No Darkness as like Death

by Nancy Herriman

  His cheeks got so hot it was like a flaming torch had been thrust at his face, or something. “Uh . . . no reason, ma’am,” he sputtered. “So, have you located my parents?”

  “Regrettably, no, Owen,” she said. “I am sorry, but claiming I had news was the first excuse to pop into my mind.”

  “Oh,” he replied, his hopes squashed. One day he’d find his parents, though. One day.

  “I am here because I have a task for you,” she said.

  “A task?” Why in tarnation did everybody want to hire him for ‘tasks’? Maybe ’cause you’re good at getting things done, Owen Cassidy. The thought cheered him. “What sort of task?”

  “You know Mina Cascarino?”

  “Of course I do. Everybody does,” he said.

  She got a funny, pinched look on her face, which he didn’t understand. “Everyone.”

  “What about her, ma’am?”

  She turned to face the store window, pretending to have a need to adjust her hat, using the glass as a mirror. “She currently is a key suspect in the death of a fellow at the Hygienic Institute.”

  “Mr. Shaw!” he blurted out.

  She glanced over at him. “You have heard the news.”

  “But the papers said he died of a heart attack.” Unless . . . that was why Caleb had wanted him to give that message to the red-haired fellow who worked there. It hadn’t really been about a debt, but because Mr. Shaw had been murdered. And Caleb was somehow connected to it.

  Shoot!

  “Owen, is there something you are not sharing with me?” Mrs. Davies asked. “Something to do with Mr. Shaw or the Institute?”

  He didn’t dare tell her about Caleb hiring him. It was bad enough that Mr. Greaves and Mr. Taylor were disappointed. He couldn’t bear having Mrs. Davies disappointed, too. She was like a mother to him. The only person who cared, since his actual parents had decided to up and dump him like a sack of old clothes not worth nothin’ . . . anything.

  “It’s nothing, ma’am,” he said. “What’s the task you want me to do?”

  “I want you to examine Mr. Roesler’s customer accounts to discover who Mr. Ambrose Shaw sent candies to in the past, say, two weeks.”

  Owen felt his eyebrows leap straight up his forehead. “If Mr. Roesler catches me poking through his books, he’ll toss me onto the street quick as a wink!”

  Mr. Roesler must’ve been watching from inside the store, because she smiled and nodded. She retied the bow of her bonnet and turned to face the street again.

  “Owen, I must identify other women Mr. Shaw may have sent confections to,” she said. “Because a box of candy from Roesler’s, a gift supposedly sent by Ambrose Shaw to Mina Cascarino, is an important piece of evidence linking her to the man and his suspicious death.” She peered at him. Miss Barbara liked to say her eyes were as frosty as ice chips, but Owen had never thought so. “Please, you must help. I am relying upon you.”

  A fellow would have to be stony-hearted to refuse.

  So he said yes.

  • • •

  “I’ll question Platt on my own, Taylor,” said Nick.

  After Cassidy’s account, he’d sent for Mullahey to meet him and Taylor at the Hygienic Institute. Ross hadn’t objected to Nick’s request to use the parlor. It was as comfortable a space as Ross’s office—thickly carpeted, the walls covered in flocked paper, a large fireplace at one end, a round table in the center, and at least a dozen cushioned armchairs scattered about. Nick dragged a toe across the carpet near the table. No leftover shards of broken glass; Platt and the cook had tidied up well.

  “What do you want me to do, sir?” asked Taylor, taking in their surroundings, the luxuriousness of a room inside a medical institution that was likely way nicer than any in Taylor’s place.

  “I need you to search outside, see if you can find any evidence the officers might have missed last night. Something that might help us identify who it was who concussed Mina Cascarino, for instance,” he said. “Maybe you’ll even find a discarded chloroform bottle.”

  Taylor hurried out of the parlor, crossing paths with Platt.

  “Ah, Mr. Platt, there you are,” said Nick.

  “What do you need from me now, Detective Greaves?” he asked, halting beneath the curved branches of the unlit brass gasolier. “I’d like to head home and get some dinner. It’s been a long day. At least I don’t have to come back later; we don’t have any patients left.”

