Page 3 of Blackmailed (The Browns of Butcher’s Hill #2)

S arah Brown paid one of the nine Shoeman children who lived close by to carry the large bag of soiled clothes for her to Helga Martin, who took in laundry to feed and house herself and her two children.

Laundry delivered and Mary Shoeman sent on her way with a shiny coin, Sarah walked one more block to Dolly’s Dress Shop, where she’d recently begun to work at the counter greeting customers with Dolly, the owner.

Sarah enjoyed the hours she worked there, usually just in the morning when the shop was busiest but occasionally into the afternoon as well.

Dolly was an astute businesswoman who’d been widowed during the War Between the States and had turned her mending business into something much larger.

The bell over the door tinkled, and Sarah laid down the threads she was sorting by color. “Good morning! Oh! Miss Hughes! How good to see you,” she said.

“It is good to see you too, Miss Brown.”

“I heard you were traveling with the Wiests from Mr. Turnbull, who stopped by several weeks ago to visit with my uncle.”

“We are just home a few days. It was the adventure of a lifetime, but I am glad to be back in my own rooms at Shellington and to see my family since I missed seeing them at Christmas. But I would not trade my travels for the world. I was incredibly lucky to accompany Miss Wiest and her father and see the sites in Rome and London.”

“How jealous I am.” Sarah laughed. “But how glad I am for you. You must come by the house and tell us all about it.”

“I would like that,” she said.

“What brings you to Dolly’s today?”

“I need to have two dresses made up. I accompanied Miss Wiest on some social outings during our travels when she wished me to act more as a companion than a maid. So instead of going to the servants’ quarters, I would stay with her, especially if her father was not in attendance, wherever she was being entertained. ”

“How exciting!”

“It was, but we soon realized I had only one dress suitable for company and it was years old and out of current style. She has told me to have two dresses made up, and Mrs. French, the Shellington housekeeper, told me to come here.”

“Dolly does exceptionally nice work. I’m sure you’ll be pleased,” Sarah said as she came around the counter. “Come with me to the back, where one of the seamstresses will take your measurements, and then we can show you some fabrics and styles.”

Both women stopped abruptly on their way to the fitting room when they heard a loud crack and the scream that followed.

And another. Sarah hurried through the curtain and onward through the room at the back of the building where staff could eat their meals or have coffee midday.

The back door stood open to the alley, and Sarah could just see Dolly’s bright red skirts swinging off to the right of the entrance.

“What has happened?” Sarah shouted as she pushed her way through the other employees huddled at the door. “Let me through!”

She stepped into the alley and saw immediately what the screams were about. A man lay on the ground at Dolly’s feet. She was sobbing hysterically as she dropped down to her knees beside the man.

“Dolly,” Sarah said. “Do you know this man? Have you checked for his injuries?”

“What?” Dolly replied, turning her head and looking up at Sarah. “He’s dead. Oh my God! He’s dead!”

Sarah knelt beside him and picked up his hand, feeling for a pulse or any sign of life. She turned to the staff staring from the doorway. “Someone find a policeman.”

“No,” Dolly shouted. “No police!”

Sarah stared down at the body, noticing a pool of blood was beginning to seep over the muddy ground toward her skirts. She tried to push the man’s body over but could not lift him on her own. “Dolly. Help me.” But the woman just sat back on her haunches, staring at the man’s face.

“Here,” Colleen Hughes said. “I’ll pull, and you push.”

Sarah looked up at her, torn between guarding her employer and wanting to know how this poor man had come to be bleeding out in an alleyway behind the dress shop.

She pushed on his side, and Colleen pulled him by the shoulder.

She could see then where the blood was coming from.

A hole on his left side—a bullet hole, no doubt.

“This man’s been shot, Dolly,” she whispered. “This is a murder. We must get the police.”

Dolly clamped a hand over her mouth and shook her head.

“Can you tell me who he is?”

“Cornelius Colfax. His name is Cornelius Colfax.”

“You must do something. The shop girls are starting to chatter, and anyone could be looking out from the windows,” Colleen said.

“She’s right, Dolly.”

The woman closed her eyes. “Go ahead, then.”

Sarah stood up. “Someone go find a policeman.”

Several of the women turned and ran to the front of the store. One stepped out and handed Sarah a piece of muslin. She took it and spread it over the dead man.

Phillip had gone directly from speaking to staff at Everly’s home to a shift at the cannery.

