Cabot extended the wooden box and gestured for her to help herself. Without taking his gaze from her, he tilted his head back and blew a steady stream of smoke toward the plaster acanthus leaves that ringed the ceiling, watching her, daring her to take the cigar.
"Or would you rather wear a frilly blouse and sit demurely in a drawing room with some embroidery?" He continued to hold the box out with his left hand while he tapped off the ashes of his cigar with his right.
"It was a beautiful blouse," she said, wishing she didn't sound quite as wistful as she did. "I'd have worn it to Judge Pollack's chambers the day we were married if I'd had it then."
"And gone down to assist me in the Ehrlich case afterward? I think not," he said, and smoke came from his nostrils as he snorted at her.
It had been a foolish, wayward thought. Not her dream at all. Her dreams had always been different from other girls'. Whereas Abigail wanted to play house, Charlotte wanted to play court. While Marjorie always pretended to be the bride, Charlotte was always the judge.
Cabot left the cigar box at the edge of the desk in front of her, and with his left hand he thrummed the pads of his fingers against the heavy mahogany desk, waiting.
"You're angry about the shirtwaist," he said, allowing for her to deny it.
"Disappointed. But you're right, of course." Wasn't he always? Wasn't that his most admirable quality? And his most exasperating? "My image would indeed be compromised by such a..."
Words failed her. Lovely was too mild. Elegant too cold. Exquisite.
"—ridiculous-looking thing," Cabot finished for her. "No doubt Mother will like it, though. She has a weakness for that sort of thing."
"And you, Cabot?" Ash stood in the doorway. He crossed his arms, and leaned against the door frame. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled high on his forearms, his tan skin contrasting sharply with his wilted white shirt.
Charlotte could nearly smell the sea just looking at him. "What is it you have a weakness for?"
Cabot looked at his brother, startled by the question. She could see he was thinking about it, running his tongue against his teeth, squinting his eyes slightly. His lips parted as if he were ready to reveal some private truth, but then he waved away the question with his hand. "We've a case to prepare. Go busy yourself while Charlotte and I get to work."
Ash winced. "There's got to be something I can do to help. I realize I'm no lawyer, but it is my ass... ashes... on the line."
"You can answer the door," Cabot said, gesturing toward the hall where someone was employing the brass knocker Charlotte had all but fondled that first time she'd come to see Cabot to beg him for a job. Oh, but she'd been full of herself back then, not even out of school and already sure she would be the best woman lawyer west of the Mississippi if only Cabot would allow her to clerk for him. Pigheaded and single minded, her grandmother had called her, demanding to know what was wrong with marriage and babies.
As if there were any security in that. Hadn't her own father swindled her mother out of her inheritance and then vanished into the night? And hadn't her mother been reduced to cleaning other women's houses and cooking other families' meals while Charlotte's grandmother flitted merrily around Europe? Her grandmother hadn't been there to see the woman lose her pride, her hope, and finally her health.
Well, at least the old woman had come back to take care of Charlotte after Mina Reynolds had given up and died.
"It's Greenbough," she told Cabot, looking out the window and watching Ash's partner shift his weight nervously from one foot to the other.
"Do you want to do the interview?" There was a smirk on Cabot's face that said he knew she did, how very much she did.
She shrugged as if it made no difference while her heart pounded so hard inside her chest, she thought the watch on her shirtwaist might just take flight. "If you like," she said, relieved when her voice sounded like her own and not some banshee's. The truth was, the law gave her a rush like nothing else did, a heady wild feeling of power and strength to which a woman hardly had a right. Well, they had a right to the feeling, but no avenue, no opportunity, to experience it.
"Go straight for the jugular, Charlie," he said, backing his invalid chair away from the desk slightly. "Only, don't give him an inkling it's his own blood dripping on the floor."
"I know my business," she snapped at him, stretching up on her toes to check her appearance in the high mirror that faced her husband's desk.
"Yours and everyone else's." He pointed a finger at her in warning. "And plenty that doesn't even concern you and me."
