Joe sat with his boots up on her desk watching her, looking concerned. His cup of coffee sat neglected in front of him.
Anna picked it up and took a sip. “How did Wolf find you to tell you I’d been captured?”
“Oh, he knew where I was.”
“Where?”
“His couch.”
“Then, how did you find me?”
“Somebody saw you go into Tom Foo Yuen’s restaurant, then you didn’t come out. Not the front anyway.”
“They knew me?”
“They saw a beautiful sei gwai por wearing fancy clothes. Who else could it be? Wolf heard and came and got me.”
“Who was it?”
“A vegetable seller.”
“I owe him.”
“I don’t know Sherlock. You took out two highbinders and the tong president all by yourself. You killed the man who was after me. You’re the hero.”
“That’s true.”
She tried not to dwell on the murderous demon or what had happened to him and his men. It would only give her nightmares. And daymares. But she couldn’t help it. She constantly had to push them out of her mind—Tom Foo Yuen’s angry head floating like a shadow in the opening of the laundry chute, backlit by light from the room. Silencing that head with one bullet from her gun. Wearing his smelly clothes, which, in the light, had been stained with his blood. Anna shuddered.
She had to distract herself. She decided to concentrate on solving Elizabeth’s murder. She forced her mind to switch back to Joe, to the safety of the station, and to fighting a different crime. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them.
“We still don’t know who killed Elizabeth Bonsor. Was it Leo Lim in a fit of jealous rage, or Chan Mon in some perverse death pact that he was unable to follow through with?”
“Our suspects are dead.”
“Correction, Chan Mon is probably dead. We never identified his body. And maybe the killer wasn’t Chan Mon or Leo Lim. It could have been an angry white reprobate who doesn’t approve of white women loving Chinamen, such as our own Detective Snow.” Anna spun about and pointed at Joe, her eyes narrow. “But I think we have the key.”
“What’s that?”
“The dummy in the bed. What if the killer put Elizabeth in the bed with the dummy so that someone else would see them and think Elizabeth was sleeping with a man.”
“So we’re back to jealous lovers?”
Anna leaned on the desk with both palms flat. “But why ruin a dead girl? There’s no point. And who was intended to see Elizabeth in bed with the pillow man? Her father? Leo Lim? Chan Mon?”
“Not Lim. It’s his house. The pillow man was supposed to be him.”
“Well, I doubt her father was the target. He was scandalized already. Yes, that’s right. I think the killer wanted someone to think that Elizabeth was in bed with Lim.”
“But why?”
Anna pressed her lips together. “Like you said. Jealousy.”
“But was the killer jealous for Lim or Elizabeth?”
“Elizabeth. The target was Chan Mon—to drive him away from Elizabeth. The beneficiary is Lim. But why didn’t Lim just lay in the bed?”
“How does Lim benefit if Elizabeth is dead?”
“Maybe Lim didn’t kill her.”
The station door banged open and Chief Singer blew in, his features frozen with anger. Mr. Jones glided beside him. Joe took his feet off the desk. The chief stopped to speak with Mr. Melvin, but Mr. Jones came toward them.
It reminded Anna that she and Joe had forgotten to find the knife shop. Mr. Jones might know whether they could identify Chan Mon by his cleavers. Whether or not Mr. Jones would assist them was another story. He had told Anna he’d have nothing to do with her, yet here he was. Mr. Jones greeted Joe and Anna with a bow of his head. Anna couldn’t read his expression. His gorgeous dark eyes simply smoldered. She welcomed him with a bow and an extra-long handshake. “I’m so glad to see you. I need your help, and really we all want the same thing. Don’t we?”
Mr. Jones glanced across the room at Chief Singer. “Of course. I will help your investigation in any way I can.”
Anna wrinkled her brow. This was a flip-flop.
Joe clasped Mr. Jones’s hand. “Hello, my friend.”
Anna smiled sweetly and slid out her desk drawer. “I’m so pleased. What can you tell me about these?” She retrieved the wide leather scabbard, which contained two cleavers—the one belonging to the faceless man.
