No Pity For the Dead Page 21

  “I don’t right recollect, ma’am. I’m sorry.”

  “Come with me.” She was being brusque with Ginny, but she could not help it; time was slipping away if she wished to help Frank’s cause.

  Celia parted the curtains at the doorway, then strode through the rear of the shop and out the back door into the alleyway. Ginny rushed after her.

  “Here, Ginny. You saw him run through the alleyway,” said Celia. “How tall was he in relation to your neighbor’s fence there?”

  She motioned toward the slat fence across the way, the top of which was higher than Celia’s head by a half foot. If the quite tall Frank Hutchinson had passed through this alley, the crown of his hat would’ve been above the uppermost stretch of wood.

  “I’m not sure . . . ,” said Ginny.

  At that moment, an aproned male shop assistant stepped into the alley from the adjoining eyeglass business. He struck a safety match against a stone near his feet, lit a cigarette, and strolled in their direction. Noticing Ginny, he offered her a jaunty hello, which made her blush.

  “Taller or shorter than that man?” Celia asked once he’d passed. The shop assistant was of average height, and his uncovered head did not clear the top of the fence.

  “The same. About the same, I think,” said Ginny, staring after him.

  So, not tall. And not Frank Hutchinson, if Ginny was correct in her observation. “You are quite certain? Because you may be asked to testify to that in court.”

  “What? Mrs. Lowers won’t like that at all!”

  “Just answer me, please, Ginny.”

  “I’m sure, ma’am.”

  Thank goodness. Celia could not explain where Frank was Thursday evening, but at least she could say he was not in this alleyway after having attempted to disinter Virgil Nash.

  “What about the man’s size?” Celia asked Ginny. “Was he very thin or portly?”

  “He had on a long coat. It flapped around his legs when he ran down the alley. I really couldn’t say, ma’am, but I don’t think he was portly.”

  Perhaps he was gaunt, then. Gaunt and unusually spry.

  “Thank you, Ginny.” Celia took the girl’s hand. Her fingertips were calloused from plying a needle. “You have been of great help.”

  It was now time to speak to Katie Lehane.

  * * *

  “Care to now tell me the truth about what you and Mr. Hutchinson were doing the night Virgil Nash was murdered, Mr. Russell?”

  Nick leaned against the windowsill in one of the upstairs offices of Martin and Company. The sound of hammering echoed through the floor. The workers were back at it, since one of the bosses had come in. Their work hadn’t stopped them from learning about Matthews’ death, though. Unfortunately, none of them had any clever ideas about why he’d been fleeing town like the devil was on his heels. Other than they all agreed that Matthews owed an awful lot of money to an awful lot of folks.

  He wasn’t up here to talk about Dan Matthews, though. He was here to pin the murder of Virgil Nash on Frank Hutchinson.

  “You weren’t with Frank that night, were you?” Nick asked Russell, who’d taken one of the chairs around the large table that occupied most of the room. A portrait of Frank’s father, one of the company’s founders, glowered from where it was displayed at Russell’s back. On the wall opposite hung a detailed map of the city, tacks dotting its surface. A metallic trail of previous and planned acquisitions, Nick supposed. One of the tacks had been pushed into the area of Rincon Hill.

  Rather than answer, Russell fidgeted in his chair and picked at a cuticle on his left forefinger.

  “It’s okay, Mr. Russell,” Nick assured the man. “You can tell me. I won’t be angry.”

  “We went to supper.”

  “You sure?”

  “We went to Jean-Pierre’s like we always do,” said Russell. Nick had a stray thought that he should try Jean-Pierre’s, since it seemed to be such a popular place. “And yes, I’m sure.”

  “But then what? You didn’t accompany Frank back to his house like usual,” said Nick. “I’m not even going to ask why you lied to me about that.”

  “I guess I don’t remember that night all that well. Too much time has passed.”

  Nick really wished people would cooperate. It would make his life a helluva lot easier.

  “A reliable witness saw Mr. Hutchinson returning home in a hired hack, alone. I’ve heard, though, that you’re usually with him,” he said. Russell took to chewing the torn cuticle. “Why not that night? What was different?”

