“Don’t worry about that now,” Sarah said. “You’ll be fine. I’ll be right back.”
Sarah hurried out, trying not to imagine the days that Keely had spent with Wong. Malloy had said he thought Keely had the upper hand, but how could she have? She may have come voluntarily, but she’d been a virtual prisoner here after that. She didn’t even have any clothes! She’d been completely at Wong’s mercy. Sarah found herself not quite as upset about his murder as she had been.
Ah Woh had recovered somewhat by the time Sarah found him again. He was pacing in the hallway, keeping an eye on the people who had gathered in the parlor while she’d been busy upstairs. Sarah recognized Officer Donatelli and some of the men from the coroner’s office. Sarah asked Ah Woh about Keely’s clothes.
He made a face, but he said, “I get.” He started for the back of the house, and Sarah waited in the hallway. She stepped closer to the door to hear what was being said in the parlor. Malloy was instructing Donatelli to take some men and question the neighbors to see if anyone had seen somebody going or coming from the house during the time Ah Woh had been gone.
Then she heard Ah Woh cry out. She reached the kitchen first, but Malloy and his cohorts were right behind her.
“What is it?” she asked, looking around and seeing nothing out of the ordinary.
Ah Woh held up a towel. It was stained with blood.
“Where did you find it?” Malloy asked, pushing past her into the kitchen.
“On floor.” He pointed.
“The killer would have had a little blood splashed on him,” one of the other men said. “From the force of the blow. Looks like he washed up before he left.”
Ah Woh looked at the towel in his hands. Suddenly, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he keeled over in a faint. This time Malloy wasn’t quick enough, and the poor fellow fell to the floor with a crash.
By the time Sarah had helped minister to Ah Woh and bring him back to consciousness, and found Keely’s clothes, all neatly washed and pressed, she had begun to worry about the girl she’d left alone for so long. She needn’t have worried. Keely was back in the bed, fast asleep, when she found her again. If Wong had given her something to put her to sleep, as Sarah suspected, it probably had not worn off completely. Either that or the shock had knocked her out. It did that to some people. They couldn’t feel the pain when they slept. Sarah let her sleep until Malloy came knocking. He was ready to question her now.
This time Keely awoke more easily, but when she saw Sarah, her expression crumbled. “It wasn’t a dream, was it?” she asked.
“I’m sorry, Keely. It wasn’t a dream. You need to get up and get dressed now. Detective Sergeant Malloy has some questions for you.”
She let Sarah help her dress, and then allowed Sarah to brush out her hair. Sarah saw some flakes of what she thought was dried blood and wished she’d thought to have Keely wash her hair, too. It was too late for that now, though. She wouldn’t mention it to the girl. Besides, she was able to brush nearly all of it out.
“What will he ask me about?” Keely asked when she was finally ready.
“What you saw and heard.”
“I didn’t see nothing,” she protested. “I was asleep.”
“Then tell him that,” Sarah said. “I’ll stay with you, if you like.”
“I would,” she said pitifully. Sarah’s heart went out to her.
FRANK COULD HARDLY BELIEVE THE GIRL WITH SARAH was the same one he’d encountered on his previous visit. Gone was the sly little piece who’d taunted Frank with her sexuality. In her place was a sweet, innocent girl who looked like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Her clothes were faded and worn, but so neat and prim that they only made her look more vulnerable.
Frank took Keely and Sarah into the dining room and sat them down at the table. The room was gloomy from the dark mahogany furniture and because the heavy velvet drapes sealed out most of the sunlight.
“Is Johnny still here?” the girl asked in a timid little voice Frank hadn’t heard before.
“No, they took him away,” Frank said. She seemed relieved at that. “I need to ask you some questions, Keely.”
“I don’t know nothing,” she insisted. “I was asleep. Tell him, missus,” she begged Sarah.
“Just answer his questions the best you can,” Sarah said.
