Deadly Proof: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery (28 page)

Pulling a chair up beside Mrs. Rashers, Annie said, “I had the same concern, so I did some research back over the books for the past few years. From what I learned, I believe these customers were recently wooed away from another printer. Your husband probably intended to raise their prices back up to comparable levels in the future.”

“How much in the future? It seems to me that this is draining the firm of income.” Mrs. Rashers frowned. 

Annie debated briefly with herself. Then she said, “I didn’t see correspondence that indicated that he had promised these firms any sort of discount for a specific period of time. However, he wouldn’t have wanted to raise the prices too quickly.”

“Hmm, yes. I can see. You wouldn’t want to send them back to their original printers. Do you know who they were with previously?”

“No, but I could find that out for you if you wished.” Annie knew she was going to do this anyway, but it would be even better if Mrs. Rashers asked her to do so. Her first stop would be to visit Mrs. Sullivan in jail, something she’d already promised Nate she would do. Annie believed Nate’s client would be able to tell her a good deal about Joshua Rashers’ business methods.

“Yes, please do,” Mrs. Rashers replied. “And if you could also find out what the going rate for similar kinds of jobs are at other firms and what they are paying their workers, that would be very helpful. I still have to make a decision about whether or not to sell.”

“I will be glad to do so.” Annie paused. She then pulled a smaller leather bound book from the top of the stack of ledgers. “I did look through your husband’s appointments diary, hoping to glean more about his regular contacts, for example, which sales persons and suppliers he saw regularly, and was he cultivating any new customers you should be aware of.  But I noticed something odd and thought you might be able to help.”

“Odd. What do you mean?” Mrs. Rashers’ voice sharpened.

“For the past two months, in fact starting a few weeks before these three new customers brought their business to the firm, your husband had a series of weekly meetings scheduled. His practice was to put in a time, place, and initials for his appointments. It was fairly easy for me to find out who the initials stood for by looking at the list of persons and addresses he kept at the back of the diary.”

“Yes, that makes sense. My, Mrs. Fuller, you have been industrious.” Mrs. Rashers didn’t exactly sound pleased.

Pointing at one of the entries, Annie said, “Well, you did ask me to see if I found anything out of the ordinary. What interested me is that these meetings were never at the office, and he didn’t include any initials. It was as if he didn’t want to risk someone reading his diary and figuring out who he was meeting.”

“Just what are you suggesting?” Mrs. Rashers turned and glared at her, her cheeks now suffused with color.

Annie pretended to be confused, saying, “I’m sorry, I was just thinking that if you would look at the times and places, maybe you’d remember something your husband told you––for instance––if he was cultivating a business connection he wanted to keep secret for now.”

What Annie didn’t say, but Mrs. Rashers was clearly thinking, was that she also wondered if this person, who Joshua Rashers seemed primarily to meet local hotels, was his latest affair.

Tuesday, early evening, July 20, 1880

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“You please me with what you say of my new Illustrator.” Charles Dickens, Letters, April 16, 1870

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“N
ate, I don’t know what to think. She just lashed out at me. I’m not even sure I will have a job when I go in tomorrow.” Laura looked at her brother, who didn’t even stand up when she entered his office, and she suspected he’d not heard a word she’d spoken.

He looked at her vaguely and said, “Oh dear. I am sorry, but could you wait a minute? I have to finish reading this document and get it to Rodgers before he leaves for the day. I promise it won’t take long, and I do want to hear all about what happened.” Nate immediately went back to reading through the sheaf of papers in front of him.

Her brother’s law office was a moderate-sized room with a large desk and a modest number of law books filling two of the shelves that lined one wall. She knew he was pleased to finally have his own space. With the business Able Cranston brought in, their Uncle Frank expanded into the office next door and hired an additional full-time clerk, the aforementioned Rogers, who now occupied Nate’s old desk up front.

But, really, her brother did need to do something to make his office more impressive. Some pictures on the wall? More books? She thought she’d heard that you could buy old books by the pound from some book dealers. But maybe that was something only wealthy people did to fill up their grand libraries.

