Clara’s heart began to race again, her brow became wet with beads of perspiration, and her palms were also sweating. “W … what demands?” she managed to blurt out.
“He wants all the houses of ill repute shut down in the United States forever.” Kwong raised his eyebrows. “I know, his demands are insane. What can we do?”
“Ask him if I can speak with Captain Lees and Ah Toy.” Clara was thinking of a way to work around this quandary. She would need the cooperation of her friends.
Andrew spoke briefly to the minister, who then replied. “He says you can, but you must answer his demands now.”
Now? Clara didn’t know what to say. If she promised, would this deranged man even believe her? “Tell him I will contact the authorities I know in the government in Washington. If he lets my friends go, then we can see what develops. We will keep him safe until we can get the decision at higher levels.”
Kwong translated Clara’s words. The killer looked confused for a moment, but then he smiled, nodded, and spoke to Andrew.
“He says you can speak to your friends now,” Andrew told her.
Clara moved closer to the trap door’s opening. It was still glowing light from within. She could now see the face of the Asian minister more closely. There were the two physical traits she knew. The dark mole on his right cheek, and the cleft in his chin.
“Isaiah? Ah Toy? Can you both hear me?” Clara shouted. She could feel spittle inside her throat, and she coughed. “Did you hear our conversation up here?”
“Yes.” It was Captain Lees.
“Clara, I heard everything.” It was Ah Toy.
“What happened, Captain?” Clara asked.
“He had the dynamite ready when Ah Toy came into the shrine. After the Tongs tried to break into the temple, she was forced down into our room. Ah Toy opened the door, so Dutch and I couldn’t get a shot off at him. He has her outfitted as well.”
Clara was comforted by the strong voice of her friend. However, she was also confused. “Outfitted? Do you mean he dressed her up in some kind of outfit?”
“No. Not clothing. She is wearing dynamite, which is also fused with his explosive device topside.”
Ah Toy had spent many years trying to make her employment of prostitutes safer and less confining. Now, on the verge of teaching women about how to employ their natural charms in a business setting, her best friend and her prospective lover and his partner, were about to be blown apart by this monstrous religious fanatic.
“That’s not good, now is it?” Clara became suddenly very calm within. Her voice no longer trembled, her demeanor was slow and perceptive. She believed she was now channeling the millions of years of female survival inside her being. “I’m going to talk with him now. Stay right there, won’t you?”
“Don’t worry, Carrie,” Ah Toy said. “We’re not going anywhere.”
“Andrew, please translate the following to our minister of the Goddess Mazu.” Clara’s voice was clear and confident.
“I will do my best, Missus Foltz,” Kwong said, and he also moved closer to the trap door and the killer.
“Minister Guan Shi Yin, I know your name means hearer of all sufferings. I am going to explain how you will now suffer if you don’t release my friends.” Clara waited until Andrew Kwong translated. She watched the murderer’s face. It became taut, and his jaws clenched. That was a good sign. “I knew you were the murderer of those women shortly after the trial of my client, George Kwong, ended. As a result, I wrote a long dissertation explaining what you had done, complete with evidence that I have gathered, and this written article is about to be sent to all the major newspapers in the world.”
Andrew translated, and the murdering minister was now staring at her, his mouth agape in disbelief.
“Oh yes. If you kill them right now, I have ordered this article to be transmitted by teletype. However, as I do realize you have the upper hands, so to speak, I am willing to make a last negotiation. I know you are a very religious man. I also know I would be the greatest sacrifice for your Goddess Mazu. Why? Because I am the one who has collected all the evidence proving your guilt in these heinous murders. Therefore, if you agree to let me replace my friend, Ah Toy, down in your pit of perdition, I will allow her to destroy my newspaper article. You see, she is the only other person who knows right now where it is. Once she destroys it, she will notify you, and you can release all of us. Is that clear?”
Andrew Kwong took several minutes translating what Clara had said. When the minister spoke, his tone sounded calmer and more deliberate. He punctuated his speech with frequent nods of his head, as he pointed at them with a free hand.
