Record of Blood

by Sabrina Flynn

  “I have other debts.”

  “You owe tailors, saloons, grocers—they’re not the type to break your knees. I suggest you secure a job for yourself.”

  “But,” Walker stammered, “I haven’t worked in years.”

  “It’s like riding a horse.”

  “I’ll split my earnings with you. I’ll give you fifty percent of my cut.”

  “When I don’t turn up a single thing, Kingston will hire another detective. These men you’re dealing with aren’t dense.”

  “I’ll take my chances in court,” Walker said. “And if I don’t win the settlement, I’ll get a loan, and earn my way at the tables.”

  “That’s no life for Sarah.”

  “It will be. I’ll provide for her.”

  “It’s a precarious life. Drop your settlement, and start fresh, Walker.”

  Walker stood abruptly. “I’ll be taking my leave, and I’ll be taking Sarah home with me now. If what you say is true, then Kingston is likely to offer me a deal out of court before he finds out the truth.”

  A muscle in Riot’s jaw twitched. He had no legal sway over the girl. “She’s welcome to stay here until you settle your affairs.”

  “I don’t think so, Mr. Riot.”

  “Then you can be sure I’ll be checking in.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Riot,” Sarah Byrne said. Her voice was muffled by his waistcoat, and her arms were around his waist. He smoothed back her hair, and looked down to see her smiling up at him.

  “I’ll be around to visit. You know how to find your way here.” He had made sure of that.

  Lee Walker picked up her suitcase, and ushered her towards the waiting hack. Riot stood on the sidewalk, watching as he helped Sarah inside. She, at least, appeared optimistic, and something her uncle said made her smile.

  Walker shut the door, and ordered the hack forward without looking at Riot. The hack passed a familiar bicycle, and Riot saw a hand wave from the carriage window. The bicyclist waved back. Riot stood waiting until the hack disappeared, and Isobel had skidded to a stop in front of the manor.

  She wore a simple straw hat and was dressed in a riding suit: snug jacket, tie and blouse, and riding breeches tucked into the top of tall leather boots. Her cheeks were fairly glowing with exertion, and perspiration curled the hair around her ears. The black dye was fading, and he wondered if she’d dye it again soon.

  “Did he take your deal?” she asked.

  “He intends to try his luck in the courts.”

  Isobel made a sound as she tugged off her gloves. “How much will you tell Kingston?”

  “Only that Walker had a prior settlement. The case has already made its way across country. Whether or not I tell Kingston, someone else is bound to recall the suit in Chicago. It might as well be me.” He told her the rest of the conversation. And she whistled low.

  “Deep waters, Watson.” Her brows drew together in frustration. “There’s so much we still don’t know.”

  “You found your body, and we rescued two girls. Not a bad day’s work.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “I suppose not. Still, a good many questions remain. The foremost being where to start?”

  “I’m sure you have our course laid out.”

  “A number of them, actually.”

  Riot nearly kissed her there in the lane, in broad daylight; instead, he held her eyes with his own and thought he’d drown. A number of long, pleasurable nights passed in that space. And a rare blush that only he was privy to spread over her cheeks.

  Noting her limp, Riot gripped her handlebars, and took over walking her bicycle up the lane.

  “Have you read the newspaper this morning?” she asked.

  “I haven’t had the time. I breakfasted with Sarah, and then sat in on the interview with Cameron Fry.”

  “How did the new Austen fan conduct himself?”

  “He was as gracious and polite as could be.”

  Isobel nodded with approval as she reached into her satchel and pulled out a newspaper. She pointed to an article: Infamous Hatchet Man Wong Kau Gunned Down in Sacramento

  The article claimed the Suey Sings had carried out the assassination, and added his name to a growing list of dead in the ongoing tong wars. But most newspapers couldn’t be bothered with differentiating tongs, so they simply lumped the whole jumble into two different ones.

  “I’m not surprised,” Riot said after he finished reading.

