Capacity for Murder (Professor Bradshaw Mysteries) Read online

  Capacity for Murder

  A Professor Bradshaw Mystery

  Bernadette Pajer

  www.BernadettePajer.com

  Poisoned Pen Press

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2013 by Bernadette Pajer

  First E-book Edition 2013

  ISBN: 9781615954490 ebook

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in, or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  The historical characters and events portrayed in this book are inventions of the author or used fictitiously.

  Poisoned Pen Press

  6962 E. First Ave., Ste. 103

  Scottsdale, AZ 85251

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  Contents

  Capacity for Murder

  Copyright

  Contents

  Dedication

  Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-one

  Chapter Forty-two

  Author’s Note and Acknowledgements

  More from this Author

  Contact Us

  Dedication

  To my sisters, Becky & Beverlee.

  I’m so glad we are the three little B’s.

  Note

  A note on spelling: Sanitarium verses Sanatorium. In 1903, the former spelling was commonly used to indicate several types of healing centers: health resorts (such as Kellogg’s famous one in Battle Creek), facilities that treated tuberculosis (TB), asylums for the insane or “feeble-minded,” and hospitals for recovering alcoholics and addicts. Eventually, “sanatorium” was officially chosen for TB hospitals, but “sanitarium” continued to have many meanings. In this book, “sanitarium” is used to indicate a health resort.

  Chapter One

  It all began with a freckle-faced youth delivering a telegram.

  WESTERN UNION

  To: Professor Benjamin Bradshaw, Electrical Forensic Investigator, c/o the State University, Seattle, Wash.

  Message:

  Your expertise urgently needed. Accident of electrical nature. Normal routine suspended until resolved. Please come at once.

  (signed) Dr. Arnold Hornsby, owner and chief physician, Healing Sands Sanitarium.

  Ocean Springs, Wash., August 17, 1903.

  c/o Hoquiam Western Union Office

  To which Bradshaw replied:

  To: Dr. Arnold Hornsby

  Message:

  I regret my obligation to teach prevents travel. Please send particulars. Will examine.

  (signed), Benjamin Bradshaw

  And Dr. Hornsby replied:

  To: Professor Benjamin Bradshaw

  Message:

  Impossible. Your presence required. I beg you! Bring students. Abundant education at Sanitarium. Nature, science, ocean. All expenses paid. PLEASE COME AT ONCE!

  (signed) Dr. Arnold Hornsby

  Such urgency, blended with the generous cordial invitation, gave Professor Benjamin Bradshaw the impression that Dr. Hornsby was fond of hyperbole. Bradshaw had never been to a sanitarium and couldn’t see the appeal. The very idea of being subjected to a rigorous diet, exercise, and questionable treatments in a social setting made him cringe. However, electrotherapeutic equipment was likely involved in the “accident of an electrical nature,” and this intrigued him. He’d once built a portable electrotherapy outfit for Arnold Loomis, a medical supply salesman, and he knew their construction and safety issues well. He glanced at the location. Ocean Springs. That was on the remote coast. He’d read in the paper about the new Northern Pacific line under construction in that area, but it hadn’t yet reached the coast, which meant the area was unlikely to have telephone or electricity. So was battery power involved in this summons? What sort of accident would prevent the resumption of normal routine and yet allow the invitation of so many? He ought to simply say no. His first duty was to his students, and he couldn’t drag them to the remote coast.

  Could he? As Doctor Hornsby said, there was an abundance of education to be had at the coast. And there was the lure of the ocean itself. The endless vistas, the crashing waves, the sheer power of nature. It was tempting.

  This was happening more frequently to Bradshaw, this tug between teaching and investigating. His career as a teacher he’d chosen, studied for, pursued. His career as an investigator had been dropped in his lap. Two years ago, he’d been the prime suspect in the electrocution death of a colleague and was forced to investigate to clear his name and find the true killer. Afterward, the Seattle Police began seeking his help in cases involving electricity. Word spread, and soon he was consulted by insurance companies, manufacturers, power companies, even private individuals. Those investigations had often led him far beyond electrical forensics, and so he and his investigative partner Henry Pratt, who boarded in Bradshaw’s home, were both now licensed private detectives.

  What surprised him most was how much he enjoyed the investigations. But since he also found great satisfaction in teaching at the university, he had moments of being torn between the two. As he was at this moment.

  He lifted a critical eye to his students. Five young men, a diverse collection of personalities, they had in common their love of learning. They sat perched on stools at the lab tables with magnets, copper wire, aluminum pipes, Leyden jars, vacuum tubes, and other bits and pieces, playfully yet diligently connecting and assembling components and noting the results. The class was called Experimental Physics. Each summer, Bradshaw invited five students from across the entire engineering department to take this hands-on exploration of physics, and he was rewarded by observing their discoveries, those “aha” moments of seeing and truly understanding the forces at work.

