The Clements Kettle

by Erik Carter

  I realized I hadn’t gotten the woman’s name. “Yeah, I suppose I did.”

  “She’s the mother goose around here. Would you like to come in?” he said. We were still standing in the doorway.

  He led me toward his desk. “How may I help you, Mr. Wilcox? Are you a new customer?”

  “No. Private investigator.”

  Jake’s lips parted. “Is there some sort of trouble?”

  “No trouble,” I said. “I was hoping you might be able to help me out. My client is lookin’ for an item that was originally owned by some black folks down south. I was told you’re the most influential black man in town.”

  Jake swelled with pride. “I’m not sure about all that, but I do my part. Who told you that?”

  “Mory Kline.”

  Jake’s smile vanished. He scoffed. “I’d rather not take the compliment if it’s from him. But I do certainly try to be an influential man of color in this town. When I’m not working at the bank, I try to help my struggling brothers in any way I can. What is it your client is looking for?”

  “An artifact. A kettle,” I said. “First owned by slaves. Would you happen to know anything about it?”

  “I thought that might be what you were asking about. You’re working for the Cosgrove family, then,” he said with a self-congratulatory grin.

  “You’ve heard about the kettle already, I take it?”

  “Yes, I’ve heard mention its theft. And the related kidnapping.”

  Whoa, now! Jake Adamson, of all folks, was one of the handful of people who knew about the unpublicized kidnapping? Now there was something I hadn’t seen coming.

  “Who’d you hear this from?” I said.

  “I’m afraid I can’t divulge my clients, Mr. Wilcox.”

  Jake had integrity and he liked to flaunt it.

  “How familiar are you with the kidnapping?” I said. “You aware they’re gonna kill Cosgrove if they don’t get the kettle?” It was time to whip out the ol’ guilt tactic. It was one of the more surprisingly effective tools in my detective’s arsenal. Maybe if I were Jake’s age I would have tried something a little more integrity-filled, but at fifty-seven, I was comfortable with who I was.

  Jake looked away from me. Most people would have gasped. Jake simply furled his brow. “Life or death?” he said.

  “That’s right. They’re going to kill Lilly’s dad if she can’t find the kettle. It was stolen from her before she could get it to them.”

  The trained ear will note that I said “Lilly’s dad” and not “Cosgrove.” Minute word choices like this were important when you were applying the guilt tactic. With purposeful language, Cosgrove suddenly went from being the land-gobbling warlock that he was to someone’s daddy. Using Lilly’s name amplified the mawkishness. It gave a face to the pain.

  Jake looked away again.

  “Who told you about the kettle, Jake?” I said in a prompting tone.

  Jake looked back to me. “Jimmy Blue Eyes.”

  Dammit. I’d just investigated myself into a corner. I’d hoped, of course, for a new name but instead got one I’d already searched out. This’ll happen in an investigation. No matter, though. You can always get fresh information about a lead from a new source.

  “He told me he stole it from the Cosgroves,” Jake said. “He came to me wanting to know how much it’s worth. Of course I didn’t know.”

  So Jimmy had tried to find out the kettle’s value. This was fresh information. I thought of Jimmy’s ledger and all the entries for Connor Macintosh. If Macintosh had indeed hired the Blue Eagles to intercept the kettle, he would have most assuredly known its value, but Jimmy wouldn’t have. He musta had thoughts of keeping it for himself.

  I said, “Why did Jimmy think you’d know how much the kettle’s worth?”

  “Because of the service I run.”

  “I think what you’re doing with your service is admirable,” I said and gave him a sincere nod.

  “Do you? That surprises me. Our mutual acquaintance told me things about you. About your past.”

  “Mory’s a regular gossipy hen, isn’t he?”

  “He also says you’re a deputy. Is that true?”

  “It is.”

  Jake nodded. “May I see it?”

  I reached around to the backside of my belt and pulled out my badge. That’s where it stayed, on my back under my duster.

  It was silver. Five-pointed. Said Deputy in the center.

  Jake regarded it. “Why do you hide that? You could be making a difference in this city too. You scared or something?”

