Grim Shadows (Roaring Twenties) (11 page)

LOWE FLIPPED THE POE
book over to study the leather cover. “I can’t be sure. How attached to your mother’s books are you?”

“Attached? If you mean sentimentally, not at all. Like I said—”

He reached inside his jacket before she could finish. Metal glinted. He could tell by her murmur that she was surprised he’d been wearing his dagger beneath his tuxedo. With the flick of a wrist, he slashed across the leather book cover with abandon and stuck a finger inside the gouge he’d made. Definitely something inside. A yellowed paper slid out.

“What is it?” Hadley pushed closer and grasped one edge while he held the other.

Textured artist’s paper, about the size of his hand. And on it was a delicate watercolor painting of something he immediately recognized. Hadley, too.

“Canopic jar,” they murmured in unison.

Pottery jars with lids shaped like heads of gods, used by ancient Egyptians to preserve their internal organs for the afterlife. Each tomb would contain four jars, holding four different organs. This painting’s jar lid was rendered with Duamutef, the jackal-headed son of Horus and guardian of the stomach.

“Four poetry references,” he said. “Four canopic jars. There’s a date in the corner. February 5, 1906. And what’s this?”

Running down the middle of the jar, carefully drawn over the watercolor with brown ink, were two columns of strange pictorial symbols. Hadley squinted. “This is where the hieroglyphic inscription would normally be—or the name of the god protecting the organs. But these aren’t hieroglyphs.”

“Not Egyptian ones,” he corrected. “Appears to be an alphabet of pictograms. Look here—there’s a flower and a knife.”

“No, I think that’s a blade of grass.”

He darted a glance at her face, charmed by her scholarly seriousness. “Your father said your mother loved puzzles. Do you think she made up her own alphabet to mimic hieroglyphs?”

“Maybe,” Hadley said. “But this isn’t a map. What does it all mean?”

“Don’t know, but ten dollars says paintings of the other three jars are inside other books.” He relinquished the paper to her grasp and reached for Coleridge, gutting the book like he had the first. “Mother lode! This one’s Hapy.”

A baboon head was lovingly rendered on the lid of this jar. “Lungs. January 21, 1906. And there’re the pictograms again.”

“None match the first.”

“Let me see.” Her eyes flicked over both papers. “You’re right—no matches. What a beautiful little alphabet, though, don’t you think?”

“I’ll reserve my judgment until we figure it out. What’s next? The ‘gazing grain’ makes me think of Nebraska. Any Nebraskan poets who go crazy for wheat stalks?”

“I think Nebraska is better known for corn. Gazing grain, gazing grain . . .” She ran a finger along the spines lining the nearest shelf. “They’re poems about death—the Poe and the Coleridge. ‘Gazing grain’ must be another death poem. Oh!”

“What?”

“‘Because I could not stop for Death.’”

“‘He kindly stopped for me,’” he finished. “Yes, I do know that one, Emily Dickinson. Though, I never managed to memorize anything past the first stanza in school. Nice memory you’ve got there, Bacall.”

Hadley whooped a little laugh as a pretty pink color flushed her cheeks. He felt it, too, the thrill of discovery. What an unexpected pleasure to share it with her. Together they located the book and, sure enough, the third paper had been hidden inside the leather. A third canopic jar with a third set of pictograms, and a date of March 25, 1906.

“What about the last poem?” she asked.

“Well, the Seine’s in France, so I’m betting on a French poet. Someone obsessed with death like Miss Dickinson, maybe?”

“Rimbaud, Hugo, Baudelaire . . .”

Lowe snagged all three volumes and ran his fingers along the back covers, stopping when he felt the telltale raised edge on the Baudelaire. And there it was: a fourth canopic jar painting, a fourth set of pictograms, and something new. Several things, actually.

“Dimensions,” he said. “Fifteen inches tall, six inches wide at the base.”

