“I’m afraid it’s not a coincidence,” he said without prompt. “Do sit down, Mrs. Gibson. We have matters to discuss.”
The women eyed his bruises, as he removed his hat. They sat together on the same sofa, and he took a seat opposite.
“I’m sure you’re both aware of a certain newspaper article that was published in the Call some weeks ago.”
“It was dreadful,” Mrs. Clarke said. She leaned forward. “What I can’t understand is why you haven’t evicted that… tart.”
A muscle in Riot’s jaw twitched. His head still ached, and his patience was on the short side. “I’m a reasonable man, Mrs. Clarke. What my lodgers do is their own business, unless it affects my family. Whoever wrote those lies hurt us all. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes, of course,” Mrs. Clarke said.
Riot looked to Mrs. Gibson, and let silence needle her.
Confronted with his stare, the woman leaned back, as if trying to escape him. Slowly, Mrs. Clarke turned her head, eyes widening.
“There’s a telescope in your husband’s study, isn’t there, Mrs. Gibson?”
“Yes,” she said faintly.
Riot reached inside his coat and brought out a sheaf of papers. He didn’t hand them over. Not yet. “Your husband is spying on Miss Dupree, isn’t he?”
Mrs. Gibson gave a slight nod.
“You found out and confronted him, but he didn’t stop, did he? It angered you so much that you poured a glass of wine in his lap the other day.”
Her mouth fell open slightly. “How did you…”
“That doesn’t matter. What matters is what you did before that.”
“Alice?” Mrs. Clarke said.
Mrs. Gibson broke. “I was only trying to get her out of that house! I didn’t think… I thought if I wrote the article, then Mr. Riot would evict her and George would stop…” Her mouth twisted in distaste. “He’s always watching her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Mrs. Clarke asked.
“I knew you were in a precarious situation.” Mrs. Gibson looked pleadingly at Riot. “And it’s disgusting.”
“Have you witnessed any scandalous activity?” Riot asked.
“No. But I’ve heard—” she cut off.
Riot waited, staring at Mrs. Clarke. “You heard what?”
Mrs. Clarke placed a hand to her throat.
“You’ve been gossiping, haven’t you?” he asked his lodger.
“Only with friends.”
Riot continued to wait. With each passing moment the women grew more flustered until they turned… on each other.
“I confided in you in the strictest of confidence!” Mrs. Clarke exclaimed.
He let the ensuing argument flare. When both women were red in the face and had turned their backs on one another, he decided it was time to play his final card.
“As I said, I’m a reasonable man. I’m willing to forget all this if you publicly admit it was nothing but idle gossip and retract your statements. I’ve drafted a letter of apology for you.”
He handed that over.
“I can’t possibly do that,” Mrs. Gibson said.
“Why?”
“It’s…”
“Embarrassing?”
She blushed.
“Imagine the stain you brought on my household.”
“But most of that is true. Miss Dupree is an immoral woman,” Mrs. Clarke said.
“Do you have proof?”
“I… it’s easy to see. You two were very friendly at one point.”
“I am a friendly fellow.”
Mrs. Clarke huffed. “I know seduction when I see it.”
“Then I’ll be forced to evict you, Mrs. Clarke. And I’ll have this published.” He handed over another piece of paper. This was one of Sarah’s sketches—a cartoon of sorts. Of what was clearly Mr. and Mrs. Gibson. A cartoonish portrayal of his peeping through the telescope and Mrs. Gibson hitting him over the head with a Bible.
Mrs. Gibson paled. “We’ll be the laughing stock of San Francisco society.”
Riot gave her a slight smile. “Send in that redacted statement and I’ll keep this picture to myself.”
“Are you blackmailing me, Mr. Riot?”
“No, I’m offering you a deal, Mrs. Gibson. I’ll also put a trellis up between our properties to block the patio and French doors. And I’ll take your husband’s telescope off your hands. You can have this drawing in its place.”
