Frail Blood (16 page)

Chapter 16

"As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods. They
kill us for their sport." –
King Lear

After the court session Emma greeted Malachi outside the
courthouse at the same place where she'd first accosted him all those days ago.
At that time she'd proposed that Alma Bentley was better defended by a woman
lawyer.

Malachi smiled at the memory.

She looked quite pretty this afternoon, her hair tucked
beneath a bright green hat with yellow flowers scattered across the brim. The
jacket of her tan suit showed a spot of green at the neck and sleeves and her
pale face was flushed as if she'd been running.

Unwittingly, he thought of Connie. At nineteen Constance
Bancroft had the delicate features and wide-eyed gaze of a true ingénue, and he'd
been youthful enough to believe her lies of chastity and pregnancy. He'd
married her because he was a gentleman, or so he'd thought himself.

Now he saw he'd only been a gullible, young fool.

The full truth, when it surfaced, was worse. He wasn't even
the father of the child growing in her belly, and Constance had been intimate
with more men than a Parisian whore could claim association with. He had vowed
not to be stupid enough to fall again into the same pit.

He consciously wiped the smile from his face, and replaced
it with a frown.

Emma stopped short where he leaned against the outer brick
wall of the courthouse. "Malachi," she said breathlessly, "I've
just spoken with Phoebe Machado, Joseph's sister."

"So soon?"

"Yes, earlier today I looked around the courtroom and
saw she wasn't in attendance so I took a chance that if she'd remained home,
but wasn't too indisposed or upset to talk to me."

Malachi hadn't even noticed the girl was absent, but now
that he thought of it, he remembered the heavy Portuguese father, Joseph, Sr.,
and the round, compact form of the mother sitting side by side several rows
behind the prosecution table.

"I take it you've learned something," he said,
grasping her arm and turning her toward the path that led to Main Street and
his law office.

They walked in silence, she fairly skipping along in her
exultation, he more slowly. She must have learned something significant from
the sister. He was tempted to probe her for information now, but knew they'd
have greater privacy in his office, away from prying eyes and listening ears.

"Are you hungry?" he asked suddenly, throwing her
off balance as he halted mid-stride.

"No, I've breakfasted."

"I'm hungry, so let us see if Molly over at the Tea
Room can put up a lunch for us."

She merely lifted her brows, but he knew she questioned the
propriety of their lunching alone in a secluded office. Malachi felt
irrationally annoyed. After what they'd already done, that cat was out of the
bag.

"I promise I won't lay a hand on you," he said
wryly, ushering her into the front door of his office. "You can invite
Thomas Gant to chaperone if you feel safer."

He left her in the office foyer and spun around to walk the
half block to Molly's Tea Room. When he returned twenty minutes later, bearing
a basket of victuals, the lobby and office were both empty, but the back door
propped open. He could see Emma across the narrow alley between their two
offices.

Thomas Gant sat awkwardly on an overturned crate near the
desk. Emma had removed her hat and jacket and sat behind the desk.

Apparently, she hadn't trusted his word.

"Hello, Mr. Gant," Malachi greeted the older man,
who shuffled to his feet and looked awkward, shy even, but extended his hand
politely enough. "There's plenty to eat. Would you like to join Miss
Knight and me?"

"No sir, the missus fixed me up a right nice lunch
which I already ate. Thank ye, anyway."

After Malachi took the straight-backed guest chair, Thomas
sat down, flattening the edges of the large printer's apron covering his work
clothes. The man obviously felt uncomfortable.

"Like I was sayin' to Miz Knight," Thomas said, "the
Machados come to Bigler County 'bout 1863, bought eighty acres up in Newcastle,
raised fruit up there, apricots, peaches, and the like."

"Mr. Gant, we were hoping you'd remember something
about the elder Machado son," Emma said.

"Aaron?" Thomas asked, his bushy gray brows edging
up to meet his disheveled hair. "He's been gone for years. Whadda you
wanna know about him?

