Petticoat Detective

by Margaret Brownley

  She walked past Coral. Moments later she stood in her room staring at herself in the mirror. Tom Colton had recognized her when no one else in town did. What a nuisance. From now on, she’d have to dress like a proper scarlet lady—or risk having him guess the truth.

  Tom sat in the hotel lobby. Tapping the arm of the chair, he watched the door. It was the third day straight he’d waited for Amy. If that wasn’t bad enough, she had the annoying habit of popping up in his thoughts at the most inopportune times. He even imagined seeing her in town on occasion. One poor woman he’d mistaken for Amy had run from him like a scared rabbit without giving him a chance to apologize.

  He grimaced and rubbed his forehead. He didn’t even know Amy’s full name. Not that it mattered; his only interest was business. He could never fall for such a woman. Not like his brother …

  Dave, oh, Dave. He’d been in town for nearly three weeks, and what did he have to show for his efforts? Nothing! He was no closer to finding his brother’s killer than he was when he first arrived. No closer to finding out if his brother really had turned over a new leaf. If anything, the opposite seemed to be true, and he had more questions than answers. That was the reason he wanted to see Amy. The only reason.

  Was she avoiding him on purpose? Or did she simply have nothing to report? Frustrated with his own lack of progress, he decided it was time for action. If Amy wouldn’t come to him, he would go to her.

  Only this time, he’d keep his eye out for bullets. Better make that both eyes.

  It was just after dark when he arrived at Miss Lillian’s Parlor House and Fine Boots. A thin crescent moon seemingly mocked his presence as he tethered his horse and walked up the pathway to the porch. A new sign had been tacked onto the front door. SHOOTING LESSONS, TWO FIFTY.

  His eyebrows shot up. Miss Lillian was at it again. The way these women wielded their firearms, she’d be advertising a funeral home next.

  He rang the bell, and a tall dark-skinned woman, whose name he couldn’t remember, opened the door.

  She gave him a once-over before letting him in. A strange screech-owl sound greeted him as he followed her past the rampant display of boots for sale and into the parlor. Miss Lillian played the piano as she sang. The woman couldn’t carry a tune in a corked jug, but that didn’t stop her none. “If you can’t sing well, sing loud” seemed to be her motto.

  All the working women were present and seated upon ottomans amid clouds of colorful silk and taffeta skirts. The upholstered chairs was reserved for johns or, as Miss Lillian liked to call them, guests.

  Several men were scattered about the room holding glasses of alcohol and puffing on cigars or pipes. Some Tom recognized from town, but not all. One he even remembered seeing in church on Sunday. Trying not to let his dislike for the place show, his gaze lit on Amy.

  For some reason, she stood out from the rest. Her eyes widened at the sight of him. Tonight she wore a dazzling green gown. Though the room was cool, she held a fan in such a way as to allow a tantalizing peek at a creamy white shoulder, while keeping the valley of her neckline hidden.

  Compared to the others, she looked as prim and proper as a preacher’s wife at a prayer meeting. Given her attire, that was saying something.

  Clearly, she was surprised to see him, but she looked away when he took the seat next to her.

  The men came in various sizes and shapes and ranged in age from late twenties to early fifties. They all had one thing in common; they all sported shiny new boots, putting his old leather dogs to shame.

  Miss Lillian finished her song and scooted around on the piano bench to face them. Though her singing voice gave her much to be modest about, she accepted the thin applause with an air of entitlement.

  With a wave of a jeweled hand, she brushed aside a red curl and pressed her hands together. “Tonight, gentlemen, I have a treat for you. Amy has agreed to play ‘For Eloise’ by Mr. Lewd Wig Bay-toven.”

  Amy rose amid a round of clapping hands. “That’s ‘Für Elise.’ ” She smiled before adding, “By Mr. Ludwig van Beethoven.”

  It was all Tom could do not to laugh out loud at Miss Lillian’s gaffe. Instead, he cleared his throat and tried to look appropriately at ease.