  “I said I don’t remember.”

  Nick slapped his palm on the table. Russell jumped. “Blast it, Russell, I’m not keen to waste the day waiting for you to get around to the truth. I’m really not,” he said. “So make me happy and explain why you weren’t with him. Did he have plans to meet with Nash after supper, and you two went your separate ways? Is that what happened?”

  Russell’s chin sagged to his chest.

  “Listen,” said Nick. “Tell me what happened that night, and I won’t have you booked as an accessory to murder when my officer hauls Hutchinson into the station.”

  Russell looked up. “Frank didn’t kill Nash. He didn’t go to meet him. I swear to God.”

  “That’s an awfully powerful thing to do, Mr. Russell.”

  “He didn’t,” he repeated. “I swear.”

  “You’re willing to admit that you and he parted after you’d eaten, though?” Nick asked.

  “I may as well, since you know we did.”

  Nick returned to leaning against the windowsill and rubbed a hand along the ache in his left arm. The sounds of the street sifted through the window, which was thrown open to catch the cool breeze and disperse the eye-watering odor of fresh paint. Down on the sidewalk, a boy shouted out the menu from a nearby restaurant, trying to entice diners. A church bell tolled the hour. The combination of the two made Nick’s stomach grumble, reminding him he hadn’t eaten since he’d had a quick cup of coffee for breakfast.

  “Mr. Hutchinson was seen at home after nine,” Nick said to encourage Russell to start talking and stop staring at his cuticles. “And you usually take supper around six thirty or seven, right? Doesn’t seem likely to me that you gentlemen lingered over your chicken and sauced vegetables for two hours.”

  “We might have,” Russell said, trying one last time.

  “Not amused, Mr. Russell.”

  Russell’s cuticle got another chew. “Frank went to Burke’s. Must have been around seven thirty.”

  Why lie about going to the saloon he regularly visited? It’s not like Jane Hutchinson didn’t know her husband’s habits. “How do you know that’s where he went?”

  Russell stared at him long and hard. Whatever he had to say, he didn’t relish sharing. “Because Frank told me he was going to see one of Burke’s girls. Katie Lehane.”

  “He went to see a saloon girl?” Poor Jane Hutchinson. Living not only in Arabella’s shadow but in the shadow of another woman who was very much alive. “How long’s this been going on?”

  “Oh. Oh, oh! It’s not like that! They weren’t . . .” Russell’s face turned as bright as a beet. “Just company. And cards. But he didn’t think Jane would understand, so he didn’t want her to know.”

  Nick was positive Jane Hutchinson wouldn’t “understand” one bit. “If Miss Lehane can give Frank an alibi, Mr. Russell, I’m sure Mrs. Hutchinson will want her to speak up.”

  Russell slumped in his chair.

  “Where’d you go that evening, Mr. Russell? After you two parted?”

  “You can’t tell Dottie.”

  “Where?”

  He peered at Nick. “It’s just a little place in an alley off Dupont . . .”

  The streets of the Chinese quarter. “Do they happen to sell opium at that little place by any chance?�
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  Russell slumped lower; he looked like he wanted to cry. “Dear God. Dottie will have my head.”

  * * *

  “Have you ever noticed Mr. Nash arguing with anyone other than Frank Hutchinson, Katie?” asked Celia.

  Celia had interrupted Katie, who was washing her hair in the chipped tin basin in her boardinghouse room, and a trickle of water dribbled down the girl’s cheek. The room smelled of rectified spirits and rosemary. A more pleasing aroma than what had arisen from the clogged sewer Celia had passed on her way there.

  “Maybe, but I’m not sure, ma’am.” Katie scrubbed at the errant drip with the edge of her coarse linen towel, then wrapped it around her hair.

  “Please think back. It is most critical.”

  “I’ll try.” She tugged her wrapper closed over her underthings and dropped onto a nearby chair, positioned alongside a wobbly table. Katie’s room was small, really not much more than a bedchamber with an area to wash up and an even smaller area to sit and eat, but it was tidy and clean. “I hope you don’t mind if I sit a spell. I’ll spend all evening on my feet, and they get to hurting. Plus, my ankle’s still bothering me a bit. You should sit, too, Mrs. Davies.”

