Capacity for Murder (Professor Bradshaw Mysteries) (33 page)

The question threw him back to when Missouri first arrived in Seattle and stayed with them for several months. Henry had been in Alaska then, and Mrs. Prouty had been vocal about the impropriety of an unmarried woman staying in the home of a widowed man without a proper chaperone. That wasn’t an issue now, Henry was here.

“I’ll leave that to her. Where’s she been sleeping? My room?”

“Most certainly not! I put Henry in your room and she took his.”

“You know it’s not improper for her to sleep in my bed if I’m not in it.”

Mrs. Prouty held up her spoon. “You’ve had a rough time of it, Professor, so I’ll forgive your cheekiness. I must say, you don’t look as bad as I expected for a man who took a blow to the head, was thrown down a flight of stairs, and stuffed into a cellar. You’ll be the death of me yet, with these investigations.”

“Doctor Hornsby restored my health. Do I have time to run up to the university before dinner?”

“If you don’t stay long. Missouri’s there now.”

“I know.”

He felt her eyes watching him as he left the kitchen. He went upstairs to quickly change into a fresh suit and a few minutes later was pedaling toward the university. His muscles and injuries gave him small protests, but otherwise he found the ride invigorating.

Once on campus, he glided by the new red brick Science Building that had opened last year. He would be teaching one class there in the fall quarter, but since the engineering labs were still housed in the basement of the Administration Building, most of his classes and his office were still there, which pleased him. He’d grown fond of the place and always enjoyed his first glimpse of its castle-like edifice each day. Now, as he parked his bicycle beside the wide stone steps, he was hailed by President Kane and Joseph Taylor, a former professor of mathematics and astronomy, who had built the magnificent observatory. Both men had followed the newspaper accounts of Bradshaw’s discovery of the Vogler farm and the search for the gold.

While he filled them in on details not included in the paper, he noticed a box kite hovering above the young trees between Lewis and Clark Halls. He ignored the kite as long as he could but finally excused himself to continue on his intended mission.

The kite led him to the sweeping new lawn between the dorms. Colin Ingersoll manned the string, and Missouri stood beside him, head tilted back, nodding at what he said. Bradshaw couldn’t hear Colin’s words, only the deepness of his voice. What was he saying to her? Explaining the physics that kept the kite in the air? Impressing her with his ideas for the future of flight? Charming her?

He stood watching them. They looked good together. Perfect, really. They matched the way salt and pepper shakers match, different but belonging together. A set. The same age, same youthful hope shining in their faces. He had a flash of vision of them together, getting married, having children, Colin becoming famous for daring feats of flight and Missouri curing the masses with her remedies. He could see clearly their disordered, chaotic, happy life.

No.

He would put a stop to that. If there was one thing he had over young Colin Ingersoll, it was his ability to plod over the potential for happiness wherever it existed.

With a smile, he headed down the path. Missouri looked toward him. A grin spread over her features, lighting her eyes, warming his heart. She moved away from Colin and stepped toward Bradshaw’s outstretched arms.

Author’s Note
and Acknowledgements

I find great pleasure in weaving Professor Bradshaw’s fictional whodunits with the factual details of life in the Pacific Northwest in the early days of the twentieth century. For this book, I especially enjoyed my time in the North Beach area of Washington State where my fictional Healing Sands is located. From the bustling town of Ocean Shores to the cozy town of Pacific Beach, the idyllic community of Seabrook (with a great little bookstore, Blind Dog Books), and historic Moclips with its Museum of the North Beach, I found inspiration in the people and places.

I discovered two sanitariums once existed on the North Beach, and there may have been more. Sanitariums and health resorts were all the rage back then. At Iron Springs, where there is now a lovely resort with echoes of history, a doctor named Chase ran a modest sanitarium and even dabbled with electrotherapeutic devices. And a bit later further north, the Moclips Sanitarium once set up shop, but other than a fabulous old photograph of a small weathered shack, I found no details on that establishment. The first Moclips Hotel, which opened in 1905 when the railroad at last arrived, boasted that the location was ideal for restoring health and beckoned tourists to come rest and play. Thousands came. The hotel burned down that same year, was rebuilt on an even grander scale, and thousands more came. Sadly, this second hotel was destroyed in 1911 by a massive storm, and all that remains today is a small plaque honoring its proud past.