"We understood there was some kind of family quarrel,"
Emma said, leaning across the desk. "Do you know anything about that?"

Thomas wrinkled his brow and rubbed his gnarled hand over
his head. "Well, that Aaron, he was a hot-tempered one, always wantin' his
dad to give him cash for this idea or that one. Thought of himself as an
entrepreneur." Thomas pronounced the word as if it rhymed with "entertainer."

Emma smiled and reached out to touch the old man's arm. Clearly
she had a good deal of affection for Gant. "He wanted his father to
finance his business ventures?"

Thomas snorted. "More like losing ventures. Every
scheme the kid came up with was dang foolish. The old man, Mr. Machado, was a
pretty good businessman. He wasn't about to waste money on Aaron's ideas."

"What happened?" Malachi asked.

"Had a big dust-up. Aaron called the old man a
penny-pinching bast – " Thomas interrupted himself. "Anyway, they
parted on pretty bad terms. Aaron said he'd make it without his father's money.
Took off to Bakersfield 'swhat I heard."

"Does he ever visit?" Emma asked.

"Not likely. He hates the old man, doubt he'd ever come
back this way." Thomas looked around the office and pushed up off the
makeshift chair. "I'd best be setting the type for Wednesday's edition, ma'am.
Mr. Stephen's got a long piece on the trial."

"Thank you, sir," Malachi said, standing and
shaking the man's hand.

Emma walked to the front of the office with Gant, who turned
back to Malachi. "Oh, you know who'd know more about the family than me? Try
Miz Henderson, the midwife." He laughed, showing strong, white teeth. "Norah
makes a point to know just about everybody's business."

Emma instructed Gant in some business matters while Malachi
laid out the lunch Molly had prepared for them and waited patiently for her to
return. He was eager to discuss what Phoebe Machado, the only daughter in the
Machado family, had said to Emma.

"Should I contact Mrs. Henderson?" Emma asked,
entering the back room, and then interrupted herself. "Oh, this looks
nice."

She looked at the spread of food lying on the overturned
crate Gant had just vacated. Picking up a sandwich, she nibbled at one corner
and paced the room. "Hmm, these are delicious. I'm hungrier than I
thought."

"You'd be better at talking to a midwife than I would. And
I still want you to talk to Alma again." Malachi reached for a thick slice
of bread and slathered it with butter. "What did Phoebe Machado have to
say?"

"She's an interesting woman," Emma said, gesturing
with the remnant of her sandwich. "She lives with her parents in a fairly
large house, her brother occupies a section of the second floor where her
bedroom suite is situated, and she claims to have known nothing about the
affair between her brother and Alma."

"How could she not? Is she slow-witted?"

"Hardly," Emma said dryly. "She has a
calculating air about her. I doubt anything happens in her family that she's
unaware of."

"Was she younger than Joseph?"

"Definitely not, she's a spinster, apparently. Joseph
was the baby of the family and from all accounts spoiled silly by his mama and
sister."

When she caught Malachi's challenging look, she flushed.

"I may have been indulged by my parents," she
huffed, "but I learned to be independent of them. I traveled across the
nation to attend college, I own a business, and I live alone."

She believed fiercely in her independence. Malachi hated to
be the one to plant her feet on
terra firma.
"You should ride down
to the docks one day, Emma."

"The docks?"

"Yes, in Sacramento. Take a look at the women that hang
about there. Watch the things they must do to keep body and soul together. How
they prostitute their pride and whore their bodies to feed their children."

He'd meant the words to sound harsh. Emma's naivety about a
woman's compromised position in this country irked him.

She paused in her pacing and cast him an injured look. "Do
you really think me so inured to the plight of those poor women?" Her
voice came out dry, a hoarse rasping of sandpaper against wood, and her eyes
blinked furiously.

"Not at all," he said, immediately regretful. "I
think you are generous and sympathetic. But I also think you're woefully
ignorant of what most women in this country suffer through poverty or their
alliance with abusive and coarse men."

