Beyond the Pale

by Sabrina Flynn

  She frowned. “Why can’t you do both?”

  “If I interfere tonight, they’ll suspect we’ve infiltrated their organization.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Trust me. It will spook them. They’ll pack up and go underground. It’s what I would do.”

  “I’m relieved you’re not a criminal.”

  “Technically, I am.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Sodomites and whores aside… Is the fellow who’s slated to meet his Maker a good person or a bad one?”

  “Is anyone really good?”

  Daisy lifted a shoulder. “Some are better than others.”

  Lotario tossed a newspaper in front of her. The article was about a militant priest.

  “Father Caraher?” Daisy asked.

  Lotario nodded. “The method of murder is by thugs on his way home from work. Tomorrow. I believe he has a habit of walking home after he closes up at St. Francis.”

  Daisy started laughing. “Doesn’t that just tickle you?” she said, wiping her eyes. “The life of the famous militant priest in the hands of two whores.”

  Lotario appreciated the irony in that. But Daisy soon sobered. “You know I went to confession once.”

  “Why on earth would you do that?”

  “Fit of madness, I suppose. And do you know who I got in that hideous confessional? Father Caraher.”

  “Hmm, I’m sure you got an earful. Was it fire and brimstone, then?”

  “No…” Daisy studied her hands. “He told me a story about a whore in those bible times. Rahab. He claimed she was the only righteous woman in an entire city, and that she saved God’s servants. The city failed, but she didn’t. And then he told me that this city failed me long ago, but I could still make a choice to save myself.” She met Lotario’s eyes. “It was right after you offered me this job. I didn’t tell him about your offer. So I’m thinking it’s some sort of divine will… for us to save a servant of God, and all.”

  Lotario raised his brows. “I always knew I was divine; now I have proof.”

  “Oh, stop it.” She slapped his shoulder. “Let’s be good little whores and go save a priest. To hell with your Ghost.”

  53

  Connections

  There was always a danger of dividing forces during an investigation, especially when it required subterfuge. Riot couldn’t easily get word to Isobel about what he’d learned. And she couldn’t get word to him. But what did he have? That Dominic had fought with a man and been killed. That he’d had enough in his billfold to pay off a woman’s debt to the Nymphia.

  The gaps in events were being filled with facts, giving him a more complete picture of what happened the night Dominic Noble was murdered. But Riot needed more; he needed to find the woman from room 136.

  It was close to noon when he returned to the Nymphia for his shift. The hotel was quiet. It usually was before noon. Most women stumbled off to what passed for a home during the wee hours of the morning, others slept in the rooms they’d rented. A few clients remained, too. But the men were generally too drunk for the women to move, had paid for the privilege, or were regular customers.

  He found a man sleeping in Dollie Small’s bed. She wasn’t in the hotel’s restaurant or bar, so he struck off down the street to a row of cafes. She sat in a tearoom, golden hair pulled back in a bun, a little hat perched on her head, and in a proper lady's collar.

  Riot felt like a ruffian in his rough clothes as he entered the quaint tearoom. He removed his hat, adjusted his spectacles, and smiled at the proprietress. “I have an appointment with Miss Small. I’ll have some tea, if you please.”

  The woman blinked at the King’s English he used. But Riot didn’t wait for the woman to recover from her shock. He weaved through tables to stop in front of Dollie.

  “Miss Small. I’m sorry to intrude, but I need to talk with you.”

  Dollie raised a brow at his proper accent. “I’m not working, Kyd. I don’t owe you anything. You have no right to interrupt my breakfast.”

  “You’re right. I don’t. I’m here to help Sakura get her baby back.”

  Dollie’s eyes flashed. Shock, anger, resentment. She leaned forward to yank him into a chair. “So says every man trying to play the knight in shining armor for a fallen woman,” she hissed. “You ever stop to think we can do just fine by ourselves. You men got us into this hellhole. It’s up to us to dig our way out.”

