Fatal Induction, page 7
Emily had been sneaking out this evening when Bradshaw had seen her. It wasn’t his discovery of her that had sent her fleeing—although that would likely prohibit her return—she had already been on her way somewhere. Somewhere she thought she could make money.
Where would a ten-year-old girl believe it possible to make money in the middle of the night? Were there mills or factories in town that operated all night? That hired child labor? A child of ten might find work sewing, or washing up, or some other menial task.
She could simply be begging.
It didn’t take him long to get to Yesler Way. The newspapers referred to the street as “the Deadline,” the northern boundary of the Tenderloin. It marked the beginning of Seattle’s wicked district, where decent folks dared not tread. In this part of town, spilling down into the tideflats, music halls and box houses and hotels plied the same trade. Drink, gambling, bawdy entertainment, and women.
He stepped off the streetcar and crossed the bricked road to the gritty sidewalk. The darkness of the night lurked in alleys and peered from upper stories. Here at street level, glowing electric signs, boldly lit windows, and gas lamps pointed the way to the musical entertainments and raucous voices. He stood for a moment, unsure where to begin. Another streetcar passed by, the conductor shouting last car.
He began to walk, glad he’d chosen to wear an old suit that had seen better days. He might feel out of place, but he didn’t look it. He wasn’t the only man dressed shabbily with a burlap sack slung over his shoulder.
Amongst the shabby were the gents in coat tails and top-hats, looking as if they’d just come from a show at the Seattle Grand. Did their wives know, he wondered? Did they know where their husbands went after dropping them home? Were they told tales of business talk, private poker games?
He kept his hat low, his eyes averted from faces, not wanting to recognize any of the better dressed men, hoping only to find a small child with blond curls, her hand out for coins.
On First Avenue, he found scruffy young boys with patched britches and stained caps, playing a rough-and-tumble version of marbles at the entrance to a dark alley. Another boy, no older than Justin, lurked outside the Frontier music hall, and when the door flew open, and a drunk was tossed out, the boy dove to catch anything that flew from his pockets.
None of the boys was a girl disguised in his son’s clothing. There were no young girls on the streets at all, although plenty of women hung about in various forms of dress designed to advertise.
On the corner of Second and Jackson, a woman in feathers and face paint, the hem of her dress nearly up to her knees, the neckline plunging deep into territory not usually exposed in public, propositioned Bradshaw in such a bold manner and with such bawdy language he felt himself blush. What a sheltered life he’d been living up on the hill. He could see why Ralph’s Restorative had sold well here. In the eyes of many of the women he passed, he could see that the promise of “past transgressions reversed” was a dream yet hoped for.
After two hours of searching up and down the streets, stepping into music halls and theaters to peer around the dim interiors, and questioning those who looked approachable, he knew his search had failed. His burlap sack was empty—he’d given the food and cocoa, flask and all, to a skeletal man he found digging through garbage.
Only as he made his way back to Yesler did he see a policeman. Patrolman Cox came sauntering along, whistling a tune and swinging his club, for all the world like a man on holiday. Bradshaw remembered seeing him at the courthouse. He was the large policeman with the whisk-broom mustache who’d claimed a man could only take so much. It seemed tonight he was pleased with his particular take.
Bradshaw hailed him, putting an end to the whistling and a scowl on the patrolman’s face until he introduced himself.
“Professor Bradshaw! If I’d had to bet on ever seeing you down here, I’d have said not on your life, not the respectable professor.”
“I didn’t realize you knew me.”
“Everyone in Seattle knows you, Professor. It was you who put that anarchist behind bars.”
“Yes, well, tonight I’m not after anarchists, I’m looking for a missing child. Her name is Emily. Her father’s wagon was abandoned behind my house a few days ago.”
The patrolman’s smile disappeared. His eyes shifted to dimly lit brick pavement, and his whisk broom mustache waggled.
