by Cathy Pegau
Charlotte repeated the picking process with one of the side drawers, one that might be deep enough to hold a black box. The lock refused to yield, and one of the hairpins bent.
“Damnation.”
“Miss Brody, what are you doing in here?”
Crouched behind the desk, Charlotte jerked back and fell on her bottom, smacking into the sideboard. The tumblers and decanter rattled. She scrambled to her feet.
The housekeeper stood in the doorway, arms crossed and lips pressed together.
“Mrs. Munson, you startled me.”
That was an understatement. Charlotte’s heart hammered. Her ears throbbed with her racing heartbeat, and her face burned.
“I’d imagine so,” Mrs. Munson said, one eyebrow cocked. “Were you looking for something in particular?”
Charlotte held up her hairpin. “Just dropped my pin while admiring this lovely desk set. I’ve been looking for something similar for my brother for Christmas. I caught a glimpse of the desk when I came up to use the washroom and wanted to sneak a peek.” Would Mrs. Munson remember the office door had been mostly closed? Charlotte hoped not, but the skeptical look on her face indicated she might. “And the books. I love to see what people are reading. I hope I haven’t intruded.”
Good Lord, what a liar.
She palmed the bent pins.
“I’m sure Mrs. Fiske would be happy to discuss books with you another time.” Mrs. Munson held the edge of the heavy oak door and inclined her head slightly. A clear indication that it was time for Charlotte to leave.
“Of course. Some other time.”
She walked purposely out of the office, smiling at the housekeeper as she passed. Rushing might imply guilt. Charlotte descended the stairs in the same manner. Michael waited at the bottom, wearing his coat and holding hers. The expression on his face changed from vaguely aware she was joining him to mild suspicion as he looked past her to Mrs. Munson coming down behind her.
Holding her gaze, he readied her coat. “Shall we, dear sister?”
Her back to the housekeeper, Charlotte stuck her tongue out at him. “Yes, thank you. I’m ready to go.”
Mrs. Munson watched them both as Charlotte buttoned her coat and put on her hat. She dropped the bent pins into her pocket. Did Mrs. Munson think Charlotte was going to bolt back up the stairs?
“Good-bye, Mrs. Munson.”
“Good-bye, Miss Brody. Doctor.”
Michael tipped his hat to her and let Charlotte precede him through the front door.
“Did you find whatever you were looking for?” he asked when they started down the street.
Charlotte considered telling him she hadn’t been snooping, but why bother? “No. I would very much like to know who Caroline is seeing.”
Confirm it, really, as she was pretty sure Adam Kenner was her lover.
“Why does it matter?”
“It could be important in learning who killed Lyle.”
“Maybe,” Michael said, “or it could just be your busybody tendencies getting the better of you.”
“I’m a journalist, trained to look into questionable cases.”
“Which is a natural outlet for your innate busybodiness.”
She couldn’t completely deny that, but it still stung that sometimes he didn’t take her career seriously. “Well, I’m no doctor or anything fancy like that, but I like to think at least some of my work has merit.”
Michael took her arm and stopped. “Don’t be like that, Charlotte. You know I’ve admired your articles from the beginning. You’re passionate about important subjects, stand by your convictions, and care for the people you write about. It’s impressive and interesting.”
That made her feel better.
“As long as I don’t ruffle feathers.”
He grinned. “You’ve never been one not to do something because it ruffles feathers.” The grin faltered. “I know you want to figure out who killed Lyle. So do I. But you have to tread carefully. Snooping in a dead man’s house isn’t considered acceptable behavior in too many circles.”
Of course he had a point. “I’ll be careful.”
With a peck on her cheek, Michael left Charlotte at the Times office and continued on to attend appointments.
Charlotte hung up her coat and changed out of her boots, then set the kettle on the stove and went to work. She wrote up a short piece on Lyle Fiske’s visitation, noting a few of the other attendees and including the time and place of his burial in two days.
