The Bughouse Affair

2

SABINA

After John had left the office for parts unknown, Sabina put on her straw picture hat and skewered it to her upswept dark hair with a Charles Horner hatpin of silver and coral. The pin, a gift from her cousin Callie on her last birthday, was one of two she owned by the famed British designer. The other, a butterfly with an onyx body and diamond-chip wings, had been a gift from her late husband and was much too ornate-to say nothing of valuable-to wear during business hours.

Momentarily she recalled Stephen’s face: thin, with prominent cheekbones and chin. Brilliant blue eyes below wavy, dark brown hair. A face that could radiate tenderness-and danger. Like herself, a Pinkerton International Detective Agency operative in Denver, he had been working on a land-fraud case when he was shot during a raid and succumbed to his wounds. It troubled Sabina that over the past few years his features had become less distinct in her memory, as had those of her deceased parents, but she assumed that was human nature. One’s memories blur; one goes on.

At times, however, the memories had a stronger pull than at others. This morning she could not dismiss recollections of the year when she had been a girl Friday (a term she loathed) in the Pinkerton Agency’s offices in Chicago. Her father had also been a Pinkerton operative and had died at the age of forty-nine, not in the line of duty but rather ignobly of gout; Sabina had secured her position through her father’s partner when the need to work to support her sickly mother became apparent. And it was there that her talent for detective work had engaged the interest of branch manager Stephen Carpenter, who began courting as well as mentoring her. By the onset of the new year, Sabina was on her way to becoming a full-fledged “Pink Rose,” as the women operatives proudly called themselves.

The Pink Roses were few in number, yet respected as excellent detectives. Forty years earlier, the first of them, a widow named Kate Warne, had entered the Chicago offices of the agency and requested of Allan Pinkerton that he give her a position-not as a member of the clerical staff, but as an operative. Mrs. Warne overcame Pinkerton’s objections, was given the position on a trial basis, and acquitted herself outstandingly from the first. She had been instrumental in uncovering a plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln as he rode the train from Illinois to Washington, D.C., to take the oath of office after his election, and had herself accompanied him all the way to the nation’s capital.

It was rumored that Mrs. Warne had engaged in a long-standing love affair with Allan Pinkerton, but if the rumors were true, the affair had been well shielded and never publicly corroborated. John seemed not to know about this, or at least had never spoken of it to her, and of course she had been careful not to mention it herself. She had enough difficulty fending off his advances without a possible precedent to spur him on.

Within a year of their marriage, she and Stephen had been transferred together to the agency’s Denver headquarters, where occasionally they worked as a team, but most often on separate cases that utilized their individual talents. Until the unthinkable happened, and Sabina found herself a widow.

In her grief she had taken a leave of absence from the agency and for a time withdrawn from society, even from herself. She spent long days and nights in the too-quiet flat she and Stephen had occupied in a large brick house in the city, doing little, feeling nothing. Neglecting her appearance, burrowing in bed for entire days, not eating until hunger drove her to gorge herself and then regurgitate.

Then, at her lowest point, Frieda Gosling became her savior.

Frieda, the wife of another Pinkerton operative and a friend of both hers and Stephen’s, entered the flat against Sabina’s protests, sat her down, and in stern but compassionate tones delivered both a lecture and a message from the Pinkerton office. Did Sabina expect to wallow in grief and misery for the rest of her life? A fine monument to Stephen’s memory that would be. Wouldn’t he want her to start embracing life again, and return to her duties in the profession for which she was best suited? If she chose the latter, Frieda said, the agency had urgent need of a Pink Rose to work an undercover assignment in Silver City, Idaho, on a case involving a mining stock swindle.

Sabina had taken her friend’s words to heart and never regretted it. For not only had her return to Pink Rose status given her renewed purpose, it had been in Silver City that she’d met John Quincannon, then with the United States Secret Service, and eventually embarked on her new and rewarding life in San Francisco. She and Frieda had remained close, exchanging frequent letters and small gifts at Christmastime.

Now she scrutinized her reflection in her hand mirror and concluded that she looked more like a respectable young matron than a detective setting out to snaffle a pickpocket. Satisfied, she left the office to keep her luncheon date with Callie at the Sun Dial, a popular spot with the ladies.

