by Lyn Cote
The prisoner’s head sagged forward. He jerked it up again, pain etched on his bruised face. “Sir,…you in France?”
“You served, too?” Gabe stirred just saying these words. The man’s question about France brought back instant memories. Sweat beaded on Gabe’s palms and he couldn’t turn down another soldier, another survivor.
“Telegraph…please, Linc Wagstaff, 143 Cal…fornia Street…San Fran…cisc…” Delman passed out.
Gabe gazed at him. “See that he gets a clean bed and a doctor. I’ll check on him tomorrow.”
Rooney scowled. “That’s the problem with lettin’ blacks serve as soldiers. He’d never thought of shooting a white man here if he hadn’t shot white men over there.”
Gabe was familiar with the sentiment, but didn’t believe it. “He faced death for his country.” And worse. “He gets a bed and a doctor.”
Rooney nodded sulkily.
Straightening his stiff white collar, Gabe walked away. He repeated the San Francisco address to himself. Despite his attempts to focus on the task at hand, more war images crowded into his mind—flying over trenches teeming with soldiers huddled under enemy fire; bodies slowly rotting in no-man’s-land; the rush of adrenaline, panic when an enemy plane came into sight, then range…
His heart pounding, he closed his eyes, willing them away. He’d send the blasted telegram and get busy. Keeping busy was the only antidote now.
San Francisco
January 3, 1920
In her red silk robe, Meg Wagstaff sat in the darkened nursery and rocked Kai Lin’s infant son. Though Kai Lin and her husband kept house for her parents, they were more like family. Home from war-ravaged Europe for only three months, Meg still suffered sleepless nights. Rocking the almond-eyed infant was the only sedative that worked.
She bent her head and breathed in the scent of baby powder and innocence.
The front door bell chimed through the sleeping house. Who’d rung their bell at nearly four in the morning? Meg heard the front door downstairs being unlocked. She carried the baby into the darkened upstairs hallway, where she met Kai Lin’s husband coming up the stairs.
“Telegram for Mr. Linc.” The man, in a blue cotton Chinese robe, exchanged the baby for the telegram. Meg walked to her parents’ door. “It’s Meg. A telegram.”
Her father opened the door and took the yellow envelope from her. Suddenly feeling chilled, Meg moved into the room and onto the high bed, beside her blind stepmother, Cecy, who felt for Meg, then pulled her satiny blanket over her. “You’re chilled, dear. Linc, good news could have waited until dawn.”
Meg nestled close to Cecy. Under her arm, Meg felt Cecy’s pregnant abdomen stir. Little dear one, did we wake you too? “Who’s it from, father?”
“A Gabriel St. Clair in New Orleans.” Her father opened the telegram.
“That’s where Del is.” Meg watched her father’s face widen into shock. “What is it?”
“Del’s been charged with murder.” Disbelief laced her father’s voice.
“No!” Cecy reached out for her husband and Linc hurried forward to catch her hand.
Meg stood up. “Read it.”
Her father took a labored breath. “Delman Dubois arrested for murder. Stop. Being held at the New Orleans City jail, awaiting arraignment. Stop. Signed, Gabriel St. Clair, New Orleans Parish Attorney.” Father looked at Meg over his reading glasses. The worry in his eyes shook her out of denial.
“Del wouldn’t murder anyone,” Meg said.
“I warned him against going South.” Linc scowled. “Lynchings have exploded since the war—”
“He was at worse risk in France,” Meg snapped, then felt ashamed. “Sorry.”
“That’s all right, sweetheart.” Handing Meg the telegram, he took both of his wife’s hands.
Meg stared at them, her father’s graying blond hair next to her stepmother’s auburn beauty. Their love for each other and concern for Del radiated in the dark room.
“We should call Fleur Bower,” Cecy said. “Maybe she knows the St. Clair family in New Orleans.”
“What difference would that make?” Meg bit out, then was ashamed again of her sharp tone. “I’m sorry, Cecy. I don’t know why I can’t seem to keep my temper lately.”
