The First Emma
Camille Di Maio
©2020 Camille Di Maio
All Rights Reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-948018-76-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020935066
Cover photo ©Serg Zastavkin.
Archive photos used with permission from The University of Texas at San Antonio Special Collections.
“Creative Commons Emma Koehler circa 1936” on page 308 from UTSA Special Collections, the Zintgraff Collection, ©Rio Perla Properties, LP., licensed under CC BY 4.0
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/)
“Creative Commons Pearl Brewery circa 1910” on page 309 from UTSA Archives Special Collections, the Zintgraff Collection, ©UTSA, licensed under CC BY 4.0
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/)
“Creative Commons Emma Koehler circa 1910” on page 313 from UTSA Special Collections, the Zintgraff Collection, ©Alamo Colleges Foundation, licensed under CC BY 4.0
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/)
Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing, Inc.
Deadwood, Oregon
www.WyattMacKenzie.com
OTHER BOOKS BY CAMILLE DI MAIO
The Memory of Us
Before the Rain Falls
The Way of Beauty
The Beautiful Strangers
To Rochelle Weinstein and Suzy Leopold—if nothing came from my book career except your friendships, it would all be worth it.
To Tonni Callan, Andrea Katz, Leila Meacham, Susan Peterson, Teri Wilson, Kathy Murphy, the Pulpwood Queens and all bookish friends from Texas, this is for you.
And to Kristy Barrett for being the loveliest Queen Bee ever.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Epilogue
Author’s note
Acknowledgments
PROLOGUE
San Antonio, Texas
November 12, 1914
EMMA HADN’T WOKEN with murder on her mind. Only a desperate wish that the terrible pain would go away. She’d been plagued with relentless migraines and had stayed in bed for the better part of a week. The lace curtains let in light that intensified the throbbing in her temples, so she’d darkened the room by tying her quilt to the corners of the window.
It was her mother’s handiwork, stitched in the aptly named crazy house pattern, and reminded her of better days.
A sachet of lavender from the garden lay next to her pillow, its fresh buds plucked late in the summer, but its scent had faded along with its crumbling purple buds.
She listened as the other Emma stood in the kitchen brewing tea. The water being poured into the pot, the staccato click of the gas igniting the stove. Quick moves echoed across a house that was nearly void of furniture. These were the actions of a woman who was surely anxious to return home to the arms of her adoring, though lackluster, husband in New York. Mr. Daschiel had won over Miss Dumpke even though he could exhaust an army with his droning monologues. But eloping with him had untangled her from the women’s unseemly arrangement.
To think it had all begun with such innocence.
Emma was under no illusion that the other Emma had returned for any other reason than guilt. Only scant words had passed between them these last few days. The necessary ones that allowed one to nurse the other. “How are you feeling today?” and “Here’s a cocaine lozenge for your pain.”
What else was there to say? A litany of apologies from each of them would not engender a return to what their friendship had been before it all unraveled.
By late afternoon, the few cicadas that remained for the remnants of the autumn season hummed their mating song in the distance. It was the only sound that didn’t add to Emma’s migraine—it was a lullaby of sorts. A love song nearing its end. Like the lavender at the end of its bloom.
How appropriate.
Closer in, the sound of a motor alerted Emma to Otto Koehler’s impending arrival. It was easy to tell that it was him. Few people around Hunstock Avenue possessed such contraptions, though sharp-eyed investors believed that they would be all the rage in a few years. Five hundred dollars got you the Runabout model of Ford’s latest achievement. Bottom of the line, though Otto could easily have afforded the more luxurious Town Car.
He could afford a thousand of them.
It was not the particular hum of the automobile that announced his approach, however. It was the way in which he drove it, straining it to the limits of its capabilities, to the point that Emma could sympathize with its plea for restraint.
Otto rode with such ferocity. Eager to get the job done, much like his lovemaking.
Yes, the women had spoken of it and made comparisons.
His footsteps fell upon the stairs with ungainly effort—especially as they landed on the rotted fourth step; the one he kept imploring the two Emmas to repair. But he hadn’t hired them for their carpentry skills. They were trained nurses, brought in from the Hanover region of Germany to care for his invalid wife. So the step remained untouched and Otto shouted a curse every time he visited the home he’d purchased for his two mistresses.
It sat just blocks away from his beloved Hot Wells Hotel on South Presa. The storied resort he’d purchased after a fire bankrupted its first owner. Otto’s vision for it drew celebrities and tycoons and politicians from around the country, augmenting his already legendary status as a world-class businessman. Guests indulged in its healing sulfur waters while peacocks and ostriches raced in organized spectacles.
He was a man beloved by the public, but increasingly reviled by the women in his life.
