Frail Blood

by Jo Robertson

  "The docks?"

  "Yes, in Sacramento. Take a look at the women that hang about there. Watch the things they must do to keep body and soul together. How they prostitute their pride and whore their bodies to feed their children."

  He'd meant the words to sound harsh. Emma's naivety about a woman's compromised position in this country irked him.

  She paused in her pacing and cast him an injured look. "Do you really think me so inured to the plight of those poor women?" Her voice came out dry, a hoarse rasping of sandpaper against wood, and her eyes blinked furiously.

  "Not at all," he said, immediately regretful. "I think you are generous and sympathetic. But I also think you're woefully ignorant of what most women in this country suffer through poverty or their alliance with abusive and coarse men."

  He thought of his own mother and her suffering at the hands of his father, a violent man when sober, a madman when drunk. "You have no idea of what they must endure. It is impossible to think of ideals when one's belly is empty, to indulge in dreams when one's life is hopeless."

  Emma reached for a cup of lemonade and took it back to her desk where she sat quietly for a moment.

  At last Malachi broke the silence. "You sounded as if you'd learned something significant from Miss Phoebe's story."

  She appeared to rouse herself, shook her head, and took a deep breath. "Yes," she began slowly. "As I said, Miss Machado seems sly to me, as if she has a secret, some knowledge she wants to keep from the general public."

  He snorted. "That description could apply to half the people in Placer Hills. Were you able to find out what her particular secret might be?"

  "No, she thwarted every discussion I aimed down that road." She paused dramatically. A mischievous dimple deepened the corner of her mouth. "But, when she went into the kitchen to supervise the tea serving, I noticed several papers scattered across a roll-top desk in the parlor where she entertained me."

  "Emma," he warned, "you didn't snoop, did you? Anything you found without a warrant will be tossed out of court."

  "We don't need this information in court," she declared, "and truthfully, I didn't find it on the desk so much as ... tucked into one of the drawers."

  "Jesus, Emma!" He groaned, but at the same time couldn't help admiring her brashness. "You've got the balls of a bull!"

  Emma clasped a hand over her mouth and giggled, the sound so unfamiliar that Malachi burst out in a loud guffaw at her antics.

  "Miz Knight? Is everything all right in there?" Thomas' voice bellowed from the front room.

  Emma coughed, sputtered a moment, and then regained control. "Yes, Thomas, I – I just choked on a piece of meat."

  "What did you find?" Malachi asked.

  She folded her hands on the desk top in triumph. "A communication from Aaron Machado. A letter in which he states his intent to visit Placer Hills."

  "And the date of the letter?"

  "April of this year."

  "And the salutation?"

  "He wrote the letter to his brother Joseph."

  Malachi rubbed his fingers across the shadow of his beard. "Ah, not the father, then?"

  Emma shook her head. "I only had a moment to peruse the contents, but the sentiments were clearly disturbing. He mentioned something about settling old debts among the family. Do you think he referred to an inheritance?"

  "A veiled threat to a young brother who presumably was the beneficiary of the father's will?" Malachi widened his eyes in question. "Perhaps this is Miss Phoebe's secret?"

  "I suppose it could be," she said slowly, the line between her brows deepening in thought. "But how are we to find out for sure who Mr. Machado's beneficiary is? Phoebe is the elder. If Aaron is cut out of the will, wouldn't she be next to inherit the Machado property and money?"

  He shook his head and scoffed. "A woman? Not likely."

  Emma rose, walked around the desk, and stood in front of him, her hands firmly planted on her hips. "Well, then, can you subpoena the document?"

  "No, your finding it precludes my using the letter itself." He paused and thought a moment. "However, I might be able to weasel the will's contents from the Machado family attorney."

  "Why would he divulge such confidential information?"

  He smiled conspiratorially. "He wouldn't, but I happen to know that Mr. Eli Jackson has a very loose tongue. Particularly when he's plied with his favorite beverage."

  "Beer?"

  "Oh, nothing so low-born, Miss Knight. Scotch. Single malt."

  She nodded. "Of course, the most expensive kind."

  Chapter 17

  "And therefore think him as a serpent's egg, which, hatch'd, would as his kind grow mischievous."

