No Pity For the Dead (23 page)

“Maybe, but I'm not sure, ma'am.” Katie scrubbed at the errant drip with the edge of her coarse linen towel, then wrapped it around her hair.

“Please think back. It is most critical.”

“I'll try.” She tugged her wrapper closed over her underthings and dropped onto a nearby chair, positioned alongside a wobbly table. Katie's room was small, really not much more than a bedchamber with an area to wash up and an even smaller area to sit and eat, but it was tidy and clean. “I hope you don't mind if I sit a spell. I'll spend all evening on my feet, and they get to hurting. Plus, my ankle's still bothering me a bit. You should sit, too, Mrs. Davies.”

“I am fine standing. Thank you.”

Katie unwound the towel and retrieved a wide-toothed horn comb from where she'd left it on the table. Bending over, she began to run the comb in steady sweeps through her long hair. “As I said before, Mr. Nash didn't seem to have friends, but as for enemies . . .”

“I should not be telling you this,” said Celia, aiming to encourage Katie's memories, “but Mr. Hutchinson is going to be arrested for the murder of Virgil Nash.”

Katie straightened, her damp hair swinging. “Frank? But he didn't. He can't have.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because—because he wouldn't. That's why,” she said. A blush rose, and she lowered her head again, her damp hair forming an effective screen. “He and Mr. Nash fought, but not like that. And Mr. Hutchinson's a good man. I see enough of the kind who aren't to know the difference.”

“I am aware that Mr. Hutchinson is a good man, Katie,” said Celia. “But you know more than that, don't you? What is it you are not revealing?”

Katie yanked the comb through her hair, wincing when she hit a knot. “Nothing, ma'am.”

“A reliable witness has come forward to repudiate the alibi he has provided,” said Celia. “If he cannot explain himself, given that everyone in San Francisco seems to know of the animosity between the two men, he will likely be indicted for murder.”

Katie's hand began to shake. She let out a sob and threw the comb across the room. It clattered across the wood floor. “It's
my
fault.” She sat up and shoved her hair off her face. “It's all my fault.”

Gad.

A shadow crossed Katie's eyes, normally so bright and lively. “We were together the night that Mr. Nash died. But we didn't . . . He
never
would. Just playing cards and having a drink. Honest. Don't think bad of me, ma'am. I don't ever bring men up here from the saloon. Honest, I don't.”

No wonder Frank's explanation for where he'd been that evening had always been so vague. “Are you certain you mean the night of May twenty-eight?”

“I am. It's the last Tuesday he's been in the saloon, and I remember that night because he was so miserable.” Water plopped from a curl of hair onto the floor. “The saloon had only been open a short while when Frank . . . Mr. Hutchinson came in. I could tell right away that something was the matter, especially when he asked straight off that I come sit with him. He likes when I do that.” She smiled a little. “Says it cheers him up.”

Had Patrick done similarly, Celia wondered, all those evenings after he'd stormed out of the house, another argument
sending him out into the night? Found solace with a woman who did not disappoint him? And did it matter any longer, now that she could not repair the damage she had caused? Now that he might never return.

Celia exhaled, wishing away the guilt that clung like tendrils of ivy. “Go on, Katie.”

“Mr. Hutchinson started drinking whiskey, which he doesn't usually do. He kept muttering about a birthday,” Katie said.

“I see.” His first wife's birthday. The celebration that had been cancelled on the twenty-ninth because of Jane's headache. Or heartache.

“After a while, he suggested we leave. I didn't want to, because Mr. Burke don't like us girls to leave with the men, but Mr. Hutchinson insisted.”

“Then what?” asked Celia.

“I told Mr. Burke I wasn't feeling well, and Frank . . . Mr. Hutchinson met me here. Must've been around eight or so because the sun had set,” she said. “My landlady was out for the evening, and he snuck up the back stairs. We played cards for a while. I beat him lots of rounds, which just shows how awful sauced he was. I did start to worry he meant for something else to happen . . .” Katie glanced toward her bed, the cheery blue and yellow Irish chain quilt covering the thin mattress looking as wholesome as a church picnic. “But then all of a sudden he said he needed to get home and left.”

