The Devil's Dime (The Samaritan Files)

by Bailey Bristol

  “Now, bite your tongue, little lady.” Jess grabbed the salt shaker and tossed a sprinkle over his right shoulder.

  Addie snorted. “What was that for?”

  “T’ break the curse you just put on me.”

  “Throwing salt over your shoulder breaks the curse?”

  “If you’re Irish it does. I think.”

  “You’re full of hot air. You only throw salt over your shoulder if you spilled the salt in the first place. Then you get good luck. Not broken curses.”

  “Well....fie on you.”

  Jess and Addie sat ill at ease at the table. The levity helped. But they’d both been startled by their first quarrel. When Addie didn’t speak, Jess broke the silence.

  “I’m sorry you were worried, Addie. I should have sent a message ’round so you wouldn’t be pacing the floor frantic with worry.”

  The image he drew made Addie flush with guilt.

  “Well, I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. And I was hardly frantic, Jess Pepper. I’m not some weak ninny, you know. I was merely...concerned.”

  She had just yelled at him that she’d been frantic, but he thanked whatever gods had kept him from pointing that out when she revised her worry downward.

  “Ah. Concerned.”

  “Jess.” She turned and fixed him with a level gaze. “Let me tell you how concerned I was. I was so concerned that I picked up my violin and practiced for two hours straight and would have kept going if the smoke hadn’t smothered me. I was embarrassed that I’d burned the biscuits and that’s why I yelled at you. I’m sorry.”

  They’d made a small tower of their hands, one atop the other, and sat touching foreheads as they made their confessions.

  “I see. So you weren’t worried about me.”

  “Well, I was, of course, but not for as long as I let on.”

  “I see. And what did you do with the biscuits?”

  “What?”

  “Where are the biscuits now?”

  “In the trash bin.”

  “Ah. Then I’m safe.”

  “What do you mean? I wouldn’t serve them to you. They were practically petrified.”

  “I wasn’t worried about eating them. I just didn’t want you throwing them at me when I tell you where I was. Could break my nose. Or worse!”

  “So,” she attempted a pouty look, “where were you? With another woman?”

  He smiled. “Actually, yes.”

  Addie jumped from her chair at his admission and took a swat at his shoulder. He intercepted her arm and pulled her off balance and right into his lap. “And after I got her safely on a train out of town, I came straight here, hungry as a bear for some petrified biscuits.”

  Now she swatted him in earnest. “Jess Pepper, you just remember one very important thing.”

  He grinned and kissed her nose. “What would that be, little cook?”

  “I know where those biscuits are.”

  She had him chuckling now, and in one smooth motion he lifted her, stepped across to the large upholstered easy chair and dropped into it with his precious cargo. She held tightly to him, and her first kiss was a hungry frenzy of relief and pent-up worry. He answered her as tenderly as his own emotion would allow.

  “Oh, Jess,” she groaned, “you’re ruining me.”

  “I’m what?”

  “Ruining me. For furniture. I’ll never appreciate sitting solitary on a piece of furniture ever again, and that’s very, very sad.”

  Her hand came to his cheek as she kissed his nose, and the twinkle in her eye expressed anything but sadness. Jess pulled her more snugly into his lap and began to unlace her hightops while she plied kisses along his ear and neck.

  “I, on the other hand, have discovered a new appreciation for these overstuffed chairs,” Jess countered, his words tumbling out slow, measured, belying the hitch in his breathing. “They afford much more room for things like...toes, and...”

  He dropped her shoe over the side of the chair and massaged her foot, then let his fingers slide along her slim instep and upward to encircle her ankle.

  She shivered, and her hand lost interest in the waves at the nape of his neck and slid lightly to his bare chest. The fingers that had made short work of his shirt buttons now sent lush, warm sensations along his collar bone.

  Her breath matched his, but skimming across his ear as it did, it was driving him mad.

