by L D Marr
Roz looked at the scene in the room and on the bed, but she didn’t speak. Her eyes widened, but unlike the others, she remained calm and collected. Cowboy Bob was surprised to feel flustered at her presence.
Such cool headedness! he thought.
Cowboy Bob looked at Roz, but he didn’t acknowledge her. Then he looked back at Loretta and saw the suspicion hardening her beautiful blue eyes.
⌛
Roz ignored both Cowboy Bob and Loretta. She stood frozen in shock by the sight of Gertie’s dead body. Then she noticed Buttons weaving toward her through the crowd of legs. He reached her and pressed his soft fur against her ankles. Roz wanted to talk to him mentally, but now didn’t seem like the best time for that.
Roused from sleep, Cowboy Bob had no hat covering his rumpled blonde hair. Dressed only in red long johns, this version of him was a disturbing cross between the man Roz was used to seeing in the daytime and the one she had seen the night before.
She expected Cowboy Bob, as the saloon’s owner, to take charge of the situation, but he stood silent. He kept looking back and forth between her and Loretta with a strange, uncomfortable expression on his face.
Well, someone needs to do something here. I guess it will be me, Roz decided.
“We must get the sheriff! And deputy Jonah,” she said in her most authoritative librarian’s tone.
Silence. Then Madame spoke up.
“Let’s straighten the poor dear’s clothes and cover her before those men see her,” Madame.
She moved forward and reached out a hand toward Gertie. But with surprising speed, Roz rushed to Madame, grabbed her hand, and forced it away.
“No! She’s been murdered! No one must touch Gertie’s body until the sheriff has investigated the scene of the crime,” Roz insisted.
“Well! I never!” said Madame.
Madame looked at Roz with a tight, offended expression. Roz let go of her hand, but she stood next to her. She planted herself next to the bed.
All the others were still silent. Roz noticed them looking at her with mouths and eyes open wide in shocked surprise. No one talked back to Madame like that, and none of them would dare lift a hand to her.
But Roz was unconcerned about the insubordinate behavior she’d just exhibited.
I’ll have to guard Gertie from these women and possibly Cowboy Bob, she thought. They clearly don’t understand the importance of maintaining a pristine crime scene.
Now she looked around at everyone packed into the crowded room. A dozen women and Cowboy Bob. There was hardly room to breathe. Roz would normally feel claustrophobic—faint and short of breath—under such stuffy conditions. But she was surprised to notice that she felt completely comfortable. More physically alert than ever, in fact.
I must be experiencing a rush of adrenaline from this emergency, Roz thought.
In the monumental distraction of the discovery of the murder, her recent sight of the long, sharp teeth in her mouth was forgotten. Pushed roughly out of her mind and not likely to be brought back.
“Who will go get the sheriff?” Roz asked the gaping group. “I’d go, but someone needs to stay here and make sure that everything remains undisturbed.”
More silence. Cowboy Bob stood on the other side of Madame and stared into the eyes of Loretta. She stood staring back at him as if stuck in his gaze.
Then Roz heard the low sound of some of the women whispering to each other.
“Has she gone crazy?” someone asked.
But no one spoke up to volunteer.
Madame is our manager, so she’s the obvious choice if Cowboy Bob isn’t going to respond, Roz thought.
“How about you?” Roz asked her.
Madame sniffed at her and spoke. “We most certainly can’t go out on the street when we’ve just received the shock of our lives! A proper woman needs to lie down again after such a fright. And anyway, we’ve just rose from our beds, and we haven’t had time to complete our toilets. No real lady would go out in public in such a condition!”
“Well someone has to go,” said Roz. “We can’t just stand here all day staring at each other next to a dead body!”
“And furthermore, miss,” Madame stabbed a finger into Roz’s side and addressed her. “How dare you speak to me in such a tone! I understand that you might have become mentally unstable in the trauma of this situation, but your uppity rudeness has just cost you your job. Right Cowboy Bob?”
