Bones of the Barbary Coast (19 page)

"So, what were you going to tell me about the wolfman? You said you had some research ideas for me?"

Ray looked startled at the question, a man who had come back suddenly from some place far away. "Right. But I think it's my turn to say 'another time.' It can wait. I've already kept you up way too late. Give me a call if you want—I'm in the book."

His smile looked strained as he put down some money, stood, started to walk away, caught himself. "No, actually, there is one thing you might want to think about. Something that struck me in a book I was reading. This old Inuit man up in Canada, a famous hunter, was talking about living among wolves. He said, 'It's not the wolf you see that's dangerous. It's the wolf you don't see. The wolf you don't know is there.'''

He gave her a look as if this was vastly significant and then spun away and was gone.

20

S
HE WASN'T EVEN going to try for the wolfman's ghost tonight, Cree decided.

She unlocked the door and stepped into the dark house, surprised at how easy and welcoming it felt, how nice to be back, even at a quarter to one in the morning. It had been a troubling day, and disappointing on the research front, but an idea had occurred to her that suggested one slender possibility, too. It was about something Hernandez had mentioned when she'd visited the house on Tuesday: Yes, the heavily wrapped furniture scattered through the upstairs had come with the place and was period stuff; for these historical houses, he said, coming with a few original furnishings greatly enhanced the value. He and his crew had wrapped up the five larger pieces and a handful of old photos—just a few old portraits and the typical scenes that people put on their walls to provide a touch of historical ambience.

Of course, there was no guarantee that any of the furniture or curios actually descended from Hans Schweitzer's time, and she certainly didn't expect to find a photo of the wolfman. So what was she looking for? She wasn't sure. A name, a date, a telling photo, a letter? The peripheral dynamics of the case—Ray and Bert's troubled history—were increasingly disturbing, and she felt an urgent need to make progress, to close the investigation out before anything went awry. But she needed one more link, one more piece of information that would open up new avenues of inquiry. Maybe some accidental conveyance from the house to her, from past to present, would make the difference.

There was only one piece in the first upstairs bedroom, a looming, shapeless mass of plastic and duct tape that she assumed was a wardrobe. She put her flashlight in her teeth and began peeling tape. Hernandez had done a good job: It took ten minutes just to be able to lift aside the front layers. When she'd loosened enough to open the doors, she stood under a rustling canopy of plastic and played her light over every section of the interior, looking for a maker or owner's label, graffiti, anything. But aside from the scent of old wood and a whiff of mothballs, it was empty. She probed for a false bottom or hidden compartment, but found no indication of one. It took another five minutes to tape the coverings back in place.

She peeled a bureau in the next bedroom in the same way, and got a little thrill when she opened the top drawer and found several glassed frames separated by bubble wrap. The items behind the glass were clearly quite old. Predictably, the first was a photo of a cable car, with a few faces looking from the open arches of the roof and a uniformed conductor posed uncomfortably at one end. There were no notations on the photo or the back of the frame.

She carefully studied a grainy photo of what looked to be a prequake downtown commercial building, but found nothing more rewarding than a flavor of the time and place: wide-skirted women on the sidewalks, a horse-drawn streetcar, men in bowler hats.
Market Street, 1883,
according to a handwritten notation on the back.

The last was a photo portrait of some dowager dressed in Victorian finery, one hand in her lap and the other resting on a Bible placed strategically on a marble-topped side table. Her bulldog face pouted in a haughty expression, and the hand on the Bible was crusted with rings; the inscription on the back of the frame told Cree she was
Elvira Huntington Pierce,
1887.
Huntington had been a famous name in that era, Cree recalled, one of the "Big Four" richest and most influential men in the city; she wondered if Elvira was one of that clan.

There was nothing in the other drawers. Cree wrapped up the bureau again, sneezing in the dust that sifted from the plastic. She wondered if she'd be better off going to the basement after all, then figured she'd follow through and give the pieces in the master bedroom a look.

The young woman's face riveted her the moment she lifted the photo free of its bubble wrap. The portrait was one of three nestled in a magnificent rolltop desk in the big bedroom—a small photo in an oval mat not much bigger than Cree's hand; the gilt frame looked worn and nicked.

