Murder In Chinatown (15 page)

“That’s possible. You can ask them, of course, but I’m thinking she wasn’t assaulted. Whoever did this probably just put his hands around her throat in a fit of passion and broke the hyoid bone before he had a chance to think better of what he was doing. She was surprised and only had a few seconds to resist before she was unconscious.”

“The hyoid,” Frank mused. “That’s the bone in the throat?”

“Yeah,” Doc said, pointing to a spot on his own neck. “If it’s broken, we know it was strangulation. Like I said, I haven’t cut her open, but you can see the marks on her throat right where it should be, so I’m pretty sure that’s what I’ll find.”

“Would the killer have to be strong to break it?”

“If you’re asking if a woman could do it, the answer is yes. Most women who do housework would have the strength.”

This wasn’t good news. With no sexual assault, almost anyone could have killed Angel. “Can you give me an idea of how long she’d been dead?”

“I’d say not more than an hour or two before they found her. Maybe less. Rigor mortis hadn’t started yet, and she couldn’t have laid there long without somebody seeing her.”

Frank sighed. Not much to go on. “Anything else?”

Doc shook his head. “Pretty little thing. Hardly more than a child. How old was she again?”

“Fifteen, according to her mother.”

“What was she doing married?” he asked in disgust.

“Young love,” Frank said sarcastically. “She eloped.”

Doc shook his head. “Didn’t have much of a happily-ever-after did she?”

“
D
ON’T DO THIS TO YOURSELF
,” S
ARAH TOLD
M
INNIE
gently. “You aren’t thinking clearly. If you hadn’t married Charlie, you never would have had Angel,” she pointed out. “None of this is your fault.”

Minnie wanted to believe her, but her guilt just wouldn’t let her. “I should’ve known she was seeing that boy.”

“How could you? Angel was doing her very best to keep it a secret,” Sarah reminded her. “And her friends were helping her.”

“I could’ve talked to Charlie, though,” she said, staring past Sarah as if she were arguing with someone unseen.

“Why didn’t you?”

Minnie straightened abruptly. “What?”

“You said you could have spoken to your husband. Did you mean about Angel marrying Mr. Wong?”

The color rose in Minnie’s face. “No, I didn’t mean that,” she said too quickly. “I’d never…I couldn’t…Angel was his child.”

Sarah wasn’t sure what she meant by that, and before she could reply, Minnie rose.

“I have to go. I…I didn’t mean to stay so long. You must be busy.”

“You didn’t even have any tea,” Sarah protested. “At least have a cup before you leave.”

“I have to go,” Minnie insisted, hurrying out of the kitchen without waiting to see if Sarah would follow.

Sarah caught up with her in the front hall. She was putting on her hat. “I’m glad you stopped by,” Sarah said. “I hope I was able to help a little.”

“You did,” Minnie said without meeting her eye. “I’m sorry I…I mean, thank you for…for your time,” she added lamely.

Sarah had only managed to say, “You’re welcome,” before Minnie was out the front door. Sarah watched her rushing down the street as if she was afraid Sarah was going to chase her and stop her.

What had made her leave so suddenly? Sarah tried to remember what they’d been talking about when Minnie had bolted, but nothing struck her as particularly disturbing. Perhaps Minnie had simply remembered something she needed to do immediately. That was a logical explanation, but Sarah wasn’t convinced. Part of her wanted desperately to find out, to investigate and see if Minnie’s distress had anything to do with Angel’s death. Then she would put whatever she learned together with what she already knew and decide if any of it would help identify whoever had killed Angel.

She wasn’t going to do that, though. She was going to stay right where she was and forget all about Angel Lee’s murder. She was going to be a mother to her child and let Frank Malloy do his job without her help. He’d done it for many years before he met her, and he didn’t need her help now.

But even as she closed the front door, she was thinking of other ways that she could help. Ways that wouldn’t put her in danger. She could think of at least one.

F
RANK STOOD IN THE BACK ALLEY BEHIND THE
O’N
EALS’
tenement and stared down at the spot where Angel’s body had been found. All he saw was a bare patch of ground just like all the rest of the ground around it. Nothing to indicate a young girl has lost her life there, and certainly nothing to tell him who had killed her.

