Murder In Chinatown (14 page)

“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 disappearing?” 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?”

“No good at all,” Frank agreed. “Is that why you killed her then?”

Quinn started. “I didn’t kill her!”

“Nobody could blame you,” Frank said agreeably. “Pretty girl like that, sleeping with you every night but not letting you do anything. You must’ve been going crazy. Then you find a nice place where you can do it without your whole family watching, and she won’t go. Maybe she made fun of you. Maybe she said she was going to go back home to her parents. Maybe she said she hated you.”

“No, it wasn’t like that!”

“What was it like?”

“I…She just started crying and ran away.”

“And you went after her and caught her in the alley and put your hands around her throat and—”

“No! I didn’t! I didn’t touch her! I didn’t kill her!”

Frank smiled. “Then you don’t have anything to worry about, do you?” He rose from the chair and left the room, with Officer Kelly right behind him.

“What do you think?” Kelly asked when they were in the hall.

Frank sighed. “I think this is going to be a long investigation.”

T
HE POT ROAST WAS SIMMERING, SURROUNDED BY POTATOES
and carrots, filling the house with a mouthwatering aroma. Maeve and Catherine had gone upstairs to play, and Mrs. Ellsworth had returned to her home. She’d promised to return later to claim a portion of the meal for herself and her son Nelson.

Sarah had just finished tidying up the kitchen when she heard someone ringing her doorbell. Her heart sank. She’d been looking forward to enjoying the meal with the girls, but now it appeared she was being summoned to a delivery. When she opened the door, however, she saw Minnie Lee standing on her doorstep.

“Mrs. Lee, please come in,” she said, standing aside. “Nothing wrong with Cora or the baby, I hope.”

“Oh, no, they’re both fine,” Minnie said distractedly. She came in but stopped dead when she saw Maeve and Catherine staring at her from the bottom of the stairs.

“Mrs. Lee, this is my daughter Catherine and her nurse-maid Maeve,” Sarah said.

“Are you leaving?” Maeve asked, trying not to let her disappointment show.

“No,” Sarah said. “Mrs. Lee has come for a visit.” Then she glanced at Minnie and realized she wasn’t entirely certain of that. “Or did you need me to go with you?”

“Oh, no,” Minnie assured her. “I just…I needed somebody to talk to, and I can’t bother Cora. She’s already so upset over Angel, and she needs to keep up her strength for the baby.”

“Are you Angel’s mother?” Maeve asked, surprising her.

“Why, yes,” Minnie said. “Did you know her?”

Maeve shook her head. “But I’m sorry that she died.”

Minnie’s eyes filled, and her face twisted in pain. “Thank you, child,” she said hoarsely.

“Please come into the kitchen,” Sarah urged. “I’ll make you some tea, and we can talk. Girls, you go on back upstairs now so we can talk in private.”

Mrs. Lee left her wrap and her hat hanging in the hallway and followed Sarah through her office to the back of the house.

“Something smells good,” Minnie said with forced cheerfulness as she took the offered seat at the table.

“My neighbor is an excellent cook. Luckily for me, she has decided to teach Maeve and Catherine, and we all get to enjoy the results. Would you like a piece of her pie?”

Minnie shook her head. “No, thank you. I can’t seem to eat anything since…”

Her voice broke again, and Sarah pretended not to notice. She put the kettle on and got out the teapot and canister and measured out the tea. After a moment’s thought, she also cut two pieces of the latest pie Mrs. Ellsworth had insisted they take and set one down in front of Minnie.

“Try,” Sarah said when she would have protested. Then she sat down at the table opposite Minnie. “What did you want to talk about?”

Minnie sighed in despair. “I guess I don’t really know. What I really want is for somebody to tell me it was all a big mistake and Angel is still alive. I know that won’t happen, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting it.”

“That’s a perfectly normal reaction,” Sarah said. “How are Harry and your husband doing?”

The color rose in Minnie’s wan cheeks at the mention of her son. “Harry’s pretty ashamed over the business with the opium. I don’t know what got into him. He swears he never used it before, and he says he didn’t intend to use too much. He just…He’s upset over Angel, of course.”

“Were they close?”

Minnie shrugged one shoulder. “They fought, like brother and sister will do. Harry complained about her, but let anybody else say something to her, and he was on ’em like a tiger.”

“I guess Angel looked up to her big brother, too.”

