Murder In Chinatown

by Victoria Thompson

  “No good at all,” Frank agreed. “Is that why you killed her then?”

  Quinn started. “I didn’t kill her!”

  “Nobody could blame you,” Frank said agreeably. “Pretty girl like that, sleeping with you every night but not letting you do anything. You must’ve been going crazy. Then you find a nice place where you can do it without your whole family watching, and she won’t go. Maybe she made fun of you. Maybe she said she was going to go back home to her parents. Maybe she said she hated you.”

  “No, it wasn’t like that!”

  “What was it like?”

  “I…She just started crying and ran away.”

  “And you went after her and caught her in the alley and put your hands around her throat and—”

  “No! I didn’t! I didn’t touch her! I didn’t kill her!”

  Frank smiled. “Then you don’t have anything to worry about, do you?” He rose from the chair and left the room, with Officer Kelly right behind him.

  “What do you think?” Kelly asked when they were in the hall.

  Frank sighed. “I think this is going to be a long investigation.”

  THE POT ROAST WAS SIMMERING, SURROUNDED BY POTATOES and carrots, filling the house with a mouthwatering aroma. Maeve and Catherine had gone upstairs to play, and Mrs. Ellsworth had returned to her home. She’d promised to return later to claim a portion of the meal for herself and her son Nelson.

  Sarah had just finished tidying up the kitchen when she heard someone ringing her doorbell. Her heart sank. She’d been looking forward to enjoying the meal with the girls, but now it appeared she was being summoned to a delivery. When she opened the door, however, she saw Minnie Lee standing on her doorstep.

  “Mrs. Lee, please come in,” she said, standing aside. “Nothing wrong with Cora or the baby, I hope.”

  “Oh, no, they’re both fine,” Minnie said distractedly. She came in but stopped dead when she saw Maeve and Catherine staring at her from the bottom of the stairs.

  “Mrs. Lee, this is my daughter Catherine and her nurse-maid Maeve,” Sarah said.

  “Are you leaving?” Maeve asked, trying not to let her disappointment show.

  “No,” Sarah said. “Mrs. Lee has come for a visit.” Then she glanced at Minnie and realized she wasn’t entirely certain of that. “Or did you need me to go with you?”

  “Oh, no,” Minnie assured her. “I just…I needed somebody to talk to, and I can’t bother Cora. She’s already so upset over Angel, and she needs to keep up her strength for the baby.”

  “Are you Angel’s mother?” Maeve asked, surprising her.

  “Why, yes,” Minnie said. “Did you know her?”

  Maeve shook her head. “But I’m sorry that she died.”

  Minnie’s eyes filled, and her face twisted in pain. “Thank you, child,” she said hoarsely.

  “Please come into the kitchen,” Sarah urged. “I’ll make you some tea, and we can talk. Girls, you go on back upstairs now so we can talk in private.”

  Mrs. Lee left her wrap and her hat hanging in the hallway and followed Sarah through her office to the back of the house.

  “Something smells good,” Minnie said with forced cheerfulness as she took the offered seat at the table.

  “My neighbor is an excellent cook. Luckily for me, she has decided to teach Maeve and Catherine, and we all get to enjoy the results. Would you like a piece of her pie?”

  Minnie shook her head. “No, thank you. I can’t seem to eat anything since…”

  Her voice broke again, and Sarah pretended not to notice. She put the kettle on and got out the teapot and canister and measured out the tea. After a moment’s thought, she also cut two pieces of the latest pie Mrs. Ellsworth had insisted they take and set one down in front of Minnie.

  “Try,” Sarah said when she would have protested. Then she sat down at the table opposite Minnie. “What did you want to talk about?”

  Minnie sighed in despair. “I guess I don’t really know. What I really want is for somebody to tell me it was all a big mistake and Angel is still alive. I know that won’t happen, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting it.”

  “That’s a perfectly normal reaction,” Sarah said. “How are Harry and your husband doing?”

