The Case Book of Emily Lawrence

by KB Inglee

  We had a most interesting adventure several weeks ago, while Lewis was still with us. You know that Jacob Myers was apprenticing at a lawyer’s office when we hired him. He reeks of lawyerly-ness, but he has a grand sense of humor.

  We were watching a warehouse from a room we rented, each taking turns waiting for a shipment of illegal whiskey to arrive from Alexandria. When it arrived we wondered how we would get into the warehouse to nab the perpetrators (my, how my language has slipped since I started working with Charles). Myers donned a dress and strolled down the street. He pounded on the door with his umbrella. Charles and I were laughing so hard we nearly didn’t make it across the street in time to keep him from being shot. Either the shooter had bad aim, or the skirts confused him, because he missed and Myers was unharmed. We, (all right, the police) arrested everyone. The disturbing thing about the incident was that Lewis never let Myers forget he had walked the length of a street dressed as a woman.

  It was that week that Myers started growing his beautiful beard. You will see it when we send you our annual Christmas office portrait.

  Love to you and the family and the happiest of Christmases.

  Love,

  Emily

  THE WANTED MAN

  Washington City, December 1878

  On the Monday before Christmas, Charles sent Emily to follow Lemuel Parker.

  “Why?” she had asked her husband. “Do you suspect Mr. Parker of some crime besides illegal whisky sales?”

  “We haven’t much to do. Myers is at the law library going over some cases that may be important to us. It will do you good to brush up on your skills. Mr. Parker is wily and a good deal more familiar with the city than you are. I’ll bet you lunch at Wamsley’s that he will spot you within the first hour. If he does, bring him here.”

  He handed her a slip of paper with the man’s home address, and sent her out the door. Charles was plotting something and her job was as much to figure out what was going on in his head as it was to follow a man to no good purpose.

  Emily had spoken to Mr. Parker only once. He was part of a ring of crooks who filled old whisky bottles with rot-gut and sold it as the original spirit. She had not liked him then, and she liked him no better now. He was a rough, unlettered man who took any job that paid, no matter which side of the law it was on. He had spent at least a week in jail, probably more. He never seemed to keep any job for very long, and he was unemployed more than he was employed. Worst of all, he was the one who had shot at Myers.

  Emily knew plenty of men who did manual work for a living, but most of them could read and kept reasonably clean. They had enough sense or courtesy not to use bad language in front of her. They worked hard, and were honest, decent men. This Parker fellow did not seem to be one of them.

  * * * *

  The first morning, Emily discovered that there was a Mrs. Parker and three young sons. Mrs. Parker was a tough, unpleasant-looking woman in torn and dirty clothes. The children were barefoot and rude.

  Parker was taller than Charles, and stronger. Not yet thirty, he dressed in a tartan shirt that had been turned and patched, and old canvas trousers, frayed at the hem and pockets. His dishwater blond hair had not been cut or combed, and his ruddy face seemed permanently lined by disappointment.

  Emily stuck to her prey the first day as he went from business to business looking for work. His boots were old and broken down, and he could hardly walk a block in them before they started giving him trouble. Every few steps he would bend down and adjust the sole on the left boot, then a few strides later, to retie the laces on the right.

  At one location, he unloaded barrels for two hours for a few cents of pay, and moved on to the next establishment. The only illegal activity she had caught him at was spitting on the sidewalk outside one of the businesses that had refused him a job. If he was aware of her presence, he gave no sign of it.

  At three o’clock, Parker, wages in hand, stood and looked around. Then he led her past a tavern with a gambling room in the back, and a down-at-the-heels brothel. The women there would be a step up from Mrs. Parker. One of them was beckoning to him from an open second floor window.

  “’Lo, Maud,” he called to her, and started down the street. They headed for the neighborhood fondly know as Murder Row. Before reaching Pennsylvania Avenue, Parker turned down an alley, cut through a store, and in another two blocks was standing in front of his own house.

