Frail Blood

by Jo Robertson

  Someone had tried to kill her!

  She fought back a sob as she touched her fingertips to her throat with the ginger tentativeness of someone afraid of pulling away with blood on her hands. Nothing moist, but she knew great, ugly rings of purple and blue would be visible within the hour.

  If she were alive to see them.

  If she could escape her dark prison.

  A heavy weight settled on her chest, sucking the air out of her lungs. Breathe, she told herself. Whatever else happened, she must not lose consciousness again. She must not succumb to the cloying fear of fainting. She did not know how she knew, but she understood full well that her single advantage lay in remaining awake – and calm.

  She drew in air through her nostrils and expelled the ragged breaths through her pursed lips as Sarah had taught her to calm herself once long ago. In, out, in, out, until the sedating effect of her deep breathing performed its work.

  She tugged the hem of her skirt up her legs and probed the great, gaping holes at the knees of her stockings. Her fingers came away moist. She ran her hands down her legs and then along her arms and around her ribs. Although they were tender, nothing appeared to be broken.

  After some little time, her eyes gradually became accustomed to the dark and she searched the enclosed and lightless room – a basement or storage facility, she believed. Several large shapes hunkered in what appeared to be corners of the spacious room. Stored furniture she guessed by the bulk and size of them. The room held a rank mustiness that spoke of old items stored for years without airing.

  She rose unsteadily in the dark and groped her way forward, shuffling carefully along lest she trip over some dangerous garden tool or farming implement. At length she stumbled on what was clearly a wooden step and she groped upwards, feeling the incline that indicated a staircase.

  Yes, definitely a basement. One without windows.

  The short journey to the stairs exhausted her and she sank onto the bottom step, her skirts billowing out around her. Her throat throbbed. Her eyes stung with grittiness. The scraps and scratches on her legs chafed against the texture of her underskirts.

  Nonetheless, she forced herself to climb the stairs, maintaining her balance precariously as there were no rails on either side of the unstable wooden steps. As she suspected, the stairs ended in a solid wooden door at the top. She located and rattled the knob.

  Locked!

  She sank to the step, lowered her head into her damaged palms, and resisted the urge to weep.

  #

  The passage of time was like a slow death. Cold, cramped, battered and sore, Emma clung to the single thought that Malachi and Stephen would rescue her. They would, she knew, as soon as they returned from down south, as soon as they learned of her absence.

  She clamped down on her lip to keep from laughing hysterically and hearing the maniacal sound reverberate in the dank cellar. Malachi would be furious at having to save her once again. He'd tease and berate her, but then he'd take her in his arms, kiss her gently, and ...

  She thrust aside those dangerous hopes for they weakened her. She couldn't depend on Malachi and Stephen to rescue her. She had insisted on being an independent woman. Well, then, she'd simply have to engineer her own escape.

  But in God's name, how?

  A sudden pang of hunger knotted her belly. The least her attacker could have provided her was a bit of nourishment. And a privy, she thought, as a persistent tug at her bladder reminded her of how long she'd been in captivity. Four, five hours? Had she really allowed her fear to paralyze her all this time?

  With renewed determination she rose and fumbled her way down the stairs and around the perimeter of the cellar, shuddering with each slimy contact of her palms with the wall. She scrubbed her hands over her dress and moved on, inch by inch.

  Finally she reached what she judged to be the farthest corner of the room from the stairs. She paused and lowered herself against the wall, then lifted her skirts and performed the necessary task, tearing off a piece of her underskirt to blot away the dampness.

  She was not above such primitiveness, she assured herself. Those suffragettes in Washington had endured far greater indignities.

  Armed with a little courage and an empty bladder, she fumbled her way around the rest of the room in the opposite direction. Here she encountered several large barrels and probed around their circumference until she felt a nozzle of some sort. A wine casket?

  Further inspection yielded up a small canning jar which she ascertained from the smell and feel was dusty. She ripped another piece of her underskirt and wiped out the interior, rather proud of her makeshift drinking mug.

