by Vicki Delany
“Two hundred and twenty, or Irene leaves,” Maggie said.
I’d never had to negotiate with my employees before. Rates were standard in Dawson, and no one had yet worked anywhere long enough to ask for more. In the past I’d negotiated with men—lots of them—for favours, jewellery, status, even my freedom, but I’d never done business with a woman. I looked at Maggie’s steady eyes and decided that my old tricks wouldn’t be worth much.
“Irene,” I said, “who is this person?”
Irene traced a gap in the planks of the wooden floor with her toe.
“Irene’s engaged me to act for her.” Maggie said. “Ain’t that right, Irene?”
The dancer nodded, still studying the flooring.
I did quick calculations in my head. Irene brought in more, by an order of magnitude, in a night than they were asking for in a week. But I didn’t want to create a precedent here. Suppose all the girls starting asking for more money?
And then the bartenders and croupiers. Even the Sunday watchman and Helen Saunderson.
“Do you trust Miss Brandon to speak for you, Irene?” I said, although I knew the answer well enough. Judging by the fond looks Irene gave her, she would trust Maggie with a great deal.
Poor Ray. Poor me, if word got out. “One hundred and seventy-five,” I said, tucking my big ledger back into the desk drawer. “And that’s only because I’m most dreadfully tired and don’t want to argue.”
Irene moved away from the wall with a slight smile turned up at the edges of her mouth. Maggie had her back to Irene, but she seemed to know what was happening behind her; her arm gave a short chop, and Irene fell back.
“Two hundred,” Maggie said. “We could get more at the Monte Carlo, but Irene likes it here, although I don’t know why.”
“We? I don’t believe I am offering you anything, Miss Brandon.”
Maggie relaxed, not rising to the bait. “Two hundred.”
“One hundred and eighty-five,” I locked my desk drawer
and dropped the key into my reticule. “That is my final
offer. Good day, ladies.” I got to my feet.
Maggie didn’t move. “One hundred eight-five,” she
said.
I relaxed. Which was probably a mistake.
“Plus thirty per cent on drinks.”
“Thirty per cent?” I shuddered. “Most certainly not. Oh,
all right. Two hundred dollars a week. But twenty-five per
cent on drinks.”
Maggie rose to her not-very-considerable height. She
held out her hand.
It was like holding the claw of a baby bird. I could have
crushed Maggie’s hand in mine with no effort at all.
Instead I shook it carefully.
Irene clapped her hands. “Oh, thank you, Mrs. Mac Gillivray,” she said.
“Sit down.” I unlocked my desk drawer once again. I pulled out a bottle of excellent whisky and three glasses. “And tell me what else is going on here.”
Maggie Brandon accepted her drink with no hesitation, but she didn’t relax one iota and watched me warily.
I wondered what line of work she was in and what had brought her to the North. She clearly knew her way around a business deal. Irene stepped forward and accepted her drink. “See, Maggie,” she said, “I told you Mrs. MacGillivray would be reasonable.” She beamed at us both.
Maggie took an indelicately large mouthful. “Good stuff, this,” she said. She finished the drink. I poured more. “Don’t know what you mean about their being anythin’ else, Mrs. MacGillivray.”
“Don’t you?” I said, enjoying the taste of my own drink. It was real Scottish stuff, made in the Highlands, just like me.
“No,” Maggie said. “So I guess we’ll be off.” She threw back her second glass and got to her feet.
“Your personal relationship with Irene. It could be that Irene isn’t worth twenty dollars a week, never mind two hundred."
“Mrs. MacGillivray! What are you saying? I’ve always been…”
“Shut up, Irene,” Maggie ordered, her voice perfectly calm. She held out her glass, and I refilled it. Irene’s mouth snapped closed. “If’n you have somethin’ to say, say it, Mrs. MacGillivray,” Maggie said. “Otherwise thank you for the refreshment. Good stuff this.”
“You and Irene have been seen, in public, in a position that if she were with a gentleman, I would consider to be compromising.”
Maggie’s eyes narrowed before she looked at the cuff of her sleeve and adjusted it slightly. “And?”
