Calico Spy

by Margaret Brownley

  Miles McPherson rose from his desk as Branch entered his office. A portly man with face-hugging sideburns, he made a funny hissing sound when he breathed.

  As they shook hands, McPherson indicated a chair with a nod of his head. “Have a seat.” He waited for Branch to sit before lowering his bulky body behind his desk again.

  “Glad you stopped by. Gives me a chance to thank you for your speedy action in nabbing that bank robber. Heard all about it.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Branch said. “You should be thanking Miss Madison.”

  “Miss Madison? Oh, you mean the waitress?”

  “Harvey girl,” Branch said. “She’s the one who stopped the man.” Her pie-in-the-face method was unconventional, but it did the trick. “I just happened to arrive in time to finish the job.”

  The bank president waved his protests away. “You’re far too modest.” He opened a wooden box and picked out a cigar. “I’d offer you one, but I know you don’t smoke. What a shame. Harvey stocks only the best. All the way from Cuba.” He lowered the lid of the box. “So tell me about this latest robber.”

  “Not much to tell. All I can say is that he won’t be causing you any more trouble.”

  McPherson shook his head. “I’m telling you, these bank robbers are getting more brazen every year. Ever since we changed over to a tamper-proof vault, the thieves simply walk up to the tellers and demand money like it’s their God-given right.” He rolled his cigar in his finger and sniffed. “I don’t know what the world is coming to.”

  Branch nodded. “Crime fighting is like trying to stop a sinking ship. No sooner do you plug up one hole than another one springs up.”

  McPherson clipped off the end of his cigar. “Any suspects in the killings?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Hmm. Nasty business, that.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  The banker stuck the cigar in his mouth and lit it with a match, rotating the tip into the flame. “So what brings you here today?”

  “Mrs. Bracegirdle.”

  Grimacing, the banker shook the match until the flame went out. “Not her again. What is it this time? Tommy knockers?”

  “Not exactly. She claims she hears noises coming from the bank at night. They keep her awake.”

  McPherson removed his cigar from his mouth and blew out a ring of gray smoke. “There’s no one here at night.”

  “No one working late?”

  “Nope. The bank’s locked up tighter than a spinster’s virtue.”

  “What about the upstairs apartment? Who lives up there now?”

  “Nobody. I rented it out to a young couple a few weeks ago. They changed their mind before they even got the furniture moved in. Claimed the place was haunted.”

  “Haunted, huh? Mind if I have a look?”

  “Don’t mind at all, but you’re wasting your time. You won’t find anything there.”

  “Regardless, I’m obliged to check out all complaints.”

  McPherson opened a drawer and tossed a brass key across the desk. “Return it when you’re done.”

  The only way to reach the upstairs apartment was from the outside stairwell. Branch took the stairs two at a time. He paused in front of Mrs. Bracegirdle’s door before turning to the empty apartment next to hers and inserting the key in the lock.

  A stale, musty smell greeted him as he walked into the dwelling. Translucent cloth window shades were half-drawn, and sun filtered through the grimy windowpanes.

  The place was empty except for a rumpled carpet on the parlor floor and a lantern on the kitchen counter next to a box of matches. He checked all the cabinets and drawers and found only mouse droppings and a thin layer of dust. The kitchen sink contained a single tin cup.

  A banging from the direction of the bedroom alerted him, and he spun around. He checked the room and again found nothing. He turned to leave, but a thud from the window stopped him in his tracks.

  He moved across the room, unlocked the window, and threw open the sash. Sticking his head outside, he immediately spotted the problem. One of the shutters had worked loose. The wooden flap creaked and rattled and slapped the building with every gust of wind.

  He leaned over the sill and drew the shutters in place, hooking the latch.

  Satisfied that at least one problem had been solved, he locked the apartment and tapped on Mrs. Bracegirdle’s door to tell her the news.