That wasn’t all. Next to the watercolor of the jar, a cross section was drawn in ink. The jar was built with double walls and an empty section at the bottom, labeled with the description “sub compartment.”

Lowe tapped the corner of the paper. “Notes for clay and glazes . . . prices. Looks like these are all commissioned sketches from a business called Cypress Pottery. ‘Approved by client, VM. January 7, 1906.’ It’s the earliest of the four dates.”

“VM,” Hadley murmured. “Vera Murray. My mother’s maiden name. She must’ve had these made. Look at the sub compartment. It’s big enough to accommodate one of the amulet’s crossbars, if they’re in the same scale as the base you found.”

He studied it. “By God, you’re right. It’s a hiding place. The jars are designed to be sealed after the pieces are inserted. Four jars to conceal four crossbars.” He slid his finger across a smudged word near the cross section. “Arched? Ashes?” His gaze connected with hers. “Hadley, these are meant to be urns.”

“Why, yes, they’d be about the right size.”

“Look at the dates.” He took the paintings from her and fanned them out on her father’s conference table. “January, February, March—all four dates are in the months before the Great Earthquake.”

“In the séance, my mother mentioned she gave the amulet crossbars away. She hid them in urns, and then hid the urns around the city. These are made for real ashes. Real people.”

“I’ll be damned.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, both grinning.

She blew out a breath and surveyed the paintings. “That means these four pieces of paper really
are
a map. Because I’ll bet
you
ten dollars, Mr. Magnusson, that the pictograms are the names of the deceased whose ashes are in these urns. If we want to find the pieces, we have to track down the families in possession of these urns.”

She was right, of course. But finding them might prove difficult.

“A couple of ways we could approach this,” he said. “Could try looking for this Cypress Pottery shop, but the chances that it’s still around twenty-one years later, what with the earthquake and half the city burning to the ground . . . Better bet would be checking death records. How many people could’ve died in the city over those three months? A couple hundred?”

“So many records were destroyed in the Great Fire,” she pointed out. “We could try the Columbarium north of Golden Gate Park.”

“The what?”

“The domed building near the cemeteries. It houses funerary urns. A place for families to visit their loved one’s ashes. An indoor graveyard, if you will.”

“I wasn’t aware any of that was still operational these days.”

“The crematorium on premises hasn’t been used since cremation was outlawed within city limits, but the Columbarium is still open for viewing. Survived the earthquake, so maybe there’s a chance one or more of the canopic jars could be there.”

Leave it to her to know something like that. Sort of endearing, in a macabre way.

She began gathering the paintings. “Tomorrow’s Saturday, so I don’t have to work. We can meet there in the morning and have a look around. In the meantime, I’ll take these home and—”

He put a firm hand over hers. “Whoa. Who says you get to keep them?”

“They were my mother’s.”

“And it’s my job. You’re helping, not running the show.”

A flash of anger bolted through her eyes. “She said I’d be able to solve her puzzle. This is what she meant. I’ll look at them, then you can have them afterward.”

Devious little thing, wasn’t she? Had to admire her for trying, but no way in hell was he leaving without the paintings. And the heat of her knuckles under his made him greedy for something more. “I’ve found there are two ways to end an argument with a stubborn woman.”

She snorted. “Please do enlighten me.”

“The first way is to let her win.” He allowed her fingers to slip away from his.

“Very wise. And what’s the second way?”

His pulse pounded in his temples. “The second . . . is this.”

Lifting her chin with one hand, he brought his mouth down on hers. Firmly. She stilled beneath him, not breathing. Probably just shocked. And maybe he was carried away with enthusiasm. He loosened up a bit, inhaled, and tried smaller kisses. Delicate and feather soft. Kisses even the purest of virgins wouldn’t find offensive.

Nothing.

She was still as marble and twice as cold. Had he miscalculated? She wasn’t pushing him away, but she wasn’t exactly overcome with passion, either. A dead body would have more zeal.

This was definitely not what he’d conjured in his fantasies.

