Pilfered Promises

by M. Louisa Locke

  As people’s plates began to empty, Tilly was supposed to take the serving dishes down to the kitchen and begin to bring up the desserts, which consisted of mincemeat and pumpkin pies, hand-cranked vanilla ice cream, boiled Indian pudding, pound cake, almond layer cake, cherry preserves, grapes, raisins and nuts. She would put these on the sideboard, until Annie signaled that it was time to remove the dinner plates. Then it would be time for Kathleen to serve the dessert along with tea and coffee, while Tilly would again make the multiple trips up and down the back stairs with the empty dinner dishes.

  And, under Beatrice’s brisk supervision, all would go like clockwork…if Nate would just show up.

  Annie sighed. “You said Biddy will be along soon? It’s so nice of her to offer to help with the washing up…but you make sure she will take some compensation from me.”

  “Oh I will. I know the O’Malleys can use every penny. She’s glad to come help out. Gives her a good excuse to miss the family gathering over at her least favorite aunt’s house. She says the uncles always end up drunk and fighting and the aunts have tiffs over whose pie is best.”

  “And Patrick?”

  “I haven’t seen him since last Thursday…since he started working extra hours for the Silver Strike. But he said he’d try to come by this afternoon. His sergeant has scheduled multiple short shifts for everyone so they get a chance to eat a bit of Thanksgiving dinner. But then he’s off to do a shift at the store.”

  Annie heard a note of censure in Kathleen’s voice. She’d have to ask her what was bothering the young maid. She hoped it wasn’t jealousy over the fact that he was getting to participate in Annie’s investigation while Kathleen was left on the sidelines. She knew how much the young woman had enjoyed the role she’d played last fall when she helped Annie look into the trance medium. Or was it just missing the little bit of time she did get to spend with her beau?

  If so, Annie certainly understood the feeling. Nate had not come home last night until after midnight…and then had gotten up before she was even awake, just leaving her a note promising to be back before one today. She looked across at the clock on the fireplace mantel and saw it was ten to one. She sighed and said to Kathleen, “Best nip downstairs and see if Beatrice has any last orders before you ring the dinner bell. Maybe she has an idea of who I should ask to carve…”

  She whirled around at the sound of the front door latch disengaging. Running down the hallway, she greeted her husband as he came through the door, bringing in the smell of damp air and wood smoke in his wake.

  “I am so sorry, love. I didn’t mean to cut it this close,” he said, shrugging off his coat and hanging it and his top hat on the now very crowded hall stand. “Looks like I made it in time, though.”

  She put her hands to his red cheeks and said, “You look frozen.” Noticing the lightness in his step and smile, she said, “Oh, Nate. You’ve found something to use against O’Grady, haven’t you?”

  “Yes I have. Knudson is going to rue the day he decided to bribe a degenerate like Mrs. Inglenook’s half-brother to besmirch a good woman’s name. But I will tell you all about it later. Do I have time to freshen up?”

  “Yes, Kathleen will ring the bell in about five minutes. But Nate…I have something important I need to ask you.”

  “What?” Nate’s smile disappeared.

  “Can you carve a turkey?”

  “Kathleen, dear, you must tell Mrs. O’Rourke how much we have enjoyed the feast she prepared for us,” Miss Minnie said, delicately blotting her lips with her napkin. “You know, back in Natchez where Miss Millicent and I grew up, celebrating Thanksgiving was a very daring thing to do. Too much a Yankee holiday, you see, with turkeys and Puritans and all. Not at all the thing. But my mother was a devoted reader of Mrs. Hale’s Godey’s Lady’s Book, and Mrs. Hale was very committed to turning the celebration of our country’s founding into a national holiday. My, don’t you remember, Millicent, how Dr. Hodgekiss nearly had apoplexy the year Mother invited him to dinner and expected him to recite the prayer she’d copied out of the magazine? Sputtered on about it being abolitionist claptrap…well, you might imagine that feelings were running high…that was in 1851, wasn’t it? But even on the eve of her death, Mother wouldn’t stand for anyone saying anything negative about our national heritage…too proud of her ancestors who’d fought in the Revolution.”

