The Art of Love: Origins of Sinner's Grove (34 page)

“Yeah, what? Don’t tell me she doesn’t want to get married. I mean, I wouldn’t blame her after a messy divorce and all, but…”

“I don’t know, I haven’t asked her. But knowing Lia, I think she’d want to.”

“Well what are you waiting for? If you want her, you’d better claim her before somebody else does. Marriage is the logical next step. That’s what they tell me, anyhow.”

“Except for one hitch…”

“What’s that?”

“I’m already married.”

Will glared at Gus and grabbed him across the table. “What?! Why, you miserable prick—”

Gus stopped Will’s arm and broke his grip. “Hear me out,” he growled.

“Damn you, this better be good.” Will was breathing hard. Gus had never seen him so ornery.

“Look, nine years ago I thought with my cock instead of my head, and I got married. We went up north and had a baby girl right away. Mattie, my wife, couldn’t hack it, so she took our daughter back down to Seattle. We both knew our marriage wasn’t workin’ out, but she said she’d wait for me…only she didn’t.” He counted off on his fingers. “I checked the boarding house where she’d lived. They said she’d gone down south with a new friend she’d met named Bethany Jones. I met the woman down at her family’s ranch. She said Mattie never made it down that far. Supposedly she thought I was dead and took off with an old childhood friend she ran into—some bloke I’d never heard of—while they were taking a break from their journey here in San Francisco. I’ve had Pinkerton’s men on it for years. Every time they find a missing person, every time they find a woman’s body…” his voice hitched. “You don’t know what it’s like, not knowing where your little girl is, whether she’s safe or has enough to eat, or…” He stopped, took another swig of beer. Pulled himself together. Finally he looked up at Will. “So you know that saying ‘between a rock and a hard place’? Well, that’s precisely where the fuck I am.”

“So, I take it Lia doesn’t know any of this.”

Gus shook his head. “No. And I can’t bear to tell her.”

“Why not?”

“Why not? Because there’s no way in hell a woman like her is going to stick with a man who can’t give her everything, including a ring on her finger. And I can’t give her that ring because I can’t find my goddamn wife to get a divorce from her—that’s why not.”

Will straightened in his chair and pulled out a small notebook and pencil from the inner pocket of his jacket. “What's the name of that rooming house?”

“The Empire. Run by an old biddy named Partridge, I think. Yeah, Eugenia Partridge. Why?”

“I’m headed up to Seattle to seal that deal with Rochester. If I have time, maybe I’ll poke around. See what I can find out.” He shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt.”

Gus shook his head. “No point in it. If the Pinkertons couldn’t find any leads, I doubt you will.” He rose from the table and reached for his wallet. “But thanks all the same. I appreciate it.”

Will stayed Gus’s hand. “I’ll get this,” he said, pulling out his own billfold. “But, Gus?”

“Yeah?”

“You know you gotta tell her.”

Gus nodded and heaved a sigh. “And that, Dr. Firestone, is why I’ve wanted to punch the hell out of something all week.”

Up in Seattle two days later, Will finished his business with Gerald Rochester, the president of Western Container. He’d negotiated and signed a multi-year contract with Rochester’s company to provide the containers for Pacific Global Shipping. It hadn’t hurt that Gerald was a second cousin once removed.

With time to kill before catching the southbound train, Will inquired at the station about the Empire Rooming House and found it was within walking distance. As usual for such places, it was quiet in the middle of the day. He knocked on the door and a woman who looked to be about his age answered. A little boy, maybe five or six, hid behind her skirt and sucked his thumb.

“Hello, ma’am? I’m looking for a…” He looked down at the scrap of paper. “… Mrs. Eugenia Partridge. Would she be in by any chance?”

“No, sir, Mrs. Partridge doesn’t live here anymore.”

“Oh, well, then might I speak to the current proprietor?”

“That would be me, sir.” She smiled. “Well, me and the Bank of Seattle. I bought Mrs. Partridge out two years ago. Please, come in.” She opened the door wide and bent down to talk to her son. “Go on, Tommy, it’s all right. This nice man is just here to talk to Mommy.” She gestured for Will to have a seat in the front parlor. He looked around the room. It was small but tidy and homey. The lady obviously took pride in her business establishment.

“Thank you, Mrs.…”

The woman reached up to primp her bun in the automatic way all women had of subconsciously keeping track of their appearance. “Mrs. Hipwell, at your service.”

Will smiled at the sign of deference. Why people looked at him and felt they needed to tap their metaphorical hats to him was a mystery. He adjusted his spectacles.

“Mrs. Hipwell, I wonder if you were here about, oh, six and a half years ago. Fall of ’96 it would have been.”

“Yes, I lived here then. Little Tommy here was still in swaddling clothes.” She looked fondly at her boy, who seemed small for his age. Will wanted to tell him, “Don’t worry chap, it’ll get better.”

“Good. Good. Then I wonder if you remember another resident around that time, a Mrs. Wolff. She had a little girl a year or two older than your son. Her name was Annabelle.”

