Deadly Proof: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery (33 page)

When she reached Larkin where she would get the Sutter Street cable car up to the roundhouse at Bush, she stood for a few minutes taking in the way the milky blue of the sky perceptibly darkened, and she saw the glimmer of the first star. The black silhouette of the houses on the ridge line of the hills were sharply etched against the twilight sky, and a lamplighter was making his way down the street towards her, creating his own miniature stars in his wake.

After waiting about ten minutes, she heard the clang of the cable car. As the car slowed, she leaped on and grabbed the railing as the car began to accelerate. At seven-thirty on a Saturday evening, the seats weren’t full, and those men and women sitting beside her looked weary after a hard day’s work.

The decision to try and catch Seth Timmons as he arrived home from Rashers suddenly felt foolish. He’d be tired. He would want either to study or go to sleep. But she knew she wouldn’t get any more studying done or rest herself until she talked to him.

She had reached home this afternoon absolutely furious. She’d run right up to her room to strip off her dress and loosen her corset, which had become unbearable. She must have been making more noise than usual because Annie knocked on her door and asked if anything was wrong. Welcoming an audience, she drew Annie into her room and gave her a detailed description of every irritating and hateful thing Seth had said and done.

As she slipped on a light robe, she said, “He treated me like some child. Can you believe he accused me of seeing the entrance exams as a game?”

Annie shook her head and said, “That was rather stupid of him since I am sure he doesn’t believe that for one instant. I suspect Mr. Timmons has a bit of temper. As do you, darling. Putting all that aside, what did you think of his concern about Orrie Childers? Seems to me that he wouldn’t have asked you to meet him if he wasn’t really worried about her. I just thought she was a bit of a gossip and liked being the center of attention. Given that there is a murderer running around, however, that kind of behavior could get a girl in trouble.”

And that was the moment that the heat of Laura’s self-righteous anger had begun to cool. Annie was correct. Seth wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of sending Dunk with a note or asking her to meet with him on a whim. He was worried about Orrie Childers—probably with good reason. Even if Orrie’s actions were not tied up with Rashers’ murder, was it any less dangerous if she were taking up with some man who would use her and then throw her away? She remembered Seth’s angry words about Orrie’s hard life and not having loving parents to teach her right from wrong. She’d begun to feel ashamed.

When Annie had asked if there was any reason Seth chose to contact her today—if something specific had occurred––she told Annie about her impromptu decision to stop by Hank’s Restaurant the week before last and why she left when she saw Orrie with Seth. “He wouldn’t have noticed me, but I guess Orrie did. Evidently, she just told him this morning that I was there.”

“Ah, well, I see. He didn’t want you to think badly of him, did he?”

Annie had smiled at that point, and Laura felt herself blushing. She protested that if he cared about what she thought, he wouldn’t have been so cutting about her friends and their study group.

Then Annie had asked how Seth got along at San Jose Normal School, and Laura was forced to admit that Seth seemed uncomfortable with most of the other students...spending much of his free time alone or with one or two of the professors. Which made sense. To someone like Seth who’d survived battles, the horrors of Andersonville prison, and the hardscrabble life of a cowboy, the rest of them must seem like carefree children. 

Thinking of how the study session went when Seth was there...how he’d sat quietly while Ned engaged in his hijinks and then left early...she should have realized he was finding the whole thing a waste of time. She never should have pushed him to come. And when he said no, she’d gone and acted like the spoiled child he thought they all were. No wonder he walked away in disgust.

But after Annie had left her this afternoon, and Laura pulled out her books to study, she couldn’t let go of her feelings of shame. In her head, she kept apologizing and then explaining and then excusing herself to him. She would point out that Ned kept making jokes in their study sessions to jolly Kitty out of her shyness. But there was no reason that Seth would know that. Or know that she now recognized that she’d been the one at fault in their fight today.