Sabina held a relatively unique position for a woman in San Francisco: as a widow and the co-owner of a highly respectable business, she was free of many of the strictures imposed on single and married women alike. While the ladies of the city poured tea and offered sweets during weekly “at homes,” Sabina traveled the far more interesting, if sometimes dangerous, byways and districts from the notorious Barbary Coast to luxurious Nob Hill. In the course of her investigations she met people of undisputed good standing as well as those of dubious and ill repute. To her second cousin, Callie French, with whom she’d resumed a childhood friendship when she moved West, and with whom she was in fact lunching today, these were dangerous activities inviting folly.

Callie, like Sabina, had been born in Chicago, but her family had moved to California when she was only five. For a time they’d lived in Oakland, the city across the Bay, then settled on Nob Hill when her father was promoted to the regional headquarters of the Miners Bank. Callie had been a debutante-one of the “buds” of society who were presented at the cotillions-and had married a protege of her father’s in a lavish wedding that had reputedly cost fifty thousand dollars, an unheard of amount for the day. She was Sabina’s entree into the workings of the upper classes and the ways of the city’s elite.

But Sabina also moved unharmed through far less genteel surroundings, as if protected by an invisible shield of armor. Perhaps it was her confident manner or perhaps it was because with Stephen’s death the worst that could happen to her had already occurred. On that matter, she didn’t care to speculate.

When she entered the Sun Dial, she spied Callie at a corner table in the bright, airy main room. Sunlight spilled down through one of the large skylights, giving Callie’s intricately braided and coiled blond hair a golden sheen. She greeted Sabina effusively as always, with a hug and a burst of chatter. “There you are, my dear! How are you? In fine fettle, I hope. Here, let me help you with your cloak. They say the chicken dish is exceptional today, but I’m thinking of the veal chop.”

While Sabina studied the menu, Callie plied her with questions about John. How was he? Had she changed her mind about seeing him outside the office? No? Why not? He was such a charming man, so polite and well mannered in spite of his ferocious beard.

Sabina smiled inwardly. Callie was a firm believer in marriage, thanks to the success of her own union, and made no bones about the fact that she thought Sabina ought to marry again. Nothing would have made her happier than a Carpenter and Quincannon matrimonial as well as business match. If Sabina ever even hinted at such a possibility, Callie would immediately order champagne and a string quartet for the wedding. Not that such a hint would ever be forthcoming, but if Sabina had spoken forcefully against the notion, it would only have hurt Callie’s feelings. Her cousin could be frivolous and at times downright silly, but she was loyal and had a good, well-meaning heart. Sabina prized their friendship.

The coq au vin didn’t appeal to her, nor did the veal chop, but a seafood pasta struck the right note. When she ordered it, Callie said, “Oh, how I envy you. If I ate starch for lunch, I’d have to let my corset out.”

“Nonsense.”

“Nonsense to you, perhaps. You’ve never needed to wear a corset.”

“Not yet, at least.”

Callie leaned forward and lowered her voice. Sabina knew what was coming, for her cousin had an enormous interest in her work-and an equally enormous penchant for gossip. “Tell me, dear. What sort of cases are you and John investigating now?”

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

“You and your silly rules about client confidentiality. At least tell me this: is there any danger in what you’re doing?”

“No, none.”

“Are you sure? You know how I worry about you.”

“Yes. But needlessly.”

“I wish I could be certain of that. It’s such a dangerous profession you’ve chosen.…”

Sabina said quickly, to forestall any painful reminder of what had happened to Stephen, “No more dangerous than crossing a busy street. Or devouring that veal chop you ordered.”

Callie sighed. “Not to mention the chocoloate torte I’m considering for dessert.”

After she and Callie parted outside the restaurant, Sabina hailed a cab that carried her down Van Ness Avenue and south on Haight Street. The journey was a lengthy one, passing through sparsely settled areas of the city, and all unbidden she found herself thinking about John instead of Stephen. No doubt because of Callie’s none-too-subtle matchmaking … and yet, her thoughts seemed to turn to her partner more and more often lately, at odd moments, in spite of her vow to keep their relationship strictly professional.

He had left the office grumbling because of her refusal to tell him with whom she was having lunch, and because she had also refused an invitation to dinner at Marchand’s French restaurant. Sabina, a practical woman, had thus far turned down nearly all of John’s frequent invitations. Mixing business with even the simplest of pleasures was a precarious proposition; it could imperil their partnership, an arrangement with which she was quite happy as it stood.

Another reason she spurned his advances was that she was unsure of what motivated them. Plain seduction? She had no interest in a dalliance with her partner or any other man. A more serious infatuation? As she had often told Callie, she was unwilling to enter into another committed relationship-especially one with John of all possible swains-while the lost love of her life remained bright in her memory. Whatever poor John’s intentions, he was simply out of luck.

