Murder In Chinatown (20 page)

“No force,” Lee insisted. “She not happy. She come home soon.”

“And then what? You’d marry her off to Wong?”

Lee didn’t like having to defend his decision. “We make agreement,” he said stubbornly.

Frank pretended to consider this. “Let me get this straight. You made a deal to sell your daughter to Wong, who’s old enough to be her father, even though she told you she didn’t want to marry him.”

“I not sell Angel!” he protested indignantly.

“Don’t lie to me!” Frank snarled, leaning in to intimidate him. “How much did he pay you?”

“He pay bride-price!” Lee snarled right back.

Frank wasn’t sure he’d heard him correctly. “What?”

“A man pay father of girl for right to marry.”

“So you did sell her!”

“Not sell,” Lee insisted.
“Give.”

“So you were going to give your daughter to an old man.”

“Wong not old!”

“Too old for Angel!”

“No! He rich. He take care of her. She be safe!”

“Safe? Safe from what?”

“Safe from…” He seemed to be struggling to find the right words. “From
America
!”

“What are you talking about?” Frank demanded in confusion.

“She Chinese girl. White no like. Make trouble. All the time, trouble. Wong, he keep safe. No trouble.” Tears welled in Lee’s eyes. “My Angel, I want keep her safe. All her life, safe. Wong, he do that.”

Frank stared at him dumbfounded. “Are you saying you wanted Angel to marry Wong because he could protect her from…from people who hate the Chinese?”

“He give her house, food, clothes. He take care. Not like American boy. She starve with American boy!”

Frank thought he was probably right about that. But no matter why Lee had wanted her to marry his friend, he would still be angry when she defied him. Wong had said Lee might be angry enough to kill Angel. “You must’ve been pretty mad when she wouldn’t go home with you,” he tried.

“She foolish girl. She not want to say she make mistake. But she come home soon. I know this.”

“And so you promised Wong that she would still marry him.”

“Yes.”

“And then you went to see Angel, and she refused to come home.”

“No, not see her. I wait. She not happy. She be more unhappy tomorrow. I wait.”

“When was the last time you saw Angel?”

“Five day, six day, maybe.”

“Where were you the afternoon Angel died?”

“You think I kill Angel?” he asked angrily.

“I just asked where you were when she died,” Frank said.

Lee’s glare was murderous. “Here. I work here.”

“And all your workers saw you, I guess.” And they’d swear to it whether they had or not.

“I here. They see me,” he insisted. “I not kill Angel.”

Lee, he noticed, wore his queue wrapped around his head. When he had a hat on, as he would when he was outside and wearing his American suit of clothes, he could pass almost unnoticed on the street, unless someone looked directly into his face.
That’s
what had been bothering Frank.

“Do you ever wear Chinese clothes?” Frank asked abruptly.

Lee’s expression hardened. “No.”

“Why not?”

He hesitated, as if revealing this secret to Frank caused him actual pain. “American no respect Chinese.”

Of course. That made perfect sense. It also meant that John Wong was the only suspect left who could have killed Angel.

W
HILE
S
ARAH AND THE GIRLS WERE ENJOYING THE STEW
that Mrs. Ellsworth had shared with them this evening, Sarah couldn’t stop her mind from wandering back to the conversation she’d had with Malloy earlier. Something was wrong with their reasoning, but she couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Is something bothering you, Mrs. Brandt?” Maeve asked a little later, when she was helping Sarah clear the table.

“Catherine, why don’t you go upstairs and play while Maeve and I do the dishes?” Sarah said, not wanting the child to hear any more about Angel Lee’s murder. When she was gone, Sarah said, “I can’t stop thinking about what Mr. Malloy told me this afternoon.”

“You still don’t think that Mr. Wong killed Angel, do you?”

Sarah smiled at her perception. “No, and I don’t want to think it was her father, either.”

“I didn’t know you thought her father might’ve done it,” Maeve said, slipping the last plate into the soapy water.

“I don’t, or at least I hope he didn’t, but he’s one of the few Chinese men who could have had a reason.” Sarah took a towel from the rack and began to dry the dishes as Maeve finished washing them.

“Is it certain that a Chinese man killed her?”

“Mr. Malloy found a witness who saw a Chinese man with Angel in the yard right before she died, so yes, that part is fairly certain.”

“Did the witness see the man’s face?”

“No, she was in one of the tenements, on the fifth floor, looking out the window.”

“Can’t see much from up there, can you?”

“She could see the man was wearing the kind of clothes a Chinese man wears, and that he had a pigtail.”

“Then it could’ve been just about any Chinese man.”

“No, it was someone Angel knew. When she saw the person, she went out into the yard to meet him. She wouldn’t have done that if she didn’t know the person well.”

“Even still, she must’ve known other Chinese men besides Mr. Wong.”

“None who would have gone to see her there, apparently. Except her father and brother, of course.”

“Her brother was the one who came here to get you the day she died, wasn’t he?”

“That’s right.”

“Why doesn’t Mr. Malloy think her brother could’ve done it? My brothers used to whale on me something awful. Maybe he was just whaling on her and didn’t really mean to kill her.”

Sarah almost dropped the plate she’d been drying. This was the first time Maeve had ever mentioned her family or the life she’d had before she’d come to the Mission. Sarah’s heart twisted in her chest at this hint of how awful that life had been, but she dared not reveal the slightest reaction. She didn’t want Maeve to think she’d shocked her, or she’d never reveal another thing.

“No,” Sarah said evenly. “Her brother couldn’t have done it. The man who killed her had one of those pigtails the Chinese men wear, but her brother doesn’t have one.”

“He doesn’t?” she asked in surprise.

“No, his hair is cut short.”

