by C. A. Asbrey
Abigail climbed to her feet. “I’m angry. Really angry that a poor man has just been murdered before my eyes to cover up for a criminal.” She glowered at Walter Chester. “Don’t think for a second you can cover up for Smitty over this. It won’t fly. You knew he was already wanted, didn’t you?” Chester’s mouth opened and closed, but he remained mute as Abigail continued. “Smitty is already wanted for Conspiracy to Murder, and now he’s killed your friend right here in public.”
A deep voice resonated from behind her. “Already wanted, you say.” She turned to see a bearded police officer towering over her. “And how would you know that, young missy?”
Abigail sighed and dropped her voice to whisper to the lawman. She had no option but to reveal herself. She tilted her chin to face him, but kept her voice low. “I work for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, Officer. Smitty is on the run from the law in Wyoming, and it looks like he tried to get this poor man to turn in a criminal enemy so he could collect the reward by proxy. I think the murder was opportunistic. The woman I’m with called out that we wanted to ask him questions about…just that.” Abigail rolled her eyes. “She meant well. She knows nothing about this. I asked her to identify Beaumont to me so I could ask questions covertly. That’s what I do for the agency.”
The officer’s bushy brows gathered like storm clouds. “Your name, madam?”
“Abigail MacKay,” she tried to hide the reluctance in her voice. “The agency can confirm my identity.”
He nodded, his harsh eyes stony as he watched the knot of fellow officers striding toward them to assist. “I think you’d better come along with me.” He glanced at Chester. “You, too. Inspector Honeybun will have a lot to ask you.”
“What about me?” Hortense’s voice quivered with trepidation.
Abigail assessed the lingering looks of concern Doctor Puckle cast in her companion’s direction. “She’s shocked. Can the doctor take her for some hot sweet tea in the pavilion, Officer? She can be interviewed at any time, and the doctor clearly knows her. She’s not a flight risk.”
“I can vouch for Miss Atchinson,” the medical man cut in.
The lawman nodded. “Yeah, I can’t see why not. We can take your name and address and speak to you later.”
“Are you all right, Abigail?” Hortense’s creased brow signaled her concern. “Should I get you a lawyer?”
“Tell them we met shopping. They don’t need to know about Bartholemew.” Abigail laid a soft hand on Hortense’s forearm. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve been dealing with the Pinkerton Agency. I’ll be just fine. You go and spend some time with Doctor Puckle. He seems very fond of you. Is he single?”
“I’m getting a lawyer.” Hortense insisted. She dropped her voice, her eyes darting around like a hunted animal. “Yes, he’s keen, but father doesn’t approve. Tim’s wife died in childbirth and he’s been alone ever since. I can’t go to tea with him. Father would have a conniption fit. He works with the Irish and the Italians. His practice is—well—poor.”
Abigail’s watery smile warmed her concern. “This may sound shocking, Hortense, but there’s a good chance your father will not be alive for at least half of your life, so stop putting him first. He certainly isn’t putting you first.” Abigail’s grip firmed. “Your father won’t keep you company on those long winter evenings when you are aging. He doesn’t even do that now. You fell for Bartholemew because you’re lonely. You might not be as rich as you are now if you follow your heart, but you’ll never be destitute. If your father’s opinion is the only thing putting you off, I’d suggest putting it aside and exploring what’s out there.” Her dark eyes drifted over to the doctor. “Talk to him. You share hobbies and interests, and he obviously thinks the world of you. Can you really afford to let that go? Won’t you regret not even exploring it later? Life has a way of working things out. Besides, you can point out your brother shouldn’t have left you in the lurch. Let him be the focus of your father’s ire for a change.”
Hortense stiffened, the point clearly landing. “I’ll get you a good lawyer.” She bit into her lip as Doctor Puckle approached.
“I think some tea is a good idea. Would you do me the honor of accompanying me to the Grand Pavilion?”
Hortense shook her head. “I need to get Abigail a lawyer first.” She paused, her back straightening and her shoulders squaring. “Then, some tea might be just the thing, Dr. Puckle, but maybe we should go to your home as you are covered in blood? I have something to tell you about how Abigail and I met. I’d value your opinion as a friend.”
