No Pity For the Dead

by Nancy Herriman

  “Abram Russell.” He guided her across the road in the wake of a lumbering coal wagon. “Looks like everybody’s finally willing to confess what Frank Hutchinson was doing the night Virgil Nash was murdered.”

  “It vexes you that they were willing to protect him this long, does it not, Mr. Greaves?” she asked.

  “Does it show?”

  “To me, it does,” she replied, admitting to a dangerous occupation—observing his moods. “However, not only did Katie provide Frank with an alibi; she told me about a man who had been in the saloon a few weeks before Mr. Nash died. This man seemed very alarmed to spot Mr. Nash and snuck out of the saloon to avoid him. Curious reaction, would you not agree, Mr. Greaves?”

  “Curious reaction, Mrs. Davies.”

  “The thought struck me that perhaps he was the man who killed Silas Nash in Virginia City. I am aware the likelihood seems remote, but it could explain his alarm at spotting Virgil Nash at Burke’s,” she said, shooing off a persistent newspaper boy with a flick of her hand.

  “The man’s name is Cuddy Pike, by the way. In all the recent excitement, I forgot to tell you,” he said. “And now all I have to do is locate a stranger in a city of more than one hundred thousand people. Sort of like trying to find a needle in an uncooperative haystack.”

  “Most daunting,” said Mrs. Davies. A gust of wind flung dust along the road, and she drew her wrap closer around her. “At least we can exonerate Frank of murder and the attempt to disinter Mr. Nash’s body. The shopgirl who noticed the man hurrying down the alleyway is convinced that he was short in stature. Much shorter than Frank. And possibly very thin, like—”

  “Like Jasper Martin. I got it. But Mrs. Davies, I really wish you’d let me do the investigating and you stick to keeping out of trouble,” said Nick. “What do you think of that?”

  “I think we are running out of time, Mr. Greaves,” she said. “And we are likely both in danger.”

  “That may be so, ma’am, but I’m betting you’re the one more likely to find it first.”

  “You make me sound quite reckless.”

  “Ma’am, I don’t have to make you sound like that at all for it to be true.”

  * * *

  “You’ve come home at last, I see,” said Addie. She leveled a frown at Celia, who was in the entry hall stripping off her bonnet and wrap. “You didna think I might be fretting? Canna help but think next you’ll be pushed in front of a horsecar or pummeled in one of those alleyways you’re e’er so fond of visiting. Och. You’re making me old before my time, ma’am.”

  “I am unharmed, Addie. A visit to a shop on Montgomery, then to see Katie Lehane,” she replied, omitting her visit to Mr. Martin while Addie was at the market. She patted her hair to make certain all was in place. “On a Monday afternoon, there is nothing to worry over.”

  “I’ll worry if I wish, ma’am!”

  “Cousin Celia, you’re back!” Barbara leaned over the upstairs banister. “What did you learn?”

  “That Mr. Hutchinson has a solid alibi for the evening of Mr. Nash’s murder,” Celia replied. She would never tell Barbara the details of that alibi, however. “Furthermore, he is not likely to be the man Owen chased through the alleyway last Thursday. We have thus cleared him of all responsibility, Barbara.”

  “Thank goodness.”

  “Making me old,” muttered Addie, taking Celia’s wrap and brushing a hand over the hem, dusty from the street.

  “What did you learn at the market today?” Celia asked her, seeking a more pleasant conversation.

  “That Michael Knowles remains a grinning galoot,” Addie said. “And he didna send me any flowers.”

  “Perhaps your admirer is Mr. Taylor, after all,” said Barbara.

  “Whisht, what a thought.”

  “I know it’s him. I just know it!” said Barbara in a burst of high spirits, before hurrying back to her bedchamber.

  Celia smiled at her cousin’s unexpected exuberance. “She wants you to be happy, Addie.”

  “Does she now?” Her housekeeper stared at the spot where Barbara had been standing. “Och, ma’am, I near forgot about the telegram we received when I returned home from the market.” Addie fished among her pockets and withdrew the item in question. “From that Mr. Smith, I think.”

