Where Cowards Tread

by Sabrina Flynn

  Isobel and Riot shared a look. With Jin, it could be anything. Isobel wouldn't put bank robbery past the child.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Come,” Isobel called.

  The knock came again.

  Sarah hopped up to answer it.

  Matthew Smith stood in the doorway, hat in hand, practically standing at attention. “Miss Sarah,” he said. “I’m here to speak with Mrs. Riot.”

  “Isobel,” she growled. “Stop standing there, and come in.”

  Matthew moved tentatively into the room, his gaze stuck on Riot’s face.

  “Mr. Riot,” he said, with a nod. Then he turned to her. “Mrs. Riot…”

  Isobel raised a brow at him.

  “Isobel,” he corrected.

  “What is it, Matt?” Riot asked. “This isn’t a mourning party.”

  Matthew cleared his throat. “I’ve been following up on every tip and sighting, but nothing’s turned up, so I checked the business cards left at the house and managed to track down the stores where the furniture was purchased.” He got out his notepad and recited a litany of facts. Nothing new, except…

  “The deliveryman said when he carried in the mattress, he saw Hawkin’s hands shaking. And there was ink on them.”

  “Why would that matter?” Sarah asked.

  “I don’t know.” Matthew closed his notebook. “I went around to the Call again, but the advertisement people still couldn’t find any receipt or log of the ad being placed. There was no record of it.”

  “Is that uncommon?” she asked.

  Matthew considered her question. “Uncommon enough that the manager was upset, but that could be because it’s part of a big story.”

  Isobel idly toyed with a chess piece as she stared into the fire. She must have been staring for some time, because Sarah had to call her name loudly.

  She looked back at Matthew. “Where was the ink on Hawkins’s hands?”

  Matthew stared blankly for a moment until she made an impatient gesture at him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t ask.”

  Isobel shot to her feet, and shrugged off her dressing gown, exchanging it for a coat. “Sarah, stay with Riot. Shoot him in the foot if he tries to leave.”

  Sarah gaped.

  “Matt, come with me.”

  “Watch yourself, Bel,” Riot warned.

  She paused at the door. “I’ll do my best. Besides, I have Matt with me. What could possibly go wrong?”

  Matthew looked helplessly at Riot before hurrying to catch up to her. Sarah sighed, and got up to close the door. “It’s a good thing she didn’t leave those orders with Jin.”

  38

  Chinese Theater

  Sao Jin sat in a quiet theater. No one clapped or cheered the way they did in white theaters. The audience sat, respectful. Contemplative. She watched the play unfold, the brilliant costumes and masks, the makeup and sets, the dancing and singing. A feast for the eyes.

  But she was puzzled by all the tourists on stage. White men and women, seated in a semicircle, watching the play. Some looked self-conscious, others imperious. She wouldn’t want to sit up there on display. But those seats were the best in the house, and guides were there to whisper translations or explanations of what was happening. But she couldn’t decide whether the white people had been given the best seats in the house, or if they’d been put on display for the audience. Was the audience around her interested in white people’s reactions to the play?

  Jin felt adrift in her own culture, so she focused on the story. It reminded her of Hamlet, only far more complicated. It was about a woman who falls asleep by a peony pavilion, and dreams of a scholar she has never met. But she can’t find the man, so she dies of a broken heart. Currently the woman was on stage trying to convince the Infernal Judge to send her back to the land of the living.

  Yet another story about a woman pining after a man. Jin rolled her eyes. But she wasn’t there for cultural art. She was searching faces in the crowd. Searching for someone familiar.

  The play went on and on. Tiring of it, Jin left the main auditorium. On a whim, she walked through a side door in the foyer. There must be a way onto the stage…

  No one stopped her. And she found herself standing backstage with actors and actresses rushing around silently donning costumes. The back rooms looked like a giant wardrobe.

  Jin wandered towards piles of silks. A woman sat in a chair with needle and thread, mending some tear in the fabric. It was delicate work, and the movement of thread and needle was mesmerizing. Jin drifted closer, until she could hear a soft tune on the woman’s lips as she worked. The woman looked up, startled.

