No Comfort for the Lost (13 page)

“I wish she had come to me for money that evening, Mr. Greaves, instead of trusting the wrong person.”

He didn’t answer, the brim of his hat making a circuit through his fingers as he stared into the chapel’s shadows.

• • •

W
hy was Palmer’s business associate at the funeral of a Chinese girl?

Nick contemplated the reasons while the minister recited Bible verses that were intended to console and instead sounded grim. Douglass’ wife, who Mrs. Davies had explained was the head of the Ladies’ Society of Christian Aid, must have compelled him to accompany her. Nick considered the back of the woman’s head, held rigidly erect. She was no delicate flower who needed her husband to prop her up.

All the Palmers had come, too. Mrs. Palmer fussed with the brooch at her throat and whispered to her daughter. Emmeline wheezed when she inhaled and refused to look at the coffin. Her father kept his Southern gentleman’s expression as flat as pond ice.

Hubert Lange sat behind Nick. His daughter, who had yet to make an appearance at the police station, was absent. Lange had assured Nick she was probably there right now. Nick suspected Tessie would find anyplace, even the reeking police offices, preferable to the funeral of her onetime rival.

Nick heard the rap of boot heels against the chapel’s stone floor, and Briggs slid into a chair next to him.

Nick groaned. “What in . . . I’m in a house of God, so I won’t curse, Briggs, but what are you doing here?”

“Captain wants me to make sure you don’t bother Palmer.” He craned his neck. “Which one is he?”

The minister paused in his speech and glowered at them.

Nick lowered his voice. “Eagan needs to send you as a watchdog?”

Briggs shrugged.

“If I promise I won’t bother Mr. Palmer,” said Nick, “will you go back to the station?”

“Why should I trust you?”

“How about I buy your doughnuts for the next week.”

Briggs smirked. “Deal.”

He clomped out. Propriety restored, the minister completed his words of consolation and indicated that the assembly should gather to follow the casket out to the grave site. Joseph Palmer had offered to serve as pallbearer. He stepped forward when Nick did.

“I am surprised to see you here, Detective Greaves,” he said while the minister conferred with Mrs. Davies and her cousin over what would happen next.

“Likewise, Mr. Palmer.”

“My wife and I support these girls, sir, the ones trying so valiantly to alter the course of their lives. We are all here to show that we do not forget them, even in death.” He gazed at the coffin. “Such a pity.”

There wasn’t any chance Joseph Palmer looked at that casket and saw what Nick did. Palmer saw a girl not of his class, not of his culture, who’d failed to become a respectable woman. Nick saw a girl who’d lost her way and been trampled underfoot. A pebble drowned in a stream. A broken shell.

“I suppose I should let you know my assistant is checking on your whereabouts last Monday,” he said to Palmer. “Just to make sure you were down in Santa Clara County like you’ve claimed.” He’d buy Briggs his doughnuts; he wouldn’t leave any possible suspect alone, though.

“I expect you are merely doing your job, Detective Greaves.”

“That I am.” Nick turned his attention to Mr. Douglass, who was speaking quietly to his wife. “I’m wondering why your associate is here, Mr. Palmer.”

“To support his wife, who knew the girl.”

“Any possibility Li Sha asked
him
for money?” Nick asked.

“What a suggestion.” Palmer glanced over at Douglass and narrowed his eyes. “What a suggestion.”

A good suggestion, if Nick read Palmer right. Douglass must have felt them watching him, because he looked over and frowned.

“Let us depart,” boomed the minister.

Palmer reached out to lift the casket, his hands encased in good leather gloves. He wore a tailored suit, a beaver top hat, and polished shoes. Nick wondered, though, if the man had a pair of thick-soled boots at home, muddied from tromping through Celia Davies’ side yard.

Nick took one corner of the casket, as did a white-faced Lange. Lange shot a look at Palmer, who was studiously ignoring him. Maybe the man didn’t care to rub shoulders with a storekeeper. The sexton who’d dug the grave and had been lolling in the doorway was pressed into service, and together they hoisted the coffin and set it on their shoulders. It wasn’t heavy, the young woman inside having been barely more than a wisp.