  Celia took the telegram from her, tore open the envelope, and read.

  “Weel? Out with it!”

  Her gaze met her housekeeper’s. “It has indeed come from Mr. Smith. From Mexico,” she replied, the contents making her tremble. “He claims to have proof that Patrick is dead, and he will be shortly returning to the United States with the evidence.”

  “It’s about time Mr. Davies has done you the favor of being verifiably deceased,” she said, giving a brisk nod. She had never cared for Patrick. “Now you dinna have to file for divorce on grounds of abandonment.”

  Celia folded the telegram and tucked it into her skirt pocket. “Tell no one, Addie. Not even Barbara.”

  “Mr. Greaves might like to know,” said Addie.

  “I shall absolutely not tell him,” she answered quickly. “I want to be positive, Addie. Utterly positive.”

  “So I’m not to bring out your mourning?”

  What a question. “Not yet.”

  Because, knowing Patrick, being confirmed dead was no guarantee of the permanence of the condition.

  * * *

  After having supper and briefly reviewing the records of the next day’s patients, Celia retreated to the quiet of her bedchamber. She sat at her dressing table, removed the telegram from her pocket, and unfolded it, spreading it flat upon the table’s surface.

  Ah, Patrick. Could it be true?

  She opened the drawer and withdrew the small sandalwood box tucked in the far reaches. Brushing a finger over the pattern carved upon its surface, she recalled when her brother had gifted it to her upon her sixteenth birthday. The box had seemed such a grown-up present, the sort of item one would see on a lady’s writing desk, and she had been thrilled. Celia turned the key that undid the lock and opened the box, releasing its spicy aroma. Inside were Patrick’s letters. The ones he had sent when she was a nurse in Scutari, after he had been cleared to return to duty and released from the hospital. When he had been trying to woo her, her heart still raw from Harry’s death. She caressed the plum-colored ribbon she had wound around the stack. There were others from when he’d served with the Irish Brigade in the Americans’ civil war, and she had been studying at the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania and then volunteering at Satterlee Hospital. Halcyon days, when she had come to realize that she had chosen the right path in wanting to become a nurse. In the Crimea, she had done little more than feed soldiers or read them letters or wipe their fever-soaked foreheads. At Satterlee, however, she had discovered that there could be more to her chosen profession than merely providing companionship to patients.

  And Patrick had encouraged her, his own miseries upon the battlefields of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville only briefly mentioned. He had tried to understand her. For a while, at least.

  Had he been jealous that she had been so happy? Had he suspected even as he trudged through mud and filth, lived with camp diseases and poor rations, saw compatriots die horrible deaths while he survived unscathed, that she was not going to be content to be a mere wife when they were reunited? He must have, for when he came home to Philadelphia, he was not the same man who had gone off to fight three years earlier, and the flashes of anger he’d only occasionally exhibited in England became regular outbursts. Addie had grown apprehensive of him, and Celia had retreated more and more to her work, where there was safety and sanity and predictability. Her friends claimed many of the soldiers returned from the war behaving similarly—somber, angry, reliving the fighting in their dreams, sometimes not truly waking from their nightmares though they moved among the living. Those same f
riends had insisted Patrick would get better. Celia knew he would not.

  Because between them lay the bitter truth—Patrick Davies, he of the sparkling eyes and ready wit, had married a woman with a heart of stone. Perhaps if she had conceived a child, life would have been different. Perhaps she would have tried better to love him. But she had not conceived a child, and she did not try better to love him, though for so long she had feigned affection in hopes the emotion would take hold. But seedlings do not sprout on stone, and affection cannot readily be feigned. She had never blamed him for wanting to leave her.

  But there was no joy in realizing she was finally free.

  “Ma’am?”

  Celia looked over her shoulder. How long had Addie been standing there, calling to her?

  She stuffed the telegram into the box. “Yes, Addie?”

  Addie’s gaze flicked to the box, then back to Celia. She must be desperate to read the telegram herself, but Addie was too respectful to pry.