He wouldn’t know unless she told him. And she feared she wouldn’t be able to get a decent night’s sleep or spend tomorrow doing the last-minute studying she needed to do if she didn’t tell him. Which was why she’d decided to speak to Seth tonight. Right after dinner, she told Kathleen she was meeting Kitty to study and not to wait up for her. And then she left the boarding house, telling herself that she would go to Kitty’s as soon as she left Seth’s so that she wouldn’t really have been telling a lie.

When the cable car got to its turning point at Bush Street, she got off and caught the regular horse car that went the rest of the way up Larkin towards her destination at the top of Russian Hill. She’d gotten Seth’s address last February from her brother with the excuse that she needed to write him a thank you note. Nate couldn’t very well say no, given Seth had probably saved her life. But she’d never been to this part of town, in fact, she really hadn’t been anywhere outside her neighborhood all by herself at night before.

Larkin Street became very steep as it crossed Broadway, and the horses slowed, struggling to pull the car up the steep incline that was Russian Hill. The horses were going so slowly she could probably get to where she was going faster if she walked. She wondered if this wasn’t a perfect stretch to build a cable car route. Musing about the economics of horse cars versus cable cars got her through the next ten minutes, but then she began to worry she would miss her stop if she couldn’t get a better view of the house numbers. So she pulled the cord and got off at Filbert Street.

It was completely dark now, with no visible moon, yet the gas lamps provided welcome pools of light every few yards. Checking the brass number on the doorway to her right, she saw she had gone too far and would need to turn back and look for a number about half-way down the block towards Union Street. This seemed to be a commercial block, filled with the signs for greengrocers, millinery shops, tailors, and other stores. All of the first floors were dark and shuttered, but the windows of the upper floors of each building glowed, showing that people did live there.

Seth must reside in one of those upstairs rooms, but she couldn’t find a number that matched the address she had. She went down to Union and then turned back again, peering at each building until she got to a narrow opening between two buildings where the address should have been. She could see by the light coming in from the upper windows that there were stairs a little way back in the tiny alley, but she found she was very reluctant to enter the narrow dark opening to see if this was where Seth lived.

Seth probably wasn’t even home yet. It would be better for her to just wait. Now that the horse car was out of sight, she didn’t see another soul. No carriages, no pedestrians. In her neighborhood, so close to Market, there was always someone walking by, carriages pulling up at a neighbor’s, newsboys shouting about a late edition. Well, maybe it was better that there was no one to see her loitering. But what if someone did come by, some man? What would he think? Of course this didn’t appear to be the part of town where a woman of that sort would loiter. But wouldn’t it be safer to stand right inside the narrow alley, where no one could see her and question her right to be there? Oh, she hoped Nate never found out about this little jaunt.

She should have asked Annie to accompany her. No, Nate would have then been doubly upset. She remembered what happened to Annie once when she’d gone on her own to find Nate. But that was different. Annie was in the midst of an investigation then—she had been lured into danger.

But if something happened, no one even knew she was here. That thought sent chills down her spine. What if Seth was already at home? If she didn’t go further into that alley to find the entrance to his room, she wouldn’t know. She would be standing here for nothing.

On the other hand, what if he wasn’t coming straight home? What if he decided to stop off somewhere? Some saloon. That’s what men did after work. Although now that she thought about it, she’d never seen Seth drink. Not even when Ned, who thought he was being clever with his stupid flask, asked him to. But then Seth wouldn’t drink in front of her. He wouldn’t think it proper. But what if Orrie Childers was working tonight and suggested they have a late supper? After his fight with Laura today, wouldn’t he feel like he had to say yes? Oh heavens, what if he was bringing Orrie home with him? And they found Laura standing, waiting at his doorstep.
Oh, this was such a bad idea!

*****

S
eth usually enjoyed the walk up Larkin, but tonight he’d been tired enough to look forward to taking the horse car the rest of the way home. Unfortunately, he’d just missed his connection, seeing the lanterns of a car already about four blocks away. Sighing, he rolled himself a cigarette, and once he had it going nicely, he began the trudge up the hill.

Most nights he didn’t come home until after midnight, but he did tend to enjoy Saturdays when he worked a regular day shift and the various shops on Larkin were still open. He would stop and get some fruit and cheese from the greengrocers, a slice of ham from the butcher, and a loaf of bread from the baker next door. But he’d worked late tonight so everything was shut down but the saloons.

