The Lady and the Robber Baron

by Joyce Brandon

  Peter realized the incongruity of what he was doing, expecting more of her than his own sister. Simone may have been taken in and used by Kincaid, too. “I joined the cavalry,” he said, to change the subject.

  “Oh, Peter, chéri…” She started to cry. Still crying, she reached up gently and touched his face. “Oh, your poor face, your poor broken face…It was so beautiful,” she said mournfully.

  Peter grimaced. “Maybe Kincaid did me a favor. I like this better.”

  Her lips trembled and tears streamed down her pale cheeks. “Those men who did this, they came right after I left, didn’t they? Oh, Peter, I swear to you…I didn’t know.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Simone turned away from him and sobbed brokenly. Her back looked so slender, so delicate. He reached out and pulled her into his arms. “It’s all right.”

  “No, it isn’t. It never will be. I love you. More than anything. More than life…I will die if you leave me.”

  “Hush, people don’t die of love.”

  “Why are you leaving?”

  “I’m not cut out for this life.” What he couldn’t tell her was that he wanted to live among rough men and simple peasant girls, girls who would blush and giggle when you looked at them. No more modern young actresses and dancers who tracked a man into his own bedroom.

  But Simone felt so thin against him, so bird-boned and fragile, that a flood of compassion rose in him. She cried so hard, as if she had lost something of such value, that sweat broke out on his forehead. Her arms around his neck were slim and wiry, the arms of a child.

  “You’ll die there. I know you will.”

  “Hush,” he whispered. He expected the cavalry to be challenging—the army was at war with the Sioux. But even so, he expected to survive it.

  Simone sobbed louder.

  “Hush, Simone…”

  She pressed her wet mouth to his neck. A shudder rippled through her entire body, which created an answering response in his body. He lifted her chin and kissed her, and the passion he felt in her evoked an urgency in him. She surged against him, and he gathered her into his arms and kissed her hungrily, unable to stop himself.

  “I love you, Peter,” she whispered raggedly, between kisses.

  He liked the way she said his name. It sounded like Petair, with the accent on the tair. He didn’t know anything about love, but he did know he didn’t want her to cry anymore.

  “I’ll die if you leave me.”

  He knew she wouldn’t die, but he also realized she was different from Bettina, from all the girls he’d met in New York. Simone was moved by need and love, not manipulation. She had been injured as much by his parents as he had. To take her away from this place and these people might save her, might redeem something in her and in himself. They could start a new life in new circumstances.

  “I don’t suppose you’d want to come to North Dakota.”

  “Oh, Peter! Thank you, thank you, thank you…”

  Jennifer found Chane in his office. He looked up, and his straight black eyebrows lowered.

  She cringed inwardly. It hurt to see the hardness creep into his eyes every time he was forced to deal with her. She was staying at the hotel, in the same suite with him, but not the same bedroom.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, but I want to go home and see my brother. I just wanted to let you know where I’d be. I’ll take a cabriolet.”

  Chane stood up across the desk from her. “I don’t want you riding in cabs. You could damage my reputation that way.”

  “What if I take your carriage just before you need it?”

  Chane grimaced. “I have more than one.”

  Augustine met Jennifer at the front door, her thin face pinched. “Ahh, madame.”

  “Oh, Augustine, I’ve missed you. Is Peter home from work yet?”

  Augustine glanced quickly at Malcomb, who had stepped into the other end of the hall.

  “Monsieur Peter isn’t here, madame. He won’t be coming back, I think.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He has left.”

  “Left?”

  “I tried to call you, but—” Augustine glanced angrily at the telephone. “—I couldn’t reach you.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know. He said to tell you good-bye.”

  “That’s all? Just like that. Tell Jenn good-bye?” she asked incredulously.

  Augustine nodded. “He said, tell Mrs. Kincaid good-bye.”

  “Oh, God.” Jennifer bowed her head. Peter must have heard she’d married Chane.