“As long as the ground isn’t frozen.” She didn’t include that in the article. While it was certainly cold, she suspected strong backs and shovels would be available to inter Mr. Fiske. If not, the newly completed morgue was said to have adequate facilities to hold the dearly departed until the spring thaw.
To steer her thoughts away from images of dead bodies, Charlotte picked up an article received over the teletype on protests against the Volstead Act and counterprotests by chapters of the Women’s Temperance League. She was just getting to the list of cities where gatherings would be held, and wondering if she could organize a debate in Cordova, when the bell over the door sounded.
Charlotte looked up and smiled at her visitors. Brigit and Della slipped in with a gust of cold, wet wind. “Hello, ladies. What brings you here on such a day?”
The women removed their hats and opened their coats in the warm office.
“Something I thought you ought to see,” Brigit said. She gently nudged Della forward. “Go on, she won’t bite.”
Charlotte didn’t know Della well, having met her only in passing whenever she visited Brigit at the house, but they’d been nodding acquaintances. What could be going on that Brigit thought it was important to bring the young woman here?
Hat in hand, Della crossed to the desk and sat when Charlotte motioned for her to take one of the chairs. Brigit stayed back, removing her coat and hanging it on one of the pegs. So she planned on staying for a bit, but Della didn’t. Interesting.
“Brigit s-said I oughta c-come sh-show you this if I weren’t gonna go to the m-marshal.” Her stutter wasn’t due to nervousness, Charlotte knew. Brigit had told her of Della’s speech patterns, and had been quite surprised when the young woman completely lost the stutter if she sang. She was often called upon to entertain the visitors at Brigit’s house.
Della reached into her coat pocket and withdrew a gold necklace with a cross dangling from it. She draped it on top of the papers on the desk and hesitated before moving her hand away, as if reluctant to let it go.
“Very nice,” Charlotte said, looking at but not touching the piece. “Where did you get it?”
Della glanced up at Brigit as she sat in the other chair. “Tell her.”
The younger woman started to speak, but now nervousness did make her stutter worse. She took a deep breath and said what she needed to say in a semi-singing lilt. She had a lovely voice. “It’s mine, but I haven’t seen it for a year.”
Charlotte cocked her head. “Had it been lost? Stolen?”
Della shook her head. “I’d pawned it when I first got here, before I met Brigit, but the man I pawned it to was asking for more money than I could afford to get it back. I mostly didn’t think about it. Until this morning.”
“What happened this morning?”
Della and Brigit exchanged looks again, and Brigit nodded for Della to continue. “Found it on the porch in a plain paper packet with my name on it.”
“Tell her who you’d pawned it to,” Brigit said.
“L-Lyle F-Fiske.”
Surprise lifted Charlotte’s eyebrows. “Lyle? Was he a registered pawnbroker?”
Brigit snorted a laugh. “Not hardly. Mr. Fiske loaned money to our less than prestigious citizens. The interest rates he charged were near criminal.”
That certainly wasn’t a shock. Most legitimate loan rates were near criminal, in Charlotte’s opinion. Is that what Brigit meant when she said the Fiskes lived above their obvious means? How could income a
s an illegal pawnbroker to less affluent Cordovans be that lucrative?
“If Mr. Fiske’s dead, and I didn’t pay off the loan, how do I explain getting the necklace back?” Though she sang the words, Della’s blue eyes were wide with worry.
“Considering what Lyle was doing was illegal to begin with, I don’t think you’ll be implicated,” Charlotte said, hoping to assure the poor woman. “Someone else knew about his side business and was wiping the slate clean, so to speak. A sort of Robin Hood.”
The question was, who would have done it? Caroline? If she was an equal partner in the hardware store, why not in Fiske’s loan business as well? But then, why return a pawned item rather than keep that endeavor going? Guilt?
“Was anyone else with you when you visited Mr. Fiske, Della? Did anyone else know? Can you tell me about it?” Charlotte asked.