He could get a good sandwich in one of those places, but he wouldn’t. Better to stick with his canned beans and some jerky that he had in his room. While he didn’t begrudge other men their bit of solace and companionship, he knew from experience that if he decided to turn into one of those havens of light and noise, the result would be an even greater sense of his own isolation. And, if he actually decided to take a drink, he’d lose the little peace he’d obtained after long years of struggle. Not that he was feeling much peace tonight. Not after the fight with Laura this afternoon.

What an ass he’d been. So what if Laura didn’t take Orrie seriously? He’d not really taken the Rashers’ typesetter seriously until the past week, when her behavior became so reckless. It’s as if the delay in Mrs. Sullivan’s trial had changed something. He knew Griggs kept putting off her requests that she take over Mrs. Sullivan’s job as chief compositor—with the higher salary. Maybe the delay meant Orrie had decided that working at Rashers wasn’t worth it, and she was looking for other employment.

And why did he have to be so brutal with Laura about not attending the study session? He could just have said no. Didn’t have to accuse her of seeing the exam as a game—when he knew damn well that wasn’t true for her. The look on her face—it was as if he’d punched her in the gut. Just confirmed he couldn’t be trusted around her. Well, she sure wouldn’t give him a chance to hurt her again after the way he behaved today, so he didn’t have to worry about that.

As he crossed Union Street, he saw movement in the opening to the little alley that led to the stairs to his room. His hand went naturally to his hip, where his gun would have been if he wasn’t coming home from work where side arms were forbidden. He threw down his cigarette, and while pretending to grind it out, he reached behind to where his knife was in a sheath attached to his belt. He took the knife out and held it down beside his leg. He then moved up the sidewalk at a regular pace, but as close to the street side as he could get so that when he got to the opening he’d have a good couple of feet between himself and whoever was hovering in the alley.

He’d just registered that the silhouette was small when he heard, “Oh, Seth, Mr. Timmons. I’m so glad I didn’t miss you. I am sorry to disturb you. But I really did need to speak to you.”

“Miss Dawson. Is there something wrong?” He slid the knife back into its sheath. He could see her only faintly from the light spilling down from the rooms above the bakery. When he couldn’t see anyone else with her, he blurted out, “You’re not here by yourself, are you?”

“Well, yes. It was just a spur of the moment decision.”

“You can’t stay. Look, I will escort you home. There are hansom cabs we can get on Broadway, and you can talk to me as we walk down there.”

“No. I mean, please, can’t we go inside, just for a minute? I don’t want to talk to you on the street.”

Seth, hearing the faint sound of men’s voices coming from Union, took Laura’s arm and pulled her into the alleyway and up the steep steps to his door. He took out his key, slid it into the lock, and had her inside before the men could have seen anything.

Shutting the door behind him, he said sharply, “What were you thinking? Your brother will skin me alive.”

“Please, don’t worry. I won’t take long. Then you can escort me to Kitty Blaine’s and no one will be the wiser. But can’t we have some light?”

Realizing that they were standing quite close to each other in the dark and that he still had his hand on her arm, Seth backed off and went to the table and lit the kerosene lamp that sat there. When he turned back, he saw Laura standing in the middle of the room, making a slow circle as she examined everything.

There wasn’t much to see. Bed, bedroll, table stacked with books, a chair, wooden crates that held more books, cooking utensils, and clothes, and a small pot-bellied stove. Hooks held more clothes and his colt, hanging in its holster. In the corner sat his saddle and tack.

He wished he’d taken the time to roll up his bedroll this morning and wash the cup and the pot he’d used both to cook his oats and to eat them. He’d closed the one window before he left for work because he could tell the day was going to be a scorcher. But it was now stuffy, so he went over and opened the window, hoping some of the cooler evening air would seep in. After years living outdoors or in crowded bunk houses, he’d thought of this room as comfortable and spacious. With Laura here, it felt shabby and crowded.