Beyond the Pale

by Sabrina Flynn

  Riot tapped his head. “Still recovering. Besides, the children are wearing cork vests. I’m in your hands.”

  Isobel snorted at his excuse, but it was half-hearted. Only weeks before he’d suffered a severe beating that edged him towards a grave. But the two weeks they’d spent strolling under redwoods and beside idle streams, then lounging on a sandy beach by the wild Pacific, had done wonders for his recovery.

  The trip hadn’t been devoid of excitement, but she expected no less from a man named Atticus Riot. And luckily children were resilient.

  To her surprise, Isobel found she wasn’t keen on returning to the city. It turned out she enjoyed indolence in the right company.

  She studied him now. His beard needed a trim, his hair had curled, and the sun had bronzed his skin. In shirtsleeves and vest, with an open collar, he looked like some rakish Spaniard.

  “I hadn’t realized how dark you are,” she noted.

  Riot cracked open an eye. He had one bare foot braced against the table, making a lie of his calm façade, as the boat surged over a choppy San Francisco Bay. “I tan well.”

  So did she—the Azores blood ran thick in her veins—but not that well. Not for the first time, she mused over her husband’s parentage. His mother was a crib whore, which led to an entire spectrum of possibilities.

  Definitely some sort of Mediterranean descent, she decided.

  “I try to stay out of the sun for that reason,” he added, reading her line of thought.

  “Ah.” Any whisper of other than ‘white’ would close several doors for him. “A pity. The sun suits you.”

  Shouts sounded on the overhead deck, followed by a girlish scream, pounding feet, and a sudden turn of the cutter. Isobel glimpsed an alarming amount of wooden dock in her porthole. She braced herself for impact.

  But the Pagan Lady only drifted sideways in the water to bump the dock before settling. Triumphant cries sounded on deck, followed by orders from a pint-sized acting captain. “And snap to it!” Sao Jin shouted.

  Isobel took a deep, calming breath, and deliberately placed her book in its nook.

  “Are we dead yet?” Riot murmured. He had his eyes closed.

  “The day is young.”

  Isobel and Riot emerged on deck to find the crew standing at attention. “Captain on deck,” Jin announced.

  The three children saluted. Jin stood proudly in the cockpit, Sarah beamed from the dock where she’d been securing the mooring lines, and Tobias vibrated with excitement, hopping on the cabin top.

  “We did it!” the boy squealed.

  “I can see that.” Isobel looked down at Jin, returning the salute. “Excellent work, first mate.”

  “She is all yours, Captain Morgan.”

  Isobel surveyed the Lady. The sails were furled and the mooring lines were in place along with the cork bumpers to pad the cutter against the dock. All was in order.

  “And I was so looking forward to rescuing you again,” she whispered in Riot’s ear.

  He raised a suggestive brow at her. But then something shifted in his gaze, sending a frisson of alarm down her spine. One moment he was relaxed, and in the next blink he was lunging towards Sarah on the dock.

  Riot grabbed Sarah’s arm and yanked her into the cockpit as he drew his revolver left-handed.

  Movement on another boat. A man with a rifle.

  “Down!” Riot barked.

  A policeman, Isobel realized as she pulled Tobias from the cabin top. He fell atop the girls, and the cockpit became a tangle of children and oaths.

  “Atticus Riot! We have a warrant for your arrest! Drop your weapons, raise your hands, and step onto the dock.”

  Sarah froze, the blood draining from her face. Tobias made a gurgling sound, and Jin, who’d fought her way free, looked set to bolt.

  “The three of you get down below,” Riot said. The calm in his voice was so chilling that the children slithered down the hatch without argument.

  As Isobel crouched next to Riot in the cockpit, she took stock of their situation. It wasn’t just one lone officer waiting in ambush. A second officer with a rifle was positioned on a nearby vessel. And a group of men were walking down the dock towards their slip—a number of policemen in their company. She recognized a man in a bowler and dark suit as well as one of the uniformed officers: Inspector Geary and Sergeant O’Hare.

  An inspector should’ve put her at ease. It didn’t.

