Against a Brightening Sky (22 page)

He glanced at his father's old clock hanging over the office door, automatically adding ten minutes to compensate for how slow the clock ran. Sam would be there soon and Jack with him. Today was his partner's first day back on the job since his release from the hospital. Sadie wasn't very happy about him returning to work so soon, but Jack's restlessness and his drive to solve this case finally convinced her. That Sam volunteered to chauffeur Jack to work this morning helped.

Striding down the hallway whistling or hobbling along leaning on a cane, Gabe would take Jack however he could have him. The week without his best friend and partner had stretched on too long. He still couldn't bear to think about how he'd cope if Jack never came through the door again.

Gabe had thought time and again about how to greet his partner, what to say, and how much help to offer. In the end, he decided he was worrying too much. Jack and Gabe had been best friends for going on fifteen years. A brush with death didn't change who they were or how they should act with each other. Asking Henderson to move the visitor's chair to the front of the desk was the only accommodation he'd made.

Right on time, Sam rapped on the door and swung it wide for Jack. Gabe wasn't prepared for the ache in his chest as Jack came through the door.

Jack's foot and ankle were wrapped tightly, bandages disappearing up into his trouser leg. Annie had cut down an old, worn leather shoe for him to wear over the wrappings. He shuffled slowly so the shoe wouldn't fall off and leaned heavily on a dark wood cane, fingers white with the effort of hanging on to the silver handle. A bandage hid the deep gouge in his forehead, but the bruises on his jaw and neck, the jagged scratches on his hands, were in plain view.

Gabe cleared his throat. Jack was back and he refused to think of how near they'd all come to losing him forever. “Good to see you, Lieutenant Fitzgerald. It's about time you got back to work.”

“I thought so too. A life of leisure gets boring.” Jack dropped into the visitor's chair, his collar soaked with sweat. He yanked off his cap and wiped his face on a sleeve. “Besides, every day I was gone was another day you got out of buying lunch, Captain Ryan. I figure you owe me at least a week's worth, maybe two.”

“Don't push your luck, Jack. Sympathy goes only so far.” He looked up to see Sam leaning against the file cabinet, twirling his new boater hat on two fingers and grinning at both of them. Gabe couldn't help grinning in return. “Thanks for driving him in, Sam.”

“My pleasure. It gave me a chance to fill Jack in on what's been going on for the last week. He knows everything I'd already told you.” Sam left his hat on the file cabinet and grabbed the second battered and dinged pine chair, dragging it over to the desk. He straddled the seat backwards, long legs stretched out and arms lying across the back. “I talked to some of the dockworkers about Nureyev last night. He's been in San Francisco since just before the war ended, but he doesn't have many friends. Other than the time he spends working on union business with Mullaney, he keeps to himself. He's not married or courting. No one can remember ever seeing him with a woman other than his housekeeper.”

“He lost his wife and two daughters back in Russia. The only family he has left is a son. His boy must be about Connor's age, maybe a little younger. Mullaney told me about that.” Gabe traced faint lines indented in his desk blotter with a fingertip. Something in what Sam had said bothered him, but he couldn't pin down exactly what. Or why. Sooner or later, it would come to him. “What else did they tell you?”

“Only one thing we didn't already know. About four months ago, he spent time in New York organizing a garment worker's union. He was gone only five, six weeks at the most. That all sounded pretty normal. It's what happened once he got back to town the union men thought was odd.” Sam frowned, studying the toes of his shoes, thinking. He looked up at Gabe. “When Nureyev got back to San Francisco, he locked himself in his house for almost two weeks. Wouldn't see Mullaney or talk to anyone. Mullaney told all his men to leave Nureyev alone and not ask questions. Once Aleksei finally came back to the union offices, he pretended nothing had happened.”

“That is strange. If I had to guess, I'd say he was hiding.” Jack had a new notebook open on the desktop, scribbling notes. “I remember something in the
Examiner
about trouble over a union in New York last fall. Maybe we can find out if Nureyev was involved.”

Sam shrugged. “It's worth asking. I got to know some people when I visited New York City, reporters mostly. I'll send a few telegrams and see if the name shakes loose any memories.”