  After sipping the rather good wine, she felt better. The sugar would stave off her hunger pangs and the liquid was restorative. She continued her inspection of her prison, around the remainder of the third wall and back to the presumed rectangle of the basement.

  Underneath the stair's alcove, she came upon what felt like several large trunks, their rusty hinges speaking of years of abandonment. She tried to no avail to pry open the first one, then lugged it a few inches from the back so she could reach the second one.

  Lighter than its companion, the trunk was easier to pull closer to the bottom step. That done, she sank down there while she caught her breath. Perhaps this lighter one would also be easier to open.

  After several ripped nails and a good deal of scraping and grunting, she managed to loosen the top and swung it open, allowing the lid to clatter to the concrete floor away from her. The noise rang harshly in the silent confines of the room and Emma jumped at the unexpected jar, her heart pattering wildly.

  In the wake of the resounding clash, another sound penetrated Emma's consciousness. From behind her she heard the careful, but distinct jingle of a set of keys knocking against a brass key hole.

  #

  It took several hours for Sheriff Kern and his deputies to handle the body and inspect the Machado house. Malachi felt like an unnecessary appendage, standing idly by while more competent men took charge. Stephen had ridden back to town, presumably to wire Thomas Gant about a change of news to the upcoming edition.

  Inactivity did not sit well on Malachi. He'd taken several rounds around the Machado property, inspecting the meager outbuildings and the arid land. Lucky Aaron had his railroad position because he wasn't much of a farmer from the looks of it. But Mrs. Henderson, the midwife, had intimated that Aaron ran off because of a conflict with his father over running the fruit orchards.

  Malachi mulled the disparate pieces of information as a nagging disturbance jiggled at the back of his brain. What if Emma were absolutely correct? What if the mess that was the Machado family was none of Aaron's making? What if, as she'd surmised all along, he was the victim in this vulgar charade?

  His devil's advocate of a mind played the other side for a brief moment. On the other hand, what if Aaron was the perpetrator of this unnatural perfidy? What if he seduced the women of the house – his mother, his sister – what did it matter? A child was born, the spawn of an incestuous relationship.

  Would Joseph, Sr., have known or even cared that the child wasn't his? Surely the women would've kept this black secret from the sometimes violent head of their family.

  Now he feared they'd never know if Aaron were villain or victim. But he was murdered and that fact sat uneasy on Malachi's mind. Why? Who? Was it connected to the circumstances of Joseph's murder or was it entirely unrelated?

  "Seems like too much of a coincidence," Nathan said as he leaned against the dusty fence beside Malachi.

  "Exactly what I was thinking," Malachi answered. "And if I remember correctly, my friend, you have a particular abhorrence for coincidental events."

  Nathan laughed and clamped his large hand on his friend's shoulder. "Hell, Malachi, I just don't fuckin' believe in them at all. Let's head on outta here, amigo. Kern will pass on anything important."

  #

  Damn little bitch! Meddling, interfering, bringing everything
to an impasse, just like that whore Alma did with Joseph. God, how to get out of this impossible mess?

  Fumbling with the keys, hands shaking just the tiniest bit. Pausing, thinking about how to handle this latest stumbling block. No, not now. Later.

  How long before she'd be missed, Miss High and Mighty with her breeding, her privilege of birth along with the money and reputation? The headache loomed just enough to spasm the eyes and burn the temples. Damn!

  Two obstacles removed already. And now this third one stashed away in the basement.

  What to do about her body?

  And all would be lost if she balked against the plan now.

  Dangerous to do anything so close to the family home. But what else could be done? The family was still the victim, best to keep the focus on that – Joseph's death, Alma's violence. Aaron's suicide so far away, surely no connection would be made between that act and what happened so long ago.

  Surely not.

  #

  "Where the hell is she, Franklin?" Stephen's face was a purple mottle of anger and concern and Malachi feared the man would succumb to a stroke right there in the pristine sitting room of his elder brother.

