The fact that Milzie stole from people all over town troubled Ethan, but that didn’t prove anything so far as the murders and other crimes were concerned. He looked down on the burnt cabin again. “I sure wish we’d known what dire straits she was in.”
Hiram nodded.
“Trudy and I—” Ethan stopped and felt the blood rush to his face. “That is, Gert and I agree that whoever hit Griffin isn’t the one who did the murders. He didn’t leave a penny at the livery.”
“Unless Milzie picked that up, too.” Hiram held the knife up and looked closely at where the tang fit into the hilt.
“Never thought of that,” Ethan admitted. “She could have stolen the penny.”
“Any 1866 pennies in that collection?”
Ethan examined the coins carefully. “Nope. But she could have spent it.”
“Maybe so.” Hiram’s brow furrowed, and he picked up one of the safety pins. “Bert.”
“What about him?”
“His suspenders were loose.”
Ethan felt a fearsome dread in his chest. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go where Hiram was leading him. “Just exactly what are you getting at?”
Hiram squeezed his lips together and very slowly writhed in a shrug.
“No, Hiram, come on. You know she can’t have killed Bert.”
Hiram’s eyebrows shot up, and his eyes widened.
Ethan shook his head. “Because he was a lot taller than her, for one thing.”
“Could have been bending over near the bunk.”
“Oh, and she left the penny under his body? You think Milzie would do that? Next you’ll tell me she clobbered Griff, too. Hi, think about it. She stole coins. She didn’t leave them for other people to find. And she wouldn’t set the Paragon Emporium on fire. Libby gave her more stuff than just about anybody.”
“Not until after the fire.”
Ethan frowned. “You’re making my head hurt again. But there’s one thing that proves Milzie wasn’t the killer.” Hiram nodded slowly. “She’s dead.”
“That’s right. And she died in a way that shows someone else killed her. And that person left the penny in her blood. The same person left the pennies when he killed Bert and when he set the fire at the emporium.”
Hiram laid the knife and the safety pin on the rock. “All right. I’m with you so far. But has there got to be another killing before we learn who did it?”
“No, Bitsy, wait.” Gert grabbed Isabel’s forearm and squeezed, none too gently. She stared into the teacher’s face, wanting to scream at her, but no suitable words found their way to her tongue.
Annie filled the silence. “Bitsy, you don’t need to go. It’s very kind of you to want to help. Why, any woman in our shooting club who needs a hand will get it.”
“That was my understanding.” Bitsy hesitated. “But if I’m not wanted …” She lowered her head. “I thought things were different in town now. In the club, at least.”
“They are.” Gert let go of Isabel’s arm and walked over to Bitsy. “The club has taught us all a lot of lessons, and you, Bitsy, are one of this town’s most valuable business owners. Your selflessness in patrolling and serving as a deputy sheriff to help others is exemplary.”
Bitsy licked her violently red lips. “Thank you, Gert. I was hoping I could be a neighbor, too. I’ve never had much chance to do that.” She flashed a bitter smile. “I’ll see you later at the club meeting.” Again she turned away.
As she reached the door, Isabel stirred.
“Miss Shepard!”
Bitsy stopped, hovering like the red sun at dawn. Slowly she turned, eyeing Isabel through narrow slits of eyes edged by thick black lashes. “Yes?”
Isabel’s lips trembled. She took two steps forward and extended her right hand. “You … are welcome here. Thank you for coming.”
Bitsy met her in the middle of the floor and took her hand for an instant then released it. “I’m glad to be here.”
“Then if you’d care to assist me, I was about to begin on the dining room floor.”
Gert let out her breath in a slow stream. Thank You, Lord.
They all fell to work and soon had both kitchen and dining room transformed. Myra took a broom to the top of the staircase and swept her way down. As she reached the bottom step, Goldie arrived carrying a coffeepot wrapped in towels.
“Hurry, Miss Bitsy! My arm’s about to fall off.”
Bitsy dropped her mop and dashed to take the pot from her, then faced them all with a big smile. “Wipe your hands, ladies. Time for a morsel. Then I must get back to my own work. Goldie can stay awhile and help you get those bedrooms gussied up.”
