Lethal Remedies

by M. Louisa Locke

  Gone was his chance to get some work done.

  He put his satchel on the desk in the office and went down the back stairs into a warm kitchen, redolent with the smell of lemon cake just out of the oven. Beatrice O’Rourke smiled at him from where she sat at the table, chopping potatoes, and he saw an uncooked pot roast sitting in a pan on the stovetop, waiting to be surrounded by those potatoes. He found himself salivating at the thoughts of the dinner that awaited him, a fitting reward for coming home early to take care of his daughter.

  Abigail, pink cheeked, hair a tousled mass of golden-red curls, was sitting up in a nest of blankets in her baby carriage, laughing at the antics of Prince, the young cat, who was leaping to catch a feather waved in front of him by Emmaline. Dandy, the terrier, sat next to the carriage, watching the cat’s antics with a puzzled look on his face.

  The kitchen, which was an oasis from the cold rain outside, and his daughter, who noticed his presence by raising her little arms in the air and saying, “Da,” filled him with warm satisfaction. Life couldn’t get much better.

  And then it all went downhill.

  His daughter’s smiling face turned into a frown and wobbling lower lip when he didn’t instantly come to pick her up. As he hurried over and swept her into his arms, he accidentally brushed up against Prince, who hissed, causing Dandy to bark in excitement, at which point Abigail added her cries to the commotion.

  Embarrassed, he remembered Annie’s strict admonition to care for Abigail upstairs so Beatrice, with only Tilly to help her prepare for dinner on Kathleen’s night out, wouldn’t be bothered. So he stammered his apologies and practically ran up the stairs with his daughter. Once he made it to the nursery, he slammed the door shut and began to go through the series of actions that had always gotten Abigail to stop crying before.

  Sweeping her up into the air, jiggling her on his knees, picking up her favorite stuffed animal and waving it in front of her, none of these tactics worked today. Tilly arrived at the door with a covered dish and spoon, and she suggested that the “poor wee thing” might be hungry. She also wrinkled up her nose and made the comment that if he wouldn’t mind setting up the high chair, which was folded in the corner of the room, she’d change Abigail.

  Extremely grateful to exchange the job of changing his daughter’s diaper for the task of figuring out how to open up the high chair, an intricate wooden contraption with metal hinges and sliding bolts, Nate told himself that all Abigail needed was a clean diaper and some food. Then his sunny-tempered angel would be restored, and all would go smoothly.

  That foolish hope died the moment that Tilly left the room and he put his daughter into the high chair.

  Instead of opening up her mouth wide to take the first spoonful of mashed peas and carrots, his daughter banged one tiny fist into the bowl, almost upending it. This, at least, seemed to amuse her, so he refused to be daunted. Deciding that it might be a good idea to put the bowl in his lap, where she couldn’t get it, he pulled the rocking chair closer to the high chair and scooped out the first spoonful of vegetables.

  However, that’s when he noticed his daughter was now leaning so much to the side of the chair that her mouth was perpendicular, rather than horizontal, and remembered that his wife always wedged their daughter into the high chair with a pillow. Sighing, he put the spoon back into the bowl, put the bowl onto the changing table, and got a pillow from the baby’s crib and propped Abigail upright, which seemed to please her.

  Sitting down again, bowl back in his lap, spoon poised to enter his daughter’s mouth, he faced a new obstacle. She wouldn’t open her mouth. He discovered that now that she had four teeth, two up, two down, the method of just sliding the spoon in between her lips no longer worked. Neither did making the sounds of a train going into a tunnel, which he’d seen Annie use to great success on more than one occasion.

  He recalled another tactic he’d seen his wife use. He took his index finger and gently moved it into the side of his daughter’s mouth to pry it open, popping the spoon into her mouth at the same time. He then watched with dismay as she expelled the green and orange mess with her tongue so that it began to slide down her chin towards her frilly white gown. He leapt to the changing table, grabbed a clean diaper, and triumphantly stopped the flow. It took a few moments, but he eventually located a bib, got it tied around his daughter’s neck, and then started the process all over again.

