Sensing that Abigail needed a friend, Katie chose her next words with care. “When I asked if you feared for your life, I was really asking about your husband.”
Abigail froze, and the color drained from her face. “What—?” She glanced around quickly and moved to Katie’s side. “What do you know about him? Has he asked about me?”
“Whoa,” Katie said. “I never met the man.”
Abigail studied her as if trying to decide if she spoke the truth. She then slid her hand in the folds of her apron and moistened her lips. “Please don’t say anything. Married women aren’t supposed to work here.”
“I won’t say a word,” Katie promised. “And I’ll help in any way I can.”
Abigail shook her head. “I… I don’t need any help.”
Katie had hoped to make a friend of her but felt something like a door closing in her face. “If you ever want to talk—”
Abigail’s lips quivered with unspoken words, but before she said anything the omnibus boy sounded the gong. The morning madness was about to begin.
That night Katie stood in the shadows outside the restaurant and stifled a yawn. Shaking the weariness away, she pulled the shawl around her shoulders against the cool night air and forced her droopy eyelids to stay open.
If Charley planned on making his nightly vigil, he better come soon before she fell asleep on her feet. Tired as an old gold miner, she could hardly manage to stay awake, let alone remain alert.
Who would have guessed that restaurant work was such hard physical labor? Her feet hurt. Her back ached, and her eyes felt like two balls of lead.
Fortunately, she didn’t have to wait long before spotting a shadowy figure making his way toward her.
She stayed hidden until the man took his usual place by the lamppost. She then stepped quietly out of the alley. He pulled his gaze away from the second-floor window as she approached.
Sun-bleached hair brushed against his collar. His deeply tanned skin was a testament to the hours spent working on the railroad. From a distance he looked older, more mature. Up close she could see he was only in his early twenties.
“Excuse me for intruding,” she said, for the pain of grief was evident on his face as he gazed at the second-story window. “Are you Charley?” Working on the tracks had turned his muscles hard as stone, and the sleeves of his shirt bulged as if stuffed with paper.
“That’s me,” he said. “Who are you?”
“My name is Miss Katie Madison. I’m a new hire. I’ve noticed you standing here at night, and the other girls told me you were Ginger’s friend.”
He nodded. “We planned to marry.”
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said and hesitated. People in grief generally jumped at the chance to talk about a loved one. She hoped the same was true for Charley, but she had to tread lightly so as not to make him suspicious. “The girls really miss her. Especially Mary-Lou.”
His mustache quivered. “They roomed together.”
“Mary-Lou said everyone loved her.” When he made no response, she added, “She couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt Ginger.”
His intake of breath told her she’d hit a nerve. “It was all my fault,” he said, his voice thick as mud.
Momentarily surprised by the unexpected admission, she paused a moment before asking the next question. “Why do you say that?”
He glanced around as if to make certain they were alone. “We were supposed to meet that night after the lights went out. Right here in our usual spot…” He talked in a low, hesitant voice as if each word were hatched from a hard-shell egg.
“I was on a winning streak at faro. Time got away from me, and I showed up late. She wasn’t here, so I figured she got tired of waiting and went inside. I hung around for a half hour or so in case she looked out the window. When she didn’t, I left. I didn’t know she was dead until the next day.”
“I heard they found her in the alley,” she said gently.
An anguished sob escaped him. “To think I stood in this very spot while she lay—” He blew out his breath. “Had I been here on time, Ginger might still be alive.”
She patted him on the arm. “You don’t know that.”
“I know!” He thumped his chest with his fist. Startled by his sudden movement, she jumped back. In a quieter voice he added, “I know.”
He looked so anguished she felt sorry for him. “You mustn’t blame yourself.” She glanced up at the bright moonlit sky and thought about her own losses. Her own guilt. She’d left the family business to become a detective, leaving her father to run his tailor shop alone.
While she was away, he’d gone on a bender one snowy night and was thrown from his horse. Without anyone to help him, he died from exposure. Her sisters blamed her. She could still hear her oldest sister Belle’s cruel words.
“It was your job to stay home and care for our father. But no, like a fool you insist upon running all over the country playing detective. No wonder Nathan chose me over you.”
Maybe Belle was right. Maybe she had shirked her responsibilities. Had she been home, she would have known her father was missing and gone searching for him.
Charley’s shoulders rose and fell in a shudder, bringing her back to the present.
“God wouldn’t want you to blame yourself,” she said as much for him as for herself.
“God? Why would He care? He didn’t even care to help her.”
“He cares,” she whispered. “He cares.”
He looked about to argue but instead lifted his gaze to the dark window above.
She studied his profile. His grief seemed real, but that alone didn’t exonerate him. It wasn’t unusual for killers to show remorse for a crime.
“You said you waited here for a half hour the night Ginger died. Did you see or hear anything in all that time?”
If her question struck him as more than just idle curiosity he didn’t show it. He just kept staring up at that window. “No, nothing.”