“He asks if you can also guarantee that the whore houses will be closed. If so, then he will allow you to change places with Ah Toy. We must come close to him, however, so he can show me how to affix the charges around your waist.”
Of course, Clara knew, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to attempt to place the dynamite around her himself. “Tell him we agree. Get Ah Toy up here so you can take the dynamite off her and place it around me.”
Kwong translated Clara’s instructions to Guan Shi Yin. The minister yelled instructions in Cantonese down into the trap door to Ah Toy. After several moments, Clara could hear her friend climbing the rickety wooden stairs up to the floor of the shrine. Clara whispered, under her breath, “Be careful, my sister. Don’t trip and fall, for God’s sake.”
The few minutes it took Ah Toy to climb those steps seemed like an eternity. When she finally appeared at the top step, facing them, her mincing little steps made the tension even more excruciating. She took tiny steps toward them, her silk slippers scraping along the floor of the shrine like sandpaper. Seeing her friend safe and alive was exhilarating. Ah Toy’s face was calm, under the circumstances, and Clara realized her friend had also girded herself against any danger that might assail her. Clara remembered her friend’s stories about how female infants in China were often drowned because they were seen to be of no worth to the farmers there. Only the wealthy Chinese daughters had access to dowries.
At last, Ah Toy was standing next to the minister and his insane explosive device. The shrine of the Goddess Mazu was nearby, in all her golden finery, looking down at this small Chinese peasant woman who had progressed so far in her new home country. Clara believed if Mazu could, she would have patted Ah Toy on the head.
Clara listened, as the minister instructed Andrew in Cantonese on how to take off the suicide belt from around Ah Toy’s waist. Finally, her client moved over to stand next to the Chinese woman. His two hands reached out, ever so gently, and unfastened the leather strip that was tied in the small of Ah Toy’s narrow back. The three sticks of red dynamite were in a series, and as Andrew brought the strap of leather around with his right hand, these three explosives, which could obliterate the entire Tin How Temple, were dangling in mid-air for several seconds. Clara believed she could hear the three of them as they inhaled slowly and held their collective breaths.
As Andrew was transferring the explosive belt to his right hand, the better to manipulate it so he could bring it around Clara’s waist, he dropped it! Clara instantly brought her hands up to her ears, waiting for the crushing blast. Nothing. The minister chuckled and spoke.
Ah Toy translated this time. “He says, Mazu’s protective Diatomaceous earth has saved us again. However, it failed to save his son when he was handling black powder for the railroad.”
Clara was momentarily struck with empathy. This poor man had harbored a grudge against the powers who took his son’s life. This event was the wellspring from whence his insane delusions had come forth. Still, she knew, he was not an innocent. She knew more about his motives than she let on. They were not all delusional.
As Andrew gingerly picked up the dynamite belt, and brought it up to her waist, Clara inhaled again, as if making her waist thinner could prevent any kind of disturbance.
“Carrie, don’t do that. It wi
ll be more dangerous when you exhale,” Ah Toy explained to her.
Clara let out the air. Andrew, once again, brought the belt around her back and held the two strips of leather between the index fingers and thumbs of both hands. Finally, it was around her, and when Andrew tied it off, Clara began to plan her next move.
Cantonese came pouring from the minister at his detonator.
“He wants you to move slowly toward the trap door. Don’t make any moves, or he’ll plunge down on his handle. Once you get on the top rung of the wooden steps, tell Captain Lees to assist you.”
Ah Toy was now her personal translator, as Andrew Kwong was still perspiring and breathing heavily from his earlier dangerous exercise.
“Tell him I’ll do the best I can. I don’t go strolling about the town wearing dynamite every day, you know.” Clara smiled, as Ah Toy translated. She was proud of herself that she could keep some humor, in spite of the predicament.
