After a heavily laden wagon crossed Ellis in front of them, Laura led the way across the street, saying, “So did Patrick give you your birthday present last night?”
“Oh miss, he did. Did you know about the earrings?”
“We all did. He asked Annie if she had any ideas about a month ago. When she asked him what he was thinking about spending, not wanting to suggest something he couldn’t afford, he named an amount that she knew would cover the earrings that matched the pin they were giving you.”
“They go perfectly together. I never thought to own anything so splendid as the pin, and now to have earrings to match!”
“I must say, although I have no use for a beau right now, I think it’s nice that Patrick was willing buy something good enough for you to pass on to one of your daughters one day.”
Kathleen hadn’t thought of it quite that way. The pin and earrings were…heirlooms? Not like the few bits and pieces of cheap jewelry she’d bought herself over the years. Her mistress might have even chosen the pin for her because she herself had so little left from her mother. Just two plain blue jugs and an old clock. Everything else of value from her family she’d lost when her first husband went bankrupt.
“This is the house, isn’t it?” Laura asked, walking up the short flight of steps to stand on the small landing and turn the old-fashioned knob that would ring the front bell. “Should we have gone around to the back, tried the kitchen door first?”
“Oh, no. Not if you want to convince him that you are not some servant trying to pretend to be a lady. Besides, this way Mrs. Ashburton will be sure to hear the bell and know someone has come to call.”
Laura impatiently twirled the knob again, sending the bell inside the hallway to clanging. Abruptly the door opened, and a man, fitting the description of Rafe Ashburton, stood there glowering. He looked a good deal older than Kathleen expected, but he was definitely handsome. His hair was black as coal, his eyebrows thick and slanted over deep-set gray eyes, and he was wearing what looked like a new black suit, a gold watch chain gleaming across a red silk vest. Very much the dandy, but a dandy who was unhappy to find two women at his door.
However, as his eyes swept over Laura, from her cunningly decorated hat, along her good brown coat that hugged her curves, to her well-polished button-up shoes with the french heels, he began to grin.
Laura stood straighter under his stare and gave him a warm smile. “You must be Mr. Ashburton. When our delivery boy mentioned that you’d come to take care of your mother, who was poorly, I said to my cook, ‘I must be a good neighbor and take her some of your famous beef broth.’”
Here she gracefully pointed at the basket Kathleen was holding and said, “My maid will be glad to pop into your kitchen to make sure it’s heated up properly, while I see if your mother has any errands she would like me to run.”
Rafe Ashburton frowned at this and started to speak, but Laura continued, running right over whatever he’d planned to say.
“I won’t take no for an answer. My mother was one of your mother’s best friends from All Saints Episcopal Church.” Laura then laughed and said rather breathlessly, “I confess I’m rather intrigued to make the acquaintance of her handsome son, who has been off seeing the world these past ten years or so.”
Kathleen couldn’t believe how bold Laura was being. But it worked. The man smiled even more broadly and said, “Well, I might have come back to San Francisco sooner if I’d known All Saints had such handsome members.”
“Oh, Mr. Ashburton, my mother was the church-goer. I prefer more lively ways to spend my Sundays. Perhaps taking a carriage ride down to the Cliff House, or attending one of the horse races at Bay View?”
“Well, well, young lady. That sounds like a very good idea. Why don’t you come calling on my mother this next Sunday afternoon, and we can find something fun to do afterwards?”
Kathleen didn’t know whether to be impressed or frightened by the way Laura was shamelessly flirting with the man. It was like watching a play, but Mr. Nate would be upset to see his sister act this way. However, it seemed to be working.
The man motioned for them to enter.
As they passed by him, Kathleen got a strong whiff of alcohol, and she knew from painful experience it wasn’t a good sign that they were dealing with a man who was already inebriated at ten in the morning.
Miss doesn’t seem to know what she’s gotten us into.
