by Cathy Pegau
The women’s eyes grew large and round at the mention of such a delicate matter.
“Well, I never,” Mrs. Burgess said, aghast.
Charlotte focused on her. “Perhaps you should. It’s very liberating.”
There was a perverse pleasure in seeing each of them pale, but the small voice in the back of her head warned Charlotte she just made three of the most affluent women in Cordova exceedingly uncomfortable. Probably not her smartest move in the last several months.
“Mr. Toliver will hear of this,” Mrs. Hillman said, her voice low and threatening.
Without allowing Charlotte to respond, she about-faced and swept past Mrs. Cron and Mrs. Burgess. They waited half a beat, long enough to give Charlotte a pair of disdainful glares, then followed their leader out the door.
Charlotte slowly relaxed her clenched fists. She’d encountered more than a few of their ilk, well-intended women who were so shortsighted they couldn’t see the real world past their turned-up noses. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, attempting to relax. Mr. Toliver would be talking to her, she was sure, but he’d approved her piece and she expected his support.
Still, it was a concern. What if Mrs. Hillman had enough influence over Cordovans to call for a boycott of the paper? What if businesses pulled their advertisements, even for a short time? A drop in revenue could be the thing that got to Toliver.
Would she have a job by the end of the week?
Damnation.
Charlotte turned toward the back of the office, but the sight of Toliver’s desk and its blanket of papers just made her want to sweep them all onto the floor. Nothing against him; she just needed to do something. She grabbed her coat and hat. A brisk walk might clear her head.
* * *
Charlotte found herself standing in front of Brigit O’Brien’s house. Its white clapboards and green shutters made it look like most other homes in Cordova, even down to the window boxes that would have flowers come spring. The house could have fit in any neighborhood in any American city. This one happened to be owned by one of the more successful madams in town. Many Cordovans ignored the inside activities, while others participated eagerly.
It was also the best place for Charlotte to find a sympathetic ear in which to grumble about the visit by Mrs. Hillman and friends.
She knocked on the door and was startled when it was opened almost immediately. Young Charlie O’Brien, Brigit’s son, blocked the entrance with his slight body. He was dressed to go out with a cap, heavy coat, scarf, wool pants, and boots. One hand rested on the jamb, the other held the edge of the door.
“Good afternoon, Charlie. Is Brigit available?”
“Afternoon, Miss Charlotte,” he said, and turned to look toward the parlor. Worry creased his smooth brow. “She’s here, but . . .”
The absence of the boy’s normally stoic expression concerned her. “Is everything all right?”
He shrugged and shook his head, unsure and unhappy about whatever was going on.
“Let her in, Charlie,” Brigit called from the parlor. “Go to Davey’s and play for a bit.”
Charlie gave Charlotte a helpless look, then ran past her, leaving the door open. She watched him trudge through the snow to the road, then disappear around the bend, heading up toward town. She knocked the snow off her boots and went in. The entry to Brigit’s house was tastefully decorated, if a little worn around the edges.
Leaving her mucky footwear near the door, Charlotte entered the parlor through the wide arch on the left. Brigit rose from one of the three couches to meet her near the doorway. She wore an orange and blue kimono-like robe with silver thread accents. Tendrils of hair framed her face, having escaped from the loose bun at the nape of her neck. Her dark eyes, usually so full of fire and mischief, were dull and red-rimmed.
“What happened?” Charlotte asked, hurrying toward her friend and gathering Brigit’s hands in her own. Not Charlie, obviously, thankfully.
Brigit drew her back to the couch and they sat. On the low table in front of them, a crystal tumbler of amber liquid was beside several cream-colored pages and a matching envelope. Both the pages and the envelope had elegant script covering them.
Brigit picked up the letter. “From a friend in Cincinnati,” she said, her voice rough. “One of the girls I started out with down there—” The words caught in her throat, and her hand gripped Charlotte’s hard. “She died.”