  Mullahey appeared in the hallway beyond the parlor. Nick jerked his head, indicating the officer should proceed with searching the sleeping room Platt used at the Institute. Mullahey grinned, further distorting the crooked nose he’d once broken in a scrap with a pickpocket, and dashed off.

  “I’d like to give you a second chance to tell me all about your acquaintance with Mrs. Wynn,” said Nick.

  Platt’s eyelids twitched, a modest reaction. Maybe he’d been anticipating the question. “Like I said before, she’s a frequent patient here,” he replied. “So?”

  “Do you regularly confront Mr. Ross’s patients out on the street and accuse them of stealing, Mr. Platt?” asked Nick. “A watch, in this case.”

  “What?” Platt scoffed. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “One of my associates observed you questioning Mrs. Wynn about the location of a watch,” he replied. “Mr. Shaw’s watch, I believe. The one Mrs. Shaw has told the police is missing.”

  “Your associate doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  “Here’s something else I’d like an answer to, Mr. Platt—why might Mrs. Wynn demand that you leave her alone?” Nick asked. “Have you two worked together in the past? Maybe stealing from the patients here then fencing the goods?”

  Platt’s face went a pasty shade. “This is ridiculous.”

  “Excuse me if I find your conversation with her rather suspicious, Mr. Platt. Accusing her of stealing from a man who’d passed away at this fine medical institution you work at. Makes me think the two of you are keeping a secret about the poor fellow’s death.” Nick folded his arms and regarded Platt. “Are there secrets?”

  “No secrets, Detective,” Platt replied. “I saw that Mrs. Wynn and Mr. Shaw were friendly with each other from the very first. Sitting together at lunch. Chatting in the private parlor past when the other patients had retired for the night. Made me suspicious.”

  “Of what?”

  “That she’d been buttering up Mr. Shaw because she saw he was an easy mark,” he said, starting to sound more confident about his story. “So when she bolted out of here today, I decided to confront her about the watch Mrs. Shaw reported stolen. I accused Mrs. Wynn of taking it.”

  “And murdering him?”

  Platt shrugged. “If the shoe fits . . .”

  “Why not inform the police rather than confront her yourself, Mr. Platt?” asked Nick. “It’s our job to pursue criminals.”

  “I guess I haven’t been thinking clearly since I found Mr. Shaw, Detective,” he replied.

  He was too calm for Nick’s taste. Too confident that he was innocent . . . or had done a thorough job of pinning his crimes on somebody else.

  Knuckles rapped on the doorframe, and Mullahey poked his head through the opening. “Nothing, sir.”

  “No gold pen or pieces of jewelry?” The other items reported stolen.

  “No, Mr. Greaves.”

  Damn.

  Platt’s eyes narrowed. “You had an officer search my room.”

  “Mr. Ross gave us permission,” replied Nick blandly. “This is his building, I believe. Mullahey, I’ll need you to get a search warrant for Mr. Platt’s lodgings. And I’d like to talk to the cook, if she’s still here.”

  “She’s gone home already, Mr. Greaves,” said Mullahey.

  “Then bring her by the station first thing in the morning.”

  “Will do.” He tapped fingers to the brim of his police cap and trotted off.

  “What do you expect Mary Ann to tell you, Detective? That I’m a t
hief?” asked Platt.

  “We mean to figure that out, Mr. Platt.”

  “Well, you didn’t find anything in my room here, though, did you?” challenged Platt. “Because I’m not the crook. Mrs. Wynn is. You’re barking up the wrong tree, Detective.”

  Pinching his mouth into an ugly red line, he turned and shoved past Taylor, who’d already returned from his search.

  “Nothing in Mr. Platt’s room, sir?” he asked.

  “Apparently not.” Nick gestured at the object in Taylor’s grasp. “What have you got there?”

  “A clue,” he replied, bouncing on the balls of his feet with excitement. “In the weeds out in the alley. Only ten feet or so from the private side door.”

  He handed over his discovery. It was the broken-off neck of a bottle, the paper label that had once secured a stopper ripped, only two words legible. Pure.

  And chloroform.

  Chapter 10

  “Maybe that piece of glass isn’t from the bottle of chloroform that our killer used,” said Taylor, sounding dejected. He slowed to light a cigar, the wind funneling between the tall buildings lining the road spoiling his attempts.