Aleksei Nureyev was smoke drifting on the wind, easy to see but impossible to grasp. Gabe was almost tempted to give up chasing after him or looking for anything unusual.

Almost. He couldn't shake the nagging whisper that they just hadn't found the right trail to follow. Gabe leaned back in his creaky swivel chair, rocking gently. “Send your telegrams, Sam. I'll contact the cops I know in New York and see if they've ever heard of Aleksei. Anything else?”

“I did find one other interesting piece of information. The dockworkers said I should take the time to talk to the waiters passing out handbills across the street from the Fairmont. Mullaney's trying to get a union into the hotel.” Sam frowned. “I struck up a conversation with one of the men handing out leaflets. Vlad was kind of an odd duck, young and very nervous about talking to me once I mentioned Nureyev's name. But he said that if I really wanted to know about Aleksei Nureyev, I should go see the priest at Holy Trinity Cathedral. It's the Orthodox church on Green Street. He says that Aleksei and Father Pashkovsky came to America together.”

Gabe rocked his chair forward and traded looks with Jack. “They sailed together from Europe?”

“From Siberia. Rumor has it that Aleksei paid off the captain of a fishing boat to take his party across the Bering Strait. The boat took them to a tiny Alaskan village called Wales.” Sam rested his long hands on his knees and cocked his head to the side, watching Jack and Gabe's reaction. “This kid, Vlad, goes to church at Holy Trinity. He was sure that Father Pashkovsky and Nureyev grew up in the same city and the two of them were boyhood pals. Now, this is the really interesting part. Vlad made it sound like the priest and Nureyev were one step ahead of being shot all the way to Alaska.”

“That sounds like another part of the story Mullaney told Gabe.” Jack tapped his pencil on the edge of his notebook. The pencil was new, just like the notebook. “My guess is it's all true. Sadie told me about the conversation she and Dee overheard in the Palace. Mullaney said that Aleksei had spent too much time running from the Bolsheviks. It all ties together.”

Sam shrugged. “Everything does tie together, but I'm not sure I trust that. The package is a little too neat.”

“Whether the story is true or not, I want to make a trip over to Holy Trinity tomorrow. If Father Pashkovsky did grow up with Aleksei, I want to talk to him.” He looked Jack in the eye, trusting his partner to give him an honest answer. Gabe was sure he already knew. “Is that too much for your second day back?”

Jack laughed. “Yesterday I'd have said no. That was before I walked across the squad room and down the corridor. Take Dodd or Butler with you. I'll start sending men out to question shop owners around Lotta's fountain and knock on doors. We might get lucky and someone saw those men going up to the roof. But the two of you need to promise never to tell Sadie I stayed here by choice. We argued for two days over my going back to work.”

A knock on his office door cut short Gabe's reply. Sergeant Rockwell pushed the door open and stuck his head in. “Captain, there's someone here to see you.” Lon glanced over his shoulder and hesitated. “He says you sent a telegram to his station commander in Chicago. He—he's come to claim his badge.”

Gabe shuffled through the papers in the tray sitting on his desk, finally finding what he wanted near the bottom of the stack. He'd read the telegram from the station commander in Chicago, but he didn't remember the officer's name. “Lieutenant Lynch?”

Rockwell glanced into the hallway again and nodded. “That's the name he gave, Captain.”

“Send him in, Lon.” Gabe stood and buttoned his coat before coming around to the front of the desk near Jack. Sam vacated the spare chair, putting it to rights and going back to his place near the file cabinet. All of them were eager to hear the explanation of how a Chicago detective's badge ended up on a dead man in San Francisco.

Gabe understood Rockwell's hesitation as a tall, distinguished-looking Negro came through the door, ducking slightly to keep from hitting his head. Not all his men knew other police departments around the country had Negro officers on the force. Lon would have found it strange that Lynch claimed to be not only a cop, but also a lieutenant. San Francisco was still behind the times.

Lieutenant Lynch looked to be forty-five or a little more, broad shouldered and well muscled, with dark walnut skin. He stood six foot five if he was an inch. His brown suit was rumpled from travel, but Gabe guessed it was better quality than any he owned. The same could be said for the Chicago detective's fedora.