He was never going to let that case of Virginia Halton's go. But then, neither was she. Dr. Mollenoff called it a matter of life and death, and she couldn't agree more. That Cabot didn't see it that way was his problem, not hers, she told herself.
She extended her hand to Sam Greenbough as he came into the suite of rooms, and pointed him toward a chair in her office, hoping to stop him before he could get a foot into Cabot's.
"Sam!" Cabot bellowed from his doorway with an enthusiasm Charlotte was sure he didn't feel. "You take it easy on my wife, now, you hear? She's still learning the ropes, so cut her a bit of slack. Just tell her everything you know and count on her forgetting half of it!"
Charlotte knew he was merely trying to give Sam a false sense of security so that he'd let down his guard and she might learn something helpful that he'd otherwise not reveal. No doubt that was why Cabot was allowing her to conduct the interview. Just the same, it grated, and she found that she couldn't bring herself to meet Ashford's eyes as she slipped by to trade places with him, her skirts swishing against his trousers as she did.
***
"Do you mean to sit there and tell me"—Ash could hear her clearly, right through the wall—"you're trying to tell me, in all seriousness, that you have no recollection to whom you sold one thousand pounds of coffee only three months ago?"
Cabot's beard had gone slightly gray while Ash had been away. Now the salt-and-pepper hairs around his mouth were split by a wide smile that revealed his brother's clean white teeth.
"I don't see what that has to do with anything," Green-bough answered her. "And even if I did, I couldn't help you. All the books were burned in the fire."
Cabot leaned his head toward the wall as if to hear better. Ash could see that he was holding his breath.
"Was your memory burned in the fire too? Because I find it hard to believe that a transaction of such magnitude—"
"I said I don't remember." Ash didn't like the tone his partner was taking with Charlotte. He rose from his chair but Cabot signaled him back down.
"It's a simple matter, Mr. Greenbough," Charlotte said evenly. It seemed the more agitated Sam got, the more civil and calm Charlotte stayed. "There are a limited number of coffee merchants in the Bay Area. Perhaps if I provided you with a list, it would jog your memory."
"What difference does it make who I sold them to?" Sam demanded.
Ash was wondering the same thing. He wanted Cabot to prove that Sam had set the fire, not mismanaged the business. Still the fact that his partner was being so evasive led Ash to believe that Charlotte, the lady lawyer, was onto something.
"Indeed," she agreed, and he imagined her hazel eyes dancing. "What difference does it make—if you did what you said?"
The woman was as brilliant as she was beautiful. His brother was one lucky man.
That thought, so ironic, coupled with the fleeting idea that if he could find himself a woman like Charlotte, Ash might just settle down once and for all, made him laugh right out loud.
"You hear him laughing?" Greenbough asked Charlotte. "Everything's one big joke to you, isn't it?" Sam shouted through the wall. "No respect for anything."
"What did you ever do to that guy?" Cabot asked, then put up his hand to stop Ash from telling him. "I don't want to know any more than I suspect."
"If that chip on his shoulder was any bigger, his knuckles would be scraping the sidewalk," Ash told him. Was i
t his fault that Sam's wife thought Ash could sell sand in the desert and that Sam couldn't give away boats on the bay? Or that she was probably right?
Ash hadn't given her so much as the time of day, so he couldn't see what it was Sam had to grumble about.
"Hey," Sam shouted. "You've really done it this time, Whittier. Alls I can say is, I'm glad this partnership is over and I hope you rot in jail. Even if they are Chinks."
"Were Chinks," Ash mumbled, wondering how he could have ever gone into partnership with a man like Sam Greenbough. Granted the man had connections up and down the whole West Coast and was related to half the brokers back East. Still, it hadn't turned out worth it, financially or morally. Of course, his brother's "vagrant defense" wasn't any better. "I didn't set that fire," Ash shouted, hitting the wall that separated Cabot's office from Charlotte's with the side of his fist. "And you know it!"
"Isn't he the most irritating man?" he heard Charlotte ask. "And you here doing all the real work while he goes sailing off to places like the Sandwich Islands and the South Seas. Doesn't really seem fair, does it? You stuck here to make the very best deals you can. Like on those coffee beans. That couldn't have been easy, getting someone to take beans that had been ruined by the rain, Mr. Greenbough, and get a decent price...."
