The jailhouse there was a bleak, odoriferous facility whose population forever exceeded its bounds by a wide margin. I was of the opinion that if schoolchildren were given tours, any fascination with outlaws portrayed in dime novels would be remedied as soon as they stopped retching.
Won Li argued, if public hangings weren’t a deterrent, subjecting youngsters to caged criminals wouldn’t be either. The insurmountable flaw was that those who committed crimes did so without the slightest notion of ever getting caught, much less convicted and hanged.
A high counter was manned by a uniformed constable. I asked him to announce my arrival to Jack O’Shaughnessy.
“He isn’t here, ma’am. He’s never here, lest he’s bringing in prisoners. The station house on Holliday is where you’ll likely find him.”
I was not only already aware of the fact, I’d counted on it. A kicked puppy had nothing on me for heartbreak when I wailed, “What’ll I do now? He said before I could see Vittorio Ciccone, he had to be here to authorize it.”
Slumping against the counter, head in hand, I blubbered, “I shouldn’t have left Mother at all, sick as she is. I can’t take time to go all the way to the station house, then back here. I just can’t.”
“There, there, miss. Don’t cry. You don’t need O’Shaughnessy’s say-so.”
“I-I don’t?”
“Land sakes, no. I can take you to the cell block.” He sucked his teeth. “That is, if you’re sure you want to go back there. It’s no place for a lady, ma’am.”
“A moment to pray for the prisoner’s immortal soul is all I ask.”
The constable lifted a capacious ring of keys from a wall hook. “No disrespect meant, but I don’t think a month’s worth of praying would save Ciccone from the lake of fire.”
The steel door he unlocked howled open on riveted hasps, then clanged shut behind us. The stench of vomit, human waste, filth, and tobacco smoke was as palpable as fog. Arms reached through the bars, undulating like tentacles. Voices chorused in barbaric disharmony.
His nightstick swinging and connecting with vulnerable flesh and bone more often than not, the constable blazed safe passage down the slimy corridor. He bellowed the prisoner’s name. In the cell second to the end, a swarthy man leapt down from a bare bunk suspended by chains. The six others with whom he shared a water closet–sized space leered at me but kept their distance.
Privacy was impossible, yet I asked the constable to afford me some. With trepidation, he said, “Pray fast, ma’am. A couple of minutes is all I’ll give you.” He retreated to the metal door, the nightstick slapping his palm. The sound broadcast a dare and a promise.
Vittorio Ciccone was in his late twenties and shorter than I, though as lithe and well-muscled as a circus performer. He might be handsome if lye soap and scrub brush were applied with equal vigor.
In tortured English, he asked why I’d want to pray for him. I told him God looked disfavorably upon thieves and murderers.
“I din’t kill nobody. Never! I try to sell the pin, yes. I din’t steal it.” He turned out his left trousers pocket—empty, save grit. “It was here. How, I dunno. I swear to it.”
“Don’t shout at me.”
“Sorry. I so very sorry. Please, oh, pretty lady. You got to help me.”
“If you’re innocent, the court will find in your favor.”
“No, no.” He shook his head vehemently. “I doan know nobody here. Nobody want to help me.”
“How long have you been in the city?”
He shrugged. “T’ree, mebbe four days. I ride the boxcar. I look for work. No money I got for food. Nobody give me work.”
Every prisoner in the cell block would wail a similar sob story and proclaim it gospel. Nothing was ever their fault. Always someone else’s—always some thing else.
“Miss?” The constable tapped the door with his stick.
“Time’s up.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Ciccone.”
“No! Lissen to me. Please. You gotta believe.” His screams followed me out the door. “The man, he say I send the package. He lies. What use I got for mail?”
Other prisoners chimed in, shouting and shaking the bars.
Ciccone yelled, “I canna read. I canna write. I swear, I din’t kill no—”
The door slammed, muffling the noise without stanching it. Keys jangled as the constable relocked the door. “That’s a nice thing you tried to do, miss, but it’s wasted on the likes of him.”
