Calico Spy

by Margaret Brownley

  Pulling back, Katie dropped on her haunches to peer around the corner—one of the tricks taught at the Pinkerton detective school. People looked up, not down, and she was less likely to be seen close to the ground.

  The lone figure was easy to spot. Miss Thatcher walked slowly but with purposeful steps, as if this particular path had been taken many times before. Again, it appeared she was wearing her nightgown. Filmy fabric flowed from her like spilled milk.

  Katie shook her head in disbelief. What was the woman thinking?

  Earlier the wind had kicked up and the dust made it hard to breathe, but tonight the air was still. Even nature seemed to hold its breath.

  Lifting the corner of her shawl to her nose, Katie followed at a discreet distance. Some detectives covered their faces in mud so as not to be seen. She found a shawl just as effective, though nothing would adequately hide her in this bright moonlight. Her goose would be cooked should Miss Thatcher turn around, but she would just have to deal with that problem should the need arise.

  The road came to a dead end ahead, but Miss Thatcher turned and crossed over the railroad tracks. Katie took cover beneath the shadow of the only tree in the area—a large cottonwood.

  What was the woman doing? There was nothing here but empty fields. Could the dorm matron be meeting someone? In her nightgown?

  Presently, Miss Thatcher did something completely unexpected. She raised her arms over her head and swayed back and forth like a sapling in the wind. Katie shook her head and blinked. It soon became clear that the dorm matron was dancing. Her face floated over the ruffled neck of her nightgown like a second moon—a plainer, less brilliant moon. Her eyes gleamed like polished stones. Her feet moved in a slow, dreamlike waltz. She held her arms in such a way as if dancing with a partner that only she could see. Her slender body seemed to move to the rhythm of some inner music.

  Katie’s brain clicked. Of course. She should have known. Miss Thatcher was sleepwalking! That would certainly explain her attire. The thought was followed by another. If she danced in her sleep, what else was she capable of doing while in slumber?

  Katie tried to think of everything she’d heard or read about somnambulism, but it wasn’t much. She did know that it had been blamed for many crimes, including violent ones. From Allan Pinkerton she’d learned about the strange case of French detective Robert Ledru. While investigating a crime, he’d discovered, much to his horror, that he had done the deadly deed himself while sound asleep.

  Did Miss Thatcher kill Priscilla and Ginger and not even know it? Hard as it was to believe, Katie couldn’t discount the possibility. Proving such a thing would be difficult if not altogether impossible.

  As suddenly as Miss Thatcher had started dancing she stopped. She then cut across the field toward the Harvey House. Instead of her usual military march, tonight her movements were slow, dreamlike, as if she were being pulled by an invisible rope.

  Katie followed a distance behind. She waited for Miss Thatcher to enter the house before running up the alley and around back.

  She pushed against the dining room door, but it held tight. No, no, no! Please don’t let it be true. Please don’t let the door be locked.

  Dropping down on hands and knees, she frantically felt on the ground and found the spoon. Someone had moved it from the doorframe. But who?

  A movement made her look up. Spook Cat peered at her from behind the glass door. She groaned. Dumb cat. “Now look what you’ve done. See if I give you any more milk!”

  Jumping to her feet, she grabbed the handle and gave it a good shake. The cat took off, but the door remained firm.

  Running around the house like a dog with a bone to bury, she checked every window and door. Never before had she encountered such a fortress. During her five years as a detective, she had broken into hotel rooms, offices, private homes, and even an insane asylum, but the restaurant was locked up tighter than a miser’s purse. Every window was barred. Every lock burglar proof. Fred Harvey had spared no expense in installing the most up-to-date security measures.

  She had no choice but to try and wake her roommate. She searched around for something to throw and carried a handful of gravel to the street side of the house. The first stone hit the bedroom window with a ping. She waited. When Mary-Lou failed to appear, Katie tossed another stone and then another. A whole handful of pebbles later, she gave up.

