Deadly Proof: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery (12 page)

“From the police report, I gather that Mrs. Rashers said Mrs. Sullivan was in love with Mr. Rashers. Supposedly Friday night he was going to tell her she couldn’t work for him anymore...and that was why she killed him.”

“Well that’s just wrong,” Griggs said, then swiftly drained the glass. “I know for a fact that Rashers was planning on promoting her to the position of forewoman while he was gone. To fill in for me, you see, since I was going to be running the company for him in his absence.”

Nate leaned forward. “Really? And you’d be willing to testify to that?”

“Sure, sure. Florence is a first-rate compositor, and when a girl trains under her, she became a first-rate typesetter. Joshua knew that. He’d never fire her.”

“And you don’t think there is any truth in Mrs. Rasher’s belief that Mrs. Sullivan was in love with him?”

“Well now, I can’t say what any woman has on her mind. But Florence is a married woman, ain’t she? And she’s not the sort to go and play her husband false.” Griggs stared into the empty glass for a moment, then said, “Course, as a general rule, I don’t think it’s good for women to work once they marry––for just this reason—people can get the wrong idea about things.”

“Is there any reason why someone, like his wife, might get a wrong idea about the relationship between Mrs. Sullivan and Joshua Rashers?”

“Old Joshua was a bit of ladies man...but that was just his way. No harm in it. Surely his wife knew that by now. She’s been married to him for near twenty-five years.”

“Twenty-five years! Are you sure? She...”

“Doesn’t look it, does she? Met and married him when he came to work in her father’s printing firm. Don’t suppose she was much older than fifteen.”

“And is that when you first met Mr. Rashers?”

“No, sir. I met him a few months afterwards, in the beginning of 1856, when he moved over to Whitton and Towne. I was already an apprentice there at the time. He brought me with him in ’68 when he started in business for himself. Been his foreman ever since.”

“I gathered that you were the last to see him on Friday. Can you tell me about that night?”

“Yes, yes, I guess I was. The day shift had left as usual about 5:30, although Florence left a little early, I had noticed that. When I finished checking the work that had been done for the day, I stopped by Rashers’ office to tell him I was off.”

“When was that?”

“About a quarter after six. That was when he told me that he’d asked Florence to come back to work—some order that had come in at the last minute he wanted her to do.”

“Was that usual? I mean, why didn’t he have you do it?”

“I dunno—don’t know what it was. But I wondered at the time if he wasn’t going to bring up his travel plans with her.”

Nate remembered reading in the police report that a galley proof of an invitation to a “Bon Voyage Party” was found under Rashers’ body, smeared with blood. The police felt this corroborated Mrs. Rashers’ testimony that her husband was going to break the news to Mrs. Sullivan that night that he and his wife were going on a long trip and that she would need to find new employment before he got back. Yet Griggs said Rashers told him he was going to promote her, not fire her.

“Mr. Griggs, had Rashers already told you about his plans to take a trip with his wife?”

“Oh yes, of course. There weren’t any secrets between us.”

“Was this trip somehow unusual?”

Griggs laughed. “I’ll say. He worked seven days a week making this business successful. His wife had been after him forever to take time off. She wanted to go back east, visit the sights. I think she would have dragged him off to Europe if she could, but he said he couldn’t be away that long.”

“Do you know what made him decide to go now?”

“He said that since both boys were now old enough to travel, and the company was doing so well, this was as good a time as any to do it. ‘Get her off my back’ were his exact words. He also told me he thought he might look into whether he could drum up some business with some eastern publishers.”

“And Friday night...you thought he might be telling Mrs. Sullivan about his plans that night?”

“Well, yes I did. Just a feeling. But he didn’t say so. Our conversation was about routine stuff. The July Fourth weekend meant we needed to be ready for some last-minute insertions for the Monday papers.”

“And then you left the shop.”

“Yes, sir. Said goodbye, went and conveyed a message to Timmons, our large press operator, and walked out with him and his apprentice about six-thirty. Last time I saw Joshua. If I’d just hung around, mebbe...”

