The Fall Of A Merciless Criminal – Extended Epilogue

Three years after becoming the new wife of the new sheriff of Astoria, Oregon, Stella was nervous about her trip to the doctor. She’d wanted to become pregnant almost as soon as they were married, and only the Lord truly knew how diligently they tried. But the results were continued frustration for Stella.

Joseph had been cautious, nonplussed. He seemed to have wanted a child every bit as much as Stella did, but the good man had other things on his mind. He too was newly married, and he had just ascended to the position of sheriff of Astoria. He got along well with the new mayor, and the new staff of the Astoria Sun Times was meeting the growing demands of the expanding seaport town.

Securing and maintaining a crime-free port had all given Joseph enough to attend to without being a new father as well. But the transitions had all taken place, everything was running smoothly, and Stella felt it was time for their family to begin expanding, and for her belly to do the same.

But it was not her province to insist. She’d been luckier than she’d ever imagined, presented with an opportunity to turn her life around and make something worthwhile of it, a life worth living. It hadn’t come without terrific risk, of course, her life very nearly lost in the bargain. But her rewards were many and varied, and none of them went unappreciated.

Stella was widely heralded for her bravery, lauded by the citizens who’d come out to celebrate her nuptials to Joseph after the old regime had been conquered. She’d taken many walks down the thoroughfare on her husband’s arm, head held high and shoulders back, proud of her place in society at long last. She enjoyed afternoon social gatherings over tea and gossip. She was making friends among the other women in town, friendships she felt would last the rest of her life.

Stella was alone in their house, not the grandest in Astoria but more comfortable than any Stella had any right to expect for herself. Her husband was hardworking and not ostentatious, preferring necessities to luxuries. But he was not austere, and he didn’t deny Stella the comforts she’d worked so hard and so long for, and for which she’d volunteered so much and risked so much.

A knock at the door came as something of a surprise. It was always something to consider when somebody turned up unannounced at the sheriff’s home. It was a place of vulnerability for him, his wife was the same thing. She could be subject to any manner of depravities as a weapon against him, or be taken and used as coercion to force him into violating his renowned and unyielding integrity.

Pap-pap-pap!

Stella walked toward the door. She could hear by the timbre of the knocks that the fist was a smaller one, not likely a big man. But they came fast, with some urgency behind them. But no voice came with those knocks to announce whoever was creating them.

Pap-pap-pap!

Stella said, “Hello?” No answer came back, so Stella asked again. “Hello?”

“Hello?” It was a woman’s voice, not one Stella recognized.

She pulled the door open to reveal a pretty young woman, still in her teens, dressed in the kind of ratty dress Stella herself wore coming into Astoria years before. She wore a frightened expression, looking around as she stood huddled on the doorstep.

“Hello, ma’am… may I come in?”

“What is it? What’s wrong?’

“A man,” she said, “I don’t know him, but… he’s chasing me!”

“Oh my,” Stella said, ushering the girl in and closing the door behind her.

Once in the quiet of the house, the girl stepped into the living room. She was pretty, with blue eyes and blonde hair and a compact physique.

“Why was the man chasing you.”

“I… I… I’m just a bit afraid right now. Do you mind if I sit?”

“No, please,” Stella said, “please. Can I offer you a glass of lemonade?”

“Oh, I… I don’t want to be any bother.”

“No bother at all,” Stella said, leaving the girl sitting on the sofa while she went to the kitchen. But she kept the girl in the corner of her eye.

Her instincts, not to mention her years of sad personal experience, told her that there was more going on than an innocent girl being chased down by a bad man.

Stella returned with the glass of lemonade, cool in her hands, and handed it to the girl. She took it with a smile and drank it down, clearly possessed with a near-desperate thirst. She swallowed the last of it, almost panting.

Stella asked, “What’s your name?”

The girl glanced around the living room. “Umm, Lucy,” she finally said, not at all convincing. And if she was disguising her true name, there would have to be a reason. More and more, Stella suspected she knew just what that was.

“Lucy. And you’re new to Astoria, Lucy?”

“By a few days. I came out with my beau, but he got drunk and has disappeared. I’m afraid they’ve spirited him off onto one of those ships, to serve in the Navy.”

“Shanghaied, they call it,” Stella said. It was a word too commonly known for the girl to be that innocent, especially if traveling willingly to a seaport town like Astoria. “Let me refill that glass.”

As she took the glass to the kitchen to refill the glass, she glanced at Lucy, who was surveying the living room.

She was looking for what she could steal, clearly the reason for her visit. There was no man pursuing her, she was looking for an easy strike and no doubt had been watching Stella for a day or so to know that she’d be alone.