  “No. I just don’t care.”

  “That’s a shame,” he said and smirked. “Instead, you’re helping out scum like Cosgrove.”

  “You got beef with him?”

  Jake scoffed. “I try to make life better for the black man. It’s hard to do that in Desecho with a guy like Cosgrove running the show.”

  “You sayin’ he makes things harder on you folks?”

  “I’m saying he makes things impossible on us. It’s surprising to me that a seemingly decent man like you is working for a family so soulless.”

  The conversation had taken an unexpected turn into tension-land. It was time to exit. “Thanks for your time, Jake. Please do let me know if you find out anything about this situation.”

  “I will, but only because a man’s life is at risk,” he said and looked at me with intensity. “Don’t get me wrong, I think that kettle has no place in a collection or in the West at all. It belongs in the South.”

  I tossed my bloody handkerchief in his wastebasket. “Tell Glenda I said thanks.”

  I left the office.

  Chapter Seven

  I walked out of the bank and into the swarms of people. It was about three o’clock, not yet time for all the country folk to go back home.

  Across the street among a crowd I saw a small head in a big gray hat jumping up and down. The man’s hands were waving, trying to get my attention. It was little Sheriff Simmons, and he had spotted me.

  Great.

  “Hey, Barnaby!” Simmons yelled out in that friendly old voice. “Got time to talk?”

  I already knew what he wanted to discuss. Like Jake, he wanted to talk about that piece of metal on the back of my belt. No, I certainly didn’t have time for that.

  “Not today, Sheriff,” I hollered back.

  As I walked down the wooden sidewalks toward the hitching post where I’d left Bob, I could hear Simmons still yelling after me. “Great seeing you again, Barnaby! Talk to you soon!”

  Yeah, right. Eesh, that guy didn’t know when to quit. It had only been a few days since the last time he bugged me.

  Having wrapped up my visit to the Bank and Trust, I needed to shift my focus toward visiting Connor Macintosh. I had a small window of time for my trip to Tucson—it had to be tomorrow. The clock was ticking. The trip and the footwork in Tucson would take all day. That would leave me one more day, Sunday, to find the kettle and get it to the kidnappers.

  By midnight.

  If not … bye-bye, Lionel Cosgrove. And bye-bye, second half of my paycheck. That said, I’d need a nice dinner and a good night’s sleep before the trip.

  But first, there were two names I needed to look into—Samuel Cosgrove, Lionel’s son, and Eli Tremain, the man who’d sold the kettle to Cosgrove and then disappeared shortly thereafter.

  Now, one might wonder how I would investigate a missing man who’s been declared dead. Again, a detective has to make inlays with old friends. This time I’d entreat the services of one Dandy Dan. Next stop: the telegraph office.

  Suddenly I felt eyes upon me. I glanced up to find a man looking down upon me from a second-floor balcony a couple blocks away. He was wearing a black bandanna over his face.

  It was the mystery man again.

  He must have known that I’d seen him because he froze. I gave half a thought to running over to Bob and mounting up to catch the guy, but Bob was several feet away. By the time I’d
get there, the mystery man would be downstairs and out the door.

  Then the fella did something I wasn’t expecting.

  He jumped from the balcony.

  He landed awkwardly and limped when he got up, then stumbled over to the hitching posts in front of the building. There, he unhitched the same spotted pinto horse I’d seen him riding the first time I encountered him.

  He threw himself into the saddle, yanked on the reins, and bolted away.

  Whoever this guy was, he was in no rush to meet me face-to-face. A distant admirer. The thing about distant admirers is they have crystal-clear memories. And loose tongues. Who was the mystery man talking to? I ran through my list of potentials. Disgruntled gamblers. Bartenders calling in their tabs. Vengeful and overly protective fathers. None of these fit the bill. They didn’t seem like the types that would hire a spy. And at any rate, I’d taken care of those issues. For the most part.

  The more logical answer was that the mystery man was in some way tied to the Clements Kettle.

  The telegraph office was on the far north side of town right by the railroad station. When I got there, I found an awkward looking teenage boy with blond hair and acne behind the counter. I hadn’t seen him before. I didn’t go into the telegraph office often enough to notice changes in staffing.

