”

  Frank doubted that she spoke for her husband with that promise, but he let it pass. He looked around the Lee flat as he had done at the O’Neals’, and what he saw here couldn’t have been more different. The furniture was fairly new and of high quality. They had carpets on the floor, draperies on the windows, and wallpaper on the walls. Paintings hung on long wires from the picture molding, and the bric-a-brac that was so fashionable was present in abundance, cluttering tabletops all around the room.

  “Please, sit down,” Mrs. Lee said, indicating the overstuffed sofa.

  Frank took the offered seat gratefully, and also accepted a cup of coffee. Minnie Lee was an interesting lady, Frank decided after watching her for a few minutes as she served him. She must have been a typical Irish girl once, big boned and hearty. Not blessed with beauty, she would have been hard pressed to find a hardworking white man to marry her. Men with something to offer had their pick, and they invariably picked the pretty ones. The rest of the men, the worthless ones, would use whatever charm they possessed to find a woman who’d be willing to slave for them and bear their children and keep them in beer money by doing piecework eighteen hours a day in a suffocating tenement flat. That was the life Mrs. O’Neal had chosen. Minnie Lee had taken a different path.

  Choosing to marry outside her race had probably cost her some friends and maybe earned her the disapproval of her family, if she had any to disapprove. In exchange, she lived in a nice house and wore good clothes and never had to worry about her children starving.

  “What do you want to ask me, Mr. Malloy?” she asked when Frank had his coffee and she was seated on the sofa opposite him.

  “I need to know a little more about Angel,” he began as gently as he could. “So I’ll know who might have wanted to harm her.”

  He watched the pain shudder through her, but she raised her chin in silent defiance against it. Only her red-rimmed eyes betrayed the anguish she’d endured today. “I’ll tell you what I can. I thought I knew her better than anyone, but I never would’ve guessed she’d run off like she did.”

  “What do you know about Quinn O’Neal?”

  “Not much. I’d never heard of him until a week or so ago. Mrs. Brandt got the idea to question Angel’s friends,” she reminded him. “We’d already talked to them, and they said they didn’t know where she was, but Mrs. Brandt made them admit the truth.”

  Frank nodded politely, not betraying his inner rage. If Sarah was an expert detective, he had no one but himself to blame, so the rage was at himself. At least he could take comfort in knowing she wasn’t going to be involved in this case anymore.

  “What did they tell you exactly?”

  She took a deep breath, as if fortifying herself to dredge up the painful memories. “They said she’d been sneaking out to meet this boy…Well, I suppose he’s a man, isn’t he? Anyway, she’d tell me she was going to visit her friends—they live upstairs—and then she’d climb down the fire escape and go to him. I don’t know how long she’d been seeing him, but it was several months, I guess.”

  “Why do you think Angel ran off with him when she did?”

  He saw the slight tightening of her lips and knew she was going to lie. “Children do foolish things when they think they’re in love. Angel was innocent and didn’t know any better. We never warned her about men like this O’Neal. Why should we? She never should’ve even met him.”

  “He said they ran away because you were going to force Angel to marry an old Chinese man,” Frank said.

  Her whole body stiffened and the color drained from her cheeks. She hated him for this, for making her remember that she might have driven her child away. For a second he thought she might even deny it. Lots of mothers would have. “We only wanted the best for Angel,” she said, her voice as thin as paper. “Mr. Wong isn’t old at all, not even forty. He’s also very successful. He would have made a good husband. Better than that good-for-nothing O’Neal!”

  Frank thought that was probably true. “How did Wong react when he found out the girl had run away with another man?”

  She swallowed. “He was…upset, of course. He…You can’t blame him.”

  “No,” Frank agreed. “If I was him, I’d be pretty mad.”

  “I…I didn’t talk to him myself,” she hedged. “You’ll have to ask Mr. Lee.”

  “What about the people in the neighborhood? I guess Angel made this Mr. Wong a laughingstock, didn’t she?”

  She stared back at him, her silence telling him far more than words. Wong would have been totally humiliated, and probably mad enough to strangle the girl. He’d have to talk to Wong. And to Charlie Lee, too.

  “I understand that Mr. Lee went to Angel and asked her to come home with him,” Frank said.

  She blinked at the change of subject. “Yes, he did, as soon as we found out where she was living. He was that mad at her, but we coul
dn’t leave her in that awful place with those people. What would become of her?”

  Frank nodded his understanding. “Why do you think she refused to go with him?”