Keely stuck out her lower lip, like she was pouting, but Frank didn’t really care. “Tell me everything that happened today, starting with when you woke up this morning.”
She shrugged one shoulder. “I woke up. I mean, Johnny woke me up. He always likes a little poke first thing in the morning.”
Frank felt the heat crawling up his neck, and he refused to look at Sarah. He knew this wouldn’t embarrass her, but he couldn’t help being embarrassed for her. “Did you come downstairs for breakfast?”
“No,” she said. “Johnny always brings it up to me. I stay in the room all the time.” She looked at Sarah. “That’s why I never needed no clothes.”
Frank didn’t dare look at Sarah’s expression. “What happened after you had breakfast?”
That shoulder again. “The usual thing. Then we laid around for a while.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know,” she said with a hint of irritation. “I didn’t pay no attention.”
Frank bit back his own irritation. “All right. Then what happened?”
She wrinkled up her nose as if she was trying to concentrate. “That’s when he went down and made the tea, I think. He brought up a pot of tea to the room. He told me to drink it all.”
“Then what happened?”
“I got sleepy, and he told me it was all right to take a nap, so I did.”
“Do you usually take a nap like that?”
“I sleep whenever I want,” she said. “And wake up whenever I want. I don’t have much else to do but keep Johnny happy.”
Frank managed not to wince. “How long did you sleep today?”
“Until she woke me up,” she said, pointing at Sarah.
Frank hid his annoyance. “Did you hear anything? Did anything wake you up?”
Keely wrinkled her nose again. “I think…I thought I was dreaming, but maybe I heard some voices, like somebody shouting or fighting or something.”
“And you didn’t go see what it was?” he asked.
“I told you, I thought I was dreaming. I didn’t really even wake up good.”
“The tea may have been drugged,” Sarah said.
Frank had been thinking the same thing, although why Wong would drug her, he had no idea. “Had Wong given you stuff that made you sleepy before?”
She considered the question carefully. “Now that you say it, maybe he did. I mean, sometimes I’d get real tired for no reason and go to sleep.”
Frank figured Wong had wanted some time away from her, but he didn’t say it. “You’ve been here how long now?”
“I don’t know. How many days since you first came?” she replied.
“That was yesterday.”
“Five days, then.”
Frank nodded. That was what she had told him before. “Did Wong have any visitors while you’ve been here?”
“Angel’s father came,” she recalled. “Johnny already told you that.”
“Did he come just that once?”
“That’s all I know of.”
“Anybody else?”
She made a face. “My ma came last night.”
“Your mother? What did she want?”
Frank caught a glimpse of the sly smile she’d shown him yesterday. “She wanted me to come home, but Johnny wouldn’t let me go. He threw her out.”
“Was he keeping you a prisoner here?” Sarah asked in alarm.
“Well, kind of,” she allowed, trying for innocence again.
“You came here on your own,” Frank reminded her. “And you seemed pretty happy yesterday. You said Wong was going to marry you.”
“Well, now, he was standing right
there, wasn’t he? What was I supposed to say?” she asked indignantly.
“You said it when I woke you up a little while ago, too,” Sarah reminded her. “You seemed pretty fond of Mr. Wong.”
Keely clearly couldn’t make up her mind how she wanted to portray Wong. “He was all right, I guess,” she admitted. “He didn’t hit me or nothing.”
“And you wanted to marry him,” Frank reminded her.
“He said he would, and he had to, didn’t he? After what he did to me?”
“Why did you come here in the first place, Keely?” Sarah asked.
The girl seemed surprised by the question and not at all certain how to reply. “I…It seemed like a good idea.”
“Who gave you the idea?” Frank asked.
“I don’t remember,” she lied.
“I think you do,” Frank said. “I think Angel told you about Wong. I think she told you he was rich and that he wanted to marry her. I think you decided that since he couldn’t have Angel, he might take you instead.”
“What if I did?” she asked petulantly. “Ain’t nothing wrong with that.”
