No Quiet among the Shadows

by Nancy Herriman

  He didn’t release her, drawing her out into the sunshine at the end of the alley. People stopped to stare at them. Her face heated; she must be as red as a radish.

  “If you insist on depositing me in the lockup, could you please inform Detective Greaves of my whereabouts, at least?” she asked.

  He halted. “Wait. Who are you?”

  “I am Celia Davies. Mrs. Celia Davies.”

  “My mates at the police station talk about . . .” He muttered a curse under his breath and dropped his hold on her elbow. “Yes, I’ve heard of you, ma’am.”

  I can just imagine the conversations.

  “Am I free to return to my house, Officer?” she asked. “I am expecting a patient at my clinic, and I do not wish to be late.”

  He scowled. “How about I escort you there? Wouldn’t want you to change your mind again about visitin’ Dr. Brown.” He extended his club. “After you, ma’am.”

  Lifting her chin, she strode up the street. A flash of crimson caught her eye, and she glanced over. The man with the red waistcoat leaned against a telegraph pole on the opposite side of the street, his lips twisting with a speculative grin as he watched her go.

  Chapter 8

  “Miss Rogers made it home safe, sir,” said Taylor, stepping into Nick’s office with an unlit cigar in his hand. “Don’t think she noticed I was following her.”

  His assistant was good at trailing people. Almost as skilled as he was at picking locks.

  “By the way, you might want to count your supply of cigars,” said Nick.

  Taylor squinted at the one he held. “Any reason why, sir?”

  “Just a feeling I’ve got.”

  Taylor furrowed his brow, gave up on understanding Nick’s remark, and lit his cigar. “So, what is it you think happened to Miss McHugh? Do you think she’s cleared out of town, or is she dead?”

  “Who knows? But we should start keeping better track of unidentified young females arriving at the coroner’s.” He eyed the stacks of paper atop his desk, piles of police work demanding his attention. If inanimate objects could chastise, those papers were at the top of the list of items that made him feel guilty.

  He shoved the nearest stack to one side with more force than he’d intended. Papers slid off and onto the floor. Taylor, dutiful and orderly, bent down to retrieve them.

  “I read Dr. Harris’s report, sir. There was a copy left for me. Yours is probably in this stack someplace,” he said, returning the papers to Nick’s desk. “Smith had been drinking, but there wasn’t enough liquor in him that the doctor thought he’d have been blind drunk.”

  “He’s concluded Smith was forced out that window.”

  “Looks like he’s leaning that way.” Taylor retook his chair.

  “Then Eagan doesn’t have any reason to keep us from investigating.” A coroner’s report wouldn’t keep Eagan from demanding Nick stop, though. Just to irritate me.

  “I’ve had a chance to interview a couple of Emerys,” continued Taylor. “So far, no luck. They had alibis for where they were yesterday morning, and they also had folks to vouch that they’d never been to a séance in their lives. I’ve narrowed it down to two possibilities, though.”

  “Quick work, Taylor. Thank you.”

  Taylor puffed on his cigar and nodded. “I haven’t been able to locate a single Miss Kimball, though.”

  “Maybe she only recently moved to the city and isn’t in the directory yet.”

  His assistant frowned. “So how are we going to find her?”

  Another missing woman in a vast city. “Time for another notice in the newspapers.”

  “She won’t come forward if she’s involved in Smith’s death.”

  “I thought you were convinced Griffin was the culprit,” said Nick.

  Before his assistant could reply, knuckles rapped on Nick’s office door. It opened, and one of the beat officers poked his head around the opening. “Have you got a minute, Detective?”

  Nick fetched about for a name—O’Rourke? O’Connor? “What is it, Officer?”

  “Thought I’d let you know that lady friend of yours, that Mrs. Davies, is needin’ a talk with you.”

  Nick craned his neck to see past the man and out into the station. “Is she here?” he asked, standing.

  “No. I took her home. Once I . . .” The policeman cleared his throat. “Um, once I figured out she wasn’t a prostitute.”

  “What?” Nick shouted.

  Taylor’s response was just as appropriate; he burst out laughing.

