Friday Harbor, page 27
"Any evidence of other bodies?" Miles asked. "Shoes? Clothing? Remains?"
"I pressed Lyle Miller and Jacob Fields into helping me search the nearby rocks and beaches," Bill said. "We covered about a half mile in either direction. Didn't find anything else."
"Both girls were shot in the chest," Boren continued. "And, as you can see, both had their meager bellies slashed open."
"Seems excessive," Miles said.
"Bodies will initially sink in water," Floyd said. "But after a few days or weeks, depending on water temperature, their insides will decompose to the point that their abdomens bloat with methane, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, and ammonia. Then they float back up to the surface."
"Well, sure."
"My point is that the killer or killers knew this," Floyd said. "So someone slashed open their abdomens so that the gasses of decomposition could escape and not build up buoyancy."
"Then why didn't these two stay on the bottom?"
"Maybe they got caught in kelp in the warmer surface waters," Boren said. "Maybe a strong current or storm surge drove them ashore. Maybe the killer's blade didn't slash deep enough to rupture the peritoneum."
"The what?"
"The membrane lining the inside of the abdomen. The skin of the balloon, if you'll pardon the expression. I'll be able to tell you if it was ruptured in just a minute, not that it matters now."
"He knew to slash open the abdomen," Miles mused. "A knowledgeable killer, then. Experienced."
"Maybe," Boren said, sounding thoroughly disgusted with humanity. "Also, for what it's worth, both girls were poor."
"What makes you say that?"
"Look at their teeth. No hint of modern oral hygiene or dentistry. Bone structures indicative of undernourishment. And their garments are of poor cloth."
Beatrice Floyd's comment about Seattle brothels being staffed by indigent Chinese slave girls smuggled into America rang in Miles's ears. As did Sergeant Clark's mention of the scraps of official-looking papers they'd found being fragments of forged immigration documents. "You suppose the girls were destined for one of the tong-run West Coast whorehouses?" Miles asked no one in particular.
"Yes," Floyd said. "And I imagine they were being smuggled in aboard the Lucky Lena."
Miles nodded. "So, we're looking at human trafficking."
"At least in part," Floyd said. "The Jensens may have had their hands in more than one pot. Illegal immigrants, booze, opium, lost Russian gold. Who knows?"
"Who would want to kill a boatload of teenage girls from China?" Boren asked.
"A rival tong?" Miles said. "Wanting to eliminate the competition?"
"Tongs have certainly gone to war over control of the pleasure trade." Floyd said. "Even over claims to specific women."
"Helen of Troy, the Chinese version," Dr. Boren said. "The face that launched a thousand highbinders."
Miles glanced at the doctor, surprised at his seeming levity, then figuring it was just how the man coped with the macabre unpleasantness of examining corpses. With the unsettling proximity of death.
"Something like that," Floyd said. "Still, I'd think a rival tong would just steal the girls and use them for their own purposes. Or sell them. Not slaughter them."
"Anti-Asian vigilantes, then?" Miles said.
"Wouldn't be the first time that vigilantes have mass-murdered Chinese in this country," Floyd said. "Off the top of my head, I know there were massacres of mostly male laborers in Rock Springs, in Hells Canyon, even in Issaquah. But to deliberately target and murder defenseless girls? Even the Knights of Labor have never gone that far, have they?"
"Heaven knows," Miles said. "I suppose it's safe for us to assume that the forged immigration certificates we found fragments of on the Lucky Lena were for the girls."
"Meaning it's also safe to assume there were eight girls aboard the Lucky Lena, since there were fragments of eight individual certificates."
"Mercy," Miles whispered. "Eight girls."
"In any event, we need to find those tong highbinders before they leave the island," Floyd said.
"And that anti-Chinese agent provocateur labor activist from Seattle," Miles added. "Isn't he with the Knights of Labor?"
"Edward Callahan," Floyd said. "Yes. I'd half forgotten about him."