“That would be Ralph Hopper’s wagon. I know all about that.” He jutted out his chin importantly. “Ralph and the child are gone. Went to Tacoma with the gypsies.”
“No, they didn’t. And you know him by name? Full name?”
Patrolman Cox thrust his club into its holster and his scowl deepened. “Who told you they didn’t go to Tacoma? Of course I know Ralph Hopper’s name, I checked his license often enough, just like I do all who sell their wares in my district.”
“Detective March thought maybe Ralph hadn’t bothered to get a license.”
“He accuse me of not doing my job? It’s a misdemeanor to peddle patent meds without the proper license, and monthly fees paid. State Pharmacy Board would have my badge. Ralph had a good and valid license, though it don’t now look as if he had a good and valid tonic. That ain’t my fault.”
“No, no I’m sure it’s not. I meant no offense, I’m just trying to get information. I, uh, I have a bit of a confession to make.”
Bradshaw explained, feeling like a fool, that the child had been hiding in his own home until this evening.
“My son said she’s been going out at night. I think she might be coming here. She was wearing his clothing when she fled.”
The patrolman seemed to be struggling, not with the information, but with the annoyance of being wrong. “You’re telling me she might be down here under my nose? I don’t think I much care for this, not at all. I’ll have a word with that detective.”
“So you haven’t seen her?”
“Not a bit. Not hide nor curly hair.”
“Can you think of anywhere else, any other part of town a child might go at night to earn money?”
“Rest of the city’s locked up and put to bed. Why’d she run away from her father, she say?” His mustache was again dancing as he surveyed the street.
She didn’t run away, Bradshaw thought. She ran for her life. He didn’t know this yet as fact and he didn’t think confessing he’d found a body, possibly Ralph Hopper’s, a sensible idea, not here on the street in the middle of the night, with Cox’s meaty fist on his baton and his mustache dancing.
So he said, “I didn’t speak to her. She didn’t tell my son much.”
“Well, then. I’d say she’d had enough. Not a fit father in my book.” He shouted the words, looking about the street as if to challenge anyone to disagree with him. “I know what the child looks like, Professor. If she’s here, she won’t get by me.”
“Do you know where they came from? Do they have any family?”
“No idea. Down here, folks don’t volunteer private details.”
“Did his peddler’s license show an address?”
“Just the main post office.”
“She might be hiding.”
Cox narrowed his eyes to hard slits. “I’ve been a patrolman down here for nearly twenty years. By choice. I could’ve been promoted, but what would that have meant? Taking my experience off the streets where it’s needed most. No, not for me. I know every face down here, and I know the games. That little girl might have come hiding, maybe she knows somebody, but this is my city and my beat, and nothing gets by me, not for long. Now you go on home, sir. I’ve got another few hours to go, and I’ll keep watch. I’ll pass the word to the next man on duty.”
“Thank you, officer.”
Bradshaw shook the patrolman’s meaty hand, and they went their separate ways. Bradshaw didn’t go straight home. He marched himself up to police headquarters on Third Avenue where he told the sergeant on duty about the body he’d discovered in the vacant lot in the new Capitol Hill development. It was the second time he’d been the first to report the finding of a body. The sergeant, an achingly thin young man with an unfortunate snub nose and intelligent green eyes, lifted his brow, but didn’t detain Bradshaw once he’d taken down the information. They knew where he lived.
Chapter Nine
Bradshaw escorted a somber Justin and rambunctious Paul to school the next day to be sure their tendency to make an adventure of the journey didn’t lead them to a particular vacant lot where the police might still be dealing with his gruesome discovery. Justin hung back as Paul climbed the steps to Father McGuinness waiting by the classroom door.
“Will you find her today?” he asked, his eyes begging.
“I’ll do my best.”
“Can I come with you?”
“No, son. You must go to school.” He stopped himself from adding that where he was searching was no fit place for children.