Cree puzzled at the face, trying to decide why it seemed so familiar. Not the hair, which was pulled tight around her head and probably gathered in a bun in back; not the round forehead and plain straight nose. The resemblance to someone she knew or had encountered teased her until she decided it was less the anatomical features of the face than its expression: open, genuine, somehow frightened yet determined; in the eyes, a keen, questing light not entirely suppressed by a desire to harmonize and serve.

Oh, her,
Cree realized.
The person in the mirror every morning.

She smiled at the woman, intrigued, then flipped the frame over to see if there was any inscription on the back.

Lydia Jackson Schweitzer, 1888.

So Hans had married, and, unless there was a remarkable coincidence here, he'd married the girl next door.

She studied the face more closely, searching for details that might be instructive. Lydia looked to be in her mid- or late-twenties, but her stiff pose and the straight, serious line of mouth made it hard to tell. She wore only small, discreet earrings, not the ostentatious medallions Elvira Pierce apparently preferred. Cree couldn't see enough of her clothing to make anything of it; the background was out of focus, anonymous.

Not much to learn beyond the name. And a sense of the person, which was surprisingly profound.

Jackson and Schweitzer, two houses, a marriage. She wasn't sure just how that might be of use to her research, but she felt a rising excitement as she looked at the other two items. There was nothing of interest, but the feeling stayed with her as she put the photos away and rewrapped the desk. Could Lydia be the piece she needed, the link to the past, to the wolfman?

Lydia Jackson Schweitzer,
she kept thinking.
Who were you? What do you
have to tell me? Did you have anything to do with the wolfman we found in your
basement? Did you even know he existed?

II
CREATURES IN PERIL

21

WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 1889

M
Y NAME IS Lydia Jackson Schweitzer, and I am writing what is to be the secret accounting of my days. I begin this record after many years of quiet deceit because events have taken such strange turns of late, and such urgency, that I feel compelled to give voice to what I have witnessed. It must be secret, because though what I shall record should surely be generally known, it would bring shame and difficulty to those I love if they were aware of the whole round of my life. I do love my husband and believe he loves me in return; I know he is a good man who has made great accommodation for my rebelliousness and contrariety; likewise, the men and women of our church. But I can speak to none of them about these things, lest I shame them and they come to abhor me.

Conceivably I could say nothing to anyone: I could write nothing, perhaps, and bear no risk of discovery for my unusual circumstances and thoughts; yet I am also sure that if I do not tell it in some way, if I do not let some of it out of me, I will surely burst from the fullness of such a life, such events. So I speak to these pages, in solitude and secrecy, and do not burst but only overflow.

It is my belief that we are each given a unique and singular life; we are each in many ways the sole inhabitant of a unique and singular world. No one can know, from a face any more than from the exterior of a house, what transpires on the inside; yet there is, there must be, some merit in knowing, that we may each feel less alone and gain wisdom of our own life by glimpsing another's. So I record these events, writing with the outlook of a castaway seafarer who rolls a message into a bottle and flings it into the waves. There is some comfort in imagining that perhaps one day this secret accounting, having traversed a broad sea, will be discovered and read by a sympathetic eye, and be of interest or benefit to its recipient.

I have decided to write only in the lower parts of the house and only in the very early mornings, before Hans or Cook awakens. I have always been an early riser, despite my late evenings, and given the day's undertakings it is the only hour when I can safely expect solitude. I would prefer, I think, to write from the lovely bay window of our bedroom, where I could look down the hill and where the great scope of the water and mountains would inform my thoughts with some special insight; or perhaps from my old window in the other house, where the street makes an interval and opens the Golden Gate to view. But I am not discontent writing in the pantry. From its rear-facing window, our little garden is a lovely microcosm, all perfect and proportionate despite its diminutive size. A wedding garden, I consider it, for the fine stonework and plantings were Hans's gift to me upon our marrying, and the sight of it never fails to warm me.

The pantry is also convenient, because it is in the cavity beneath the lowest cabinet drawer that I have decided to secrete this journal, most convenient if Hans or Cook should awaken early. I must write in snatched moments, an ear always attentive to the sound of someone stirring. Being so old, Cook makes a good shuffling and puffing when she starts her day, and Hans is so large he creaks the floorboards above. But in case either should appear unexpectedly, I have taken the additional precaution of writing in a ledger that is identical to the one in which I keep our household accounts (also full of deception), one I can easily snap shut upon their arrival and incur no suspicion.

"Up early," I would say briskly, "and thinking of the shopping. We will be needing molasses, I think." Or such.

