Frail Blood
Authors: Jo Robertson
Frail Blood
An Historical
Romantic Thriller
by
Jo Robertson
Cover Image of the
Placer County Historic Courthouse
Auburn, California
Courtesy of
Placer County Museums
Acknowledgments
Grateful thanks go to the Placer County Museums in Auburn,
California, for permission to use the Old Historic Auburn Courthouse, built in
1894, and used on the cover of
Frail Blood.
While the idea for this book was inspired by the true court
trial of Alma Bell in 1909 in Auburn, California, it is
completely
a
work of fiction, and
all details
are the product of the author's
imagination.
All character names have been changed, or are the invention
of the author, as well as many of the locations. Bigler County, California,
does not exist, nor does the town of Placer Hills. In fact, Auburn is the
county seat for Placer County, where this lovely old building is located.
A special thanks to my creative cover artist, Lyndsey Lewellen,
for the lovely cover of "Frail Blood."
Also thanks go to my immediate family – Lance, Robb,
Shannon, Tyler, Kennan, Megan and Rand, as well as my grandchildren – Preston
and Ellie; Mason, Hayden, and Emma; Corinna, Max, and Annie; Barett; Grace,
Gabe, and Ezra; Sydney and Jake; and finally Baby Tyler whose memory will
always be a painful pleasure.
Dedication
To my husband Boyd who's been a steady rock and a source of
laughter for many decades.
Prologue
Northern
California, June 1909
"Better be with the dead, whom we, to gain our
peace, have sent to peace,
than on the torture of the mind to lie in restless
ecstasy." –
Macbeth
Alma Bentley lifted the frayed hem of her cotton skirt and
strapped the pistol to her left ankle.
She'd known from the first time a fellow looked at her in
that certain way – raking his eyes over her like she was nothing more than a
cheap piece of meat on the butcher's block – that she was a wretched, plain-faced
girl.
But Joseph Machado was different. He treated her like the
blue-ribbon winner at the state fair. He said she was a rose among the thorns. How
she'd loved the sound of that.
A rose among the thorns.
Alma repeated the words with a sigh of regret, adjusted the
gun against her leg, and let the skirt drop into place. Her chapped knuckles
caught on the coarse fabric. In the dull finish of the mirror fashioned from a
large scrap of aluminum, her reflection stared back at her, a nondescript,
dark, solemn-faced girl with a brown mop of tangles falling over a low
forehead.
What Joseph done to her was wrong. He ought not to have
treated her so poorly. With no respect. Made promises and then renigged on them.
A promise was like a holy vow. Sacred.
She slapped her palms together several times. Well, wasn't
no use worrying about it now. As Mama always said, you hafta lay in the bed you
made. And Alma sure had made this rocky mess of pebbles and boulders.
But still, it wasn't right what Joe done. Now there was nothing
left but to try and get back some dignity.
And make him think twice about hurting a girl like that.
#
The Machado house squatted on several acres of land off the
main road to Placer Hills. Alma was used to walking the distance, for she'd
done it several mornings a week during the four months she'd been employed by
the Machado family.
This early evening, however, the trek seemed longer. She
felt the heavy reminder of Joseph's betrayal in the weight of the pistol
grinding into her leg.
The hem of her dress dragged in the dusty ruts. She'd begun
to sweat and dark circles dampened her long-sleeved frock even though the delta
breeze had cooled off the hot June day. Although she was a sturdy girl used to
lots of hard work, her face was red with the exertion and the seriousness of
her errand.
The sun had nearly dipped below the mountains before Alma
came round the bend to the outbuilding where the Machados stabled their horses.
She spied Mr. Machado's fancy automobile beside the barn, but that didn't mean
nothing. He hardly ever rode the contraption, was always out on one or another
of his horses. The animals were all he seemed to think about – that and the
farm land.
She peeked into the stable and sure enough the horse and
carriage were gone. Tonight was Miss Phoebe's and Mrs. Machado's night out with
their lady friends. That meant Joe was alone.
Good. It was high time they had a talk.
She rapped softly on the door at the back of the house where
she entered when she came to work. Mrs. Gulley was usually here then, but not
this late at night, of course. Alma hesitated before continuing through the
mudroom and into the kitchen. The house was eerily silent.
She tiptoed to the area that Mrs. Machado called the "sitting
room," although not much sitting happened there 'cause no one ever visited
the Machados that Alma could see. This room was empty too.
"Joseph," she called softly.
No answer.
She reached down to unstrap the pistol and dangled it
nervously in her left hand hidden behind her skirts. She couldn't have said
what she intended to do with the gun if someone had asked her at that moment. Alma
hardly knew her own dark thoughts most of the time.
