Shaken to the Core (12 page)

The broad avenue was still busy, with people strolling along the sidewalks and hastily crossing the street to get to Zinkand’s, the Palace Hotel’s Palm Garden, or other fine restaurants. No one stopped to ogle an accident site; no cable car stood unmoving on its tracks, and no puddle of blood gleamed in the glow of the gas streetlights.

Hours had gone by since Kate had seen the woman in the hospital. They had probably cleaned everything up already and had taken the cable car back to its barn. She would never find it by just driving around, and she was wasting gasoline.

Think!
Since she didn’t have a network of sources, she’d use another valuable instrument: her brain.

The accident had to have happened somewhere nearby; otherwise the ambulance would have rushed the woman to a closer hospital. She tried to remember which cable car lines went right by City Hall.

The McAllister line!
It was the line most highly frequented, so it ran more often than the others. But where was its car barn? She had no idea, so she decided to follow the tracks, the automobile’s carbide headlamps darting over the cobblestones ahead of her. The tracks seemed to go on and on forever until, after a while, the cobblestones ended, and the street became a rutted dirt path. Should she turn around? If something happened to the automobile, her father would kill her.

Just a little farther. If she didn’t find it in five minutes, she’d turn around. She’d nearly driven all the way to Golden Gate Park when she finally spied a turntable and, behind it, a cable car barn built of wood and bricks. The tracks led directly into the open ground floor of the barn.

She cut the engine, left the automobile behind some distance away, and snuck up to the building like a thief in the night.

A dog barked somewhere, making her pause. With her heart thumping against her chest, she pressed herself against the side of the building. After a moment, the barking came again, and she realized it hadn’t been anywhere near her.

Kate peeked around the corner.

There it was! The yellow cable car had been pushed onto the sidings, and two men were working on it, cleaning the front and getting ready to apply a new coat of paint.

She had to take the photograph now, before they removed all traces of the accident. The question was just how.

Before she could decide what to do, a man cleared his throat behind her.

She whirled around, nearly dropping the carrying case in the process.

A man with a bucket of yellow paint stood before her.

Kate clutched her chest and swayed dramatically, pretending to nearly faint. “Good heavens! You scared me half to death!”

“I’m sorry, miss. That wasn’t my intention.” He grabbed hold of her arm to keep her upright. “Do you need to sit?”

Kate nodded and pointed to the open cable car.

Obediently, he led her over and assisted her onto one of the wooden benches.

The two other men interrupted their work and came over. “What’s a young lady like you doin’ out here at this time of night?” one of them asked.

“Um, I…” She stopped stammering and decided that maybe coming right out with it would be the best strategy. It wasn’t as if she could take a photograph without them noticing. “I came here to see the cable car. Would you allow me to take a picture of it?”

“You’re not one of them pettifogging lawyers, are you?” The third man squinted at her.

Kate raised her hand to her mouth and giggled. “Oh, no. Whoever heard of a female lawyer?” Well, she had, but they didn’t need to know that.

The men traded gazes and seemed to relax a little. “Right. So, what do you want with the picture?”

Kate thought quickly. “You see, I’m writing an article for the
Ladies’ Health Journal,
and when I heard about the accident, I thought it would be an important addition. Womenfolk really should be more careful when crossing the cable car tracks.”

That should dispel their concerns about a lawsuit.

The first man scratched his neck. “I don’t see why we shouldn’t let her.”

“All right. But be quick about it. We need to finish this tonight.”

As quickly as possible, Kate unpacked her equipment and even directed one of the men to hold the flash pan for her while she filled the narrow metal tray with a mix of magnesium powder, potassium chlorate, and antimony sulfide.

“What’s that for?” He pointed at the flash powder.

“It’s too dark in here to take a photograph, so I’ll use this to light up the barn for a moment. Don’t worry, I won’t blow it up.”
I hope.
The magnesium powder was highly explosive, and she’d heard stories about horrible accidents, but she’d used it before and felt she could safely handle it.

