The Bohemian Murders (9 page)

So it was that virtually on the heels of Artemisia’s novella another Carmelite arrived with an even lengthier manuscript in need of typing. This was none other than the Medium Brown Man, whose actual name proved to be Arthur Heyer. His book was a collection of local legends, under the title
Ghostly Tales of the Central Coast,
and while Arthur was still prattling on about how he had collected his legends, Braxton Furnival loomed larger than life through the door, quite eclipsing the Medium Man (who was not brown but plaid that day).

So Arthur, who was being more entertaining than one would have thought him capable of, scuttled away and Braxton held forth for long after his charm had worn thin. He did, however, leave one letter to be typed over and over again—seventy-three times, to be exact—for a long list of names and addresses. Potential investors, he called the addressees. Doing the same thing so many times was bound to be tedious, but I did not greatly care as it was also lucrative, especially since I decided to charge him three cents apiece for typing the envelopes. I judged Braxton could afford it, and I must have been right because he didn’t bat an eye. Add to all this a certain amount of walk-in traffic off the street, and I was suddenly busier than I had been in a very long time.

Thus it was that on the eighteenth of January, which was a Thursday, I drove the rig into town at noon instead of walking. My plan was to take the typewriter (which I could lift, but not easily) back to the lighthouse and do some typing that night, to compensate for the fact that I intended to post a sign saying the office would be closed that afternoon. I was going to Mapson’s Mortuary come hell or high water.

High water seemed the more likely: It was raining, and Bessie the bay mare was none too pleased to be left standing in the street. She twitched her ears back and snorted while I wrestled the typewriter—covered, of course—into the bottom of the shay. I had also put the top up on the carriage, but with the wind blowing off the bay it did not do a tremendous lot of good. Nevertheless
I was fairly dry, in an unfashionable but serviceable rain slicker I had found some months ago in the donations box at the tent city in Golden Gate Park. I believe my slicker—which is black and shaped rather like a tent itself—is a garment intended for males, which is why it is so comfortable and roomy. Were it made for a woman it would probably be restrictively narrow through the shoulders, tight in the neck, with tiny buttons clear up to the ears. The clothing we women have to put up with is one of my pet peeves. Someday I will do something about it—if I can only figure out what.

I was about to climb into the carriage when through the steady rain I saw someone coming along the sidewalk from Lighthouse Avenue. A short woman in a yellow canvas duster. It was Phoebe Broom, looking a lot less like Jane Eyre and more like a canary.

“Oh dear,” I muttered, then hoped she hadn’t heard me. I gave Bessie’s neck a pat and whispered a word of patience in her twitching ear, then pasted a smile on my face and met Phoebe as she came alongside the office door. “Phoebe, isn’t it? What brings you out in the rain?”

“I like rain.” She smiled up at me in her unassuming way. “Though it does interfere with my sculpting. The roof of my studio leaks. So I caught a ride over the hill with Oscar—he’s gone on into Monterey. I’ve brought something I thought you might like to have. If we could go inside? Or are you on your way out rather than in?”

“I am going out—” I indicated the sign in my window that said
CLOSED
“—but I can delay for a few moments. Come on in.”

I unlocked the door and we dripped across the floor. Phoebe went straight to the desk, wiped her portfolio off with a handkerchief, and opened it out. “Come and look,” she beckoned to me, “you can choose the one you like best.”

Uh-oh, I thought, remembering part of our last conversation, but I went ahead and looked. And soon felt teary—the drawings were of Misha, my Michael, and they were that good. “You drew these, Phoebe?” I asked. “I thought you were a sculptor.”

“The drawings are the first step. You have to draw before you can sculpt. At least, that’s how I was taught.” She grinned and poked me gently in the ribs with her elbow, a mischievous light in her eyes. “I’ll bet you thought you were about to see some drawings of Misha in the nude. Didn’t you?”

I nodded, smiling. “Something like that.” “Well, I want you to know I tried, but he went all priggish on me and wouldn’t take off his clothes. So I’m having to do Misha’s head on Khalid’s body.”

“How did you know Khalid’s body would be worth doing, considering those voluminous robes he wears?”

“I know Irma Fox. She can afford anything, so why would she keep a man who’s less than well put together?”

