Murder on the Last Frontier

by Cathy Pegau

  “No, wait—”

  Marie whirled around, snatched up her bag, and was out the door before Charlotte could ask her any more questions.

  “Make heads or tails of what?” she asked the empty hall.

  Charlotte held the old coat at the shoulders, her fingers sinking into the warm fur. It was heavy enough to be a decent coat for the environment, though not her style or her size. The girls at Miss Brigit’s had probably divided up Darcy’s belongings, since she didn’t have family. But if Darcy and Marie were so close, why hadn’t Marie kept the coat herself?

  Charlotte draped the coat over the back of the chair and heard a faint rustling. She lifted it again, feeling along the arms and panels. At the back panel, something crackled between the fur and the satin lining. But closer to the bottom, the coat felt thicker. Charlotte inspected the seam. Though the stitches were neat and even, there was a section that had been sewn with different thread.

  She sorted through her belongings and found a small pair of scissors in her travel sewing kit. Carefully, she snipped the odd threads. Before she was half done with the row, a stack of five-dollar Federal Reserve notes slid out of the gap. Charlotte stared at the ribbon-tied bundle. There were perhaps twenty notes in the stack. One hundred dollars wasn’t a fortune, but it was a nice little nest egg. How had Darcy gotten the money? Had she saved it? Had Marie known it was sewn into the seam? She must have.

  Charlotte gently pulled the money all the way through and set it aside. She felt along the inside panel of the coat. Her hand stilled. There were at least four more bundles and some other papers. Quick work of the rest of the thread proved her right. She retrieved another four hundred dollars or so and some yellowing newspaper pages folded in half.

  Five hundred dollars cash. No wonder Darcy wasn’t as anxious to work the clubs as the other girls. Where did she get so much money? It was doubtful Brigit paid the girls that well. Tips from her patrons? Possibly. Why hide it? Why not open a bank account if she was afraid the money would be stolen? Perhaps the local bank wasn’t keen on doing business with ladies of the evening.

  Charlotte laid the folded newspaper in front of her. The partial article facing her was something about the dwindling gold strikes in Nome. She glanced at the top of the page. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, dated October 16, 1909. The front page, with its bold masthead, was creased from several folds. Charlotte smoothed it out. The picture centered on the page showed several people coming down the steps of a large building. Three men and two women, all wearing heavy dark coats. The headline at the top read, in large letters, CASE DISMISSED!

  She read the caption at the bottom of the picture. “John Kincaid, Mary Jensen, Elizabeth Jensen, and their lawyers Herbert Grimes and Richard Barlow leaving the Fairbanks Courthouse.”

  Why would Darcy keep the article? Did she know any of the people involved?

  Charlotte read the article through. Kincaid, owner of a gambling den, and the two women, prostitutes on the Line in downtown Fairbanks, had been accused of theft and fraud by a patron, Cecil Patterson. Patterson claimed the Jensen sisters had lured him to their small cabin on the Line, convinced him to attend a gathering at Kincaid’s club, then proceeded to cheat him out of his gold. Unfortunately for the territorial prosecutor, Patterson had disappeared shortly before he was scheduled to testify, and the case was dismissed.

  A second page, dated May of 1910, showed nothing of interest as far as Charlotte could see. Advertisements for men’s clothing, the announcement of a wedding, and the continuation of a story from the previous page regarding the hassles Judge Wickersham faced in civilizing interior Alaska. But at the corner of the page, a small piece, almost an afterthought, noted that a body found during the breakup of the Chena River had yet to be identified. No one had come forward to claim the poor soul, who was barely recognizable as male due to injury by weather, ice, and scavengers. The suspected cause of death was exposure as a result of excessive alcohol. How else could his lack of clothing be explained?

  Charlotte reread the two paragraphs. She went back to the front-page article about the fraud case. Nothing else in the two pages seemed remotely connected. Was the body found in the icy waters of the Chena River Cecil Patterson?

  She peered more closely at the picture of the people at the courthouse. There was something vaguely familiar about the man, Kincaid, but she couldn’t be sure. Not that Charlotte expected to know anyone from Fairbanks. Perhaps Michael or James might, though how likely was that?

