“We’ve had a stroke of luck with their residence. They’ve lived at the Lincoln Hotel since the day they married, as I’m sure you already know, and the Lincoln keeps accurate records. The Thompsons only left Seattle a half dozen times since moving in, and each time they told the hotel they were traveling to this area. We’ve now begun verifying that. The gold is either here or there, or somewhere along the way. We’ll find it.”
“What of the deaths here, Captain?”
“What of them?”
“If David and Freddie’s deaths aren’t related to the gold theft, if there were more personal motives at work, shouldn’t the investigation dig more deeply into the lives of all of them? The clues to murder often lie in the past.”
“Not in this case. Luckily, the players in this mess only recently met. It’s safe to say we need not probe beyond the beginning of the Thompsons’ marriage and Loomis’ affairs since acquiring your outfit. I can see you want to argue with me, Professor. If you’ve got something you want to say, say it.”
“There’s more here than simple greed, Captain.”
Bell cocked his head and studied Bradshaw. “I’ll keep that in mind. I appreciate your sharing Squirrel’s files.” He tipped his hat and strode to the zig-zagged path down the cliff. Bradshaw sighed. He’d been dismissed again.
Chapter Twenty-nine
It was the shouts that woke him. Bradshaw opened his eyes to utter darkness and lay tense, listening, at first hearing only Henry’s soft snoring. Then shouts erupted again, Henry snorted awake, and a light streaked by the front of the cabin.
Bradshaw leaped out of bed, shoved his legs into his pants, and ran barefoot out of the cabin, Henry not far behind. The darkness was less intense outside, the edges of the ocean surf glowed white, and lanterns flickered as they swayed in the hands of the men shouting and running after the Stanley Steamer. The automobile hissed and huffed, gathering speed on the damp flat stretches.
Deputy Mitchell led the chase, his white hat reflecting the meager light. Captain Bell shouted to his men, “Stop him!”
The Stanley raced on toward the shallowest part of the creek. But the tide had not yet dropped low enough, and the steamer plunged into a swiftly flowing current several feet deep. As the driver—a man—Loomis?—stood on the seat and leaped, a sharp crack sounded a single explosive “pop.” A gun shot.
Mid-leap, the man flailed his arms, then dropped like a boulder, splashing into the creek. He got up spluttering and stumbling, but then collapsed, and the current began to carry him and the automobile toward the ocean.
Bell and his men were there now, wading in, and Bradshaw and Henry followed. Two men got hold of Arnold Loomis, and the rest of them grabbed the Stanley, hauling it up onto the beach.
Dripping, Bradshaw and Henry joined the circle of lanterns where Captain Bell stood over the prone figure of Arnold Loomis. Doctor Hornsby, in his robe, knelt beside Loomis, feeling his neck for a pulse.
Bell leaned toward Bradshaw. “Did you see who fired the shot?”
“No.”
Loomis’ mouth opened, and Hornsby put his ear low. A moment later, he sat back. Loomis’ eyes stared unblinking at the black sky. Hornsby looked up at Captain Bell, then at Bradshaw.
“He said, ‘I didn’t mean to.’ That’s all. Just, ‘I didn’t mean to.’”
Deputy Mitchell bumped up beside Bradshaw. He’d lost his hat. His right arm hung at his side, his hand wrapped around his revolver. The wavering lantern light turned his shocked expression into a frightened mask.
“He’s not dead. Right? He’s not.”
Bell exchanged a worried glance with Bradshaw before asking, “Deputy Mitchell, did you fire your weapon?”
Mitchell said, “You said, ‘Stop him’ and I couldn’t catch him, so I-I, I meant to shoot the Stanley.”
Bell put a hand on Mitchell’s shoulder. “Well, son, you shot Arnold Loomis in the line of duty. It’s the hardest part of the job.”
“He’s not dead,” Mitchell said again.
“He is, and it’s his own damn fault. He was fleeing the scene of a crime. I ordered you to stop him, and you stopped him. You did your duty.”
Mitchell looked at his revolver with repulsion, then shoved it at the captain, who pressed the barrel down and took control of it. Then Mitchell tore off his badge and handed it to Bell before turning, walking away, a hand clamped over his mouth.