“Good heavens!”

“What did you think? That Khalid was Irma’s adopted son? Surely you aren’t that naive, Fremont.”

“No,” I admitted, “and why shouldn’t she, considering that it’s done the other way around all the time. It’s just—I don’t know—I suppose it’s just that I’m not accustomed to talking openly about these things.”

Phoebe shrugged, and looked down at her drawings as if dismissing the topic. “That’s because the world is full of hypocrites, except for those of us who choose to live in Carmel. Now, which one of these do you want, Fremont? Or do you want one at all?”

“Of course I do! They’re wonderful.” She had captured him so exactly that I could see the familiar expressions of my Michael within the curling hair and gypsyish neck scarf of Misha. The drawings were ink on heavy paper, done with a sure hand and great skill, not a tentative line among them. And as I went through them one by one, I had an idea that had nothing whatever to do with either Michael or Misha. A wonderful idea!

“This one,” I said, taking out a three-quarters profile that was so perfect it almost broke my heart. I might have lost him, but now I would always have this to remember him by. “Thank you so much, Phoebe.”

“You’re welcome. There’s a framer on Calle Principal
in Monterey who’s pretty good. I’ve never learned to frame.”

“For the moment, at least until it stops raining, I’ll leave the drawing here in the office. Tell me, Phoebe: Are you free for the next couple of hours? And can you keep a secret?”

I have observed that conspiracy produces a certain amount of camaraderie. I do believe, however, that Phoebe and I would have become friends even without conspiring. She was plainspoken and straightforward, both qualities that I appreciate in a person, male or female. Though I have made some disastrous mistakes where choosing friends is concerned, I did not believe that Phoebe would turn out to be one of them.

“Don’t worry,” she said when I inquired about materials, “I have my sketchbook and pencils with me. I never go anywhere without them. And I shall play my part to perfection, I assure you!”

Mapson’s Mortuary is in a boggy part of Monterey near Lake El Estero, where a cemetery is also located. Bessie did not quite enter into the spirit of our adventure; she couldn’t have been more recalcitrant if she were a mule, and I could hardly blame her for not wanting to sink her fetlocks in the mud. A double row of eucalyptus trees with scabrous bark leaned mournfully over a peeling adobe building with a moon gate—a cultural mixture that one sees occasionally in California.

“Ugh!” Phoebe said.

“My sentiments exactly. But look, there is a sort of shed at the side. At least we can get the horse and carriage out of the rain.”

We secured Bessie and entered the mortuary through a side door. Inside it was dark and dank, but at least there was no unpleasant smell.

“I suppose there’s nobody lying in waiting, or whatever you call it,” Phoebe whispered. “The place seems deserted.”

My eyes had grown used to the gloom. I picked a door and said, “This way.” Of course I didn’t have the
slightest idea where I was going, but I have found that in such a situation it is not a bad idea to act as if one knows.

We had entered into an enclosed side porch with a tile floor. The door I chose was at the far end of this porch, leading to what I surmised would be the back of the building. The door was locked, so I knocked. While waiting for it to open, I glanced down at Phoebe, who was so excited she almost shot sparks. “Calm down,” I whispered, “and try to look doleful or morbid or something.”

The door opened outward, so I had to step back; I trod on Phoebe and she yelped. “My friend is rather nervous,” I explained to one of the tallest, thinnest men I had ever seen, not to mention one of the most silent. He wore an apron and a stern expression, which led me to speculate that we must have interrupted something unspeakable.

As he was obviously not going to say anything, I continued: “I hope you can help us, as we are on a difficult errand. My friend is looking for her cousin, a woman who seems to have disappeared on a trip to this area about a week ago.”

“Just over a week, actually,” Phoebe chimed in, demonstrating an excellent memory of the facts I’d told her in the carriage on the way over.

“My name is Fremont Jones. Dr. Frederick Bright told me that you have the body of an unidentified woman here, and—oh dear, this is really very difficult—”

Head bowed, my co-conspirator had begun to cry, not at all silently (and probably not with tears, but I didn’t intend that anyone should look closely enough to find that out). I put my arm around Phoebe, whose small stature helped her to look all the more bereft and helpless. She shook most convincingly.