Emma pressed a down-filled pillow over her ears as the other Emma’s voice, muffled through the cushion, mingled with Otto’s more insistent one. They were arguing. She could easily guess why.
Darkness and quiet were the only remedies for headaches of this severity. Why did Otto have to choose today to make a visit?
As he neared the bedroom, his medium build cast a larger shadow, lit from the sun-drenched window in the front of the house. Emma opened her eyes as much as she could without a recurrence of the searing pain, and she noticed that he had not shaved his substantial mustache, despite her pleas. He’d dismissed her complaints that it scratched her skin when he pressed his lips against hers.
Mary Pickford had complimented him on it a few years ago and he hadn’t been seen without it since.
Mary Pickford never had to kiss him.
Otto entered her room without knocking. It was his name on the deed, after all, and they were his employees. Well, Emma Burgemeister remained so. She was paid handsomely for her work and still received the usual funds even during this bedridden time. Fifty dollars every month for services as a nurse to his wife. In addition, he’d dangled a promise to g
ive her the deed to the tiny cottage and a gift of twenty thousand dollars.
It was more than most immigrant women could hope for and she didn’t complain. Security came with strings and the notion of love was a luxury built on quicksand.
But so far, neither of the offerings had come to pass.
Emma’s eyes adjusted to the light peeking in from the kitchen, and she could barely make out the wild look on Otto’s face as he crumpled a paper in his hand. She didn’t have to see the type print on the thin, yellow page it to recognize what it was. She’d known it would upset him and had anticipated this moment.
He tossed his bowler hat on a table and took a deep breath.
Emma clenched her fists under the blankets and felt the quickening of her pulse in her fingers.
“What do you mean by this?” he asked, throwing the receipt at her with surprising force. Otto Koehler was not a violent man. Just a headstrong one. But Emma Daschiel’s recent marriage along with Emma Burgemeister’s refusal of Otto’s proposal had unhinged him of late.
“It is for the new wheelchair for Mrs. Koehler.”
“The old one is perfectly good. She hasn’t complained.”
“Not to you, but I noticed that the turns around your house are difficult for her to maneuver and the thick rugs slow her down. This new model has smoother bearings and larger wheels. She’s been quite excited for it to arrive.”
He slumped into the cushioned chair across from Emma’s bed and ran his fingers through thinning gray hair. There was something pitiful in his sigh that almost moved her to change her mind.
She knew he loved his wife. Had loved her ever since he came over from Germany so many years ago to start a new life in St. Louis. He’d met her when he was a young man and after they’d married, he convinced her to move to Texas with the wild idea of starting his own brewery. Until her car accident four years ago, she’d been quite spritely, Emma had been told, and her convalescence had been his undoing.
Yes, he loved his wife. To the degree, at least, that Otto could love someone beyond himself.
Emma softened her voice, not wanting to argue with him as he had with the other Emma. He didn’t take well to being challenged by a woman and conciliation was a trait he prized.
“I should have asked you. But this wheelchair will be good for her, Otto. It’s not as if you can’t afford it.”
In fact, Otto Koehler was one of the richest men in San Antonio—and in the country. With business and real estate holdings so vast that even his lawyers and accountants could barely keep up. But maybe his miserly ways had been the very thing that built his wealth. He didn’t spend a penny that wasn’t necessary or that wasn’t an investment of some kind.
As proven by purchasing the one house for the two Emmas.
The less expensive automobile.
His harried breathing calmed as it always did after his quick rebukes. He stood up and walked to Emma’s bed, rubbing his hand gently across her aching forehead.
“How are you feeling today, my love? Any better?”
Otto’s fingers moved down her face in a familiar journey, brushing her cheek, her neck, her jawline. His rough skin had earned its abrasive texture from decades of sifting through the shipments of barley, crushing their pale brown pods between his fingers to release their scent and deem them worthy—or not—of being used in Pearl Beer.
He always had a faint smell of sweetness attached to his tweed jackets as well: the pure scent of fresh hops before boiling water and yeast and spices were added in the vast steel barrels. Not that she had ever been invited to see them in person. A recent newspaper article had lauded his magnificent building on Avenue A and showed many pictures of the operation. The black ink residue on her fingers was the closest she had ever come to that part of his life.
It was an article commissioned, no doubt, by Otto, who’d grown more and more anxious of late over dry activists who campaigned for the prohibition of his beloved industry. Of his Pearl Brewery.
Otto had always counted on his mistresses to distract him from such troubles. And now he was losing even that.
Emma bit her lower lip as his hand continued downward and rested against the side of her breast. For all his faults, Otto knew how to elicit a response that could make her forget the unusual nature of their relationship.
He was an excellent lover.
