No Pity For the Dead (4 page)

“Do you think she's going to ask?”

Yes, she did. Once the police came to question Frank. “We shall see tomorrow.”

“I hope she doesn't.”

“So do I,” said Celia.

*   *   *

W
ell, well. Frank.

The silver-plated plaque hanging next to the front door of Martin and Company reflected the streetlamp's muted glow, which picked out the names engraved upon its surface—
JASPER MARTIN; ABRAM
RUSSELL; FRANK HUTCHI
NSON.

Neither Owen nor Celia Davies had mentioned that Frank was one of the partners. Would he have decided against taking the case if he'd known? No. Not in the least.

But he had hoped like hell to never see Frank's face again.

“Mr. Greaves,” shouted his assistant, J. E. Taylor, running up the street through the fog. “Sorry I'm late. Just got your message.”

He'd put on his gray policeman's coat in a hurry, the black buttons misaligned with their proper buttonholes. Beneath his hat, his hair was slicked into place, and he'd recently received a close shave. Nick sniffed the air. Definitely shaving lotion. Lime, to be exact.

“Did I interrupt your evening plans, Taylor?” Nick asked him.

Taylor, pale and freckled, flushed. “I was at Maguire's with a lady friend. The Martinetti Troupe was there along with some female gymnasts doing the Niagara Leap. It was a lot of fun.”

“My apologies, in that case.”

“What're we doing here?” Taylor looked over at the front door of Martin and Company. The local cop, whom the property owners along this stretch of Montgomery paid to patrol, was making a show of guarding the door and stared back at Taylor. An effort coming a little too late for this particular property. Nick had asked the man if he'd seen anyone suspicious fleeing the store, and he'd fumbled for an answer, explaining
that he patrolled this stretch of road only at the top of the hour. Nick decided the property owners paying the man weren't getting their money's worth. At least the local had known how to reach Martin to tell him to get here as quickly as possible.

“We're here, Taylor, because earlier this evening Owen Cassidy discovered a body in the cellar of this building.”

Taylor whistled, his breath misting in the damp air. “The Irish kid who hangs around Mrs. Davies' house?”

“The same.”

“Who's the dead person?” Taylor asked, stepping over to the front windows to try to get a look around the closed shades. The local glared at him. “Sheesh, I'm with the detective there. I'm not going to disturb anything.” Taylor flashed his badge, and the man relaxed.

Inside the main floor office area, a light bobbed. The coroner, who'd arrived a few minutes earlier, had brought a beat cop with him to poke around.

Taylor returned to where Nick stood at the edge of the sidewalk. “No idea who it is,” said Nick. “Let's go in and see what Dr. Harris has learned so far.”

“Um . . .” Taylor swallowed. “You need me to go see the body with you, sir?”

Taylor had a weak stomach; a corpse buried in a cellar wouldn't be all that fresh, and it would be far more than Taylor could handle.

“I can manage on my own.”

“What do you need me to do, then, sir?” Taylor felt his coat pockets, looking perplexed. “Shoot. I left my notebook at the station.”

“Here. I brought it with me,” said Nick, handing it over. He recounted what Cassidy and Mrs. Davies had told him.

“They interrupted a man trying to dig up the body?” asked Taylor.

“Yes,” said Nick, “and in the morning, I need you to locate the fellow who'd been working with Cassidy. A laborer named Dan Matthews. Bring him into the station and see what he has to say. He convinced Cassidy to help him look for gold in the basement, and I want to know who gave him that idea. As well as who he thinks the dead body belongs to, because it seems he recognized the man. He might also have some ideas about who might've wanted the man dead.”

“Searching for gold in somebody's basement? Ain't heard that one in a while.” Taylor chuckled, licked the tip of the pencil, and jotted down details.

“Next, I'd like you to learn everything you can about the partners at Martin and Company. Details about their business dealings. Who their enemies might be. Especially Frank Hutchinson's enemies.”

“Who's he?”

“A man I used to know very well,” Nick said, massaging his old battle wound. “I haven't seen Frank since I returned to San Francisco after the war, but I doubt he's changed.”