  “Addie...” he tried, but her breathy “yes” undid him further, and nothing in this world could keep his hand from sliding up her supple calf to the warm haven of her thigh. “Addie...” He shifted his shoulder, dropping it slightly to pull her face away from his ear.

  “What?”

  “That does things to me, darlin’, things you probably don’t want to know,” he managed.

  “It ...what does?”

  “Blowing,” he whispered, and her brows lifted with the most innocent guile. “In my ear,” he finished.

  She cocked her head a bit, as if the idea had never occurred to her.

  “It does? That...that seems unlikely, Jess.”

  He chuckled. Unlikely. No, not at all unlikely. He pulled her in to him and brought his hand from the lush nest of her thighs to lift her brown curls and expose her ear. He nibbled, and smiled at her small intake of breath. He ran his tongue lightly around the delicate rim of her earlobe, and relished her discreet gasp.

  And then with devilish delight, he blew a long, gentle breath into her ear. She shuddered, and her fingers darted upward to grasp his shoulder.

  “Oh!”

  It was a good long while before Addie and Jess settled down to report the results of their day’s sleuthing.

  Chapter Twenty

  Jess let Addie move away from the easy chair they’d occupied together since supper, although allowing space between them after such tender intimacies just seemed so wrong. It was clearly as much a surprise to him as it was to her that a person could covet another’s touch like they seemed to crave one another now. Their hands hadn’t parted since they’d risen from the table, and the nuzzles and touches continued as they sifted through the puzzle pieces.

  “It’s just a hodge-podge of information, Jess. How in creation do we make any sense out of it?” She leaned a hand on the fireplace mantel and dropped her forehead to rest on her fingers.

  Words raced to his tongue, but he knew he couldn’t whitewash things for Addie. She was right. They didn’t have a path to follow yet. Just a handful of stepping stones that meandered off in vague directions.

  He knew it was always that way. But then, he’d been here before. Every sinister event had a trail of discovery, an illusory sequence that remained just beyond the fringes of his logical grasp until he got the clues in order.

  Addie reached a hand toward a portrait on the mantel and ran a graceful finger over the face of the Civil War soldier. “He’s a good man, Jess. A really good man.”

  Jess rose from the chair and came to stand behind her. His arms went around her waist and he rested his cheek against her hair.

  “You’ll have your family back soon, Addie. Your father wants that, too.”

  Addie turned in his arms. “He did help you today, didn’t he, Jess. That’s such a good sign. Maybe it seemed like an accident, but I think deep down he wants us to know, and that’s why the word started to slip out.”

  “You could be right about that.”

  “I’m going to bake cookies in the morning and take them to him. They’ll let him have cookies, won’t they?”

  “He made short work of the apple I took him today.”

  “You took him an apple?”

  Jess was jolted by the awed approval he saw in her eyes, heard even more clearly in her voice.

  “When you go, try to get him up walking around the cell. He’ll get sick if he doesn’t move around and keep his lungs strong.”

  “Oh.” The thought of her father getting sick in jail hadn’t occurred to her, and Jess regretted bringing it up.

>   “He’ll love the cookies,” Jess said, and tapped her nose with the end of his finger.

  “Oh!” Addie turned to the mantel and picked up the portrait of the family of five. “I was thinking about taking this, too. So he can tell me who they are.”

  Jess took the frame from her. “You must have looked like this when you were a little girl.”

  Addie smiled. “You know, I really do think this is my mother. I don’t remember seeing pictures of her at this age, but there was a picture of me that looks a lot like this. At my aunt’s estate in Chicago. What are you doing!”

  Addie grabbed the frame back from Jess just as he peeled back a corner of the black paper that sealed the portrait into the frame.

  “Seein’ if someone did what my Aunt Bethsheba always did.”

  Addie was still in the dark, and pressed the frame protectively to her bosom.

  “Writing people’s names on the backs of the tintypes, silly,” he chided.

  “Oh! Yes, silly me! Jess, I never thought of that!” Addie looked from Jess to the frame and back again. “Well, go on! Look!” She thrust the frame back into his hands.

