A Dying Note Read online

  “She left for home soon thereafter. You did not see her in passing?” Without waiting for his response, she added, “Otto Klein then came by, with the most distressing news.” She sank onto a chair by the table, staring at the bristling bouquet.

  “And what news is that?”

  “I should say first, there is some doubt about all this. The information comes from Otto, remember. Early today, someone, who might or might not be Jamie Monroe, was found dead. Murdered.”

  “Dio Mio!”

  The shock in Nico’s voice was plain. Inez looked up and saw his face was nearly as pale as Carmella’s had been. “Where?”

  “In the Mission Creek channel by Long Bridge.” She looked back down and touched one of the fern fronds. “Whether Jamie or someone else, it was apparently a young man.”

  “Perhaps one of the men who work on the wharves or in the ships?”

  “A longshoreman told Otto he thought it was Mr. Monroe, although apparently the face is badly disfigured. There must have been some reason he believed so. The clothes? Something else? In any case, I would think the man would have known if it was one of his kind.”

  “But Jamie Monroe? That area is not a place for a proper young man to be. If it was him, what was he doing down there? I wonder if anyone is asking those sorts of questions.”

  Inez raised a hand, palm up. How like Nico to think of reputation and little else. After a moment’s silence she said, “Nothing is known for certain right now. Perhaps Jamie…or whoever this is…was killed elsewhere and brought there, dumped, as it were, in the sewer. Perhaps his killers thought his remains would drift out into the bay. It’s horrible. Treating a human being as if he is a piece of garbage. A tragedy, all around.”

  She sensed Nico passing behind her and turned in the chair to view him. His face had regained its normal hue and he appeared appropriately somber. “You are correct, of course, Signora Stannert. I spoke hastily and not with compassion. It is a tragedy, no matter who it is. And it sounds as if the identity is in question. Perhaps we will never know who he is, but that does not lessen the injustice.”

  The back door swung open, admitting John Hee. He looked surprised at finding them there, then the surprise vanished, leaving only a polite affect. He removed his large brimmed hat and bowed to Inez. “Good morning, Mrs. Stannert.” A deeper bow to Nico. “Mr. Donato.”

  A small, sturdy man of Chinese extraction and indeterminate age, John Hee wore his hat pulled low and a tailored American-style suit. With his long braided queue tucked under the collar of his jacket, no one on the street would give him a glance, as long as he didn’t look up.

  “Ah, John!” Nico seemed glad of the diversion. “The Imari vase met a violent end. I will see if I can find another for Signora Stannert’s flowers. And here,” he gestured at the musical case on the table, “is a clarinet that requires your attention at once. William Ash needs it for an engagement tomorrow.”

  John Hee opened the case and inspected the clarinet. “Many bent key.”

  “Yes, yes. So, if you please.”

  John looked from the flowers, to Nico, and, finally, to Inez. Inez wondered how much he had heard before he opened the door. Anything? Nothing? It was clear he had his own opinions and thoughts that he was keeping to himself. In any case, John knew all the young men who spent time in the store, so Inez felt she should tell him, if Nico wouldn’t. “Mr. Hee, we just heard from Mr. Klein that someone bearing a resemblance to Mr. Monroe, the pianist, was grievously murdered. We don’t know the identity for certain. Mr. Monroe has not been seen for a day or two, and did not return to his boardinghouse last night.”

  John’s gaze roved from Inez to Nico and back again. “A young man, met with violence? The young, so careless. It is said, he who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.”

  “A platitude to ponder while repairing the clarinet,” said Nico. He glanced out into the showroom floor. “I believe I see our first customer of the day peering through the front window. Has the sign been turned from CLOSED to OPEN? Not yet? I shall do so.”

  He strode out into the front of the store, his hard leather soles snapping briskly against the polished pine floor.

  The noontime church bells began their discordant ringing, vying with each other. Inez wanted to clap her hands over her ears, but abstained. John seemed oblivious to the clamor. He stayed where he was, clarinet in hand, eyes on Inez. He finally spoke, barely loud enough to be heard over the racket. “You fond of young pianist, Mrs. Stannert?”