♦◊♦
The urine stain stood out as a dark patch on the drunk’s low-slung, untidy crotch as he was hustled through the back office of Mission police station. He paused to leer at the woman being seated next to Inspector Honeybun’s desk but Abigail glared back with enough dignified malevolence to make him step back before he was hustled off to the cells. The inspector glanced at Walter Chester, whose ruddy network of broken capillaries stood out against his worried pallor, and nodded up at the bearded officer Abigail had met at the racecourse.
“Take Mr. Chester into interview room two, will ya? I need to speak to this here type.” He looked down at the papers she had provided once more and turned a cynical smirk into veiled aggression. “This is your chance, lady. We got a telegraph here, right in the building, so the agency will get back to us real fast. It’s already been sent.” He leaned forward and slammed her with a glare. “Stop messin’ me around. Who the hell are you, and what do you know about this murder?”
Abigail tilted her chin in defiance. “I’ll have less of that language. I am a professional woman, not one of the sneak thieves or brawling cats you drag in here. Why don’t you wait for a reply from the Pinkerton agency before you start leaping to conclusions which will embarrass you?”
“A man’s dead. A man from a prominent family, who’ll want answers. I ain’t got time for balderdash. How do you know about Quinn and the man who killed Beaumont?”
“I’ve never met ‘Smitty’. I’ve read about his escape from the law in Denver in the newspapers. It’s all over town that Quinn was brought in. I thought that following up the man who handed him in might lead to a connection to a wanted man. It would appear my suspicions were correct, and I have a professional interest in such things.” Abigail paused. “Miss Atchinson is just someone I met locally whom I hoped could point out Beaumont. I intended to speak to him discreetly to get some intelligence on Smitty. That’s what I do for the Pinkertons, but she got over-excited and called out. Beaumont then noted Smitty was right behind him and was attacked right away. He clearly heard everything.” Abigail shook her head, her voice tinged with regret. “I fear it was a tragic miscalculation. I feel terribly responsible, but I had no idea Smitty was even around. I’m beside myself.”
“You expect me to believe this shit?”
“I expect you to behave like a gentleman and mind your language.” She arched a brow. “In any case, it was your loose tongue which gave me Beaumont’s name, so I’d be rather more circumspect with the condemnations, Inspector Honeybun. Without you, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near the races today.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You’ve been rather free with detail you should have kept confidential. Your name was mentioned as the source of Beaumont turning Quinn in. I had to know if it was worth following up, Mr. Clayton Honeybun.” Her lopsided smile flashed a warning as she toyed with the triangular nameplate on his desk. “It was.”
“Who? Who told you I named Beaumont?”
She arched a brow. “How many people have you told? It should be easy enough to work it out who told me.” She watched calculations flutter across his face. “There have clearly been many, Inspector Honeybun. I do not name my sources to anyone but Mr. Pinkerton.”
“Inspector Honeybun.” The tall desk sergeant dropped a piece of paper on the detective’s desk. He darted an uneasy look at Abigail and performed a strange, uncomfortable neck-pull by raising h
is chin awkwardly. “The Pinkertons got back to us.”
The inspector’s eyes bulged. “She’s real?”
“Yessir.” The officer’s discomfort was played out in the fingering of his tight collar. “Real respected, too. Pinkerton wants a personal account of what’s goin’ on.”
Abigail’s stomach sank. Yes, Alan Pinkerton would want to know everything. This wasn’t good, but she pasted on a mask of insouciance and pushed on. “I’ll contact him myself to update him. Now, back to Beaumont. What do you know about the set Beaumont and Chester ran in? Smitty has obviously been lying low here, and they’ve been covering up for him. They’re all from railroad-owning families, so that’s got to be the connection. They probably all went to the same schools.”
Honeybun leaned back in his chair. “How’d you make the leap from Beaumont identifying Quinn to Smitty?”