I am not a deceptive person by nature, and in fact I abhor the world's deceptions, which seem to me the source of much cruelty and error. And yet I came to our marriage with years of practice at it. It is as if there are two of me, one kept for the world's viewing and one kept out of sight. At times I take pleasure in imagining that Hans has glimpsed through to the secret one, and his real love, just as secret, is for her. But it is more likely that the woman Hans married was only Lydia Jackson, the proper niece and ward of his respectable neighbor, Mr. Franklin Jackson, formerly of Mobile, enterprising importer of cotton and wool cloth, active in church and civic affairs; Lydia Jackson, the only child of Franklin's brother Richard, who perished with his wife in the tragic ferry accident of 1873; Lydia, adopted by her kindly uncle.

That Lydia must have appeared to him as a young woman of good deportment and education, and, like Hans, deeply faithful and active in the church. When my uncle died, three years ago, leaving his house to me, I no doubt seemed a promising candidate for wifehood and motherhood: Though perhaps past the bloom of youth at twenty-six, I was, as he thought, financially self-sufficient, educated, Christian, holding property, in good health, and virtuous.

Within a year of my uncle's death, Hans began courting me, and did so with sincerity and persistence and what struck me as a charming old-world courtliness, derived perhaps from his German accent, his formal and slightly foreign manners. And, in truth, though I was not close to my uncle—I had deceived him as I deceive Hans and the church fathers—his death was deeply upsetting to me. He had, after all, sheltered me; he had seen that I received the best schooling a woman might in this new city; in his own way, he had cared for me. The loss of my uncle, my last mooring in society aside from the church, was difficult; when Hans made his intentions apparent, the prospect of living with another human being, after a year alone in that empty house, had great appeal.

I knew Hans first as our neighbor who dined with us from time to time, and so I knew his history. He had come here from a small German village in 1859 to seek his fortune. Only a decade earlier, as a child, he had heard that in California any man could become rich just for the effort of picking up gold nuggets from the ground; and with the famous discovery of the Comstock Lode, silver promised wealth for all who came. He was the son of a rigid patriarch and to this day maintains that aspect himself, and yet he must have been a rather daring and rebellious young man, for he was only eighteen when he left his home and sailed to America. The real circumstances of the silver mines disappointed him acutely, and he retreated, penniless, to San Francisco to pursue whatever work he might find. In this he was like many thousands of others; but, unlike most, he had apprenticed as a stone mason and therefore was highly skilled at a trade much in demand. Being also upright of character and a man of powerful determination, he did very well. After several years as a laborer, several more as a fine mason, he had gained sufficient reputation to hire helpers, whom he trained to high standards; within a dozen years, he had become a prominent contractor, operating several crews of men. Within a few more he was wealthy enough to buy the large, fine house in the fashionable district of Pacific Heights, next door to Franklin Jackson and his respectable, orphaned ward.

In intimate moments, when he lies beside me flushed with the heat of his exertion, he looks upon me with a possessive glow of pride in his eyes. He tangles his rough fingers in my hair and confesses that he considers me a fortunate match. For a foreigner of modest birth who had come with the silver rush, consorted with the roughest of men, who began in San Francisco as a menial laborer, a giant, rawboned man upon whom even tailored suits have never hung comfortably and whose massive, leathered hands will forever betray his beginnings, young Lydia Jackson seemed a prize.

Which is not to say his feelings are limited to the proprietary, as opposed to the passionate. He does love me, far more than I deserve, and I love him in return. Once, he admitted that he was drawn also to my solitude, which he feels he shares: An only child, with all my relatives dead, I share his experience as a man whose family was long ago left behind in the old country.

"Now you are my only family," he told me soberly, "and I am yours." Then, growing bold, humorous, and affectionate: "At least until we make ourselves a flock of fine children!"

At that my heart threatened to break, for again I was confronted with the awful extent of my deception.

Yet it is to protect him, as much as myself, that I deceive him. Were he to know the truth about this prize, I am afraid his love would falter; for he is a moral man and would find the truth deeply repugnant. He also loves his respected position, and takes pride in it, as well he ought, and would correctly judge that what I am and what I do daily jeopardizes it.

Yes, dearest Hans—whose heavy footsteps I now hear upon the floor above and from whom I must hide away my confessions for another day. I will go to him and meet him on the front stairs, where I will take one of those great, rough hands in my own and lead him gratefully to his breakfast.

