A Touch of Frost

by Jo Goodman

  Natty’s beer appeared and he took it from the waitress’s hand before she placed it on the table. He shooed her away without ordering any food. “So why did Frost show you the door?”

  “His wife told him I offered to give her the money she needed to go back to New York.”

  He whistled softly. “I see. Is it true?”

  “Doesn’t matter. He thinks it is.”

  Natty chuckled softly as he raised his glass to his lips. “Always wondered what the money was for. I figure now I know.” He put out a hand to stop her from saying anything. “I’m not sure why you asked to see me. Seems strange meeting face to face after all this time. Good thing you didn’t change your mind about that fussy flower hat you’re wearing or I wouldn’t have been able to sort you out from . . .” He briefly cast his gaze around the dining room. “From, say, that sour-faced pickle of a woman over there picking at her hash. All things being equal, I’m glad it’s you.”

  Ellie’s thin smile was cool. It did not touch her eyes. “I don’t want any of what happened coming back on me, and I especially don’t want my son involved. I think we can agree you were compensated handsomely to perform a service, and part of that service involved a guarantee that you would not be caught.”

  “Perform a service.” His rough, deep voice was a soft echo of hers. He locked eyes with her and raised one dark eyebrow. “I’m not sure that’s how the Putty brothers described it to me, but all right, let’s call it a service for now. What’s this about getting caught? What have you heard all the way out there at Twin Star? Or maybe it’s been since you came to town.”

  Ellie did not answer the question directly. She leaned forward as though earnestly engaged in their conversation and spoke so she could not possibly be overheard. “Blue Armstrong. Let’s talk about Blue. Why did any one of you think that was necessary? And don’t deny involvement. I won’t believe it. I heard—overheard—enough to know his murder is connected in some fashion to the robbery.”

  Natty stopped short of jabbing himself in the chest with a forefinger. “I don’t know what you think you know, but I had nothing to do with that.”

  “You didn’t stop it.”

  “I didn’t know it was going to happen.”

  “Then you can’t control them.” Ellie could see that rankled. “From what Phoebe said about the robbery, it seemed you were in charge. Was she wrong?”

  “No. She wasn’t. But things change and Doyle and Willet are out of their minds. As they recently reminded me, they invited me to join them, not the other way around. They’re not wrong. Your arrangement was with them, so what I’m wondering, since I’m the one here, is if it’s still with them. What do you have in mind, Mrs. Madison?”

  “I’m taking a risk here, Mr. Rahway, trusting you, but the Putty brothers are known to me and they have never inspired confidence. I realize it begs the question of why I ever came to terms with them, and the answer is time and the fact that there was so little of it. I did not sanction the robbery. Whose idea was that?”

  “Doyle’s, but I won’t mislead you. I agreed to it. It wasn’t a bad idea, merely a poorly executed one, mostly in the aftermath.”

  “That’s probably an understatement.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “You think you can fix it?”

  “I can.”

  She studied his face, measured the confidence of the man. He didn’t fidget with his beer or his mustache. He didn’t look away or study some point over her shoulder. “I’m going to tell you something, Mr. Rahway, and you should take it as fact because it is. Thaddeus Frost had no interest in pursuing Phoebe’s abductors. He had no interest in getting his money back. Do you know why?”

  It was a rhetorical question, but Natty shook his head anyway.

  Ellie narrowed her gaze and held up a single finger. “One reason,” she said. “He’s believed from the very first that his wife was behind what happened. He still might. He only has her word for saying that I offered her money. I never said I did. Nothing would have come of that night if the passengers hadn’t been robbed. Everything that went wrong began there.”

  Ellie turned her finger down and tapped it against the table as she finished. “This is what I want you to do, Mr. Rahway: Make it right.”

  • • •

  Phoebe found Thaddeus and Remington in the barn examining a hoof on one of the newer thoroughbreds. She stood back, listening to them discuss furrows and frogs and walls and whether or not the mare required a new shoe. The mare was at her ease, Phoebe noticed, but then she had the attention of two handsome admirers who wanted nothing but the best for her.

