The Woman in the Camphor Trunk

by Jennifer Kincheloe

  She stripped and fell into bed, sleeping fitfully for but a few hours. When she awoke, she bathed, dressed in lilac taffeta, donned a feathered hat the shape of an upside-down washtub, and returned to Central Station to search for Joe Singer. The station was unusually empty. She encountered Joe sitting at his desk looking pale and rubbing his temples. No doubt he had a headache. His hair stood on end in places as if he’d been running his hands through it. When he saw her, he grabbed her by the hand and dragged her into the kitchen, closing the door behind them. “Sweet Jesus, Sherlock, I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I went to your apartment. I drove down to San Pedro. The boat was gone. Finally, I went to the mission. Miss Robins told me all about it.”

  Anna scrunched her face so that she wouldn’t cry. “I’m sorry. I lost her.”

  “Sherlock, it’s not your fault.”

  “But it was my fault.”

  “No, Anna. Ting Ting didn’t want to be in this world. Not the way it is. She wanted to die.”

  Anna made a hiccupping sound.

  “I was so worried, Anna.” He cupped her face with his hands and made her look at him. “You can’t do that to me again. Do you understand?”

  “It was Miss Robins who clubbed you with the Coca Cola bottle.”

  “Anna, I thought you were done for, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it. Mrs. Puce didn’t uncuff me for hours.”

  He let go of her face, raised his manly arm, and wiped his eyes with it. Anna stared in wonder. Was he crying? He was certainly in distress. Anna stepped closer. She believed that she could comfort Joe Singer, and that comforting him would comfort her, too. She wanted to comfort him like never before. She wanted to comfort him until he was extremely comforted.

  Detective Snow opened the door and took in the scene. Anna and Joe jumped apart. Snow sneered at them, poured himself a cup of coffee, and left.

  Anna turned away and adjusted her hat. Comforting Joe in the station was out of the question. “Miss Robins said Snow threatened the missionaries.”

  “I know. I’m looking into it.”

  “Where is everyone?”

  Joe exhaled despairingly. “I guess there were some shots fired in Chinatown this morning.”

  “That’s unfortunate, as I need to go to Chinatown.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I’ve got to see if any knife seller recognizes our dead Chinaman’s weapons.”

  Joe looked at Anna for a long time. “I was just on my way. I’ve arranged to interview the manager of Lim’s apartment building. He’s shown up again. If Lim and Chan Mon were friends, maybe he knows something. Mr. Jones is going to meet me.”

  “Then we can go together. I need you to tell me where the knife stores are.”

  “No. You’re not paid to risk your life. I am.” He strode toward the door.

  Anna flew to his side and fluttered next to him. “I’m going to Chinatown. You know you can’t prevent it. I’m not afraid to go alone.” Anna was terrified to go alone. “You’ll be much safer with me along. We can watch each other’s backs. Remember, I also have a rod.”

  Joe stopped. He clamped his eyes shut and blew out a long exasperated breath, like a kettle releasing angry steam. “All right, Anna, but only because I don’t have a choice.”

  She followed. “Has it begun, then? The tong war over the girls?”

  “Captain Dixon thinks it’s just a warning, and it’s been quiet this afternoon. Nobody’s dead yet.”

  Few men walked the streets of Chinatown, but those who did walked with dignity, the way Joe said marked men did. Most stores and saloons looked closed. The good citizens of Chinatown weren’t fools. They feared a tong war, too.

  Anna and Joe encountered Mr. Jones lolling against the wall of Leo Lim’s apartment building. The restaurant below stood empty, but the stairwell still smelled of chop suey, reminding Anna that she had not eaten breakfast. The trio mounted the steps to the second floor and knocked on the manager’s door. A middle-aged man in black silk answered and peered at them suspiciously, never fully opening to them. He had long fingernails. Joe flashed his badge and bowed his head graciously, saying something that sounded nice in Chinese. Joe reverted to English. He fed Mr. Jones questions to translate, the apartment manager answered, and Mr. Jones reported the man’s responses. Joe squinted with effort as he tried to follow the Chinese end of the conversation.