  “Well, I intend to set this story right,” Isobel said. “Setting your shooting aside, and the years in between and before, Kau did die for his sister. I think people ought to know that. Don’t you?”

  “Are you asking my permission, Bel?”

  She snorted. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’m only making sure you’re all right with it. Kau didn’t shoot me in the head.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  She pulled him to a stop. “Are you sure?”

  “I’ve put some of my own ghosts to rest.” There was a tremor in his voice. “Kau’s face haunted my dreams for years. But all this has shed light on dark places—cleared some of the unknown and the fear that always came with it. It’s a shame, though.”

  “His death?”

  Riot nodded. “I would never begrudge a man his redemption. Although, it rarely ends well.”

  “Doesn’t it?” She brushed his temple with her fingertips.

  “Just as a snake sheds its skin, we must shed our past over and over again,” he murmured.

  She cocked a brow at him.

  “Buddha,” he said. “No matter how many times we start over, our past comes back to haunt us. And when we stop running, it usually bites us.”

  “I do keep coming back,” she agreed.

  “I certainly don’t mind you coming around.”

  “I bite, too.”

  The edge of his lip raised in a half-grin. “Careful, Bel. Or I’ll forget we’re standing outside.”

  “The horror of it.”

  There in the lane, under the sun, he buried his fingers in her hair and tasted her lips. “I think we had better get upstairs,” he murmured.

  “You’re brilliant.”

  “Is that why you haven’t gone to sea?”

  She smiled, and whispered in his ear. “I forget I’m not sailing when I’m with you.”

  Emotion caught in his throat. “For better or worse?” he asked softly.

  “Through any storm that comes our way.”

  “Mr. Riot?”

  They both stepped away from the other, and Riot cleared his throat, watching Mr. Payne hurry up the carriage drive. “Yes?”

  “I’ve some news.”

  Isobel looked perplexed. The man’s mumble was a language of its own.

  “About?”

  “You asked after Jim Parks.”

  “I did.”

  “I checked with a friend of mine from prison. He was a guard there. Nice fellow, only he said Parks wasn’t put into solitary; he swears he was released three months early.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what he said. Released on good behavior.”

  54

  Before the Storm

  Sunday, March 18, 1900

  Tendrils of silver wrapped around grave-markers, caressing stone. It was the hour before dawn, when the sun still slept. A gray half-light and a bitter cold clung to the grass, winter green and glistening with frost. And on a hill sat an oak, spreading its limbs over a dear departed friend.

  A dark shape twined his way through the gravestones. Riot watched the man from the cover of a mausoleum. The roses in the man’s hand looked black in the half-light. He stopped in front of a headstone. Riot knew the etchings on that stone by heart.

  Abigail Laurent Parks

  Devoted Wife

  June 1862 - December 1896

  The man crouched and laid the bouquet of roses on the grave. Then he stood. Riot gave him a moment. Love could manifest itself in horrific ways at times. When the man reached inside his pocket for a ciga
rette, Riot stepped from his concealment, moving with the fog like the wraith whispering in his mind.

  “Hello, Parks,” he said, softly.

  Jim Parks spun on his wife’s grave. His hand reached towards his hip, but when he saw the cultured man in a fancy suit and with bandaged fingers, he relaxed. He struck a match on his wife’s headstone, and lit the cigarette dangling from his lips.

  “Atticus Riot,” Parks said, shaking out the match. He let it fall to the earth. “Are you visiting my wife’s grave like you visited her bed after you sent me to prison?” Parks blew out a stream of smoke, agitating the air.

  “She tried to divorce you after you stabbed her, but you refused to sign the papers.”

  “Until death do us part,” Park said with relish. “She was mine. And still is.” He ground his foot into the grave, and flicked the ash there.

  “Is that why you killed her? I’d ask if it was because of me, but you tried to kill her before I ever met her.”