  Jess shook his head and chuckled while he carefully peeled the backing from the frame and shook the photograph out into his hand. He lifted the loose heavy paper that protected it and Jess and Addie stared together at the handwriting inked in white.

  “Jeremiah and Josephine Carnello, August 1862.”

  And below it, “Julia Lillabeth Carnello, age 8; Jeremiah Leviticus Carnello, age 8; Sarah Josephine, age 2 months.”

  “My stars! Jess! It is my mother’s family. But...”

  Jess tapped the back of the photograph, and drew his finger across the boy’s name. Recognition loomed and for the first time in the investigation, one small piece fell into place.

  “I didn’t know you had an uncle, Addie.” Jess looked at her for some answers. “Or was this your Chicago aunt?”

  “No, no, that was my mother’s Aunt Lucille, my great aunt, Josephine’s younger sister. Jeremiah senior and Josephine are my mother’s parents. And this is without a doubt my mother.” Addie tapped the name of the woman in the portrait. “But Jess, my mother didn’t have a brother. Or a sister. Maybe these were cousins or, or...”

  “Addie, look at the ages of these two.” He stabbed a finger at the names of her mother and the boy. “Look at their initials. What are the chances cousins would have identical initials?”

  “But why wouldn’t she have told me? If she had a brother...a twin brother... you’d think I would have heard stories...” Addie suddenly brought her hand to her throat, and the surprise of realization traveled across her face.

  “What?”

  “There were times in Mother’s diary that she mentioned childhood things, and being angry at JLC. I thought it was her funny way of saying she was angry at herself. Because I thought they were her initials.” She drew her finger lovingly over the boy’s name. “But they were his, too. I wonder what happened to him.”

  Jess raked a hand through his hair. Waiting wasn’t going to make his revelation any kinder. He took her hand and moved with her to the table.

  “Sit down, Addie. I have something to show you.”

  . . .

  The explanation was a lot harder than Jess had realized it would be. Ollie had been murdered trying to get this piece of paper to him, and Birdie was frightened enough to leave town when she’d failed to provide the same paper to Chief Trumbull.

  Everything he told her was disturbing and simply increased her worries. With each new revelation she realized more fully that her father was locked up and at the mercy of a man she’d had no idea was so evil.

  There was no way to tell his story without revealing Deacon Trumbull’s dark nature, or laying the responsibility for Ollie’s murder at Trumbull’s door. By the time he’d explained Birdie’s abuse at Trumbull’s hands, and Jess’s last-minute effort to escort her to safety, Jess was twenty minutes into his tale before he’d even shown Addie the page everyone had wanted so badly.

  At last, he pulled the folded paper from his pocket.

  “This is the corner scrap I found where Ollie...where Ollie had fallen in the...in the basement.” Jess was running out of ways to tell the story without using words like murder and morgue over and over.

  He laid the scrap on the table and unfolded the page. Before he continued, he laid a hand across the middle of the page and held it in place to match up with the corner scrap. Now she could read the text across the bottom.

  Hostel for the Mentally Infirm

  211 Red Hill Road – Williamsbridge.

  “I don’t understand, Jess. What does this hostel for the mentally ill have to do with anything? How could this paper possibly be important enough for anyone to kill over it?”

  Jess kept Addie’s eyes locked on his as he moved the page directly in front of her. Without looking, he planted his forefinger like a stake about a third of the way down the list of names.

  “This is why, Addie.”

  Addie swallowed. Her face lost its color, and he could see that she dreaded turning her eyes to the page. But when he broke her stare and began to turn toward the page, she turned also.

  As one voice they read the name.

  “Jeremiah Leviticus Carnello.”

  J.L.C.

  . . .

  “Addie, this has nothing to do with you.”

  Jess was frustrated. He’d been arguing with her for twenty minutes.

  “How can you say that! You point at a picture of a boy who’s supposed to be my mother’s twin and see his name on a paper from a mental hostel and you leap by some magical intuition to the conclusion that he’s the criminal!”

