Marcia Muller - Crucifixion River

Every thief has his or her own method , Sabina thought, and evidently this one’s was to seek out people who had fallen ill and were therefore vulnerable.

“Did your father talk about the incident afterwards?”

Ellen Anderson shook her dark-curled head. “He seemed ashamed of being robbed. In fact, Mother had to insist he report the theft to the park manager.”

“Did his distress continue afterwards?”

“I don’t think so, but he’s never been one to talk about his ailments.”

Two more fruitless stops left her with a final name on the list: Henry Holbrooke, on South Park. The oval-shaped park, an exact copy of London’s Berkeley Square, had once been home to the reigning society of San Francisco, but now its grandeur, and that of neighboring Rincon Hill, was fading. Most of the powerful millionaires and their families who had resided there had moved to more fashionable venues such as Nob Hill, and many of the elegant homes looked somewhat shopworn. Henry Holbrooke’s was one of the latter, its paint peeling and small front garden unkempt, a grand old lady slipping into genteel poverty.

A light was burning behind heavy velvet curtains in a bay window, but when Sabina knocked, no one answered. She knocked again, and after a moment the door opened. The inner hallway was so dark that she could scarcely make out the person standing there. Then she saw it was a woman dressed entirely in black. She said: “Missus Holbrooke?”

“Yes.” The woman’s voice cracked, as if rusty from disuse.

Sabina gave her name and explained her mission. The woman made no move to take the card she extended.

“May I speak with your husband?” Sabina asked.

“My husband is dead.”

“…My condolences. May I ask when he passed on?”

“Two weeks ago.”

That would have been a week after he was robbed of his money belt at the Chutes.

“May I come in?” Sabina asked.

“I’d rather you didn’t. I’ve been…tearful. I don’t wish for anyone to see me after I’ve been weeping.”

“I understand. What was the cause of your husband’s death?”

“An infection and internal bleeding.”

“Had he been ill long?”

“He had never been ill. Not a day in his life.”

“What did his physician say?”

The widow laughed harshly. “We couldn’t afford a physician, not after his money belt was stolen. He died at home, in my arms, and the coroner came and took him away. I had to sell my jewelry…what was left of it…so he could have a decent burial.”

“I’m sorry. Why did he have so much money on his person during an afternoon at the amusement park?”

“My husband never went anywhere without that belt. He was afraid to leave it at home. This neighborhood is not what it once was.”

Sabina glanced at the neighboring homes in their fading glory. Henry Holbrooke would have been better advised to keep his money in a bank.

“Did the coroner tell you what might have caused of your husband’s infection?” she asked.

Mrs. Holbrooke leaned heavily on the doorjamb; like South Park, she was slowly deteriorating. “No. Only that it resulted in internal bleeding.” The woman reached out and placed a hand on Sabina’s arm. “If you apprehend the thief, will you recover my husband’s money?”

Most likely it had already been spent, but Sabina said: “Perhaps.”

“Will you return it to me? I’d like to buy him a good grave marker.”

“Of course.”

If the money had indeed been spent, Sabina resolved that Carpenter and Quincannon would supply the grave marker, out of the handsome fee Charles Ackerman would pay them-whether John liked it or not.

Sabina returned to the hansom, but asked the driver to wait. A pickpocket, she thought, rarely works the same territory in a single day. The woman she had followed was unlikely to return to the Chutes in the near future; she’d seen Sabina eyeing her suspiciously. The Ambrosial Path would be similarly off limits, since she’d had success there and word would by now have spread among the habitués of the area. Where else would a pickpocket who preyed on the infirm go to ply her trade?

After a moment, Sabina said to the hack driver: “Take me to Market and Fourth Streets, please.”

The open field at Market and Fourth was brightly lit by lanterns and torchlights, and dotted with tents and wagons. Music filled the air from many sources, each competing with the other; barkers shouted, and a group of Negro minstrels sang “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” Sabina stood at the field’s perimeter, surveying the medicine show.

From the wagons men hawked well-known remedies: Tiger Balm, Snake Dust, aconite, Pain Begone, Miracle Wort. Others offered services on the spot: painless dentistry, spinal realignment, Chinese herbs brewed to the taste, head massages. Sabina, who had attended the medicine show with John after moving to San Francisco-a must, he’d said, for new residents-recognized several of the participants: Pawnee Bill, the Great Ferndon, Doctor Jekyll, Herman the Healer, Rodney Strong-heart.

The din rose as a shill for Dr. Wallmann’s Nerve and Brain Salts stood in his red coach-six black horses stamping and snorting-to extol the product. Sabina smiled; John had frequently posed as a drummer for Dr. Wallmann’s, and said the salts were nothing more than table salt mixed with borax.

Someone nearby shouted: “The show is on!” A top-hatted magician and his sultry, robed assistant emerged from a striped tent; another show-Indians in dancing regalia-began to compete, the thump of tom-toms drowning out a banjo player. The entertainment quickly ended when the selling began.

Sabina continued to scan the scene before her. The crowd was mostly men; the few women she judged to be of the lower classes by their worn clothing and roughened faces and hands. Not a lady-fancy or fine-in the lot. And no one with a picture hat and unusual pin. However, the woman she sought could have changed her clothing as she herself had. Sabina moved into the crowd.

A snake charmer’s flute caught her attention, and she watched the pathetic defanged creature rise haltingly from its shabby basket. She turned away, spied under the wide brim of a battered straw hat. The woman had dark eyes and gray hair-not the person she was looking for.

On a platform at the back of a wagon, a dancer was performing, draped in filmy veils. Unfortunately the veils slipped and fell to the ground, revealing her scarlet long johns. A man with an ostrich-featherbedecked hat began expounding upon the virtues of Sydney’s Cough Syrup, only to fall into a fit of coughing. Sabina glanced at the face under the brim of an old-fashioned bonnet and saw the woman was elder ly.

Wide-brimmed hat with bedraggled feathers: a badly scarred young woman whose plight made Sabina flinch. Toque-draped in fading tulle: red hair, and freckles. Another bonnet: white hair and fine wrinkles.

As Sabina was approaching a model of France’s infamous guillotine, a cry rang out. She soon saw that the ostrich feathers of the spokesman for Sydney’s Cough Syrup had caught fire from one of the torches. A nearby man rushed to throw the hat to the ground and stomp the flames out.

A freak show was starting. The barker urged Sabina to enter the tent and view the dwarf and deformed baby in a bottle. She declined-not at all respectfully.

Extravagant hat with many layers of feathers and a stuffed bird’s head protruding at the front: long blonde hair. Temperance speakers, exhibiting jars containing diseased kidneys. No, thank you.

Another bird hat. What was the fascination with wearing dead avian creatures on one’s head? The woman beneath the brim looked not much healthier than the bird that had died to grace her headpiece.