"You hear her?" Cabot whispered. His eyes were shiny with excitement, his vest straining with pride. "Isn't she something? Nothing I ever taught her was wasted. Not a thing! I even amaze myself sometimes!"
Ash fought to keep his mind from wandering, from speculating on the other things that Cabot had no doubt taught the pretty young woman in the next room during five years of marriage. It wasn't like him to give any thought to someone else's private doings. Why did those lace-topped stockings refuse to go away? Why did he wonder what they would look like against that soft part of a woman's thigh? Dear God! This was his sister-in-law!
Cabot asked him something, and Ash looked at him dumbly. "What?"
"Have you a copy of the insurance policy?" Cabot repeated. "And try not to daydream while we're all busy saving your skin."
"I'm trying," Ash said, studying his brother's hands and wondering if they were gentle enough, noticing how very long his fingers were, and shocking himself with where his thoughts were going. "The insurance policy? Me? No, you must have it. When have you ever entrusted to me something that had value to you?"
Those long fingers of Cabot's played with the spokes of his chair wheel. "Does it bother you that I've a piece of that warehouse?"
"There isn't any warehouse anymore," Ash replied. "But, yes, it bothers me that you refused to let me buy you out when I was in the position to do so and that now you'll have to settle for the insurance money instead."
"Not if it's arson," Cabot said, reaching for his copy of the California Penal Code and flipping it open to the bookmarked spot. "Section Five forty-eight, burning or destroying property insured. Every person who willfully burns or in any other way destroys... blah, blah, blah."
"Hey—I didn't burn the place, Cabot. And you certainly didn't burn it, so—"
"So who did?" Cabot asked, fingering the ends of his chair arms as he looked over at Charlotte's room, where a low drone signified that she was still discussing the case with Greenbough.
"I don't know, but I'm sure as hell going to find out," Ash told Cabot, coming to his feet and running his hands through his hair.
"You'll do no such thing," Cabot told him. "I've an investigator for that and you've been remanded to my custody, which means you are not to leave this house."
"But—" Ash began. Cabot put his hand up and signaled for him to listen to Charlotte's interrogation of Greenbough, as if Cabot's wife could possibly save his tail.
"So then, what you're telling me is that because of the fire there is no way to know to whom, or for how much, you actually sold those coffee beans?" he heard her ask, the ludicrousness of Greenbough's assertion mirrored in her voice.
"You just might be a very lucky man," Cabot said as he maneuvered his chair back and forth to get it free of the desk.
"Well, it's certain you are," Ash said, fighting the urge to help his brother. He was sure that a third wheel on the back of the chair, a small one that could pivot, would make all the difference, but so far he hadn't managed to get Cabot to listen to reason. "She's quite a woman."
"She's quite a lawyer," Cabot said proudly, obviously taking full credit for Charlotte's ability while he seemed to be dismissing any other attributes she might possess. "She's given him a motive. We've a second suspect, you see. Now, let's go say good-day to Mr. Greenbough, shall we, and thank him for coming in."
Charlotte looked up with a start as Ash opened the door to her office. He nodded at her and at Greenbough and held the door open for Cabot to go through.
"Sam," Cabot said, extending his hand, "I can't tell you how much help you've been. We'll be in touch."
Sam Greenbough looked at Cabot and Charlotte, clearly confused by their civility, their pure and obvious delight at his presence. After all, he'd come to nail Ash's skin to the wall, and here they were, shaking his hand and thanking him. Cabot did have a right to be proud. He and Charlotte made quite a team.
"When you're done getting what we need from Mr. Greenbough, meet me in the conservatory, Charlotte, will you? I'd like to dispense with this case in the next few days and get on to something more challenging."
Sam turned around in his chair to watch Cabot leave. "I'm not here to help you," Sam called out after him, as if that could change what he'd apparently told them unwittingly.