  Mr. Jones cleared his throat. “He said his wife isn’t home. He didn’t know your Chan Mon. He had no idea who the killer might be. He said he never saw any white lady. He was quite adamant—”

  “Or he doesn’t trust the police.” Anna herself never knew which cop to trust, except for Joe and Wolf.

  “A Chinaman who doesn’t trust the police? This is a rare thing.” Mr. Jones smirked. “But he did offer us something.”

  Joe leaned back against a water stain on the wall. “He saw a strange man.”

  “Yes. He saw a man on Lim’s fire escape,” Mr. Jones said.

  Anna perked up. “Really?” Her eyes widened at Joe in admiration. “You understood that.”

  “Small, bearded.” Mr. Jones raised one eyebrow. “White.”

  Anna’s mind began to race. She strode to the stairwell and leaned out an open window, looking toward Lim’s apartment. “White. Bearded? Not a cop. Cops are clean-shaven.” The winter sunlight shone dully on the wooden fire escape, which cascaded all the way to the ground. She sensed Joe leaning over her shoulder to look. He smelled clean, like Pears soap.

  He stepped back. “When did he see the man? Near the time of the murder?”

  “No,” Mr. Jones said. “Last Thursday. At least a week after she died.”

  Anna pursed her lips and considered. “Who wears a beard? They are unhygienic and completely out of fashion. A mountain man, perhaps? Some reprobate come slumming? Of course the beard could be false. Then the mysterious person on the fire escape could be almost anyone. Man or woman.” Anna imagined Miss Robins on the fire escape, looking devious and bearded, draped in a black cape.

  “And why? Why were they on the fire escape?” Anna tapped her temple. “Take me back to the crime scene, since you kicked me out before.”

  The smell of death still lingered in the apartment, though Elizabeth’s body was long gone. Elizabeth had been a kindred spirit—-adventurous and rebellious like Anna, despite their overbearing fathers. Elizabeth had chosen to brave Chinatown to save men’s souls, though society frowned upon it, just like Anna chose police work. Both women had lived dangerous lives. Unlucky Elizabeth had paid for it. Would Anna’s luck hold?

  Anna hardened herself against the thought, and against grief for her lost friend. There was nothing she could do for Elizabeth now except catch her killer, and Anna wasn’t about to back down.

  She surveyed the room for anything she had missed the first time around. The furniture and all of Lim’s belongings waited fruitlessly for their owner’s return. Anna ran a finger along a dusty table. “The servant girl hasn’t cleaned out the apartment yet.”

  “The manager doesn’t know that Lim is dead. In his mind, Lim’s just late on his rent.”

  From the threshold, Mr. Jones eyed the trunk tipped over and wide open across the room. It was dark with the fluids of decomposition. He looked nauseous.

  Joe said, “Jones, should I meet you later at your shop?”

  Mr. Jones bowed slightly from his shoulders. Then Joe bowed, so Anna bowed. Then, the well-built herbalist departed.

  Anna squatted at the entrance and traced the scratches in the floorboards with her fingers—three sets of heavy marks running across the threshold, two sets of light scratch marks. “Elizabeth had already been dead a week when the bearded man climbed the fire escape. I suppose the killer could have come back to gloat. But it’s unlikely Lim or Chan Mon did it. We know Leo Lim was already living in the cabin. Besides, why wouldn’t Lim use the front door? He had the key. Chan Mon was not a small man. A person could conceivably fake being larger with pillows and hi
gh-heeled shoes and all. But a person can’t very well fake being smaller. It could have been a highbinder looking for Lim.”

  Joe sat back on his heels. “Yes, but why sneak into his apartment. The highbinders are brazen.”

  Anna rose and walked the distance of the scratch marks, patting her lower lip with one finger.

  Joe stood. “And why the dummy in the bed?”

  Anna and Joe returned to Central Station to find Police Chief Singer waiting at the oak reception desk. He was handsome, like his son, though he had to be in his forties, with thick gray hair and a younger man’s carriage. At that moment, he looked grim. Mr. Melvin typed tremulously behind the desk.

  When Joe saw his father, he froze. “What’s wrong?”

  Anna knew Chief Singer’s frowns were not laughing matters, especially when they pertained to Joe. Her brow creased in concern, then she remembered to smooth it. She tried to appear placid, pleasant, and helpful. She wanted the chief to like her.

