Innocent as Sin

by C. A. Asbrey

  He paused. “Can I help?”

  She still didn’t look him in the eye. “The women have been itching to clean so it looks decent for them. I need to get on quickly.”

  “So? Let me help.”

  She turned her back on him and bent over her bag. “There’s no need. I can manage. You don’t know how to do this.”

  Jake huffed in irritation. “Abi, enough. I was a horse’s butt, but we need to put catching this man first.”

  She turned to look at him at last, her dark eyes reflecting more than they revealed. “We don’t know it’s a man. Why do men always assume it’s a man?”

  “Probably because it usually is. We get angry and do dumb things.”

  “So do women.” She strode across the room and pushed at the heavy sofa. “Anger is a human emotion. It’s not male or female. Hasn’t occurred to you that women feel every emotion that men experience? We do dumb things, too.”

  “Yeah, like not lettin’ go of stuff.” Jake seized her arm as she strode by. “People do dumb things when they’re angry. Ain’t you ever been stupid?”

  She stood staring his grasping hand with an eerie calm. “Many times. Recently, I’ve been more stupid than ever.” She shook him off. “But you’re right. I forgive you. I really do. Now, can we get on? If you want to help, push the furniture back so I can assess the layout of the room when it the carpet was stained from the indentations left by the furniture.”

  His face split into a smile. “Thank you, Abi. I promise nothin’ like that will ever happen again.”

  She glowered at him. “If it does, I might just shoot you in the foot.”

  “It won’t.” He slapped his forehead in frustration. “I need to do somethin’ about my damned problem. Someone must know how to cure irritable heart. Soldiers get it all the time. Some doctor must have studied it.”

  “I found it helps to talk.” Abigail lifted the side table away.

  “Folks don’t want to hear about things like that, besides you ain’t related to the folks you saw dead. You don’t understand.”

  She continued to work, her face stony and resolute. “I found my father, Jake. He was shot through the head by his killer. I do know.” She paused before sighing. “Of course, you were a child trying to protect another child, and life was uncertain for you. That’s way worse. It’s also acceptable for women to show emotions.” She heaved at the Chesterfield sofa. “Get the end of that, will you?” She grunted with exertion as she hauled at the furniture. “Find someone to talk to. Instead of freezing people out when you get overwhelmed, go with it instead of shutting it down. Experience the feelings and work through them, even if you have to pay a prostitute to listen to you, or smash something to get rid of your aggression. Work through them instead of letting them work through you.”

  Jake dragged the settee to the side. “Is that what you did?”

  She glinted at him beguilingly. “I didn’t hire a prostitute, if that’s what you mean. I spoke to my older sister. I also used my father’s squash racket.” She paused, her eyes drifting off to the left, unfocused on everything but her memories. “And I walked. A lot. It used the energy. I think if you added up all the miles, I could’ve walked all the way back to Scotland. In the end, I decided to bring his killers in, and Alan Pinkerton hired me so he could at least control me a little. I was clodhopping all over his investigation, but it helped me.”

  “I can’t talk to Nat. It’s his family, too.”

  “You decided that, did you?” She watched him nod. “Ask him. He’s a grown man now, and he has no memory of it. He might be able to help you get it off your chest. Maybe you need to do a little looking after yourself now? It’ll make you a better uncle to him if you stop these angry outbursts. ”

  Jake paused, staring at her intently. “When’d you get so smart, Abi?”

  “Smart?” Her laugh was mirthless. “I fight my own demons. I understand what you’re saying, but all I know is, you can’t take them out on others.” Her eyes darkened. “I learned the hard way, too. We all live with the storms of our past. Why do you think I’m out here on my own? We can sit alone in a shelter or we can ride it out to get to the other side. That’s all I know. I haven’t beaten my demons, but they don’t control me. Not anymore.” Her sigh was heavy, laden with disquietude. “Not always, anyway. Look, can we leave this here? I need to get on.”

  His brows met, his mind running like quicksilver behind the bright blue eyes, but he merely allowed a smile to ghost across his features. “Sure. What’s first?”

