The Cliff House Strangler (36 page)

“Are you ready for the Sechrest hearing?” Robert asked as we followed Samuel down the stairs to the street.

It still angered me to think of Robert defending that bully Luther Sechrest, and I certainly had no desire to discuss the case with him beforehand. “You’ll have to wait and find that out on Friday, won’t you?”

He took my arm, halting my descent. “Sarah, can’t you talk some sense into your client? So much embarrassment and pain could be avoided if Mrs. Sechrest would simply accept her husband’s offer and return home. She should do it for her children’s sake, if not for herself.”

“Robert, listen to me. My client would dearly love to avoid dragging her boys through what is sure to be an ugly battle. But if she agrees to her husband’s terms, they might end up with no mother at all. Luther Sechrest is a dangerous man, especially when he’s drunk, which is nearly every night. The wounds he’s inflicted upon his wife are real. I’ve seen them for myself. I cannot in all good conscience advise her to return to such a brute.

Two bright patches of color appeared in Robert’s ruddy cheeks,
and his back stiffened as he stood on the stair directly above my own. I was forced to bend my head back in a most uncomfortable fashion in order to meet his eyes.

“How can you be sure she didn’t fake those bruises to gain sympathy?” he challenged. “An inability to tell the truth is one of the symptoms of her condition. You aren’t doing the poor woman any favors by offering her ill-informed advice. Give in gracefully, and the family may yet be whole again.”

A sound escaped my throat, half laugh and half a cry of frustration. “This is useless, Robert. Luther Sechrest must be a very persuasive man to take you in so completely. I honestly thought you were more discerning than that.” Turning around, I continued down the stairs, calling over my shoulder, “As I said before, I’ll see you in court.”

Samuel started to say something to me at the foot of the stairs, then had second thoughts when he observed the tension between Robert and me. Instead, the two men silently started toward the nearest intersection, where they might more easily find an unengaged cab.

I was about to start the short walk to the horsecar line, when I saw my downstairs neighbor, Fanny Goodman, beckoning to me from the front door of her shop. Curious, I stepped inside.

“What is it, Mrs. Goodman?” I asked.

Without answering, she looked cautiously up and down the street, then shut the door and put up the shop closed sign.

“Mrs. Goodman, what’s wrong?” I asked when we reached the kitchen.

“Sit down, dear,” she said, nodding toward the table. She went to the kettle and poured out two cups of tea, then sat down opposite me. Her face was unusually grave. “Sarah, I’m worried about you. I’ve been trying to catch you for the past two days, but you’ve hardly been in your office.”

“I have two cases which require a great deal of my attention just now,” I explained, curious that my neighbor should find this
troubling. She was the one, after all, constantly predicting my professional success.

“Yes, and I’m delighted that your services are in such demand. But not at the cost of your well-being.” She stared hard at me, and I felt a sudden stab of alarm. “Sarah, do you know of any reason why a man would spend the past two days standing across the street watching your office?”

It took a moment for her words to register. “What makes you think someone is watching my office?”

“Because I’ve been keeping an eye on him, of course. When you run a business, it’s important to pay attention to that sort of thing. It wouldn’t be the first time a hooligan has stood out there planning to rob my store.”

“You say he’s been there for two days?” It was chilling to think some stranger had been spying on me. Why should I suddenly be of such interest to anyone?

“What does he look like?”

“He’s not someone I’ll soon forget. He’s tall and rail-thin. He wears a black hat pulled low over his face, so it’s difficult to see his eyes clearly, but his skin is very pale. The hair that shows under his hat is white, and so is his mustache. Oh, and he’s always dressed in black. He’s a sinister-looking character, Sarah. Not someone you’d want to run into on a dark night, or even in broad daylight.

I searched my memory but couldn’t place anyone of that description. Yet why would a perfect stranger watch my office?

“Every once in a while, he leaves,” Fanny went on. “Probably to get something to eat. But he always comes back.”

“I don’t understand,” I said in honest bewilderment. “It’s not as if I keep any money or valuables in my office.”