  After several minutes, Phoebe interrupted. “A new shoe,” she said. “A lady always wants a new shoe. There truly is no point in further debate.”

  Remington clapped his father on the back and they both straightened. “She’s right. A new shoe it is. All the way around.” He waved her in. “We saw you were talking to Les and decided to make ourselves scarce.” When he saw Phoebe look around, he added, “We’re alone. Johnny took off when I threatened to give him indoor work.”

  “I thought that might be the case,” she said, smiling. “He’s weeding in the garden. Fiona keeps wandering onto the back porch to check on him.”

  Thaddeus cocked his head toward the barn’s open doorway. “What did Les have to say? Are you satisfied with what you heard?”

  “I am. I wish I had been able to ask him about his family earlier, but perhaps it would have seemed suspicious so soon after the sheriff was here. It’s hard to say what everyone’s thinking.” Phoebe held up a hand and began ticking off names on her fingers. “There are the Brownlees, but then we knew that. On his father’s side going back a generation or two, you have the Petersons, the Corbells, the Driscolls, and the Finks. His mother’s side is more complicated because there are a number of marriages involving cousins. The family multiplied and spread out, but there are fewer surnames. Mostly they’re all Washingtons or Puttys. You’d need a chart or the family Bible to keep it straight.”

  She folded her fingers into a loose fist and dropped her hand to her side. “Once Les got to talking, he warmed to the subject. It seems his mother was a Putty, but he told me she did not have much in the way of good to say about her family. His mother generally described her kin as the black sheep. The larger family tends to stay clear of them. I don’t know if it means anything, but I thought it was worth mentioning because he thought it was worth mentioning.”

  “Hard to imagine a family that size not having a few black sheep in its midst, but it could be anything that sets them apart. Did he tell you something specific? The Putty name is not familiar to me.”

  “Les had some colorful stories about a few of them. If I had pressed, there are probably more. He was quick to point out that none of them ever warranted a wanted notice, at least that he knew, but they’re acknowledged to be a rough lot by the rest of their kin. There is a history of cattle rustling, cheating at cards, drunkenness, fighting, and ducking the law. It’s this last piece that gives rise to rumors in the family of what the Puttys might have done.”

  “Hard to say if there’s something there or not,” said Remington. He slanted Phoebe one of his secretly amused smiles. “Did you ask about the chins and the no chins?”

  “No!”

  He laughed. “All right. I suppose there was no subtle way to advance the subject.”

  “No polite way either,” she said. “Really, Remington.”

  Thaddeus caught Remington’s eye. “You’ve been chastised, son. Better sober up.”

  Remington did, though his grin was slow to fade. “There’s still the problem of rounding them up. We’ll never get them all, but we have to find some means of attracting a large number of them.”

  Thaddeus set his arms across his chest as he nodded. “What about that reunion you mentioned?”

  “It was
just a passing thought,” said Remington. “I can’t see my way clear to making it work. It’s hard to imagine how we’d get one of them to initiate something like that, and if the reason for it were understood, it would be even less likely. We need to find another way.”

  Phoebe said, “I’ve been applying myself to that very problem. I might have an idea that will work.”

  Remington and Thaddeus gave her their full attention right down to the identical curious arch of their left eyebrows.

  Phoebe asked, “What do you think about a wedding?”

  • • •

  Ben finished counting head in the bottom pasture and looked over at Les Brownlee, who was close to completing his. “I have three hundred and twenty-one, give or take, for the valley. You?”

  “Just under. I think we’re good. Plenty of grazing room. No sign that the water supply’s going to be a problem. Thaddeus will like that. Hell, I like it. Wasn’t sure that we wouldn’t have to cut out a spring.”

  “Same here. Let’s head back and tell him.”

