“I am ‘mulling over’ what has occurred, and concluding that we cannot dismiss the possibility that Mr. Smith killed himself.” I did not see Patrick. I could not have. “Unless you believe it was an accident, Mr. Greaves.”
“You can be certain I haven’t concluded it was an accident.” He leaned back in his chair and rubbed the old wound on his upper left arm that ached when he was uneasy. “I’m thinking about the possibility that Mr. Smith was pushed, Mrs. Davies. Do you know of anybody who might have helped him out the window?”
“I suspect that there are many people who might have wished Mr. Smith dead, Mr. Greaves. He was in such a business as would encourage enmity. However, I really cannot say who those people might be.” It could not have been Patrick. For, despite her initial thought, she found it difficult to imagine that Patrick—if he were alive, despite the evidence written on a Mexican death certificate—would kill anyone. Furthermore, what reason could he possibly have to murder Mr. Smith?
Or was there more she did not understand about her husband than she’d ever imagined?
If you are alive, Patrick, and you killed Mr. Smith . . . Bloody—
“Mrs. Davies, your mind is wandering again.”
“I hope Mr. Taylor will uncover some possible names,” she said. His assistant had stayed at the site to collect information from witnesses and to examine Mr. Smith’s room.
His gaze narrowed. “Why were you in that part of town, Mrs. Davies?”
He had taken longer than she’d anticipated to get around to asking that question.
“I had gone first to Mr. Smith’s office, which is near his lodgings,” she said. “He sent me a message requesting that I come and see him about some news he had.”
He lifted one eyebrow. “He sent a message today?”
“No. Two days ago. However, this was my first opportunity to leave Owen and arrange to meet Mr. Smith,” she replied. “I thought I saw him inside his office, but he did not answer when I knocked. The door was locked, and the blinds were drawn. Obviously, it was not Mr. Smith I saw.”
“Maybe it was an employee.”
“That is entirely possible, but why not respond to my knock?”
“This person wasn’t supposed to be there?” he suggested.
“Precisely, Mr. Greaves,” she said with an answering smile. Focus upon discovering the cause of Mr. Smith’s death, and all would be well between them. Or at least manageable. “Most suspicious. Do you not agree?”
• • •
“That police officer already done poked around in here, Detective.” The lodging house landlord—dark-haired, thick-shouldered, and squat—peered at Nick with narrow-set eyes. They made him look a bit like a weasel.
“I thought I’d do my own poking,” said Nick.
The fellow scratched his neck above the edge of his grimy shirt collar and glanced longingly at the room’s door. “Hope you won’t be long, ’cuz I got plans tonight.”
The fireworks were set to start in about an hour.
“This won’t take long at all.”
There wasn’t much in Smith’s room to look over. A rickety iron bed with a thin mattress, a chamber pot tucked underneath alongside a pair of scuffed ankle-high brogans. The boots reminded Nick of the ones he and his fellow soldiers had worn during the war. A miserable recollection. Atop a corner table was a porcelain washing bowl and an unsmoked cigarillo that waited for its now-dead owner to come claim it. An oak chest with three drawers, one missing any handles. Suspended from the walls covered in peeling green-striped wallpaper were several hooks, which currently held a battered bowler hat, a stained nightshirt, and one coat. There’d be fights over that clothing once the police cleared out. If Smith had been drinking in his room that morning, however, there weren’t any liquor bottles sitting around as proof.
“How well did you know Smith?” he asked the landlord, who was eyeing Nick as he made a circuit of the room.
“He paid his rent. On time. Not like some of the bummers I get in here,” he answered. “So long as there’s no trouble, nobody pays no mind to anybody else here.”
Nick crossed to the room’s lone window, taller than he was. It was closed, and he slid it fully open, like it had been that morning. The sill hit Nick at mid-shin and the meeting rail between the top and lower sash crossed chest-high. He fingered the curtain, ripped almost in half. He didn’t have to remove the torn bit of material in his pocket to be sure its bright green check matched. “Did he drink much?”
“Can’t say I saw it.”