We spent some time in fruitless speculation, which, not surprisingly, got us nowhere. Fanny was convinced the man was somehow connected to one of my current cases, but I failed to see how. True, by agreeing to represent Madame Karpova and Alexandra Sechrest,
I’d made enemies. But in my profession, that was hardly unusual. Who could consider me such a threat?

“You’ll be careful, dear, won’t you?” Fanny asked, looking nervously up and down the street as I left her shop.

“Of course I will. Please, Mrs. Goodman, don’t worry. I’ll be in my office first thing tomorrow morning. I only have two more days to prepare for the Sechrest divorce hearing.”

I set off in the direction of the nearest horsecar line, thinking, as I stepped off the curb to cross Sutter Street, that traffic was unusually light for this time of evening.

I had reached the middle of the street, when two things happened almost simultaneously: Mrs. Goodman screamed, and I heard—as well as felt on the unpaved street beneath my feet—the rumble of horse’s hooves coming upon me at a dangerous clip. I looked up and saw the driver cracking his whip, urging his animal forward at an ever-faster speed. For one terrifying moment, the man’s face loomed before me, his pale face and white mustache standing out starkly in the gaslight, his thin mouth set in grim determination.

There was no time to scream. Instinctively, I dove forward in a desperate effort to avoid the vehicle, which was nearly upon me. From what sounded like a great distance, I heard a horse’s loud whinny, then a man’s voice calling for the beast to stop. I managed to roll over onto my back in time to see the huge animal rear up above me like some monster out of one of Mary Shelley’s tales of horror.

With a preternatural sense of calm, I watched the horse’s front hooves begin their inevitable descent toward my head.

T
o this day, I refuse to believe I fainted. Succumbing to fits of the vapors is an absurd practice, one, I’m sorry to say, that is all too often abused by members of my own sex. Honesty, however, compels me to admit that the next several minutes passed in a painful blur. I seem to remember hearing Mrs. Goodman scream yet again, then feeling strong hands grip my arms. With no clear idea how I had gotten there, I now seemed to be lying on the sidewalk.

The first thing I saw upon opening my eyes was my neighbor stripping off her apron and placing it on top of my head. Then she started to press down so hard, I felt a sharp stab of pain.

“I’m sorry to hurt you, Sarah, but we have to stop the bleeding,” Fanny said, looking more worried than I’d ever seen her.

It was then that I noticed something hot and sticky running down my face. I reached up a hand, and my fingers came away dripping blood.

I started to ask why I was bleeding; then memories of the racing carriage and the rearing horse came flooding back.

“That driver,” I said, finding it curiously difficult to speak. “He deliberately ran me down.”

“Shh, dear,” Fanny told me. “You have to hold still until Dr. Mallory gets here.”

“No, I don’t require a doctor.” I attempted to raise myself up, then gave a another cry as the same sharp pain bolted through my head, forcing me back down again.

“The driver of that carriage was the man I was telling you about,” Fanny told me. “He must have been waiting for you to cross the street.”

“So that he could run me down.” Even as I said the words, I found them hard to believe. “Why would he want to kill me?”

Taking hold of Fanny’s arm, I once again tried to pull myself up, but she gently laid me back down. It was then I realized something soft had been placed under my head, and I saw a coatless man standing behind my neighbor. I must be lying on his jacket, I thought, and worried that between the sidewalk and my blood, the garment would certainly be ruined.

“You’re a very fortunate young woman,” the coatless man said in a shaky voice. “This woman risked her life pulling you out from beneath that horse. The crazy driver didn’t even stop, just took off like the devil himself was after him.”

“But who would want—” I began, but Fanny cut me off.

“Just lie still, dear.”

In the end, I was obliged to endure the attentions of Dr. Mallory—whose practice was but two blocks away—while he cleaned the lesion and applied a bandage. His biggest fear, he said, was that I had suffered a concussion, and would need to be watched carefully over the next twelve hours.

After explaining that my brother was a doctor and that I felt quite well enough to ride home in a cab, he finally gave his consent for me to leave. It proved considerably harder to extricate myself from Mrs. Goodman’s well-meaning clutches. However, when I promised to seek out my brother Charles the moment I arrived home, she finally relented and flagged down a brougham for my use.