“When?” asked Celia.

“Nine, maybe? Had to have been, because the woman who sings in the saloon across the street was warbling ‘Aura Lea,' which she always does halfway through her evening and makes all the fellows without gals cry,” Katie explained. “On my nights
off when I'm here, I get treated to that song. Just wish she sang better.”

Around nine allowed Frank the proper amount of time to reach home when Grace had seen him. Katie might have just provided the alibi he required.

“Did Mr. Hutchinson tell you to say nothing about his visit?” asked Celia. “Is that why you kept it from me?”

“I'm sorry, ma'am. He made me promise not to breathe a word. And of course, I didn't want to.” Katie pulled a worn handkerchief from the pocket of her wrapper and blew her nose. Finished, she peered at Celia. “Tell his wife I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt her.”

“I wonder what I
shall
say to Jane.”

The girl tucked away her handkerchief and rose to fetch her comb.

“Wait.” Katie stopped in the center of the room. “There
was
somebody else.” She rushed over to Celia, her eyes wide. “A fellow I've never seen before. He came into Burke's a few weeks before Mr. Nash died. Can't remember the exact day.”

“What was it about him that you recall?”

“He was drinking whiskey at the bar and Mr. Nash come in. The fellow looked over—everybody looks at the door when somebody new comes in—and turned as white as a ghost. He spilled his whiskey and almost fell off his stool. Asked me if there was a back door out of the saloon.”

A man scared of being spotted by Virgil Nash . . . Celia supposed there was any number of reasons a person might not wish to be seen by the argumentative Mr. Nash. To presume the man was the fellow who had killed Mr. Nash's brother in Virginia City seemed a conceivable conclusion, albeit a rash one.

But his agitation could reflect emotions strong enough to have led him to murder.

“Did Mr. Nash notice this man?” Celia asked.

Katie furrowed her brow as she considered the possibility. “He might've, but I don't know because I was busy taking the fella out through the back room and into the alley.”

“Do you recall what he looked like?”

“Plain sort,” said Katie. “Average size and height. Nothing unusual in particular . . . oh, except once he was done looking like a ghost, his cheeks flamed a funny red when he got worked up about Mr. Nash. Ain't never seen that before, not all dark and splotchy like he got, which is why I remember,” she added.

Sadly, the description did not match any of Celia's suspects. “Might you recognize this fellow if you saw him again?”

“I might.”

But where to have her look? One place, Celia supposed, was among the laborers working at Martin and Company. She kept returning to her belief that the man she and Nicholas Greaves sought was in some way connected to Mr. Martin's business.

“There is a coffee shop across the street from Martin and Company,” said Celia, providing the address. She should tell Mr. Greaves of her intentions, but he undoubtedly would scoff at her.
Where ignorance is bliss, / 'Tis folly to be wise.
And if he did not learn of her plans, he could not criticize them. “Can we meet there tomorrow, around eleven in the morning?”

“I don't know, ma'am. I'm awful busy—”

“Katie, it is critical that we find this man. He might not have killed Virgil Nash, but he may have important information that will lead us to the killer,” Celia explained. “However, I cannot find him without your help.”

“Okay,” Katie said, though her reluctance was clear. “I'll be there.”

*   *   *

K
atie Lehane hadn't come to work yet—Burke's wouldn't open for another hour—but Nick had found somebody who knew where she lived. He turned the corner just as Celia Davies exited a boardinghouse a few yards distant, the sunlight catching the wisp of golden hair that had escaped her straw bonnet.

Well, well.

She turned to look in his direction as though she'd heard his thoughts. “Mr. Greaves.”

He tapped his fingertips to the brim of his hat. “We meet again, ma'am.”

“Have you already sent your officer to retrieve Mr. Hutchinson?” she asked, waiting on the sidewalk for him to join her. She didn't look as mad at him as she had when he was questioning Grace Hutchinson. In fact, she was looking smug.

“Afraid I have,” he said.

“He is not guilty,” she stated. Yep. Smug.

“You've come from talking to Katie Lehane, haven't you?”

“How did you know?” she asked.

“I was just on my way to see her myself,” he answered, taking her elbow and leading her away. “But maybe I don't need to now.”

