A Lady Never Trifles with Thieves (4 page)

“Nothing dire has befallen Won Li, has it?” I asked.

Jack lifted the law books from my arms. He gave their titles a cursory examination, then turned his sky blue eyes on me. “When I left him, he was strawbossing the youngsters he hired to rebuild the toolshed. Again.”

A blush crawled warm up my neck. “The slightest breeze would have blown it over.”

“Might could,” he allowed, “but blowing it to hell and gone took a crazy woman and a beaker of nitrostarch.”

“I am
not
crazy. I’m a scientist.”

Jack rested a hand on my shoulder. “We’ve already plowed this ground, darlin’. It scares the liver out of me that someday you’ll end up six feet under it.”

“Oh, and constables are renowned for longevity?”

He didn’t reply. Not because a half-dozen of them weren’t rattling round inside that thick skull of his. Unlike Papa, Jack knew instinctively that bellowing and blustering stiffened my backbone, whereas silence allowed guilt an opportunity to nibble at my conscience.

I delved into my reticule for the door key. Blasting through the shed’s roof had dislodged all memory of Jack’s invitation to supper and a minstrel show. Then again, the LeBruton business had been uppermost in my mind, seconded by the McCoyne/Whitelaw conundrum, plus the sorry state of the agency’s finances.

As I strode into the furnace the office had become in my absence, I considered excusing myself from the evening’s plans. Duty had called Jack away several times in the past, with no remonstrations from me.

However, Dr. Thaddeus MacKenzie, a Boston psychologist of regard, hypothesized that interludes of mental leisure invigorated the brain, just as napping did the body. What better time than the present to test the veracity of his theory?

An hour later, Jack and I were seated in the Tremont House’s dining room, tucking into platters of beefsteak and the customary trimmings. The wine he’d ordered to accompany the meal shone like liquid rubies contained in a crystal goblet. I’d read that a taste for wine was an acquired one, but never guessed an affection for such a tart, dry beverage could develop between the first, puckery sips and the second glassful.

Jack’s fork paused between the plate and his mouth. “So, you were summoned to Shulteis’s office again, eh?” He angled his head. “Before you curse Won Li for tattletaling, the endleaves of those books you were toting had J. Fulton Shyster’s seal embossed on them.”

For reasons unknown, I couldn’t muster a jot of irritation. Cops are as inquisitive as private investigators—and their daughterly assistants, as it were. My tone was teasing when I said, “You’re quite the nosy Parker, aren’t you, Constable?”

“No more than you, Miz Sawyer.”

I dabbed my lips with a linen napkin. The Tremont House didn’t skimp on the amenities. Their week’s laundry bill would put me in tall cotton for the balance of the year. “Are you familiar with a man by the name of Rendal LeBruton?”

Jack chewed and swallowed a chunk of pan-broiled potato before answering. “I’m proud of you, Joby. We almost got a whole meal down before the interrogation commenced.”

“A simple question does not an interrogation make.”

“That’s true. It’s just the warning shot.” To onlookers, his expression suggested an unconsummated belch.

I wasn’t fooled for a second. Crime and criminals were his cerebral meat and potatoes. For all intents, Jack’s rank was municipal detective. The official promotion and pay raise were stalemated until the city approved a departmental funding increase.

“Rendal LeBruton, eh?” he said. “On the runty side? Brown hair and a Vandyke beard?”

I nodded. The description jibed with a framed tintype I’d seen on Penelope’s lowboy chest of drawers. Papa always said folks are leery of big men and large dogs, but it’s the small end of both species that bears watching.

Jack leaned on his forearms and lowered his voice. “I know you won’t betray a confidence, but if Shulteis hired your father to get the goods on Mrs. LeBruton, I’d take care not to let her hear it on the wind.”

“Oh?” I struggled for nonchalance. “Far be it for me to argue, but Joe B. Sawyer can hold his own against any mere slip of a female.” I smiled. “Present company excluded.”

“It’s apples to oranges, darlin’. You’re as whip-smart, adventurous, and ornery as any gal in the Territories, but there isn’t a mean bone in your body. On the other hand, I hear the LeBruton woman is a hellion when she’s drunk and she’s seldom, if ever, sober.”

The child-sized blonde’s transmutation to a sozzled Medusa didn’t quite parse. “Heard from whom?”

Speaking a mite softer than the scrape of utensils on china and orbital conversations, Jack said, “About a month ago, we got a report of a ruckus at the LeBruton house. The beat cops found an ungodly mess—broken bric-a-brac, furniture upturned, and the wife in a heap at the bottom of the stairs. Mr. LeBruton said the missus lunged at him with a butcher knife. Missed him by a yard, but she lost her balance and tumbled down the stairs, knife in hand. Pure luck she didn’t break her fool neck. LeBruton begged the constables to keep mum about the whole affair.”