The so-called Ladykiller Thief had been a disappointment. Then again, human monsters usually were. To my knowledge, the lone exception was a hulking nightmare known as Phil the Cannibal, who allegedly devoured a couple of Indians and a Frenchman when he ran out of grub during the gold rush.
I asked, “What is this package he’s yelling about?”
The constable hesitated. “The postmaster says Ciccone mailed a parcel yesterday. Remembers joking with him about sending a brick General Delivery, but can’t recollect who it was mailed to, or where.”
“Do you think it was the jewelry from all three robberies?”
“Yep. The loot same as stamped Murderer on Ciccone’s forehead. The trinket he saved out to pawn would have bought train fare to nary anywhere in the U.S. of A.”
I wondered how many times Ciccone had executed that deviously simple modus operandi. That he wouldn’t again was scant comfort. Cunning, he was. Unique, he was not.
“Has the trial date been set?”
“Week from today.” The constable peered out on the street. “There’s been rumors of a lynch mob, but I haven’t seen sign of one.” Walking back to his post, he added, “Can’t never tell, though. Folks are plenty riled about him strangling a woman with child. They’re saying a noose around that dago’s neck’d square things a tad.”
I tapped my cheek with a forefinger. “If he’s guilty, it would, but I heard the police were questioning Gertrude Hiss and Sam Merck—the Abercrombies’ cook and gardener.”
His grin was indulgent. “You must keep your ear right close to the ground, ma’am. Those two were rounded up, but nothin’ came of it. Ciccone done it, sure as the moon is round.”
“Ah, but it isn’t a perfect sphere—”
Clattering chains and the thunder of approaching boot steps halted in midstride. I knew before I turned that Jack O’Shaughnessy was standing behind me. The prisoner beside him wore a charcoal gray suit, a crimson vest, and a bloodstained bandage around his head.
Jack motioned me out the door. “Wait for me by the buggy.”
“I just—”
“I said, wait for me by the buggy.”
I cared not at all for his tone or attitude, which I told him when he stormed back out.
“Is that right?” He removed his hat, slapped it against his trousers leg, then resettled it. “Well, I don’t care much for you using my name to dupe a turnkey, so’s you can shoot the breeze with a murderer like he’s your long-lost cousin Bob.”
“I acted on impulse. Curiosity got the better of me.”
Jack chuffed. “If that’s all you’ve got to say for yourself, maybe you ought to go back and parlay with Ciccone some more. Till a second ago, I thought he was the worst one for excuses I’d ever heard.”
“You’re angry. I understand that, but there’s no need to be insulting.” I climbed into the buggy, pushing away the hand he offered in assistance.
“There is, if it’ll get through that ironclad skull of yours.”
“Oh, it has, Jack. Dunce that I am, it took a while for it to register. You’re always right. I’m always wrong.”
“From where I stand, it’s the other way—”
Anger had me shaking so hard, my voice trembled.
“You don’t want an explanation. Wouldn’t listen if I tried. All you want is for me to beg forgiveness. To promise I’ll mend the error of my ways.”
“Uh-uh. Far be it for me to ask for a miracle.” Jack planted a foot on the brace. “All I want is one day—one measly, goddam
ned day—without you pulling some shenanigan or another. That’d be a flat-out wonder to behold.”
Shenanigan? Did he honestly believe investigation was just a game to me? Something more exciting than stitching samplers or collecting recipes to bide excessive time on my hands?
A hollow sensation gored my belly. My heart teetered, then skidded into the breach. Ramparts rose and hardened around it, like a protective, defensive cocoon.
“If that’s how you feel,” I said, “then I see no need to continue being the burr under your saddle.”
Jack reared back. “What do you mean by that?”
“Plenty of women would be happy to cook, clean, and wait by the door for you to come through it.” The reins slapped Izzy’s rump. “I am not, and never will be, among them.”
For once, I didn’t mind the wind tugging at my hairpins. With the jailhouse stink permeating my clothes, Methuselah’s parlor rug didn’t need an airing as much as I did. And any oncoming drivers who noticed tears seeping from my eyes would fault the silty breeze.
