Mercury's Rise (Silver Rush 04) (47 page)
Inez stared, horrified. “You would kill an innocent child?”
“Not I. You would by your own indiscretion. You would kill your own son. I know you don’t want to do that, do you? Now, quickly, time is passing.” She hitched the gun meaningfully.
Just then, a groan at her feet.
Inez stared, incredulous, as Prochazka’s outstretched fingers twitched. She wanted to scream: Be silent! Don’t move!
But it was too late. The nurse looked down and said, “Dear me.” She brought the statue up high and whipped it down.
Inez threw the half-full flask at the nurse.
The statue contacted the doctor’s skull with a sickening thud, just as the flask’s contents splashed over the nurse.
Mrs. Crowson screamed. She staggered and dropped the statue, then grabbed the edge of her cloak to wipe her face.
Inez grabbed another flask, hiked her skirts up to her knees, and headed for the door, flinging the second glass as she dashed past Mrs. Crowson, who dodged and lifted her gun.
The shot cracked throughout the clinic. Inez swore she could feel the bullet buzz past her head. She broke into a hobbled run, only to find a bulky male figure looming at the clinic’s door, silhouetted by the dawning light.
Lewis grabbed Inez and spun her out of the way, shouting, “Shelby! Stop!”
The second bullet, meant for Inez, hit him square in the neck.
The scream came not from Lewis but from Crowson.
Inez flattened herself to the floor next to the hotelier, who was bubbling up blood. She scrabbled in his pockets for a pistol, a knife, anything.
He was unarmed.
Crowson bore down upon them, eyes wild. She grabbed Inez by her silk-clad shoulder and shoved her away from the dying man.
Sister knelt by brother. She set the gun down and tried to staunch the wound with her hands. Blood oozed between her fingers to the floor, soaking into the thirsty dry wood.
Inez backed away, on gloved hands and stockinged knees, and gripped a chair leg, dragging the chair around so she could swing it. She was determined to take down the nurse with hardwood, if nothing else. Assuming she got the chance before the next shot.
Crowson ignored Inez. Whispering low to her brother, she put an arm behind his back and pulled him up to a half-seated position. Lewis choked and a surge of blood spilled from his lips, splashing over his jacket. He went still.
Through the open door, Inez could see the back porch of the hotel. Several men were gathered in a knot. The knot loosened, and one figure limped down the steps and came through the garden, moving quickly: Mark.
Mrs. Crowson lowered Lewis to the floor, gripped his wrist as if seeking a pulse, and closed her eyes. Inez dragged the chair toward herself and rose on her knees, tensing to swing.
The nurse opened her eyes and gazed at Inez. Her expression was as one who lived through battles and wars, only to be brought down by an invisible burden, too heavy to bear.
“I did everything I could, everything in my power to bring him back to who he needed to be, so we could return to who we were,” she whispered, still clutching his wrist. “Now that he’s gone, that can never happen.” She raised her revolver.
The final shot shattered the air before Inez could bring the chair around.
But it didn’t matter.
After all, the bullet was not meant for her.
There was no way to hush up the scatter of bodies in the clinic and the lingering sense of catastrophe that greeted the hotel’s patrons and patients at the dawning of the day.
Epperley did the next best thing and closed the clinic building, putting a hefty lock on the door. The hotel manager then put out an urgent request to Dr. Zuckerman, who agreed to put off his trip to Denver and take over the Mountain Springs House’s patients immediately.
Epperley stepped into the breach, deciding that it was best to put it out and about that the whole sorry business was a family affair, brought on by Crowson’s sudden mental collapse. As he explained privately to Inez and Mark that evening, from behind a screen of cigarette smoke and during a shared bottle of brandy in the manager’s small but comfortable office on the main floor, “All the people who matter, including the marshal, know about Mrs. Crowson’s unceasing work here at the hotel and in the community. They won’t blink an eye at the suggestion that all the strain brought her to the edge of hysteria and that something simple pushed her over. The overwhelming responsibilities of being on the front line of the healing profession and what not. Besides, Dr. Prochazka was not the easiest chap to answer to. He’d drive anyone to madness, honestly. I’m certain the hotel’s reputation can survive this unfortunate incident, provided I can count on your discretion.” He raised an eyebrow and added another generous tot to their glasses.
