No Pity For the Dead Page 18

  “Rob was done for the day, and Kelly sent him home,” said another, his mouth quirking. “To recline on his divan.”

  “His divan!” guffawed the tobacco-chewing fellow, a trickle of juice dribbling down his chin. “Yep, that’s it. Old Rob’s reclining on his divan at his place, Officer.”

  The youngest one of the group, who looked no older than eighteen with his scanty sprouts of chin hair, spoke up. When he did, Nick noticed he was missing a front tooth. “He mighta gone to the restaurant on the corner, Officer. He likes to eat there.”

  “Obliged,” said Nick, turning to leave.

  As soon as he was out of sight of the men, Nick heard the sound of a thump followed by a muffled bawl.

  “What’d you go and tell him that for?” one of them asked.

  “’Cuz he’s a cop!”

  “Stupid kid,” came the answer. “You get Bartlett in a pucker and you’ll live to regret it.”

  Nick stepped outside and surveyed the busy street. He located the restaurant and headed there. He didn’t have to poke around inside it, because a man who looked like the fellow he wanted—Nick realized he’d seen Bartlett the last time he’d been at Martin and Company—came strolling out through the front door.

  “Mr. Bartlett!” he called out. The fellow confirmed he was Bartlett by stopping. “I need to speak with you.”

  Bartlett watched him approach, his right hand resting on his hip where a gun caused a bulge in his dark reefer coat. Didn’t he know it was against the law to conceal a deadly weapon? Bartlett, not the handsomest of fellows, had a heavy chin outlined by a scraggly beard and narrow-set eyes. When Nick walked up to him, he caught a whiff of what smelled like almonds. Maybe Bartlett was using bear’s grease to fill in a patch of thinning hair hidden by his bowler. Just because a person was plug-ugly didn’t mean he couldn’t be vain.

  “Can I help you, Officer?” he asked, recognizing Nick as well from the last time he’d been at Martin and Company.

  “I have some questions about Dan Matthews.”

  Wariness showed in his eyes. “What about him?”

  Two men exited the restaurant at Bartlett’s back and slowed to stare at the cop and the fellow he was interviewing. “How about we find someplace more private to talk, Mr. Bartlett?”

  Fortunately for all concerned, Bartlett was astute enough to go without complaint.

  Nick chose a nearby alleyway, the sole occupant of which appeared to be a flea-bitten mongrel nosing through trash, and stepped into its shadows.

  “Ain’t this cozy,” said Bartlett.

  “I want to know why you went to visit Dan Matthews yesterday.”

  Bartlett folded his arms and leaned against the brick wall of the building behind him. “We’re friends. Been friends a long time. And friends visit each other.”

  “Did you talk to him about his plans to leave town?” asked Nick.

  “He wasn’t there. I left without talking to him.”

  The mongrel trotted over, intrigued by the visitors to its alley, and sniffed Nick’s trouser legs. “Pfft. Get outta here.”

  The dog got the message and scooted.

  Bartlett raised his brows, which had the effect of lifting his bowler hat. “Don’t like dogs, Officer?”

  “Not when I’m interviewing suspects.”

  “Didn’t know I was a suspect,” said Bartlett. He fished around in the pockets of his reefer coat and found a brass toothpick, which he proceeded to use calmly. Among the many things that amazed Nick, the ability of suspects to act composed was a never-ending wonder. Innocent people tended to shake in their boots.

  “And what are you talking about? Dan leaving town?” said Bartlett. “’Cuz if he did, I wanna know. He owes me money.”

  Nick removed the silver watch from his inner coat pocket. “Recognize this?”

  Bartlett eyed it. “Can’t say that I do.”

  “You sure? It was found on Matthews’ body.”

  For a second, the toothpick paused. “His what?”

  “Your good friend Dan is dead, Mr. Bartlett, and this watch and a whole lot of money were found on him.”

  “What do you mean, he’s dead? How is he dead?”

  Bartlett did look surprised by the news. Nick repocketed the watch. “What I mean, Mr. Bartlett, is that Matthews was found this morning with a broken neck on the road heading south out of town.”

