Delia's Shadow

by Moyer, Jaime Lee

  Six weeks. Such a short time to plan the start of Sadie’s new life and prepare for Esther’s to end.

  * * *

  The dream began like all the others I’d had, but the ghost didn’t follow behind, waiting for me to find an answer. This time I was inside her skin.

  Shadow rushed down streets gray with fog, cold seeping through the thin soles of her shoes and numbing her toes. The night was moonless and darker for it. People hurried past, vague shapes that loomed into view and disappeared again, heads down and bundled against the chill. Fog deadened the sound of footsteps, the creak of wagons and harness.

  Hissing gas lamps stood on corners, a small oasis of yellow light puddled on damp brick sidewalks. She crossed a street and Shadow looked behind, the feel of someone watching tickling the back of her neck. The shape of a man winked in and out of view back the way she’d come, skirting the edge of gaslight and vanishing into the fog again. He kept his head down like all the other people on the street. She saw him turn a corner, no doubt in a hurry to reach home and a fire.

  Shadow pulled her shawl tighter, the deeper cold near the wharfs making her wish for her heavy wrap. Fishing boats rocked gently on the incoming tide. Mooring ropes groaned as they pulled tight and water sloshed against the hull. She turned into a gravel-lined alley, a shortcut she never took after dark, but she’d worked late and longed for her own fire.

  The coins she’d earned in tips jingled in her skirt pocket. Saturday nights were busy at the tavern. Sean had given her a quarter for staying an extra shift and offered the use of the cot behind the kitchen. She’d slept there other nights and Patrick knew not to wait up on Saturday, but the baby was teething and fussy. They’d both be up walking the floors and waiting on her.

  More than cold made her walk faster. Shadow tried not to think of the stories men told over mugs of beer and glasses of whiskey. Darkness pressed in as the alley narrowed. She wrapped a chapped hand around the cross at her throat, muttering prayers under her breath.

  A cat yowled, running from between two houses and across her path. Shards of stone and grit flew away from the cat’s paws and stung her cheek. Shadow touched her face and drew away bloody fingers. She found the scrap of handkerchief in her pocket and worked it out, careful not to spill her hard-earned coins on the ground.

  Shadow moistened the handkerchief with her tongue, scrubbing at her fingers and walking faster. The streetlamp at the end of the narrow alley, a beacon marking the street and the last block home, blinked out.

  Tall and broad-shouldered, a man stepped out of the mist, standing toe-to-toe with Shadow before she saw him. She stared, heart pounding in terror and breath coming in gasping sobs.

  A cloth hood covered his head. She couldn’t see his eyes, his mouth.

  She couldn’t see if he smiled.

  * * *

  I scrabbled off the bed, running from a threat that began to fade as soon as my eyes opened. My feet tangled in sheets and the hem of my nightgown, tripping me. Slamming into the table next to the bed tipped the lamp, but I caught the heavy brass base before the whole thing crashed to the ground.

  Light chased away more panic, enough that I stopped wanting to flee the room. The house was still silent with sleep. I hadn’t screamed, Sadie or Annie would have come running. Shaking, gulping air, and crying, I huddled in the overstuffed chair, grateful not to have an audience for my humiliation and the privacy to sort through what had just happened.

  The dreams had started in New York, mere glimpses of Shadow hurrying down a darkened street or following me wherever I went. Urgency had always been there, coupled with fear and panic and the need to get away. Details of those dreams were as fuzzy and murky as the fog. They’d changed little by little as the months wore on and I’d begun to follow Shadow instead of the ghost trailing after me. The sense of urgency, that there was something vital I needed to do, increased until the day I knew I had to come home. Still, I’d never understood why Shadow was afraid or why the ghost felt the need to show me these things.

  Distance played a part in the dreams being fragmented and unclear. I was in San Francisco now, my home as well as Shadow’s, and the details of this dream were as sharp and clear as a freshly minted coin. That made what I’d seen twice as frightening.

  Shadow stood at the foot of my bed, hands folded at her waist. Watching and waiting for me to speak.

