The Bohemian Murders (7 page)

Quincy, laconic as always, was herding the Holsteins into the barn. “Dispatch come from the Coast Guard,” he called out as soon as he saw me. “Stuck it on the door.”

“Thanks, Quincy,” I called in return. Lifting my skirts I ran up the walk. My heart was pounding, not so much from the climb plus that final burst of speed as from sheer excitement. We had not had a storm since Hettie left, but if that ominous sky did not portend a storm I could not imagine what would!

The dispatch, which would have been delivered by a Coast Guardsman on bicycle from the Monterey station, said that their cutter returning from Point Sur (approximately twenty nautical miles south) had reported gale-force winds headed up the coast. I dumped newspaper and bag at the foot of the stairs and charged up to the watch room with its panoramic view. The ragged, rocky projections of Point Pinos were directly ahead of me, a northwesterly direction; to my right or eastward the vast curve of Monterey Bay dipped farther than my eyes could follow; and to the left or south lay the shallow curve of Spanish Bay and the jutting outline of Point Joe. The scene was breathtakingly bizarre. To the left was darkness, to the right was light, with Point Pinos the line of demarcation … but not for long. In this battle of
dark versus light, the dark was winning. One could watch its progress either in the sky or on the water, where waves responded to the creeping darkness overhead by turning black in their troughs, and spurting forth whitecaps. A flock of seagulls, trying to fly southward, encountered a wall of wind that brought them to a standstill in midair, wings flapping frantically to no avail.

I confess a sort of sneaky fascination with wild weather. As a child, I thought a storm on the cape was better than any trip to the amusement park—including a ride on the Ferris wheel, which in my childhood was everybody’s idea of the ultimate thrill. But this approaching storm would have to thrill me later. For now, I had work to do. I took the procedures book from the shelf and read through the storm protocol, then proceeded to follow it.

The main thing was not to let the light go out. The same earthquake that rocked San Francisco in April of last year had jangled the Fresnel lens and sent the lamp’s flame soaring, but the only real damage had been to the tower structure. A crack opened up in the round wall, which had since been rebuilt with reinforced concrete. I checked the oil tank, which continuously supplies the lamp by means of a pump, and the water tank in case there should be a fire. Both were full.

Quincy had already closed the exterior shutters on the keeper’s quarters, and he had secured the horse and Hettie’s Holstein cows in the barn. I saw him out at the edge of our little oasis of grass, walking slowly around the storage building and making it secure. I caught his eye and waved, and he waved back as he started across the grass toward his lean-to beside the barn.

The wind was tearing me to pieces—it was most exhilarating! I went back into the lighthouse, put on the kettle, and tidied my hair while waiting for the water to boil, then fixed myself a cup of tea, which I took up to the watch room. There by the light of a kerosene lantern I read every word of
The Wave
and watched the storm come on. Long after total darkness fell and I could no longer quite watch, I listened. The wind howled around the tower and pushed against its walls like a frenzied
thing. The sea crashed so violently on the rocks that I was glad this lighthouse had acres of dunes around it. The foghorn regularly emitted its doleful sound even though it was not precisely foggy. And the ships stayed away. Not a single little light bobbed on the bay.

In the midnight watch I climbed into the lantern itself. Shielding my eyes, I looked out into the wild night. It was a hypnotic experience to follow the broad white beam, which seems to turn, an impression produced by a metal drum that revolves around the constant, stationary light. Hypnotic to catch glimpse after glimpse of foaming waves, strands of sand borne on the wind like ghostly, gossamer scarves, scraps of uprooted scrub scudding over the dunes like fantastic crabbed creatures. And in the midst of it all I thought again about the Poor Drowned Woman, for I had found not a mention, not a single word about her in the newspaper. She might as well not have existed, for all anyone seemed to care.

“At least we found your body before this storm,” I said aloud, and then I made her a promise: “Even if we never know who you are, I will see to it that you get a decent burial.”

