Capacity for Murder (Professor Bradshaw Mysteries) (32 page)

After taking a moment to light the lantern, he sat and removed his boots, unlacing them fully and opening them wide. His left arm had regained a bit of strength, but it was still awkward hammering the nails through the solid heels. He put on the improvised cleats, lacing them tightly, filled his pockets with the tools he’d need, and secured the lantern to his waist using his suspenders. He then buckled together the two belts he’d brought, making a pole strap.

With a deep breath, he began to climb.

One foot at time, he jammed his nailed boot into the pole, pushed upward, then slid the connected belts up to help hold his weight. After every step and every adjustment of the improvised strap, he was forced to stop to recover from the shooting pain across his shoulder and down his arm. It wasn’t a good sign, he knew, that he began to feel cold and clammy, and he feared the darkness pressing around him was not from the vanishing of the sun.

By the time he reached the wires he was in a cold sweat from both exertion and a violent nausea, breathing heavily through his mouth. He rested again before reaching into his pocket for his cutters. An intermittent static buzzed in the line. He tapped it with the back of his hand to test the voltage and found it bearable. After disconnecting the ground lightning wire from the pole in readiness, he secured the telegraph wire so it wouldn’t fall away, he cut it through. Grasping the cut ends, he tapped them together. Dot-dot-dot-dash-dash-dash-dot-dot-dot. S.O.S. He paused, then sent the signal again.

It was all he could manage.

Sagging against the pole, trusting the nails in his boots and the leather of the belts to hold him, he took hold of the ground wire and touched the back of his hand to one of the cut wires. He felt nothing. With his last ounce of strength, he licked the back of his hand and tried again, pressing it against the cut wire. This time he felt a slight tingle.

Dot-dot-dot-dash-dot. Understood.

Chapter Forty-one

Help arrived within minutes. The message had been received and acknowledged a mile up the line at the construction camp. Two handcars pumped vigorously by able-bodied men came speeding down the line, an oil-burning searchlight focused on the telegraph line. Bradshaw was still on the pole when they braked. He hadn’t the strength to climb down on his own.

For men who spent their days felling giant trees and moving small mountains, helping a professor from a pole was easy. With scrap lumber, and Bradshaw’s hammer and extra nails, they pounded steps into the pole and climbed up to fetch him. Bradshaw was able to stagger to a stump to rest while Moss was carried to one of the handcars, unmoving and unconscious, but still breathing.

A young man, who looked like Bradshaw’s son all grown up, fair-haired, gentle-faced, hunkered down before him and introduced himself as Hans.

“Thank you for coming so quickly, Hans.” Bradshaw explained who he was, and that Moss had been poisoned with phosphorus and needed immediate care. Hans quickly passed on the information to the others and gave orders for the handcar to set off for Hoquiam.

“And you, Professor?” Hans returned to hunker before him.

“Not yet. There’s a woman in the forest who’s been injured. A mad woman. A murderess. She’s tied but she’ll give you a fight.”

“If we leave her until morning, that should take the fight out of her.”

“No, son,” he said, for he suddenly felt ancient and Hans looked so young. “She is a monster. We are not. I’ll show you where she is.”

“Do you want to ride?” Hans gestured toward the donkey.

“No, thank you, but bring it along. It might easier to carry the woman than get her to walk.”

Hans called to the remaining men and held the oil lamp to light their way. Bradshaw led them through the dark forest, using his watch and compass to be sure they stayed to the trail and didn’t go too far.

Ingrid Thompson was where he’d left her, propped against the tangled thick roots. Silent. Unmoving.

Hans lifted the lantern to her face. Her eyes were open, staring vacantly, her mouth agape as if frozen mid-scream.

“She’s dead, Professor.”

Bradshaw had no words. He hadn’t expected to find her dead, but it came as no shock. No relief. He felt…empty. Hell was made for the likes of her. And yet…if no soul had existed within this shell of a human, what was there to punish in the hereafter?

“We will take her into Hoquiam. We can’t leave her for the coyotes.”

