Murder In Chinatown (19 page)

Wong didn’t need to answer. Only a fool would have turned her away, and Wong was no fool.

“What did you and Charlie Lee talk about the other day?” Frank asked.

Wong stiffened slightly in silent resistance. “Business.”

“His business or yours?”

“Business,” he repeated stubbornly. He thought it was none of Frank’s concern what they had discussed. Maybe it wasn’t, but Frank would find out eventually anyway.

“Do you have any idea who might have wanted to kill Angel Lee?” Frank tried.

Wong gave the question a few moments’ thought. “She not obey father. She is punished.”

“You think her father killed her?” Frank asked, surprised that Wong would make the accusation.

“I do not know,” Wong said. “But I did not.”

Frank wasn’t sure about that, but he decided to take his leave for now. He started down the stairs, and Wong followed. Either he was playing the good host and seeing him out, or he just wanted to make sure Frank left.

When they reached the front door, Ah Woh was there to open it. Frank gave him one of his fiercest glares. “Where was your uncle two days ago?”

The fellow’s eyes widened with terror, and the color drained from his face, but he looked to Wong for guidance.

“Tell him,” Wong said.

“Here,” the boy fairly squeaked, pointing upstairs. “He sleep, all afternoon.”

No surprise there. Frank started out the door, then stopped and turned back to Wong. “You really going to marry her?”

Wong stared back, revealing nothing.

S
ARAH WAS PLAYING WITH
C
ATHERINE UPSTAIRS WHEN
she heard someone ringing her front doorbell. Catherine’s disappointment mirrored her own. She’d just gotten back from her last delivery a short while ago. Maeve went down to answer the door, and Sarah waited with Catherine for the inevitable summons.

“Mrs. Brandt,” Maeve called up after a few minutes, “Mr. Malloy is here!”

Catherine’s face lit with happiness, and she was halfway down the stairs before Sarah even got to her feet. By the time she reached the front hallway, Malloy was holding the child in his arms and asking her questions. She responded by nodding or shaking her head, but Malloy didn’t mind that she wasn’t speaking.

“Malloy,” Sarah said in greeting. She didn’t bother to hide her delight at seeing him. Why his presence always brought her so much pleasure, she didn’t bother to question. He was, simply, the most interesting person she knew, and the one who made her feel most alive. For a long time, she’d tried to pretend that was because he had involved her in his investigations, but she now knew that wasn’t the real reason. The real reason was because when she was with him, she felt like a woman.

“Mrs. Brandt,” he replied, looking just as pleased to see her as she was to see him.

“Mr. Malloy, we’ve got some chocolate cake,” Maeve said. “Would you like some?”

He pretended to consider. “Did you make it or did Mrs. Ellsworth?”

Maeve grinned slyly. “We did, but she helped us, so it’s very good.”

“All right then,” he said, making the girls laugh with delight. “I’d love to taste it.”

The girls escorted him back to the kitchen with Sarah following along behind, watching fondly as he teased them and made them giggle. Children could never be fooled by a person’s character, and the fact that the girls adored Malloy told her everything she would ever need to know about him.

Half an hour later, when Malloy had sampled the cake and declared it delicious, he asked Maeve to take Catherine back upstairs so he and Mrs. Brandt could talk for a bit.

When they were alone, Sarah refilled their coffee cups and took a seat opposite him. “Do you have news for me?”

“I haven’t found Angel’s killer yet, if that’s what you mean, but I figured I better give you a report pretty soon or I’d find you waiting for me down at Headquarters some morning, demanding an explanation.”

Sarah smiled. The last place Sarah would choose to track down Malloy would be Police Headquarters. She’d once been locked in an interrogation room for several hours for trying that. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” she confessed. “It’s been very difficult not being involved.”

“I figured it was,” he said, and she saw the sympathy in his dark eyes.

“Don’t keep me in suspense any longer,” she said. “What have you found out?”

“I found out Angel wasn’t very happy with her new life,” he began.

“That’s what her mother said, but she still couldn’t convince Angel to leave Quinn and come back home.”

“Why do you think she wouldn’t go?” he asked.

Sarah shook her head. “Pride, probably. No girl wants to admit she made a terrible mistake and go crawling back to her parents.”

“Could she have been afraid of going back? Maybe that they’d punish her?”

