A Lady Never Trifles with Thieves (10 page)

“Lyin’s a sin. I don’t tell none, ’cept the tiniest little fibs I trust the Almighty will see fit to forgive.”

I removed a fountain pen from my reticule and wrote my home address on the back of a calling card. “Tell your mistress to contact me immediately if she needs me for any reason. That includes shelter or safe passage from the city.”

Abelia nodded, her lips pressed as flat as vise jaws.

Being in sight of the end to a long and torturous ordeal ignites a terrible sort of irony. Fear segues to blind rage. Helplessness to vengeance. Hope to violent retaliation.

After all the abuses he’d executed with impunity, I knew if Rendal LeBruton raised a hand to his wife again, he wouldn’t live to gloat about it.

For that reason, I didn’t mention the telegrams I’d sent. Verily, the subject was moot until I received answers and they confirmed my suspicions.

“Before you go,” I said, “how can I contact you or Mrs. LeBruton if necessary? The distillate will keep Mr. LeBruton close to home, if not confined to it.”

Abelia’s face screwed up, both in thought and repugnance at “that man’s” potential quarantine. “That’s a puzzlement, to be sure.”

I turned my back to the dust boiling up from the street. There was no reprieve from the sun heating to a fair sizzle, as it crept toward midday. Passersby shuffled along as if the boardwalk were as inclined as a rising drawbridge. Mother Nature seemed obsessed with contradicting tourist guidebooks extolling Denver City’s temperate climate.

A few yards away, the shapely brunette I’d seen at the drugstore’s counter was struggling to open a parasol but watching us from beneath her lashes.

“There was a young woman in the store earlier—petite, hair in ringlets, wearing a beige waist and pink skirts? Are you perchance acquainted with her?”

Abelia grunted. “Don’t care to be, thank ye kindly. Mary Anna Squires is her name. She’s from back East, visiting kinfolk here for the summer. Mostly, she’s consorting with ‘that man,’ if’n you get my meaning.”

I did, but asked, “How do you know?”

“It ain’t all recipes and rheumatiz complaints what crosses over the back fence. No coincidence that maids hang laundry the same time and day of the week, neither.”

It was also true that a married man out for a late night drive with a woman other than his wife would stay to quiet, unpopulated thoroughfares like California Street. It would thrill me to my marrow if LeBruton and his consort were accomplices to the robberies. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the stones for it.

An elderly Samaritan won the battle of Miss Squires’s umbrella with a flick of his thumb. The next Mrs. LeBruton thanked him, dispensed a haughty sneer at me, then flounced around the corner.

Damnation. Miss Squires was certain to remark on Abelia’s and my whispered conversation inside the store and continuance outside.

“Double the dosage,” I ordered. “Keep a sharp eye on the back gate. If you see a strip of cloth between the pickets, meet me at the far end of the alleyway as quick as you can.”

“But what if—”

“We’ve tarried too long, as it is. There’s no time for what ifs. Just go home and do as I ask.” Abelia looked so frightened, I added, “Everything will be all right. I promise.”

I trusted the Almighty would see fit to forgive that fib, too.

J
. Fulton Shulteis was still absent from his office when I returned the law books. Percy expressed his usual delight at my appearance. I asked for his personal guarantee that if Fulton needed to speak with Penelope LeBruton, I would be summoned to act as messenger.

Of his own volition, Izzy turned for one of the Cherry Creek bridges connecting what had been Auraria, Colorado, to its larger sister city. Whether it was simple curiosity or a morbid variety I can’t say, but nevertheless I allowed the Morgan to clop to the east side of Front Street, between Larimer and 4th.

The jailhouse there was a bleak, odoriferous facility whose population forever exceeded its bounds by a wide margin. I was of the opinion that if schoolchildren were given tours, any fascination with outlaws portrayed in dime novels would be remedied as soon as they stopped retching.

Won Li argued, if public hangings weren’t a deterrent, subjecting youngsters to caged criminals wouldn’t be either. The insurmountable flaw was that those who committed crimes did so without the slightest notion of ever getting caught, much less convicted and hanged.

A high counter was manned by a uniformed constable. I asked him to announce my arrival to Jack O’Shaughnessy.

“He isn’t here, ma’am. He’s never here, lest he’s bringing in prisoners. The station house on Holliday is where you’ll likely find him.”

I was not only already aware of the fact, I’d counted on it. A kicked puppy had nothing on me for heartbreak when I wailed, “What’ll I do now? He said before I could see Vittorio Ciccone, he had to be here to authorize it.”

Slumping against the counter, head in hand, I blubbered, “I shouldn’t have left Mother at all, sick as she is. I can’t take time to go all the way to the station house, then back here. I just
can’t.”

“There, there, miss. Don’t cry. You don’t need O’Shaughnessy’s say-so.”

“I-I don’t?”

“Land sakes, no. I can take you to the cell block.” He sucked his teeth. “That is, if you’re sure you want to go back there. It’s no place for a lady, ma’am.”