Madame and Roz both turned and looked at him for confirmation.
The saloon owner broke his eyes away from Loretta’s and shook himself out of the trance he appeared to be in.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“I said that none of us ladies are going out on the street dressed in our night clothes and with no proper makeup on. And it’s time to give this useless excuse for a saloon girl her walking papers, right Cowboy Bob? You heard how she just spoke to me,” said Madame.
Cowboy Bob looked from Madame to Roz and back.
“Now hold on there,” he answered. “I’ll be the one to do the hiring and firing around here. And I’ll go get the sheriff myself. I’m not going to send defenseless young women out on the street when there’s a murderer about. You all just get back to your rooms now,” he said to the room at large. “This here’s no place for you gals to be.”
“Why thank you, Cowboy Bob. You’re quite the gentleman,” said Madame.
“I’ll just put my day clothes on and get over there. And you gals can rest tonight. The saloon will be closed in respect for Gertie’s passing. We’ll open again tomorrow night. The show must go on. You all get along now,” he said.
But none of the women moved. Madame made shooing motions at them with her hands. Finally, with sluggish movements, the women started to clear the room. Loretta left too.
“I’ll stay here to watch the body until the sheriff arrives,” Roz said to Cowboy Bob, in case he’d missed that part.
“Oh no, you won’t!” said Madame. “Cowboy Bob just said no young women should be in here. Now you get. I’ll stay here and care for poor Gertie’s remains.”
Roz noticed Madame eying the gold and diamond earrings suspended from the dead woman’s ears. She suspected that Madame still had intentions to alter the crime scene in some way.
Madame grabbed Roz’s arm and pulled it toward the door. Roz felt the tugging, but she felt it as something incredibly weak compared to the strength in her arm. She had no problem ignoring the tug, and she didn’t move a muscle. Madame grunted and pulled harder.
Cowboy Bob looked down and chuckled, despite the grimness of the scene.
“You can turn that filly loose, Madame,” he said. “She’s got the gumption to handle the task. Remember, she’s an educated librarian from back east. Probably read all about murders and solving them and such.”
“Humph!” said Madame.
But she stopped her useless tugging on Roz’s arm. Madame looked up at Cowboy Bob’s face and apparently saw no encouragement there.
“Very well, I’ll retire to my boudoir,” she said. “But you might be sorry you trusted this sassy out-of-towner for such important work. She’s no better than she should be. Wouldn’t be surprised if she takes the young thing’s jewelry when no one’s watching. But I’ll know if anything is missing,” she warned Roz.
Then Madame lifted her small round chin high, turned on her slipper-clad heels, and stomped out the door.
Now alone in the room with only Cowboy Bob, a dead body, and Buttons, Roz felt awkward. She remembered him sucking on her neck in the bizarre dream of the night before, and she blushed.
She looked down at Buttons who was staring back up at her.
“That was no dream,” he said in her mind.
“What?” Roz asked him mentally.
She felt very confused. But now Cowboy Bob spoke—not in his Texas-accented voice but in the cultured voice she’d heard the night before.
“There is much I need to explain to you, but there is no time now
. The other women will notice if I linger alone with you here. And, as you said, I must bring the sheriff. I doubt if he’ll be of any real assistance in this matter, but the law requires it.”
Roz looked at him with wide eyes. She still didn’t want to believe the disturbing encounter with him the night before had been real, but its reality seemed to be forcing itself on her.
“I will return to you in the night, and all will be made clear,” he said. “Until then, my special one,” he said.
Before Roz could decline another unwanted nocturnal visit, Cowboy Bob left her with speed that was fast but only human.
She heard his boot heels pound away down the wood-floored hallway. Then down the stairs. The fainter sound of their taps across the stone-tiled floor of the saloon. The even fainter creak of the wooden swing door opening and closing. More light taps of boots on the stone-lined street outside the saloon. And then he was out of range of her hearing.
How did I hear that noise from so far away? she wondered. My hearing was never this good before now.
