A Dying Note
A Silver Rush Mystery
Ann Parker
Poisoned Pen Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by Ann Parker
First Edition 2018
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017951352
ISBN: 9781464209796 Hardcover
ISBN: 9781464209819 Trade Paperback
ISBN: 9781464209826 Ebook
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
Poisoned Pen Press
4014 N. Goldwater Blvd., #201
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
For Barbara Peters, editor extraordinaire,
who encouraged me (and my protagonist) to “go West”
to San Francisco
Acknowledgments
This book may not have taken a village to write, but the people I’d like to thank would certainly constitute a large neighborhood.
First off, thank you, dear family, especially Bill, Ian, and Devyn, for hanging in there with me. Second, I’m grateful to the friends, writers, critique partners, and beta readers/proofers who offered suggestions and support for various stages of the writing/re-writing process: Bill McConachie, Camille Minichino, Carole Price, Colleen Casey, Dani Greer, Janet Finsilver, Jonnie Jacobs, Kate Wyland, Margaret Lucke, Mary-Lynne Pierce Bernald, Penny Warner, Priscilla Royal, Rita Lakin, Trevor Lamberson, Staci McLaughlin, and Wendy McConachie. Special thanks and endless gratitude to Camille Minichino and Dick Rufer for letting me hide out in their guest room for some serious writing sprints and for their friendship over many decades. Devyn McConachie gets a super-duper shout-out for her last-minute-to-midnight reads of certain critical sections and her help with “final words.” (Note to Devyn: You have the makings of an excellent copy editor!) Thanks also to the Facebook group Colorado Writers and Publishers and to the Poisoned Pen Press “posse” of authors—we’re all in this together!
In the research arena, Colleen Casey deserves a tip of the hat and a dozen roses for sharing her vast knowledge of San Francisco’s history and loaning me bags of resource books, as well as for her encouragement and patience in answering my many questions and her infectious enthusiasm for the city and all its aspects. The San Francisco Public Library and particularly the San Francisco History Center and its librarians were wonderful resources and always helpful—I will be back! Stephen Parker supplied much-needed and appreciated “musical assistance.” Also, thanks to Emperor Norton (aka Joseph Amster) and his insightful Time Machine Tours of San Francisco. All errors, omissions, and slips into alternate realities are mine.
And here’s to the folks of Leadville, Colorado: you and your lovely mountain town and its history are always in my mind and my heart (and, as you’ll see in this latest book, never far from my protagonist’s thoughts as well).
Mary-Lynne “Persnickety” Pierce Bernald—thank you for lending me your name.
Maddee James and the crew at xuni.com—three cheers, a whoop, and a holler for designing and maintaining my website. (For those interested in taking a gander, www.annparker.net and www.annparker.com will both take you there.)
Janaki Yasanayake—thank you for creating the wonderful map of 1881 San Francisco for A Dying Note.
Last, but never least, I am grateful to Barbara Peters and Robert Rosenwald and their staff at Poisoned Pen Press for their support, encouragement, and direction. “Thanks” is too small a word for all they do, but it’ll have to suffice for now.
Chapter One
San Francisco, Mission Bay
Sunday, November 6, 1881
Not my hands!
Throat crushed, blood gurgled, words choked so they screamed only in the mind.
Sight dimmed—towering bales of hay faded into gray shapes under a near-full moon.
Touch heightened—sharp pieces of straw stabbed into shaking fingers scrabbling to gain purchase on the wharf’s rough planks.
Smell overwhelmed—a cesspool, an open sewer, bubbled below the splintered planks of the wharf.
Vomit rose, nowhere to go, choking further.
How did this happen? Why?
The why was clear. The how? It had only been words at first. Hot words flung back and forth like weapons, hurled like stones. Then, all that had been uncovered slipped out. The lies, the larceny, the truth. The truth had shoved them past words, into the realm of no return. A hard shove. A shove back. A wild swing that connected, yielding a yelp and curse.
A returning blow, but not by a hand. Something heavy, crushing, landing on the throat.
Even now, with breath trapped behind blood and broken cartilage, words clamored, shouted out to be set free, to be heard:
Not my hands!
Then a command, but was it from without or within? Spoken or thought?
On your knees!
Rolling over, pain flared. Palms pushed flat on boards, trying to pull the knees up to obey the order. Limbs rebelled, juddering on the planks, no longer servants of the brain.
Hearing remained—ever faithful. Nearby, the dull thuds and creaks of anchored ships. At a distance, muffled shouts too far away to help. Beyond the wharves, clamor wafted from the saloons, cheap restaurants, and bawdy houses squatting near the drawbridge that spanned malodorous Mission Creek.
Sounds grew closer, ragged breathing, rapid tempo, from high above the fingertips, stinging and raw, above the cheek resting on the planks, wet with blood. Finally, the voice spoke, crackling with anger, aflame with a rage as intense as the fire that engulfed a hay scow a fortnight ago, burning through its mooring and sending it adrift, flaming bright, on an ebb tide out into the night-dark bay.
“Did you think you would get away with this? Destroying me? Destroying us?”
Not my hands!
This time, the trapped words must have escaped, because the voice above came closer, answering. “Not your hands? Very well. That, I can grant you.”
The blow to the back of the head shattered the vision of warped wood boards into splinters. Those splinters flew up, whirling, changing into thin, stinging shards of pain. Another blow, and another. The pain spun into clamorous song piercing all thought, drowning all words, the music of life spilling out in red, red sound, before falling into darkness and silence.
Chapter Two
San Francisco Business District
Monday, November 7, 1881
The church bell cacophony began at six in the morning.
Just as it did
