Fallen Women (4 page)

As Jonas lifted her trunk from the carriage, Beret walked to the front door, reaching for the brass knocker. Before she could lift it, however, the massive door swung open, and William, the Stantons’ butler, bowed and said in a solemn voice, “Miss Beret, it is a pleasure to welcome you to Denver once again.” Beret smiled, not so much at the formality but at the fact the Stantons employed a butler, an extravagance she felt sure was the work of her aunt. Beret’s father, Henry Osmundsen, had refused to hire such a servant, remarking that it was a sad day when the host and hostess themselves did not open the door to guests. Beret wondered if her uncle felt the same way and was only indulging his wife in employing a factotum.

“Thank you, William,” Beret replied. After the long and tiresome trip, she felt welcome and warm. Stepping into the Stanton house was like going home.

He lowered his voice. “I wish you were here for a more pleasant occasion. This house is a dreary place of late.” There was a touch of sadness to his words, making Beret think that Lillie had charmed the servants as she did everyone else. “Mrs. Stanton has readied your room, and Nellie will draw you a bath. Then she will unpack for you.” He nodded at the trunk Jonas was carrying upstairs.

“Has Judge Stanton arrived?”

“Not yet. I believe Mrs. Stanton will fetch him on her return.”

Beret nodded and started up the staircase, realizing then that she was exhausted, so tired that she had to hold on to the railing to keep herself upright.

She bathed, listening through the door to Nellie hum as the girl unpacked Beret’s trunk and put the contents into drawers and the massive wardrobe. When she heard Nellie close the bedroom door, Beret dried herself and put on a nightdress that Nellie had laid across the bed, a huge walnut piece with a carved headboard that reached almost to the ceiling. The bed had been turned down, and Beret decided to nap until her aunt and uncle returned. But her head hurt and she needed one of her powders, so first, she went to the wardrobe for the small case of medicine she had tucked into the trunk.

She searched through the dresses hanging on pegs to find it. Beret stopped when she spotted a blue silk gown. She herself had bought it for Lillie just the year before. Beret remembered that Lillie had worn it with only an ermine jacket and diamond earrings that were shaped like stars, one earring a little different from the other because it had been damaged and a diamond replaced. “I was the princess,” Lillie had said when she returned in the early morning from a ball. She’d been too excited to wait until breakfast and had awakened Beret. “Oh, dearest, I wish you could have been there. The evening lacked only your presence. It was such a triumph, and the earrings set off the dress splendidly. Oh, you were right to tell me anything more would be too bold. You should have seen the Hartford girls looking like hoydens with their diamonds—paste, if I’m not mistaken.” Beret had taken her sister down to the kitchen, where she built a fire and prepared cocoa, and the two had gossiped and laughed until long after sunup.

Beret lifted the blue dress until it touched her face, and she tried to feel Lillie’s warmth, but the dress was cold and stiff. Still holding on to the thin fabric, she stood back and stared at the clothes in the wardrobe. Beret had brought only a few dresses with her, but the wardrobe was full. The clothes were Lillie’s. Like the blue dress, many of the gowns had been purchased by Beret. She felt the heavy velvet of a second gown, the fine cashmere of a coat. And she knew that the last person who had used the room, who had sat at the dressing table and stared into the mirror as she arranged her hair, who had slept in the bed, was Lillie. Beret put her head into the blue dress, which smelled of her sister’s lily of the valley perfume, and wept.

*   *   *

Beret had expected to take only a nap, but she slept until the next morning, and when she dressed and went downstairs, she found that her uncle had already left for the courthouse.

“He must consider me terribly rude not to have been awake to greet him,” Beret said to her aunt, slipping into a chair and nodding at the butler, who held out a coffee cup for her approval.

“Nonsense. He considers you tired and in great sorrow. Both of us were glad that you slept. I imagine you have had little enough of sleep since you received our telegram. Lord knows, neither have we.”

Beret reached out her hand. “You did not deserve this.”

“No” was the reply. “Neither did you.”

“Or Lillie,” Beret said.

“Yes, Lillie most of all.” Beret’s aunt dabbed at her eyes with her napkin. “I suppose you will want to see her grave.”