  She found her magnifying glass in the top drawer of her wardrobe trunk and focused it on the picture. The two women wore fashionable hats of the day, lovely, but half their faces were hidden. The lawyers appeared to be appropriately smug after having gotten their clients off on the fact that there was no witness.

  Charlotte studied Kincaid. His tall, robust figure dwarfed the women. She focused on his face, and her breath caught. There was a mark on his cheek, just above the line of his mutton chops. The smile beneath his whiskers said this whole situation had been a mistake from the get-go. She’d seen both the birthmark and the smile before, on Mayor Kavanagh.

  She set the magnifying glass on the table. Had John Kincaid fled Fairbanks for Cordova, clean-shaven and with a name change to help hide his identity?

  Improbable, especially if someone who knew him well in Fairbanks happened to be in Cordova, but not impossible. Alaska was a land of starting over, a place to reinvent yourself. Maybe Kincaid/Kavanagh didn’t feel the need to travel too far for that, despite having been accused of terrible acts, and perhaps linked to the disappearance of a witness.

  How did Darcy figure into this?

  Charlotte considered the paper then the stacks of notes. A lot of money for a young sporting woman to be hiding. Unless she was involved in something as illicit as theft or fraud. Something like blackmail.

  Suppose Darcy had known Kavanagh was really Kincaid. Suppose she had pressed him for money to keep quiet and maintain his upstanding reputation. Suppose the Honorable Mayor had gotten tired of paying.

  “Was that what got you killed you, Darcy?”

  Was that who killed her, was the bigger question.

  Charlotte would need more information before going any further than speculation. There was no proof of anything, and no one to ask with Darcy dead and Marie having left town. Had Kavanagh been at Miss Brigit’s that night? He would have been a hard man to miss. Would he have hired someone to do his dirty work?

  A shiver ran down Charlotte’s spine, closely followed by a cold dose of reality. This was getting ridiculous. It was an outrageous scenario, one for dime novels and pulp-fiction magazines. She couldn’t even be sure the man in the picture was Kavanagh. It could be someone who looked similar to the mayor, and maybe her own brain had jumped to a very wrong conclusion.

  That had to be it.

  Though it didn’t explain why Darcy had stashed money and the articles in the coat. She might have been afraid of being robbed, but why hold onto the newspaper clippings?

  Damn it! Marie had brought Charlotte the coat for a reason. Had Marie been in on Darcy’s secret or had she found the money and the pages the same way Charlotte had, by accident? Why hadn’t Marie taken the money?

  Nothing made sense.

  Except that Charlotte was now in possession of a large amount of cash and items that could be connected to a woman’s death. And someone in Cordova had warned her away from looking into that death. What if that person found out what was in the coat and that she had it?

  Charlotte shoved the money and the papers back into the gap between the fur and the lining. She threaded a needle and hastily sewed the seam. It was nowhere near as neat as the one she’d torn out, but it would do. She’d bring the evidence, such as it was, to James. But it was so late, after ten. He wouldn’t be at the office now, and Charlotte had no idea where he lived. She’d have to ask Michael. There was no way she’d be able to wait until morning to do so.

  She dumped her notebook out of her tapestry
bag, shoved the coat inside, then donned her outerwear. The rubber boots squeaked softly as she forced herself to walk down the hall rather than run. No one was in the parlor at that hour. Charlotte quietly unlocked the front door and slipped outside. She was careful to lock it behind her.

  The night was cold and damp. There was no one else on the street, and her heels thudded with unusual loudness along the walk. The glow of the streetlamps provided pools of safety, though she couldn’t put a name to what she was afraid of. There was no indication that anyone was nearby. Not a sound, not another soul.

  You’re being ridiculous.

  Be that as it may, Charlotte hurried along the walk to Michael’s.

  The curtains were drawn over dark windows. Taking care on the slick stone in front of his door, she knocked and waited. Rain pinged on the metal roof. The scents of the sea and of coal smoke were stronger than that of the rain. She pounded the side of her fist on the door.

  Where the hell could he be?