“Alice…” Mrs. Clarke warned.
Riot knew when he had a winning hand. This was one of them. He was soon limping home with a telescope under his arm, which he promptly handed over to Tobias, who nearly fainted with delight.
49
A Family Ring
Saturday, November 3, 1900
Isobel was having second thoughts. Not because the children had hung off the side of the Mount Tamalpais Scenic Railroad car, or even because Sarah, Tobias, and Jin had bounced between bickering and screeching during the sail across the bay, the railway journey up the mountain, and finally the ride down the gravity car from the top. No, she was having second thoughts because of Riot.
The outing had seemed a good idea, but he wasn’t entirely recovered. His pack seemed to weigh him down, and he lagged behind as the children darted up the trail, their camping packs bouncing on their backs.
“If you drop dead I’ll never forgive myself,” she warned.
“I’ve been resting for nearly three weeks, Bel. It’s only my sedentary life catching up with me.”
“I could carry your pack.”
“You could. But you know I won’t stand for it.”
Besides, she had one of her own, and she was carrying most of their camping supplies.
“I could wrestle it from you and run ahead.”
Riot chuckled. “The children would be highly entertained.”
She let him keep the pack, but stayed by his side.
For the first time in hours, Isobel realized she was surrounded by a deep silence. The children had ceased their bickering, and were not laughing or making any sound. “Did they get lost already?” she searched the foliage.
Riot gave a slight shake of his head.
Then she spotted them in the emerald green, with ferns as tall as their heads and red trees that reached for the sky. Vibrant smells of damp earth permeated her senses. It was the smell of life, fresh and changing, yet ancient and timeless.
Jin, Sarah, and Tobias stood at the base of a majestic redwood. All three craned their necks to stare, jaws hanging open.
Riot removed his hat, and joined the children. He craned his neck back to gaze at its height with a boyish look of wonder, and Isobel smiled, her doubts falling away. This would be a good place to drop dead, she decided, under the silent sentinels of time.
Jin reached out a tentative hand to touch the soft, furry bark, then she pressed her ear to the tree.
“What are you doing?” Sarah whispered.
“Listening to it breathe.”
Puzzled, Tobias did the same. And even Riot pressed his ear to the tree. Isobel had grown up with the giant trees. She had run under their canopies as a child and played in their ferns. The forest did breathe. She would swear by it.
Shrugging off her pack, she sat down and tugged her boots off, then lay down at the tree’s base and pressed her bare feet up against the trunk. When she looked up its dizzying height, she felt like she was falling.
“That one over there has a cave!” Tobias darted off, and Sarah followed.
Leaves rustled, and soon Riot and Jin joined her on the forest carpet.
“Why are parts of the bark black? Is it dying?” Jin asked.
“It’s from a fire. And no, I think it’s just fine. That’s an old wound.”
“It’s so big,” Jin whispered.
“These are a smaller subspecies of the giant Sequoia farther up north,” Isobel said.
“There are bigger trees?”
Beside her, Riot folded his hands on his
stomach. He had taken off his spectacles, and his eyes were closed. He was listening to the trees, and he looked to be at peace for the first time in a long while.
There was something timeless about the forest—primordial, with twining mists and giant ferns whose every surface glistened with moisture. And the quiet. It was deep and still under the canopy. Isobel never walked through the redwoods without feeling like she was in the presence of something greater than herself. Of time itself. It was hard not to feel like an ant crawling through the dirt.
“There are larger trees,” she whispered. “But these are… special.”
Jin was lying next to her. She turned her head to study Isobel. “Why?”
“They’re thousands of years old,” Isobel whispered. “Hundreds of feet tall, but the roots only go down six feet or so.” Isobel raised her hands over their faces, intertwining her fingers. “The roots spread out just beneath the ground, intertwining for support. So even when one tree is hollowed out by fire, it will still grow strong. Naturalists call it a family ring.”