Miles shook his head as he gazed upon the poor, dead Chinese girls, thinking again on how very fragile human life was, wondering what sort of monster would do such a thing and where that monster was hiding.
FORTY-NINE
Miles, Floyd, and Bill went back to the station, armed themselves with handguns, and headed out. But barely ten feet from the door, they were chased down from behind by Jacob Fields.
"Sheriff! I say, Sheriff! I hear you found two more bodies. Girls this time. Murdered, right?"
"I'm not at liberty to discuss an ongoing investigation, Jacob."
"Oh, come on. Everybody's already talking about it," he said, gesturing to the group of onlookers rapidly gathering around from up, down, and across the street.
"Then ask everybody."
"Well, Sheriff, I mean, do you have any good leads? Does evidence point to anyone yet?"
"Why, Jacob?"
"Well, of course we'd all sleep a whole lot better if we knew you were closing in. Isn't that right?" he asked the circle of mute, spooked-looking onlookers.
Miles looked at each of their faces—male and female, young and old—but found himself more irritated than empathetic. "I didn't realize you were so sensitive, Jacob."
"Well, Sheriff, come now."
"Rest assured, Jacob, we'll let you know as soon as we arrest anyone."
With that, Miles turned his back.
*****
Because of a cold north wind, they crowded into the cab of Miles's truck. Their first stop was China House, where Bill, unwilling to abide the Chinese, opted to have a cigarette and wait in the truck while Miles and Floyd had another word with Henry, the proprietor. This time, there weren't any Chinese men loitering on the railing. In fact, there were none to be seen. The place felt deserted. Miles opened the front door without knocking and found Henry sitting at his desk. A look of terror flashed across the man's face before he mastered himself.
"Ah, Mr. Miles. And Mr. Floyd. Good to see you again. Yes. Welcome."
"Didn't mean to frighten you, Henry," Miles said. "Were you expecting someone else?"
"No. No. Just startle. Come in, yes, come in," he said, taking a quick look over his shoulder, through the open doorway between his office and the kitchen.
"Quiet around here today," Miles said.
"Quiet. Yes. You want chair?"
"No. We're only here for a moment. Did you hear about the bodies that washed up at Hanbury Point?"
"Bodies. Yes. Very bad."
"Look, Henry, my friend, I have to ask again. Have you heard anything that might help us? Or do any of your boarders maybe know anything?" As he said this, Miles strode up to Henry's desk, friendly as could be, and sat on the corner of it. The spot afforded him a view through the door to the kitchen. There was nobody there.
"No," Henry said. "I just hear you find body. No more."
"What about the Cantonese men who came up on the Bangor? Anyone see them?"
Henry looked terrified. "No."
"No?"
Henry just shook his head.
"Floyd here thinks they might be tong highbinders."
"High?"
"Boo how doy," Floyd said, interpreting even though he was sure that Henry understood.
Henry pretended to think. It struck Miles as an exceedingly poor acting job.
"No, I no know boo how doy," he said, a thin line of perspiration appearing on his hairline.
"Henry, listen," Miles said. "We won't tell anyone that you spoke with us. You understand? You have my word. But the sooner we find these men, the sooner we can all sleep better at night."
"Ha. Yes. But I no know anything," he said, with another quick glance over his shoulder toward the kitchen.
"Nothing, huh?" Miles said, leaning over to take another peek into the kitchen for himself. Still empty. "Nothing at all?"
"Sorry, Mr. Miles."
FIFTY
With their search for the phantom highbinders leading nowhere, Miles, Floyd, and Bill drove to the far southern shore of the island, out beyond the windswept, grassy slope where American soldiers had built their garrison during the so-called Pig War with Britain in 1859. Eventually, they came to a long dirt drive that led through pasture to a small white farmhouse just off the beach—precisely where Friday Harbor's International Longshoreman's Association representative, Manny Goldstein, said they would find Edward Callahan, the Knights of Labor bigwig and alleged ringleader of the Seattle General Strike of 1919, who was freshly released from prison.