  While they undoubtedly enjoyed the class, all week he’d seen their covetous glances out the basement windows at the blue sky and beckoning sun. Summer had come at last to Seattle, and they were missing it in pursuit of higher learning.

  He hesitated, thinking of other faculty members qualified to assume his class, but none of them were currently free. Perhaps he could take his students to the coast. The university encouraged field trips.

  “Sir, do you want to send a reply?�
�

  The telegram boy stood so quietly Bradshaw had nearly forgotten he was there. Beads of sweat glistened on the boy’s freckles and darkened the brim of his cap. He’d cycled three times round trip from the telegraph office in the hot sun.

  Bradshaw smiled at the boy, then said to his students, “May I have your attention?”

  All eyes turned in his direction. The telegram boy, who was no more than twelve, squared his shoulders importantly under their gaze. Bradshaw said, “I don’t suppose you would all like to relocate for the remainder of classes to the ocean? To study the physics of sand, the generating capabilities of the wind, and the potential in tidal movement?”

  They stared at Bradshaw, then they stared at one another. Then Knut Peterson, the clown of the group, whooped, and the others joined in, and they dissolved from disciplined young adults to jubilant children.

  A crooked grin lit the face of the telegram boy. “I think that’s a yes, sir.”

  Bradshaw tore a clean page from his lab tablet and wrote out a reply to be wired to Dr. Hornsby. Before handing it to the messenger boy, he quickly tore out another page and wrote a separate message. He asked quietly, “Do you know the florist on Second Avenue?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Please give this note to the clerk.”

  The boy accepted the request without question, his eyes widening when Bradshaw added a generous tip. When he’d gone, Bradshaw told his students to settle down, conclude their experiments, then go home and pack their bags. They were all of an age that required no parental approval, but he instructed them to inform their families, and he would inform the dean. They would be departing first thing in the morning for Washington’s North Beach on the Pacific Ocean.

  Chapter Two

  The sight of a large body of water was nothing new to anyone who called Seattle home. Besides Puget Sound, there were Lake Washington, Lake Union, and Greenlake, and flowing into them all were numerous rivers, streams, and creeks. Water surrounded Seattle, fell often from the sky, and topped the ring of mountains in glorious white.

  But the ocean was different. The difference was reflected on the face of Bradshaw’s ten-year-old son. The boy stood barefoot in warm, soft sand, his mouth agape at the never-ending expanse of steely water cresting in a series of waves that thundered and crashed, then withdrew with a hiss. Bradshaw’s heart tightened. Why had he not brought Justin to the ocean before now? What sort of father was he that he let the first decade of his son’s life go by without showing him the ocean?

  A final, grateful wire from Dr. Hornsby had provided directions to Healing Sands. It had been a journey of more than one hundred miles and nine hours, to the southwest coast of the state. The train had brought them as far as Hoquiam, and from there they’d taken a steamer across Gray’s Harbor to a trading post called Oyehut, and finally, they’d traveled by horse-drawn wagon up the North Beach. The tide was low and the sun was quickly dropping to the horizon, bathing the beach in a golden glow.

  Everyone had wanted to come along. He’d brought his assistant Henry, of course, and his five students, as well as Justin, and Justin’s best friend, Paul, and his housekeeper Mrs. Prouty, and Missouri Fremont, Henry’s twenty-four-year-old niece.

  Missouri’s inclusion both pleased and distracted Bradshaw. She’d been visiting Henry when he arrived home with the news that they’d been invited to the ocean, and she’d asked if she could go, too. A slender young woman with unfashionably short mahogany hair and a regal nose, her penetrating amber eyes seemed able to read his very thoughts.

  How could he refuse her? What excuse could he give? Certainly not the truth. He couldn’t say, no, you can’t go because you’ll distract me. Or, no, because the thought of you barefoot on the beach is more than I can stand. Or, no because for the past two years, I’ve managed to avoid seeing if the look in your eyes matches the desire in my heart, and at a place as romantic as the ocean I might just make a fool of myself.

  Impossible. Not being able to come up with any other plausible excuse, he’d avoided her eyes and said yes. And now here she was, barefoot in the hot glittering sand, as distracting as he’d feared.

  All but Bradshaw had stripped off their shoes the minute they’d climbed down from the wagons and were now prancing about in the soft sand, and dashing down to the harder-packed damp stretches where white foam rushed at them, licking their toes.

  Bradshaw, his feet shod, hat in hand to keep the brisk wind from taking it away, kept his gaze upon his son, preferring the guilt of fatherhood to the sight of Missouri’s bare feet and slender calves.

  “Professor Bradshaw?”

  Bradshaw turned his back to the ocean to see a young man approaching. He had a round, clean-shaven face and was dressed in a drab summer suit with the star badge of the Chehalis County Sheriff’s department on his lapel. Why was a lawman here?