  “I didn’t see you there, child.” She smiled. She was older, but her face was smooth and untouched by the sun, though her shoulders were hunched. She wore spectacles.

  “I am sorry to disturb your work,” Jin said.

  The woman squinted at her. “You do not belong back here.”

  “No,” Jin admitted.

  The woman looked over her shoulder, on the verge of summoning someone to escort her out.

  “Wait,” Jin blurted out. “I am looking for someone.”

  “Who?”

  “My parents were killed. Four years ago.” The words came out in a rasp. “They were tailors. They had a shop down the street from here. I do not remember the name…”

  “What is yours?”

  “Sao Jin.”

  Sadness passed over the woman’s eyes. “Your parents were known to me.”

  “You knew them?”

  The woman shook her head. “I knew of them.”

  “Is there anyone here who knew them?”

  “There is.”

  The woman hesitated, then stood and set down her work. She led Jin to a back room lined with costumes on racks. A small man sat on a cushion, legs crossed, sketching in a book. One shoulder was higher than the other, and his face was as wrinkly as a prune.

  The woman bowed deeply. “Shi Bingwen, I have brought the child of an old friend.”

  The man did not look up. He continued his sketching.

  “Sao Gan and Ah Lam.”

  The man’s hand stopped. His head jerked upwards, and sharp eyes focused on Jin. But Jin forgot to breathe. The woman had said the names of her parents. Before today, she could not remember them. Her lip quivered. She wanted to run. She wanted to find Isobel. She did not want to continue alone. But she had to.

  Bingwen gestured with a grunt, and the woman bowed again, backing up before leaving Jin alone with the man. He returned to his sketching.

  Jin waited patiently.

  He was drawing an elaborate costume. A dragon. Making notations and focusing in on details. “Sao Gan and Ah Lam used to help me craft costumes. They were master tailors,” he said without looking up.

  “Why were they butchered?” she asked.

  He took a deep breath. “Do hatchet men need a reason?”

  “I need a reason,” Jin said.

  Bingwen’s pencil stopped. “Why?”

  “Would you not want to know? I loved my parents. I want to know why they were killed.”

  “Knowledge can be dangerous here.”

  “I do not care.”

  He huffed. “So like your father. Do you know the saying about the reed, child?”

  She shook her head.

  “The green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm,” he said.

  “What does that have to do with my parents?”

  “Everything.”

  “Who said it?”

  “Confucius.”

  “I do not know that man,” she said.

  He tapped his pencil against paper. “How can’t you? He’s a great philosopher.”

  Jin ground her teeth together. “I was a house slave for four years. After my parents were killed, a woman took me, then I was passed to another. And another,” she bit out.

  Bingwen ran eyes over her scarred cheeks. “I looked for you. I did.
I thought…” He trailed off. “I thought the hatchet men had taken you for a brothel.” He shook his head. “I am sorry I did not find you.”

  “I am here now.”

  “Yes.” He smiled, sadly. “Your father was not a reed; he was an oak. Bold, fearless, he would not bend under Gee Sin Seer’s threats. Some called him brave. I call him a fool.”

  “Do not speak of my father like that!” she hissed.

  The artist spread his hands. “Yet he is dead. And so is your mother. Sao Gan defied the criminal tongs. He reported crimes to the Consul and identified hatchet men to the police force. He and your mother rescued slave girls and helped them escape. They hid them and took them to the mission for safety. That’s why they were killed.”

  “Gee Sin Seer killed them?” Jin said.

  Bingwen inclined his head. “They have no regard for human life. Killing to them is no more than swatting a fly. That is what we are to them. Flies.”

  “Because you do not fight!” Jin said.

  “We survive. As you have.”

  Her nostrils flared. “Which hatchet men killed my parents?”

  “I do not know.”

  Jin lifted her chin. “Chinatown has many ears. There are always rumors.”

  Bingwen dipped his head. “Rumor says it was Maa Min and Niu Tou.”