She stepped around to the front of the cable car to study the damage. Considering the injuries of the woman who’d been hit, it didn’t look so bad. A bit of the paint had peeled off, and the sign saying
Market & McAllister
hung askew; that was all. Should she have taken a photograph of the accident victim after all?

But now it was too late for regrets. If taken from the right angle, the photograph of the cable car would still look impressive. She opened her boxed camera and extended the bellows. Next, she adjusted the lens until the image of the cable car appeared sharp on the ground-glass screen. She relieved the man of the flash pan. “Could you take a step back, please?”

When they did, she took a deep breath and prepared to take the possibly most important photograph of her life.
One, two…
At the count of three, she pushed the switch that ignited the flash powder with a loud
boom
. A brilliant white flare lit the barn, blinding her for a moment. As fast as she could, she pulled the dark slide from the camera to expose the glass plate to light from the lens.

“All right. Now let us do our work.” One man wanted to push past her, but Kate stood her ground.

“One more, just to make sure. It’s hard to get the exposure just right, and I’m afraid the editor will reject my article if the picture is blurry or overexposed.” She gave them her best doe-eyed look. “Please?”

Finally, they relented.

She set up the flash pan again. Her fingers were trembling with excitement, so she forced herself to slow down so she wouldn’t spill any of the dangerous powder. She stepped a little to the left and tilted the bed of the camera down a bit to get another angle. Then the flash went off again, and she exposed the glass plate with a practiced flick of her wrist.

For a moment, she was tempted to beg for a third photograph, but the heavy white smoke from the flash powder filled the barn, so she wouldn’t get a clear picture anyway. Quickly, she pushed the dark slide back into the holder, closed the camera bed, and put the camera and the flash pan into the carrying case. “Thank you very much, gentlemen.”

Before one of them could offer to see her home, she slipped out of the cable car barn and rushed to her automobile, feeling as if she’d just gotten away with stealing the crown jewels. She whistled a merry tune all the way home, already imagining what the
Call
’s editor would say once she presented her photographs. The first thing she’d do tomorrow morning was develop the prints, and then she’d pay her future boss a visit.

* * *

Kate could barely sit still at breakfast the next morning. She hadn
’t slept a wink, too excited by the adventure and the thought that she’d soon take photographs for the
San Francisco Call.

Before dawn, she’d slipped out of bed and tiptoed down the stairs and into her darkroom. Now two perfect five-by-seven-inch photographs hung drying on a line, just waiting for her to place them in an envelope and take them with her.

Mentally, she willed her parents to eat faster and finish breakfast so she could make her escape. But they took their time. Her father seemed more interested in the newspaper than in his scrambled eggs. At least he hadn’t said anything about her taking the automobile out without asking him first.

If she was lucky, he hadn’t noticed that she and the automobile had been gone for hours last night. Or maybe he was just waiting to confront her. With her father, it was hard to tell.

In any case, she’d have to replace the gasoline she’d used up last night.

He shook his head at something he had read. “I don’t understand why people aren’t more careful,” he said, more to himself.

“Did something happen?” Kate’s mother inquired.

“Some woman out on a stroll didn’t pay attention and stepped right in front of a cable car. They rushed her to the hospital, but her injuries were too severe.” He turned the newspaper around and held out the page for them to see.

Kate almost choked on a bite of toast.

Right there on the page, beneath the headline
Deadly cable car accident
was a large black-and-white image of the cable car, nearly identical to Kate’s second picture, only this one seemed to have been taken at the site of the accident.

The print blurred before her eyes, and she stared at the image without really seeing it clearly until her father turned the newspaper around and went back to his reading.

“What’s the matter with you today?” her mother asked. “You’re not eating. You aren’t sick, are you?” She reached a hand across the table to feel Kate’s forehead.

“No. I’m not sick.” Kate leaned back so that her mother couldn’t reach her. “I just need some fresh air. Can I borrow the auto for a while, Father?” She needed to get out of here and clear her head.

Her father looked up from the newspaper, studied her for a moment, and then nodded.