But Stella could find no anger against her, no real sense of violation. She felt bad for the girl, in fact. It was too easy to see herself in that little homeless waif, drifting through life and struggling to survive, one step away from brutality of every sort and at every turn.

Stella also knew just how dangerous such a person could be. The guise of a sweet young lamb was the perfect cover for a murderous wolf who could lash out at any time with a home-hewn tool to slice and cut and jab. Stella would have to remain on her guard, but she was willing to do that in order to learn more, perhaps even to do more.

She came back with the second glass of lemonade, the smell tart in her nostrils. Lucy took the glass and drank more slowly, eyes rolling up as she seemed to savor the flavor.

“Your fellow didn’t keep you in very good clothes,” Stella said, chiding the girl just a bit.

“He did his best, but… we didn’t have any money. We had to run away from my home, my stepfather was ready to murder my Billy just for putting eyes on me. Guess he wanted me all to himself! We were lucky to make it out of Portland.”

“I see,” Stella said, her own family’s true experiences lending a bitter taste to the girl’s fairytale of victimhood and desperation. “Well, I may have a few things I can let you have. They may be a little big, but you can grow into ‘em.”

Lucy’s eyes widened, lemonade seeming to be stuck in her throat. “Oh, well, um, thank you, but… I haven’t anything to carry them in.”

“I’ve an old valise,” Stella said. “Do you have any… any plans for the immediate future?” Lucy just shook her head. “It’s a hard world out there, especially for a young woman out on her own.”

“That’s the gospel truth,” Lucy said.

“Are you a religious person, Lucy? God-fearing?”

Lucy cracked an awkward smile and rolled her eyes. “Not as much as I should be, I guess. There’s so much to be afraid of these days right down here, I guess I figured, y’know, God can wait.”

Stella nodded, but not out of agreement. She could remember when she felt the same way.

“Anyway,” she said, “it’s a hard life when you haven’t got a home, or a man, or children.”

Lucy nodded and glanced around the living room. “Yer kids napping, are they?”

“Haven’t got any yet. We’re trying, my husband and I. I’m off to the doctor’s after not too long, in fact.”

“S’that so?”

“It is… I’m excited. At least… I wanna be.”

A somber silence fell over the pair, Lucy holding the lemonade glass with both hands. Whatever her original intentions might have been, she wasn’t moving for a weapon at that point, and it didn’t seem like she was about to.

“My mama didn’t want me,” Lucy said, eyes staring off, unwilling to meet Stella’s. “Called me her own little curse.”

It made Stella’s blood run cold to think that a woman, so blessed with the gift of a child, would treat it so, say or even think such a thing.

“’Course, she didn’t have much time fer motherin’… all that time workin’ at the saloon.”

Lucy didn’t have to explain further, and Stella hoped the girl would be mercifully silent about the horrific details of it all. Her own mother, a sainted woman, suffered an early grave to protect her daughter, and their love was then and remained unquestioned and unquestionable.

“Have you thought about trying to find work here?”

Lucy shook her head, eyes wide. “I won’t do that, ma’am, I won’t!”

“No, Lucy, of course not, I… I didn’t mean that.”

“Well, what else? The Chinese do the laundry and those other things.”

“You could, I don’t know… can you clean a house?”

Lucy huffed. “I can, with greatest care. But who can afford a maid like that? Perhaps your mayor—”

Stella gave it all some thought, and inspiration was generating flashes of invention in the front of her mind. “I could use help around here, and if I’m right, and the doctor can see me through, I’ll need even more help when the baby arrives.”

“You mean… as your governess?”

Stella cracked a little smile. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But if you could clean my house one day, then return to a place where you lived, then clean my friend’s house on another day—well, six regular houses would have you working steadily, and at a handsome rate of pay, I should think.”

Lucy thought about it, but her posture slumped quickly, along with her visible excitement for the idea. “I don’t see how I could manage it, I’m afraid.”

“And why’s that?”

“Well, I don’t know these women.”

“But I do.”

“But I’m a…” Lucy stopped short of confessing the sad truth, which she clearly believed would identify her for the rest of her life, that she would always be what she had always been. “I’m… I’ve come into a new phase of life of late, something men seem to notice, older men. And their wives are as quick to notice that as their husbands are to notice me. What woman would invite that kind of… disruption in her home?”

“A woman married to a trustworthy man, that’s whom. And those are just the type of women I know.”

After a long, dubious silence, Lucy said, “You…you would safe-vouch for me? For me?”

“Why not?” Lucy seemed ready to explain, but Stella didn’t see the need to put her through it. “Of course, you’d have to be extremely honest. You don’t know this about me, how could you? But I wasn’t always living in a house like this, with a husband who provides as he does, treats me kindly. I was once a… a common street thief, in point of fact.”