She curled her toes and tried to steel herself against the temptation to lose herself in his touch and escape, even briefly, from the damnable headaches.
But she had to put an end to this. What small affection she’d once had for him changed when he announced that he was going to leave his wife.
It was one thing to keep up this affair, almost an hour’s ride from the opulent home he lived in with Mrs. Koehler in the Laurel Heights section of the city. To share the comforts of a warm bed with a man who’d been robbed of that particular pleasure when his wife was no longer able to be that kind of companion to him. But the thought of replacing her patient was repugnant. Mrs. Koehler was a formidable woman. Kind but firm. Smart as anyone Emma had ever met. An excellent employer who had given her no reason to pursue this betrayal to that extent.
Mrs. Koehler had given her husband enough slack in the reins to pursue the necessary manly endeavors. But leave her? She was not likely to be so pliable. She protected the reputation of Pearl with the ferocity of a mother to a child and the scandal would have made headlines across the country.
Emma had told him no. She would not consent to him divorcing his wife on her account. She would not marry him.
But he continued to beg.
Emma grabbed his wrist and threw it from her, satisfied with the slight thud as it fell against the corner of the nightstand.
“Darling,” he whispered as he hovered over her ear. “Please reconsider. Marry me and you’ll make me the happiest man alive.”
“No,” she insisted. The third such rejection in as many weeks. She propped herself up on her elbows.
“Emma,” he pled. He put his knee on the mattress and spoke in a low, heavy moan that indicated how eager he was to return to her bed.
“No,” she said again with all the force she could muster. “Otto, I’m not going to marry you. It’s over. All of this is over.”
She clutched his shirt in her hands and shoved him off the bed. He fell against the nightstand with all his weight this time, sending her silver hand mirror across its marble surface. It stopped just short of crashing to the ground. A precious memento of the life she’d once had on the other side of the world.
A reminder that she wished she had never left.
It was difficult to see his reaction in the dim room where he was nearly a silhouette. But he righted himself and moved forward again. A shot of fear rushed through Emma’s body. Otto had never had so much taken away from him in so short a time: his wife’s health, his first lover’s marriage, his second lover’s refusal. A desperate man might do anything.
As he drew nearer with wide steps, Emma slipped her finger under the pillow and felt around for the .32 revolver he’d bought for her to protect against coyotes. Its cool metal frame gave her some reassurance.
Just in case.
She felt his body fall upon the mattress, his hot breath landing on her neck in frenzied kisses. His hands trying all the things in all the places that had once excited her.
“Get off of me!”
“Don’t leave. Don’t leave me,” he begged. His tone had turned to one of despair and each sob was more wretched than the last. So much could be hers if she acquiesced. Wealth. Comfort. Affection. It was all very tempting.
But some things were worth more than that.
Emma threw the blankets toward the foot of the bed. “It’s over!” she insisted.
She listened for sounds from the kitchen but couldn’t hear the other Emma in the house anymore. Had she gone outside when Otto arrived? That had always been their arrangement before she left to marry Mr. Daschiel. Only one woman in the house when Otto came
around to visit.
She slid her hand under the pillow again, this time clutching the revolver. The sweat on her hand fell on its leather grip. She pulled it out in a quick motion and placed the barrel against Otto’s chest, pushing him away as she sat up.
He jumped back, sweat rippling down the wrinkles on his forehead. “You’re crazy.”
Otto waved a finger at her and turned toward the living room.
Emma lifted herself out of bed, arms weakened after convalescing. She walked across the wood floor in bare feet, avoiding the board that had worn and would splinter her skin. The light from the next room sent more pain to her head and her eyes winced as they took it in. But she could see Otto standing in front of her, just beyond the sofa, a case knife drawn from his pocket. His hand shook, but his eyes fixed a hard gaze on her.
Her heart beat quickly and a sense of terror seized her.
He’d called her crazy? She’d only meant to frighten him away. But there was a look about him that that held more than a threat.
He stepped toward her and the knife slashed her arm.
She fired the trigger in response. Three times.
Neck.
Face.
Heart.
Otto crumpled to the floor, clutching his chest. Heat raced to her cheeks and she dropped the revolver on the ground next to her. She collapsed next to his body and pulled away his vest, ripping the buttons from their threads.
What had she done?
Only then did she hear the other Emma, who ran in from the porch. A look of horror passed between the women.
Otto’s thin-framed body writhed on the wool rug, a thick red pool forming on his white shirt. His blood mixing with hers. His eyes fluttered, looking between them.
“Emma,” he whispered as he took his last breath.
But they didn’t know which woman he called out for.
Emma, his first mistress.
Emma, his second mistress.
Or Emma, his wife.
.
CHAPTER ONE
Baltimore
1942
The First Emma Page 1