Another piece of the puzzle had been why this man would have gone out of his way to sweeten up the local copper. All Mary Margaret had heard from the other servants when she first came to work for the Ashburtons was how much trouble Rafe had gotten into as a young man, fighting, getting picked up by the police for petty crimes.
So why hadn’t he just told Officer Stanley to go away? Why was it important to impress him that he was a fine fellow…and that his mother was alive and well?
For that matter, why had he done something similar with Miss Laura? Let her in, pretend there was still a servant in the house, suggest that she come back to visit this Sunday? Unless he knew he wouldn’t still be there by this Sunday. Had Laura’s visit been the last straw, making the man believe that if the neighbors had started to get suspicious, he needed to take off? Or had he always planned on leaving tonight?
Because that was what Davey wanted to tell them. He’d stopped by the Ashburton house to see if the man wanted to add anything to his order for next week. The man met him at the door and said to come back on Monday; he’d be ready to give him his order then. But Davey said he glimpsed a couple of packed valises sitting on the kitchen table. He thought the man was going to take off tonight, skip out on his butcher bill.
All Mary Margaret had been able to think about was that it sounded like her nightmare was over. She imagined going the house tomorrow when she was sure the son was gone, seeing Mrs. Ashburton, who would welcome her back with open arms.
For Kathleen, Davey’s news became one of the last pieces of the puzzle, creating an entirely different picture. If the photograph proved that the real Rafe Ashburton had been considerably taller than the man who said he was Mrs. Ashburton’s son, who was that man? And why had he been pretending to be Rafe Ashburton?
Could it be that he was a man who needed to hide out somewhere, waiting for his partner to recuperate from a gunshot wound, waiting until New Year’s Day of 1881, when $4000 of newly minted $20 gold pieces would become safe to spend?
That’s when she announced that they needed to go the Ashburton house, immediately, to make sure that Mrs. Ashburton was all right. Because Kathleen couldn’t get one of the stray puzzle pieces out of her mind––those two cans of kerosene, ordered for a house that was well-stocked with lamp oil––two cans of kerosene that could be used to burn down a house in minutes.
“Miss Kathleen, are you sure this plan will work?” Davey asked as he ran to catch up with her as she turned from the alley onto Taylor, Mary Margaret trailing behind.
“I have no idea,” Kathleen snapped. “But we have to try.”
It had taken her precious minutes back at the boarding house to explain why she felt Mrs. Ashburton might be in danger and to convince Mrs. O’Rourke to send Jamie down to Market Street to find a patrolman who would contact the station and Patrick and then come on to the Ashburton house.
“I don’t know that I feel right about you using the key to the front door,” said Mary Margaret as she caught up with her. “Mrs. Ashburton won’t understand why we aren’t coming in the kitchen entrance.”
Kathleen gritted her teeth so she wouldn’t scream out that if what she feared turned out to be true, Mrs. Ashburton wouldn’t be in any shape to question why two servants weren’t using the proper door.
Kathleen slowed down as they got to Ellis, surprised when she saw how many carriages were traveling up and down the streets in each direction. But stood to reason the streets would be crowded. It was Friday night, and New Year’s Eve, so people would be going to the theatre and restaurants further east, while others would be attending parties up on Nob Hill and in the Western Addition past Van Ness. That also meant the local police would be busy directing traffic on Market and the surrounding streets, and it might take Jamie forever to find anyone willing to listen to him.
She increased her speed once they crossed Ellis, grabbing her skirts to make it easier to run. She didn’t bother to see if Davey or Mary Margaret were keeping up. She only halted when she got to the walkway that led to the Ashburtons’ kitchen entrance at the back of the house.
She said, “Davey, what I need you to do is go back and start pounding on the kitchen door. When the man comes to see who is there, say his name as loudly as you can. That will be our signal. Then start an argument with him over something. I know, insist he pay his bill immediately, wrangle over the amount. Anything to keep him standing at the back door. If he doesn’t come to the door, keep pounding on it, yelling if you must. I bet he’ll open up, if only to stop you from attracting notice from the neighbors.”
Davey nodded, looking rather like he was anticipating a good fight. Kathleen felt a spurt of fear, saying, “Listen, Davey. I think this man is a very dangerous man. Maybe even a killer. So don’t you go pushing him too far. If you think we are in trouble, better that you run back here to the street, stop a carriage, and ask someone for help. There are plenty of people around.”
He nodded again and said, “Same goes for you two,” before disappearing down the walkway.
She held out her hand to Mary Margaret and said, “Give me the key. I’m going to go up to the door while you go a little way down the walk. As soon as you hear Davey say ‘Mr. Ashburton,’ come and tell me. That’s the signal that we should go in the house. Remember, if we do run into the man when we’re inside, we pretend we were passing by and thought we heard someone yell for help.”
Kathleen walked up the short flight of steps, noticing there was a light showing from behind the curtains from one of the two front rooms on the second floor. With the sudden thought that the man might be standing at one of those windows, looking down at her, she ran up the steps and moved up as close as she could to the front door. She put her ear to the door to see if she could hear any movement inside the house. She thought she heard some pounding but was nevertheless startled when Mary Margaret appeared at her side and said, “I heard Davey give the signal.”