  Amy seated herself on the piano stool and raised her hands to the keys. She looked perfectly composed and comfortable, as if the piano were but a mere extension of her.

  Almost instantly, the lilting tune filled the air, and he listened with rapt attention.

  It didn’t seem possible that this was the same tuneless piano that moments earlier had sounded like a dying cow. Even the occasional wrong note didn’t spoil the pleasing musical sound.

  There were four other men in the room, and they all sat forward. Amy’s playing seemed to draw them in like a magnet.

  All too soon, she completed the piece. She stood and accepted the applause with a modest bow.

  “Bravo!” called out a bearded man who saluted her with his whiskey glass.

  “Well done!” cried another.

  The bald-headed man directly across from Amy gave her a broad wink and patted the seat next to him. His complexion was as lumpy and pitted as a bad road, and his eyes bulged out like a toad’s.

  Tom felt a strange and totally unexpected protective surge rush through him. Where it came from, he had no idea. It was all he could do not to drag Amy away from the leering glances of the other men.

  He balled his hands into fists to keep from acting on the impulse. What went on between these walls was none of his business. He wasn’t out to save the world. All he wanted was to find his brother’s killer.

  Either Amy didn’t notice the gesturing man or chose to ignore him. Instead, she let Colton catch her eye. For a split second it seemed as if he and Amy were the only two in the room, but the feeling passed when she took her seat.

  “Gentlemen, it’s time to choose your partners,” Miss Lillian announced.

  Tom shot to his feet. “I choose Amy.”

  The silence that followed suggested he’d acted out of turn. He glanced down at Amy, but she offered neither help nor encouragement. The guests weren’t quite so neutral, and the bald-headed man’s expression was downright hostile. If looks could kill, Tom would be gasping for his last breath. As it was, he felt compelled to loosen the bolo tie donned specially for the occasion.

  Miss Lillian’s hands fluttered around all nervous-like. “Amy is already spoken for.”

  “I believe this will speak louder.” Tom reached into his vest pocket and slapped two bills on the low table. If he didn’t watch out, Miss Lillian would send him to the poorhouse.

  Just as he thought, the madam wasn’t about to turn down such a generous amount of money. She exchanged a meaningful and maybe even an apologetic glance with Amy before shrugging to signal the matter closed.

  He frowned. Amy and the madam were evidently in cahoots. He wouldn’t put it past them to have a plan to wring him dry.

  The toad-eyed man protested, but Miss Lillian hooked an arm around his. “Would you care to have your fortune told, Mr. Newhall, on the house?”

  While the madam pacified him, the other women sprang into action and one by one led the other guests away with flirtatious chatter.

  Tom expected at the least a little friendly banter from Amy. He did, after all, save her from toad man. What he got was an angry glare before she stomped out of the room and up the stairs ahead of him.

  He had to hurry to keep up. Something told him he was in for a good tongue-lashing. Not that it worried him. Okay, maybe a little …

  Chapter 20

  Slamming the bedroom door shut, Amy whirled around to face him. “Why are you stalking me?”

  He drew back, but his innocent act didn’t fool her one whit. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

  “Every time I turn around, you’re there.” She paced back and forth. Two of tonight’s guests were on the suspect list. She and Miss Lillian had devised a plan that would have allowed her to engage each of them in c
onversation. Now, thanks to Colton, she’d missed her chance.

  “You had no right to drag me away from the other guests!”

  “Is this the thanks I get for trying to save your virtue?” He bit the words out between clenched teeth. “Or rather, what’s left of it?”

  “I don’t need your help,” she sputtered. It wasn’t just his interference that worried her; it was the way his mere presence played havoc with her senses. She felt all at once disturbed and excited and, more than anything, confused. Whatever happened to the levelheaded woman who had helped put away some of the country’s worst criminals?

  “Ah, that’s right. I forgot. The lady is armed.” He availed himself of the only chair in the room and tossed his hat on the bed. “Relax. All I want is information. We have a deal. Remember?”