Clara believed it was rather ironic. As she moved toward the trap door in the floor of the Mazu shrine, she was taking the same mincing steps that Ah Toy had to take because of her bound feet. Women in North America were not physically bound, but they were, indeed, legally bound. No voting rights, no rights to own property, the list was quite binding and probably as cruel as having one’s feet crumpled up like a cow’s horn. As she walked, she slowly moved her right hand to her sash in front of her body. Inside the sash, she felt for the small blue handbag, and she opened it.
She had finally arrived at her destination. The dizziness she felt was momentary, as she looked down into the pit of the hideout room below. In its depths, she could clearly see the face of her new beau. He was looking up at her, an inquisitive expression, perhaps one of respect and care. She had always thought his veneration was what she needed most at this time in her life. Her five children and her parents in San Jose had always admired her intelligence and her fortitude to overcome obstacles that most women withstood because they believed they were powerless. Clara Shortridge Foltz, however, had never, for one moment, believed she was completely powerless.
She winked at Captain Lees. “Can you assist me, Captain? I can’t seem to get the hang of these steps.” Clara heard the voice of the killer asking Ah Toy to translate. As her friend did so, Clara knew her moment was upon her. She curved her index finger gently around the trigger of the Derringer, still in her right hand, and she turned around, took a deep breath, and she pointed the pistol at the man who had caused so much suffering in the world. He had murdered and tortured eight innocent women, in the prime of their lives, before they even had the chance to mend their ways or had become enlightened as to the ways of this cruel world. No, he had chosen to extinguish life instead of protect it, and for that, Clara thought, in the seconds it took for her to aim at his head, he was guilty. Her talking target was then looking over at the lovely Ah Toy, who was telling him what this white woman was saying. Between that moment, and the moment it took for Ah Toy to speak to the hearer of all suffering, Clara Foltz, Attorney-at-Law, pulled the trigger, twice—once for her family, and once for all women. The sound that erupted shook her, as if the explosives fastened around her not-too-thin waist had detonated after all.
Chapter Eleven: Family Reunion
One Nob Hill, Hopkins Mansion, San Francisco, March 6, 1884
One after the other, in the order of their age, all five of Clara’s children greeted her in his or her own way. Everyone in her family was there, including her parents, Telitha and Elias Shortridge. They were learning about the recent case and about the new home they would soon be moving into, thanks to the kind benevolence of Missus Mark Hopkins. “My big, gloomy mansion,” she said, “would otherwise be inhabited by ghosts.”
Seventeen-year-old Trella Evelyn came first, and she greeted her mother by giving her a gentle hug and a brief peck on the cheek She wore a new red dress, with decorative designs on the pockets and a big bonnet. No bustle yet, as grandma forbade it. “It’s so grand here, Mother. Will I have my own room?”
“Of course, my love. You’re a young woman now, and you deserve your privacy,” Clara told her, surprised by how tall she had grown in just a year.
Fifteen-year-old Samuel Cortland came next. He wore a frock coat and short pants, and he chose to shake his mother’s hand and smile a crooked grin. “Mother, did you plug that rat in the forehead or the temple?”
Clara frowned. “Sammy, never refer to a human being as an animal of any kind. I had to shoot this man because he could have blown-up most of Chinatown and us with it. It was a matter of life and death, and I really felt a bit sorry for him afterward. Insanity, I now believe, should be determined by a court of law. I was playing judge and executioner.”
“Don’t you be so hard on yourself, daughter,” Elias told her from his seated position on the huge antique living room divan. “You saved a lot of lives that day.” Her father’s long legs were crossed, and he was smoking a big cigar that Hannigan had given him. Elias wore his best attorney’s dark blue suit, with a pink carnation in the lapel of his frock coat. His face was ruddy, his head balding, and his thick mustache was waxy and broad when he smiled.
Missus Hopkins, seated to his right, was staring at Elias, reverently, as if he were her deceased husband, Mark. Telitha, Clara’s mother, was sitting next to the elderly woman, and she was quite amused by her. She wore a green satin gown that she had worn once to the opera with her husband.