"No," Cabot agreed, wheeling the chair around to face Sam, "I'm aware of that. But stranger things have happened. It's a funny thing. They say that when a man loses one of his senses, the others are heightened. A blind man hears better than most sighted men. A deaf man can smell a fire a mile away.
"And a cripple... well, a cripple hears, sees, smells, everything that goes on around him. And doesn't miss a trick." He looked at Ash accusingly, as if he'd been reading his thoughts and had surmised—from what was really nothing more than a casual interest—that his brother had designs on his wife, when nothing could have been further from the truth.
Cabot fingered the spokes of his wheels. "No, not a trick."
CHAPTER 4
Davis Flannigan squinted his one good eye at the sign on the lawn. It was dark, so he wasn't making nothing more out than some name that started with a W, then a bunch of fancy letters after that. He did his best to keep up with the doc, but his side was still stinging something powerful where his father's boot had clipped him by surprise when he'd fallen.
Not that the beating was anything out of the ordinary, mind you, but over the last year he'd figured out that if he tightened his muscles and kept them like a knot he could withstand the blows till tiredness had stopped the old man where Davis himself couldn't.
Then his father'd fall to his knees, crying and moaning, pulling Davis against him and blubbering about how sorry he was.
All things considered, Davis would sooner take the beatings.
But twice now he'd had to sneak away to beg help off old Doc Mollenoff. He couldn't set a broken rib himself, now, could he? Still, he didn't know about this lawyer business the doctor was insisting on. His father wasn't going to like it one bit, that he was sure of, and when Ewing Flannigan didn't like something... well, generally Davis had to pay for it in the long run.
"You all right?" the doc asked him. The older man stood waiting for him, his head slightly cocked so that Davis thought his hat might fall right off his bald head and set him glowing in the lamplight. His big sad eyes looked real wet, like he was hurting for Davis. As if Davis wasn't hurting enough himself. "You want I should help you?" Doc Mollenoff put out his hand, but Davis just pretended it wasn't there, wasn't reaching out for him, hoping to steady his step.
If there was one thing Davis hated, it was pity. He threw his shoulders back, but the pain was so bad that he had to suck air, and the old man wasn't blind en
ough to miss him wincing.
"We're almost there," the doc said, and Davis just avoided the old man taking his arm.
He was thinking it wasn't such a good idea, this coming to see a lawyer, even before he walked up the ramp to the two front doors that met in the middle like one wasn't enough. From the looks of the place nothing was enough for these people. He'd be willing to bet that the people in this house had never wanted for anything in their lives. A coddling house for coddled people. What could they know about him and his da?
He turned to go, sure now that he'd made a mistake in coming, and wondered how he hadn't figured that little piece of brilliance out before he'd walked halfway across Oakland to get to the house.
"You don't got to be afraid," the doctor said in his funny accent, while one hand rested on Davis's good shoulder just firmly enough to stop him from bolting. "Mrs. Vittier is a very nice lady. And she could help you."
The doctor was taking him to the lawyer's wife, who, the doctor claimed, was a lawyer herself. A lady lawyer. His father'd get a good laugh about that one... after he beat the tar out of Davis for airing their dirty laundry in public.
He coughed and looked around for a place to spit. Heck, even the dirt in the flower boxes was clean. The doctor handed him a handkerchief, waited while he used it, and then took it back. Pretending not to be checking, the man stole a quick look at it, swearing under his breath. Hey, but a doctor ought to be used to some blood every now and then. Davis surely was.
Doc Mollenoff grabbed the brass knocker on the left door and clapped it hard enough to send it smack on into the parlor, then pounded on the hard polished wood with his fist for good measure.
At the same time he turned to Davis and put on one of those smiles Davis had learned not to trust. After all, the man was mad enough to spit teeth and here he was showing his pearly whites to Davis instead. "You'll like Charlotte Vittier," he said as if he really expected Davis to believe him, a man who couldn't even pronounce the lady's name right. When Davis had asked him who Mrs. Vittier was, the doctor had corrected him. Vittier, he'd said, like Veather or Vindy. "She's a good voman," he added.
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