  Annie looked at the two elderly dressmakers with affection. They were dressed in their best black silks, with their white hair pulled back and up into their white lace caps in a fashion at least thirty years out of date. They were both quite thin and bird-like in their physique, and she worried that some morning Tilly would come running to say they had just collapsed in a heap of bones. Yet their appetites weren’t bird-like at all. Today, Miss Minnie and her sister had tucked away more than their fair share of the enormous amount of food Beatrice had prepared. Personally, Annie didn’t think she could eat again for a week.

  “And Mr. Dawson, I want to thank you for the fine way you carved that noble bird,” Miss Minnie continued. “Such a delicate art. My father was a master, and he taught my older brother to follow in his footsteps. Such a manly skill. But sadly, my younger brother Jasper was never interested in learning. Then no one could have guessed that he would become the head of the family in 1840 when the Great Tornado hit the town. You know, most of those killed were, like my father and older brother, steamboat operators. The funnel just tore right down the Mississippi, flipping… Oh, Millicent, you’re right, not at all the proper conversation for this celebration.” Miss Minnie smiled sadly and took a sip of water.

  “Miss Minnie, thank you for your compliment,” Nate spoke up hastily. “But I’m afraid most of the congratulations should go to Mrs. O’Rourke for the roasting of the bird. The meat practically fell off the bones.”

  Annie smiled warmly at her husband. How sweet he was to step in and rescue Miss Minnie. She suspected most of the guests had tuned her out some time ago, glad to have someone else maintain the conversation as they ate the last bits of their desserts. And he really had done an admirable job of dividing up the massive bird so everyone got at least two slices of their preferences between light and dark. Evidently, like Miss Minnie’s brother, he’d been well instructed by his father in this “manly art.”

  “Mr. Dawson, did you ever hunt wild turkeys?” Jamie piped up.

  “When I was a boy your age, back in Ohio. Quite crafty birds they can be. But I assume this bird was probably raised on one of our California farms. Good thing…since then we didn’t have to worry about getting buckshot mixed up in our stuffing.” Nate smiled warmly at the boy, and Annie thought for the thousandth time what a good father he would be, when…

  “Mr. Dawson, sir,” whispered little Tilly, who’d come up behind Nate as he was speaking. “If you please, you’re needed in the hall. He said to say it were important.”

  Hearing the distress in the girl’s voice, Annie got up and walked swiftly down the table toward Nate, wondering what had possibly happened to require his presence. Something about his divorce case? When she got to the end of the room, she saw Patrick McGee standing in the hallway, turning his helmet around and around in his hands. With a strong sense of deja vu, she followed Nate out of the room, hearing him say, “McGee, what is it? What’s happened?”

  “Oh Mr. Dawson, ma’am. It’s the Silver Strike, sir. That dressmaker, Mrs. Fournier, she’s dead, and I think it might be murder.”

  Chapter 11

  “IS MURDER A CRIME!: The difficulty of Obtaining a Conviction in This State”––San Francisco Chronicle December 23, 1880

  Thursday afternoon, November 25, 1880

  Annie and Nate decided to go on foot with Patrick McGee to the Silver Strike Bazaar because on this holiday afternoon it could take longer to find a cab than walk the four blocks. The streets, not surprisingly, were pretty deserted as they walked down O’Farrell to Mason, then turned north toward Sutter. Most people were probably still sitting at thei
r tables or, at the very least, giving themselves a little time to digest their Thanksgiving turkeys. Annie was glad that this section of Mason wasn’t too steep because she was certainly feeling the effects of eating such a large meal. She devoutly wished Kathleen hadn’t tightened her corset so much this morning, but her blue velvet was getting a bit snug. Beatrice’s campaign to fatten up Nate was clearly having a deleterious effect on her own waistline. She was also feeling over-dressed for the melancholy purpose of their walk.

  “McGee, you are sure that there won’t be any objections to Mrs. Dawson accompanying us?” Nate broke the silence.

