Free The Bohemian Murders by Dianne Day Page B

eclipsing the Medium Man (who was not brown but plaid that day).
    So Arthur, who was being more entertaining than one would have thought him capable of, scuttled away and Braxton held forth for long after his charm had worn thin. He did, however, leave one letter to be typed over and over again—seventy-three times, to be exact—for a long list of names and addresses. Potential investors, he called the addressees. Doing the same thing so many times was bound to be tedious, but I did not greatly care as it was also lucrative, especially since I decided to charge him three cents apiece for typing the envelopes. I judged Braxton could afford it, and I must have been right because he didn’t bat an eye. Add to all this a certain amount of walk-in traffic off the street, and I was suddenly busier than I had been in a very long time.
    Thus it was that on the eighteenth of January, which was a Thursday, I drove the rig into town at noon instead of walking. My plan was to take the typewriter (which I could lift, but not easily) back to the lighthouse and do some typing that night, to compensate for the fact that I intended to post a sign saying the office would be closed that afternoon. I was going to Mapson’s Mortuary come hell or high water.
    High water seemed the more likely: It was raining, and Bessie the bay mare was none too pleased to be left standing in the street. She twitched her ears back and snorted while I wrestled the typewriter—covered, of course—into the bottom of the shay. I had also put the top up on the carriage, but with the wind blowing off the bay it did not do a tremendous lot of good. NeverthelessI was fairly dry, in an unfashionable but serviceable rain slicker I had found some months ago in the donations box at the tent city in Golden Gate Park. I believe my slicker—which is black and shaped rather like a tent itself—is a garment intended for males, which is why it is so comfortable and roomy. Were it made for a woman it would probably be restrictively narrow through the shoulders, tight in the neck, with tiny buttons clear up to the ears. The clothing we women have to put up with is one of my pet peeves. Someday I will do something about it—if I can only figure out what.
    I was about to climb into the carriage when through the steady rain I saw someone coming along the sidewalk from Lighthouse Avenue. A short woman in a yellow canvas duster. It was Phoebe Broom, looking a lot less like Jane Eyre and more like a canary.
    “Oh dear,” I muttered, then hoped she hadn’t heard me. I gave Bessie’s neck a pat and whispered a word of patience in her twitching ear, then pasted a smile on my face and met Phoebe as she came alongside the office door. “Phoebe, isn’t it? What brings you out in the rain?”
    “I like rain.” She smiled up at me in her unassuming way. “Though it does interfere with my sculpting. The roof of my studio leaks. So I caught a ride over the hill with Oscar—he’s gone on into Monterey. I’ve brought something I thought you might like to have. If we could go inside? Or are you on your way out rather than in?”
    “I am going out—” I indicated the sign in my window that said CLOSED “—but I can delay for a few moments. Come on in.”
    I unlocked the door and we dripped across the floor. Phoebe went straight to the desk, wiped her portfolio off with a handkerchief, and opened it out. “Come and look,” she beckoned to me, “you can choose the one you like best.”
    Uh-oh, I thought, remembering part of our last conversation, but I went ahead and looked. And soon felt teary—the drawings were of Misha, my Michael, and they were that good. “You drew these, Phoebe?” I asked. “I thought you were a sculptor.”
    “The drawings are the first step. You have to draw before you can sculpt. At least, that’s how I was taught.” She grinned and poked me gently in the ribs with her elbow, a mischievous light in her eyes. “I’ll bet you thought you were