Mr. Jones removed one and turned it over in his hand, careful not to cut himself on the perilous blade. “It’s a cleaver. They are used for throwing.”
“Yes, we know. Who might the owner be?”
“They are weapons designed to kill, Matron Blanc. Something a hatchet man might carry.” Mr. Jones examined the fancy handle with the Chinese symbols. “There is a name. Fan Gong.”
“Not Chan Mon?”
“No. Fan Gong is a fearsome man. He terrorizes men without alliances who refuse to join the Bing Kong. He punishes the Bing Kong’s enemies. He’s feared in Chinatown.”
“Chinatown need fear no longer,” Anna said.
Mr. Jones’s eyes widened slightly, then narrowed. “How did you come to possess these?”
“We found them near a body in the woods and thought the dead man was Chan Mon.” Joe’s eyes moved to Anna. “But it looks like we were wrong.”
Anna picked up the second cleaver and traced the lovely characters with her finger—characters that spelled out the name of a killer. “Deep down, I think I knew. Why would a poet be good at hurling cleavers?” Anna shuddered. “Leo Lim never stood a chance.”
Mr. Jones’s eyes flickered. “Leo Lim is dead?”
“And Chan Mon is not dead.” Anna smiled. “Now I have a lead again; I can hunt Chan Mon.” She scratched the words in her leather bound notebook. “But, just because he’s alive, doesn’t mean he did it.”
Joe said, “Just because he’s not the mountain lion victim doesn’t mean he’s alive.”
“True,” Anna said. “But we do know one thing.”
“What?”
“The motive for Leo Lim’s killing. Miss Robins told me the Bing Kong were trying to get him to join their tong. They wanted him to help with the business, but Leo Lim said no.” She wrote in her book. “Poor, noble Leo Lim. Unless he killed Elizabeth.”
Joe said, “Dead or alive, we should find Chan Mon. I’m going to tell Captain Dixon. We’ll get the Chinatown squad involved in the hunt.”
“But they can’t find out about Elizabeth.”
“Yeah, but I can tell them Chan Mon is wanted for questioning in the murder of Leo Lim, although we know he didn’t do it.”
Anna had to admit it was a good idea. She simply didn’t have to admit it out loud.
As Joe scooted out his chair and stood, the chief stormed in their direction. He stopped in front of his son. “Joe, you are free to leave the station.”
Joe glared at his father. “I know. I’m my own man—”
The chief smiled cynically. “You’re your own man when you can clean up your own messes.” He gave Joe a long, hard look, turned on his heels, and stomped out of the station.
Anna frowned at Mr. Jones. “You came together. What is he talking about?”
“He convinced the new tong presidents that his son had no role in the disappearance of the singsong girls.”
Anna’s face lit and she clapped her hands. “That’s wonderful!”
Joe sunk back down in his chair with his head in his hands. Her laughter petered out. “What?”
Joe groaned. “He paid them, Anna. I don’t know if it was money or something else. The new tong presidents aren’t concerned with the insult because it wasn’t against them. They haven’t lost face.”
“But that’s wonderful. All that matters is that you’re safe.” She patted him on the head.
Joe’s eyes darkened. “No, not wonderful. I’d rather not be beholden to my father. He’ll put me on Mexic
an dissident duty or something I’m morally opposed to. I’m not going to harass innocent Mexicans because their president pays the LAPD to do it.”
Anna squeezed his shoulder. “But it’s so much better than being dead.” Anna smiled gratefully at Mr. Jones. “You must have helped the chief with this. You are our liaison with Chinatown.”
Mr. Jones’s mouth opened and closed. “I don’t wish to talk about it.”
Joe groaned again, louder than before, and put his head down on the desk.
Anna’s mind ran wild with all the things that the chief might make Joe do. Then her thoughts wandered to all the things she might make Joe do, if she had power over him—if she still had a genie wish. Like dress for dinner, and play her piano every night. And love her.
Mr. Jones interrupted her thoughts. “Assistant Matron Blanc deserves your gratitude as well. For Tom Foo Yuen, this was personal. Chief Singer could never have paid for his son’s life if Tom Foo Yuen still lived.”