He watched Justin climb the stairs and pass safely into the care of the Jesuits, then he pressed his hat down firmly to withstand the marine wind gusting across the hill toward toward Yesler Way.
Sunshine did not improve the district. What had appeared wicked and lively a few hours ago now looked grimy and tired. A few drunks slept in recessed doorways, weary landladies swept away debris from the sidewalk. The music halls were still open, but little music and few customers trickled out.
He again questioned those who seemed approachable. Had anyone seen the child begging? Asking for work? Scrubbing floors or sweeping up? Nobody would admit to seeing a girl named Emily with blond curls who may or may not be dressed like a boy.
When his trudging became fruitless, he stepped into the Queen City Restaurant, a ground-floor establishment in a brick-and-stone business building. The place was clean, noisy with men in cheap suits finishing their coffee at the counter and complaining good-naturedly of bosses and work and wives. He ordered a breakfast he didn’t want so that he could sit at a window table with a view of First Avenue. As a plate of eggs and toast turned cold before him, he drank bitter coffee and watched the busy street.
The streetcar made regular passes, freight wagons and delivery carts rattled by. Foot traffic picked up, men with loping gaits, women with defiant strides. These were not the same women he’d seen a few hours ago. These were the wives of the small shop owners, factory workers, maids, domestics.
Across the street from Bradshaw, a peddler set up shop with a few upturned crates and began pitching to passersby. A wiry little man with a self-important air, he reminded Bradshaw of Victor, the Seattle Grand’s stage manager. Inside the restaurant, Bradshaw couldn’t hear the pitches. It looked like a pantomime, lots of gestures and waving, a solemn hand going over his heart. Nobody stopped, one man waved the peddler off angrily. Then a young man with a slight limp approached. He walked with a cane and was dressed well in a dark suit with a strawberry red tie. No, not a man. Nell Pickerell, a girl in boy’s clothing, but not the girl he’d been looking for.
She stood before the peddler shouting angrily. When she picked up her cane and swung it at the peddler’s head, Bradshaw jumped up and ran outside. He dodged traffic to cross the street and grabbed Nell from behind, holding her arms tight against her sides.
She shouted, struggling to free herself. “You can’t sell that poison!”
The peddler rubbed his arm where Nell’s cane had landed. “It ain’t none your business, Nellie. Get away from me!”
“The name’s Harry, and it’s my business when you’re selling poison and hurting people I—hurting my friends.”
Bradshaw then caught sight of the bottle with the label of a blazing sun on the upturned crate. He didn’t loosen his grip on Nell but turned his own anger on the peddler, who thrust out his chest and clenched his fists.
“Harry’s right, you’re selling poison. That’s Ralph Restorative. It’s making people sick.”
“There’s no proof it’s Ralph’s making people sick. The people who drink this will drink anything. If they get sick, it’s their own damn fault!”
Harry lunged with a growl, but Bradshaw held her tight.
“How many bottles have you got? How much for all of it?”
“I got a dozen bottles. You want it all, it’ll cost you five bucks.”
“Three, you’re selling them for two bits.”
“Not to you, I’m not. Five bucks and not a penny lower.” He turned away from them and began shouting a pitch to the street. “Tonic here, get your tonic!”
“Stop!” Bradshaw shouted. He released his grip on Harry, and she pulled away but didn’t attack. Bradshaw thrust a five into the peddler’s grubby outthrust hand, and a full crate of clanking bottles was shoved toward him. The peddler grinned, pried the lid off another crate, and pulled forth several blue-labeled bottles with dignified black letters that said “Dr. Drummer’s Proven Elixir.”
Bradshaw carried Ralph’s to the gutter and one by one opened them up and poured out the contents.
Harry joined him after the second bottle. She winced as she bent to set an empty bottle in the crate.
“Has a doctor seen that?” He nodded at her leg.
“The one at the jail. I saw you outside. You a detective?” Her voice was low, pleasant. Boyish, not deeply masculine.