Charlotte squeezed back. “Oh, Brigit, I’m so sorry.”
“Camille, Tess, and I were at the same house for a few years. Camille was always laughing and carrying on. Every day was a party.” Brigit smiled sadly at the memory. “Everyone who came in wanted to see Camille. Smart as a whip, pretty, quick-witted.”
“She sounds lovely.”
Brigit nodded, dashing tears away. “We had it all planned. Work the houses rather than the street. So much safer. Save enough to buy our own place or set up a business. A flower shop. Camille loved flowers. But then Tess got this idea into her head to go to Alaska. There was gold still coming out of the hills and things were booming. Tess wanted part of that, and it sounded good to me. Camille decided to stay in Ohio, said she’d follow later.”
Brigit, her sister, Tess, and Tess’s husband, Frank Kavanagh, the former mayor of Cordova, had come to Cordova several years before. Their path from the States to the Last Frontier was a story unto itself, and not one many knew the truth of.
Brigit lowered her head, breathing deeply, unable to continue.
Charlotte drew her into a hug. Brigit shook as she cried on Charlotte’s shoulder.
“Is there anything I can do?” Charlotte knew there wasn’t, but she had to ask.
Brigit lifted her head, sniffling and dabbing her eyes and nose with a handkerchief from within her sleeve. “Find the bastard who killed her?”
Charlotte’s breath caught. “She was murdered?”
The life Brigit and her friends lived had its risks. Whether they chose it or were forced into it through circumstances, prostitution was inherently dangerous. But that didn’t make a sporting woman’s murder any less heinous, as Charlotte had seen firsthand three months earlier.
“Might as well have been.” Brigit’s eyes hardened, anger equal to the grief now. “Camille died after going to some back-alley butcher.”
A chill ran up Charlotte’s spine. “Back-alley—she died after having . . .”
The word wasn’t used in polite company, or any company Charlotte had been in of late. She said it to herself on plenty of occasions, but to speak it out loud? She just couldn’t.
“A so-called ‘delicate operation,’ yes,” Brigit said. “Victoria, the friend who wrote me, said Camille had gone to a good doctor. Paid top dollar. But it didn’t matter. He practically shoved her out of the room right after because he got wind he was about to be raided.”
Charlotte’s stomach clenched like a fist. How lucky had she been that the doctor who had performed her own “delicate operation” hadn’t been a drunkard or incompetent or caught up in a police raid? A woman with money had a better chance at surviving her decision, but the risk was real no matter what you paid. How many women took that chance and lost every day? Every week? Every year? Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands?
“Charlotte, are you all right? You’re pale as a ghost.” Brigit rubbed Charlotte’s cold hands between hers. “I shouldn’t have said anything about it. I assumed that as a journalist and all you’d be somewhat used to atrocities like this.”
“No, it’s not that.” Meeting Brigit’s gaze, Charlotte managed a wan smile. “It’s not that. I have dealt with some distasteful things, of course, but this . . .”
This was too close, too personal.
Brigit stared at her for several seconds. “You’ve lost someone to a botched abortion.”
Charlotte shook her head and stared down at their entwined hands. She could trust Brigit with the truth, but the words stuck in her throat. How did you explain feeling guilty for not feeling
guilt and shame?
In her head, in her heart, she absolutely believed in a woman’s right to make her own decisions about having children or not. Charlotte knew she wasn’t ready. Not then, and not now.
So why did her stomach ache and her head pound when she thought about what she’d done? The option of living with Richard as his wife had been no option at all. Having the child alone? Out of the question, even if Richard hadn’t threatened to besmirch her family. Father would have been livid, Mother would have been appalled. Charlotte would have been responsible for ruining their carefully orchestrated lives.
Instead of a suffering a loveless, resentful marriage, or having a child she didn’t want, she’d opted to have an illegal abortion. Breaking that particular law had still put her own reputation and her family’s reputation at risk, but the procedure was shorter than a pregnancy and easier to hide. At least on the outside.