  She stepped back, hands on hips to read the dents on the carpet before dropping to her knees. Her head tipped sideways at floor level. “So, the sofa has six dumpy feet. Two at either end and a pair in the middle. The existing dents means it was along the wall on the left, with the back toward Constance’s bedroom. The two chairs were on the opposite side of the room, with their back toward the parents’ room.”

  She stood again, her lips pursing as she perused the scene, and flipped back the rug to observe the underside. She strode over to her bag and took out purple chalk. “So, if I mark on the top of the rug to correspond with the stains underneath—”

  She drew on the top of the carpet, marking out where blood had seeped in, but had been either cleaned or lost in the pattern.

  “Why purple?” asked Jake.

  “It’s all that was left in the box.”

  “There’s a dent.” Jake pointed. “A long one. It matches the foot on the table.”

  She nodded and drew the table over to fit into the groove. It matched exactly.

  “So there was a table at the end of the sofa near where the bloodstains are? Here at the same end of the room as the door.” Her eyes lit with a memory. “The shepherdess. The staff told me about an ornament which went missing around the week before Christmas, or so. Mrs. Williams eventually admitted it was broken after pretending not to know anything about it. If the stabbed man knocked over the table and then bled into the carpet, it could fit with her lying about it. I must ask what table it usually sat on.”

  She took a magnifying glass and examined the area, seeking out tweezers to probe at a tiny piece of white matter. She delicately pulled it out and held it aloft, turning the shard behind the lens. “Porcelain. One side glazed with pink and gold. It does look like something was broken in this area.”

  She stood and dropped it into an envelope, labeling it with a pencil and logging it on a rough diagram of the room.

  “Now, the carpet.” She flipped the edge of the carpet over and moistened it with a bottle marked ‘Distilled Water’ and placed a piece of blotting paper on top. She dropped more on top until the paper was soaked. She then dropped the hydrogen peroxide oxide on the dark stain. It fizzed into a foam almost instantly. “Hmm, now the guaiac.” She raised a dropper over the foam and carefully dripped it on the froth. It gradually turned blue. Her dark eyes turned to Jake. “It’s blood.”

  “Yeah. I thought it might be.”

  “Looking at the stain, it seems more like it seeped it rather than dripped. There are no tails or splatters on the pattern I can see.” She turned, still on her knees, and glanced at the floor boards. “Now, where else did it drip?”

  There was a knock at the door and Nash strode in, bearing a tray. His heavy brows arched and his back stiffened at the sight of the carpet pulled up and the furniture in disarray. He put the tray on the table and scowled. “The accident was in the bedroom, not here. What are you doing?” His gaze landed on the carpet. “Is that a purple mark? It’d better come off.”

  “It’s chalk. It’ll come off.” Abigail climbed to her knees. “We’re tracing all the blood in the room.”

  “Why?”

  Jake folded his arms and glared at the clerk. “Do we tell you how to do your job?”

  “Everybody tells me how to do my job,” said Nash. “That’s working with the public for ya. Just don’t be too long. The women’ll be here at noon to clean.”

  He turned and stalked fr
om the room with his nose in the air, closing the door behind him with a loud clatter.

  “So? What now?” Jake asked reaching for the toast.

  “We carry on.” Abigail poured them both a coffee. “Can you eat over on the other side of the room? The hydrogen peroxide works on proteins, and crumbs might interfere with this.”

  “Shooor—” Jake mumbled through a mouthful of toast. He lifted the tray and headed for the window seat. “I’ll take it over here. Want one?”

  ♦◊♦

  Nat had limited himself to local addresses in his search, figuring if the suit had remained in town since the early fifties, the owner probably had, too. Given most of the trade came from tourists, his search was a lot quicker than he’d anticipated since he ignored non-locals. It had been a mere two-and-a-half hours of soul-sucking, banal ennui which flew by like the visions of a drowning man going under for the third time; but it had been worth it. He eventually found an order for a suit made from hartwist plain herringbone Harris Tweed in barleycorn with all the right measurements. The suit was in the box under his arm, and he was headed to see the man who’d ordered it.

