“Kill her?”
“Put a pillow over her face and suffocated her. Made her stop breathing.” I stepped closer, staring her right in the eye, hoping that my greater height would be intimidating. “Why do you think that was? Do you want to tell me the truth now, or are you going to let Annie’s killer walk free?”
She looked at me with frightened eyes. “I do not know who might have killed her,” she said.
“Then let me ask you this—why do you think someone killed her? Was it someone from the brothel who came after her? Someone who worked for Lee Sing Tai or Bobby Lee? Was someone afraid she would divulge something she knew?”
She shook her head.
“She’s dead, Bo. There’s nothing you can do to bring her back, but you can help us find her killer. So let me ask you this—I saw small footprints on the roof. A tiny, dainty foot. Were they possibly Annie’s footprints? Was she on that roof? Did she go to kill Lee Sing Tai?”
She hung her head. “She make me promise I never tell anyone,” she said.
“But she’s dead now. Tell me. In this country we punish people for being an accessory to a crime.”
“What does this mean?”
“That you knew about a crime and you helped the criminal in some way, even if you didn’t commit the crime yourself. Did she kill Lee Sing Tai? Did she?”
“No!” She yelled out the word. “No, she did not kill him.” Then she sank onto the top stair and put her head in her hands. “She wanted to. She went to the rooftop with that purpose.”
“She was well and strong enough to climb up to a rooftop and then leap from one roof to the next?”
She nodded. “She was not as sick as she acted. She knew if she was sick they would throw her out of the bad-women house—not want her to make their customers sick.”
“You’re saying she was only acting? She didn’t have consumption?”
“Yes, she knew that she had this disease, but not as bad as she wanted everyone to think. She knew she would die from it one day, but right now she was strong enough to climb up and jump across from one roof to the next. It is not such a big leap if one has no fear. And she had no fear, only anger. She said to me, ‘This man must not be allowed to put more girls through shame and misery. He must be stopped now.’ And when I tried to tell her not to go, she said, ‘My life is over. I will die some day soon. But I make sure this man pays before I die.’”
“She went to kill him—but she didn’t go through with it?”
“No,” she said. “Because of the ghost.”
“What ghost?”
Bo Kei looked up at me as if she didn’t want to go on. “When she reached the roof of Lee Sing Tai’s house, he was not there but the door that led to the stairs was open. She plucked up courage and started to go down the stairs to his bedroom. As she stood at the top of the stairs she looked down and what do you think she saw? She saw a ghost floating up toward her. That’s when she knew that Lee Sing Tai was already dead.”
“So what did she do then?”
“Everyone is afraid of angry ghosts. She ran. She jumped across to the next roof and almost didn’t make it. When she came back to me she was crying and couldn’t breathe. She made me promise that I would tell nobody what she had done.”
“This ghost?” I said. “What did it look like?”
“It was a white floating head in the darkness,” she said. “It stared up at her with an open mouth but no sound came out. And it had lots of arms and legs, like a demon or a monster.”
“And she thought it was Lee’s ghost and he was already dead?”
She nodded. “What else could it be?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t believe in ghosts myself. I’m afraid we’ll have to tell this story to the police, Bo Kei. At least it should make them release Frederick.”
She gave me a watery smile. “All right. I will tell your good policeman.”
“I’m going to see him now,” I said. “I will bring him back here to talk to you and you will tell him everything you know.”
“I will get in trouble?”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. If what you say is true, then Annie did nothing wrong—except for trespassing on someone’s property.”
“And they will now believe that Frederick did nothing wrong either and they will set him free?” she asked hopefully.
“Yes, I believe they will set him free.”
The smile of relief that flooded her face reassured me once and for all that she had not been involved in the killing herself. And for the third time that day I set off back to Mulberry Street. When Daniel and I were married, I thought, there would be a telephone in the house so that the police could get in contact with him whenever he was needed. Such a useful instrument. It would have saved me a fortune in shoe leather!
Thirty
As I took the trolley southward yet again I rehearsed what I was going to say to Daniel. I had uncovered valuable information, so he should be pleased with me. On the other hand, I had continued my involvement in this case when he had expressly forbidden me to. The knot in the pit of my stomach returned. He was going to shout at me. Be furious with me. Then suddenly I decided that this wasn’t like me at all. I wasn’t usually the sort of person who cowered before men. I was turning into the kind of female I despised, the kind who lost her individuality and gumption when she married. What sort of a life would I have if my sole purpose on this Earth was to defer to my husband and make sure I didn’t upset him?
Enough is enough, I said to myself. If I didn’t stand up to Daniel now, he would dominate me for the rest of my life. He was going to have to accept that I was not prepared to turn into a helpless little wife. I could understand that he didn’t want me to continue my career as an investigator because that could be seen as compromising his position in the police department. And he did feel the need to protect me, which was nice. And God knows I’d been in need of protection several times in the past couple of years. But I wasn’t going to let him bully me or dictate to me.
Having come to that decision I strode out from the trolley with more confidence. But I have to confess that as I went up the steps into that austere building, that confidence did waver a little. Still, I held my chin high as I approached the front desk.
“I wish to speak to Captain Sullivan,” I announced to the constable who was manning the front desk. “It’s most urgent.”
“I’m afraid Captain Sullivan’s not here at the moment,” he said. “Will one of the other officers do instead?”
“No, thank you.” I felt the relief of reprieve and had to force myself to continue, “You don’t know where I might find him?”
“No, miss. I couldn’t tell you that,” he said.
“Even if you did know, you mean?” I stared at him. “Look, I have some facts for him. It’s important that he gets them as soon as possible. If you won’t tell me, may I write a note and you can ask one of your men to deliver it to him?”
“What’s this concerning, miss?” he asked warily.
“A murder case he’s working on.”
He was still looking at me most suspiciously. “And you say you have important information for him?”
He was driving me mad. “Yes. Now for goodness sake, please provide me with a pen and paper.”
He did so and I wrote: Daniel, I need to speak to you immediately about the murder of Lee Sing Tai. I have obtained valuable knowledge, which I want to share only with you. I believe there has been a second murder. I will await you at—I didn’t want to go all the way back to Patchin Place again—the settlement house on Elizabeth Street. It would be better that he examine Annie’s corpse for himself before he questioned Bo Kei.
I finished up with: Yours, Molly.