Murder In Chinatown

by Victoria Thompson

  “What for?” he demanded in outrage. “I never killed Angel! Why would I?”

  But Frank was already in the hallway. The officer locked the door behind them, muffling the sounds of his shouted protests. Next Frank chose the second brother, Rooney.

  Rooney was asleep, his head resting on his folded arms on the table top. Frank kicked the chair out from under him, sending him sprawling on the floor. His howl of outrage died in his throat when he looked up and saw Frank and the officer standing over him.

  “Why’d you do that for?” he whined, picking himself up and rubbing his elbow gingerly.

  “Have a seat, Rooney,” Frank offered, pointing to the overturned chair.

  He righted it and sat down as instructed, still watching Frank warily, like a dog who had been kicked too many times. Frank sat down opposite him at the table and studied him for a long minute.

  He was also older than Quinn. Frank’s experience told him that the second son often took the brunt of abuse in the family. The oldest child was prized, and the youngest spoiled, but the middle child enjoyed no privileged attentions.

  “So tell me, Rooney, what did you think about your brother bringing home a Chinese girl?”

  He frowned, as if he thought Frank was trying to trick him with such an easy question. “I didn’t care one way or the other,” he said after a few seconds, “and I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Is that so?” Frank asked, feigning interest. “Who do you think did, then?”

  “I don’t think nothing about it. I know. I know exactly who killed her.”

  7

  SARAH WOKE UP EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, SO SHE WAS up and dressed when Mrs. Ellsworth arrived. The older woman had been to the market early that morning and had a lovely piece of beef she was going to show the girls how to roast in a pot so that it was melt-in-your-mouth tender.

  “I certainly hope I’m here to enjoy it this evening,” Sarah said, admiring the cut of meat.

  “If you aren’t, we’ll save you some, won’t we?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked the girls.

  Catherine nodded fervently, and Maeve just grinned.

  “You girls go off and play for a while and let Mrs. Brandt and me visit a bit,” Mrs. Ellsworth said. “We don’t have to start cooking the roast just yet.”

  When they were alone, Sarah poured them each some coffee, and they sat down at the kitchen table.

  “I guess you’re wondering about the girl who was killed,” Sarah said.

  “I am, of course. Maeve told me about it when I stopped by to check on the girls yesterday. She was upset. I’d never seen her so emotional about any of the murders you’ve investigated.”

  “The girl was her age,” Sarah said. “In fact, I’d discussed Angel—her name was Angel—with Maeve several weeks ago. She’d run away from home, and Maeve is the one who suggested she might have run off with a man and that I should question her friends more closely because they’d surely know the real story.”

  Mrs. Ellsworth’s eyebrows rose. “She suggested that you question them?” she asked skeptically.

  Sarah mentally pinched herself. “No,” she admitted sheepishly. “She suggested someone question them. She was right, too. Angel had eloped with a man she’d been seeing secretly.”

  “That’s it then,” Mrs. Ellsworth said. “When this Angel was killed, Maeve felt a kind of kinship with her.”

  “It may have been a little more than that. Maeve was asking me questions about her last night. Maeve seems to think that when a girl gets married, all her problems are over, and she lives happily ever after.”

  “What would make her think that?” Mrs. Ellsworth scoffed.

  “I have no idea,” Sarah replied with some amusement. “She must have seen unhappy marriages in her lifetime. Still, you know how romantic girls can be. They think Prince Charming is going to make their lives perfect.”

  “I hope you explained the truth to her.”

  “I tried, but it’s impossible to know if I succeeded or not. I hope I at least made her think a bit. But she’s still upset about Angel’s death. Catherine is, too.”

  “Oh, dear!”

  “Yes, she’s afraid something will happen to me, though.”

  Mrs. Ellsworth stared at her solemnly across the table for a long moment.

  “Now don’t you start,” Sarah chided her. “It’s bad enough that Malloy is always angry with me.”

  “Mr. Malloy is right,” Mrs. Ellsworth said. “Solving murders isn’t a job for a nice lady like yourself.”