They sat on the stairs, a crate, and two stools Isabel had unearthed. Bitsy poured the coffee with the dignity of a duchess, and Goldie removed the linen napkin from the roll basket and passed it to the damp, dirty women. Gert’s hair had come loose and hung about her shoulders. She pushed it back and took one of Augie’s cinnamon rolls. The smell of them alone set her mouth watering.
With the first bite, she closed her eyes. “Mmm. If I could make anything half this good …”
“What?” asked Myra. “I’d patent it.”
Gert opened her eyes in time to see Isabel take her first bite and chew slowly. A look of adoration crossed her face. Her eyes brightened. She swallowed, and her lips pursed.
“Miss Shepard …”
“Yes, Miss Fennel?”
“Do you … sell these rolls at your place of business?”
Bitsy chuckled and waved her hand. “Naw, Augie just makes them for the girls and me now and again.”
“Usually for Monday breakfast,” Goldie piped up.
“I was wondering.” Isabel hesitated. “Do you suppose Mr. Moore would have the time or the inclination to do some baking for the boardinghouse?”
“What a novel idea,” Bitsy said. “He’s quite busy at the Spur & Saddle, but if you’d like, I shall ask him.”
Gert pictured the brawny, bald bouncer creating fancy breads and pastries for prim and proper Isabel’s clients. She took another bite of the confection. I always knew anything was possible with You, Lord, but after this morning, I truly believe it.
Ethan walked to the mayor’s house after lunch at Hiram and Trudy’s. He’d rather be anywhere else right now than on his way to Charles Walker’s house. He’d as soon be with the dozen women out shooting in the ravine on Bert’s ranch. But a summons from the town council could not be ignored by an employee. Since Ethan had accepted his pay at the end of May and hoped he would soon receive a full envelope for the month of June, he supposed that obligated him to go when the council summoned him.
Mrs. Walker met him at the door, and he handed over his hat to her. In the parlor, Charles and the four town councilors were enjoying coffee and cigars. Ethan’s eyes watered in the blue smoke.
“Coffee, Sheriff?” the mayor asked.
“No thanks. I just had some.” Ethan took the only vacant seat in the room—a horsehair-covered armchair.
“Is there any progress on this crime spree, Sheriff?” Walker got right to the point, and Ethan had a feeling the council had talked about it before he arrived.
“Well, sir, I’ve been working hard on making sure it doesn’t happen again. Setting up patrols, checking on the—”
“Yes, yes,” Walker said in his squeaky voice. “We know all about the deputies and the ladies patrolling in scandalous costumes.”
Ethan eyed him for a moment. So far as he knew, only one of the women had adopted the bloomer getup, and he’d bet the council wouldn’t designate her a lady. He decided to take a different approach.
“I’ve been able to narrow the field of suspects.”
That got their attention.
Cy Fennel leaned forward and tapped the ash from the end of his cigar into an ashtray on the side table between him and Oscar Runnels. “Care to enlighten us?”
“I have evidence that leads me to believe Bert Thalen and Milzie Peart were killed by
the same person.”
“What sort of evidence?” Zach Harper asked. The lopsided stars of sheet metal Griffin had made for him and Oscar were pinned to Zach’s vest and Oscar’s waistcoat. Griffin’s was somewhat better crafted and had been burnished so that it shone a bit. He must have taken more pains on his own.
“I’m not sure I want it to get about yet,” Ethan said. “If the killer knows everything I know, he might not play into my hand.”
“Oh, that’s good, Sheriff.” Oscar held his cigar up in front of him and savored the words. “Play into your hand.” He nodded.
“It’s nonsense,” Cyrus barked. “This isn’t a poker game. Tell the council what you’ve found so far.”
Griffin stroked his beard. “Yeah, Ethan, you might tell your deputies, too.”
Ethan shoved the hair back off his forehead. Another thing this town needed, besides a bank and a doctor, was a barber. “Well, Mr. Fennel, you know your daughter was frightened by a man in the alley near your office a few nights before Millicent Peart was killed.”
