At precisely 8:30 PM, on a windy Sunday night in the upper boroughs of San Francisco, Samuel J. Winchester receives a telegram.
It reads as follows:
ABIGAIL GUNTHER DECEASED STOP PERSONAL EFFECTS FOR PICK-UP STOP
Sam idly fingers the parchment-he finds this telegram peculiar, for he knows of no Abigail Gunther. The sender information reveals no mistake on the behalf of Western Union; the wire comes from the Property Clerk at Sheldington Morgue and is addressed to Sam, clear as day, so he fishes in his pockets for a copper or two to tip the courier with-makes it a nickel, as he observes the powerful gusts of wind outside with a sympathetic eye. The young man thanks him profusely, re-mounts his bicycle, then forges back through the night, teetering precariously upon each gale that meets him sideways.
Sam shuts the door and the howls of wind immediately quiet, like a group of shushed children. Up two flights of stairs, Sam returns to his apartment and asserts himself once more at his writing-table, tweaking the gas lamp for a brighter flame; as a lawyer in the thick of marital disputes, supposed theft, and other questionable accusations risen from the ashes of San Francisco’s latest earthquake, there is no rest for the weary. Even four years after the apocalyptic event-the city aflame and fallen horses strewn across melting streets-Sam still cannot escape the deluge of civilian squabbles that effuses his vocation with anxieties more akin to those of a harried school-teacher than of a proper lawyer.
Latent desires to pursue his true calling of criminal law-the subject of which Sam specialized in at Stanford University-will simply have to wait.
From the fan of documents nesting on Sam’s desk, he slides the top-most over and absently double-underlines a previous mark with his pen. Inevitably, unwillingly, his thoughts stray back to the telegram. As if vigor will ground his focus, Sam forcibly underlines the same word, when the ink stutters; Sam examines the tip and discovers dried flakes encrusted at the nib. Of course, he must properly clean it if he is to make progress on his work for the night.
As Sam refills the pen reservoir with a pipette of black ink, he glances at the telegram, which sits unfolded on his desk atop the veritable mountain of loose paper. He ruminates upon the name of the deceased-Abigail Gunther-and reaffirms that he knows of no such woman.
Sam pinches the pipette rubber and a long blurt of ink jets out over his forefinger-“Damn,” he curses, dashing to his sack coat which hangs in a corner as he pulls folded fabric from its breast pocket to dab at the mess. It’s no use though; he’s ruined the sheets of paper, and his handkerchief too, with nothing to show for it but unsightly smudges on his fingers that liken him to an unkempt breaker boy or coal shifter. It seems he’s misplaced his mind to-night, perhaps blown away by the violent oncoming of Autumn that snuck into his home when he’d opened the door for the courier.
Sam drops the ruined kerchief resignedly on his writing-table, then leans over to extinguish the lamp. There will be no work done to-night, whether he attempts it or not; he simply hasn’t the concentration for it. The room is quickly invaded by darkness. Nature’s exhalations can be heard outside, sweeping across his windowpanes and catching in the cracks with whispering whistles, magnified in his ears with the loss of sight.
Sam toes off his oxfords before entering his small bedroom. He disrobes on the blind, clumsy path towards the bed, bumping his knees painfully against the frame before he crawls underneath the covers. He is promptly claimed by the tenuous fingers of sleep.
-----
The Property Clerk at Sheldington Morgue is a slender man whose seemingly interminable height-more remarkable than that of Sam’s own, even-recalls images of an over-grown bamboo stalk. He sways, too, when he speaks; it may have something to do with the generous proportions of his head, and the weight of keeping it upright.
“-are Mr. Samuel J. Winchester, are you not?”
Sam blinks up at him. “Come again?”
The Property Clerk sternly crosses his arms. “I’m sorry, sir, but I should like to see some identification. I cannot simply hand off Ms. Gunther’s personal effects to the first gentleman who comes in, CLAIMING to be the inheritor.”
Sam blinks for a moment, then takes the folded telegram off the counter to tuck back inside his wallet and exchanges it for his newly-acquired operator’s license. He slides the article across the counter as the clerk tilts forward suspiciously, scrutinizes the card, then rocks back on his heels.
“What is this?” The clerk eyes the card as if it were a dead roach, up-ended on its shell with legs in the air. Sam tries not to take an inordinate amount of offense.
“It’s my operator’s license. See? That is my name right there.” Sam points to his signature.
After a pause, “You own an automobile?” The man’s gaze flicks up over Sam’s head to fruitlessly search the streets for a parked carriage, then dart back to the license.
“I will. When I can afford one.” Sam drums his fingers on the counter, impatient to discover what Ms. Gunther has left him. “The effects?”
“Right, very well, then.” The clerk draws a latch-key out from under the desk, then disappears into a back room.
As he waits, Sam runs his gaze along the walls, landing heavily upon a forbidding set of steel doors, behind which the incoming cadavers must be stored. A shiver pinches his spine. Sam calls out, “So how did she pass?”
