Murder In Chinatown

by Victoria Thompson

  A few minutes later, Sarah had tea brewing, and she buttered some bread. She knew from experience that a person in a crisis often could not bear to even swallow food. Maybe Minnie could manage a few bites, at least.

  Minnie turned up her nose at the bread, but to Sarah’s relief, she did drink some of the tea.

  “You should ask Harry if he remembers anybody looking at Angel,” Cora said. “Mrs. Brandt will stay with me while you go up. He’s upstairs with Charlie and George in your flat, isn’t he?”

  “No, I can’t ask him anything in front of Charlie,” Minnie said. “Even if he does know something, he’d never admit it in front of his father.”

  Cora nodded her understanding. “Bring him down here, then. Tell him you need him to do something for me.”

  Plainly, Minnie’s exhaustion and terror rendered her almost incapable of making a decision. She just stared back at Cora numbly.

  “I can go get him,” Sarah offered.

  “Oh, I couldn’t ask you to do that,” Minnie protested.

  “I can,” Cora said. “Thank you, Mrs. Brandt. It’s one flight up, the first door on the right.”

  Sarah left before Minnie could change her mind. Unlike apartment buildings in other parts of the city, this one was clean and well kept. Sarah supposed it was the fact that the residents here didn’t have to worry about basic survival. They had the luxury of knowing they would eat three good meals every day and have a warm place to sleep every night. Freed of the desperate daily struggle so many faced each morning just to ensure they would survive that day, the people in this building had the energy to take pride in their surroundings.

  Sarah knocked on the door Cora had directed her to. It opened quickly, and Sarah saw the boy Harry, who had first delivered the news that his sister was missing. He looked as haggard as his mother, and his Chinese clothing was soiled and wrinkled. His red-rimmed eyes narrowed to make out Sarah’s identity in the shadows of the hallway.

  “Who…?” he asked.

  “Who is there?” a voice called sharply.

  “A lady,” Harry replied.

  “I’m Mrs. Brandt,” Sarah reminded him, speaking loudly enough for those inside to hear her. “The midwife. Your mother asked me to get you. She needs you to do something for her.”

  “Ma needs me,” he called over his shoulder and stepped quickly out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind him. Sarah had the impression he was making an escape as much as answering a summons. She remembered what Minnie had said a moment ago, of how Harry wouldn’t admit anything in front of his father, and wondered what kind of relationship Harry had with Charlie Lee.

  “What does she want me to do?” he asked as Sarah led the way back down the stairs.

  “I’m not sure,” Sarah lied. They made their way carefully in the dim stairwell, and he followed her into Cora’s flat. “They’re in the bedroom,” she told him when they were inside.

  Harry hurried in, his young face drawn with worry. “Ma, what is it?” he asked as he entered the room. “Is something wrong?”

  Minnie stood up, clutching her hands tightly in front of her. “No, dear, I just wanted to ask you something…about Angel.”

  He frowned. “I already told you, I don’t know where she went. Why doesn’t anybody believe me?”

  “We believe you,” Cora assured him quickly. “It’s just…Mrs. Brandt here thinks maybe you might’ve seen something and not realize it.”

  “How could I not realize it?” he asked, turning to Sarah, who had followed him into the bedroom and stood in the doorway. She saw the defensiveness in every line of his body. He was a slender lad, his wiry body taut with the strain of Angel’s disappearance.

  “Your sister is very innocent, and it doesn’t seem likely she would’ve been brave enough to just run away,” Sarah began. “Someone asked me if she could have had an admirer who might have lured her away.”

  “You mean a man?” Harry asked in amazement. “Angel would never go off with a strange man.”

  “Maybe he’s not a stranger,” Sarah said. “Maybe it’s someone she knows or sees often. He’d be friendly and nice to her. She might have met him in the neighborhood. It could be someone she sees every day, in a shop or on the way to school.”

  But Harry was shaking his head. “We checked with all her friends.”

