No Comfort for the Lost

by Nancy Herriman

  “’Tisn’t against the law, now, is it?” Ahearn glanced around the room, his gaze stopping at each set of eyes turned in their direction until each observer found something better to look at. Satisfied that he’d cowed all present in the chophouse, Ahearn picked up his fork again, smashed a lump of potatoes onto the back of the tines, and balanced peas atop it. “And I’m also thinkin’ I won’t be tellin’ you what my plans are for today or any other day. Because I know you’re simply fishin’, and I’m not so stupid as to be hooked.” Without dropping a pea, he shoveled the lot of them into his mouth.

  “Maybe you should tell me why you were out unusually late Monday night, Mr. Ahearn. Can anyone vouch for your whereabouts?”

  “My friends here will tell you I was with them. Having a good time of it, weren’t we, now, fellas?” he asked the two who slouched in their chairs by the window. They both nodded dutifully.

  “I wonder if you and your friends would mind coming in to the station to make a statement.”

  “They just told you what you’re needin’ to know, Detective.” Connor Ahearn eyed him. “And you’ll not be pinnin’ that girl’s murder on me.”

  “I will if you’ve done it.”

  “Well, and isn’t that the problem, Detective? I’ve not done it!”

  Connor Ahearn shoveled the last bite of meat into his mouth and chewed, a smug grin on his face. But the bead of sweat trickling down his cheek told a different story.

  • • •

  “Sorry I’ve come on a Sunday, ma’am,” said Dora, coughing into her handkerchief. “I know your clinic’s not usually open, especially this late.”

  “I told you to return if you did not feel well,” said Celia, moving the stethoscope down the young woman’s back. “Breathe in, Dora. Deeply.”

  She did, which triggered another round of coughing.

  Celia straightened and removed the stethoscope’s earpieces. “Have you been taking the comfrey infusion I gave you?”

  Dora turned to face Celia. “Yes.”

  “And have you tried to rest?”

  Dora glanced away. “Well . . .”

  “You are not worse, Dora, but you have not improved much, either.” Celia folded the stethoscope. “You need to rest for the remainder of the day. And by rest I mean not move a muscle. Also, drink lots of hot lemonade or some other warm beverage to thin the mucus in your lungs. That should help.”

  Dora retrieved her corset and put it on. “So I’m not too sick to go to work tomorrow?”

  “If you rest, you may go to work. I expect by the end of this week, you should feel better.” She helped Dora climb down from the bench. “Will you be able to attend Li Sha’s funeral in the morning?”

  “Not if I’m well enough to work,” she answered, slipping her arms into the sleeves of her bodice. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I did want to go, but my boss never understands about that sort of stuff. Probably thinks women don’t belong at funerals anyway, causing so much of a fuss with their crying.”

  Dora rolled her eyes, and Celia moved out of her way to allow her to finish dressing. Celia heard footsteps across the porch, one of the planks creaking outside the room’s front window. Had another patient arrived? Or perhaps it was Mr. Greaves coming to check on them.

  “You could also go to the chemist and purchase a poultice for your chest, Dora, if you are having difficulty breathing when you lie down.”

  “Maybe I will on the way home,” she answered, tidying her hair. “I think he’s still open at this hour.”

  Celia paused. The ring of the front bell that she had expected hadn’t come. “Excuse me.”

  She left the examination room and went to open the front door. No one was there, but a scrap of paper poking up between two planks caught her attention.

  Celia squatted to retrieve it. No cops, it read.

  Crushing the note in her fist, she hurried to the edge of the porch and searched the road. But the street was empty.

  • • •

  Nick stretched his back and sighed. He’d been standing in the shelter of a dry goods store, watching for Connor Ahearn, for more than an hour now. He’d seen plenty of patrons come and go from the restaurant, including one of Ahearn’s friends who’d been eating with him, but not the man himself. Which had to mean he’d slipped out a rear door.

  Damn it all.

  Nick set off for the alleyway behind the restaurant. There he found a cook seated on an overturned barrel cleaning his fingernails with the tip of a knife. The door to the kitchen stood open, and the smell of frying food poured into the alleyway.