  This time his daughter cooperated, opened up her mouth wide, took in a large mouthful, then spat it directly into his face. He must have shouted, maybe even cursed, and by the time he had fumbled to the room’s washstand and washed out his stinging eyes, his daughter’s face was screwed up into a ferocious frown. He apologized, tried to make her laugh by making funny faces, but she would not be placated. The next twenty minutes he spent fruitlessly trying to get food down her while she quite successfully got that food over her fists, in her hair, and over his shirt front, glaring at him the whole time.

  He’d finally given up, as her frown eventually turned to wails, and that’s when he’d started the equally unsuccessful task of once again trying to get her to stop crying. He tried twirling her around, making odd sounds, and waving a rattle in her face. Each effort would get a startled look and then the resumption of wails. Finally, her head began to lower onto his shoulder as she became exhausted from her sobs. With a sigh, he had turned to put Abigail down in her crib when the door to the nursery opened and Mrs. Stein stood there, frowning.

  He put his finger to his lips, and Mrs. Stein frowned even more, saying, quite loudly, he thought, “I heard that Abigail didn’t nap today. That’s why she’s cranky. But don’t put her down. If she goes to sleep now, it will be hard for Annie to wake her to nurse when she gets home, and the child will have trouble sleeping through the night. That would be unfair to Tilly, who has agreed to sleep in the nursery, since it’s Kathleen’s night out. The poor girl will be exhausted from helping Beatrice on her own. So, for everyone’s sake, please try to keep Abigail awake a little longer. Sometimes a change in scenery works. I would take her to your bedroom. Before Herman and I leave to go to dinner, I’ll tell Tilly to bring up a nice warm washcloth to clean her up and some ice in case the problem is her teething. Good luck.”

  He’d had the uncharitable thought that her advice might have been self-serving, given that the Steins’ bedroom was right across the hall from the nursery and his daughter’s cries could be quite penetrating.

  And so here he was, a half hour later, with Abigail awake but very unhappy. Her sobs had turned into a tired whimper and her eyelashes were crusted together from her tears. And, desperate for a glimpse of his wife, who had been away from home for only a little over two hours, he thought, How has she been doing this for ten months?

  Chapter 46

  Friday evening, March 10, 1882

  O’Farrell Street Boardinghouse

  * * *

  Annie lay her daughter down in her crib and looked over at her poor, tired husband and smiled.

  “She should sleep right through the night now. At the very least, we should have a quiet few hours until we go to bed. I’m sorry she gave you such a hard time. But I’m glad you listened to Mrs. Stein’s advice. It’s so easy at this point for Abigail to get off schedule.”

  Annie wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Nate look so desperate as when she had entered the nursery an hour ago. The operation that Caro Sutton had observed went a little long, so Annie hadn’t arrived home until about five-thirty. Only a half-hour later than planned, but she knew from experience that thirty minutes felt like hours with a cranky baby.

  Abigail had been so tired, she’d had trouble nursing at first. Once she did get some sustenance in her, she perked up enough so that Annie was able to get the peas and carrots into her, too, while Nate regaled her with the story of his failure to feed or placate their daughter. One lullaby later, Abigail fell sound asleep.

  While Annie got a perverse pleasure in how difficult Nate had found the whole
experience, she was also proud of him for not dumping the problem on Beatrice or Tilly or even on one of the boarders. Barbara Hewitt would certainly have taken over the task of tending Abigail if Nate had asked.

  She hugged Nate and whispered, “Let’s go down and join the boarders for dinner. They should be just starting to eat. That will make things easier on Tilly.”

  As they went down the stairs, the front doorbell rang, and Tilly scurried out from the dining room to open the door, revealing Sergeant Thompson on the doorstep.

  Annie turned to Nate and said, “Did you know he was coming? I wonder if he’s eaten supper yet?”

  They soon learned that the sergeant hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and he accepted her invitation to join them and the boarders with alacrity. Her already high opinion of him rose significantly as she observed how kindly he handled the three children’s questions about a local bank robbery that had happened earlier in the week and his patience with the ten-minute monolog by the elderly dressmaker, Miss Minnie Moffet, about a Thompson she and her sister had known in their youth.