  Charlotte scanned the dark street. The businesses were all closed, of course. Lights shined in homes farther up the road, standing out against the otherwise dark slope of the residential area above Main Street. Was Michael visiting his fiancée and her family? There was only one way to find out.

  Clutching the tapestry bag to her chest, she headed toward the reverend’s home. Once past Main Street, there were few streetlights. Charlotte’s pace slowed. The dim glow of the watery pools of light was barely enough for her to navigate the muddy street. She should have brought a flashlight.

  You should have stayed home, her more practical inner voice admonished.

  Probably, but there was no changing that now.

  Halfway between the third and fourth streets paralleling Main, the back of her neck prickled, and Charlotte stopped. The sound of squelching feet abruptly halted somewhere behind her. She whirled around, peering into the darkness and listening. Michael’s warning of bears roaming town set her heart racing.

  But would a bear stop when she did?

  Of course not. And no one else was fool enough to be out in the rain at this hour. It was her own footsteps echoing back at her. She was letting her imagination get the better of her. Chiding herself for foolishness, Charlotte resumed her trek to the Bartletts’, plodding through muck.

  There it was again. The sucking sound of feet pulling from mud, as if someone were treading not on the relatively packed road, but along the side. Following her. Trying to not be seen.

  Charlotte’s heart hammered. She broke into an awkward run, her boots slipping and sliding. The windows of the Bartlett home spilled light into the front yard, promising safety if she could just reach them.

  Her feet went out from under her, and Charlotte fell. She landed on her right side. A sharp pain shot from her hip up along her spine. “Damnation!”

  The wet footfalls came closer, the fall of boot soles on earth, not paws.

  Without waiting to see if her follower was friend or foe, Charlotte scrambled to her feet, the bag tight to her chest, and bolted the last fifty feet to the front door. Under the harsh porch light, she slapped her palm on the pristine surface, leaving muddy handprints.

  “Hello! Please, is anyone there?”

  Heavy footsteps behind her sent Charlotte’s heart into her throat. She spun, back against the door. A dark figure lurched up the walkway.

  “Who are—” The door jerked open, and Charlotte tumbled into the house.

  Chapter 10

  Charlotte hit the foyer floor with a jolt that rattled her from tailbone to teeth. She caught herself with one hand behind to keep her head from cracking. The fur coat spilled out of the bag, into her lap.

  “Good God, Charlotte, what are you doing?”

  She tilted her head up to peer into Michael’s astonished face. Movement from outside flickered at the edge of her vision. She faced the shadowed figure and scooted back against Michael’s legs. “There’s someone—”

  The words died on her lips as Ruth’s brother Sam stepped into the circle of light. He swiped his wet hair away from his forehead, staring at her, hands clenched at his sides. His coat gaped open to the wind and the rain, the second oblong toggle button missing.

  Muttering, “Sorry,” he dashed over her splayed legs and ran up the stairs.

  “Sam!” Ruth called after him from behind Michael, but the boy didn’t slow down. His feet pounded overhead. A door slammed.

  Charlotte stuffed the fur coat back into her bag, hands shaking. Her wrist twinged from the fall, but she didn’t think it was sprained or broken.

  “Goodness.” Ruth helped Charlotte to her feet. “Come up off the floor. What on earth is going on?” She brushed her palms together, knocking off bits of mud collected from grasping Charlotte’s arm.

  Michael shut the door, his features now set in agitation. He was wearing his mackinaw, likely having been on his way out when Charlotte burst in. “I’d like to know the same thing.”

  She held the bag containing the coat against her chest, the damp fur emitting a slight odor of wet dog, and opened her mouth to explain. But something stopped her. Ruth’s pursed lips of disappointment? Michael’s exasperation?

  “Why don’t you come in and sit down, Miss Brody? Tell us what the fuss is all about.”

  She hadn’t noticed Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett standing near the doorway leading into the parlor. Reverend Bartlett looked concerned, but Mrs. Bartlett wore the same sort of disapproving expression as her daughter.