  “There was a man in the restaurant,” Nick said. “A Connor Ahearn. Big man with a reddish beard and a bold checked vest. Did he come through the kitchen in the last hour?”

  The cook shrank within the greasy apron tied over his clothes and glanced hastily down the alleyway toward the south. “Nope,” he answered with a flat expression. “Don’t see nobody.”

  Nick flashed his badge, hidden beneath his coat. “You wouldn’t care to answer differently, now, would you?”

  “Well, there mighta been some fella who came through the kitchen. ’Bout a half hour ago, mebbe?”

  Great.

  “He went that way?” Nick asked, pointing to the south and the closed businesses of downtown. Lange’s was also in that direction.

  “Might’ve,” the cook reluctantly admitted.

  Nick took off running. If Ahearn was headed to Lange’s store, then he might be thinking of causing trouble for Tessie, whom Nick had rather recklessly allowed Ahearn to believe was accusing him of murder.

  He turned up Pine Street. He was very close to Lange’s place now, but he didn’t see either Ahearn or any of his companions.

  Nick arrived at the apothecary’s just as the sun slid behind the hills. He peered through the windows, trying to see around the half-closed blinds. No lights were lit in the main room. No light shone around the curtain to the back room, either.

  He took the narrow passageway that accessed the alley behind the buildings. Paying attention to the variation in brick and stone that marked the different structures built side by side, he found the sliver of a building that housed Lange’s store. Nick scanned the deserted alleyway as he withdrew his Colt and checked the rear door. It was unlocked. He eased it open. Thankfully, the hinges didn’t squeal.

  The door led to a small vestibule with a flight of stairs straight ahead. He recalled from having searched the place earlier that the door on his left led to a storeroom through which you could reach the store itself. Nick stepped inside the building and listened for voices. Besides the muted rumble of a wagon passing on the street out front, he didn’t hear a thing. He considered heading upstairs, but if Ahearn had come here, Nick doubted he was lounging in the second-floor parlor, drinking tea.

  Nick stepped over to the storeroom door, which stood a few inches ajar, and paused to listen again. He thought he heard a shaky, indrawn breath. Just one person inside the room? Check that. Possibly just one living person inside the room.

  Sweat collected at the edge of Nick’s neckcloth. The breathing quieted, the building around Nick turning as silent as a tomb. Could be his tomb, in about ten seconds.

  Using the barrel of his Colt, he pushed open the door. It didn’t get very far when a gunshot exploded, deafening him and jerking him backward like a rag doll. His last thought before he hit the ground was how much he regretted that he’d never get to see Celia Davies again.

  CHAPTER 10

  “Mon Dieu! Detective Greaves!” Hubert Lange stood over Nick, a pistol dangling from his fist. The sharp smell of exploded gunpowder hung in the air. “It is you!”

  With a groan, Nick sat up. Lange’s shot had gone wide. Shock had kicked Nick backward, not the impact of a bullet. He rubbed the back of his skull where it had smacked against the wall. No significant damage. Couldn’t sa
y the plaster and lath had fared as well.

  “Who were you expecting?” asked Nick.

  The man lowered his weapon and offered his hand to Nick, pulling him to his feet. The walls spun for a moment, then righted themselves. “That terrible Connor Ahearn.”

  “Then he did come here.” Cautiously, Nick bent to retrieve his hat and his revolver, which had slid across the floor when he’d dropped it. He was glad he hadn’t cocked the pistol, or there’d be another bullet hole someplace besides the one in the banister behind Nick.

  “He looked for Thérèse,” said Lange. “He shouted she told the police he hated Miss Li and the police wish to accuse him for the death. But how could he know this?”

  Nick holstered his revolver and brushed the dust from his hat. “I’m afraid that’s my fault, Mr. Lange. I interviewed Ahearn a couple of hours ago and let him believe Tessie thought he was guilty.”

  Hot anger flashed across Lange’s face, the strongest emotion Nick had seen from the man. But then it was gone.