  Once dinner was over, Nate, Annie, and Sergeant Thompson moved to the study, where Tilly promised to bring them some tea and slices of the lemon cake.

  Thompson said, “Thank you so much, Mrs. Dawson, for feeding me. Between the bank robbery those clever children asked about and the investigation into Dr. Granger’s death, it’s been a very busy day. But I did want to tell you where we are with both the Granger case and the anonymous letters to the press, which I am increasingly inclined to believe might be connected.”

  Nate said, “Really? Why?”

  “Dr. Skerry seems the key. Woman’s tied up with so many aspects of both cases. Not that I’m saying she killed Granger, just that I can’t swear she isn’t involved in some fashion. The more I learn about her, the more she seems like a born troublemaker.”

  Annie nodded, glad to see he was coming to the same conclusion she was coming to…and wondered if Thompson had run across any evidence that Dr. Skerry had dealings with Argenta Branting.

  Nate said, “We know she played a role in turning Richard Truscott against both the dispensary and Dr. Granger. Did the letters Annie gave you help you determine who sent the anonymous notes to the press? I assume you saw the articles that showed up in the Bulletin yesterday?”

  “Yes, the letters were a big help. According to our handwriting expert, the first letter sent to the Chronicle was most likely penned by Mr. Truscott, based on a comparison of that letter to the letters he sent to the dispensary.”

  “Oh dear,” Annie said. “His wife is going to be really upset to learn that. What about the second letter to the Chronicle?”

  “Unfortunately, that particular letter and the ones sent to the Evening Bulletin were made on one of those new infernal ‘type-writers.’ However, the expert says the words used and phrasing all match those written in the hand-penned one.”

  Annie wondered if you could tell what specific type-writing machine was used, the way you could sometimes determine what printer had been used…something Annie had learned about working on a former case.

  She said, “So either these letters were composed by the same person or they were copied from a common text. How would Richard get hold of a type-writer? My sister-in-law’s seen one demonstrated, but it was my understanding that there weren’t a lot around. Just at telegraph offices and a few businesses. Although I suppose he might have access to one at his father’s company.”

  Annie told Thompson about what she’d learned about Truscott’s speculation in stocks and inheriting shares in the Rogers, Meyers, and Truscott company. She repeated what Dr. Blair had told her about the threats directed at Dr. Granger by Richard Truscott on Monday, the day before he was killed.

  “That’s useful,” Thompson said. “Now that we’ve a link between Truscott and the letters, I have a reason to question him about his relationship with Granger, find out if he has an alibi for the night Granger died. Before now, there wasn’t any good cause to do so.”

  “According to Dr. Blair’s account, Dr. Skerry was at this same meeting, and she also said something about the ‘world soon knowing’ about Dr. Granger’s corruption. Do you know if she’s got an alibi?”

  “We haven’t spoken to her yet, either. I may need to talk to Dr. Blair again, get a fuller accounting of this meeting before I track down Skerry. Interestingly, we do know that Dr. Skerry has access to a type-writer.”

  Nate said, “Why am I not surprised? She puts out a journal, so a type-writer would be useful. I bet that the medical college where Dr. Granger and his son work has one as well. Like the telephone, I believe that in a couple of years, any place that handles a lot of correspondence and day-to-day meetings is going to have both.”

  Thompson said, “I agree. Although the telephone system they’ve set up in police headquarters isn’t always that useful, since most of the people I want to talk to aren’t connected to the system. But it’s sure been a help now that a line is hooked up between the new police offices, the old city hall jail, and the various courts.”

  Annie broke in, “How do you know Dr. Skerry has access to a type-writer?”

  “Because the fellow I talked to at the Bulletin said that she’s always sending them letters to the editor on one or another of her hobby-horses, and they’re always typed. He also said that the anonymous letters about the dispensary reminded him a good deal of those other letters. Interestingly, one of the anonymous letters to the Bulletin specifically mentioned Granger as behind these ‘illegal’ operations the letters mentioned.”