THURSDAY, MAY 9, 1889

Despite my urgency, I was not able to write this morning, for Hans awakened early with a stomach upset and asked me to attend to him, which I was pleased to do. When at last he went to his office, I concocted errands for Cook that have left me alone in the house for some minutes before my other obligations intrude.

I am anxious to relate the events of two days past, and in fact spilled them out onto the page moments ago. Then I read my own scrawl and saw only its insufficiency. I could hardly read or understand the words, let alone grant them credibility, and ripped out the page to begin again with less impatience. For this castaway's message, I must first record my latitude and longitude, as well as I can discern them. That is, I must compose this recounting so it can be understood by one unfamiliar with any aspect of my life; unfamiliar, also, with this city and that district, because unless one has seen it first-hand, I doubt anyone could truly know what I do, with what sort of people I work, or in what sort of place I spend my days.

Our occasional visitors from Ohio or Indiana express astonishment at the excesses of the Barbary Coast, for which their wholesome towns have no equivalent. One Pennsylvania minister thought it an exact replication of Sodom and Gomorrah; another, educated in the fine arts, said it recalled to him the representations of Hieronymous Bosch. Even visitors from New York and Chicago, no strangers to squalor and depravity, express shock at what they see on their chaperoned carriage rides through the Devil's Acre—and this in daylight! Were they to witness it at night, as I do, their sentiments would be vastly amplified. (Even so, Deacon Skinner smiles as he recounts their responses, for he is pleased that a short carriage ride, with no other persuasion, begets such generous donations in support of Merciful Shepherd Mission!)

My duties at the mission occupy me every day but Wednesday and Sunday, beginning at one o'clock. By then I shall have completed the housekeeping, done the purchasing if I have not assigned it to Cook, completed my correspondence, given the gardener his tasks and the washerwoman hers, taken my lunch, and perhaps discussed Scripture with a group of other wives of the congregation. When these errands are complete, already dressed in the many layers a proper woman must wear, I cover myself with a mouse-gray, hooded cloak and leave the house.

There is a Pacific Avenue cable car, but I prefer the Union Avenue line, which is more direct and allows me to enjoy the steep downhill walk. If the weather is fine I swing my arms and raise my face to the sun, taste the sea-air, and delight in the broad freedom of the sky. When the wind is from the right quarter, it rises beneath my skirts and billows them wide, and I become aware of myself as a naked woman and take secret pleasure in it. I imagine the delight it would bring to wear just my skin, not only in the bath or in Hans's arms but in the sunshine, moving about freely. Then I chasten myself: What, are even my clothes a deception? Am I no different from the poor whores I care for, wanton and careless? Yet I cannot but think there are different kinds of nakedness; surely while some are corrupt and indecent, others are innocent and good: We are, after all, born that way and surely enter Heaven that way. But about these things I cannot speak to Rev. Wallace or any church member, not even to Deacon Skinner, though I know him to be a forgiving and fair-minded man.

I bear down the pavement in my broad skirt like some gray ship under full sail, and swing my arms as if I were a bird about to take flight. I skip, too, and frame in my mind mischievous arguments against the disapproval of the church matrons, were they to see me: Gravity bids me descend, Gravity is certainly the Lord's law; should I not surrender joyfully to it?

There is always something new to observe on these walks, because this is in so many ways an unfinished city. In the downtown districts, we boast fine public buildings and noble homes, orderly streets, and every system of public convenience. Yet here on the periphery, wherever one turns one sees new development, making of roads and civic places, houses being built. Industry is everywhere: digging, leveling, filling, streets furrowed as cable lines are laid, drays loaded with soil or building materials, the redwood bones of buildings rising airily amid the clatter of hammers. Our neighborhood has only recently become a popular district, and many of the lots are still empty, or just now being dug for construction. Here is an open hillside still furred with its pelt of native grasses, brush, and wildflowers; here, abruptly, a solitary fine house in an island of perfectly tended garden, lawn, and paved walks; there, a row of several narrower houses built close upon each other, illogically, as if there were not expanses of untouched ground on all sides. It makes for a motley and ever-changing landscape.

At last I come to the relative flat of Union Street. Some days I pay my nickel for the cable car, taking great pleasure in the wind in my face, which sustains my illusion of flying. On other days, I meet Deacon Skinner, whose route brings him near and who comes with his carriage at our appointed time.