He thought of his own mother and her suffering at the hands
of his father, a violent man when sober, a madman when drunk. "You have no
idea of what they must endure. It is impossible to think of ideals when one's
belly is empty, to indulge in dreams when one's life is hopeless."

Emma reached for a cup of lemonade and took it back to her
desk where she sat quietly for a moment.

At last Malachi broke the silence. "You sounded as if
you'd learned something significant from Miss Phoebe's story."

She appeared to rouse herself, shook her head, and took a
deep breath. "Yes," she began slowly. "As I said, Miss Machado
seems sly to me, as if she has a secret, some knowledge she wants to keep from
the general public."

He snorted. "That description could apply to half the
people in Placer Hills. Were you able to find out what her particular secret
might be?"

"No, she thwarted every discussion I aimed down that
road." She paused dramatically. A mischievous dimple deepened the corner
of her mouth. "But, when she went into the kitchen to supervise the tea
serving, I noticed several papers scattered across a roll-top desk in the
parlor where she entertained me."

"Emma," he warned, "you didn't snoop, did
you? Anything you found without a warrant will be tossed out of court."

"We don't need this information in court," she
declared, "and truthfully, I didn't find it on the desk so much as ...
tucked into one of the drawers."

"Jesus, Emma!" He groaned, but at the same time
couldn't help admiring her brashness. "You've got the balls of a bull!"

Emma clasped a hand over her mouth and giggled, the sound so
unfamiliar that Malachi burst out in a loud guffaw at her antics.

"Miz Knight? Is everything all right in there?" Thomas'
voice bellowed from the front room.

Emma coughed, sputtered a moment, and then regained control.
"Yes, Thomas, I – I just choked on a piece of meat."

"What did you find?" Malachi asked.

She folded her hands on the desk top in triumph. "A
communication from Aaron Machado. A letter in which he states his intent to
visit Placer Hills."

"And the date of the letter?"

"April of this year."

"And the salutation?"

"He wrote the letter to his brother Joseph."

Malachi  rubbed his fingers across the shadow of his beard. "Ah,
not the father, then?"

Emma shook her head. "I only had a moment to peruse the
contents, but the sentiments were clearly disturbing. He mentioned something
about settling old debts among the family. Do you think he referred to an
inheritance?"

"A veiled threat to a young brother who presumably was
the beneficiary of the father's will?" Malachi widened his eyes in
question. "Perhaps this is Miss Phoebe's secret?"

"I suppose it could be," she said slowly, the line
between her brows deepening in thought. "But how are we to find out for
sure who Mr. Machado's beneficiary is? Phoebe is the elder. If Aaron is cut out
of the will, wouldn't she be next to inherit the Machado property and money?"

He shook his head and scoffed. "A woman? Not likely."

Emma rose, walked around the desk, and stood in front of
him, her hands firmly planted on her hips. "Well, then, can you subpoena
the document?"

"No, your finding it precludes my using the letter
itself." He paused and thought a moment. "However, I might be able to
weasel the will's contents from the Machado family attorney."

"Why would he divulge such confidential information?"

He smiled conspiratorially. "He wouldn't, but I happen
to know that Mr. Eli Jackson has a very loose tongue. Particularly when he's
plied with his favorite beverage."

"Beer?"

"Oh, nothing so low-born, Miss Knight. Scotch. Single
malt."

She nodded. "Of course, the most expensive kind."

Chapter 17

"And therefore think him as a serpent's egg,
which, hatch'd, would as his kind grow mischievous."

–
Julius Caesar

On her way to Alma's jail cell, Emma pondered what Malachi
had said about impoverished women. He'd thrown her elevated station in her face
as if it were her fault she'd been born to wealth.

He'd challenged her to investigate how women who hadn't been
born to such privilege lived. Women not as fortunate as she.

No doubt he intended the wild suggestion to upset her, never
imagining she'd consider such a venture. Malachi wouldn't wish for her to
travel alone to such a dangerous section of the capitol city to observe the sad,
mean lives of the women at the docks. Not only was the area replete with
miners, ripe to unload their gold earnings, but with thieves, prostitutes, and
other rough and unsavory characters.