  “She is not here, however,” said Lange. “She went to the Cliff House with friends today to watch the seals and see the ocean and has not yet returned. This made Ahearn so very angry. He left, but I thought it was he just now who had returned to hurt me. So I stayed quiet in the storeroom with my pistol to wait.”

  “Why did you think he’d come back to hurt you? Did he threaten you?”

  “No words this time. Just the look with the eyes, you know?”

  Lange was shaking. “Mr. Lange, you should sit,” said Nick.

  “We may go upstairs.”

  Nick followed him to the second-floor kitchen. Lange set his gun on the table in the middle of the room and lit a lantern. In one corner stood a sink with a pump handle overhanging it. Alongside was a stove, and hooks and shelves were attached to one wall. Dinged copper pots and pans hung in a tidy arrangement, and tins of cooking staples lined the shelves. Some time ago somebody had fitted out the lone window with gingham curtains, which were faded and tired by now. In fact, most everything looked faded and tired, including Lange.

  The druggist dropped into a chair, and Nick took a seat across from him.

  “So, tell me when Ahearn has threatened you before,” said Nick.

  “When he learned I hired Miss Li.” Droplets of perspiration were collecting on the inside of his spectacles, and Lange pulled a handkerchief from a vest pocket and swiped it across his sweating forehead. “His sister, he wanted the job for her.”

  Nick recalled what the boardinghouse owner had said about Ahearn’s sister. “The one that’s sickly?”

  “She is not strong, oui. Mr. Davies, Tom Davies, brought her here with Mr. Ahearn one day. To ask about the job. I saw she was too weak. So when Mr. Ahearn learned I hired Miss Li instead, he was angry. He said to me that the anti-Chinese groups would teach me a lesson.” He touched the pistol on the table. “I buy this for protection, then.”

  Lange’s employment of Li Sha had given Ahearn another reason to despise the girl, in addition to her ethnicity. “Do you think Ahearn was angry enough to have killed her?”

  “I cannot say.”

  “What about your daughter, Mr. Lange? She was Tom Davies’ sweetheart before he took up with Li Sha, wasn’t she?”

  Lange frowned. “That is true.”

  “How did Tessie feel about Li Sha after that? She couldn’t have liked the situation. Did she and Li Sha ever fight?”

  Would her father be honest and admit it if they had?

  “Thérèse did complain of the work Miss Li did, but no more.”

  Nick considered Lange, the sweat on the man’s forehead glistening in the lantern light. “Tessie’s told us she was with Tom on Monday evening. Is that where she was?”

  “She was out, oui, but with who I do not know for certain. Ever since her mother passed away, I cannot keep the control on my daughter.”

  Apparently not. “When did she get home that night, Mr. Lange?”

  His shoulders sagged. “Ten, perhaps? I do not recall precisely. Very, very late.”

  Rather different from the eight thirty or nine that Tessie had claimed. So which of the two was right? And which of the two was lying? “Weren’t you worried? I would’ve been.”

  “I was. She knew she had done wrong. She knew I would be most upset. As soon as she came in, she ran upstairs to her room and locked the door.”

  Maybe she’d hurried upstairs to hide blood on her dress. “Did she try to dispose of any clothes the next morning?” Nick asked.

  Lange’s eyes widened, magnified by his spectacle lenses, and he went about as white as a body could and still be considered alive. “Mon Dieu, no! She did not. I swear it!”

  “I think I’ll ask her myself.” Nick stood to leave. “Tell your daughter I want her back in the station tomorrow. And if I or my assistant don’t see her there, I’ll send a uniformed police officer to haul her over. Which might attract all sorts of embarrassing attention from your neighbors.”

  “I will.” Lange nodded so emphatically, Nick thought he heard the man’s teeth rattling.

  • • •

  “Shall we go?” Celia asked Addie the following day. Addie, her bonnet trimmed in a length of black lace, carried a supply of mourning bands to be handed out to the few people who would attend Li Sha’s funeral.

  “Aye,” said Addie. “But I’m worried that dreadful person’s out there, watching us.”

