SAN FRANCISCO
Chapter 38
All five men boarded the private car early the next morning and when they reached San Francisco a coach was waiting to take them to the hotel. Adam always kept a private suite available that had three bedrooms as well as a sitting room. He took over the sitting room to use as an office.
After stopping to eat in the restaurant downstairs they all scattered. Adam went to seek out some of his informants, to see what rumors were circulating on the street. Dylan went to the site of the fire to poke around and speak to the neighbors. John went back to the train station to show pictures of the nanny and the children to everyone he could, hoping someone would recognize them while Mike was doing the same thing on the docks, in case she had left by ship. Nate had been assigned the stagecoach companies.
By late afternoon the four deputies were tired, but felt like they had left no stone unturned. They each made their way back to the hotel and had just gathered in the sitting room when Adam returned. He looked around at their tired faces and grinned.
"Well, what have you got?" he asked as he leaned back against the front of the table he was using as a desk.
Dylan spoke first. "There's no doubt in my mind that some sort of flammable was used in that fire. I can't tell you what it was because the site has been rained on several times in the last couple of weeks. But that kind of destruction also had to involve incendiary devices." He paused to stretch. "I talked to every neighbor I could and they all agreed that they heard a muffled explosion around the time the first flames were seen. So it's pretty clear that Albrecht wanted to make sure that nothing would be left standing. In my opinion the explosion occurred at the sub- level, in the cellar."
His boss was nodding, listening to him closely when Dylan grinned. "Now I also talked to those in service in the surrounding houses and picked up a little bit of information that is especially damning. A housekeeper told me she had seen some men delivering a wagonload of barrels to the Albrecht residence about two weeks before the fire. Then she told me they were making deliveries in the neighborhood this afternoon. I found them and asked them what was in the barrels. They told me grain alcohol, but not to say I had heard it from them - they'd deny it if questioned by the police. I guess Albrecht has them badly intimidated."
Adam grinned, "I'm not very concerned about that - a reward will be offered soon and believe me that does wonders for loosening tongues."
Dylan laughed. "I guess someone delayed the reward offer so we could complete our investigation first."
"Yes, someone must have," Adam answered him and turned to Mike. "Any luck?" he asked and Mike shook his head no. So did John, but when he turned to Nate the tall man smiled and nodded. "Got her," he said quietly as his fellow deputies turned and gave him their complete attention.
"This woman is very smart," he continued. "She picked one of the smallest companies and was not alone - a man went with her and they split the children up so each one had two 'boys'." He chuckled, thinking how on target Thea's assessment of the nanny had been.
"Come on, spill it Nate! Where did they go?" Mike said impatiently.
"You'll never believe this. They went to San Francisco. Of course that was after a two-day stopover in San Mateo."
The other deputies stared at him blankly for a moment before starting to laugh. Adam just smiled as he shook his head. "You were right Nate, this woman IS smart." He picked up the woman's picture. "Smart, but she overlooked one important detail. I think she was so intent on no one recognizing the children she forgot to disguise herself - this face people remember."
His men were lounging back in their chairs still smiling when he said, "Well, I think we've done a good day's work, so you're all free to do whatever you want this evening." He smiled when every sign of tiredness seemed to vanish like magic. They were all rushing for the door when Adam's voice stopped them and they turned around to eye their boss suspiciously. He bit back a smile.
"Just one more thing...all I ask is that you don't end up in jail. Alright?"
"Whatever you want, boss!" Nate said and the others nodded as he opened the door. They were all gone in the blink of an eye and the door banged shut behind them. Adam smiled to himself - they had all forgotten to ask him about his afternoon, but then his expression fell. He couldn't believe that not one single bit of information had been found out about this mysterious woman. And he was sure that his informants had tried their best. They were puzzled too.