“A moment to pray for the prisoner’s immortal soul is all I ask.”

The constable lifted a capacious ring of keys from a wall hook. “No disrespect meant, but I don’t think a month’s worth of praying would save Ciccone from the lake of fire.”

The steel door he unlocked howled open on riveted hasps, then clanged shut behind us. The stench of vomit, human waste, filth, and tobacco smoke was as palpable as fog. Arms reached through the bars, undulating like tentacles. Voices chorused in barbaric disharmony.

His nightstick swinging and connecting with vulnerable flesh and bone more often than not, the constable blazed safe passage down the slimy corridor. He bellowed the prisoner’s name. In the cell second to the end, a swarthy man leapt down from a bare bunk suspended by chains. The six others with whom he shared a water closet–sized space leered at me but kept their distance.

Privacy was impossible, yet I asked the constable to afford me some. With trepidation, he said, “Pray fast, ma’am. A couple of minutes is all I’ll give you.” He retreated to the metal door, the nightstick slapping his palm. The sound broadcast a dare and a promise.

Vittorio Ciccone was in his late twenties and shorter than I, though as lithe and well-muscled as a circus performer. He might be handsome if lye soap and scrub brush were applied with equal vigor.

In tortured English, he asked why I’d want to pray for him. I told him God looked disfavorably upon thieves and murderers.

“I din’t kill nobody. Never! I try to sell the pin, yes. I din’t steal it.” He turned out his left trousers pocket—empty, save grit. “It was here. How, I dunno. I
swear
to it.”

“Don’t shout at me.”

“Sorry. I so very sorry. Please, oh, pretty lady. You got to help me.”

“If you’re innocent, the court will find in your favor.”

“No, no.” He shook his head vehemently. “I doan know nobody here. Nobody want to help me.”

“How long have you been in the city?”

He shrugged. “T’ree, mebbe four days. I ride the boxcar. I look for work. No money I got for food. Nobody give me work.”

Every prisoner in the cell block would wail a similar sob story and proclaim it gospel. Nothing was ever their fault. Always someone else’s—always some
thing
else.

“Miss?” The constable tapped the door with his stick.

“Time’s up.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Ciccone.”

“No! Lissen to me. Please. You gotta believe.” His screams followed me out the door. “The man, he say I send the package. He
lies.
What use I got for mail?”

Other prisoners chimed in, shouting and shaking the bars.

Ciccone yelled, “I canna read. I canna write. I swear, I din’t kill no—”

The door slammed, muffling the noise without stanching it. Keys jangled as the constable relocked the door. “That’s a nice thing you tried to do, miss, but it’s wasted on the likes of him.”

The so-called Ladykiller Thief had been a disappointment. Then again, human monsters usually were. To my knowledge, the lone exception was a hulking nightmare known as Phil the Cannibal, who allegedly devoured a couple of Indians and a Frenchman when he ran out of grub during the gold rush.

I asked, “What is this package he’s yelling about?”

The constable hesitated. “The postmaster says Ciccone mailed a parcel yesterday. Remembers joking with him about sending a brick General Delivery, but can’t recollect who it was mailed to, or where.”

“Do you think it was the jewelry from all three robberies?”

“Yep. The loot same as stamped Murderer on Ciccone’s forehead. The trinket he saved out to pawn would have bought train fare to nary anywhere in the U.S. of A.”

I wondered how many times Ciccone had executed that deviously simple modus operandi. That he wouldn’t again was scant comfort. Cunning, he was. Unique, he was not.

“Has the trial date been set?”

“Week from today.” The constable peered out on the street. “There’s been rumors of a lynch mob, but I haven’t seen sign of one.” Walking back to his post, he added, “Can’t never tell, though. Folks are plenty riled about him strangling a woman with child. They’re saying a noose around that dago’s neck’d square things a tad.”

I tapped my cheek with a forefinger. “If he’s guilty, it would, but I heard the police were questioning Gertrude Hiss and Sam Merck—the Abercrombies’ cook and gardener.”

His grin was indulgent. “You must keep your ear right close to the ground, ma’am. Those two were rounded up, but nothin’ came of it. Ciccone done it, sure as the moon is round.”

“Ah, but it isn’t a perfect sphere—”

Clattering chains and the thunder of approaching boot steps halted in midstride. I knew before I turned that Jack O’Shaughnessy was standing behind me. The prisoner beside him wore a charcoal gray suit, a crimson vest, and a bloodstained bandage around his head.

Jack motioned me out the door. “Wait for me by the buggy.”

“I just—”

“I
said,
wait for me by the buggy.”

I cared not at all for his tone or attitude, which I told him when he stormed back out.

“Is that right?” He removed his hat, slapped it against his trousers leg, then resettled it. “Well, I don’t care much for you using my name to dupe a turnkey, so’s you can shoot the breeze with a murderer like he’s your long-lost cousin Bob.”

“I acted on impulse. Curiosity got the better of me.”

