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  THE BOHEMIAN MURDERS

  “Thrill to the third in this exciting series featuring the liberated Fremont at her bravest.… This knockout setting draws you in like no other. THE BOHEMIAN MURDERS conjures up the murkiest mystery—you can just hear the waves and smell the fog. Bravo.”

  —Mystery Lovers Bookshop News

  “A plucky heroine, a darkly handsome suitor in the wings, and a glimpse back into history all add to the charms this series has to offer.”

  —Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine

  “Light, entertaining and ever-so-slightly racy, THE BOHEMIAN MURDERS is perfect summer reading.”

  —Wisconsin State Journal

  “An attractive and involving historical.”

  —Library Journal

  “Fast-paced machinations keep the reader turning page after page with anticipation.”

  —Carmel Pine Cone

  “By the third book in a new series, most new sleuths tend to flounder. Not that plucky Bostonian Caroline Fremont Jones … The strong-minded Fremont surrenders neither her independence nor her intelligence.… This liberated woman has come too far ever to go back.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  FIRE AND FOG

  “If you think the last thing the world needs is another spunky female sleuth, you have yet to make the acquaintance of the irrepressible Fremont Jones.”

  —San Fancisco Chronicle

  “The strong-willed, intelligent Jones shines, whether she’s helping her friend, fending off suitors or fleeing the clutches of ninja smugglers.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A winner.”

  —Monterey Herald

  “Day’s decorous, spirited heroine is as charming as ever as she picks her way through a world of rubble where every acquaintance could be a killer.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “One of the best books of 1996 … showcases Dianne Day’s incredible storytelling abilities.”

  —Mostly Murder

  “Great fun.”

  —Nashville Banner

  “An attention catcher … you won’t put the book down in a hurry.”

  —The Times & Democrat

  “A distinctive and appealing voice.”

  —Library Journal

  “It’s Day’s light and romantic touch with her spunky heroine and the men in her life that makes this series sparkle.… A delightful period mystery.”

  —Booklist

  “Excellent, involving tale.”

  —Bookwatch

  THE STRANGE FILES OF FREMONT JONES

  “Dianne Day provides a delightful heroine and a lively, twisty, intriguing mystery.”

  —Carolyn G. Hart

  “Wonderfully fresh … as much a quirky, turn-of-the-century character study, a love letter to a city, as it is a traditional romance/whodunit.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “Chilling … Day won’t disappoint even the hard-core suspense addict.”

  —Carmel Pine Cone

  “Foggy period atmosphere, a dash of dangerous romance and several rousingly good-natured action scenes.”

  —Star Tribune, Minneapolis

  “Jones is instantly captivating, a spunky young woman who wants to make her own way and is more than capable of doing so.… Engaging.”

  —Winston-Salem Journal

  “A fascinating novel.”

  —Virginian-Pilot

  “[Fremont Jones] could be the Victorian ancestor of contemporary sleuth Kinsey Milhone. An enjoyable introduction to a new series.”

  —Castro Valley Forum

  “Dianne Day has created a delightful character in Fremont Jones.… A joyful romp through the past.”

  —Mostly Murder

  “A fine, buoyant literary style … A spirited, likable heroine.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “An enchanting book … an extraordinary adventure and a delightful read.”

  —Library Journal

  This edition contains the complete text of the original hardcover edition.

  not one word has been omitted.

  THE BOHEMIAN MURDERS

  A Bantam Crime Line Book / published by arrangement with Doubleday

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Doubleday hardcover edition published July 1997

  Bantam paperback edition / March 1998

  Crime Line and the portrayal of a boxed “cl” are trademarks of

  Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1997 by Dianne Day.

  Library of Congress Card Catalog Number: 96-40172

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  For information address: Doubleday

  eISBN: 978-0-307-41826-5

  Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Its trademark, consisting of the words “Bantam Books” and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registrada. Random House, Inc., New York, New York.

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Map

  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

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  Excerpt from Emperor Norton’s Ghost

  While I have attempted to capture

  the spirit and flavor of historic

  Carmel, Pacific Grove and what is

  now Pebble Beach, no characters

  in this book are based on people

  who actually lived there in the

  early part of this century. There

  is one exception: The character

  Hettie Houck was inspired by

  Emily Fish, who was keeper of

  the Point Pinos Light from

  1893 to 1914.

  —D. D.

  CHAPTER ONE

  KEEPER’S LOG

  January 9, 1907

  Wind: SW, light gusting to moderate Weather: Cool, some clouds after morning fog Comments: Moderate swells on bay. Whale migration beginning, one spouter spotted, boat out of Monterey Whaling Station observed in pursuit.