  She’d encountered the inspector during a prior case that involved a message written in sand. Geary and Riot had a history. And she knew it wasn’t good.

  “Tell your men to stand down,” Riot yelled back. “There are women and children aboard.”

  “If you behave civilly, so will we,” Inspector Geary returned. His group had fanned out, positioning themselves behind various boats and crates for cover.

  “What’s going on?” Tobias’s face appeared in the hatch, his eyes huge in the dark.

  “Get back down,” Isobel hissed, glancing at the mooring lines. Should they attempt to run? If Riot provided cover, she might be able to cut loose the lines and—

  Before she could finish the thought, Riot holstered his revolver, and raised his hands.

  “Riot.”

  He gave a shake of his head. They were cornered. There was no running. Before she could stop him, he hopped onto the dock, with his hands spread at his hips.

  “Shall I dance now?” Riot asked.

  “You’re not amusing,” Geary sneered. “Walk towards us nice and slow.”

  “Tell your men to take their rifles off my family and aim them at me. Unless you brought an army for two little girls?”

  Geary gave a sharp gesture to the officers positioned on nearby boats. All rifles swung towards Riot.

  “What’s going on?” Sarah whispered from the hatch.

  “Stay here,” Isobel hissed. “If anything happens, untie the lines and let the Lady drift out to sea.”

  Before her daughters could argue, she climbed onto the dock to join her partner, who had stopped a good twenty feet from the men.

  “…we aren’t obligated to tell you.” The snippet of conversation came from a man resembling a gargoyle. Everything about him sloped forward. Thick brows, heavy jowls, and a neck that rested on an expansive chest. Inspector Geary. He was looking smug after delivering that last statement.

  Towering over the group was his giant uniformed shadow, Officer O’Hare. A strapping Irishman who was everything opposite of Geary. And then two men Isobel couldn’t place. A bow-legged man with hooded eyes, a face etched with lines, and a drooping gray mustache; he looked like he’d come straight from a ranch. The lines beside his eyes crinkled as he touched the brim of his hat in greeting. The second stranger was a rough, wiry sort with longish brown hair, whiskers, and a bored look in his eyes.

  “True, but it would be the polite thing to do after you trained rifles on my children.” Riot’s tone was conversational, despite being the target of several rifles. Geary certainly wasn’t taking any chances.

  “Show me the warrant,” Isobel demanded.

  “Well, if it isn’t Mrs. Riot,” Geary said. “Still wearing trousers, I see. That’s grounds for arrest on indecency.”

  Isobel showed her teeth. “I’m within twenty feet of my boat, which is private property.”

  “You’re here for me; leave my family out of this,” Riot cut in.

  Despite Isobel’s orders, Sarah bolted onto the dock. Before she could stop the girl, Sarah threw herself between her father and the guns.

  No, no, no…

  The men froze. Even O’Hare.

  Isobel thought her knees would give out.

  “I won’t let you kill my father!” Sarah shouted at the officers.

  A tense moment—Riot afraid to make a move lest the men think he was reaching for a weapon, and the men afraid of shooting a child.

  “Sarah, get behind me,” Riot ordered. But Sarah wasn’t having any of it.

  The graying man cleared
his throat. “That’s noble of you, Miss. But we’re not here to shoot your father.” He gestured for the men to lower their guns, and after a stubborn moment the officers did so.

  Riot slowly put his hands on Sarah’s shoulders and forced her back. Isobel took a ragged breath and grabbed Sarah’s arm, so she wouldn’t run into the line of fire again.

  “Put your hands on your head and turn around,” Geary ordered.

  Hatless, without a coat, Riot placed his hands on his head, and turned to face her. He looked so tired. Resigned, even. There was an apology in his eyes.

  Both criminals and lawmen hunted him. Why couldn’t the powers that be leave them in peace?

  O’Hare stepped forward and wrenched Riot’s arms behind his back to clamp handcuffs over his wrists. Each click of the cuffs made Sarah flinch like she’d been slapped.

  “At least tell us what he’s being charged with,” Isobel pleaded.

  “Are you acquainted with a Montgomery Johnson?” the graying man asked.

