No Pity For the Dead

by Nancy Herriman

  “Who’s he?”

  “A man I used to know very well,” Nick said, massaging his old battle wound. “I haven’t seen Frank since I returned to San Francisco after the war, but I doubt he’s changed.”

  “Sir, should you be investigating a crime that involves a friend of yours?”

  “He’s not a friend.” Not anymore. “And I’ll be impartial, Taylor. Don’t worry.”

  Which was a whopper of a lie. Because Nick hadn’t any doubt he’d be happy to prove that bastard Frank Hutchinson had been mixed up in murder.

  “I’ll see you in the morning, Taylor,” said Nick, going inside the building. The beat cop had gone to do his poking around someplace else, taking the lantern he’d been using with him and leaving the room in shadows. Nick hunted around for matches and had just lit a kerosene lamp on one of the desks when Dr. Harris came up from the cellar.

  “There you are, Greaves,” he said, wiping his hands on the dark cloth he carried everywhere with him.

  The coroner was an immaculately groomed man with graying whiskers and clear eyes, but his clothes carried the sickly sweet stink of death. Nick wondered how a man ever got used to that smell; it always reminded him of the battlefield.

  “What have you learned so far?” asked Nick.

  “From my examination of what’s left of the body, the victim was a middle-aged man of average build,” said Harris. “In addition, the corpse is missing part of his right arm, just below the elbow. Should help identify him.”

  “Old cut? New?”

  “It looks to be an old cut. Maybe from the war. Like so many others.” Harris glanced at Nick’s left arm. The doctor knew about Nick’s wound, the one that had nearly cost Nick an arm. “Our victim appears to have been killed by a deep penetrating wound to his abdomen. Likely made by a knife, but the opening has deteriorated to the point I can’t be sure. The implement probably nicked his aorta, if the blood vessel wasn’t severed completely. I’ll know more after my autopsy tomorrow. But I expect he bled to death pretty quickly.”

  “There must be stains around from all the spilled blood.”

  “Not that I’ve noticed. The murderer must have spent time cleaning up.” Harris finished wiping his hands, folded his cloth, and tucked it into a coat pocket. “I also think the corpse has been there a little while. Can’t be positive, but I’d estimate a week or two, possibly longer, given how chilly it is in the cellar. The coolness slows the decay, just like storing meat in an icehouse. I wouldn’t want to swear to it in court, though. Just telling you that to help you with your investigation.”

  “Thanks, Harris.”

  The coroner nodded. “I’ve covered the corpse and am going to leave him here overnight. No point in calling for the wagon at this hour when it’s just as cold down there as it is at the undertaker’s. I’ll have a jury look at the body first thing in the morning. A technicality, since it’s obvious the man was murdered,” he said, crossing the room to retrieve his hat from where he’d left it hung on a nail stuck in the wall. “You’ve got another good one here, Greaves. Rich businessmen and a rotting corpse on the premises. Ought to be interesting.”

  “Glad I can always count on your sympathy.”

  “What are friends for?” Harris asked, chuckling as he took his leave.

  Collecting the lamp, Nick went down into the cellar. He was hit by the smell and lifted a sleeve to his nose. Taking shallow breaths, he raised the lamp. Its light flickered across the uneven surface of the walls, the piles of coal and stacked bricks, mounds of dirt, and a pair of shovels.

  Harris had re-covered the corpse with a length of oilcloth. The killer must have used it, rather like a shroud. Nick wondered why he’d even bothered. To help mask the stink of a decaying body, maybe? On the edge of the material was a smear of dried blood, perhaps from the murderer’s hand, caked with sandy dirt that had clung to it when it had still been fresh and wet. There didn’t look to be much more blood on the cloth, though, which suggested to Nick that he’d stopped bleeding long before he’d been wrapped up like one of those Egyptian mummies traveling professors liked to talk about.