Chapter Thirty
“With the attempted escape of Mr. Arnold Loomis, we are closing the investigation into David Hollister’s death. There is sufficient evidence to prove that Mr. Loomis lethally altered the electrotherapy machine he peddled in order to steal Hollister’s washhouse design, which may be worth a considerable amount.”
They had all gathered in the library. The Hornsbys, Martha Hollister, Deputy Mitchell, Zeb Moss, Ingrid Thompson, as well as Henry and Bradshaw.
The Hornsby family sat closely together, clenching hands. With the pronouncement, Doctor Hornsby dropped his head and quietly sobbed. He blamed himself, Bradshaw knew, for bringing Loomis into their lives and for not seeing the lethal clues.
“Arnold Loomis was one of the most cunning con artists I’ve come across in my professional capacity. He spent the better part of the last two decades skirting the law and capitalizing on his fellow men by violating their trust. Here at Healing Sands, his greed finally brought about his demise.”
“Autopsy results have confirmed that Mr. Freddie Thompson’s death was the result of the ingestion of phosphorus. Barring the presentation of any evidence proving otherwise, his death is being considered a suicide, the act of a man driven desperate by guilt for having committed a federal crime.”
Bradshaw couldn’t fault their reasoning. Loomis fit the crime. He had means, motive, and opportunity, and in attempting to run away, had revealed himself to be guilty. Of something. But murder? He was tangled in the crimes here, that was certain. So tangled he’d thought running away in the dead of night was his best option. So tangled he’d told Hornsby, “I didn’t mean to.”
But murder? Had Loomis been such a good con man that Bradshaw couldn’t believe him capable of murder?
As for Freddie Thompson…suicide fit. It made sense. It all made sense. Bradshaw’s logical mind understood, but his gut screamed no. His gut asked, Where did Ingrid Thompson come into it? Merely as seductress?
He watched her now, sitting alone at the edge of the room wearing a somber but elegant dark frock, her hair carefully done up. Her face was a blank mask, her eyes glazed. He recognized that expression; he’d lived that expression. Shock, grief, confusion, uncertainty, maybe even mingled with a hidden, guilty relief. Yes, he’d been there, through no fault of his own. It had taken him years to understand he couldn’t have prevented his wife’s death.
Could Ingrid have prevented Freddie’s death? Did she have a hand in his death? Bradshaw had to admit to himself Ingrid Thompson fascinated him. She had the looks and personality of his late wife, yet she was living his own trauma. She was his marriage embodied in one person. Or was his judgment of Ingrid in this moment clouded yet again by his own experience? Hadn’t he decided that Ingrid’s evil was nothing like Rachel’s?
And Moss? Zebediah Moss was the only one of the three men who’d paid attention to Ingrid Thompson at Healing Sands who was still alive. Moss now sat across the room from her, head hung low.
Bell said, “Mrs. Thompson, you may leave at any time. Given the ongoing investigation into your husband’s theft, you will be accompanied by one of my men. I know you must be anxious to return to Seattle to bury your husband. I must ask that once in Seattle, you remain in the city until you hear from me. Is that understood?”
Mrs. Thompson nodded but her expression remained blank.
“Mr. Moss, you are also free to go.”
Moss got up and left the room as if the information had been a call to action. Everyone else except Bradshaw and Henry followed. They sat beside the cold hearth.
“Well,” Hen
ry said. “That’s it then. Can I drive?”
Bradshaw stared at the matchsticks among the kindling. “I’m not leaving yet, but I’d like you to go home and keep investigating.”
“You heard Bell, both cases are closed.”
Yes, both cases were closed. But Bradshaw didn’t like it. Something was wrong, something nagged at the pit of his stomach that important answers had not yet been found. He said, “Then just go home, Henry.”
“Ben….”
“I need the Stanley. You can ride back with the others.”
“Don’t sulk, Ben. Makes you look old. Do you want me to keep poking around?”
Bradshaw looked at Henry. He was gruff, rough—in badly in need of a shave—intelligent, and his most trusted friend. “Are you satisfied that all is known about what happened here?”
“As Moss would say, pert near.”