Nick bent to lean through the window. Easily done. More easily done for Smith, who was shorter by a good three or four inches. It wouldn’t be difficult at all for him to fall out if he’d lost his balance. Or been shoved. If he was pushed, had he let the person into his room or had they managed to sneak up behind him while he leaned through the window? It was a hot day. Maybe his door had been open to catch a breeze.
“Do you know if Smith left the door to this room ajar this morning?” he asked. “I noticed a few of your other boarders have.”
“Don’t recollect, but he might’ve. All-firedly hot today.”
Below on the street, the police officer who’d been chasing off nosy passersby looked up and nodded when he recognized Nick. Of course Celia Davies had arrived at Smith’s dead body before he and Taylor got there. He didn’t know if he should believe her story about why she’d come looking for Smith. She was holding something back, and he didn’t enjoy thinking he couldn’t fully trust her.
Nick nodded back to the officer and pulled his head inside, sliding the window shut once more. “Do you know if Smith had any visitors today?”
“Can’t say I do, Detective,” he replied. “I’d gone to see the parade, and Smith was, um, dead when I come back.”
“Any thoughts on why he didn’t go out to watch the parade, as well?”
The landlord shrugged. “Didn’t like crowds?” he suggested. “This room’s got a durned good view of Sansome, though. Coulda seen most of it from right here.”
“My assistant tells me one of your lodgers might’ve heard a scuffle.”
“Over the ruckus?” He rolled his eyes. “All the firecrackers and rockets . . . kids. Can’t be respectful and quiet like we were in my day—”
“Right.”
Nick crossed to the chest and rummaged through the drawers. A shirt, some socks, undergarments. A surprisingly clean pair of wool trousers for better occasions. A coin purse without any coins. A money clip in the pocket of the coat hanging on the wall. It clasped a measly two dollars. A tin of bear grease hair treatment—well used, Nick discovered when he lifted the lid—and some shaving implements completed Smith’s short list of possessions.
“You don’t happen to know where Smith’s keys went to, do you?” Nick asked.
The landlord’s gaze danced about the room. “Um . . . they ain’t there?”
“No.” Smith’s pockets had been empty when Nick had done a quick inspection before they’d hauled the body to the coroner’s.
A glaze of nervous sweat dotted the landlord’s forehead. “My lodgers ain’t thieves, neither, Detective. They wouldn’t take no keys.”
“You’re lucky, if that’s true. You could ask my assistant how many times he’s had to question men about thefts at their lodging houses.” Taylor had questioned the occasional woman about the same crime, too. “Thank you for your help. And keep this room locked until I say otherwise. I don’t want anyone in here besides me or one of my officers.”
“For how long?”
“Could be a few days. Or a week or more.”
“But this is one of my best rooms!” the man protested. “You’re costing me rent money, Detective!”
“Complain to my boss if you don’t like it.”
“I just might. Just might.”
And wouldn’t the captain love to hear another complaint about Nick Greaves.
Chapter 5
“Mr. Smith’s dead, Mrs. Davies?” Owen grippe
d the edge of the bedsheet. “Now I’ll never find my parents.”
And I might spend weeks or months wondering if the person I saw was an apparition or a man of flesh and blood.
“I shall employ another investigator, Owen,” said Celia. “So do not worry. And before you ask, Addie and I are already considering where to find you a new position.”
“I was lookin’ forward to working with Mr. Smith,” he said. “Thought learning how to be an investigator would be mighty fun. Since Mr. Greaves doesn’t think I should try out being a policeman.”
“He is worried for your safety.”
“I wish folks would stop worrying so much.” A flare of light illuminated the darkening street beyond the bedroom, followed by a fizzing shower of sparks. Scowling, Owen glanced over at the window. “Dang, I wish they’d stop that. Enough to give a person a headache. Worse than the one he’s already got.”
“The festivities will conclude soon enough, Owen.”
“You should go and enjoy the fireworks show before it’s too late, ma’am,” he said, his voice tinged with sadness. “I heard it was going to be grander than ever this year.”