  “The young woman down the road, the one who’s newly wed, has scalded herself while cooking. Her husband’s come to fetch you there and says hurry.”

  “I shall require my elm bark poultice, some strips of linen, the bottle of spirits, and my medical bag, Addie,” she said.

  With a nod Addie left, and Celia locked the box, tucking it into the drawer, out of sight and where the memories the box held could not chastise her.

  * * *

  The young woman, who’d recently come from some Eastern European country and spoke a limited amount of English, had bit her lip so hard while Celia tended to her burns that she’d made it bleed. The poultice would help the inflammation only so much, but the woman had been brave. Her husband had watched from the corner of their kitchen while Celia had labored in the light of a lone oil lamp, his scrutiny skeptical of Celia’s abilities.

  “Aiyee,” his wife groaned between clenched teeth as Celia finished wrapping the scalds with clean linen. The boiling hot soup the woman had splashed on her arm had splattered all over the floor. Chunks of potatoes and stringy meat remained where they’d fallen, the scent of garlic and other spices heavy in the air, strong enough to mask smells of mold and bad plumbing. Work for the young woman once she’d stopped crying over her burns.

  “I will leave you the poultice. Change the bandage in twelve hours and apply more at that time,” Celia instructed the husband, who grunted a reply. Please, Celia thought, because she would not plead with a man who would not listen. “And send a message if the burns begin to suppurate.”

  “Thank you,” the young woman murmured in her small voice, resting her bandaged arm atop the stained beige dress that covered the swell of her belly. Soon there would be a child who would probably be as dark eyed and dark haired as both of his parents. Another mouth to compete for the stew.

  “You are most welcome,” said Celia, who packed her supplies and made to depart.

  The husband barked at his wife in their language, and the woman clambered to her feet.

  “Please do not go to any trouble,” Celia said to her. She did not want the injured—and very pregnant—young woman to feel obligated to formalities. “I shall find my way out.”

  It had grown dark by the time Celia descended the rickety stairs to the street, and fog blanketed the city again.

  Gathering her skirts, she rushed along, her footfalls echoing dully off the buildings. Celia turned the corner at Vallejo and began the steep climb up the road. She scanned her surroundings. This section of the road was the darkest of all, the corner house currently uninhabited and the drapery of the next house always closed so tightly that not even the faintest light leaked through. To make matters worse, the grocer’s on the opposite corner was also dark, the lantern that the owner’s wife usually placed by the upstairs room’s window unlit.

  Could I be more unfortunate?

  Her rapid exhalations clouded in the night air, and she hurried as best as she could, her portmanteau banging against her right knee. Not far. She really had not far to go. In fact, she was certain she could see the welcoming flare of the oil lamp in their parlor from here.

  At first, she dismissed the footsteps she heard scurrying behind her. They came from a rat rooting in the trash someone had discarded, or a neighbor’s dog on the loose. Or the cat she had seen the other evening. That was all. The furtiveness of the noise was nothing to fret over. Nonetheless, she increased her pace. The footsteps—they were footsteps, not the padding of paws—matched her tempo. I should not have gone out alone. Not after Cliff House. Celia glanced over her shoulder, hoping to see who was following her. But the fog was dense and becoming more so. She hoisted her skirts and began to run, turning for another look back. Just as she did, the toe of her boot caught on an uneven plank in the pavement.

  She stumbled, lost her balance completely. As she fell, a gunshot shattered the quiet, and she screamed.

  CHAPTER 12

  “Might not have even been trying to shoot you, ma’am,” said Mr. Taylor, clutching his notebook and looking uncomfortable to be standing in Celia’s entry hall with Addie scrutinizing him. “All sorts of unsavory types up here shooting off guns.”

  “I am aware of the character of my neighborhood, Mr. Taylor,” said Celia.

  She was grateful that Mr. Greaves’ assistant had arrived so quickly upon receiving the message to come to the house. He apparently often worked late at the station and had been there to receive it. But Celia could not help wishing it had been Mr. Greaves, not Mr. Taylor, who had answered the summons. He would scold me about wandering the streets at night with that concerned look in his eyes, and I would know that all would be right with the world. Instead, Mr. Taylor appeared to be anticipating how angry his superior would become once he learned that someone had shot at Celia, and the anticipation was making him fidget.