  Riot twisted to look back at the man. “He was one of my agents.”

  “The word being ‘was’. Right up until you put a bullet between his eyes,” Geary said with pleasure.

  Murder.

  Isobel stood stunned while they loaded Riot into a patrol wagon. When the door clanged shut, Sarah tore out of Isobel’s grip to pound on the wagon. It took two officers to peel Sarah away, and she kicked them both for their efforts.

  As the wagon disappeared, Isobel climbed aboard the Lady, cursing up a storm. Tobias’s jaw was unhinged, Sarah stomped aboard crying, and Jin clambered over from another vessel where a policeman had been stationed with a rifle. She had a knife in hand.

  That gave Isobel pause. “Jin, were you planning on stabbing an officer?”

  “Only if he started shooting.”

  Isobel considered her pint-sized daughter for a moment. Some sort of lecture was surely required, but she was at a loss. At least the girl had waited.

  “Shooting someone sure sounds like the sort of thing Mr. A.J. would do,” Tobias noted.

  “You take that back, Tobias!” Sarah shouted.

  “Well, it does…”

  Isobel didn’t wait to see if the pair came to blows. There was no time to comfort them. She disappeared below deck to don her ‘proper clothing’: a sensible blouse, tie, split riding skirt and matching coat.

  Tobias was right. Montgomery Johnson, former detective for Ravenwood Agency, had betrayed Riot by hiring assassins to kill him. But the assassins had failed in their blundering attempt, and killed Mack McCormick.

  When Riot went after Monty, he’d beaten Riot within an inch of his life and left him for dead. She’d certainly wanted to kill Monty herself, and news of his death caused her no grief. Quite the opposite.

  “Did Din Gau shoot that man?”

  Isobel looked up in surprise. Jin sat on the ladder, her question echoing Isobel’s own thoughts. Din Gau. Rabid Dog. It was the hatchet men’s nickname for Riot. A name born of fear and respect, and a good dose of hatred.

  “Of course not. When did he have the chance?” Isobel hesitated over her own question. They had left Riot at the campsite for an entire day to go explore. And Jin knew it, too.

  Sarah plopped down on a ladder rung. “They’re going to hang him, aren’t they?”

  Before the waterworks could start again, Jin elbowed her sister in the shin. “Do not be so dramatic.”

  “They took him away in irons!” Sarah shouted.

  “I didn’t say anything!” Tobias yelled from the cabin top.

  “Get down here, Tobias,” Isobel ordered.

  “You decent?”

  “Yes.”

  The girls moved into the cabin to make way for Tobias, and Isobel placed a reassuring hand on Sarah’s shoulder. She tried to look them all in the eye at once. Then told the harsh truth. “I don’t know what’s going to happen, but what I do know is that Inspector Geary and his partner dislike Riot a great deal. I need you three to help me. Can you do that?”

  Three heads nodded as one.

  “Good.” She turned to a small captain’s desk and started writing. “I need you to send a telegram to our attorney, Mr. Farnon. Then go straight home and tell Mr. Tim what happened. Clear?”

  “Yes,” they said as one.

  Isobel handed Jin the note. “Then I need you three to gather all the newspapers that were published when we were at Willow Camp. I want to know what the press made of Monty’s death.”

  “What will you do?” Jin asked.

  “I’m going to find the only allies we have—Inspector Coleman and Sergeant Price.” Before Geary and O’Hare could interrogate her husband in one of the City’s famed ‘sweatboxes.’ But she left that part out. Honesty was well and good, but there were some things children did not need to know.

  3

  Schemes

  “I need to speak with Inspector Coleman,” Isobel said to the desk sergeant at the Hall of Justice.

  The man glanced up at her, decided she wasn’t a threat, and went back to filling out paperwork.

  “It’s important.”

  “Do you have an appointment, Miss?”

  “I do not, but I have urgent information regarding a case,” she lied.

  “The inspector isn’t in. But I can take down your information and pass him a message.”

  “When will he return?”

  “The inspector doesn’t leave his schedule with me.”

  “Is Sgt. Price in?”

  “No.”