My main concern upon returning home was that I’d be seen by my parents. Now that my head was clearing, I realized my gown was not only torn and dirty but badly splattered with blood from my head laceration, which was the sort of wound that always bleeds profusely. With Frederick in jail, Mama and Papa had enough on their minds without worrying about me.

As it happened, our butler, Edis, was the only one about when I slipped into the house. Those old eyes, which had observed so much over the years, registered shock when he took in my disheveled appearance. Assuring him that my condition was not as bad as it appeared, I made him promise not to inform my parents of my mishap. He could, however, ask Charles to visit my room as soon as he returned home.

I’d just changed into a robe when my brother knocked and entered my bedroom, closely followed by my worried-looking sister-in-law Celia. Briefly, I told them what had happened, taking care to portray the incident as nothing more than an accident. Charles examined my wound, then confirmed Dr. Mallory’s diagnosis that I had very likely suffered a concussion and would require close observation throughout the night.

Which is exactly what he did—with annoying frequency. Every hour or two, he appeared to check my eyes by the light of a candle. During the long night, I slept little, kept awake by my brother, my headache, and theories about Moss’s notes.

Despite the busy schedule I had planned for the day, by morning I was forced to admit I was unfit to rise from my bed. My head still ached, and I was unsteady when I stumbled to the lavatory. Naturally, all my plans to keep the incident from my parents had been for naught. Not only had I been betrayed by Edis, who’d appeared so troubled the following morning that Papa easily wheedled it out of him, but by Charles, who had enlisted my mother to care for me during the day.

“It will be good for Mother,” he explained. “She needs to get
her mind off Frederick and his arraignment this afternoon. You’re not seriously injured, thank God, but she’ll enjoy fussing over you.” He went on to say he would leave some medicine to relieve my headache and would check on me again that afternoon when he made his house calls.

After promising to let Mrs. Goodman know I was on the mend, Charles sent Samuel up to see me before he left for the day. If I was forced to spend the day resting, I reasoned, I could at least pursue some of the ideas that had occurred to me during my restless night.

I thought it best not to share my speculations with Samuel until I could prove their validity, and as a result, he was bursting with curiosity at the selection of books I requested from Papa’s library. As soon as Samuel was gone, I took a dose of Charles’s pain medication, then settled down to work. I was hard at it when my mother came in carrying a breakfast tray. I felt a stab of guilt to see new worry lines on her face, undoubtedly put there by her eldest son and only daughter.

“Sarah, darling, how are you?” she said, placing the tray on an end table and coming over to examine my bandaged head. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forgive you for not telling me you were injured last night.”

“I’m sorry, Mama,” I said a bit feebly. “I didn’t want to add to your troubles just now.”

“Oh? And you don’t think being treated as if I’m too old and feeble to help my child when she’s hurt doesn’t add considerably more to my troubles?”

Heat rose to my face as I recognized the truth in what she was saying. After all, I’d felt the same way when Samuel failed to tell me the full circumstances surrounding Frederick’s arrest.

“You’re right, Mama, I should have told you. Actually, I’m very happy to have you here now.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” she said, plumping my pillows and placing the tray across my lap. “There now, I want you to eat every bite of that porridge. Cook made it specially for you.”

Pleased to discover I was hungry, I required no further encouragement. For the remainder of the day, Mama fussed over me like a happy mother hen, fetching, chatting, and bringing me one restorative dish after another from Cook’s kitchen. Charles had been right: This was exactly what she needed to get her mind off Frederick and his arraignment hearing.

As for me, I continued to peruse Papa’s books and study Mr. Ferrier’s translations of Moss’s diary. I drew yet another diagram depicting where everyone had sat during the Cliff House séance, then considered it for a long time. Gradually, certain facts began to emerge, if not yet entirely clear, cogent enough to let me know I was headed in the right direction.

The last thing I did before Mama took away my books and notes and informed me it was time to take a nap was to make a list of what remained for me to do before Friday’s divorce hearing. When I finally closed my eyes and succumbed to sleep, I felt as though the fog was finally beginning to lift!