When Inez inquired as to what would happen to Prochazka’s research, Epperley waved a desultory hand, sending a coil of cigarette smoke into a swirling chaos. “You started the job quite neatly with your enforced housekeeping in the back room. I had a maid I trust finish the task. Burned the papers to keep them away from prying eyes.”
Inez couldn’t help it. She gasped.
Epperley continued. “Threw the rest of the glassware away. Oh, gave the microscopes and Dr. P’s tonic recipes to Zuckerman, at his request. It was all he wanted, and he’s welcome to them. By-the-by, as you probably know, Zuckerman is as heavily invested in the hotel as I am. He’s backing up this sorry tale of woe with his considerable reputation, so we’ll have no problem from the medical side of things.”
“But Dr. Prochazka told me he’d discovered the cause of tuberculosis,” Inez said. “Think of the lives that could be saved, if his work could be salvaged.”
Smoke puffed from Epperley’s nostrils in a derisive snort. “Assuming he really did, who would present those results to the medical establishment and the world?” He tapped the growing ash into a crystal ashtray. “Are you volunteering for the assignment, Mrs. Stannert? Or perhaps you’re thinking of Dr. Zuckerman? He’s no researcher, just the local pill pusher. A well-regarded one, but still, no academic. He’d be laughed out of any serious gathering of medical men. He’ll make a mint from all of Dr. P’s tonics, and that’s all he cares about. As for the building…”
Inez leaned forward. “Will it remain a clinic?”
“No. I have my plans.” He leaned back, gazed up at the ceiling, and drew reflectively on his cigarette, sending the resultant plume skyward. “A billiard room for men and women
and
a bowling alley. The building will hold them both nicely, with room to spare. That’ll show the Cliff House and Manitou House that we’re still a serious competitor and not to be trifled with.”
Over the following few days, the real story played out in communications between Doc Cramer in Leadville and the Stannerts in Manitou.
Doc’s initial response to Mark’s urgent telegram arrived while Inez was being fussed over by Harmony and Aunt Agnes, who offered up endless glasses of mineral water and cups of mint tea in the women’s parlor room. Aunt Agnes kept saying, “I knew it! This barbaric place is full of barbarians. Shooting guns, as if this is some dreadful dime novel come to life. That poor nurse, Mrs. Crowson, was no doubt driven mad living in this wilderness, as any woman with normal sensibilities would be.”
Harmony’s urgent hush to Agnes went unnoticed. Agnes continued, “Why you won’t come with us, Inez, I cannot understand. You are stubborn beyond belief. You could have been killed in the crossfire! If that so-called husband of yours cared about you at all he would have taken the money I offered.”
Inez, who was refusing the mineral water, refusing the tea, refusing Harmony’s insistence that she “lie down” on the divan in the parlor, bolted upright away from Harmony’s gentle hands. “
What?
Aunt Agnes, what did you do?”
Even Harmony looked aghast.
The tumbler of mineral water in Aunt Agnes’ hand wavered. Then, she shot a hard defiant stare at Inez. “I offered Mr. Stannert money to let you go, to release you. A considerable sum, I’ll add. I told him I would take you back east, effect the divorce, and it needn’t concern him at all. He need not do anything, not show up, not place a motion, it would all be taken care of, none would be the wiser, and he’d be free. I even offered that we would arrange for him to see William, when the child was older. Although honestly, it isn’t as if he has provided for you and William in a manner befitting descendants of the Underwoods.”
“Aunt Agnes, this is the last straw,” snapped Inez. “You have meddled in our affairs—mine, my husband’s, our son’s—and overstepped your bounds completely. I have met card sharps, buffalo hunters, confidence men,
cyprians
—”
Harmony gasped and lay a hand across her bosom. Inez was surprised that Harmony even knew what the term meant.