  “I told you I’d be in touch if anything turned up.”

  “It’s been three days,” he said. “The guilty look on your face when I walked in tonight tells me there’s a cat in the bag, somewhere. So let’s have it.”

  She was just about to order him out of her room when she decided against it. Maybe tonight wasn’t entirely a lost cause. She stopped in front of him and forced herself to think like a proper detective.

  “How do I know you didn’t kill Rose?”

  His eyebrows shot up. “Me?” He shook his head in disbelief. “I was with you, remember?”

  “You could have killed her before entering my room.”

  He pursed his lips. “What motive would I have?”

  “Revenge. Perhaps you blame her for your brother’s death.”

  “Makes sense.” He nodded. “Makes perfect sense. Only it’s not true. I never set eyes on Rose until I saw her on the floor, dead. That’s why I mistook you for her.”

  “That could have been an act.”

  “Or it could be true,” he said. “Ask Miss Lillian what time she sent me upstairs. Less than thirty seconds later I walked into your room.”

  Miss Lillian had more or less confirmed the time line, but she wasn’t ready to let him off the hook just yet. “There’s another way in and out of the house.”

  “Oh, you mean the cellar door?”

  She blinked. “So you know about that.”

  “The night you were playing … kitty in a tree … I had just finished searching the grounds. That’s when I found the trapdoor.”

  Recalling how she had fallen into his arms that night, she blushed. Hoping he wouldn’t notice her reddening cheeks, she practically barked out the next question. “What were you searching for?”

  “Another way in and out of the house. There were only eight of us here the night Rose died, including Miss Lillian and one other … what do you call ’em … guests? I know I didn’t do it, and I’m pretty sure you didn’t, so that leaves six possible suspects.”

  “Mr. Pepper was with Buttercup.”

  He rubbed his upper lip. “That still leaves four suspects.”

  “None of whom had a motive for killing her.”

  He shrugged. “That remains to be seen. But I doubt that any of the ladies or even Mr. Pepper had the strength to do the deed. She put up quite a fight, and if you recall, I was unruffled when I walked into your room. So that leaves the possibility that an outsider entered the house through the trapdoor.”

  “There was no fight.”

  He frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Rose probably never knew what hit her. Someone snuck up from behind and hit her over the head. Her killer then searched the room. Does any of this sound familiar to you?”

  A dark cloud fleeted across his face. “I’m here for one thing and one thing alone—to find my brother’s killer! You can think what you want, but that’s the unbridled truth.”

  She lowered herself onto the bed. “The whole truth?” she asked. For all she knew, he was still a Texas Ranger tracking down the Gunnysack Bandit. That would make him a competitor.

  His eyes brimmed with emotion. “I don’t expect you to understand what it’s like to lose a sibling.”

  Her breath caught. “I know very well what it’s like,” she snapped. Why do others assume theirs is the only pain?

  The lines faded from his face. “Amy?” Before she knew it, he was on the bed next to her. “What is it? Talk to me.”

  Maybe it was his gentle tone. Or perhaps the way his gaze seemed to reach into her very soul. Whatever it was, she suddenly found herself telling him about her sister’s disappearance. It was wrong to mention anything so personal, to reveal telling details about her past, but she couldn’t help herself. It was as if an emotional volcano had erupted inside and she couldn’t stop the flow.

  He listened closely, intently, holding her gaze in the blue depths of his.

  “I was twelve at the time, and Cissy was three.” That fateful night had happened fifteen years ago, yet she remembered the details as if it was only yesterday.

  “She and I shared a room. One night she cried out in her sleep, and when I went to her she told me that a monster was trying to take her.” “There’s no such thing as a monster,” she’d assured her. “Hush, now. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

  “I waited for her to fall asleep again before tiptoeing back to my own bed. The next morning she was gone and … was nowhere to be found.” She’d cried an ocean for her lost sister and thought she had no more tears to shed, but her burning eyes told her otherwise.