A cold sea fog made the morning gray. Anna left work before noon, intending to nap. Also, she needed a whiskey. Bill Tilly, the newspaperman, welcomed her on the sidewalk. The mere sight of him imparted heaviness to Anna’s heaviness. She couldn’t force a smile. “Good day, Mr. Tilly.”
“Say, darlin’, I need to speak with you.”
“How very unfortunate for you.” She summoned her strength, flounced to her bicycle with Tilly on her tail, and strapped her notebook to the rack. He moved in front of her to block her path. She swung her leg over her bicycle and put both hands on the handlebars, squarely meeting his gaze. Then Anna peddled right for him, ringing her bell, making sure to spray him with mud as he leapt out of her way.
He called after her, “That’s no way to treat your sweetheart!”
Anna’s giant feather bed always welcomed her, regardless of the time of day. She slept a fitful sleep accompanied by her specters—the New High Street Suicide Faker, whom she had vanquished last summer, now joined by the Hop Sing president. They stood behind her—just out of sight—while in her dreams, she washed her hands.
Eve visited her—the police matron whose place she had taken, Joe’s former lover, who was now in the ground. She silently glared at Anna.
But Elizabeth didn’t come.
A horrible realization awakened Anna from her nap, causing her to sit bolt upright, sweaty with sleep. She had left her notebook strapped to the rack on her bicycle. Her dress was unacceptably rumpled, her bun smashed, but Anna didn’t care. She flew out of her apartment, hatless, down the hall, and out the front door. Her bicycle leaned up against the wall.
The notebook was gone.
“Cock biscuits!”
There was only one person Anna knew who would steal a half-used notebook.
Tilly.
This was the worst possible thing. The notebook detailed the crime, including that a white woman had been found dead in the apartment of a Chinese man. It was news indeed, news Anna was sure to read in the morning paper, skewed with whatever sensational details Tilly could conjure. The whites in the city would become outraged and, if Joe Singer were right, some of the men, the worst of the city, might riot in Chinatown. They would demand blood for blood.
Anna had made a deadly mistake. The weight of it weakened her limbs. Inside her head, she kicked herself.
Anna rode her bike to the offices of the Los Angeles Herald, but the secretary informed her that Tilly wrote freelance from his home. Though Anna explained she was his long-lost sister—a sacrifice on her part—the woman refused to release his address.
Anna peddled home in despair, only to find Tilly sitting on the front steps of her apartment building. Her throat thickened with loathing. When she approached, he removed his hat and grinned. “Miss Blanc, would you like to make a statement, or do I have to make it for you.” Tilly had a nasty habit of quoting Anna when she hadn’t said anything at all.
“Mr. Tilly, write whatever you like about me. This isn’t about me. This is about little children and mothers and, well, a whole lot of innocent men and a few guilty ones. You know what happened the last time a white man was killed by a Chinaman. There was a riot. Eighteen Chinamen were hanged. Not a person in Chinatown wasn’t beaten or at least raped and pillaged. And they were innocent.”
“Now that’s a crying shame, sweetheart.” Tilly paused. “Can I come in?” He waggled his eyebrows.
“How can you possibly believe your own lies about me? Do you really think I’d compromise my virtue to save Chinatown?”
“With all due respect, Miss Blanc, what virtue?”
Anna had virtue. Barely. But that was more Joe’s fault.
Anna thought fast. “What if I were to tell you that Elizabeth Bonsor wasn’t killed by a Chinaman. What if she were killed by a member of her own race?”
“Was she killed by a member of her own race? It’s not in the notebook.”
“Yes,” Anna said with all the certainty of a bad liar. “I hadn’t written it down yet. The killer is white.”
“Well that’s about as believable as a cow on the moon. Do you have any proof?”
“Since when have you required proof?”
He put his hand over his heart. “Miss Blanc, you wound me.”
“Hah!”
“I’m going to make a deal with you because I think you’re swell.”
Anna bit her lip and waited for the worst.