“Yes, sir,” Hans said, but he didn’t move, nor did the others. In the meager lantern light, Bradshaw felt more than saw the young men’s horror. They’d likely seen their share of hardship and accidents in these woods, but the silent scream upon Ingrid’s face and the blackened claw of her hand, propped up by a gnarled root, was something out of a nightmare.

“Her name was Mrs. Ingrid Thompson. Her husband was the gold thief from the Federal Assay Office in Seattle.” He spoke in a matter-of-fact manner, pushing through his exhaustion to give them knowledge and guidance to lessen their fear. They would never forget the sight of her, but perhaps if they understood they wouldn’t be haunted.

“No foolin’?” asked one of the men from the darkness. Footsteps crunched closer.

“She poisoned Zeb Moss, the man your friends are now taking into town.”

“With phosphorus, you said?” Hans stepped closer to Ingrid’s body, peering at her charred hand. “How did she get burned?”

“She soaked match tips in solution to make her poison. My guess is that some of the solution spilled onto her handkerchief. And then she put the handkerchief into her pocket where it had dried, becoming, in essence, a giant match.”

It had been a foolish mistake for someone so familiar with phosphorus. Had she been distracted? Agitated? So obsessed with the details of escape she’d been careless? The white handkerchief had reflected light, but it hadn’t glowed a telltale green. He thought of her rose-scented youth lotion, which she used so liberally and which may well have been on her handkerchief. Was there some essential oil in her lotion that extinguished the glow? Masked the scent? Prevented her from feeling the sting of the phosphorus when she wrapped her hand with the cloth? Or had she attributed the sensation to the painful cut?

Had her obsession for youth and wealth blinded her to the instrument of her death?

“She looks to have bled an awful lot.” Hans moved the lantern over Ingrid, revealing splashes of blood on her clothing and down her arm.

“She cut herself,” Bradshaw explained, withholding the fact that jars of gold dust might be very nearby. Besides needing their help to get back to town, he didn’t want to tempt them into a federal crime. The gold belonged to the assay office. “And she wrapped her hand in the poisoned cloth. It takes very little heat to ignite white phosphorus, that’s why lucifer matches are made of it. The friction of pulling the kerchief from her pocket could have set it off, or the friction of pulling the bandage snug into a knot.”

He didn’t think they needed to know it wasn’t either of those two actions that ignited the cloth, but his own hand as he fought with her.

“My cousin once burnt down a barn with a couple lucifers stuck in a cowpat,” one of the young men began, and Bradshaw knew he’d said enough to mitigate the shock of what they’d seen.

“Took a couple weeks,” the young man continued as they draped Mrs. Thompson’s body over the donkey. “When that cowpat dried out and heated up, the lucifers caught fire, and down came the barn.”

The walk back to the tracks passed for Bradshaw in a vague dark blur. With respectful care that revealed the humanity of his rescuers, Ingrid’s body was secured to the remaining handcar. One of the men volunteered to ride the donkey to the logging camp, and they’d barely begun when the darkness echoed with heehaws, and the other donkey came charging out of the forest. The beast greeted its friend noisily, then happily followed behind.

“Ready?” called Hans, taking charge once more. Bradshaw climbed into the small space reserved for him on the handcar, sitting with his legs dangling. His head swam, and he was overwhelmed with gratitude for this group of strong and helpful men, thankful that Hans, a natural leader, had stepped forward to speed the rescue. “Let’s roll!”

Bradshaw tended to be a leader himself, he knew, in some circumstances. Colin Ingersoll was a leader. Colin Ingersoll was leading Missouri away. The thought came as Bradshaw’s brain clouded, and the young men began to run and push the handcar into motion. He braced himself, and a fresh wave of pain shot through his head, down his arm and back, blocking out all thought save hanging on and staying awake. Then the men leaped aboard to pump. They didn’t let up until the car came to the end of the line in Hoquiam.

***

Bradshaw recuperated in the Hoquiam hospital for one day, diagnosed with a moderate concussion, a cracked rib, and a bruised but thankfully not broken shoulder. Moss, apparently, had not put his all into swinging the cast iron pan or Bradshaw’s skull would have been crushed.