  “What the . . .” He put away his toothpick with a shaking hand. “He killed him, then.”

  “Matthews died in an accident.”

  “All the same . . . ,” said Bartlett. He glanced toward the street at the end of the alleyway—maybe hoping a diversion would calm his nerves. Cowboys rode past with their spurs jingling, a cart went in the other direction, and rough laughter echoed nearby, one of the voices that of a woman. Not much to note, actually, and when Bartlett looked back at Nick, he was ready to talk. “Last Friday, Dan was blubbering in his beer that he’d seen somebody suspicious hanging around the offices one night a couple weeks ago. He figured it was the night Nash was murdered. ‘He’ll kill me.’ That’s what Dan said to me. ‘He knows I saw him and he’ll kill me.’ I tried to get him to say who, but he wouldn’t.”

  “Why didn’t you come to the police with that information?” If it’s even true.

  “Would you have believed me? You sent that kid to spy on Dan. How do I know you’re not trying to get information on me so you can accuse me of killing Nash?”

  “You don’t,” Nick answered. “Who do you think Matthews might’ve seen that he thought would kill him for noticing?”

  “Somebody he knew and who knew him. Seems obvious,” said Bartlett.

  “It sure would’ve been helpful if Matthews had told me what he’d seen so I could be more inclined to believe you.”

  “And admit that he’d been going by Martin’s office every night to figure out when was the best time to dig in the cellar?”

  “To look for a treasure you told him about but that didn’t exist.”

  Bartlett shrugged, his expression revealing not one ounce of remorse for having lied to his so-called friend. “Ain’t my fault Dan Matthews was a sucker. Never could tell when I was joshing.”

  Nick stepped up close to Bartlett, who recoiled at the sudden movement. “I don’t think you’re telling me the half of what you know, Bartlett, and if you’ve been leading me down a merry path, I can be very unforgiving.”

  “I ain’t lying to you, Officer.”

  So, it was back to “Officer.” And Nick had felt so privileged to have had Rob Bartlett address him as “Detective Greaves.”

  “I’d be careful if I were you, Mr. Bartlett.”

  “Oh, I’ll be careful, Officer,” Bartlett responded, his hand hovering above his waist where his weapon was concealed. “You can bet I will.”

  * * *

  Celia walked home, lost in her thoughts, and was nearly run over by the horsecar clopping along Powell. Lifting her skirts, she dashed to the safety of the curb, knowing this particular accident would have been solely of her own making. She passed the grocer’s, a bustle of activity, and turned up Vallejo.

  Angelo Cascarino was perched on the porch step of his house, looking forlorn as he watched the neighborhood children chase a hoop in the street, their feet, some bare, kicking up dust. His mother must have forbidden him to join them until the gash on his head healed.

  “How is your cut, Angelo?” Celia called out to him, gesturing at her own forehead so that he understood her.

  Angelo touched the stitches and nodded. “Grazie, Signora,” he said in his small voice. He resumed watching his friends, propped his chin on his fists, and heaved a dramatic sigh.

  Celia entered the house and dropped onto the entry hall chair. Female voices—Barbara’s and Grace’s—sounded in the parlor. Having heard the door, Addie rushed in from
the back of the house. She was wearing her best straw bonnet and had tossed her shawl over her shoulders.

  “Are you going somewhere, Addie?” Celia asked as her housekeeper knelt to untie the laces of Celia’s half boots.

  “We havna enough butter and flour for supper, ma’am.”

  “Well, you are looking very smart for a visit to the market,” Celia observed.

  “Am I?” Addie asked evasively, her head bowed over Celia’s feet.

  Celia leaned to one side to get a better view of Addie’s face. Yes, her housekeeper was definitely blushing. “Yes, you are. Are you perhaps intending a visit to someone in particular while you are there?”

  “I had the thought that, while I was at the market, I could stop at the butcher’s stall and ask that galoot who works there if he’s been sending the tokens,” she answered, not meeting Celia’s gaze.