“I sent Addie to enjoy the pyrotechnics. She will return and tell us all about them.” Celia gathered his nearest hand and squeezed it. “We will keep each other company tonight. Away from the crush of the crowds, which I do hate.”
“S’pose it’ll be okay, then.”
“I might even permit you some lemonade.”
His brows lifted. “And a cookie?”
“Just so.”
A grin flashed across his face before his expression sobered. “You know, ma’am, I’ll bet Mr. Smith was murdered. Being that he had such a dangerous job and all. Don’t you think?”
“We must wait until the coroner makes his assessment and the inquest is held to decide upon how he met his death.”
“Well, I’m sure Mr. Greaves thinks Mr. Smith was shoved out the window and didn’t just fall.” Owen’s eyes widened. “And I’ll bet it was that fellow I saw Mr. Smith arguing with. He was angry as all get-out. He could’ve killed Mr. Smith!”
She sat up. “You saw Mr. Smith arguing with some man?”
Owen elbowed himself upright in the bed. “Yep. A big fellah with a goatee beard and a fancy walking stick.”
Not Patrick. Her husband would never have been described as a “big fellah.”
“He was waiting for Mr. Smith outside his office,” Owen continued. “I couldn’t hear what they were arguing about, but Mr. Smith dragged him inside right away.”
“Did you hear Mr. Smith call the man’s name, by any chance?”
Owen’s eyebrows tucked together as he considered. “He mighta called him Doc.”
A doctor. “When was this?”
“The day I came here sick.”
Tuesday. The same day she received a note from Mr. Smith asking to see her about “news” he’d uncovered.
“The man you saw may simply be one of Mr. Smith’s clients unhappy with an investigation,” she said.
“But an unhappy client could get so unhappy that he might want to kill somebody,” he said. “Don’t you think, ma’am?”
“Yes, I do,” she replied. “Owen, when I went to leave a message with Mr. Smith earlier today, I thought I saw someone inside his office. The door was locked, and this person did not answer my knocking. But I do not recall Mr. Smith having an associate. Had he hired someone recently?”
“No, ma’am. That’s why I was gonna take a job with him,” he replied. “’Cause he needed somebody to help him out.”
“I wonder who it was I saw, then?”
Another ghost?
Or perhaps the ghost she had already seen.
• • •
“Does he have any family, Greaves?” Dr. Harris asked. The coroner bent over the battered remains of Mr. Smith. “Somehow, I’m expecting not.”
Yesterday, the body had been carted over to the undertaker’s basement room, which the coroner borrowed to conduct his postmortem examinations. The space reminded Nick of Celia Davies’s examination room, the bowls, jars, and medical instruments carefully lined up on shelves, the sharp tang of carbolic acid in the air. Similar aside from the empty caskets stacked against the stone walls, and the pair of corpses that reeked from having been in the room longer than Mr. Smith.
“We haven’t discovered any relations yet, but if we do, I’ll be sure to let you know,” said Nick.
It would be the coroner’s responsibility to see the fellow interred if no one came forward to claim him. Nick’s gut told him Mr. Smith hadn’t left behind any grieving family members eager to be responsible for the man.
Harris straightened and nodded toward a body draped in black cloth resting on a corner table. “That poor fellow has no family. Nor that man there. There are just too many solitary individuals in this town, Greaves, searching for wealth and ending up in my examination room instead.” He glanced over. “I heard Mr. Smith was occupied as an investigator.”
“Somebody who could be hired to investigate just about anything, apparently.”
“Ah.” Harris scrubbed fingertips through his beard, which was sprinkled with gray. “A man with enemies.”
Just what Mrs. Davies had said. “Any evidence he was killed?”
“I can’t say for certain. He fell headfirst—not what you’d expect if he’d jumped—and has a shattered wrist from trying to break his fall.” He pointed out the damage on Smith’s body. “He could’ve been pushed. Could’ve accidentally fallen.”
“According to witnesses, Smith was leaning through his window, enjoying the festivities. The parade had crossed on Sansome not much earlier.”
“Ah.”