Still, how else was she to learn firsthand?

She decided to risk a visit to the river when she finished
speaking with Alma. Malachi thought of Emma as a spoiled, idle girl of riches
who couldn't understand the dire circumstances of a woman like Alma Bentley. Going
to the docks to determine for herself how impoverished women lived seemed a
good idea, and in a hansom cab with a burly driver, she'd be well-protected.

Though she hardly understood what else she could learn from
Alma, Emma visited the girl again at Malachi's request with the purpose of
trying to persuade the girl to remember the exact events of the night Joe
Machado was murdered. Emma approached the visit with trepidation, uneasy in the
presence of Alma's clear admiration of her, uncomfortably attired in her fine
clothes while Alma sat on a worn bed cover in her wretched and wrinkled
clothing.

"Miz Knight, you've come to see me," Alma
exclaimed, rising from her place on a single wooden chair, an addition to the
cell that Malachi must've insisted on.

"Where's Mr. Rivers?" The girl peered around Emma
as if she expected he were hiding behind her skirts.

"Mr. Rivers is working on another aspect of the case."
Emma inhaled deeply and immediately wished she had not. The pungent odor of
boiled cabbage and stale bread assaulted her, the remnants of Alma's lowly meal.
Beneath the odor of food gone bad was the fecund smell of unwashed bodies and
stale breath.

Emma rapped sharply on the wooden door behind her, summoning
the bailiff who stood guard outside. "Please remove Miss Bentley's dinner
tray." She glanced at the wash basin of scummy water. "And fetch
fresh water."

The elderly Streetman grumbled as he hobbled across the tiny
jail cell to retrieve the dinner bowl and utensils. "Think I'm a servant,
d'ye? Old Jake's got better things to do than clean up after criminals, yessir."

Emma tossed a glare his way that should've withered the old
man, but so embroiled in his own litany, he appeared hardly to notice her
censure. "Ain't gonna live forever, no sir, getting' on in years, shouldn't
hafta clean up after the likes of these."

Fighting the urge to pummel the man, Emma clenched her fists
around her handbag and sat on the meager cot. She waited for the thud of the
heavy door and the clang of the metal bar locking in place.

Alone at last, she looked into the plain, hopeful face of
the incarcerated woman and felt a twinge of sadness for her. Would Emma have
fared much better had she been born into such lowly circumstances?

"Mr. Rivers wishes you to recount the events of the
night Joseph died, Alma. Do you think you can do that for me?"

"Re ... count?" Alma's face twisted in the
familiar grimace that indicated her mind was trying to grasp a difficult
concept.

"Tell me again," Emma said gently. "Tell me
everything you remember about that night."

"But I already told Mr. Rivers," she protested.

"That's all right. Tell me again. Maybe you'll remember
something else." Emma hoped that reviewing the step-by-step events would
refresh the girl's memory. Perhaps she knew something she wasn't aware of.

Alma shrugged her thin shoulders. "I don't know what
more to say."

"Let me start," Emma suggested. "Precisely
what time did you arrive at Mr. Machado's house?"

"Lessee, it wuddn't yet dark outside, so mebbe
seven-thirty, eight o'clock?"

"Was Joseph alone in the house?"

Alma collapsed on the wooden chair and stared at the damp
wall behind Emma's head. At this rate they'd get nowhere, but Emma smiled and
waited patiently.

"I didn't see nobody else, but I heard some footsteps
upstairs, so there mighta been somebody up there."

Emma sat forward eagerly. "Were they heavy footsteps?
Like a man's?"

Alma worried her bottom lip with small, sharp teeth. "Nope,
they was light, soft like a woman's. Coulda been Miss Phoebe or the Missus up
there, but they was suppose to be gone."

"Do you think it was one person?"

Alma nodded slowly. "Yes, just one. And a woman, most
likely."

