Fatal Induction, page 20
A movement in the back lane caught Bradshaw’s eye.
He got up and stepped out onto the back porch. Albert had arrived with Mr. Woodworth’s carriage. A minute later, the coach door slammed shut, Mr. Woodworth stuck a gloved hand out the window to wave good morning, and Bradshaw waved in return as the carriage pulled down the lane and out of sight. He listened until he no longer heard the clomp of the horse’s hooves.
The air held the scent of fall, of dampness, and sweet decay, much of it coming from Mrs. Prouty’s vegetable garden and her system of compost piles. The back lawn would need cutting again soon, but the mower needed sharpening, and it would probably rain before he took the time to sharpen the blades. He glanced at the gray sky overhead as he passed through his gate and crossed the lane to the Woodworth’s back yard, knowing his thoughts had strayed to avoid contemplating the awkward conversation he was about to force upon his neighbor, whom he hardly knew.
The housekeeper, Martha, answered his knock at the back door, surprised, and welcoming. She was a woman of smaller, softer proportions than Mrs. Prouty, with rosy cheeks and hair as white as her crisp apron.
The warm scent of baking and freshly ground coffee came wafting out to him, so comforting and domestic, he nearly changed his mind.
Martha said, “Professor! I thought it was your Gladys knocking, and that she was through with her Friday chores early and come for coffee.”
“Gladys? Oh, Mrs. Prouty.” He rarely heard her Christian name. She’d been with him so long, he supposed he should call her Gladys. But he couldn’t. She would always be Mrs. Prouty to him. “She’s cleaning upstairs, I believe.”
“Then it won’t be long. Friday’s she cleans bottom to top, and it goes fairly quick as she’s done her deep cleaning, top to bottom, on Wednesdays.”
He’d never paid close attention to the pattern of Mrs. Prouty’s housework. It was news to him that she had a system.
“Is Mrs. Woodworth at home?”
“She’s in the sitting room. You come on in and wait here, and I’ll let her know you’re wanting to see her.”
Bradshaw took off his hat and stepped into the warm embrace of the kitchen. Twice as large as his own, with the newest range and icebox, and a scrubbed wooden table loaded with two steaming pies and a fluffy-looking cake. He recalled plates of overcooked broad beans and had disloyal thoughts about Mrs. Prouty.
Martha returned to lead Bradshaw to a floral sitting room, and introduced him to Mrs. Woodworth, who remained seated with a quilt over her lap. She looked younger than her years, with little gray in her upswept brown hair. Lovely, but pale, and far too thin. She dismissed the housekeeper then looked at Bradshaw with a faint smile.
He said, “I’m sorry to trouble you when you’re not well.”
“It’s no bother. Have a seat, please. What can I do for you, Professor?”
He sat in the armchair across from her, leaning forward beseechingly. “I’m not sure that you can do anything. It’s about the peddler’s wagon, Ralph’s Restorative, that was abandoned in our joint lane.”
She jerked her head away, turning her gaze to the small hearth fire. Its warmth filled the room and she had the quilt, yet she shuddered.
“You might have heard that I’ve been searching for the child, Ralph Hopper’s daughter, Emily?”
He saw her throat work as she swallowed. She gave him a series of small nods, without looking at him.
“I’ve run out of ideas, and so I’m going back to the beginning, to that night.”
Her nodding continued, and now her mouth was working, her lips pressing and biting softly.
“Can I get you some water?”
She shook her head, cleared her throat, and said, “No, thank you,” as if trying, and failing, to put force behind the words.
“Have you ever heard of a tonic called Dr. Drummer’s?”
She closed her eyes and sat perfectly still.
“March to the beat of a different drummer?”
Her intake of breath was shallow and sharp, telling him she had some knowledge of Dr. Drummer’s being connected with Albert March. She placed a pale, trembling hand over her mouth. Alarmed, Bradshaw sat forward. She seemed unable to breathe.
“Shall I get your housekeeper?”
