Murder In Chinatown

by Victoria Thompson

  “And you’re a good Chinese son?”

  Harry swallowed. “Yes.”

  “That’s why you always dress like a Chinese,” Frank guessed.

  Harry nodded. “That’s right.”

  “And why you kept your pigtail when your mother made you cut it off.”

  He nodded again. “I needed it.”

  “Why?” Frank asked with interest.

  “So I’d look more Chinese,” he explained as if he thought Frank should have known.

  “That’s why you hooked it onto your hat.”

  “Yes! Then I’d look like the other boys.”

  “Even though your parents didn’t want you to look like the other boys.”

  “But I am like them! I’m just like them!”

  “You don’t look like them, though,” Frank observed. “If you didn’t have on those clothes, you’d look as white as I do.”

  Harry’s face turned scarlet. “But I’m not white!” he insisted. “I’m Chinese!”

  “And you wanted to be a good Chinese son,” Frank said.

  “Yes!”

  “So you dressed in Chinese clothes and you wore a pigtail and you did everything your father wanted you to do, like a good Chinese son.”

  “Yes, I did!” Harry exclaimed excitedly.

  “But Angel didn’t act Chinese at all, did she?” Frank said.

  Uncertainty flickered across his face. “She…Yes, she did,” he tried.

  “No, she didn’t. She didn’t dress like a Chinese, and she didn’t act like a Chinese. She was sneaking out to meet Quinn O’Neal. A good Chinese girl wouldn’t do that, would she?”

  “No, but—”

  “And when her father told her to marry Wong, she should have done it. She should have been a good Chinese girl and obeyed her father, but she didn’t, did she, Harry? She didn’t because she wasn’t a good Chinese girl. She was bad, wasn’t she, Harry?”

  “No!”

  “Yes, she was,” Frank insisted, leaning closer, his voice growing louder. “She was bad because she wouldn’t obey your father, and she ran away. She ran away with a white man. She ran away with him and she married him and she never had to be a Chinese girl again, did she, Harry? She never had to obey your father again!”

  “No!” he shouted, tears flooding his eyes.

  “She was free, wasn’t she, Harry? And that’s why you were so mad. She was free, and you would never be free. You’d be a Chinese man as long as you lived. You would obey your father and do what he said, but she was free and never had to obey again.”

  “She was bad!” Harry cried, surprising himself.

  “Yes, she was,” Frank agreed. “She was a wicked girl. She needed to be punished, didn’t she, Harry? That’s what you went to tell her, isn’t it?”

  “She didn’t have the right to run away!” Harry agreed eagerly, almost relieved to find someone who understood. “I told her she should come home!”

  “But she wouldn’t, would she?” Frank asked. “She laughed in your face and said you were a fool and that’s when you hit her.”

  “She wouldn’t come home!” he confirmed. “But she didn’t laugh. She started yelling at me, making fun of my clothes and calling me a coolie and—”

  “So you hit her,” Frank guessed.

  The tears welled again, and this time they spilled over and ran down his cheeks. “I didn’t mean to, but she was screaming at me! I had to make her stop!”

  “So you hit her, and then you put your hands around her neck, and—”

  “No! I didn’t put my hands around her neck!” he cried in outrage. “I slapped her! I slapped her in the face, and she started to cry!”

  “And that’s when you put your hands around her neck,” Frank tried again, but Harry was having none of it.

  “No, no! I slapped her, and she started to cry, and I couldn’t stand to see her cry, so I ran away!”

  “Don’t lie to me, Harry,” Frank warned. “Someone saw you.”

  This surprised him, but he didn’t look frightened. “Then they know I never put my hands on her neck! I just slapped her, and when she started crying, I was ashamed, and I ran away.”

  “When did this happen, Harry?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, trying to remember. “The day after we found out where she was, I guess. My father went to see her that first day, and he told her to come home, but she wouldn’t. She said she never had to do what he said ever again. I couldn’t believe she said that to him!”

  “Why not, Harry?” Frank asked sarcastically. “Is it because you always wanted to, but never were brave enough?”