In the silence that followed she considered how to pose the next question and finally just came out with it. “Was there anything unusual about the crime scene? Something the sheriff might have overlooked?” This took her into murky waters; the average person wouldn’t ask such an indelicate question.
If he thought her question inappropriate he gave no clue. Instead he said, “Other than the missing shoe, no.”
“She was missing a shoe?” Mr. Harvey had provided the Pinkerton agency with a report, but there was nothing in it about a missing shoe.
“Yeah. Found it myself. On the corner of Main and Sunflower. Lying in the mud. Recognized it soon as I saw it.”
She glanced back at the alley. That was at least three blocks away from where her body was found. How did a woman lose a shoe? Two possibilities came to mind. One, she was killed elsewhere and dragged to the alley; two, she was running from someone or something.
“Do you know where she was killed?”
“The sheriff said she was killed right there.” He pointed to the side of the building. His answer corresponded to the Pinkerton report.
She glanced up at the open window of the bedroom she shared with Mary-Lou. The night Ginger died the temperature had been in the forties. Sounds are louder after dark, and would have been especially loud on a cold night.
“And no one heard her cry for help?” she asked. Her roommate was a deep sleeper, but what about the others? Why had no one heard her scream?
“Far as I know, no one heard a thing.”
“How do you suppose her shoe ended up somewhere else?”
“The only thing I can figure is that she came looking for me at the Silver Spur Saloon. She knew that’s where I play faro.”
It made sense. Ginger might have gotten tired of waiting for Charley and decided to meet him in town. But something must have happened, something that made her run back to the Harvey House so fast as to lose a shoe.
He blinked and turned his gaze on her. “Why are you so interested in t
his?”
“It’s just… I’ve heard so many nice things about her, I feel like I know her.”
He nodded. “You would have liked her,” he said. He pulled his watch out of his pocket and held it to the light. “It’s late. I better go.”
She nodded. “Nice meeting you.”
“Nice meeting you, too.” With that he shoved his watch into his pocket and walked away. She watched him cross the street and sighed. Guilt was a heavy load to bear.
Did he kill his fiancée? Her instincts told her no, but she wasn’t ready to completely absolve him. At least not before checking out his story.
She was still contemplating the conversation when a male voice broke the silence. “Are you out of your mind?”
Chapter 14
Jumping as if she’d been shot, Katie whirled about just as the sheriff stepped out from the shadows with Midnight behind him. The swish of her skirt matched the rush of blood to her face.
Hand on her chest, she gasped. “You startled me.”
“Yeah, well you’re lucky that’s all I did.” He tethered his horse and turned to face her. “I should have thrown you in jail when I had the chance. Looks like that’s about the only way you’re gonna stay out of trouble.”
She glared at him. “You have no right—”
“I have every right. If you insist upon meeting strange men in the dead of night, I not only have a right, I have an obligation. I sure don’t aim to have another dead body on my watch.”
Seething, she knotted her hands. “I don’t need your protection. I’m quite capable of taking care of myself. I’ve been trained—”
“If this is how Pinkerton trains its employees, then its methods are worse than I thought.”
“I don’t have to listen to this.” She spun around.
“So what’s the verdict? Is Charley Reynolds guilty or not?”
The question stopped her in her tracks, and she turned back to face him. If he thought he could mine her for information, he better think again. “Why should I tell you?” Even the shadows of night couldn’t hide his disapproving frown. Nor could it hide his handsome square face or the challenge in his eyes.
“Ah, so you don’t know.” He practically crowed as he said it.
“He’s not guilty,” she snapped, not willing to be found remiss in his eyes.
He lifted an eyebrow and pushed his hat back a notch with the tip of his finger. “And you decided this how?”
“With deductive reasoning.” Oddly, her earlier fatigue had lifted, and she suddenly felt wide awake. “How did you decide his innocence?”
He stiffened as if surprised by the question. “What makes you think I did?”
She managed to keep a triumphant smile from touching her lips. “For one, he’s not in jail.”
“And for good reason,” he said. “He has an ironclad alibi.”
“Such alibis are so rare I seldom take them seriously—unless the alibi is death and there’s a gravestone to prove it.”
“You don’t need a gravestone for this one.”
She studied him. “Would you care to elaborate?”
“Not really, but since you insist. Witnesses say that Charley didn’t leave the Silver Spur until almost eleven. Ginger’s watch stopped at 10:26. That tells me the time of death was at least a half hour before Charley left.”
“Witnesses aren’t always reliable,” she said. There were many reasons for this, poor eyesight and nervous tension being the top two. Most people, however, simply didn’t pay close enough attention to what went on around them.
“Normally, I would agree with you, but not this time,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I happened to be one of the witnesses. I saw Charley leave at eleven.”
She arched her eyebrows. “And there’s no chance you might be mistaken?”
“Mistaken? Me?” he asked. “Never.”
The indignant look on his face made her laugh, and a suspicious softening of his mouth told her that somewhere in that thick head of his a sense of humor could be found. If she was willing to look for it, which she wasn’t.
She mentally ticked off Charley’s name from the list of suspects. “Does this mean you’re going to work with me?”
