Murder In Chinatown

by Victoria Thompson

  “That’s what her mother said, but she still couldn’t convince Angel to leave Quinn and come back home.”

  “Why do you think she wouldn’t go?” he asked.

  Sarah shook her head. “Pride, probably. No girl wants to admit she made a terrible mistake and go crawling back to her parents.”

  “Could she have been afraid of going back? Maybe that they’d punish her?”

  “I don’t know what Angel thought, of course, but I think her parents would have been so happy to get her home that they wouldn’t have dreamed of punishing her.”

  “What about the arranged marriage? Would they still have forced her to marry Wong?”

  “She was already married,” Sarah reminded him. “They would’ve had to get an annulment or something.”

  “Unless the Chinese don’t care about that. Maybe they’d just give her to Wong and marry them in some Chinese ceremony.”

  “I can’t imagine Minnie Lee would allow that, since Angel was married in the church.”

  “Maybe she didn’t have any say. Charlie Lee went to see John Wong two days before Angel died.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “But you think it had something to do with Angel’s death,” she guessed.

  He shrugged. “I found a witness who saw Angel with a Chinese man right before she died.”

  “Oh my! Did this witness see Angel get killed?”

  “No, but I’m pretty sure the man she saw was the murderer.”

  “Oh, dear,” Sarah said in dismay.

  “What?”

  “It’s just…I went to see an old friend of mine the other day. She runs a Chinese Sunday school and also gives English classes to the Chinese.”

  “I thought you weren’t going to get involved in this case,” he reminded her with a disapproving frown.

  “I haven’t!” she claimed, then added, “At least not very much,” when he raised his eyebrows skeptically. “I was curious, though. I thought if I learned more about the Chinese people, I might be able to help a little.”

  He didn’t seem impressed by her reasoning. “What did your friend tell you?”

  “She has great respect for the Chinese,” Sarah reported. “And she doesn’t believe a Chinese man would have killed Angel.”

  “I suppose she has a really good reason for thinking that,” he said in disgust.

  “She thinks they’re too…gentle.”

  Malloy sighed. “Even gentle people commit murder, and I haven’t noticed the Chinese being particularly gentle.”

  “I’m just telling you what she said,” Sarah reminded him.

  “And I’m just telling you what the witness said. She saw a Chinese man.”

  “Did he see the man’s face?”

  “The witness is a she, and no, she didn’t. She only saw the clothes.”

  “Do you think it was John Wong?”

  “I did until I went to see him.”

  “Did he have an alibi?”

  “He has a mistress.”

  “A mistress?” Sarah echoed in surprise.

  “Yes, and you’ll never guess who she is—Keely O’Neal, Quinn’s sister.”

  Sarah needed a minute to take that in. “His sister is Wong’s mistress? How on earth did that happen?”

  “From what Wong told me, Keely showed up on his doorstep four days ago and offered herself to him.”

  “But how would she even know…? Oh! I guess Angel must have told her about Wong, that her parents had wanted her to marry him.”

  “According to Wong, Keely claimed that Angel had recommended him as a possible husband.”

  “That sounds very strange.”

  “I thought so, too. Even Wong didn’t believe it. But Keely and Angel are the same age, and Quinn said they spent a lot of time together, off by themselves, talking. They probably did talk about Wong, but what could Angel have said to make Keely run off to find him?”

  Sarah considered, trying to put herself in the girls’ places and imagining what might have happened. “Angel hated Wong,” Sarah recalled, remembering the day Angel had burst into Cora Lee’s flat to beg her to save her from the unwanted marriage. “She wouldn’t have sent Keely to him, so she must have inadvertently convinced Keely she’d do well with him.”

  “How could she do that?”

  “Let’s see, what would a girl like Keely want in a husband?” Sarah mused, and then she realized she didn’t have to imagine at all. “Let’s ask Maeve.”

  Sarah summoned Maeve and quickly explained the situation to her. “What could Angel have said about Mr. Wong that would make Keely want to marry him?”

