Antonia wanted to say she didn’t understand anything. Or rather, because she’d been spying on the goings-on last night, she understood some, but not everything. But she couldn’t say that.
Mrs. S continued, “To reiterate, because this is important, I want you on your best behavior if you are in the store when Mrs. Sweet arrives. Just say ‘Good day, ma’am,’ and absolutely no words about the Silver Queen, State Street, ‘pleasure palaces,’ and so on.”
“I know,” said Antonia. “You don’t have to keep telling me not to talk about Leadville.”
Mrs. S nodded, but she didn’t seem to be really listening. “Good. Now, run along. Be quick or you’ll be late!”
Antonia obediently quickened her stride, leaving Mrs. S behind. However, she couldn’t help but wonder where Mrs. S was going.
Antonia glanced back. Mrs. S wasn’t hailing a hack. So, she was walking somewhere close by.
Was she meeting Frisco Flo?
Mrs. S headed toward Market, but so slow it almost seemed on purpose, like she didn’t want Antonia to know where she was going. Antonia kept up her pace, beginning to sweat in her woolen stockings and warm petticoat. As she turned the corner onto Market, she glanced behind her again. Mrs. S was still coming and had opened her umbrella because it was starting to sprinkle. Antonia ducked into a bakery and went up to the shelves, examining the rows of bread with great interest. A few minutes later, Mrs. S walked by, clutching her coat closed at the throat, head bowed under the umbrella.
Antonia waited a few heartbeats, dashed back out, and opened her own umbrella. The ocean of dark umbrellas on Market confused her until she picked out Mrs. S, taller than the other women and even some of the men. Antonia hung back, sliding along the storefronts in case Mrs. S turned in her direction and she needed to duck inside somewhere.
Mrs. S slowed and stopped by the tall fountain they called Lotta’s Fountain at the corner of Market, Kearney, and Third. A veiled woman also with an umbrella approached Mrs. S. They talked, then started walking in Antonia’s direction, the edges of their umbrellas touching, heads bent toward each other.
Antonia ducked into a basket store, lowering her umbrella so as not to incur the wrath of the storeowner, who stared curiously at her. Antonia waited until the women swept past and followed, cautious.
Was this the important appointment Mrs. S mentioned?
Who was the lady with her? Could it be Madam Flo? With the veil, Antonia couldn’t tell. The other lady wasn’t very tall, and Antonia remembered the whorehouse madam as being pretty short, so maybe.
And where were they going?
The two women turned up Kearney. Antonia followed.
Were they heading back to the store?
But no, they walked past Pine.
They were getting close to the edge of Chinatown.
Antonia walked behind a gaggle of Chinese men talking softly to each other in their singsong language. Antonia’s mind wandered. She wondered why John Hee never seemed to talk to any of his kind. Come to think of it, she never saw him anywhere but in the store, mostly in the repair room. He was nice, though. And he had showed her once how to replace a bridge on a violin and how to string it correctly.
She suddenly realized that it was WAY past the time for the start of school.
Never mind.
She wasn’t going to school that day.
Instead, she’d hole up in the storage room upstairs. Mrs. S would be in the store all day, so she’d most likely not come up to the second floor anyway. Antonia decided she’d stop at Mrs. Nolan’s on the way back, once she knew what Mrs. S and the mystery woman were up to, grab her lunch, and have a picnic all by herself upstairs. Just her and her copy of Young Folks. She could finish reading the Treasure Island installment and see if anything more happened in the office below that would explain what the heck was happening.
Intent on plotting her next steps and what she’d do upstairs once she got home, Antonia almost missed it when Mrs. S and the mystery woman turned to enter a large brick building just past Merchant.
Staring at the building, Antonia slowed and came to a dead stop, then turned around headed back down Kearney.
She told herself that if she wanted to pick up her pickles, cheese, and bread from Mrs. Nolan’s boardinghouse and avoid questions, she’d better move fast.
But there was one question she couldn’t outrun, and it burned in her brain as she hurried away.
What were Mrs. S and the other woman doing in the police station?
Madam Flo wouldn’t have anything to do with the law. It had to be someone else.
What was going on?
Antonia figured if she hung out in the storage room above the office that day and kept her ears and eyes open, she just might find out.
Chapter Fourteen
At the top of the steps, Inez turned to the heavily veiled Carmella Donato. “Let me do the talking,” she said, laying a hand on the young woman’s arm. She could feel the tension radiating through Carmella.
“It can’t be Jamie,” she whispered back fiercely. “It is not possible, I am certain.”
“First, we must find out where they took the remains.” Inez couldn’t quite bring herself to say “the deceased” or the word “corpse.” “I am certain it would not be here,” she added. “But the Central Police Station seems like the best place to start.”
She stopped talking as a derby-hatted gentleman exited the building and held the door for them to enter. Inez asked him for directions to the Central Police Station. “I understand it