“Sir, should you be investigating a crime that involves a friend of yours?”

“He's not a friend.”
Not anymore.
“And I'll be impartial, Taylor. Don't worry.”

Which was a whopper of a lie. Because Nick hadn't any doubt he'd be happy to prove that bastard Frank Hutchinson had been mixed up in murder.

“I'll see you in the morning, Taylor,” said Nick, going inside the building. The beat cop had gone to do his poking around someplace else, taking the lantern he'd been using with him and leaving the room in shadows. Nick hunted around for matches and had just lit a kerosene lamp on one of the desks when Dr. Harris came up from the cellar.

“There you are, Greaves,” he said, wiping his hands on the dark cloth he carried everywhere with him.

The coroner was an immaculately groomed man with graying whiskers and clear eyes, but his clothes carried the sickly sweet stink of death. Nick wondered how a man ever got used to that smell; it always reminded him of the battlefield.

“What have you learned so far?” asked Nick.

“From my examination of what's left of the body, the victim was a middle-aged man of average build,” said Harris. “In addition, the corpse is missing part of his right arm, just below the elbow. Should help identify him.”

“Old cut? New?”

“It looks to be an old cut. Maybe from the war. Like so many others.” Harris glanced at Nick's left arm. The doctor knew about Nick's wound, the one that had nearly cost
Nick
an arm. “Our victim appears to have been killed by a deep penetrating wound to his abdomen. Likely made by a knife, but the opening has deteriorated to the point I can't be sure. The implement probably nicked his aorta, if the blood vessel wasn't severed completely. I'll know more after my autopsy tomorrow. But I expect he bled to death pretty quickly.”

“There must be stains around from all the spilled blood.”

“Not that I've noticed. The murderer must have spent time cleaning up.” Harris finished wiping his hands, folded his cloth,
and tucked it into a coat pocket. “I also think the corpse has been there a little while. Can't be positive, but I'd estimate a week or two, possibly longer, given how chilly it is in the cellar. The coolness slows the decay, just like storing meat in an icehouse. I wouldn't want to swear to it in court, though. Just telling you that to help you with your investigation.”

“Thanks, Harris.”

The coroner nodded. “I've covered the corpse and am going to leave him here overnight. No point in calling for the wagon at this hour when it's just as cold down there as it is at the undertaker's. I'll have a jury look at the body first thing in the morning. A technicality, since it's obvious the man was murdered,” he said, crossing the room to retrieve his hat from where he'd left it hung on a nail stuck in the wall. “You've got another good one here, Greaves. Rich businessmen and a rotting corpse on the premises. Ought to be interesting.”

“Glad I can always count on your sympathy.”

“What are friends for?” Harris asked, chuckling as he took his leave.

Collecting the lamp, Nick went down into the cellar. He was hit by the smell and lifted a sleeve to his nose. Taking shallow breaths, he raised the lamp. Its light flickered across the uneven surface of the walls, the piles of coal and stacked bricks, mounds of dirt, and a pair of shovels.

Harris had re-covered the corpse with a length of oilcloth. The killer must have used it, rather like a shroud. Nick wondered why he'd even bothered. To help mask the stink of a decaying body, maybe? On the edge of the material was a smear of dried blood, perhaps from the murderer's hand, caked with sandy dirt that had clung to it when it had still been fresh and wet. There
didn't look to be much more blood on the cloth, though, which suggested to Nick that he'd stopped bleeding long before he'd been wrapped up like one of those Egyptian mummies traveling professors liked to talk about.

Nick swung the lamp, illuminating the corners of the room. The workers had finished bricking only a small section of the cellar, and as Harris had said, there weren't any dark stains from spilled blood on the ground. Killed elsewhere, then, and brought down here to be buried.

But killed where and why and by whom?

He stared at the bundle dragged partway out of the hole in the ground. “Well, mister, guess that's what I'm here to find out.”

*   *   *

“M
rs. Davies, may I ask you a question?” asked Grace the next morning, seated across from Celia in the hired hack.

