What Gold Buys

by Ann Parker

  “See this?” The undertaker moved the jacket collar aside a little. “He was strangled as well.”

  There was a straight-line bruise on his neck.

  Tony felt sick again. She’d hated Worthless Pisspot Brown, was ready to kill him herself. But now, she felt sorry for him. And she wondered. Maybe Mrs. Stannert was right. Maybe Pisspot wasn’t “the” Mr. Brown.

  “Why would someone do that?” Tony tried to make sense of it.

  “They don’t know yet. According to the examination by the physician and coroner, poor Mr. Brown here didn’t die from the gunshot wound.”

  “Didn’t he get shot in the heart?”

  “No, the heart is on the other side of the chest.” Alexander busied himself with the cufflinks. “He apparently was shot, lay there for a while, bleeding, then was strangled. It was the strangulation that killed him. We’ll save these cufflinks for the clothes his friends will provide us. I’m sure the family will appreciate that we send them home with Mr. Brown.”

  Tony’s blood ran cold. “They’re bringing his clothes now?” She did not want to see the nobs here, where they might recognize her and she’d have no way to escape.

  “No, no, later. The marshal wants them to stay in town until the law figures out who killed him.” He pointed to a wooden box on the far table. “Bring me that. We can put his clothes in there and throw them away later. They aren’t even any good to the poor, as soiled as they are.” He nodded to a large, worn-looking trunk against a wall. “We put the clothes from the indigent and unknown that are in good shape in there. When the trunk is full, we give them to the missions and the churches in town to give back to the poor. But Mr. Brown doesn’t have anything useful to offer.”

  Tony went and grabbed the small trashbox. It was then she noticed, tucked in one corner and held up off the floor by three sawhorses, a fancy casket, twin to one she’d polished upstairs. “Is Mr. Brown going to be packed in a metallic burial case?”

  “Very good, you remembered the proper terminology. However, he won’t be packed like a crate of eggs, he’ll be laid to rest in the case.”

  “So his family is paying for it?”

  “Oh yes, and the embalming too. They are also putting pressure on the marshal, coroner, and everyone to just be done with it. According to what I’ve heard about their telegrams, they view the American West as being full of gunfighters, wild animals, and savage natives. They don’t care how he died, oddly enough, they just want him brought home for burial in his native England. We’ll see what happens. The marshal seems intent that justice be done, but with all the violence in town, there’s not a lot of time to investigate one death, particularly if the family doesn’t insist. However, he has the gun and some leads, so perhaps this will be over quickly.”

  His voice got faraway. “I’d like to try the Lyford embalming process, but I don’t have all the necessary equipment. I’ll probably just use Dr. Gregorvich’s recipe, since it’s worked well in the past. When we’re done here, Mr. Donatello, you can help me check whether I have enough of the requisite chemicals. I’ll need zinc chloride, mercury chromate, creosote, and alum.”

  Tony focused on removing Brown’s stockings. The skin on his lower limbs was cold to the touch and dead white to look at. She tried to do neither. “So they have the gun that killed…shot him? They know who did it?”

  “Well, it’s a fancy revolver,” said Mr. Alexander. He turned to pick up a pair of scissors and began cutting away the bloody clothes. “Apparently the gun belongs to a boy who tried to shoot Mr. Brown a few days ago.” Tony, who was preparing to toss the balled-up stockings into the trashbox, froze. Alexander continued, “I gather the incident happened at one of the saloons in town, the Silver Queen. I heard it caused quite a ruckus. They’re looking for the boy now, and I imagine it won’t be long before he’s found.”

  “Where,” she found it hard to speak, “where did they find him? I mean, the remains?”

  She had a bad feeling about this, which was confirmed when Mr. Alexander said, “In an abandoned fortuneteller’s shack off Stillborn Alley.”

  ***

  When Tony slipped into the newsie shed in the dead of night, Ace was awake and waiting. “Tony,” he whispered. “All kinds of people are looking for you.”

  “I know!” she whispered back.

  “They think you killed somebody, a swell from out of town.” A beat. “Did you?”

  “No!”

