A Dying Note

by Ann Parker

  She shook her head. “He came in late last night, I think, but was gone when I woke up. I’ve not seen him all day. If he is in the store, please send him home.”

  Inez nodded, a tickle of worry worming its way inside.

  Carmella walked her to the door and Inez paused. “One last question. I almost forgot. I noticed Nico had a new cloak last night. Very handsome, but not as ‘kingly’ as his previous one. What happened to the lovely one with the unusual collar, do you know? It was such a mark of distinction.”

  Carmella leaned on the doorframe, absently wiping her hands on her apron. “I was sad when he lost it. He told me he accidently left it in a hack early this week. He tried to track down the carriage and recover it, but alas, it was long gone. The new one is nice, but no replacement for the old. Clothes make the man, yes?”

  In this case, thought Inez grimly, clothes might unmake the man. Particularly, Nico’s various lies to different people about the fate of his trademark cloak. As she made her way home, she thought long and hard about what she’d learned that day. A man of impulse, Nico wasn’t keeping his stories straight. But perhaps he thought it of no consequence. Certainly, by itself, a missing cloak meant nothing. However, the timing was suspicious.

  And the fact that Nico had accompanied the union treasurer Eli Greer on his fateful rounds—or, who knows, perhaps Nico just happened upon him and offered to go with him—was not damning in itself. But she could imagine what might have happened. Perhaps once Nico saw the case of money he was…what?…overcome by temptation? Saw a quick way to pull himself and Carmella out of the downward spiral they were in?

  There was no way to know unless she asked him directly, which she was not about to do. She wondered if Jamie Monroe had wandered down a similar path, only in his case, perhaps he met Nico, late one night, and, in a bid to win Carmella’s hand, threatened to disclose certain “suspicious coincidences” of timing.

  A shrewd and levelheaded man would have pooh-poohed the whole thing. Who would believe such a story, so full of holes and half-guesses? And how could it be proved? But, someone more impulsive, like Nico—who was obsessed with his reputation and appearance—just might in a fit of rage or fear take the most direct route to putting such tales to rest.

  Shooting the messenger, Inez thought, always led to disaster.

  All the hacks rolling past were occupied, and in any case, her available money had gone to Abbott and the driver Joseph Lynch. Deciding to walk, Inez allowed her feet to pick the route home. She headed up Bush, the cool evening air brushing her over-warm cheeks, one hand resting on the grip of her Smoot, just in case. The street rose gently ahead of her. She paused once at the corner of Jones, gazing up the steeper grade toward Russian Hill and the undertaker’s, where she had identified Robert Gallagher only to have Carmella claim him as Jamie Monroe. If she had known where all this would lead, would she still have made that trip with Carmella or would she have insisted on going alone?

  The rest of the way home, Inez pondered how she was going to present her findings to de Bruijn and ultimately to Harry. Harry had threatened to destroy her life and livelihood in San Francisco. Having mulled his threats for a week now, she was doubting he could do all he claimed. But if Nico turned out to be guilty of murdering young Gallagher, wouldn’t the results be the same? If it all went public, Nico jailed and charged, the store would not recover. The musicians who hung on his every word and gave life to the business would disappear. As would the customers.

  And what would happen to Carmella?

  Arriving back at the building, Inez glanced first into the depths of the store, shuttered and dark.

  No one. Not even a flicker of light in the back office.

  Good.

  She did not want to face Nico without knowing what her path forward would be. At the least, she would continue acting “normally,” so as not to rouse his suspicions.

  A hack stood at the corner, the driver wrapped in an overcoat, wide-brimmed hat pulled down, looking for all the world like he was catching a quick snooze in the box. Perhaps she could hire him for the short journey to the Palace once she replenished her coin supply. She unlocked the door to her living quarters, anxious to get Antonia, head to the hotel, meet de Bruijn, and discuss their next steps. After her evening walk up Bush, the air inside was like a hothouse. She shed her coat and hung it on a peg before ascending the stairs, calling, “Antonia?”

