Deadly Proof: A Victorian San Francisco Mystery (34 page)

He swept the books off the table and dumped them on the floor, pulling out the chair and indicating that she should sit down. He took off his stetson and went and sat on the bed, feeling better that there was now a table between them. He then jumped up and said, “The pump’s out back. I could get you some water. Or make a pot of coffee. I’m afraid I don’t have anything else to offer you.”

“I would love a glass of water. It’s been so dry today.”

She smiled one of her sweet smiles, and he strode across to a shelf above his washstand and got down a jug, a tumbler, and a towel, and went out the door. At the pump, he filled the jug, used the towel to thoroughly wipe out the tumbler, and then for good measure wet the towel and scrubbed his face with it.

When he returned, she’d picked up his botany text and was reading through it.

He handed her the filled tumbler and went back to sit on the bed. Why was she here? Well, whatever the reason, he should apologize for losing his temper today. “Miss Dawson, I would like to say how sorry I am for the...”

“For pointing out how selfish I was being?”

“I didn’t mean...”

“Yes, you did. You were worried about Miss Childers, and I was too pig-headed to listen to you. For that you scolded me. I didn’t like it. But it was warranted. And, Seth, there was a time you consented to call me Laura.”

“Miss...Laura, I had no right to scold you.”

“But isn’t that a right that friends have? Hattie certainly would have scolded me for not taking you seriously. And didn’t you agree—that night in the hospital—that we would be friends?”

Seth tried to calm the hammering of his heart. He said, “Is that really what you want? I am not an easy person to be friends with.”

She looked up at him and nodded, biting her lower lip. “I don’t have such a sterling record in the area of friendships, myself. Hattie really was my only...well, you know I wasn’t as good a friend as I could have been to her. “

“Laura, you shouldn’t...”

She held up her hand, and he stopped. She went on and said, “Please, let me finish, before I lose my nerve. You see, Annie, Mrs. Fuller, suggested that one of the reasons I might have been so...insensitive...about Miss Childers is that I was jealous that you seemed more interested in her friendship than mine.”

“Oh no. Not at all. There is no comparison.”

Seth stopped, trying to find the right words for what he wanted to say. “I am honored that you wish to be my friend. There is nothing I would like better. But sometimes...my past catches up with me. I fear that the dark things out of that past make me unfit...for friendship...with anyone. I never want to...to hurt you. Yet I did today. And you need to know that I can’t promise not to do such a thing again. I wish I could.”

“Nor can I promise not to make mistakes with our friendship, either. Studying at the university, getting a law degree, and not getting side-tracked by anything is my passion—you need to know that. So sometimes I will probably do stupid things like I did today, insisting that you join the study group—because I knew I would benefit––not paying attention to what you wanted. For that, I apologize.”

“I’m sorry I was impatient with your friend Miss Blaine. I didn’t have any right to question her motivation.”

Then Laura very earnestly told him how people often misunderstood Kitty Blaine. She described how shy the girl was, how her mother’s death and her father’s business interests had condemned her to being raised by a cold and unfeeling governess who’d belittled her and added to her social awkwardness.

She concluded, saying, “And while Kitty loves her father and appreciates the benefits his wealth brings her, she has also suffered slights from classmates who are prejudiced against the Irish. Which is one of the reasons I respect Ned for not letting her Irish heritage get in the way of befriending her. Even though his father hates the Irish.”

Seth was grudgingly telling himself he would reserve judgment on Goodwin when Laura continued, saying, “I think his jokes are a way of protecting himself against a cruel father and a weak mother. He’d rather his father thought him a fool than take him seriously. Because if his father did take him seriously, he would be doing everything possible to make Ned break off his engagement to Miss Beale, one of the teachers I worked with at Clement Grammar last spring, who is as Irish as they come.”

He was just assimilating the very welcome news that Ned Goodwin had a fiancé when Laura stood up. As she approached him, he scrambled off the bed and clasped her out-stretched hand. She shook his firmly and said, “So, Mr. Seth Timmons. To friendship.”

And a little piece of the darkness in his heart cracked and fell away.