  Isobel shoved the door open as she left. Fresh air helped. She took deep, calming breaths of it. Her imagination was conjuring all sorts of horrors about Geary’s interrogation methods.

  The memory of Riot dumped in a gutter and covered in blood was all too stark in her mind. She swallowed down despair and focused on their current crisis. One problem at a time. Isobel spotted a small newsboy leaning against a column. He was as dirty as a dumpster and digging around in his nose.

  “Well, if it isn’t Bill Cody,” she said.

  “Heya, Miss Bonnie.” He took his finger from his nose long enough to remove his cap, then slapped it back down with a puff of dirt. He’d gotten his name because he tended to charge the other cappers and snitches like a wild buffalo. “I’m your man if you need somethin’.”

  “Do you happen to know the present location of Inspector Coleman or Sgt. Price?”

  Cody shrugged. “Bunch of bulls went to the Nymphia. I wager the Inspector’s there. The Nymphia is old news, though. I’m here for the good stuff.”

  “You’re a wise fellow.” Knowing it would feed him for a week, she flipped him a silver dollar, and left.

  “They’re gonna beat up Mr. A.J. again,” Tobias said.

  “They’re police,” Sarah said. “They wouldn’t do that.”

  Tobias and Jin shared a look.

  “Would they?” Sarah asked.

  The three were hurrying from the docks to the closest Western Union office to do just as Isobel had instructed, like the good, helpful children they were.

  Outside the telegraph office, Jin handed Sarah the note. “They will not kick you out.”

  Sarah quickly dispatched a telegram to Mr. Farnon. With all the trouble Atticus and Isobel got themselves into, their attorney was kept busy.

  “How come we need to go home?” Tobias asked when she returned. He had his face pressed to the window. “Why don’t we just telephone Mr. Tim?”

  Sarah followed the boy’s pointing finger to the telephone on an inside wall.

  “That is a good point.” Jin said.

  “But Isobel told us to go home…”

  “No, Miss Isobel told us to tell Mr. Tim. He might not be at home, he could be at Ravenwood Agency.”

  Jin nodded in agreement. “And then we must gather newspapers.”

  “At home,” Sarah stressed.

  Tobias shrugged. “We could just find them on the way.”

  “The way to where?” Sarah asked.
r />   Jin and Tobias shared another look. “To the police station,” they replied as one.

  “Oh no,” Sarah said.

  “The police will not beat Atticus if we are there,” Jin said.

  Tobias gave a sage nod. “And you already disobeyed your parents when you got it in your mind to play a target. If you’re gonna get a whoopin’ might as well go all out first.”

  Sarah pressed palms to her swollen eyes. Could this day get any worse?

  4

  A Warm Welcome

  The cage door opened, and O’Hare stood grinning in the gray light. “You want to put up a struggle? ’Cause I can accommodate you.”

  “That’s real thoughtful of you, O’Hare.”

  O’Hare slapped his billy club against the wagon to get Riot moving. The wagon wasn’t tall enough to stand, so Riot stayed hunched over and shuffled forward with his arms locked behind his back.

  He hopped down onto the street and was prodded with the billy club towards the 17th Street police station. It wasn’t known for its hospitality.

  Inspector Geary didn’t so much as glance at Riot as he pushed open the door. But two men not in uniform watched him, standing apart from the police. The two from the dock. Riot had noted the tall graying man’s bow-legged stride. It hinted at years spent in a saddle. The shorter, younger man was squinting from beneath his bowler and standing protectively beside his partner. Yes, Riot thought, definitely partners. U.S. Marshals or Pinkertons? He wasn’t sure.

  O’Hare paraded Riot past the lobby gate, down a hallway lined with cells, and into a brick room with no windows. An electric light dangled brightly from the ceiling over a drain set into the center of the floor.

  O’Hare pushed Riot to his knees, so another officer could hook his cuffs to a short chain attached to a rung on the stone floor.

  “The city still hasn’t given you the funds to remodel?” Riot asked, trying and failing to find a comfortable position. There wasn’t one. But that was the point of this entire room.

  “Always the funny one. We’ll see how long that lasts.” O’Hare bent down to rip off Riot’s spectacles.