“Pert near isn’t good enough for me.”
“I was afraid of that. So what more can you do here?”
“I don’t know. If I find nothing here, I’ll go home and keep looking.”
“Ah, hell, Ben. I’ll look at home. Just tell me where. You pay better than the outfitters and the work’s easier on my back.”
“Thank you. Look into the past, as far back as you can with Ingrid Thompson and Zeb Moss.”
“Not Loomis?”
“I know you disagree, but I believe Loomis is a victim in all this. Although not an innocent victim.”
“But he confessed.”
“He said ‘I didn’t mean to.’ That could be a confession, or a plea for Hornsby to understand he was lured into something he hadn’t anticipated. It’s possible he showed remorse for the part he played, and for the sake of his soul, I hope that’s so.”
Chapter Thirty-one
The wind direction shifted during the night. Bradshaw was awake when it happened, working by lantern light in his cabin. The shift rattled the windows and pulled him from his notes. He added more wood to the small stove and made another mug of Postum.
In the morning, he opened the door to a cold, thick fog that turned the porch and sand dark with dampness. With typical Pacific Northwest speed, summer weather had vanished overnight. It didn’t matter that the calendar said it was still August. Bradshaw layered his jackets and pulled on the new boots Henry had brought him, then trudged up the cliff. The main house was quiet, though lights glowed in the kitchen and a few rooms. The diggers had not yet begun. Up top, the view was no better than it had been below, and the wind was stronger, but he found whom he hoped to find. Old Cedar. Dressed in the same old clothes he had worn when the weather was warm, he seemed immune to the damp fog.
Bradshaw said, “I have a favor to ask.”
They made arrangements to meet in the afternoon when the tide would be outgoing. By then, the fog had risen to form a low ceiling. Pant legs rolled up to his knees, Bradshaw waded barefoot in the surf to the cedar longboat manned by two young native men. He carried the white ceramic urn he’d brought from home. He set it gently in the boat, then grasped the edge to climb in. His awkward boarding brought smiles to the faces of the two young natives, but he didn’t take a dunking. Old Cedar sat with dignity in the bow as the younger men paddled out to sea.
Once past the breaker zone, Old Cedar signaled. The natives shipped their paddles. Bradshaw cleared his throat. He’d planned to say a few words, a prayer, but now that the time had come words escaped him and his throat was too tight to speak. He held the cool urn and felt his palms warm the ceramic.
His eyes welled.
He’d been the only one who attended the young man’s hanging other than those officiating. It had been done in semi-secrecy to avoid any ugliness or any public celebration. Bradshaw had inherited all of the young man’s possessions. His family had wanted none of them. Amongst the things now stored in a trunk in Bradshaw’s basement were textbooks, poetry, assignments, and childhood toys. And a diary. The pages within revealed a short life, from troubled innocence to ingenious assassin. The pages held the key to the design of a revolutionary device now at the bottom of Elliott Bay. The pages were filled with sadness, fear, yearning, and madness.
As he held the jar and the longboat rocked gently, Bradshaw thought of madness and the fragility of the human mind, and the inner forces driving one’s actions. Why was one young man a brave soldier and another a condemned assassin? Why did one woman who thrived on applause and attention become a celebrated actress, like Ann Darlyrope, and another woman who craved attention and sympathy, like his late wife, stage a fatal play?
We are dealt a hand at our birth, he thought, consisting of strengths and weaknesses, talents and handicaps, physical and mental. When our time is done, when choices have been irrevocably made, then what? For those who were dealt a weak hand, did they spend the rest of eternity being punished for their behavior? Was the Almighty, who’d created all and thus created the flaws, that unforgiving? Did evil reside in the soul or in the chemical makeup of the body and brain? Was there a chance, at the end of human life, for peace?
He hoped so. He prayed so.
He removed the lid from the jar and tipped the ashy contents into the sea.
Old Cedar began to chant in his ancient language, his voice a low rumble more of nature than man.
Words then came to Bradshaw, and under the music of Old Cedar’s chant, he spoke them for the young man whose ashes he set free, and he spoke them for his late wife, forgiving her at last. “Peace be with you.”
The jar was empty. He let go.