From what Doc Haynes had told him, this was around the time she’d died yesterday. Except for an occasional visitor to the privies, the yard was remarkably quiet this time of day. The weather wasn’t warm enough yet to encourage people to gather on the porches or fire escapes. Whatever chores the women did—laundry, emptying chamber pots—had been accomplished much earlier. Those residents lucky enough to have jobs were gone, and the rest would be doing piecework indoors, like the O’Neal women, or warming a barstool, like the O’Neal men.

As hard as it was to believe, Angel’s death might really have passed unobserved. Frank had to make sure, though. Witnesses in neighborhoods like this one seldom volunteered information to the police. Their lives were hard enough without getting involved in a murder. They might also have good reason to want to avoid interaction with the police. With a weary sigh, Frank climbed up the back porch steps and entered the nearest building in search of an eyewitness who’d actually tell him something useful.

The sun had set by the time Frank made it to the top floor of the second tenement that overlooked the murder scene. Most of his knocks had gone unanswered. Either the flats were empty or the tenants were hiding. They’d all know who he was. They’d have seen him yesterday or else they simply recognized him as a policeman by his bearing. Even though he dressed in a dark suit, like half the men in the city, people always knew who he was. He’d long ago given up trying to figure out what gave him away. Usually, it worked to his advantage anyway.

Those who did answer the door to him claimed to have seen and heard nothing. He’d worked his way up to the fifth floor and down the hallway, knocking only on the doors of flats that faced the yard below, where Angel had died. To his surprise, one of the last doors opened before he’d even knocked on it. An elderly woman stood there, glaring at him. Her body seemed to have shrunk inside her clothing, and stray wisps of white hair stood up in tufts over her pink scalp. Her wrinkled face was almost completely devoid of color, as if she’d already died but was just too stubborn to admit it and lie down.

“About time you got here,” she informed him.

Frank blinked in surprise. “I’m Detective Sergeant Malloy,” he said, thinking maybe she’d confused him with someone else.

“I don’t care what your name is,” she snapped. “Come in. I got something to tell you.”

Frank did as he was told. The flat was like a thousand others. Furnished with castoffs and wooden crates, the place was neat more from a lack of belongings than any attempt at orderliness.

“You want to know who killed that girl, don’t you?” she asked. Without waiting for a reply, she turned and hobbled over to a window that overlooked the yard below. “I seen it all from here.” She pointed a gnarled finger at the dirty glass before plopping down into an ancient rocking chair that was positioned so she could peer out without even turning her head.

“This is where I sit,” she said, leaning forward until her nose almost touched the glass of the window. “I seen her down there.”

Frank felt the first spark of hope he’d experienced since finding out Angel was dead. He leaned forward, too, and determined that the window provided an excellent view of the scene of the girl’s murder. Still, they were five stories up. He looked at the old woman again. She was watching him with her rheumy eyes. How much could she really have seen?

“You think I’m blind, don’t you?” she said. “Well, I ain’t. Can’t see to sew no more or do nothing close, but far away, everything’s clear as day.”

“Tell me where the girl’s body was, then,” Frank challenged her.

She made a rude noise. “Right there,” she said, pointing, although she might have been pointing at anything. “Beside the porch, on this side, where the alley comes out.”

That much was true. Somebody could’ve told her that, of course. “Did you see who killed her?”

“I seen her with somebody, and then I saw she was laying there and not moving. Didn’t see her actually get killed. Had to use the chamber pot, you know.”

Frank didn’t know, of course. “Tell me exactly what you did see, then.”

“They said the girl was Chinese. That true?” she asked instead.

“Half-Chinese,” Frank corrected her. “Her mother is Irish.”

The old woman pulled a face. “Ain’t right, mixing races like that. What’s this world coming to?”

Frank imagined his mother would have the same opinion. “Couldn’t you tell she was Chinese?” he asked to test her.

She gave him another glare. “Not from up here. Can’t see faces plain. Neither can you,” she added with a toothless grin.

That was true, of course. “How do you know you saw the dead girl then?”

“Because the girl I saw was the one laying down there dead, is why. I could tell by her clothes. Her hair, too. Pitch black it was. Guess that’s from the Chinese blood.”

“All right,” Frank said patiently. “Just tell me—”

“I seen her down there before,” she continued, ignoring him. “I could tell it was her from the way she walked and from her dark hair. Never saw her before a couple weeks ago. New here. They said she married one of the boys from across the way.”