“I found this in his fist.” Nick dug out the scrap of checked gingham from his pocket. “Torn from the curtain in his room. He must have grabbed for it as he fell.”
“A consistent action with either losing his balance and falling, or being pushed. There is also some bruising here. Along his left leg.” Harris folded back the black cloth and indicated the mark. Nick didn’t look too closely. “Right about where the limb would have struck the window ledge. When I was called to his lodgings to examine the body—right in the middle of an Independence Day luncheon my wife was hosting, by the way—I measured the height of the sill to be certain.”
“Smith was forced against it?”
“It’s possible. Although it’s also possible he drunkenly stumbled, bumped against the ledge, and . . .” He made a tumbling gesture with his hands. “My plans this morning are to examine the contents of his stomach. For liquor, in addition to whatever else I find.”
Nick returned the torn piece of fabric to his coat pocket. “I’ll be looking forward to seeing your report, Harris.”
“Believe it or not, Smith might have survived if his skull hadn’t struck the sharp edge of a broken cobblestone.” Harris re-covered the man’s body. “If he was pushed, do you have any suspects?”
“None yet. Smith’s fellow lodgers claim they didn’t see anybody visiting Smith yesterday morning. They’re either not very observant—”
“Or keen to keep to themselves.”
“Yep,” he said. “One might have heard a scuffle, too, but with all the celebrating going on, the fellow couldn’t be certain.”
Taylor hadn’t been able to get any more information. In Nick’s experience, folks weren’t always willing to talk to the police. Especially not when a man in a risky line of work died suspiciously.
“The Fourth is a perfect day for a crime, if you ask me.” Harris wiped his hands across the dark apron tied over his clothes. “If his death was a crime. I can’t promise I’ll conclude he was pushed, Greaves. Mr. Smith was likely just another drunk reveler who had a fatal accident.”
“So I shouldn’t be expecting the captain to happily allow me to investigate the man’s death.”
“You’ve got your work cut out for you, Greaves, if you plan to.”
Nick frowned. “You’r
e not telling me anything I don’t already know, Harris.”
• • •
“Doesn’t the captain expect you to be looking for that missing woman, sir?” asked Taylor. “He’s gonna be mad if he finds out we’re trying to get into Mr. Smith’s office when the coroner hasn’t decided yet that the fellah was killed.”
“I haven’t forgotten about Miss McHugh.” Nick squinted through a gap in the blinds covering the windows of Smith’s office. All was dark inside, nobody moving around. “And I’m betting Harris’s final report is going to conclude what my instincts already tell me.”
“That Smith was killed and the person who did the killing took all his keys. Including the ones to this here office.”
“Exactly, Taylor. Plus, if the keys were taken and getting access to this office was the reason why, then I want access, too. Besides, if I’m wrong, who’s going to complain? A dead man?” Nick rattled the door handle. Locked. He’d already tried to contact the building’s landlord about getting inside, but the fellow had left San Francisco on a brief vacation. Nick was in no mood to wait for the man’s return. “See if there’s another way in that might be open.”
While Taylor trotted off in search of a back door, Nick scanned the road. The city was slow to rise after last night’s festivities and the street was quieter than usual. A cat chased confetti scattered by the wind. The smell of cooking bacon drifted from a nearby eatery. Across the way, a man from a tobacco store used the excuse of removing the bunting draped low across the windows to stare at Nick.
He frowned at the fellow, who went back to minding his own business.
Taylor returned. “There is a back door, but it’s locked, too.”
“Then you know what to do here.”
“Yes, sir.” Taylor reached into an inner pocket of his coat, withdrew a ring of lock picks, and bent to the task. “I gotta say you missed some nice fireworks last night, sir.”
“I could hear them from my lodgings.” He’d had a rough night, listening to the rumble of distant exploding fireworks shells. He had closed the windows in his room, hunkered down in the stifling darkness with his dog and pushed back the demons that haunted him. The remembered boom of cannons. The crack of gunfire. The screams of dying men. “That was enough celebration for me.”
No Quiet among the Shadows Page 5