“We go down to the kitchen and have tea.” Dora gathered up half the supplies we’d lugged in from the car and started for the stairs. I took the rest. “Afterwards, I’ll burn some sage and sprinkle some rue and thyme on the windowsills, but that’s mostly for show. Katie needs to see something tangible to believe in what we’re doing. You used to live in this house, so I’ll leave building wards to you. We should be able to keep out most harmful spirits.”
My failure to keep one small ghost out of my home and away from Gabe still weighed on me. “I’ve not done well on that front of late. Are you sure?”
“Quite sure. There are methods of layering protections and weaving barriers I haven’t taught you yet. I foolishly thought neither of us would ever need protections that strong. Not in San Francisco.” Dora paused on the second-floor landing, shoulders tense, and looked back toward Mr. Baskin’s room. “Obviously, I was mistaken. Evil has no regard for borders. The Great War is changing the world, and balances are shifting. I’d do well to remember.”
A gust of icy air swirled down the stairwell from the top floor, chilling me through my winter coat and rising gooseflesh on my arms. Daniel was still trapped in Europe, subject to all the unsettling changes and dangers Dora spoke of. I refused to think of the tiny shivers rippling across my shoulders as an omen.
Open windows on a January day and a drafty old house. That’s all it was, nothing more.
CHAPTER 7
Gabe
Gabe stared out the car window, struggling mightily to keep his impatience from getting the best of him. Traffic crawled along the downtown streets. Fewer horse rigs worked in the city every year, but the remaining horse-drawn cabs and delivery wagons clogged the roadways, slowing everyone down. Henderson navigated the car down side streets and shortcuts in an attempt to bypass the worst jams, but there was only so much that could be done.
That Jack hadn’t said more than a dozen words since they left the station didn’t lighten Gabe’s mood. He wanted this trip to Chinatown over with and done.
He and Jack had met in his office early and gone to Baldwin’s cell first thing. Both of them had hoped a night in a warm bed and a good meal might have helped Archie regain his senses. If anything, Baldwin was worse, cowering in the corner of his cell and whimpering each time Jack tried to speak to him.
They’d quickly given up trying to question Baldwin. Persisting was cruel, as much for the pain Jack felt as for the distress their questions caused Archie. He wasn’t sure he could stomach that a second time.
Sadie had taken the news of Amanda’s disappearance and Archie’s incarceration hard, just as Jack feared. Any hope Sadie might have an idea of where Amanda was died pretty quickly. The two women hadn’t spoken since Amanda’s visit to deliver a gift for the baby. Weeks had passed since.
Henderson, Dodd, and Baker hadn’t turned up much of anything on Effie Fontaine either, another disappointment. A few of the men drinking in the most popular dockside taverns had heard the name, but not much more. The same was true for the prostitutes working near the wharves. Gabe suspected Miss Fontaine didn’t frequent the same social circles as Baker’s and Henderson’s contacts.
He and Jack had discussed other ways to track down information on Miss Fontaine and her followers before confronting her, but the Bradley Wells murder case and the trip to Chinatown came first. They’d agreed, reluctantly, to put off delving into Effie Fontaine’s life until after they met with Dora that afternoon.
Secretly, he hoped Dora would put them on the road to catching Wells’s killer quickly. He’d almost welcome her pointing out some obvious clue they’d missed and solving the case. Life, and police work, never resolved itself that cleanly, but he saw no harm in daydreaming.
Gabe knew which case was foremost in Jack’s mind and the reasons behind his silence. He felt the same way. A strange sense of urgency—part experience, part instinct he couldn’t quite explain—pushed him toward finding out more about Effie Fontaine.
Instinct and unexplained feelings were a poor basis for prioritizing investigations. They still didn’t have any real evidence that Amanda Poe had come to harm or hadn’t left of her own accord. Pressure from Commissioner Lindsey aside, finding the person, or persons, responsible for three murders should come first.