Scare Joe, she might've said. Make him say he was sorry. Or
give her a few soft words to fill the sad, empty hole left inside her by his
deceit and betrayal.
Despair washed over her for a moment, crumbling her resolve.
What had she gotten in her head? Wasn't nothin' Joe was scared of. For more
than twenty-five years he'd lived with his pa and that awful excuse for a ma
and his strange older sister. Wasn't any gun gonna frighten Joe Machado.
Suddenly the shakes, like a fit coming on, started in her
knees and spread up through her gut to her wrist where the gun dug into her
hip, her fingers numb as they gripped the handle. She turned to go, feeling
like a stupid little girl gone on a useless errand.
She was an idiot, a great big dumb fool who didn't know when
a man was lying through his teeth and gussying up to her with sweet words –
words like
a rose among the thorns.
She couldn't even tell a falsehood
from the truth.
A crash sounded from upstairs, and she jumped like a
long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers, her eyes wide and fixed on the
stairs. They led up to the second floor landing and the bedrooms of the Machado
family. She knew exactly which one was Joe's because she'd been there once –
only once – when his folks and sister Phoebe were gone to San Francisco.
Loud footsteps clumped down the stairs. Her eyes grew wide
and she raised the pistol. Out of fear? Surprise? She couldn't hardly remember
why she was here.
"What the hell ... ?" Joe said from the doorway.
And then Alma fired the pistol without a single thought
passing through her mind except a vague sense of alarm. Even as she dropped the
pistol and backed out of the door, a niggling thought lodged in the back of her
brain.
Joe, clutching his shoulder and starting to fall. And a
faint thud from somewhere in the house.
But then panic took over and she raced into the woods as
fast as she could go and didn't stop running, terror and fear nipping at her
heels, until she reached the turn in the road that led to Placer Hills. There
she sank down to her knees in the damp leaves and nettles by a giant pine and
clutched her head in her fists.
Chapter 1
"I hate ... any taint of vice whose strong
corruption inhabits our frail blood." –
Twelfth Night
Blast it! Malachi Rivers tightened both fists on the defense
table's rough surface and scanned the newspaper article again. A "clear
admission of guilt"?
Alma Bentley tentatively touched his jacket sleeve. "I
know it were wrong, Mr. Rivers. But the lady reporter – she was so nice, I ...
I thought it'd be all right to talk to her."
Malachi couldn't expect his client, a poor, unschooled girl,
to understand what her public confession meant. But this Knight woman knew
exactly what she'd done.
And Jesus! How was he to extricate Alma from the tangle of
her own loose tongue?
Taking a deep breath, he relaxed his grip, turned to his
left, and forced an encouraging smile. "Don't worry, Alma. We'll figure it
all out."
Because today was merely the arraignment, few observers
graced the gallery of Judge Underwood's tiny courtroom. In good time, onlookers
would congregate in droves to gawp at a woman on trial for murder. But not
today. These sedate proceedings held little scandal for the public's need for
drama.
Calmer now, Malachi watched District Attorney Charles Fulton
strut down the courtroom aisle. He paused beside the defense table, clapping a
friendly hand on Malachi's shoulder.
"Good morning, counselor." The district attorney
made a moue that was a cross between a smile and a smirk.
Malachi had little respect for Fulton, but he pasted on a
pleasant expression and nodded politely. "Charlie."
The attorney's face tightened as a flush crept up his neck
to contrast starkly against the stiff white starch of his collar. Malachi
smiled widely. The prosecutor enjoyed the veneer of formality and hated the
shortening of his given name.
Fulton took his seat at the prosecution table, where his
protégés hovered on each side of him, like eager courtiers at the feet of a
king. The two assistant district attorneys were young and ambitious, and their
presence today was a mere show of power aimed at intimidating the defense.
Malachi's client, a small, dark-complexioned woman, hunched
defensively in her chair, her eyes alarmingly round as she focused on the
prosecutor's table.
Malachi leaned over and whispered in her ear. "Hold
your chin up, Alma. You don't want to appear guilty."
Alma's plain face scrunched as if she were in pain. "But
I am guilty, Mr. Rivers."
"Shh, don't say such things." He swiveled around
and frowned sternly as she ducked her head. He touched her arm, compelling her
to look up at him. "Do you understand? Never speak of anything resembling
guilt. Never think of it."
Alma nodded mutely and continued to worry her small, rough
hands as she perched quietly at the edge of the wooden chair. Malachi sighed
inwardly. Once the jurors appeared, his client's behavior in court might well
turn out to be the most damning evidence against her.
As he'd advised, Alma wore a modest suit, but the cuffs were
frayed and the hem unfashionably short where her scuffed boots showed beneath
the skirt. A woman with an ordinary face and a timid air, she hardly looked
capable of fostering passion, yet alone of murdering a man.