  “And if Mr. Knowles turns out to be your admirer, you wish to look your best.”

  “It canna hurt,” said Addie, Celia’s boots sliding free.

  “That is so.”

  Addie looked up at her. “Will you be all right, ma’am? Here, by yourself?”

  “I am not alone, Addie. The girls are here with me.”

  “They’ll nae be able to protect you.”

  “Do I require protecting?”

  “I’ve come to believe you always require protecting these days, ma’am,” said Addie. “I didna doubt that becoming involved with that detective would come to grief for you.”

  “I am hardly ‘involved’ with that detective, Addie,” Celia protested. “And I do not feel that I have come to grief.”

  “Nae yet, ma’am, though you had a close call at Cliff House,” said Addie, rising to her feet. “God has been watching over you, but I canna help but wonder for how long he’ll tolerate your foolhardiness.”

  Addie emphasized the comment by lifting an eyebrow. How many times she’d seen that expression on her housekeeper’s face. How many times she’d been glad for it, too.

  “Och aye, I see where your thoughts are headed.” Addie added pursed lips to the lifted eyebrow. “You’ve nae mind to be careful.”

  “I always wish to be careful, Addie. I cannot help that I do not always succeed,” Celia said, standing as well and removing her bonnet, which she hung on the hook near the door. “If it eases your mind, I will lock the door behind you.”

  Addie heaved a sigh nearly as dramatic as Angelo’s had been. “If I dinna go, I willna need worry.”

  “But I thought we required butter and flour,” Celia teased, which raised another blush in Addie’s cheeks.

  “There it is! I willna go.” Addie moved to take off her shawl, and Celia stopped her.

  “Please. Go on. We will be fine here.”

  “If you are certain . . .”

  “I am,” she said, giving her housekeeper a small push toward the front door.

  “Well then,” said Addie, checking her reflection in the mirror that hung adjacent to the hallway’s case clock. “I do wonder, though, that a man like him would keep his admiration a secret. He’s e’er so loud with everything else.”

  Celia laughed, and Addie went out onto the porch. “Lock the door, ma’am.”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” she replied, and did so.

  Wrapping her shawl tight around her shoulders, Celia slid open the parlor doors. “Good afternoon, Grace.”

  Grace stood up from the piano bench and gave a small curtsy. “How are you doing today, Mrs. Davies?”

  When Barbara turned her head, Celia could see dark circles beneath her eyes; it had been another sleepless night for her.

  “I am quite well, if a trifle bruised, Grace,” Celia said. “Were you preparing to practice something on the piano?” An unfamiliar piece of music sat waiting.

  “My stepmother wants me to play ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ for our upcoming Fourth of July celebration,” said Grace. “I brought it over for Bee to play, too. I’m trying to cheer her up.”

  “Grace,” said Barbara crossly, turning around to face the piano keys and flipping open the cover of the sheet music.

  “Thank you for trying to lift her spirits, Grace. We all had a shock yesterday, I dare say.”

  “It was awful, wasn’t it?” asked Grace. “And we were having such a nice time. Well, up to the point where that man called Bee a bad name while we were walking along the terrace. And then to have that crowd gather around like a pack of rabid dogs. I think I was too angry to be scared of them, though. Cowards.”

  “Grace,” Barbara repeated, more insistently. “Cousin Celia doesn’t need to hear about this. She’s familiar with the names people call me and how I’m treated.” She rested her fingers on the keyboard and listlessly tapped out the opening measures of the song. “I shouldn’t have gone to Cliff House. I shouldn’t go anywhere I’m not welcome.”

  Grace rapped Barbara on the shoulder, a rough gesture for a well-bred young lady. “Don’t say that! You know that’s what those people want, don’t you? They want to scare you into hiding inside your house like a trapped animal!”

  Barbara glanced up at her friend standing over her. “You don’t understand, Grace. People don’t look at you the way they look at me, like I’m a leper.”