He sighed, the silence in the room seemed to ring in his ears pleasantly as he stood and moved toward the smallest bedroom that only had one bed. The deputies would be doubling up in the other two. He walked in, closed the door behind him, turned the lamp down until the light was only dim, then stretched out on the bed. "No wife, children, deputies, friends, or relatives," he said to himself. "God, how long has it been since I've had any time alone?" Sighing with pleasure, he stacked his hands behind his head, completely relaxed, and for once didn't think about much of anything at all.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Adam was sound asleep when the other men staggered to their rooms about three o'clock in the morning, so he had no idea what time they got in. But he was sure they would all be feeling more than a little bit rough. Resisting the wicked urge to wake them all at five o'clock, he waited until six to leave the room and go have breakfast with Wes and Dulcy. They had just returned the evening before from a short trip they had taken to visit her family.
He took one look at Dulcy's pale, slightly green face and recognized morning sickness. He was about to ask when the baby was due, but stopped. Somehow he was pretty sure Wes didn't know about it yet, so he said nothing. Although he did have a hard time holding back pleased smiles.
Taking pity on his deputies, he didn't return to the suite until about eight, but when he did he banged on their doors to wake them up. The chorus of groans he heard in response made him laugh.
When he still hadn't heard any movement in either room ten minutes later he banged on the doors again. The groans were louder this time and he heard the distinct thumping sound of someone falling out of bed. More sounds of movement began in both bedrooms, so he left to go to the kitchen and have someone bring plenty of strong, hot coffee up to the suite.
He didn't make it back as quickly as he wanted to because daytime employees had reported for work and he was stopped many times by people asking about his family. But when he did, he was pleased to see all four men awake and dressed, although looking like "the dearly departed."
"Good morning," he said loudly as he strode into the room and slammed the door shut behind him. They all flinched. He chuckled, "And you four pitiful specimens have the nerve to laugh at ME when I choose not to drink."
Nate groaned and slid down in his chair as he carefully cradled his head in his hands. "Boss please, have mercy," he croaked then flinched again when someone knocked on the sitting room door.
Instead of calling out "Come in," as he normally would, Adam decided he had tortured his deputies enough and went to open the door instead. A member of the kitchen staff wheeled a cart in that had pots of coffee, pitchers of ice water, and a rack of dry toast. "Thank you Dale," he said quietly and the young man took one look at the seemingly animated corpses scattered around the room and smiled. "Glad to see you again Mr. Cartwright, " he almost whispered then left the room as quietly as he could.
Adam filled four large mugs only half way with the hot coffee and handed one to Nate first. The young man's hands shook so badly he was thankful for his boss's foresight. After delivering the other three, Adam came back to sit on the edge of the able and watch with amusement as his deputies came back to a reasonable semblance of life. After each one had come up to the cart for a refill, he hopped down from the table and poured them tall glasses of the ice water. He delivered one to each man saying, "Trust me...drink this too."
He went back to the table and leaned against the front to wait some more. Nate was the first to seemingly recover enough to sit up straight. When he finally looked directly at Adam, the older man just shook his head. "Son, your eyes look like bacon baseballs." Nate had to smile at that, in spite of how miserable he felt.
The other walking dead finally came to carefully sit in the chairs that were grouped in front of the table. Adam looked them over and judged he had given them enough time to recover.
"Alright, we need to start thinking about what our next step should be. I put the word out to my informants through Wes before we came here asking for any information on the nanny. To my surprise they haven't been able to turn up a single fact about her. We have absolutely nothing to go by - nothing about her family, previous employment, or even where she came from. What do you think that is saying about her?"
His four deputies tried to sit up straighter and concentrate on this challenge. The minutes ticked by and Adam was about to answer his own question when Dylan looked up. "She's hiding something."
Adam smiled at him. "Of course...but what is she hiding? It seems to me she's hiding her identity, but why? The quickest way to get yourself fired is to lie to your employer. That says to me that she wasn't particularly worried about losing her job. Again, why?"
John answered him, "She must not have needed the money." His boss was nodding in agreement when Mike spoke up.
"Adam, do you have her picture there? I'd like to take another look at it." When Adam pulled the picture from a file Mike stood a little unsteadily then came to stand next to him.
"See," he said to his boss, "how many nanny's do you think can afford the expensive jewelry and clothing she has on?"