“Oh, I’ll work with you all right, ma’am.” The tension eased from his stiff frame but not from his face. “But not by choice.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m trying to save your pretty neck.”
For some reason the word pretty quickened her pulse, though she doubted he meant it in the conventional sense. “Like I said, I don’t need your protection.”
“A killer is on the loose and here you are meeting strangers in the middle of the night.”
“I thought we established that Charley was innocent.”
“Yes, but you didn’t know that when you met him.”
Resentment welled up inside, and she fought to keep her temper. As a female detective she was used to others doubting her abilities, but somehow she resented it more coming from him.
“I don’t need your protection,” she snapped. With that she started for the alley. She could outride, outshoot, and outsmart most if not all of her male colleagues. She didn’t need the sheriff watching out for her.
He grabbed her by the arm and swung her around. He was so close his warm breath fanned her face—so close she feared he could hear the wild beating of her heart….
“Maybe you do and maybe you don’t.” Voice low in her ear, he pulled her a tad closer. “Right now I’m of no mind to find out. So whether you like it or not, I’m watching out for you.”
His gaze dropped to her lips before releasing her. No doubt he meant to intimidate her, but she had no intention of letting him.
She glared up at him. “Don’t do me any favors,” she snapped. Turning, she walked away as quickly as her legs could carry her.
“Wouldn’t think of it,” he called, his voice bouncing off the brick walls.
Just as she reached the end of the alley she spotted a movement in the shadows and gasped. Something… She opened her mouth to call to the sheriff, but a soft mew made her hold her tongue. Hand on her chest, she watched the cat streak away.
She snapped her mouth shut. Appalled that her first thought in the face of possible danger had been to summon the sheriff’s help, she gave herself a mental kick and hurried away.
Branch watched her move alongside the building, the moon turning her hair into bright orange flames. For some reason he even sensed her glancing back at him before vanishing around the corner, though he couldn’t see her face.
A female detective. He shook his head. Still hard to believe. What would be next? A female sheriff? What would possess a woman to take on such a difficult and thankless job?
Now that he knew her true identity she seemed even smaller in stature. Even more vulnerable. Crime solving was a tough business even for a man. He’d been shot at more times than he cared to remember and once took a bullet to the shoulder.
The fool woman had no idea what she’d gotten herself into. He’d seen the bodies. The two victims never even had a chance to defend themselves.
Miss Madison packed a small pocket gun, which, in his opinion, was just this side of a suicide special. It was suicide to depend on one, and suicide was about all they were good for.
Find the killer. That’s what he had to do. He also better keep his eye on the intriguing lady detective. A very close eye.
The following morning, Katie slipped the silk hairnet over the twisted knot in back. The room she shared with Mary-Lou was located directly over the kitchen, which was why Chef Gassy’s shrill voice could be heard coming through the open window.
Hardly a day went by when he didn’t have a conniption about one thing or another.
Mary-Lou worked a black lisle stocking up her leg and attached it to her garter. “Wonder what got him riled up this time.”
Katie glanced out the window just in time to see the icema
n racing to his horse and wagon. The poor man practically flew into the driver’s seat. He took off lickety-split, his wagon swaying from side to side as it swung around the corner and raced up Main.
Things quieted down with the iceman’s departure only to start up again as Katie and Mary-Lou reached the ground floor. As far as Katie could make out from the thick-accented rants, someone had either trampled on his pies or crumbled his ties. Hard to tell which.
Just as Katie entered the kitchen a gray-striped cat shot past her. She recognized it as the same cat that had startled her the night before.
For some reason her presence only fueled the chef’s anger. “Look, look,” he yelled, pointing to the row of pies on the cooling shelf. The rest he said in French, but Katie didn’t need an interpreter to know that the whipped cream paw prints were the source of his fury.
“I ask you,” he said, switching back to English. “I ask you. How did cat get in? Doors locked. Windows locked. Still cat get in. Spook Cat!”
The mystery of Spook Cat still hadn’t been resolved by that afternoon. After a thorough search, Katie finally found the cat hiding in back of the cleaning supply closet.
Dropping down on her haunches, Katie held out her hand and talked softly. “Well hello, there, Spook Cat. I wish you could tell me how you got inside.”
She hadn’t let the cat in, that was for sure. That meant someone had either entered or left the house after her. The question was who and why?
Gazing at her with amber eyes, the cat flipped its tail.
“If only you could talk.”
Her voice seemed to have a calming effect on him. At least he inched forward enough to allow her to stroke him on the head. But it took considerably longer before Spook Cat allowed her to pick him up and carry him outside.
The moment she set him down he sauntered away and disappeared around the side of the house, taking the answers to her questions with him.
Chapter 15
Katie’s favorite part of the day was the early-morning hour when the locals came for breakfast. The rail workers were the first to arrive, along with the local cattlemen. While everyone else paid seventy-five cents for meals, train personnel only had to pay a quarter. This didn’t sit well with the cattlemen, and the two sides seldom socialized.
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