  The color rose in Minnie’s wan cheeks at the mention of her son. “Harry’s pretty ashamed over the business with the opium. I don’t know what got into him. He swears he never used it before, and he says he didn’t intend to use too much. He just…He’s upset over Angel, of course.”

  “Were they close?”

  Minnie shrugged one shoulder. “They fought, like brother and sister will do. Harry complained about her, but let anybody else say something to her, and he was on ’em like a tiger.”

  “I guess Angel looked up to her big brother, too.”

  “Oh, yes.” Minnie’s eyes shone at the memory. “When they was little, she’d follow him everywhere. He didn’t want his kid sister tagging along when he was with his friends, of course. That caused more than one tear to be shed, I’ll tell you.”

  Sarah waited, giving Minnie a chance to savor her memories and work up the courage to talk about the present.

  Finally, she cleared her throat. “Do you know what…? What will they be able to find out when they…examine her?” she asked.

  Sarah could hear the pain in her voice. She hoped Minnie had no idea what an autopsy entailed. No one wanted to think of someone doing those things to a loved one, especially a sweet young girl like Angel. Sarah wasn’t about to explain it, either.

  “They’ll be able to tell exactly how she died,” Sarah said. “And they’ll be able to tell if she had other injuries.”

  “You mean if he beat her or something?”

  “Yes.” She wouldn’t mention rape unless Minnie thought of it herself. “They can sometimes tell approximately when the person died. That can sometimes help in determining who couldn’t have done it because they were someplace else at the time.”

  “And who was nearby and could have,” Minnie guessed.

  “That’s right. They also look for signs that Angel fought back. If she has blood under her fingernails, for example, that means she probably scratched him. The killer would have scratch marks on him, too.”

  The water was boiling, so Sarah got up and poured the water into the pot. She brought the tea tray to the table, so the tea could steep for a while before she poured it, and sat down again.

  “That would make it easy,” Minnie said. “If she marked the killer, I mean.”

  “It would certainly help. Of course it also helps if someone saw the killer with her or at least saw something suspicious. That doesn’t always happen, though.”

  “If no one saw anything, how will they ever find out who did it?” Minnie asked.

  Sarah smiled reassuringly. “Mr. Malloy is very good at his job. If anyone can find Angel’s killer, he can.”

  For a long moment, Minnie sat staring blankly at the table top. “You know, it’s funny. If you’d asked me, I would’ve thought it was Harry who would come to grief,” she mused.

  “Boys do tend to be more reckless than girls,” Sarah agreed.

  Minnie didn’t seem to have heard her. “When you do things in your life, you never think…” She looked up, and her eyes were full of despair. “I picked Charlie to marry, but they didn’t have any say in it. Harry and Angel, they had to live with what I gave them.”

  “You gave them a good life,” Sarah reminded her.

  Minnie’s face twisted in pain. “That’s what I thought. They never was hungry or cold, not once in their lives. Not like I was, coming up, I can tell you. I could’ve married a white man, but not one who could take care of me and mine like Charlie did.”

  Sarah thought she was probably right about that. Most women like Minnie and Cora lived like the O’Neals, if they were lucky. The less fortunate fared far worse.

  “I never cared what people said behind my back,” Minnie was saying, her voice rising as
she made her case. “Or to my face even. Why should I? It was all my own doing. So I never cared, but Angel—”

  Her voice broke, and Sarah instinctively reached over and clasped her hand in silent comfort.

  Minnie turned her hand and squeezed Sarah’s tightly, almost desperately. “Angel never seemed to care, either,” she said in a terrible whisper. “She never did, but if she’d been white, would she still be alive?”

  FRANK LEFT THE O’NEAL BOYS TO COOL THEIR HEELS and went to visit the coroner. Doc Haynes was in his office. His desk was piled high with papers both modern and ancient, some probably concerning bodies that had long since turned to dust. The smell of death hung in the air, permeating everything in the building. Frank steeled himself against it and cleared the only other chair in the room and sat on it.

  “You’ll be wondering about the Chinese girl, I guess,” Doc said.

  “I would,” Frank agreed. “What can you tell me?”