Towns with fifty thousand or more residents enjoyed the luxury of letter carriers consigned to free mail delivery. Denver City hadn’t reached that benchmark as yet, so residents’ daily activities included Monday through Saturday jaunts to the post office to collect their mail.
As is true elsewhere, the town postmaster acquired his title by political patronage, not by aptitude or a winning personality. In return for better-than-average pay, he tithed one or two percent of his salary to his political party, plus a five-dollar donation to every state and local election.
The harried jake on the business side of the counter was missing an arm below the elbow and a leg below the knee. A veteran of the War Between the States, I surmised. A large number of Yanks and Rebs had migrated west after Lee’s surrender. In search of what, they likely couldn’t say, but hoped they’d recognize if they found it.
Papa was of the opinion that war survivors should be counted among its casualties, as no one emerged unscathed from the battlefield. Too often, the most grievous wounds and scars weren’t visible on the outside.
“Be with you directly,” the postmaster said. “Gotta get this bin slotted afore the train from Des Moines pulls into the depot. They’ll be mailbags galore on it, ’les some kindhearted outlaw heisted the car ’twixt here and there.”
Law, I was dizzy just watching him deal letters and small parcels from a shallow wooden flat into their respective boxes.
While he worked and I waited, customers streamed in and out the doors—every one of them inquiring if mail had arrived in his or her name. “If it ain’t in your box, it ain’t come, yet,” he answered, his tone sharpening like a stropped razor with each repetition.
A gent about my age blamed the postmaster for another day’s passage without a letter from his sweetheart. An older man insisted it was the postmaster’s job to cart a package as big as a sofa to his place of business. A mother trailing an offspring like a game of Snap The Whip burst into tears when her box didn’t contain an expected money order from her children’s father.
“How do you expect me to feed my young ’uns?” she wailed. “I know my husband done sent it. I’ve half a mind to jump back there and turn out your pockets to see what falls out.”
The ingress and insults were heavier than normal, but the post office was seldom empty. To hear the grousers talk, you’d think the postmaster was the cause of overdue bills, postage-due letters, stagecoach and train holdups, and every other pet peeve that befell the multitudes. Into the ballyhoo calling him a thief, a cripple and a liar, the postmaster cursed, wrenched off his apron, and tossed it on the counter. His peg leg thumped on the puncheon floor. “Off with you,” he said, shooing his detractors to the door. “I’m locking up for the noon hour.” His wave included me.
“But all I need is five stamps,” I lied.
He exhaled a mighty sigh as he shot the bolt home. Limping back behind the counter, he muttered something about never thinking of quitting his job, other than Mondays through Saturdays.
“Honestly, I can’t imagine how you match thousands of names to box numbers, much less remember who sent what parcel when.”
He scooped the coins I placed on the counter into his palm. “Beg pardon?”
“My goodness, there’s no need to be humble,” I said with a teasing laugh. “Why if it wasn’t for you, that jewel thief would have gotten away scot-free.” Slipping the stamps he tendered into my reticule, I added, “Though I suppose addressing the package for him must have aided your recollection.”
“No-o-o. ’Twas already made out to General Delivery when he brung it.”
“I see. Well, that explains why the destination remains a mystery, doesn’t it? Had you addressed it, a man blessed with your powers of recall would remember that detail, now wouldn’t you?”
His nod was wary. “Prob’ly.”
“Forgive me. I know you’re eager to rest and have your dinner, but I’ve never been this close to a bona fide hero before. The police must have been ecstatic when you told them about the package and described the man who sent it.”
The postmaster averted his eyes to a basket of incoming mail. He thumbed through the envelopes, as though counting them, then drawled, “They brung him to me.”
I leaned forward, my head angled to one side. “Sorry, I didn’t quite hear you.”
“The constables, they brought the feller here. Took him to the depot first. Told the agent, same as they did me, that seeing as how the stolen jewels were nowhere to be found, they figured he’d posted them out of the city.”
