Deadly Proof: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery

by Locke, M. Louisa

  “So you did a further examination later?”

  “Yes, I came back in the afternoon and did a full postmortem to get ready for my testimony before the Grand Jury.”

  Nate had asked around about Blach after learning he’d been the physician who did Rashers’ autopsy and found out he was well respected as the city physician, a post he had held for the past eight years. He was very glad to hear there was more information forthcoming than the sketchy details Chief Jackson gave him.

  “I am particularly interested in your opinion on the time of death,” Nate said. “And while the report I read mentioned several stab wounds, I wasn’t clear about what actually killed Rashers. For example, it said the mode of Rashers’ death was ‘syncope,’ and I don’t know what that means exactly. He fainted to death?”

  “It means that he ultimately died because his heart was unable to pump enough blood to deliver the needed oxygen to his brain. The immediate cause of this was the extensive hemorrhaging from multiple stab wounds.”

  Blach opened a folder on his desk and pulled out two pieces of paper that he handed to Nate. They were printed with front and rear outlines of the human form, filled in with what looked like veins, arteries, and organs—very similar to the illustrations from his college biology textbook.

  “These are how we record wounds we find on bodies. On the first page I have inked in small x’s to mark a series of wounds, one on the neck that nicked the left external jugular vein, a second one on the back of the right hand, a third one under the right clavicle that pierced the subclavian artery, and a fourth that nicked the brachial artery on the right arm.”

  Nate stared at the x’s and tried to figure out what had happened. He also noticed hatch marks inked into the forehead and said, pointing to them, “What does this mark indicate?”

  “There was profound bruising on the forehead, along with some damage and bleeding from the nose. That, combined with signs that some of the man’s hair on the back of his head was torn out, suggests that the wounds to the head came from the assailant grabbing him by the hair and repeatedly banging his head to the floor.”

  “And could the force of this have killed him?”

  “Doubtful. It probably rendered him unconscious, which would have prevented him from doing anything to get help in staunching the flow of blood from his wounds.”

  “Do you think that this attack could have been done by a woman? I mean, from what I understand, Rashers was a big man. How would a woman get him down on the ground that way?”

  Blach pulled another sheet of paper from the folder and looked at it briefly, then he said, “This is partly speculation on my part—something I wouldn’t testify to in court––but I think the victim was caught completely unawares. Probably by someone he knew or didn’t think was threatening. The first wound, probably the one to the neck, would be a surprise. While unlike a wound to the carotid artery, which bleeds out in seconds, this first stab in his neck clipped a vein and wasn’t too serious. However, the victim probably clapped his right hand to the wound, which is when the second stab wound on that hand would have occurred. We call that a defensive wound.”

  He continued, “I believe the assailant stabbed twice more, in quick succession. Those wounds to the subclavian and brachial arteries were more serious and either one alone could have been the mortal wound. At this point, the victim would have instinctively tried to shield himself from the assailant by turning and trying to get away, and this is when I believe he was pushed or tripped and fell to the ground. It is possible that he hit his head in falling to the floor.”

  Nate tried to imagine his client stabbing Rashers in a frenzy and then launching herself at him, driving him down to the ground, then brutally banging his head against the floor. He just couldn’t see it. But from Blach’s description of events (and Nate realized he would make a damned effective witness in the trial), whoever killed Rashers was acting out of deep hatred. This didn’t appear to be something that was done with cool calculation or by a random robber, for that matter. The question was, who hated Rashers that much?

  He said, “You’re in no doubt that the bodkin found next to Rashers was the weapon.”

  “The width and depth of the punctures, as well as the circle of the bruising where the hilt of the implement was forced into the skin, was completely consistent with the bodkin being the weapon. Then of course there was the blood that we found on the steel end of the bodkin and on its wooden handle.”