  “That girl Angel, her family was rich,” Maeve said after some thought. “She had pretty clothes and a nice place to live. She was never cold or hungry, and she didn’t have to work. She never had to be afraid of anything.”

  Sarah understood instantly. “Keely would think that sounded like heaven.”

  “Sure she would,” Maeve confirmed. “And that Mr. Wong, he’s even richer than Angel’s father. Keely probably thought that if Angel didn’t want him, she’d take him so she could have a life like Angel did.”

  “So she finds Mr. Wong and presents herself,” Sarah said in amazement. “Is she smart enough to have figured out a plan like that?” she asked Malloy.

  “Oh, yes,” Malloy confirmed. “Keely O’Neal could probably run Tammany Hall,” he added, naming the Democratic Party Headquarters where crooked politicians controlled much of what happened in the city.

  “Do you think this Keely killed Angel?” Maeve asked.

  “No, a witness saw a Chinese man kill her,” Sarah said. “Mr. Malloy thought it might have been Mr. Wong.”

  Maeve frowned. “Why would he kill her if he had this Keely to take her place?”

  “He might have been mad at her for running away,” Sarah explained. “Angel insulted him by eloping with the Irish boy so she wouldn’t have to marry him.”

  “Maybe,” Maeve said, “but killing somebody…Seems like he’d need a better reason.”

  “You’d be surprised at the reasons people kill other people,” Malloy told her grimly. “Thanks, Maeve. You’ve been a big help.”

  When Maeve was gone, Sarah said, “What other Chinese men could have done it?”

  “The only ones that were close to her and might have had a reason are her father and brother.”

  “I hate to think one of them did it,” Sarah said. “Besides, her brother hardly even looks Chinese.”

  “The witness was looking out a fifth-floor window,” Malloy said. “Remember, all she could see for sure were the clothes.”

  “Well, Harry does dress like a Chinese sometimes.”

  “Most of the time, according to him,” Malloy said. “Lucky for him, he doesn’t have a pigtail.”

  “Did the witness see a pigtail?”

  “Yes.”

  Sarah tried to picture Harry Wong dressed in his Chinese clothes. “Are you sure Harry doesn’t have a pigtail?”

  “Yes. Remember, he didn’t have one that day when he was drugged and we were walking him around? That was only hours after Angel died. He told me this morning that his mother made him cut it a couple years ago.”

  That didn’t sound right. Sarah would have sworn…

  “He dresses like a white man when he wants to pass unnoticed,” Malloy was saying. “He couldn’t do that if his hair was long.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Sarah said. When he had come to her house to tell her his sister was dead, he’d been wearing Chinese clothes. She must have just assumed he had a pigtail, too. “So if it wasn’t Harry…”

  “That leaves Charlie Lee and John Wong,” Malloy said.

  “Maybe it was a stranger,” Sarah argued.

  “According to the witness, when Angel saw the man, she got up off the porch and went out into the yard to meet him. She knew him and wasn’t afraid of him.”

  “Maybe she had a Chinese boyfriend we don’t
know about.”

  “Then nobody else knew about him, either. Harry swears none of the Chinese boys would have bothered with her, and Wong confirmed that. They knew she was out of their reach.”

  “But would she have gone out into the yard to meet John Wong like that? She didn’t like him and would probably have been afraid of him.”

  Malloy sighed wearily. “You’re probably right, but that only leaves her father, and I hope to God it wasn’t him.”

  FRANK DECIDED TO CONFRONT CHARLIE LEE AT HIS business instead of at home. He didn’t want to upset Mrs. Lee any more than he had to. If Charlie had an alibi, then she wouldn’t ever have to know he’d been a suspect.

  Lee owned several laundries, but Frank easily found the one where he had his office. The large building fairly hummed with activity, as a small army of men worked diligently sorting, scrubbing, rinsing, ironing, and folding. The place carried the familiar smells of laundry day in the tenement yard, multiplied a thousand times.