“And coincidentally, I have lately been wondering what secret lover Irene has that would have made her willing to go to jail over that business earlier this summer rather than reveal his name. Heavens, this is Dawson, everyone is fooling around with everyone else, and no one much cares. Unless the secret lover is someone like the priest. Or a woman.”
Irene’s hands flew to her bosom. The whisky glass trembled but remained upright. “Mrs. MacGillivray, we’ll be discreet, I promise. But if you insist, if necessary, I won’t see Maggie for a while.”
At that, Maggie’s face paled and her cool façade momentarily slipped. “Don’t talk nonsense, Irene. She’s fishing.”
“Your romantic interests are no concern of mine. However, I suggest you be a bit more discreet from now on. You might not understand, Irene, but Maggie does, I’m sure. What do you think your worth would be in this town if everyone knew that you are...unnatural, shall we say?”
“Shouldn’t matter.” Irene started to cry. Maggie stood up and put an arm around the dancer’s
shoulder. She pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped at a tear trickling down Irene’s cheek.
“I have no interest in revealing your secret to anyone.” I put the whisky bottle back in the drawer and locked it. “I’m advising you both to take care, that’s all. Now I have to be going home.”
Maggie looked at me. Her eyes were clear, and her chin held high. “I appreciate your concern, Mrs. MacGillivray. And I thank you for it.”
“Don’t thank me for anything,” I walked them to the door. “If Irene’s worth to me drops to less than two hundred dollars a week, she’ll be looking for alternate employment.”
Irene allowed Maggie to precede her into the hallway, then she hung back for a moment. “It isn’t that easy to find someone who loves you, you know. I mean truly loves you, for yourself, not expecting anything but love back,” she whispered. “Haven’t you ever loved, Mrs. MacGillivray?”
“Irene,” Maggie said, “let’s go.” Irene scurried away in a rustle of midnight blue silk and a flurry of ribbon.
I’d forgotten to ask for the name of her seamstress. As to her question: Yes, I’d loved. And sworn I’d never do so again.
I shut the office door and dropped into my chair. So that was Lady Irenee’s lover: a common-or-garden midwest farm girl. Wouldn’t that set the egos of the men of Dawson on edge? I debated telling Ray he was fishing in the wrong pond—like trying to catch tuna in a freshwater lake. I discarded the idea soon enough. I wasn’t Ray’s mother, and even when I’d thought Irene liked men, Ray didn’t seem to be high on her list of potential partners.
The dynamics of Irene and Maggie’s relationship seemed no different than those I’d observed between men and women. Irene was quick enough to be willing to discuss temporarily giving up her relationship with Maggie Brandon if I insisted, although I doubted that Maggie would have gone along with that. When Irene talked to me about love, she noticeably considered herself to be more on the receiving end than the giving.
What do I know about love? Or care, as long as it doesn’t interfere with my profits at the end of the day?
Chapter Eighteen
Angus and Miss Witherspoon stepped aside as Ray Walker and Jake tossed two men into the street. Jake aimed a careless kick at one of them and missed by a good margin.
He spat into the street instead and went back inside.
“Goodness,�
�� said Miss Witherspoon. “Ma’am.” Ray touched his cap. “Help you, Angus?” “We’re meeting someone.” “Constable Sterling arrived moments later. “Glad to see you’re prompt, Angus,” he said. “If you’ll excuse us, ma’am.” “Oh no, Constable,” Miss Witherspoon protested.
“Young Mr. MacGillivray has kindly invited me to observe your investigations.” She dug through the ample pockets in her skirt.
“I don’t think…” Sterling began. Miss Witherspoon produced her notebook and pencil with a flourish. “In my capacity as a writer, of course. Murder in the…uh…” she struggled to find a suitable alliteration.
“Gold fields,” she finished with a disappointed sigh.
“We won’t be going to the gold fields,” Angus explained. “No reason Mary woulda gone there.”
“Our readers don’t have to know that. Shall we be off? Which way, Constable?”
“I don’t think…” “Do you have any ideas, Angus?” Miss Witherspoon asked.
Well, yes, sort of. I was thinking about it earlier. But…”
“But what, Angus?” Sterling asked.
“You see, sir, I’d feel bad if I get Mary into trouble.”
“If she’s innocent of this, you want to give her the chance to clear her name, don’t you?”