  “Dear God in heaven. I’m so sorry, Shadow. So sorry.” I understood the sorrow in her eyes now and some of the reasons she followed me. She’d never gotten home. Shadow needed someone, needed me, to know why.

  Why was important, I understood that. What she expected from me now that I knew baffled me.

  CHAPTER 3

  Gabe

  Gabe unbuttoned his suit coat and let the front hang open. The slope wasn’t steep, but the climb in the morning sun was enough to make him sweat. Grass and tiny white daisies, granite headstones and flowers left by loved ones glistened with moisture deposited by last night’s fog. Each step kicked up water droplets that soaked into the cuffs of his trousers and the tops of his socks. His feet were getting wet inside his shoes.

  This early in the day the Presidio was empty of visitors wanting to pay their respects to fallen soldiers. A crisp breeze blew off the bay, the air cold enough at the top of the hill that Gabe decided against abandoning the jacket for shirtsleeves. His squad worked efficiently if somberly, voices subdued and their normal gallows humor missing. Bright sunlight reflected off the patrolmen’s brass buttons and the numbered badges pinned to their uniforms, an illusion of warmth that didn’t live up to its promise. Even if the wind hadn’t chilled him to the bone, the bodies lying side by side atop one of the graves would do the job.

  Jack stood in the shade of a redwood not more than fifty feet away, questioning the man who found the bodies and scribbling notes in the battered moleskine he kept in his pocket. The gravedigger was older, his dark hair gone mostly gray and skin sun-creased. He twisted his cap in shaking hands and kept his back to the murder victims. Death was harder to confront outside a sealed casket.

  An officer from the Presidio, a captain, hovered behind Jack’s shoulder. The Army brass scowled, his opinion of civilians investigating a crime on his base and infringing on his territory clear. Jack ignored the captain’s silent fuming and did his job, patiently prodding the gravedigger for information and writing down the answers.

  Shock would drown the memories of what he’d seen soon. All the old man would remember then was the blood.

  Gabe left his partner to prying loose information. He walked a slow circle around the dead couple, always careful to stay clear of the patrolman taking photographs with a folding Kodak. Concentrating on the details was a detective’s job, searching for patterns and similarities between open cases. His father taught Gabe that was how the toughest crimes were solved, gathering and piecing together odd fragments of information until you had the picture clear in your mind. A murder investigation was a macabre jigsaw puzzle, splashed with blood and the remnants of someone’s life.

  Focusing on details let him ignore the sewer stench of punctured bowels that filled each breath, coating his tongue. Collecting information let him pretend not to see the way blood drew insects, how flies swarmed around stab wounds or crawled over the dead man’s open eyes. Thinking about anything but how the bodies were posed was a rookie mistake.

  He hadn’t been a rookie in ten years. Gabe swallowed away the burning in the back of his throat and vowed to keep his breakfast down.

  The man and woman lay on their sides facing each other, hands bound behind their backs. Neither one wore shoes or stockings. A hangman’s noose looped each of their necks, the length of rope that tightened the knot running down their backs and tied around their ankles. Skin was scraped raw and bloody around the ropes at both wrists and ankles. Gabe swallowed again, suddenly reminded of animals gnawing off their own legs to escape a trap.

  Strips of red fabric were rolled and stuffed into their mouths to
muffle screams. They’d screamed around the gags, he was certain of that, and probably tried to plead with their killer. The woman’s gag was pulled tight and cut into the corners of her mouth, tearing skin enough to bleed. Each scream did more damage, drew more blood.

  They’d suffered before dying. The wounds Gabe saw were nonlethal, shallow stab wounds inflicted for pain and not to kill. Not right away. Movement would tighten the rope around the victims’ necks, slowly choking them, and staying still through the punishment they’d taken was next to impossible.

  A coroner’s report would confirm what Gabe already knew: the dusky color of their skin meant the couple had suffocated before they could bleed to death. The killer never meant for them to die quickly or easily.

  The symbol carved into their foreheads, a circle divided into quarters, matched marks on the first two victims found: a man in Chinatown and a woman near the Ferry Building. Weeks separated those murders from these, but the killer left his victims where he knew they’d be found. He wanted to send a message and make sure the police took him seriously.