The other deputies came to look, too. Then they exchanged knowing glances.
"Hmmm..." Nate said, "Do you think she was really Albrecht's mistress?"
Adam and John shook their heads. "That would make sense except for the elaborate scheme to save the children. I just can't see a mistress doing that."
Nate frowned, "Why?"
"It just doesn't," John said. "I can't tell you exactly why, it just doesn't seem to add up for me."
All four men looked to Adam for his assessment.
"I agree and disagree," Adam said. "John, I think you mean what woman would be the mistress of a man who was planning on leaving his children to be killed in a fire. And if she didn't care, she wouldn't have saved them. But on the other hand she could have become his mistress before she knew about his plans and just stayed for their sakes. So I don't think that's a valid point." He paused to look at John, "However, I don't think she was his mistress for another reason. A man like Albrecht would not have a mistress that he knew nothing about."
"Also," he continued, "I don't think he's lying about not knowing anything about her. It seems obvious to me that what she was hiding she was hiding from him. Not from the other staff or from anyone else. That fact alone says to me that her identity would have made him suspicious."
The deputies went back to their chairs while Adam stared at the young woman's image for a few moments. "Now let's put these facts together: she wore expensive jewelry and clothing; she was not Albrecht's mistress; she was hiding her identity from him; and she had the help of someone who was in a position to procure the bodies. What do you think this adds up to?"
Nate grinned, "Of course, she's a member of the upper class!"
"Right!" Adam said. "And THAT is why we haven't been able to find her. We've been looking in the wrong places."
The other deputies nodded in agreement and were smiling.
"What bothers me is how she got involved in this to begin with," Dylan offered. "I mean this whole thing is deliberate on her part. First getting the job and then concocting this elaborate plan to save the children. She had to have had some sort of previous, but distant connection with Albrecht to know about it without him knowing her."
Adam was nodding and his eyes narrowed as he stared over their heads at the wall. "Excellent point and that brings up some interesting questions. And the most important one is why did Albrecht have to hire a new nanny? Does anyone remember anything about that from the reports? Was an explanation ever given?"
"If I remember correctly, I think they said the former nanny just took off. They assumed she had eloped with another member of the house staff," John answered. "But no names were given."
"I think you're right," Adam said then looked at Nate and Dylan. "I want you two to go back to that neighborhood and talk to the staff in the surrounding houses. Find out everything you can about those two people, particularly if anyone knows their families." He turned to John and Mike. "You can say I have a suspicious nature, but I want you two to go to the morgue and go through the records for the last six months looking for unidentified bodies. Take down the particulars on each one that could be this man and this woman."
"What are you going to do today?" Nate asked as he hauled himself to his feet with a faint groan.
Adam smiled his half-smile and raised one brow, "I think it's time for our dear friend Simon to receive a visit from me."
The other men glanced at each other. "By yourself?" John said anxiously and his boss chuckled as they all began moving toward the door.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to rattle his cage. I just want to get a look at him - to get a better idea of just who this man is." They were standing in the hallway now. "You four go ahead, I need to have Wes put the word out for information to my informants in service. It's no wonder nothing came up with the other group," Adam said laughingly and turned away from them and toward the offices.
His deputies stood there watching him walk away for a few moments then they reluctantly turned toward the stairs. "I know he can take care of himself, but I still don't like him going to see Albrecht by himself," John said worriedly.
"He'll be fine," Nate said, but his tone sounded like he was trying to convince himself. Then he suddenly stopped and the other three men almost ran into each other. "He's going to tear my head off, but I just have a bad feeling about this." He paused to think for a moment.
"Oh well, I never use my head very much anyway," he said cheerfully, "I'm going to follow him." Without looking back at the other three he nodded emphatically and took off down the stairs.
His friends remained standing in the hall, each one feeling both relieved and guilty - relieved that Adam would have unseen backup and guilty that Nate would be facing Adam's wrath alone if he got caught. Then they went down the stairs, out of the hotel, and hurried off to complete their assignments.