  Doc shifted a few sheets of paper and found the one he was looking for. “I didn’t cut her open yet, but I don’t expect I’II find anything much I don’t already know. She was manually strangled. Didn’t put up much of a fight, nothing under her fingernails, so it was quick and a surprise. Didn’t have any other marks on her that I could see. If whoever did it hit her right before she died, she wouldn’t have had time to bruise, but I’ll find it when I do the postmortem.”

  “Was she raped?”

  Doc frowned. “Kind of hard to tell.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you said she’d been married just a couple weeks.”

  “That’s right.”

  “She had some irritation down there, but that’s pretty much the case with new brides. Young couples can’t get enough of it and all that.”

  Frank nodded, remembering. The memories were bittersweet, as always when he thought of his lost Kathleen. “So do you think she was or not?”

  “I’d say not. No semen was present. Her clothes were all intact, too.”

  “The family carried her inside after they found her,” Frank reminded him. “Maybe they cleaned her up.”

  “That’s possible. You can ask them, of course, but I’m thinking she wasn’t assaulted. Whoever did this probably just put his hands around her throat in a fit of passion and broke the hyoid bone before he had a chance to think better of what he was doing. She was surprised and only had a few seconds to resist before she was unconscious.”

  “The hyoid,” Frank mused. “That’s the bone in the throat?”

  “Yeah,” Doc said, pointing to a spot on his own neck. “If it’s broken, we know it was strangulation. Like I said, I haven’t cut her open, but you can see the marks on her throat right where it should be, so I’m pretty sure that’s what I’ll find.”

  “Would the killer have to be strong to break it?”

  “If you’re asking if a woman could do it, the answer is yes. Most women who do housework would have the strength.”

  This wasn’t good news. With no sexual assault, almost anyone could have killed Angel. “Can you give me an idea of how long she’d been dead?”

  “I’d say not more than an hour or two before they found her. Maybe less. Rigor mortis hadn’t started yet, and she couldn’t have laid there long without somebody seeing her.”

  Frank sighed. Not much to go on. “Anything else?”

  Doc shook his head. “Pretty little thing. Hardly more than a child. How old was she again?”

  “Fifteen, according to her mother.”

  “What was she doing married?” he asked in disgust.

  “Young love,” Frank said sarcastically. “She eloped.”

  Doc shook his head. “Didn’t have much of a happily-ever-after did she?”

  8

  “DON’T DO THIS TO YOURSELF,” SARAH TOLD MINNIE gently. “You aren’t thinking clearly. If you hadn’t married Charlie, you never would have had Angel,” she pointed out. “None of this is your fault.”

  Minnie wanted to believe her, but her guilt just wouldn’t let her. “I should’ve known she was seeing that boy.”

  “How could you? Angel was doing her very best to keep it a secret,” Sarah reminded her. “And her friends were helping her.”

  “I could’ve talked to Charlie, though,” she said, staring past Sarah as if she were arguing with someone unseen.

  “Why didn’t you?”

  Minnie straightened abruptly. “What?”

  “You said you could have spoken to your husband. Did you mean about Angel marrying Mr. Wong?”

  The color rose in Minnie’s face. “No, I didn’t mean that,” she said too quickly. “I’d never…I couldn’t…Angel was his child.”

  Sarah wasn’t sure what she meant by that, and before she could reply, Minnie rose.

  “I have to go. I…I didn’t mean to stay so long. You must be busy.”

  “You didn’t even have any tea,” Sarah protested. “At least have a cup before you leave.”

  “I have to go,” Minnie insisted, hurrying out of the kitchen without waiting to see if Sarah would follow.

  Sarah caught up with her in the front hall. She was putting on her hat. “I’m glad you stopped by,” Sarah said. “I hope I was able to help a little.”

  “You did,” Minnie said without meeting her eye. “I’m sorry I…I mean, thank you for…for your time,” she added lamely.

  Sarah had only managed to say, “You’re welcome,” before Minnie was out the front door. Sarah watched her rushing down the street as if she was afraid Sarah was going to chase her and stop her.