“Let me get you something to drink.” Brigit gently extricated her fingers, patted Charlotte’s hand, and rose. She crossed to the credenza where she kept the house’s liquor supply locked up, in defiance of Alaska’s dry laws.
A voice came from the stairs behind Charlotte. “I-is everything all r-right?”
Charlotte looked up, knowing it was Della from her soft tone and stutter even before seeing the girl. Della stood halfway up the stairs, wearing a red dressing gown. Her face was clean of makeup, her black hair loose about her shoulders, and her blue eyes full of worry.
“It’s fine, Della,” Brigit poured a tumbler of whiskey and came back to Charlotte, bottle in hand. “Go finish getting ready, please, and tell Lizzie to wear the dark blue dress. Mr. Copper sent a message he’d be visiting and prefers that color on her.”
There was no “Mr. Copper” in Cordova, of course, but pseudonyms told the girls which preferred customers to expect. Brigit was usually tight-lipped about who came to her house, be he councilman or cannery man.
Della glanced between the two of them, then went back upstairs.
“Here,” Brigit said to Charlotte, giving her the glass and setting the bottle on the table. “You look like you could use this.”
Charlotte held the tumbler with both hands. How long had it been since she’d had a drink? Not since she and Richard had started seeing each other. Not since the days following her procedure, when a dram or two or three helped her sleep without nightmares.
God, the nightmares. Endless crying coming from all around her. Images of herself pounding on doors along a dark and rainy city street while the feeling that something black and wicked was making its way toward her. Something that would eat her whole.
Her reasons for having the abortion were selfish. Her shame was selfish. She publicly called for equality and rights, yet she couldn’t bring herself to admit her own decision. Society would never look at her the same if they knew what she’d done.
Charlotte knew she was a hypocrite. That was what haunted her.
“Want to tell me about it?” Brigit asked gently, her dark eyes searching Charlotte’s face.
“It’s just that—” Charlotte’s voice broke, and she took a drink. The whiskey burned down her throat, then up into her sinuses. It hit her stomach. Heat spread through her gut. Her eyes watered, and she coughed as she peered into the glass. Half gone. How had that happened?
“We can go into my office,” Brigit offered. “No one will bother us in there.”
Della’s interruption was both a blessing and a misfortune. She would have told Brigit everything, but now . . . Now, she just couldn’t bring herself to say it. Charlotte had practically perfected the façade she showed the outside world. She wasn’t ready to reveal her truth to Brigit. Telling Michael had been difficult enough.
She swallowed another mouthful of her whiskey and blew out a cooling breath. “No. Another time, perhaps. Today, we’ll celebrate Camille.”
Concern clear on her face, Brigit nodded, then held out her tumbler. “Death ends a life, but not a friendship.”
She touched the side of her glass to Charlotte’s and both drank. The alcohol went down much more smoothly this time.
Brigit smiled sadly. She finished her drink and poured them each another two fingers.
“To friends past and present,” Charlotte said.
“To friends.”
They drank again to the delicate ringing of glass.
Chapter 3
Miserable was the only word to describe the weather two evenings after Lyle Fiske’s death. Shivering, Charlotte tugged her collar up as the steamship North Star arrived in port, its whistle sounding in the icy air. The snow and rain mix chilled to the bone. Even the extra pair of wool socks she wore wasn’t quite enough.
The North Star sidled up to the lighted dock and blew a final burst of exhaust, its engines roaring, then settling into a low rumble that Charlotte felt in the soles of her boots. The ship had the capacity to carry a couple of hundred passengers, but according to the published list only half that were aboard. The most important one, in her reckoning, was the woman whose life was about to change dramatically.
“What are you doing here?” James growled low in her ear so the other dozen or so people waiting on the dock wouldn’t hear.
Charlotte didn’t bother turning around. Instead, she watched the dock men secure thick lines to the massive posts. “I really should do a piece on them,” she said offhandedly. “These men work in some wretched conditions.”