  “Liddy,” he called out as he climbed the steps. “Liddy, I got two bits.”

  “Well, Lem, it’s better’n noting. I’ll get us some chops to go with the potatoes.”

  Liddy’s face was bathed in a bright smile.

  “She’s glad to have him home, money or no,” Emily muttered to herself. She remembered the early days of poverty after she and Charles first came to Washington to open the agency. In those days she had always been glad to see Charles, or hear his step on the stairs. Had she had lost just a bit of that glow herself?

  Emily returned to the office and told Charles and Mr. Myers what she had seen.

  “Don’t like him much, do you?” asked Charles.

  “No, I don’t. He’s rough and dirty and probably can’t read. He’d as soon break the law as not if it provided him with a bit of copper. He knew at least one of the women at Brightman’s by name.”

  Charles and Myers laughed.

  “So do you,” Charles pointed out not unkindly.

  Emily drew herself up, and glared at both men. “For different reasons, I assure you. That was part of a case.”

  Charles shrugged and Myers smirked.

  * * * *

  The next day, Emily ventured out again, under a light drizzle. Oddly, it often rained when she had to follow someone, although she didn’t mind much. The rain made it easier. People pulled down their hats and watched their feet as they walked. They tended to overlook anyone walking in the same direction. On the other hand, a woman standing out in the rain was more noticeable than a woman standing on the street on a sunny day.

  This day started as the previous one had by Parker’s being rudely turned away from two businesses. As he escaped the second establishment, pursued by the scorn of the owner, the skies opened. Parker dashed for cover under the awning of a toy store half a block away. Emily was already sheltered under the awning of the haberdashery next door.

  She held her ground, no longer caring if he saw her or not. Whatever was going on, this was getting her nowhere except into neighborhoods that made her nervous.

  “Mornin’, Miz. Lawrence. Come to arrest me again?” Parker pulled his eyes away from the store window and snatched the greasy cap off his head.

  “I haven’t seen you do anything I could arrest you for. Besides, I’m not the police.” She tried to sound pleasant, but the words came out petulant.

  “You might as well be, for all the good it did last spring. I spent a week in the pokey.” In contrast to her feelings, he was cordial, even friendly.

  “You shot at Mr. Myers. A week wasn’t long enough.”

  “Did not. I didn’t have a gun. All I was doin’ wuz unloading barrels. It’s hard enough to get honest work these days. If ya got kids, sometimes ya gotta take the other kind when ya kin get it.”

  He smiled at her and then turned back to the window filled with a child’s fantasy world.

  “Ain’t that nice?” he asked, pointing to a brilliant red cast-iron fire truck pulled by two gray horses. “Ya roll it along and the hosses go up and down. I tried to make one outta wood for my kids, but I’m not much good at that kind a work.”

  He held out his hands for her to see. They were calloused and scarred, with dirt ground into the knuckles and under the fingernails.

  “Yes, it is nice,” she admitted, glancing at the toy herself.

  “Costs thirty five cents.” He reached into his pocket and drew out three copper pennies. “Well,
that’s a penny for each one. I’ll get some candy. They don’t get much.”

  He returned the pennies and stuck his hands in his pockets.

  “You and Mr. Lawrence got no kids?”

  She was surprised to hear herself saying, “No. Sometimes near Christmas I really…”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I pretty much like my boys all the time, but yer right, Christmas and kids sorta go together.”

  “What will you do?” asked Emily, genuinely curious.

  “We ain’t wantin’ for food, or a roof over our heads. We got our health and each other. We got what we need, if not what we want. Liddy’ll make a fine dinner of mutton and potatoes. I’ll give everyone a piece of candy. What more does Christmas need to be?”

  Emily looked up into the face of Lemuel Parker as he gazed longingly at the fire truck.

