“Violet!”
Jasper had spied me from his post where he collected coins at the men’s door. He jumped down from his soapbox, a hank of sandy hair tumbling across his forehead. It grazed his cheekbone as he stared at me, wide-eyed, excited. I desperately waved him off. I was flustered, and there were only two people in the world I trusted enough to tell my secret.
“Violet!” he called again.
“Not now, Jasper—I’ve . . .” I fumbled. “I’ve important business.”
Jasper frowned at me, stung, but ultimately obeyed. I felt a prickle of guilt, but if I dallied, Jasper might inquire after Tackett, whereupon I would have to either lie or tell the awful truth.
I crossed over to the women’s free door. A steady stream of young women were entering, some merely poking their heads in to see if the action inside was worth their while. They were very much alike in appearance: colorfully dressed, their cheeks rouged, and their necks doused in cheap toilet water that did its best to imitate the perfumes of Paris. A few of the girls eyed me, clearly wondering what I was doing there, dressed as I was. I felt myself grow self-conscious and I hesitated. I rarely visited the hall, and the couple of times I’d been sent to deliver messages I’d quickly learned it was never easy to get any of the girls alone; their dance-cards filled up quickly and stayed full. I hadn’t the faintest idea how I would draw Flossie and Cora away. Intimidated, I felt shyness curling over me in a familiar wave.
But then I remembered the two lifeless figures back at the boardinghouse, and I gulped down a breath and plunged inside.
The dancehall was an echoing, humid space. It was as though even the walls themselves perspired. Countless couples thronged the wooden floor, which was badly scuffed and stained with tobacco expectorate. I knew most of society had declared scenes like this indecent: bodies touching bodies as they wiggled through the Bunny Hug, or the Grizzly Bear, or whatever other dance steps the irreverent citizens of San Francisco might’ve dreamed up and declared to be in fashion. Tables ringed the room, occupied by exhausted dancers resting their feet and voyeurs with no intention of joining. A stage sat at the far end, bathed in the brilliant beams of the calcium lights. Down below it a small, sweaty band cranked out one ragtime hit after another, flanked by dilapidated red curtains that had seen better days. A row of girls danced upon the stage, but Cora and Flossie were not among them, which meant they were likely ferrying customers about on the dance floor below.
I skirted the edge of the crowd. Unbridled shrieks of hilarity bounced off the windowless walls. A drunk man tried to pull me into his lap, roaring with laughter at my plain calico dress.
“Lookit this one! You’ve done ’scaped the convent, ain’t ye, darlin’?” he slurred, playing the comedian to his friends.
My cheeks flushed and I pried myself out of his clutches. My eyes searched the dance floor pleadingly, desperate for any sign of my friends.
“Violet? What are you doing down here?”
The voice came from over my shoulder. I spun around and saw Flossie, her pale coloring overwritten with bold rouge and lipstick. I was so relieved, I felt tears spring to my eyes. I was even more relieved to see she didn’t have a customer in tow.
“Flossie!” I clutched her outstretched arms to steady myself. “Flossie, you have to help me! I shouldn’t have gone in, but the silence in the house . . . it was deafening!”
Flossie puzzled over this, trying to guess what lay behind my cryptic words.
“You mean . . . Tackett?” she finally asked, catching on.
“They were so very quiet . . . I thought perhaps they were just sleeping . . . but, oh, Flossie . . . when I finally went to check, he was . . . oh, Flossie, they both were . . .”
Before I could finish the sentence, Flossie gripped my wrists and squeezed hard.
“Shhhh,” she said. She nodded, her lips pressed in a tight line, and I knew she understood. She glanced around with caution, but the people packed nearest us were lost in their own merriment. I didn’t see any of the other girls.
“I’ll fetch Cora. We’ll come see to it,” she said.
* * *
—
A short time later the three of us stood around Tackett’s bed. Flossie bravely pulled back the sheet and we stared dumbly at the corpses.
A leathery, overly groomed man in life, Tackett was profoundly grotesque in death. His muscles and tendons appeared ropy and strained, and his pirate’s face was nearly purple. Blanche was equally ugly; her pale skin was peppered with greenish-looking splotches, presumably where her veins had burst. Her eyes were also open, her swollen tongue lolling between her thin white lips.
“My word,” Cora murmured. “That stench is truly terrible.”
She suppressed a gag and brought the back of her hand to her nose.
“Yes,” I agreed miserably. “Whatever happened to them . . . it seems it took them violently.”
“It could only have been one thing,” Flossie said.
Her tone was flat, unemotional, certain. Cora and I turned to look at her. Flossie glanced at us, then back at the bodies.
“Poison.”
The image of the empty bottle I’d found in my pocket instantly sprang to mind, and I felt my brow bead with icy-cold sweat. But . . . that couldn’t be—could it? Ipecac didn’t kill a body; it only made him vomit for everything he’s worth.
I looked again at the contorted corpses. No. This was something more than simple ipecac. An image drifted into my mind unbidden—of the rats I regularly removed from the cellar, their stiff paws frozen mid-spasm, their spines curled backwards into commas. Blanche and Tackett were frozen in convincing imitation.
But . . . Tackett had been sick. Repeatedly sick. Had that been no coincidence? I looked automatically around the room, and my gaze landed upon a tray laden with two half-eaten bowls of stew.
You rest . . . I’ll fix the stew . . . Flossie had instructed only hours earlier.
On the bedside table stood the bottle of whiskey—a good third of it gone now—and two glasses, just the slightest ring of caramel-colored liquid left at the bottom of each. I thought of Cora’s indignation when Blanche had pointed out her brooch and Tackett confiscated it.
Her Royal Highness had the nerve to order me to carry a fresh bottle and two glasses in to them on a little tray!
Was it possible? But no. Tackett had so many enemies. These were girls I’d always trusted and loved. And yet, I looked between my two dearest friends and felt a brief flicker of doubt. To my further shock, I saw that they were also peering back at me. I made a quick inventory of the reasons they had to wonder about me: I had been alone with Tackett and Blanche in the house. I had been the one to find them. And, yes, Tackett had repeatedly fallen ill . . . and I had been the one to cook all of his meals.