  Jennifer arrived back at the hotel after dinner. Mrs. Lillian opened the door for her, and she strode directly into Chane’s den unannounced. He glanced up from the newspaper he was reading and scowled.

  “I went to see my brother today,” she said.

  “I trust he is fully recovered,” Chane said politely.

  “He’s gone,” she whispered, sitting down in the chair next to him before the fire.

  “Gone where?”

  “I don’t know.” Her bottom lip trembled and one tear slid down her pale cheek. A flame of compassion tried to ignite in him, but he pinched it out by sheer force of will.

  “I didn’t have a chance to tell him I had married you, but he found out somehow. And he…he…” She turned away to keep him from seeing her cry, but sobs shook her shoulders.

  “Someone has to know where he’s gone,” he said impatiently. “I’ll put Tom Wilcox to work on it right away. Tom can find anyone.”

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice shaky. With her face wet with tears and twisted with anguish, she looked ten years old.

  She left. Chane picked up his newspaper and began to read again. A few moments later Mrs. Lillian walked to the door of the den. “It’s for you.”

  “I didn’t hear the telephone ring. Who is it?”

  “Tom Wilcox.”

  “What does he want?”

  “He doesn’t want anything. I called him. You told Jennie you would be calling him…”

  “I’m glad someone believed her story,” he growled.

  “You didn’t?”

  “Of course not.”

  Mrs. Lillian looked irritated with him. To placate her, he took the telephone. “Tom? I want you to run a routine investigation…”

  The week passed in a daze for Jennifer. She grieved for Peter as if he had died. Anything was possible. He could join the Foreign Legion or volunteer for some deadly mission. He was truly capable of anything. She explained this to Tom Wilcox, who listened patiently and assured her that he and his men were questioning the list of Peter’s friends, acquaintances, and business associates she’d given them and were checking out every possibility.

  She tried to work, but she had no heart for it. Bellini finally sent her to her dressing room to rest. Even he did not have the heart to yell at her anymore. She could still do her barre work, but she was so forgetful she found herself staring off into space when she was supposed to be doing pliés. She could barely endure two hours a day at the barre. Rehearsals bored her. They seemed to go on for hours. Her rhythm was so bad, she didn’t even try to perform.

  Bettina and Simone hadn’t shown up for rehearsal this morning. It wasn’t like either of them, but especially Bettina, who was her understudy. She knew Jennifer was not ready to dance performances. Jennifer fully expected them to appear at any moment, but the morning passed and no one heard from either of them.

  Chane opened the door and leaned outside the carriage to see why they’d stopped.

  “Sure and the whole intersection’s blocked,” Patrick said. “It’s a horrid accident, it is. Would you be wantin’ me to drive around this mess?”

  “No, Patrick. Maybe we can help. Stay here unless someone needs you.” Chane climbed down and walked toward a policeman standing next to a rope that blocked the street.

  “Afternoon,” he said amiably. “What’s going on?”

  “Been terrible happenings here,�
� the policeman said, shaking his head. He lowered his voice and glanced around to be sure none of his superiors was watching him. “A young woman was murdered.”

  “Murdered? How?”

  The policeman shook his head in consternation. “Well, I’m not at liberty to say, sir, but I can tell you we’ve hit on bad times when a thing like this can happen. The coroner said he’s never seen the likes of it.”

  “Where did they find the body?”

  “In those bushes over there.”

  Chane decided to leave. He was not one to gawk at accidents or disaster scenes. He walked back to the carriage to tell his driver to back up or turn around. As he approached, two men stopped within ten feet of him and he heard one of them say, “Bricewood.” Frowning, he approached the men.

  “Excuse me.”

  Irritated, the men glanced at him.

  Chane shrugged in apology. “Sorry, but I heard the name of my hotel mentioned.”

  “And who might you be?”

  “Kincaid. Chantry Kincaid the Third.”

  The men looked at one another. “What are you doing here?” one of them asked Chane.