“Oh, yes.” Minnie’s eyes shone at the memory. “When they was little, she’d follow him everywhere. He didn’t want his kid sister tagging along when he was with his friends, of course. That caused more than one tear to be shed, I’ll tell you.”

Sarah waited, giving Minnie a chance to savor her memories and work up the courage to talk about the present.

Finally, she cleared her throat. “Do you know what…? What will they be able to find out when they…examine her?” she asked.

Sarah could hear the pain in her voice. She hoped Minnie had no idea what an autopsy entailed. No one wanted to think of someone doing those things to a loved one, especially a sweet young girl like Angel. Sarah wasn’t about to explain it, either.

“They’ll be able to tell exactly how she died,” Sarah said. “And they’ll be able to tell if she had other injuries.”

“You mean if he beat her or something?”

“Yes.” She wouldn’t mention rape unless Minnie thought of it herself. “They can sometimes tell approximately when the person died. That can sometimes help in determining who couldn’t have done it because they were someplace else at the time.”

“And who was nearby and could have,” Minnie guessed.

“That’s right. They also look for signs that Angel fought back. If she has blood under her fingernails, for example, that means she probably scratched him. The killer would have scratch marks on him, too.”

The water was boiling, so Sarah got up and poured the water into the pot. She brought the tea tray to the table, so the tea could steep for a while before she poured it, and sat down again.

“That would make it easy,” Minnie said. “If she marked the killer, I mean.”

“It would certainly help. Of course it also helps if someone saw the killer with her or at least saw something suspicious. That doesn’t always happen, though.”

“If no one saw anything, how will they ever find out who did it?” Minnie asked.

Sarah smiled reassuringly. “Mr. Malloy is very good at his job. If anyone can find Angel’s killer, he can.”

For a long moment, Minnie sat staring blankly at the table top. “You know, it’s funny. If you’d asked me, I would’ve thought it was Harry who would come to grief,” she mused.

“Boys do tend to be more reckless than girls,” Sarah agreed.

Minnie didn’t seem to have heard her. “When you do things in your life, you never think…” She looked up, and her eyes were full of despair. “I picked Charlie to marry, but they didn’t have any say in it. Harry and Angel, they had to live with what I gave them.”

“You gave them a good life,” Sarah reminded her.

Minnie’s face twisted in pain. “That’s what I thought. They never was hungry or cold, not once in their lives. Not like I was, coming up, I can tell you. I could’ve married a white man, but not one who could take care of me and mine like Charlie did.”

Sarah thought she was probably right about that. Most women like Minnie and Cora lived like the O’Neals, if they were
lucky
. The less fortunate fared far worse.

“I never cared what people said behind my back,” Minnie was saying, her voice rising as she made her case. “Or to my face even. Why should I? It was all my own doing. So I never cared, but Angel—”

Her voice broke, and Sarah instinctively reached over and clasped her hand in silent comfort.

Minnie turned her hand and squeezed Sarah’s tightly, almost desperately. “Angel never seemed to care, either,” she said in a terrible whisper. “She never did, but if she’d been white, would she still be alive?”

F
RANK LEFT THE
O’N
EAL BOYS TO COOL THEIR HEELS
and went to visit the coroner. Doc Haynes was in his office. His desk was piled high with papers both modern and ancient, some probably concerning bodies that had long since turned to dust. The smell of death hung in the air, permeating everything in the building. Frank steeled himself against it and cleared the only other chair in the room and sat on it.

“You’ll be wondering about the Chinese girl, I guess,” Doc said.

“I would,” Frank agreed. “What can you tell me?”

Doc shifted a few sheets of paper and found the one he was looking for. “I didn’t cut her open yet, but I don’t expect I’II find anything much I don’t already know. She was manually strangled. Didn’t put up much of a fight, nothing under her fingernails, so it was quick and a surprise. Didn’t have any other marks on her that I could see. If whoever did it hit her right before she died, she wouldn’t have had time to bruise, but I’ll find it when I do the
postmortem.
”

“Was she raped?”

Doc frowned. “Kind of hard to tell.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you said she’d been married just a couple weeks.”

“That’s right.”

“She had some irritation down there, but that’s pretty much the case with new brides. Young couples can’t get enough of it and all that.”

Frank nodded, remembering. The memories were bittersweet, as always when he thought of his lost Kathleen. “So do you think she was or not?”

“I’d say not. No semen was present. Her clothes were all intact, too.”

“The family carried her inside after they found her,” Frank reminded him. “Maybe they cleaned her up.”