Murder In Chinatown (5 page)

George needed no further encouragement. He went directly to the cradle.

“Can I go now?” Harry asked with a hint of desperation.

“Yes, go,” his mother said in resignation. He hurried past Sarah and slammed out of the flat.

“I should go, too,” Sarah said, not wanting to intrude any longer. She hadn’t helped at all and had only managed to cause everyone more pain. “I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

“You were just trying to help,” Cora repeated.

But she hadn’t. She left the bedroom, and Minnie followed to see her out.

“I’m so sorry,” Sarah said when they reached the front door. “I was hoping I could help you find Angel.”

“I know. I wish you were right about the man,” she admitted. “If she was with somebody who loves her…”

Sarah reached out and touched her arm when her voice broke. “I have a friend who’s a detective sergeant with the police,” she said. “Maybe he could—”

“No police,” Minnie said firmly. “Charlie would never have it. Besides, what could they do that we didn’t?”

Sarah didn’t know. That wouldn’t stop her from at least asking Frank Malloy, however.

F
RANK DIDN’T KNOW WHETHER TO BE PLEASED OR ANNOYED
that Sarah had summoned him. She wouldn’t send for him unless it was something important. Her note, delivered to his house, had said she needed his advice to help one of her clients. He couldn’t imagine what kind of advice she’d need from him, but since he hadn’t heard about any murders today, he wasn’t worried. At least not much. In the past, he’d too often drawn her into a murder investigation. But not today.

At Sarah’s house, Maeve opened the door and greeted him with a big smile.

“Mr. Malloy, come right in. Catherine’s been waiting for you all day.”

“Cath—?” he started to ask but caught himself. He’d almost forgotten that the little girl he’d first known as Aggie had revealed her real name. “Where is she?” he asked instead as he stepped into the house.

“She’s pretending to be shy,” Maeve said with a wink.

Frank pulled off his hat and looked around. “Catherine? Where are you?” he called.

A giggle drew his attention to the stairway, where the little girl peered out from behind the door.

“There you are,” he said, and she laughed in delight. “Aren’t you going to come see me?”

She darted out of the stairwell and straight into his arms. “You’re getting big,” he marveled, picking her up. “I can hardly lift you anymore.”

This pleased her, and she giggled again. She didn’t speak, though. Something had frightened her into silence before she’d turned up on the Mission’s doorstep several months ago, and she still didn’t trust the world enough to end that silence.

“Malloy,” a familiar voice said. Sarah was coming from the kitchen, smiling the way she always did when she saw him, as if she had been waiting forever for the pleasure. He knew that wasn’t true, but his heart lifted just the same. “Thank you for coming.”

“How could I refuse?” he asked slyly. “I don’t think you ever asked for my advice before.”

“That hasn’t stopped you from giving it often enough,” she replied just as slyly. “Come on into the kitchen. Mrs. Ellsworth taught the girls to make a Sally Lund cake this morning. We’ve been waiting for you to cut it.”

The cake was delicious, and the coffee hot. When they were finished and the dishes cleared away, Sarah sent the girls upstairs to play.

“I really appreciate your coming on such short notice,” she said, refilling his coffee cup.

“Your note said it was important,” he reminded her, wondering if she knew he would have come whether it was or not. “It’s not a murder, is it?”

“Oh, no,” she assured him with a small smile. “I’m trying very hard to avoid getting involved in any more murder investigations.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” He didn’t return her smile. He really didn’t want her put in danger ever again. “So, what is it?”

“A girl is missing. She’s related to a woman whose baby I delivered two days ago.”

“What do you mean, missing?”

“She came home from school, as usual. She’s fifteen, almost sixteen. Her brother saw her go into her room. Her mother was with me downstairs, delivering the baby. After the baby was born, she sent the brother out to find the new father and tell him. While he was gone, the girl disappeared. This was the day before yesterday.”

“Could she have gone to visit a friend?”

“That’s the first thing they did, check with all her friends. She wasn’t with any of them, though, and she’d taken all her clothes, too. Someone saw her going down the street, carrying a bundle. They assumed it was laundry and didn’t think anything of it.”