  Mrs. Knight stood like a stentorian by the sofa where her husband sat, military stiff-backed, while Stephen ranted over her husband. Her expression was like marble, finely worked and as smooth as glass, a cold, hard façade that was, nonetheless, as beautiful as an indifferent goddess.

  "Don't use your vulgar language in my house," Franklin Knight snarled in low tones. He leapt to his feet, his chin mere inches from Stephen's forehead. "We have no idea where Emma has scouted off to. She never apprises us of her actions."

  Defeat deflated Stephen's bluster and he sank into the wing chair by the window, cradling his head in his hands.

  Malachi decided, for the moment, that Franklin Knight's cold indifference served better than Stephen's outburst. "When was the last time you spoke with Emma?"

  Mary and Franklin Knight exchanged a glance that likely meant nothing, but Malachi noted the undercurrent of tension between the two. He tightened his jaw and scowled at them. "Whatever your family's ridiculous sense of propriety, Emma may be in danger. If you know where she's gone, you must tell us."

  He leaned his body forward, fists clenched in a threat, and by God, he'd thrash the daylights out of Knight if he refused to help them. But the man held out his hands in placation.

  "Stephen gets so worked up over nothing," Franklin murmured, glancing over at his brother with a look of disdain. "Emma stopped by several hours ago – "

  "Without advance notice," interrupted his wife.

  She ignored the quelling look her husband gave her – at the interruption of the family patriarch, Malachi thought wryly, wondering again how Emma had survived with these two creatures as parents.

  "Emma asked some prying questions about the Machado family, as if we would know anything about them," Franklin said. "They may be wealthy, but they do not move in our social circles."

  Malachi knew the Machados were considered vulgar – self-made, new money – having neither the family lineage nor elegant background of the old-moneyed families like the Knights.

  "What questions?" Malachi gritted out, wanting nothing so much as to strangle the both of them.

  Mrs. Franklin waved her hand as if brushing off the hovering of an annoying fly. "Long-ago happenings. Gossip, if you must know. Disgusting and mean rumors surrounding the eldest Machado boy running off and abandoning the family business."

  "Emma ought to know we don't pry into other people's private lives. It's beneath our dignity," Franklin added.

  "What did you tell Emma?" Stephen asked, half rising from his chair.

  "Nothing," Mrs. Knight insisted, but under Malachi's stern gaze, she added, "Hardly anything."

  Stephen sank back into the chair, loathing in his eyes. "And what would that hardly anything be, Mary?"

  Franklin answered for his wife. "If you must know, Emma wanted to know what the rumors were at the time of Joseph's birth, the younger Joseph. Apparently she got it in her head that Mrs. Machado was not the boy's mother."

  "Uncomfortable as the sight was, I saw Frances Machado quite frequently about town during her confinement and most definitely she was with child." Mrs. Knight made a little moue that could've been indisposition or aversion. "There's no question that she is Joseph's mother. And really, what a provocative and disgusting issue to bring up anyway."

  "Where did Emma say she was going?" Malachi asked.

  "To work at that newspaper office," Mr. Knight answered.

  But Malachi and Stephen had already checked there after Sarah Ralston told them the same thing. Thomas Gant hadn't seen Emma Knight all day.

  Where the hell had Emma gone and what trouble was she in now?

  Chapter 28

  "to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them" – Hamlet

  Emma heard voices and the random clunking of heavy footsteps on the floors above her, but she could not make out the words. She thought there were two of them, a man and a woman from the tone and pitch, and they sounded furious. That much she could discern from the rise and fall of their voices through the muffled barrier above her head.

  A short time after the jangling of keys subsided, she dared to creep up the stairs and listen intently at the door for long minutes. She heard nothing. No breathing. No shuffling of feet. No muffled sounds of everyday movements. She bit back an hysterical sob. Had her ears begun to deceive her?

  After gingerly descending the steps to where she'd left the trunk at the bottom, she began to explore the contents, but the lid gaped open on nothing more than stale clothing and musty blankets. She pulled out several items. She estimated night had fallen and the extra padding would afford warmth as the temperature dropped in the dank basement.