The Property Clerk re-emerges from the back room with an envelope in hand. He glowers, tipping towards Sam in that disconcerting manner of his. “If you were even remotely amicable with the deceased, you would know how she passed.”
Sam stands up straighter and says firmly, “I’m afraid not, sir.”
The man exhales, falling back in reluctant capitulation. “Suicide. Locked herself in her home and set it afire.”
The shiver returns in full and spreads over his skin, but Sam tries to conceal his discomfort for fear of arousing yet more mistrust from the spindly clerk. Nonetheless, when he reaches for the envelope, it is only with fierce determination that Sam retrieves it from between tightly grasping fingers.
Sam smoothes out the creases in the paper as he bids the man adieu, hastily exiting the morgue to brave the weather outside. The fervor of last night’s winds has hardly abated, and Sam is forced to stuff the envelope between his coat and vest for fear of letting his prize take flight like a bird.
Sam takes the trolley home, fingering the envelope even as he suppresses his curiosity until he can examine its contents at length behind the security of his own four walls. Finally, he reaches his stop and makes the short trek down Ivy Street before he’s back upstairs and seated at his writing-table. He eagerly withdraws the envelope from inside his jacket, sweeps a cursory look over its blank exterior, then messily slices through the short side with a blunt thumbnail.
Popping the pouch open in his hand, the thin edge of a card is revealed-Sam shakes it out onto his cleared desk-space and a carte-de-visite falls out.
The CDV features the photographed portrait of a woman, washed in sepia tones of cream and brown. Her skin boasts a feminine pallor and she appears lost in some reverie, her gaze diverted from the lens while her blonde locks are demurely pulled back in a neat chignon. She dons a gown with a high ruff collar and her shoulders are delicately sloped, sleeves opening into the wide bell shape that would become popular during the nineties.
Though Sam may not have been acquainted with any such Abigail Gunther, this woman-he fingers the bent cardboard corner of the CDV-this woman he knows. This is a photograph of Mary Winchester…his late mother.
Strangely, this is not the first print of the CDV Sam has received. When family friend Caleb J. Warren suffered an automobile accident some six years prior, he’d left Sam this same carte-de-visite of Mary, in much similar fashion-sealed in an envelope and left for pick-up at the local police department. Caleb had hardly been a bon ami of Sam’s, either; between his dead mother and absent father, Sam was surprised to find himself the unlikely inheritor of his mother’s carte-de-visite. And now-Sam appraises the photograph he holds-now, the unlikely inheritor of duplicates of said CDV.
Sam pulls open the lower-most drawer from his bureau and sifts through the miscellany-an emergency sewing kit, an old ascot given to him by a well-meaning friend, various crumpled papers-until, aha! Sam spies his mother’s faraway expression peeking out from underneath a box of sealing wax. He wrestles it out.
Both CDVs now in hand, Sam compares the two. They are utterly identical, save for the battered edges that Caleb’s card bears-evidence of being jostled around in a notions drawer for several years.
He flips the cards around, finding matching company logograms (Slee Bro’s Photographers); however, on Abigail’s card, something is written in the upper right corner. The penmanship is nearly illegible where the black ink bleeds from swoop to swoop, as if scrawled in great haste. Sam gets up to stand by the window, scrutinizing the card in the sunlight, when its content becomes clear. The writing reads Cappula Acodadura.
A puzzling phrase, certainly. While Sam does not possess the linguistic skill of, say, his childhood companion Ava Wilson, who commands the understanding of four disparate languages, he did learn his Latin well-well enough to come to the conclusion that this mysterious phrase is derived from no Roman legacy. There is not a decipherable prefix or suffix in sight, leading Sam to draw the conclusion that these words are nonsense-simply conjured at the whim of its author, perhaps a nick-name of sorts or a secret shared between confidantes, or lovers.
Only, it seems highly coincidental for this literary conundrum to appear alongside the equally perplexing one of Abigail Gunther-the mystery of who the deceased woman is, and how she came to know his mother. Caleb as well; what is the meaning of Sam’s inheritance of the seemingly arbitrary photographs? Oh, it could easily all be explained as mere luck, but as a lawyer, and moreover, as an orphaned son ever-desperate for trivia regarding his enigma of a mother, Sam will not tuck the affair away like some old, forgotten ascot or ruined handkerchief.
No, Samuel Winchester is a lawyer; the best of his kind. To come into identical photographs of Mrs. Winchester due to the wishes of near strangers, both of whom had met with the wrong side of fire (as did his mother, trapped in a burning building some twenty-odd years ago)-this is hardly the foodstuffs of coincidence.
Sam walks back to his desk, sweeps the papers off to the corner, then lays the cards out side-by-side. The twin expressions of his mother lead outside the frame, as she idly dreams of a future that will be cut too short.
Sam leans back in his seat and rubs his face. He has a busy day at the office ahead of him, but the week-end is thus far empty. Perhaps he ought to arrange time for a little research of his own.
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