  – Julius Caesar

  On her way to Alma's jail cell, Emma pondered what Malachi had said about impoverished women. He'd thrown her elevated station in her face as if it were her fault she'd been born to wealth.

  He'd challenged her to investigate how women who hadn't been born to such privilege lived. Women not as fortunate as she.

  No doubt he intended the wild suggestion to upset her, never imagining she'd consider such a venture. Malachi wouldn't wish for her to travel alone to such a dangerous section of the capitol city to observe the sad, mean lives of the women at the docks. Not only was the area replete with miners, ripe to unload their gold earnings, but with thieves, prostitutes, and other rough and unsavory characters.

  Still, how else was she to learn firsthand?

  She decided to risk a visit to the river when she finished speaking with Alma. Malachi thought of Emma as a spoiled, idle girl of riches who couldn't understand the dire circumstances of a woman like Alma Bentley. Going to the docks to determine for herself how impoverished women lived seemed a good idea, and in a hansom cab with a burly driver, she'd be well-protected.

  Though she hardly understood what else she could learn from Alma, Emma visited the girl again at Malachi's request with the purpose of trying to persuade the girl to remember the exact events of the night Joe Machado was murdered. Emma approached the visit with trepidation, uneasy in the presence of Alma's clear admiration of her, uncomfortably attired in her fine clothes while Alma sat on a worn bed cover in her wretched and wrinkled clothing.

  "Miz Knight, you've come to see me," Alma exclaimed, rising from her place on a single wooden chair, an addition to the cell that Malachi must've insisted on.

  "Where's Mr. Rivers?" The girl peered around Emma as if she expected he were hiding behind her skirts.

  "Mr. Rivers is working on another aspect of the case." Emma inhaled deeply and immediately wished she had not. The pungent odor of boiled cabbage and stale bread assaulted her, the remnants of Alma's lowly meal. Beneath the odor of food gone bad was the fecund smell of unwashed bodies and stale breath.

  Emma rapped sharply on the wooden door behind her, summoning the bailiff who stood guard outside. "Please remove Miss Bentley's dinner tray." She glanced at the wash basin of scummy water. "And fetch fresh water."

  The elderly Streetman grumbled as he hobbled across the tiny jail cell to retrieve the dinner bowl and utensils. "Think I'm a servant, d'ye? Old Jake's got better things to do than clean up after criminals, yessir."

  Emma tossed a glare his way that should've withered the old man, but so embroiled in his own litany, he appeared hardly to notice her censure. "Ain't gonna live forever, no sir, getting' on in years, shouldn't hafta clean up after the likes of these."

  Fighting the urge to pummel the man, Emma clenched her fists around her handbag and sat on the meager cot. She waited for the thud of the heavy door and the clang of the metal bar locking in place.

  Alone at last, she looked into the plain, hopeful face of the incarcerated woman and felt a twinge of sadness for her. Would Emma have fared much better had she been born into such lowly circumstances?

  "Mr. Rivers wishes you to recount the events of the night Joseph died, Alma. Do you think you can do that for me?"

  "Re ... count?" Alma's fa
ce twisted in the familiar grimace that indicated her mind was trying to grasp a difficult concept.

  "Tell me again," Emma said gently. "Tell me everything you remember about that night."

  "But I already told Mr. Rivers," she protested.

  "That's all right. Tell me again. Maybe you'll remember something else." Emma hoped that reviewing the step-by-step events would refresh the girl's memory. Perhaps she knew something she wasn't aware of.

  Alma shrugged her thin shoulders. "I don't know what more to say."

  "Let me start," Emma suggested. "Precisely what time did you arrive at Mr. Machado's house?"

  "Lessee, it wuddn't yet dark outside, so mebbe seven-thirty, eight o'clock?"

  "Was Joseph alone in the house?"

  Alma collapsed on the wooden chair and stared at the damp wall behind Emma's head. At this rate they'd get nowhere, but Emma smiled and waited patiently.

  "I didn't see nobody else, but I heard some footsteps upstairs, so there mighta been somebody up there."

  Emma sat forward eagerly. "Were they heavy footsteps? Like a man's?"