  And that was why he was here; at the Jagged Tick Palace, the most popular drinking establishment in town. It was less cultured than the Regal Hotel, but it was a huge draw for the less wealthy and less sophisticated end of the market. And as most people in this town were uncultured and poor, business was booming. Nat reckoned that included him and Jake since they’d passed more than a few hours in there themselves.

  He clunked over the steps to the wooden sidewalk, which was gritted with ashes as the dank, frozen wood could be treacherous in this weather. He pushed open the door, instantly noting how uninviting a bar was in the cold morning light. The usually ubiquitous jangling music, a constant cacophony in the background, was gone. The large room was silent but for the slopping of a mop against a galvanized bucket and the distant tinkle of bottles somewhere in the distance. The stale stench of old beer and foul tobacco mingled with washing soda into a sickly miasma.

  The mop sloshed over his boots before the hunched drudge of a washerwoman wordlessly pushed him aside to catch the spot where he had been standing.

  “We ain’t open yet.”

  Nat turned, trying not to stare at the woman before him, as unreal in the harsh light of day as plaster of Paris figurine left out in the rain. He’d seen her before and the paint and powder was colorful enough by oil light, but in daylight, she had a cosmetic fortitude rarely seen outside circus folks. He pasted on a smile to mask his reaction. “Good morning, ma’am. Is there a man called Noah Washburn around?”

  “I told you. We ain’t open.”

  “I’m not here as a customer. I’m here to see the owner.”

  She propped both hands on her hips and raised her chin. “He don’t see travelers until it’s gone noon.”

  “Travelers?”

  She frowned, causing Nat to wonder if any of her face would flake off. “Yeah, travellin’ salesmen. Come back after twelve.”

  He pulled back his coat, displaying the star on his jacket. “I’m not selling anything. I’d like to have a word with him if he’s available, please.”

  The penciled in brow arched toward a mop of bright red curls which sat slightly askew atop her painted head. “The law? Why ain’t I seen you before? I know them all in this town.”

  “I have drunk here, and it’s a great place. Maybe you didn’t notice me? I’m helping out Ben Gibson. Mr. Washburn? Is he in?”

  “Honey. When I don’t notice a man like you, it’s time for me to get some of them there spectacles.” She paused, drinking in the chiseled cheekbones, the chocolate eyes, and the square shoulders. “Yeah, he’s in, but this had better be important, callin’ at this ungodly hour.”

  “Ungodly?” Nat grinned. “It’s past eleven.”

  She gestured with her head for Nat to follow him, and he watched to see if the wig would turn at the same time as she did. The wobble gave it a life of its own.

  “Yeah. We don’t get to bed till after three. Eleven’s as good as a sparrow’s fart to us.”

  She opened the door to reveal a bald man in an extravagant purple dressing gown topped off with a satin paisley cravat.

  “Noah, we got a lawman here to see you.”

  His fork hovered inches from his open mouth as his lips dropped open at the sight of an unfamiliar face. “You’re not Ben. Who are you?”

  “I’m Nat. Ben recruited me and a friend to help him with the body dumped in the church hall because we’ve been involved with the law before,” he answered with suitable economy for the truth. “We’ve identified the man, but he was redressed in a suit which wasn’t his. I tracked the original owner, and you had it made at Nessmith’s in fifty-one.” He tapped the box under his arm. “This is it.”

  Washburn dropped his fork. “My suit? From seventeen years ago? You’re sure?”

  Nat nodded and placed the box on the table. “Pretty sure. It fits all the measurements, and has funny stitching the tailor, Taylor, recognized as his pa’s work. It was made here, and is the only one in their records made to these dimensions and in this fabric.”

  “They have records?”

  Nat rolled his eyes. “Thousands of them, and I went through them all.” He opened the box. “Anyway, you’re not a suspect. We know it’s been passed on and used as work clothes, but I wondered if you could tell me who you gave it to?”

  “Oh, look, Noah.” The woman gasped, poking him with a lacquered nail. “I remember you in that. You were somethin’ back then.”