The storm had done no damage to speak of, and three days later I survived cooking dinner for Misha—not to mention consuming it—with no damage to myself or to him. In fact the evening was quite like old times, until I mentioned my concerns about the Poor Drowned Woman. He refused to discuss her beyond reiterating that she could not have been from Carmel because none of Carmel’s residents was missing. The fact that I wanted to pursue the matter, and he did not, only pointed out how far apart we’d grown. He left soon thereafter. My great personal victory was that I neither burned the beef nor cried myself to sleep that Sunday night.

When an entire week had passed with no news whatsoever of the Poor Drowned Woman, I left my morning’s ledger and asked Quincy to come in and have a cup of coffee with me. Which I suppose was presumptuous as it was his coffee to begin with, but anyway he came.

To my great surprise, he took off his hat at table. I had never before seen him without it. Ducking his head, he scraped long gray locks behind his ears. I busied myself with putting a few cookies on a plate, to give him time to compose himself.

When I sensed he was ready I put the plate on the table and sat down myself. “Quincy,” I began, “I need some advice.”

He looked a bit wary. “I dunno, Miss Fremont—”

“Really, Quincy, if I call you Quincy, and I do all the time, you must call me simply Fremont. When you say ‘Miss’ like that, it makes me feel like somebody’s maiden aunt!”

He grinned and picked up his coffee mug without responding.

I picked up mine, too, and said, “I hope you don’t mind the mugs. I know Hettie always used china cups, but I prefer a mug myself.”

Quincy grinned wider and said, “You’re a caution, Miss Fremont, and no mistake.”

I sighed and rolled my eyes in an exaggerated manner.

Quincy said, “Sorry, I forgot. Just Fremont. This is good coffee, Fremont.”

“It should be. You made it yourself.” We both laughed, and I got back on subject. “Seriously, Quincy. You’ve lived here in the Grove for a long time, haven’t you?”

“Yep,” he nodded and slurped a bit.

“Do you have any friends on the police force?”

He reared back in his chair, looking at me as if I’d suddenly grown two heads. “Police?”

It was perfectly clear he didn’t consider the police as potential friends, so I tried another tack. “How about the coroner, Dr. Bright? Do you know him?”

“Nope.”

As I have previously observed, our Quincy is a laconic
fellow. I tried again. “Have you any idea where Dr. Bright would have taken the body of that woman we found off Point Pinos a week ago? As far as I have been able to ascertain, there is no morgue either here or in Monterey. Would they take her as far away as Salinas?” Salinas, thirty miles away on the other side of the Santa Lucia Mountains, is the county seat.

Quincy scratched his head, his gentle eyes going all soft with thought. Eventually he said, “Don’t think so. Think the coroner took her over to Community Hospital—that’s what usually happens to people that drown in the bay. He hasta do that whatchamacallit—” “Autopsy?”

“Right. Before their people can come take ’em away for burying.”

“That’s just it, Quincy. I don’t think anybody could take that poor woman away, because nobody knew who she was. And there hasn’t been one single thing in the newspaper about that body being found. Don’t you think that’s odd?”

He looked at me solemnly and slowly shook his head. Without a word.

“Well?” I sounded impatient. Not being the laconic type myself, after a while it wears thin. “Come on, Quincy. You know something more, I can tell. Talk to me!

“Dunno as I should,” he mumbled down into his coffee mug.

I got up and poured more coffee for him. No sugar or cream—he drank it black. As do I.

I sat down again and leaned toward him. “Please?” It took him a while to make up his mind, and while he was doing it he looked everywhere but at me. The clock ticked. The wind, which blows variably but constantly out here on the point, whispered at tiny cracks along the window frames. Finally Quincy graced me with his dark eyes.

“I heard tell,” he said, “that she weren’t no better than she should be. So it ain’t fitting that a lady like yourself should be concerned about her. Mrs. Hettie
would say as how the thing to do is leave well enough alone.”

“From whom did you hear this?” I had tried myself to get people in town to talk about the subject, with no success.

He shrugged his thin shoulders. “Folks at church. You know how they talk.”

I didn’t; I am probably the only halfway respectable female in Pacific Grove who does not go to church on Sundays. Hettie had advised me to pick a church and start going, if not for religion then for the social contacts, but this was one piece of her advice I hadn’t heeded. I would feel like a hypocrite, and hypocrisy is something I cannot bear in others, much less in myself. I persisted. “Did the folks at church happen to mention the woman’s name?”