Chapter Thirty-two
Bradshaw spent the remainder of the day in the Healing Sands barn drying out and firing up the Stanley, a plan developing.
With the early tide the next morning, he packed a small bag into the Stanley, told Doctor Hornsby he planned to return that evening, or the next morning if he missed the tides, and headed north. The weather remained gray and misty, the clouds low; but the wind was mercifully absent, leaving only the movement of the steamer to buffet him with mist.
The white-crested, steely ocean spread endlessly on his left, and virgin forest loomed from the cliffs and bluffs to his right. Seabirds swooped and cried, razor clams spit from thousands of tiny holes in the wet sand, a seal hauled himself into the water with a throaty honk. A bald eagle, curious perhaps about the new red hissing creature, dove down with a screech, its wings spread eight feet tip to tip.
At first, Bradshaw was alone with nature at the edge of the continent, but upon reaching Joe’s Creek, human activity intruded. As Mrs. Hornsby had explained, here was the newly named and freshly platted town of Pacific Beach where the Northern Pacific depot was under construction. Preparations had begun for the railroad to travel along the beach northward to Moclips. Trees had been cleared, a service road plowed, and freshly milled lumber awaited the hammer.
As he drove on, figures appeared that proved to be diggers. Not clam diggers catching the low tide, but gold diggers—treasure seekers—searching the dry sand and cliff bases and the wooded verge that dipped low to meet the sea.
He waved to the diggers. If they waved back, he drove out of the reach of the incoming tide to talk to them. If they ignored him or dispersed for trails up into the woods, he continued on. Captain Bell had spread word in the area by way of the mail carrier that volunteer diggers were welcome but must first check in with him or send him a letter of intent. The unfriendly diggers had likely ignored that request.
The coast, he knew, was sparsely populated. Yet he counted no less than a hundred diggers. Those who spoke with him said they’d come from the logging camps, the mills, the canneries, from Aberdeen, from Tacoma, even Seattle. Those who’d abandoned logging or railroad construction jobs had come through the forest following logging roads and railroad spurs as far as possible. Others had traveled on foot from Oyehut after catching the steamer from Hoquiam. He’d not seen them pass Healing Sands on their way north, but last night as the tide began to drop, they must have been silently marching past his cabin as he
slept.
He arrived at Moclips—a cluster of shacks and modest new buildings—just as the tide threatened to force him off the beach. He drove the Stanley up out of reach of the waves, prepared to eat the meager supplies he’d brought. But his arrival was hailed by a friendly housewife of Mrs. Prouty’s proportions and years who invited him to share a hot meal with her husband—a man as small as she was large—who’d just come in from fishing on the river.
Inside a tidy clapboard house named “West End,” he was served what he considered the first real meal since his arrival on the coast. Roast duck, clam chowder, fresh garden vegetables, fresh white bread, and a home-brewed ale the same amber as Missouri’s eyes. He was profuse with his praise.
The pair had spoken to Captain Bell the previous day, they said, and they had no information to share for they’d not seen the Thompsons when they made their daytrip up to Moclips. They knew the Hornsbys, had often made use of David Hollister’s washhouse, and wondered if it would be impolite to ask about resuming monthly washings. Bradshaw doubted they’d be allowed until Captain Bell completed his investigation.
He thanked the couple for the fine meal and made his leave, spending the next few hours retracing Captain Bell’s footsteps and getting the same results. The Thompsons had not been seen in Moclips.
Bradshaw returned to the Stanley to await the tide. His thoughts wandered as he stared at the ocean. To the north, seastacks, vertical formations of rock formed by the forces of erosion, rose near shore. He wondered what about their jagged shapes gave them such an eerie, alluring quality. He wondered what it was about Missouri Fremont that so possessed him. He dug into his supplies, found paper and his pencil, and wrote a letter to Missouri that he didn’t intend to mail. And then he wrote out, for himself, every word he could recall of what she’d said to him on the beach. He studied her words, especially the part where she said, “I thought maybe you’d have some sense now, or at least be willing to discuss the very real differences between us to see if we can find a way past them.”
Capacity for Murder (Professor Bradshaw Mysteries) Page 18