Nate could at least have a better desk set. The blotter was faded and worn and looked like it had been with him since his college days. Maybe if she started saving up a little more each week she could get him something really elegant from the stationery department of the City of Paris for his thirtieth birthday in September. She remembered seeing a blotter in tooled leather, with a silver ink well and matching pen set.

She would get their brother Billy to contribute some money when he was here for the wedding. If she could pull him aside from his wife. When she saw him last, over Christmas, everything had revolved around Violet and their new little baby, Francis. Not that her nephew wasn’t cute as could be. But you wouldn’t think that a three-month-old baby, who primarily ate and slept, required the full attention of every adult on the ranch.

“Let me take these to Rodgers. I will be right back.” Nate waved the sheaf of papers at her and left the room.

For some reason, Laura already felt better knowing she’d be able to unburden herself to her oldest brother. Even though Nate was ten years her senior and left the ranch to complete his long years of schooling when she was only three, she always felt closer to him than Billy, who she’d grown up with. Not that she didn’t love Billy. She did. They just didn’t see the world the same way. And she certainly didn’t see the world the way Violet did—as a place where the only proper goal of a woman was to be a wife and mother.

“There, that’s done. Tell me. Whatever happened to make Miss Bailor so angry?” Nate pulled up a chair so he was sitting right across from her and gave an encouraging smile.

So he was listening! Laura leaned forward and said, “As you might guess, Iris is terribly upset by the recent press coverage of the murder and the way that they are making Mrs. Sullivan sound like this awful woman, and for some reason she blames you.”

“That is understandable. No one wants to see a friend maligned in public. But you can assure her I am trying to do something about it. My friend Newsome has promised to write up a more balanced report for the
Chronicle.
You would think the
Morning Call
would go easier on her, given that her husband works for them. He must be in agony.”

“I know, it’s just awful. But Iris’ reaction to the press seems extreme. At first, when Mrs. Sullivan was arrested, she was confident that it would all be found to be a mistake. But this past week she’s begun to look like she hasn’t been sleeping. And she seems to be existing on coffee and the cigarettes she is sneaking up onto the roof to smoke. She even made Babs, the youngest apprentice, cry today. Usually she is very patient and kind to her.”

“Exactly what happened to make her lash out at you?”

“All I did was ask her if she’d seen Florence this weekend and mentioned that you were looking into proving that someone else could have snuck into the office and assaulted Rashers before she got there.”

“And what did she say?”

“That if you were doing your job, Florence wouldn’t be still stuck in jail and that she knew that hiring a man to defend a woman was a mistake.”

Nate sighed then said, “Well, she could be right, since I still haven’t been able to get Mrs. Sullivan to cooperate with me.”

“I told her that. Said if it was a woman’s touch that was needed, why hadn’t Florence confided in her?”

“Ah, and what did she say to that?”

“That I should go back to work.”

“And from that you think you are fired?” Nate smiled at her.

“Well...it was the way she said it.” Laura paused. She leaned forward and found herself whispering. “Nate, what if Iris is so touchy because she doesn’t want you to look at other suspects?”

“Like her friend Nell Granger, the illustrator Seth Timmons suggested might be involved with Rashers?”

“No. I mean, maybe. But you see, I found out earlier today that Nell has an alibi. I was commiserating with Babs, trying to cheer her up after the tongue-lashing she got from Iris. She said that Iris has been upset ever since the Friday when Rashers was killed. I asked what she meant, and she told me that when Nell got home that evening—about five-thirty when the apprentices all came upstairs––she and Iris had a terrible row about something. Then Nell took to her room crying and didn’t come out until one of the apprentices knocked on her door about eight and asked if she wanted some cocoa.”

“So, if Nell has an alibi for the time Rashers was killed, why would Iris Bailor be upset about me looking for other suspects?”