  Nate glanced back down at the second piece of paper and saw that there were some additional marks on the back of the body outlined there, down near the waist and on the back of the head. “I gather these marks on the head are from the murderer grabbing his hair? But what about these other hatch marks on his lower back?”

  “Again, this is speculation. But there was a contusion three inches in diameter there, and I suspect it was caused by the knee of the assailant keeping the victim down while his head was being banged against the floor.”

  “Would he have died immediately?”

  This was, of course, the crucial question. Seth said that after Florence came out of the office, all bloody, he’d run in and found Rashers on the floor. He was partially lying on his back, but his legs were awkwardly twisted under him. Seth said it was as if he’d been lying face down, but someone had tried to turn him over. His eyes were open, his mouth slack, and when Seth touched his neck, which still felt warm, he found no pulse.

  Blach, after a few moments, replied, “That is a difficult question. If his carotid artery had been punctured, he would have bled out quickly. But the first wound was a tiny nick to his jugular vein. If this was untreated, it could eventually prove fatal—but it could just as easily be stopped with pressure and it would take hours for the loss of blood to have any life-threatening effect. The wounds to the subclavian artery, the one under his collar bone, and to the brachial artery, the one on his arm near the inside of the elbow, were much more serious. Without attention, they could have caused death anytime between three minutes to an hour. In most cases, arterial bleed out is pretty rapid.”

  Nate tried not to let the excitement he felt at this answer show in his voice when he said, “Yet, you are saying that even if Rashers died around 7:30, it was possible that Rashers had been attacked much earlier?”

  Blach looked directly at him and said, “It is possible, but it would be very difficult to prove.”

  *****

  As Nate waited outside of Chief Jackson’s office, he marshaled his thoughts about exactly what he planned on telling him. The last thing he wanted was the Chief to think he didn’t appreciate the information he’d given him last Monday, but a good defense lawyer understood the police were not on the side of his client. They were there to help the prosecutor make his case. So while he was bursting to talk about the results of his meeting with Blach this morning, he didn’t want to reveal what he now saw as the key to his defense—that the assault that resulted in Rashers’ death could have happened before his client arrived on the scene.

  The police report, confirmed by Seth, said that the time he needed to account for was between 6:30 when Franklin, Seth, and Dunk left Rashers behind in the shop, and 7:15 when the night porter greeted Florence Sullivan as she came back to work. Mrs Sullivan’s maid testified to the police that her mistress had been home between five-thirty, when she arrived from work, and five after seven, when she left to return to Rashers. It would take about ten minutes to walk from her home to Rashers, so it was important for Nate to prove that someone else could have come into the shop and attacked Rashers before Florence arrived.

  While Blach warned him that he wouldn’t be able to state definitively that the assault that killed Rashers happened earlier than Florence’s arrival, he would testify that the assault could have occurred before 7:15, and this would provide a very reasonable doubt regarding his client’s guilt.

  Another useful avenue to pursue with Blach, when he was on the stand, was the question of what the blood patter
ns at the scene revealed. Unfortunately, Blach didn’t get a chance to see the body in situ, because it was removed Friday night. Even worse, when he went to Rashers early Saturday morning, he found the building janitor scrubbing the blood off the floor.

  Blach had said to Nate, evident disgust in his voice, “I told him not to touch anything else, but he said his only instructions were to scrub the floor so no one would be distressed by the smell when they arrived at work that day. Thank goodness the constable who responded to the call was one of our best officers. He wrote a very detailed account of what he observed when he first got there.”

  According to the constable, Rashers’ body lay obliquely in the small open space in the office, with his head near the desk and his feet near the door. He reported there was so much blood that some of it ran in a sort of stream, following the slope of the office floor, until it reached one of the wooden filing cabinets on the inside wall. He also said Rashers was partially on his back, and the front of his clothing was covered with blood.