  A bloodcurdling scream snapped Katie out of a sound sleep. Instantly alert, she grabbed her gun from under the pillow and jumped out of bed. Racing across the room on bare feet, she reached the door before Mary-Lou.

  The dorm matron rushed out of her room at the end of the hall, her flimsy white nightgown trailing behind her like the wings of an enormous moth. “Who screamed?”

  “I think it came from Tully’s room,” Katie called over her shoulder. The pantry girl, Cissy, opened her door and stuck out her head. Seeing Katie and the others advance toward her, she quickly pulled back and slammed the door shut. The girl was as skittish as a newborn colt.

  Katie burst through Tully’s bedroom door without knocking. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  Miss Thatcher and Mary-Lou crowded in the doorway behind her.

  A match flared in the dark, and the lamp lit up. “It’s just Tully,” Abigail said. She blew out the match. “She had a bad dream.”

  All eyes turned to the bed against the far wall where Tully sat looking pale and disoriented.

  Lacking a pocket, Katie hid her gun in the cotton folds of her nightgown.

  “Is that all?” Miss Thatcher said, looking both annoyed and relieved. “You practically scared us to death. We thought—”

  Katie waited for her to finish. The dorm matron looked different tonight with her dark hair flowing down her back. Sleep had wiped away years of bitterness normally engraved on her face, leaving behind a glimpse of the young and carefree girl she once was.

  Miss Thatcher gave her head a good shake as if to remind herself of her duties. “Go back to bed, all of you.” With that she turned and stomped from the room.

  Mary-Lou lowered herself onto the edge of Tully’s mattress. “Are you all right?”

  Tully blew her nose in a handkerchief. “I think so.”

  Tonight, her dark hair fell to her shoulders making her look younger than her twenty-two years. She glanced in turn at each of them. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you all. It’s just… I keep seeing Ginger. It’s like she’s trying to tell me something.” Without her usual cynical countenance, Tully looked surprisingly vulnerable.

  Katie moved closer to the bed. “Maybe we should talk about it.” The women had been reluctant to say much about either Ginger or Priscilla except on general terms.

  “I don’t think we should,” Abigail said, rubbing her naked ring finger. “I mean—” She looked at each of them in turn. “I’m afraid that talking might make things worse. Sometimes it’s best not to think of sad things.”

  “I disagree,” Katie said. “I think talking helps.”

  “Maybe she’s right,” Mary-Lou said, though she sounded dubious.

  Tully frowned. “What’s there to talk about? I had a bad dream. Haven’t you ever had a nightmare?”

  Katie nodded. “Yes, and I found it really does help to talk.” When no more protests were voiced, she continued. “What do you most remember about the first girl who died?” If she could just get them talking about Priscilla, she might learn something of value. Sometimes people knew more than they realized.

  Tully was the first to speak. “Priscilla played the piano.” She spoke slowly as if each word was an effort. “But she had to sell her piano to help pay her father’s debts. She was saving her money to purchase another one. The night she was killed…”

  “Go on,” Katie said gently.

  Tully inhaled and cleared her throat. “One of our customers was entertaining out-of-town guests and asked Priscilla to play for them. After curfew, I snuck downstairs and unlocked the
dining room door so she could get in, but she never came home.” Tully dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. “I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to tell anyone she was missing for fear of getting her in trouble.”

  Tully’s voice faded away, and Mary-Lou continued in her soft Southern lilt. “They found her body the next morning out front by the railroad tracks.”

  Katie listened intently, but neither Tully nor Mary-Lou told her anything that wasn’t already in the Pinkerton file.

  The conversation had a sobering effect on the four of them and a long silence followed.

  “We’re never going to know who killed her,” Tully said at last. “Ginger, either.”

  “Yes, we will,” Katie said with more confidence than she felt. The other three girls looked at her all funny-like, and she quickly added, “The sheriff is doing everything he can.”

  Tully made a face. “He hasn’t done anything yet.”

  “And probably won’t,” Abigail added.