Grace had never before requested permission to ask a question, her boldness either refreshing or shocking, depending upon one's definition of propriety. Celia had an idea what Grace's question would be.
Gad
.

“Of course you may,” said Celia, steeling herself against the inevitable. “What is it?”

“Something bad has happened, hasn't it?”

“Why do you say that?” Celia asked lightly, as if Grace's question were quite the silliest thing to ask.

“Because you wouldn't have rushed me through breakfast if you weren't anxious to get me out of the house,” she replied. “And we heard what Owen said last night. The parlor doors aren't really all that thick,” she added, rather mischievously.

“Yes, Grace, something bad has happened,” said Celia as the
hack slowed. They had arrived at the Hutchinsons' home on Stockton, a simple house compared to some of its neighbors' but possessing lovely filigree work trimming the center gable, a pair of fine bay windows, and a large garden. The property emanated refinement and tranquility; the latter would soon be horribly disrupted. “But I will let your stepmother explain, once I have spoken to her.”

Grace appeared triumphant. “I was right! I told Bee that Owen's discovery meant the body was at my father's office. She wouldn't say so, but of course that's what it means! Owen's working there, isn't he? And you'd want my stepmother to explain to me because that's where the body was, and our name will be in every newspaper . . . Holy mackerel!”

Oh dear.
“Jane will explain what has happened. That is all I shall say for now.”

“She never tells me anything, though.”

“It would be improper of me to do otherwise.”

The driver opened the carriage door. “Then I'll ask Papa. He'll tell me,” Grace announced, and clambered down to hurry through the gate in the white fence fronting the street.

Celia stared after her. Would Frank be any more forthcoming than Jane, when he'd possibly fought with the dead man? He would be a suspect and would need to be circumspect.

Now, Celia, you are leaping to conclusions about Frank's culpability.
If arguments naturally led a man to murder, San Francisco would be a town devoid of males. The two incidents were likely not connected in any fashion.

“Ma'am, are you gettin' out or what?” the driver asked her.

“My apologies.” Celia climbed down and fumbled through her reticule for the fare. After she paid the driver, she noticed a
man walking along the street toward downtown, intently scribbling in a notebook. He had to step quickly to avoid colliding with a clutch of young boys kneeling on the pavement, engrossed in a game of jacks. The lads jeered him as he passed, their cries not nearly as angry as the look on Jane Hutchinson's face. She stood in the front doorway of the house, glaring at the man's back. Grace had disappeared inside.

Celia went through the gate and up the front steps. “Who was that?”

“A journalist. From the
Elevator
.” Jane Hutchinson was younger than Celia, with a lively demeanor that had attracted Celia from the moment they'd met. Right now, however, she was far from lively, instead fretfully clinging to the ruffles of her peach-colored morning gown. “He was asking the most ridiculous questions about Frank's work. I sent him away . . . after I gave him a piece of my mind for spreading gossip.”

“What did he say?” Celia asked, though she knew the reason a journalist would have come here. It was only surprising how soon he'd arrived.

“That there's a dead body at Martin and Company. Which is the ugliest gossip—”

“It is not gossip, Jane,” said Celia, taking her friend's elbow. “Come inside. We need to talk.”

*   *   *

“M
erciful heavens,” said Jane, crumpling the embroidered linen handkerchief she held in her lap. Celia had convinced her friend to sit in her parlor, rather than immediately rush off to find her husband. “It can't be true.”

“It is true, Jane. I saw the body myself.”

“What does Grace know?”

“That Owen Cassidy found a dead body. I did not admit to her where he found it, though,” said Celia. “I thought it best she hear the news from you or her father.”

“Perhaps I shouldn't say anything to her,” said Jane. “Grace is only fifteen. She'll be upset.”

In the hack, Grace had not appeared upset in the least by the prospect of a dead body in the basement of her father's office building. “You must, Jane, before she hears the news from an acquaintance who might not be tactful.”

“Especially some of
our
acquaintances. They might relish the scandal a bit too much.”