  “Even if it means the murder doesn’t get solved?”

  Mrs. Ellsworth shook her head. “Nothing is worth your life, Mrs. Brandt.”

  Sarah felt a chill go down her spine, and she shivered involuntarily.

  “Someone is walking over your grave,” Mrs. Ellsworth informed her.

  “As long as I’m not in it, I don’t mind,” Sarah informed her right back in a poor attempt at humor.

  Mrs. Ellsworth refused to smile. “This is serious,” she said. “You’ve got a family now, a child who depends on you.”

  “I know. I’m not going to take any foolish chances, even if Malloy would let me.”

  Mrs. Ellsworth sipped her coffee thoughtfully. Then she said, “Do you have a handkerchief?”

  Sarah blinked in surprise at the sudden change of topic. “Of course,” she said, reaching into her pocket and pulling one out. No lady would be caught without a handkerchief any more than she would go outside naked. “It’s clean,” she added, thinking Mrs. Ellsworth wanted to use it.

  Instead, she took it and tied a knot in one corner. “There,” she said, handing it back. “That will protect you.”

  Sarah stared at the knotted fabric. “Protect me from what?”

  “Yourself, I’d say,” Mrs. Ellsworth said tartly. “I don’t expect for a minute that you’ll be able to keep from helping Mr. Malloy with his murder investigations, but a knot in your handkerchief will ward off evil.”

  Sarah stared at her in dismay. She should have known. Mrs. Ellsworth’s superstitious nature was legendary. “Oh.”

  “Don’t look at me like that. It doesn’t matter if you believe it or not, it still works. Put the handkerchief in your pocket and keep it with you all the time.”

  Sarah managed not to smile. “All right.” Obediently, she put it back in her pocket.

  “Now tell me all about that poor girl and how she died.”

  Sarah did so, sparing no detail since she didn’t have to worry about Mrs. Ellsworth’s sensibilities.

  “Who do you think killed her?” the old woman asked when Sarah was finished.

  “At this point, I don’t have any idea. I’m sure people will naturally assume it was her father, since they hate the Chinese so much.”

  “Killing your child, that’s a horrible thing,” Mrs. Ellsworth observed. “I don’t know much about the Chinese, though. Maybe they don’t care for their children the way we do.”

  “I think he loved her the same way white people love their children,” Sarah said, aware that she was defending a man who was at least indirectly responsible for his daughter’s death. If he hadn’t insisted on marrying her off to his friend, she might not have run away with Quinn O’Neal. Or at least she might not have run away with him when she did.

  “Why would someone want to kill her at all, though?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked. “Seems to me she should have been the one doing the killing. I can think of a few people who’d made her unhappy enough to deserve it.”

  Sarah could, too. “I know. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Then let’s think about it a bit. What are the reasons a person kills another person?”

  Sarah considered. “Greed.”

  Mrs. Ellsworth shook her head. “I doubt the girl had anything valuable.”

  “Love or some twisted version of it.”

  “And jealousy,” Mrs. Ellsworth added. “That naturally follows love.”

  “Oh, my, there’s
the man Angel was supposed to marry.”

  “Chinese, was he?” Mrs. Ellsworth asked. “Don’t know if he’d be jealous, but his pride would be hurt for certain. No man wants to be thrown over for another, especially when he thinks the other man isn’t half as good as he is.”

  “No question, Mr. Wong would be bitter to learn his rival was a shiftless bum,” Sarah agreed.

  “That settles it, then,” Mrs. Ellsworth said slyly. “No man likes to be made a fool in front of everybody he knows. He did it for sure.”

  “Well,” Sarah said with a grin. “We should send for Mr. Malloy and tell him we’ve figured it out: Mr. Wong killed Angel.”

  “IT WAS THAT WONG WHAT DONE IT,” ROONEY INFORMED Frank with an air of certainty that might have been impressive if it wasn’t so self-serving.

  “How do you know that?” Frank asked with interest.