  “Why do you say that?” Katie asked. She and the sheriff didn’t always see eye to eye, but he seemed to take his job seriously and she had no reason to doubt his intent.

  Abigail folded her arms across her middle and tossed her head. “Years ago in St. Louis, a good-time gal was found strangled. And you know what? They never found who did it. Far as I could tell no one even bothered looking. No one cared what happened to the likes of her. A man can do anything he wants to a woman and no one gives a fig!”

  With a slight gasp she covered her mouth with her hand as if she’d given away too much. Katie felt sorry for her. Abigail had left an unhappy marriage, but the fear, and maybe even the guilt remained, and that was taking a toll.

  Mary-Lou was the first to break the awkward silence that followed Abigail’s outburst. “This isn’t the same,” she said gently. “We’re not one of those… women.”

  “There’re those in town who think we are,” Abigail argued. “You know yourself how we’ve been shunned from certain social activities. We even get strange looks in church.” A note of bitterness crept into her voice.

  Katie glanced at her roommate. “Is that true?”

  “I’m afraid it is,” Mary-Lou said. “But they’re wrong. We’re good girls. Mr. Harvey would never hire anyone who wasn’t.”

  Tully threw up her hands. “I just wish we had time to do all the things we’re accused of doing.”

  Abigail gave her a playful punch in the arm. “No you don’t.”

  Mary-Lou shrugged. “My mother said that the only people who live on the second floor are soiled doves. If she knew that’s where I lived, she’d turn over in her grave.”

  Abigail laughed. “Does that mean that old lady Bracegirdle is a prostitute?”

  “And what about Reverend Bushwell?” Tully asked.

  The four of them burst out laughing, and the tension left the room. They chatted more, a lot more. Mary-Lou talked about living in Georgia. Tully opened up about her bitter childhood.

  “My mother couldn’t take care of me, so she gave me away to a New York foundling home. I was only eight when I was shipped to Kansas City on an orphan train. They dressed us up with silly ruffles and bows and made us sing so we would look more appealing.”

  Mary-Lou frowned. “Oh, Tully, that’s awful. Were you adopted?”

  “Yes, but the woman didn’t like my New York accent.” She shrugged in her usual sardonic way. “So she whipped me and made me sleep in the barn with the animals.”

  Abigail’s eyes widened in horror. “Didn’t you tell anyone?”

  “What? And get whipped again?” Tully laughed, but this time her laughter rang hollow.

  Katie leaned across the bed and squeezed her hand. “I’m so sorry.”

  A look of surprise crossed Tully’s face but only for the instant it took for the usual devil-may-care mask to fall in place. But Katie had seen the hurt, and she knew.

  Tully withdrew her hand. “Now it’s your turn.”

  Katie frowned. “What?”

  “You know all about us, but we know nothing about you,” Tully said. “What’s your story?”

  Katie had a story all right—a simple one about growing up on a Wisconsin cheese farm. Not one word of it was true, of course, but part of a carefully designed disguise.

  While the others were open and honest with her, she couldn’t return the favor. She hated lying, but the truth could jeopardize her investigation and maybe even put her life in danger. It was a reality she’d more or less learned to live with through the years, though not without guilt.

  Still, she couldn’t bring herself to lie to Tully and the others. Not tonight. Not after Tully had bared heart and soul to the small group.

  “Another time.” Yawning, Katie stood and stretched. “Right now we need to go back to bed. Morning will be here before we know it.”

  Chapter 18

  During her afternoon break, Katie left the restaurant and walked the three blocks to the office of the Calico Gazette. Though the wind had stopped two days prior, a slight breeze kept dust in the air, and the sun looked like a big copper button that had popped off someone’s coat.

  The editor looked up from his desk and gazed at her from beneath his green celluloid visor. He was a short man with a stubby mustache and ink-stained hands. A small sign on his desk read MR. CLOVIS READ.