Chapter 38
All five men boarded the private car early the next morning and when they reached San Francisco a coach was waiting to take them to the hotel. Adam always kept a private suite available that had three bedrooms as well as a sitting room. He took over the sitting room to use as an office.
After stopping to eat in the restaurant downstairs they all scattered. Adam went to seek out some of his informants, to see what rumors were circulating on the street. Dylan went to the site of the fire to poke around and speak to the neighbors. John went back to the train station to show pictures of the nanny and the children to everyone he could, hoping someone would recognize them while Mike was doing the same thing on the docks, in case she had left by ship. Nate had been assigned the stagecoach companies.
By late afternoon the four deputies were tired, but felt like they had left no stone unturned. They each made their way back to the hotel and had just gathered in the sitting room when Adam returned. He looked around at their tired faces and grinned.
"Well, what have you got?" he asked as he leaned back against the front of the table he was using as a desk.
Dylan spoke first. "There's no doubt in my mind that some sort of flammable was used in that fire. I can't tell you what it was because the site has been rained on several times in the last couple of weeks. But that kind of destruction also had to involve incendiary devices." He paused to stretch. "I talked to every neighbor I could and they all agreed that they heard a muffled explosion around the time the first flames were seen. So it's pretty clear that Albrecht wanted to make sure that nothing would be left standing. In my opinion the explosion occurred at the sub- level, in the cellar."
His boss was nodding, listening to him closely when Dylan grinned. "Now I also talked to those in service in the surrounding houses and picked up a little bit of information that is especially damning. A housekeeper told me she had seen some men delivering a wagonload of barrels to the Albrecht residence about two weeks before the fire. Then she told me they were making deliveries in the neighborhood this afternoon. I found them and asked them what was in the barrels. They told me grain alcohol, but not to say I had heard it from them - they'd deny it if questioned by the police. I guess Albrecht has them badly intimidated."
Adam grinned, "I'm not very concerned about that - a reward will be offered soon and believe me that does wonders for loosening tongues."
Dylan laughed. "I guess someone delayed the reward offer so we could complete our investigation first."
"Yes, someone must have," Adam answered him and turned to Mike. "Any luck?" he asked and Mike shook his head no. So did John, but when he turned to Nate the tall man smiled and nodded. "Got her," he said quietly as his fellow deputies turned and gave him their complete attention.
"This woman is very smart," he continued. "She picked one of the smallest companies and was not alone - a man went with her and they split the children up so each one had two 'boys'." He chuckled, thinking how on target Thea's assessment of the nanny had been.
"Come on, spill it Nate! Where did they go?" Mike said impatiently.
"You'll never believe this. They went to San Francisco. Of course that was after a two-day stopover in San Mateo."
The other deputies stared at him blankly for a moment before starting to laugh. Adam just smiled as he shook his head. "You were right Nate, this woman IS smart." He picked up the woman's picture. "Smart, but she overlooked one important detail. I think she was so intent on no one recognizing the children she forgot to disguise herself - this face people remember."
His men were lounging back in their chairs still smiling when he said, "Well, I think we've done a good day's work, so you're all free to do whatever you want this evening." He smiled when every sign of tiredness seemed to vanish like magic. They were all rushing for the door when Adam's voice stopped them and they turned around to eye their boss suspiciously. He bit back a smile.
"Just one more thing...all I ask is that you don't end up in jail. Alright?"
"Whatever you want, boss!" Nate said and the others nodded as he opened the door. They were all gone in the blink of an eye and the door banged shut behind them. Adam smiled to himself - they had all forgotten to ask him about his afternoon, but then his expression fell. He couldn't believe that not one single bit of information had been found out about this mysterious woman. And he was sure that his informants had tried their best. They were puzzled too.