The Moclips Depot of the Northern Pacific Railway opened July 1, 1905. For several decades the train served the area, but with the rise in popularity of the automobile roads were built, and eventually train service was discontinued and the rail lines removed. Hopes and fears for development weren’t fulfilled. More than a hundred years after Professor Bradshaw’s visit, the area is quiet, minimally populated, and still provides a wonderful escape. I owe a huge thank you to Kelly Calhoun of The Museum of the North Beach for a fascinating couple of days, digging into the rich resources of the museum. They are working to build a replica of the Northern Pacific train depot, and when complete, it will be the museum’s new home.

Electrotherapy has a long and interesting history. From the first harnessing of static electricity to present day physiotherapy, electricity has been explored as a method of healing and observing medical conditions. In those early years when there were few regulations regarding treatments, legitimate men of medicine experimented with therapies we today know to be either ineffective or harmful, but their pioneering work led to important discoveries. Of course, quack electrotherapy medicine has always thrived. Open just about any popular magazine or newspaper from the mid-1850’s until today, and you will likely find within the pages an advertisement for some revolutionary electric or magnetic device guaranteed to melt away pounds, eliminate pain, or restore virility. Then, as now, the legitimate electrotherapeutic devices are more likely to be found in medical facilities or used by trained alternative healers.

For the historical details of electrotherapy in this book, I am especially grateful to Jeff Behary and his Turn of the Century Electrotherapy Museum. I spent many hours exploring and mining his website and scheming with him on the phone, and he provided the photograph of the 1915 Mcintosh autocondensation chair featured on the cover of this book. Bill Beaty, friend and electrical engineer at the University of Washington, was once again a valuable resource as the plot developed, and he applied his keen eye to the electrical and electrotherapeutic portions of the manuscript, giving great advice. Throughout the writing year, John Jenkins and all the folks at the SPARK Museum of Electrical Invention in Bellingham, Washington, continue to be a constant source of information and inspiration.

I named my sheriff after the real Sheriff Graham, who arrived in Gray’s Harbor in 1884. A respected and beloved pioneer, over the years he did it all, from logging the rich forests to building a volunteer fire brigade, and serving as town marshal, sheriff, prison guard, and finally serving with the Aberdeen police force. He died at age eighty in 1942. I don’t know if the real Sheriff Graham would have worn his boots in the main house of Doctor Hornsby’s Sanitarium, but I intended no disrespect by having my fictional one do so. My thanks to Dann Sears and Byron Eager of the Aberdeen Museum of History for their help researching this remarkable man.

Captain Bell, too, has a real-life counterpart who headed up the Northwest division of the Secret Service. In the days before the founding of the F.B.I., the Secret Service was in charge of investigating federal crimes. In 1906, Bell quit the service to start his own private investigation company, but sadly, a brain hemorrhage took his life just two years later. His obituary in the November 16, 1908, edition of the
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
said he “gained the reputation among his associates of being a fearless man, and for unusual bravery and success in bringing to justice a number of important federal criminals.”

Several threads of the plot of
Capacity for Murder
are based on real events that occurred during this era, but if I elaborated here I would give away too much. If you would like to know more send me an email (
[email protected]
) with the words “CAPACITY scoop,” and I’ll be happy to fill you in.

For the scenes in this book referring to phosphorus and gentian, I gave my characters the information that would have been available to them in their time and relied upon several historical scientific publications including the
Pharmaceutical Journal
by the Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (1878), the
Manual of Qualitative Chemical Analysis
by C. Remigius Fresenius (1897), and
A Manual of Legal Medicine
by Justin Herold (1898). Turpentine is no longer a recommended antidote.

Every writer should be so lucky to be treated with such respect and guided so expertly as I am by my editors, Annette Rogers and Barbara Peters. I’m equally grateful for my publisher, Jessica Tribble, everyone at Poisoned Pen Press, and my friend and agent, Jill Grosjean. And to my early readers Barbara Ankrum, Jesikah Sundin, Torie Stratton, Jeannie Dunlap, Wendy Wartes, Mari Bonomi, and Aurika Hays—I am so very grateful for your taking the time to test-drive this novel and find the bumps in the road. A huge thank you to my heroes, Kelly and Larry (Mom and Pop) for spreading bookmarks across the greater Puget Sound area, selling books where no books have sold before. For emotional support, I am blessed with great writing friends and groups, and I’m especially grateful, honored, and humbled to belong to the Seattle7Writers.org. You all inspire me! And Larry at Barnes & Noble in Woodinville, Washington—so pleased to count you as a fan of Professor Bradshaw. Thanks for your support!

And my love and thanks to my husband and son for putting up with an often-distracted wife and mom. You make everything in life worthwhile.

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