But she had. She'd confessed as much to him. Worse, she'd
admitted it to a reporter who'd recorded her statement for all the community to
read.
Malachi looked straight ahead at the magistrate's podium
where the United States and Bear State flags flapped gently in the breeze from
an open window. Glancing to his right, he observed the prosecuting attorneys
hunched shoulder to shoulder, whispering to one another as if the fate of the
world lay in their scheming.
Hardly even the fate of the county, Malachi thought. Just
one small woman shabbily dressed.
In contrast to his client, the prosecutors looked like
wealthy businessmen in their formal day attire of winged-collar shirts, cut-away
morning coats, and striped trousers. District Attorney Charles Fulton swept his
icy blue eyes over Malachi and inclined his head in a condescending nod. The
two baby-faced attorneys leaned forward, no doubt to catch a glimpse of the
famous Malachi Rivers.
He suppressed a guffaw. Time was when he'd been flattered to
draw the attention of the likes of those three. He was a whelp then, a few
years out of law school, and uncommonly successful.
But within a few more years he'd met Constance and his notoriety
had gone to his head with ugly and disastrous consequences.
Malachi fiddled with his notes, but he wasn't nervous,
merely eager to begin the trial, for he knew exactly how he would present his
case to acquit his client of a murder charge. And in the process he intended to
legalistically whip the tar out of Charlie Fulton.
Little doubt existed that Alma Bentley was indeed guilty of
the crime of which she'd been accused. The defense's strategy lay in the
why.
And it was with this why that Malachi believed he could save her from the
gallows.
A hush came over the room. Malachi rose to his feet along
with the other court officers. Judge Phineas T. Underwood huffed slowly into
the room from a door at the front and sank into his seat behind the podium.
A large, florid-faced man, he peered over the tops of his
spectacles and cleared his throat with a guttural sound. He produced a cigar
from beneath the folds of his robe, clipped the end, and placed the cigar in
his mouth, chomping down hard on it.
A prop, Malachi knew, for in the five years he'd been
practicing law in Bigler County, he'd never once seen the judge smoke. For all
his outward slovenliness, Judge Underwood was a stickler for courtroom decorum.
"Sit down, sit down," Underwood muttered, waving
his arm across the room. "Bailiff, read the charges."
A thin, wiry man, Jacob Streetman scratched his chest
beneath his uniform before he gazed at the paper shaking in his palsied hand. Streetman
had been closing in on eighty when Malachi set up residence in Bigler County. The
man's ancient, weathered face bore the look of a hound dog Malachi's father had
once owned, defeat and life's vagaries carved in the crevices.
"The defendant will rise," intoned Streetman.
Malachi grasped Alma's arm and assisted her to her feet. She
wavered beneath his hand and he held her elbow more firmly. "Courage,
Alma."
"State your name for the court," Streetman
directed.
"Alma Bentley," she whispered in a gravelly voice,
as if speaking louder might suck the wind out of her thin frame.
After the court ascertained that the defendant was
represented by counsel, the bailiff began the formal reading of the charges to
which Alma must plead.
"How do you answer to the charges brought against you?"
the magistrate asked.
After a long pause, Malachi whispered in her ear. "You
must say the words aloud, Alma. 'Not guilty.'"
She began shaking her head, a dubious frown distorting her
features. "But ... "
"Not guilty," he repeated. "Trust me."
Alma entered the plea, although to anyone not completely
half-witted, she appeared far from innocent.
Guilt stamped her face like a shiny penny.
#
Pain pounded in Emma Knight's temples like clash cymbals. Sitting
at the massive desk installed by the previous owner of
The Placer Gazette,
she picked up the letter from the desktop and held it between a thumb and
forefinger as if it were some loathsome bug.
She glanced balefully at it. Despite Mr. Rivers' fiery
accusations, Emma had no intention to – how had he put it? – yes, here in the
second paragraph: "write about weddings and tea parties and leave the
weighty business of news publishing to men folk."
Insufferable man! Emma had heard dark rumors about Rivers'
past and his questionable law practice before he'd fled San Francisco. Of his
consorting with unsavory elements. Those charges, coupled with the contents of
his letter, confirmed her opinion that he was a crass, lowborn individual. Despite
his phenomenal success as an attorney, in her mind he bore none of the marks of
a gentleman.
She tossed the offending letter onto her desk.
From the press machinery room at the front of the office,
she heard old Thomas Gant, her compositor and printing press operator, setting
the type for the weekly issue. When she'd arrived this morning, she'd found him
hovering over a selection of cast metal sorts.
"Morning, Miss Knight," he'd greeted her cheerily
even though the hour was unspeakably early.