  Blach told Nate that a man of Rashers’ size could have lost at least a quart of blood before dying. However, when the doctor later examined Rashers’ clothes, he found very little blood on the man’s collar, consistent with the neck wound being minor, although there was blood smeared on his neck around the puncture. On the other hand, the wounds under the left collarbone and on the upper arm had bled more freely, heavily staining the cotton shirt next to each puncture.

  He seemed to feel it was more significant that blood also saturated Rashers’ vest front and his trouser legs. This, plus the stream of blood the constable described, suggested to him that Rashers lay fairly motionless, face-down, while the two major wounds bled out through the thinner material of the shirt, forming pools of blood that were then partially wicked up through the wool material of the vest and trousers. Once the clothing was saturated, the blood would start to run out beyond the body.

  What he couldn’t say was how long this process would take, but Nate bet it took longer than the ten or fifteen minutes Florence was in the building. At least that was what he would argue to the jury.

  Another piece of evidence—or lack of evidence––that Nate thought was important was that neither the constable nor Blach found any signs of the kind of blood spatter that occurred when the heart pumped out blood in spurts after an artery was first cut. Blach said if they had found this pattern anywhere, on the walls, desk, and so forth, this would be evidence that death came within minutes, if not seconds. Blach cautioned him not to make too much of this, however, since the first spurts of blood could have hit the assailant. When Nate asked if he had examined Florence’s clothing, Blach smiled and nodded as if Nate was a favorite pupil.

  “While there were smears of blood on her dress and on the apron she was wearing, there wasn’t enough to suggest she’d been splashed by arterial blood,” he’d told Nate. “Instead, it looked to me like she kneeled down and tried to move Rashers’ body, getting some contact blood on her that way.”

  Nate was pleased that this fit with what Seth told him, that it looked like Rashers had been lying face down but that someone had tried to turn him over, leaving his legs twisted in an awkward position. Exactly what you would expect if Mrs. Sullivan had come in and seen her employer prostrate on the floor and tried to turn him over to see if she could help him. Not what you would expect a killer to do.

  “Come on in. The Chief is ready to see you,” Sergeant Thompson said, interrupting these thoughts.

  Thompson, who Nate had met while working on several different cases for clients, was an older man, very different from the Chief in looks and demeanor. He resembled an elderly and inoffensive store clerk, the kind of person you might meet at a saloon and swap sad stories with. But Nate suspected that much of Thompson’s value to Jackson was that he was overlooked and undervalued by most people.

  “Thanks. Things settled down some since this weekend?” Nate asked, standing up and shaking his hand.

  “Yes, we’ve finally processed most of the drunk and disorderly cases. Now just back to the usual corrupt politicians and embezzling bankers.” Thompson smiled, and Nate found himself mentally checking his conscience for any misdemeanors.

  Once sitting in front of Chief Jackson, whose desk was, as usual, piled with folders, papers, and other miscellany of administration, Nate took a sheet of paper out of his inside coat and handed it to him.

  He said, “After talking to a couple of people in the printing trades, these three names came up as men who might have had an axe to grind with Rashers. They each went bankrupt, evidently due to Rashers undercutting their prices. They subsequently had to watch as he snapped up their former clients and then raised prices again.”

  Jackson looked at the list and said, “We knew about one of these men. He got intoxicated right after he lost his business and ended up trying to throw a rock through Rashers’ window in the Niantic Building. Since the shop is on the second floor, all he ended up doing was smashing the window of one of the first floor businesses. We’ve already checked out his alibi, but we will be glad to check these other two.”

  Nate knew that these men were long shots and that he could have kept their names to himself and just brought them to testify, hoping that even if they had alibis, their vitriol would help establish that Rashers wasn’t universally liked. But he’d felt he had to give Jackson something.

  After a pause, Jackson said, “Are you telling me that is all that you have?”

  Nate shrugged and said, “Mrs. Sullivan isn’t guilty, nor can I find anyone, besides Mrs. Rashers, who thinks that she and Rashers were having an affair. In fact, the employees I have spoken to find the idea rather ridiculous. But they do believe that Mrs. Rashers might have reason to be jealous—just not of my client.”