  “Mrs. Stannert asked us about you,” Ace continued. “She wants to see you, says it’s important, and you gotta meet her tomorrow morning. She said you’d know where.”

  “I know,” muttered Tony. Things were getting complicated. She wanted to run and hide, but wasn’t sure where to go.

  “I mean, you can stay here with us still. You gotta hide somewhere and here is as good as any place. I don’t think anyone knows about it except for Mrs. Stannert, and she’s sworn to secrecy now.”

  “You told her?”

  Even in the darkness, Tony could sense Ace’s shrug. “She kinda knew already. But, that makes me think others might be guessing as well and they might come looking for you.” Ace leaned toward her. “We could make you a place behind those ink drums, with a bunch of the old burlap bags. You’d want to leave afore sun-up, though.”

  “No, it’s okay, Ace. I don’t want you and the rest to get into trouble on account of me. I know a safe place I can hide. Thanks.”

  Clutching the key to Miss Carothers’ studio through her layers of shirts, undervests, and jacket, she melted back into the night.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Tuesday morning, Inez hurried to Susan’s studio, arriving before she opened for business, but not by much. Tony was there. Inez wondered where the youngster had spent the night. The newsie shed, perhaps? The girl, dressed in her proper “Annabelle” clothes, was finishing a sausage roll and tea breakfast with Susan. Tony had dark circles under her eyes, and her hands were shaking.

  The first thing she said when she saw Inez was, “Pisspot Brown’s dead!”

  Inez turned to Susan. “It might be best if I talk to Tony alone. I don’t want to put you in a situation where you will feel the need to lie. The less you know about certain things, the less complicated it will be for you.”

  “Are you sure? You know, I’m always willing to help, any way I can.”

  “I know, Susan, and you do so much for me. It often seems, however, despite my best intentions, whenever I embroil you in these doings you are the one who ends up in trouble.”

  Susan smiled. “Well, not all the time, Inez. However, I do need to make tea. Miss Sweet is bringing in Misses July, August, and September for portraits soon, so I must get the tea going and the sitting room prepared.” She added, “Tony’s going to help me today. I showed her how to develop plates yesterday, and I think I can trust her to do some developing on her own while I take care of the sittings I have booked. Annabelle is a quick study.”

  “Excellent!” said Inez. Keeping Tony bundled in skirts and with her distinctive eyes hidden behind the tinted glasses Inez had secured seemed like a good idea. Keeping her behind the doors of Susan’s darkroom sounded even better.

  Once Susan had left the room, Inez said to Tony, “So you know about Mr. Brown.”

  “Yeah! I saw his remains at Mr. Alexander’s, and then I puked,” burst out Tony.

  Inez winced in sympathy. “I wish I could have talked to you sooner. We have to figure out a way I can reach you if I must.”

  “He was killed with my gun!” wailed Tony. “Someone stole it and killed Mr. Brown with it! Now all his friends think I did it!”

  “I know you had nothing to do with his death,” soothed Inez. “And you have proof, should push come to shove, that you were nowhere near when he died. You were working at Mr. Alexander’s and then you were with your newsie friends, right?”

  “Y
eah, but…”

  “So, you must be extra careful until things are sorted out. Remember, they are looking for the newsie Tony. They are not looking for Annabelle Carothers.” Inez furrowed her brow. “I believe you should stop working at Mr. Alexander’s. It’s too dangerous to go about as a boy now.”

  Tony put her head in her hands. Her glasses slid down her nose. “I can’t,” she whispered.

  Inez tried to hold onto her patience. “Why not?”

  “He has a trunk, where they put the clothes of people who die and nobody cares. I want to see if Maman’s clothes are inside.”

  Inez leaned forward. “Tony…Annabelle…oh hell, Antonia.” Tony looked up. “If you find her clothes, what does that prove?”

