“I don’t like this any more than you do, Kear, but you have to understand my position. I’m getting my arm twisted to look into this.”
I froze, not sure what to do next. I had recognized the voice as Daniel’s. I had nowhere to run. I waited for doom, trying to make my brain come up with a good explanation of what I was doing in a police station in a bad part of the city. My brain refused to cooperate. I opened my handbag and pretended to be looking in it, just praying that they’d be so occupied with their conversation that I wouldn’t be noticed.
“You’ve always been straight with me, Sullivan. I’ll do my best,” said the other voice. They were right behind me now. I hoped they’d go on past and out to the street. Instead I heard feet on the tiled floor coming toward me. I heard the click as they opened the gate leading to the room beyond; then they passed me as if I were invisible.
I only had a second before Daniel turned around and saw me. I tiptoed to the front door and ran down those steps, dodging into the nearest shop. It was a baker’s and I took my time, choosing some rolls, until the baker lost patience with me. “Do ya want to buy something or don’tcha?” he barked. “I’ve got a store full of busy people and you’re keeping us all waiting.” There was no sign of Daniel as I came out again and merged into the crowd.
One thing was certain, I wasn’t going back into that police station. If the young constable knew nothing of a Chinese woman, then it was fairly certain that she was not being held there, judging by the amount of interest she would have caused. The fact that a woman wearing Chinese dress would stand out as an oddity made me decide to try something else. Chinatown was essentially only three or four streets—Mott, Pell, Doyers, and Park. That made a limited number of ways out—five to be exact. Surely there were nosy or observant people at the entrance to each of those streets who would have noticed a young Chinese woman, in Chinese dress. Unless, of course, she had escaped in the middle of the night. Which didn’t seem very likely, given the locked doors and the houseboy sleeping at the top of the stairs. I wondered if she could have lowered herself from the balcony. But then she would have left the rope, or whatever she had used hanging there as evidence of her escape.
A pretty puzzle. A young woman, vanished into thin air—unless … was I being set up? I had been used and duped before, being a little on the na?ve side when it came to trusting humanity. What if the young bride had not proved satisfactory? What if he had killed her or had her killed and disposed of the body somewhere, then had hired me as his alibi? Judging by his attitude toward her, this was a good possibility. I should walk away now, I told myself. But I couldn’t until I had tried every avenue. I never like to give up on anything—and I was becoming increasingly worried about that poor girl. Coming from a village in China to the middle of New York City must have been a terrible shock. If she had tried to run away, I rather thought that she would find she had jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. I just hoped I wasn’t too late and she was already in the claws of a Bowery pimp.
It occurred to me that I had once seen Mrs. Goodwin working on a case on Elizabeth Street. I looked up and down the street hopefully, but the only police presence was a stout constable with sweat running down his red face on this hot day. He was lingering near a fire hydrant, keeping a watchful eye on a group of young boys who were waiting their chance to set off that hydrant and play in the fountain it would cause.
I approached him, asking him if he’d seen Mrs. Goodwin recently. But he was a Sixth Precinct man and he didn’t even know who she was. It seemed beyond his comprehension that the police were now using women as detectives. “And downright foolish,” he added. “If they’re using women on the force now, then that’s the beginning of the end.”
So I went back toward Mott Street, noticing any business that was in a good position to observe people coming and going from Chinatown. There were street vendors aplenty and they were in the best position to notice a fleeing Chinese woman, if she hadn’t made her escape in the middle of the night. The aroma of roasting sweet potatoes and grilling corn from one of those carts reminded me that it was past lunchtime. I was luckily fortified with that soda bread, but buying a roasted sweet potato and an ear of corn was a good excuse to ask those vendors if they had seen a Chinese girl and showing her picture around.
“Those stinking Chinamen know better than to come out here,” one of the vendors said in a heavy Italian accent. “We learn ’em good if they show their faces outside Mott Street.”
“But if you saw a woman?”