*****

L
aura sat at the table in Seth’s room, reading steadily through the botany text and taking notes. After they had shaken hands, she felt a hundred percent lighter, and Seth then engaged her in a very pleasant conversation as she finished her glass of water, which she didn’t mention tasted of tooth powder. He was quite chatty—for him. Last fall, when he took her on those buggy rides each weekend, she’d done all the talking.

This evening, they spoke about how unfortunate it was that her brother and Annie had to postpone their wedding and what it would mean to the employees at Rashers if Mrs. Rashers decided to sell. She told him how much she liked his place—so much nicer than her brother’s dinky little room in the attic of his boarding house. He seemed skeptical, but she really did find its neatness and mingled scent of tobacco and leather appealing.

When he suggested that they should be on their way, she looked at her watch and said nine o’clock was really too late to arrive at Kitty’s, but could he please help her understand De Jussieu’s system of classifying plants before he took her home? He’d reluctantly agreed, showing her how to make a chart that would help her memorize the fifteen classifications and nearly a hundred orders. Which was what she was working on now. Even if he didn’t come to their study session tomorrow, and he did say he would think about it, she would have this chart to add to their discussions.

While she filled in the chart, he sat on the bed and worked on reviewing the Greek plays, using the mnemonic system that Kitty had developed. Laura was warmed by the vision of the next four years—attending classes together, arguing over whether Comte’s theory of Positivism was too rigid, studying for exams. This was what she wanted out of a friendship with Seth Timmons.

Looking over to where he sat on his bed, book in hand, head down, she realized he’d fallen asleep. He had asked earlier if he had permission to take off his coat, so he was in his shirt sleeves and vest. For some reason, despite the fact it was still warm in the room, she felt impelled to take her shawl and use it to cover him. He moved slightly, and she backed away but saw that he’d not wakened. Instead, he’d turned and slid down on the bed, pulling the shawl up to his shoulder, where it acted as a pillow, and continued sleeping. She went back to the table, deciding she wouldn’t waken him until she finished taking her notes. No reason to deprive him of any more sleep than necessary.

*****

S
omething wakened Laura from a dream she was having. The dream evaporated as she tried to figure out why she was using a book as a pillow. Then she sat up, flushed with embarrassment as she realized she’d fallen asleep. The room was darker than it had been; the kerosene lamp must be about out of fuel because the flame was very low and flickering.

She looked over at Seth, who appeared to be still sleeping. She hated to disturb him, but she should get home. Carefully closing the text, after trying to smooth out the page her slumbers had wrinkled, she went over to his side and said softly, “Seth. You need to wake up now.”

When he didn’t respond, she sat down on the bed, resisting the impulse to push back the short lock of black hair that had fallen over one of his eyes. Up this close, she could see the sprinkle of silver in his hair. He’d spoken tonight of dark things in his past, and she wondered exactly what kind of events would have caused a man, no more than in his early thirties, to turn grey. With his flint-colored eyes closed and his lips relaxed into a rare half smile, he looked so vulnerable. Not wanting to startle him, she leaned over and said his name again, putting a hand on his shoulder to slightly shake him.

In one flurry of movement, his eyes flew open and he sat up and grabbed her by the shoulders. They were now only inches away from each other. He whispered her name and, without thinking, she leaned in and let him cover her lips with his. She’d never been kissed before, and her initial surprise at how soft his lips were and the discovery that his mustache tickled were quickly overwhelmed by sensations that swept away any coherent thought.

The sound of a book hitting the floor broke the spell, and Laura found herself being pulled up into a standing position by a wild-eyed Seth, who was backing away while muttering something under his breath about how sorry he was...how he didn’t know what had happened...but he should never have...

Laura, suppressing a nervous desire to giggle, said something inane about it being nothing. Then, noticing that her shawl lay on the floor, she bent over to pick it up. That movement brought the discovery that most of her hairpins had come unmoored and her hair was cascading untidily around her shoulders. Shocked, she turned and went over to the washstand in the corner, where she had noticed there was a small mirror, and began to systematically re-pin her hair. Taking up her brown hat, which she’d taken off while reading, she pinned it on her head.

When she turned, Seth had put on his coat and was looking at his pocket watch. She said calmly, “I am afraid we both fell asleep. What time is it?”

