Free Murder In Chinatown by Victoria Thompson

almost honey-colored, not dark like his sister’s. “No, I didn’t see her.”
    “Who finally found her then?”
    “My father. He…he’d been looking for her. He found the man she’d been meeting, and she was with him.”
    “You said they were married.”
    “That’s what they told him. Angel…She always was a bad girl.”
    “What do you mean by that?” Sarah asked in surprise. Minnie had insisted she was always sweet and obedient.
    His jaws worked again, and the color rose in his neck. “She has no respect, no honor.”
    “Because she was sneaking out to meet this man, you mean?”
    “Because she has no respect!” he repeated more vehemently. “She doesn’t respect her family. She has shamed us all!”
    “Because she ran away?”
    “Because she refused to obey my father,” he snapped, as if Sarah were simpleminded not to understand.
    “When he wanted her to marry his friend,” Sarah guessed.
    “Yes. She embarrassed us, and then she ran away with a stinking Irishman.”
    Sarah could have reminded him that his mother was Irish, but she didn’t. She found his contempt interesting. The Irishman in question would likely have called Harry a stinking Chinaman in turn. Prejudice was an interesting phenomenon.
    They rode in silence for a while, and Sarah watched the buildings that seemed to be moving along beside the train. She could see into the windows, catching a glimpse of the lives being lived in full view of everyone who rode this train.
    “Do you really know a police detective?” Harry asked suddenly.
    She heard the challenge in his voice. Why would a respectable lady know a police detective? Most people considered the police little better than the criminals they arrested, and truthfully, few of them were. Frank Malloy was a rare exception, although she knew he did make compromises that he wouldn’t want her to know about. “Yes, I do.”
    “My father won’t pay the police,” he informed her. Another challenge.
    Few crimes in New York were solved unless a “reward” was paid. “That won’t matter. Detective Sergeant Malloy will still investigate your sister’s murder.”
    He frowned, and Sarah understood his skepticism. Still, she had confidence in Malloy. She only hoped she could get him assigned to the case.
    After what seemed an eternity, they finally descended the stairs from the station into the teeming streets again. After walking a few blocks east, they were in the heart of the Lower East Side, where immigrants of all types mixed and mingled. The people they passed spoke a variety of languages and wore a strange mix of clothing, some reflecting ethnic origins and others simply reflecting extreme poverty. The aroma of foods from the street vendors mingled with odors from the manure on the cobblestones, garbage piled on the corners, and un-washed bodies clogging the sidewalks.
    “It’s down here,” Harry said when they’d made their way cautiously across yet another busy street. He pointed to an alley running between two tenement buildings. Sarah followed him down, past piles of refuse and battered ashcans, and they came out into the area behind the rows of tenements that faced opposite streets. Above them hung a mass of crisscrossing clotheslines suspended between the buildings. Porches and fire escapes ran up the backs of the tenements, and all were littered with piles of belongings from the residents—extra furniture and bedding that would be brought in at night, when the floor would provide sleeping space for the people who crowded the small rooms beyond capacity.
    A crowd had gathered in the yard behind the building closest to them. They were intently watching the group of people standing on the back porch of that building. Sarah saw that one of the individuals on the porch wore a police uniform. If it was someone she knew, she’d have less trouble getting him to send for Malloy. Luckily, many officers knew her, even though she didn’t always know them. She had become