“So if you would just allow us to take a look at this Jane Doe,” I pleaded, “we’d be most grateful.”

Phoebe sobbed.

“I’m the only one here, and I got no authority. You can come in, but you’ll have to wait for Mr. Mapson.”

At least he could speak! I was beginning to think the man had started out a normal size but somehow had
been stretched like an India-rubber band, and in the process had lost the use of his vocal cords.

Mr. Long and Tall led us through a dark corridor, turning on gas wall sconces along the way that did little more than cast strange shadows. The rain, falling harder now, rattled on the tile roof of the adobe. Our footsteps echoed on the floor, which was also tile. There was a musty smell about the place, and I brooded over what might be behind all the closed doors.

“You can wait in here,” he said. It was a parlor with a gas chandelier hanging from an already low ceiling. He lit two of its six globes, which immediately began to do their work of casting fantastic shadows. And then he faded away.

“I wonder how long we’ll have to wait,” Phoebe fretted.

“Not long. In about five minutes I’m going to go and bribe him.”

“Fremont!”

“It will be much better that way, because if he takes money to break the rules, he’s not very likely to tell anyone we were here. Don’t worry. I’ll tell him you’re just too distressed to wait. It was your crying jag that kept him from closing the door in our faces, I’m sure of it. Keep up the good work!”

Long and Tail’s name was Tom and he took the bribe with alacrity. We went back to the parlor for Phoebe, who began sniveling as soon as she heard our footsteps; then Tom showed us through one of the closed doors that led to yet another corridor. “The cold room,” he said, pushing open the door at the end.

“This is where we keep ’em, but we can’t keep that one you came to see much longer. After a while the ice isn’t enough, if you know what I mean. She’s about to go over. It’s this one right here. I’ll wait outside.”

He left, and I put my right hand over my nose and mouth while with my left hand I drew down the cloth that covered the body. That face! And the stench! Oh my God.

Phoebe was made of stouter stuff than anyone has a right to hope for. “Go on, Fremont, keep him occupied. I
can do it. I can extrapolate the other side of the face from the bone structure. It won’t be an exact likeness because the two sides of the face aren’t exactly alike—did you know that?”

It was a rhetorical question; her hands were busy sketching already. I said, “If you’re sure you’ll be all right …”

“Of course I will!”

I squeezed Phoebe’s shoulder in mute thanks and slipped through the door.

“I wanted her to have a minute alone with the body,” I said to Tom in a hoarse whisper. “She isn’t sure. With the face half gone like that—you understand.”

“Sure,” he said. He was smoking a cigarette; the smell of the burning tobacco masked the faint odor that seemed to make its way through the door, or perhaps it was the memory of that odor that still lingered in my nostrils.

I thought of what he’d said about them not being able to keep Jane Doe much longer; after seeing the condition she was in, I could understand that. But I also remembered my promise to see her decently buried.

I cleared my throat. “Ah, Tom? My friend is not exactly affluent. Assuming that this is her lost cousin, have you any idea how much the least expensive sort of funeral would be?”

“I don’t do that part,” he said, blowing smoke over my head.

“We’ll have to see Mr. Mapson, I suppose,” I said resignedly. Whatever it was, I wasn’t likely to be able to afford it.

“I don’t do it,” a slow and rather unpleasant smile spread across his face, “but I know how much everything costs. I’m an apprentice, see. Some day I’ll take over this whole business. Your cheapest funeral, wood box and all, will cost you about a hundred-fifty.”

“I see. Thank you.” That was three months of Hettie’s salary, half of what I was earning taking her place. I concluded drearily that making promises to the dead is not such a good idea.

A commotion at the door caused Tom to look around
and down, and me to hasten to open it. Phoebe collapsed against me in a coughing fit, but she’d had the presence of mind to stash her sketchbook and pencils inside her duster. Her eyes were streaming—for real, this time.

She shook her head. “It’s not my cousin. That poor, pathetic creature isn’t any relation of mine!”

Tom looked skeptical.

I said quickly, “You took plenty of time to make sure. That’s all anybody could ask.” I bundled her back up the corridor and said to Long Tall Tom over my shoulder, “Thank you so much. You can see that she couldn’t have stood the strain of waiting any longer.”