  [signed]Fremont Jones, Deputy

  for Henrietta Houck

  Keeper, Point Pinos Light

  I suppose my luck ran out. Or perhaps it was only that I made a mistake, or two, or three. Nothing really disastrous—I have a different, one might say heightened, definition of disaster since last year’s Great Earthquake and the fire that followed. Nevertheless my recent mistakes have caused me heartache and embarrassment, and a good deal of inconvenience, not to mention insecurity. Indeed sometimes I look around me in this beautiful yet alien place and wonder what in the world I am doing here.

  I do a good bit of looking around because that is part of my job: I make observations and keep
a log; I also keep accounts and order supplies and oversee the man who tends the property. I do these things in my capacity as deputy keeper (status: temporary) of the Point Pinos Lighthouse. I tell myself that I am fortunate to have this job for six months, and therefore my luck cannot really have run out—that is what I tell myself.

  The lighthouse at Point Pinos is nothing like a certain other lighthouse I visited a couple of years ago, to the north of San Francisco. For one thing, this is in the opposite direction, south, by more than a hundred miles, and for another, it is not the least threatening in appearance or in atmosphere. This lighthouse looks like a Cape Cod cottage with a tower and lantern stuck onto its roof like an afterthought. Point Pinos is the southern headland of Monterey Bay, acres of dunes and scrub rolling down to a rocky, granite coastline, surrounded on three sides by water and on the fourth by thick forest a mile deep. Beyond that forest is the prosperous little town of Pacific Grove; in the other direction, some three miles as the crow flies but farther by road and beyond another forest, is a tiny, rustic village called Carmel-by-the-Sea. If more felicitous surroundings exist anywhere on earth, I have not seen them. Yet I am quite perverse: Often I am discontented and wish I were somewhere else.

  I have not given up typewriting; in fact I have a brand-new Royal typewriter, which, like its predecessor, is my most prized possession. However I have had difficulty, due to the aforementioned mistakes, in getting my business started in this new place. I tell myself it will happen, nothing is impossible—that is what I tell myself.

  I was telling myself something of the sort around four o’clock in the afternoon of January 9, 1907, as I gazed idly out the watch-room window. The watch room is located at the base of the lantern tower, so it is round and rather small but pleasant enough, particularly considering the panoramic view. Hettie (short for Henrietta) Houck, the real keeper of the light, used the watch room as a sort of office and so I do the same.

  I met Hettie last month because I was thrown out of a boardinghouse in Pacific Grove on an accusation of immoral conduct, and she happened to be on the sidewalk outside at the time. My so-called immoral conduct was that I had, earlier that evening, entertained a male person in my room with the door closed. This male person was my friend Michael Archer, who now lives in Carmel; the “entertainment” was an argument between us, a very personal sort of argument, which was why I had closed the door. The reason for the argument was that I had made a huge mistake about Michael—or Misha, as he now prefers to be called—but I didn’t make it all alone; he misled me. And from that most crucial mistake, all the other mistakes flowed.…

  “What is that?” I asked aloud of no one, and picked up the binoculars. There was something riding the waves just beyond an offshore rock formation that I call the Three Sisters; whether the three rocks have an official name or not I don’t know. The object was about the same size as a sea lion, but it was predominantly red and they are always brown. Nor was it a seal. Seals, unlike sea lions, do come in different colors—but none of God’s creatures (except humans, who alone are capable of artifice) comes in that particular shade of scarlet.

  Try as I might, I could not see the object well enough to tell what it was, even with the aid of the binoculars. I put them back on the desk and went out of the watch room, up the circular stairs that climb inside the tower, and out onto the platform beneath the lantern that houses the third-order Fresnel lens. On the platform there is a powerful spotting telescope, which with some fiddling I managed to focus on the Three Sisters.

  “Botheration!” I expostulated; the odd object was gone. Perhaps it had swum away, but I did not think so. I lifted my head and scanned with naked eye, occasionally fighting back strands of long hair lifted by wind gusts, until I found it again. It had drifted, or possibly swum, a few yards north and closer in to the rocky shore. I aimed the telescope and refocused.

  Indeed it was not swimming, not moving through the water of its own locomotion, but rather you might say that the ocean was having its way with this thing. Nor was it entirely red—I caught flashes of white and black as well. Whatever it was, the incoming tide brought it relentlessly closer to shore, until it was caught in the crest of a breaking wave, tumbled over and over in flashes of red and black and white, and for a moment I thought—

  “Oh, no,” I said, pushing my face harder against the telescope as if that alone could clarify my view, and louder I cried: “No!”

  But there was no denying it: The object had both arms and legs of a pale, sickly white. And a head with face obscured by a mass of black hair. It was human, probably female, surely drowned.

  “Where’s Mrs. Houck,” the police officer asked in a challenging manner, “and who are you? Why’re you driving her rig?”