Angus looked at the ground and nodded.
“And if she’s guilty, then you won’t be getting her into any trouble that she didn’t bring upon herself.”
“I guess so,” he mumbled.
“If you want to be a Mountie, Angus, sometimes you have to do things that don’t seem right at the time. The law is the law, and we have to respect it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Miss Witherspoon was scribbling furiously. “Well said, sir, well said. Can I quote you?”
“No. You want to tell me about your idea, Angus.”
The words came out in a rush. “Mary told us she has a friend who takes in laundry. It’s the only friend she mentioned, and if she isn’t there, I don’t know where she might be. Left town, probably.”
“That she left town is a definite possibility. She’s a long way from her own people, but it’s summer, and she can no doubt manage in the wilderness. Although far as I know, she doesn’t have any equipment, like a good knife or even proper clothes. If she is still here, we need to find her. Most police work is mundane stuff, Angus. Nothing but a lot of walking and pointless questions. Did Mary say what the name of this friend is?”
He shook his head. “Just that she keeps a laundry on Fifteenth Street.”
“That’s a beginning. Let’s see if we can find it.”
The town of Dawson had outgrown its natural boundaries. A handful of people made accommodation for themselves in boats anchored in the river, and the outlying streets were climbing higher and higher up the steep hills. Sterling, Angus and Martha Witherspoon walked up Princess Street, which formed a gentle slope as far as Tenth Street. There the hill abruptly met the town, but the street stretched on regardless. Miss Witherspoon was panting heavily once they reached their destination.
Few of the homes on Fifteenth Street were actually houses. Mostly they were white canvas tents, with a few rough lean-tos scattered around.
They looked both ways. A handful of filthy children tossed a ball to a scrawny dog and shouted with glee every time the animal caught it in midair.
“This town changes so fast,” Sterling muttered to no one in particular. “Man can’t keep up. I’ve no idea where this laundry might be.” He approached the children. The dog eyed him suspiciously and growled from around the ball in its mouth while backing away, hackles high.
“Do you fellows know where the laundry is?” Sterling asked.
“Might do,” the largest of the boys said. The smaller ones edged away, two-legged versions of the dog.
“Why don’t you tell me, then?” Sterling asked. The boy looked at Angus, hostility written across his dirty face, and Angus was uncomfortably aware of his reasonably clean, well-mended clothes, neat haircut, and belly full of tea, sandwiches and cakes. “Whatcha gonna give me?” the boy asked Sterling.
“A night at Fort Herchmer, waiting until your father comes to get you,” Sterling said.
The boy blanched, and Angus knew it was the mention of a father that put the fear into him, not the prospect of a night in the Fort.
“Don’t matter to me,” the boy said. He spat, missing Angus’s foot by a few inches, and pointed to their right. “Over there.” He ran after his friends.
A drop of water disturbed the dust in the road, and Angus looked up. Overhead the sky was black. One more drop fell on his hand, then the clouds opened and the rain began.
“Goodness,” Miss Witherspoon said. “We must seek shelter.”
“Not even a twig of a tree left standing, and no one’s likely to invite us into their tent,” Sterling said. “You’d best head back to town, ma’am.”
Miss Witherspoon puffed up her chest. “Certainly not. Lead the way, Constable.” She slipped her notebook back into her pocket and pushed her hat lower on her head. They came to a hand-drawn sign advertising Maybelle’s Laundry. The premises consisted of a canvas tent with a stove pipe poking through the ceiling and a sheet of canvas stretched between two poles to protect the fire burning beneath a big iron pot. A pile of roughly hewn logs lay in the inadequate protection of the canvas awning. Lines of rope were strung among a forest of poles, full of drying laundry. A woman bustled from one line to another, feeling the clothes and pulling the dry and almost dry items off the line.
“Pardon me, ma’am,” Sterling said.
She glanced over her shoulder. She was tall, dressed in a wet and dirty dress patterned with fading flowers. The sleeves were pushed up past her elbows. Her hips were wide and her arms as thick as a man’s. Her short black hair curled in tight corkscrews above high, flat cheekbones, and her skin was the colour of rich coffee with a splash of good cream added. Her eyes were even darker than Angus’s mother’s.
