PROLOGUE
San Antonio, Texas
November 12, 1914
EMMA HADN’T WOKEN with murder on her mind. Only a desperate wish that the terrible pain would go away. She’d been plagued with relentless migraines and had stayed in bed for the better part of a week. The lace curtains let in light that intensified the throbbing in her temples, so she’d darkened the room by tying her quilt to the corners of the window.
It was her mother’s handiwork, stitched in the aptly named crazy house pattern, and reminded her of better days.
A sachet of lavender from the garden lay next to her pillow, its fresh buds plucked late in the summer, but its scent had faded along with its crumbling purple buds.
She listened as the other Emma stood in the kitchen brewing tea. The water being poured into the pot, the staccato click of the gas igniting the stove. Quick moves echoed across a house that was nearly void of furniture. These were the actions of a woman who was surely anxious to return home to the arms of her adoring, though lackluster, husband in New York. Mr. Daschiel had won over Miss Dumpke even though he could exhaust an army with his droning monologues. But eloping with him had untangled her from the women’s unseemly arrangement.
To think it had all begun with such innocence.
Emma was under no illusion that the other Emma had returned for any other reason than guilt. Only scant words had passed between them these last few days. The necessary ones that allowed one to nurse the other. “How are you feeling today?” and “Here’s a cocaine lozenge for your pain.”
What else was there to say? A litany of apologies from each of them would not engender a return to what their friendship had been before it all unraveled.
By late afternoon, the few cicadas that remained for the remnants of the autumn season hummed their mating song in the distance. It was the only sound that didn’t add to Emma’s migraine—it was a lullaby of sorts. A love song nearing its end. Like the lavender at the end of its bloom.
How appropriate.
Closer in, the sound of a motor alerted Emma to Otto Koehler’s impending arrival. It was easy to tell that it was him. Few people around Hunstock Avenue possessed such contraptions, though sharp-eyed investors believed that they would be all the rage in a few years. Five hundred dollars got you the Runabout model of Ford’s latest achievement. Bottom of the line, though Otto could easily have afforded the more luxurious Town Car.
He could afford a thousand of them.
It was not the particular hum of the automobile that announced his approach, however. It was the way in which he drove it, straining it to the limits of its capabilities, to the point that Emma could sympathize with its plea for restraint.
Otto rode with such ferocity. Eager to get the job done, much like his lovemaking.
Yes, the women had spoken of it and made comparisons.
His footsteps fell upon the stairs with ungainly effort—especially as they landed on the rotted fourth step; the one he kept imploring the two Emmas to repair. But he hadn’t hired them for their carpentry skills. They were trained nurses, brought in from the Hanover region of Germany to care for his invalid wife. So the step remained untouched and Otto shouted a curse every time he visited the home he’d purchased for his two mistresses.
It sat just blocks away from his beloved Hot Wells Hotel on South Presa. The storied resort he’d purchased after a fire bankrupted its first owner. Otto’s vision for it drew celebrities and tycoons and politicians from around the country, augmenting his already legendary status as a world-class businessman. Guests indulged in its healing sulfur waters while peacocks and ostriches raced in organized spectacles.
He was a man beloved by the public, but increasingly reviled by the women in his life.
Emma pressed a down-filled pillow over her ears as the other Emma’s voice, muffled through the cushion, mingled with Otto’s more insistent one. They were arguing. She could easily guess why.
Darkness and quiet were the only remedies for headaches of this severity. Why did Otto have to choose today to make a visit?
As he neared the bedroom, his medium build cast a larger shadow, lit from the sun-drenched window in the front of the house. Emma opened her eyes as much as she could without a recurrence of the searing pain, and she noticed that he had not shaved his substantial mustache, despite her pleas. He’d dismissed her complaints that it scratched her skin when he pressed his lips against hers.
Mary Pickford had complimented him on it a few years ago and he hadn’t been seen without it since.
Mary Pickford never had to kiss him.
Otto entered her room without knocking. It was his name on the deed, after all, and they were his employees. Well, Emma Burgemeister remained so. She was paid handsomely for her work and still received the usual funds even during this bedridden time. Fifty dollars every month for services as a nurse to his wife. In addition, he’d dangled a promise to give her the deed to the tiny cottage and a gift of twenty thousand dollars.
It was more than most immigrant women could hope for and she didn’t complain. Security came with strings and the notion of love was a luxury built on quicksand.
But so far, neither of the offerings had come to pass.
Emma’s eyes adjusted to the light peeking in from the kitchen, and she could barely make out the wild look on Otto’s face as he crumpled a paper in his hand. She didn’t have to see the type print on the thin, yellow page it to recognize what it was. She’d known it would upset him and had anticipated this moment.
He tossed his bowler hat on a table and took a deep breath.
Emma clenched her fists under the blankets and felt the quickening of her pulse in her fingers.
“What do you mean by this?” he asked, throwing the receipt at her with surprising force. Otto Koehler was not a violent man. Just a headstrong one. But Emma Daschiel’s recent marriage along with Emma Burgemeister’s refusal of Otto’s proposal had unhinged him of late.
“It is for the new wheelchair for Mrs. Koehler.”
“The old one is perfectly good. She hasn’t complained.”
“Not to you, but I noticed that the turns around your house are difficult for her to maneuver and the thick rugs slow her down. This new model has smoother bearings and larger wheels. She’s been quite excited for it to arrive.”
He slumped into the cushioned chair across from Emma’s bed and ran his fingers through thinning gray hair. There was something pitiful in his sigh that almost moved her to change her mind.
She knew he loved his wife. Had loved her ever since he came over from Germany so many years ago to start a new life in St. Louis. He’d met her when he was a young man and after they’d married, he convinced her to move to Texas with the wild idea of starting his own brewery. Until her car accident four years ago, she’d been quite spritely, Emma had been told, and her convalescence had been his undoing.
Yes, he loved his wife. To the degree, at least, that Otto could love someone beyond himself.
Emma softened her voice, not wanting to argue with him as he had with the other Emma. He didn’t take well to being challenged by a woman and conciliation was a trait he prized.
“I should have asked you. But this wheelchair will be good for her, Otto. It’s not as if you can’t afford it.”
In fact, Otto Koehler was one of the richest men in San Antonio—and in the country. With business and real estate holdings so vast that even his lawyers and accountants could barely keep up. But maybe his miserly ways had been the very thing that built his wealth. He didn’t spend a penny that wasn’t necessary or that wasn’t an investment of some kind.