“Uh huh,” said Buttons from down by her feet.
Roz squatted down on the floor next to him and looked into his deep gold cat eyes.
“What’s going on here?” she asked him mentally. “Do you know?”
“No. I don’t know any more than you do,” he said. “But I know something strange is going on, and something even stranger happened last night. Something that creepy cowboy did to both of us. I tried to stop him, but I couldn’t. I’m sorry. I failed you.”
Buttons tipped his furry face down toward the floor and tucked his chin into his chest. Roz sat all the way down on the small braid rug that was next to Gertie’s bed. She picked Buttons up, hugged him against her heart with one hand, and petted the top of his head with the other.
“You didn’t fail me. You tried to protect me. You’re the bravest cat in the whole world.”
Roz continued to reassure him as best she could. Buttons looked up at her and sighed. He snuggled closer. She heard the low, comforting sound of a purr starting. It grew louder. Then Buttons’ eyes closed, and the purring grew softer as he fell asleep in her arms.
Chapter 8
Roz was still holding Buttons when she stood up at the sound of Cowboy Bob returning with the sheriff and Deputy Jonah. Again, her keen hearing detected the sound of their boots approaching the saloon outside on the street. Then the louder noise of the saloon doors swinging open and boots passing through it on the way to the stairs.
When the three men reached Gertie’s room, all of them entered. The sheriff and Jonah removed their hats, but Cowboy Bob kept his on.
“Howdy ma’am,” the sheriff and Jonah said at the same time.
“Hello,” Roz greeted them.
She stepped away from the bed, so they could approach it.
The sheriff hung back, but Jonah moved forward.
“I understand that nothing has been touched,” he said, turning to Roz. “Thank you for having the presence of mind to make sure of that.”
Roz smiled at him but didn’t say anything, and he turned his attention back to the body. Jonah took a magnifying glass out of his pocket and used it to look closer at Gertie, her fingernails, the stake, and the area all around her.
“There’s no trace of skin or blood under her fingernails, so she didn’t fight back. It looks like this killing was a surprise to her,” he said. “Maybe it happened fast, or maybe it was someone she knew. There’s human hair around her bed and on the rug, but it’s from too many different people to tell me much. There’s also some cat hair.”
Buttons sniffed.
“Anyway, I’m done with checking the body,” said Jonah, “but we should call the town doctor to certify the cause of death and time if that’s possible. We’ll also need to interview all the women in the house as well as Cowboy Bob.”
“I think I’ll assign this investigation to you, deputy,” said Sheriff DuBois. “But I’ll go get the doctor and help you with the interviews when I get back.”
“Thanks sheriff,” said Jonah.
The sheriff put on his hat back on and left the room. On his way down the hall, Roz heard him talking to the women who must have been standing in their doorways.
“We’ve got this all taken care of ladies. Don’t you worry about it.”
Inside the room, Jonah spoke to Cowboy Bob.
“We need to interview each person separately. Can you get all the women to go into the saloon? Then we can do the interviews at a separate table, so everyone can talk in private.”
“Sure thing, deputy,” said Cowboy Bob. “I’ll gather all the women folk and get them down to the barroom.”
Cowboy Bob gave Roz a quick, inexplicable look that made her uncomfortable. Then he turned and left the room.
Alone with Jonah, Roz felt suddenly shy, but she also felt an intense attraction to him. She hadn’t noticed his enticing smell until now. It stirred some strange hunger deep within her. The texture of his tan skin made her even more hungry. Especially where it showed on the neck above his collar.
Jonah spoke to her, and Roz blinked.
“I can understand if you don’t want to keep our dinner date tonight,” he said. “But I’d still like to take you out.”
The thought of canceling the dinner shook Roz, but she stayed cool and collected.
“This murder is horrendous, but I still want to have dinner with you,” said Roz. “You said there’s a mystery you wanted to tell me about, and now there’s two.”
