Ghosts in the Gulch: An Evergreen Cemetery Mystery (Evergreen Cemetery Mysteries Book 1)

by S. L. Hawke

  “McKenna has gone.” Here I had to step carefully. “I’m afraid you can no longer play the part of Juan.” I took a breath then said, “As for being ‘bait’, that simply cannot be allowed.” There, I had said it so that it was plain I, and the authority I represented, no longer wanted her to play such a dangerous game.

  “Your sister insisted I spend time with you.” She sounded, well, odd. Like a woman who had thought about this moment often. How could she read me so well? She took a breath and turned towards me. “As for finding the ‘Whore Killer’,” here she watched my response to her using such a vulgar word, “let’s just say you need me to help you find him. Or her. What makes you so certain it is a man?”

  To say my breath had stopped would be an understatement. My eyes narrowed, but only to hide my expression of surprise, delight too, at her intellect.

  “An assumption, but yes, someone else could be the killer.”

  “I do not know how you are going to accomplish this. Your role with the Knights is vital.”

  I stepped back. How did she know? How did she not know? She was, I was beginning to see, my sisters’ confidante. As if sensing my surprise she smiled, making all right in my heated brain. “Forgive me, I did not mean to interfere in men’s espionage. You simply surprised me with your—” here she paused with a penetrating keen look in her eye, “modernity.”

  As she looked away, the light of the candles hanging from glass vessels in the tree limbs reflected in her face. The color of her skin was like café au lait. Her eyes, lava-lit, encircled with lush black lashes, made me unable to think. There was only one thing to do.

  My right hand wrapped around her tiny corseted waist and pulled her upward, grabbing her mouth, devouring her taste like a starving man. Both my arms held her tightly. I didn’t care how deeply my tongue went into her mouth, how she parted her mouth to receive me, how I lifted her off the ground. I felt her fingers on my head, her arms around my neck and then we reluctantly released each other. Emma as well as I was breathing quickly. She moved further away, but then reached out and put her fingertips on my vest buttons. I was about to take her into my arms again until she stopped me with one hand.

  “What of your son?” Emma watched my face. “Please tell me you did not abandon him.” She turned away and looked again at the view. The fog from the ocean had begun to cover the lower valley. “Do you miss him?”

  Stunned by this question, for a moment I could say nothing. Then with a deep breath I began. “Very much. There is not an hour that goes by that I do not think of him.”

  “That day we went to the cemetery I wanted to,” she tried to prevent tears from arising with sharp movements of her gloved hands, clenching and unclenching, “I wanted to see my son. I…had a son…He would have been three years old.” Emma’s tears came now, singular and full. They slid down her cheeks, glistening like small diamonds.

  I could not imagine what had happened the night her ranch had burned, the night her husband may not have been the only one to have been murdered.

  “Little John died from measles,” Emma said, as if reading my thoughts. “I miss them all so much.” Her chin fell to her chest. For my comfort more than hers I reached for her again. I could not imagine losing my son.

  The full story could only come from her. Would she tell me? A stillness descended and a simple yet radiant sadness, like the rainbow after a devastating storm, appeared in her visage. She was a survivor.

  “Hiru is safe with Andrew’s mother. We exchanged sons, so to speak, but I failed to keep her son safe.” I simply spoke: “This place is not safe. Not for him, nor for you.” I moved her a small distance from me. “I can’t allow you to do what we had agreed to do.”

  “Whoever is killing the girls must be stopped,” Emma said with sudden vehemence. “Surely your Marshal assistant, Andrew Sweeney, can make the arrest. You do not need to oversee this.”

  “I need to protect you.” A growl found its way into my speech.

  “I have guard. You must let me try to find this murderer and you must help me connect this to the thieves.”

  “You are certain that they are connected? How?”

  “Each girl was pregnant. Each girl had been with Supervisor Towne.”

  “And others. Have you thought perhaps someone may be trying to manipulate him?” Here Emma narrowed her eyes at me. Then she again looked side to side, thinking carefully.