“Why I surely do,” Mrs. Hipwell said. “That Mrs. Wolff was such a pretty lady, and little Annabelle too. Why, we all took a fancy to them. I had to work a lot of the time, but Bethany Jones—she lived next door with her brother—they was always doing stuff together. That young man sure did take a fancy to Mattie Wolff. Too bad she was already married.”

Warning bells started pinging in Will’s head. Gus had told Will about confronting the woman, Bethany, down on her ranch, but he’d never mentioned a word about a brother.

“What happened to Mattie and her daughter? Do you recall?”

“Yes. She and Annabelle went along with Bethany and Nathan—he was the brother—down to the family ranch someplace.” She shook her head “I remember she was right sad, thinkin’ her husband must have been killed north.”

“So I take it you never heard from her after that?”

The woman had a puzzled look on her face. “No, sir, I didn’t. I don’t believe Mrs. Partridge did neither. May I ask what you’d be wanting Mrs. Wolff for? You don’t have more bad news for her, I hope.”

Will smiled. “Oh no, ma’am. Quite the contrary. I think Mrs. Wolff will soon be getting some very good news.” He stood up to leave, which prompted the landlady to rise as well. “Well, Mrs. Hipwell, I thank you for your time.” He bent down to meet little Tommy, who was back to clutching his mama’s skirts. “You be good to your mama, Master Thomas,” he said. “Grow up to be a fine young man and make her proud.” He left Mrs. Hipwell with a beautiful smile on her face.

On his way down the front steps of the rooming house, Will made a mental note to have Hansen quietly check on the whereabouts of Bethany Jones’s brother and his family situation; no sense getting Gus’s hopes up if that turned out to be a dead end.

He stopped by a sidewalk vendor and purchased a bag of hot roasted peanuts. It took great skill to toss them up and catch them in one’s mouth every time; he definitely needed practice. With still an hour to go before his departure, he decided to pay a visit to the Second Avenue branch of the Bank of Seattle. When he emerged thirty minutes later, Mrs. Hipwell was now the owner, outright, of the Empire Rooming House. She’d be surprised as hell the next time she tried to make a mortgage payment, of course, and she’d never know her benefactor, but let’s face it, that’s what made having loads of money so much fun.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

I
t was one of the few occasions Lia had ever indulged herself and slept late into the morning. A week had passed since their dinner at the Palace Hotel, and she and Gus had shared every possible moment together, including last night, which they’d spent at her cottage. Still no talk of love and a possible future together, but she knew it was only a matter of time. The way Gus treated her, the myriad ways in which he expressed his love for her other than in words, left no doubt in her mind that eventually he would get past whatever kept him silent and declare his love for her.

After a rigorous night of making love, she had kissed Gus goodbye very early in the morning before falling back asleep; he unfortunately was committed to attending a series of meetings all day. Their plan was set, however. The mural she’d created for him was finished and that evening, after he returned, she would formally unveil it for him. She believed him that he hadn’t peeked at it, and she felt in her soul that he’d understand the meaning of what she’d painted, and love it.

As a result, by the time she’d read and absorbed the article on page two of the
San Francisco Call
, someone was already knocking on her door.

The headline read: “Scandalous Painter’s Latest Conquest: Married Tycoon.” The “scandalous painter” was Amelia Bennett Powell, now known, because of her past misdeeds, as “Amelia Starling.” The fallen woman, in short, was her.

Lia had trouble breathing as she read a rehash of her abandonment of George and their child, and of her adultery with Sandy. Although it was old news, it still sliced her wound wide open. But that was nothing compared to the news about Gus.

August Wilkerson Wolff, it turns out, was still married in the eyes of the law. He had a wife, Matilda Lamont Wolff, and a little girl by the name of Annabelle. There was even a picture of Mattie, the same tintype that she’d seen in his house.

But where was Annabelle and why didn’t he get to see her, especially since he and his wife were still married? With all his money, it didn’t make sense; surely he could have hammered out a deal to see his daughter whenever he wanted to.

Unless he didn’t want to.

The thought made her sick to her stomach.

The insistent knocking finally penetrated her thoughts. “Who’s there?” she called out.

“It’s Sandy. We’re only a few minutes ahead of the horde. Let us in.”

Lia opened the door and both Sandy and Roger swept in. Sandy glanced at the newspaper in Lia’s hand and nodded to Roger before gently steering her to the sun room at the rear of the house. He sat her down on the couch and took her hands in his. “We’ve got to keep our story straight,” he said. “We will insist that we are distant cousins and dear friends, and that’s all there is to it.”

Lia laughed harshly. “That
is
all there is to it, except for the cousin part. Oh Sandy, how could this happen? It’s New York all over again. And Gus—” Her voice broke.

“You didn’t know he was still married?”

“No! He rarely talked about his family, so I assumed…”

Sandy squeezed her hand. “Wait. So did he tell you he was divorced or not?”

Lia frowned. He
had
told her he was divorced, hadn’t he? She thought back to the conversation they’d had at the Cliff House. He’d said his wife couldn’t handle life up north, and so they…“were no longer together.” That’s what he’d said. He hadn’t mentioned being divorced. Not once.

Lia looked up at Sandy and slowly shook her head. “Now that I think about it, he never did. And I could tell talking about his ex-wife and daughter made him sad, so I rarely brought them up. Now it all makes sense.”