He heard nearly as soon as he’d arrived that the Wiests had returned from their long trip across the ocean.

He wondered when he’d get a chance to hear about Miss Wiest’s travels and shook his head.

He had no expectations to be included in her circle of friends, nor should he.

He dragged himself home near midnight, after breaking up a scuffle on the plant floor and making his injured shoulder hurt like the devil.

He opened the door to the dim hallway and saw Sarah sitting on the steps. “Have you been waiting for me?”

She yawned and nodded. “I have. A friend needs your help, but I am too tired to talk to you tonight. Fell asleep here. What time are you going in tomorrow?”

“Short shift. Just to noon.”

“Good,” she said and stood, turning to climb the steps. “I’ll talk to you then.”

He was curious as to what kept his sister awake and away from her bed, but he would find out soon enough, he supposed.

He had enough to think about at work, where a few new employees assigned to him were causing trouble among the other workers, and his investigation at Everly’s house was going nowhere.

No one knew or saw anything suspicious happen, and no accusations about another staff member other than from Jenkins, the butler, who clearly did not hold the Irish in high regard.

His night went by too fast, his morning shift slower, but now home and eating oyster stew with the heel of the loaf of bread Eliza had just pulled from the oven.

He would have liked to take a nap, but he thought he best get to the Everlys’ and continue his interviews.

None of it before talking to his sister.

She didn’t often ask for help, and he owed her his attention when she did.

“I’m home,” Sarah called out when she closed the front door a few minutes later.

“Come get some stew, girl,” Eliza said.

Sarah made her way into the kitchen and undid her scarf from around her neck. “I’m glad you’re still home, Phillip. I was worried I’d miss you.”

“You told me you needed to talk to me.”

“I know, but I also know you’re busy. It’s the strangest thing.”

“What?” he said and dunked the end of his bread in the bottom of the crockery bowl.

“I was at Dolly’s yesterday, and someone screamed from the back of the store. I ran to see what had happened, and there was Dolly kneeling over a man in the alley. She was crying and insensible. I felt for a pulse, but he was dead. Miss Hughes helped me turn him over, and I found?—”

“Miss Hughes? What was Miss Hughes doing there?”

“Ordering dresses until there was a dead man in the alley.”

“Ordering dresses?”

“Yes. It’s a dress shop.”

“Did she say anything about Miss Wiest?”

“Do you want to hear about this or not?”

Phillip nodded. “Go on.”

“I told one of the girls from the shop to get a policeman, but Dolly said no. No police. But after Miss Hughes and I rolled him over, I found a bullet hole in his back. He’d been shot.”

“Good Lord, Sarah! You could have been in danger.”

“Well, I wasn’t. And I wasn’t about to leave Dolly when she was in such a state. After the police came, I got her inside and upstairs to her rooms. Gave her a glass of brandy and made her drink it.”

“Who was the dead man?”

“Cornelius Colfax. He and Dolly knew each other, I’m sure of it.

I went to Dolly’s this morning, and it was locked up tight.

Just me and one of the seamstresses there at the back door.

I pounded until Dolly came downstairs. She told me to keep the doors locked.

She wasn’t opening the store, and if anyone came looking for her, she was out. ”

“So this was not some random man who just happened to get shot in the alley behind the shop.”

Sarah shook her head. “No. She knew his name and seems grief stricken.”

“I’m not sure what I can do to help her.”

“She believes she’ll be arrested. She said Colfax’s father is wealthy and influential. She’s terrified and talking about taking a train out west to start over.”

“What do you want me to do, Sarah? I’m not wealthy or influential, nor am I a police officer.”

She glared at him. “I want you to find out who killed him, that’s what! That’s what you do besides working at the cannery.”

“Sarah,” he said and shook his head.

“Won’t you at least talk to Dolly? Maybe she’ll tell you why she’s so frightened.”

“I’ll talk to her, but right now I’ve got something to take care of that can’t wait.”

“Fine. We can go as soon as you come home from whatever you have to take care of.”

“It could be late.”

“I’ll be here,” she said and stomped out of the kitchen.

He glanced at Eliza, who was rolling out thin dough. “I can’t imagine what she thinks I can do.”

Eliza looked at him for several long moments and then back to her rolling pin. “She thinks you help total strangers all of the time for all different reasons, and yet you don’t want to help her friend.”