Cyrus harrumphed and crossed his legs. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Mrs. Peart was killed in that same office, only four nights later. It’s my thinking that an unknown assailant waited for you on that first occasion, planning to assault you when you returned to your office that evening. Your daughter’s appearance and the subsequent commotion scared him away. But on the evening Mrs. Peart was in town, he again waited for you to come and lock up for the night.”
“I’d only stepped down the street for a minute.” Cyrus looked around at the others as though seeking their assurance of his innocence.
“Oh, I know that,” Ethan said. “I saw you myself at the Nugget.”
Cyrus cleared his throat and tapped his cigar on the ashtray again, though it had hardly burned down.
“You make a habit of it?” Griffin asked. “Going out and leaving the stage office unlocked?”
Cyrus shrugged. “Occasionally I step out and leave the door unlocked, if that’s what you mean. So what? Do you lock up the livery stable every time you stroll over to the post office?”
“S’pose not.” Griffin sank back against the sofa cushions.
“What are you getting at, Sheriff?” Zach asked.
Ethan looked around at them. None of them was stupid, but most of them he considered a bit shortsighted. “I think that person had it in for Mr. Fennel. It’s my theory that the same killer who did in Bert Thalen planned to give Mr. Fennel the same treatment. But on the second time he tried, his plan was again interrupted, this time by Milzie Peart. She wandered into the Wells Fargo office and found him lurking there, waiting to attack Mr. Fennel.”
“And he attacked Milzie instead.” Oscar’s eyes widened in his round face. “By George, Sheriff, you may have something there.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Cyrus straightened and glared at Ethan. “Folks thought he was hanging about Mrs. Adams’s place. He did set a fire there earlier, you know.”
“But this time he did his mischief in your office.”
Cyrus’s face reddened. “That’s a lot of flapdoodle. Who would want to kill me?”
Ethan shrugged. “I haven’t figured that out yet.”
“Well, someone wanted to kill Bert,” the mayor noted, his voice rising. “No one knew of any enemies he had either. Unless it was someone Bert put in jail back along. But that doesn’t make much sense to me.”
Oscar swept his cigar through the air, trailing smoke. “I figure the person who killed Bert was a lunatic who hated lawmen.”
Ethan frowned and shook his head. “Then why didn’t he attack me last week instead of Mrs. Peart? And why did he wait in Mr. Fennel’s office, not mine?”
“Interesting questions, Sheriff, but this isn’t getting us anywhere.” The mayor pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose.
The thick smoke brought tears to Ethan’s eyes. He swiped at them with the back of his hand, but that made his eyes sting more. He coughed. What would they say if he opened a window to clear the smoke out?
“So you don’t think the fire at the emporium is significant?” Cyrus demanded.
“On the contrary, I think it’s tied in with these killings, but I’m not sure how just yet. And I don’t know why he set a fire there instead of attacking Mrs. Adams, as he did Bert and Mrs. Peart. That fire was deliberately built to make a lot of smoke but not to burn the whole building. And the arsonist made enough noise to wake Mrs. Adams. He didn’t intend to kill her.”
“Well, our womenfolk are frightened, I know that. We need a man who can see this job through.” The mayor lifted his cup and took a sip.
Things weren’t going well. Ethan clenched his teeth and wished he could get back to work. Let them call him incompetent if they wanted to. He was doing the best he knew how. But the looks on Walker’s and Fennel’s faces told him that his best didn’t equal enough.
Zach sat forward. “Do you suppose this lunatic has set out to ruin the town? If you’re right and he didn’t intend to attack Mrs. Peart but was waiting for Cyrus, that would be two prominent business owners he’s gone after. Bert wasn’t a business owner, but he had a lot to do with town business.”
“Don’t forget the livery,” Oscar said. “He attacked Griffin, too.”
“Maybe.” Poker game or not, Ethan still wanted to play it close to his vest. He didn’t want to say anything about the pennies. Not yet. If he had to reveal that later, fine. For now he’d keep it to himself and the Dooleys. A few people knew some of it, but no one but Ethan, Hiram, and Trudy had all the facts. And would it hurt to let the town council think the killer also pulled off the incident at the livery? “Anyway, with my new deputies helping me patrol at night and the shooting ladies keeping their eyes peeled by day, I hope we can avoid another crime.”
