She cleared her throat. “She died before that. Bad husband, bad marriage. Either he killed her, or he drove her to do it herself. Either way, it was a bad time for me, and for my grandson, too. He was only a tiny boy when his momma passed, so I took him on. His daddy didn’t want him, anyway. So my no-good son-in-law stuck around like nothing had happened.”

Rector frowned. “And no one ever punished him?”

“No, that didn’t happen. He had two things about him what made him more important than my daughter so far as the law was concerned. One, he was a man. Two, he was white. And my daughter wasn’t neither of them things.”

They walked down the Chinatown streets, among men who looked at Rector as if he’d just come visiting from the moon. Angeline ignored the small crowd and curious stares, reached over to Zeke, and ruffled his hair with one gloved hand.

Angeline said, “This boy here, his granddaddy was the sheriff back then. I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”

Rector nodded. “Maynard.”

“Right. I told him what’d happened, and he came out to my daughter’s home one night. We hunted for some kind of proof that Joe had been the one to do her in, but we never turned up nothing between us.” She sighed and stuffed her hands into her pockets. “And I knew Maynard was right. He couldn’t bring charges against Joe just on account of I said he was bad. It was my word against … against everybody’s.”

She paused. “Still, I appreciated the sheriff taking the time. He didn’t have to, and don’t I know it.”

“So … what happened to…”—Rector picked up on the name—“… Joe? Nothing?”

“A couple of years after the Blight, my no-good son-in-law picked a different name and came to live down here. He hired a right-hand man, a Chinese fellow named Yaozu—you must know of him. Yaozu tried to stop me from killing him, but he couldn’t. He stabbed me, though, and left me a bad scar. Between ’em, Joe and Yaozu wreaked a lot of havoc, as Miss Lucy might say.” She finished up fast, then changed the subject. Oh look, there’s Ruby’s,” she said, indicating an open door flanked by two open windows—glassless, like all the rest. From inside the establishment came a rush of steam, bearing with it the odors of unfamiliar food sizzling on a grill.

Rector said, “I thought there weren’t any women in Chinatown. Who’s Ruby?” but no one answered him.

Angeline went to order their food. When she returned, she sat on the bench and leaned forward over the table, her knees splayed and her fingers folded together. “Boys,” she began in a conspiratorial tone, “I want to run something past you, and I don’t want you to spread it around. Understand?”