  • • •

  “You were nearly arrested for being a streetwalker, Mrs. Davies.”

  Nicholas Greaves’s brows lowered over his eyes. The midday sunlight filtering through her examination room’s lace curtains illuminated his displeasure very well.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Taylor,” Celia said to his assistant, lingering outside the doorway. “Do you wish to come into my office and take notes on what I have learned?”

  He shot a glance at Mr. Greaves. “Um . . .”

  “Go check on Cassidy, Taylor. See if he’s got anything else to tell us. I’ll speak with Mrs. Davies,” said the detective. Mr. Taylor darted off. “Well, ma’am, this is a first. What in . . . what were you doing that made some beat officer want to arrest you?”

  “He was merely being cautious.” She indicated the nearest chair. “Would you care to have a seat?”

  “I prefer to stand.” He folded his arms. “All right. I’m all ears.”

  “First, I should tell you of the interesting conversation I had with Jane concerning the people on Mr. Smith’s list,” she said. “She not only knows Miss Brown, but Dr. Arthur Brown and his fiancée, Miss Adler. She is not familiar, however, with the others.”

  “So she didn’t point the finger at any of them being Smith’s killer.”

  Was he being sarcastic? There were times she could not be certain. “My discussion with Jane did lead me to decide to attempt to meet Dr. Brown and ask about that argument Owen observed.”

  “I’d remind you that I’m the detective on this case, Mrs. Davies, but you wouldn’t listen any more than before,” he said. “And you don’t know that he was the man Cassidy saw.”

  “Oh, but he most certainly is. Jane confirmed his physical appearance as matching the man Owen observed,” she said. “Also, the milliner across the street witnessed an investigator—likely Mr. Smith—visiting Dr. Brown’s surgery, and that his visit disquieted the doctor. You must interrogate him. It is crucial we understand what that argument was about.”

  “I intended to talk to him right around . . .” He looked over at the clock on her desk. “Right around now, but I came here instead, after I received your summons.”

  “There really is no need to be sarcastic, Mr. Greaves.”

  “I’m just surprised you didn’t tell me to also run off to interrogate Miss Brown about why she’d gone to visit Smith weeks before the séance.”

  “No need,” she replied. “I intend to see her tomorrow. I shall ask her myself.”

  “Yep. Not listening at all about not doing detective work, are you, ma’am?”

  “Jane and I are calling on her. That is all.” She smiled.

  He scowled in return. “You’ll kindly let me know what she has to say.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Greaves,” she said. “And perhaps while you are speaking with Dr. Brown you can ask him about a suspicious-acting man I observed near his surgery. A fellow who was very interested in the doctor. I tried to convince the officer to pursue the man, but he was far more interested in arresting me for prostitution.”

  The corner of the detective’s mouth twitched for a moment. “What did this man look like?”

  “He was of average size, dark-haired, and wore a most conspicuous red plaid waistcoat. I attempted to question him, but he ran off and eluded me.”

  She expected him to shout at her for chasing the man. Instead, he leaned forward with an expression of intense interest on his face.

>   “A man in a red vest?” he asked.

  “As you Americans call it, yes,” she said. “Why?”

  “He’s been spotted near Smith’s office, too,” he said. “He’s a known crook who goes by the name Griffin.”

  Griffin. “He was at the séance.”

  “Mighty interesting coincidence, don’t you think, ma’am?”

  • • •

  “I didn’t learn much new from Owen Cassidy, sir,” said Taylor, descending the stairs behind Nick. “Other than he’s bored and is itching to help us.”

  “I don’t need Cassidy helping out when I’ve already got to deal with Celia Davies,” said Nick. A man seated on the balcony of the corner boardinghouse, his chair tipped back with his feet on the railing and a guitar in his hands, noticed them walking up the road. He scrambled off his chair and back inside the building as if a swarm of biting ants was chasing him.

  Maybe he and Taylor should stop in the boardinghouse to see what that reaction was all about.

  “What was it she learned, sir?”