  Parks chuckled, and turned slightly. “What’s that you’re saying? Me? Kill Abby?” He gestured at the dates. “Written in stone. I was in prison, Riot. You and your partner put me there for marking what was mine.”

  “Is that why you killed Ravenwood, too? Revenge?”

  Parks laughed. “You are full of accusations. You know, I heard you went a bit mad.” He pointed his cigarette at Riot’s head, and mimed shooting a gun. “Seems I heard correctly.”

  The man’s voice was loud, and it bounced in the fog. It was an unnerving sound. “I can see Ravenwood’s gravestone from here. Funny how they died so close together, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t share your amusement,” Riot replied. “I find it suggestive, however.”

  “Suggestive,” Parks tasted the word. “I like that word. You were always well spoken. You know what Abby used to call men like you?”

  Riot didn’t answer.

  “Little pricks in lace.” He flicked more ash on her grave. “Compensation, she used to say.”

  Riot waited in silence, and his stillness agitated Parks. “So what, are you here to gloat over my grief?”

  “I’m waiting for you to finish your thought. It’s rude to interrupt.”

  “It’s rude to sneak up on a man, too.”

  Riot glanced to the side, around the bone orchard. It was empty, and so very quiet. “There’s plenty of open ground here. Hard to startle a man.”

  “You didn’t startle me,” Parks said, showing his teeth. “I’m just waiting for an apology now.”

  “An apology for what?”

  “For your accusations.”

  Riot shook his head. He was less than ten feet from Parks, and he could see his eyes clearly. “You were released early, but it was a hushed affair. Your release took place at night.”

  “I was in solitary confinement. Whoever fed you that lie must be mistaken.”

  “You were supposed to go into confinement, but instead you were released on ‘good behavior’.”

  “You’re mad.”

  “So are a number of eye witnesses,” Riot returned. “I also have a regular at your bar who swears up and down that he saw you the night Abigail was murdered.”

  Rage entered Jim Parks’ eyes. The kind of rage that drove a man to stab his own wife.

  “My witness is in a safe house, and enjoying himself immensely.” Also sobering up, but Riot left that part out.

  Parks smirked. “So you have drunks and convicts who say I magically fluttered away from prison in the dead of night.”

  “I also looked at the coroner’s report for her death, and compared it with Ravenwood’s and Mrs. Shaw’s. I wasn’t surprised to find the same knuckle pattern of bruises. You know knuckles leave a print as sure as a boot, which also matched. You see the man who killed Ravenwood was wearing a slipper-type shoe with no tread, sort of like a stocking. It looked like bare feet, but the size matches yours.”

  “Circumstantial.”

  “A judge signed your release—in secret. How much would you wager that that judge will throw you to the dogs at the first sign of trouble?”

  It was Parks’ turn to be quiet.

  “Now, I don’t think you arranged for yourself to be released. I think you had help, Parks. I think you’re one tiny cog in a larger machine. In exchange for killing Ravenwood, I think you were set free and got your saloon prettied up. Not a bad deal.”

  Parks flicked his cigarette down. The stub smoldered in the frost. “The thing about a Bone Orchard is there’s no one to hear a thing. Only miles of dead.” Parks casually moved back his coat, revealing the gun on his hip.

  “And here I figured you’d pound me to death.”

  “Like you said, knuckles leave a print.”

  “Why did you kill Ravenwood?”

  “I was paid for it, and there wasn’t a risk as long as everyone thought I was in prison. I only had to make it look like a chink did it. I’d have done it for free, though.”

  “Who hired you?” Riot asked.

  Parks chuckled. “I guess you’ll never know.” He flinched, and Riot drew with his left hand. A single bark echoed in the silence. Parks dropped to his knees, clutching his stomach.

  Riot strolled forward, pushed him back, and stepped on his hand. Parks had been reaching for the gun on his hip.

  Parks panted, and spat, but the bloody spittle fell on his own chin. “You’re a dead man, Riot. You just shot me in cold blood.”