  “You don’t think I understand? I remember what it was like when my mother died, and everyone would stare when I went to the market with Hetty or to church with my father.” She dropped onto the bench next to Barbara. “The looks and the whispers. ‘Poor little Grace Hutchinson. Her sweet, lively mother dead so soon after her father came back from the war. So shocking. And him not the same at all.’”

  Grace pressed her lips together and glanced over at Celia.

  “No one returns from war the same as when they left,” said Celia quietly. And some do not return at all, she thought, the memory of her brother pricking as sharply as the spiny stem of a weed.

  There was more behind Grace’s words than the concern that her father had changed, however.

  “My mother died, too, Grace, and my father,” said Barbara before Celia could consider what Grace had been trying to say. Her cousin looked over her shoulder at the portrait of Uncle Walford, who grinned at them from above the settee. “And whereas people have stopped whispering about you, now that your father’s remarried and nobody likes to think about the soldiers anymore, I’m still half-Chinese. And a leper.”

  Grace wrapped an arm around Barbara’s shoulders and hugged her close. “Not to me. Not to me ever. And anybody who thinks differently is a no-account fellow!”

  Barbara closed her eyes and let her friend hug her.

  Thank goodness you are here, Grace, Celia thought. Thank goodness she lets you comfort her.

  “Would you two like some lemonade?” Celia asked. “I expect Addie has left a pitcher in the kitchen for us.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Davies,” said Grace, releasing Barbara.

  Celia made to walk past them, heading for the kitchen via the dining room.

  “Mrs. Davies,” said Grace, halting her. “I’m glad you didn’t get hurt.”

  “So am I,” she said. The way the girl was looking at her caused Celia to recall the odd interaction between Grace and her father at Cliff House. “Grace, do you have something you wish to tell me about what happened yesterday?”

  “Cousin, do you have to?” asked Barbara.

  “This is important.”

  “It always is,” she muttered, plunking away at the piano, perhaps hopeful that she could drown out Celia’s voice.

  “Barbara, please stop,” said Celia. Her cousin ceased playing and lowered her hands to her lap. “Grace, you were standing directly across from me, facing my direction when I was trying to push through the crowd to reach my cousin. You had to have noticed who was standing nearest to me.” And who might have pushed me over the wall, she did no
t need to add.

  “I saw you coming, but I didn’t notice anybody else,” Grace answered, holding Celia’s gaze. “I was so worried about Bee.”

  Her eyes might not have wavered, but she plucked at the lace banding her left cuff. Celia had been taught by one of her instructors at the Female Medical College that if she wanted to understand a patient’s true feelings and thoughts, she must watch for unguarded movements more than observe what was reflected in their eyes. People could learn to control their faces; they found it far more difficult to manage the anxiety that caused them to shuffle their feet or pick at their fingernails.

  “Mr. Martin was nearby. Mr. Greaves must have been close. There was a woman, also. Several males,” said Celia when Grace maintained her silence. “And your father had to be very near, since he grabbed me.”

  What did you see, Grace? Tell me what you saw and are afraid to admit.

  “Did you see somebody push my cousin, Grace?” asked Barbara, suddenly interested in Celia’s questions.

  “Mr. Martin,” Grace answered, her fingers closing around the lace band. “I saw Mr. Martin push you, Mrs. Davies.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “Do you recognize the watch, Mrs. Nash?” Nick asked, holding it out to her.

  Her maid glided into the parlor, set tea on the parquetry table between them, and tiptoed off, unnoticed by her employer.

  Alice Nash hesitated to take the watch, as if afraid it might bite. When she finally did, she lifted the watch from his hand as gently as she might lift a holy relic.

  Her eyes widened. “It’s still warm,” she said, sounding alarmed.

  “That’s from me, ma’am.”

  “Yes. Of course.” The hallway case clock chimed the hour as she glanced at the watch, not looking too long at her husband’s dried blood still embedded in the fancy scrollwork carved across its surface. Matthews would’ve received at least thirty dollars for it, a nice sum of money, if he’d lived long enough to get to a pawnshop. “Yes. It’s Virgil’s.”

  She brought the watch to her lips, kissing the silver case. It was the most emotion he’d seen her exhibit.