by C. A. Asbrey
She pulled on her gloves. “Oh, yes. Could you? You can tell him where we are in case he wants to join us, too.”
“Yeah, I think we’re getting close to sortin’ everythin’ out.” Jake buttoned his coat and put on his hat as he headed for the door. “I’m glad your loved ones are in the clear, Doc.”
♦◊♦
Nat’s mood was ever fouler by the time he reached the Jagged Tick Palace. The arduous struggle up the steep hill to the hotel in polar conditions had been a failure. Schuster wasn’t there. As this was Thursday, he was working in the bar. He had cursed under his breath when he’d reached the top only to find he had to slither all the way back again. His fall had been the final straw. The melting was now seeping into his flesh and the dank long johns sticking to his butt did nothing to improve his disposition as he battered aside the door and entered the tavern.
The scene could not be more different to the empty, soulless place he had walked into that morning. The golden glow of oil lamps were muted by a fog of tobacco smoke, a huge fire burned in the grate providing the comforting aroma of pine resin, and the hum of patrons melded with the tinny piano jangling cheerfully away in the corner. A joyless dimple pitted his cheek as he scanned the room and picked out the bald man pouring beer behind the bar alongside the man he knew as Bart. That had to be Otto Schuster. At last.
“You’re back, honey?”
He turned to see Dolly grinning at him with rouged lips.
“Yeah. I wondered if I could speak to Otto Schuster? Bart told me the suit was passed on to him.”
“You’re still chasin’ the owner of that tatty old rag? Ain’t the law got nothin’ better to do?”
“Yeah, but I’ve got a point to prove. Any chance of a quiet word with him?”
“Sure, honey. Go take the table by the fire and I’ll send him over. We always cooperate with the law. How about a drink?”
“Oh, Dolly. That’s music to my ears. Bourbon?”
He reached into his pocket but was stopped by the hostess. “Put it away. This one’s on the house. Go get a seat. You look freezin’.”
Schuster arrived at the table with the promised drink, his bottom half swathed in a snowy apron and the top in an extravagant, but stained, waistcoat. Only the grubby fingernails betrayed the other side of his employment. He sat, the chair scraping across the wooden floorboards as he leaned in to present Nat with the most impressive set of hairy brows he’d ever seen.
“Otto Schuster? My name’s Nat. Bart Dunkley said he gave you a suit years ago, a brown tweed one?”
The brows meshed together. “That old thing? So what?”
“It was found on the body of a dead man. I wanted to know how your suit ended up on a murder victim.”
“Mine? No. There must be some mistake. My suit’s still hanging in Morgan’s hut. I leave it there because it’s my old rough workin’ clothes. I usually change out of them into my bar clothes ’cause I got all them jobs in the same day.” The barman nodded over toward Dolly. “She’s real strict about us lookin’ smart. Anyhow, those rough jobs are seasonal and I ain’t worn it for months.”
“So you work at the brick works, then the Morgans’, and then here?” asked Nat. “How many hours a day is that?”
“We start at eight at the brick works and I finish around two in the afternoon. It’s only a few days a week and casual work. I don’t work there all the time, only when they’re busy. There ain’t much buildin’ work in the winter, so it’s spring and summer only. The yard work tails off in the winter, too. At this time of year, all I really got is the bar work three nights a week and the night porter the other three more. I take Sundays off.”
“So you work all day and all night in the summer?”
“A man’s gotta take the work while it’s there. Besides, there’s nothin’ to being night porter. Just hand out a few keys until about ten and sleep in the cubby hole around the corner. It’s less work than my wife was, God rest her soul. It’s company for me.”
“So when did you last wear the suit?”
“October, I reckon. That’s when the yard work dries up for the winter and the brick works slow. Until spring it’s the bar and night porter, and I wear this for night porter, too. I ain’t even checked on that suit for months. I reckoned it was too ratty to steal.” Schuster’s moustache bristled. “So it got stole? I’ve got to find me another set of clothes for dirty work now?”