  Their exchanges were brief for much of the ride, most concerned Les’s tuneless whistling and Ben’s demand that he stop. Sometimes Les just hummed, which was almost as bad as far as Ben was concerned.

  “Don’t you know any melodies?” Ben finally asked. “Sing something, for God’s sake.”

  “That’d surely put your hackles up. I’ll try to mind. You ain’t exactly been yourself since Ellie left, but I guess it’s natural for you to miss her. I do. A few of us were talking, and there’s agreement that we’ll all be relieved when Mrs. Frost hires help at the house.” He looked sideways at Ben. “Did you see your ma when you were in town yesterday?”

  “I did. She’s good. Mr. Butterworth’s offered her a job at the hotel. I’ll find out tomorrow if she’s going to take it. I’m headed back to pick up a mail order. I have a feeling her leaving Twin Star is probably going to work out for the best.”

  Les nodded and knuckled his mostly clean-shaven chin. “Probably so. You think it was something about Blue’s murder that made her want to move on? Couldn’t help but notice that she was sad.”

  “Maybe it had something to do with it. Hard to know a woman’s mind, especially when she’s your mother.” Ben eyed Les thoughtfully, and when the ranch hand glanced his way, he said, “I noticed you spent a fair amount of time in Miss Apple’s company this morning. You sweet on her?”

  Les’s dark brown eyebrows shot up high enough to lift his hat a fraction. He blushed red to the tips of his ears. “Now why would you go and say a thing like that? Not called for. Not called for at all just because we had a chat like we were old friends.”

  “All right.” Ben put up a gloved hand to call it quits. “So what do old friends like you chat about?”

  Les shrugged. “Family mostly. Hers. Mine. Did you know she had family in the theater goin’ way back? I’m talking Revolutionary War days. That’s somethin’, I thought. Nothing like that in my family.”

  “Huh. I had no idea. So you talked about your kin?”

  “Sure. Why not? We’ve got some stories that make for interesting telling. You know the ones I mean.”

  Ben frowned. “Do I?”

  “Sure. Mostly I was telling you about the Puttys. Remember? Oh, it’s been a while back. We all were playin’ cards. Remington was off somewhere—Chicago, I think—but the rest of us were there. Can’t recall how it started, but we got to jawin’ about this vagrant we heard that Brewer threw in jail for showin’ off his tallywacker to Mrs. Washburn in the bank.”

  “I have a vague recollection of that.”

  “Well, we started trading stories, and someone—I think it was you—asked if any of us actually knew anyone who made it a habit to run left of the law.”

  Ben’s frown deepened. “Me? I asked that?”

  “Pretty sure. Guess it’s not important, but I know I talked about the Puttys. They don’t know there’s a right side to the law. Never did much jail time, though, so you gotta figure them for a little bit clever.”

  “Huh,” said Ben. “I’ll be darned. You amuse Miss Apple with those stories?”

  “Sure.” After a moment, Les regarded Ben doubtfully. “At least it seemed she was amused. Now that I’m hearin’ you don’t remember the stories, maybe she was humorin’ me.”

  Ben reassured Les that was unlikely. “Entertain me,” he said. “We have time, and even if I come to recollect the Putty tales, they’ll be a damn sight better than your whistling.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Phoebe sat huddled in one corner of the porch swing, her skirt smoothed over her drawn-up knees. “What was I thinking?” she asked Remington. “Was I thinking? You were there. Did it seem as if I was conscious?”

  “You were conscious.”

  “Maybe I was concussed.”

  “You were not concussed.”

  Phoebe snorted.

  “Doubts?” he asked. A smile played around his mouth but he was careful to restrain it.

  “Of course. Don’t you have any?”

  “No.”

  She blinked. “Truly?”

  He shook his head and toed the floor to put the swing in motion. “None.”

  “Not about the marriage,” she said. “The wedding.”

  “Ah, the madness.” He pretended to think about it. “It will be fine. You’ll see.”