Disgust soured my stomach. Under my breath, I murmured, “I’ll just bet he did.”

“Beg pardon?”

I waved a dismissal. “You said someone reported the fight. Who, exactly?”

“I don’t know,
exactly.”
Jack’s chuckle was indulgent.

“Probably a neighbor, or a passerby. It wasn’t the first call the police have paid there. Won’t be the last, either, I’ll warrant.”

A crease pinched between my brows. My audience with Penelope LeBruton was of less than five minutes’ duration. I’d assumed Rendal to be the aggressor the moment I saw her.

Abelia loathed him, but taking her word that he was a wife-beating swindler was akin to Rendal coaching the police into believing Penelope was a harridan and a drunkard.

Bullpats. I’d smelled not a whiff of strong spirits in the house, nor any perfumed artifice to mask the scent. If Penelope was a dipsomaniac, she accomplished it without the telltale puffiness about the eyes, a hint of tremor in her hands, or blooms at her cheeks and nose caused by dilated capillaries.

Asking Jack if the alleged butcher knife was found at the scene was as moot as defending the accused. His information was secondhand, whereas my contention was intuitive, although I’d be fascinated to hear how anyone, drunk or sober, could hurtle down a flight of stairs clutching a large knife without slicing or stabbing oneself to a fare-thee-well. Had Penelope done so, the station house rumors and Jack’s repetition of them would have included a grisly account of her injuries.

The logical conclusion was that Rendal LeBruton’s campaign to asperse his wealthy wife and portray himself as a loving, helpless husband was well under way.

There would be a lamp burning late into the night at the clapboard cottage Won Li and I shared. If God was merciful, the books I borrowed would supply a loophole to allow compliance with the law in regard to printed notices, while lessening the odds of the respondent learning of it.

Except loopholes had the frequent and nasty habit of becoming nooses. I dashed such thoughts with a healthy swallow of wine.

T
he night was star-bright and deliciously cool when Jack and I emerged from the Denver Theatre onto Lawrence Street. The minstrel show, a troupe late of Cheyenne and bound for Salt Lake City, had me in stitches one minute and dew-eyed the next when a tenor keened “The Maid of Monterey.”

Jack’s arm captured my waist to negotiate the throng disbursing to the line of waiting phaetons, wagonettes, buckboards, and buggies. My elbow bumped the holstered revolver concealed by his coat. The badge authorizing its service was pinned to an inside lapel.

Little did he know, his lady friend carried more than a clean hanky and female possibles in her reticule. Although not as readily accessible, a sweet, pearl-handled derringer rested within the drawstring ties, along with spare cartridges, bottled smoke powders, a tin of flash powder, tincture of Morpheus, smelling salts, and a string of tiny Chinese firecrackers.

Like private investigators, constables were never completely off-duty and supplied their own weapons, but they were dunned the cost of their uniforms and earned a salary equal to a greenhorn cowhand. Just as when Papa was a U.S. marshal, I wondered why men of such intelligence and grit chose to be peace officers.

Jack gave my ribs a squeeze. “You know what they say. Beware the quiet woman and rattlesnakes.”

“I was just thinking about what a wonderful time I had this evening.” I winked up at him. “Dinner and the show were nice, too.”

He laughed—a great booming sound, like barrels rolling off a wagon. “Then I reckon we should step out more often.”

“Do you know what I’d truly love to do someday?” I took his hand for a boost into the buggy.

Tease that he was, Jack wiggled his eyebrows. “Marry an Irishman and have six sons and two daughters all named for the patron saints?”

Our gazes locked, each daring the other to blink. “Eight children? Are you insane?”

“Four, then.”

“Two. A boy and a girl.” I patted my hair, as women do when thoroughly discombobulated. “But first, I want to take a horseback ride. Law, it’s been a coon’s age since Izzy’s had a fast, cross-country gallop. Or me, for that matter.”

The Morgan’s ears swiveled. He stamped a forehoof, as though casting his vote in favor.

Grinning huge, Jack started around the buggy.

“We could pack a lunch,” I babbled on. “Make a day of it. After the heat relents, of course. Early fall would be nice. When the leaves are turning.”

“Sounds good to me.” He took the seat beside me and unwrapped the reins from the whip-socket. A tongue cluck eased the buggy forward as smooth as a sleigh on ice. “Maybe earlier than that. I’ll have more free time when the men the chief loaned out to Sheriff Kite for posse duty get back.”

A rash of Indian raids had impelled the newspaper to admonish, “Fear of Indians should not discourage rail travel in Colorado. Both the Denver and Kansas Pacifics are well guarded and the redmen know it.”