Jack chuffed. “If that’s all you’ve got to say for yourself, maybe you ought to go back and parlay with Ciccone some more. Till a second ago, I thought he was the worst one for excuses I’d ever heard.”

“You’re angry. I understand that, but there’s no need to be insulting.” I climbed into the buggy, pushing away the hand he offered in assistance.

“There is, if it’ll get through that ironclad skull of yours.”

“Oh, it has, Jack. Dunce that I am, it took a while for it to register. You’re always right. I’m always wrong.”

“From where I stand, it’s the other way—”

Anger had me shaking so hard, my voice trembled.

“You don’t want an explanation. Wouldn’t listen if I tried. All you want is for me to beg forgiveness. To promise I’ll mend the error of my ways.”

“Uh-uh. Far be it for me to ask for a miracle.” Jack planted a foot on the brace. “All I want is one day—one measly, goddamned day—without you pulling some shenanigan or another. That’d be a flat-out wonder to behold.”

Shenanigan?
Did he honestly believe investigation was just a game to me? Something more exciting than stitching samplers or collecting recipes to bide excessive time on my hands?

A hollow sensation gored my belly. My heart teetered, then skidded into the breach. Ramparts rose and hardened around it, like a protective, defensive cocoon.

“If that’s how you feel,” I said, “then I see no need to continue being the burr under your saddle.”

Jack reared back. “What do you mean by that?”

“Plenty of women would be happy to cook, clean, and wait by the door for you to come through it.” The reins slapped Izzy’s rump. “I am not, and never will be, among them.”

For once, I didn’t mind the wind tugging at my hairpins. With the jailhouse stink permeating my clothes, Methuselah’s parlor rug didn’t need an airing as much as I did. And any oncoming drivers who noticed tears seeping from my eyes would fault the silty breeze.

Towns with fifty thousand or more residents enjoyed the luxury of letter carriers consigned to free mail delivery. Denver City hadn’t reached that benchmark as yet, so residents’ daily activities included Monday through Saturday jaunts to the post office to collect their mail.

As is true elsewhere, the town postmaster acquired his title by political patronage, not by aptitude or a winning personality. In return for better-than-average pay, he tithed one or two percent of his salary to his political party, plus a five-dollar donation to every state and local election.

The harried jake on the business side of the counter was missing an arm below the elbow and a leg below the knee. A veteran of the War Between the States, I surmised. A large number of Yanks and Rebs had migrated west after Lee’s surrender. In search of what, they likely couldn’t say, but hoped they’d recognize if they found it.

Papa was of the opinion that war survivors should be counted among its casualties, as no one emerged unscathed from the battlefield. Too often, the most grievous wounds and scars weren’t visible on the outside.

“Be with you directly,” the postmaster said. “Gotta get this bin slotted afore the train from Des Moines pulls into the depot. They’ll be mailbags galore on it, ’les some kindhearted outlaw heisted the car ’twixt here and there.”

Law, I was dizzy just watching him deal letters and small parcels from a shallow wooden flat into their respective boxes.

While he worked and I waited, customers streamed in and out the doors—every one of them inquiring if mail had arrived in his or her name. “If it ain’t in your box, it ain’t come, yet,” he answered, his tone sharpening like a stropped razor with each repetition.

A gent about my age blamed the postmaster for another day’s passage without a letter from his sweetheart. An older man insisted it was the postmaster’s job to cart a package as big as a sofa to his place of business. A mother trailing an offspring like a game of Snap The Whip burst into tears when her box didn’t contain an expected money order from her children’s father.

“How do you expect me to feed my young ’uns?” she wailed. “I
know
my husband done sent it. I’ve half a mind to jump back there and turn out your pockets to see what falls out.”

The ingress and insults were heavier than normal, but the post office was seldom empty. To hear the grousers talk, you’d think the postmaster was the cause of overdue bills, postage-due letters, stagecoach and train holdups, and every other pet peeve that befell the multitudes. Into the ballyhoo calling him a thief, a cripple and a liar, the postmaster cursed, wrenched off his apron, and tossed it on the counter. His peg leg thumped on the puncheon floor. “Off with you,” he said, shooing his detractors to the door. “I’m locking up for the noon hour.” His wave included me.

“But all I need is five stamps,” I lied.

He exhaled a mighty sigh as he shot the bolt home. Limping back behind the counter, he muttered something about never thinking of quitting his job, other than Mondays through Saturdays.

“Honestly, I can’t imagine how you match thousands of names to box numbers, much less remember who sent what parcel when.”

He scooped the coins I placed on the counter into his palm. “Beg pardon?”

“My goodness, there’s no need to be humble,” I said with a teasing laugh. “Why if it wasn’t for you, that jewel thief would have gotten away scot-free.” Slipping the stamps he tendered into my reticule, I added, “Though I suppose addressing the package for him must have aided your recollection.”

“No-o-o. ’Twas already made out to General Delivery when he brung it.”