  Washburn scowled. “I’m somethin’ now, Dolly.”

  Dolly’s throaty laugh was both contagious and slightly-sullied. “Sure, ya are; but back then, your somethin’ weren’t hidden by your belly.”

  “Do you remember the suit, sir?”

  Washburn nodded. “Sure, I do. The first suit I ever got made. I loved it back in the day. Then it got outta date.” He patted his expansive gut with a smirk. “And too small. It didn’t fit.” He turned back to the woman. “Who’d I give it to, Dolly?”

  “One of the staff, weren’t it? The barman. Weren’t it Bart?”

  Noah nodded. “Yeah. I gave it to my head barman, Bart Dunkly. When did I give it to him, Dolly?”

  “It was about the time we built up the place and had the stage put in, weren’t it? Maybe sometime in fifty-seven?”

  Washburn masticated on his eggs while musing. “Yeah. The hotel was openin’ under new management and bringin’ in a better class of visitor. We wanted the staff to look smarter. Bart had to have worn the suit for another five years or more. Then he got another one. That dark brown one he still wears. I dunno what he did with it after that. I never gave it another thought.”

  “Is Bart around?” asked Nat.

  “He starts at four, but if you want to speak to him urgent he lives over in Clark Street. Little red house with a bent chimney. You can’t miss it.”

  “Thanks. You’ve been real helpful.” Nat tipped his hat and turned. He strolled back out to the bar where a bent hairpin of a charwoman dragged out a sack of fresh sawdust and began scattering it liberally on the floor to soak up the spills and spittle in the day ahead. He stopped to watch for a few seconds while buttoning his coat and heading back out into the caustic winter sunshine. Sawdust. There was sawdust on the suit, wasn’t there?

  ♦◊♦

  Ben Gibson stared at the wet gobs on the floor circled with purple chalk and squinted a questioning look at Jake and Abigail.

  “Purple?”

  “It was the only color left in the box,” said Jake. “I asked that, too.”

  “But why the circles?”

  “These are all the areas the hydrogen peroxide bubbled between the floorboards.” Abigail climbed to her feet and dusted off her knees. “I found a shard of broken porcelain too. The maid told me it went missing about a week or so before Christmas, and Mrs. Williams only admitted it broke when Constance kicked up a fuss and accused t
he staff of stealing it. She had bought it as a present for her mother.”

  “So it sounds like Constance can’t be the one Mrs. Williams is coverin’ for,” said the sheriff. “Constance drew attention to it when she didn’t have to.”

  “Double bluff?” Abigail shook her head. “It could be a diversion and the fuss was to cover for her. It could still be her.”

  “There doesn’t seem to be much blood.” Gibson stared at the floor. “If a man was stabbed in the heart I’d expect him to be covered in the stuff.”

  “Dr. Fox confirmed most of the bleeding was internal,” said Abigail. “These are spots, probably where the weapon was pulled out. It starts here, beside the coat rack.” She followed the trail across the room. “He staggered a few steps, dripping as he went, and then seems to have fallen face-down on the rug and bled there until he was moved. There’s not too much blood on the rug, so I think the body was moved fairly quickly.” She laid a hand on the small table. “The rug shows this table was beside the chair. It’s also where the bit of porcelain was found between the floorboards. It looks like he tipped over the table as he fell. I checked with the staff, and the broken shepherdess was in a pink dress. The piece I found has pink glaze on one side.”

  Gibson frowned, placing his hands on his hips. “I’ve gotta say, it all fits. Any sign of a weapon?”

  “Nothing so far.” She walked over to the desk and collected the brass letter opener shaped like a dagger. “I’m going to take this to test, but I’m fairly certain it’s too wide. I’m going to take the rug and everything on the rack to examine more closely for blood splatter. The scene looks like it started beside the hat rack, he staggered a few steps then fell, taking the table down with him. He probably laid face-down for a very short time, and was then flipped on his back so the bleeding continued inside the thoracic cavity. I can do the coats while the women clean, as long as I note where they were on the rack. I’ll take those, too, to see if there was any splatter.”