  “If that is true, A. J., then whoever is doing this is very, very careful and a dangerous person.”

  “Who also has much to lose,” I added, not that she was incapable of thinking this, but I was beginning to wonder about this pattern. “When did this all start?”

  “As long as I have been living here as a married woman,” Emma answered. We were suddenly interrupted by a servant who placed champagne by our sides on a table. I took the crystal flutes and gave her one. We both absently touched their rims together as if we had done this all our lives, together.

  I drank. “So it is someone local,” I murmured.

  We both drank in silence.

  “Cynthia and I can talk one of the girls into making the walk to the cemetery. They go at dusk. Many of the bodies were never found until the next morning. There could have been many more.” This last part she said in a whisper.

  “I can’t let you.” Again I reached for her. Emma looked up at me at this point, hands on my vest.

  “These times demand things of us we sometimes cannot imagine,” she whispered. “We survive the ravages we thought were meant for others as if we are exempt from the horrors of violence, war, and death. There is no running away from that no matter who you are.” She turned away now and looked into the trees, and then to the stars that twinkled above. An artist would call this moment inspirational, as her dress also glittered. I didn’t expect this from her. “We will not be alone. My guard, and your Marshal, will assist. If you are with the others, then we know that they did not commit the crime directly.”

  “But you are certain that they are connected in some way.” My champagne glass found its way to the edge of the garden wall.

  “It would be knowledge in our favor either way.” Emma put hers back on the table.

  This statement could not have been truer.

  Emma could have hidden away, maintained herself within her social status. But she chose to hide differently, ferret out secrets, and help the whores, the poor, the Asians. Emma turned away from a life of silks, wine, song, and status to run with the wolves. Compassion for those who couldn’t care enough about themselves was her mission it seemed, as was the rescue of those who could not rescue themselves. I straightened in surprise, then caught my Asian habit, but with some pride I relaxed, something I hadn’t felt in a while.

  Her hand found the buttons of my vest again. I ached in a way for her I had never felt for any woman, not even Miles. Emma and I looked at each other.

  “You are very much…like…samurai.” Her accent was perfect. I took her hand, resisting the urge to pull off the glove and feel her skin. She accepted this ‘eastern’ side of me. Perhaps that was why we understood one another so well. The western side of ourselves would always dictate our mistakes, our passions, perhaps the two being one and the same. In the end, however, the perfect blend of both would keep us alive. That was my mission now, I came to see. Keeping all of us alive.

  “Marshal Andrew needs to prove himself.” Emma smiled, like in a painting.

  “Really?”

  Here she looked into my eyes, searching for deception, that much I could feel, but as I returned her study, I could not hide any longer.

  “I would have you near me every day,” she sighed. “That is what being Juan allows me to do.” Then to my dismay, she pulled away. “But I cannot be selfish. Cynthia and Sophia have suffered a lot to help us get the information to you. I’m going to help you, A.J. Indeed, there is no other way or I would have found it.” Emma gestured towards the door to the cave. “We should join the party — it’s getting c
old out here.”

  “I would have you safe.” My hand took hers and held it. I kissed her again on the side of the face, following the line of her cheek bone.

  She then looked down, a gesture that made her lovely. “I will send word on Sunday. If you are here, then join us. We will proceed with or without you.”

  Any man would fall in love with a woman as beautiful and brave as my, and I truly felt this, my Emma. I sympathized for McKenna. To taste Emma’s lips and to have no more would drive any red-blooded man insane.

  “Cynthia said you could help us with the cause, with finding out more about the corrupt in town. I worry for Beth. There is so much rumor about John, her husband, especially if it turns out that he may have also murdered.”

  “Cynthia would have this man hung. But he knows the Governor. He knows the Mayor, and he knows many who could make life impossible here in California.”

  Suddenly Emma looked stricken. “Could Cynthia be hurt in some way? Is she in danger?” As if reading my thoughts, she frowned.