A scowl transformed Griggs’ face, and he muttered, “A damn shame. Cut down in his prime like that...shouldn’t have happened.” Then more loudly he continued, saying, “Florence as the murderer? I just don’t buy it. I mean, who’s to say someone didn’t come in when everyone was away at dinner, looking to see if there was some money in the office, killed him before she even got back?” He scooped up the whiskey bottle and poured out an even more generous amount and briefly looked into the amber depths before drinking it down.

Nate waited a moment then said, “What do you think will happen with the firm now? Do you think Mrs. Rashers will sell?”

“Hope not. With children so young, she’s going to need the steady income. Can’t expect a woman like her to run the business by herself, though. I’ll be more than happy to help out. I’ve put a little away over the years, might even invest in the company myself.” He put the glass down on the floor beside the bottle and leaned back in his chair.

Nate noticed that the thought of helping the widow had restored Griggs’ spirits, and he said, “No doubt your long years with the company will be invaluable. I assume that as foreman you were in charge of the actual work done on the floor, while Rashers spent most of his time on the business end. I didn’t see any sign of any clerical or sales staff. Did he handle all the accounts himself?”

“Mr. Dawson, I can tell you’ve got a keen eye for how things are. Joshua built up this firm himself, one account at a time. He might not have had any education beyond the fifth grade, but he knew to the penny what it cost to print any job and how much he could charge to under bid the competition and still make a profit. Said men who paid other people to make their decisions for them were damned fools. ”

“And his employees, did he have much to do with them? Did he, for example, do the hiring and firing?”

“Florence and I usually looked over anyone applying for a job first––just to weed out the chaff you might say––but you can bet he had the last word.”

“Mrs. Rashers seemed to think that her husband got along with all his employees. Would you say that was an accurate statement? Any chance one of the other women besides Mrs. Sullivan might have taken exception to Joshua Rashers’ propensity to flirt?”

Griggs’ scowl returned, and he shook his head. “No, sir. We have a happy shop here. Girls learn a good skill, get room and board in a decent house just a couple of blocks away. Not to say that now and again there wasn’t some dust up between the girls, or one of the boys didn’t play some prank on ‘em that got their noses out of joint. But nothing that Florence or me couldn’t handle.”

“What about the men? Any trouble there? Someone who might have had a beef with him...maybe someone he let go recently?”

“Not to my knowledge. Good steady workers, the lot of them.” Griggs shook his head. “Damn, I hope all this with Florence gets straightened out soon. The girls are all upset, which means they make mistakes, and she’s our best proof reader.”

Nate wished he could reassure Griggs on that matter, but he wasn’t entirely sure anything he had learned today was going to help much, not if Mrs. Sullivan didn’t start cooperating with him. At least if the case went to trial he could get Griggs to testify that Rashers wasn’t planning on firing Mrs. Sullivan. This would undercut Mrs. Rashers’ accusations.

He also suspected if he dug deep enough that he might find some evidence that Florence Sullivan wasn’t the first woman Joshua had worked with that sparked Catherine Rashers’ jealousy over the twenty-some years of her marriage. The testimony of a perpetually jealous wife wouldn’t be quite as effective with the men on the jury. And maybe Griggs had it right, Rashers was just killed in a run-of-the-mill robbery. He should find out if Rashers ever kept much money in the office. Nate hadn’t noticed a safe there, but there must have been one.

Griggs suddenly leaned forward and grabbed Nate by the forearm, saying, “Look, give it to me straight. Do you think she did it? It does look bad, doesn’t it? Her being found with the body and all. Did she tell you anything about what happened?”

Wednesday, late afternoon, July 7, 1880

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“
When women first began as type-setters in Boston, the male typesetters struck.”
Daily News,
June 24, 1899

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“T
ell me, Mr. Dawson, where did Mrs. Sullivan get the money to hire a fancy lawyer like you?”

Nate, flustered, just looked at the young woman who’d escorted him to Rashers’ office and was now leaning nonchalantly against the door frame of the supply office, effectively blocking his exit. As he’d started to answer Franklin Griggs’ question about what Mrs. Sullivan had told him about Friday night (absolutely nothing), she’d materialized behind them in the supply room.