The stylized buildings on the edge of Chinatown, their sweeping, curved rooflines and bright colors designed to appeal to tourists, came into sight. Chinatown had burnt to the ground after the 1906 quake, leaving the residents homeless and impoverished, and on the verge of losing their place in the city. Some of the illustrious citizens of San Francisco had denied the Chinese survivors access to fresh water or food, content to let them die. Desperate times often brought out the worst in people, but he’d never understood that level of cruelty.
Gabe had heard the stories of tong elders begging to keep their homes, and finally convincing San Francisco’s leaders that a rebuilt Chinatown would attract visitors from all over the world, enriching the city’s coffers. Greed turned the tide in favor of San Francisco’s Chinese residents, not compassion.
As they approached Sutter and Grant, his tolerance for delays and snarled traffic evaporated. He slid open the window separating the front and back seats. “Pull over and park, Marshall. We’ll walk from here.”
“Yes, Captain.” Henderson pointed. “There’s a space right over there.”
He climbed out and slammed the car door, waiting for Jack to come around and join him on the sidewalk. The Sung family tea shop was dead in the center of Grant Street, at the heart of Chinatown. In 1905, still rookies and new on the force, he and Jack spent four months walking a beat in Chinatown. They’d endlessly circled up Stockton and Grant and Pine, avoiding the small alleyways and side streets that were too dangerous for a pair of rookie cops. Staying away from places they didn’t belong kept them alive, and in the end, earned them a measure of respect.
Tourists were scarce this early on January mornings, visits from the police even rarer. They were the only white faces on the crowded street and garnered just as many suspicious stares as they had while walking a beat. But the whole point of walking was to be seen, to let the tong and Mr. Sung’s family know they were coming. Surprising the family and their tong leader was a bad idea.
Tension knotted between his shoulders as he looked up and down the street. They were being watched, openly, with no attempt to conceal the watchers. Permission from the Sung family tong aside, someone didn’t want them here. Gabe slipped his hands into his trouser pockets and worked at looking relaxed. “Stay with the car, Marshall. Keep your eyes and ears open. You have company.”
“Yes, sir. I see them.” Marshall Henderson pulled a battered nickel weekly out of his back pocket and leaned against the front fender. He spent so much time waiting with the car that he’d taken to carrying old copies of Pluck and Luck or Secret Service with him at all times. Other senior officers weren’t so lenient, but Gabe let him read.
They set off walking and hadn’t gone more than a few yards when Jack broke his silence. “Tsk, tsk, Captain. What would the commissioner say? Boredom is supposed to be a part of a patrolman’s job.”
“My dad always said boredom makes you lose your edge. I’ll take his opinion over Lindsey any day. And we both know that Marshall never misses a thing.” He nodded to the gray-haired old woman and the little boy with wide, curious eyes watching them from a doorway. She scowled and hurried the child inside. “Maybe you should try reading, Lieutenant Fitzgerald. Henderson tells me detectives in the weeklies always solve the crime. You might learn something.”
“I read.” Jack sidestepped two men carrying a heavy crate into a curio store. Straw sifted through the rough pine slats, leaving a trail on the sidewalk. “But my taste runs more to Collier’s or Ring Lardner in The Saturday Evening Post. I get my fill of detectives and crime on the job.”
Gabe smiled, grateful Jack was talking again. The car ride from the station house had been much too quiet. “Henderson is still new
at this. Give him five years, and you won’t be able to pay him enough to read detective stories.”
Chinatown’s streets were always busy, even at 10 A.M. on a Tuesday. Early-morning delivery vans lined the curbs, unloading crates of live ducks, chickens, and tubs of iced fish outside restaurants and markets. Sacks of rice, weighing fifty pounds or more, were handed down from truck beds and carried inside. Men on bicycles wove around motorcars, and women weighed down by shopping bags or small children darted across traffic.
The scent of incense wafted from open windows, mingling with the clouds of tobacco smoke that formed around the heads of old men standing on street corners. Other scents filled the air as well, a sweet, sickly odor seeping out of alleyways and drifting up from boarded-over basement windows.