  Inez paused, considering. It was not as though she was a stranger to violence. In Leadville, men were cut down in their prime with disturbing regularity, and women too. But since coming to San Francisco, she had grown distanced from such events, even though the nearby Barbary Coast and Chinatown had their dark sides, their secrets, their attacks, murders, and suicides. In her world within the music store, she had remained apart from all that.

  Until now.

  Inez sighed and stood. “I suppose so.”

  She picked up the flowers. As she did so, the sharp scent of rosemary stung her nose, mixing with the softer notes of moss and China roses, the color playing riot with the magnolias and maple leaves. She tried not to assign any hidden messages to the jumbled whole from the language of flowers. Most likely, Nico simply pointed to the most ostentatious, extravagant arrangement that caught his fancy and told the flower vendor, “That one.”

  She continued, “I’m quite fond of him, actually. Of all of Miss Donato’s gentlemen callers, Mr. Monroe has, or had—oh dear, I do hope it isn’t him—a certain spark about him. A certain passion and drive. So, yes, I am fond of him.”

  John’s gaze didn’t leave Inez. He remained still, as if absorbing her every word, re-forming it somewhere deep inside and pondering how to respond. His fingers moved lightly as if playing a silent tune on the broken clarinet keys. At last he said, “Some not feel as you do, Mrs. Stannert.”

  His words—neutral in melody, cautious in harmony, the “L’s” pronounced as usual with exceeding care—caused a prickle to crawl up her neck. “Not all? Are you saying Jamie Monroe has enemies?”

  The entrance door at the other end of the building squeaked and the bell overhead gave out a dispirited clunk.

  Nico’s voice echoed from the front of the store, equal parts admiration and charm, “Buon giorno, madam! How may I help you?”

  A woman answered, “Pardon me. I’m looking for Mrs. Stannert.”

  That voice—lilting, flirtatious, just a hairsbreadth away from improperly bold. So familiar, but from a time so far away. Inez’s breath caught, and for a moment, she was dizzy, as if the floor tilted eastward, tumbling her into her past.

  It can’t be.

  Not here.

  Not now.

  Her grip on the flower stalks tightened, crushing the stems.

  John silently slid from the room, case and clarinet in hand. A twin set of footsteps approached, Nico’s no-nonsense tread in counterpoint to the mincing tick-tick of a feminine shoe.

  Fighting dread, Inez composed her expression into one of polite anticipation and commanded her feet to move. She advanced to the door leading to the showroom, just in time to see John step behind a long counter and vanish behind the curtain hiding the repair room. She thought fleetingly that she would have to corner him later and persuade him to say more, before all of her attention focused on the woman advancing toward her.

  Mrs. Florence Sweet, otherwise known as Frisco Flo, madam of one of the most prestigious “pleasure palaces” in Leadville, adjusted her gray-colored chapeau, trimmed with long ruby feathers. She slipped the looped handle of her closed, rose-colored parasol over her wrist and placed one rose-gloved hand on Nico’s arm, bestowing a smile that had sent many a better man to his knees in supplication.

  Inez had not seen Flo since leaving Leadville over a year ago. Yet, here she was, bold a
s brass. Unannounced. Unexpected. Far from her Colorado home.

  Flo sashayed through the music store, where Inez had staked her claim on building a new life. To Inez it was as if her earlier reminiscences of Leadville had conjured up a ghost.

  Nico was saying to her, “It is always a pleasure to meet one of Signora Stannert’s clients, Signora Sweet.”

  Flo smiled demurely and twisted one of the blond corkscrew curls framing her face with a finger. “Well, it certainly is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Donato. Although I don’t know that I would describe myself as one of Mrs. Stannert’s clients.”

  “But that is only because Mrs. Sweet and I have yet to discuss the terms for piano lessons for her daughter,” lied Inez smoothly. “Hello, Mrs. Sweet. I wasn’t expecting you.”

  Flo didn’t bat an eye at Inez’s extemporization and invention. Instead, she looked at the flowers in Inez’s hands, then at Nico and the empty vase he held by his side. Baby-blue eyes wide, she turned to Inez and said, “Oh dear, Mrs. Stannert. Are you otherwise engaged? I do hope I haven’t interrupted anything. My time is limited, and I absolutely must speak with you regarding those…lessons.”

