  Quark interactions with topological gluon configurations can induce chirality
imbalance and local parity violation in quantum chromodynamics. This can lead
to electric charge separation along the strong magnetic field in relativistic
heavy-ion collisions -- the chiral magnetic effect (CME). We report
measurements by the STAR collaboration of a CME-sensitive observable in $p$+Au
and $d$+Au collisions at 200 GeV, where the CME is not expected, using
charge-dependent pair correlations relative to a third particle. We observe
strong charge-dependent correlations similar to those measured in heavy-ion
collisions. This bears important implications for the interpretation of the
heavy-ion data.