Christ. He’d never kissed a woman who didn’t want to be kissed, but from the wooden indifference of her lips, he was fairly sure this was what it felt like. So different from the erotic pull he’d felt at the gazing pool back at the party. He could’ve sworn there was something between them. Had it all been in his mind?

Nothing to do but end it and let the fire of humiliation warm the arctic air between them. How could he have been so wrong?

He released her chin and pulled away. A look that was something close to horror harshened her features. Her hands were fisted at her sides.

“Guess that doesn’t always work after all,” he joked, trying to salvage his stinging pride.

A brisk knock sounded across the room. The office door creaked open to reveal a middle-aged man in a guard’s uniform. “Dr. Bacall?”

“Ah, good evening, Mr. Hill.”

“Miss Bacall. Sorry to bother you. I’d just punched out for the night and was headed home. Saw the light under the door and thought it was your father working late.”

“No, it’s just me. Oh, and Lo—umm, that is. I mean, this is—”

“Mr. Magnusson,” Lowe said.

“Yes,” she said, laughing nervously. “He’s just back from Egypt. And we’ve both just come from the museum’s party.”

The guard’s eyes narrowed. “I see . . .”

What had she said? Let
her
take care of the talking? She was terrible at lying. If she said much more, she’d end up turning herself in for a crime she hadn’t committed. Worse—she might tell the guard they’d been ripping up books to hunt down a map.

Oh, God.

The gouged books sat on the conference table with the paintings. Lowe quickly stepped in front of them, hoping to block the guard’s view, and spoke over Hadley.

“We were planning a surprise for Dr. Bacall’s retirement,” Lowe said smoothly. “Collecting some old photographs of him in his younger days—so we could have an artist sketch him for a program highlighting his achievements.”

The guard’s posture relaxed. “I’m sure he’ll be so pleased.”

It was really too easy.

“You won’t breathe a word, I trust,” Lowe said. “We hoped to surprise the whole staff. That’s why we rushed straight over here from the party. Don’t want anyone spilling the secret until we could get the program to the printer.”

“My lips are sealed,” the guard assured him. “Well, then, I’ll be on my way. You need a ride home or anything, Miss Bacall?”

“Yes, please,” Hadley said. “That would be so kind, Mr. Hill. Will save me from catching a taxi.”

A frustrated anger stole over Lowe. Had he not just invented an excuse to appease the guard? Was she so appalled by the kiss that she’d take any opening to remove herself from his presence?

She smiled at Mr. Hill. “If you could just wait for me at the entrance, I won’t be a minute.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll wait.” The guard tipped his hat to Lowe. As soon as he’d headed far enough down the hallway, Hadley surveyed the room with nervous eyes.

“I could’ve taken you home,” he said.

She ignored that. “Put the books back exactly where you found them. Make sure your butchery job isn’t noticeable. And I’ll just—”

Oh, no. Lowe lunged for the table and managed to get his hand on two of the paintings. She’d already grabbed the others.

“A fair compromise,” she said. “I’ll keep these safe, you keep those safe. And I’ll meet you at the Columbarium tomorrow morning at, shall we say ten?”

So she wanted to pretend the kiss had never happened? Fine. He didn’t know why he was chasing after her in the first place.

During the ride back home, he reminded himself of all her irritating qualities. Bossy. Strange. Hot one minute, cold the next. Reserved. Bitter. Overeducated. Stubborn. Too old. Terrible sense of style—someone else must’ve picked out the evening gown, he decided.

And oh, that’s right. She’d tried to
kill him.

When he undressed for bed later, he found her wilted lily in his tuxedo jacket pocket. Nothing lasts forever, she’d said. How true. He dumped it in a wastebasket and turned off his bedside lamp, then lay there in the dark, still angry.

Gods above, he could still smell the damn thing.

He turned his lamp back on and dug the lily out of the trash. After a moment of thought, he flattened it between the pages of an old issue of
Weird Tales
and wedged it under the feather bed’s mattress.