  Gabe took this man very seriously indeed.

  “Lieutenant Ryan?” Jack motioned him over. The gravedigger was heading down the hill toward the gates, but the Army officer still glowered behind Jack’s shoulder. “The captain would like a word, sir.”

  Gabe took one last look at the tableau staged for them. “Patrolman Henderson!”

  The tall and skinny young rookie broke away from a line of men searching between headstones and trotted across the grass. “Yes, Lieutenant?”

  “I think we’re almost done here. As soon as Baker finishes taking his photographs, cover them up. The coroner and his men will be along soon. Gather a few of the officers to give them a hand getting the stretchers down the hill.”

  “Yes, sir.” Marshall Henderson stared at the bodies, sweat beading on his forehead. “It’s him, isn’t it? The one sending the letters.”

  “Yes.” Gabe clapped the boy on the shoulder, feeling like a grizzled veteran and much older than thirty. Henderson had only been on the force six months, but he’d dragged the new patrolman into the investigation from the start. For a rookie he had good instincts and so far, he hadn’t panicked. “Get the blankets over them and set someone to watch for the coroner.”

  Gabe stuffed his hands deep into his pockets and took his time strolling to where the captain and Jack waited. The captain meant to force a confrontation of some kind and throw his weight around. Summoning Gabe like a private caught sneaking out after curfew guaranteed the captain would get exactly what he wanted.

  That soured Gabe’s mood further. The mayor and the base commandant were old friends. Getting in a row with a high-ranking officer would come back on him, right or wrong. He’d have to dig deep and find a scrap of diplomacy and patience.

  The look Jack gave him was a mixture of warning and exasperation. “Captain Irwin, this is Lieutenant Ryan. Lieutenant Ryan is the detective in charge of the investigation.”

  Irwin appeared to be about forty, tall and well-muscled, compact and not going soft around the middle. Squint lines surrounding pale blue eyes and skin tanned to the color of tobacco spoke of days spent outdoors, not sitting at a desk. A training officer perhaps, accustomed to barking orders and instant obedience. Jittery bounces on his toes and a disapproving scowl made his annoyance plain.

  Gabe didn’t much like men like the captain, not since the quake and the desperate days after. So far Irwin hadn’t given him a reason to reform his opinion. He forced a smile and stuck his hand out. “Pleased to meet you, Captain Irwin. Is there something I can do for you?”

  “I need your men gone within the hour, Lieutenant.” The captain’s handshake was as brusque as his manner of speaking. “The colonel is hosting a group of European military officers and their wives. His schedule calls for speeches at fourteen-hundred hours, a wreath-laying ceremony, and escorting everyone to the fair once the ceremony is complete. I have a squad waiting to set up the podium and chairs. Your men are smack in the middle of where they need to work.”

  Jack tapped the edge of his notebook with a chewed pencil, a sure sign he was tense or on the verge of losing his patience. “I explained to the captain that this was a murder investigation and couldn’t be rushed. He insisted on speaking to someone in authority.”

  “Sergeant Fitzgerald’s word is as good as mine, this can’t be rushed.” Gabe slipped his hands back in his trouser pockets, working at looking relaxed. He had a hunch; he wanted to be wrong. “You’re not exactly short of scenic views, Captain. The Presidio is a big place. Surely you can find another suitable location for the colonel to give his speech.”

  “Lieutenant, it’s not a matter of scenic views or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” Captain Irwin gestured with the riding crop in his hand, waving it in the direction of the victims. He never really looked at the dead couple or saw how their heads lined up precisely with the grave markers. “The colonel is scheduled to lay a wreath on the graves of the first base commandant and his wife. I can’t move the ceremony without moving the graves.”

  Having his hunch confirmed left a bitter taste in Gabe’s mouth. The killer wanted to send a message all right, but he might be the only one listening. “The mayor and Commandant Blair have already come to an agreement about jurisdiction. They both feel the police are best equipped to find this killer. I won’t be responsible for a haphazard investigation that allows him to escape. My men know what to look for, Captain. They will leave once they’re sure nothing’s been missed. Not before.”