  “Jonathan has dealings with the Masons, who control much of the money in town. He seems confident that they are safe.”

  “It will not take them long to make a connection between her charitable help and the information the Marshals have.” Emma hugged my coat to herself.

  “Not all men have the modern idea that women can outsmart them. I’m counting on that, though, Your Highness, I am ashamed to admit such a belief, that women have no intelligence.” I removed my jacket from Emma’s shoulders and gestured for a servant to bring her a shawl. “She has been our primary source of information before any of this was in play.” There was no good way to put this. “She used to help my father transport slaves to freedom.”

  Emma closed her eyes. She nodded. “She doesn’t know what to expect from you, does she? She knows Andrew is young, but not you, and you suspect Beth or Beth’s former husband may have been more involved than you think. Or, that Uriah will betray us all as one of the Knights of the Golden Circle.”

  Now it was my turn to show sadness. Emma smiled at me. “Sophia and Henry know much about opium dens and their suppliers.”

  Now this was news to me. Henry was a Mason. They were pro Union. How did the Masons know what the Opium Lords were up to? “How could you not know?”

  I had no answer. “I would appreciate the details.”

  “Henry fixes their meeting place. Sometimes he stays and listens in. When he can’t he pays one of the hotel’s Chinese servants to listen.” Here Emma smiled. “They think he’s just being a kind white man.”

  No wonder Lam wanted to work for Sophia and Henry.

  “Henry helped to build the tunnels. That’s how they were able to navigate and spy on those that use the poppy.” Emma nodded with a slight smile at my turtlish mind. “Not all Chinese are friends with the Union. The Opium Labor Lords control much of the community. They were using Confederate privateers to get opium through the blockade.”

  There was a darker agenda here, one that preyed on weakness. For a moment I wondered if the future held one of people being controlled by their need to take medicine, doing any and everything to ensure their supply. The power such dealers of drugs could have over people, over towns, over governments…

  “What do you want from all of this, Emma?”

  “We must find justice in helping those around us or we are truly lost.”

  So deep was this in my mind. Oddly, a piece somewhere fell into that gaping hole I had grown so used to. The intensity of the feeling made me reach out for her. She completed me. I had forgotten what it was like. Closing the distance fast, my mouth and my body simply followed by pulling Emma again tightly to me.

  She gasped and groaned, but clenched me to her as well. My mouth silenced her. Small hands and thin arms embraced me in return and my body found the curve of hers.

  She tasted of salt and sweet. The feel of her body against me became molten. I would not stop the next time she was with me, in pants, in easily removable clothing.

  A woman’s cough interrupted us. Emma immediately pulled back. Her wig was slightly askew. I turned to face the Duchess. She studied us with an expression of both humor and reproach.

  “I can see that I chose someone who took his job a bit too seriously. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, Mr. Sloan, I would like the pleasure of your erect company to escort me to table.” Then the Duchess gave her niece a very stern look.

  “My dear, may I remind you that this is your debut into society as a single woman again. You must at least appear so until the party is over.” The Duchess lifted her chin a bit but I saw her sidelong glance at me. “Perhaps you should freshen up before Virofsky escorts you to table.” The Duchess gave me one of her imperial nods. My elbow popped out to the side as if on command. I nodded to Emma, my look telling her, I hope, that I would not leave her side for the rest of the evening.

  But as always, it was never up to me.

  6

  Volant Winery Gardens

  Sally’s trap had broken an axle, forcing her to beg a ride from a friend of John’s, a Knight in the Lodge. In exchange, she found herself being slobbered upon and begged a quick refreshment from the servants at the main gate.

  A quick wash and rinse of her mouth, a chew and swallow of mint leaves and an old apple, a touch of blackberry juice on her lips, blended with olive oil, allowed her to enter the winery with some dignity on the arm of her savior who gratefully collapsed at the bar and remained there, happily refilling his glass with wine.