  Dollie drew back as a waitress brought his tea. They smiled pleasantly, and in the ensuing silence, Riot added cream and sugar to his teacup.

  “You know, my mother was a crib whore,” he confided as he stirred, watching the swirl of colors mingle and mix. “No one ever offered her anything but pain. She escaped, eventually. I found her dead, still hanging by the noose she fashioned out of a rope I’d scavenged a week before. I thought she could sell it, or use it as a clothesline.”

  The tearoom fell away, Dollie’s watching eyes and all the years between then and now. Riot wasn’t aware of his lapse. But he’d fallen silent, and when he continued, his voice was rough as nails. “She killed herself before I even learned my proper name. I was left to dig my way out of that same hellhole I was born into. When help came along, I took it.” Riot focused on her and let fury and frustration bleed into his voice. “Don’t you dare spit on the graves of women who never got the chance to turn down an offered hand.”

  Dollie met his gaze, eyes hard, her body near to vibrating with anger, but slowly the tilt of her shoulders softened. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Atticus Riot,” he said. “I’m a detective with Ravenwood Agency, but foremost I’m the son of a whore. Those same men who push women into hell make me as sick as you.”

  “I doubt that,” she said. “You got a scratch compared to the holes men dig in us.”

  “Then let me even the odds for Sakura. Give me that, at least.”

  “How do I know what you’re really after?” she shot back. “You lied about your name. You lied about being a cowboy, and you strike me as far too charming for your own good.”

  “My wife accuses me of the same thing,” Riot said, taking a sip of his tea. “As to the other things, I don’t know my proper name and these clothes are my own. To be honest, Miss Small, I’m many things: gambler, gunfighter, detective, and more recently husband and father. I’d like to think I’ve been a gentleman as well.”

  Dollie pointed her spoon at him. “You’re that detective fellow that brought down those nobs.”

  “Unfortunately, the key players escaped. It’s always the little fish who get left behind for the hook.”

  Dollie gave a bitter laugh. “Sounds like the Nymphia. There’s always some hotel resident willing to take money in exchange for being arrested. They just have to claim they’re the manager, then lounge around in a cell for a while until the attorneys spring them.”

  “I’m afraid they won’t spend a dime on Miss Sakura.”

  “No, they won’t,” Dollie said with a sigh.

  He could sense her hesitation. The doubt. Decades of men lying straight to her face, promising all sorts of happy endings, then repeatedly betraying that trust. It wore a person down, eventually.

  “Dollie,” he said, softly. “If I was after Sakura to hand her over to the police, I would’ve just shadowed you, and arrested her when you led me to her hiding place. In order to help her, I need your help, too.”

  His reasoning nudged her over the edge. “A few weeks ago, on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, however you reckon time, I found Sakura stumbling around the back hallways. Blood was gushing from a cut on her forehead. She was crying. So I went back to her room to see what the fuss was about because she was too addled to speak the little English she knows.”

  “I found this nob of a fellow dead in her bed. Some scratches on him, but no obvious wound. I figured he got rough and maybe she knocked him on the head, or maybe he got a little too excited and his heart gave out. Either way, she’s a foreigner and doesn’t speak ha
rdly a lick of English. It didn’t look good for her. The police would hang her without a second thought. Billy was nowhere to be found, and I didn’t know what Earl would do…” She tapped her spoon against the table, hesitating over the next. With a deep breath, she confessed. “I stripped him, then helped her get dressed in his clothes. I told her to keep her head down, get out of the hotel through the front door, and go wait at my place. But she didn’t want to leave without her baby. It took some doing, but I eventually convinced her I’d get Kira.”

  “After she left… I arranged the dead fellow to look like he was asleep, and put a blanket over him, then went back to finish my shift. Afterwards, I went to Mrs. K’s to get Kira. When I have free time, I help watch the little ones for the mothers, so it wasn’t all that strange. I like to walk with them in the parks. Only Mrs. K said Kira wasn’t to leave on the manager’s orders. Turns out Sakura owes him a hefty sum.”