  The young man extended his hand. “I’m Deputy Mitchell. Thanks for coming.” He had none of the manner of a lawman; his posture was relaxed and his expression open. “Sheriff Graham is up in Taholah, but he’ll return in the morning.”

  The muscles of Bradshaw’s spine tightened. “I was told there was an accident of an electrical nature. How serious was it?”

  Deputy Mitchell’s boyish features looked apologetic, as if he hated being the one to break bad news. “About as serious as an accident gets, Professor. The handyman is dead.”

  Bradshaw glanced quickly over his shoulder at his romping entourage. Mrs. Prouty, his stern and stout housekeeper, was giggling and dancing a jig in the edges of the surf, holding her skirts nearly to her knees. Henry was elbow-deep in a dune with Justin and Paul, lifting handfuls of glittering sand and watching the wind whisk it away. Four of his students were near the water’s edge, poking with sticks at the tiny jets of water squirting up from the wet sand. His fifth student, Colin Ingersoll, a lanky and intelligent young man who was the natural leader of the student group, was now leading Missouri up the beach.

  For a second, Bradshaw’s thoughts went blank. He forced himself to look away, shifting his gaze.

  He shifted his gaze to the three-story main house of the sanitarium, sitting beyond a driftwood boundary. Its shape was boxy, ordinary, yet fitting, as it appeared to have been built nearly entirely of sun-bleached drift logs. The windows and doors were trimmed in crisp white, matching the white wrap-around porch that reflected the dying rays of the sun. Beside the double front doors, a porch light glowed. An electric porch light.

  This was unexpected. He ran his eye over the roof and eves and spied the incoming power line that ran to a barn-like structure at the base of the cliff. A generator? No smoke rose from the structure, so it wasn’t coal or wood-fired. It was difficult to be sure at this distance, but it looked as if a pipe ran up the cliff, at the top of which stood gnarled and stunted Sitka spruce, their branches reaching inland, deformed by the constant attack of salty wind. A penstock supplying flowing water to a waterwheel? Another pipe ran from the barn to the creek their wagon had just waded across.

  “Dr. Hornsby is waiting,” the deputy said.

  Bradshaw called out to his group. Knut whistled to get the attention of Colin and Missouri, who heeded the sound and turned back without breaking from their conversation. She looked up at the young man and laughed. He looked down at her, entranced.

  A development as unforeseen as the electric light. And more disturbing.

  They all gathered their shoes and socks and picked their way across the sand and drift logs to the porch of Healing Sands.

  Dr. Hornsby was a short, stocky gentleman of fifty plus years, with a white goatee and small mustache. He wore a pale linen suit with a white shirt and tie, his feet in felt house slippers. His dark eyes were puffy and red-rimmed, and when they met Bradshaw’s directly, they flashed with a desperate emotion before shuttering. He shook Bradshaw’s hand almost painfully, and greeted them all with a resonant bass voice. Bradshaw resisted the impulse to chastise the doctor for leaving out of his invitation
the vital detail of a man’s death.

  Mrs. Hornsby added her gentler greeting to the doctor’s. Her smile, like her husband’s, was a welcoming mask that didn’t touch her eyes. She was slightly taller than the doctor, and plump featured but not fat, with straw-colored hair pulled tight into a bun. Her dress and apron were white and simply cut, and she, too, wore felt house slippers.

  “Now, I know you are not here as patients but visitors; still, this is a place of healing, and we have certain rules that apply to everyone staying here. You will find signs posted in every room, and we ask you to please read and respect them. I see most of you have already removed your shoes, and we ask that you remove them every time you enter Healing House and the cabins. Place them in a cubby here on the side porch. Choose a pair of new felt house slippers from the chest. The slippers are yours to wear during your stay and to take home with you. Write your name in them if you wish. If you misplace them, simply take another pair.”

  As they all began to obey this unusual requirement, Dr. Hornsby went on to explain in powerful tones that somehow lacked conviction, his reasoning for the slippers, his practiced sermon ending with, “This ritual prepares you to approach your visit to Healing Sands with a sense of respect, belonging, and active participation in your own well-being.”

  Once slippered, they were ushered inside to the dining room at the back of the house, where they found long tables laid with herbal tea and fresh blackberries, which they served themselves. They were then sorted into various sleeping quarters. Bradshaw’s five students chose to bunk together in Hahnnemann House, one of the large cabins that flanked the main house. Justin and Paul wanted a cabin adventure, too, and Mrs. Prouty was a good sport and agreed to bunk with them in Paracelsus Cottage, once she was assured the cabin was furnished with real beds and she’d have her own room. Henry and Missouri both took rooms on the second floor of Healing House, the main building they were now in, and Bradshaw, on a whim, chose to bunk on his own in Camp Franklin, one of the small cabins.