  “She saw Griffin outside Brown’s surgery this afternoon.” A delivery wagon from a Washington Market butcher’s store rolled by, the driver staring at Nick and Taylor as it passed. It was impossible to go anywhere without people gaping at them.

  “Why is Mr. Griffin interested in Dr. Brown?” asked Taylor. “Does it have to do with the blackmail Mr. Smith mentioned on that list?”

  “I’ll be sure to ask Brown about Griffin when I go see him.”

  They rounded the corner. From here, the road dipped down toward the city, buildings popping up as fast as weeds sprouting on hillsides and in ditches. Smoke billowed from factory stacks and houses. The wind, the ever-present wind, would blow it out to the bay, scrubbing the air clean.

  But beneath that sky, no amount of wind could scrub clean what might be found in shadowed streets and alleyways. In the dark of shuttered sleeping rooms and saloon basements. Where sins and vice lurked, unquiet and never resting.

  “You know, sir, I can’t help but have a bad feeling about this case,” said his assistant, making use of the halt to retrieve a cigar from his pocket. “I mean, spiritualists and talking with ghosts and all? Gives me the creeps.”

  “I’m starting to think you’re superstitious, Taylor.”

  He looked over, his forehead creased. “Aren’t you, sir? Just a little?”

  Nick exhaled and tugged his hat lower over his eyes. Superstitious? During the war, he’d preferred to count on his instincts to keep him alive, rather than on charms and talismans. Plenty of soldiers had carried a rabbit’s foot, a lock of their lover’s hair, a scrap of a letter from home as protection against the death stalking every one of them night and day.

  None of those things had kept those soldiers alive, though. They’d died screaming, clutching their chest pockets where their religious medals or their lucky pennies had been stored. And Nick had trudged on, terror hardening his heart.

  You’ll make a good cop, Nick. As long as you manage to not be afraid.

  He’d laughed at Uncle Asa’s words. His uncle’s work as a police officer was the reason Nick had joined the force, and he’d wanted to prove he could be just as good, just as tough. So he’d responded with bluster. I survived the Wilderness, Uncle. I’m not going to be afraid.

  His uncle’s eyes had clouded over. Don’t be so damned certain of that, Nick.

  Don’t be a fool.

  • • •

  Celia eased open the drawer in her desk and withdrew a message, scribbled in sprawling handwriting a short few days before Mr. Smith had died. He must have been eating when he’d composed the note, for a splotch of grease stained the paper.

  Got important news. Come by my office.

  Addie had suggested Mr. Smith’s news concerned Owen’s missing parents. Yet Celia could not shake her conviction his information was about Patrick. If the news had anything to do with her husband, she knew the best place to learn more.

  His favorite saloon.

  She returned Mr. Smith’s note to the drawer and went into the entry hall.

  “Where are you off to now, ma’am?” called Addie from the parlor, where she’d been dusting.

  “If anyone arrives for the clinic, Addie, tell them I shall return shortly,” she said, stepping out onto the porch.

  “That is no answer, ma’am!”

  Celia tied off her bonnet and hurried down the steps.

  The tavern Patrick had favored above the many he used to visit was located a short walk away. Ironic, how often she passed it while out on patient visits. Before he had abandoned her to a living on the sea, they had resided in the North Beach area, where many of the Irish had settled. At that time, the tavern had been a distance far enough, Patrick had reasoned, to keep Celia from seeking him out on those nights he stayed and drank longer than he should have. Longer than any man with a young wife at home should have.

  She’d never have gone looking for him, though. Had he understood her so little? She was proud, too proud to bring a wayward husband to heel. Too proud to demand he be at home with her when he preferred the company of other men. Or other women.

  The door to the saloon stood open, and the rumble of men’s voices drifted out onto the street. The hour was still early—not yet four—and the tavern held a meager handful of customers. The crowds would arrive once the manufactories and offices closed for the day.

  The room smelled of spilled beer, smoke, and stale men. One entire wall was covered with glass-fronted cases holding liquor bottles above which was mounted a stuffed deer’s head. In front of those cases stood the long bar that extended the length of the room. Every few feet, a brass spittoon sat between the front of the bar and the foot rail.

