Free No Comfort for the Lost by Nancy Herriman

contented man he’d once been. Eaten away part of his soul.
    He flipped shut his notebook and stared into the shadows.
    • • •
    “ I t’s nothing, right, ma’am?” Dora Schneider asked Celia the next morning in the clinic.
    “I believe you simply have a touch of bronchitis, Dora,” said Celia, folding away her stethoscope and returning it to its mahogany box.
    “Good, because I can’t afford to miss a day of work or they’ll sack me for sure. And you know how hard it is to get a job if a woman doesn’t want to be a domestic,” she said.
    Dora must have been fetching once, with her pale blond hair and laughing eyes, before the smallpox had scarred her skin. The disease had not scarred Dora’s spirit, however.
    “You should recover quickly. You’re strong.”
    The girl coughed, a thick rattle. “But see, I sound like I’ve got the consumption.” She secured her corset over her chemise and tugged on her bodice. “The other girls on the floor stare at me like I’m a leper. I hate being sick.”
    “You will need to rest more than you probably do, however, if you wish to prevent the cough from worsening.” Celia selected a bottle containing an infusion of comfrey root from among her supplies, meticulously arranged on her examination room’s shelves. The medication should help thin the secretions in Dora’s lungs and speed her recovery. “Take some time to rest this weekend, if at all possible.”
    “Rest?” Dora laughed, which brought on another bout of coughing. Celia handed her a handkerchief and she blew her nose loudly.
    “When am I gonna rest, Mrs. Davies? The boss is trying to get us to learn to use those newfangled Grover and Baker sewing machines, and I just hate the thing! Work all day at the clothing manufactory, then have chores when I get home.” She returned the handkerchief to Celia, who dropped it into a basket from which it would be collected by Addie at day’s end.
    “Dora, I would like to ask you something about Li Sha. The police are trying to discover where she was staying in the days before she was killed.”
    Death from homicide by person or persons unknown.
That was what the report from the coroner’s inquest had stated. Detective Greaves’ assistant, Officer Taylor, had brought her the news that morning and told her she could claim the body and plan the funeral. “Do you have any idea? Had you seen her?”
    “That’s easy, ma’am.” Dora hopped down from the thigh-high armless bench Celia used as an examining table. Uncle Walford had built the table for her when she’d begun talking about opening a clinic, shortly after Patrick had signed on to a merchant vessel and sailed away for good. Her uncle had done so much to help Celia right her world after it had been upended by a husband who had abandoned her on their eighth wedding anniversary.
    “Li Sha was with me,” Dora said, brushing her skirt flat over the crinoline with a snap of her wrists. “She begged and begged, and I let her sleep on the floor a couple nights.”
    Celia could imagine what Dora’s grim landlady had thought about having a Chinese woman on the premises.
    She handed the bottle of comfrey root to Dora, who tucked it into her net purse. “Why had she left Tom’s?” Celia asked.
    “Li Sha wouldn’t want me to tell, Mrs. Davies,” said Dora.
    “Li Sha is gone now and beyond fretting over having her secrets revealed.”
    “But I don’t want to say anything bad about your brother-in-law, either, ma’am.”
    Uneasiness swept over her. “That is all right, too.”
    Dora’s brow puckered. “They’d fought. Weren’t the first time. But this time he hit her. Never had before. Broke things before, but never hit her.”
    “I saw the bruises on Li Sha’s face, but I had no idea Tom had caused them.” Nicholas Greaves had suspected, however.
    “She musta thought it would get better with him. We women are always hoping our men will change one day, aren’t we?” Dora asked sadly. “But