  Alma worried her bottom lip with small, sharp teeth. "Nope, they was light, soft like a woman's. Coulda been Miss Phoebe or the Missus up there, but they was suppose to be gone."

  "Do you think it was one person?"

  Alma nodded slowly. "Yes, just one. And a woman, most likely."

  Emma thought of Aaron Machado and his possible visit to the Machado homestead. "Are you positive it wasn't a man walking about upstairs? Perhaps he was treading quietly because he didn't want to be heard?"

  "I guess so," Alma said slowly, her thick brows knitting together as she rubbed her thumb over her lips. "But I think it was a woman."

  "Okay, a woman then. Mrs. Machado or Phoebe?"

  Alma shrugged her thin shoulders. "I dunno. I thought they were at the ladies' night at Miz Haverston's. When I got to Joe's house, no one answered the back door after I knocked on it. He came down the stairs and I thought he was the only one to home."

  "Why did you go to see Joseph that night, Alma?" Emma was quite sure she knew the answer to the question. Having gone there armed, the girl faced a charge of premeditation.

  The girl looked sheepish. "Maybe I was mad at 'im, but I was lonely too, ma'am," she said, a wistful look creeping across her plain features. "Like I said, the missus was supposed to be gone. I wanted to see my Joe."

  Emma thought of Malachi and knew exactly what Alma meant. "Why then did you carry the pistol with you?"

  The woman's plain face colored. "I didn't plan to hurt him, just scare him for taking up with that trashy woman."

  "What about the elder Mr. Machado? Where was he that night?"

  Alma giggled. "Oh, the mister, he plays poker on Wednesday nights with his cronies. I knew he wouldn't be back till real late."

  "Weren't you worried that Joe's parents would find out about you and Joe?"

  "Oh, no, ma'am, I 'spect they already knew about us."

  Emma suspected the same thing. She thought hard about the triangles of wickedness in the Machado household. If the elderly Machados knew about the affair, why didn't they express their disapproval? The parents gave tacit approval when they failed to dismiss Alma or chastise their son for the flagrant affair carried on under their very noses.

  Emma tried another line of questioning. "Alma, did you know that Joseph had an elder brother?"

  The girl's pale eyes widened. "I heard the Mistah and Missus talkin' about him once," she whispered. "They had some kinda quarrel and he run off a long time ago. I wasn't working for them then."

  "Do you know what they argued about?"

  "Money most likely. Ain't it always about money?"

  Emma smiled. "You're probably right. Money's a powerful thing."

  Money and passion, she thought as she stood and walked to the heavy wooden door. She peered through the bars to the stone wall that ran beneath the steps and trickled with moisture. Emma shivered and rubbed her hands over the sleeves of her jacket.

  "Miz Knight?"

  Emma jumped at the sound of Alma's voice. She hadn't heard the girl approach. She turned and faced her.

  "There's somethin' I just remembered." She twisted her rough hands in front of her. "Somethin' Joe said one night when we were ... you know, alone."

  In fact, Emma didn't know. She'd never been in love in the way Alma appeared to be. In love with her Joe who had tricked her into believing that he returned her affection and would marry her.

  Several men had told Emma they loved her, but she'd known they were just flirting. Not one of them had been sincere about the flattery, at least not in the all-consuming way she imagined real love to be.

  For a brief moment, she envied Alma's great passion. "What did Joseph tell you?"

  "It were about Miz Phoebe."

  "Joseph's sister? What about her?"

  "I dunno exactly. Something about her and Mr. Aaron. Something odd that'd make their parents mad if they learned about it."

  "Did Joseph think it was something Mr. and Mrs. Machado were unaware of?"

  Alma shrugged and shook her head.

  Emma opened her mouth to ask another question when the jangling of metal keys in the lock interrupted her. Malachi stepped through the entry onto the dirt floor of the cell, bare-headed and gloveless as usual.

  Really, didn't the man ever dress like a gentleman?

  She pasted a bright smile on her lips and greeted him cheerily. "Mr. Rivers, your arrival is fortuitous. Alma was about to tell me something important."