I gasped. “Goodness sakes alive. Was the brute in shackles and leg-irons?”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. The cops weren’t taking any chances on that greaser getting loose.”
“Greaser?” The derogatory term for Mexican was commonly heard, but not common to my vocabulary. “Vittorio Ciccone is Italian.”
“Don’t care what the breed is. If they aren’t white, they don’t belong here. I say, ship ’em all back where they came from.”
His spew was all the more chilling for its matter-of-fact delivery. Those I’d heard voice similar opinions with podium-pounding fervor triggered contempt, but not revulsion.
I moved to the door, pausing for him to unlock it. A notice-board on the near wall was shingled in church social announcements, wanted posters, and handbills of myriad sizes, descriptions, and misspellings. Almost obscured by a half-sheet advertising Christmas sleigh-rides was a bold-printed reward offered for information regarding “…any and all jewelry purloined from the households of Garret McCoyne and/or Avery Whitelaw.”
Tapping the notice with my forefinger, I inquired, “Was this posted before or after Ciccone’s arrest?”
“Bef—” The postmaster swung open the door. “Good day, ma’am.”
Won Li’s fork pecked the rim of my plate. “Eat your vegetables.”
I grimaced but speared a chunk of steamed carrot. The nameless dish he’d prepared for supper was a palette of colorful vegetables, pineapple, and melon on a bed of rice, drizzled with fresh lemon. The light, delicious fare piled like cairn rocks in my stomach.
“You are not yourself tonight, Joby.”
I sighed. “I’ve had worse days, but there was nothing about this one to recommend it.”
He removed our plates from the table. His empty one went into the granite dishpan. Mine was scraped into a small crockery bowl to be reborn as soup tomorrow evening.
“Sending those telegrams was a waste of money.” I picked at a small hole in the tablecloth. “Even if we had it to spare, I should have demanded an advance from J. Fulton Shulteis.”
“Did you know you would be sending them when he hired you?”
I shook my head.
“Then it is not spilled milk you are crying over. It is milk from a cow you did not own two days ago.”
I gave him a look as nasty as the headache beginning to throb at my temple. “Consistent with the barnyard metaphors, i
t’s also failing to acquire a second basket in which to put Penelope LeBruton’s eggs that worries me.”
He dried his hands on a sack-towel. “There are several responses as yet to be received?”
“Yes, but…” Call it optimism or pragmatism, whenever Won Li’s supply dwarfed mine, it knocked the stuffing out of an excellent tale of woe. “I was so certain Penelope wasn’t the first lonely heart he’d bamboozled. She’s accustomed to being catered to, but she’s afraid, not stupid. More afraid of what Rendal will do if she tries to escape and fails than of enduring whatever fate dictates if she stays.”
“Stick fast to the devil she knows,” Won Li said. “A common misconception.”
“Especially when, from what Abelia told me, Penelope’s father treated her like chattel, too.”
The water Won Li poured from the kettle into the dishpan would have scalded the hair off a hog. In winter, he walked barefoot in the snow for miles. Chi, he called it. Papa said it was plumb unnatural but wished he had a spot of it.
My forehead beaded just watching the steam billow around Won Li. Wadding my hair into a mussy bun, I said, “When LeBruton courted Penelope, charm couldn’t have been enough to gain acceptance in her social circle. He had to appear to be a financial equal. Trouble is, even the appearance of wealth isn’t cheap.”
Won Li agreed. “The proceeds from one victim, he invested in capturing the trust and love of the next.”
“That was my supposition.” Hair falling to my shoulders, I stood and rolled up my sleeves to help with the dishes. There weren’t many. My patron was as frugal with pots and pans as he was with supper ingredients.
He clucked his tongue. “It is sad to think your Casanova won and wed every woman he romanced.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far. What attracts a woman to a man and vice versa is too subjective to define, much less anticipate. For that reason alone, some of LeBruton’s advances must have been rebuffed by their objects.”
A Lady Never Trifles with Thieves Page 11