Quincy tugged at his earlobe and said to my left shoulder, “Them kinda women don’t use their real names. But anyways, nobody said nothing ’bout a name.”

Under cover of the table, I impatiently tapped my foot. “By any chance do you happen to go to the same church as Euphemia Wells?”

He seemed startled and reared back again. If Quincy were a turtle, most likely he’d have retracted his head into his shell. “No s’ree bob!” he declared with his Adam’s apple quivering.

I surmised that Quincy was just as awed by Euphemia as everyone else was reputed to be. Since he said nothing further, I decided it was time to take pity on his obvious discomfort. “I only asked because Euphemia was there when the ocean rescuers brought the woman in, and at the time she implied something similar, while also admitting that she did not specifically know her. I fear that Euphemia Wells and others like her may be impugning a dead woman’s reputation without one shred of proof.”

“Say what?”

“Telling tales, Quincy, spreading rumors about a poor dead person who cannot defend herself.”

He shook his head. Sadly, I thought. “They say as how Miss Euphemia has some very definite ideas. And
what she says goes in the Grove. That’s just the way it be.”

I stood up decisively. “You’ve been very helpful and I do appreciate it. I shall have to go into town an hour earlier than usual today. Can you take the eleven o’clock watch?”

“Sure can. I’m always here, Miss—er—Fremont, always glad to help out. Mrs. Houck, she had her social engagements and her committees and such. You have your other work. I reckon as that’s important.”

I thanked him and got ready to leave. I wasn’t going to work, at least not right away, but Quincy didn’t have to know that.

Dr. Frederick Bright was not only the coroner, he was also the pathologist at Community Hospital. I discovered this salient information by the expedient means of looking him up in the telephone directory at the public library. I decided against calling ahead for an appointment, and hopped on the first streetcar going down Lighthouse into Monterey.

One transfer and some small confusion later, I strode confidently into the hospital pathology suite as if I knew exactly where I was going and had every right in the world to be there—which was hardly the case. I’d chosen to wear my good suit of olive silk gabardine and had put my hair up, which I don’t usually bother doing but it does make me look older. Therefore, one would hope, more authoritative. This pathology suite was a rather depressing place: no windows, rather dark, and at the moment it felt empty as a tomb. Also it smelled, an odd, acrid odor I could not quite place.

Through a partially open door on my left I saw long tables topped by laboratory equipment, beakers and vials and such, and high stools on which the laboratorists—or whatever they are called—might sit. At the moment there was no one in the room. Two doors on my right were closed. I drew near the first and listened, hard, for the sound of voices behind it, but I heard nothing. Likewise at the second door. I went to the end of the hallway
down the center of this suite of rooms, where a double door bore two words, one on each side:
AUTOPSY THEATER.
How macabre!

I hoped I would not have to attend any performances in this theater. For one thing, the unpleasant odor (which I mentally tagged “eau de post mortem” to keep up my spirits) was stronger inside the doors. I let them close behind me and looked around, even though the large room was as empty as the rest of the suite seemed. Who knew when I would have an opportunity to examine such a place again?

As a theater they would go bust, for there were no seats. So I supposed it was just a quaint medical custom to call the place where autopsies are done a “theater.” No seats, but a lot of shelves with a lot of large glass bottles containing things I did not want to look at too closely. In the center of the room, a metal table with holes in it like a colander; under the table, a drain in the floor. Near the table a two-tiered cart, also of metal, with some objects upon it resembling instruments of torture. Against the opposite wall, a pair of large sinks. Hoses. Buckets. Mops. Aprons. Scales.

I shivered, not so much because the place was rather distasteful but because I was physically cold. “The dead probably prefer it chilly,” I mumbled, briskly rubbing my arms. So where were they, the dead?

With a
whomp!
the double doors exploded inward and I jumped at least a foot. I also emitted an involuntary yelp and lost no time scrambling out of the way. I had wondered where the dead were, and now here was one of them rolling right through the doors! Shrouded beneath a sheet was the unmistakable profile of the human form.