Jin was quiet for a time. “Are you still mad at me?” she finally asked.
Isobel reached for the girl’s hand. “I’m terrified I’ll lose you.”
Jin’s hand tightened around hers. “Would you have done the same thing?”
Isobel took a deep, shaky breath. “I haven’t lived your life. I don’t honestly know, but I understand why you tried to kill Maa Min.”
Jin’s fingers strayed to the tattered leather bracelet around Isobel’s wrist. It had been a gift from Jin when Isobel was in a bad place. It had belonged to Jin’s mother.
Isobel looked at her daughter. “Do you feel better?”
Jin shook her head. “No,” she said. Then paused. “Yes?” Confusion twisted her features. “When I think of Maa Min, there is only a hollow feeling. I do not feel peace.”
“You never buried your parents,” Riot murmured.
As soon as he said it, Jin’s eyes dimmed. “I do not know what happened to their bodies.”
Isobel held up their interlaced hands. “We have your mother’s bracelet.”
Jin stared, struck, her lips trembling. Then she nodded.
They hiked deep into the forest, where the trees were thick and the light of the sun never touched the moss-covered ground. Jin chose a spot by a stream dyed red from the bark. She stood in a ring of trees facing an ancient one in the center, its trunk scorched by fires and marred by axes—in silence so deep it drowned out the stream.
While Tobias and Sarah stood quietly nearby, Isobel and Riot helped Jin dig a hole at the base, until their hands turned red from the earth. When Jin was satisfied, Isobel carefully untied the tattered bracelet, and handed it to the girl.
For a moment, Jin hesitated. And that would have been fine. No one would pressure her to bury the only thing she had left of her mother. Then Jin sank to her knees, and placed the bracelet in the grave.
Jin pressed her forehead to the earth, and inhaled the scents of life and death, the cycle of decay and rebirth. “Goodbye, bahba and mahma,” she whispered.
As Jin’s small body shook with grief, Isobel and Riot helped her push the dirt back, their tears mingling with the earth.
Eventually, she stilled, and Tobias brought over a pile of rocks. He made a circle around the freshly churned grave. Sarah brought a flower, then pulled Jin into a hug. And Riot took out a five dollar bill. He put a match to it, scattering the ashes over the grave.
“For their afterlife,” he said in Cantonese. It was supposed to be fake money, but they were improvising. He kissed the top of Jin’s head, whispered his love in her ear, and moved out of the family ring with the other two children.
Isobel knelt in the dirt, wiping her nose with a kerchief. “Sometimes I think it was easier when I refused to let myself feel anything.”
Jin was staring at the grave. She looked like a puppet whose strings had been cut. “Do you believe in an afterlife?”
Isobel sighed. “I don’t know, Jin. Most days I think it’s just a nice dream. But then…” She sat back, leaning against the ancient old tree to fiddle with her wedding ring. The rings separated, forming a miniature model of the universe that she could hold in her hand. “When I come to a place like this, I’m reminded how very small I am. And I think, what do I know?”
Jin leaned against her shoulder. “I like it here.”
“We can visit them whenever you like.”
“Will you come with me?”
Isobel put an arm around her and tucked her in close. “Of course I will.”
“My father and mother were tailors. They made costumes, and fought against hatchet men.”
“What were their names?”
Jin told her, and then more—a torrent of small memories that lit up her eyes and filled the quiet with sunshine.
50
Loose Ends
Tim was strangely still. He didn’t rock. He didn’t smoke. His pipe was cold and sitting in his pocket as he leaned against a wall in an upper story warehouse, watching the street below through a hole in a broken pane.
Across the street, a man came out of a boxing club. It wasn’t a fancy Olympic club sort of place, with their hot baths and soft towels. This was a rough place—the sort that trained thugs. And that suited Tim just fine. He raised his rifle and drew a bead on the man below. He’d recognize that mustache and stride anywhere.