“Maybe.” Nat sipped his bourbon. “What were you doing on the eighteenth and nineteenth of December?”
“That lady Pinkerton already asked me. Don’t you talk to one another? I was working here till about two in the morning. Then I had a day off.”
“And people can testify to that?”
“I ain’t had a day off work since I broke my ankle back in sixty-three, and even then I still did the night porter work. I was here. I’m always where I’m supposed to be. Ask Dolly.”
Nat sat back, defeated and out of questions. “I guess that’s it. I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Schuster.” He threw back the drink and clattered the empty glass on the table. “You’ve been really helpful.”
“Thanks. You want another?”
Nat peered ruefully at the empty shot glass. “Why not? I’m done for the day and I’ve got nowhere else to be.”
Chapter Twenty
“Oh, good. You must be the Mr. Cranshaw and Miss Reger I’ve been expecting. Congratulations on your engagement. You make a lovely couple.”
The spindly preacher looked at Jake and Abigail in turn. “No time to lose, come this way. Do you have witnesses? You can’t get married without witnesses.”
“Reverend Gilmour?” Abigail caught the arm of the man ready to bustle them away. “We’re not those people. I’m Abigail MacKay, and I’m a Pinkerton. This is my identification. Jake, show him your badge.”
Jake dragged off his hat in respect of being in a church, his tousled hair flattened into a peculiar circle by the brim. “We want to ask you a few questions about a man who was killed and dumped in the church hall.”
“A woman?” The minister peered over his beak-like nose at Abigail. “In the law?”
She squared her shoulders in an assertive posture not matched by her words. “I’m afraid so. Is that a problem?”
“But why?”
“Why what?” Jake demanded.
“Why have a woman in the law?”
“I’ve gotta say I asked the same question when I met her, Reverend.” Jake scratched his head, rumpling the matted dirty-blond hair. “She’s good at surprisin’ people.”
The slim brows arched in question. “What? Like jumping out at them?”
“No. More like overhearin’ stuff. The things folks won’t say when a lawman is around.”
“I don’t say anything I mind a lawman hearing. Why have you brought a woman?”
“I didn’t,” answered Jake. “She brought me. Does it matter?”
Gilmour pursed his thin lips over his considerable overbite. “Well, it isn’t appropriate, is it? Doesn’t Timothy say, ‘Do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.’”
“I guess Timothy slept in the barn with the cows a lot, huh?” Jake grinned. “You don’t like women. I get it. I’ve run into men like that before. You think what you need to—but she’s here, and it’s official.”
The preacher’s lips gathered in a tight line. “I simply think a woman’s place is in the kitchen.”
Jake folded his arms, staring at the pinch-faced man with amusement. “You want to put them where the knives are when you speak to them like that? You’re a braver man than me.” Jake shook his head. “I don’t really care what you think of her. I didn’t come here to ask you about that. Tell me what you know about a man called Lymen Cussen. His body was dumped in the church hall, stabbed through the heart. We were told he came here each time he was in town. He was a bank auditor. Do you know him?”
“Mr. Cussen?” The pastor’s mou
th dropped open in dismay. “That devout model of piety and devotion is gone to meet our Lord? Whoever could do such a thing?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out, Reverend Gilmour,” said Abigail.
“And they send a woman? A woman! That man saved more souls from eternal damnation than anyone I know. He deserves the attentions of Alan Pinkerton himself.”
“I’ll be sure to mention it to him when I next see him.” Abigail’s tense face betrayed her growing irritation. “Can we focus, please? Did he have anyone he saw regularly in town? Who did he know? What motive could anyone have for killing him?”
“No, he lived quietly. He either attended to his work, read the Bible in his room, or he attended services in Methodist churches wherever he found himself. He preached here twice. He was quite a magnificent orator, and his knowledge of the Bible was simply staggering. There was none of this namby-pamby preaching you get from modern preachers. His heart was full of fire and righteous anger. He could set a room alight with just a few sentences. It was amazing. He was so quiet as the mere man, but as an instrument of God, he was magnetic.”