  “Some people believed she might have wandered outside. Bears and wolves had been known to carry away small animals in the area. No one said as much, but I knew the dangers. A child wouldn’t have a chance against such a predator.” Wouldn’t have a chance against a monster, either.

  “Do you think that’s what happened?” he asked.

  “I don’t know what to believe.” She dabbed at her eyes. “Eventually, everyone stopped looking.” But not her. She kept track of Cissy’s age and imagined what she would look like as she got older. To this day Amy scrutinized every blond she met, each woman’s face studied to the point that some people had accused her of staring.

  “And you never heard from her again?” he asked, breaking the sudden silence.

  “Not a word.”

  He studied her. “But you don’t think she’s dead.”

  She’d never really thought about it in those exact terms. Now that she did, she knew he was right. “It’s just a feeling I have. I can’t explain it.”

  It was crazy. Everyone else believed Cissy was dead, even her own parents. People back home said Amy was foolish to live in the past. Her mother had been convinced it was the reason Amy hadn’t married and feared she was doomed to spinsterhood. Her father had simply refused to mention his missing daughter’s name, even on his deathbed. If only she could get Cissy’s last words out of her mind, perhaps she could let the past go.

  Colton’s hand on hers stunned her out of her reverie. The gentle touch of his strong fingers surprised her.

  She looked up at him, and the tenderness in his eyes nearly tore away the last of her defenses. Battling for control, she pulled her hand away, but nothing could be done for the tears.

  “The worst part is not knowing what happened to her,” she said. With death came a sense of closure, but there was no closure with Cissy. It was like living with an empty tomb.

  He nodded. “As a Texas Ranger, I saw firsthand what a missing person could do to a family.”

  Cupping her face tenderly, he brushed away her tears with his thumbs. No touch had ever affected her on such a deep level. It felt as if he’d reached into her heart and removed part of the pain.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. No gaze had ever made her feel more understood.

  He released her physically, but his gaze never left her face. Sitting together on the bed they talked—he about his brother, she about her sister.

  He leaned against the headboard and stretched out his long legs, letting his feet hang off the edge of the mattress. She sat next to him, hugging her knees. Her taffeta skirt nestled a
gainst a trouser leg, forming an intimacy between them she didn’t want to break.

  Despite their close proximity, she felt no threat—at least not from him. But the niggling inside cautioned against the dangers of forming a bond, a warning she feared might have come too late.

  “Aren’t we a fine couple,” she said, after he’d shared a humorous story about his brother; not all his memories were sad.

  He flashed a crooked smile before his face grew serious. “Have you thought about hiring a private detective to search for your sister?” he asked. “The Pinkerton agency might be a good place to start.”

  Hearing the name of her employer startled her, but she managed to keep from reacting. She’d already availed herself of the Pinkerton resources, of course, but he had no way of knowing that.

  “I heard they’re expensive,” she said, hoping that would end the discussion.

  “I’d be willing to help with expenses.”

  She stared at him, shocked. “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “Maybe if you found your sister—” He grimaced. “Amy, I hate seeing you in this place. This isn’t what God wants for you. For anyone.”

  It was all she could do to breathe. It had been a long time since anyone had shown honest interest in her welfare, and she was touched beyond words.

  “I should go,” he said, apparently mistaking her silence for censure. He hesitated. “You look like you could use some shut-eye.”

  She didn’t want to sleep; she wanted him to stay. “Wait,” she said. Slipping off the bed, she dashed across the room and reached into the top bureau drawer for the handwritten list she’d made.

  “Here’re the names you wanted.” He had no way of knowing it, but handing him that list was a sign of trust; any suspicion that he had something to do with Rose’s death had been completely put to rest.

  Standing, he took the list from her. After a quick glance, he folded the paper in fours and tucked it into his pocket. “Thank you. That’s a big help.”

  She smiled. Only then did she realize how much lighter her cares seemed. She hadn’t talked to anyone about her sister for years, and it had done her heart good to open up to him. If only she could share the rest and tell him the truth about her residence at Miss Lillian’s.