Clara cross-examined Benedict by asking pointed, yes or no, questions. Did the Defendant bring Mary McCarthy to you for help? Did the Defendant help you by giving money to the home? Did you see George Kwong and Mary McCarthy enjoying themselves? Did the argument you witnessed escalate into anything physical? All of these answers, except the last one, were answered affirmatively, and Clara believed she had planted her seeds of doubt in the minds of the jurors.
The final witness for the prosecution that day was the coroner from Oakland, Travis Goodbody. As predicted, Goodbody was asked to identify George Kwong as the man he employed for the summer internship. The second attorney on the prosecution’s team, William Varson, did the questioning of this key witness. Varson had a habit of looking back at the judge after every question, as if he were pleading to God. Clara, on the other hand, always gave her reiterations of witness responses directly to the jury. The jury, after all, decided the guilt or innocence of her client.
Varson continued with his examination of the coroner by bringing forth the Civil War post-mortem kit, the alleged tools used to strip the flesh and hone the body of the victim. Varson asked several highly technical questions about how this process could be accomplished on a female body, and Goodbody swore that these tools could do the job. Clara objected when Varson tried to ask whether George Kwong asked Goodbody any questions relating to using any of the tools to kill someone, and the judge, thankfully, sustained her demurrer, and struck the question from the record.
Clara had her own rebuttal witness, whom she would be presenting after the prosecution was finished with its witnesses, and she smiled over at him after she asked Goodbody her only cross-examination question. “Do you keep your tools under lock and key?” When Goodbody said “no,” Clara turned around and grinned at Lees, and he smiled back.
Later that evening, Ah Toy told Clara she believed the first day had gone well, especially Clara’s brilliant opening statement. The defense team, composed of Clara, Ah Toy, Captain Lees and his partner, Dutch Vandenheiden, were dining together at the Luck Dragon in Chinatown. The large restaurant was filled with many of the visiting female demonstrators from across the United States, and Clara was somewhat of a celebrity to them.
The owner, Stephen Fong of the Hip Kat Company, was personally seeing to it that Clara and her party were given the royal treatment. The table was filled with the most delectable and freshest dishes, and their teapot was refilled regularly during the meal.
“It all seems so choreographed and ritualized. I keep thinking I’m simply talking to walls with animal trophy heads on them. Don’t you agree, Isaiah? This is just a kangaroo trial.” Clara sipped from her small teacup, and then wiped her lips with a cloth napkin.
“What do you have planned, Clara? You knew this would happen going in because I told you as much. Despite your newspaper victory, and all these demonstrators, the country is still against the Chinese. The economy’s been hemorrhaging jobs like one of this killer’s victims, and the Chinese are seen as threats to the few remaining jobs for men.” Captain Lees picked up a fried wonton and began to chew it.
Clara looked over at Ah Toy. “Shall I tell them?”
Ah Toy nodded. “I think you need to at this point.”
“You never told me you would have one of your men, a Detective O’Brien, I think his name is, following me around day and night. Well, I never told you that I have a plan to bring the real killer out of hiding.” Clara plunged one of her chopsticks into a bowl of fried rice. “I informed every suspect on our list that he or she was the murderer. I also told them I was going to prove it as a surprise during the trial.”
Lees pounded his fist on the table. “You did what? Are you insane?”
“Now wait a minute, boss. Why would telling them they’re guilty do anything to bring them out? Why would they risk killing Clara until they knew what she had on them?” Vanderheiden said, twirling the end of his auburn mustache.
“What do you have on this real killer? Who is it?” Lees scowled at her.
Clara looked down at her hands. She felt the same way she had when she lied to her father while she was secretly meeting Jeremiah Foltz. She looked back up and confronted Isaiah’s eyes. “I don’t have anything, really. I need to prove a few things first. I just thought since this was a kangaroo court anyway, I would just …”
“Just commit suicide?” Lees roared.
“If the killer tried to get me, then I would save some other poor woman. Besides, you gave me the gun.” Clara was now whispering.
“I gave you that gun to give you confidence, not real protection. This killer obviously means business. I wouldn’t doubt he knows how to wear a bulletproof vest. Your Derringer’s bullets would be like hitting the killer with two beanbags.”
“I agree with Detective Vanderheiden,” Ah Toy said. “This murderer won’t risk killing a famous person like Clara. Not unless Clara named that person in court and proved why he or she is guilty.” Ah Toy took Clara's hands into her own and engaged her eyes. “Since you won’t be showing anything like that during the trial, then there is no danger.”
“What do you think is our best way to proceed? I am going to put you on the stand, Isaiah, and the questions I will ask are going to relate to the way this city has its hands in corrupt activities. What if you lose your job?” Clara stared hard at the Captain of Detectives. Even though she had known him just a brief time, she cared about him.
“I can only tell the truth. If my superiors can’t handle the truth, then my job isn’t worth my time and effort. I’ve already told you a lot of what you used in your opening statement today. Also, when you wrote that editorial about how the Chinese are being treated, I was completely supportive. I do agree with you about this being the only way to fight this accusation against your client. Without you, Clara, George Kwong would already be hanging from Russian Hill.” Lees grasped Clara’s hands and scowled.