Kate’s mother put down her fork. “Cornelius, I hardly think that’s a good idea. You just read what can happen to a woman who ventures out alone. The streets are crazy nowadays, with all that new technology. It’s not safe for a young lady to—”

“Let her go,” Kate’s father said.

Not waiting for her mother’s protests—or for anyone to get seconds on breakfast—Kate jumped up. She rushed around the table, kissed her father’s cheek, and was out the door with a quick “thank you.”

* * *

Giuliana
’s stomach was growling so loudly that the sound almost drowned out the wailing of the Koslowskis’ baby. Normally, she bought some bread, cheese, tomatoes, and a can of sardines at Mr. Mangione’s Italian grocer’s shop on her way home, but after falling off the darn chair yesterday, she hadn’t wanted to walk one more step than absolutely necessary. Her ankle had to be well enough for her to go to work tomorrow, so she needed to stay off it as much as she could.

Other than a quick trip to the water closet that she shared with the other tenants on this floor, she hadn’t moved an inch all morning. She lay on her narrow bed with her foot piled high on the pillows and stared at the wallpaper, counting the places where it was peeling away from the wall. The church bells hadn’t even chimed noon, and she was already getting bored. How did the wealthy ladies up on Nob Hill stay sane, just idly sitting around all day?

Thinking of the Nob Hill ladies made her thoughts wander to Kate.

Miss Kate,
she corrected herself. It was better not to let herself get too close to one of the spoiled high-society ladies. They might act all nice, as if they cared about less fortunate people, but they were different from normal folks. When push came to shove, they had only their money and their own interests in mind. At least that was what Turi had always said about the wealthy tourists who came to the harbor to buy crabs on the weekends.

And Kate’s…Miss Kate’s actions yesterday proved him right, didn’t they? She had volunteered to drive Giuliana and pay her doctor’s bill only because it bought her a ticket to the hospital so she could take photographs. A good Samaritan wasn’t supposed to help out of selfish reasons. But then Giuliana reminded herself that Kate had ended up not taking any photographs. She might be rich—or at least her family was—but she wasn’t like the arrogant girls at the harbor, who had watched, uncaring, as Giuliana had burned her hands trying to get their food ready as fast as possible.

A knock came at the door.

She lifted herself up on her elbows. “Who is there?” Probably her landlady, coming to collect this week’s rent. For once, Giuliana would be able to pay without having to scrape together every last cent she and Turi had made selling crabs.

But instead of her landlady’s voice, that of another woman drifted through the door. “It’s me—Kate Winthrop.”

As she hastily sat up, Giuliana nearly fell off the bed.
Madonna mia!
What was Kate doing here? Had she come to tell Giuliana that her parents had found out about the incident in the study and no longer wanted to employ her? Clutching the wooden crutches with trembling hands, she hobbled to the door and opened it.

They stared at each other across the doorway.

Kate looked nearly as startled as Giuliana felt, as if she hadn’t intended to end up at her doorstep. She also looked awful. Dark shadows beneath her eyes smudged the normally fair skin. A few strands of her honey-blonde hair had gotten loose from its swept-up style and were now falling onto her face.

“What happened? Are you hurt?” Giuliana blurted out and swept the door wide to usher her in.

“Nothing happened,” Kate mumbled. “I’m just a little…tired and out of sorts.”

“Why? What happened?”

Kate stepped into the small room, instantly filling it with her scent—fresh air, soap, lilacs, and something that was just her. “Nothing,” she repeated and closed the door behind her.

Giuliana had plenty of experience bringing Turi out of a brooding mood and making him talk about what was bothering him, but she doubted that it would be considered proper to use the same method on Kate: tickling her until she cried for mercy and started talking. A mental image of her running herself fingers along Kate’s slender sides dashed through her mind. No, definitely not proper. She chased away the thought and instead focused on the two bundles in Kate’s hands.

A heavenly scent was wafting up from one, making Giuliana’s stomach let out a demanding growl. The other bundle was wrapped in a piece of cloth, from which drops of water splashed onto the worn wood floor.