“Sounds like her family wants to find her.” They both knew that not all families would. Lots of girls went missing in New York City, and their families were often relieved to have one less mouth to feed.

“They’re frantic. They had all the neighbors helping them look for her. They searched most of the night and the next day, but of course they couldn’t find any trace of her.”

“What’s this girl like? What kind of a family does she have?”

“Her family is respectable, and she’s completely innocent. They can’t imagine where she could’ve gone. Maeve thought…”

“What did Maeve think?” Frank prodded, intrigued.

“She thought Angel must have a lover.”

Frank straightened in surprise. “Maeve is pretty smart.”

“You agree?”

“If you said the girl—did you say her name is
Angel
?”

“Yes. It’s her mother’s maiden name.”

“If you told me she just didn’t come home from school one day or went to the store and nobody saw her again, then I’d think she was kidnapped. Happens a lot. Girl like that would bring a premium price in a brothel.”

He saw her flinch and hated having to remind her of the harsh realities of life in the city.

“Girls don’t pack their clothes if they’re being kidnapped into a brothel,” she reminded him.

“She might not have known that’s where she was going,” he reminded her.

“Of course she didn’t. She would’ve thought she was eloping. But if she did go off with a man, he might not have had romance on his mind. I’ve been hoping that wasn’t the case, but even if it was, we have a better chance of finding her if somebody did lure her away.”

“We?”
he echoed in disapproval. “Are you looking for her, too?”

Her cheeks grew pink, making her look like a girl for a second or two. “I’m not getting involved, Malloy,” she said defensively. “I’m just trying to help her family, if I can.”

Frank sighed. He knew her too well. She’d do whatever she could to find this girl, even if it meant barging into every brothel in the city looking for her. “If somebody bought her, you’ll never find her, Sarah. Nobody will.”

“I know,” she insisted. She probably did, but he didn’t think that would stop her from trying.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked in resignation.

“How can they find out who she ran off with? They’ve already asked all her friends. None of them know.”

He resisted the urge to sigh again. “I guess I could give it a try.”

“Oh, I’m not asking you to do that!” she said quickly. “They don’t want the police involved.”

“Why not?” he asked in surprise.

She gave him an apologetic smile. “It’s Chinatown.”

“
Chinatown?
You deliver babies in Chinatown?” he asked in amazement.

“I deliver babies wherever I can,” she said.

He shouldn’t have been surprised. “So the girl is Chinese?”

“Half-Chinese and half-Irish, on her mother’s side.” She seemed to take a perverse pleasure in informing him of that.

He should have guessed. He knew Chinese women weren’t allowed into the country. He also knew most of the wives in Chinatown were Irish. “So an innocent, half-Chinese girl packs up her clothes and runs away while her mother is too busy to notice. Sounds like she might’ve planned it.”

“I thought so, too. She was probably just waiting for the baby to come and everyone to be distracted. Oh, I almost forgot, she was also upset because her father was arranging a marriage for her, to a much older man.”

“Another Chinaman, I guess,” Frank said.

“Yes. He owns some restaurants, I think. He’s wealthy, but that didn’t mean anything to Angel. She thought he was old and ugly.”

“That changes things. She might’ve run off to get away from the ugly old husband,” Frank mused.

“I can’t imagine a girl like Angel taking a risk like that. She had no money, or at least not much. Where would she go? Where would she stay?”

“She might not have thought about that. Kids can be really stupid.”

She sighed in dismay. “Maybe, but I still don’t think she would’ve gone off alone. Someone had to help her, and if we find that someone, we’ll find Angel.”

Frank wasn’t so sure. The girl could be anywhere by now, and if someone had her, they’d take great pains to hide her.

He saw the anger flash in her eyes when he didn’t reply. “There must be something we can do,” she insisted.

“There’s something her
family
can do,” Frank said meaningfully.

“What?” she asked anxiously.

“A girl like that wouldn’t go off without telling somebody. You said she has friends. They wouldn’t be able to hide her, because that’s the first place her family would look, but they might keep her secret. If she ran off with somebody, she was in love, or thought she was. Girls tell their friends when they fall in love. Somebody knows. Maybe all of them do.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, why didn’t I think of that? Of course she would tell her friends if she had a boyfriend!”