“No, a professor at the university.”
“Yeah? What do you profess?”
Bradshaw laughed. “I profess the wonders of electric power, its theorems and practical uses.”
She said, “Well, good for you. I always wanted to know about science and such.”
“It’s never too late to learn.”
“Nah, school’s not for me.”
“School is for everyone. Do you know him?” He nodded at the peddler.
“Nah.”
“He called you Nellie.”
“He read it in the papers last year, figured out they were talking about me. Makes him feel big to harass me.”
“I know the type.”
Bradshaw had the last tonic bottle in his hand. He looked at the label, read again the false promises, then slipped the bottle in his pocket.
“Thinking of ending it all, Professor?”
“Not today.”
“Why are you in this part of town?”
“I came looking for a child. The daughter of the man who used to sell this.”
Harry looked away, but not before Bradshaw saw something flash in her eyes.
“I’m afraid for her. Her father is missing. He might be dead.” He watched Harry for another reaction, but she had closed up and was holding herself very still.
“Until last night, she was hiding in my house. Without my knowledge, my son was sheltering her. She comes to this part of town to find work.”
Harry swallowed hard and stared at her shoes.
“If you happen to see her, will you let her know it’s safe to return to my house?”
Harry nodded, still not looking at him. She began to limp away, leaning heavily on the cane. She said, “Yeah, sure. If I see her, this girl, I’ll be sure to pass that on. I will definitely pass that on. If I see her.”
The peddler wasn’t having luck hawking his blue bottles.
Bradshaw handed over two bits. “I’ll take one of those.”
“Gonna drink it or dump it?”
“Neither. Where’d you get the Ralph’s?”
“Don’t see what business it is of yours.”
Bradshaw gave the man a five-dollar bill.
“Found it.”
“Just like that. Found it. Are you in the habit of taking whatever property you stumble across?”
“Abandoned property is fair game. Finders keepers.”
“Where’d you get this other?” Bradshaw skimmed the blue label in his hand. Dr. Drummer’s Proven Elixir. Medical science’s most powerful formula to restore the natural balance and ensure health, wealth, and happiness. This powerful tonic has been especially and scientifically created for Men and Women Suffering from Degradation and Despair. A thrice-daily dose will dispel Aches, Pains, Vermin, Disease, Addiction, and Failure.
He looked up. The peddler had turned away and was waving the bottle at uninterested people across the street. Bradshaw stood silently, patiently. He’d been a teacher for enough years to recognize evasion. He also knew the power of waiting it out.
Five minutes passed, and finally the exasperated peddler whined, “What you want from me? I got it from my usual source, and it’s all legit and above board and I got a license from the Pharmacy Board to sell and no you can’t see it, you ain’t no cop.”
“Who’s your usual source?”
“You want to get into the business, I ain’t helping you. Now beat it, this is my corner, bought and paid for, and you’re scaring away my customers.”
“How do you buy a street corner?”
“What are you, stupid? Nobody could be that green.”
The peddler meant, of course, he was paying the police or some other person of authority to keep competitors away from this spot. “Paying graft for privileges or protection? That’s illegal.”
“That’s business in this part of town, and you’d better learn the ropes if you don’t want to wash up on the tide flats.”
Bradshaw wasn’t frightened. Bluster and exaggeration were as common as mud around here. And yet…the soggy lot on Capitol Hill was far above the tide flats, but a body had washed up there.
“Show me where you found Ralph’s.” He producd another bill that was quickly snatched.
At the Hotel Eskimo, a modest three-story brick hotel-apartment building, an obese manager with greased hair greeted the peddler warmly and Bradshaw coolly. The last dollars in Bradshaw’s pocket were spent to learn that Ralph and Emily Hopper had rented a room several times over the past few months to sleep in a decent bed and have a bath. They’d been expected Friday evening. They hadn’t shown. Ralph had left a case of tonic as payment, saying he was short on cash.