GRAY FOG SALTED WITH
drizzle met Hadley when she exited her taxi the next morning near the entrance to Odd Fellows Cemetery. The Columbarium’s stately Greco-Roman columns and patina-green copper dome stood sentry above rolling grave-lined hills. She surveyed the grounds. Deserted. No cars. No visiting families.

No red motorcycle in sight.

Her rapid heartbeat relaxed its anxious pace.

As she approached the building’s entrance, she straightened her cloche hat and brushed a few of Number Four’s black hairs from her charcoal coat sleeve. The damned cat was going through another shedding season, and he’d offered little sympathy when she’d arrived home last night, fretting over Lowe.

And the worst kiss of her life.

What was the matter with her? Besides the obvious. But
really
. A devastatingly handsome, virile man had kissed her and she’d frozen up like a lake in winter. True, he’d caught her off guard, and she wasn’t used to people touching her, much less kissing her. But she still should’ve been able to allow herself to enjoy the moment. Especially after he’d continued to try.

And try, and try . . .

Thinking about it made her teeth clench.

Loosen up. That’s what George had told her in college. She wanted to—God, did she ever. Lowe’s lips were warm, softer than she’d expected. She could only imagine what it would be like to surrender. She remembered how she felt with him at the gazing pool. If he’d kissed her then, in that moment? Well, things may have gone differently. But in the museum, her brain kept shouting at her, warning her not to let her guard down. Not to trust a man like Lowe, because he’d only kissed her to get his hands on the canopic jar paintings they’d found inside the books.

So why was she so embarrassed by her reaction? If that’s the only reason he kissed her, she should hold her chin high and be proud of herself for not yielding. Instead, she was now wearing a dress with a low neck and—Dear God. She was unbuttoning her coat to ensure he saw it? What was the matter with her? She quickly buttoned it back up and glanced around guiltily, listening for the rumble of his ridiculous motorbike.

No sleep. That was her problem.

She’d meant to start translating her mother’s pictograms, and she’d managed to copy them onto a larger piece of paper. Well, half of them, at least. She’d spent the rest of the night pacing the floors of her apartment in her stockings, imagining every detail of her evening with Lowe. And rearranging those details to include things she should’ve said and done.

She should’ve just kissed him back.
Wanted
to kiss him back.

Why didn’t she kiss him back?

And why wasn’t he here to meet her? If he was a different man, he might’ve thrown in the towel and decided he had better things to do. But he needed her father’s money. He’d show.

Unless he’d solved her mother’s alphabet and traced his two urns somewhere else already.

Best not to consider that possibility. Exhaling a long breath, she pushed the heavy door of the Columbarium’s entrance and stepped into the rotunda. Four levels ringed in columns circled up toward a stained-glass ceiling capping the dome, and lining the walls were hundreds upon hundreds of niches that served as the final resting space for many of the city’s residents. Most were no bigger than a post-office box. Some were covered by copper doors engraved with the name of the deceased, and others were fronted with glass windows, allowing visitors to see the urn or even a tableau of the deceased’s favorite things: baseballs, books, curios, photographs.

Hadley’s footfalls echoed around the rotunda. She stopped in front of a section of niches. She could spend all day browsing here. Maybe one day an archaeologist like her would uncover the Columbarium’s ruins and try to divine details about San Francisco society.

“Found anything?”

She jumped and spun around. The brim of a tilted rust-colored fedora cast a shadow over Lowe’s eyes, and his long brown coat covered the tops of his knee-high riding boots.

“I didn’t hear your motorcycle.”

“I didn’t drive her,” he said flatly, stuffing his hands into his pants pockets. “Took a cab. How’s your father doing today?”

Her father? “I wouldn’t know. We don’t usually speak to each other much outside of work. When he’s angry at me, we speak even less.”

A grunt was his answer. “So, how are these niches arranged?” His usual good humor was missing. He wasn’t angry—he just wasn’t . . . anything. Guess they weren’t discussing the kiss. Not that she wanted to rehash it.