  Just her luck to have a roommate who slept like a rock in a well.

  Pulling her shawl tight around her shoulders, she followed the narrow path between the two buildings. Her back against the brick wall, she slid to the ground.

  She couldn’t see the moon, but its silvery sheen made the narrow strip of sky overhead shine like satin ribbon.

  Okay, God, what am I supposed to do now?

  Sighing, she hugged her knees to her chest and yawned. She was tired, so tired. Her lids drifted downward. She forced her eyes open with a shake of her head.

  Got to think. That’s the only way she could stay awake. Go over the facts of the case, the clues. Soon enough her thoughts turned to the note on her pillow. Who would leave such a message?

  Coming up with no plausible answer, her thoughts drifted and her eyelids felt heavy as lead. She shook her head, yawned, and patted herself on the cheeks, but none of it did any good. She tried humming, but that only helped for a while.

  Tired… she was so utterly bone-weary tired….

  A shadowy form appeared at the end of the alley. Heart pounding, Katie reached for her gun. Much to her horror, the holster was empty. God, no. This can’t be happening. She frantically checked her pockets, her waistband, the ground. Where was it?

  A glimpse of a moonlike face hovered over her followed by the glint of a knife. The blade flashed through the air, and Katie screamed.

  Chapter 22

  Katie, it’s me!”

  Katie battled her way through the sleep-induced fog. A dark form slowly came into focus. “Sheriff? Branch? Is that you?”

  “It’s me, all right.” Kneeling next to her, he held her by the arms and shook her gently as if to bring her to full consciousness.

  “W–what happened?” she stammered.

  “That’s what I want to know. You sure know how to scare a fellow.” He sounded both angry and relieved, like a parent whose child had narrowly escaped injury after running in front of a racing horse. “When I saw you here I thought—”

  She drew in her breath.

  His fingers pressed into her flesh. “Are you okay?” The concern in his voice added to her dismay. Controlling her emotions when they were at loggerheads was hard enough, but this new, gentler side of him made it altogether impossible.

  “Yes,” she said. “I—I must have fallen asleep.” What an utterly foolish thing to do. She’d spent many a night shadowing suspects and had managed to stay awake and alert without any difficulty. But never before had her job required such physically demanding work. Anyone who made a living working in a restaurant deserved the deepest respect.

  He released her. “Well, you sure picked a funny place to get some shut-eye.” The edge had returned to his voice, and that made it easier to control her emotions. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  “I got locked out.”

  “Locked out, eh? Well, you better figure out a way back inside before Miss Thatcher catches you.”

  “What time is it?”

  “A little after one.”

  She groaned. Howie Howard wouldn’t report to work for at least another four or five hours. Branch must really think she was an amateur now.

  He lifted his gaze to the dark building behind her and shook his head. “You can’t stay here.” He shifted his weight. “You better come back to the house with me.”

  She glanced at him askew. “I—I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Why not? It’s just up the road a piece. You’ll be safe there.”

  “If my boss finds out I spent the night at a man’s house, I’ll lose my job.”
>
  “Oh?” His eyebrows arched. “And what boss is that? Pinkerton, Harvey, or me?”

  “You’re not my boss.”

  “No, but I’m doing a better job of watching out for you than the others.”

  She didn’t want him watching out for her. Yet the very thought sent warm currents rushing through her. In an effort to calm her confused emotions she blew a strand of hair away from her face. “I was referring to Mr. Harvey.”

  He sat back on his heels. “I’m sure a proper Englishman like him would insist you spend the night at the hotel.”

  As tempting as a hotel sounded, the better choice was to stay where she was and pray someone let her in before Pickens or Thatcher found her. “I better wait for Howie. Maybe I can bribe him not to say anything.”

  Branch moved to her side and leaned his back against the building, his shoulders brushing against hers.

  “W–what are you doing?”