  Nick had wrapped the broken-off part of a bottle in a handkerchief and stashed it in his coat pocket. “It is possible that it could just be somebody’s trash.”

  They turned down the street leading to Mrs. Wynn’s lodging house. Up ahead rose the towering edifices of banks and assay offices along California Street, the grandiose headquarters of steamship lines on Sacramento. A collection of lavish buildings capable of making a person forget the crowded alleyways of the nearby Chinese quarter or the teeming docks to the east. Areas where the honest bustle of commerce would soon be replaced by less respectable activities as night fell.

  “But don’t get too discouraged, Taylor. Because where is the rest of that bottle?” asked Nick.

  “What do you mean, sir?” Realization dawned, and Taylor’s mouth dropped open into an O. “I see. The killer came back and snagged it, trying to get rid of the evidence. So it is our bottle.”

  “Anybody scavenging for glass to sell would’ve found all the pieces, Taylor.” One and a half cents paid per pound. “Only somebody in a panic would’ve left that bit behind.”

  Taylor gave up on lighting his cigar and tucked it away. He squinted at the street. “Can we trust Mr. Platt’s accusation about Mrs. Wynn being the thief, sir? Mr. Greaves?”

  Trust and Platt were two words that should probably not be used in the same sentence. “I suppose we’ll find out, Taylor, when we question her.”

  A newspaper boy dashed across the street toward them, waving a copy of the paper he was selling. “Ambrose Shaw dead!” he shouted, dodging a wagon hauling brick up the road. “Copperhead politician Ambrose Shaw dead!”

  “Here. I’ll take a copy,” shouted Nick. He took a paper from the boy’s ink-stained hand and tossed him a dime.

  The boy pocketed the coin and ran off in search of more customers. Nick skipped over news of the arrival of the steamship Constitution and the upcoming events planned for the state fair, locating the article about Ambrose Shaw.

  “What does it have to say, sir?” asked Taylor, leaning over Nick’s shoulder.

  “Not much, thank God.” Nick folded the paper and handed it to his assistant. “Just that Shaw’s been found dead and that the police have been to the Institute to investigate. Tomorrow morning’s papers, though . . .”

  Taylor tucked the newspaper under his arm. “The reporters are going to conclude Mr. Shaw’s death is suspicious, with us showing up at the Institute.”

  “Maybe they can figure out who’s responsible.”

  They located Mrs. Wynn’s lodging house, wedged between a gunsmith’s and a liquor store, not anywhere near as fine as the nearby banks and assay offices. They climbed the steps, the last rays of sun glinting dully off the windows. The glass needed a cleaning. The entire wood exterior could use a scrub, the paint faded and grimy from coal smoke, leaving the place tired and worn-looking. Maybe Mrs. Wynn wasn’t quite the well-heeled, influential lady Mr. Ross thought she was.

  Nick twisted the bell, which rang with an off-key jangle.

  “Yes?” The woman who answered goggled at Taylor’s uniform. She was short and wiry, her gray hair wrapped in a yellow bandana, and gaped the way most folks did when police showed up but hadn’t been summoned. “Officers?”

  “We’d like to speak to Mrs. Wynn,” said Nick. “According to the City Directory, she lives here.”

  “She does live here, but what’s she done?”

  “Is she in?”

  “Nope,” the woman answered.

  “You’re positive.”

  “Of course I’m positive.” She stared at Nick and Taylor like she questioned the intelligence of the police. Hell, he doubted the intelligence of the police some days. “I’d know who’s currently in their rooms at my own lodging house, wouldn’t I?”

  “Yes, ma’am, you would,” said Taylor, who never missed a chance to smooth the ruffled feathers of someone they were speaking with.

  “I haven’t seen her since she returned from that medical place she was staying at,” she said. “Turned up not long after lunch then hightailed it back out of here.”

  “I’d like my assistant to look through her room,” said Nick. “As part of an investigation we’re conducting.”

  “You got a warrant for that?” she asked.

  Why, why did everybody make that their first question when he attempted a search? Were the lawyers conducting classes on proper police procedures that he wasn’t aware of? “We’re not planning on removing anything, ma’am. Just a look around.”