The police chief’s contribution to public safety had been to assign a squadron of constables to help capture the renegades. The department was already undermanned, but railroads were the lifeblood of progress and prosperity.

“No rush,” I said. “I have business aplenty to attend myself.”

“Which includes introducing me to your father, before we head for the hills alone together.” Jack’s sidelong glance was brief but no-nonsense. “Darlin’, it’d be tragic on a grand scale if that look on your face got stuck, permanent.”

“Don’t you darlin’ me, Jack O’Shaughnessy. I’m a grown woman and perfectly capable of—”

“Respecting her elders’ respect for her.”

As we turned onto G Street, I crossed my arms tight at my chest, bereft of a reply. God save the fairer sex from old-fashioned notions—especially those Papa would endorse.

I trusted Jack second only to Won Li, but his provincial attitude sealed my lips against confiding the secret of Joseph Beckworth Sawyer’s demise. No one but Izzy knew of my dreams to create the world’s first all-female detective agency, specializing in the curtailment of stagecoach and train robberies. What gang of thieves would ever suspect lady passengers to let fly with sulphuric smoke bombs and disarm them while their eyes stung and wept from the fumes?

Quite the lofty ambition for one who must have her father’s permission to venture beyond the city limits with her boon companion and a picnic basket.

The buggy lurched as Izzy shied from three jaywalkers. Their entwined arms united them against Taos Lightning’s “strikes hard and leaves nothing standing” reputation. The Mexican firewater was said to be laced with gunpowder and strained through kegs of rusty nails to dissolve impurities such as thirsty insects, snakes, and small woodland critters.

The drunk pedestrians tottered backward as one. The biggest lout bellowed, “‘Ey, watch where you’re goin’, bub.”

Before Jack could respond, a horse came a whisker from colliding with us on the driver’s side. The rider swiveled around in the saddle, looked back, then reined in his mount, as if a wall had risen phoenix-like in front of him.

“O’Shaughnessy! Praise glory, is that you?”

Jack squinted through the billowing dust. “Hopkins? Holy Moses, man. Where’s the fire?”

“A murder’s been done. Colonel Abercrombie’s, on California Street. Follow me.”

“But—” Jack looked at me. His expression was as legible as ten-point type. Requisition the buggy and leave me afoot? Hand me the reins and sprint after Hopkins? Haste me home? Or take me along?

Nails digging my palms, I sincerely believed I’d scream before he faced forward and shouted, “Hi-y
ah.”

The reins snapped smart on the Morgan’s rump. Pellmell, we raced after Constable Hopkins. Izzy’s shod hooves tattooed the packed earth. The rig swayed, its wheels jouncing over ruts sliced by heavier, broader conveyances.

We slowed not at all at intersections. I imagined oncoming ore-wagons and fatal consequences but decided not to inquire why a deceased person was in need of such breakneck attendance.

I knew Colonel Abercrombie’s title was honorary, in the tradition of Southern women being referred to as Miss, whether young, aged, married, or confirmed spinsters.

Abercrombie owned several department stores scattered throughout the Territory. Via his original mercantile in Kansas City, he’d grubstaked Colorado-bound prospectors in exchange for shares in their as-yet undug mines and creekside claims. Enough of them reaped such handsome rewards that Abercrombie had sold his Missouri store and reestablished himself in Denver City.

Constable Hopkins’s arm signaled a turn to the left ahead. The buggy careered on two wheels around the corner and would have evicted me had I not braced my feet on the floorboard and throttled the armrest.

My impressions of California Street were swift-drawn. It was more residential than commercial, but vacant lots outnumbered those developed for either usage. Transplanted cottonwoods, elms, and maples lined its parkway and would eventually shade the earthen street.

At midblock, a pinkish sandstone mansion was ablaze with light. Every mullioned window, of which there were multitudes, vanquished the darkness. An amber flood streamed out of the open, double-doored entrance.

Rubberneckers gathered on the manicured lawn, unmindful of flower beds, shrubbery, and common decency. One enterprising lad had climbed onto the fountain, affording himself a ringside perch and a bath in the massive, scalloped bowl.

Jack halted the buggy in the crushed stone driveway. He stepped out, holding the reins for my slide across the seat. “I hate leaving you to drive yourself home.”

“It can’t be helped. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

He kissed my cheek and smiled, though I could see his mind was already fixed on what horrors might be found inside the house. “Straight home, Joby. And keep your eyes peeled for ruffians.”

I promised I would. I didn’t promise when that journey might commence. Before Jack’s broad back disappeared into the mansion’s glowing maw, I took a small notebook and pencil from my reticule, then cached the bag under the seat.