  Nick swung the lamp, illuminating the corners of the room. The workers had finished bricking only a small section of the cellar, and as Harris had said, there weren’t any dark stains from spilled blood on the ground. Killed elsewhere, then, and brought down here to be buried.

  But killed where and why and by whom?

  He stared at the bundle dragged partway out of the hole in the ground. “Well, mister, guess that’s what I’m here to find out.”

  * * *

  “Mrs. Davies, may I ask you a question?” asked Grace the next morning, seated across from Celia in the hired hack.

  Grace had never before requested permission to ask a question, her boldness either refreshing or shocking, depending upon one’s definition of propriety. Celia had an idea what Grace’s question would be. Gad.

  “Of course you may,” said Celia, steeling herself against the inevitable. “What is it?”

  “Something bad has happened, hasn’t it?”

  “Why do you say that?” Celia asked lightly, as if Grace’s question were quite the silliest thing to ask.

  “Because you wouldn’t have rushed me through breakfast if you weren’t anxious to get me out of the house,” she replied. “And we heard what Owen said last night. The parlor doors aren’t really all that thick,” she added, rather mischievously.

  “Yes, Grace, something bad has happened,” said Celia as the hack slowed. They had arrived at the Hutchinsons’ home on Stockton, a simple house compared to some of its neighbors’ but possessing lovely filigree work trimming the center gable, a pair of fine bay windows, and a large garden. The property emanated refinement and tranquility; the latter would soon be horribly disrupted. “But I will let your stepmother explain, once I have spoken to her.”

  Grace appeared triumphant. “I was right! I told Bee that Owen’s discovery meant the body was at my father’s office. She wouldn’t say so, but of course that’s what it means! Owen’s working there, isn’t he? And you’d want my stepmother to explain to me because that’s where the body was, and our name will be in every newspaper . . . Holy mackerel!”

  Oh dear. “Jane will explain what has happened. That is all I shall say for now.”

  “She never tells me anything, though.”

  “It would be improper of me to do otherwise.”

  The driver opened the carriage door. “Then I’ll ask Papa. He’ll tell me,” Grace announced, and clambered down to hurry through the gate in the white fence fronting the street.

  Celia stared after her. Would Frank be any more forthcoming than Jane, when he’d possibly fought with the dead man? He would be a suspect and would need to be circumspect.

  Now, Celia, you are leaping to conclusions about Frank’s culpability. If arguments naturally led a man to murder, San Francisco would be a town devoid of males. The two incidents were likely not connected in any fashion.

  “Ma’am, are you gettin’ out or what?” the driver asked her.

  “My apologies.” Celia climbed down and fumbled through her reticule for the fare. After she paid the driver, she noticed a man walking along the street toward downtown, intently scribbling in a notebook. He had to step quickly to avoid colliding with a clutch of young boys kneeling on the pavement, engrossed in a game of jacks. The lads jeered him as he passed, their cries not nearly as angry as the look on Jane Hutchinson’s face. She stood in the front doorway of the house, glaring at the man’s back. Grace had disappeared inside.

  Celia went through the gate and up the front steps. “Who was that?”

  “A journalist. From the Elevator.” Jane Hutchinson was younger than Celia, with a lively demeanor that had attracted Celia from the moment they’d met. Right now, however, she was far from lively, instead fretfully clinging to the ruffles of her pe
ach-colored morning gown. “He was asking the most ridiculous questions about Frank’s work. I sent him away . . . after I gave him a piece of my mind for spreading gossip.”

  “What did he say?” Celia asked, though she knew the reason a journalist would have come here. It was only surprising how soon he’d arrived.

  “That there’s a dead body at Martin and Company. Which is the ugliest gossip—”

  “It is not gossip, Jane,” said Celia, taking her friend’s elbow. “Come inside. We need to talk.”

  * * *

  “Merciful heavens,” said Jane, crumpling the embroidered linen handkerchief she held in her lap. Celia had convinced her friend to sit in her parlor, rather than immediately rush off to find her husband. “It can’t be true.”