“A quarter to twelve. I’ve got to get you home. I’m not sure there will be any cabs in this district at this time of night.”

“That’s fine. The walk is all down hill from here and shouldn’t take much more than a half an hour. If it’s still as clear as it was earlier, we can quiz each other on the constellations as we go. I have a key, and so there won’t be any difficulty when we get to the boarding house.”

Laura’s heart began to slow to a normal beat, and she was proud of how composed she sounded. Thank goodness Seth had stopped apologizing. For once she appreciated his natural reticence because she really didn’t want to discuss what happened or even think about how much she enjoyed his kisses and wanted to experience the sensations they’d aroused, again.

Sunday mid-day, August 1, 1880

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“It is ridiculous for a great State to have laws, and courts to administer them, yet to be wholly unable to punish a man for murder unless he is friendless, moneyless and alone.”
San Francisco Chronicle,
December 23, 1880

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S
eth sat on the hard wooden bench, leaned against the rough walls, and willed himself elsewhere. This was not the first jail cell he’d been in. But it might be his first time completely sober, which was not the condition of the other three men in the cell with him. At least he’d been able to get down the coffee and sandwich the guard brought by at noon, something he wouldn’t have been able to do if he was hung over. Food and caffeine helped, as did the ebbing of his initial panicked fear that this was about Laura.

The knock had come on his door about six this morning. His first thought as he pulled on his pants was that it was Nate come to flay him alive, at least verbally. Then, when he opened the door and saw a uniformed police constable and the tall Sargent Thompson who’d questioned him last February, he went right to the worst thing he could think of—that something had happened to Laura after he left her at the boarding house back door last night, and they were coming to notify him that she was dead.

Thank God he’d kept his mouth shut. Learned that in Andersonville prison, where he’d spent his last year of the war. Never forgot it. Don’t say anything...ever...until you knew the lay of the land. Even then, say as little as possible, and if you could get away with not saying anything—that was best. People were going to do what they were going to do...no reason to give them ammunition to use against you.

Thompson asked if he would get dressed and come on down to the station to help them out with some inquiries. Seth let them in, relieved that this probably meant something new had come up in the case against Mrs. Sullivan. However, when they got to the Old City Hall and they took his hat and coat from him and ushered him into a cell, he pretty much gave up on that hopeful thought.

Instead, he’d turned to the next task, which was keeping the Andersonville demons at bay. Never was good in confined spaces surrounded by unwashed bodies after that time. This jail wasn’t as bad as some. Just knowing he couldn’t leave some place could start the shaking. He sometimes thought the reason he stopped drinking was because he’d finally accepted that alcohol ensured he would continue to wake up in one of those enclosed spaces he feared so much.

The older man who shared his blanket with him at Andersonville taught him how to recite the poetry he’d learned in school to stave off the terrors and the hunger pains. Today, it was the Greek plays that kept his mind from unraveling. Also kept him from thinking too much about what had happened last night with Laura and what it meant.

A guard stood at the cell door and beckoned. “Mr. Timmons, Chief Jackson is ready for you.”

He escorted him upstairs to a small room with a table and chairs, where Sergeant Thompson—tall, grey, and nondescript—stood in the corner. He directed Seth to sit down. In a few minutes, Jackson swept in and sat down across from him, putting something wrapped in a cloth on the table next to a notebook and a folder.

“Well, Mr. Timmons. I’d like to get to know you a bit before I get to the reason I have you here. Could you tell me some of your particulars? Birth place, date of birth, military service, past employment history and so forth.”

Seth nodded and told the bare bones of his story. Born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on June 5, 1848, joining the Union army just shy of his sixteenth birthday, fighting with the 101st Pennsylvania Volunteers, and then being captured in April 1864 at the battle of Plymouth, North Carolina. The year in Andersonville Prison, until the Civil War ended, followed by six wretched months back home trying to adapt to regular life. Ten years working on ranches in Texas and driving cattle on the Chisholm Trail, then three years working his way through Kansas State Normal School in Emporia, Kansas. His year and a half at San Jose Normal School to finish up and get his teaching certificate. Finally, he told of his move to San Francisco, his spring term teaching at the Pine and Larkin School, and then starting the job at Rashers.