She shook her head and signaled him to wait. In a moment, she opened her eyes and gave him a trembling smile that held no joy.
He didn’t want to press her, she was too fragile. Yet he needed to learn what she knew. Her reaction had been to his questions, he was sure of it, not her illness.
“You saw a patrolman that night. Patrolman Cox?”
She didn’t deny it. She closed her eyes again.
“He followed Ralph Hopper because Ralph had come to confront Albert about Dr. Drummer’s. Is that right?”
She shook her head.
“I know this puts you in a horrendous position, Mrs. Woodworth. Albert March has been with you a long time, and you’re close to his family. I was hoping you’d give me permission to search Albert’s room.”
She blinked, her eyes narrowed, brow furrowed.
“I’m aware that he leaves home often with small packages, and returns home with them, but refuses to explain to the rest of your staff. I believe they might contain evidence of his connection with drug smuggling.”
To his surprise, a true smile briefly flitted across her face. “No Professor, Albert isn’t involved in anything illegal. Those envelopes contain stories.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“He writes stories. Short stories that he sends off to magazines to be published. He began writing them a few years ago, when he came home from Alaska.”
Surely, this was his cover. This was how he’d explained himself one day when she caught him with one of his packages. “Why is he so secretive?”
“Because they’re love stories, Professor. He doesn’t want to be teased. He carries a torch for a girl he loved long ago, and he pours that into his tales. They’re very good, rather heart-wrenching.”
He sat still, taking in her words. She had an opinion on the stories. She’d read them. They were real. But his writing stories didn’t preclude more sinister activities. Patrolman Cox had come here the night Ralph died, she hadn’t denied the fact. Neither had she confirmed it.
“Emily Hopper’s life is in danger and you may be the only one that can help her. I believe she saw Patrolman Cox kill her father that night. She told my son the man who killed her father wore brass buttons.”
Mrs. Woodworth had gone so still and pale, he was afraid she about to either faint or vomit. He withheld his questions, watching her to see if she would recover or if he should run for Martha.
After a long, silent moment, she took a deep breath and pressed the quilt aside. “Will you excuse me a moment, Professor?” He barely heard the faint words.
She left the room, walking more steadily than he’d thought her capable of. He got up and paced to the fireplace, feeling a bit sick himself. His shoulders ached. Love stories? Maybe he was wrong about everything. He’d manufactured a ridiculous theory with human variables. Human variables were not to be trusted. God, how he longed for the absoluteness of numbers.
He heard the soft swish of the door opening. He turned to see Mrs. Woodworth shut the door. She stood still for a moment, her back to him. When at last she turned to face him, he saw she held a carefully folded jacket. The scarlet material had satin trim, a square collar. And brass buttons.
Her voice trembled. “That night, the night you’re asking about, Reggie asked me to store this for him. It’s his band uniform.”
“Reggie?” Bradshaw’s voice carried no further than a whisper. But Mrs. Woodworth’s eyes acknowledged him. “Detective March?” He asked again. To be sure.
She held his gaze, her eyes full of despair. “We gave him music lessons when he was a boy.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Bradshaw didn’t know what he said or did next, exactly, he’d gone numb, and then the opposite, his mind reeling with the implications of that brass-buttoned band uniform.
He found himself home again, in his own parlor before his own hearth, and looking into the blue eyes of Emily’s doll. He picked it up and tipped it gently so that its eyes opened, closed, opened.
Reggie March had held this doll. He’d come to Bradshaw’s home, knowing he’d killed Ralph Hopper. Knowing Emily was the only witness. And he knew that because Bradshaw had told him.
“Oh, God,” he whispered.
Reginald March had played with his band the night Ralph Hopper died. Bradshaw heard him talking about it on the courthouse steps the next day. He must have seen Ralph Hopper going up the hill, heading for the Woodworths. Not Patrolman Cox, but Detective March. In his brass-buttoned band uniform.
Mrs. Olsen and Minnie had heard a thump or a clump or a bump. And then the wagon was abandoned. And a little girl was left shivering and alone, the only witness to a man in brass buttons keeping her father from lifting his face from the muck.