  A young woman, small and dark-haired and very pretty, descended the stairs at the landlady’s back. “What’s going on? Why are the police here?”

  “They’re conducting an investigation, Miss DiPaolo. Want to speak with Mrs. Wynn for some reason.” From the depths of the boardinghouse came the sound of pottery crashing to the floor. “Now what’s going on in the kitchen? I can’t leave for a second.”

  “Go see to that, Mrs. M.,” said Miss DiPaolo. “I’ll talk to the officers.”

  The landlady smiled gratefully and rushed off.

  “‘Mrs. M.’?” asked Nick.

  “She has a lengthy Polish last name I’ve never been able to master,” she answered with a musical laugh. She had a dimple in her left cheek, and her eyes were the color of ripe hickory nut shells. Warm and watchful. “I’m Giulia DiPaolo. Maybe I can help you.”

  Giulia . . .

  She stuck out her hand for Nick to shake. Her skin was soft, as though she’d never known rough work.

  Taylor was studying the young woman. “Don’t I know you from someplace, Miss DiPaolo?”

  “It’s always possible, Officer.”

  “I know where!” he exclaimed. “You work at Bauman’s lagerbier saloon.”

  “Yes, I do,” she said, dimpling. Taylor blushed. Of course.

  She had to be the Giulia whose name had been written on a torn-up note in a wastepaper basket. Bauman’s inadequate vocalist.

  “You must know Mina Cascarino,” said Nick.

  “Certainly I do. She sings most nights, so I work alongside her quite often,” she replied. “Expect to see her there tonight, in fact. I’ll be on my way to Bauman’s as soon as I’ve had a bite to eat.”

  “She won’t be at Bauman’s tonight, Miss DiPaolo. She’s ill.”

  “I had no idea. Will she be okay?”

  “I’m not a doctor,” said Nick. “Taylor, go fetch the landlady back to let you into Mrs. Wynn’s room.” Rather than moon over pretty lagerbier saloon girls.

  “Yes, sir.” With a parting nod for Miss DiPaolo, he dashed off.

  “We were hoping to speak with Mrs. Wynn, Miss DiPaolo,” said Nick. “However, your landlady says she’s not here at the moment.”

  “Oh, Althea. Strange bird.”

  “Any idea where she might be?”

  “No, Of
ficer. I haven’t a clue,” she said. “She keeps to herself. Very private, quiet woman.”

  Didn’t sound like the Mrs. Wynn Nick had met. The woman was proving to be full of mysteries. “You didn’t happen to see her today when she returned to the boardinghouse after her stay at the Hygienic Institute, did you?”

  “I didn’t,” she replied. “I don’t only work at Bauman’s, Detective. I have a job at a bakery during the day, and I didn’t leave there until three this afternoon. She wasn’t around by the time I got back.”

  “Has she ever mentioned a Mr. Platt to you? Had any male visitors?” he asked.

  “Mrs. Wynn? Male visitors?” Her eyes sparkled with amusement at the idea. “And I’ve never heard her mention a Mr. Platt. As I said, she’s a fairly private person.”

  Private? Or secretive? “Did you work at Bauman’s last night, by any chance?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see Miss Cascarino there?”

  Taylor returned with the landlady and climbed the stairs behind Miss DiPaolo.

  “No, because she left earlier than usual and I didn’t start until seven. I gather she had an engagement of some sort,” said the young woman. “I figured it was with a man, but she didn’t tell me who.”

  “Does she chat with the male customers at the saloon?” asked Nick. “A man named Ambrose Shaw, for instance.”

  “Lots of men try to flirt with us, Detective, but we’re careful to ignore them,” she said. “Herr Bauman doesn’t want his employees socializing with the customers. None of us would risk our jobs by ignoring his rules. It’s a good place.”

  It was a good place. “What sort of a mood has Miss Cascarino been in lately?”

  “She’s been anxious and agitated lately.” Miss DiPaolo puckered her forehead. “I’ve caught her staring off, deep in thought. And if I ask her what’s wrong, she snaps at me. I’d been worrying that she was in trouble. That maybe she’d fallen in with the wrong sort of people. And now you’re here, which means I must’ve been right.”

  The landlady clomped back down the steps, Taylor on her heels.