“And you thought if you moved in here and made Wong happy, that he’d marry you, and you’d have an easy life. Is that what you wanted, Keely? An easy life?”
She stared at him for a long moment, trying to decide how to answer him, and then she burst into tears.
Frank fought the urge to swear as Sarah took the girl into her arms and tried to comfort her. So much for getting anything more out of her now.
Keely sobbed on Sarah’s shoulder for a while, until she ran out of steam. Then she pulled away slightly and looked Sarah in the face. “What’s going to happen to me now?”
Sarah smiled reassuringly. Frank figured she could calm anybody down with that smile. “Don’t worry. We’ll take you back to your mother and—”
“No!” she cried, rearing back like Sarah had slapped her. “I don’t want to go back there! Can’t I stay here?”
“Not with Wong dead, you can’t,” Frank informed her. “I don’t know who this place belongs to now, but it’s not you.”
“Your family will be glad to have you home again,” Sarah tried.
“No, they won’t! They’ll hate me because I ran off with a Chinaman.”
“But your mother came to get you last night,” Sarah reminded her.
Keely looked a little surprised at this reminder, but she recovered quickly. “My brothers won’t want me back, though. Or Iris. I’m afraid of what they’ll do!”
Frank could tell Sarah was trying to figure out some way to help the girl. He had to jump in before she offered to take Keely in herself. “You can take her to the Mission,” he said.
Sarah liked this idea, even if Keely greeted it with a suspicious frown. “What’s the Mission?”
“It’s on Mulberry Street, the Prodigal Son Mission,” Sarah explained. “It’s for girls who don’t have anyplace to live. They’ll take good care of you there, and you’ll be safe.”
“I don’t know…” she hedged.
“You don’t have to stay there forever,” Sarah said. “Only until you decide what you want to do.”
“Or we could take you down to Headquarters and lock you up for safekeeping,” Frank said, earning a reproachful glare from Sarah and a hateful one from Keely.
“I’ll go to the Mission,” she decided unhappily.
“Good,” Sarah said. “Do you have anything you’d like to pack?”
“Are we going right now?” Keely asked in surprise.
“The sooner the better,” Sarah said. “Surely you don’t want to stay in this house after what happened to Mr. Wong.”
Keely frowned. “No, I guess not.” She rose from her chair and glanced at Frank as if she was afraid he might try to stop her.
No chance of that. Good riddance.
Keely must not have had much to pack up. After only a few minutes, she and Sarah came downstairs again with a small bundle.
“I’ll take Keely over and get her settled,” Sarah said.
“Then you’ll go home and forget about this case,” Frank replied.
She gave him one of her smiles, and they started out, but Keely stopped and turned back.
“I been thinking,” she said to Frank. “My brothers, they didn’t like me being with a Chinaman. Maybe they was the ones killed Johnny.”
Frank had been thinking that very thing himself, but he didn’t want to say so. Sarah saved him from having to reply. “Don’t worry. Mr. Malloy will find out the truth, Keely.”
She didn’t look very reassured, but she followed Sarah out, leaving Frank to close the door behind them.
When he had, he turned to find Ah Woh standing in the hallway. Frank hadn’t heard a single sound out of him. “I’d like to ask you a few questions, if you feel up to it.”
Ah Woh nodded slowly, his face a study in grief. He must have cared for his uncle more than Keely had. Frank took him to the dining room, and they sat down at the table.
“Do you know why your uncle sent you to find me today?”
“I tell you, he want talk about dead girl.”
“What did he know about Angel’s death?”
“I not know. He sad today. He say find you.”
“Sad? What do you mean he was sad?”
“No smile. Only frown. Think hard. No eat.”
So Wong had known something, something he’d found out since Frank’s previous visit. “Did he have any visitors yesterday, besides me?”
“Mrs. O’Neal,” he said with distaste.
Like Keely had said. “When was she here?”
“Sky just get dark, she come.”
“Did she argue with your uncle?”