  “Livingston said that she didn’t need to come if she thought it would be too upsetting, sir. But once Sergeant Thompson decided the woman’s death was suspicious, it stood to reason there might be some connection to Mrs. Dawson’s investigation.”

  Annie, who was having trouble keeping up with the long strides of the two men, felt for a moment like she couldn’t catch her breath and slowed down, her hands slipping from Nate’s arm.

  Responding immediately, he said, “Annie, darling, are you all right? Perhaps you shouldn’t have come. I didn’t think…”

  “No, I’m fine. It is just hard to walk quickly in this confoundedly tight skirt. You know perfectly well I would have only been upset if you’d told me to stay away.” Annie smiled briefly at her husband. “But I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to contribute. You see, I hadn’t interviewed Mrs. Fournier yet, so I know practically nothing about her.”

  Nate frowned. “I thought you were to meet with her yesterday.”

  “Yes, but she didn’t show. Robbie Livingston was the one who told me she’d asked me to reschedule because she’d been called out of the store for some reason. We were to meet tomorrow.”

  “And now she’s dead,” said Patrick.

  “Exactly,” Annie replied. “And if she’s been murdered…”

  Nate took her hand and tucked it back into the crook of his arm, saying, “Sergeant Thompson only said the death was ‘suspicious,’ so we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions. Let’s wait to learn all the details first. McGee, tell us what you know so far.”

  As the three of them resumed walking up Mason, Patrick consulted his black notebook, impressing Annie with his earnest attention to detail. She hoped he would move up the police ranks quickly.

  Patrick cleared his throat and said, “Mrs. Fournier’s body was found on the stairway landing between the fifth and fourth floors at approximately 9:30 this morning. According to Mr. Villeneuve, when he and his wife went down those stairs about three hours earlier there was no sign of the woman’s body.”

  “So can we assume that she fell sometime between six-thirty and nine-thirty?” Nate asked.

  “Yes. Evidently, Mrs. Villeneuve was going to early Mass and then helping decorate the church for the evening services so she didn’t return until well after ten. Her husband went right down to the basement to wait for some expected deliveries. Miss Birdsoll, who is the other person with an apartment on the fifth floor, said that she hadn’t been on the stairs since the night before when she came up to her apartment around ten. And while I don’t know for sure exactly what killed Mrs. Fournier…it was pretty obvious she suffered terrible injuries. Question is, was it an accident or not?”

  “Did Miss Birdsoll find the body?” Annie asked, feeling distressed for the older woman.

  “No, a young girl named Emmaline did. But she immediately went and got Miss Birdsoll, who took the little girl down with her to her office, where she telephoned Mr. Livingston.”

  “Telephoned?” Nate sounded surprised.

  Annie, temporarily distracted by the news that the young girl she’d met yesterday was the one to discover Mrs. Fournier’s body, said, after a moment, “Yes, Nate. Mr. Livingston paid to be hooked up to the American Speaking Telephone exchange. There is an instrument on the walls in both Livingston’s and Miss Birdsoll’s offices, and she said there is one up in the Villeneuve’s apartment on the fifth floor and one down in receiving in the basement.”

  Miss Birdsoll told Annie that many of the largest wholesale and manufacturing firms recently paid to have lines put in. She said that the telephone made her job of placing and checking on orders much easier. It also permitted Livingston to keep involved in the day-to-day operations of his store without being physically present all the time because he’d had a line put into his personal residence.

  Since Nate had been encouraging his uncle to pay to get a line strung to their law offices, Annie expected that this bit of information was going to be used by him the next time the subject came up. She wasn’t so sure how happy she was with the idea. Especially if it meant her husband spent even longer hours at the office. And what would happen to all the telegraph operators and messenger’s jobs that the telephone might replace?

  They came to the corner of Sutter and Mason just as a cable car rumbled by, jammed with people, many who waved merrily as they passed. Annie suspected that full stomachs and a good deal of holiday wine and spirits were responsible for the general air of good cheer.