  There was something about this technology that really bothered me. Always had. The idea of being in Arizona and having a message from New York or Montana or wherever come to me more or less instantaneously was unnerving. Oh, certainly there were benefits. It had saved lives, made things easier on folks, and so forth. But I was the type of guy who liked to escape. Pretty hard to escape folks when they can bug you in a heartbeat from almost anywhere in the world.

  The teenager gave me a big smile full of teeth he’d yet to grow into. I grabbed a slip of paper from the stack on the desk and took the nearby pen out of its well. I wrote my message in typical telegram speak.

  Dan need know whereabouts of Eli Tremain antique collector Alabama. Disappeared in swamps. Declared dead. If have time also need know current situation of Samuel Cosgrove Boston Mass. Will buy you bourbon. Wilcox.

  I smiled as I wrote bourbon. It was a playful jab at Dandy Dan, a man who drank nothing but Scotch.

  Dan was friend of mine from back out east. I’d originally met him when he defected from the South during the war, ultimately becoming a Union officer. When both sides put down their guns, he quickly returned to Baton Rouge.

  You see, while Dan objected to many of the institutions of the South, he couldn’t live without the posh, ridiculous lifestyle of the Southern elite. He wore one hundred dollar suits and hosted dinner parties. He enjoyed sitting on his mammoth porch and complaining about the humidity. He was the type of person who was fiercely pro-American, but when it came to personal tastes—such as his taste for Scotch—would only buy imports. You know the type.

  I looked over my note. I considered removing the section about Samuel Cosgrove. I relied a lot on my intuition, and my gut was telling me that Cosgrove’s son wasn’t involved in the Clements kettle situation. As a private detective, you quickly learn a lot about family dynamics. Father-son feuds are strong. And they’re real. This one between Lionel and Samuel Cosgrove felt typical of all the other instances I’d run across. But it was my policy to leave no stone unturned. I left the line in my note.

  I handed the slip of paper to the teenager. He showed me his teeth again. “Okay, sir,” he said. “Will that be—”

  “Cheapest possible.”

  Salesmen. They start ’em young these days, don’t they? He wasn’t getting one more penny out of me than he deserved.

  After I’d settled up with Lord Pimpleton, I went outside and unhitched Bob. By the end of the day, I’d need to pack my bags for Tucson. I say “pack my bags” metaphorically, of course, as I was planning on my usual strategy of filling my canteens and stuffing my duster with jerky.

  I’d leave the next morning. The last thing on today’s agenda: updating the client on my progress. I climbed into the saddle, clucked at Bob, and we headed east toward the Cosgrove mansion.

  I was more than excited to see Lilly Cosgrove again. Since she’d floated through my office yesterday like a leaf in the breeze, there’d been a gale force wind of improper thoughts in my mind. My usual clients were miners, farmhands, angry middle-aged wives—not sexy little numbers in formfitting dresses. Her perfume smelled like the flower that bore her name, and it lingered in my nose. She was silly, more than a little lost, but there was a raw, natural temptation there that only the strongest man could have resisted.

  I understood why old man Cosgrove had tried so hard to keep tabs on her.

  When I arrived at the mansion, I found Lilly sitting on one of the benches in the front lawn. She fanned herself lazily with a large, feathered contraption. Again she held an umbrella over her head. At this point it’s not worth mentioning that it was a rainless day.

  Pattison was standing by the house beyond. He had a large pair of clippers and was trimming one of the many bushes that surrounded the place. Always good to see a man working with his hands. When he noticed me riding up on Bob, he began working on the far side of the bush, turning his back to me. He shook his head and muttered.

  Groundless snobbery. Ain’t it lovely?

  Lilly saw me and bounded over, a toothy grin on her face. “Good news, Mr. Wilcox?” she said breathlessly as she ran up. She bounced up and down on the balls of her feet.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said. “Most definitely good news.”

  Lilly sighed with relief.