“Yes, much shouting. She angry.”
“Because Wong wouldn’t let her take Keely home,” Frank recalled from his conversation with the girl.
Ah Woh frowned. “No, that not why.”
“You mean that’s not why they were arguing?”
He shook his head.
“Keely said her mother wanted to take her home, but Wong wouldn’t let her go.”
Ah Woh’s young face twisted in anger. “She lie. Mother come, want money.”
“Mrs. O’Neal wanted Wong to give her money?”
“Yes, bride-price. She say he should pay for Keely.”
Frank remembered Charlie Lee telling him Wong was going to pay him a bride-price for marrying Angel. “But Wong refused?”
“He say he no pay.”
“And what did she say?”
“She say…” This time Ah Woh’s face twisted in pain. “She say he be sorry.”
13
AS ALWAYS, SARAH HAD BEEN GREETED WARMLY AT THE Prodigal Son Mission. The place might have closed long ago if it hadn’t been for Sarah’s efforts, so she was something of a celebrity to the girls who had found shelter there. Too many families turned their children out into the streets when they could no longer afford to keep them or simply didn’t want to try any longer. The boys could sometimes survive by stealing or working as newsboys or boot blacks, but the girls had few options besides prostitution. The Mission had been founded as a refuge for those girls.
The matron, Mrs. Keller, took Sarah and Keely into her office after the girls had finished greeting her and asking after Maeve and Catherine.
When they were alone, Sarah briefly explained why she had brought Keely to the Mission.
“I want you to know that you are very welcome, Keely,” Mrs. Keller said after she had expressed her condolences for Keely’s traumatic experience.
“What do I have to do here?” Keely asked suspiciously.
“All the girls have chores, of course. They help with the cooking and cleaning. You can learn to sew, too, if you like. We have some sewing machines upstairs. And we also have educational classes for all the girls.”
Keely didn’t look very impressed. “You mean like school?”
“Yes, like school,” Mrs. Keller said with a smile.
“We’d like for you to give them a try. Having an education can help you make your way in the world.”
“How?” she asked skeptically.
Mrs. Keller smiled again. “That will become clearer to you later. We expect you to behave yourself while you’re here, too. We don’t allow the girls to have gentlemen callers or to meet them elsewhere or to go out in the evenings. We treat each other with courtesy and no fighting is allowed. If you feel you’re being badly treated, come to me first, and I’ll help you work things out.”
Keely looked at Sarah. “How long do I have to stay here?”
Sarah managed not to sigh. “You must know it’s dangerous for a girl to be out in the city alone. If you don’t go back home to your family and you don’t stay here, where would you go?”
Keely had no answer for that.
“I’m sure you’ll be happy here, once you get used to it,” Mrs. Keller said.
Keely didn’t seem to share her confidence.
Mrs. Keller assigned Keely a bed in the dormitory upstairs, and when Sarah left, Keely was joining the other girls for supper.
She still didn’t look very happy, but after all she’d been through today, Sarah couldn’t really expect that, she supposed. At least Sarah would be home in time for supper with her own family. The thought quickened her step as she made her way to the Elevated Train Station.
FRANK WAS ALL READY TO HEAD BACK TO THE O’NEAL flat when he remembered that he still had George Lee in custody. While George might deserve to spend a bit more time locked up as punishment for wasting Frank’s time with his false confession, his wife certainly didn’t deserve to worry any longer.
Frank was gratified to see that George looked much less confident than he had before. In fact, when the officers brought him into the interrogation room, he looked downright scared.
“How are you doing, George?” Frank asked.
George had to swallow before he could say, “Fine.”
“Are you? Well, you won’t be doing quite so fine after we take you to the Tombs. You know what that is, George?”
George shook his head.
“That’s the city jail. You’ll be thrown in with all kinds of criminals there—crooks and arsonists and killers. But since you’re such a cold-blooded killer yourself, I guess you won’t mind, will you?”
Murder In Chinatown Page 20