“Who keeps you so well informed?”

“My family,” she said, then cackled at Frank’s surprise.

“You think I live up here all by myself? I got a son, and he’s got a boy and two girls. They all got jobs. At least, most of the time. The girls, they work in a factory, and the boy and my son are draymen. There’s always work for a man can drive a wagon.”

“So they deliver the news to you up here?”

“The girls do,” she said. “My son and the boy, they don’t know nothing that goes on. The girls tell me what’s what.”

“And they told you about the Chinese girl, I guess.”

“Lord, yes! Ain’t every day we get a Chinese moving into the neighborhood. The girls said her eyes was funny looking, slanted like the Chinese even though she’s half-white. That true?”

Frank tried not to sigh. “Just tell me what you saw yesterday.”

The old woman huffed, insulted, but she cooperated. “I seen her come out on the back porch. She was sitting out there for a while. I thought that was funny because it’s too cold for sitting out, but she’d do that. She’d sit out there for the longest time.”

“You’d seen her there before?”

“Almost every day.”

“At the same time?”

“No, different times. Sometimes she’d stay out a long time, and sometimes she’d go back inside pretty quick. Maybe it was too cold for her.”

“She ever talk to anybody?”

“Not that I saw. People must’ve thought she was strange, her being Chinese and all. Nobody ever talked to her. Walked by like she wasn’t there. Sometimes they’d hurry, you know? Like they was afraid she’d do something to them.”

“Did somebody talk to her yesterday?”

“Oh, yeah. I saw it real plain. This fellow, he comes down the alley.” She pointed again. “She don’t look up at first. I guess she must’ve heard him coming, but she don’t look around. Why should she? Nobody takes an interest in her, so why should she take an interest in them?”

“But she says something to him?”

“He must’ve said something first. She sort of jumps like she’s surprised, and then she comes down off the porch to meet him.” She looked out the window, staring down as if she were seeing it all over again.

She must have known him, Frank thought. That would help a lot. “How long did they talk?”

“I don’t know. Not long. They started off civil enough, I reckon, but then they started in to fighting.”

“They were hitting each other?” Frank asked in surprise.

“No,” she said, waving away the very idea with one bony hand. “Arguing, I should’ve said. Having words.”

“How do you know if you couldn’t hear what they were saying?”

“I could tell. They started moving their hands around, like people do when they’re mad.” She illustrated, curling her knobby fingers into fists and shaking them in an unconvincing imitation of anger.

Still, Frank felt his excitement rising. She might actually be telling the truth! “Then what happened?”

“This went on for a couple minutes, and then he puts his arms around her.”

This didn’t make sense. “You mean he
hugged
her?”

The old woman pursed her lips as she remembered. “I thought that’s what he was doing. He had his back to me, and when he does that, I can’t see her no more. He’s in the way now, with her in front of him. I
thought
he was hugging her.”

“Now you’re not so sure?”

The old woman looked up at him apologetically. “When they told me she was dead, I started having my doubts.”

Frank gritted his teeth. “What happened after he started hugging her?”

“I didn’t see.”

“What do you mean, you didn’t see?” Frank asked sharply.

She winced but didn’t back down. “I had to piss! The girls don’t like it when I don’t make it to the pot, so I had to leave. I thought they was making up!” she defended herself. “How was I to know he’d kill her?”

She couldn’t have, of course. Frank swallowed down his frustration. If he frightened her, he wouldn’t get any more information out of her. “What did you see when you got back to the window?”

“I saw her laying there on the ground. The boy was gone, and she was on the ground. I thought that was real odd at first, but I never thought she was dead. Not for a while, at least. I thought maybe she fainted or something. But when she didn’t move, not even a little bit, I started thinking maybe she was dead.”

“Why didn’t you do something?”

“Like what?” she asked in surprise.

“Like get some help. Tell somebody what you saw.”

She looked at him like he was crazy. “How was I supposed to do that? I ain’t been out of this flat in two years or more. Can’t walk down the stairs, and if I could, I’d never get up them again. Next time I’m outside will be when they take me away to the cemetery.”

Frank swallowed down hard again, holding his temper with difficulty. “Do you know what time it was when all this happened?”