She told the foreman he was wanted on the floor––some problem with one of the printers jamming. Griggs got up quickly and made his apologies, saying with a laugh that for some reason the girls running the job printers were convinced if they tried to take out a jammed piece of paper the machine would gobble up their fingers. Nate thanked Griggs for his time and said he would find his way out. Which was what he’d been trying to do when the young woman standing before him had stopped him cold in the doorway.

“Oh my,” she said, “I guess that’s what you might call an indiscreet question. By the way, I’m Orrie Childers, and now that old Florence has gotten herself in such a mess, you might say I am the senior typesetter.”

She stuck her hand out for Nate to shake, and he got the strangest impression she expected him to kiss it in the grand old manner. She looked quite young, and her comment about “old Florence,” who was in her mid-twenties, confirmed that impression. She couldn’t be much more than five-feet tall, but almost as well endowed as Mrs. Rashers. She had the pale skin, black hair, and flashing blue eyes of an Irish colleen, although there was only a faint hint of the old country in the musicality of her laugh. And laugh she did at his discomfiture as he put his hat under his left arm and stiffly shook her hand, dropping it as quickly as he could without being offensive.

Nate, hoping she would take the hint and move, said, “I am pleased to meet you, Miss Childers. I mustn’t keep you from your work, so I will be on my way.”

She smiled broadly at him and said, “No bother, Mr. Dawson, I’m on my break now so I am completely at your service.” She then pretended to straighten the ink-stained brown apron covering her dark blue dress, which only served to emphasize her curves and the fact that the top buttons of her bodice were undone.

Damn, this is a dangerous woman,
Nate thought to himself and wondered just exactly what her relationship had been with Joshua Rashers. If Catherine Rashers had a reason to be jealous of one of the women her husband worked with, he would bet it was this minx, not the serious and rather plain Florence Sullivan.

She laughed again and said, “Rumor has it that you are interested in what was going on between the boss and Florence Sullivan. You might want to ask someone besides old Griggsie.”

This question confirmed his impression that Miss Orrie Childers had been in the supply room listening to his conversation with Griggs for some time before she interrupted them.
Yes, a very dangerous young woman.

“And should that someone be you?” Nate felt he might as well get her view on things if she was going to hold him hostage in the supply room.

“For one thing, I can tell you that Joshua was not interested in old prim and proper Florence. He liked a woman with a few more assets
,
you might say. Someone with a little more life to her. Only thing he was interested in was how much work he could get out of her.”

“But what about Mrs. Sullivan? How did she feel about Rashers?”

“Do you mean did she have some grand passion going?”

When Nate nodded, Orrie said, “If so, she was a sly thing, because I didn’t see any sign of it. If you ask me, she hated his guts.”

“Why do you say that?”

“The way she glared at him when she thought no one else was watching. Made me shiver. And while she was always respectful to his face, she looked like she’d smelled something rotten when he left the room.”

Nate asked, “Then why do you think she stayed working for him?”

“That’s easy, because she probably made twice working for him than she would in any other shop. I saw her pay packet once. Lord, must’ve been making near eighty-ninety dollars a month. I don’t know many men making those kinds of wages—even in a union shop. She is good at her job—I’ll say that for her––but Rashers could of replaced her with two compositors for that salary. Did make me wonder if she didn’t have something on him.”

*****

S
eth Timmons glanced over his shoulder and saw that Nate Dawson was standing in the door to the supply room talking to Orrie Childers. It’d been a real shock when he heard Orrie say the lawyer’s name an hour ago and watched as Laura’s brother followed the little typesetter into Rashers’ office. He couldn’t think why Nate Dawson would be here. He flashed on the first time he’d met the man, standing in the doorway to his room up above the shoemakers. How he’d casually showed he was armed and politely warned Seth off his little sister. Since Seth hadn’t seen Laura in over four months, he didn’t think Dawson could be here on the same errand.

But what if he’d come to tell him Laura was in trouble again...no that was foolish...Dawson knew where Seth lived; there would be no reason to hunt him down at his work place. Besides, he’d have asked directly for Seth as soon as he got here. No...must be something completely unrelated.