Mary Margaret had told Kathleen that the key Mrs. Ashburton gave her years ago, and that she still had, worked on both the back and front door, as well as all the rooms in the house. Kathleen put this key into the lock and tried to turn it while her other hand was on the knob. With a click, the key turned, and she felt the knob begin to move.
She very slowly opened the door, glad to see there was a lighted oil lamp sitting on the hall table, so they wouldn’t stumble in the dark. She could hear the voices of the man and Davey coming from the back of the house, so she slipped into the front hall. The sharp smell of kerosene assaulted her. Looking around, she wasn’t surprised to see an open can sitting at the bottom of the staircase. Before she could point this out to her friend, Mary Margaret had pushed past her and was already climbing up the stairs to the second floor.
Kathleen hesitated, then she grabbed the kerosene can and went swiftly up the stairs, trying not to spill any of the liquid. When she got to the top, she saw that the second floor was well-lit by two gas lamps placed on tables at either end of a short hallway. There was also a second two-gallon can of kerosene sitting on one of these tables. Thinking how swiftly a house of this age, built of wood, would burn, she grabbed the second can and went into the small bathroom across from the top of the stairs, looking for a place to hide both cans. There was a small cabinet that sat between the toilet and tub, and when she opened its doors, she saw the two cans would just fit. Cramming them in, she closed the doors and grabbed a pile of stained towels from off the floor to cover the cabinet.
Feeling unreasonably safer now that the cans were stowed out of sight, she went back into the hallway and saw that Mary Margaret was standing at one of two open doorways, staring.
As she came up behind her, she saw a well-appointed bedroom, bed neatly made, with nothing in the room out of place. But it was completely empty.
“She’s not here or in her sitting room,” Mary Margaret whispered, her voice filled with despair. “Where has he taken her?”
Chapter 14
Kathleen didn’t know
how long the two of them stood looking into Mrs. Ashburton’s bedroom. Probably no more than a moment. However, it took a sudden explosion of curses from below to remind her that they were running out of time. She pulled Mary Margaret away from the door and dragged her towards the first of the two closed doors on the other side of the hallway, putting her finger up to her mouth to remind her friend to be quiet.
One of those puzzle pieces, the answer to the question of why a stranger would pick the Ashburton house as a place to hide out, meant that in addition to Mrs. Ashburton, there very well might be another man in the house, in one of these rooms. Whether he would be friendly or not remained to be seen.
Coming to the first closed door, she knocked softly. When she heard nothing in response, she tried the knob and found the door wasn’t locked. Giving out a small sigh, she opened the door to find another empty room––this one with the bed in disarray, stacks of plates with congealed food on them, and the sharp stink of alcohol.
But no Mrs. Ashburton.
Kathleen closed this door and moved quickly down to the next room, where she again knocked and got no response. However, this door turned out to be locked. Her heart rate speeding up, she quickly used the key to unlock it, and when she pushed the door open, she was struck by odor so awful that she involuntarily began to wretch.
Mary Margaret let out a strangled cry and shoved her aside to get to an old woman who lay draped across the body of a man on the room’s single bed.
As Kathleen moved to draw her friend away from what she feared were two corpses, the woman stirred, let out a small moan, and sat back up in the chair next to the bed, whispering, “Mary Margaret, you’ve come!”
Kathleen came closer and saw that the man on the bed was also alive, but barely. He was lying flat on his back, with his right arm above the covers, and she saw instantly that the arm was badly swollen and was most certainly one of the sources of the terrible smells in the room. Only the slightest rise and fall of his chest revealed that the man still lived. While much of his face was obscured by a thick black mustache and beard, there was little doubt in her mind that he was Mrs. Ashburton’s son, Rafe. Or that the man downstairs, who had a remarkable resemblance to him, was Maxie Painter.
She suddenly heard Davey shouting out their names. Confused, she also heard the front door bell ringing, followed by loud knocking. Could it be Davey, come round the front to get in the house? But the door should be unlocked, shouldn’t it?
Then, her heart catching in her throat, she heard the sound of a man’s heavy feet pounding up the stairs. She looked over to where Mary Margaret crouched next to Mrs. Ashburton, who looked about to faint again, and she knew she had to do something. Running to the door of the room, she slammed it shut and turned the key in the lock with trembling fingers. She had some vague idea that this would buy her time to lean out the window and shout out for help to whoever was at the front door.
But before she could try that plan, she heard the man swearing in the hallway and knew she was out of time. The man would have his own key, and it would take but a moment for him to unlock the door.
Looking around the bare room, the only thing she saw as a possible weapon was a copper bed pan, filled with something disgusting. Then her eyes alighted on an iron poker leaning up against the fireplace.
Hearing the sound of the doorknob rattling, she snatched it up and ran to stand next to the doorway, the poker raised over her head. As the door began to open, she saw Mary Margaret look towards the door, her eyes widening and her mouth opening to let out a scream, and then Kathleen swung the poker down, hitting the man who’d just entered the room on his head.