  Inside the kitchen, she paused. The table held Antonia’s schoolbook, splayed facedown. A flickering light leaked down the hallway. She heard a light footstep, then two, the clatter of something hitting the floor. Inez stifled a sigh. Apparently, Antonia’s curiosity about Jamie’s trunk had gotten the better of her. Inez could picture how it happened: Antonia, spending the day wandering down to the music store and back, staring out the window, working on her recitations and numbers. Eventually, getting restless, she thinks of the off-limits trunk and grabs her hairpin lockpicks…

  Inez walked toward the storage room. “Antonia? I’ve told you not to go back there. Come, it’s time for dinner. We will go to the Palace Hotel. Perhaps Mr. de Bruijn will join us.”

  She walked through the doorway and saw a lamp turned low on the floor by Monroe’s trunk. Her mind tried to take in the chaos she was seeing. Close by, her wardrobe trunk was open, with her stockings, shoes, fine dresses, and underthings strewn around. Jamie’s trunk also yawned, its contents tossed about the floor: shoes, shirts, trousers, papers, the box that had held cuff links and letters, framed photographs—

  The door slammed shut behind her and she jumped. She whirled around, just in time to see Nico struggling to pull a revolver from his jacket pocket. Her hand automatically went to her empty skirt pocket and she cursed herself. Her gun was in her coat, downstairs. Nico finally yanked his gun out, dislodging a small object from his pocket as well. Small, circular, gold, brilliant, it pinged on the wood planks and rolled toward Inez. She captured it with a foot and swooped it up.

  A gold ring.

  Engraved inside were words just barely visible in the lamplight: Two but one heart till death us part.

  Chapter Forty-three

  Inez held up the ring Jamie Monroe had bought to give Carmella. The ring that belonged in the jewelry box Inez had found on the hay wharf. The ring that Inez had found the receipt for in Jamie’s trunk. She held it up toward Nico as if it was a talisman against the revolver in his shaking hand.

  “Ah, Signora Stannert, why could you not leave well enough alone?” said Nico, sounding close to despair.

  “You are a murderer.” Her words were flat, cold. “That is not something ‘well enough,’ to be ignored and left alone.”

  She stepped toward him, closing the ring in her fist. “Where is Antonia? What have you done with her?”

  “I would not hurt the girl. She is not here. Gone to dinner, to the boardinghouse, I expect, which is where you also should have been.”

  Thank God she’s not here.

  Relief calmed sharp fear and shaped it into resolve.

  “You would not hurt her, but you threaten me, her guardian and the only one standing between her and a life in the streets, with a gun.” She took another step, approaching him at an angle, hoping he would perhaps back away from her accusations, away from the door.

  She had never seen him with a gun, so she was taking a chance. Perhaps he didn’t know how to use one. He certainly acted as if he had never held one before.

  That could be to her advantage, or disadvantage. He could shoot intentionally and miss, or inadvertently pull the trigger and hit her by accident. She continued, “Do you mean to kill me too, then?”

  He retreated a step. “No! That is, I do not want to. I am not that kind of man.”

  “Ah, but you are. You killed Jamie Monroe. Do you know his real name was Robert Gallagher? Harry Gallagher’s son, and you killed him. My God, Nico. What a mess you are in.”<
br />
  He flared. “I only wanted to talk to him. He sent me a note, asking to meet. We met on the wharf, after his work, after my business at the warehouse. He asked for Carmella’s hand in marriage. I told him he would marry her over my dead body. He said,” he licked his lips, “other things. It got…out of hand. And then, when it was over, I thought if I could make him disappear, eventually Carmella and everyone else would believe he left, moved away. But the tide didn’t take him away, not like—” He stopped.

  “Not like the previous time,” Inez finished.

  His eyes widened.