  He stretched his legs along the length of hers and removed his hat. “Settling down for the night. Can’t let my partner in crime stay here by herself.” He folded his arms in front and rested his head against the brick wall.

  “Oh, now we’re partners.”

  “For the time being.”

  “I never agreed to your conditions.”

  “You will tonight if you know what’s good for you.”

  She eyed his profile. “You should go. There’s no sense us both losing sleep.”

  “Do you think I’ll get any sleep knowing you’re out here alone?”

  “I’m awake now and have my gun with me.” Recalling her dream, she patted her pocket, the bulky feel giving her a measure of comfort.

  “That makes two of us.”

  She blew out her cheeks. “Are you serious? About staying?”

  “Yep.”

  “W–would… would you stay if I were a man?”

  “Absolutely not.” After a beat he added, “Wouldn’t be as much fun.”

  “Fun? You call this fun?” She sighed and tugged her shawl tighter.

  “It’s not often I get to spend the night with a pretty woman.”

  Heat rose up her neck, and she was grateful for the cover of night. No one had ever called her pretty. But then, he probably didn’t mean it in the conventional sense. He was just being polite.

  “Don’t you have a wife waiting for you at home?” she asked. He never mentioned one. Nor did he wear a wedding band, but neither did he have the needy or hastily put-together look of a bachelor.

  “Not married,” he said.

  Her heart gave a little lurch, though she had no idea why. So he wasn’t married. It made no difference to her, either way.

  Still, it was hard to believe that such an attractive man hadn’t been snatched up by some pretty miss.

  “You still haven’t told me what you’re doing out here,” he said, breaking the silence.

  “Miss Thatcher left the house again tonight, and I followed her.”

  “Why so interested in her? Surely you don’t think that she—?”

  “I don’t know what to think. But I do know one thing—she’s a sleepwalker.”

  “A sleepwalker?” He shifted his weight, and his shoulder rubbed against hers. “Is that what she was doing last night?”

  “I’m pretty sure it was.”

  “Well, I’ll be. So what does she do when she sleepwalks?”

  “She dances.”

  “What?”

  She described Miss Thatcher dancing beneath the silvery moon.

  He shook his head. “Never knew anyone who walked in their sleep. Let alone danced.”

  “It’s not all that rare.” Recalling her nightmare, she shivered. “Some people have even committed crimes in their sleep.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “It’s true.” She then told him about a well-known case where a man got off on a murder charge because he claimed he was sleepwalking at the time. “You don’t suppose Miss Thatcher is the killer, do you?”

  He rubbed his chin. “Based on the crime scene, I’m fairly convinced our killer is a man.”

  Momentarily distracted by the pronoun our, she cleared her voice. “There’s more.” If he was going to sit up all night with her, the least she could do to show her appreciation was to share information. She reached into her pocket for the small square of paper. “I found this pinned to my pillow.”

  He took the paper from her and held it up. The moonlight had grown dimmer, the shadows darker. “What does it say?”

  “It says, ‘I know who did it.’”

  “Hmm. Why would anyone pin this to your pillow unless—”

  “He or she knows I’m an operative.” The thought had occurred to her, of course, and it worried her. “Far as I know, you’re the only one who knows my reason for being here. Harvey doesn’t even know. He thinks the detective he hired is a male working on the outside.”

  “Then how do you explain the note?”

  “I can’t.”

  He folded the paper. “Do you mind if I keep this?”

  “I’m required to send everything to headquarters.”

  “I’ll give it back. I just want a chance to study it in the light.”

  “It won’t help much. The words were cut out of a newspaper. What I don’t understand is why someone went to all the trouble to write it. It doesn’t really say anything.”

  “If we knew the answer to that, we’d know who wrote it.” He tucked the paper into his vest pocket.

  She moistened her lips. “The other girls told me that you and Ginger were friends.”