Gabe stopped, staring down an alley and aware of the hostile glares from a group of young men near the opening. Memories of a nighttime raid in Chinatown when he and Jack were rookies flooded back. More than half the men they’d pulled out of that reeking maze of narrow hallways and closet-sized rooms were so deep into opium dreams, they didn’t know they’d been arrested. He hadn’t been able to get the smell out of his uniform.
That he’d forgotten, even for a little while, baffled him. He’d had nightmares about the stench in those rooms for weeks afterwards. “Jack … do you smell that? I couldn’t place it before, but now I’m positive Archie Baldwin’s clothes stank of opium.”
“Christ Almighty. That new guy over in vice, Haskell, claims all the dens were shut down.” Jack paled, his always-fair skin suddenly bleached of all color. He took a step into the alley. “Archie was gone for three days. No wonder he can’t remember what happened to Amanda or where he was. He’s damn lucky to be alive. Christ!”
More young men, all of them well muscled and rough, moved away from sheltered doorways and niches along the alley and toward Jack. The group near the mouth of the alley moved closer as well. Gabe took his partner’s arm and hustled him down the street.
“It’s one more thing to question Baldwin about. Assuming he ever regains his memory.” One more piece of evidence that might damn Archie Baldwin as a murderer. Gabe looked over his shoulder. The young men from the alley clustered around the mouth, watching, but showed no interest in following them.
Certain things had changed since the 1906 fire destroyed Chinatown. Tongs no longer waged open warfare and the days of the highbinders were over, but there were still places Gabe wasn’t willing to venture and risks he wasn’t willing to take. Captain Haskell could claim to have Chinatown under control all he wanted. That didn’t make it so. The men he’d spotted watching him and Jack made him doubly cautious. Two outsiders—two cops—could still disappear without a trace.
For that matter, so could an heiress. Chinatown might hold more secrets they needed to unearth beyond how Mr. Sung and his granddaughter died. That thought disturbed him, as did the prospect of needing to search for Amanda Poe in hidden rooms and basements along the maze of side streets and alleys in Chinatown. He wouldn’t wager much on their chances of finding her alive.
Gabe took note of the shops on either side of Grant and the names of the side streets near the alley. He’d bring the entire squad if he and Jack were forced to come back.
Two blocks later, they found the Sung’s teashop. A cheap plate glass window, full of ripples and imperfections that distorted Gabe’s reflection, took up the entire front of the shop. The name, BLUE TIGER TEAS, was rendered in both English and Chinese in a garish, gold script meant to catch the eye of tourists. Wooden latticework, painted a dull and faded red, framed the window.
The shop was empty this early in the day. Chairs sat upended atop the tables, the shade half-drawn on the front door. Long shelves along the back wall held rows of painted teacups, jars of loose tea, and small figurines for the tourists: good-luck cats, tigers, and dragons. A light shone behind a bead curtain over a doorway into the back room. Someone was in there.
“Do we knock or just walk in?” Jack nodded toward the silent crowd gathering across the street, acknowledging they were being watched. Two white-haired men standing at the front bowed respectfully. A third man, his short, dark hair liberally streaked with gray and a strip of black cloth tied around his shirtsleeve, started toward them. “Something tells me the family knows we’re here.”
“They’ve known since we parked the car.” Gabe removed his fedora, letting it dangle from his hand. “Take off your hat, Jack. My guess is that this is Mr. Sung’s son.”
“Captain Ryan? My name is Sung Zao.” Zao bowed his head, but didn’t smile or offer his hand. He was tall and thin, his trousers and shirt hanging loosely on his frame. “My uncle Wing is head of our family now. He sent me to ask if you would meet with him about my father’s death.”
“Certainly.” Gabe gestured toward the tea shop door. That Zao hadn’t mentioned his daughter’s death struck him as odd, but maybe the loss was still too raw. He’d wait and bring the girl up with the uncle. “Is your uncle inside?”
“No, Captain. This is my shop, my wife and children’s home.” Zao frowned. “My uncle wishes to meet you at the herb shop he ran with my father. I can take you there if you like.”