“When did he last come here?”
Gilmour’s eyes slid upward as he searched his memory. “About a week before Christmas. It was the orphans’ Christmas party. They had been worthily endowed by the town, and I agreed it was right that Mr. Cussen remind them to be grateful for the charitable bounty bestowed upon them.”
Jake turned his head to roll his eyes as Abigail continued. “Was anyone upset with him? Anyone at all?”
The preacher’s brow wrinkled. “Why would anyone be upset? We could all learn to find more humility.”
“Indeed.” Abigail nodded in agreement. “Quite apart from his preaching, did he ever discuss anything else? Anything from his past?”
“No.” The minister shook his head but paused, staring off to the side. “He did talk about where he found the Lord and where he started preaching, but other than that, no.”
“When did it happen?” asked Jake.
“The last time he was here. He talked about studying under Chivington Miller himself. That’s where he learned his firebrand ways. He told us how necessary it was because the creeping rise of Catholicism in the country. As a young man, he spoke at a meeting which resulted in a gang of drunken Irishmen going on the rampage in protest. Mr. Cussen and his friends were trying to force the release of young women being kept against their will in a Catholic establishment when a mob set upon them.”
Abigail glanced cautiously at Jake before turning back to the preacher. “Where was this?”
“Massachusetts…uh… I think he mentioned the Endellions? They sounded like a strange sect. Anyway, they were totally out of control. It was obviously a shocking time for him. He was injured and left the group. That’s when he came out West. It changed him.”
Her brow creased. “Who heard him saying that? Who was within earshot?”
“Just me. Oh, and Kathleen Williams was pouring his drink when he said it. She might have heard, but I doubt she’d have understood. Her daughter’s such a lovely girl. Engaged to the doctor. Have you never considered marriage, Miss MacKay?”
It was Abigail’s turn to look at Jake and silently roll her eyes. He stepped into the void. “What about her mother?”
“The dear departed Mrs. Williams. Oh, no. She was on teas.”
“And people serving tea can’t hear?” asked Jake.
“Well, pouring tea takes concentration. Cake means just handing out plates. There’s always more conversation from those handing out cake. It takes less focus. Wouldn’t you say, Miss MacKay?”
“I really couldn’t say, Mr. Gilmour. I don’t serve much cake in my profession. One more question. Do you have any other denominations in your church?”
“We may have a few who were Lutherans or Baptists when they came out West. They took advantage of the first established Protestant church, and we welcome them.”
She nodded. “What about Catholics? You do have Catholics? I haven’t been able to find a Catholic church in Pettigo.”
“Are you Catholic, Miss MacKay? Father Peters visits once a month. He shares a number of parishes as a peripatetic priest. In fact, the Williamses are such Christian folks they allow him to stay at the Regent free of charge. He couldn’t afford accommodation like that otherwise. They are special people.”
Jake’s eyes flashed with interest. “Was Father Peters here at the same time as the orphans’ party?”
“Oh, no. He always comes at the beginning of the month but he missed January due to a funeral. He would never come to this church anyway.”
Jake nodded sagely. “Anythin’ else you want to ask, Abi?”
Her eyes glistened with intensity. “What time did Mr. Cussen leave?”
The spindle-shanked, sharp-elbowed man tugged at his jacket, as black as a raven’s wing. “Oh, about ten or fifteen minutes to eight, or thereabouts. He was among the last to leave, and I always dine at eight.”
“And what did you do after the orphans and everyone left?”
His long finger tapped at his temple in a steeple of thought. “Well, I cleared up with my helpers. Then I retired to my rooms to dine and read the Bible. What else would I do?”
“Thank you, Reverend Gilmour. You’ve been helpful. We’ll try not to bother you again.”