  “It is true, Jane. I saw the body myself.”

  “What does Grace know?”

  “That Owen Cassidy found a dead body. I did not admit to her where he found it, though,” said Celia. “I thought it best she hear the news from you or her father.”

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t say anything to her,” said Jane. “Grace is only fifteen. She’ll be upset.”

  In the hack, Grace had not appeared upset in the least by the prospect of a dead body in the basement of her father’s office building. “You must, Jane, before she hears the news from an acquaintance who might not be tactful.”

  “Especially some of our acquaintances. They might relish the scandal a bit too much.”

  Despite their modest home on Stockton, the Hutchinsons were wealthy. Enviably wealthy. They would draw gossip to them like a lodestone attracted iron shavings.

  “So what happens now?” Jane asked.

  Last night, the exceedingly busy Mr. Greaves had detailed to Celia what the next steps would be. He would request that a police officer guard the offices of Martin and Company; then the coroner would come with his jury to assess the cause of death, and the body would be taken away for further examination. Celia didn’t envy Dr. Harris the task ahead of him; the body would be quite putrid.

  “The coroner will do an autopsy. The police will look for clues,” said Celia. “And they will question all the partners. Including Frank.”

  “But what could Frank know about some stranger buried in the cellar of his office? It’s ridiculous to think he’ll have any information.”

  “We must consider that the dead man might not be a stranger,” Celia pointed out. “Furthermore, Detective Greaves will be thorough. In fact, he might even come here to speak with you.”

  “Here?” Jane surveyed the contents of her parlor, as if trying to envision a policeman standing on her Brussels carpet or rummaging through the porcelain statuary and Chinese urns on display.

  “There’s no need for them to come here.” Agitated, she stood and began pacing. “Grace and I don’t know anything about this event. They shouldn’t waste their time.”

  “I merely wish to prepare you for the possibility, Jane.”

  “We don’t even know who this person was,” she said. “Besides, the body might’ve been there a long time, since before Frank took his father’s position at Martin and Company.”

  “I am no expert, but I know enough about decay to be quite certain that the body has not been buried in that cellar for several years. Ample flesh remained on the bones.”

  Jane halted. “How gruesome.”

  “Death can be an ugly business.” And murder more so. “There’s something else,” Celia went on. “When I went with Owen to see the body, we interrupted a person attempting to disinter it. In order to remove the corpse from the premises, I surmise. This individual seems to have heard our arrival and was hiding upstairs. When he made to flee, Owen chased him, but he managed to get away without Owen seeing his face. It was too foggy.”

  Jane retook her seat on the mahogany sofa. “Do you think it was the murderer, returning to the scene of his crime? You could’ve been killed.”

  “Possibly, but how would the murderer have learned so quickly that the body had been found?”

  “That is a good question.” Jane considered her. “Do you intend to investigate?”

  “I am not a detective, Jane. I shall leave the case in the hands of the police.”

  “The women at the Ladies’ Society of Christian Aide discussed your part in finding the person who killed your Chinese patient, you know.”

  “With revulsion, no doubt, over my unladylike behavior.” Celia was finding it difficult to forgive the ladies’ hurtful treatment of her cousin. She hadn’t anticipated that an organization, its primary purpose to help poor women, would turn against the Chinese along with so many others in the city, since before they had only been generous.

  “They admire you more than you realize, Celia, and many of them regret that Barbara felt unwelcome the last time you spoke at their meeting,” said Jane. “Your voice is missed there. I miss having you there.”

  Celia sighed. “For you, Jane, I shall return. Someday soon.”

  “Good,” said Jane, crisply nodding. “This man’s death will undoubtedly be the main topic of conversation at the party Mr. Martin is hosting on Sunday. What a way to celebrate ten years since the establishment of Martin and Company—the discovery of a corpse on the premises.”

  “Perhaps he shall cancel,” said Celia.