  Now, only a block from their destination, Patrick sped up his report. “Mr. Livingston instructed Miss Birdsoll to locate me, since I was working for the store this morning, and ask me to stay with the body until he got there. I was in the basement at the time, so it didn’t take but a moment for her to reach me on the internal telephone line. Nevertheless, it was already ten when I arrived on the stair landing with the body. Soon after I got there, Mr. Villeneuve, who’d heard the news from Miss Birdsoll, showed up, and I requested that he use his master key to lock all the doors that led to the stairs and instruct everyone else to stay away.”

  “Good thinking,” Nate said. “Although I suppose it was a bit like closing the barn door after the horse has already escaped.”

  “Yes. No telling who’d been up the stairs or messing with the body between the time Miss Birdsoll went down to her office and I got there.”

  “What time did Livingston arrive at the store?” Nate asked.

  “At ten-thirty. Quite distressed the old gentleman was. But he pulled himself together quickly and called the police station, asking that Detective Chief Jackson be informed. The chief sent Sergeant Thompson to the Silver Strike with a number of constables, who immediately secured the building’s exits. This was about eleven. And Thompson, after looking at the body, agreed with me that there were signs that there might have been foul play. He sent for the morgue wagon and called Dr. Blach, who is acting coroner today. We will know more once he’s done his autopsy.”

  Nate said, “Poor Blach. I don’t know if you remember, Annie, he was acting coroner on July 4th as well. He must be a bachelor with no family demanding his presence. I hope he gets double pay.”

  Annie wondered why Patrick and his sergeant thought that Mrs. Fournier’s death might not be accidental, remembering the dim light on the stairwell up to the fifth floor, but she decided not to ask at this point. The poor boy had a hard enough time saying no to Kathleen when she wanted him to spill every detail about a case he was working on. Instead, she said, “What’s Thompson been doing in the hours between his arrival at the store and when he sent you to find us?”

  “He began interviewing everyone who was working in the building this morning. Used Miss Birdsoll’s office and asked me to take notes. Mostly, I took down names and addresses. Thompson didn’t have the heart to make the staff stay when most of them had Thanksgiving dinners waiting for them. Livingston then asked if he could send me to fetch you. It was nearly three by then.”

  Annie, who knew that the Silver Strike was supposed to be closed Thanksgiving day, thought it was odd that there had been any employees at the store at all. Before she could ask Patrick about this, they arrived at the corner of Sutter and Powell, the Silver Strike Bazaar looking somber against the gray clouds that had hunkered down against the city’s hills.

  Nate said quietly, “Poor Mr. Livingston. What a terrible way to usher in the Chris
tmas holiday season.”

  “Come in, come in. Terrible business. Hated to interrupt your Thanksgiving. Good of you to come so quickly.” Robert Livingston ushered Nate and his wife into his office, where Chief Jackson stood quietly conversing with Sergeant Thompson and Monsieur Villeneuve.

  “Mrs. Dawson, good to see you again, although I was hoping that the next time we met it would be for purely social reasons.” Chief Jackson bowed courteously to Nate’s wife, his tone a polished blend of informal friendliness followed by that sharp reminder that he was in charge of what was shaping up to be a murder investigation.

  “I had hoped so, as well,” Annie replied. “When I agreed to look at the store’s financial records, I certainly didn’t expect to find anything more tragic than an employee engaged in some petty pilferage.”

  Annie then went over and took Livingston’s hand, saying, “I want to give you my sincerest condolences. I know you view this store and its employees as your family. And whatever caused Mrs. Fournier’s death, this must be a sore loss for you.”

  Nate thought how kind it was of Annie to honor Livingston’s feelings. She always knew the right thing to say, which was one of the reasons he’d not tried to get her to stay behind at the boarding house. He’d learned early on in their relationship the importance of respecting her right to act independently. It was just that he didn’t always know how to do that and still fulfill his responsibilities as her husband. Seemed today he got it right.

  “Robert, if you don’t mind, I do think I need to get downstairs to the basement and oversee any late deliveries,” said Villeneuve as he moved toward the door.