“Can’t you see I’m busy,” she growled in a voice as thick and sweet as brown sugar waiting to be added to the coffee. “Gotta get the dry laundry in.”
“My companion will do that for you.” Sterling nodded at Miss Witherspoon. “While we talk.”
Miss Witherspoon glared at Sterling, but once he had returned her glare and muttered something about going back to town, she went to help.
The laundress handed Miss Witherspoon her laundry basket. “Now mind you don’t collect the ones what’s still wet out of the pot,” she said. “Little rain won’t hurt them none.” She placed her hands on generous hips and laughed heartily. “Ain’t that a sight. White woman in a silly hat doin’ my chores.”
“Only in exchange for some answers, Miss…?”
“Maybelle. Just Maybelle. Don’t know what you’d be wantin’ with me, sir. Maybelle just be doin’ the laundry.”
“I’m looking for a woman you might know. Name of Mary?”
Maybelle’s dark eyes shifted fractionally in the direction of the tent. She wiped her hands on her apron.
“Lotsa women in town name o’ Mary,” she said, taking a few steps towards the street, scratching at the skin at the cleft of her bosom.
Sterling turned to watch her. “We’ve been told Mary is a friend of yours.”
Maybelle studied her bare feet. The toes were long and knobbly, the nails yellow and broken. “Maybelle don’t have friends. Too many white people in this town.”
“Mary isn’t white,” Angus said. “She’s an Indian, and she’s my friend. I want to help her.”
Maybelle looked at the boy for the first time. “White people don’t have Indians and Coloureds as friends,” she said. “I gotta be getting back to my laundry. Lady in the hat movin’ so slow, she gonna ruin my business.”
“She is my friend,” Angus protested. “Angus,” Sterling said in his no-nonsense Mountie voice, “let me handle this.”
“It’s all right, Maybelle.” Mary stepped out of the tent. “They
know I’m here. And I’m happy to have Angus as my friend.”
“Mary, you’re a fool if’n you trust the redcoats and a yellow-haired boy what thinks he can help you.”
Miss Witherspoon handed Maybelle the laundry basket. Rainwater was collecting in the brim of her hat, and her skirts clung to her legs. She wiped drops from her face. “Perhaps we could talk inside,” she suggested.
They all ignored her. “Thank you, Maybelle,” Mary said. “I won’t forget your kindness.” She lifted her chin high. “I imagine you’ve come to arrest me, Constable?”
“Why do you think that?” Sterling asked. “Don’t play games with me,” Mary said. She lowered her chin. “Sorry, sir. I heard you found something belonging to me on that dead dancer’s body. I’m an Indian, so you assume I must be guilty. Isn’t that the way the police think?”
“Not the NWMP, we don’t,” Sterling said. “The Inspector wants to ask you some routine questions.”
“Don’t worry, Mary, I’ll stay with you,” Angus said.
Mary smiled, a tiny one that turned up the corners of her mouth but didn’t touch her eyes.
Maybelle huffed. “Day’s worth o’ laundry soakin’ wet. Now get outta here. I got work to do. If’n they let you go, Mary, you come back here.”
“Thank you.”
“Mary,” Sterling said politely.
“I didn’t kill that dancer. I didn’t even know her.”
“Then it will all get straightened out, you’ll see.” Angus tried to sound positive.
“You take care,” Maybelle said to her friend.
Without another word, Mary started walking at a determined pace back towards town. Sterling and Angus followed.
Miss Witherspoon scurried behind. Having taken off her useless hat, she was using it in an attempt to shield the pages of her notebook from the rain while she made notes on all that had transpired. She was having difficulty balancing hat, notebook and pencil while writing and walking fast enough to keep up with the others. Every tree within shouting distance of Dawson had been cut down for firewood or building lumber, with the result that whenever it rained, the run-off created instant creeks that poured down the hillside. Miss Witherspoon failed to notice that the terrain they were crossing was different from when they’d come this way only half an hour earlier. She stepped into a rushing river. When the cold water flowed over the edges of her shoes, chosen for afternoon tea, she shrieked and tried to jump out of the water. In her haste, she slipped on a rock and pitched forward, downhill, into the middle of the stream. Rather than save herself, she chose to heroically hold her notebook high above the dirty water.