Jake walked ahead of her, pushing open the door to a world suddenly bursting with light and life after the subdued twilight of the church. “Well ain’t he a bucket of chuckles? I bet he sent those children back to the orphanage feelin’ like they were made of worms because a few folks showed them a little human kindness. Men like him are the reason Nat and me are criminals. We had to do more than survive. We had to live.”
Abigail sighed. “Your criminal activities go way beyond living, Jake. You could have dropped out of gangs in your early twenties and lived honestly. You didn’t. I’m not having a go at you. It’s the truth. Don’t try to sugar-coat it for me. It won’t work.”
“Sugar-coat it?” Jake slammed the door behind them with a snort of disdain. “Let me know when you’re prepared to put your kids’ lives in the hands of men like that. They bully them, then they sell them as housemaids and farm boys—and that’s if they’re lucky. Nat was real smart., almost a genius. He deserved better. It ain’t his fault I was a bad example.” He crunched though the snow, his hooded lids on his bright blue eyes showing how much the encounter had enervated him. “So, anyhow. Where are we headed?”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m headed to the telegraph office. I want the office to tell me what happened at the Endellion riots in Massachusetts. You told me Mrs. Williams told off her daughter about listening to such things, but what if it was to mask her reaction to the subject matter?”
“Why would she? She’s not Catholic.”
“She was Christian, though.” She turned to look at Jake’s profile, her brows gathering in thought. “Very much so, and it makes you impervious to the divide and conquer techniques of partisan politics. She welcomed the priest, she employs Catholics, and she worked hard at charity work. I want an impartial version of what happened there. I also want to know if she, or anyone she knew, was involved in it.”
♦◊♦
The night had closed in hours ago, and all Abigail could see was a bubble of golden light punched into the frigid darkness by the oil lamp on the sill, her ghostly reflection inches from her nose. The lamp made a shadow mirror of the window, and projected the room into her field of vision. Abigail couldn’t really see a thing.
There was no fresh snow tonight, just the descent of a freezing fog which hung in the air, a debilitating glacial miasma which caught in the chest and masked the world from view.
“No sign?” asked Jake.
Abigail turned with a concerned smile. “I’m worried about him. Where do you think he is?”
“Well, maybe he’s avoidin’ both of us. He was real angry, and we haven’t managed to talk him round yet.”
> “Could be, but where would he go? The town is full since the avalanche cut off the railroad. Surely he wouldn’t go back to sleeping in the church hall just to spite us?”
“He can be real ornery, Abi. Stubborn as a mule. You want I should go and look for him?”
Her gaze drifted back to the window. “It’s horrible out there. I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t. I offered, and I reckon I should ’cause I’m to blame for all this.” He lifted his coat from the hook and slid in an arm. “I won’t be long. There ain’t many places he could be.”
♦◊♦
The firelight flickered over Nat’s face, deepening the dimples and flooding into the lines, shadowing his profile into a silhouette. The wrinkles around the eyes had been etched by laughter, but today they were only remnants of better times. The brows gathered over dark eyes swirling with injured pride; a dose of wrathful fury filtered through the morose lens of bourbon until his perspective was well and truly out of kilter. He wasn’t used to losing, and he most certainly wasn’t used to women walking out on him. He was starting to find out how much it cut to the quick.
Dealing with this case was more important than him. Sorting out her problems with Jake was more important than him. From where he was sitting, it looked like damn near everything was more important than him. The bottom had fallen out of his world, and she had simply walked away without looking back.
She had come to him so full of hope and life, but all she really wanted to do was to take from him like a succubus. Abigail wanted to throw herself at life and feel alive, and she fed off his energies and loyalties until it hurt. Once she had boosted her own pride in winning him over she moved on to her work, just seeking sensation where he’d dreamed of a future. It burned in a way nothing had ever had before. He’d considered giving up everything for her, even his family, yet she couldn’t take ten minutes to tell him she’d come to terms with Jake’s outburst. They’d been in town. Why not find him instead of the sheriff?
A female voice shook him from his phantasm. “Need anythin’ else, honey?”