  After a brief wait, one of the men escorted Frank into Charlie Lee’s inner office at the rear of the building. The room was as Spartan as his home was luxurious. Lee didn’t believe in wasting any money here, apparently. A cheap desk and chair, a filing cabinet, and a straight-backed chair for visitors were the only furnishings. No pictures on the walls, no carpet on the floor.

  Lee didn’t bother with a greeting and didn’t offer to shake hands. “Do you know who kill my daughter?”

  “Not yet,” Frank said. “I need to ask you a few questions.” He took the empty visitor’s chair without being invited.

  This clearly annoyed Lee, but he knew better than to antagonize a policeman. “I tell you, I know nothing.”

  “What did you talk to John Wong about the day before Angel was killed?”

  He stared back at Frank in surprise. “How you know this?”

  “He told me. What did you talk about?”

  “Did he not tell you?”

  “I want to hear your version.”

  Lee was as angry about revealing the topic of this discussion as Wong had been. “I tell him Angel be home soon,” he said as if the words were being pulled from him.

  “I thought she’d refused to go home with you.”

  “She would come,” Lee said confidently, although Frank thought he wasn’t as confident as he pretended.

  “You mean, you’d force her to leave her husband and come home with you.”

  “No force,” Lee insisted. “She not happy. She come home soon.”

  “And then what? You’d marry her off to Wong?”

  Lee didn’t like having to defend his decision. “We make agreement,” he said stubbornly.

  Frank pretended to consider this. “Let me get this straight. You made a deal to sell your daughter to Wong, who’s old enough to be her father, even though she told you she didn’t want to marry him.”

  “I not sell Angel!” he protested indignantly.

  “Don’t lie to me!” Frank snarled, leaning in to intimidate him. “How much did he pay you?”

  “He pay bride-price!” Lee snarled right back.

  Frank wasn’t sure he’d heard him correctly. “What?”

  “A man pay father of girl for right to marry.”

  “So you did sell her!”

  “Not sell,” Lee insisted. “Give.”

  “So you were going to give your daughter to an old man.”

  “Wong not old!”

  “Too old for Angel!”

  “No! He rich. He take care of her. She be safe!”

  “Safe? Safe from what?”

  “Safe from…” He seemed to be struggling to find the right words. “From America!”

  “What are you talking about?” Frank demanded in confusion.

  “She Chinese girl. White no like. Make trouble. All the time, trouble. Wong, he keep safe. No trouble.” Tears welled in Lee’s eyes. “My Angel, I want keep her safe. All her life, safe. Wong, he do that.”

  Frank stared at him dumbfounded. “Are you saying you wanted Angel to marry Wong because he could protect her from…from people who hate the Chinese?”

  “He give her house, food, clothes. He take care. Not like American boy. She starve with American boy!”

  Frank thought he was probably right about that. But no matter why Lee had wanted her to marry his friend, he would still be angry when she defied him. Wong had said Lee might be angry enough to kill Angel. “You must’ve been pretty mad when she wouldn’t go home with you,” he tried.

  “She foolish girl. She not want to say she make mistake. But she come home soon. I know this.”

  “And so you promised Wong that she would still marry him.”

  “Yes.”

  “And then you went to see Angel, and she refused to come home.”

  “No, not see her. I wait. She not happy. She be more unhappy tomorrow. I wait.”

  “When was the last time you saw Angel?”

  “Five day, six day, maybe.”

  “Where were you the afternoon Angel died?”

  “You think I kill Angel?” he asked angrily.

  “I just asked where you were when she died,” Frank said.

  Lee’s glare was murderous. “Here. I work here.”

  “And all your workers saw you, I guess.” And they’d swear to it whether they had or not.

  “I here. They see me,” he insisted. “I not kill Angel.”

  Lee, he noticed, wore his queue wrapped around his head. When he had a hat on, as he would when he was outside and wearing his American suit of clothes, he could pass almost unnoticed on the street, unless someone looked directly into his face. That’s what had been bothering Frank.