  “Guess you could say that.” He fell silent for a moment. “She knew how I hated wearing a dinner coat, so she’d bring supper to me whenever she knew I was working late. Her invalid mother lives in Iowa, so I’d give her a little extra to send home.” He blew out a ragged breath. “No one should die that young.” His harsh tone grated on her ears. “I won’t rest till I bring the killer to justice.”

  The passion in his voice sent chills down her spine. She knew that kind of passion. Understood it. He meant every word, and a feeling of profound relief washed over her. Branch Whitman wasn’t guilty of anything, except perhaps in his own mind.

  “We’ll find him,” she said, surprised that her earlier doubts had disappeared. Somehow he made her believe that anything was possible, even cracking a puzzling case.

  The darkness hid all but the soft glow of his eyes, and she sensed something like a silent pledge pass between them.

  For the longest while neither spoke. No spoken words were needed.

  She rested her head against the brick wall. “It’s so peaceful,” she said, breaking the silence. It was hard to believe that two violent crimes had been committed in this very alley. She remembered thinking something similar upon visiting a battlefield years after the war had ended.

  “Don’t let the quiet fool you,” he said, his voice soft as velvet in her ears. “I had to break up a card game earlier when one of the men starting shooting. Even now, trouble’s brewing somewhere in town. You can bet on it.”

  “How do you know?” she asked.

  “I have faith in human nature. That’s how.”

  Her laughter solicited a chuckle from him.

  “Do you mind if I ask why you became a detective?” He gazed into her eyes. “Doesn’t seem like a job a woman would cotton to.”

  “Actually, there’s not much to tell. When I was in grade school, a friend gave me a book titled The Revelations of a Lady Detective. The name of the protagonist was Mrs. Pascal, and she was a widow left in financial ruin by her husband. She earned a living by solving crimes, and I was absolutely intrigued. I’d never heard of a lady detective, and I decided I wanted to be just like her. Without the widow part, of course.”

  She never thought she’d have the nerve to follow such a dream. Never really even took it seriously until Nathan Cole broke her heart by running off with her sister. But then she decided she had nothing to lose.

  “Do you
think me strange?” she asked. Lord knows, her family certainly did, even after proving successful at her job.

  “Strange, no,” he said. “Unusual maybe.”

  “My father had a fit when I told him what I wanted to do.”

  “I can imagine.”

  Actually that was an understatement. The truth was that her father threw her out of the house and told her not to come back until she had gained some sense. It wasn’t long after that final argument that he had his accident and was found dead by the side of the road. Now, as always, the thought brought pangs of guilt.

  “Not sure I’d want a daughter of mine chasing after criminals,” he said.

  “Would you feel the same if you had a son?”

  “I have a son and, yes, I feel exactly the same.”

  His having a son surprised her. “How old is he?” she asked. “Your son.”

  “He’ll soon be eight. His name is Andy.”

  “Shouldn’t you be home with him?”

  “I had some out-of-town business to attend to. I knew I’d be late, so I asked my housekeeper to take Andy home with her. She treats him like family.”

  “You’re lucky to have someone you can depend on,” she said.

  “No argument there. After my wife died, I prayed for someone to help me care for my son, and God sent an angel.”

  Never had she known a man to talk so frankly about his faith, and her opinion of him went up another notch. “Your wife… How did she die?”

  “Tornado,” he said simply. “In ’72.”

  “I’m sorry.” When he offered no other details, she changed the subject. “Why did you become a lawman?”

  “Not much to tell. I actually ran a freight company. Was pretty good at it, too. But that was before the tornado. The town as we knew it no longer existed, and I took whatever work I could find. When we learned the train was coming to town, Reverend Bushwell talked me into running for sheriff.”

  “Any regrets?” she asked.

  “About being a lawman? Nope.” He tilted his head to the side as he gazed at her. “You? Any regrets about becoming an operative?”

  Regrets? Some, but if given the same choice she would do it all over again. “If I hadn’t become a detective I don’t know what I would have done.”