Zach stubbed out the end of his cigar in the ashtray. “So you think he might be planning to strike again?”
“Are you thinking he’ll go after Cy?” Oscar asked.
“Yes. He failed last time—and got the wrong person. So next time he’ll try to make sure he gets it right.” Ethan met Cyrus’s gaze. “If I were you, sir, I’d take extra precautions. Don’t sit up alone late in your office. Lock the door when you go out. Take someone with you on your way home to the ranch.”
Cyrus’s face had taken on a grayish hue.
Zach leaned back in his chair and frowned at Ethan. “What if he attacks someone else in town?”
“It’s possible he’ll go after one of the other business owners. He might attack one of the saloons, or the telegraph office, or the feed store. We just don’t know what’s going through his head. But I don’t think these attacks were random. He planned them.”
“Why do you say that?” Walker asked.
“He made preparations.”
“What kind of preparations?” Cyrus shifted in his chair. “It’s my understanding he used a piece of Bert’s firewood to clobber him with and my poker to bludgeon Mrs. Peart. He used Mrs.
Adams’s merchandise to fuel his fire. Seems to me he used what came to hand.”
All of their eyes drilled into him. Ethan wished he hadn’t said so much. The men waited. Nobody smiled.
“All of that is true,” he conceded. “But if this man who was seen loitering in the alley is our killer, then I’d say he waited for the right moment. He knew what he intended to do. It happened that the wrong person came along.”
“Hmm,” said Oscar. “That doesn’t sound like much preparation to me.”
“Or much evidence.” Cyrus looked at Mayor Walker. “Charles, perhaps you want to tell Chapman what we decided earlier.”
Walker cleared his throat. “Certainly. Cyrus here—that is, we all decided we’d like to see this killer apprehended, and soon.”
“Of course,” Ethan said. “We all would.”
“Yes, well …” Walker glanced at Cyrus, who nodded. “If you can’t show us some results soon—say within a couple of weeks, why we�
�ll just have to appoint a new sheriff, that’s all.”
Ethan’s heart clunked against the bottom of his belly. They were going to take the position away from him so soon? Who would replace him? He couldn’t imagine any of the men in this room doing more than he was doing to protect the town or figuring out who had killed two citizens.
He hadn’t wanted to be sheriff, but he’d done his best. It struck him all of a sudden that he liked being sheriff of Fergus. He’d wrestled with the crime issue. He’d tried to make the town safer. And he didn’t want to give up now. He had to be close to solving the riddle of the pennies. If they took his badge away, would the next sheriff they picked be able to do more than he could?
He wanted to keep this job. But he couldn’t let them know how much. Cyrus was mean enough to push him out sooner if he knew.
Ethan shrugged with one shoulder and put a boring drawl into his voice, which was hard since it was scratchy from the smoke. “If that’s what you want to do, Mayor, it’s up to you. I think I can solve these murders. I’m getting close, but I need a little more time.”
“Well …” The mayor’s high-pitched quaver grated on Ethan’s nerves and made him shiver.
Cyrus struck a match and lit a fresh cigar. “Two weeks, Chapman. That’s it.”
CHAPTER 30
On Wednesday evening Libby waited inside the door of the emporium until she saw the Nash family walking down the street toward the church. She opened the door and called to them. Florence and her stepmother, Ellie, paused and waited for her to lock the door and hurry over to join them. When Peter realized the women lagged behind, he called to his two boys to wait. Libby was glad she didn’t have to walk the short distance alone.
Together they headed for the old haberdashery and the midweek prayer service. They’d only begun the custom three weeks ago, but already prayer meeting had become one of the highlights of Libby’s week.
Florence wore the new dress she and her mother had sewn. The plaid cotton had come in Libby’s last shipment of yard goods. “Your dress came out very well, Florence,” she said. Florence smiled. “Thank you, ma’am. Mama likes the pattern so much, she’s going to make a dress for herself after it.” Libby nodded to Ellie. “It should suit you well.”
The Bride's Prerogative Page 24