  She couldn't be certain, of course, but she believed that her attacker had taken her inert body to another place from the Machado house. If she were still there, she believed the normal noises of household living and the comings and goings of workers would alert her to that fact.

  But here in her imprisoned place, the silence was as heavy and empty as a sanctuary. Surely she was hidden away in some abandoned building.

  She fetched one of the blankets to wrap around her. Then she stepped around the stairs to huddle at the alcove entrance where the giant trunk lay. She sat down, leaned against it, and rested there.

  If someone came down after her, hopefully he – or she – would trip over the trunk at the bottom of the stairs and break his neck. She could only hope for such good fortune, she thought wryly.

  An hour later, or perhaps longer, the faint sound of quarrelling in the distance roused her. At first she imagined she was dreaming and the voices in her head were she and Malachi engaged in another of their endless arguments about women's rights.

  But the chilling dampness seeped through her skirts, and her legs' stiffness reminded her she was not caught in a dream. She stretched her cramped limbs and listened to the sounds from above.

  "— you done?" A light voice, likely a woman's.

  "Had to – can't – see?" A deeper-pitched one.

  Shrillness, tinged with hysteria. "Did you – why her?"

  Loud, every word clear as a screech in a graveyard. "She would've told, you silly girl!"

  Soft whimpering. "Never loved – anyway, not – me."

  A long silence. Scuffing of feet and muffled sounds that Emma couldn't determine the meaning of.

  A man and a woman. Aaron and Phoebe Machado? Or Aaron and his mother? Why would Aaron come back here after the broken-hearted state she'd left him in just yesterday?

  Perhaps he meant to confess his sins and tell the authorities what had happened between him and his mother all those years ago. But to what end? Joseph was dead and Aaron's confession would not lead to his killer.

  Only – perhaps it would.

  What if Aaron's confession forced the killer to an admission of guilt? Th
e mother, then, the killer must be the mother. She feared her filthy secret would come out. Did Frances Machado kill her own son to remove the evidence of her guilt?

  Emma had heard of the newest developments in the science of pathology, that investigators could now determine if a certain person had touched an object. A Scottish physician had developed a system of identifying handprints and fingerprints. Using his methods, could they not identify who held the murder weapon in addition to Alma Bentley?

  Her heart beat faster with the excitement of possibility. Surely Malachi knew of such new techniques. Had he already contemplated finger and palm printing and subsequently discarded the idea?

  Perhaps there were too many prints on the pistol or they were smudged and unidentifiable for comparison to someone else's. On the other hand, wasn't it likely that no one else had even considered the possibility that anyone other than Alma handled the weapon.

  Aaron said he'd confessed everything to Joseph. He didn't speak of Joe's reaction to this news, but Emma could well imagine the trauma and shock the younger brother would've experienced. Aaron was the third member of this unholy triumvirate along with Frances and Phoebe. The two women must have known what Aaron intended to confess.

  Had they tried to dissuade him? Would they have done anything to keep the secret? Phoebe loved Joseph as if he were her own son. She would protect him to the death. Mrs. Machado had no such motherly affections. Would she have quailed at the idea of murdering her own son?

  And what of Mr. Machado? What, if anything, did he know of those long-ago events? Did he know Joseph was not his natural son? Did he know of his wife's perfidy? And if he did, what action might he have taken for revenge or to protect such a heinous secret?

  Emma's head spun with the possibilities, but she realized such rumination was fruitless. As soon as the people who stood several feet above her decided her fate, she'd know soon enough who the culprits were in this Greek tragedy of degradation and perversion.

  She pushed away from the large trunk she'd leaned against and contemplated trying to open it again. She'd made several trips to the wine casket to quench her thirst, necessitating another sojourn to her makeshift privy, but hunger gnawed steadily at her stomach. She hardly thought she'd find food stored in a trunk, but she began to pry at the rusted brass fastenings anyway.