  A hush descended as the patrons turned to stare at her. The man behind the long bar paused his conversation with a customer to look over.

  “Can I help you, ma’am?” he asked, wiping his hands down the long white apron that covered his clothes.

  Every eye in the place tracking her, Celia crossed the room. The fresh sawdust covering the plank floor muted the clack of her boot heels.

  “I am seeking information on my husband.” Her comment raised laughter and murmurs among the customers.

  “Do you see him in here, ma’am?” asked the barman. One side of his mouth twitched into a wry smirk.

  “No, and I was not expecting to.” She glowered at the men in the tavern, silencing the loudest titters. “This was his favorite tavern when he used to live in San Francisco. He may have returned to the city unexpectedly. He has been recently sighted nearby.”

  Raised eyebrows joined the smirk on the barman’s face. “But he hasn’t bothered to come by the old homestead to say hello to you, is that it?”

  Humiliation made her shake, and she squared her shoulders, lifted her chin. Patrick, how dare you have this effect on me still.

  “No doubt he would prefer to come here first,” she said. “In order to renew his acquaintances with his companions.”

  “What’s his name?” asked the fellow.

  “Patrick Davies.”

  “Paddy Davies?” the man standing at the bar asked. He spat a stream of tobacco into the spittoon at his feet. “Is that who you mean?”

  Celia had never heard anyone call Patrick Davies Paddy. She suspected there was much she did not know about her husband. “He served with the Union Army in your recent war. He came from Ireland by way of London and Philadelphia around three years ago.”

  She would not mention they had met and fallen in love during the war in the Crimea. She would not mention how Patrick had brought her to California searching for wealth like so many others. She would not mention that he’d left a scant few months later.

  “He’d be the one,” replied the man.

  “I remember him,” said the barman. “Good ol’ Paddy. Always ready with a joke and a round of drinks.”

  One explanation for where their precious money had too often gone.

  “Bu
t he’s dead, ain’t he?” the fellow at the bar asked the barman. “That’s what I heard, at least. Dead in Mexico.”

  “How could he be dead if this lady says he’s been seen recently?” asked a portly fellow seated at one of the tables.

  “It is possible Patrick is not dead, after all,” she said. “If you could help me locate him, I would greatly appreciate it. Any help at all.”

  “He hasn’t been here, ma’am,” said the barman. “This is my father’s saloon, and I’m here all the time. I remember Patrick Davies. And his brother, too. I haven’t seen either of them in months. Longer.”

  “Do you know any place that Patrick might choose to stay?” she asked. “As he has decided to not return to the old homestead.”

  Several of the men exchanged glances.

  “You could ask at the boarding rooms near Jackson and Stockton,” suggested the fellow at the bar.

  “Thank you. I shall.” Celia rummaged around in her reticule and withdrew a calling card. “This is my card.” She placed it atop the bar. “Please contact me if Patrick does come here. Contact me discreetly.”

  She doubted any one of them would alert her to Patrick’s presence without informing him first. She had to hope, though. For if Patrick was alive, he had chosen to hide his return from her. She needed to discover why.

  “Will you pay for the information, ma’am?” asked one of the customers.

  “Yes.” Though where the money would come from would be another matter. “Handsomely.”

  She departed, leaving their murmurs to swell like a rising tide.

  One of the men followed her out onto the street. “’Scuse me, ma’am, but are you sure you want to know what Paddy’s up to?” he asked, his breath thick with the smell of smoke and liquor. His gaze was serious and sober, however. “If he is back from the dead and keeping the news from you . . . well, you might not like what you learn if you do find him.”

  “I am certain I wish to know,” she replied. “Most certain.”

  • • •

  “Dr. Brown isn’t seeing any more patients today.” The woman who had blocked Nick’s passage through the doctor’s office sternly folded her hands at the waist of her gray dress. She nodded at the clock hanging on the wall, which ticked toward half past four o’clock. The sound it made was as dignified as the brocade curtains draping the window, the plush rug underfoot, the thickly cushioned chairs arranged around the room. “His visiting hours are over for the day. If you wish to make an appointment . . .”