  “And Jamie found out, didn’t he?” she said. “All your good fortune happened after the last union failed, but it wasn’t luck, was it? You killed Eli Greer, the treasurer who was distributing the union funds back to the members. You killed him after he visited Stephen Abbott, and then you kept the money that belonged to the others. You stole from your friends, your colleagues. You built a life with wealth that wasn’t yours and claimed it was talent and luck. But the acclaim came later, after you built your life on a lie.” She took another step toward him, hoping to force him farther away from the door so she could throw it open, slam it into him, and escape.

  This time, he didn’t retreat.

  Instead, he stepped forward and whipped the gun barrel at her face.

  She blocked the blow, crying out as the barrel cracked into her forearm. Pain shot like lightning up her arm. The ring flew from her grasp, bouncing and rolling out of sight.

  Nico grabbed her shoulder, pivoting her, and smashed her face-first into the door panel. Stars exploded in her vision. His voice seemed distant.

  “Do you know what his last words were? ‘Not my hands.’ He was dying, and he begged me not to hurt his hands.”

  Dizzy with pain, Inez tried to twist sideways from his grasp.

  Nico shoved her into the door again, hard. The panel rattled, the rough surface tore at her cheek like sharp fingernails. “I am sorry, Signora. This is not what I wanted, what I hoped, for you and me. But you brought it on yourself. On us.”

  He then wrenched her away and spun her around so she faced the window overlooking the alley. The hard muzzle of the gun jammed into the base of her neck.

  Time stood still.

  Her vision blackened at the edges, until all she saw was Jamie’s gaping trunk and the dark-paned window above. She felt hot, then very, very cold. Not this way. It cannot end this way.

  “Nico, stop. Don’t do this,” she whispered.

  “Hands behind your back, Signora.”

  She complied, and he locked her wrists together with his long fingers. “If you do not want to end up dead, you must do as I say.” He twisted her wrists and she bit back a scream, sure her arm was broken.

  The pressure of the muzzle lifted, and she went limp with relief. Before she could move or say anything more, a silky rope snaked around her wrists and tightened. One of her stockings? She guessed so, but since it was behind her back, she couldn’t tell for certain.

  “I do not want to kill you,” he said under his breath. “I just need time. Later, when Antonia returns from dinner, she will wonder where you are and will find you. Eventually. By then, I’ll be gone.”

  “What are you doing?” She meant this in a wider sense—what have you done to your life?—but he answered in the specific.

  “I will take a page from Signore Monroe’s book, disappear, and re-invent myself, far away from here.”

  What about Carmella? Was she going with him? Was he abandoning her? Inez opened her mouth to ask and a wad of silky material—another of her good stockings?—stopped her words.

  He continued, “If only Signore Monroe had told me who he really was. Yes, I saw the photograph. Signore Gallagher showed me, asked me if I knew him. Son of a rich man, well-placed. If he hadn’t pretended to be someone he was not, this would not have happened. I would happily have allowed him to court Carmella, and he wouldn’t have gone digging up the past. It would all have been so different.” He sounded sad, and angry, as if the turn of events was due to Jamie, due to Inez, due to everyone but himself.

  Regaining her wits, Inez tried to spit out the gag.

  “No, no. You must stay quiet for now, Signora.” A length of material—a sash?—looped across her mouth and nose. He tied a knot at the back of her head. Pulled it tight. She held still. If he pulled much more she would not be able to breathe at all, and that would be the end of her, although not immediately, and certainly most unpleasantly.

  He pushed her toward Monroe’s open trunk. “Forgive the mess. I had to look for anything else you or he might have had that might tie his death or the past to me. Nothing. Signore Welles told me about the list of names. I knew you were getting close to the truth. I’ll not bother you for those papers now. What you do with them, I do not care. I will not be here. You can prove nothing. All you can do is tell stories, and who will believe you? Besides, I will be gone.”

  His tone intensified. “You would not want to hurt Carmella further, would you? She will be bewildered, frantic, and wonder what happened to me. She will need you. I have arranged to leave the store to you and to her—yes, you will finally have your half-ownership—and everything else is left to her. She is the only one I regret leaving now.” The sorrow in his voice was genuine, but brief.