Out on the Persian rug, it was thirteen-year-old Bertha May’s turn to greet Clara. She wore a yellow woolen dress with fur at her collars, and her face was streaming tears as she hugged Clara tightly. “Oh, Mama! It’s been so horrible without you. Samuel tortures me every day, and I can’t find any new friends. My face looks like the craters of the moon.”
“My Bertha. This too shall pass. Go sit beside Ah Toy. She will keep you company.” Clara pointed to her friend, who was seated on a smaller couch near the fireplace, which was blazing with flames erupting from large winter logs.
Twelve-year-old David Milton chose to race at his mother from a standing start. At the very last moment, however, he skidded to a stop, and grinned up at her. “What did you get me?” he asked, holding out his arms. His Lord Fauntleroy short pants and jacket, with matching sailor hat gave him a dynamic aplomb.
“I got you a ride on a gray horse called Ghost Lady!” Clara said.
“Yippee!” David screeched, and he ran off to sit beside Bertha and whisper something in her ear.
Finally, little seven-year-old Virginia Knox skipped over to see her mother. Her blue dress with seven petticoats was quite lovely, and her little round hat had a small blue peacock feather. Virginia stood in front of her mother and stared up at her for several moments, as if she couldn’t quite believe it was she. “Are you afraid of wolves?” she finally asked, her hazel eyes big and round.
“I would suppose so! They can hunt in packs,” Clara said.
“Will you shoot them for me?” Virginia asked.
“Naturally! And if I don’t get them, then my friend Captain Lees will,” she added, as she observed that Isaiah had just walked into the room along with his partner, Detective Eduard Vanderheiden. They were both wearing their usual suits, and Lees’ trademark gray cape was covering his frock coat.
“I think your mother here is a much better shot, however,” Captain Lees pointed out. “By the way, Missus Foltz, I was meaning to ask. How did you determine that the Minister of the Tin How Temple was the killer of those eight women?”
“I never thought you would ask, Sherlock,” Clara walked over and gave Isaiah a close hug and a kiss on the lips. She wanted to show her family just how fond she was of this new man in her life. “When you were showing me how to question suspects, I was taking notes, like a good sleuth. I happened to see that in the photos of all the victims, each woman had the same decoration in her hair.”
“Decoration?” Lees pulled a red comb from the back of Clara’s tresses and held it out for all
to see. “You mean, like this?”
“Do I need to decorate this room again?” Missus Hopkins pointed to the lamp beside the divan. “I just purchased that lamp from Tiffany!”
Everyone laughed.
Clara continued, “Yes, except these were the same decorations left in all of the victims’ coiffures. As a matter of fact, I also spotted those same decorations inside Goddess Mazu’s shrine. They were in the trays, which were given as gifts to worshippers who lit prayer lanterns to the goddess. After I had that information, I deduced that Minister Guan Shi Yin must have placed them there after he flayed his victims. It was a sort of gruesome calling card, if you will.”
“The silver seahorse combs!” Dutch Vanderheiden remembered. “Sure, boss, why didn’t we see those?”
“After Cook arrested our boy George Kwong, I suppose we got distracted. Thank goodness Clara was alert to that which we had passed over.” Captain Lees took the red comb from Clara and placed it gently back into her auburn swirl.
“And how did you determine that the minister was working alone. We thought all along that the mayor might be in cahoots with the bee lady at the Home for Wayward Women.” Lees was bringing out all of the questions he had.
“Elementary, dear Holmes. Although Mayor Bartlett had a lot to gain from using the arrest of George Kwong to win the governorship, he had too much at risk and no motive to be part of the murder plot. He dined at the Chinese restaurant, and he worshipped at the altar of Leland Stanford, who was ambiguous about the value of Chinese labor, at the very least. When I learned that the hearer of all suffering once worked in Oakland as a burial specialist, I decided he had the skills necessary to be able to do the expert flaying of our victims. All of the Chinese deceased also had to be flayed before they were shipped back to China for family burials.”
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