“I gather she’s his first wife. They can take more than one in China.”
“But not here in the States. It’s called bigamy.”
I lowered my voice. “Look, Officer, between you and me, I don’t think he actually intended to go through a proper marriage ceremony over here with the new one. She’d be called wife number two, but really just a concubine.”
“And now she’s run away, has she?”
I could feel my cheeks getting hotter. When I am being backed into a corner I start to defend myself. “Look, I just told you—this has nothing to do with the police,” I said. “I don’t know why you are grilling me. It’s a missing persons case, not a crime. And besides, if you’re trying to pin some kind of criminal activity on Mr. Lee, I thought he had an understanding with the police and they left him alone.”
“I don’t know who told you that!” the policeman snapped. “But perhaps it would have been better for him if we hadn’t left him alone.”
“What do you mean?”
“Which way did you come down Mott Street this morning?”
“From Chatham Square. Why?”
“Because had you come from the other direction, you might have noticed a commotion around the corner on Pell Street—you’d have spotted a crowd, including some of my men. It appears that Mr. Lee Sing Tai fell off the roof of his building during the night.” He paused to watch my expression, a rather satisfied one on his own face.
“Fell off the roof? You mean he’s dead?”
I have to confess that the wave of emotion that shot through me was not of horror but of relief. Now I would never have to face him. Now Bo Kei would be free of him.
The satisfied expression turned into a smirk. “There aren’t many people who survive a fall from that height unless they have wings,” he said. “Of course he’s dead. Smashed as flat as a pancake.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, because it was expected of me. Actually I wasn’t sorry at all.
“So the only question in my mind,” the officer said, still not taking his eyes from my face, “is whether he fell by accident or whether he was pushed.”
Sixteen
I stood there in the dark hallway, trying not to let my face register any emotion. I recognized the policeman now. He was the officer who had accompanied Daniel at the Elizabeth Street station.
“When did this happen?” I asked.
“Sometime during the night, I suppose. The old guy is wearing his nightshirt and I gather he’d been sleeping on the roof.”
“That’s right,” I said. “I was told that he liked to sleep on the roof during hot weather.”
“That will certainly make it easier for us,” he said. “He walked in his sleep and tripped over the low parapet.”
“And if he didn’t?” I asked.
He eyed me critically. “Then somebody pushed him, and if I don’t find out conclusively who that person was, then the rumor will go around that it was a member of Hip Sing. In case you don’t know about such things, it’s —”
“The rival tong,” I said. “I do know.”
His eyes narrowed. “You seem to be remarkably well versed in Chinatown politics,” he said. “What exactly are you—one of the Irish wives from around here?”
Again I should have kept my mouth shut and just claimed to be a friend. But I don’t always stop to think through consequences. “Not at all,” I said. “I’m a private investigator. That’s why Mr. Lee hired me.”
“Really?” He was looking at me with interest tinged with amusement now. “A female dick. That’s a novel one.”
He glanced down at my letter he was still holding. “Murphy, is that the name? Molly Murphy? I’ve heard of you before somewhere.”
I wasn’t going to say that my name had probably been mentioned as Daniel’s future wife. “I have worked on cases in this part of the city,” I said.
“Have you, by george? What kind of cases?”
I tried to think of harmless things I might have done in the Lower East Side—certainly not dealing with Monk Eastman and his gang. “Another missing person case once. A girl who had come over from Ireland. Her family wanted to trace her.”
I hoped he’d be satisfied with that, but he was still frowning. “And why exactly did old Lee hire you particularly to find this bride?”
“I suppose he thought that a young woman like myself could move among other young women in the world outside of Chinatown, without arousing suspicion.”
“I see.” He paused. “And what made him think that his bride had run away and not been kidnapped by Hip Sing, for example?”
“I asked him the same question,” I said. “He indicated that his spies had looked into that aspect thoroughly before he thought of hiring me.” I hesitated, then went on. “From what I understand of the Chinese, I don’t think Mr. Lee would have resorted to hiring an outsider and a female unless he’d done everything he could himself to recover the young woman.”
“That’s true enough,” he agreed, then he stood looking at me, head cocked to one side, like a bird’s. “You know what I find interesting? That Mr. Lee smuggles in a new bride from China—which I might point out to you is