  “My driver stopped because the road is blocked, and I got out to see what was wrong. The Bricewood Hotel is just around that corner.”

  The men withdrew to confer for a moment, then walked back to Chane. “A woman’s been killed and her body dumped here. We found this in her hand. Do you know why she might have it?”

  The detective held out a tiny cloth purse with the words BRICEWOOD EAST lettered on it. Chane hefted it, wondering what was inside. “It’s the container housekeeping uses to put favors in for our hotel guests. Generally they put chocolates in these and leave them on guests’ pillows. Anyone could have one.”

  “Any chance she might work for you?”

  “No idea.”

  “Would you be willing to take a look at the body? She’s got no other identification. There’s a good chance we won’t be able to identify her anytime soon, unless we get real lucky.”

  Reluctantly, Chane allowed himself to be led to the spot where a blanket covered a small mound. “You ready?”

  “Just her face,” Chane cautioned.

  The detective nodded.

  “Okay. I’m ready.”

  The detective peeled the blanket back. The woman was obviously young and frozen solid. She was white as the sheet that covered her. And her eyes were matted with what looked like frozen tears. The sight caused Chane’s stomach to wrench. “God. What happened to her?”

  “We don’t know yet. But the coroner says it looks like she’s got no blood in her body. Never seen anyone so white.”

  Chane searched his memory. “You know,” he finally said, “she looks like one of the dancers in the ballet company that I’ve recently hired for my theater.”

  The detectives looked at each other and then at him. “Can you find someone who might be able to give us a definite?”

  “Is there a telephone near here?”

  “No.”

  Chane drove back to the hotel and found Bellini. Together they drove to the morgue where the body should be by that time. They waited almost an hour, and Bellini identified the woman as Bettina, Jennifer’s understudy. Chane took a very shaken Bellini back to his home and then drove to the Bricewood. He found Jennie in the long, mirrored exercise room. At the barre, graceful as a gazelle, she bent forward from the waist, pressing her cheek to her leg.

  As he watched, she straightened. Her face was serene and appealing, solemn with dreamy self-absorption as she moved to the center of the gleaming hardwood floor and executed the positions her coach chanted like a human metronome. A man seated at the piano in the corner of the room played a Handel melody. Even in simple exercises her movements were fluid—she was the most articulate dancer he had ever watched.

  She posed with arms gleaming whitely above her head, spun twice, and stopped abruptly in one of those movements that seemed impossible to complete as noiselessly as she did.

  Even from a distance Chane knew the moment she saw him. She seemed to quiver and go completely still. Then she said something to the man playing the piano. He murmured something in return and scurried out the door. Chane’s heart hammered a warning at him, but he walked forward in spite of it.

  Jennifer couldn’t believe Chane had actually come here to seek her out. Until this moment he had carefully and politely avoided her. Something seemed different about him. Even more different than his coming. He stopped an arm’s length away.

  “Bettina—” His voice, which was unusually hoarse, broke after the name. Searching his eyes, Jennifer tried to discern the source of his pain.

  “Bettina…was killed.”

  “Bettina? How did it happen?”

  Chane told her what he knew. Tears came slowly at first, then in a torrent as the realization hit her. She stepped forward, encircled his waist with her arms, pressed her cheek against his chest, and began to cry. Instinctively, he buried his face against her neck and held her shaking body. She cried with such vehemence she sounded ten years old.

  After a time, he gave her shoulders a gentle shake. “Hey, hey,” he whispered. “You’re going to make yourself sick.”

  “Do they know who did it?”

  “No, they don’t,” he said, his voice husky with pain.

  “How did she die?” she whispered, leaning back to look into his eyes.

  “I don’t know.” As if her questions had triggered something in him, he shuddered and stepped away from her. “I’m not sure,” he said, dazed, lifting his hand to his forehead. “I don’t know why I came here.”