  Irwin glowered, pulled himself up straight, and smacked his riding crop against his leg repeatedly, a pose designed to put the fear of God and Captain into young troopers. That he thought intimidation would work on Gabe was almost amusing. Almost.

  “You’ll regret not being more cooperative, Ryan. I’ll be making a full report to the colonel and Commandant Blair.”

  “You do that, Captain.” He smiled, baring his teeth. The small amount of patience he’d mustered was gone. “Finding two people butchered before noon will be the only thing I regret about this day. Rest assured I’ll be filing a full report as well.”

  The coroner’s men trudged up the hill; canvas stretchers on sturdy wooden poles folded in half and balanced in one hand. They opened out the dull ivory rectangles on the grass, one near the man’s bulky body, the other next to the woman. He stepped away from Irwin’s outraged sputtering, watching silently and doing the dead couple honor that the captain didn’t seem inclined to show.

  Henderson directed two patrolmen to help lift the blanket-shrouded bodies. Rigor mortis had set in before the couple was found, making the task easier. They struggled to lift the stocky dead man’s weight and settle his rigid corpse on the stretcher. The woman was easier to move, slightly built and not very tall.

  Gabe saw a scrap of blue flutter in the grass. The wind sent the envelope tumbling across the hilltop, sticking in blades of grass for an instant and whirling in the air again. Marshall Henderson reacted first, already in hot pursuit before he could yell.

  Henderson caught the envelope within a few seconds. He pinched the blue square tight between two fingers, turning it to examine both sides. Color bleached from his face. “I’ve got it, sir. You need to see this.”

  He left Jack to deal with Irwin and met his promising rookie halfway. The cheap blue stationery was splotched with the woman’s blood, but not enough to obscure the handwriting or that the letter was addressed to Lieutenant Gabriel Ryan.

  Gabe wrapped the envelope in his handkerchief, tucked the note in a jacket pocket and buttoned the flap. He had cotton gloves and fingerprint powder in his desk. Nothing had shown up on any of the other letters, but he kept hoping overconfidence would make the killer sloppy.

  His men knew their jobs and could finish up without him. He strode past Irwin without a word or a glance, his mouth dry and his heart pounding. The killer was raising the stakes, making this personal. He couldn’t summon the
willingness to be diplomatic with the captain.

  Jack caught up before Gabe got more than a hundred yards down the hill. His partner tucked the ever-present moleskine into an inside pocket, whistling a cheerful tune.

  A catchy melody penetrated Gabe’s funk after a moment and recognition made him smile. The song was a hit in the saloons and bawdy houses near the docks, the lyrics lewd and not fit for decent company. Undoubtedly in poor taste considering the situation.

  That made the song perfect in Gabe’s eyes. They’d stayed partners for ten years because Jack knew when to give him a moment to breathe and when to make him laugh.

  Some of the tension bled out of his shoulders and he unclenched his fists. “Better not let Sadie here you whistling that song. She’ll start questioning where you learned it.”

  Jack grinned. “Who do you think taught me? Sadie taught me all the words, too.”

  “I should have known.” He chuckled and shook his head. “You two were made for each other.”

  The air was clean away from the murder site, filled with the familiar seaweed and sand scent of the bay, the smell of pinesap and wet grass crushed underfoot. Noise from the Pan Pacific carried into the Presidio, voices and music an insect drone in the distance. Fog built an iron-gray wall outside the Golden Gate, biding its time until sunset. The killer would bide his time, too, using darkness and murk as cover to hunt.

  The men from the coroner’s office and two of his patrolmen passed them, each man holding the stretcher handles tight or gripping the canvas sides to get the bodies safely down the hill.

  Gabe paused to let the stretcher bearers get ahead and watched them go. “May God have mercy on their souls. With luck, we’ll turn up something that identifies them so their families can be notified. They deserve a decent burial.”

  “And someone to mourn them.” Jack kicked at the grass, his cheerfulness gone. “We won’t get any clues in the letter he left. Not if it’s like the others.”