“It would’ve been helpful if they were arranged by date, but no such luck,” she said, craning her neck to look up into the dome. “We could look for a canopic jar in the niches with windows, but it might take a couple of hours, even if we split up.”

“And it might be hidden behind a copper door without a window.”

“True,” she said. “Were you able to translate any of the pictograms?”

“Some of the characters are mirror images. Reversed.”

“Oh?” She hadn’t noticed that on the two paintings she’d taken home.

“There’s got to be an office with files on the niches,” he mumbled to himself.

She shook her head. “Wouldn’t help. Why would they sort the files by date? Would most likely be by surname.”

A throat cleared behind them. “Pardon, ma’am, but the crematory and offices were closed up when cremation was outlawed nearly twenty years ago.” Standing in a prism of light spilling in from one of the angel windows, an elderly black man held a can of tarnish remover and a rag.

Lowe tipped his hat. “Good morning. You work here?”

“Caretaker,” he said with a kind smile.

“My cousin and I have traveled from Salt Lake City to spend a weekend in town,” Lowe started.

Good God, here we go again,
Hadley thought.

“We were looking for our aunt Tessa’s niche,” he continued. “She died before the Great Fire. Pretty sure her ashes are here, but we don’t know what surname was used. She’d been divorced a few times, you see. Anyway, we have fond memories of her from childhood. Thought we’d pay our respects.”

At least this concocted fable didn’t denigrate her character. Still, Lowe showed more cheer to the old man than he had toward her. Was he angry with her about the kiss? Upset? Or was she reading too much into his mood? Maybe he’d already forgotten it. She certainly wished
she
could.

“That is a problem,” the caretaker said, nodding. “Even if you knew the surname, wouldn’t help. The older files were relocated ten years back. A warehouse downtown. You’d have to contact the owners. If you’re only here for the weekend, might not be able to catch them.”

Lowe made a sound of disappointment and looked around the rotunda, where a dozen or more mismatched chairs sat empty. “Been the caretaker for long?”

“Thirteen years, now.”

“Ever seen an Egyptian urn around here? It would have a sculpted lid about this high.” Lowe measured with his hands. “Shaped like a head. A baboon or a jackal dog or—”

“Long ears?”

“Yes,” Hadley said. “Long snout, too. Two rows of symbols on the front of the jar.”

“Sounds like Mrs. Rosewood’s urn.”

A moment of silence hung in the rotunda as Lowe flashed her an expectant look. But Hadley didn’t want to hope too much. Not about the urn. And definitely not about Lowe.

“Could you show us?” she asked.

He shook his head. “Sorry, it’s not here. Back in my younger days, I used to work at Dolores Crematorium, between Telegraph Hill and North Beach. I remember an urn like that for Mrs. Rosewood’s cremation.”

“Who’s this Mrs. Rosewood?” Lowe asked.

“A shipping heiress. Her death was quite the scandal. Folks said her sons killed her to get their hands on her mansion near the top of Telegraph Hill at the edge of the park. Rumor was, they wanted to turn it into a gambling den. That was right before the Quake in ’06. The mansion survived, but once they took possession, they claimed her ghost haunted the place.”

Hadley didn’t care a thing about ghosts; she had her own to worry about. “Do you know where her urn was housed?” she asked. A few local churches had niches for funerary ashes, but she questioned whether churches would welcome a pagan urn shaped like a jackal-headed god.

“The family kept it, far as I know. Nice display piece like that? Probably on someone’s mantelpiece.”

 • • • 

Lowe relayed the caretaker’s directions to the waiting taxi outside the Columbarium, and then rode in silence with Hadley as the car sped down rain-darkened streets. He’d done his damned best to leash his feelings and pretend as if nothing had happened between them the previous night. Well, nothing
had
happened on Hadley’s end, so the charade was more a matter of his own self-preservation. Reclaiming his bruised male pride.