Sometimes working with him tried her patience, and not only because of his persistence in trying to obtain her favors. His preening self-esteem, though often justified, could be exasperating. Yet she knew him well enough to understand that it was more a facade than his true nature, masking an easily bruised ego and a deep-seated fear of failure. Of course, he would never admit to being either vulnerable or insecure. Or to the fact that she was his equal as a detective. His pride wouldn’t allow it.

Yet John also had many good qualities: courage, compassion, sensitivity, kindness, a surprising gentleness at times. And she had to admit that she did not find him unattractive. Quite the opposite, in fact …

The Chutes Amusement Park, on Haight Street near the southern edge of Golden Gate Park, had only been open a short while and was still drawing large daily crowds. Its most prominent feature was a three-hundred-foot-long Shoot-the-Chutes: a double trestle track that rose seventy feet into the air. Passengers would ascend to a room at the top of the slides, where they would board boats for a swift descent to an artificial lake at the bottom. Sabina craned her neck to look up at the towering tracks, saw the boats descending, heard the mock terrified screams and shouts of the patrons. She had heard that the ride was quite thrilling-or frightening, according to one’s perspective. She herself would enjoy trying it.

In addition to the water slide, the park contained a scenic railway that chugged merrily throughout its acreage; a mirrored, colorful merry-go-round with a huge brass ring; various carnival-like establishments-fortune-tellers, marksmanship booths, ring tosses, and other games of chance-and a refreshment stand offering hot dogs, sandwiches, and lemonade. Vendors with carts moved among the crowd, dispensing popcorn and cotton candy. A giant scale defied men to test their strength-“hit it hard enough with a wooden mallet to make the bell at the top ring,” the barker in charge intoned, “and win a goldfish for your lady.” Sabina suspected trickery: a man built like a wrestler accompanied by a homely woman missed the mark, but another as thin as a slat accompanied by a dark-haired beauty came away with two fish.

Ackerman had told Sabina she would find his manager, Lester Sweeney, in the office beyond the ticket booth. She crossed the street, holding up her flowered skirt so the hem wouldn’t get dusty, and asked at the booth for Mr. Sweeney. The man collecting admissions motioned her inside and through a door behind him.

Sweeney sat behind a desk that seemed too large for the cramped space, adding a column of figures. He was a big man, possibly in his late forties, with thinning red hair and a complexion that spoke of a fondness for strong drink. When at first he looked up at Sabina, his reddened eyes, surrounded by pouched flesh, gleamed in appreciation. To forestall any unseemly remarks she quickly presented her card, and watched the gleam fade.

“I didn’t know they’d be sending a woman,” he said. “Mr. Ackerman told me it would be one of the owners of the agency.”

“I am one of the owners.”

He looked at the card again. “Well, well. These days … well. Please sit down, Mrs. Carpenter.”

“Thank you.” Sabina sat on the single wooden chair sandwiched between the desk and the wall.

“You’ll pardon me if I expressed reservations,” Sweeney said. “You look so, ah, refined-”

“As do many of your patrons, from what I’ve observed. One of the advantages for a woman in my profession is to be able to blend in. And few would expect a detective to be female.”

“True,” he admitted, “true.”

“To business, then. These pocket-picking incidents have occurred over the past two weeks?”

“Yes. Five in all, primarily in the afternoon. Word has begun to spread, as I’m sure Mr. Ackerman told you, and we’re bound to lose customers.”

“You spoke with the known victims?”

“Those who reported the incidents, yes. There may have been others who didn’t.”

“And none was able to describe the thief?”

“Other than that she’s a woman who disguises herself in different costumes, no. Nor have our security guards been able to find any trace of her after the incidents.”

“Were the victims all of the same sex?”

He nodded. “All men.”

“Did they have anything in common? Such as age, type of dress?”

Sweeney frowned while he cudgeled his memory. The frown had an alarming effect on his face, making it look like something that had softened and spread after being left out in the direct sun. In a moment he shook his head. “Various ages, various types of dress. Picked at random, I should think.”

“Possibly. Do you have their names and addresses?”

“Somewhere here.” He shuffled through the papers on his desk, found the list, and handed it to her. Sabina read it through, then tucked it into her reticule and rose from the chair. “You’ll begin your investigation immediately, Mrs. Carpenter?”

“Yes. I’ll notify you as soon as I have anything to report.”