  “It’ll prove her remains were brought there. I can ask Mr. Alexander about her, and he won’t be able to lie. I thought it all out last night, while I was sleeping here at the studio.” Tony took a deep breath. “Mr. Alexander, he’s asking me to clean and straighten stuff. So, if I say, ‘How about if I clean out the trunk, fold up the clothes for the mission?’ I bet he’ll say yes. And then, if I find, say, her sash or her waistcoat, I can hold it up and say something like, ‘Oooh, this is nice. Where did this come from?’ And he’ll have to tell me and then I can ask some more questions. But if he says he doesn’t know, I’ll know he’s lying.”

  Now Inez wanted to hold her head in her hands. “Tony, first of all, you’ll be dressed as a boy, and I do not believe a boy would hold up a fancy gold ladies’ sash and say, ‘Ooooh, this is nice.’ Besides, if he does have your mother’s clothes, I’m not sure how you will go about probing without raising suspicions. Remember, Mrs. Alexander went to your mother at least once, probably several times. I think it’s a sore point for him, his wife’s interest in soothsaying, fortunetelling, and so on. What if he brings Mrs. Alexander into the discussion and she recognizes you?”

  Tony’s mouth set in a stubborn line. “I’ll think of something. I want to know. I have to know. Besides, there’s strange things going on there.”

  “Such as?”

  “When I got there yesterday, he was talking to someone downstairs where the bodies are stored and stuff. I heard two voices, but when I went down, it was only him and Mr. Brown, and Mr. Brown, well, he wasn’t talking, that’s for sure.”

  Inez sat back, her scalp tingling with alarm. Her thoughts turned immediately to the upcoming séance and tableknockings, messages from beyond, disembodied voices from the dead…

  She said, “Well, this Friday evening, I will be there. Mrs. Alexander is holding a séance at midnight and I’m invited.”

  “You?” Tony sounded incredulous.

  “Yes, me. And while I am there I plan to ask a few questions and see if I can learn more about your mother’s relationship to Mrs. Alexander as well as any doings she may have had with Mr. Alexander. Too, there’s Dr. Gregorvich, an odd duck if ever there was one.”

  “I don’t like him,” said Tony.

  The doorbell clinked, and Inez heard a bevvy of female voices. “Look, you better go. I have to talk to someone who just arrived and it’s best you aren’t around.”

  Tony vanished in the direction of the darkroom.

  Frisco Flo sashayed into the little waiting room and said brightly, “Why Mrs. Stannert! Imagine meeting you here!” She turned to the three boarders lingering behind her and said, “You all know where the sitting room is. Go, and don’t make trouble for Miss Carothers.”

  “This way, ladies,” Miss Carothers’ voice floated down the hall.

  The women adjusted hats, tweaked their sleeves, and departed in the direction of the photographer’s voice. Flo sat down and examined Tony’s half-full cup of tea and the leftover crumbles of a sausage roll. “Someone was here before me? Am I your second meeting of the day? Goodness, you start early.”

  “It never stops,” said Inez. “I have yet another appointment after this one, so I’ll try to be brief. I hope you got my message last night. We are set for Thursday evening, the Tontine, nine o’clock. Will this work for all the parties involved?”

  Flo waved an airy hand. Her silver bracelets chimed. “Mrs. Stannert, please, do not worry. I received your message and have alerted all the players. Well, the ones who were to be alerted, that is.”

  “Is there any possibility that at the last minute—?”

  She sighed. “Honestly, you are as nervous as some sweet young thing preparing to turn out in the sisterhood. Trust me, I have my hands on the reins and all will be well. Of course, there’s always a chance something unexpected will happen. People get sick, the weather turns, the restaurant burns down.” She scrunched her face, then allowed it to relax, leaving not even a small crease at the corners of her baby-blue eyes. “But there are always alternatives. Bribing a judge. A little poison in the stew—”

  “The judge is unbribable and I’m not turning to poison,” said Inez.

  Flo patted her springy blonde curls. “Well then, we’ll just have to think of something else if it comes to that, won’t we?”

  ***

  It was Inez’s day to cover the bar, so after her conversation with Flo, she hurried back to her station, trusting Tony was safely tucked out of sight for the day. Still, she couldn’t focus. Wheels upon wheels whirred, everything was in motion, and all she could do was stand back and watch.