“Yes, you’re right. That first mystery is still gnawing at me. Now I’m wondering if it’s related to this crime. I’d sure like to discuss it with someone, and I see you have some knowledge of what to do at a crime scene. You’re probably the only one in this town who knows anything about that besides me. So, I’d greatly appreciate it and your company,” said Jonah.
The dinner was still on! Roz drew an unseen inward sigh of relief. But she realized that she’d been alone with Jonah in this room for a while, and someone might notice and comment on it.
“I look forward to our dinner then. But for now, I’ll go down to the saloon and wait with the others,” said Roz.
“We’ll have to go a little later than we planned. Right after all the interviews are done.”
“That’s perfect,” said Roz.
She left the room with Buttons padding right behind her.
Chapter 9
Down in the saloon, Cowboy Bob sat next to Loretta at a private table while they waited for their interviews. They spoke to each other in hushed tones.
“When I heard the screaming, the first thing I thought of was you. I know it’s disrespectful, but I was relieved it was someone else who got killed,” he confessed. “That could just as easily have been you with a stake through your heart. Like I said, I don’t own you, and I don’t tell you what to do. But could you be more careful about bringing men to your room until we find this low-down scum of a lady killer?”
They stared into each other’s eyes, and a single tear dripped from hers.
“Oh, Cowboy Bob!” said Loretta. “I didn’t think you cared at all, and I still don’t know for sure that you do. I didn’t bring that man to my room last night. I just said that to get you jealous. But it didn’t work. And the truth is, I’m not going to bring any other men up there. You’re the only man I want, even if you don’t want me.”
Loretta’s tears flowed faster. She leaned against the back of her rough wooden chair and hugged herself.
Cowboy Bob couldn’t resist reaching his long red leather-clad arms out to pull her to him in a hug. Loretta sobbed softly against his chest.
What a confusing position I’m now in, he thought. I still have loving feelings for this woman, but I’ve had to choose another for practical reasons.
He looked over at Roz, who sat among the other women, to see if she was watching. But her eyes were glued on Deputy Jonah.
What? Why is she still looking at that lowly deputy? he wondered. Now that
she’s been transformed, and I’ve lit her fire, she should have eyes only for me. No mere mortal man can compete with me in stirring a woman’s passion! Oh well. After we consummate our physical desire tonight, whatever interest she has in that deputy will certainly wither and die.
Cowboy Bob didn’t notice that when he thought of Loretta, the word “love” came into his mind, but it didn’t come to mind when he thought about Roz.
Chapter 10
A few hours later, Roz sat in the diner with Jonah at a large polished-wood table. They were far enough from the other diners that they could speak privately. Stanley, the diner’s portly proprietor, appeared next to their table to take their order.
“What do you have on the menu that isn’t made with meat?” Jonah asked him. “This lady is a vegetarian, but she eats cheese and milk.”
“I can make you noodles with cheese, baked beans and bread, or a cooked cheese sandwich,” he said to Roz.
Stanley wiped his hands on the somewhat stained apron he wore over a loose white shirt.
“And I can make you a baked potato with cream, fresh greens, and some grilled vegetables. Would you like a glass of milk too?” Stanley asked.
Roz considered the list of food items. Normally, she enjoyed eating everything he’d just mentioned. But right now, for some strange reason, none of those foods sounded appetizing at all. And even though she’d had nothing to eat or drink all day, she wasn’t the least bit hungry or thirsty.
Well that wasn’t exactly true. She looked at Jonah, and suddenly, she was hungry after all. A strange, unfamiliar hunger stirred within her. The smell of Jonah was making her hungry!
Roz blushed when she had that realization.
“I’m sorry, but my appetite seems to have deserted me,” she said. “Perhaps the disturbing events of the day have taken it away.”
She looked up at Stanley. Although he appeared clean, and she was sure he’d washed, Roz detected an odor coming from him. Again, she felt hunger. Although the hunger wasn’t as strong as what she felt for Jonah.