But it would’ve been a lot easier if the Cinderella spell he’d prayed she’d been under had magically faded overnight. After all, she wasn’t wearing the fantasy whirlpool dress. No flower in her hair. In fact, she was back to her normal, funeral-colored, straightlaced curator self.

And even more damned beautiful than the night before.

God help him.

She didn’t smell like lilies today, so that was helpful. But when he’d held the taxi door for her, he’d noticed the backs of her stockings were decorated with a line of black bows. Different. A subtle sort of daring, especially for her. But the stockings weren’t his primary distraction at the moment. No, that honor went to the thing that had caught his attention the moment he’d seen her in the Columbarium.

Her coat was mis-buttoned. Unusual for her to be sloppy. The top buttonhole was circling the second button instead of the first, which created a tunneled gap under the edge of the wool—a little shadowed hidey-hole. He imagined small woodland creatures burrowed inside it, right next to her breast, and had to refrain from teasing her about it.

But when the cab turned a corner and headed into North Beach, he spotted something more interesting than a wee mouse beneath her out-of-line buttons. A flash of skin. Was she wearing a low-cut dress beneath that drab gray coat? His thoughts strayed to her brightly colored underthings and it took the fortitude of a monk to stop himself from mentally flicking open the coat button.

Remember the terrible kiss,
he thought. Should’ve been enough cold water to shift his concentration to their mission. But it only revived something that had been niggling his thoughts since he’d left Hadley the night before.

She caught him staring and offered a tight smile. “Dreary day.”

“Hmm.”

“Should’ve brought an umbrella.”

“Are you and that fellow seeing each other?”

Sharp eyes widened. “Who?”

“That Oliver Ginn fellow.”

“Oh.” Did her shoulders fall? She definitely looked more relaxed, didn’t she? “Mr. Ginn has been calling on me for a couple of months now, I suppose.”

“I see.” He didn’t. “Serious, is it? Wedding bells in your future?”

One brow lifted. “None I’m aware of. I suspect someone would inform me first.”

He tapped a random rhythm on one knee. She was teasing him. That was good, surely? Because it definitely didn’t sound like the sort of response a girl who was madly in love would give. He thought perhaps the reason she’d been so unresponsive when he’d kissed her was because she had feelings for someone else.

“Oliver wasn’t the reason,” she said in a small voice, eyeing the taxi driver.

His hand stilled. “Pardon?”

“Firstly, I wasn’t sure if you were only doing it to trick me.”

Her voice was almost too low to hear, so he leaned closer. “I’m not following.”

“Tricking me out of the canopic jar paintings.”

Hold the line one second: she was talking about the kiss. “No, it wasn’t a trick,” he said quickly. “I mean, yes, I wanted the paintings. But I kissed you because I wanted to.”

She blinked rapidly. “Well, regardless, my doubt about your motives wasn’t the entire problem. It’s just that I suppose I have trouble with touching.” She watched the city rolling by her window, gloved hands clutched in her lap. “It’s indirectly because of my . . . well, what happened with the chandelier.”

“Death by crystal,” he said.

She nodded, a nervous smile briefly lifting her mouth before she continued. “There was an incident when I was younger.”

“What kind of incident?”

“I don’t like to speak of it.”

He paused. “Did someone hurt you?”

“No, not that,” she said. “The details aren’t important. It’s in the past, but I haven’t quite been able to overcome my negative feelings associated with it. It’s usually not an issue, as people unconsciously tend to keep their distance from me. Which is fine. Things are easier at work, especially, when people stay out of my way. However, because of all this, I’ve become accustomed to having my private space.”

“I see.” Partly, anyway, but she didn’t seem to be budging on the “incident.”

“I’m sure it sounds pathetic. Maybe it is, I don’t know. I’m just unused to being . . .” She struggled for words, gesturing with her hands in a way that didn’t help to get her point across.

“Unused to being kissed?” he finally asked, fully intrigued.