  Flo had no daughter and had certainly not traveled from Colorado to California to inquire about music lessons, but the urgency in her tone rang true.

  Aware of Nico’s inquisitive gaze, Inez tried to mask her unease.

  A silent business partner of Flo’s lucrative Colorado endeavors, Inez had always attempted to keep involvement with the madam at arm’s length. Events in Leadville had not always allowed for such niceties. Since the ink had dried on their mutual contract, their lives had become considerably entangled on a personal level, with Inez coming to Flo’s aid during tough times, and Flo helping Inez out on a matter of some delicacy. Even so, their secret business partnership had remained just that—secret.

  Still, Inez knew far more than any proper lady should know about how Flo ruled her empire. Flo never left Leadville, not trusting her volatile employees and clientele to be governed by any but herself. It made no sense for her to come gallivanting out to San Francisco on a whim, much less make such an open visit to Inez, here, in her new life. What could be so important, Inez wondered, that Flo would risk the trip, the possible slide in profits, and the exposure of her most loyal, at-a-distance business partner?

  In other words, what was she doing here?

  “No, no, you haven’t interrupted anything.” The whole morning had been such a strange compilation of interruptions, sorrows, and surprises—starting small with Antonia’s school woes, and progressing to Jamie’s death and Carmella’s reaction. Inez hated to think what Flo’s arrival portended. Trouble upon trouble.

  Chapter Five

  Inez applied a matter-of-fact tone to mask her concern, as one of Flo’s girls would apply a layer of cosmetics to mask her pockmarks. “You have met Signore Donato? He owns the store, and I manage its day-to-day functions.”

  “Ah, Mrs. Stannert, you are much more than a manager!” Nico interjected. “You saved my modest commercial enterprise, which I will admit was sadly neglected before you arrived.”

  Inez allowed herself a tight smile. Neglected didn’t begin to describe the initial state of the original store when she first came upon it. The place had appeared run-down, almost deserted. Inside, to left and right, stacks of sheet music had slumped on top of glass cases. The cases were a jumble, holding small vases, statuary, and objects she assumed fell under the “curiosity” label of the store. The chaos abated along the plastered walls, with flutes and other woodwinds racked in rows, and a cluster of brass instruments facing off from the opposite wall. A music store selling both sheet music and instruments was unusual, and she had been intrigued by the possibilities.

  In the center of the showroom floor, an exquisite Persian rug had claimed space for two dark green love seats, several unhappy ferns in vases of Oriental extraction, a trio of cellos resting against supports, and what looked to be a Chinese gong. At least all the instruments had seemed to be well taken care of. They were just about the only objects in the store that were not coated with a fine film of dust.

  “You transformed this establishment,” continued Nico, “bringing a feminine touch to the decor, a practical eye to the bottom line, and imposing a welcome domestic order and calm. Your attention and care frees me to pursue my own engagements and appearances, without worries. You are the muse of the music store!”

  Inez wondered if Nico’s extravagant praise was merely his way of making sure the ever-alluring Mrs. Sweet would indeed sign up her “daughter” for lessons and continue to return to the store.

  “Thank you for your kind words, Mr. Donato.” She held the bouquet out to him and said, covering her words with a blanket of entreaty, “May I please beg a favor of you? Would you help me by taking these lovely flowers and finding some place on the showroom floor for them while Mrs. Sweet and I attend to business? They are gorgeous, Nico, they should really be displayed for all to see. What a joy it will be for me to look at them while I’m on the floor this afternoon.”

  “Of course, of course!” Nico gallantly took the blossoms from her before turning to Flo and saying, “I hope we shall have the pleasure of meeting again, Signora Sweet.”

  Inez responded before Flo could answer. “You might if her daughter decides to come for lessons. Which we will determine once she and I have the chance to talk in private.” Inez closed the door gently but firmly in his face to stop further discussion.

  Inez leaned her back against the door.

  “Well, well, flowers, goodness, Mrs. Stannert, you didn’t waste any time once you left Leadville and settled here in San Francisco.” Flo smirked. “Nico, is it? And on a first-name basis, are we?”