  What had made her leave so suddenly? Sarah tried to remember what they’d been talking about when Minnie had bolted, but nothing struck her as particularly disturbing. Perhaps Minnie had simply remembered something she needed to do immediately. That was a logical explanation, but Sarah wasn’t convinced. Part of her wanted desperately to find out, to investigate and see if Minnie’s distress had anything to do with Angel’s death. Then she would put whatever she learned together with what she already knew and decide if any of it would help identify whoever had killed Angel.

  She wasn’t going to do that, though. She was going to stay right where she was and forget all about Angel Lee’s murder. She was going to be a mother to her child and let Frank Malloy do his job without her help. He’d done it for many years before he met her, and he didn’t need her help now.

  But even as she closed the front door, she was thinking of other ways that she could help. Ways that wouldn’t put her in danger. She could think of at least one.

  FRANK STOOD IN THE BACK ALLEY BEHIND THE O’NEALS’ tenement and stared down at the spot where Angel’s body had been found. All he saw was a bare patch of ground just like all the rest of the ground around it. Nothing to indicate a young girl has lost her life there, and certainly nothing to tell him who had killed her.

  From what Doc Haynes had told him, this was around the time she’d died yesterday. Except for an occasional visitor to the privies, the yard was remarkably quiet this time of day. The weather wasn’t warm enough yet to encourage people to gather on the porches or fire escapes. Whatever chores the women did—laundry, emptying chamber pots—had been accomplished much earlier. Those residents lucky enough to have jobs were gone, and the rest would be doing piecework indoors, like the O’Neal women, or warming a barstool, like the O’Neal men.

  As hard as it was to believe, Angel’s death might really have passed unobserved. Frank had to make sure, though. Witnesses in neighborhoods like this one seldom volunteered information to the police. Their lives were hard enough without getting involved in a murder. They might also have good reason to want to avoid interaction with the police. With a weary sigh, Frank climbed up the back porch steps and entered the nearest building in search of an eyewitness who’d actually tell him something useful.

  The sun had set by the time Frank made it to the top floor of the second tenement that overlooked the murder scene. Most of his knocks had gone unanswered. E
ither the flats were empty or the tenants were hiding. They’d all know who he was. They’d have seen him yesterday or else they simply recognized him as a policeman by his bearing. Even though he dressed in a dark suit, like half the men in the city, people always knew who he was. He’d long ago given up trying to figure out what gave him away. Usually, it worked to his advantage anyway.

  Those who did answer the door to him claimed to have seen and heard nothing. He’d worked his way up to the fifth floor and down the hallway, knocking only on the doors of flats that faced the yard below, where Angel had died. To his surprise, one of the last doors opened before he’d even knocked on it. An elderly woman stood there, glaring at him. Her body seemed to have shrunk inside her clothing, and stray wisps of white hair stood up in tufts over her pink scalp. Her wrinkled face was almost completely devoid of color, as if she’d already died but was just too stubborn to admit it and lie down.

  “About time you got here,” she informed him.

  Frank blinked in surprise. “I’m Detective Sergeant Malloy,” he said, thinking maybe she’d confused him with someone else.

  “I don’t care what your name is,” she snapped. “Come in. I got something to tell you.”

  Frank did as he was told. The flat was like a thousand others. Furnished with castoffs and wooden crates, the place was neat more from a lack of belongings than any attempt at orderliness.

  “You want to know who killed that girl, don’t you?” she asked. Without waiting for a reply, she turned and hobbled over to a window that overlooked the yard below. “I seen it all from here.” She pointed a gnarled finger at the dirty glass before plopping down into an ancient rocking chair that was positioned so she could peer out without even turning her head.

  “This is where I sit,” she said, leaning forward until her nose almost touched the glass of the window. “I seen her down there.”

  Frank felt the first spark of hope he’d experienced since finding out Angel was dead. He leaned forward, too, and determined that the window provided an excellent view of the scene of the girl’s murder. Still, they were five stories up. He looked at the old woman again. She was watching him with her rheumy eyes. How much could she really have seen?