  Sally drank in the atmosphere with envy. Why hadn’t John mined for gold? We could be here, she thought, not these crude folk.

  Walter Singleton looked like a beaver with a hair loss condition, but his wife was a ‘reformed’ harlot. Sally decided (despite John’s attack on Mrs. Singleton two years ago in the brothel) that warmth rather than aloofness would sit with her hosts much more evenly than the idea that despite money, the Singletons were still not part of Santa Cruz Society.

  Tonight, however, Sally needed to find A.J. Sloan. It was imperative that she win him over so that he could be their eyes and ears inside this ‘kingdom’. (To lay with a man who might please her and be pleasant afterwards would be nice, but that was for much, much later…) Sally circled the room discretely.

  Then she saw him. Sloan’s manner, cleanliness, and tall physique intrigued her to the point of distraction. After the brief affair with Mr. McKenna, Sally needed Sloan. Tom she loved, but a woman could have a different man for each need, and a rich one like Mr. Sloan, who obviously valued connections as well, would be the perfect match.

  Her Royal Highness Emma Leonovna was engaged in flirting with someone Sally did not recognize as being a friend of her brother. With relief A.J. was to be found guiding the Duchess to table. Sally expertly latched onto a single man and seated herself among the crowd. But A.J. left the meal after all were seated.

  At first Sally was mystified as to this and found an excuse to leave the table. She did, and as quickly as her hoop skirt could carry her down the passageways of the cave, she came upon Mr. Sloan directing the Chinese servants to light the courtyard candles and prepare for the guests’ after dinner entertainments.

  “Why Mr. Sloan! I didn’t quite imagine you as a valet.”

  Sloan turned suddenly and did an admirable job recovering from his shock at seeing her so soon. Good, Sally thought, I am on his mind. He left the servants to their task and came towards her. She tried to greet him with a kiss, but he pulled away as if he understood her intentions.

  So, that is how it is to be with you? Seduction??? Sally smiled and took his hand suddenly. He let go immediately but she was deft and felt his groin. It was not loose, but tense.

  “Miss Towne. Please.” Sloan moved away.

  “I am not shy, and neither are you.”

  “Out of respect for your brother and my sister-in-law!” he said curtly and called up a guard. “I am also spoken for. And have been for quite some time.” Sloan gestured for th
e guard to take Sally back to the dining room.

  Sally was used to rejection, but this was far worse. She looked into the dark green eyes of Sloan. They were distant, cold, and uninterested.

  Most rejections she had experienced were done out of fear. But the men always wanted her, needed her, despite shame, fear, and impotence. Almost nothing kept them from being with her. She almost always got what she wanted, or needed. If they didn’t comply, John would take care of their lack of respect for her. Sally knew John would not have any problems with hurting Beth’s brother.

  General laughter of the party invaded the patio. Sloan’s attention went to Her Highness, the beautiful, small, exotic woman in the French silk dress. Sally saw Sloan’s body straighten and his attention and face light up when the princess came over to him. He scowled at the man who escorted her and took her from this same man, who bowed grudgingly. The tender way Sloan cradled the woman’s small hand and the possessive placement of her hand upon his own arm made Sally feel intense and utter hatred for the woman.

  Sally knew sometimes women could be seduced by feigning friendship, something Sally did well. This had brought John his current wife. Sally simply cultivated her commiseration on their shared isolation and sadness. But this princess was very different. They could never have social contact beyond an introduction. When she looked at Sally, she could see right into Sally’s mind, something that disturbed and frightened her. John later told her that savages are like that, they can read minds. Sally felt Her Highness was simply too powerful to control.

  Sally watched Sloan seat Her Highness upon a wing chair bearing the crest of the Sandwich Islands and then take his place behind her. His very confidence, his very charm, made Sally wonder if Sloan was really what he appeared to be.

  Next time, Mr. Sloan, you will tell me all you know. And if you don’t your sister Beth will. Either way, you will be mine.

  *******