Celia’s cousin passed the line of mourners to go to the front, scrutinizing Nick as she went. He could guess what Barbara Walford felt about Li Sha, somebody she had more in common with than she might like to admit. But he couldn’t guess what was missing among the girl’s belongings that had bothered Miss Walford. When he’d entered the chapel with Mrs. Davies, the girl had been talking to Palmer, Miss Walford excitable, Palmer poker-faced. Nick hadn’t overheard what she’d said, but it had been insistent and brief. It seemed everybody wanted to gain the man’s attention today.

Palmer cleared his throat. “If everyone is ready, let us proceed,” he called out. Not that anyone had asked him to take charge. It must just come naturally.

Nick shuffled along until all the pallbearers settled into a rhythm and plodded outside into the sunshine. The wind snatched at the ladies’ black ribbons and scraps of lace they’d pinned to bonnets and gowns. Mrs. Davies was composed and walked arm in arm with her housekeeper, who sniffled into a handkerchief. Up ahead, Miss Walford reached into her net purse and scattered pieces of red paper onto the ground. He’d seen that practice at other Chinese funerals. More commonly, bits of brown paper meant to resemble Chinese money were scattered or burned as supplication to their spirits. He’d guess that wouldn’t happen today, and there wouldn’t be any offerings of food or smoking incense, either. The minister, frowning at Miss Walford’s back, didn’t seem to appreciate what the girl was doing. Celia Davies had secured a Christian burial; foreign superstitions had no place there.

The line marched down the hill toward a spot not far from the Chinese burial ground. A few of their graves had been disturbed, dirt roughly mounded over the now empty holes. It was tradition with them that when their bodies had become bones, they would be returned to their home country if the means could be found to pay for the journey. But a former prostitute like Li Sha might lie here for all eternity.

They halted beside an open grave, and the men lowered the casket to the ground. The sexton joined a brawny cemetery worker who was standing nearby. They would finish the task of placing Li Sha in the earth.

Celia Davies came to Nick’s side. The black mourning gown she wore turned her skin sallow. She looked worried, and there wasn’t much Nick could say to convince her not to be. Two warning notes were two too many.

“Not much longer, ma’am,” he said.

She gazed up at him. He’d never been one for pale eyes, but he’d make an exception for hers. “Thank you for being here, Mr. Greaves. Even though you are only here in an official capacity, I appreciate your presence.”

“Who said I was only here in an official capacity?” he asked, and she smiled.

They watched the coffin slowly descend into the ground. Nick could smell the salty scent of the ocean three miles to the west and could easily see the gentle hills north of the Golden Gate. This was the most beautiful spot San Francisco could claim and the reason why almost every cemetery in the city was located nearby. It was an ideal place to honor the dead, who were blind to the clouds overhead and unable to feel the wind that rustled the grass growing among the iron fences guarding their tombs.

Nick couldn’t stem the memories of a spring in Ohio, where the sky could be the same sort of blue. He could clearly recall Meg stretched out upon a shawl that his twin, Ellie, had spread across the farmyard’s clover for their little sister. Meg’s shoes and stockings were discarded, her violet gingham skirts hiked around her skinny knees, her toes wiggling. She smiled at the sky overhead, where few clouds broke the endless expanse, her expression full of a peace that only children could manage.

Blue like a robin’s egg, she’d say, twirling the first of the dandelions in her fingertips.

Don’t you think, Nick? Just like a robin’s egg.

No, Meg. Robins’ eggs are more greenish.

Poo on you! It’s blue like robins’ eggs. Right, Ellie? I’m right and he’s not!

And Ellie would wag a finger, correcting them both like a parent, and laugh.

Blue like a robin’s egg . . .

A broken shell.

Nick pushed away the memories. Next he’d be thinking of that boy in the Wilderness, of the friend who’d saved Nick’s life, and of how much he wanted to live those spring days in Ohio all over again.

The minister uttered his final words and shut his Bible. Mrs. Douglass came forward to drop a handful of dirt onto the coffin, the soil clattering against the wood. Others moved to do the same, including Lange and Mr. Palmer, whose wife put a protective arm around her daughter’s slumped shoulders and drew the girl to her side. Emmeline leaned against her mother, coughing weakly into her hand.

Celia Davies was the last to stand over the coffin. From beneath her cloak, she brought out a red tulip and dropped it onto the casket. “Farewell, Li Sha.”

The cemetery workers began to fill the grave, the
chink
of their shovels hitting the pile of sandy soil louder than the subdued voices of the mourners. Mrs. Douglass’ lips moved in prayer, and then she hastily departed with her husband before Nick could make a beeline for them to ask any questions.