“Miss Laura, we mustn’t stay. He’s been drinking,” Kathleen whispered urgently as soon as the man left them alone in the front parlor of the house, which smelled heavily of cigar smoke.
“You noticed that as well, did you? I wonder why he’s pretending there’s still a servant in the house?”
Ashburton had taken the basket from Kathleen, saying he’d take it to the maid who was busy preparing morning tea for his mother. Then he disappeared down the hallway.
Kathleen said, “One look at this room and you can tell that’s not true.” She looked with some disgust at the ash spilling out of the fireplace, the holiday greenery that was turning brown, and the bottle and glass stains on the table beside one of the upholstered chairs.
“I am equally sure he’s not going to let us see his mother,” Laura added, going over to a dusty sideboard where there were rows of pictures. “Didn’t you say you wished you could get a photograph of him to show to Patrick? Look, here’s a good likeness of him with his parents and sister.”
Kathleen looked briefly at the small silver-framed photograph of a couple and two young people that Laura was holding. The young man in the photograph, with his dark hair swept back, and his thin mustache, certainly looked like a younger edition of the man they’d just met.
“Oh, miss, we can’t take this. What if he notices it’s gone?”
“I doubt he’d notice anything, the state of this room. Shush, I hear him coming.”
And quick as a flash, the photograph, frame and all, disappeared into Laura’s purse.
Chapter 10
“And where have you two been?” asked Mrs. O’Rourke as Kathleen and Laura entered the kitchen from the back yard.
Before Kathleen could answer, Laura said airily, “Oh, I had an errand and asked Kathleen to accompany me. But now I’ve got to get going or I’m going to be late for work.”
She ran up the back stairs, leaving Kathleen to figure out what to say, until she realized that the older woman was more concerned with getting the groceries put away than quizzing her. So she went right to work, rearranging the pantry shelves to make room for everything, while listening to Mary Margaret’s excited description of all the different dishes Mrs. O’Rourke had planned for New Year’s Day.
Her friend ticked them off on her fingers, saying, “Jellied chicken, cold tongue, slices of turkey, roast beef, and ham, and she’s going to let me make my scalloped oysters. We’ve got the fixings for coleslaw, and she says she will top that with fried oysters, and then an apple-nut salad with raisins. And that’s not to mention all the desserts.”
Kathleen knew Mary Margaret often felt her culinary efforts were stunted by Mrs. Ashburton’s sensitive digestive system, so she was glad the preparations for the coming festivities were helping distract her. Who knew how she would react when she heard the details of the disarray that she and Miss Laura had found at Mrs. Ashburton’s. Or learned of their failure to see or hear any evidence of her old mistress.
Just as she was going to pull Mary Margaret aside to tell her of the visit, Mrs. O’Rourke asked her to take a small luncheon up to Miss Minnie and Millie Moffet, who were upstairs in their workroom feverishly working to finish a couple of outfits their clients wanted to wear for their calls on New Year’s Day. They were the only boarders at home today because Mrs. Hewitt had taken her son Jamie on a promised outing to Woodward’s Gardens, and Mr. Chapman and Laura Dawson were at work. Kathleen’s brother Ian was supposed to accompany the Hewitts, but for some reason he had said he couldn’t make it. She hoped he wasn’t forgoing this tre
at in order to sell the afternoon edition of the Bulletin.
By the time she got back down from the Moffet’s attic rooms, Mrs. O’Rourke had put Mary Margaret to helping little Tilly polish the silverware for the party. With some relief she postponed saying anything, deciding it was best to wait until Miss Laura came home, let her do the talking.
The afternoon went quickly as Kathleen concentrated on getting the newly washed and pressed curtains back up in the Stein’s and the Dawson’s rooms and making sure the Christmas tree was watered, needles swept up and all the fireplaces in the house ready to be lit when the sun set. The storms that hit right before Christmas had abated but left behind a definite chill in the air. Kathleen always found that the clearer the sky, the colder the temperature in the evening.