“Were you?”

“I was for a fact! I… I didn’t have any choice, really. Men only wanted me for one thing, and for too long I was too young… much like yourself. So for me, it was a life of hiding in alleys, stealing food, running from one town to another. I slept in the trees to keep away from bears and ran through streams to get away from hunters’ hounds.”

Lucy nodded, telling Stella everything she already knew about the girl’s wayward past. “Time was, I might have talked my way into someone’s home, grabbed what I could, and be gone in a flash. Thank goodness I don’t have to live like that anymore.”

“No,” Lucy said, “thank God.”

“That life, it only leads to one place, and that’s the world beyond, where you’ll be judged by greater than the likes of those who sent you there. You take my meaning?” Lucy nodded, and Stella went on, “Stealing bread when a person is starving, that’s one thing. But just deciding that stealing is easier or somehow preferable to working, that’s something else again.” She glanced around her own home, her fine dress, and smiled. “I know, it may not seem like I do much difficult labor, but keeping a home is harder than it looks. And besides, I put in my efforts in other times, in other ways.”

“You should enjoy your success then,” Lucy said.

Stella nodded. The girl had charm; that was not necessarily a recommendation, but a caution. “A person cleaning another’s home, they have access to all manner of things that can disappear, jewelry and the like. But I know you’d never betray my confidence, or the confidence of your clients, my friends.”

“No,” Lucy was quick to say, “never, I… I would treat the things as if they were my own.”

“Well, Lucy, that is just the opposite of the way I would have you treat them. Do you understand?”

Lucy looked down, eyes dipping closed in shame. “Yes, ma’am.”

“You’ll want nothing less from the young women you hire, I’m sure.”

Lucy’s attention seemed renewed by the sparkle in her blue eyes. “Ma’am?”

“Why not? If you could clean six houses a week, once a week, and win the trust of your clients through diligent service, always on time, going above and beyond to provide excellence, well, it’s simple mathematics. Three girls could earn three times what one might earn, especially if they’re working under a single shingle.”

Lucy began to think about it, and Stella could see ideas crackling in the young girl’s brain.

“As the business owner, you would take a percentage of what the girls earned, thereby building up the company’s coffers. Once your reputation grew, your business would thrive.”

“Yes, I… I suppose it would. And all this is… women can do this legally?”

“To an extent,” Stella said. “My husband can help you with those matters.”

“Your husband?”

“The sheriff of Astonia, Lucy.” Stella watched the girl’s reaction, and she could see that its import was not lost on her. It wasn’t likely to be. “He’s quite well-feared up and down the coast. He abides no criminality in his town, and I don’t blame him.”

“No, um, of course not.”

“But he’s a champion of the hard-working, and he respects women as people and citizens, verified and proven true. You’ll always get a fair shake in Astoria, but you’d better stay on the right side of the street. The last businessman who discarded the laws, well, he’s not well remembered.”

Lucy dipped her head. “I see.”

Stella let a little moment pass before she said, “Finish your lemonade and perhaps you’ll walk with me to the doctor’s? We’ll go through my frocks when we get back.”

“We?” Stella nodded, and Lucy went on, “Your husband won’t mind?”

“Why would he?” It was all the question needed, and all the answer as well. The girl was being given a chance at a new life, just as Stella had won a similar chance for herself. She was happy enough to lend a hand to a young woman so much like herself, a girl she could see had an inner decency. She was a victim of her circumstances, just as Stella had been. She flashed back to a luckless boy, a street thief who found his final reward beaten and drowned in the marina waters not far from where she sat at that very moment.

Stella was pleased with her notion of hiring out maids to order, and she knew Joseph would lend a hand in her testimony. It could be a booming business for the Norwood family and for Lucy and others. It would provide needed services to some and even more desperately needed income and employment to others. Even more, it would rescue women from the life she and Lucy had each been forced to lead, and that each was lucky to survive.

Her stomach turned with a nausea that was sending her to the doctor. She was optimistic, and about more than just a prospective pregnancy. She felt as if she’d made a new friend out of a possible adversary, that she had begun to forge a bond much like the kind of mother-daughter relationship she’d missed for so many years, since the tragic death of her own mother, consigned to painful memory.

The two women walked together, chatting and sharing jokes and sad references that would only bring them together. It would be another peaceful afternoon in Astoria, Oregon, under the watchful eye of Sheriff Joseph Norwood and his esteemed wife, Stella. Children would soon join their ranks.

The streets bustled with peaceful commerce, hope for the future made manifest in the buildings and streets, the bustle of pedestrians going on about their lives. The new century was about to dawn, and in Astoria, at least, it would be an era of peaceful growth and domestic harmony.

THE END

---

Readers who read this book also liked