Liberal amounts of gray frosted Lynch's tightly curled black hair. He leaned heavily on a cane, favoring his left leg. Hazel eyes swept over everything in the office, lingering for a few seconds on Jack's injuries before coming to rest on Gabe's face.

Wariness sat in Lynch's eyes, his expression guarded. He wasn't sure of his welcome. That he'd traveled all the way to San Francisco anyway said a lot about him.

Gabe admired that kind of courage, and in his mind there wasn't any doubt about Lieutenant Lynch's welcome. He smiled and stepped forward, hand extended. “I'm Captain Gabe Ryan. How was the trip out from Chicago?”

“The train was comfortable enough.” Lynch gripped his hand firmly, and a little anxiousness bled out of the way he held himself. “I don't usually travel this far, Captain, but I made an exception in this case. That badge belongs to me, and I wanted my shield back badly enough to come get it. My only regret is that the man who shot me in order to steal it is already dead. I was hoping to take care of that myself.”

Gabe looked the older cop in the eye, weighing whether Lynch meant that or not, but let the remark pass. He finished the introductions. “This is my partner, Lieutenant Jack Fitzgerald, and Samuel Clemens Butler. Sam is a reporter for one of the local papers, but he's also a friend. He's been helping out while Jack was laid up.”

Lynch shook hands with Sam and Jack in turn. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, gentlemen.”

Jack tugged on the ends of his mustache, openly studying Lynch. “You seem pretty confident the man who shot you is the same man that was killed in the explosion.”

“No offense, Lieutenant, but I'm damned certain. Not only did he have my badge, Amos Gary had my gun. He'd always been a petty thief, but Amos was moving up in the world. When I got too close to connecting him to a string of murders, he ambushed me. Stole my Colt and my badge, and left me to bleed to death in an alley.” Lynch pointed at the spare chair with his cane. “Do you mind if I sit? I couldn't get a cab to stop and the train station is a long walk from here.”

“I beg your pardon, Lieutenant. I should have offered you a seat right away. Please, be my guest.” Gabe went back to his own chair. He removed a small pasteboard box holding Lynch's badge from his top drawer, staring at the bent and scratched shield before sliding it across the desktop. If Gabe had any doubts about why Lynch had come, the possessive way the lieutenant wrapped his hand around the badge settled them. “Do you have any idea why Amos Gary came to San Francisco?”

“Someone hired him. I read about what happened here in the papers and how Amos got himself killed. He wasn't smart enough to plan that riot or get those men on the roof before the parade started. Amos was hired to make sure the men on the roof didn't live long enough to get arrested. He was good at following orders.” Lynch's smile was bitter, cold. “Shooting me wasn't his idea either.”

Jack had begun scribbling notes early on. He glanced at Gabe. “It might help all of us if you tell the story from the beginning. Amos might be dead, but if other people are behind what happened here, we stand a chance of catching them.”

“Chicago's a bigger town than San Francisco. The city's rougher too, especially since the war ended.” Lynch rubbed his thumb over the surface of his badge, as if making sure it was real. He cleared his throat and tucked the badge into an inside pocket. “It's fair to say there are twice as many people living in some of the neighborhoods.”

Sam moved closer to the desk. “Refugees.”

“The city fathers don't call them that, but you're exactly right, Mr. Butler. When someone started murdering refugees nine or ten months ago, no one in city hall paid much attention. No one but me and my squad.” Lynch rested his hands on the top of his cane. “It's harder to ignore murder when the bodies are on your doorstep. Even with all the new faces in my precinct, it didn't take long for me to figure out all the murder victims were from the Russian neighborhood.”

Gabe's heart sped up, but he'd had too much experience to let that show. “How were they killed?”

“Every way you can think of, Captain Ryan. We found people shot in their beds, and others who were strangled and stabbed. One man was thrown off the roof of a building.” Lynch looked him in the eye. He was a seasoned cop, but Lieutenant Lynch didn't try to hide his anger. “The worst was when the boiler in a tenement house blew up. Killed everyone on the first two floors, seventeen people including two little babies. I might have thought that one was an accident, but the gas to the building had been turned off for a month. Someone had rigged up a dynamite charge.”