  “Easy. She made him a laughingstock. Rich man like that, getting throwed over by some girl for a fellow like Quinn? He’d be plenty mad.”

  “You know that for a fact?” Frank asked curiously.

  Rooney leaned back in his chair, a cocky grin on his face. “Sure.”

  Frank gave the officer a meaningful glance, and he strolled over and gave Rooney a slap across the head.

  “Hey!” he cried in outrage, rubbing his head. “What was that for?”

  “Let’s talk about something else,” Frank said. “Something you know about, for instance. Like where you were yesterday.”

  “Yesterday? You mean when Angel was killed?”

  Frank nodded.

  He frowned and considered the question for a moment. “I was working.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I…uh, I was down on the docks, loading ships.”

  “Who were you working for?”

  His gaze was all over the place, up to the ceiling, on the wall behind Frank, on the table, on his hands. Everywhere but on Frank. “I don’t remember,” he finally decided.

  “Too bad.” Frank turned to the officer. “Take him downstairs and lock him up.”

  “Wait!” Rooney cried.

  “For what? You’re lying through your teeth, and only guilty people lie.” He shoved his chair back and started to rise.

  “I’m not guilty! I’m just…I can’t tell you what I was doing yesterday!”

  He looked genuinely frightened, but Frank didn’t particularly care. Rooney should be more frightened of him than of whomever he’d been with yesterday. Frank stood up. “Take him downstairs.”

  “Wait! Don’t leave! I can’t tell you! They’ll kill me.” He really did look frightened, and he’d know Frank wasn’t going to kill him. The police might beat him up, but they had no reason to really kill him. Frank couldn’t match the threat, so he’d have to provide protection.

  “If you’re innocent, I won’t need to tell anyone what you were doing when Angel died,” he tried.

  He swallowed. “I really was loading boxes.”

  “Stealing them, you mean.”

  “I was just hired to do the work,” he insisted. “I don’t know who was paying or nothing. They offer you work, and you take it. You don’t ask questions. They pay real good so you don’t. You take boxes out of one warehouse and put them into another one.”

  “In broad daylight?” Frank scoffed.

  “Nobody pays attention in broad daylight,” Rooney said. “They figure nobody’d do something illegal in front of God and everybody.”

  Frank would have to give this some further thought later, when he had more time. “How long did you work?”

  “Until we was finished. I didn’t pay no attention to what time it was.”

  “What did you do then?”

  “We was all hungry, so we went to get something to eat.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know,” Rooney said desperately. “I didn’t pay no attention. Someplace close to the warehouse. A bar. I might could show you.”

  “We’ll worry about that later. What time did you get home?”

  “Late. Everybody was asleep. Ma woke up when I come in and told me what happened to Angel.”

  “What did you think of Angel?” Frank asked.

  Rooney frowned. He didn’t like the question. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean your brother brought a girl home to live with you. What did you think of her?”

  “I didn’t think nothing of her,” he tried.

  “That’s hard to believe,” Frank marveled. “A pretty young girl comes to live in the flat with you. She’s sleeping there every night with your brother, probably in the same room. You can hear him poking her. Donald’s got a woman in his bed, too. Must be hard for you, laying there every night, listening to that, then seeing her every day.”

  Rooney was squirming. “Didn’t bother me,” he lied.

  “I think it did,” Frank said. “I think it made you mad. Who was Quinn to have a wife when you didn’t? Maybe you even thought he should share her with you.”

  “I never!” he cried, trying for outrage but falling a bit short.

  “Yes, you did, Rooney. You thought he wouldn’t care because she was Chinese and not worth much. You told Quinn to give you a turn with his girl, didn’t you? What did Quinn think about that?”

  “Nothing! I never asked him no such thing!”

  “Maybe Quinn said yes, but I’m going to guess that he didn’t want to share. That made you even madder, so when you caught Angel outside, all alone, you decided to take a turn anyway.”

  “No! I wouldn’t do that!”