  “It wouldn’t be one of her friends,” Minnie said, her voice thin with desperation. “It would be someone else, someone older, who would know how to hide her so we couldn’t find her.”

  “You might have seen him watching her,” Sarah suggested. “Or talking to her. Did anyone ever give her a gift?”

  “George always buys her candy,” Harry said doubtfully.

  “Someone not in our family,” Cora said in exasperation. “Did you ever think somebody was getting too friendly with her?”

  “Not when I was with her. I don’t let strangers talk to her,” Harry claimed belligerently.

  “Are you always with her?” Sarah asked.

  Everyone looked at her in surprise. Harry frowned. “No, not always,” he admitted reluctantly.

  “When aren’t you with her?”

  He looked straight at Sarah, and she noticed his eyes were light brown, not black like his sister’s. Once again she was struck by how Irish he looked. Not Chinese at all except for his clothing. “I…She gets out of school earlier than me. She walks home with her friends.”

  “Then she could have met someone after school, and you wouldn’t know,” Sarah prodded.

  “I guess so.”

  Before anyone could think of another question, they heard the door opening in the front room. Sara looked out to see a Chinese man coming into the flat. He paused for a moment, looking around, and then he saw Sarah standing in the bedroom doorway. She couldn’t guess his age, but he seemed young, perhaps not even thirty.

  “Cora?” he called.

  “George?” Cora called back. “We’re all in here.”

  He came forward slowly, reminding Sarah what the women had said about their men being private. Or shy. He wore Western clothing, a dark suit and white shirt, although he’d removed the collar and tie and the neck of the shirt was open for comfort. He was a smallish man, thin and not very tall, but his face was open and handsome, although he looked as weary as the others who had been searching for Angel all day.

  Sarah stepped back so he could enter the bedroom. He looked around the room, his gaze touching each person there. When he turned to his wife, he said, “Why you want Harry and not me?”

  “We wanted to ask him some questions about Angel,” she said.

  Plainly, this didn’t answer his query. “What question?”

  “Mrs. Brandt thought Angel might have run away with a man,” Cora explained.

  George turned to Harry, suddenly furious. “You know this and do not say?”

  “No!” Harry cried. “I don’t know anything about Angel and some man!”

  “We just thought he might’ve seen someone being friendly to her,” Cora quickly explained. “But he didn’t.”

  George’s hands had closed into fists, and now his anger turned on Sarah. “Why do you say this about Angel?”

  “She’s just trying to help, George,” Minnie said wearily. “She thought maybe some man might’ve tricked her into running away with him.”

  “We were hoping that was it,” Cora added. “If she’s with some man, she’s alive and well, and we might be able to find her.”

  George looked as if he wasn’t sure whether to remain angry at Sarah or not. Cora rescued her.

  “Come and look at the baby. You’ve hardly had a chance to admire your son.”

  George needed no further encouragement. He went directly to the cradle.

  “Can I go now?” Harry asked with a hint of desperation.

  “Yes, go,” his mother said in resignation. He hurried past Sarah and slammed out of the flat.

  “I should go, too,” Sarah said, not wanting to intrude any longer. She
hadn’t helped at all and had only managed to cause everyone more pain. “I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

  “You were just trying to help,” Cora repeated.

  But she hadn’t. She left the bedroom, and Minnie followed to see her out.

  “I’m so sorry,” Sarah said when they reached the front door. “I was hoping I could help you find Angel.”

  “I know. I wish you were right about the man,” she admitted. “If she was with somebody who loves her…”

  Sarah reached out and touched her arm when her voice broke. “I have a friend who’s a detective sergeant with the police,” she said. “Maybe he could—”

  “No police,” Minnie said firmly. “Charlie would never have it. Besides, what could they do that we didn’t?”

  Sarah didn’t know. That wouldn’t stop her from at least asking Frank Malloy, however.