  When Emily was a child her father had a statue of Goethe on a shelf situated so it was in full sun early in the morning and late in the afternoon. In the morning the statue had a stern, almost hostile look that softened when the sun passed. Throughout the day he looked thoughtful and when the afternoon sun reached him, he turned sorrowful. Mr. Parker underwent the same subtle shift, from boorish to sorrowful to competent. He cared for his family. He was not a carpenter, but he was strong and willing; he was eager to make the most of whatever situation he found himself in.

  She might actually learn to like such a man, in time.

  That was why Charles had asked her to follow him until he spotted her. She was warmed by a sudden burst of gratitude and love. Charles wasn’t about to make the mistake of hiring another agent she couldn’t respect.

  “Can you read and write, Mr. Parker?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Pa said I’d never want for work if I learned. Didn’t work out that way. Most people yer work for don’t much care to have you reading their business.”

  “Reading can be its own reward, Mr. Parker.” Goodness, how self-righteous she sounded.

  “I got books. Liddy and me read to the kids. We got some poems about a blacksmith, and Paul Revere. We got a Bible.”

  “Do you know about Lawrence Research?” she asked.

  “On H Street near Fifteenth. I went and looked when I got out of jail. I was curious to know about what you all did. I asked around some, too. I wanted to know more about that man you think I shot and where he worked. Man’s gotta be pretty brave to get into a dress and walk the length of a street just to get into a shed without tipping no one off.”

  Emily laughed. “Well, Mr. Myers has grown a beard so we won’t make him do that again.”

  “And that other fella just kept making fun of him. Thought being brave was about being a bully.”

  “Mr. Lewis doesn’t work for us anymore. We will need a good agent to replace him. Someone who is strong and smart and knows the city very well.”

  Emily met Parker’s eyes and held them for a long moment, until he glanced away.

  “Me? I couldn’t work for you and Mr. Lawrence. Yer all educated, ye know how to talk to important people. Ya dress good.”

  “That’s the point. We need someone who knows how to talk to people like Maud, and people who unload barrels. Someone who knows the alleys and darker places of the city, someone who would look right in the flourmill and the bleachery. There’s a fair amount of writing to be done in the job. Think you can handle that?”

  “Yer putting me on.”

  Emily shook her head, took his arm, and they headed for the office.

  * * * *

  “Did Mrs. Lawrence offer you the job?” asked Charles, who met them at the door.

  “Yes, sir, she did, but I can’t fathom why.”

  “She’s not just my wife; she is one of the owners. She fired Lewis, so it’s up to her to find someone to replace him.”

  Emily took off her hat and tossed it on her desk. “Sit down, Mr. Parker. Let me get you a cup of coffee.” She indicated a chair at the worktable.

  “That desk would be yours.” Charles pointed to the single desk that was not under a window. “The other two belong to Myers and Mrs. Lawrence.”

  Parker looked puzzled. “She sits out here with just everybody?”

  Charles nodded. “Be here tomorrow morning at eight and we’ll show you the ropes. Mrs. Briggs, our office manager, will be here then and you can meet her. Myers will train you for the fieldwork and Mrs. Lawrence will help you write the reports and do the other paperwork.”

  “I got no white shirt, no coat like that.” He inclined his head toward Charles. “No necktie.”

  “We dress for the work we do. You’re fine the way you are. But…” Charles drew a dollar bill out of his pocket. “Get yourself a pair of sturdy work boots before morning. We can take this out of your first week’s wages. You do want the job, don’t you?”

  Myers came in with a stack of files and put them on his desk under the window. His face was now covered with a carefully trimmed growth of black beard.

  “Parker,” he said shaking hands with Parker. “You take the job?”

  “Ye won’t make me wear a dress, will ye?”

  Myers turned scarlet above his beard, but his voice was calm and steady. “They didn’t make me wear the dress. It was my idea. I’d never have gotten through the door otherwise.”

  “And you’d never have been shot at,” added Emily. “Another thing, Mr. Parker. Before you go looking for boots, you are not to run off and spend that money on Christmas presents for you wife and children. Mr. Lawrence wants you in the best boots you can find.”