“You know that’s not what I’m asking. I told you I didn’t want you here.”
Now Charlotte faced him, anger hot in her chest. He looked as mad as she felt. “This is a free territory, deputy. You have no right to tell me any such thing, and you can’t order me away from a public place when I’ve done nothing wrong. Did you honestly think I’d go against your wishes and pelt poor Caroline with questions? What sort of person do you think I am?”
His scowl softened into contrition. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have trusted you’d keep your word.” He rubbed a gloved hand over his beard and watched the gangplank being lowered to the dock. “I have to go. Everyone is being kept on board until I get Mrs. Fiske. I want a clear path to the car so we can get her home right away.” James met her gaze again. “I am sorry, Charlotte.”
“That’s twice in several days that you’ve insulted my integrity,” she said.
“Reckon I owe you something for that. Dinner tomorrow?”
She blinked at him. After all that, he was asking her to dinner? She should have said no. Instead she heard herself say, “All right.”
There was nothing wrong with friends having dinner, especially when one was asking as a way of apology for boorish behavior. It would be rude to turn him down. Wouldn’t it?
He touched the brim of his hat, and without another word jogged up the gangplank.
Charlotte shook off the funny little feeling she had in her gut and pulled her notebook out of her coat pocket. Protecting the pages from the snow as best she could, she took notes on the crowd and atmosphere while everyone waited for James to conduct the ugly business of informing Caroline Fiske of her loss and escort her to the waiting car.
The steamship company’s Cordova agent stood near the rear door of a Model T, anxiety etched on his thin face beneath the dock’s floodlights. His collar was turned up and his bowler dripped. What was his name? She’d have to remember to get it for the article. People usually liked seeing their names in print, even under less than positive circumstances.
It was a cold twenty minutes, according to her pendant watch, until James and Caroline appeared at the top of the gangplank. The glare of the dock lights washed out the normal glow of Caroline’s fair skin. A sable hat and matching long coat enveloped her, as if they were too large for her frame. She wasn’t a tiny woman, but she seemed fragile now. The news James had to deliver would certainly have made anyone shrink in on themselves.
James took Caroline’s arm as they descended. The dozen or so people waiting at the dock fell into respectful silenc
e. The only sounds were the low rumble of the resting steamer’s engine and the lap of waves against the piling. Even the dock workers paused in their duties, sensing something was amiss. James looked straight ahead at the car waiting for them, one arm now around Caroline’s shoulder, the other supporting her elbow.
As they passed, Charlotte noticed tear streaks through Caroline’s makeup and the smudged mascara. No one said a word. The steamship company agent opened the rear door of the car. Inside, an older woman peered out at the approaching pair, her face lined with anxiety. Charlotte assumed she was the housekeeper or a friend James had mentioned calling upon to help tend Caroline.
Caroline slid onto the backseat. Charlotte saw the older woman’s lips move, but couldn’t hear what she was saying. All she caught was Caroline’s expression crumbling into tearful sorrow.
Without a glance or word to anyone, James closed the door and climbed into the front passenger seat. The agent hurried around to the driver’s seat. The black car had been left running, and smoothly eased forward toward the road.
The crowd started talking at once. Most sympathized with the new widow, and wondered who could have done such a thing to Mr. Fiske. No one mentioned the robbery, but several speculated that the arsonist had gone too far.
The ship’s passengers began disembarking, making their way to waiting friends and family with questions about the delay.
Charlotte pocketed her notebook and pencil and withdrew a flashlight from her coat. The snow had abated for the moment, at least, so the walk back to the office wouldn’t be intolerable. She could have hired one of the two waiting taxis, but wanted some quiet time to get her thoughts in order. Her article would touch on Caroline’s emotional state, without disrespecting the woman.
A car roared up behind her, its headlights throwing shadows. Charlotte moved as far to the side of the road as she could, but the taxi splashed slush onto her boots anyway.