  “Then the police came,” Riot noted.

  Dollie nodded. “I was already out of the hotel, so I didn’t get caught in that mess.”

  “Where’s the street entrance to the boardinghouse?”

  “Grant Avenue,” she said. “Looks like a quaint little boardinghouse for women. But you know the funny thing… that ‘refuge for women and children’ is funded by the Knights of Chastity. Do they know what goes on there? I don’t know. It wouldn’t surprise me if they did. All they care about is that there’s a place to stuff fallen women to ease their guilty consciences, because half those damn women in the charity know their husbands go to whores.”

  “All these preachers preach at us, wanting to close our business, but they don’t have any proper work for us to go to ’cept starvation. And those same sorts of men won’t let women work in jobs ‘meant’ for men. If they do, they pay us pennies in comparison, then complain about women who turn to whoring to feed their children.”

  Riot let her vent. He couldn’t change society; he couldn’t take her pain away. But he could listen.

  “The proper ladies come once a year to inspect it, and under threat from Kane we all smile and dote on the little ones, and say how grateful we are that they provide a roof for us.”

  “Is there more than one guard?”

  “Yes. And men paid to track down girls who run before paying off their debts.” She nodded towards him. “Same goes for the watchmen, mind you. Make no mistake, Kane is a dangerous sort, and life is dirt cheap to him.”

  “Was Sakura at your home?”

  “She was. I promised her I’d work on getting her baby back, and that the girls and me would watch Kira in the meantime.”

  “Can I speak with her?” he asked.

  Dollie sighed, shoulders slumping. “She took off one day while I was gone. I don’t know where she is, but I’m worried sick about her.”

  “Are you sure she left voluntarily?”

  “I’m not sure of anything.”

  “You can be sure she didn’t kill that man,” Riot said.

  Dollie raised her brows in surprise. “Who did then?”

  “I tracked Billy Blackburn down. He saw two men fighting inside the room. A blond man, pencil mustache, wealthy. I think he came through the back door. Sakura was likely knocked against the wall in the fight, or hit.”

  “Why didn’t she say something about the second man?” Dollie muttered.

  “Because she fears the man who left that room—the killer. The dead man in her room had enough money in his billfold to pay off her debt.”

  “His billfold was empty.”

  “Billy stole the money.”

  “Bastard,” Dollie cursed. “So Sakura knew the dead man?”

  Riot nodded. “I think she knows the killer, too. Now I’m wondering if she tried to get Kira and was picked up by Kane’s men.”

  “That would make sense. I’ve been looking everywhere for her: morgues, parks, going around to pimps. I even checked with Miss Cameron at the mission.”

  Riot was impressed. Dollie had been thorough, going above and beyond to help a stranger. He tapped a finger against the table, his mind wandering back to something Matthew had said at the meeting. And like links in a chain, it clicked with a rush of thought: the Twinkling Star Improvement Company owned the Nymphia and the Triton Rowing Club, which Dominic belonged to; the womanizing atmosphere at the rowing club; the high turnover of maids at the Noble’s house; the two nobs fighting.

  There was the connection. And the company had tried to get city permits to renovate and attach an adjacent building to the Nymphia. And that building had a basement.

  Riot stood and flipped on his hat. “I may know where she is,” he said with a grimace. But after twenty years in the business, Riot dreaded what he’d find.

  “Psst, Sarah.”

  Sarah about jumped out of her skin. She’d stopped in a hallway to tie her laces while Helen kept walking. Isobel pointed to Sarah and made a shooing motion towards Helen.

  “Er… Helen,” Sarah called. “I need to use the bathroom real quick. I’ll meet y’all outside.”

  “All right.”

  As soon as Helen rounded the corner, Isobel pulled Sarah into another hallway.

  “Helen said her brother died at the Nymphia,” Sarah whispered urgently.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Oh.”

  “What else did she say?”

  “That Dominic argued with his father about a maid.”

  “Which one?”