“I didn’t,” she answered. “I merely wondered how a privileged young man like Beaumont would know a man like Nat Quinn, and I wanted to talk to him about it. I had no idea Smitty was around. I was curious, and there’s been a hiatus in the case I’m really dealing with.”
“And what case is that?”
“A man whose wives keep conveniently dying. We’ve also found he keeps changing his identity. We can’t prove murder, but something very suspicious is going on.”
The inspector’s brows arched. “A Bluebeard, huh? Right here in town?”
“It looks like it, but so far we can’t identify his modus operandi.”
“His what?”
“How he kills.” Abigail’s weak smile reflected her frustration at their lack of progress. “He doesn’t leave a mark on the body, and we can’t detect any poisons. Until we establish that, we’re in trouble. He may kill again.”
“Are you sure it ain’t just a coincidence that his wives die?” Honeybun frowned. “Maybe be changed his name to make a fresh start?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “We’re looking into it. That may be all we find, but we’re not getting very far.”
“Who is this fella?” he asked. “Maybe I’ll know something about him?”
She shook her head. “He’s not from San Francisco and he uses many names. You wouldn’t know him.” She nodded off toward the door the drunk had been dragged through. “Don’t you think you should be speaking to Chester to get a description of Smitty and get it circulated? I only saw the back of his head, but Chester obviously knows this man well. You’re wasting your time here with me. I saw an opportunity to get some extra intelligence for the agency. Other than that, I have no involvement.”
The lawman climbed to his feet. “Sure. I’ll get someone to see you out.”
Abigail’s chin set in challenge. “I’m not going anywhere. I want that description, too, not to mention Smitty’s address. The Pinkertons were looking for Quinn when the Smitty scandal broke.” She folded her hands in her lap. “See if you can find out what Smitty has against Quinn while you’re at it. We just can’t see where an educated young gentleman could even meet a man like that. I’ll wait.”
♦◊♦
“I want to see that warrant. The one on Miss MacKay.”
Abigail froze at the deep voice which drifted from the front desk behind her. She had been shaken out of musings on how to explain this mess to Alan Pinkerton by the correct pronunciation of her name—Mac-Eye—something which never happened in the States unless she pushed the point. She turned to see an olive-skinned man with a shock of white hair and an extravagant mustache waving a sheet of paper under the nose of the desk sergeant.
“She’s been in here for over a week, supposedly to be collected by some Pinkerton. He hasn’t shown his face since and she’s been left sitting there. I tried to send a telegram to—” He peered dawn at the paper once more. “Deadridge. And they told me there’s no such town as Deadridge in Illinois. This warrant is invalid. I demand her release immediately. Doesn’t anyone check these things? What’s your name?”
The desk sergeant scowled down at the document, his frown radiating from a single exclamation mark between his eyes. “What d’you want me to answer first? I’m Sergeant North. We ain’t got time to check stuff like that. We were asked to hold her by an official, so we did. Any mistakes is down to him.”
“I am Alberto Dughi, attorney-at-law. I now understand why Miss Atchinson asked me to come here urgently to help Miss MacKay—” Abigail’s eyes flickered to the heavens at this unforeseen synchronicity. “As soon as I met her in the cells I knew why. This is a false imprisonment. Unless you can produce a valid arrest warrant I demand her immediate release.”
Sergeant North’s steel-gray hair glinted in the light of the lamp being lit behind him. “Ya think I care? George is still sick with the grippe and I’m run off my feet without a support officer. You take her, but you gotta sign to say you’re responsible for her.”
“A great deal more responsible than anyone here, I dare say,” muttered the lawyer. “Prepare her release papers. I’ll sign them. This is a disgrace. Your superiors will hear from me.”
Sergeant North’s shoulders braced. “Superiors? I’ve got seniors but I ain’t got no superiors. Everyone here serves the city of San Francisco. If their aim is to lord it over me they ain’t got no place in this here police force.”
The lawyer paused, a smile lighting his dark eyes. “Well said, sergeant, but process Miss MacKay’s liberty and be quick about it. I want her out of here and back in the arms of her husband within the hour.”