  “I am fine standing. Thank you.”

  Katie unwound the towel and retrieved a wide-toothed horn comb from where she’d left it on the table. Bending over, she began to run the comb in steady sweeps through her long hair. “As I said before, Mr. Nash didn’t seem to have friends, but as for enemies . . .”

  “I should not be telling you this,” said Celia, aiming to encourage Katie’s memories, “but Mr. Hutchinson is going to be arrested for the murder of Virgil Nash.”

  Katie straightened, her damp hair swinging. “Frank? But he didn’t. He can’t have.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because—because he wouldn’t. That’s why,” she said. A blush rose, and she lowered her head again, her damp hair forming an effective screen. “He and Mr. Nash fought, but not like that. And Mr. Hutchinson’s a good man. I see enough of the kind who aren’t to know the difference.”

  “I am aware that Mr. Hutchinson is a good man, Katie,” said Celia. “But you know more than that, don’t you? What is it you are not revealing?”

  Katie yanked the comb through her hair, wincing when she hit a knot. “Nothing, ma’am.”

  “A reliable witness has come forward to repudiate the alibi he has provided,” said Celia. “If he cannot explain himself, given that everyone in San Francisco seems to know of the animosity between the two men, he will likely be indicted for murder.”

  Katie’s hand began to shake. She let out a sob and threw the comb across the room. It clattered across the wood floor. “It’s my fault.” She sat up and shoved her hair off her face. “It’s all my fault.”

  Gad.

  A shadow crossed Katie’s eyes, normally so bright and lively. “We were together the night that Mr. Nash died. But we didn’t . . . He never would. Just playing cards and having a drink. Honest. Don’t think bad of me, ma’am. I don’t ever bring men up here from the saloon. Honest, I don’t.”

  No wonder Frank’s explanation for where he’d been that evening had always been so vague. “Are you certain you mean the night of May twenty-eight?”

  “I am. It’s the last Tuesday he’s been in the saloon, and I remember that night because he was so miserable.” Water plopped from a curl of hair onto the floor. “The saloon had only been open a short while when Frank . . . Mr. Hutchinson came in. I could tell right away that something was the matter, especially when he asked straight off that I come sit with him. He likes when I do that.” She smiled a little. “Says it cheers him up.”

  Had Patrick done similarly, Celia wondered, all those evenings after he’d stormed out of the house, another argument sending him out into the night? Found solace with a woman who did not disappoint him? And did it matter any longer, now that she could not repair the damage she had caused? Now that he might never return.

  Celia exhaled, wishing away the guilt that clung like tendrils of ivy. “Go on, Katie.”

  “Mr. Hutchinson started drinking whiskey, which he doesn’t usually do. He kept muttering about a birthday,” Katie said.

  “I see.” His first wife’s birthday. The celebration that had been cancelled on the twenty-ninth because of Jane’s headache. Or heartache.

  “After a while, he suggested we leave. I didn’t want to, because Mr. Burke don’t like us girls to leave with the men, but Mr. Hutchinson insisted.”

  “Then what?” asked Celia.

  “I told Mr. Burke I wasn’t feeling well, and Frank . . . Mr. Hutchinson met me here. Must’ve been around eight or so because the sun had set,” she said. “My landlady was out for the evening, and he snuck up the back stairs. We played cards for a while. I beat him lots of rounds, which just shows how awful sauced he was. I did start to worry he meant for something else to happen . . .” Katie glanced toward her bed, the cheery blue and yellow Irish chain quilt covering the thin mattress looking as wholesome as a church picnic. “But then all of a sudden he said he needed to get home and left.”

  “When?” asked Celia.

  “Nine, maybe? Had to have been, because the woman who sings in the saloon across the street was warbling ‘Aura Lea,’ which she always does halfway through her evening and makes all the fellows without gals cry,” Katie explained. “On my nights off when I’m here, I get treated to that song. Just wish she sang better.”