  Then he was all business again. “Get in.”

  Inez stared at the trunk. Surely he wasn’t going to lock her inside Jamie’s trunk.

  When she didn’t move, Nico shoved her over the side. She tumbled in, hitting her shoulder hard on the wood-ribbed bottom. She lashed out at him with a foot. He grabbed her ankle and held it.

  For one brief moment, she saw his face. His jaw was set, determined, eyes hollowed in the lamplight, his usually well-groomed hair a wild, curly mop. He looked nothing like the talented musician Inez thought she knew, the one who captivated San Francisco’s high society and seduced all with his charm and his music.

  He looked a monster.

  “The only reason I do not kill you as I killed Signore Monroe is because Carmella will need you. Do not fail her.” He shoved her foot inside and slammed the lid, shutting Inez into complete darkness.

  Inez heard the latch click, the key turn and lock. She heard him say, “Good-bye, Signora.”

  Footsteps retreated across the floor. A door opened, then shut.

  She lay on her side in the trunk, head forced down between her shoulders, knees bent, walking skirt and petticoat twisted around her legs. Her injured arm was pinned beneath her, screaming to be released. Inez attempted to shift onto her back and breathe shallowly through the satin encasing her nose. She kicked the wall of the trunk behind her to test its strength.

  She had never been in such complete, saturated dark.

  The walls at front, back, above, below, seemed to constrict, shrink around her. It was like being buried alive.

  She tried to calm her breathing. What if the air in the trunk was all she had? How long would it be before Antonia found her? Please don’t let her come back while he is still here.

  Time seemed to stretch eternal as Inez strained to hear. Would she hear the door open downstairs? Would Antonia call out for her?

  Sounds, outside the trunk. Inez kicked harder. There was a footfall, followed by a scraping at the keyhole and Antonia’s urgent whisper through the walls of the trunk. “Stop it, Mrs. S! He’s gone, down the stairs. I’m hurrying.”

  The lock sprung open and the lid creaked up, revealing Antonia’s frightened face.

  After the darkness in the trunk, the storage room with its one window on the night felt like coming into the dawn. Antonia pulled the tie and gag from Inez’s face. Inez sat up, gasping for air and against the pain, finally sputtering, “You were here, hiding?”

  Antonia moved behind Inez. “I was waiting for you so we could go to dinner. I heard the doorbell ring and I pee
ked out my window.”

  Inez heard the clickety-click as Antonia opened her folding knife.

  “It was Mr. Donato,” she continued, “so I didn’t answer. But then, he opened the door. He had a key! To our place!”

  Inez realized, as owner of the building, of course Nico had a key. He had never mentioned it, and it had not occurred to Inez until then that he could come and go as he pleased in their quarters.

  Antonia’s sharp knife sliced through the silky rope, freeing Inez’s hands. Cradling her injured arm, Inez climbed out of the trunk. “Quick, to your room. The window,” she said.

  They could not stop him, Inez thought, but if he had gone to the store after leaving their apartment, perhaps he was still around. In that case, they could watch which way he went and call the police. Inez was past debating the pros and cons of turning Nico over to the law. Harry Gallagher might want to deliver his own private brand of justice, but the time for such things had passed. Now, the focus was to keep Nico from disappearing, taking some ship, train, or ferry out of the city and vanishing into the world beyond.

  Inez and Antonia hurried to the bedroom window in time to see Nico emerge from the music store below. Carrying a satchel and his violin, Nico walked to the corner where the hack that Inez had noticed earlier waited by a streetlamp.

  Nico talked to the driver, then opened the carriage door and climbed in.

  “Dammit!” whispered Inez, partly from pain, partly from frustration.

  “I’ll follow him,” offered Antonia.

  Before Inez could respond, a muffled crack sounded from the carriage, followed by two more so close together they almost sounded as one.

  The horse lurched forward in his harness until the driver, seemingly heedless of the shots inside, tightened the reins.