“That’s funny. I thought…”

“What did you think?” Sarah asked when she hesitated, realizing Maeve had had the same reaction as she over whether Harry Lee had a pigtail or not.

“I guess I thought he did.”

“I did, too, but then Mr. Malloy reminded me that we’d spent a lot of time with Harry the evening Angel died, when he took the overdose of opium. His hair was definitely short.”

“You’d know, then. Maybe I thought he had one because he was wearing those clothes and all. Whenever you see a Chinese man, seems like he’s got a pigtail hanging down his back.”

“That must have been it,” Sarah agreed.

Maeve handed her the last glass to dry just as someone knocked on the back door. Sarah opened it to see Mrs. Ellsworth standing on the back stoop, holding something with a towel draped over it.

“I baked some pies today, and I thought you might want one,” she said cheerfully, coming in without waiting for an invitation.

She stopped when she was only a few steps into the room, however, and looked closely at Sarah and Maeve. “Such serious faces! What on earth were you two talking about?” she exclaimed.

“We were talking about who might have killed that poor Chinese girl,” Sarah said.

“And about whether her brother has a pigtail or not,” Maeve added sheepishly. It did sound a little silly when one tried to explain.

“A pigtail?” Mrs. Ellsworth echoed doubtfully.

“Yes, the long, single pigtails that Chinese men have,” Sarah said.

“Oh, yes, I know what you’re talking about,” Mrs. Ellsworth said brightly. “Like that boy had, the one who came for you the other day.”

F
RANK WAS SITTING ON THE SOFA, HOLDING HIS SON
Brian in his lap while the boy showed him the signs he’d learned that day, and Frank’s mother translated. “Pretty soon he’s going to know more words than I do,” Frank remarked to her.

“Won’t take much,” she replied tartly.

Before he could think of a suitable response, someone knocked on their door.

“Who could that be at this hour?” his mother grumbled, getting up to answer.

Brian hadn’t heard the knock, of course, but he stopped his signing to watch her expectantly. When he saw she was going to the door, his little body tensed with anticipation, and his blue eyes sparkled. A visitor was always exciting, and when he saw who it was, he scrambled down from Frank’s lap and ran to the door, babbling incoherent sounds of delight. His grandmother wasn’t nearly so happy.

“Good evening, Mrs. Malloy,” Sarah Brandt said. “How are you?”

“I’m alive,” Mrs. Malloy said sourly. “How are you, Miss Catherine?” she asked the child accompanying Sarah with much more enthusiasm.

Frank got to his feet as Brian fairly dragged Catherine into the room. Sarah came more slowly, having to sidle around Mrs. Malloy, who hadn’t moved quite enough to allow her easy entrance.

“Good evening, Mr. Malloy,” Sarah said with an impish gleam in her eye.

“Nice to see you, Mrs. Brandt,” he said. “What brings you out?” He knew it had something to do with Angel Lee’s murder. Nothing less would have brought her here where she knew she wasn’t welcome.

“I needed to discuss something with you,” she said with a strained smile.

Frank looked at the children. Brian had taken Catherine over to the corner where he kept his toys, and they were already engrossed in examining his wooden train.

“Ma, would you keep an eye on them while I get Mrs. Brandt a cup of coffee?”

“Thank you,” Sarah said, directing it to his mother, who ignored her.

She knew the way to the kitchen, and Frank followed her. “I really don’t need anything,” she said, taking a seat at the table before he could pull out a chair for her. “Have you arrested anyone for Angel’s murder yet?”

“No,” he said, sitting down opposite her at the table. “What’s wrong?”

“Maeve asked me about the case tonight while we were doing the dishes. I was telling her how the witness said the killer had a pigtail, and Maeve thought that Harry Lee had one. Remember I thought he had one, too? Maeve thought she’d seen one the day he came to tell me Angel had been murdered.”

“But he doesn’t have one,” Frank reminded her.

“I know! I remembered seeing him the day Cora Lee’s baby was born, and I didn’t think he had one then. And the day Angel died, when his father brought him home from the opium den, he also didn’t have one. But earlier that day, when he came to get me, he did have one, Malloy. I thought I remembered seeing it, and so did Maeve, but Mrs. Ellsworth is positive she saw it!”

“Mrs. Ellsworth? Was she there when he came?”

“No, but you know that nothing happens on Bank Street that she doesn’t know about. She
just happened
to be looking out her window when I came out of the house with Harry.”

Frank couldn’t help his grin. Mrs. Ellsworth was famous for
just happening
to notice things. They knew better than to complain, though. Her nosiness had once saved Sarah’s life. “And she got a good look at Harry?”

“Just his back, she said, but she distinctly remembers that he had a pigtail.”

“That’s impossible,” Frank said as kindly as he could.

“I know, but I saw it, too! When she was so certain, I finally remembered that I’d noticed it when we were walking up the stairs to the train station that day. He was in front of me, and people were staring at him. I guess I didn’t think about it being out of the ordinary because I was so upset about Angel.”

Frank frowned. He’d never known her to be fanciful. “But he didn’t have it later that day, when his father brought him home,” he reminded her.

“I know, and he didn’t have it when I met him at Cora’s, either. When I saw him that first time, I thought how he didn’t look at all Chinese except for his clothes. I’m sure his hair was short then.”

Frank ran a hand over his face. “All right. We agree he didn’t have it before Angel was killed, and he didn’t have it the evening after she was killed,” he said patiently. “How could he have one earlier that day?”

“I can’t be positive, of course, but I think we may have figured it out. That was the only time I saw him wearing a hat.”

“A hat? I thought we were talking about a pigtail.”

“He was wearing one of those round hats the Chinese men wear. It looks like a dome.”

“I know the kind you mean,” he said.