  “Do you ever wear Chinese clothes?” Frank asked abruptly.

  Lee’s expression hardened. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  He hesitated, as if revealing this secret to Frank caused him actual pain. “American no respect Chinese.”

  Of course. That made perfect sense. It also meant that John Wong was the only suspect left who could have killed Angel.

  WHILE SARAH AND THE GIRLS WERE ENJOYING THE STEW that Mrs. Ellsworth had shared with them this evening, Sarah couldn’t stop her mind from wandering back to the conversation she’d had with Malloy earlier. Something was wrong with their reasoning, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.

  “Is something bothering you, Mrs. Brandt?” Maeve asked a little later, when she was helping Sarah clear the table.

  “Catherine, why don’t you go upstairs and play while Maeve and I do the dishes?” Sarah said, not wanting the child to hear any more about Angel Lee’s murder. When she was gone, Sarah said, “I can’t stop thinking about what Mr. Malloy told me this afternoon.”

  “You still don’t think that Mr. Wong killed Angel, do you?”

  Sarah smiled at her perception. “No, and I don’t want to think it was her father, either.”

  “I didn’t know you thought her father might’ve done it,” Maeve said, slipping the last plate into the soapy water.

  “I don’t, or at least I hope he didn’t, but he’s one of the few Chinese men who could have had a reason.” Sarah took a towel from the rack and began to dry the dishes as Maeve finished washing them.

  “Is it certain that a Chinese man killed her?”

  “Mr. Malloy found a witness who saw a Chinese man with Angel in the yard right before she died, so yes, that part is fairly certain.”

  “Did the witness see the man’s face?”

  “No, she was in one of the tenements, on the fifth floor, looking out the window.”

  “Can’t see much from up there, can you?”

  “She could see the man was wearing the kind of clothes a Chinese man wears, and that he had a pigtail.”

  “Then it could’ve been just about any Chinese man.”

  “No, it was someone Angel knew. When she saw the person, she went out into the yard to meet him. She wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t know the person well.”
>
  “Even still, she must’ve known other Chinese men besides Mr. Wong.”

  “None who would have gone to see her there, apparently. Except her father and brother, of course.”

  “Her brother was the one who came here to get you the day she died, wasn’t he?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why doesn’t Mr. Malloy think her brother could’ve done it? My brothers used to whale on me something awful. Maybe he was just whaling on her and didn’t really mean to kill her.”

  Sarah almost dropped the plate she’d been drying. This was the first time Maeve had ever mentioned her family or the life she’d had before she’d come to the Mission. Sarah’s heart twisted in her chest at this hint of how awful that life had been, but she dared not reveal the slightest reaction. She didn’t want Maeve to think she’d shocked her, or she’d never reveal another thing.

  “No,” Sarah said evenly. “Her brother couldn’t have done it. The man who killed her had one of those pigtails the Chinese men wear, but her brother doesn’t have one.”

  “He doesn’t?” she asked in surprise.

  “No, his hair is cut short.”

  “That’s funny. I thought…”

  “What did you think?” Sarah asked when she hesitated, realizing Maeve had had the same reaction as she over whether Harry Lee had a pigtail or not.

  “I guess I thought he did.”

  “I did, too, but then Mr. Malloy reminded me that we’d spent a lot of time with Harry the evening Angel died, when he took the overdose of opium. His hair was definitely short.”

  “You’d know, then. Maybe I thought he had one because he was wearing those clothes and all. Whenever you see a Chinese man, seems like he’s got a pigtail hanging down his back.”

  “That must have been it,” Sarah agreed.

  Maeve handed her the last glass to dry just as someone knocked on the back door. Sarah opened it to see Mrs. Ellsworth standing on the back stoop, holding something with a towel draped over it.

  “I baked some pies today, and I thought you might want one,” she said cheerfully, coming in without waiting for an invitation.

  She stopped when she was only a few steps into the room, however, and looked closely at Sarah and Maeve. “Such serious faces! What on earth were you two talking about?” she exclaimed.