Chapter 15
“Take your hands off me.” A disheveled Madeleine shrugged off the uniformed matron escorting her from the door marked ‘Women’ in gilded Thorne Shaded font. The metal door to the cell block clanged shut with a resounding echo as they stalked into the open plan back office. It left no more trace of what was behind it than the puff of stale air which hung like a thick pillar of stench which slowly rolled across the floor as it collapsed in on itself. Abigail tilted her head away and tried to observe the unfolding events from under the brim of her hat. She hoped the blonde wig would be a distraction from her real identity, but couldn’t bring herself to look completely away from her normally fastidious sister’s bedraggled appearance. For the first time in her pampered life, Madeleine MacKay looked like something the cat coughed up—after it had been decomposing in a swamp.
Madeleine’s amber hair had been dulled to a stringy coppery-brown by dirt, bits of food, and grease. An untidy hank dangled from a tangled, lopsided bun which served to keep most of the mane out of her eyes, but strands hung over her face, fluffing and fluttering with every huff of exasperation and annoyance. Her green dress was grimy, creased, and splattered with crusted-on matter which Abigail’s practiced eye knew was probably as stomach-churning as it looked. The heightened emotions of the incarcerated made nervous stomachs heave and puke, some achieving impressive trajectories fueled by cheap hooch.
Abigail had done her own stints behind bars to hear what felons had to say when they thought nobody was listening, and it was a hard and basic existence. Madeleine would have been shocked by the privations and vile dog-eat-dog culture. She’d been the cosseted and protected younger daughter who’d experienced nothing worse than cleaning out the fireplace in her room as a punishment. Even just the relative safety of confinement in police cells would have been shocking and disturbing to her, and police cells didn’t have the machinations and political positioning of the criminal underclass in the prison system.
It appeared that the shocked and disturbed Madeleine had fallen back to her default position of being as angry as a hen finding a rat eating her precious brood. She stalked through the room figuratively pecking at anything and anyone with the audacity to get in her way. Chairs, trash cans, and even hat stands faced an aggressive charge, batted aside and left in the outraged woman’s wake until she arrived at the office side of front desk.
“Who put me in here? I’ll have his job. Doesn’t he know who I am?”
“Yeah.” The matron smirked. “It
was your name that got you locked up. Someone who shares it is wanted by the Pinkertons. Stop creating a fuss and sign the paper, dearie. That way, we’ll get shed of you. We want that as much as you do.” She paused and rolled her eyes. “Probably even more.”
Alberto Dughi glowered at the uniformed staff. “I demand that my client be treated with respect.”
“That works both ways, Mr. Lawyer. Your client behaved like an ignorant cow, so that’s how she gets treated.” The matron’s nose crinkled. “Not so highfalutin’ now, are we, missy? I’ll go get your property so we can sign it out. Can you believe she says that ring is a real emerald in gold?”
Madeleine stamped her foot. “It is a real emerald. It’s not my fault if you’ve never seen one. I want it back. There was no reason for you to take it.”
“There’s every reason,” the matron called as she pulled a brown paper bag from a drawer. “We’ve had doxies like you claim they practically had the crown jewels on them when they were brought in because some fool marked ’em down as diamonds and the like. It causes all kinds of trouble when they get handed back junk. And you can’t keep ’em, neither, ’cause some try to choke on ’em, too. We gotta record things right, but in a way that’s neutral enough so you can’t sue us when you ain’t handed the treasures of Araby.”
The matron scattered the contents of the envelope on the desk and ran a finger down the inventory. “Yellow metal ring set with green glass, yellow metal pendant with—” she flicked it open, “pictures of two pickled old fogies inside. A key, and two dollars and twenty-three cents.” She dangled a small bag on one finger. “Brown wrist reticule that’s been dragged through the mud, by the looks of it, and a door key. Check it. It’s all there. Sign here to say you got it back.”
Madeleine pursed her lips and dipped the pen in the inkwell. The scratched signature was completed in bitter silence before her worldly goods were returned, while the matron and the desk sergeant countersigned as witnesses.