Bradshaw clutched the doll to his chest, suppressing a rising tide of anguish and remorse. He must find Emily. Now. Before Detective March found her.
“Where is she?” he whispered desperately to the doll. This doll was all that he had, the only tangible connection to Emily. He’d told Missouri he’d not examined it closely. But March had, when Bradshaw had gone to the kitchen to pop the lid off the Coca-Cola.
Now, belatedly, he looked where March had looked. Under the doll’s fur muff, inside the hat, inside the jacket. And there was a tag. A small silk tag printed with the name of the manufacturer, and the name they’d given this doll.
Cassandra.
Cassandra. Where had he seen that name? A thousand snippets of information flashed in rapid-fire succession and then he saw it, the flyer Henry brought home from a theater a few days ago. Cassandra, the six-year old Greek sensation. Missouri told him Emily had appeared on stage. She’d told him everyone always overlooked something hidden in plain sight. The letter on the table. The child actress on stage. Emily was small for her age. She could pull off six.
“Henry!” Still clutching the doll, Bradshaw spun on his heel and ran out of the parlor, up the stairs. “Henry, get up, I need you. Now!”
“What’s all the shouting about?” Mrs. Prouty emerged from the bathroom with her scrub brush in hand as he hammered his fist on Henry’s door.
“Telephone the police, Mrs. Prouty. Ask for Detective O’Brien and speak to no one else. It’s vital you speak to no one else. Telephone his home if he’s not at the station. Keep trying to get him. Tell him it’s March. Detective March killed Ralph Hopper.”
Henry’s door flew open and he stood bedraggled in his bedclothes and nightcap.
“Detective March? That lily-livered liar!”
“Detective March?” echoed Mrs. Prouty with angry astonishment.
Bradshaw said her, “Tell O’Brien that Emily is posing as Cassandra at the Variety Theater. We’re going there now to find her before March does. Henry, throw on some clothes and meet me out front in two minutes. Go!”
Henry hustled into his room and Mrs. Prouty dropped her brush to head for the stairs. Bradshaw beat her, flying down the hall to the kitchen and basement. He grabbed the flyer from the Variety Theater featuring the Greek child “Cassandra,” his portable listening device, hat and overcoat, and when he reached the front yard, Henry was there, shirt tail flapping, bent over and trying to tie his boots, saying “ouch, ouch, ouch.”
“Tie them later, let’s go.”
They ran two blocks, Henry yelping the whole time, and leaped aboard the streetcar just as it began to roll.
They dropped side-by-side onto a seat, gasping.
“What you bring that for?” Henry said, once his boots were tied and he’d caught his breath, nodding at the wire sticking out of Bradshaw’s coat pocket. Emily’s doll stuck out of the other pocket.
“I still don’t have any evidence. Against anybody.”
“You can use that to get evidence?”
“I don’t know.” He didn’t have a grand plan, he had simply grabbed and run, motivated by instinct, hoping for a bit of luck for once.
They both examined the theater flyer. It was a mess of various lettering styles, and the drawing of the featured performer, Cassandra, gave little detail save a mop of black curls and an exotic costume on a pint-sized child. Opening night had been two days ago. Had March seen the flyer? Had he taken mental note of the doll’s name? Were they too late?
The Variety was locked, the lights dark. They pounded on the doors anyway, hoping to find someone, a custodian, anyone, within. A window above the entrance opened and an annoyed voice called out.
“Go away, we don’t open for another three hours!”
“This is official police business,” shouted Bradshaw. The window slammed shut with a rattle, and a minute later, a haphazardly dressed pear-shaped man opened the door to them and squinted into the daylight.
“Are you the caretaker here?”
“Do you see a broom in my hand? I’m Mr. Thomas Peavey, the manager of the theater. Now what’s this all about, and who are you? You’re not one of the regular detectives.” Mr. Peavey ran his squinted eyes over them. When he got to the doll’s head peeking out of Bradshaw’s coat pocket, his eyes flashed open, and he took a step back.