As she returned to the kitchen, she was about to remark on such to Mrs. O’Rourke, when the older woman said, “By the way, where were you and Miss Laura off to this morning?”
Kathleen froze, then stammered out, “She insisted, and Tilly was here, in case the Moffets needed anything….”
Her words were abruptly swallowed up by the peal of the front doorbell, followed by the sound of Esther Stein’s voice announcing their arrival.
Herman and Esther Stein, a well-to-do couple in their sixties, occupied the suite of rooms on the second floor across from the Dawsons’ and Laura’s rooms. They had been up in Portland since right after Thanksgiving, visiting their son. Herman Stein went to Portland almost twice a month on business, but his wife Esther had accompanied him this time because her newest grandchild had been due at the beginning of December.
Much to Kathleen’s relief, Mrs. O’Rourke appeared to forget her question about the morning’s errand, occupied as she was by supervising the hansom cab driver as he brought in all the Steins’ luggage. She then decided she would unpack that luggage personally, giving her a chance to learn all the details about the birth of the new granddaughter, while telling Mrs. Stein about all the exciting events that had been going on at the O’Farrell Street boarding house. Then she got caught up in dinner preparations.
The Steins were very fond of Mrs. O’Rourke’s cooking, Mrs. Stein often saying that this had been the primary reason she’d been able to get her husband Herman to agree to move into the boarding house. Kathleen knew that the real reason was the Steins’ desire to help Mrs. Dawson. Mrs. O’Rourke told Kathleen that when her mistress, who’d been living off the charity of her in-laws back east, inherited the San Francisco house from her aunt, it was Mr. Stein, who’d been the executor of the estate, who suggested she set up a boarding house as a way of producing income. And the couple were the first boarders to move in, greatly ensuring the success of the enterprise.
In any event, Mrs. O’Rourke was so busy preparing a special evening meal to celebrate the couple’s return that she completely dropped her questions about Kathleen and Miss Dawson’s morning excursion, much to Kathleen’s relief.
However, once dinner was over, Tilly had been sent home, and she and Mary Margaret began to wash the dishes, Kathleen started looking out for the sound of Laura retuning from work. Her hope was that the young woman would come home before Mrs. O’Rourke remembered her earlier questions about where the two of them had been this morning.
The young woman wouldn’t be coming in the back alley to the kitchen since it was already dark. After the events of last winter, none of the women in the house took this way at night when they were alone. Instead, she would be coming in the front door. And since she had her own key, as all the boarders did, she wouldn’t be ringing the door bell.
This meant Kathleen was forced to listen for the tiny little ting-a-ling the bell down in the kitchen gave when the front door swung open and shut. Her plan was to run upstairs when she heard that sound so she could warn Miss Laura that Mrs. O’Rourke didn’t yet know the details about the trip to Mrs. Ashburton’s.
Unfortunately, before she could execute this plan, Mrs. O’Rourke, who had been putting away the left-overs, sat down in the kitchen rocker with a sigh and said, “Now, Kathleen, I can tell you’ve been trying to avoid the subject of what mischief you and Miss Laura were up to this morning. You know, full-well, our Annie and Mr. Nate entrusted her to our care while they were gone. So answer my question. Where were the two of you?”
As Kathleen feared, when she told them of Laura’s decision to take soup and rolls to the Ashburton house, both women began to berate her. Mrs. O’Rourke for doing anything so foolish, Mary Margaret for not waiting so she could come with them.
Kathleen attempted to explain that she’d never intended for Miss Laura to go, that her initial idea had been to suggest that Mrs. Dawson might visit when she got back to San Francisco, taking Mary Margaret with her to see if she could at least get her wages back and a decent reference.
Only reluctantly did Mrs. O’Rourke admit that once Miss Laura got the bit between her teeth, she was hard to control, and that Kathleen probably couldn’t have done anything more than she had, which was to stick by the young women and convince her to leave as quickly as possible. However, she made it clear she was going to give Miss Laura a “good talking-to” when she got home.