  Celia slipped her hands into her black lace gloves, a pair left over from Uncle Walford’s funeral. “Once we return home, I shall take the latest note to the police station and show Mr. Greaves.”

  “D’you think that’ll stop the person, ma’am?”

  “It is all I can do.” Celia pressed her housekeeper’s hand reassuringly. “Come, Addie, Barbara is waiting outside for us.”

  Addie locked the front door behind them, giving the handle a stern shake to ensure the latch had caught.

  Down on the street, Barbara waited beside a hired hack. She turned a somber, tired face in their direction, then looked away when her eyes met Celia’s. She hadn’t apologized for accusing Celia of only caring for her patients and had maintained a dour silence all morning.

  “Am I heartless, Addie?” Celia asked. “Barbara has a good reason to be fearful if the person leaving us messages wishes to harm her.”

  “No, ma’am, you’re nae heartless. And Miss Barbara will come to see that.”

  They descended the steps. Next door, Mrs. Cascarino, her wool shawl wrapped around her head and shoulders, stood on the porch with Angelo, the boy’s face barely clearing the top of the railing.

  “A sad day, Signora Davies,” she called out.

  “Very sad, Mrs. Cascarino,” agreed Celia.

  Barbara, clutching her reticule bulging with the scraps of paper scrawled with Chinese prayers, climbed into the hack. Even though Mr. Palmer would have paid for it, Celia had refused the cost of a mourning coach.

  They took their seats inside, and the driver yelled “get up” to the horse. A child too young for school chased them down the dusty road until he lost interest. They would meet the undertaker’s wagon at Lone Mountain Cemetery, where the Chinese were buried. Li Sha, however, had been baptized by the reverend at the Chinese Mission and would sleep eternally in Christian ground nearby the Chinese graves, courtesy of the Palmers’ unexpected generosity. She would rest within reach of her people and yet remain removed from them; even in death, Li Sha’s place in the world remained unresolved.

  The hack turned west toward sandy hills dotted with scrub and grasses. The buildings and houses became increasingly sparse, but the flags and pickets of surveyors marked where the next great development would occur, declaring growth and change. Usually, Celia found the city’s energy thrilling. That morning, though, she would readily exchange vibrant progress for the sedate predictability and sa
fety of pastoral Hertfordshire.

  Barbara stared out the window, and Celia watched the passing houses as well. Last night she had compared the most recent note to the prior one and concluded that the handwriting was identical. The same person had penned both. But what was the author’s motivation? Is Barbara in danger or am I? Or are all of us?

  “Almost there now, ma’am. I can see the big cross atop Lone Mountain,” announced Addie.

  A sea of white wooden crosses, stone grave markers, and subdued marble monuments covered the swell of the hill, laurel bushes and squat evergreens filling in what remained of the open ground. The mortuary chapel hugged the road’s edge, and Mr. Massey’s hearse, festooned in black netting, had taken up a position outside the front door. Another hired carriage stood nearby, along with a buggy that belonged to the Palmers, a small cart she recognized as the Langes’, and a riderless horse.

  Waiting by the gate in the fence that surrounded the burial ground stood a familiar figure in a flat-crowned hat.

  The hired hack halted, and the driver hopped to the ground to open the door. Mr. Greaves, carrying a tattered carpetbag, sprinted over before Celia could descend. After a quick greeting, she introduced him to Barbara and Addie.

  Barbara looked alarmed. “Why is he here, Cousin? We were warned to stay away from policemen.”

  “That is enough, Barbara.”

  The detective studied Barbara, who lowered her gaze, and set the carpetbag on the bench. “This is the bag Li Sha left at Dora Schneider’s, Mrs. Davies. Taylor inventoried the contents, so we’re done with it.”

  Celia released the clasp of the carpetbag. It contained very few items—mostly clothing and a blue bandana tied up like a sack. “What’s inside the bandana?” she asked.

  “Those are the belongings she had on her when she died. The coroner released them to me this morning.”

  Celia untied the bandana. Inside, she found the cheap red paste earrings she’d given Li Sha as a gift, some hair combs, and a small purse containing a few pennies.