"I'm a bit surprised that Goldstein was so forthcoming about where we could find Callahan," Miles said.
"The Longshoreman's union is part of the American Federation of Labor," Floyd explained. "And there's no love lost between the AFL and the Knights."
"Is that right? It isn't one big happy brotherhood of reds?"
"Most unions think the Knights are too radical."
"Shades of gray."
"Shades of red."
"Good one."
Miles brought his truck to a squeaking stop where the dirt drive opened into a weedy parking area next to the house, leaving the truck in such a position that it would block any attempted getaway by car. There were no vehicles to be seen. But there was a closed-up, whitewashed barn next to the house that was certainly big enough to contain one.
As the three of them got out, they checked the magazines of their guns to make sure they were fully loaded. Then they spread out, line abreast, and walked toward the house.
It seemed an odd place to find a red-toothed Bolshevik. The yard featured a dwarf tree loaded with ripening apples, well-tended rose bushes, and a zinc table like something from a Paris sidewalk café. A handful of friendly goats gazed at the men from the other side of their fence, one standing on its hind legs and leaning against the fence as if it wanted to get their attention and start a conversation—which would no doubt include a request for food.
As planned, Floyd and Bill took up positions at opposite corners of the front of the house while Miles marched up to the door, gave it a loud knock, then stepped back a few feet so that he could keep an eye on the greater area. After a moment, the door opened wide to reveal a small, slight man—neither old nor young—who had the good sense to have his hands hanging still and visible to either side of his hips. He wore a dull green Soviet-style worker’s tunic with a matching cap; he couldn't have been more than five feet tall.
"Can I help you?" he asked in an East Coast accent Miles couldn't quite place.
"Police. We're looking for Edward Callahan."
"I'm Callahan," he said, his voice soft.
"You're Callahan?"
"Yes."
"The Knights of Labor leader?"
"That's me. Were you expecting an ogre?"
"We need you to come with us."
"Why?"
"We'll explain that at the station."
"Am I under arrest?"
Miles thought about lying to speed things along, then thought better of it. "No."
"Then I'll meet you at the station," he said in the same soft voice as two very large men appeared behind and to either side of him in the doorway. Bodyguards, Miles assumed.
"Just get in the back of the truck, Trotsky," Bill shouted from his corner of the yard.
"The back of the truck," Callahan echoed. "I'll have you know that, if necessary, these two men will serve as witnesses to offer sworn testimony as to my uninjured condition prior to being taken into your custody.
"We just want to talk," Miles said. "But we will talk, one way or another. And without your pet gorillas."
Impassive and utterly still, Callahan stared at him, seeming to take his measure. Then he acquiesced, signaled for his bodyguards to back off, and followed Miles to the truck.
*****
"Nice outfit," Miles said, facing Callahan across a table at the station. Floyd and Bill sat close by, listening, Floyd taking notes.
"It's the latest in Bolshevik fashion," Bill said from his desk. "Gotta look the part, right?"
"With respect," Callahan said amicably, "the Knights of Labor aren't Bolsheviks. As a matter of fact, we utterly reject the tenets of communism."
"Is that a fact?" Miles said.
"You might be thinking of the IWW. The Wobblies."
"You're wearing a Bolshevik worker’s tunic," Bill said.
"They're work clothes. Cheap and durable. It's what we wear down on the docks."
"You were jailed for promoting Bolshevism after the 1919 Seattle strike," Floyd said.
"Excuse me," Callahan said, holding up a finger to emphasize his point. "I was jailed on the basis of trumped-up charges brought by the corrupt minions of former Mayor Ole Hanson, a militant anti-labor fanatic. We were protesting the continued use of wartime wage controls even though the war was over."
"What are you doing here?" Miles asked
"You brought me here."
"What are you doing on San Juan Island?"
"I've been invited to speak at the Odd Fellows Hall tomorrow evening."
"Invited by whom?"
"I'm not at liberty to say. Nevertheless, I welcome your attendance."