  He flushed again but refused to back down. “It’s disrespectful. The Chinese are respectful.”

  “But Angel wasn’t a Chinese anymore, was she? She’d gotten away, but you couldn’t, could you? You must’ve hated her for that.”

  His tears evaporated in the heat of his anger, and he glared back at Frank, refusing to answer.

  “You must’ve really hated her,” Frank went on relentlessly. “You hated her so much that you went back to see her—”

  “No, I didn’t!”

  “You went back to see her, and you told her how bad she was, and that’s when you—”

  “No! I told you, I never did that! I never went back! I never saw her again!” He shouted. The tears were starting again. “I never had a chance…”

  “A chance to do what, Harry?”

  “A chance to say I was sorry!”

  Frank opened his mouth to accuse him again, but someone knocked on the door before he could. Donatelli, as surprised as Frank at the interruption, opened the door. Another officer stood there, a puzzled frown on his face.

  “There’s a Chinaman upstairs to see you,” he told Frank. “He says he killed that Chinese girl.”

  SARAH ESCORTED MINNIE LEE INTO THE BUILDING where she lived and up the stairs.

  “You didn’t have to bring me home,” Minnie protested, not for the first time. “I still think you should’ve gone right to the police station.”

  “I told you, I’ll go as soon as you’re settled in.” She knew going to Headquarters wouldn’t do much good. Malloy wouldn’t see her until he’d finished with Harry anyway, and if he’d decided to arrest the boy for his sister’s murder, she couldn’t do anything at all. She didn’t want to tell Minnie that, though.

  She stopped at Cora’s door and knocked. Cora had the baby in her arms when she opened the door, and Cora’s face betrayed her anguish. “Minnie!” she cried when she saw her standing behind Sarah. “What happened? Where’s Harry?”

  “He’s still arrested,” Minnie said, her voice breaking on fresh tears.

  “Come in and sit down,” Cora said, stepping aside to let them enter. “Did they let you see him?”

  “I couldn’t even get inside the building,” Minnie said, sinking down onto Cora’s overstuffed sofa. “Then I remembered Mrs. Brandt. I thought she might be able to…” Her voice trailed off in despair.

  “I’m going over there to see Harry, now that Minnie is in good hands,” Sarah said. “Has anyone told Mr. Lee yet?”

  “George went out right after Minnie left. He was going to get him,” Cora said. The baby started to fuss, and she bounced him gently, absently.

  Minnie started to cry silently, large tears rolling unheeded down her cheeks. “He couldn’t of done it,” she murmured. “He couldn’t of killed Angel.”

  “Of course he couldn’t,” Cora quickly agreed. “He loved her. We all loved her! Now don’t you worry yourself anymore. He’ll be home soon. You’ll see.”

  “It’s all my fault,” Minnie moaned. “I should’ve sent him away. If I’d sent him away, this never would’ve happened.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense,” Cora scolded her gently. “You couldn’t send him away. He’s your son.”

  “He was never happy, though. He just couldn’t be happy. It’s all my fault.”

  Sarah would have liked to understand what she meant, but there wa
s no time, and it probably wasn’t important anyway. “I’ll be back as soon as I have something to tell you,” she said, moving toward the door. “Stay right here, Minnie, where I can find you.”

  “I’ll take care of her,” Cora promised, sitting down on the sofa beside Minnie to comfort her.

  Sarah nodded and stepped through the still-open door, but stopped when she saw who was coming up the steps. “Harry?” she asked, hardly able to believe her eyes.

  He looked at her in surprise, probably not recognizing her at first.

  “Harry?” his mother echoed, jumping off the sofa and hurrying to the door. She fairly pushed Sarah out of the way as she went barreling down the stairs to meet her son. “Thank God! Thank God!” she cried over and over as she wrapped him in her arms and held on fast.

  Cora was laughing and crying at the same time as she followed Minnie down the stairs to join the celebration. She patted Harry’s back and touched his hair and his shoulder and his arm, as if verifying he was indeed real.

