A Shelter of Hope (30 page)

But what bothered him even more was the effect the city had on him. He wanted to sketch it all down and take it back to show his father and mother. He wanted to make a record of every face and establishment that he’d visited. A bit of time had been given over to this, especially when he’d taken his first view of the lake they called Michigan. He could still see the endless shoreline and the wondrous way the water looked when the sun shone down upon it. It sparkled and flickered like a light being turned off and on. He’d done his best to sketch it all out, but his attempt didn’t do God’s handiwork justice.

Then, too, he had never known such commotion as what went on around the Dearborn Station. There had to be several hundred people coming in and going out of the city on a daily basis. Zack had always presumed Laramie to be a small, albeit busy town, but Chicago made Laramie seem almost insignificant. It also added to his discouragement.

“How can I find a needle in a haystack,” he muttered, closing up the local police station’s book of
Notorious and Dangerous Criminals
. The only reason he’d hung around to look at the book was in the hopes that someone might come forward with information regarding Simone.

“Hey, are you Matthews?” a man called out to him.

Zack looked up to see a uniformed policeman coming toward him.

“What can I do for you?”

“I was told to give you this,” he said, handing Zack a piece of paper. “A Mrs. Taylor saw one of your Wanted posters. Thinks she knows where the young woman was headed.”

Zack nearly overturned the table trying to get to his feet. “Honestly?” He took up the paper and read the address. “How do I get to this place?”

The officer spent the next few minutes trying to instruct Zack on the proper route to take, only to be interrupted twice by other officers who assured Zack that there were easier ways to get from the station to Mrs. Taylor’s boardinghouse. When everyone had exhausted their suggestions, Zack made his way onto the street, donning his out-ofplace Stetson with new determination.

He felt as though the weight on his shoulders had been lifted—at least in part. He’d know better after talking to Mrs. Taylor as to whether he could finally put the burden aside altogether and bring in the murderer of Garvey Davis.

“So when I saw the poster, I couldn’t help but believe it was the same young woman who’d come to my house a few months back,” Mrs. Taylor told Zack.

“Just how long ago would this have been?” he asked, hoping her words would coincide with the time Simone would have left Wyoming. They did.

“She rode in from Cheyenne with a good friend of mine, Grace Masterson is her name. Grace is an honorable woman with a good reputation, but sometimes she doesn’t think things through. And obviously she is given over to feeling sorry for strangers. She directed Miss Dumas to my house.” Elvira Taylor barely paused to draw breath, and before he could speak a word, she continued. “She meant well, don’t you know. She knows I run a respectable place and it was her opinion that Miss Dumas was of a respectable sort. I must say, the woman didn’t seem overly complicated. She came directly here from the station upon my friend’s recommendation.”

Zack jumped in. “And did she stay with you for long?”

“I rented her a room for just one night. It’s a right nice room.” She leaned forward conspiratorially and added, “We have running water and electricity.”

“So why didn’t she stay longer with you?”

“She was hired on immediately with the Harvey Company.”

“The Harvey Company?”

Mrs. Taylor nodded and poured Zack another cup of coffee before responding. “Fred Harvey runs eating establishments along the Santa Fe Railroad. He calls his places Harvey Houses, and he hires young women of quality to wait the tables.” Then without pausing to catch her breath, Elvira Taylor asked, “Is she really wanted for murder?”

“Just questioning,” Zack replied, stirring sugar into his coffee. Mrs. Taylor offered him another pastry, and since it’d been a long time since he’d had breakfast, Zack quickly accepted.

“Doesn’t hardly seem possible that a little mite like her could have done murder,” the old woman said, taking a seat opposite Zack on a well-worn sofa. “She seemed the respectable sort, although she was extremely young. I’m not at all sure that she met the requirement of eighteen for Mr. Harvey’s employment. My daughter also shares this opinion.”

Zack was puzzled, having no idea what Elvira Taylor’s daughter had to do with any of it. Before he could inquire as to what she meant, Mrs. Taylor began to resume her chatter.

“I saw that poster and I knew right off that it was the same Simone who stayed in my place. I thought there couldn’t possibly be another girl with eyes like hers. I don’t rightly know how a person could put pen to paper and come up with such a near likeness, but that poster did the job.”

“Thank you,” Zack replied. “I drew the sketch myself. I’d like to draw another if you think it would help me. I mean, if she changed her appearance for her new job, or maybe even changed it in order to look less like the woman on that poster.”

“Oh, she didn’t change much, but,” Elvira Taylor puffed out her chest, appearing to take on a sense of great importance, “I don’t think it would hurt for you to draw another picture of her. After all, she could be doing her hair a lot different by now, and now that I think about it, when she cleaned up to go to her appointment with the Harvey Company, she totally transformed.”

Zack nodded, stuffed the last pieces of the pastry in his mouth, and wiped his hands on his jeans before reaching into his back pocket for his small sketch pad. Taking a quick swallow of the steaming coffee, he nodded. “We might as well go ahead with this first.”

Elvira rattled on for nearly half an hour. At first she concentrated on Simone’s appearance, but it wasn’t long before she was fascinated by Zack’s ability to draw. She quickly asked if he might do a sketch of her, just so that she could send it to her daughter, and although Zack felt pressed for time, he relented and sketched out the old woman while she talked.

“There always appeared to be something troubling that child,” Elvira said. “But I don’t believe her to be a killer.”