Laura finally admitted to herself that the leaden feeling in her stomach was fear—not the fear of getting fired. She said, haltingly, “Babs said that Iris stormed out right after their fight...and she hadn’t come back yet when they all went to bed at ten. Nate...this means that Iris is the one without an alibi. What if she and Nell were fighting over Rashers? What if she was so afraid that he was going to seduce Nell the way he did Florence that she went to confront him? I know you said earlier that I should realize that someone I knew—like Iris—could be the murderer. What if you were right?”

*****

A
s she left the law offices, Laura thought about Nate’s efforts to reassure her. He had reminded her that even though Iris wasn’t at home at the crucial time, this didn’t mean she didn’t have an alibi. He also pointed out that the fight Iris had with Nell could have been about anything. Nevertheless, he admonished her not to pursue the issue further. He tried to make it sound like he was just concerned about her losing her job. But she knew he was really worried about the possibility that she could be in danger if Iris turned out to be the murderer, and that wasn’t the least bit reassuring.

Laura stepped onto the wooden sidewalk and turned left. She had hoped that Nate would accompany her home to the boarding house, but he said he still had some property deeds he had to finish drawing up for tomorrow. She looked forward to the time after the wedding when they would live in the same house, and she could see him any time she wanted. Which reminded her that she needed to talk to the Moffets about whether they could find the time to make a few alterations to her pink chambray for the wedding. She wanted them to put in a temporary chemisette because she didn’t want to elicit comments from her mother—or Violet—about the neckline being too low.

Walking up Sansome Street towards Clay, she thought about Iris and what her erratic behavior could mean. If Iris had killed Rashers in the heat of the moment, she would have no idea that Florence would be blamed. She wouldn’t even have known that Florence was scheduled to come back to work that night. This would explain why she’d practically fainted when Laura first told her about Rashers’ death and Mrs. Sullivan’s arrest. Of course she would insist that Florence couldn’t possibly have been the murderer. But as the days and weeks passed, and Florence remained in jail, she would feel increasingly desperate. Should she confess to the crime herself or watch a beloved friend be put in prison for something she’d done herself?

As she turned west, going towards Kearney where she would catch the horse car going home, she saw that the sun was getting close to sliding down behind the heights of Nob Hill. Her small watch, today pinned by a ribbon at her waist, said it was quarter to seven. She would be late for dinner.

Hank’s Restaurant was on this block, and she wondered if Seth was there having dinner. She could ask him if he’d ever seen Iris at Rashers. And while she thought he was wrong to assert that the killer couldn’t be a woman, hearing him dismiss her suspicions about Iris would ease her mind. So she crossed to the other side of the street, telling herself that even if it turned out he was with his apprentice, she could still stop by. She didn’t feel she should bring up the murder in front of Dunk, but she could say that she wanted to see if Seth was going to come to the next study session.

He’d left quite abruptly last Sunday, and she didn’t have a chance to ask him if he would come again. She was afraid that Ned had rubbed him the wrong way. But the oral entrance exams were a week from this coming Monday, and surely Seth could see that they all could benefit from his presence.

Slipping in behind two men who were entering the restaurant, she paused while an older waitress showed them to a table. She looked towards the corner where she’d dined with Seth last week. He was sitting there with his back to the room, and the flirtatious waitress was putting a plate down in front of him. Disappointed, she could tell that someone else—probably Dunk—was sitting at the table with him. That mild emotion, however, was quickly replaced with a much stronger one when the waitress left, revealing that the other person was Orrie Childers. Laura fled the restaurant but not before she’d witnessed the disgusting sight of the comely typesetter leaning forward and touching Seth’s cheek.

Tuesday, late evening, July 20, 1880

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“A communication has been received from the Board of Police Commissioners...calling attention to the overcrowded conditions of the Jail...”
San Francisco Chronicle
, March 24, 1880

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N
ate pulled the door bell and then took out his handkerchief to wipe the moisture from his face. He’d decided to walk from his office to Annie’s boarding house this evening, trying to stretch his legs and clear his mind, but the fog had thickened into more of a drizzle by the time he turned off of Market onto O’Farrell Street.