“I don’t know what Angel thought, of course, but I think her parents would have been so happy to get her home that they wouldn’t have dreamed of punishing her.”

“What about the arranged marriage? Would they still have forced her to marry Wong?”

“She was already married,” Sarah reminded him. “They would’ve had to get an annulment or something.”

“Unless the Chinese don’t care about that. Maybe they’d just give her to Wong and marry them in some Chinese ceremony.”

“I can’t imagine Minnie Lee would allow that, since Angel was married in the church.”

“Maybe she didn’t have any say. Charlie Lee went to see John Wong two days before Angel died.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“But you think it had something to do with Angel’s death,” she guessed.

He shrugged. “I found a witness who saw Angel with a Chinese man right before she died.”

“Oh my! Did this witness see Angel get killed?”

“No, but I’m pretty sure the man she saw was the murderer.”

“Oh, dear,” Sarah said in dismay.

“What?”

“It’s just…I went to see an old friend of mine the other day. She runs a Chinese Sunday school and also gives English classes to the Chinese.”

“I thought you weren’t going to get involved in this case,” he reminded her with a disapproving frown.

“I haven’t!” she claimed, then added, “At least not very much,” when he raised his eyebrows skeptically. “I was curious, though. I thought if I learned more about the Chinese people, I might be able to help a little.”

He didn’t seem impressed by her reasoning. “What did your friend tell you?”

“She has great respect for the Chinese,” Sarah reported. “And she doesn’t believe a Chinese man would have killed Angel.”

“I suppose she has a really good reason for thinking that,” he said in disgust.

“She thinks they’re too…gentle.”

Malloy sighed. “Even gentle people commit murder, and I haven’t noticed the Chinese being particularly
gentle
.”

“I’m just telling you what she said,” Sarah reminded him.

“And I’m just telling you what the witness said. She saw a Chinese man.”

“Did he see the man’s face?”

“The witness is a she, and no, she didn’t. She only saw the clothes.”

“Do you think it was John Wong?”

“I did until I went to see him.”

“Did he have an alibi?”

“He has a mistress.”

“A mistress?” Sarah echoed in surprise.

“Yes, and you’ll never guess who she is—Keely O’Neal, Quinn’s sister.”

Sarah needed a minute to take that in. “His sister is Wong’s mistress? How on earth did that happen?”

“From what Wong told me, Keely showed up on his doorstep four days ago and offered herself to him.”

“But how would she even know…? Oh! I guess Angel must have told her about Wong, that her parents had wanted her to marry him.”

“According to Wong, Keely claimed that Angel had recommended him as a possible husband.”

“That sounds very strange.”

“I thought so, too. Even Wong didn’t believe it. But Keely and Angel are the same age, and Quinn said they spent a lot of time together, off by themselves, talking. They probably did talk about Wong, but what could Angel have said to make Keely run off to find him?”

Sarah considered, trying to put herself in the girls’ places and imagining what might have happened. “Angel hated Wong,” Sarah recalled, remembering the day Angel had burst into Cora Lee’s flat to beg her to save her from the unwanted marriage. “She wouldn’t have sent Keely to him, so she must have
inadvertently
convinced Keely she’d do well with him.”

“How could she do that?”

“Let’s see, what would a girl like Keely want in a husband?” Sarah mused, and then she realized she didn’t have to imagine at all. “Let’s ask Maeve.”

Sarah summoned Maeve and quickly explained the situation to her. “What could Angel have said about Mr. Wong that would make Keely want to marry him?”

“That girl Angel, her family was rich,” Maeve said after some thought. “She had pretty clothes and a nice place to live. She was never cold or hungry, and she didn’t have to work. She never had to be afraid of anything.”

Sarah understood instantly. “Keely would think that sounded like heaven.”

“Sure she would,” Maeve confirmed. “And that Mr. Wong, he’s even richer than Angel’s father. Keely probably thought that if Angel didn’t want him, she’d take him so she could have a life like Angel did.”

“So she finds Mr. Wong and presents herself,” Sarah said in amazement. “Is she smart enough to have figured out a plan like that?” she asked Malloy.

“Oh, yes,” Malloy confirmed. “Keely O’Neal could probably run Tammany Hall,” he added, naming the Democratic Party Headquarters where crooked politicians controlled much of what happened in the city.