  Nate said, “So there’s another connection between the letters and Granger’s death.”

  Annie said, “I wondered if you’d found any possible intersections between Dr. Skerry and Charlie McFadyn?”

  “I did follow up on your mention that Skerry’s brother is active in Democratic party politics, and while there are some rumors that he’s done some work for Boss Buckley, there isn’t anything concrete about a connection between Skerry and McFadyn. But I’m not ruling that out.”

  Nate said, “What about the girl who Dr. Blair thinks was the one who let the woman into the dispensary, the one who tried to get Hilda to leave with her? Any chance you can prove her connection to McFadyn?”

  Thompson said, “We are definitely looking for Brenda Halstrom. We don’t have any address for her or any information about family in town. To my mind, there’s little doubt she was the one who let the woman in, and from everyone’s description, I’m pretty sure the woman who showed up was Tessa Wheeler, one of McFadyn’s fancy women. But there’s been no sign of her in her usual haunts. Made herself scarce, possibly hiding Brenda.”

  “Did you interview McFadyn?” Nate asked.

  “Yes, and he just smiled and said he didn’t know what we were talking about, never heard of Brenda or Tessa. Yet he looked nervous when I asked him what he was doing Tuesday night, the night Granger was murdered. A man like that, though, he could have been up to anything that night, knocking heads for Buckley, sussing out that bank that got robbed. When I followed up by asking if he had any dealings with Dr. Granger, he looked confused. Then said he’d never heard of the man, which was hard to believe, given the murder was all over the papers.”

  “Kathleen, my maid, spent some time alone with Hilda today. I’m hoping the girl was more frank with her; maybe she’ll come up with a lead you can follow. Unfortunately, tonight’s her night out, so I won’t hear anything until tomorrow.”

  “Miss Hennessey’s out with young Patrick McGee, I suppose?” Thompson grinned. “I wondered why he was so anxious to end his shift on time. Normally, he’d be hanging around the station to see if he could help out with the investigation into the bank robbery.”

  Annie knew that it wasn’t always possible for Kathleen and Patrick to coordinate their evenings off, so she didn’t expect her maid back early. She said, “If Kathleen learned anything useful, I’ll send word. Who else have you interviewed?”

&nbs
p; “Granger’s two nurses, his colleagues at the Medical College of the Pacific, and his three children. Everyone pretty much said the same thing, what a good doctor and caring man he was. A saint. Pretty normal at the start of a murder investigation. Though, I’ll say, usually someone by this point has hinted that the victim has some dark secret. Lots of times, these hints don’t turn out to have any basis. The person is just seeking attention. Other times, well, these hints can lead to something.”

  Nate said, “Have you been able to narrow the time of death?”

  “Dr. Blatch is pretty confident he died early in the evening, based on when he had lunch and how far along the food had traveled in his digestive system. This strengthens our supposition it was either his seven-thirty patient or someone who came to the office soon after that patient left. But that doesn’t narrow the field of suspects much.”

  “Is there any reason to suspect the man’s children?” Annie asked, thinking about Nellie and Lydia’s odd hesitation when they mentioned their brother’s relationship with his father.

  “Not the daughters, their movements are accounted for all evening. But the son was alone in his office from five on, until he went to the dispensary to help with the birth of Miss Putki’s baby. He arrived there at nine-thirty. Thing is the telegraph office says their boy delivered the telegram Dr. Blair sent at a little before eight. Why the delay in him getting it?”

  “You think he wasn’t in his office?” Nate said.

  “He says he was, just didn’t hear the boy ring the bell. Hard to believe, given those messengers are pretty determined to be heard so they have a chance of getting a tip. And it looks like the son has more than most to gain by his father’s death. The oldest daughter inherits the house, and the three children split the rest of his monetary assets, which aren’t all that much. But Granger’s colleagues at the medical college said that his son will most likely be able to take over his father’s practice, if he wishes, and step into his shoes as dean of the medical college. This would mean a significant increase in salary.”