“I’d heard from one of the other girls that I could get money from him, so I went to the store. He took me into his office,” Della said, “just the two of us. Thought for a minute he was gonna ask me to . . . you know . . . service him at his desk, but instead he had me sit in a chair, all businesslike.”
At least Lyle hadn’t been that despicable.
“Then what?”
“We talked about terms and such. He took a black box from his safe, opened it up and counted out the cash, then put my necklace in the box. I left right after that.”
The black box Caroline was searching for, most likely, but she’d been insistent about other sorts of papers. Whoever killed Fiske had the papers and probably more pawned pieces.
“I wonder if other things are being returned.”
But why go through the trouble?
“The girl who told me about Mr. Fiske pawned her mother’s pearl earrings,” Della added. “She’s gone though. Moved to Anchorage last May.”
“I’m sure Fiske had more than a few customers,” Brigit said. “We’ll let you know if we hear of anything.” She turned to Della. “Why don’t you head back to the house? I’ll be along shortly.”
Della nodded, then her gaze fell on the necklace. Poor thing. It meant something to her, but she was obviously torn about keeping it. Charlotte handed the necklace to her.
“I don’t think anyone will come looking for it, Della. Take it, and keep it safe.”
Della gave her a grateful smile, shoved the necklace into her pocket, and hurried out of the office.
When she was gone, Brigit leaned back in her chair and sighed. “Thank you. She wanted to help, though she has no feelings either way toward the Fiskes, but didn’t want to go to the marshal’s office for fear they’d take the necklace as evidence. Or even accuse her of killing him.”
Charlotte rose and poured them each some tea. “I thought you and the girls were a little more trusting of James lately.”
Brigit wrapped her hands around the delicate cup. “I am, but Della has had a few run-ins with lawmen that have left her wary.”
“Has she broken the law?” Charlotte asked, then gave Brigit a crooked grin. “Other than the obvious, I mean.”
Brigit smiled back. Charlotte was grateful they could tease each other about their jobs and not feel offended. “Trouble in California that prompted her to move here. I don’t know the details, but she’s been on the up-and-up since I’ve hired her.”
“Even if Fiske’s pawn business is related to his death, I don’t think her keeping the necklace will be an issue, since she has no idea who returned it to her. Though James might want to ask Della some questions about the transaction.”
“Like what?” Brigit asked then sipped her tea. “She learned Fiske made loans when no bank would give a girl like her a dime. James probably knows all about it.”
Why hadn’t he told Charlotte? “He’s pretty damn good at keeping things to himself when he wants to, isn’t he?”
“Most people are,” Brigit said. She gave Charlotte a pained look. “I heard about last night.”
Charlotte tried to act nonchalant, but it wasn’t easy. “What do you mean?”
“That your date with James was interrupted by his wife.”
The back of her neck tightened for no discernable reason. Or at least no reason she’d care to admit out loud. “Ex-wife, and it wasn’t a date. How did you know about it anyway?”
“Two of my regulars were there. Saw and heard the whole thing before they came by the house. Idle pillow talk and gossip at the faro tables reveals a lot of information.”
Heat rose on Charlotte’s cheeks. Good lord, did everyone in this town know everyone else’s business? “So much for discretion.”
Charlotte wanted to snatch the words back as soon as she said them. The hurt look on Brigit’s face confirmed that the dig against the madam’s assertion of privacy within her house was petty and mean.
“I’m sorry, Brigit,” she said earnestly. “I know you keep a lid on what you and the girls hear and see. We were in a public place, and I shouldn’t be surprised people talked. Forgive me?”
Brigit didn’t say anything for a few moments, and Charlotte feared she’d damaged their friendship. Finally, Brigit lost the tense, wounded look on her face. “It’s all right. I shouldn’t have made light of it. I’m sure finding out he was married was a shock.”
That was an understatement.
“Did you know?” Charlotte asked, trying to keep the lingering ache from her voice. It wasn’t the fact he was married or in the process of divorcing that rankled, but that he hadn’t told her.