  “No, we are not.” Inez crossed her arms. “At least, not in the manner that you are insinuating.” She took a moment to examine the madam. The palette was clearly rose. Beneath Flo’s unbuttoned double-breasted cashmere walking coat peeked a long, slim polonaise casaque of heavy rose-colored silk, silver buttons gleaming up the front and disappearing under a fringed white silk scarf tied in a soft bow over a fluted collar. The hem of the polonaise overskirt swept up to a point just above the knee and sported piping and a wide ribbon over silk chenille fringe. The dove-gray silk underskirt flaunted rows of puffing over a knife-pleated flounce.

  For her part, Flo was clearly giving Inez the once-over as well. “Mrs. Stannert, have you been scrubbing floors?”

  Inez glanced down at her skirts, tellingly damp around the knees and hem. “I do what I have to do these days, Flo.”

  “Well, no need to tell me that. We all do what we have to do. But still. Scrubbing floors? That’s a long way from lording it over the silver barons and millionaires at the Silver Queen Saloon’s gaming table.”

  “At least it’s my choice,” said Inez coldly.

  Flo wrinkled her nose. “And why the solemn outfit? Black and gray are good colors for you, but you look like you are in mourning. Surely you’re not mourning your divorce to that charming-but-no-good husband…pardon, former husband of yours.”

  “Flo!” said Inez sharply, then lowered her voice. “I cannot entirely trust that there is not someone hovering on the other side of the door, ear pressed to the wood. Please, keep your voice down.” She tugged on the handle behind her to be sure it was shut tight, then locked the door and stepped away. “As for mourning, it’s nothing of the sort. It simply makes life far easier if everyone here thinks I am a widow, recovering slowly from the death of my dear husband, who is buried in Colorado.”

  “Buried is right,” said Flo under her breath. “He’s hardly got space to breathe these days, and certainly has his hands full with the second Mrs. Stannert. She keeps him coming and going, so to speak. And they have a little son. Did you know that? Takes after the mother.”

  A painful twinge thrummed through Inez, composed of sorrow and another emotion�
�envy?—that she didn’t want to inspect too closely. In any case, the last thing Inez wanted to hear about was her former husband’s new marriage and subsequent progeny.

  Flo continued blithely, “And you, dear partner? Am I correct in guessing that, in some nearby boardinghouse, there is a squalling bundle of joy being fed poached eggs and Robinson’s Patent Barley?”

  Inez tightened her lips and said nothing.

  Flo raised an eyebrow. “Are you loathe to admit that I was right in thinking that when you left Leadville you were enceinte? Boy or girl?”

  Inez forced herself to say, “It was not meant to be.” Memories from ten months previous intruded, unsolicited, unwanted. A hotel in Sacramento. Sudden pain. Sudden blood. A local doctor, unspoken questions lurking behind his clinical solicitousness. Inez, teeth clamped until her jaw ached, pushing down the moans so as to not to make matters worse for Antonia, barred from the room by the doctor. Unspoken questions dammed up behind Antonia’s frightened gaze, once the doctor had allowed her in briefly as Inez lay in bed, spent and weak, after the miscarriage.

  Antonia had grabbed Inez’s hand, bursting out, “Don’t die, Mrs. S!” The doctor had immediately called for the hotel matron to remove Antonia, with strict instructions for Inez to rest and not be disturbed. As if rest were even possible.

  Understanding flooded Flo’s face, accompanied by a swift, if distant, sympathy. “Oh, dear. I am sorry, Mrs. Stannert. As you know, in my business, such an event would usually be cause for relief, if not outright celebration. Fewer complications, as it were.”

  Inez waved one hand, as if brushing cobwebs aside. “It is past.” She shut the memory and its painful emotions away, locking them up deep inside, and moved toward the table and her present concerns, gesturing Flo to a chair. “We can talk privately over here.”

  She raised the temperature and the volume of her voice so that it would be pleasantly audible to any eavesdroppers outside, saying, “No tea, Mrs. Sweet? Very well. Let us talk about your daughter. How long has she been playing the piano?” before sitting at the table and continuing sotto voce, “You surely did not come all this way to update me on Mark Stannert’s doings, to reminisce, or to inquire about my well-being. What the hell is going on?”