He sighed, the silence in the room seemed to ring in his ears pleasantly as he stood and moved toward the smallest bedroom that only had one bed. The deputies would be doubling up in the other two. He walked in, closed the door behind him, turned the lamp down until the light was only dim, then stretched out on the bed. "No wife, children, deputies, friends, or relatives," he said to himself. "God, how long has it been since I've had any time alone?" Sighing with pleasure, he stacked his hands behind his head, completely relaxed, and for once didn't think about much of anything at all.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Adam was sound asleep when the other men staggered to their rooms about three o'clock in the morning, so he had no idea what time they got in. But he was sure they would all be feeling more than a little bit rough. Resisting the wicked urge to wake them all at five o'clock, he waited until six to leave the room and go have breakfast with Wes and Dulcy. They had just returned the evening before from a short trip they had taken to visit her family.
He took one look at Dulcy's pale, slightly green face and recognized morning sickness. He was about to ask when the baby was due, but stopped. Somehow he was pretty sure Wes didn't know about it yet, so he said nothing. Although he did have a hard time holding back pleased smiles.
Taking pity on his deputies, he didn't return to the suite until about eight, but when he did he banged on their doors to wake them up. The chorus of groans he heard in response made him laugh.
When he still hadn't heard any movement in either room ten minutes later he banged on the doors again. The groans were louder this time and he heard the distinct thumping sound of someone falling out of bed. More sounds of movement began in both bedrooms, so he left to go to the kitchen and have someone bring plenty of strong, hot coffee up to the suite.
He didn't make it back as quickly as he wanted to because daytime employees had reported for work and he was stopped many times by people asking about his family. But when he did, he was pleased to see all four men awake and dressed, although looking like "the dearly departed."
"Good morning," he said loudly as he strode into the room and slammed the door shut behind him. They all flinched. He chuckled, "And you four pitiful specimens have the nerve to laugh at ME when I choose not to drink."
Nate groaned and slid down in his chair as he carefully cradled his head in his hands. "Boss please, have mercy," he croaked then flinched again when someone knocked on the sitting room door.
Instead of calling out "Come in," as he normally would, Adam decided he had tortured his deputies enough and went to open the door instead. A member of the kitchen staff wheeled a cart in that had pots of coffee, pitchers of ice water, and a rack of dry toast. "Thank you Dale," he said quietly and the young man took one look at the seemingly animated corpses scattered around the room and smiled. "Glad to see you again Mr. Cartwright, " he almost whispered then left the room as quietly as he could.
Adam filled four large mugs only half way with the hot coffee and handed one to Nate first. The young man's hands shook so badly he was thankful for his boss's foresight. After delivering the other three, Adam came back to sit on the edge of the able and watch with amusement as his deputies came back to a reasonable semblance of life. After each one had come up to the cart for a refill, he hopped down from the table and poured them tall glasses of the ice water. He delivered one to each man saying, "Trust me...drink this too."
He went back to the table and leaned against the front to wait some more. Nate was the first to seemingly recover enough to sit up straight. When he finally looked directly at Adam, the older man just shook his head. "Son, your eyes look like bacon baseballs." Nate had to smile at that, in spite of how miserable he felt.
The other walking dead finally came to carefully sit in the chairs that were grouped in front of the table. Adam looked them over and judged he had given them enough time to recover.
"Alright, we need to start thinking about what our next step should be. I put the word out to my informants through Wes before we came here asking for any information on the nanny. To my surprise they haven't been able to turn up a single fact about her. We have absolutely nothing to go by - nothing about her family, previous employment, or even where she came from. What do you think that is saying about her?"
His four deputies tried to sit up straighter and concentrate on this challenge. The minutes ticked by and Adam was about to answer his own question when Dylan looked up. "She's hiding something."
Adam smiled at him. "Of course...but what is she hiding? It seems to me she's hiding her identity, but why? The quickest way to get yourself fired is to lie to your employer. That says to me that she wasn't particularly worried about losing her job. Again, why?"
John answered him, "She must not have needed the money." His boss was nodding in agreement when Mike spoke up.
"Adam, do you have her picture there? I'd like to take another look at it." When Adam pulled the picture from a file Mike stood a little unsteadily then came to stand next to him.
"See," he said to his boss, "how many nanny's do you think can afford the expensive jewelry and clothing she has on?"