“Katie was with Frank the evening of Virgil Nash's murder,” said Mrs. Davies. “But who told you about her?”

“Abram Russell.” He guided her across the road in the wake of a lumbering coal wagon. “Looks like everybody's finally willing to confess what Frank Hutchinson was doing the night Virgil Nash was murdered.”

“It vexes you that they were willing to protect him this long, does it not, Mr. Greaves?” she asked.

“Does it show?”

“To me, it does,” she replied, admitting to a dangerous occupation—observing his moods. “However, not only did Katie provide Frank with an alibi; she told me about a man who had been in the saloon a few weeks before Mr. Nash died. This man seemed very alarmed to spot Mr. Nash and snuck out of the saloon to avoid him. Curious reaction, would you not agree, Mr. Greaves?”

“Curious reaction, Mrs. Davies.”

“The thought struck me that perhaps he was the man who killed Silas Nash in Virginia City. I am aware the likelihood seems remote, but it could explain his alarm at spotting Virgil Nash at Burke's,” she said, shooing off a persistent newspaper boy with a flick of her hand.

“The man's name is Cuddy Pike, by the way. In all the recent excitement, I forgot to tell you,” he said. “And now all I have to do is locate a stranger in a city of more than one hundred thousand people. Sort of like trying to find a needle in an uncooperative haystack.”

“Most daunting,” said Mrs. Davies. A gust of wind flung dust along the road, and she drew her wrap closer around her. “At least we can exonerate Frank of murder and the attempt to disinter Mr. Nash's body. The shopgirl who noticed the man hurrying down the alleyway is convinced that he was short in stature. Much shorter than Frank. And possibly very thin, like—”

“Like Jasper Martin. I got it. But Mrs. Davies, I really wish you'd let me do the investigating and you stick to keeping out of trouble,” said Nick. “What do you think of that?”

“I think we are running out of time, Mr. Greaves,” she said. “And we are likely both in danger.”

“That may be so, ma'am, but I'm betting you're the one more likely to find it first.”

“You make me sound quite reckless.”

“Ma'am, I don't have to make you sound like that at all for it to be true.”

*   *   *

“Y
ou've come home at last, I see,” said Addie. She leveled a frown at Celia, who was in the entry hall stripping off her bonnet and wrap. “You didna think I might be fretting? Canna help but think next you'll be pushed in front of a horsecar or pummeled in one of those alleyways you're e'er so fond of visiting. Och. You're making me old before my time, ma'am.”

“I am unharmed, Addie. A visit to a shop on Montgomery, then to see Katie Lehane,” she replied, omitting her visit to Mr. Martin while Addie was at the market. She patted her hair to make certain all was in place. “On a Monday afternoon, there is nothing to worry over.”

“I'll worry if I wish, ma'am!”

“Cousin Celia, you're back!” Barbara leaned over the upstairs banister. “What did you learn?”

“That Mr. Hutchinson has a solid alibi for the evening of Mr. Nash's murder,” Celia replied. She would never tell Barbara the details of that alibi, however. “Furthermore, he is not likely to be the man Owen chased through the alleyway last Thursday. We have thus cleared him of all responsibility, Barbara.”

“Thank goodness.”

“Making me old,” muttered Addie, taking Celia's wrap and brushing a hand over the hem, dusty from the street.

“What did you learn at the market today?” Celia asked her, seeking a more pleasant conversation.

“That Michael Knowles remains a grinning galoot,” Addie said. “And he didna send me any flowers.”

“Perhaps your admirer is Mr. Taylor, after all,” said Barbara.

“Whisht, what a thought.”

“I know it's him. I just know it!” said Barbara in a burst of high spirits, before hurrying back to her bedchamber.

Celia smiled at her cousin's unexpected exuberance. “She wants you to be happy, Addie.”

“Does she now?” Her housekeeper stared at the spot where Barbara had been standing. “Och, ma'am, I near forgot about the telegram we received when I returned home from the market.” Addie fished among her pockets and withdrew the item in question. “From that Mr. Smith, I think.”

Celia took the telegram from her, tore open the envelope, and read.