Thomas' employment was one of the reasons she hadn't yet
purchased a Linotype machine for The Gazette. Although acquiring the Linotype
was imperative to her ambition of producing more than a single weekly and one
weekend edition of the paper, she wasn't sure he could adjust to the new
keyboard.
Hearing the soft jangle of the bell at the entrance to the
outer office, Emma rose, put on her jacket, and walked out of the back room to
greet the visitor. The sun shone through the wide glass window, shadowing the
person's face, and it was a moment before she recognized him.
"Uncle Stephen, what a delightful surprise!"
A stout, round-faced version of her father beamed at her. "Emmie,
m'dear." Stephen Knight held both her hands in his and twirled her around
so he could examine her. In the eyes of her uncle she could do no wrong.
Emma laughed delightedly and planted a kiss on his cheek. After
they'd settled into her office, her uncle on a stiff-backed Ingram chair she'd
brought from home, and she behind her desk, she satisfied her curiosity. "To
what do I owe this surprise visit?"
"Oh, this and that. Business, here and there."
"I thought you had minions to take care of your
business interests," she teased.
"Ah, but this investment," – he gestured broadly
around the room to indicate the entirety of
The Gazette
– "attracts
my special concern." His green eyes twinkled. "Involving as it does a
partnership with my favorite niece."
"Your
only
niece." She laughed as she
corrected him, but hoped her uncle didn't regret his generous offer of making
her a partner in the newspaper.
"Yes, yes." A thoughtful cast passed over his face
before he sat forward on the edge of his chair. "This trial business,
Emma, that's what I've come about."
"Alma Bentley's murder trial? What about it?"
"I attended the arraignment."
Emma couldn't keep the bewilderment from her voice. "Why?"
Her uncle shifted awkwardly in his chair, a sure sign he
intended to chastise her. He crossed his legs at the knees, his Homburg
bouncing gently on his thigh. "I rather expected to see you there."
Emma carefully monitored her tone. "Since Miss Bentley
admitted her guilt to me in our interview, I – I believed little purpose could
be served by attending the arraignment."
Stephen reached across the desk to lift her chin. "Emma,
there's no right or wrong in this business." He sighed noisily. "It's
a matter of good and better decisions."
"And I made the less good decision," she muttered.
"Perhaps, perhaps not." He paused. "Surprisingly,
Alma Bentley pled not guilty at the arraignment. Now
that
news makes a
good newspaper article."
"What? Not guilty? But she
is
guilty! She
confessed."
Suddenly warm in the small room, Emma jumped up and removed
her jacket. She walked to the back door and propped it ajar to capture a breeze
from the alley. "I printed her admission."
"As you should have. Her confession was news that you
were obliged to report. And covering her retraction is good reporting too."
Doubt filled Emma's mind as she recalled the details of the
interview last week. Had she wrangled a confession out of the woman? "I
didn't ask permission of her attorney to approach her."
Stephen's hand sliced through the air. "Doesn't matter.
Miss Bentley shouldn't have spoken to you. But, in a moment of egregious
misjudgment, she did."
"Still ... " she began, but stopped abruptly and
merely handed her uncle the letter from Mr. Rivers.
"Malachi Rivers, Miss Bentley's attorney." He
rubbed his chin slowly as he read the remaining lines. "Hmmmm, pretty
harsh." He placed the letter on her desk. "You must expect such unpleasantries
in this business, Emma." He paused a moment. "Speaking of which, my
brother won't be pleased about this," he warned.
Emma wrinkled her nose. "Papa approves of very few of
my activities."
Stephen shook his head sadly. "This public controversy
is just the kind of notoriety your father and mother abhor."
Emma covered the distance between them, bent to wrap her
arms around him, and dropped another kiss on his cheek. "Poor Uncle
Stephen, Papa's never quite forgiven you for being rich and famous without
benefit of the Knight fortune."
He gave her a pensive gaze. "You are quite like my
mother, Emma, a woman far ahead of her time. And nothing like your father. Franklin
always seems to have a stick up his ... Well, never mind about that." He
laughed, slapping his thighs decisively and reaching for his walking stick.
His parting words cheered Emma's spirits more than anything
else. "You did the right thing to print the interview, m'dear. As a
newspaper woman, you could do no less."
#
In the evening after the arraignment, Malachi climbed the
hill above his small cabin. At the summit he looked at the sight below, one
that never failed to send a thrill of pleasure through him. His own land,
however small, his own home built with the sweat of his own labor.
The woodsy smell of damp nettles and decaying logs wafted
from downwind and he could sense the moisture that blew off the lake at his
back. The silence was broken only by the crush of his boots and the susurration
of insects.