  Malachi raised both brows and gazed at Alma who'd returned to the narrow cot where she looked very much like a young child who'd tattled on a sibling. "Hello, Alma, you look well today."

  "Hullo, Mr. Rivers," she answered, dipping her head and shuttering her eyes.

  Why the girl was half in love with Malachi. Why hadn't Emma noticed it before? Malachi was most likely the only man in the poor girl's life who treated her with respect and dignity.

  He looked from one of them to the other. "Have you had any progress on remembering the details, then?"

  "Alma believes there was someone else in the house the night Joseph was ... the night he died." Emma looked away from the intensity of his eyes and steadied herself. "Probably a woman."

  "A woman? I thought the Machado women were at some sort of music affair."

  Emma rummaged in her satchel and pulled out the sheriff's interviews with the Machado family. She leafed through the folders and pulled out a single sheet. "That's what they told Sheriff Butler," she said triumphantly.

  #

  "Hmmm, a flimsy alibi?" Malachi murmured.

  He thought Emma looked even paler than usual, two red spots dotting her high cheekbones. From the corner of his eye he took in her appearance – the stiff body, the unsmiling lips, the dark, somber eyes – as he knelt before his client.

  He hoped to God Emma would tell him if there were complications from their actions. He glanced her way again, taking in the slender waist and full breasts.

  He doubted he'd know if she were pregnant – if she didn't wish him too. He'd been woefully ignorant with Constance and hadn't even suspected her condition.

  He rose and took the deposition from Emma's hand. "Do you believe they lied to the sheriff?"

  "Or conveniently forgot," Emma said.

  Malachi lowered his voice and turned his back to his client. "Perhaps Alma is misremembering?"

  Emma looked indignant on behalf of the girl. "You're the one who insisted she might know more than she's revealed. Well, it appears she has."

  He nodded. "I'll speak to Mrs. Machado."

  "Won't she simply lie?"

  "Not if she believes she'll be caught."

  Malachi scooted the extra chair up to the edge of the cot and began speaking to Alma in hushed tones. She now sat with her elbows on her thighs, her chapped fingers playing with one another as a child might play cat's cradle.

  "You've done very well at rememberin
g for Miss Knight, Alma. Can you think of anything else to tell us?"

  The girl hunched one shoulder nearly up to her chin and stilled the restless fingers in her lap.

  Malachi reached for her hands, forced her to meet his eyes, and lowered his voice. "Tell me something, Alma. Did you go willingly to Joseph's bed?"

  He noticed the small step Emma made toward them, stared her down, and shook his head. She mustn't interfere with this questioning. She needed to understand what went on between a man like Joseph Machado and a lowly maid like Alma Bentley.

  "You can trust me, Alma. Did Mr. Machado force you?"

  A horrified look gripped Alma's face. "God no, Mr. Rivers! Do you mean the old man?"

  "Or Joseph. Come now, you can tell me the truth."

  Alma scrubbed her hands over her face as if the facts could be scraped off. She sighed heavily. "Not really," she said at last. "The Mistah, he gave me those looks, you know?"

  "What kind of looks?"

  Resignation and despair saturated the girl's plain face. "The kind that sez he'd like to if the Missus wasn't so aware of everything goin' on in the house."

  "Did he ever touch you?"

  "Not really. Just a grope or feel here and there."

  "How did Joseph feel about that?"

  "I can't hardly say as he knew."

  Emma had taken a seat beside Alma and moved closer to her, her face full of compassion, her left arm touching the girl.

  "Did Joseph force you?"

  A pink flush crept into Alma's cheeks and she looked almost pretty. "No, I liked Joseph. He didn't make me do anything I didn't want to."

  When Malachi looked at Emma again, her lashes spiked with wetness and her small nose tipped with red. The three of them sat quietly like this, Emma close to Alma, Malachi holding the girl's hands.

  In truth, Malachi wasn't sure whether he could get Alma Bentley acquitted, but he knew he must use the moral horror of the girl's life to appeal to the twelve male jurors, all upstanding gentlemen. He wanted them to believe that Alma would never commit such a violent act had she not been led astray by such a debaucher as Joseph Machado.

  He was very much afraid he'd have to put Alma on the stand.