  Jin frowned. They were not normal names, but words with meaning. “Horse-face and Ox-head?” she asked, puzzled.

  Bingwen sighed. “You don’t know that story either, do you?”

  Jin shook her head.

  “Horse-face and Ox-head are the two guardians of Hell. They escort the newly dead into the Underworld and drag them in front of the courts of Hell.”

  Jin shivered. “What about the third man?”

  “Nobody of note.”

  “He is noteworthy to me.”

  “Nin Sam, I think. He killed Niu Tou some years later during an argument.”

  Jin snorted. Hatchet men couldn’t even work together without turning on each other. “And Maa Min?”

  Bingwen put down his pencil, and leaned forward, touching the back of her hand lightly. “Are you alone?”

  Jin shook her head.

  “You have a home?”

  “I do.”

  “Are they kind to you?”

  “Atticus and Isobel—Din Gau and Wu Lei Ching—adopted me.”

  Bingwen’s eyes widened a fraction. “I see. But they are white. You have a family here at the theater, Jin. A Chinese family. You will never truly be a part of Din Gau’s family.”

  Hands curled into fists. “My bahba would never have stopped looking for me, and neither would Din Gau.” She left the old man with his pretty costumes and philosophies.

  39

  The Call

  From the moment Isobel entered the Call building, she attracted stares. Trailing behind her was a six-foot-tall blond agent who oozed ‘police.’ That definitely helped. She marched straight to the lift, and the three men in the lift moved to the opposite side, directing glares her way.

  Matthew leaned down to whisper in her ear. “What did you do?”

  Isobel raised a shoulder and ignored the men, but she received the same cool response when she entered the bullpen. Conversation fell to a hush as she marched through the desks.

  “You’re not welcome here,” a harsh voice said.

  More voices joined the discord.

  “The sooner I get answers the quicker I’ll leave,” she said offhandedly, walking down an adjoining hallway to the Sob Sisters’s office.

  As she had hoped, Cara Sharpe was sitting there, along with Jo Kelly and Rose, the pair who had ratted her out before her trial.

  Jo Kelly got to her feet. “You have a lot of nerve coming here.”

  Confronted with open hostility from a woman, Matthew stopped in his tracks and actually took a step backwards. Some bodyguard.

  “I’m not here to banter with you,” Isobel said.

  “You got Mack killed!” the redhead accused. Young, attractive, and spirited. It wasn’t hard to imagine Mack being more than “just friends” with Jo Kelly.

  Isobel faltered. Had she got him killed? Maybe so. Still, Isobel wasn’t about to admit it to Jo Kelly. “This newspaper fired him. He needed a job. Unfortunately, the detective business is a dangerous one. He knew the risks.” That’s what she told herself, at any rate. Riot’s frantic call for him to stay put still echoed in her ears. But Mack had… what, panicked? Thought himself invincible? Had he been trying to protect her?

  “He was fired because of you,” Kelly said.

  Isobel took a breath. “You’re right. And I’m sorry, but I can’t change what happened.”

  Jo Kelly stepped forward and slapped her. Flesh on flesh echoed in the office. She didn’t even feel the sting on her cheek. It was deserved.

  Jo gathered her belongings and stormed out, and Rose followed suit, but more quietly and with a muttered apology. Cara still hadn’t acknowledged her. The older woman was bent over her typewriter.

  Isobel sighed faintly, and unfolded one of Sarah’s sketches. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the Ella Spencer murder. You’ve been here longest, Cara. I think the wanted ad was placed from within the Call building, either by the murderer himself or a contact. I’ll give you an exclusive if you give me his name.” She placed the sketch face down on Cara’s desk.

  Cara punched the period on the typewriter, then took her time removing the paper and reading over her page. Finally, she placed it on top of a stack.

  Isobel stood patiently as the steel-haired woman lit a cigarette and gazed out of the window. “You could have argued that when Jo and Rose exposed your cover, they set in motion the events that led to Mack’s death.”

  “I could have.”