The other deputies came to look, too. Then they exchanged knowing glances.
"Hmmm..." Nate said, "Do you think she was really Albrecht's mistress?"
Adam and John shook their heads. "That would make sense except for the elaborate scheme to save the children. I just can't see a mistress doing that."
Nate frowned, "Why?"
"It just doesn't," John said. "I can't tell you exactly why, it just doesn't seem to add up for me."
All four men looked to Adam for his assessment.
"I agree and disagree," Adam said. "John, I think you mean what woman would be the mistress of a man who was planning on leaving his children to be killed in a fire. And if she didn't care, she wouldn't have saved them. But on the other hand she could have become his mistress before she knew about his plans and just stayed for their sakes. So I don't think that's a valid point." He paused to look at John, "However, I don't think she was his mistress for another reason. A man like Albrecht would not have a mistress that he knew nothing about."
"Also," he continued, "I don't think he's lying about not knowing anything about her. It seems obvious to me that what she was hiding she was hiding from him. Not from the other staff or from anyone else. That fact alone says to me that her identity would have made him suspicious."
The deputies went back to their chairs while Adam stared at the young woman's image for a few moments. "Now let's put these facts together: she wore expensive jewelry and clothing; she was not Albrecht's mistress; she was hiding her identity from him; and she had the help of someone who was in a position to procure the bodies. What do you think this adds up to?"
Nate grinned, "Of course, she's a member of the upper class!"
"Right!" Adam said. "And THAT is why we haven't been able to find her. We've been looking in the wrong places."
The other deputies nodded in agreement and were smiling.
"What bothers me is how she got involved in this to begin with," Dylan offered. "I mean this whole thing is deliberate on her part. First getting the job and then concocting this elaborate plan to save the children. She had to have had some sort of previous, but distant connection with Albrecht to know about it without him knowing her."
Adam was nodding and his eyes narrowed as he stared over their heads at the wall. "Excellent point and that brings up some interesting questions. And the most important one is why did Albrecht have to hire a new nanny? Does anyone remember anything about that from the reports? Was an explanation ever given?"
"If I remember correctly, I think they said the former nanny just took off. They assumed she had eloped with another member of the house staff," John answered. "But no names were given."
"I think you're right," Adam said then looked at Nate and Dylan. "I want you two to go back to that neighborhood and talk to the staff in the surrounding houses. Find out everything you can about those two people, particularly if anyone knows their families." He turned to John and Mike. "You can say I have a suspicious nature, but I want you two to go to the morgue and go through the records for the last six months looking for unidentified bodies. Take down the particulars on each one that could be this man and this woman."
"What are you going to do today?" Nate asked as he hauled himself to his feet with a faint groan.
Adam smiled his half-smile and raised one brow, "I think it's time for our dear friend Simon to receive a visit from me."
The other men glanced at each other. "By yourself?" John said anxiously and his boss chuckled as they all began moving toward the door.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to rattle his cage. I just want to get a look at him - to get a better idea of just who this man is." They were standing in the hallway now. "You four go ahead, I need to have Wes put the word out for information to my informants in service. It's no wonder nothing came up with the other group," Adam said laughingly and turned away from them and toward the offices.
His deputies stood there watching him walk away for a few moments then they reluctantly turned toward the stairs. "I know he can take care of himself, but I still don't like him going to see Albrecht by himself," John said worriedly.
"He'll be fine," Nate said, but his tone sounded like he was trying to convince himself. Then he suddenly stopped and the other three men almost ran into each other. "He's going to tear my head off, but I just have a bad feeling about this." He paused to think for a moment.
"Oh well, I never use my head very much anyway," he said cheerfully, "I'm going to follow him." Without looking back at the other three he nodded emphatically and took off down the stairs.
His friends remained standing in the hall, each one feeling both relieved and guilty - relieved that Adam would have unseen backup and guilty that Nate would be facing Adam's wrath alone if he got caught. Then they went down the stairs, out of the hotel, and hurried off to complete their assignments.