Emma thought of Aaron Machado and his possible visit to the
Machado homestead. "Are you positive it wasn't a man walking about
upstairs? Perhaps he was treading quietly because he didn't want to be heard?"

"I guess so," Alma said slowly, her thick brows
knitting together as she rubbed her thumb over her lips. "But I think it
was a woman."

"Okay, a woman then. Mrs. Machado or Phoebe?"

Alma shrugged her thin shoulders. "I dunno. I thought
they were at the ladies' night at Miz Haverston's. When I got to Joe's house,
no one answered the back door after I knocked on it. He came down the stairs
and I thought he was the only one to home."

"Why did you go to see Joseph that night, Alma?" Emma
was quite sure she knew the answer to the question. Having gone there armed,
the girl faced a charge of premeditation.

The girl looked sheepish. "Maybe I was mad at 'im, but
I was lonely too, ma'am," she said, a wistful look creeping across her
plain features. "Like I said, the missus was supposed to be gone. I wanted
to see my Joe."

Emma thought of Malachi and knew exactly what Alma meant. "Why
then did you carry the pistol with you?"

The woman's plain face colored. "I didn't plan to hurt
him, just scare him for taking up with that trashy woman."

"What about the elder Mr. Machado? Where was he that
night?"

Alma giggled. "Oh, the mister, he plays poker on
Wednesday nights with his cronies. I knew he wouldn't be back till real late."

"Weren't you worried that Joe's parents would find out
about you and Joe?"

"Oh, no, ma'am, I 'spect they already knew about us."

Emma suspected the same thing. She thought hard about the
triangles of wickedness in the Machado household. If the elderly Machados knew
about the affair, why didn't they express their disapproval? The parents gave
tacit approval when they failed to dismiss Alma or chastise their son for the
flagrant affair carried on under their very noses.

Emma tried another line of questioning. "Alma, did you
know that Joseph had an elder brother?"

The girl's pale eyes widened. "I heard the Mistah and
Missus talkin' about him once," she whispered. "They had some kinda
quarrel and he run off a long time ago. I wasn't working for them then."

"Do you know what they argued about?"

"Money most likely. Ain't it always about money?"

Emma smiled. "You're probably right. Money's a powerful
thing."

Money and passion, she thought as she stood and walked to
the heavy wooden door. She peered through the bars to the stone wall that ran
beneath the steps and trickled with moisture. Emma shivered and rubbed her
hands over the sleeves of her jacket.

"Miz Knight?"

Emma jumped at the sound of Alma's voice. She hadn't heard
the girl approach. She turned and faced her.

"There's somethin' I just remembered." She twisted
her rough hands in front of her. "Somethin' Joe said one night when we
were ... you know, alone."

In fact, Emma didn't know. She'd never been in love in the
way Alma appeared to be. In love with her Joe who had tricked her into
believing that he returned her affection and would marry her.

Several men had told Emma they loved her, but she'd known
they were just flirting. Not one of them had been sincere about the flattery,
at least not in the all-consuming way she imagined real love to be.

For a brief moment, she envied Alma's great passion. "What
did Joseph tell you?"

"It were about Miz Phoebe."

"Joseph's sister? What about her?"

"I dunno exactly. Something about her and Mr. Aaron. Something
odd that'd make their parents mad if they learned about it."

"Did Joseph think it was something Mr. and Mrs. Machado
were unaware of?"

Alma shrugged and shook her head.

Emma opened her mouth to ask another question when the
jangling of metal keys in the lock interrupted her. Malachi stepped through the
entry onto the dirt floor of the cell, bare-headed and gloveless as usual.

Really, didn't the man ever dress like a gentleman?

She pasted a bright smile on her lips and greeted him
cheerily. "Mr. Rivers, your arrival is fortuitous. Alma was about to tell
me something important."

Malachi raised both brows and gazed at Alma who'd returned
to the narrow cot where she looked very much like a young child who'd tattled
on a sibling. "Hello, Alma, you look well today."