  “You could have also argued that a reporter’s job is a dangerous one, too. That Mack chased the wrong story or that his principles got him killed.”

  Matthew cleared his throat, and wiped at an eye. Cara turned to the man. “What do you think?”

  Matthew started. “Me?”

  Cara nodded. She was a heavyset woman with steel gray hair, and had the look of a confident tabby that could turn dangerous at any moment.

  Matthew composed himself. “I only worked with Mack for a few months, but… he was a good man. Honest. Brave. He hated bullies. He died fighting a fight he wanted to be in.”

  Cara raised her brows. “Well now. That’s a noble sort of speech.” Cara pointed her cigarette at Matthew. “I have a nose for truth. And that was the truth. Make sure you remember that, Bonnie.”

  It was easy to say; harder to believe.

  Cara turned over the sketch, and studied it. She tapped her finger on the man’s nose in thought, spreading ash over the page. “He’s familiar.”

  Isobel perked up. Her theory had been a long shot, but the pieces fit. Ella had been seen in front of the Call building with a man who Heather Searlight thought was Oliver Grant. But how close to the two of them had Heather been? Why was Ella irritated with a family attorney? What was Ella doing downtown? There weren’t any clubs or resorts. Then the ad placed with no record of payment. Someone inside the building, familiar with the ins and outs of the newspaper could easily slip an ad into the mix. Finally, the ink on Hawkins’s hands. His disappearances, his comings and goings into the city, his disguises and the false names. All of that came natural for a reporter.

  “Hadley,” Cara said suddenly.

  “He’s here? In this building?”

  Cara shook her head. “He used to work here as a reporter. Then he got injured—that drooping eye—and moved on. That was well over a decade ago.”

  “The owner at the Popular said he returned last year.”

  Cara stood. “Can I take this and show it to Griful?”

  “As long as you don’t let him get his grubby hands on it. A girl was murdered, Cara. I’m not doing this for a story. Do we have a deal?” Isobel held out her hand.

  Cara shook it. “I’d leave the building
if I were you. Everyone blames you for Mack’s death. I’ll meet you at the coffee shop across the street.”

  “Can we trust her?” Matthew asked as they waited at a table. He had ordered a sandwich for himself that was so big Isobel doubted she could have gotten her mouth around it. Matthew was having no issues.

  Isobel took a sip of her coffee and watched the front of the Call building. “Cara is a woman of her word,” she finally said. “She’s also dangerous, sly, and has dubious motives. Not unlike Tim.”

  Matthew gulped down a bite, and swallowed before speaking. “I’m not entirely sure Mr. Tim shouldn’t be in prison.”

  Isobel snorted. “I’m afraid that applies to most of us, Matt.”

  He grimaced. “Do you ever…” he hesitated.

  She arched a brow.

  “Feel like a hypocrite? Not just you…” he blurted out. “But here we are tracking down criminals and it seems like we’re not much better than them at times. I mean… I understand why people kill and thieve. Some motives make sense to me, and I think I’d likely do the same in their shoes.”

  “We’re not lawmen; we’re detectives. Truth is our aim,” she quoted.

  “Mr. Riot told me that.”

  “And Ravenwood told him. I think it’s good advice.”

  Matthew nodded, slowly. “What do we do with that truth, though?”

  Isobel met his eyes. They were blue and bright, so honest and open. “We do what’s right, and pray we can live with ourselves afterwards.”

  Cara Sharpe kept them waiting for the better part of two hours. After an ashtray of cigarettes and enough coffee to power Isobel for a week, the newswoman finally arrived.

  “Charles B. Hadley came back all right. He asked for his old job, but Griful wasn’t impressed. I found a friend of his in the ad department who he regularly visits. He got him a job at the Examiner as a bookkeeper. But the fellow doesn’t know where Hadley lives.”

  Isobel sprang from her seat. She had the villain now.

  But then Isobel didn’t have her villain. Charles B. Hadley had not come into work at the Examiner since the eleventh—the day after Ella’s body was discovered.