  Finally, Minnie calmed down enough to release her son. She held him at arm’s length and studied him for a long moment, checking for injuries. “Are you all right?”

  Oddly, he looked at Cora before answering. “Yeah,” he said uncertainly. “I’m fine.”

  “Let’s get you upstairs then and out of those awful clothes,” she said with a disparaging glance at his sackcloth. She took his arm to guide him up, but he balked, wrenching free of her grasp.

  “No, I can’t!”

  “Why not?” his mother asked in surprise.

  “I just came to get you. We’ve got to go back,” he said.

  “Back where?”

  “To the police station,” he said stubbornly.

  “No, no,” his mother insisted. “They let you go, and you don’t ever have to go back there again!”

  “Yes, I do!” he cried in anguish, looking at Cora again. “We’ve got to go back there. The only reason they let me go was because George came.”

  “George came?” Cora echoed with a frown. “He came to get you out?”

  “No!” Harry wailed. “He came to tell them he killed Angel!”

  FRANK STARED AT HIS NEW PRISONER ACROSS THE TABLE in the interrogation room he’d recently shared with Harry Lee. “Your name is George Lee?” Frank confirmed.

  “Yes.” The young man sat very straight, his face expressionless. He wore the typical Chinese clothing. His shirt was blue silk and covered with beautiful embroidery. He wore his pigtail wound around his head beneath his hat, probably so the street Arabs couldn’t get ahold of it to torment him. His face was strangely unlined and amazingly handsome.

  “Are you related to Charlie Lee?”

  “Yes, he…he my father.”

  He didn’t sound too certain about something he should be certain of. Sarah hadn’t said anything about Minnie having another child, either. This fellow looked too old to be Minnie’s son anyway, and he didn’t look like he had any white blood. “Who’s your mother?” Frank asked.

  He blinked but didn’t budge. “Mother in China.”

  “Did Charlie have another wife in China?” Frank asked, not bothering to hide his disgust.

  “Mother in China,” he insisted.

  “Are you a paper son?” Donatelli asked suddenly, annoying Frank because he knew he wasn’t supposed to say anything.

  George Lee looked alarmed, but he kept staring at something over Frank’s left shoulder.

  “What’s a paper son?” Frank asked Donatelli.

  “A few years back, the government said the only Chinese who could come over here were the sons of men who already lived here. A lot of Chinese suddenly found sons they didn’t have before, if you know what I mean.”

  “Paper sons,” Frank said in understanding. “So you’re Charlie’s paper son.”

  He acted like he hadn’t heard the question. “I kill Angel,” he said, not for the first time.

  “We’ll get to that,” Frank said, scratching his head. None of this made a lot of sense. “How long have you been Charlie’s paper son?”

  George seemed to be debating whether to answer or not. He was probably worried about being sent back to China if somebody found out he wasn’t really Charlie’s son. Maybe he didn’t realize that was the least of his worries right now, though.

  “Nobody’s gonna send you back to China,” Frank assured him, although he couldn’t be sure. If George had killed Angel, that might be a possible choice of punishments for him. Frank wasn’t sure about the laws concerning foreigners. “How long have you been in America?” he tried.

  “Four year,” he replied without hesitation.

  “You’ve lived with Charlie all that time?”

  “Live with wife now,” George said.

  “You’re married?” Frank asked in surprise.

  “Yes.” Something flickered across his face. Probably thinking about his wife and what this would do to her. She was probably another Irish girl, like Mrs. Lee, too.

  “All right, tell me what happened.”

  “What happened?” he asked uncertainly.

  “How you killed Angel,” Frank clarified impatiently.

  “I go see Angel. Tell her come home. She will not. I kill.”

  This was probably the shortest confession Frank had ever heard. “When was this?”

  “When?” George asked stupidly.

  “Yeah, what day. What time.”

  He had to think this over. “Three day,” he decided.

  “What time?”

  George had to lick his lips while he thought this over. “Not sure,” he finally said.

  “What did you say to her?”

  “I say come home.”

  “And what did she say?”

  “She say no.”

  Maybe it was because he was Chinese, Frank thought. Maybe he just didn’t know all the words in English. “And that made you mad?”