  Jess grabbed the photograph from the table and pointed to the boy. “Look at the boy, Addie. Where’s his right arm? Hm? Why is he hiding it?”

  “He’s not hiding it! My god, Jess, are you so suspicious of everyone? You look. He’s just trying to imitate a grown up pose. There’s nothing sinister. He’s not hiding anything.”

  “Addie, for cryin’ out loud, you of all people know I’m not suspicious. Look at your father. I’m doing everything I can to get him out of jail!”

  “Well, if it hadn’t been for your damn article he wouldn’t even be—” Addie stopped pacing. Her hands flew to her mouth and her eyes darted to see what damage she’d done. “Jess, I—”

  Jess put up a hand to stop her. So that’s how she truly felt. It was his fault. All his fault.

  “Nevermind, Addie. I’ll take my magical intuition and leave you in peace. Good night.”

  Jess headed for the stairs and heard her rushing to the door he’d left standing open behind him.

  “Please, Jess, I was upset, I—”

  In the hollow well of the switchback staircase, his parting words sounded harsh even to him. “Good night, Addie.”

  He closed his own door quietly and stood in the still darkness. The silence was deafening after the angry debate they’d just been through.

  So that was where she stood. At the core of it all, she blamed him for her father’s arrest. And she was right. That was the very reason why he’d fled.

  Jess walked in circles to work off the steam.

  Think, man! Get her out of your head and put the pieces together.

  Madly he wrestled with the recurring drum beats of her accusations. Just one thing, he thought. Concentrate on one problem at a time.

  Jess moved slowly through the double doors to the balcony. The humid air curled the damp strands on his forehead and did little to lighten his mood.

  He couldn’t remember a time when he’d been so baffled. So distracted.

  Jess turned and raised his eyes to the balcony above. Her doors were open but she stood inside. Perhaps she’d seen him below.

  Moonlight was too kind for the state of mind Jess was in, and he stepped back into the darkened room. Darkness was a comfortable place for him. Keeping company with women seemed otherwise.

  Perhaps tha
t was the answer. The darkness. Going undercover. It had never failed before.

  Jess pulled a weathered buckskin pouch from its drawer in the highboy and contemplated it for a long while. Everything he needed was here.

  With this, he could simply stay on the streets until he had some answers.

  Calmly, Jess stripped off his white linen shirt and pinstripes and pulled on faded muslin and dungarees. He counted the cash in the tobacco tin and shoved it into his pocket.

  His tattered black cavalry boots still sat in the closet where he’d tossed them six weeks earlier. He could hike the mountains for a week in these boots and not feel a thing. How they’d do for him on cobblestone and brick he had no idea.

  It felt good to get his feet back into them, though.

  Jess sat at his corner table and pulled out all the notes he had. He read and re-read them, made mental priorities, committed every minute detail to memory.

  When he was satisfied, Jess killed the gas lamps and secured his apartment. He hid the pages deep in the umbrella stand that stood by the door.

  And in the darkest hour of the night, with a fire in his belly that wouldn’t be silenced, Jess Pepper slipped down the dark hallways and out into the night.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  In a window on the top floor of a noisy dance hall, a lamp guttered and went out. With darkness for a backdrop, a red glow moving past the window was the only thing to be seen from the street. A moment later, the lamp flickered back on, brighter, adjusted by some human hand.

  Inside, the talk was gruffly impatient, enlivened by the occasional growl. It was risky meeting like this, but they’d both agreed too much was at stake not to.

  “He can’t possibly know anything. We cleaned it up twenty years ago.” The voice was low, cultivated, on the keen edge of disdain.

  “I’m telling you, Pepper is on to something.” The red glow arched out, lost some of itself to the floor, and flared again.

  “Perhaps he could be persuaded.”

  “The bastard’s got a conscience. And a public. Crusaders like him make me sick.” Another flicking of embers.