Kathleen wasn’t sure how long she stared down at the man at her feet, watching a bright red trickle of blood that crept out from under his hairline to soak into his small, obviously dyed mustache. However, Mary Margaret’s scream still seemed to be reverberating in her ears when a flurry of movement in the hallway caused her to raise the poker up again.
“Sweetheart, my dearest, it’s me,” Patrick said, gently taking the poker from her hand as Officer Stanley stepped past him and kneeled to look at the body at her feet.
With a whoosh of breath that she didn’t even know she had been holding, she said, “Oh Patrick, I didn’t mean to, but I think I killed him.”
And then the room began to tilt, only righting itself when she felt his strong arms around her. He whispered, “My love, no, what you did, Kathleen, was catch a killer.”
Epilogue
Saturday morning, January 1, 1881
“Kathleen, my dear, I’m so sorry you had to go through all this. What a terrible way to start the new year,” Annie Dawson said as she enveloped her in a tight embrace.
Then she gently led her over to the kitchen rocker, saying, “Nate assures me that you have nothing to worry about legally. The man was only stunned, and you were clearly acting in self-defense. Now sit down and let Mrs. O’Rourke fix you a cup of tea, unless you would like to go right to bed?”
“Oh no, please ma’am, I couldn’t sleep…and I’m awash in police station tea. But maybe some toast?”
Kathleen looked up at the kitchen clock and saw it was already six o’clock in the morning. She didn’t know where the hours had gone.
First, there had been the long time she sat at the Ashburton house as more and more policemen arrived, including Sergeant Thompson and even Chief Jackson. In the brief period while they waited for police reinforcements, Patrick told her what she already suspected, that the man with the dyed hair, who had said he was Rafe Ashburton, was really Maxie Painter. It turned out that Sergeant Thompson got a telegram from the Lansing Penitentiary in Kansas, confirming that a Lewis Tombs, alias Maxie Painter, had been recently let out of prison after serving six years for robbery with assault. More importantly, the telegram said this Painter’s cell mate had been a man named Raphael Ashburton, also recently released. This was the information that had sent Officer Stanley and him sprinting across town to the Ashburton house. Which was why they were so quick on the scene.
Officer Stanley said how sorry he was that he hadn’t taken her and Mary Margaret’s concerns more seriously, that without their quick thinking, the man might have gotten clean away.
That’s when she had mentioned the kerosene she hid in the bathroom and her fear that Painter meant to set the house on fire. While Stanley went to look for the two cans, Patrick had stared at Painter, who sat on the floor cursing, his hands cuffed behind his back. Patrick took in a sharp breath and grabbed her hand and squeezed it convulsively. Kathleen thought that must have been the moment he realized that Maxie Painter hadn’t planned on leaving any evidence behind when he left the Ashburton house.
Finally, the police doctor came over and announced that Painter was well enough to be moved to the jail house but that Mrs. Ashburton and the son should be taken right over to St. Mary’s hospital.
Next, Mary Margaret and she were driven to the station, where they waited some more until Mr. Dawson arrived. Then began the hours of questions, accompanied by cup after cup of tea.
Patrick hadn’t been able to stay with her. Mr. Nate told her that he had been sent with Sergeant Thompson to St. Mary’s to talk to Mrs. Ashburton and that Mary Margaret would be given permission to go there when she was done being interviewed.
So it was Chief Jackson and some officer she didn’t know who sat across the table from her, asking the questions. Everyone had been very nice, but she hadn’t been able to get warm. And the tea she kept drinking didn’t do anything but make her have to use the facilities, which, she must say, needed a good cleaning.
When they finally told her she could leave, she discovered Patrick standing outside the interview room door, his hat clutched in his hands. He asked Chief Jackson and Mr. Nate if he could have a moment alone with her and then drew her into a little alcove off the station lobby.
She asked him right away about Mrs. Ashburton, and he said she was doing surprisingly well, despite the ordeal she’d bee
n through. Apart from needing rest and a bland diet, she was in pretty good physical shape. The daughter had been notified, but Mary Margaret was going to stay with her mistress in the hospital until she could take her home.
When Kathleen asked him about the son, Patrick wasn’t so positive. He said the man’s arm was badly infected…something called sepsis…and he would probably lose it.
Patrick had then said, “I think that’s why Mrs. Ashburton seemed so relieved to tell the police everything that happened. She wanted to explain why she wasn’t able to get help for her son.”
According to Patrick, Mrs. Ashburton said that when Painter and her son arrived at her place late on Christmas Day, her son didn’t seem to be that badly off. He told his mother that he needed a place to stay while his arm healed from a gunshot wound he got in a fight over a woman, a story that she believed because something similar had happened years ago when her husband threw him out of the house. She thought this was her chance to make things up to her son.
She explained she went along with the decision to send Mary Margaret away, for the time being, because she “didn’t like the looks of her son’s friend.” By the next morning, her son had a high fever, but when she begged the friend to get a doctor, he’d just laughed. That’s when she discovered he was keeping the door to the room where she was with her son locked. The man did bring her up some food and would take her down to the bathroom occasionally. He even once helped her change the bandages on the festering wound on her son’s arm.
Kathleen Catches a Killer Page 9