  “Not him. Once Jasper Martin decides on a course of action, he charges forward like an angry bull.” She scooted to the edge of the sofa and tapped Celia’s knee. “You should come with us. We’re going to Cliff House, and I know you love it there. Besides, everyone will be talking about the crime, and I’d like you with me for support. And to prevent me from fainting.”

  “I cannot attend without an invitation.”

  “Jasper won’t mind. He’d love the addition of a beautiful woman to the list of guests. He was very taken with you at my party, by the way.”

  How wonderful. A potential swain. “If that is what you wish.”

  Jane settled against the sofa back. “I do. I’ll send a note telling him to expect you in our group.”

  Celia chewed the inside of her bottom lip. She had to ask about Frank’s movements last night but was uncertain how to proceed without upsetting Jane.

  However, nothing ventured, nothing gained, as her uncle Walford used to say.

  “Jane, I’ve told you all this because I must know the answer to a question,” she said. “Shall you be able to account for Frank’s whereabouts last evening?”

  “I can’t believe you asked me that.”

  “It needs to be asked. If the police are not satisfied by what they learn this morning, they will ask.”

  “Good heavens, Celia.” Jane stood again and resumed pacing.

  “Jane . . .”

  She paused at the mantel and straightened a figurine of a dog that hadn’t been askew. “Last night was one of the nights that Jasper closes the business early. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, around six or so, in order for the men to spend more time with their families during the week.” She moved the dog again, back to its original placement. “Frank usually takes the opportunity to spend those evenings with Abram Russell, however. He’s the third partner at Martin and Company. A civil engineer and architect.”

  Jane’s voice was taut, and she pushed the porcelain dog around with more force.

  “What time did Frank come home after his evening out with Mr. Russell?” Celia asked quietly.

  Jane looked over, tension in every line of her face. “I don’t know. I haven’t been able to sleep lately, and I took a soporific last night. At eight, I think. Hetty might remember. She brought a glass of water to my bedroom for me right before I went to sleep.”

  Hetty was Jane’s maid of all work. Celia would stop to speak with her before she left.

  “So you cannot say when Frank returned home last evening. Because you were asleep.”

  “N
o, I can’t say, Celia. I can’t, and I wish I could.”

  Abruptly, Jane raised her hand to her throat, in the process snagging the porcelain dog with her sleeve. It tumbled from the mantel and crashed to the floor, shattering into pieces.

  * * *

  The sight of a pair of police officers carrying a fabric-draped body through the rear door of Martin and Company had assembled a crowd of onlookers out in the alleyway, where a wagon waited to haul the corpse to the morgue Harris had set up in the basement of an undertaker’s establishment. The carpenters and painters employed to refurbish the offices all stood around gawking, too. Inside and off to Nick’s left, the gaunt Jasper Martin watched as well, his dark eyes staring down his beaklike nose. He had taken his gold timepiece from its vest pocket and was snapping the lid open and closed. The sound was setting Nick’s nerves on edge.

  Taylor trotted over from where he’d been talking to one of the painters. “The cops who’ve had a look around haven’t found any clues as to who might’ve killed the fella, sir,” he said. “And none of this bunch claims to know anything about anything. Don’t know who the dead guy is. Don’t recall seeing anything funny going on. Can’t figure who could’ve ever gotten in the building. Guess Martin’s a stickler for making sure the offices are locked at night. Oh, and Mr. Kelly, the supervisor”—he nodded toward the Irishman lounging outside of one of the glass-partitioned office spaces—“claims he can’t recall any time that the locks have looked like they’d been forced.”

  “Maybe they weren’t forced. Which means we need to find out who all has a key.” Or maybe the offices actually weren’t locked the evening a paunchy middle-aged man missing part of an arm was murdered and buried in the cellar. Martin might be a stickler for insisting the place was secured at night, but with all these men coming and going, it would be easy to overlook an unlocked window or door.

  “Will do,” said Taylor. “And Mullahey’s gone to bring Matthews into the station. I’m headed back there now to talk to the fellow.”