  Chane knew that was an odd thing to say, even though it was true. If he’d been in his right mind, he wouldn’t have come to Jennie with this or any other problem. Something inside him must have malfunctioned. His internal wiring must be as mechanical as that for a drawbridge. It was a sobering thought. He hadn’t realized a switch in him could get thrown and he’d walk into the arms of a woman who had betrayed him.

  Embarrassed, ignoring the beseeching look on her face, Chane cleared his throat and turned away from her. Jennifer sniffed back tears. “Maybe you knew I needed a friend,” she called after him.

  Chane walked away. It seemed kinder than to tell her she could no longer afford to consider him as a friend.

  The next morning, Steve brought in a pile of newspapers and was reading them at his desk. Curious to find out everything the police knew about Bettina’s death, Chane sat down across from him and opened the Times. The headline fairly screamed at him: MONSTER MURDERS BALLERINA.

  The article was based on an interview with the coroner who did the autopsy. Chane skimmed over the repetitions about the horror of it all and gleaned that the only thing they knew for sure was that the murderer had somehow siphoned all of Bettina’s blood out of her body and put most of it into her stomach. And he had pushed carpet tacks into her skin at one-inch intervals from her mid-thighs to the tops of her breasts. The purse found in Bettina’s hand had contained carpet tacks. And about a half-pint of her total expected volume of blood was missing. The writer wondered if perhaps the maniac who had killed her had drunk her blood. Chane shook his head in disgust and consternation. Either the Times was becoming as bad as the tabloids, or this was truly the most gruesome murder he’d heard about in years.

  Bettina’s funeral was at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Jennifer was amazed at how well-attended it was. The main floor of the enormous chapel was almost filled to capacity. Apparently, everyone who had ever seen Bettina dance must have come to pay their last respects.

  Chane rode to the church with Steve. Jennifer rode with Mrs. Lillian. Somehow they ended up in the same pew, but he didn’t speak to her. The mass was in Latin. Jennifer managed to get through most of the service without crying, but at one point, as the music rose to a crescendo, the priest stepped up to the casket and slammed the lid shut, startling a loud sob from Jennifer and gasps from others. Mrs. Lillian pulled her into her arms and held
her as she cried.

  Later, somewhere near the conclusion of that interminable mass, Jennifer realized that Bettina’s body was in the casket, but Bettina was not in the body. She didn’t know where that thought came from, but it comforted her.

  After the funeral, she and others from the ballet huddled in a warm place next to the church and talked in low tones. The girls were terrified because Simone had not been seen for two days. Jennifer had tried to call Peter, but he was still not home, either.

  “Do you think the killer has Simone?” a girl asked.

  “I think he’s going to kill all of us,” another girl said, shivering violently.

  Bellini shushed them. “Don’t get morbid. Simone could be anywhere. She’ll probably be waiting for us when we get back.”

  Even so, Jennifer was frightened for Simone. And for herself. The man who had killed Bettina might be the same man who had been following her.

  Chane did not appear for dinner that night. At nine o’clock Jennifer saw him briefly as he walked from the elevator to his bedroom. He nodded to her, which seemed an improvement. It was a curt nod of acknowledgment only, but it was proof she existed.

  Two days later, unexpectedly, he appeared again at the practice room. She looked up to see him standing in the doorway, watching her.

  “That looks like work, in spite of how easily you do it,” he said, walking toward her, looking slightly embarrassed. His voice seeped into her pores and caused odd things to happen. Her legs felt suddenly weak, her lungs tight.

  Jennifer picked up a towel and walked toward him, wiping her perspiring face. “What time is it?”

  “Two o’clock.”

  “That late?”

  Chane wanted to look away, but her hair was pulled up in a bun. Wisps of flaxen curls escaped to frame her face in softness. A light film of perspiration gleamed whitely on the smooth skin of her lovely neck. She caught his look and brushed at the strands, then wiped perspiration off her flushed cheeks and forehead. Her wide violet-blue eyes watched him intently. She had a way of going still, of waiting. He would give anything to be able to get this close to her and feel nothing.