Brigit’s expression softened. “No. I don’t think anyone did. James Eddington is one of the most private men I’ve met. You get what you see with him, but only what he lets you see.”
“That’s true.”
He wasn’t being deceptive, just more reserved than Charlotte had expected. She was sure that reticence served him well at the marshal’s office, but it was a hard pill to swallow in a personal relationship.
Then again, he wasn’t the only one holding things back, was he? Did a lie of omission count as a lie?
“It really doesn’t matter,” Charlotte said, waving off the subject. “It’s none of my business.”
Brigit’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Isn’t it?”
“Of course not. Why would it be?” The sideways glance Brigit gave said she was assuming a situation Charlotte wanted to avoid considering. “We’re just friends.”
“But you’d like there to be more.”
The thought had crossed her mind upon occasion over the last three months. She and James definitely had some sort of connection, and they’d shared a kiss or two, but anything beyond that? It was too much to contemplate.
“I can’t, Brigit, not right now.” Charlotte rose and made herself busy setting her teacup on the credenza beside the stove. “It’s better if we just stay friends.”
“Don’t hold this against him, Charlotte.”
She turned to face her friend. “I won’t. It’s . . . it’s not him or his marital status. There are things we need to sort out. That I need to sort out. This just isn’t a good time.”
“It rarely is.” Brigit came around the desk and laid her hand on Charlotte’s arm, a sad smile on her face. “You’ve had something on your mind since the other day, when the letter about Camille arrived. Talking to you helped me. I’d like to offer the same shoulder. Let me know if I can do anything for you. Friends, remember?”
Charlotte’s throat tightened. “I will.”
“I have to get back. See you soon.” She bussed Charlotte’s cheeks, then got her coat and hat. Brigit waved to her, and the bell over the door jingled gently as it closed behind the madam.
Charlotte sat at the desk, staring at the pages before her but not really seeing them. What a mess. Try as she might to put her past aside, there was no way she could completely eradicate the emotions that came out from time to time. Guilt from not feeling guilty about what she’d done, yet there was the shame and stigma attached to having had an abortion. Guilt from surviving the procedure when so many
women had been injured or died. And so much relief that she hadn’t been one of them, or hadn’t needed to tell her parents what she’d done.
She couldn’t possibly find the words to tell anyone else. Kit knew. Michael knew. She might be able to confide in Brigit, eventually, but to tell James? Not likely. Wade into a protest over women’s rights to get a story? No problem. Confess her stupidity with Richard and what had followed? That required more guts than she had.
Admitting she’d been blinded by his charms and let herself be swayed by his well-played lies was just too damn embarrassing, to say the least. She’d have to explain what Richard had said and done to get her into his bed, which wasn’t much more than convince Charlotte he was in full agreement with her on equality and voting rights for women. Truth be told, she’d enjoyed the intimacy with him and didn’t deny the feeling of freedom in choosing to go to bed with him. But finally realizing he’d fooled her made her feel idiotic and naïve.
Charlotte had essentially sworn off men for the past fifteen months, and she’d been happy. Now there was James, who ignited feelings she hadn’t realized she missed.
Brigit saw that she liked James. So did Michael. James probably saw it as well. Hell, she even knew it when she stopped pretending otherwise. But what she’d said to Brigit was true. She needed time to sort out her feelings, to figure out if she was ready to let someone get close again.
Charlotte knew herself too well to be sure anything more than friendship with James would remain as chaste as she needed it to be. There was no way she’d get herself into the same predicament twice in just over a year. She’d opt for lifelong celibacy first.
That would certainly alleviate problems, even if resulted in complete frustration.
* * *
Before going home for the evening, Charlotte stopped in at McGruder’s grocery and perused the aisles, hoping for something to strike her fancy for dinner that night. The clerk, one of McGruder’s sons who was older than Charlotte by a good ten years, had asked if he could be of help, but then left her to decide on her own as he stacked items behind the counter. While she considered her desire for tomato versus vegetable soup, the front door rattled open.