"Hullo, Mr. Rivers," she answered, dipping her
head and shuttering her eyes.

Why the girl was half in love with Malachi. Why hadn't Emma
noticed it before? Malachi was most likely the only man in the poor girl's life
who treated her with respect and dignity.

He looked from one of them to the other. "Have you had
any progress on remembering the details, then?"

"Alma believes there was someone else in the house the
night Joseph was ... the night he died." Emma looked away from the
intensity of his eyes and steadied herself. "Probably a woman."

"A woman? I thought the Machado women were at some sort
of music affair."

Emma rummaged in her satchel and pulled out the sheriff's
interviews with the Machado family. She leafed through the folders and pulled
out a single sheet. "That's what they told Sheriff Butler," she said
triumphantly.

#

"Hmmm, a flimsy alibi?" Malachi murmured.

He thought Emma looked even paler than usual, two red spots
dotting her high cheekbones. From the corner of his eye he took in her appearance
– the stiff body, the unsmiling lips, the dark, somber eyes – as he knelt
before his client.

He hoped to God Emma would tell him if there were
complications from their actions. He glanced her way again, taking in the
slender waist and full breasts.

He doubted he'd know if she were pregnant – if she didn't
wish him too. He'd been woefully ignorant with Constance and hadn't even
suspected her condition.

He rose and took the deposition from Emma's hand. "Do
you believe they lied to the sheriff?"

"Or conveniently forgot," Emma said.

Malachi lowered his voice and turned his back to his client.
"Perhaps Alma is misremembering?"

Emma looked indignant on behalf of the girl. "You're
the one who insisted she might know more than she's revealed. Well, it appears
she has."

He nodded. "I'll speak to Mrs. Machado."

"Won't she simply lie?"

"Not if she believes she'll be caught."

Malachi scooted the extra chair up to the edge of the cot
and began speaking to Alma in hushed tones. She now sat with her elbows on her
thighs, her chapped fingers playing with one another as a child might play cat's
cradle.

"You've done very well at remembering for Miss Knight,
Alma. Can you think of anything else to tell us?"

The girl hunched one shoulder nearly up to her chin and
stilled the restless fingers in her lap.

Malachi reached for her hands, forced her to meet his eyes,
and lowered his voice. "Tell me something, Alma. Did you go willingly to
Joseph's bed?"

He noticed the small step Emma made toward them, stared her
down, and shook his head. She mustn't interfere with this questioning. She
needed to understand what went on between a man like Joseph Machado and a lowly
maid like Alma Bentley.

"You can trust me, Alma. Did Mr. Machado force you?"

A horrified look gripped Alma's face. "God no, Mr.
Rivers! Do you mean the old man?"

"Or Joseph. Come now, you can tell me the truth."

Alma scrubbed her hands over her face as if the facts could
be scraped off. She sighed heavily. "Not really," she said at last. "The
Mistah, he gave me those looks, you know?"

"What kind of looks?"

Resignation and despair saturated the girl's plain face. "The
kind that sez he'd like to if the Missus wasn't so aware of everything goin' on
in the house."

"Did he ever touch you?"

"Not really. Just a grope or feel here and there."

"How did Joseph feel about that?"

"I can't hardly say as he knew."

Emma had taken a seat beside Alma and moved closer to her,
her face full of compassion, her left arm touching the girl.

"Did Joseph force you?"

A pink flush crept into Alma's cheeks and she looked almost
pretty. "No, I liked Joseph. He didn't make me do anything I didn't want
to."

When Malachi looked at Emma again, her lashes spiked with
wetness and her small nose tipped with red. The three of them sat quietly like
this, Emma close to Alma, Malachi holding the girl's hands.

In truth, Malachi wasn't sure whether he could get Alma
Bentley acquitted, but he knew he must use the moral horror of the girl's life
to appeal to the twelve male jurors, all upstanding gentlemen. He wanted them
to believe that Alma would never commit such a violent act had she not been led
astray by such a debaucher as Joseph Machado.