  “Yes.”

  Angel had been killed in the heat of anger. Frank was sure of it. This George fellow didn’t seem capable of anger, although he was making Frank pretty mad.

  “Why?” Frank asked.

  “Why?” George repeated uncertainly.

  “Yeah, why did it make you mad?”

  “She make father and mother sad.”

  “But she was married to the Irish boy,” Frank reminded him. “You couldn’t expect her to leave him and go back home to her parents.”

  George frowned impatiently. “She should go home,” he insisted.

  Frank studied him for a long moment. This was all wrong. “Do you always wear your pigtail up like that?”

  His hand went to his head protectively. “Yes,” he said suspiciously, and then frowned. “Why you ask question? I kill Angel. No more question.”

  Frank looked at Donatelli, who shrugged helplessly. “Lock him up,” Frank told Donatelli. Then he realized that a Chinaman wouldn’t fare well among the other felons being confined in the Headquarters jail. If he was a killer, it wouldn’t matter, but if he wasn’t…“But put him in a cell by himself. If you don’t, they’ll eat him alive.”

  Donatelli nodded and went over to where George Lee sat.

  “I am arrested?” he asked. He didn’t look particularly alarmed at the prospect.

  “Oh, yes,” Frank assured him with a sigh.

  But before Donatelli could get him to the door, someone knocked again. Frank signaled for Donatelli to hold up, and when he opened the door, the same officer as before stood there.

  “What now?” Frank asked in disgust.

  “Mrs. Brandt is here to see you,” he said with a smirk.

  Somehow, Frank managed not to groan.

  SARAH KNEW SHE HAD WON SOME RESPECT FROM MALOY’S cohorts when she was escorted upstairs to wait in Miss Kelly’s office instead of being left to cool her heels among the thieves and prostitutes being brought in on the street level. Even that would have been better than being locked in an interrogation room, as she had been on her first visit here.
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  Miss Kelly was the first girl secretary in the history of the New York City Police Department, another of Commissioner Roosevelt’s innovations. Roosevelt wasn’t in his office, but Miss Kelly made her comfortable while she waited for Malloy.

  She’d expected a long wait, but Malloy appeared only a few minutes later. He looked angry, of course, but not nearly as angry as she had expected.

  “Mrs. Brandt,” he said sourly. “What a surprise.”

  “I need to talk to you about George Lee,” she said before he could draw her into an argument about her presence here.

  “Why don’t you use the commissioner’s office?” Miss Kelly suggested. “He won’t be in today, and I’m sure he won’t mind, since it’s Mrs. Brandt,” she added.

  Sarah’s family were lifelong friends with the Roosevelts. “Thank you,” Sarah said before Malloy could refuse and led the way.

  Malloy closed the door behind them.

  “You know I wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t important,” she hurried to explain.

  He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the door, silently challenging her to convince him.

  “I was at home, minding my own business,” she informed him, trying to sound confident instead of defensive, “when Minnie Lee showed up. She was nearly hysterical because you had arrested Harry.”

  “I didn’t arrest him,” he said, sounding put upon, although why he should, she couldn’t imagine.

  “Well, she thought you had. She followed you and tried to get in here, but Tom wouldn’t let her.”

  “I’ll have to thank him.”

  Sarah found his attitude annoying, but she refused to be intimidated. “She only wanted to know what you were going to do to Harry. She was truly frightened, so she asked me if I’d talk to you.”

  “I already released Harry.”

  “I know! I knew you wouldn’t want me coming down here, so I took Minnie home. As soon as we got there, Harry came in, and he told us George had confessed to killing Angel. Is that true?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  Sarah glared at Malloy, more than annoyed now. “What have you done with him?”

  “I locked him up.”

  “But you can’t arrest him!”

  He rubbed a hand over his face. “He confessed to a murder, Sarah, so I didn’t have much choice. Besides, you only told me I couldn’t arrest Harry, so how was I supposed to know? Maybe you should give me a list of all the people you don’t want me to arrest for killing Angel.”