  “My name is Fremont Jones. I’m the deputy lighthouse keeper, serving for Mrs. Houck while she is on a six-month leave of absence. I’m driving her rig because it seemed the best and fastest way to get over here.” Ridiculous as it had at first seemed, I had quickly learned from experience how long it took to cross the extensive dunes around the lighthouse on foot. It was far faster to get in the rig and drive around by the road. “It was I who spied the body on watch and gave the alarm.”

  “Oh.” He tipped his cap, which I took for a sort of apology. “Yeah, I guess I did hear about Mrs. Houck being gone. Sorry if I was short with you, Miss Jones, but a body can never be too careful.”

  “Quite right,” I agreed out of politeness, but actually I do not concur with that sentiment at all. There are certainly plenty of people who are altogether too careful and therefore lead rather boring lives. However I do believe that there were more of them in Boston, where I used to live, than in California. This state seems to have been built by risk-takers.

  A shout from out beyond the rocks attracted my attention and that of the policeman. We turned our heads simultaneously toward the sound, and saw that it came from one of the boats of the Pacific Grove Ocean Rescue.

  Pacific Grove is a resort community, population about three thousand, nestled along the inner curve of that southern headland which has Point Pinos at its tip. Monterey lies just to the southeast, Carmel to the south. The shoreline of Pacific Grove is spectacular but dangerous for the uninitiated, being made up mostly of jagged pieces of upthrust granite. Hettie Houck, who was nothing if not a stern taskmaster, had trained me thoroughly: Do not walk far out upon the rocks, and even if you think you are at a safe distance, do not turn your back on the ocean—for a rogue wave can rise up and sweep you away in the blink of an eye; and if you are in a boat, stay well out, because the current may trap you and dash your vessel upon the rocks.

  Too bad, I thought, that the woman who drowned did not have such a good teacher. She was virtually certain to be a woman because of all the scarlet. Men, unless they are dressed for an academic procession or some sort of religious exhibition, do not wear that much, or that shade, of red.

  There are a few places along the shoreline where one may enter and exit the water safely, and my mentor had taught me these as well. Into one such small cove on the north or bay side of Point Pinos, the rescue team brought their boats. But I saw no sign of the drowned woman.

  “Where is she?” I muttered under my breath. The policeman didn’t hear—he was already picking his way down the slippery rocks to the scant piece of sandy beach below. The tide was on the ebb, so the scent of sea-stuff was strong; and though the day had been balmy for January, there was a bite in the wind coming off the water. I drew my wool shawl closer about my neck, shivering, and suddenly wished I had not come.

  Perversely, even as I wished myself elsewhere, I felt bald curiosity nudge me to follow the policeman down to the sand, where I presumed the poor drowned person would be brought ashore. The rescue boats were taking their time, negotiating their way in tandem around underwater rocks whose tips showed above the surface in the trough of each ebbing wave. I lifted the hem of my skirt and regarded my shoes with some dismay—they were soft black leather, fairly new, not
meant for clambering about on the rocks of Pacific Grove.

  Just as I was about to set forth, good shoes or no, I heard the muffled clomp of horses’ hooves on the unpaved road, accompanied by the rattle and clatter of a vehicle that proved to be the coroner’s wagon. The wagon was black, of course, ugly as sin, but the matched pair of black horses that pulled it were magnificent. Glad of the distraction, I went over to admire the animals. I’d thought Hettie’s bay mare was quite fine, but these black beauties put her in the shade.

  “They are so beautiful!” I said to the driver. The horses whuffled and stamped, arching necks that gleamed like onyx.

  “Yes, aren’t they?” He jumped down with an agility that belied his age. “I take good care of them. Now, where’s the body?”

  “Are you the coroner?” I asked, unnecessarily as it turned out, for he reached beneath the driver’s seat and brought forth the black bag that carried the tools of his trade.

  “I am. Dr. Frederick Bright, by name. How-do, Miss.” He tipped an imaginary hat. I supposed he habitually went hatless in order to show off his extraordinarily full head of snowy-white hair. He had a white mustache of equally extravagant proportions. With the addition of a beard he might have resembled Santa Claus, except that his body was far too thin. And his eyes were definitely not jolly: They were dark, round, too small for his face, and constantly jumped around in a nervous manner.

  I said, “How do you do. I am Fremont Jones, temporarily the lighthouse keeper at Point Pinos. The rescue team hasn’t brought the body in yet.” I inclined my head toward the water, meanwhile stroking the horse’s neck and feeling the tiny quivers of abating exertion beneath his smooth, warm skin. The horse regarded me with an eye of liquid jet, as if he understood that my stroking was as much to calm myself as him. I have heard tell that horses are not intelligent, but that is hard to believe when you look into their eyes.