  The chief grabbed Joe by the collar and slammed him up against the wall, causing a framed painting to tilt on its nail. “For some reason, the Hop Sing think you have the singsong girls.” His eyes were bulging like overfilled balloons.

  Joe swore. Anna’s forehead wrinkled again.

  The chief roughly let go of Joe’s collar. He spoke more softly. “Guess what I found on my laundry ticket.” He dropped a piece of paper into Joe’s hand.

  Joe held the note up to the light. Anna closed her eyes. She didn’t have to look to know what she would find—the secret red writing of a death threat.

  The chief barked, “That’s your name written there, not mine.”

  “I’ve got to sit,” said Anna. She sat down on a chair that was not there, her bottom falling toward the floor. Joe caught her under the arms and stood her back on her feet.

  “You simply can’t leave the station,” she said. “Ever again. For the rest of your life.”

  “I can’t live in the station, Anna.” He laughed joylessly. “Who would feed my puss?”

  “I’ll feed your puss. It could be your genie wish.”

  “I’m not wasting my genie wish.”

  The police chief rubbed his forehead. “I’m inclined to agree with Assistant Matron Blanc. Stay in and do booking, just until I can negotiate. You can sleep upstairs in the doctor’s quarters.”

  “I’m not staying in the station.”

  “You will if I say you will.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong. You do not own me.” Joe turned and began sauntering toward the door.

  The chief called out, “Somebody arrest Joe.”

  Joe bolted. Anna gave chase, followed by the lumbering Detective Snow. At the door to the station, she extended her François Pinet shoe and tripped Snow, who went down like a sack of dung. This was not because she didn’t want Joe arrested. She did. It was because she didn’t want a mutt like Snow to do it.

  Snow shouted as Anna flew down the steps after Joe, who had already mounted a police horse. Two more cops burst from the station door. Anna hit the street and grabbed hold of Joe’s boot. He tugged. Anna tugged. His boot came off in Anna’s hand.

  “Don’t look for me, you hear me?” Joe rode away, weaving through the carts, cars, and people that crowded First Street.

  The two cops swung onto their own police mounts and cantered after him.

  The cops returned to the station without Joe Singer, having lost him in the hurly-burly of the city. Anna returned to her desk and melted onto her chair, putting her head in her trembling hands. Wolf sauntered over, his face ashen in a way that Anna had never seen it. He laid a palm on her shoulder and leaned in close. “You look in need of comfort.”

  Anna rubbed her face. “The man I don’t love is in grave danger, and I can’t think of a thing to do about it, except feed his puss. I suppose it eats horsemeat, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Do you know where he might have gone?”

  “Maybe.”

  “But if we follow him, we might lead the tong right to him.”

  “It’s a predicament. Look, I’m worried, too, honeybun. Why don’t you come to my place this evening for some liquid consolation? We can commiserate. Besides. I’ve got his key. We can go feed his puss together.”

  “All right.”

  He squeezed her shoulder. “Joe will be all right.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  Wolf gave her a fabricated smile. Then he met her eyes and his smile left. “No.”

  Anxiety hung heavy over Central Station. Men who were off duty came in or stayed late, waiting for news.

  Anna knew that it would be futile to try to reform juveniles or caution wayward girls when her mind was clouded with thoughts of highbinders with axes trying to decapitate her former sweetheart. He might be a faithless cad, but he needed saving, even if it meant letting the children of Los Angeles fall into degradation. Anna ran through a hundred scenarios in her mind, options for keeping Joe safe. She could hide him in her apartment, but the tong thought Anna and Joe were lovers and might look for him there. She would have to smuggle him out of Los Angeles, perhaps disguised as her maid. They would have to move to the country, because the tongs had spies in every city with a Chinatown. Both plans would be frowned upon by Joe’s fiancée, unless Anna invited her to come as well, which was out of the question. These two options shared another fatal flaw. Anna needed to know Joe’s whereabouts, which she did not.