  Jackson nodded, and Nate took this to mean that he had also heard about Rashers’ penchant for pretty young women. Nate was not going to give him the names of the illustrator or the box company forewoman who Seth had mentioned. Nate might want to bring these women to the stand, whether or not they had alibis, since they would help establish that Mrs. Rashers’ jealous accusations might have been directed at the wrong woman.

  “Have you gotten her to tell you her version of what happened Friday night?”

  Nate sighed. “Not exactly. But I am hoping to fill in some of the blanks today.”

  “I gather you’ve spoken to Mrs. Rashers.”

  “Yes. It looked to me like she might be considering running the business herself. I did wonder if you knew that she has always had controlling interest in the firm?”

  Jackson raised his eyebrows, and Nate thought for once he’d told the man something he didn’t already know, so he went on. “I couldn’t help but wonder what her alibi was for Friday night.”

  Jackson reared back and chuckled. “Ah. Turning the tables, are you? Jealous wife frames her rival. Do you really think that would be a good defense?”

  Nate’s gaze didn’t waver, and Jackson stopped smiling. He said, “The officer who interviewed her said she was home all evening, confirmed by the servants.”

  Nate didn’t respond, but he thought it might be a very good idea to find out just who these servants were and how loyal they were to their mistress.

  *****

  “I will ask if Mrs. Sullivan will see you. Would you please wait here?” Mrs. Gross, the matron, indicated a wooden chair and then disappeared into the corridor leading down to the women’s cells.

  Nate consulted his watch and noted that it was a little past noon. He wished he’d taken time to eat breakfast this morning because the coffee he’d drunk in Jackson’s office sat sourly on his empty stomach. Probably nerves. He’d never had a client like Mrs. Sullivan, whose very life seemed to be in his hands. He’d served as co-counsel on some manslaughter cases with Cranston, but that was different. He knew Cranston wouldn’t let him do anything to jeopardize a case or a client’s well being. With Florence Sullivan, not only was he on his own, but he didn’t know if
he was handling her the best way. Maybe he should have been checking in on her every day...gotten her trust that way.

  At least he felt pleased with how things had gone with Jackson. He didn’t give anything away, and now he didn’t have to do the leg work to track down the alibis for Rashers’ business rivals. In addition, the questions Jackson asked him about Mrs. Sullivan gave him some hints about the direction the prosecution was going. They were clearly interested in finding evidence that she was upset about Rashers’ decision to go on a long trip with his wife. Her refusal to say anything once she was arrested must have Dart, the district attorney, worried. No lawyer wanted surprises to come out during the trial itself––Nate included––which was why he hoped that she would finally begin to talk to him today. Without having to bully her into it the way he’d done before the arraignment hearing.

  He could tell he was ashamed about this incident because he didn’t tell Annie about it on Friday. He’d tell her eventually; he couldn’t keep secrets from her, but he also didn’t want to spoil their dinner together.

  Time alone with her was precious, and he knew he might not be able to see her at all this coming week as he tried to prepare for the trial. Miss Pinehurst spoiled the rest of the night anyway when she came up to them as they were finishing their dessert and congratulated them on setting the date. Annie felt she had to invite her to the wedding, and this resulted in them spending the rest of the time they had together making lists––not what he’d had in mind.

  His brother Billy would tease him unmercifully if he’d overheard their conversation last night. Nate had been Billy’s best man, and it seemed to him that his brother hadn’t done a thing for his own wedding but show up on time. Annie seemed to feel it was important for them to make decisions together. So while he didn’t really give a hill of beans about who came, he’d gone along, listing those clients that he thought his uncle would say he should invite and friends like the Chronicle reporter, Tim Newsome, and Mitchell, the medical student who lived in his boarding house. When they added everyone up, there were over fifty names, and this seemed to upset Annie. She started to worry about the cost of everything.