“Ah, don’t fret, sweetheart. It isn’t bad. I’m going to have my story on the editor’s desk by 5:30 p.m. tomorrow. I’m going to call on you at five, and you’re going to receive me. You’re going to offer me dinner and a chance to win your heart. Then, you’re going to give me proof that a white man killed Elizabeth Bonsor. If you can do it, then I’ll hold the story. But, if you can’t produce proof, or if you talk to another newsman, I’m going to publish my story, and be sure that you, Chan Mon, and Leo Lim will feature heavily in it.”
Anna’s brows drew together. “What kind of proof?”
“Arrest the white man and that will be good enough for me. I’ll write the story the way you call it. Or I’ll write it my way.”
“Give me back my notebook.”
“I think not. But don’t let it come between us. Will you marry me?”
“I need the notebook to crack the case.”
His lips spread in a loathsome smile. “I thought you already had.” He tipped his hat. “Farewell, sweetheart.” The newspaperman sauntered over to a bicycle. He turned back. “I really do love you.” Then he rode off into the evening.
Anna felt too ill to eat Cracker Jacks, but neither could she rest with only twenty-four hours to solve the case.
Heaven help them if the killer were Chinese.
At least the notebook made reference to the white man on Leo Lim’s fire escape. But that wouldn’t be enough. She needed him in custody. And who was the white man?
Anna closed her eyes and concentrated. She thought of the people of Chinatown, of childhood friends, and of Elizabeth’s face smiling from the photo on her parents’ mantle. She thought of the missionary women singing in the streets of Chinatown. She thought of ruthless killers, hatchet men, and dead men. Over the jumble of images, a voice rang in her head—a quavering, old white man’s voice: “Don’t tell anyone that my daughter was found in the apartment of a Mongolian.”
Anna and Joe stood outside the home of the late Elizabeth Bonsor. Joe tugged the brim of his hat. “You think he killed her?”
Anna contemplated this. “He certainly seemed the angry type. I can imagine him killing his daughter in a rage if he discovered her in the apartment of her Chinese lover, except there were no marks of violence on the body. I think it might have been poison, something other than arsenic.”
“Well, he didn’t act too surprised when we told him she was dead. He acted angry, and embarrassed. He didn’t want anyone to know about the circumstances surrounding her death. Just like we didn’t want anyone to know.”
Anna tapped her chin. “What if Elizabeth�
�s father went to Leo Lim’s apartment to get his daughter back from her Chinese lover? And what if, when he arrived, he found Elizabeth already dead in Lim’s bed. So he came back in disguise, bringing an empty trunk in through the front door to collect his daughter’s body—this would explain the light set of scratches in the wood floor leading from the door inside the apartment. Then, he placed Elizabeth’s body in the trunk and voila. Now the trunk is heavy. He drags it across the floor and leaves the deep groove marks in the floorboards. But he’s a small, old man. What if he over estimated his own strength and couldn’t carry the trunk with his daughter’s body down the stairs? He would have had to drag the trunk back into the apartment and make a different plan—the third set of groove marks. But what if someone surprised him, knocked on the door or something, so he jumped out the window and fled down the fire escape.”
“And then he just gave up?”
“Maybe he thought it was too late—that the body had been discovered.” Anna rang the bell. “We’ll ask him.”
Mrs. Bonsor answered the door. When she saw her visitors, her tired eyes lifted in expectation. “Anna. Detective Singer. You have news about my daughter’s killer?” She opened the door wide.
It was as cold inside as outside. Anna wondered if they had money for coal.
Joe took off his derby hat. “Only that Leo Lim is dead, ma’am.”
Mrs. Bonsor’s eyes clouded over with a dark satisfaction. She smiled.
Joe said, “But, we don’t know that Leo Lim was your daughter’s killer. We’re still investigating. Is Mr. Bonsor in?”
Her voice sounded far off. “He’s taken to his bed. He isn’t seeing visitors. You’ll have to ask me your questions. Please. Sit down.”
After declining tea, Anna perched on the worn settee near Mrs. Bonsor. Joe sat in an old chair that wobbled. Anna took Mrs. Bonsor’s rough hand. “Do you own a false beard? Perhaps something Elizabeth used in the evangelism plays that the missionary ladies do in Chinatown. You said she played Jesus.”
The Woman in the Camphor Trunk Page 25