“Do you think this Keely killed Angel?” Maeve asked.

“No, a witness saw a Chinese man kill her,” Sarah said. “Mr. Malloy thought it might have been Mr. Wong.”

Maeve frowned. “Why would he kill her if he had this Keely to take her place?”

“He might have been mad at her for running away,” Sarah explained. “Angel insulted him by eloping with the Irish boy so she wouldn’t have to marry him.”

“Maybe,” Maeve said, “but killing somebody…Seems like he’d need a better reason.”

“You’d be surprised at the reasons people kill other people,” Malloy told her grimly. “Thanks, Maeve. You’ve been a big help.”

When Maeve was gone, Sarah said, “What other Chinese men could have done it?”

“The only ones that were close to her and might have had a reason are her father and brother.”

“I hate to think one of them did it,” Sarah said. “Besides, her brother hardly even looks Chinese.”

“The witness was looking out a fifth-floor window,” Malloy said. “Remember, all she could see for sure were the clothes.”

“Well, Harry does dress like a Chinese sometimes.”

“Most of the time, according to him,” Malloy said. “Lucky for him, he doesn’t have a pigtail.”

“Did the witness see a pigtail?”

“Yes.”

Sarah tried to picture Harry Wong dressed in his Chinese clothes. “Are you sure Harry doesn’t have a pigtail?”

“Yes. Remember, he didn’t have one that day when he was drugged and we were walking him around? That was only hours after Angel died. He told me this morning that his mother made him cut it a couple years ago.”

That didn’t sound right. Sarah would have sworn…

“He dresses like a white man when he wants to pass unnoticed,” Malloy was saying. “He couldn’t do that if his hair was long.”

“I guess you’re right,” Sarah said. When he had come to her house to tell her his sister was dead, he’d been wearing Chinese clothes. She must have just assumed he had a pigtail, too. “So if it wasn’t Harry…”

“That leaves Charlie Lee and John Wong,” Malloy said.

“Maybe it was a stranger,” Sarah argued.

“According to the witness, when Angel saw the man, she got up off the porch and went out into the yard to meet him. She knew him and wasn’t afraid of him.”

“Maybe she had a Chinese boyfriend we don’t know about.”

“Then nobody else knew about him, either. Harry swears none of the Chinese boys would have bothered with her, and Wong confirmed that. They knew she was out of their reach.”

“But would she have gone out into the yard to meet John Wong like that? She didn’t like him and would probably have been afraid of him.”

Malloy sighed wearily. “You’re probably right, but that only leaves her father, and I hope to God it wasn’t him.”

F
RANK DECIDED TO CONFRONT
C
HARLIE
L
EE AT HIS
business instead of at home. He didn’t want to upset Mrs. Lee any more than he had to. If Charlie had an alibi, then she wouldn’t ever have to know he’d been a suspect.

Lee owned several laundries, but Frank easily found the one where he had his office. The large building fairly hummed with activity, as a small army of men worked diligently sorting, scrubbing, rinsing, ironing, and folding. The place carried the familiar smells of laundry day in the tenement yard, multiplied a thousand times.

After a brief wait, one of the men escorted Frank into Charlie Lee’s inner office at the rear of the building. The room was as Spartan as his home was luxurious. Lee didn’t believe in wasting any money here, apparently. A cheap desk and chair, a filing cabinet, and a straight-backed chair for visitors were the only furnishings. No pictures on the walls, no carpet on the floor.

Lee didn’t bother with a greeting and didn’t offer to shake hands. “Do you know who kill my daughter?”

“Not yet,” Frank said. “I need to ask you a few questions.” He took the empty visitor’s chair without being invited.

This clearly annoyed Lee, but he knew better than to antagonize a policeman. “I tell you, I know nothing.”

“What did you talk to John Wong about the day before Angel was killed?”

He stared back at Frank in surprise. “How you know this?”

“He told me. What did you talk about?”

“Did he not tell you?”

“I want to hear your version.”

Lee was as angry about revealing the topic of this discussion as Wong had been. “I tell him Angel be home soon,” he said as if the words were being pulled from him.

“I thought she’d refused to go home with you.”

“She would come,” Lee said confidently, although Frank thought he wasn’t as confident as he pretended.

“You mean, you’d force her to leave her husband and come home with you.”