  She opened her purse, withdrew four dimes, and lay them in his palm. “You can consider this your first Christmas bonus. You may spend this any way you want.”

  7Washington City, February 2, 1880

  Dear Susan,

  I know I am not a very good correspondent. I write regularly to Mother and Father, but not as often to you and Anna.

  Washington has been very cold this year and we have had more than our usual amounts of snow. It reminds me of the huge drifts and piles of snow in Cambridge which sometimes felt like the Arctic. Chicago is very cold, isn’t it? We recently had a client from Chicago who said he liked the milder weather here. Just wait ’til he experiences a Washington summer.

  Things have been quiet at Lawrence Research. Hmmm, I wonder why I talk about the agency as though it were my child. Does all this talk of work bore you? Or are you willing to put up with it so you can write back and tell me of your children?

  Well, there are parallels. This is something Charles and I have done together, something of which we are both enormously proud. Something that engages all our energies. Something that may actually outlive us.

  Love to you, George, and the children.

  Emily

  A LITTLE MURDER

  Washington City, February 1880

  Tom Johnson dusted the snow off his shoulders and handed an envelope to Emily. The note inside read: I have a little murder for you. There was an address and a time. It was signed Captain Hobbs.

  The cold wind blowing down Fifteenth Street rattled all the windows. No matter what she and Charles did, they could not keep the office warm. The radiators gurgled and hissed but couldn’t compete with the drafts that seemed to come thought the walls. Everyone huddled at their desks in coats and shawls.

  Charles laced the pot of hot chocolate with a healthy dollop from a bottle he kept in his bottom drawer, then turned back to Tom.

  “How are things going now that you are a full-fledged policeman?” asked Charles. Tom had graduated from office boy at Lawrence Research into a steady position as a police photographer.

  Tom beamed. “Well enough to permit me to ask Alice to marry me in the spring.”

  “Oh, my,” said Emily. Tom was no longer the twelve-year-old who had been their first employee. “What’s this note all about?”

 
Tom shrugged. “Captain Hobbs handed it to me as I left this morning. Said to give it to you.”

  Emily read the note aloud.

  “What’s a little murder?” asked Parker. “Seems to me if ye’re dead, ye’re dead. Nothin’ little about it.”

  “And why would the police ask Mrs. Lawrence to investigate?” asked Myers. “Murder is police business.”

  Emily carried her cup over to the sink.

  “I’ll have to keep the appointment and find out, won’t I?” said Emily as she gratefully immersed her cold hands in the pan of hot, soapy water.

  * * * *

  A few minutes before eleven, Emily pulled her coat tight around her and rang the bell at an elegant bow-fronted house far up Sixteenth Street. The bright sun had melted the top layer of frozen earth and Emily brushed off a bit of mud that clung to her hem as she waited. Finally a maid opened the door.

  “I’m here at the request of the police,” said Emily, handing her card to the maid.

  “Yes, ma’am. If you would wait here.” She showed Emily to a parlor the size of a large closet. Three straight-backed chairs with upholstered seats and a small table with a bouquet of silk flowers were hardly enough to hold her interest. Emily sat down and closed her eyes, listening to the sounds of the house. A small dog yapped and was sternly silenced by a woman’s voice. Laughter floated in from another part of the house, followed by the abrupt slamming of a door, and then silence.

  In a few minutes the maid returned. She showed Emily to a large, gloomy parlor. Maroon and mustard roses cluttered the white wallpaper. The furniture was covered in a mustard-and-white brocade. The carpet was dark red and brown, and looked for all the world like a muddy path through the woods, complete with fallen leaves. The mustard velvet curtains were closed against the sunshine. As the maid opened the curtains, the room sprang to life. Mustard changed to bright gold, white to a pale cream, and maroon to a deep, rich red. An abundance of potted palms and ferns increased the feeling of being outdoors. A rattan bird cage hung by one of the windows. Instead of walking through the dark woods, she was now in a pleasant sunny grove.