Izzy’s black coat shone with lather from his southward lope. Poor fella was blowing some, too. I patted his mane and told him his pluck and patience would later be rewarded with an apple and a bucket of oats.

Just inside the Abercrombies’ foyer, an urn of Grecian design full of hothouse flowers had been toppled from its table onto the white marble floor. On a bench curved to conform with the muraled wall, a Negro manservant comforted a maid sobbing into a dishtowel. Both were dressed in nightclothes.

The manservant glanced up. His red-rimmed eyes narrowed with suspicion.

“I’m Josephine Sawyer, of Sawyer Investigations.” I displayed my notebook. “There are questions I must ask of you momentarily, but do take this respite to compose yourselves.”

He nodded, returning his attention to the maid, now hiccoughing with every breath.

A relieved sigh blew through my lips. Acting with authority was often as good as having some. The Denver City police force employed no women, but my dark blue suit was as tailored as a uniform and had small brass buttons at the placket and cuffs.

My gaze tracked the elegant, serpentine stairway from where disembodied voices drifted downward. Turning, I surveyed the distance from the top of the stairs to the mahogany front doors. Heavy brass locks, as sturdy as they were decorative, gleamed against the ruddy wood.

A plush runner of tapestried wool protected the stairway’s treads and muffled the footfalls of anyone trafficking upon them—most certainly, mine. The voices guided me down a wide corridor painted a rich egg cream color and trimmed in purest white.

At its end, in a soft-lit room, a girl of perhaps eighteen sat in a wing chair drawn up beside a bed. Wisps of hair had escaped their pins and veiled her features. She was murmuring to a gray-haired man lying beneath a shawl, a hand tented over his face. A Bible marked with a scarlet ribbon lay open on the end of the bed.

Colonel Abercrombie, I presumed, and his daughter. Her name I’d read in the newspaper’s society page, but couldn’t recall. Thinking of all the bedside vigils I’d sat with Papa when he’d come home sick, or hurt, or nigh delirious from exhaustion, a stab of envy startled, then shamed me. Just because my father was lost to me in this life, it was horrid to begrudge Miss Abercrombie hers.

An open door on my left revealed a boudoir decorated in blush pinks, golds, and ivory. Jack knelt beside the figure of a woman clad in an aqua dressing gown. She was sprawled on her back in a most indelicate position. Her hair was long, wavy, and the color of chestnuts. I guessed her to be in her early thirties.

What had been a fair complexion was splotchy and mottled. A double strand of pearls was cinched round her slender throat. Blood-tinged welts ribbed the skin above and below. Her eyes were closed as though in sleep, but her expression of sheer terror she’d take to the grave.

Two men stood near her slippered feet, their hands clasped in front of them. One was Constable Hopkins. The other was unknown to me. I slipped behind them into the chamber, hoping for a few seconds’ reconnoiter before anyone took notice.

Two massive, claw-footed wardrobes stood like sentries in the corners of the room’s far end. The doors were closed and locked with tassled keys. Between them was an upholstered settee strewn with a rather ugly saffron dress, a chemise, petticoats, and stockings. A silver coffee service rested on a tray table in front of it.

Pricey gilded statuettes, receptacles, candlesticks, and foofaraws were displayed on matching, marble-topped dressers and chests. Separately, the accessories were pieces of art. In toto, each was as distinctive as a pile of autumn leaves.

The carved walnut bed whose headboard rose within an inch of the ceiling had been neatly turned down, but the bottom sheet was rumpled and a pillow was askew and devoid of its lace-trimmed casing. Nearby was a mirrored dressing table cluttered with crystal atomizers, pots of creams and lotions, a monogrammed silver brush, hand mirror and comb, and ornate trinket boxes. The lower drawers had been rifled; the contents of the two deeper ones were dumped on the floor.

A draft wended from French doors accessing onto a balcony. I moved nearer, stepping carefully over a jewelry case laying splayed open and empty on the Brussels carpet. I’d just glimpsed a rope knotted around one of the balcony’s wrought-iron rails when a hand gripped my arm and none too gently.

“Judas priest.” Jack glowered down at me, a spark of homicidal mania in his eye. Through clenched teeth, he said, “What the
hell
are you doing up here?”

“Investigating.”

“Snooping’s more like it.”

“It appears the victim interrupted another burglary-in-progress and paid with her life. I don’t recollect the newspaper mentioning the rope was left behind at the McCoyne and Whitelaw robberies, but the uncased pillow—”

“Joby—”

I grimaced and tried pulling from his grasp. “You’re hurting me.” He wasn’t, but he apologized and unhanded me all the same.

My eyes slid to the dead woman. Constable Hopkins had removed his coat and laid it over her head and torso. “If that’s Mrs. Abercrombie, she’s not much older than her daughter.”