Neither of her parents spoke a word, but their worried faces said much.
Meg looked away. She hated wounding them, but she would never again be the naive twenty-year-old girl who had put off law school to go to France. And no matter how much they loved her and she loved them, she couldn’t fit back here as though she hadn’t changed. “What are we going to do?”
“Linc,” Cecy urged, “you’ll have to go—”
Her father looked sick. “I can’t leave you! You could go into labor any day.”
Resting a hand on her large abdomen, Cecy replied calmly, “That can’t be helped. Del needs us. We’re the only family he has.”
“We’ll get him legal help. The best. But I can’t leave you. Don’t ask me to.” Her father’s face, though harassed, was determined.
Meg understood why he couldn’t leave Cecy. Though Meg had only been five when her own mother had died in childbirth, she had vivid memories of her father’s wrenching grief. Now, finally after fourteen years of marriage and two miscarriages, Cecy was carrying a child to term. But the doctor was worried and visited weekly. Meg crushed the telegram in her hand.
“As soon as it’s light outside,” he said, “we’ll call the Bowers. Fleur knows New Orleans and Clarence will know what to do legally.”
Cecy wiped away a tear.
Meg nodded, then left her parents. Feeling oppressed by the appalling news but oddly distanced from it, she walked to her room to sit and watch the sun come up. She knew exactly what she’d do. Only one of them must go and she would be the one.
The next morning Meg stood beside her luggage at the San Francisco train station. The sound of steam building in the locomotive engine filled the air. People, dressed warmly against the January chill, hustled along the crowded walkways between tracks. Negro and Chinese porters pushed carts of luggage along briskly. Everyone hurried.
Aunt Fleur and Uncle Clarence rushed up in the bleak early-morning light. “Oh, we’re in time.” Aunt Fleur stood on tiptoe embracing Meg. “I brought you the letter of introduction to my cousin Emilie. If you need anything, just call on her. I wish you would stay with her. I telegraphed and she’d love to have you—”
“I’ll be happier at a hotel.” Meg smiled to soften her refusal.
“Oh, these modern girls!” Aunt Fleur exclaimed. “Cecy, I can’t get used to girls rushing off places without chaperones. We’re quite old-fashioned now.” She affectionately tucked her arm into the crook of Cecy’s elbow.
Meg’s father pulled her close. He whispered fiercely into her ear, “I wouldn’t let you go if there were any other way.”
“I’ll be fine,” Meg assured him. He was so dear, so good.
“I’ll be praying every minute,” he continued, “and I’ll come as soon as I can leave your stepmother—”
“I’ll be back before you know it.” She spoke these words with another smile, but she didn’t feel any confidence in them. After helping Del, she might go back to New York City. She hadn’t felt quite so desperate there.
She itched to be on the train and away, but leaving was hard. She hugged her parents, showing her love without words, then her honorary aunt and uncle, and finally her younger adopted brother.
The strident train whistle and the conductor’s “All aboard!” released Meg from the parting. She ran up the metal steps, following the black porter struggling with her bags. When she reached her Pullman compartment, she looked out the window. Meg waved as the train pulled out. With her straight, thick brown hair bobbed and her drab brown eyes, Meg always felt her lack of beauty compared to her mother and aunt. The two women, though fashionably dressed, still kept their skirt hems barely above their ankles and neither had yet parted with their old-fashioned l
ong hair and large hats.
Meg dragged off her close-fitting cloche hat and ruffled her bobbed hair. A French officer in Paris had once told Meg she was more than a beauty, she was a striking woman with an air of mystery. Since he’d been trying unsuccessfully to seduce her at the time, she hadn’t taken him seriously. How shocked her mother and Aunt Fleur would be if she told them that story. Since her return from France, the gulf between her and her parents left her feeling isolated and alone.
Sighing, she crossed her silk-stockinged legs and leaned back into the seat. She swung her ankle with the increasing clickety-clack of the metal wheels speeding away from San Francisco, her hometown. Where she no longer felt at home.