  “I don’t know!” she cried, her composure cracking a bit as she realized Angel might still be alive if she had. “She said she loved her husband and all that foolishness, like young girls do when they don’t know any better. She said she’d never go home again.”

  “I guess that made your husband even madder.”

  She looked at him for a long moment, judging his meaning. She didn’t like it one bit. “He would never hurt her, Mr. Malloy. He never raised a hand to her in her whole life!”

  “He was going to marry her off against her will to somebody she didn’t like,” he reminded her.

  “That would’ve been better than what she got, now wouldn’t it?” she countered.

  Before Frank could reply, they heard footsteps outside and then the front door banged open. Charlie Lee came through it, half carrying, half dragging a Chinese man with him.

  “He was in opium den,” Lee said in disgust, apparently to his wife.

  He threw the fellow onto the floor, and when he rolled over onto his back with a groan, Frank got a good look at him. It was Charlie’s son, Harry Lee.

  6

  THE BOY SEEMED UNAWARE OF WHAT WAS HAPPENING around him. He stared at nothing, his face set in a slight smile, as his mother howled in renewed anguish, knelt beside him, and tried to rouse him. Frank was amazed at the transformation in Harry. When he’d come to the scene of his sister’s death, he’d been dressed as a white man and could have passed unnoticed anywhere in the city. Now he wore a blue silk blouse and baggy black pants with embroidered, thick-soled slippers and white socks. Like a uniform identified a soldier, these clothes identified a Chinaman.

  Charlie Lee finally noticed Frank, who had risen to his feet. “Why you here?” he demanded.

  Mrs. Lee looked up from her vain attempt to slap Harry back to consciousness. “He came to ask some questions about Angel,” she said. “He’s trying to find out who killed her.”

  “Does not matter,” Lee informed him. “She still dead. I no pay!”

  “I’m not looking for a reward,” Frank told him testily. He didn’t have to take abuse from a Chinaman, of all people. “I just want to find out who killed your daughter.”

  “Why?” he challenged. “No punish for man who kill Chinee girl.”

  Frank had to admit he had a point. “I’ll make sure her killer is punished,” he tried.

  His promise earned him a disgusted glare. Charlie Lee straightened his well-made suit jacket and turned back to his wife and son.

  “He’s barely breathing,” Mrs. Lee said in alarm. “He wasn’t gone very long. How could he have smoked enough to make him unconscious?”

  Frank vaguely registered Mrs. Lee’s unusual knowledge of opium’s effects.

  “He eat, not smoke,” his father reported in disgust.

  “He ate too much, then,” she cried. “He’s poisoned himself! What can we do?”

  Lee muttered something in Chinese and bolted from the room, presumably to get some help.

  “Noooo!” Mrs. Lee was wailing in despair as Frank stood by, helpless.

  He’d seen plenty of people die from taking too many drugs, but he’d never been called upon to save one. In most cases, the poor wretches were better off dead anyway. This case was different, though. Harry Lee shouldn’t die, not on the same day his sister was murdered. For one single second, he found himself wishing…

  “What’s going on?” a familiar voice demanded from the doorway.

  Charlie Lee had left the door hanging open, and Frank was somehow not at all surprised to see Sarah Brandt coming through it. His reluctant wish had come true.

  “Harry’s eaten opium,” his mother informed her. “I can’t wake him up!”

  Sarah looked down at the boy and instantly realized he was dangerously ill. His skin was bluish, and when she touched his cheek, she found it clammy. His breath was shallow and slow. “I’ll need to get my bag,” she said.

  “Where is it?” a familiar voice asked.

  She looked up in surprise. “Malloy! What are you doing here?”

  “Investigating a murder,” he said in that tone she knew too well. “The question is, what are you doing here when you were supposed to go home.”

  “I walked Mrs. Lee home, and then stopped in to see the other Mrs. Lee, my patient, the one who had the baby,” she explained defensively. “We heard all the commotion so I came up to…Well, it doesn’t matter now. My bag is downstairs in the other Mrs. Lee’s flat. Will you get it for me?”

  His look told her he’d have more to say to her later, but he moved quickly to do her bidding.

  Sarah turned back to the boy. “Help me get him on his feet. We have to try to keep him awake. Do you have any coffee made?”

  The next hour was a blur as Sarah found the emetic in her medical bag and forced it down Harry’s throat. To her great relief, they were able to get him to vomit up a good bit of the opium he’d eaten. Then they poured coffee down his throat, and between the three of them, they walked him around the room to keep him as awake as possible as the effects of the drug wore off.