“All right then. We will attempt to put the mayor and the Chinatown Squad on trial, if that’s the only way I can fight. I need to get some sleep now, so I bid you all adieu, my friends. Thank you for your cooperation.”
Clara stood up, arranged her hat, and buttoned the top button at her throat. “Once more, into the fray!”
The next day in court, the prosecution finished its presentation of evidence and witnesses. Sheriff Connolly, the arresting officer, testified that his men found the post-mortem kit under George Kwong’s mattress, and when asked about it, the Defendant had told him he did not know how it got there. Clara was able to get Connolly to admit that anybody with access to the house could have placed the kit under the mattress. She also pointed out the fact that as the Coroner for the City of Oakland, Travis Goodbody was also affiliated with the police department. She asked Connolly if police did favors for each other in order to get a conviction, and the sheriff admitted that “in order to make the law run smoothly, its officers needed to cooperate to convict a murderer.”
Welles and his prosecution team spent the rest of the day presenting detailed charts and statistics that claimed to show how Chinatown profited from its prostitution businesses. When Welles said that it was “common knowledge” that when a woman became independent, she was a direct threat to the profits made by the Six Companies, especially Andrew Kwong and his family, Clara objected. She explained to the judge that this was hearsay, and without specific contracts or testimony proving that the Kwongs profited directly from Chinatown prostitution, it was inadmissible. Sadly, Judge Hoffman overruled her, and permitted the accusations and statistical information.
Clara spent that night coaching both Captain Lees and her assistant, Ah Toy. They were going to be the first two witnesses she was going to call. She first spent a half hour at the Luck Dragon talking with two journalists from the East Coast who were covering the trial for their newspapers. One, a gentleman from the New York Times, seemed more interested in the fact she was the first woman lawyer in California than he did about the case its
elf and what it represented. The second, a woman, who was writing for the private newspaper of the Women’s Suffrage Movement under Susan B. Anthony, was more sympathetic to the plight of Clara attempting to get a fair trial under such patriarchal hegemony.
After they left, Clara went over what she was going to try to do with her questions the next day in court. “I want to show how the Chinatown Squad was formed, and I want to show how it has treated the Chinese unfairly from its inception. Also, I want to prove that independent prostitution has been permitted in the past, and that women like you, Ah Toy, have actually made a success of it under dire circumstances.”
“I think you should talk about the so-called post-mortem kit again,” Lees pointed out. “Those tools are too small and flimsy to be used to slice through thick muscle and sinew. When Dutch and I found the body, our first thought was that a Tong member had done the work because they use these large hatchet-like knives that would be ideal for this kind of hideous flaying of a human body.”
“Good thinking, Isaiah,” Clara said. “I thought those tools looked small. After all, they are meant to be used on the battlefield during the war, as anything larger would have been cumbersome.”
“I’ll tell you anything you need to relate about the business, Clara, you know that. Besides, if Missus Hopkins found out I was in the news she would find it humorous. The first thing she told me when she found out I had been a Madame was that husbands should pay their wives more for that activity. If they did, then maybe the husbands wouldn’t have to frequent bordellos so often.”
It rained all the next day, and during Clara’s questioning, there were flashes of lightning and bursts of thunder. It was as if the gods were taking her to task for the information she was spreading about the corruption of police in San Francisco.
She was objected to five times by the prosecution, but she knew Captain Lees had already responded, so the jury was able to hear his testimony nevertheless. It was a trick her lawyer father taught her about being a lawyer. “The horse is already out of the barn,” was the way he put it to her.
Lees testified that he believed the Chinatown Squad was established because of the passage of the 1882 Exclusion Law. The pressure put upon the Chinese was meant to be so awful that they would leave San Francisco. That’s also when the captain of detectives reported that he had seen a Chinese baby killed from the fumigation by Jesse Brown Cook of the squad. “The Sheriff blamed every outbreak of disease on the Chinese,” Lees testified, and Welles objected. Lees even testified that the Chinatown Squad was often more of a hindrance to crime fighting than it was an aide. When Clara asked if Lees believed people in public office were benefitting from the persecution of the Chinese, he answered in the affirmative (objection).
Lees also gave an excellent explanation of how he believed the so-called “flaying equipment” used by the Defendant would not have done the job. Clara let him pick-up the variety of small knives and scalpels to show on her arm (with sleeve rolled up to the pleased attention of the male jurors) that the apparatus could not cut through muscle and tendon very easily. Then, Clara brought over a Tong hatchet, and Lees showed how much more powerful it could be wielded because of the large and sharp blade.
It was her questioning of former Madame Ah Toy that really got the attention of jury and of the newspaper journalists in the audience. At one point, Ah Toy stood up in her red silk qipao to show the jury how she danced for her male patrons. Even Judge Hoffman was so transfixed by her undulations that he forgot to admonish her until five minutes into her act. Clara had made a point of showing that being an independent prostitute was more beneficial to the woman than being held hostage and sold in slave auctions, which was the way the gangsters in Chinatown wanted things to be run.