  There was a slight moment, as she stood below me, where her eyes traced me up and down. Hmm. Perhaps I’d had as much of an impact on her at our first meeting as she’d had on me. I wasn’t surprised. She wouldn’t be the first gal who found herself smitten by the unrefined Wilcox countenance.

  I hopped out of the saddle and held the reigns up to show her. “What should I do with Bob here?”

  Lilly looked about, twisted her pink lips to the side. “Hmm. Well, we don’t actually have any hitching posts at the house. I suppose we could take him back to the stables.” She looked about some more. “Oh, forget it.”

  She took the reigns from me and walked over to the bench where she had been sitting. She tied the reigns to the bench, just as I had done the first time I was here.

  I smiled.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go back to the gardens.”

  She took my hand and led me around the side of the house. Pattison watched us as we walked by. He raised a hand as if to ask Lilly if she needed assistance, but she didn’t notice. She was too excited. She twirled her umbrella rapidly, a big smile on her face.

  We entered an elaborate garden with pebble pathways, roses, and row after row of sculpted bushes in every shape imaginable. The Cosgroves sure did keep Pattison busy.

  I plucked an overgrown shoot from one of the bushes. “What are you payin’ that guy for?” I said with a motion back toward the house.

  Lilly giggled then said, “So what’s happened? You say there’s good news? Tell me everything!”

  “The gang that pinched the kettle from you was the Blue Eagle Gang,” I said. “They’re run by a guy named Jimmy Blue Eyes. High-level crook by Desecho’s standards. B-level by any other standards. A real hands-on sort of guy.” I pointed at the dry blood in my nostrils. “And something of a heartbreaker, as I understand it.”

  At this last detail, Lilly’s reaction reeked of concealed arousal. And here I was thinking she’d been enamored by me. Hmph.

  I continued. “Now it just so happens that the Blue Eagles’ main employer is one Connor Macintosh.” I gave her a knowing look.

  “Connor Macintosh!” she said, her mouth gaping. “He’s one of daddy’s best friends.”

  “Sounds a little fishy, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes … But, you know, he does seem quite jealous of some of Daddy’s artifacts. I had no idea he liked the kettle.” Her face dropped. “
Oh dear, you’re probably right.” And suddenly she was perky again. “But this means we know where it is!”

  “Well, it sure sounds like it to me.”

  She jumped up and down giggling. She gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Oh great! Oh thank goodness!” she said, but her smile dropped again. Keeping up with this girl’s emotions was exhausting. “I’ve been so scared since all this happened. What if the Blue Eagles come back?”

  “I think you’re in the clear now, Lilly,” I said. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  But worry she did. Her face was wrenched in adorable apprehension. “When are you leaving for Tucson?” she said.

  “First thing in the morning.”

  “Can you stick around here tonight?” she said. “Just so I feel safe?”

  “Pattison doesn’t make you feel safe?”

  Zing!

  Lilly giggled.

  “But really,” I said, “I should be—”

  “Please.”

  Oh, for cryin’ out loud. Babysitting a grown adult was not what I got paid for. But then it occurred to me that I might be able to steal a peek at Lilly in her nightgown. “You got a guest bed?”

  “Seven of them. But …” She put her hand on my chest. “Maybe you won’t need one.”

  She leaned up and kissed me on the lips. Her lips were about the softest thing I’d ever felt. They felt like the inside of a cream puff. Tasted like one too.

  Hmm. Interesting indeed.

  Chapter Eight

  A rabbit was an inch from my face. A pink rabbit. I was surrounded by pink and by animals. How very odd.

  I opened my eyes a little more.

  Oh. Right.

  I was in the pinkest bedroom one could possibly imagine. I lay in a four-poster bed, and white lacy sheets engulfed me. A stuffed rabbit shared my pillow. Nearby was a stuffed dog. A stuffed bear hung from one of the bed’s posts. I tried to remember how that might have happened.

  There was faint breathing next to me. Lilly lay on her stomach, sleeping soundly. Her back was exposed, and with the sight of this, a flood of recent memories rushed back to me. Valuable memories indeed. Not a single one of Lilly’s golden hairs was out of place. Hours of sleep and she still looked like she just returned from the beautician.