  Mr. Lee returned to the flat at some point with a small Chinese man. The two of them shouted at each other in Chinese, gesturing wildly, and then Mr. Lee told his wife what to do. Sarah surmised that he was from the establishment where Harry had obtained his opium. He’d brought along some herbs, but since they were to induce vomiting, Sarah informed him they weren’t needed. The man eventually confirmed that Sarah was already doing everything that needed to be done, and then he left.

  When he was gone, Mrs. Lee turned on her husband. “What was Harry doing in that place? He knows better!”

  “Ask Harry,” was her husband’s bitter suggestion. Then he took Sarah’s place supporting his son as they continued to walk him around the room.

  The sun had long set by the time Harry was lucid enough to convince Sarah the danger had passed. Sitting slumped in a chair while his attendants glared at him wearily, he frowned up at them in confusion. “Am I in hell?”

  His mother cuffed him across the head. “Is that any way to talk?” she demanded. “You would be in hell if it wasn’t for Mrs. Brandt here, who saved your life, you ungrateful brat!”

  Harry stared at Sarah for a long moment, as if searching his memory in vain to identify her.

  “What were you thinking!” his mother asked, her voice cracking with grief now that the crisis had passed. “You could’ve killed yourself! It’s not bad enough I lost your sister today!”

  His young face crumpled as the memory came rushing back. “Angel,” he murmured, and then he smiled bitterly. “She’s dead,” he remembered. “She’s the lucky one.”

  His mother gasped in horror, and his father made a strangled sound in his throat. Sarah gasped herself, but she quickly said, “He’s still not himself. It’s the drug.” She didn’t know if that was true or not, but she had to soften his outrageous statement somehow.

  Minnie looked at her, desperate to believe her. “Yes, of course it is,” she agreed. “The drug. He don’t know what he’s saying, Charlie.”

  Mr. Lee simply stared at his son, his expression unreadable.

  “We should be going, Mrs. Brandt,” Malloy said. “You’ve done all you can here.”

  Sarah knew he was right. More things would be said, and she and Malloy shouldn’t be here to hear them. She gave Minnie some final instructions for Harry’s care, and then she allowed Malloy to bundle her off into the night.

  When they reached the street, she gratefully inhaled the cool evening air, glad to have escaped the suffocating atmosphere of the Lees’ flat. Every bone in her body ached from helping to haul Harry around his parents’ flat, and she wasn’t sure she’d make it home if she had to walk.

  “Do you think we can find a cab?” she asked.

  “I’ll find one,”
he said with amazing confidence, taking her arm and heading for the nearest corner.

  Sure enough, he did find one, and his sigh of relief echoed hers as they settled into it for the long ride to Bank Street.

  “How did you know what to do for the boy?” he asked when the cab had lurched into motion.

  “I was a nurse before I was a midwife, Malloy,” she reminded him wryly. “I know how to do a lot of things besides deliver babies.”

  He made a disgusted noise but refrained from expressing his disapproval. He knew it wouldn’t make any difference.

  “Do you have any idea who killed Angel yet?” she asked after a moment.

  “No. She managed to irritate a lot of people, though, so I’ll have a lot of suspects to choose from.”

  “Who did she irritate? Besides her parents, I mean.”

  “The man her father wanted her to marry, for one. I guess he’s pretty mad that people are laughing at him. Then there’s the whole O’Neal family. They thought she was sneaky and lazy and above herself.”

  “She wasn’t!” Sarah protested.

  “Maybe not, but that’s what they thought.”

  “She was just homesick and frightened!” Sarah insisted. “And who wouldn’t be in that situation?”

  “Yeah, it must’ve been a shock to go from that place where she lived to the O’Neals’,” he agreed. “The women do piecework all day, and they’d expect her to help, to earn her keep. I guess she and her new husband didn’t have any privacy for their honeymoon, either,” he added meaningfully.

  “Oh, dear.” Sarah knew there were no secrets in a tenement flat. How awful to find herself sleeping with a man who wanted to enjoy his new wife while all his relatives were only a few feet away, witnessing everything. Not at all the romantic adventure she must have envisioned. “No wonder she was unhappy.”

  “Why didn’t she go home with her parents, then?” he asked.

  Sarah considered, trying to remember how it felt to be fifteen. “Pride, maybe. She didn’t want to admit she’d made a mistake. Or maybe she was afraid of what they’d do to her.”

  “Punish her, you mean?”