Beret looked up, startled, then felt ashamed of herself. She had been so anxious to talk to the police that she had not thought of visiting her sister’s resting place. She had planned to go to the police station that morning, but now she reproved herself. Her aunt would consider it inexcusable to confer with the police before paying her respects to Lillie. The police visit would wait until the afternoon. “Yes, I should like to do that,” she said.

“I thought as much. I have told Jonas to ready the carriage. We shall go after you’ve breakfasted.” She rose. “I have taken the liberty of inviting an old friend to tea. You remember Emily Merritt.” Varina paused when William came into the room and set a plate with eggs and toast in front of Beret.

“Of course.” Beret remembered her well, a woman shaped like a potato who talked incessantly and was unlikely to leave before the lamps were lit. She wondered if her aunt was purposely delaying Beret’s trip to the police station. Still, there was no hurry. The visit could wait until tomorrow—two days after her arrival. After all, Lillie was dead. Nothing could change that.

*   *   *

Jonas was standing at attention beside the carriage when Beret and Varina emerged from the side of the house, and Beret wondered how long the little man had waited. He was an odd fellow, she thought, molelike, sullen, with small, narrow-set eyes. He was twisted, with one shoulder higher than the other, perhaps broken in a fight or accident. He was like many of the men she encountered in the slums of New York, their stories almost too vile to be believed. She wondered how her aunt had acquired such a groom.

As the two women left the house, William handed Beret a bouquet of lilies wrapped in brown paper. As it was too early for such flowers to bloom, he must have purchased them at some expense from a florist. But of course, Varina would have ordered them. Beret raised the bouquet to her nose, but there was little scent. Lillie had loved the flowers she had been named for. Of course she did, Beret thought. Her sister liked anything that called attention to herself. Still, Lillie did favor them, with her white skin, her hair the color of the stamens. And Beret had pampered her sister, ordering the expensive blooms in the winter to please her. Lillie had reciprocated, decorating the house with lilies on Beret’s birthday. Beret had thought it odd that Lillie would choose her own favorite blooms instead of Beret’s, which were tulips and daisies, but nonetheless, Beret appreciated the gesture. Now she wondered if these would be the last flowers she would give to her sister.

Her aunt made small talk in the carriage, but when Beret didn’t reply, Varina stopped, and they rode in silence to the cemetery, which was near the South Platte River. Jonas stopped the conveyance, and the two women got out, walking through dried weeds to a plot of ground that was surrounded by an iron fence. Beret held the gate for her aunt, and the two went inside and stared at the mound of bare earth. Then Beret knelt and laid the creamy white lilies on top of the dirt. They had not brought a jar of water to set them in, and Beret knew the flowers would be scattered by the wind. But they would die anyway from the cold. It mattered only that Beret had brought them.

“When summer comes, we will have grass planted, and flowers. Your uncle has ordered a stone, a simple one. We thought a larger one would be ostentatious,” Varina said, adding, “Under the circumstances.”

“Yes,” Beret muttered.

“I suppose we should have asked you if you wanted her buried here or the body shipped to New York. Perhaps Lillie should have been interred near your parents. But we thought to take care of the burial quickly. We believed it would be easier for us to make the decision, what with the way things stood between the two of you. And of course, we wanted to keep the circumstances of Lillie’s death from you.”

Without looking at Beret, Varina reached out a hand, and Beret took it. “You acted out of kindness,” Beret murmured, and of course Varina had. Beret felt grateful for this strong woman beside her.

As she gripped her aunt’s hand, Beret realized Varina had told her little about Lillie’s stay in Denver. “You have not told me the reason Lillie left your home,” she said.

Varina shivered and dropped Beret’s hand. “I can’t speak of it, Beret, for the truth is, I don’t know. I was as shocked as anyone to learn Lillie had gone to that … that place. Perhaps your uncle has better insight. You must ask him.”

“I’ll ask him tonight.”

Varina shook her head. “Not tonight, I’m afraid. Your uncle has one of those dreadful political meetings where they smoke cigars and drink too much. I imagine it will go on until all hours. It is at his club, and most likely he will spend the night there. He sends his regrets. It distresses him that he has not yet welcomed you, but it can’t be helped. I told him you’d understand.”