“Why is that?” Zack asked, slanting his pencil stub to shade the area of shadows around Mrs. Taylor’s face. The sketched portrait was taking rapid shape.

“It just wasn’t in her eyes. Murderers have a look about them, don’t you know. I just don’t think she had it in her to do murder. She was so quiet and well-behaved. I didn’t know her long, but my daughter writes of her and is very fond of her.”

Zack nearly dropped his pencil. “What do you mean? Does your daughter know Simone Dumas?”

“I should hope so. She’s the poor girl’s supervisor in Topeka.”

“Topeka?”

“That’s right,” Elvira responded, trying her best to catch a quick glance at the sketch in Zack’s hand. “My daughter trains Harvey Girls in Topeka, Kansas.”

Zack nodded, weighing the information carefully. “So Miss Dumas was hired on by the Harvey Company and sent to Topeka, where your daughter is in the process of training her to wait tables for Fred Harvey’s restaurants.”

“Exactly right.”

He sketched a bit longer before asking his next question. “What is your daughter’s name?”

“Rachel. Miss Rachel Taylor. She isn’t married, but she’ll make a fine wife one day. If,” Elvira stressed, “she can find the right fellow. A woman can’t be too careful these days, and while my Rachel once fell for the wrong sort, she was quickly made aware of the man’s compromising nature …” she leaned forward and whispered, “before it was too late.”

Zack nodded but said nothing. Now he only needed to get the address of the Harvey House in Topeka and the address of Mrs. Taylor’s daughter. Putting the final touches on the simple sketch, he tore the page out from his book and handed it to the older woman. He watched as she beamed at the likeness, wondering if she realized he’d left out the better portion of her wrinkled, aged appearance from marring what had most likely once been a very attractive face.

“You do good work,” she told him. “Why don’t you stay on for lunch as payment?”

“No, I really should get on with investigating this new lead. Can you give me your daughter’s address in Topeka, and maybe that of the Harvey restaurant?”

“I can give you both, for they’re one and the same,” Mrs. Taylor said with a laugh. “Here, lend me that notepaper of yours, and I’ll write it down proper for you.”

Zack handed over his book and waited patiently while the woman jotted down the address. “Much obliged,” he murmured when she had finished.

“You won’t have any trouble finding it,” she said, getting to her feet as he stood. “Not if you take the Santa Fe to Topeka. Stops right at the depot and that’s where all the action takes place.”

“Well, I thank you again,” Zack said, anxious to make his way to the Dearborn Station.

“Say, would you mind just taking this with you to Topeka?” Elvira asked, handing the sketch back to Zack. “Just give it to my Rachel when you see her. Maybe you could even make a picture of her for me.”

“Perhaps,” Zack said, taking the paper back in hand. At least it would make for a good way to open the door between himself and the unmarried Miss Taylor. Giving the old woman a nod, Zack pocketed his book and pencil and took up his hat. “Thanks for the coffee and such.”

“You’re certainly welcome,” Elvira replied, following him to the door. “You just come back if you need anything at all.”

Zack assured her he would before hurrying down the street in the direction of what he hoped was the train depot. He had spent enough time in the area that he should know it by heart, but it seemed to him the place was constantly changing, and after taking his fourth wrong turn, he hailed a hack and climbed aboard in complete frustration.

After directing the driver to the station, Zack anxiously picked at the material of his jean-clad legs. He was finally on his way! Now he would find Simone Dumas, and perhaps in locating her, he would also locate her father. It was just a matter of time before he had his answers and learned the truth of Garvey Davis’s murder.

“Dearborn,” the driver soon called back to him, and Zack quickly paid him and made his way into the busy station.

“When’s the next train for Topeka, Kansas?” Zack asked ticket agent.

The man looked up at Zack and then to the clock on the wall. “Looks like you made it just in time,” he answered in a slow, lazy drawl. “Train leaves in ten minutes.”

“What?” Zack asked, finding the news a surprise. He’d not given much thought as to when the next train might take him toward Topeka, but this seemed too providential to be chalked off to mere luck.

“Train leaves from track three in ten minutes. You’ll have to change trains in Kansas City.”

“That’s fine,” Zack replied, suddenly realizing that he’d had no time to go back to his boardinghouse to retrieve his change of clothes. “Say,” he asked, taking the ticket from the man, “is there someone who could take a message for me?”

“Where to?”

Zack gave the address to the man and added, “If I’m to catch the train, I need to send word about holding my things.”

The man nodded. “You can leave the message here, and for ten cents I can send a boy over to deliver it.”

Zack thanked the man and crossed through the massive station house to make his way to the right track. He glanced in one direction and then the other. They had certainly made this place big enough.

“You meeting a pretty lady at the station?” an elderly voice called from behind him.

Zack turned to find a woman selling flowers. He shook his head and smiled. “Not exactly, ma’am,” he replied. “I’m going to Topeka to meet a pretty lady.”

Louis Dumas couldn’t believe his eyes when Zack Matthews fairly raced his way into the Dearborn Station. Of all the people in the world, he’d not expected to find the young lawman here. Unable to contain his curiosity, Louis followed at a safe distance and hid behind a pillar while Matthews did business with the ticket agent. He seemed quite animated about something, Louis thought, and the idea that perhaps Matthews had managed to locate Simone crossed his mind in a blaze of excitement.