  “And even if he was firing at you, the bullet went mighty wide for thinking he meant to kill you, ma’am,” the officer added, a notion that was not as comforting as he’d intended. “The railing it hit was a good five, six feet from where you’d been standing.”

  Mr. Taylor hadn’t had any difficulty locating the bullet; the owner of the house whose banister it had splintered was happy to point out the damage once he’d noticed the police officer wandering around on the street near the man’s home.

  “Maybe he’s merely a dreadful poor shot, Mr. Taylor,” said Addie. “Just like the last time, ma’am. You getting shot at and all.”

  “I was not shot at last time, Addie,” said Celia. Attacked in their kitchen by a knife-wielding killer, yes. Shot at, no. I have come up in the world, it seems.

  “Dinna quibble, ma’am.”

  “Would you care for some tea, Mr. Taylor? It is never too late in the day for tea.” Celia extended a hand toward the parlor. Addie had lit every lantern on the ground floor, and the parlor blazed with light. “You can come through to the dining room and sit with us for a while before you return to the station.”

  A blush spread across his cheeks. Addie took to noticing a spot of dirt on the hallway wallpaper.

  “Wouldn’t you prefer I go and catch the fellow who shot at you?” he asked.

  “Do you honestly believe he is still loitering in the vicinity, Mr. Taylor? No, neither do I. So let us enjoy some tea, and perhaps some shortbread. Addie makes excellent shortbread.” Besides, if she did not sit, she would soon collapse, the way her knees were shaking.

  “Och, shortbread after some loony’s attempted to kill you,” muttered Addie. She bustled off toward the kitchen, likely happy to have an activity to take her mind off her mistress’ troubles.

  Mr. Taylor watched her depart. “The sooner I get to work looking for the fellow, the sooner we’ll find him, ma’am, and get him off the street. So I probably shouldn’t be staying for cookies and tea.”

  Celia glanced toward the parlor; Addie was out of earshot. “Which of our suspects do
you think it was, Mr. Taylor?” she asked. “Not Mr. Martin, who is bedridden and recovering from his attack of angina.”

  “He coulda paid somebody to take a shot at you, ma’am.”

  “A distinct possibility,” she said. “But the shooter was also not Mr. Hutchinson, who is still in Oakland, I presume.”

  “Should still be. Mr. Greaves telegraphed the Oakland police to let Officer Mullahey know he didn’t need to bring Mr. Hutchinson in, after all.”

  Thank goodness Grace and Jane no longer had to worry about Frank being arrested.

  “But we both gotta remember, ma’am, that we don’t know if this incident has anything to do with our investigation of Mr. Nash’s murder,” added Mr. Taylor.

  “You’re suggesting that one of my neighbors has taken a sudden, strong dislike to me?”

  She was feeling short-tempered and allowing it to show. Her aunt would be most displeased with her. It is ill-bred for ladies to be peevish, Cecilia. One must remain serene in all circumstances . . .

  Celia wondered if not maintaining her serenity could be excused in this situation.

  Looking uncertain, Mr. Taylor scratched his neck with the edge of his notebook. “I’ll find out what all of our suspects were doing tonight.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Taylor. And please forgive my churlishness.”

  “Um . . . sure. Not a problem.” He glanced longingly toward the parlor and sighed.

  “Shall I tell Addie you regret not being able to stay and enjoy her wonderful shortbread?” Celia asked.

  “Um . . .” His cheeks turned pinker. “If you would, ma’am.”

  Did his discomfort imply he was Addie’s admirer or was not? “Mr. Taylor, have you been sending flowers to my housekeeper, by any chance?”

  He blinked at her. “What’s that?”

  “Flowers. Notes. Left on the doorstep for Addie.”

  “I . . . Somebody’s courting Ad . . . Miss Ferguson?”

  And apparently that someone is not you. “Indeed. Another mystery, Mr. Taylor.”