The final day, Clara brought to the stand her Chinese contingent of witnesses. With Ah Toy acting as translator, she questioned the head of the San Ho Hui, Xi Ming, who testified that he often paid bribes to various police officials so as to keep them from arresting his women. Welles objected that Ming was “no expert witness,” and the judge sustained his objection. Clara also interviewed Andrew Kwong at length to explain the good deeds he did for his community and for the Methodist Church and its outreach. He also testified about his son, George, and that he had never had any discipline problems from him at all. Clara also interviewed the minister of the Tin How Temple, Guan Shi Yin, who stated that George helped him with religious services and ceremonial duties. Finally, Clara questioned a Chinese prostitute who knew George. She stated that George was always trying to get women out of the profession and into a “respectable line of work.” She also said she knew that was what he was doing with Mary McCarthy.
When instructed by Judge Hoffman to present their final summations, Welles did not speak. He had brought in a special closing argument specialist, one Harold Rossiter, a Sacramento District Attorney. Rossiter, unlike the “pallbearer” Welles, spoke to each of the male jurors individually. His most passionate and affective speech came when he was discussing the threat of violence and disease on womanhood.
“If you allow this man to go free, what are you telling our Christian women in San Francisco? That you care nothing about their lives? For, make no mistake, Gentlemen. This killer will strike again. He has already chosen a white woman, and who will be the next victim? It could be your wife, sir, or yours, sir! The bloody handwriting is on the walls of Chinatown’s opium dens and inside its brothels. Unless you put a stop to it, it will become an infestation of gruesome murders, and the blood will be on your hands, Gentlemen, unless you vote today for a conviction of murder in the first degree!”
In her closing statement, Clara thought she was not going to do it, but she did. She mentioned the seven Chinese prostitutes who had been killed. However, she was quite innovative about doing it.
“I know you swore that you never read anything about this case before becoming a jurist. I must say that is how our system works best. Jurors must not be emotionally swayed by members of the press before or during a trial. That is why we have jury sequestration. I must tell you that there have been women murdered before Miss McCarthy, Gentlemen of the Jury. But they were Chinese women, and they were also independent women, trying to be like my witness Ah Toy. They simply wanted to be able to work their way out of this life of sin and brutality in order to see another day of hope. But, they were struck down in their youth, just like the victim in this case. George Kwong, my client, had no reason to commit this act of brutality. He wanted to save women like her from this life. He could not save the seven others of his own race, and he could not save the life of the one woman with whom he fell in love. The weapon was not seen in his hand, the testimony of his anger at Mary McCarthy is mixed, at best, and the fact that he worked one summer as a coroner’s apprentice speaks to the fact that my client wanted to learn another trade besides journalism. He was not planning to kill anybody, and he just wanted what his father, Andrew, was attempting to get. Respect as a citizen of San Francisco, who wanted to become a United States citizen one day and sit with you outside the ghetto of Chinatown. You must acquit my client today, Gentlemen, for the good of humanity and for the best interests of justice.”
It took only six hours for the jury to deliberate. When they filed back into the courtroom, Clara and Ah Toy had returned from lunch. They stood at their positions at the Defense table. Clara kept staring at the American flag as Judge Hoffman requested the verdict from the jury foreman. The foreman, a short man with a brush mustache, looked tired.
“Has the jury reached a verdict in the case of the State of California versus George Bai Kwong?” Judge Hoffman asked.
“Yes, we have, Your Honor. We find the Defendant guilty of first degree murder.”
There were shouts and flashes from dozens of cameras. Outside, there were protesting screams from the demonstrators.
Clara and Ah Toy refused to talk to any journalists. Clara put her arm around George Kwong, who was crying unabashedly. She leaned
over and whispered, “It’s not over yet. I know who the killer is.”
Chapter Eight: The Kidnapping and Trap
One Nob Hill, Hopkins Mansion, San Francisco, February 28, 1884
Clara, Ah Toy, Andrew Kwong, Isaiah Lees, and Eduard Vanderheiden sat around the large, rosewood table inside Ah Toy’s bedroom. Since her bedroom in the Hopkins mansion was larger than most living rooms in other houses, the group had more than enough room to discuss the case and plan their next move. Both Clara and Captain Lees foresaw what the result was to be, and thus they knew there must be an alternative to allowing George Kwong to swing from a rope.
After praising Clara and Ah Toy for the job they did at the trial, Lees became his usual, somber self. “I have fought the public hangings in San Francisco from the start. If you have never seen one of these events, then you have not seen the lowest state to which humanity can be reduced. I have seen men foul themselves, cry like babies, trip, curse, hang without dying for over ten minutes, snap the rope, and laugh at it all in a delusional madness. Meanwhile, the authorities, including the conservative merchants of San Francisco, reap great profits from the sinful spectacle. I will not allow it to happen again!”
Andrew Kwong made a karate chop in the air. “I am with you, Captain! What do you suggest we do?”
“I’ve thought about this long and hard. When your son was first arrested, I knew the White Whale, Washington Bartlett, would never allow George to have a fair trial. Therefore, the only way to save him from Russian Hill is to kidnap him from the jail on Kearny.” The scowl of concentration had returned to Lees’ face. “And we can bring him here for safekeeping until we can track down the real killer.”
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