  “No,” Riot said. “I just shot a slow man who fancied himself a gunfighter.”

  Parks coughed. “Are you going to finish the job?”

  Riot shook his head. “I’ll let the Law do that.”

  Parks rolled, and pawed at the gravestone, leaving bloody smears on the stone. “I’ll die with her, then.”

  “I know plenty of men who have survived a gut shot with this caliber.”

  Parks groaned.

  “Your own wife survived your knife in her gut,” Riot reminded. “In case you’re wondering if my aim was coincidence—it wasn’t.”

  “You’re a dead man,” Parks spat through bloody teeth.

  “We already went over this.”

  “Sing Ping King Sur,” Parks spit out each word.

  Riot cocked his head. “What?”

  Panting into the dirt, Parks squeezed his eyes shut, fighting against pain, and wishing for death. “Those words killed Ravenwood, and they’ll do the same for you.”

  As Riot digested his words, Parks moved. A knife flashed in the man’s hand. Before Riot could stop him, Parks drove the blade between his own ribs, straight to his heart. Blood soaked the earth, down into his wife’s grave, and Riot was left with those killing words.

  * * *

  To Be Continued

  Conspiracy of Silence

  (Ravenwood Mysteries #4)

  Coming 2018

  Also by Sabrina Flynn

  Legends of Fyrsta Novels

  * * *

  Untold Tales

  A Thread in the Tangle

  King’s Folly

  The Broken God

  * * *

  Ravenwood Mysteries

  * * *

  From the Ashes

  A Bitter Draught

  Record of Blood

  * * *

  www.sabrinaflynn.com

  Historical Afterword

  It’s said that life is stranger than fiction. And that is definitely true. I take facts, and I weave them into my stories, but it’s usually the more unbelievable elements in my books that are factual. A rule of thumb while reading Ravenwood Mysteries is that if it seems far-fetched it’s probably true, or at least based on fact.

  Researching this book was amazing. And overwhelming. I came across so many larger-than-life people, and things that were stranger than fiction. But what I managed to work into this book was only the tip of the iceberg.

  The Beach Ghost was taken straight out of the Call newspaper archives. There were corrupt police and custom officers taking bribes, and countless trials w
ere held over the smuggling of slave girls and dishonest officials.

  The bubonic plague and barricading of Chinatown really did happen, and the plague would continue to be an issue up to the 1906 earthquake, and beyond. After Wong Chut King died in his bed at the Globe Hotel, politicians dragged their feet and tried to discredit health officials, so that the words “bubonic plague” wouldn’t soil San Francisco. That would have risked port closures and hit them right in the pocketbook. Because health officials were impeded by greedy politicians, the bubonic plague gained a foothold in America’s wildlife, and is an ongoing issue to this day.

  There was, in fact, a girl of seven, Elsie Engstrom, who travelled from Germany by steamer, and took a train from New York to San Francisco alone to live with her uncle.

  The stories that the tongs told slave girls about the house on the hill and the white devils (missionary women) eating girls are true. The dynamite at the mission house, the effigy of Donaldina Cameron and her sneaking past the quarantine barricades to save a girl dying in the street of appendicitis, and the circumstances surrounding Miss Culberston’s death are also true. Along with the varied forms of brutalization of slave girls and very young house slaves.

  The story of Mei and Kau is based on an actual account of a feared hatchet man named Kim who gave up everything to rescue his sister Mae. He sent a note to the mission, but when Donaldina tried to rescue her, she was gone. Kim eventually had to disguise himself as an old man to gain entrance into an opium dealer’s home behind a steel door. He shot the man and took his sister, spiriting her away to the mission. He fled San Francisco, and was shot dead by his own tong in Fresno as he stepped off a train.

  Poverty, hunger, and harsh conditions drove many young Chinese men from China’s Canton province to California—to the Golden Mountains. They considered themselves sojourners rather than immigrants, traveling temporarily to America in hopes of making money to send back to their impoverished families.