  Around nine allowed Frank the proper amount of time to reach home when Grace had seen him. Katie might have just provided the alibi he required.

  “Did Mr. Hutchinson tell you to say nothing about his visit?” asked Celia. “Is that why you kept it from me?”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. He made me promise not to breathe a word. And of course, I didn’t want to.” Katie pulled a worn handkerchief from the pocket of her wrapper and blew her nose. Finished, she peered at Celia. “Tell his wife I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

  “I wonder what I shall say to Jane.”

  The girl tucked away her handkerchief and rose to fetch her comb.

  “Wait.” Katie stopped in the center of the room. “There was somebody else.” She rushed over to Celia, her eyes wide. “A fellow I’ve never seen before. He came into Burke’s a few weeks before Mr. Nash died. Can’t remember the exact day.”

  “What was it about him that you recall?”

  “He was drinking whiskey at the bar and Mr. Nash come in. The fellow looked over—everybody looks at the door when somebody new comes in—and turned as white as a ghost. He spilled his whiskey and almost fell off his stool. Asked me if there was a back door out of the saloon.”

  A man scared of being spotted by Virgil Nash . . . Celia supposed there was any number of reasons a person might not wish to be seen by the argumentative Mr. Nash. To presume the man was the fellow who had killed Mr. Nash’s brother in Virginia City seemed a conceivable conclusion, albeit a rash one.

  But his agitation could reflect emotions strong enough to have led him to murder.

  “Did Mr. Nash notice this man?” Celia asked.

  Katie furrowed her brow as she considered the possibility. “He might’ve, but I don’t know because I was busy taking the fella out through the back room and into the alley.”

  “Do you recall what he looked like?”

  “Plain sort,” said Katie. “Average size and height. Nothing unusual in particular . . . oh, except once he was done looking like a ghost, his cheeks flamed a funny red when he got worked up about Mr. Nash. Ain’t never seen that before, not all dark and splotchy like he got, which is why I remember,” she added.

  Sadly, the description did not match any of Celia’s suspects. “Might you recognize this fellow if you saw him again?”

  “I might.”

  But where to have her look?
One place, Celia supposed, was among the laborers working at Martin and Company. She kept returning to her belief that the man she and Nicholas Greaves sought was in some way connected to Mr. Martin’s business.

  “There is a coffee shop across the street from Martin and Company,” said Celia, providing the address. She should tell Mr. Greaves of her intentions, but he undoubtedly would scoff at her. Where ignorance is bliss, / ’Tis folly to be wise. And if he did not learn of her plans, he could not criticize them. “Can we meet there tomorrow, around eleven in the morning?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am. I’m awful busy—”

  “Katie, it is critical that we find this man. He might not have killed Virgil Nash, but he may have important information that will lead us to the killer,” Celia explained. “However, I cannot find him without your help.”

  “Okay,” Katie said, though her reluctance was clear. “I’ll be there.”

  * * *

  Katie Lehane hadn’t come to work yet—Burke’s wouldn’t open for another hour—but Nick had found somebody who knew where she lived. He turned the corner just as Celia Davies exited a boardinghouse a few yards distant, the sunlight catching the wisp of golden hair that had escaped her straw bonnet.

  Well, well.

  She turned to look in his direction as though she’d heard his thoughts. “Mr. Greaves.”

  He tapped his fingertips to the brim of his hat. “We meet again, ma’am.”

  “Have you already sent your officer to retrieve Mr. Hutchinson?” she asked, waiting on the sidewalk for him to join her. She didn’t look as mad at him as she had when he was questioning Grace Hutchinson. In fact, she was looking smug.

  “Afraid I have,” he said.

  “He is not guilty,” she stated. Yep. Smug.

  “You’ve come from talking to Katie Lehane, haven’t you?”

  “How did you know?” she asked.

  “I was just on my way to see her myself,” he answered, taking her elbow and leading her away. “But maybe I don’t need to now.”

  “Katie was with Frank the evening of Virgil Nash’s murder,” said Mrs. Davies. “But who told you about her?”