Mrs. Davies rejoined Nick. “Do you need a ride back into town, Mr. Greaves? There is room alongside our driver.”

“I borrowed a horse.”

They were the last besides the undertaker, Atkins Massey, to exit the cemetery, and Mrs. Davies slipped through the gate as Nick swung it wide for her. Lange was long gone, his cart wheeling along the road toward the city. Mrs. Davies’ Scottish housekeeper was helping Miss Walford over the rocky path to their hack, the girl apparently needing the assistance. Miss Walford looked toward the Palmers, standing next to their buggy with its red wheels. If she hoped to talk to Mr. Palmer again, Addie Ferguson kept it from happening with a firm tug on the girl’s arm.

“I’m wondering something else, Mrs. Davies,” he said. “What did your cousin have to say to Joseph Palmer earlier? Seems strange they’d be talking together, a girl her age and a much older man.”

“She was likely thanking him for paying for the funeral. They are on friendly terms,” she replied. “Barbara has spent a great deal of time in their home, visiting with Emmeline.”

Nick’s eyes tracked Mrs. Palmer as she tucked Emmeline’s shawl around her shoulders before assisting her into their buggy. Mr. Palmer climbed onto the driver’s seat and took one last look at him and Celia Davies before snapping the reins and steering the buggy down the road.

“I plan to speak to the Douglasses about Li Sha’s search for money,” Nick said.

Mrs. Davies was also watching the Palmers’ buggy depart. “Mr. Douglass did not leave the warning notes,” she said. “I checked his handwriting, too.”

“All the same . . .”

“I can speak with Mrs. Douglass, if you wish,” she offered.

“It’s best you leave this to me, ma’am.” Because she was tangled up in the mess tighter than a burr in a horse’s tail and sure to get hurt.

“It is no bother—”

“I insist. You need to be careful, Mrs. Davies. The man watching your house . . . okay, the
person
watching your house,” he amended, catching the correction in her hasty glance, “has given you two warnings. I don’t like to think what might happen next.”

“I shall, of course, be careful, Mr. Greaves, but it seems warnings only make me more determined to learn the truth.”

“I guess we’re alike in that, Mrs. Davies.”

• • •

“
I
canna help but think Miss Emmeline should have stayed at home with her mother today,” said Addie to Celia as the hired hack swayed down the road. “She looked so frail a feather could’ve toppled her.”

“Poor Em. She did look poorly and seemed very upset. More than I expected,” said Barbara, the first words she’d uttered since they had arrived at the cemetery. Other than whatever she’d had to say to Mr. Palmer.

“Barbara, what were you speaking to Mr. Palmer about?” Celia asked.

Barbara chewed her lower lip. “About Em, of course. About how upset she was. He was very concerned, too. But then, he’s such a good father, what else would he feel?”

“If he’s such a good father, Miss Barbara, the bairn should’ve been left at home,” retorted Addie.

Barbara looked ready to begin another enumeration of Mr. Palmer’s many virtues, so Celia cut her off. “There is no need to defend him, Barbara,” she said. “However, I am curious about something else. When I opened Li Sha’s carpetbag, you made a comment that suggested something was missing. What was it?”

“I thought there might be more clothing,” Barbara responded.

“You know she owned little more than that one indigo-colored dress.” There it was, the memory again, like a flash of light in the dark hastily snuffed. What was she forgetting?

“I wasn’t thinking clearly,” said Barbara. “You know, you’ve taken an unnatural interest in solving this murder, Cousin.”

“Miss Barbara!” chided Addie.

“And I still want to leave San Francisco. It’s not safe here,” she added and returned to her glum scrutiny of the passing buildings.

Addie lifted her eyebrows and Celia sighed. The rest of the journey passed in frosty silence.

As the carriage horse labored up the steep incline of Vallejo, Addie squinted out the hack window, her attention fixed ahead of them. “Is that Mr. Smith at the house?”

Celia craned her neck to peer around Addie. A man in a bowler hat and tweed overcoat sat on their porch, a cheap cigarillo clamped between his teeth.

He is here
today
of all days.

“Maybe he’s found your husband, Cousin,” said Barbara, who fixed her gaze on Celia.
She is watching my reaction, and I hope she cannot read my feelings on my face.
For dread was an improper response, even though Barbara had no tender feelings for the man who’d never been particularly kind to her. Her cousin would likely be content if Patrick Davies never returned.