Dismal rain was streaming down the train window when Meg arrived in New Orleans. The old city looked gray, dilapidated, and depressing just after dawn. The porter knocked and entered. With a smile, Meg handed him three dollar bills. “One is for you. One for James in the dining car. One for the redcap to take my bags.”
“Thank you, Miss. I’ll take care of it.” The porter smiled sincerely.
She tugged her ruby red cloche hat over her hair, then glanced at her compact. She powdered her nose and put on fresh lip rouge. “Make sure I get an honest cabby, please.”
“You’ll have the best in New Orleans, Miss.” The way he pronounced the city’s name, it sounded like, “Nawlin’s.”
After two days and two nights in the swaying car, Meg left her tiny compartment, feeling crumpled and grimy. If I could only sleep.
Soon she was stepping out of a yellow cab in front of the hotel Aunt Fleur had recommended. Under her black umbrella, Meg scooted through the pouring rain into the imposing white frame building with ornate black wrought-iron balconies. Inside, she folded her umbrella, letting the stream of water drain down its point. Damp and drowning in fatigue, she sauntered to the desk and placed a hand on its smooth wood.
A clerk approached her. “May I help you, miss?” he asked in a thick southern accent.
“I’d like a room with a bath, please.”
The clerk’s mouth primmed up. “Will your husband be joining you?”
“I’m single.” She sighed. “Where is your guest register? I’ve been on a train for two days.”
“You are traveling alone?” His tone was icy.
Meg finally looked the man directly in his frosty face. “What is the problem?”
He folded his hands. “Here at Hotel Monteleone, we’re not in the habit of registering young painted females without escort.”
Good grief! Young painted female because she powdered her nose and rouged her lips? Meg mockingly folded her hands, too. “Please ask the manager to give me a moment of his valuable time.” The clerk began to object. From under the low brim of her cloche, Meg stared him down.
Within a few seconds, Meg was ushered into the manager’s office. The impeccably groomed manager stood just within the door, poised to give her a quick denial. Meg brushed past him and made herself comfortable in the commodious green leather chair in front of his desk. Forced to give ground, the manager sat and eyed her.
Meg sat back, nonchalant. “Your desk clerk has extremely outdated notions about women who travel alone.”
“Our policy has always been not to allow unattended young females—”
“Are you saying you think I’m a prostitute?” Meg’s incisive tone contrasted with the garbled reply the manager stuttered out.
Meg opened her red leather bag and pulled out a letter, which she tossed to him. “This is a letter of introduction from my Aunt Fleur.” She said no more, but watched the manager as he read. The change in his expression would have been amusing if Meg had been in the mood to be amused.
Without a word, she took back the letter and stood. Soon, she was bowed into a large luxurious room by the manager himself and she locked the door with a click.
Undressing as she went, she headed across the thick maroon carpet straight for the rose and white bathroom’s claw foot tub. She twisted its ornate brass knobs. Hot water pounded against the white porcelain bottom. She dropped in paper-packaged bath salts. Steam rose. She shed her black silk teddy and slid into the rose-fragrant, frothy bubbles.
Bitterness welled up, a sour taste in her mouth. “They really know how to make a lady welcome in New Orleans. The parish attorney will be a treat, no doubt.” She closed her eyes, letting the hot water relax her stiff muscles. “Del, why didn’t you stay in Paris?”
After trying to eat a breakfast of slimy eggs, spicy sausage, and something lumpy and white called “grits,” Meg took the short taxi ride to the courthouse. Wearing black except for her red cloche, handbag, and heels, she’d added her ruby earrings and solitaire ring. A discreet show of wealth might make her path to Del easier.
She mounted the courthouse’s worn marble steps as the insistent rain pounded down. Still she maintained her habitual mask: calm, in control, so at variance with the restless, dissatisfied feeling she strove against every waking hour. A quick perusal of the list of names on the board and she walked up another flight of marble stairs to enter the parish attorney’s office. A pale young man with prominent ears greeted her.
“Mr. St. Clair, please.” She handed the young man her gilt-edged card, then waited while he took it in. Overhead, one lone lamp, dangling from the very high ceiling cast a ghostly glow over the outer office paneled in dark wood. The door to the inner office opened. She glanced up.