Dr. Hornsby came to see him and insisted he return to Healing Sands. Once tucked snugly in bed in Camp Franklin Cabin, he was dosed with homeopathic remedies, anti-inflammatory herbs, and a diet of fermented foods for which he had inexplicably acquired a taste. He slept much, but even his waking hours were restful. For the first time in his life he was content to do nothing. He felt as peaceful as Old Cedar—who also stopped by to pay his respects and wish him well. He didn’t read, or write, or sketch circuits. He listened to the waves crashing and the birds crying.

All the Hornsbys waited on him at intervals, and when news arrived they brought it to him. Zebediah Moss had been sent to a hospital in Tacoma and was expected to live, although he’d been told he should never again touch alcohol as his damaged liver could no longer tolerate it.

The coroner had plucked tiny shards of glass from Ingrid Thompson’s cut palm and found phosphorus in the burned tissue and in her lungs and blood. She’d breathed the deadly vapors, and the flames had hastened the absorption through her flesh. Traumatic shock due to severe burn and blood loss, combined with poisoning, were determined to be the cause of her swift death.

Digging on the beaches ceased and was replaced with a forest hunt for gold. The donkey that had followed its friend to the logging camp was found to be carrying thirty pounds of gold dust in soft cloth packets. The Secret Service retraced Bradshaw’s steps and discovered a cedar stump and several dozen broken mason jars, all of them empty.

The rest of the gold, about a hundred and seventy pounds of it, was still missing, and Bradshaw wondered if it would become the stuff of legend like pirates’ treasure.

***

After a week of rest and Dr. Hornsby’s ministrations, Bradshaw’s strength returned, and it was time to go home. But first, he removed the electrotherapy machine from Healing House for Doctor Hornsby and dismantled it. Together they burned the wooden case, smashed the glass components, and packed up the other pieces for Bradshaw to take away.

Chapter Forty-two

When he stepped from the Capitol Hill streetcar onto 15th Avenue, Bradshaw sighed. Clear weather had returned to Seattle, and the late afternoon air was pleasantly warm, laced with the best and worst scents of city life—tinges of smoke, cooking, cut lumber, tar. These smells meant home to Bradshaw, having lived with new construction and a changing landscape from the moment he arrived in Seattle with his infant son a decade ago.

It was a short walk to 1204 Gallagher, the address of Bradshaw’s modest home. Two stories of white clapboard, leaded windows, a wide front porch, and a small patch of lawn shaded by a maple tree. It was there he found Justin and Paul, high up in the branches.

“Ahoy, father!” Justin called down.

“Ahoy, son! Ahoy, Paul!” Bradshaw returned. “Spot any enemy ships?”

“Aye, but we blasted her with our cannons.”

“Well done. Is it safe to enter the castle?”

“If you’ve got armor. Mrs. Prouty’s cooking again.”

“And Missouri?”

Justin’s voice returned to normal. “She’s up at the university. She said she’ll be back for dinner.”

Bradshaw went around the house to enter through the kitchen and found Mrs. Prouty, as he’d been warned, cooking up a storm, but the smells were promising. Something savory simmered on the stove, and the smell of warm yeast told him bread was in the oven. Mrs. Prouty stood at the kitchen table, stirring a mixture of onions and celery in her electric skillet, the cord dangling from the fluted wall light.

Last year he’d turned his attention to small electrical kitchen appliances, tinkering with tea kettles, frying pans, hot plates, and toasters. Mrs. Prouty had at first resisted being his tester, being a woman rooted in her ways, but the convenience of electric power slowly won her over. During an unusually long stretch of hot weather, she’d not lit the cook stove for four solid days, preparing everything from the morning coffee to apple pie using the electric devices.

“Welcome home, Professor. Your luggage arrived a few minutes ago. I put it in your room, except for your electrical bits. I left that crate in the hall for you.”

“Thank you. Has all been well?”

She met his eye and gave him a sincere nod. “Justin’s been in heaven, what with Missouri staying overnight since we got back from the ocean. She’s out now, but she’ll be back. I reckon she’ll be going to her own place tonight?”