  “Of course I’ll see. I have to be there. But whether it will be fine is something else entirely. Did you know Thaddeus was going to invite everyone? Everyone? He advertised in the Frost Falls Register, the Liberty Junction Gazette, and the Collier Sentinel. People from all over the county will arrive.”

  “Not an advertisement. More like an announcement. I’m his only son—we think—and you’re his only daughter, I’d guess you’d say, so it’s natural that he’d want—” He stopped because the pointed toe of her kid boot found its target in his thigh. “Ow. What was that for?”

  “You know. You said it on purpose to get a rise out of me, and you did, so I will not apologize for it, and you should stop grinning. It is not amusing. I am most definitely not your father’s daughter.”

  He removed her foot from where it was pressing against his leg and pushed it back toward her. “All right. We are not brother and sister in any fashion and I pity the person who wonders about it aloud.”

  Phoebe rested her face in her hands a moment. “Oh, Lord. I shall have to shoot someone.”

  “Yes, well, we have that to look forward to. With any luck it will be a no-chin Putty.”

  That made her giggle a little wildly from behind her hands.

  Remington patted her knee. “It’s going to be all right, Phoebe. I swear it is. Fiona says you have bridal nerves. I didn’t know what she meant, but I think I’m seeing them now.”

  Phoebe lowered her hands. “When did you start paying attention to anything Fiona said?”

  He shrugged. “Since I realized she is going to be my mother-in-law. I am trying to make peace or at least keep it. She apologized to me, you know.”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “I don’t suppose she could tell you because that would mean admitting to what she did in the first place. It was hard enough for her to speak to me about what happened. She rambled a bit, circled the thing for a while, but then she got it out. All of it. It was uncomfortable for both of us, and I am confident we will never speak of it again.”

  “Did she say why she tried to seduce you?”

  He shivered a little, remembering. “No, and I didn’t ask. I’m leaning toward her wanting to make my father jealous, but I don’t need to know her reasons. And please don’t say ‘seduce’ again. I’m done with it.”

  Phoebe laid a hand over the one he had on her knee. “I’m glad.” She smiled a tad unevenly as her thoughts moved to what lay ahead. “How many people do you imagine will sh
ow up?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “I don’t, do I?” She sighed. “My dress arrived. Ben was dispatched to town to pick it up. Your father again. It’s incredible to me that he could choose something that I would have chosen for myself.”

  “He might have had some help.”

  “Fiona? I don’t think so. She and I have very different tastes.”

  “Not Fiona.”

  Phoebe stared at him. “You? You helped him?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You are certainly full of surprises.” She laughed when he affected a modest shrug. “I don’t know how the two of you did it, or when you did it, and I suppose your motives had something to do with me not changing my mind, but I don’t even care about that. Mrs. Fish is coming here tomorrow morning to manage the alterations. That was Fiona’s idea. She needed to fuss and would not accept that I could make the nips and tucks myself.” She pointed a finger at Remington. “And you will be discharged to some far corner of Twin Star so there is no possibility of you seeing me in the dress until Saturday. Thaddeus, too. Fiona does not trust him not to peek and tell you how enchanting I look in it.”

  “It’s disappointing, but not unexpected, and just so you know, enchanting is exactly what we had in mind.”

  She regarded him dubiously. “If you say so.” They fell into an easy conversation, then, reviewing the plans for the reception. There were the details that needed to be discussed for any after-wedding repast, but there were additional things to consider in regard to the roundup. Fiona, who felt more strongly about observing certain refinements about the wedding than Phoebe did, insisted that Thaddeus hire a photographer to make a record of the event. Thus, there would be a wedding album and photographic evidence of the guests, particularly the no-chin Puttys. Remington and Jackson Brewer judged it was too dangerous for John Manypenny to appear at the wedding, even if he agreed to make the journey from his sister’s, but having him look over photographs seemed like something they could insist that he do.