"If you're speaking tomorrow, why did you come up from Seattle last Saturday?"
"To visit my aunt Fanny."
"Your aunt Fanny. You playing with me, little man?"
"No, Sheriff. I'm not playing with you. Fanny is short for Stephanie."
"Stephanie what?"
"Miss Stephanie Bennett. She owns the farm you just took me from. If you don't believe me, I encourage you to send someone to check a tax assessor's plat map at the county clerk's office."
The name rang a bell with Miles. Miss Bennett was a reclusive spinster, if memory served. "What sort of man visits his aunt for a week?"
"Her farm is a nice place to read and take walks. Do a bit of gardening."
"Gardening. Right. And were you gardening Tuesday night?"
"No, I don't think so."
"What were you doing?"
"Reading, I should think. At Aunt Fanny's."
"Can anyone corroborate that?"
"Aunt Fanny can."
"Aunt Fanny can confirm that you were there all night? Let me guess, she checked on you every half-hour."
Callahan didn't bother to respond.
"What's the nature of your relationship with the Jensens?"
"The Jensens? I know one man named Jensen, and he lives in Licton Springs, north of Seattle. Is that who you mean?"
"You're telling me you don't know anything about Hans and Leif Jensen, or their boat, the Lucky Lena?"
"I don't know the first thing about boats. And I'm quite sure I have no idea what you're talking about. You have to give me more."
Callahan's face didn't change in the least. Miles decided he was either the most stone-cold serpent he'd ever come across, or his public image as a union hothead and provocateur was a complete fabrication.
"You are a labor agitator."
"I am a member of the Knights of Labor."
"He's one of the guys we can thank for a single cup of coffee now costing ten cents in Seattle," Floyd said.
"Ten cents?" Miles said. "That only gets you one cup? Must be some damn good coffee."
"And the stevedore who unloads the sacks of coffee beans from the Columbian freighter can afford to put food on his family's table and buy shoes for his children," Callahan offered as a counterpoint.
"Are you here to unionize the workers at the Roche Harbor lime works?"
"All are welcome to hear me speak."
"Who are you working for?"
Callahan sat back in his chair. "The real question, Sheriff, is who are you working for? You're surely somebody's marionette, whether you're conscious of it or not."
You got that right, Miles thought.
"I work for a cause," Callahan said. "I fight for the dignity of labor."
"Of white labor, you mean," Miles said. "We saw one of your flyers specifically inviting white brother laborers to your talk."
"Is there anything wrong with a white man looking out for his own? Surely, the yellows look out for their own. The Jews look out for their own. The Sicilians."
"Do you have a problem with non-whites?"
Callahan shrugged.
"How about Chinese?"
"Not as long as they stay in China. China is for Chinese and America is for Americans."
"Sounds simple enough," Miles said, catching Bill nodding to himself out of the corner of his eye.
"Oriental immigrant workers have no dignity, Sheriff. They'll work for less money, so white workers are forced to accept lower wages in order to compete. They undercut the white man's standard of living." He said this without rancor. It seemed that it was, for him, a mere recitation of data.
"I thought the big unions, like the IWW, were bringing Asian laborers into their ranks," Floyd offered.
"A decision I continue to oppose."
"By means of violence?" Miles asked.
"By means of public discourse."
"Public discourse. Right."
"What are you getting at, Sheriff? And what does any of this have to do with people named Jensen or their boat—whatever its name was?"
"The Lucky Lena," Miles said, watching Callahan's face.
"If you say so."
"It's a local boat two men disappeared from. We found it adrift, full of bullet holes and blood. Seems it was carrying a load of Oriental immigrants, as you call them."
"I take it the immigrants were killed."
"At least two of them."
"I'm fighting against wage slavery, Sheriff. I may be angry, but I'm not a murderer."
"Really? How many unarmed Chinese did your Knights of Labor brothers gun down or burn alive in Rock Springs? 20? 30? Remind me."
"That was half a century ago. And a thousand miles from here."
"Same union, same creed."