  Katie introduced herself as the new Harvey House employee. “Would it be all right if I go through the back issues of the paper?” she asked. Most big-city newspapers kept back issues on hand, and she hoped the same was true for this town.

  “It’s about time someone did,” he said, rising. “Been keeping files for years, and you’re the first to ask to see them. Any special month or year?”

  “Not really.” She didn’t want to reveal her real interest in looking through old newspapers. “Since I’m new, I thought it would be a good way to get to know the town better.”

  “You came to the right place. Won’t find better information anywhere than what you’ll find here. That’s because I won’t print anything that’s not accurate.” Barely taking a breath, he continued.

  “Got one of those fancy writing machines for the office, and you know what happened? Made my reporters too wordy. Would you believe that one reporter turned in five column inches just to describe a dogfight? Now I ask you—who wants to muddle through a block that size to read such nonsense? The entire story of the creation can fit on a single front page. Anything short of that needs only two or three inches. Four, at the most.”

  The man kept up a constant stream of chatter as he led her to the back room. How such a talkative man could confine his written narrative to mere inches was a puzzle.

  He waved his hand at the oak file cabinet. “These are all the newspapers for the last five years. If you want to go back any further, you can look in the second drawer there. That includes papers that go all the way back to the great tornado of ’72.” He gave his head a rueful shake. “That one took eleven column inches to report, but that was before my time.”

  “I heard something about that,” she said. “It must have been awful.”

  “Yes, it was. It’s almost the eight-year anniversary, and I’m planning a special commemorative issue. It’s part of the town’s history.” He pulled out the top drawer of a wooden cabinet. “You probably should skip the articles about the Harvey girl killings. No sense getting yourself all worked up.”

  Resisting the urge to inquire as to how many inches Ginger and Priscilla had commanded, she asked, “Do you think they’ll ever solve the murders?”

  “Beats me.” He shook his head. “But I’ll tell you somethin’. Putting a bunch of pretty girls under the same roof is just askin’ for trouble.”

  “I imagine a man of your intelligence would have an idea or two as to who the killer might be,” she said. Flattery—deserved or otherwise—was often a detective’s best tool for encouraging confidential information.

  “If you ask me, it’s that French chef.”

&
nbsp; “Gassy? Uh… I mean Gassée?”

  “That’s the one. I heard him yelling at that girl Ginger the day before she died.”

  “The chef yells at everyone.”

  “Yeah, but not everyone is found dead the next day.”

  He had a point there. She glanced at the cabinet, and taking the hint, he backed away.

  “If you need me, I’ll be at my desk,” he said.

  “Thank you.” After he left, she began flipping through newspapers, stopping now and again to read a headline or peruse an article.

  The editor was right about one thing: the Calico Gazette wasn’t much for verbiage. The death of both Harvey girls totaled no more than five column inches. The information was accurate but offered nothing in the way of new information.

  Another dead end.

  As much as she wanted to solve the case, Katie wasn’t anxious to end her stay at the Harvey House. A hotel was the closest she’d ever been to living under the same roof as a suspect, but it wasn’t just the convenience that such an arrangement offered. Not since her sisters married and left home had she lived in such close proximity with other women.

  Since the Harvey girls shared so many of the same day-to-day experiences, she couldn’t help but get involved in their lives. Whispering with Abigail, Mary-Lou, and even Tully behind Pickens’s and even Miss Thatcher’s backs was a temptation too delicious to pass up.

  “Did you see that woman sneak the food left over at her table into her bag?”

  “And what about that cute peddler who couldn’t take his eyes off Mary-Lou?”

  Though she engaged in girlish chatter, she remained constantly on guard, and this took an emotional toll on her.

  Sometimes she lay awake at night and wondered how it was possible to be surrounded by so many people and feel so completely and utterly lonely.

  Today, as the four of them stood ironing aprons, Tully told them about a man who popped the question. She made a face. “Can you imagine me marrying a traveling salesman?”