  3

  FRANK DIDN’T KNOW WHETHER TO BE PLEASED OR ANNOYED that Sarah had summoned him. She wouldn’t send for him unless it was something important. Her note, delivered to his house, had said she needed his advice to help one of her clients. He couldn’t imagine what kind of advice she’d need from him, but since he hadn’t heard about any murders today, he wasn’t worried. At least not much. In the past, he’d too often drawn her into a murder investigation. But not today.

  At Sarah’s house, Maeve opened the door and greeted him with a big smile.

  “Mr. Malloy, come right in. Catherine’s been waiting for you all day.”

  “Cath—?” he started to ask but caught himself. He’d almost forgotten that the little girl he’d first known as Aggie had revealed her real name. “Where is she?” he asked instead as he stepped into the house.

  “She’s pretending to be shy,” Maeve said with a wink.

  Frank pulled off his hat and looked around. “Catherine? Where are you?” he called.

  A giggle drew his attention to the stairway, where the little girl peered out from behind the door.

  “There you are,” he said, and she laughed in delight. “Aren’t you going to come see me?”

  She darted out of the stairwell and straight into his arms. “You’re getting big,” he marveled, picking her up. “I can hardly lift you anymore.”

  This pleased her, and she giggled again. She didn’t speak, though. Something had frightened her into silence before she’d turned up on the Mission’s doorstep several months ago, and she still didn’t trust the world enough to end that silence.

  “Malloy,” a familiar voice said. Sarah was coming from the kitchen, smiling the way she always did when she saw him, as if she had been waiting forever for the pleasure. He knew that wasn’t true, but his heart lifted just the same. “Thank you for coming.”

  “How could I refuse?” he asked slyly. “I don’t think you ever asked for my advice before.”

  “That hasn’t stopped you from giving it often enough,” she replied just as slyly. “Come on into the kitchen. Mrs. Ellsworth taught the girls to make a Sally Lund cake this morning. We’ve been waiting for you to cut it.”

  The cake was delicious, and the coffee hot. When they were finished and the dishes cleared away, Sarah sent the girls upstairs to play.

  “I really appreciate your coming on such short notice,” she said, refilling his coffee cup.

  “Your note said it was important,” he reminded her, wondering if she knew he would have come whether it was or not. “It’s not a murder, is it?”

  “Oh, no,” she assured him with a small smile. “I’m trying very hard to avoid getting involved in any more murder investigations.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” He didn’t return her smile. He really didn’t want her put in danger ever again. “So, what is it?”

  “A girl is missing. She’s related to a woman whose baby I delivered two days ago.”

  “What do you mean, missing?”

  “She came home from school, as usual. She’s fifteen, almost sixteen. Her brother saw her go into her room. Her mother was with me downstairs, delivering the baby. After the baby was born, she sent the brother out to find the new father and tell him. While he was gone, the girl disappeared. This was the day before yesterday.”

  “Could she have gone to visit a friend?”

  “That’s the first thing they did, check with all her friends. She wasn’t with any of them, though, and she’d taken all her clothes, too. Someone saw her going down the street, carrying a bundle. They assumed it was laundry and didn’t think anything of it.”

  “Sounds like her family wants to find her.” They both knew that not all families would. Lots of girls went missing in New York City, and their families were often relieved to have one less mouth to feed.

  “They’re frantic. They had all the neighbors helping them look for her. They searched most of the night and the next day, but of course they couldn’t find any trace of her.”

  “What’s this girl like? What kind of a family does she have?”

  “Her family is respectable, and she’s completely innocent. They can’t imagine where she could’ve gone. Maeve thought…”

  “What did Maeve think?” Frank prodded, intrigued.

  “She thought Angel must have a lover.”

  Frank straightened in surprise. “Maeve is pretty smart.”

  “You agree?”

  “If you said the girl—did you say her name is Angel?”

  “Yes. It’s her mother’s maiden name.”

  “If you told me she just didn’t come home from school one day or went to the store and nobody saw her again, then I’d think she was kidnapped. Happens a lot. Girl like that would bring a premium price in a brothel.”