“I’m Professor Bradshaw. Detective O’Brien will be here shortly.”
“I know him,” Peavey said, jabbing a finger toward Henry. “Used to be a regular. Heard you come home empty-handed from Alaska.”
“Hurt my back,” said Henry defensively, putting a hand to his spine and pulling a face.
Bradshaw said, “We’re here to find Emily Hopper. You’ll know her as Cassandra.”
“Now listen, I’ve already told the police everything I know about that. You got no call to get me outa my bed to ask the same questions again.” He moved to shut the door.
“When did you tell the police everything?”
“Last night, of course, when Detective March came for her. Didn’t even let her finish the show. She was none too happy. Neither was I. Right little star that girl.”
Mr. Peavey’s eyes darted between Bradshaw and Henry, who both stared at him in dismay. “Now listen,” he said again, “I didn’t know she was that Emily Hopper everyone was looking for. She said her ma worked nights and that’s why she never came to the theater. She had those black curls. Told me her name was Cassandra. Course, I knew she was older’n six, but she was small enough to pull it off.”
“Where did they go? Where did March take Emily? Did he say?”
“He took her home, of course. Where else?”
“How did Emily react? Was she frightened? Did she fight?”
“Course she were frightened, she’d been caught, hadn’t she? She liked being here, liked being the star of the show. She went willingly enough, once her aunt had a talk with her.”
“Her aunt? A woman was with Detective March?”
“We weren’t formally introduced. It wasn’t exactly a social call. Cassandra called the woman ‘Auntie’ and liked her well enough that she settled down, once she understood she’d have to go home. And before you ask, I’ll tell you, it’s New York City. The three of them left here for the train station.”
***
“Some pluck, wouldn’t you say?” asked the ticket clerk, a young man with pocked skin and a quick smile, who’d been on duty the previous night, and was back again in the booth just starting a new shift. “Only ten, and losing her father, and having the nerve to go it alone on stage. I’ve a bit of singing talent myself, but golly, I couldn’t imagine at that age being bold as you please. That detective was as proud of her as if she were his own child, even though she did give him a chase. He bought two sleepers on the Great Northern, the luxury train. One for himself, and one for the lady and child. Taking her home on his own dime. Nice to see money don’t spoil everyone. Generous as he is rich, that Detective March. Ever been on the Great Northern? She’s a beauty.”
Henry moaned, “They’re half a day ahead of us.”
“No,” said the clerk cheerfully, “the Great Northern departs mornings so the passengers get the views going over the mountains. They pulled out about an hour ago.”
Henry said, “Hot damn!”
Bradshaw knew it was too soon to celebrate. “Is there a train we can take to catch up?”
The clerk won Bradshaw’s admiration for his reaction to the question. He was eager for the chance to find a solution and asked no prying questions. After a few minutes of consulting his time tables and maps and neat calculations with his pencil, he had the answer.
“A freighter, the Northern Pacific, leaves in twelve minutes, and she’s scheduled to stop in Wenatchee just past noon. She’s light and fast, got a new engine still breaking in, so only pulling half a load. Once in Wenatchee, they’ll take on fuel and supplies. If my calculations are right, the freighter will pull in behind the Great Northern about a half hour before she’s due to depart.”
“We’ll trust your calculations and take two tickets, one way.”
“No tickets needed for the Northern, sir. No accommodations either, mind, but the crew is always happy for a few paying passengers. No hobos. The company lets them keep the fare.”
The accommodations turned out to be a space hollowed for them in a freight car loaded with fat, dusty flour sacks from the Everett Milling Company. They climbed in and the sliding door was slammed shut by the cheerful engineer in his blue stripes, and soon, the whistle blasted and the wheels began to roll. They were off, with only the clothes on their backs, two itchy wool blankets, a galvanized bucket for a chamber pot, two pints of water, and the ticket clerk’s own lunch basket he’d generously donated to their adventure.