Gabe exchanged looks with Jack. Neither of them had expected an invitation to the crime scene. “I’d appreciate that, Mr. Sung. Thank you.”
Zao nodded and led the way farther down Grant. People stepped out of the way to let them pass, moving back to block the sidewalk once they’d gone by. Gabe glanced over his shoulder, both curious about why their visit had attracted such a crowd and wondering if he should worry. The faces looking back at him appeared just as curious about what he and Jack were up to with Zao. He stopped worrying.
He cleared his throat, gaining Zao’s attention. “I wondered if you could answer a question for me, Mr. Sung. Why did your uncle choose the herb shop as a meeting place? I assumed the family—”
“Would still be mourning? We are, Captain.” Grief overshadowed Zao’s face, there and gone in an instant. He turned onto a small side street and then down an alley lined with a mixture of clothing shops, gambling parlors, and what Gabe guessed to be brothels. Doors slammed at their approach, and any curious faces hid behind the curtains on second- and third-story windows. This was a part of Chinatown the tourists never saw.
The alley was a dead end, terminating in a brick wall marred by streaks of black paint and scraps of faded handbills in Chinese, chips and deep gouges. Tall, burly men lounged against the bricks and sat on upturned boxes, smoking and eyeing the two cops coming down the alley. A few of the younger men studied Jack and Gabe, openly curious. The older men didn’t try to hide their hostility.
Zao stopped in front of an unmarked door, the last on that side of the alley and only a few yards from the brick wall. White paper covered the front window, hiding what was inside. “My uncle is a powerful man, Captain, and well respected in our community. The only reason you’re here is that he believes you and Lieutenant Fitzgerald will be of help to our family.”
Water dripped from an awning above the door. A drop of cold water found its way down Gabe’s collar, making him shiver. “The department will do everything we can to catch whoever killed your father and daughter, Mr. Sung. You have my word on that.”
“You misunderstand me, Captain Ryan.” Zao opened the door and bowed them inside. “Uncle Wing wants your help in finding my father’s ghost.”
That brought him up short. “Your father’s ghost?”
“My uncle will explain.” Zao gestured toward the rear of the darkened shop. “Please, Captain. He doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
“I told you we should have brought Dora.” Jack clapped him on the shoulder and strolled inside, pretending a nonchalance Gabe didn’t believe. “You owe me lunch for a week.”
Zao waited patiently until Gabe followed his partner in before shutting the door. The bell over the entrance jangled and fell silent. Electric lamps hanging from the tall ceiling and in fixtures on the wall
s shone brightly, filling the interior of the shop with light. He turned in a circle, looking for Mr. Sung. By all appearances, he and Jack were alone.
Jack kept his hands stuffed in his pockets as he surveyed the inside of the shop. He rocked back and forth on his heels, and whistled softly. “Does this remind you of anything?”
“Wells’s shop.” Labels on the few crocks and jars still on the shelves were written in Chinese characters, but discolored rings on the painted wood showed where many more missing containers once sat. The resemblance to the store where Bradley Wells had been killed was undeniable. Gabe nudged a half-hidden shard of pottery with his shoe, sliding it out from under the edge of a display case. “Someone made an attempt to clean up.”
Jack wiped a finger over a shelf and sniffed the power sticking to his skin. He made a face. “They didn’t do a very good job.”
“No, Lieutenant. My neighbors didn’t do a good job at cleaning. I stopped them before they could finish.” An older Chinese man stood in a doorway at the back of the shop, a tray of steaming teacups balanced on his hands. A silk wall hanging swayed back into place as Sung Wing moved into the room, hiding the entrance once again. “They meant to spare me the pain of seeing my shop in ruins, but I needed things left as they were. Now, come, sit and share tea with me. Then we can talk.”
A latticework folding screen sat near a display case to the right. Wing put the tray on top of the case and pulled back the screen to reveal a round table and four chairs under a small window. Gabe took the chair near the window. A small flower garden, no bigger than a closet and with most of the plants winter brown, grew just outside.
A Barricade in Hell Page 8