“Of course,” Beret said, although she was disappointed. It seemed strange to her that she had come all this way to find out about Lillie’s murder and would not see her uncle for two days.

Chapter 3

Now, Beret sat in the dingy café with Detective McCauley, thinking about that awful time when she had read in the
World
about the murder of the Denver prostitute and knew the girl was Lillie. She held her coffee cup in both hands, staring into the murky liquid, ignoring Mick.

“Miss Osmundsen,” Mick said at last, startling her.

Caught up in thoughts of her sister, Beret didn’t answer for a moment. Then she pushed her emotions aside and said abruptly, “There is work to do, Officer. Shall we talk of Lillie’s murder?”

Mick nodded and called to the waiter to bring more coffee. He waited until the brew, black as printer’s ink, was poured into their cups, leaving an oily residue on top, which he stirred into his coffee with a spoon, then added sugar. “Sugar kills the taste,” he explained. Then he asked bluntly, “Do you want
all
the details of the killing?”

“Yes, all of them.” Beret didn’t, of course. She didn’t want to know how Lillie had suffered, but she had no choice.

The detective was silent for a moment as if collecting his thoughts. “Lillie Osmundsen was murdered last week at Miss Hettie Hamilton’s House of Dreams, a whorehouse, er … rather … a brothel, on Holladay Street. She was stabbed eight times, with a pair of scissors.”

“Scissors?”

“Scissors.”

“One of the other girls killed her with scissors?” Beret looked at him with black eyes. “Did she leave them behind?”

“We think the pair was your sister’s, taken from her sewing basket.”

Beret gasped and gripped the edge of the table until her knuckles turned white. She had given Lillie a sewing basket one Christmas and remembered choosing the scissors, a long steel pair with a sharp tip. “I can identify them,” she said.

“That’s not necessary.” Mick took a sip of coffee and grimaced, for even with the sweetening, the coffee was indeed foul. “To answer your question, no, we don’t suspect one of the other girls. There are eight of them employed at the House of Dreams, and they were out that day. Miss Osmundsen was alone in the house—except for the killer, of course. Miss Hettie was the last to leave and the first to return. It’s possible one of the girls sneaked back, but I think that’s unlikely. Whoever killed your sister was strong. The wounds were deep. One of them went halfway through her body.” He stopped as if expecting Beret to collapse, which she might have done if she had not held firmly to the seat of her chair. He went on, “It’s unlikely a woman had that strength, although who knows, when two whores go at each other as they sometimes do.” He started to grin at the picture, then stopped. “Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t mean to call your sister—”

“It’s what she was,” Beret said evenly. She would not let the detective see how much the word hurt her. He would not want to work with her if he thought she was soft.

Mick nodded. “She tried to defend herself but she was overpowered, probably caught by surprise.”

“A robber, then?”

Mick blew out his breath as he paused. “The other officers think so. But only her earrings were taken, diamond stars, Miss Hettie said, and there was money left on her dresser. There was no evidence that anyone forced his way into the house, so it’s possible your sister let the killer in, knew him. Besides, why would a thief stab her so many times? Once or twice would have done the job.” He shook his head. “The crime was too vicious. The killer was angry, out of control, as if he hated her.”

“Perhaps he was a thief who despised women,” Beret suggested. “Lillie might have reminded him of someone he’d known and hated, his mother perhaps. Maybe his wife. Men are crazy like that sometimes.”

“I’ve heard of theories like that. There are doctors in the East who say such things. It makes sense, I suppose.” Mick narrowed his eyes at Beret. “You know something about crime, then.”

“Something.” Beret picked up her cup and gazed at the coffee. She was used to poor food, but this coffee was so foul that she wondered if she could stomach any more of it.

Mick watched her. She glanced up suddenly and caught him, and Mick reddened, but he pushed forward. “And you know about prostitution.”

“Should I not? Wouldn’t you be surprised if I were innocent of such knowledge?” She looked directly into Mick’s eyes, noticing for the first time that they were green, a shade like unsettled water. Then she had a humorous thought, and she gave a slight smile. “If you are wondering, Sergeant, I have not myself been what the newspapers call a soiled dove. Nor have I worked in any capacity in a house of assignation.” Another woman might have been horrified at such an assumption, but Beret found it amusing. It took her mind off her sister for a moment.