Montgomery Johnson stopped to light a cigarette. The man had fading bruises and a sheen of sweat on his skin. An early morning fog misted him as he took in the chill air.
Tim settled into the rifle that was close to a stranger to him. It wasn’t his favorite; this was one he had picked up through the years. Maybe he’d got it secondhand, or off an outlaw, or even at a pawnshop. Tim couldn’t recall when or where, which was precisely why he collected his arsenal of discarded weapons. They came in handy every once in awhile.
His finger rested on the trigger, the sight on Monty’s head, between his eyes. His finger caressed the trigger for a moment before pausing.
Why hadn’t Monty killed A.J.? It would’ve been simple enough to drag A.J. outside and brain him one final time. A.J. was already rubbing shoulders with death. Monty could have blamed it on thieves, or coated him in whiskey and made it look like he drowned in his own vomit. There were heaps of ways to kill a man and walk away scot-free.
Of course, Monty nearly had killed A.J. He had used him for a punching bag, and left him to freeze with his face buried in muck. Monty was a coward, Tim decided. He had left things to chance so he wouldn’t be bothered by conscience, and that didn’t set well with Tim, who was never one to leave a loose end.
“Ashes to ashes; dust to dust. You should’ve played fair, boy.” Tim eased down on the trigger. A shot rang out, and Monty dropped to the street.
Tim calmly wiped down the rifle and tossed it out a back window into Mission Creek, then strode out to get a drink at a saloon run by an old gal who didn’t have much use for clocks.
Afterword
You’ve probably noticed by now, dear reader, that I tend to leave a few loose threads in every book. Life doesn’t always tie everything up in nice little neat knots that get resolved in a timely manner. So never fear… any loose ends left in this book will be tied up, eventually. I’m a huge fan of overarching stories. But I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now.
This story is based on a case that “thrilled city and state” in 1902 San Francisco—the disappearance of Nora Fuller. Most of the details surrounding the case were taken straight from the Morning Call: the ad in the wanted section (word for word), the rendezvous at the Popular, and even Bennett’s description. Nora did, in fact, telephone her brother, and either she gave him the wrong address, or the man she was meeting did. Either way, a real estate agent found her body some thirty days later in the back room on the top floor of the Sutter Street house, exactly as described in the book. The police detective who responded and the coroner both declared it either a suicide or de
ath by natural causes. It wasn’t until the press got a hold of the story and raised such a ruckus over it that the police were forced to investigate further. Of course, this is all according to the Morning Call. Reporters tended to toot their own horns and took every chance to highlight their own superiority over the police force. But based on later articles that talked about the competence of the police detective who took over the case, I tend to think that the original reporting was accurate.
A deluge of clues and tips followed, many of which are included in the story, including the sketch of Nora Fuller being choked to death. Although the police did eventually identify a man they believed to be the killer, he was never caught and brought to justice. Reports of his whereabouts were still being discussed in papers as late as 1908.
So many aspects of this century-old case remind me of modern day predatory behavior, including the social media stalking of young women. It seems this story could very well appear in a newspaper today. And sadly, as it was with the case of Nora Fuller, so few perpetrators are ever brought to justice.
What else might you be wondering about? There’s always so much… The Committee of Vigilance is factual. In 1851, Albert Bernard de Russailh wrote the following about San Francisco’s newly formed police force:
“As for the police, I have only one thing to say. The police force is largely made up of ex-bandits, and naturally the members are interested above all in saving their old friends from punishment. Policemen here are quite as much to be feared as the robbers; if they know you have money, they will be the first to knock you on the head. You pay them well to watch over your house, and they set it on fire. In short, I think that all the people concerned with justice or the police are in league with the criminals. The city is in a hopeless chaos, and many years must pass before order can be established. In a country where so many races are mingled, a severe and inflexible justice is desirable, which would govern with an iron hand.”
Where Cowards Tread (Ravenwood Mysteries #7) Page 36