  “I’m sorry to bother you so late,” Charlotte said. “I was hoping to find Michael here, and on my way up I thought—”

  Telling them all she thought someone had been following her seemed ludicrous now. Of course someone had been following her. Young Sam had been on his way home, traveling in the same direction she was going.

  Charlotte’s cheeks warmed; she felt like a silly girl.

  “Is there some sort of emergency?” Michael asked. Ruth passed him his hat. Her hand lingered on his arm.

  “No, not really.” Charlotte stammered the words and realized she was shivering. Cold mud had seeped through her dress, and caked on her hip and leg when she fell. “I just needed to see you.”

  Michael narrowed his gaze at her, his lips pressed tight. Before he could say anything, Ruth gestured to the bag. “What is it you have there?”

  Charlotte stifled the impulse to hide the bag behind her back, like a child caught stealing cookies. “Nothing.” A terrible lie that, by Ruth’s frown, was easily detected. “Nothing important. It’s just—I need to speak to you, Michael.” To hell with dodging the other woman’s curiosity, though to be fair Charlotte had fallen into her house. The Bartletts deserved some sort of explanation. “It’s about the case.”

  Michael cast guilty glances toward Ruth and his future in-laws. “Not here. I’ll walk you home.” He gave Ruth a peck on the cheek. “Good night, darling.” Then he shook hands with the elder Bartletts. “Sorry about the disturbance.”

  “Nothing to worry about, son,” the reverend said, waving them off as if young women stumbled into his home on a regular basis. “I hope everything works out all right. Good evening to you, Miss Brody.”

  “Good evening, Reverend. Mrs. Bartlett.” Charlotte nodded to him and his wife. “Again, please accept my apologies. Good night, Ruth.”

  “Good night, Charlotte,” she said tightly. She opened the front door, glaring.

  Another wedge between them, Charlotte realized. At this rate Christmas dinner was going to be hell.

  Michael took her arm and escorted her out, his pace down the walk a bit too fast for the wet conditions. The door shut firmly behind them.

  “Are you out of your ever-loving mind, coming here like this?” His fierce whisper carried down the dark street. “You’ve already managed to upset Ruth’s mother and her closest friends. Are you trying to add Reverend Bartlett and Ruth to that list?”

  Charlotte was pretty sure Ruth was already on that list, but now wasn’t the time to be flippant.
“I needed to talk to you or James about some things I have in my possession.”

  “You mean that ratty coat? Where’d you get it?”

  “Marie. It was Darcy’s.”

  His step faltered, but he pressed on. “Darcy’s? Why did Marie give it to you?”

  Charlotte glanced around, seeing nothing out of the ordinary and hearing nothing but their own footsteps. It was only Sam, she reminded herself. “I’d rather not go into details here. Can we go see James?”

  “At this hour?” Michael’s voice rose with incredulity. “Tell me what you have, and we’ll see if it merits waking the man.”

  Which meant he’d decide if it was worth all the fuss. Charlotte shook her head. When had he become such a pompous ass? “If you don’t want to help me figure out who killed Darcy, then fine. Just tell me where James lives, and I’ll go alone. You won’t be embarrassed or damage your precious reputation by waking an officer of the law with possible information on a murder.”

  At the edge of one of the pools of streetlamp light, Michael stopped, bringing her to a halt as well. “What the hell are you talking about? Of course I care about solving Darcy’s murder. What’s gotten into you?”

  Charlotte jerked her arm out of his hold. “What’s gotten into me? What’s gotten into you? You’re a totally different person from a year ago, Michael. I hardly recognize you anymore. You’re more concerned with your standing in the community, not serving it.” A ball of sorrow and anger swirled deep in her belly, then pressed into her chest, nearly choking her. “You’re different, and I want my brother back.”

  Tears stung her eyes. She blinked hard, hoping any that fell would just mix with the rain.

  “I’m different? What about you?” He stared at her hard enough to almost make her break. “While I was in med school and at the hospital, I’d get volumes of letters about what you were up to, who you were seeing. Then as of a year ago, barely a couple of pages’ worth every few weeks with vague references to gatherings and facts that changed from one letter to the next.”

  Charlotte trembled. He knew something had been going on with her.