Just then, they heard Laura say, “So Mrs. O’Rourke, here I am for you to ring a peal over me in person,” as she stood at the foot of the back stairs, smiling. Taking her hat off and shrugging out of her coat, she came into the kitchen, saying, “Don’t give poor Kathleen a hard time. It was all my doing. Did she tell you everything?”
As she took the young woman’s coat and hat, Kathleen said, “I’ve told them that the son took the soup and rolls from us, saying he would have the servant prepare them for his mother. And when he came back and told us his mother was napping, we left.”
She then shook her head slightly, frowning, hoping that Miss Laura would understand that she was trying to caution her not to be too forthcoming about the specifics of the visit.
Nate’s sister didn’t seem to get the message. Instead, she said, “You know, Kathleen, the more I thought about it while I was at work, the more sure I am that Mary Margaret is correct. Something’s not right with that son of Mrs. Ashburton. Why pretend there was a servant when it was clear there wasn’t one? He didn’t need to explain anything to a nosy neighbor. In fact, why even bother to let us in?”
Well, that caused a new uproar, because Kathleen had carefully tried to create the impression they’d been turned away at the door. Beatrice O’Rourke wailed, “Whatever will Mr. Nate say,” while Mary Margaret peppered them with questions about exactly what they heard and saw once they got inside.
Laura laughed her full-throated laugh, but then she went over to where Mrs. O’Rourke had gotten up from the rocker and said, “Mrs. O’Rourke, please sit back down and don’t you worry about my brother. What he’ll say is that I should apologize for doing something that upset you. Kathleen took very good care of me, and we were in and out of there in under ten minutes. And he may have invited me to come calling on Sunday, but I assure you, I won’t, at least not without my brother accompanying me.”
Mrs. O’Rourke tried to continue to look angry, but Kathleen knew from experience that the motherly woman was of far too easy a temperament to stay upset for long. Sure enough, Laura soon had the older woman chatting about the coming New Year’s Day menu.
Meanwhile, Kathleen got out the left-overs––thin slices of roast beef, potatoes, and caramelized carrots––that she’d put in the oven to keep warm until Laura got home, while Mary Margaret put the kettle on and pulled out the old brown kitchen pot to brew them all a cup of tea. Sensing that calm had again been restored to the kitchen, Queenie, the old black cat, emerged from the dark corner where the wood was stacked and leaped up onto Mrs. O’Rourke’s lap.
As Kathleen placed the plate in front of her, Laura said, “Thanks, I completely forgot to get anything for lunch, had to share Nan’s. But I promised her that the spread that Mrs. O’Rourke was planning for New Year’s would more than make it up to her.”
She held up the silver-framed photograph of the four people that she’d taken from Mrs. Ashburton’s house.
“Oh my goodness,” Mary Margaret gasped as she came over to the table with a cup of tea. “However did you get that photograph of the Ashburtons and their son and daughter?”
Laura said, “So it is a photograph of the family? Is the son’s name really Raphael? He certainly didn’t turn out to be an angel, did he? Although I must say in this picture it doesn’t look like butter would melt in his mouth.”
“Yes, this is definitely a photograph of the Ashburtons. Mrs. Ashburton said it was the last one they had taken as a whole family. But why do you have it?”
“Kathleen, tell them what you told me about the pictures the police have of men and women who’ve been caught committing crimes.”
Before Kathleen could say anything, Mrs. O’Rourke spoke up, saying, “They started taking photographs of people they arrested as early as the mid-fifties. Was Chief Jackson’s idea. My husband said he thought it would help witnesses identify people they saw commit crimes. Chief even paid for the equipment, and one of the officers, a man who’d learned how to take photographs in the Civil War, took the pictures.”
Kathleen Catches a Killer Page 6