  Sarah hesitated. “I don’t know. Helen thinks Dominic left because he was angry with them for driving another maid off, but that doesn’t make sense. She said her father told Dominic, “It will be the death of you.’”

  Isobel laid a sheet of paper on a hallway table, and smoothed it. “Do you know what this is?”

  Sarah frowned at the sheet. “Someone obsessed with their name?”

  “The calligraphy.”

  “Yes, it’s calligraphy.”

  “Do you know who did it?”

  Sarah bent to examine the handwriting. “I had a friend who was sweet on a boy. She’d fill notebooks writing her name and adding his surname. It was probably Imogen. Though she’s not artistic.”

  “She’s not?”

  Sarah shook her head. “Maybe she was practicing, but this is really good calligraphy.”

  “How would one go about writing this one?” Isobel jabbed her finger at the wide Gothic-style writing where one line mirrored the other.

  Sarah frowned at the name. “It looks difficult, but it’s really not—you can just hold two pencils together. But these lines are wide…” she scratched a nail over a letter. “It’s not charcoal, so it’s just a thick pencil with a notch in the middle. I’ve done it before.”

  Isobel sucked in a breath at the word notch. “Does it take a special pencil?” she asked.

  “There are some special ones for art, like the one in the kit you got me for my birthday. But there’s a poor man’s version, too. I had hand issues when I was younger. The muscles in my hands just weren’t strong enough to grip a pencil.” She blushed, rubbing her hand. “My teacher was constantly hitting my knuckles with a ruler because of my poor penmanship. But my gramma wouldn’t hear of it, so she gave my teacher heck, then solved my problem by handing me a carpenter’s pencil. It worked just fine, and later, when my hand got a little stronger, I used it for all sorts of art.”

  “You’re brilliant, Sarah.”

  “It was my gramma who did it.”

  “Yes, well, she’s brilliant too. I wish I’d known her.” Isobel folded the paper back up. “I need you to give Tim a message to pass onto Riot. Tell him what you told me about the pencil and the calligraphy; that the maid here was Japanese and with child, and was fired some months ago; and that I intend to find proof, which may be dangerous.”

  Sarah’s eyes widened. “Can I write all that down?”

  “No.”

  “What are you planning?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Isobel said. “I want you to leave. At
once. Is that clear?”

  “But we’re going for a walk in Golden Gate Park. Everyone is waiting for me in the carriage.”

  Isobel gripped her shoulder. “I don’t care, Sarah. I want you out of here. Now. Dominic was murdered by someone in this house. Do you understand?”

  “Yes…” Sarah said faintly. “What will I say to Helen?”

  “Tell her you’re feeling sick and need to head home. Do not go near Mr. Noble or Freddie.”

  “What about you?”

  Isobel squeezed Sarah’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. Whenever the teacher hit me, I ripped the ruler from his hand and hit him back.”

  In the end, Sarah left with a promise that she wouldn’t go back to the Noble’s house. That settled, Isobel turned to the task at hand.

  54

  Playing God

  Daisy craned her neck at the Gothic towers as she walked through the heavy doors of St. Francis. Its dark gray stone and curving arches reminded her of a castle, at least the ones she’d read about. As she stepped through the dark doorway, she sketched a hasty cross, and hurried down the aisle between pews, her heels clicking on stone.

  St. Francis was beautiful—with its vast ceilings, flickering candles, and stained glass windows, but she felt so small staring up at the saintly figurines and divine murals. Some found comfort in the serene faces, but she thought they all looked sad.

  A priest came to greet her with a smile on his face. She knew men; she knew that look in their eyes. This one tried to hide it, but he enjoyed seeing her just a little too much.

  “I need to confess, Father.”

  There, the flash in his eyes. Hunger. Enough men had used her as a confessional for her to know that feeling. They dumped their trash on her, then left her bed feeling renewed.

  Some whores relished dirty little secrets, but they left her feeling like filth. Were priests the same? Now there was a sacrilegious thought to share with Lotario: the similarities between priests and whores.