  Halfway through the afternoon, Abe came in to work. “Ain’t nothin’ I can do at home,” he informed Sol and Inez. “Miz Buford practically pushed me out the door and told me to stop actin’ like an old woman, and go to work and support my family like a man. Don’t know why I let her talk to me that way,” he grumbled.

  “And little Hazel?” she ventured to ask.

  “As pretty as a new-made day,” was the response. “She takes after her mother, no question.”

  Inez ventured, “But her eyes…”

  “Miz Buford, she says sometimes eyes darken up. Angel, I can tell she’s a mite upset, worried of what folks’ll say and what the future might hold for Hazel and all. I figure it’ll work out, and time will tell. Speakin’ of time,” he checked the ice box and turned to Inez, “I hear tell you gave Mark his walkin’ papers and not much time for him to do his usual two-step waltz to change your mind.”

  She looked down at the clean apron she had put on less than an hour ago. It already had a spot. She smoothed her hand over the stain, as if she could magically make it disappear. “I have.”

  “So, this ain’t no long con? Not just a way of makin’ him come crawling to you on his knees over broken glass while offering a thousand apologies for all the bad things he’s done over the years?”

  “No. It’s not a ploy.”

  Abe nodded once. “Well, then. Just know I don’t be takin’ sides in this fight and I’ll be tellin’ Mark the same. But that don’t mean I don’t care. I plan on bein’ civil and a friend to you both. I can’t just cut off this leg or that, and still be walkin’. So, no matter how it all comes down, you can count on me to be there for you, when you’re in need. Me’n Angel both.” He added, “I will say this, Angel sees a lot more in you than she does in Mark, and she don’t mind sayin’ so, loud and long.”

  Inez had to smile at the thought of mostly silent, low-voiced Angel saying anything “loud and long.”

  “But then, you and Angel been through a lot together,” he continued. “Kinda like Mark and me, at the end of the War and after, afore you came along and shook things up.” He leaned against the backbar. “You still plannin’ on stayin’ a partner in the Silver Queen?”

  Inez moved to stand beside Abe and let her gaze sweep the saloon—its plank floors, the paintings on the walls, the slightly moth-eaten buffalo head mounted above the State Street door, the always slightly-out-of-tune upright tucked at the bottom of the stairs, the faces new and familiar at the tables and the bar. She said, “How could I not? The Silver Queen is as muc
h a part of me as the air I breathe.”

  Abe nodded. “Good. That’s what I wanted to hear.”

  ***

  As Inez expected, the four Lads from London, who seemed universally despondent at the loss of their fifth, came in later that day, commandeered a table, and commenced drinking. Inez offered her sympathies and worked around to solicitously inquiring whether they had any funds for their extended stay in town. Quick looked as if he might burst into tears. “Poor Percy, he was paying for our lodgings and expenses, in celebration of his, you know, newly inherited wealth and later to mark his entrance into the mining industry.” All this came out a great deal slurred, which led Inez to believe this wasn’t their first stop of the day. “Surely, Mrs. Stannert, you can tide us over until next month’s remittances come in?”

  Inez decided the loss of income was preferable to having to toss them out into the street. “Don’t worry about it,” she assured them, and rather than pour them the next round of drinks, simply left the bottle on the table for them. “On the house, in honor of Lord Percy’s memory,” she said. They raised their glasses in unison and drank. “Do you still have lodgings?” she asked.

  Tipton nodded. “Tabor, fine chap that he is, offered us rooms gratis at his hotel until we’re released by the marshal.”

  “Good thing or we’d be sleeping in the gutters,” said Epperley sourly, adding, “I don’t know why we have to linger. They know who did it. It was that boy.” He said it was a nasty snarl. “Why don’t they just smoke him out? It’s an all-around muddle, is what it is.”

  “Now now,” said Tipton. “The family said mercy is better than justice. They just want dear old Percy home so he can be buried in the family plot in native soil. They always thought he was barmy for coming to the colonies, you know. They fully expected him to have a sorry end. Well, all our families think that of us, right?” Glum nods all around. Tipton continued, “We need to stick around to make sure his mortal remains are sent properly on and without delay.”