It appeared to be St. Clair, tall with black hair and a handsome face. He’d telegraphed, but would he help her? He returned her scrutiny, holding her card. “Miss Wagstaff,” he read from it. “How may I help you?”
She longed to say, “Just give me Del DuBois and I’ll go away and leave you alone.” But, of course, that was impossible. She had to play out her role. Just as she had in France. “I’ve come to inquire about Delman Dubois. What is the status of his case?” To her own ears, her voice sounded too careless.
“Delman Dubois?” No recognition touched his cool gray eyes.
“Yes, you sent my father a telegram?” She watched the man’s face. He had a small red scar along his jaw.
“Oh, that telegram I sent for the piano player who robbed and shot his boss.”
“No.” With her index finger, she prodded him right beneath the knot of his black tie. “The innocent piano player you’ve falsely charged.”
He caught her hand and gripped it. Her gloved hand tingling within his grasp, she tried to pull free.
He held tight. Scorching him with a glance, she tugged once more.
He released her. “Miss, I don’t understand your interest in this case. That telegram went to Delman’s people. You obviously aren’t his family.”
She wanted to shock him with the truth, that, though they were of different races, Del was like a brother to her. But the truth could be of no interest to this starched-up Southerner. Didn’t antebellum males go out with the bustle? “Del’s grandmother raised me.” She forced out the words. “When she died, my father became Del’s guardian.”
Her explanation appeared to take the edge off his opposition. “Why didn’t you say that in the beginning?”
“Would you please tell me the status of his case?” Meg asked in a measured tone.
“Where is your father?”
“What?”
“I sent that telegram to your father.”
He’s still sparring with me. Why? “And my father sent me to see what Del needed, to get this matter cleared up.”
“In that case, I’ll give you a list of local attorneys—”
“Thank you.” She held on to the shreds of her frayed temper. “But won’t you tell me what’s taken place in the three days since the telegram?”
“Criminal law is no fit topic for a lady.”
Tempted to hit him with her dripping umbrella, Meg stared at him. “I can’t believe you said that with a straight face.” She’d finally nicked him. He flushed red. Pent-up words flowed out of her lips. “Haven’t you heard
down here in Dixie that the Nineteenth Amendment is about to become law? I will be a voting citizen soon. Furthermore, for your information, I’ve been accepted at Stanford University law school for the fall term. If I intend to be a lawyer, law is a fit topic for me. Now, I’d like to know the status of Del’s case. I’d like to visit him and then hire local counsel.” She stared at him daring him to insult her again.
With a hard jaw, he met her stare.
Chapter 2
Meg stared at St. Clair. “Why are you behaving this way?”
“In what way? Your old nurse’s grandson needs legal counsel and that’s the only help I can give you.”
“You’re being helpful?” More furious words bubbled in her throat. Realizing animosity wouldn’t get her anywhere, she substituted, “Fine.”
“Won’t you come into my office, then, and wait while I make out the list?” He ushered her into his neat, masculine office. With unnecessary ceremony, he took her black umbrella and damp coat and seated her in a comfortable dark leather chair. If his former behavior hadn’t shown his lack of respect for her as a woman, this wouldn’t have offended her. But this man was the prosecuting attorney. She couldn’t indulge herself by telling him off. Del was depending on her.
As he jotted the list, he kept up, in a rich southern accent, a soothing flow of inconsequential chatter. Meg doubted he would have noticed if she’d even disappeared. The self-absorbed southern gentleman—handsome, sleekly-tailored, and completely maddening, didn’t realize he was a relic, the last of a dying breed. Viewing him as a museum exhibit made it possible for Meg to sit quietly. He’d never have survived in France. The rigid ones cracked, then broke.
Standing, St. Clair handed her a half sheet of yellow paper. She rose and accepted it. Even though her hands were gloved, the brush of his strong fingers on hers set a tingling racing through her palms. Had he done that on purpose? Did he have enough nerve to flirt with her?