  “But Angel didn’t want to go along, did she? She put up a fight. You didn’t mean to do it, Rooney, but she made you so mad that you put your hands around her throat and—”

  “No!” Rooney came up out of his seat and would have launched himself across the table at Frank, but the officer gave him a whack with his locust club. He fell back into his chair with a howl, clutching his injured shoulder.

  “Or maybe you got what you wanted from her,” Frank continued as if nothing had happened. “Then you were afraid she’d tell Quinn, so you had to make sure she didn’t, and that’s why you choked her. Is that why, Rooney?”

  “I never choked her! I never did nothing to her,” he insisted, still rubbing his shoulder.

  “You tried, though, didn’t you?” Frank asked. “You wouldn’t be a man if you didn’t try.”

  But Rooney wasn’t going to admit to anything. He just glared at Frank.

  Frank sighed and pushed himself to his feet. “Let’s see what Quinn has to say about all this.”

  “I didn’t never touch her!” Rooney was shouting as the officer closed the door behind them. “You tell him that!”

  Quinn was awake, but he looked pretty bad, like a man whose wife had just been murdered. He probably hadn’t slept much last night. “Why’d you bring us in?” he demanded. “We didn’t do nothing!”

  “Your brother was involved in a warehouse robbery yesterday,” Frank said. “I don’t call that nothing.”

  “Who, Rooney?” Quinn made a rude noise. “He wasn’t involved in nothing. He just does what he’s told.”

  Frank figured that was probably true. “Did you tell him he could have a turn with Angel?”

  “What? Who told you that?” Frank noticed his face had turned red.

  “I heard he liked her,” Frank said. “Couldn’t blame him, I guess. You liked her yourself.”

  “But I didn’t…She was my wife!”

  “And Rooney is your brother. Share and share alike. Blood is thicker than water. Don’t tell me he didn’t ask.”

  Quinn’s glare told him he was right.

  “And what did you tell him when he asked?” Frank inquired.

  “I told him to go to hell!”

  “He didn’t, though, did he? He kept bothering you about it. Did he bother her about it, too?”

  Quinn’s expression was murderous. “I told him to leave her alone.”

  “Was that why Angel kept disappe
aring?” Frank wondered. “Maybe she was hiding from your brother.”

  “She wasn’t hiding from nobody,” he said stubbornly.

  Frank leaned back in his chair and studied the boy for a moment. “What did you and Angel have a fight about yesterday?”

  “What?” he asked stupidly.

  “You told me yesterday that you and Angel had a fight when you took her downstairs to get her something to eat from a street vendor. What did you fight about?”

  The color rose in his face again. “Nothing. It wasn’t nothing.”

  “People don’t fight about nothing,” Frank said, folding his hands over his stomach. “I’m in no hurry, and Officer Kelly over there is probably getting bored. I could tell him to give you a couple whacks with his locust club to keep him busy. After that, I’m thinking you’ll be more willing to answer my questions.”

  “I’m answering!” he claimed a little desperately.

  “What did you argue about?”

  Quinn rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. “It was nothing, really,” he began, but when Officer Kelly took a step forward, he hurried on. “It was just…I knew she didn’t like doing it up in the flat, with everybody around. She was ashamed, she said, for them to know what we was doing. I told her it was all right, since we was married and all, but she…”

  “I think I understand,” Frank said. “So what did you fight about?”

  “I told her I found a place, down in the cellar, where we could be alone. We could go down there and do it whenever we wanted, and nobody’d see or hear us.”

  “And she didn’t like that idea?” Frank asked curiously.

  Quinn rubbed his hand across his mouth again. “I wanted to go right then, but she said…she said there’s rats down there, and it’s dirty. She didn’t want to go.”

  “Did you make her go anyway?”

  “I tried, but…she ran away. Went back inside to the flat, I guess.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I was pretty mad. I went off by myself, walking, trying to figure out what to do.”

  “What to do about what?” Frank asked.

  Quinn shrugged. “About everything. What good is it, being married, if your wife won’t let you do anything?”