“The girls would think this Angel is safe because she’s with her lover, so they’d never tell her family and ruin the romance.”

“So we have to convince them Angel might be in danger,” she said.

“Why do you keep saying
we
?” Frank asked in annoyance. “I thought you said you weren’t going to get involved.”

“I’m not!” she insisted. “But I
will
tell her family what you think. I’m sure they’ll be able to find out the truth from her friends. Thank you, Malloy.”

“I haven’t done anything,” he said, uncomfortable with her gratitude. “Thank me when you find the girl.”

He didn’t add what he was really thinking:
If
you find the girl.

M
INNIE OPENED THE DOOR TO
C
ORA’S FLAT
. S
HE LOOKED
as if she hadn’t slept since Sarah last saw her, but she managed a polite smile of greeting. “Mrs. Brandt, how nice to see you. Please, come in.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Angel,” Sarah said as she stepped inside.

A spasm of pain crossed Minnie’s weary face. “Not a word.”

“I’m so sorry. How are Cora and the baby doing?”

“Fine as can be,” Minnie said with forced cheer. “Come on in. She’ll be that glad to see you.”

Sarah greeted Cora, who was still in bed as Sarah had instructed. Sarah didn’t subscribe to the theory that women who had given birth should be treated like invalids, but she knew that restricting them to bed for a week or so would ensure they wouldn’t overdo and end up truly ill.

Cora had been burping the baby over her shoulder, and she took him down so Sarah could admire him. “He’s doing so well,” she marveled. “Sleeps all the time except when he’s hungry. Couldn’t ask for a better baby.”

Little Daniel gazed back at Sarah through his almond-shaped eyes with the intensity of the newly born. After a second, he smiled, as if enjoying being the center of attention, and the women laughed in delight.

When Sarah felt she had spent enough time admiring him, she turned to Minnie. “I think I told you that I have a friend who’s a detective sergeant with the police,” she began, hurrying on when she saw Minnie instinctively recoil from the thought of the police. “I know you don’t want them involved, but I asked him for some advice about what he’d do if he was trying to find a missing girl.”

Minnie was shaking her head. “Oh, Mrs. Brandt, you really shouldn’t concern yourself with—”

“Don’t be a fool, Minnie,” Cora scolded. “At least find out what he had to say!”

Sarah hurried on before Minnie could object again. “He said that young girls like Angel usually don’t just run off without telling someone about their plans. He said she probably confided in at least one of her friends.”

“But that’s the first thing we thought of,” Minnie protested. “The girls didn’t know anything.”

“They told you they weren’t hiding her,” Sarah corrected her. “But they might have lied when you asked if they knew where she was. If she eloped with a boyfriend, they wouldn’t betray her to her family, who wanted her to marry a man she didn’t love. They’d think it was all very romantic and that she’s safe someplace with someone who loves her.”

“Boyfriend,”
Cora scoffed. “That’s such a funny word. I know that’s what the girls call their suitors, but who’d want to run off with a
boy
?”

“A girl who’s too young to know better,” Sarah said. She looked at Minnie, who frowned thoughtfully. “We can’t be sure that’s what happened, but it’s worth talking to her friends again, just to be sure. If we can frighten them a little and they do know where she went, they might tell us.”

“I don’t know,” Minnie murmured, shaking her head.

“It’s worth a try,” Cora argued. “You know how girls are with their secrets. Mrs. Brandt is right, I can’t imagine Angel didn’t tell
somebody
that she was going to run away.”

“But if the girls didn’t tell us before, why would they tell us now?” Minnie asked.

“Like I said, you’ll have to frighten them. Make them think that Angel might be in danger.”

Minnie’s face was gray with fatigue, and she stared blankly back at Sarah. “I can’t,” she said wearily. “I just…I don’t know what to do.”

“Mrs. Brandt, you’ll help her, won’t you?” Cora asked, but she didn’t wait for an answer. “Minnie, take Mrs. Brandt upstairs to see Biddy and Una. They’ll be home from school by now. They’ll be surprised to see a stranger. Tell them…tell them Mrs. Brandt works for the police or something. They won’t know any different. Tell them they have to talk to her or she’ll take them off to jail. That will scare them.”