  He saw her flinch and hated having to remind her of the harsh realities of life in the city.

  “Girls don’t pack their clothes if they’re being kidnapped into a brothel,” she reminded him.

  “She might not have known that’s where she was going,” he reminded her.

  “Of course she didn’t. She would’ve thought she was eloping. But if she did go off with a man, he might not have had romance on his mind. I’ve been hoping that wasn’t the case, but even if it was, we have a better chance of finding her if somebody did lure her away.”

  “We?” he echoed in disapproval. “Are you looking for her, too?”

  Her cheeks grew pink, making her look like a girl for a second or two. “I’m not getting involved, Malloy,” she said defensively. “I’m just trying to help her family, if I can.”

  Frank sighed. He knew her too well. She’d do whatever she could to find this girl, even if it meant barging into every brothel in the city looking for her. “If somebody bought her, you’ll never find her, Sarah. Nobody will.”

  “I know,” she insisted. She probably did, but he didn’t think that would stop her from trying.

  “What do you want me to do?” he asked in resignation.

  “How can they find out who she ran off with? They’ve already asked all her friends. None of them know.”

  He resisted the urge to sigh again. “I guess I could give it a try.”

  “Oh, I’m not asking you to do that!” she said quickly. “They don’t want the police involved.”

  “Why not?” he asked in surprise.

  She gave him an apologetic smile. “It’s Chinatown.”

  “Chinatown? You deliver babies in Chinatown?” he asked in amazement.

  “I deliver babies wherever I can,” she said.

  He shouldn’t have been surprised. “So the girl is Chinese?”

  “Half-Chinese and half-Irish, on her mother’s side.” She seemed to take a perverse pleasure in informing him of that.

  He should have guessed. He knew Chinese women weren’t allowed into the country. He also knew most of the wives in Chinatown were Irish. “So an innocent, half-Chinese girl packs up her clothes and runs away while her mother is too busy to notice. Sounds like she might’ve planned it.”

  “I thought so, too. She was probably just waiting for the baby
to come and everyone to be distracted. Oh, I almost forgot, she was also upset because her father was arranging a marriage for her, to a much older man.”

  “Another Chinaman, I guess,” Frank said.

  “Yes. He owns some restaurants, I think. He’s wealthy, but that didn’t mean anything to Angel. She thought he was old and ugly.”

  “That changes things. She might’ve run off to get away from the ugly old husband,” Frank mused.

  “I can’t imagine a girl like Angel taking a risk like that. She had no money, or at least not much. Where would she go? Where would she stay?”

  “She might not have thought about that. Kids can be really stupid.”

  She sighed in dismay. “Maybe, but I still don’t think she would’ve gone off alone. Someone had to help her, and if we find that someone, we’ll find Angel.”

  Frank wasn’t so sure. The girl could be anywhere by now, and if someone had her, they’d take great pains to hide her.

  He saw the anger flash in her eyes when he didn’t reply. “There must be something we can do,” she insisted.

  “There’s something her family can do,” Frank said meaningfully.

  “What?” she asked anxiously.

  “A girl like that wouldn’t go off without telling somebody. You said she has friends. They wouldn’t be able to hide her, because that’s the first place her family would look, but they might keep her secret. If she ran off with somebody, she was in love, or thought she was. Girls tell their friends when they fall in love. Somebody knows. Maybe all of them do.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, why didn’t I think of that? Of course she would tell her friends if she had a boyfriend!”

  “The girls would think this Angel is safe because she’s with her lover, so they’d never tell her family and ruin the romance.”

  “So we have to convince them Angel might be in danger,” she said.

  “Why do you keep saying we?” Frank asked in annoyance. “I thought you said you weren’t going to get involved.”

  “I’m not!” she insisted. “But I will tell her family what you think. I’m sure they’ll be able to find out the truth from her friends. Thank you, Malloy.”