  Anna would have to approach things from the other end. She would simply have to pay for the lost girls and Joe’s safety. What had Mrs. Puce said that Wong Nim had paid for the girls? Four thousand dollars? Anna still had her furniture, clothing, and a few baubles, but had no idea how much they were worth. Wolf could help her sell them, although he’d had no luck with her peacock feather comb. Perhaps a bank would loan her the money, or an old society friend. Or she could turn to the shipping magnate who wrote bad poetry and sought her hand. But what if the Hop Sing president wasn’t satisfied with the price of the girls? What if it was a matter of honor?

  If Tom Foo Yuen wouldn’t cancel Joe’s assassination, she would simply have to shoot him.

  Without excusing or explaining herself, Anna left the station.

  The dew had settled on the hibiscus bushes and the grass outside her apartment. Anna stopped home to change into her most fetching winter ensemble. She needed every advantage to gain entrance into the restaurant where Joe said that the Hop Sing president held court—the one with statues in the window. Anna had seen it.

  Though by Parisian standards Anna’s gown was already a full season out of vogue, it was still a year ahead of anything ladies were wearing in Los Angeles. It was sewn from azure blue satin with white fox trim at the wrists and collar, and boasted a matching muff as large and puffy as a cloud. Perfect for hiding a gun. Compared with her semi-official LAPD Matron bloomers, it would limit her mobility, but she didn’t plan to fight the man. She planned to shoot him.

  Anna called for a hansom cab to pick her up at a yellow house three blocks down from her apartment. The owners, she had deduced, were away. The dog was no longer chained to the palm tree in the yard, and the grass needed cutting. It had been days since she’d seen empty milk bottles on the doorstep. She waited on a swing made for two, rocking nervously on the porch. When the cab arrived, she hurried down the cobbled path and asked the driver to take her to the corner of Apablaza and Juan Streets. He protested vehemently and demanded to speak with Anna’s husband or father, or whoever was in charge of her, even while helping her into his rickety old hansom. He lectured her the entire way on how ladies ought not go to Apablaza Street, how Anna must be insane, how she would be mugged and worse, likely lured with opium by a Mongolian, how she should listen to him because he was a man, and how he had a mind to turn around this minute except he needed the money.

  Anna had to keep up her courage and thus covered her ears. It didn’t stop him from blathering on.

  They arrived at the agre
ed upon corner and the hansom stopped. The driver helped Anna step out onto the muddy road in her finery. She held the hem of her gown up with both fists. Apablaza Street stank. There was both a trash can smell and an herbal smoke scent that Anna thought might be hashish. The street was full of men on their way to somewhere. Anna imagined that most workingmen—vegetable farmers and shopkeepers—were heading for their beds, but some must be going to visit whores or to try their luck at a fan-tan parlor. None were too shy to stare at Anna, to make her feel like the vulnerable stranger she was.

  She asked the driver, “Will you wait?”

  He eyed Anna suspiciously. “Pay me first, in case you don’t come back.”

  “Of course.” Anna dug around in her purse. “My stars. I’ve forgotten my billbook.” She plucked out a pen and paper, scribbled some words, and presented the driver with an IOU.

  He glared at her. “I know where you live.”

  Anna took pleasure in the fact that he didn’t.

  He drove off leaving her once more alone in Chinatown. Anna removed the gun from her leather purse and concealed it in her bounteous muff—cold steal encased in softest mink. She peered through the plate glass window of a restaurant crowded with statues made from ceramics or stone. There were Buddhas, bearded old men, gods, dragons, warriors, and birds. A stunning, life-sized woman—some kind goddess—seemed to bless Anna with her open fingers. She held flowers in her hand. It baffled Anna that Tom Foo Yuen, with his grotesque countenance and black heart, could have such a glorious treasure. But this place must be Tom Foo Yuen’s lair. Anna peered past the faces, lifted arms, and tails of statues into the restaurant.

  The place had ten rosewood tables and was lit with red lanterns. A fancy wooden lattice arched across the ceiling in the middle of the room. The supper hour had passed, and the restaurant appeared empty. The lanterns barely glowed, as if the wicks were burning down. Despite the fact that the lair looked closed, Anna expected that Tom Foo Yuen would do business in the evenings. Wong Nim, the Bing Kong leader, had. Weren’t gambling and prostitution endeavors of the night? She would give the restaurant a closer look.