“—with more honor than you,” she finished.
Mark picked that moment to knock on the women’s parlor door and venture into the female bastion, bearing Doc’s response to the urgent early morning telegram.
From the way her husband and aunt eyed each other—with the thinnest of civilized veneers glossing mutual dislike—Inez surmised that Agnes had been telling the truth about her attempt to bribe Mark and his refusal to rise to the bait.
With the briefest of bows to Agnes and a deeper, more respectful one to Harmony, Mark showed Inez the yellow sheet on which the telegraph operator had printed Doc’s reply: “The War and the ‘Franke’ brothers. Telegraphist incorrectly wrote ‘Franklin.’ VLF is Surgeon Victor Lewis Franke. SCF is Asst Surgeon Shelby Crowson Franke. Dr. Galloway killed in botched surgery. Why?”
Inez promptly rose to her feet and clutched Mark’s arm as if he were her lifeline to sanity. She escaped the parlor and her aunt, only after repeated assurances to her frantic sister that she was, indeed, unharmed and merely needed to rest upstairs. Epperley stopped them both in the hallway, Zuckerman hot on his heels, and said in a low voice, “Please, do not say anything to anyone yet. I shall arrange for us to meet this evening and discuss this unfortunate turn of events. If you could stay mum until then, it would be much appreciated.”
In the sitting room of their suite, Inez made a proper recovery with a cup of strong coffee laced with even stronger brandy. She and Mark then drafted another telegram to Doc with a short, circumspect explanation and more questions. Doc promptly sent back an equally short and opaque response.
Later that day, a knock on the Stannerts’ hotel door provided a break in the flurry of telegrams back and forth to Leadville. Inez opened the door to find Susan Carothers and Mrs. Pace, accompanied by a distinguished man with intense blue eyes, along with the Pace children and their nanny. “We have come to say good-bye,” said Mrs. Pace, lifting her mourning veil. “It will be a relief to head back to our home, now that my husband’s brother has arrived.” She introduced Eric Pace to Inez and Mark. He shook hands solemnly all around. Mathilda piped up, “Uncle Eric is going to be like our father now.” Inez noted the blush that climbed his face and the glance he sent toward Mrs. Pace as she scolded Mathilda. Maybe, Inez thought, the future would prove the child right, after the proper amount of time had passed.
They offered to wait outside the door so Susan could have a few private words with Inez. Mark excused himself to his bedroom, leaving the two friends alone.
Susan clutched Inez’s hand. “This is short notice, but when Kirsten offered that I could share their carriage to the train station in Colorado Springs, I decided to accept. I need to return to Leadville and my studio. It’s just too hard to stay here, I keep thinking of Robert.” She opened her tote, pulled out a cabinet card, and handed it to Inez. It was one of Mrs. Galbreaith’s images of Robert Calder, standing in the narrows of Williams Canyon, cocky smile on his face, arms folded. Even on paper, he radiated life and vitality.
“I understand,” said Inez. “He was a good man. He worked hard to find the truth, and I believe he cared quite a bit for you.” She handed the card back to her friend.
Susan took the card, tucked it carefully away, and rose. “Didn’t someone once say work is the best medicine for troubled souls? I have plenty to do, and am anxious to get started.” She leaned forward and brushed Inez’s cheek with her lips. “Thank you so much for asking me to come to Manitou with you. Despite all the heartaches, I’m glad I came. I would have never met Robert, if not for you.”
Inez held her hand a moment longer. “I’ll see you back in Leadville, Susan. We shall have tea and talk. But not mint tea,” she added quickly.
A few days later, after a third unsatisfactory round of telegrams, Inez and Mark finally received a letter from Doc. He laid out his story with a preponderance of ink blots and enthusiasm that Inez suspected was due to an overabundant late-night consumption of liquor for nonmedicinal purposes.
Doc began with “I did not know the Franke brothers personally. But the unfolding of events and theories that I provide to you in this letter came from men who knew the surgeons in question. Medical men who labored in the hospital tents alongside me, men I will forever vouchsafe as honest and reliable as any I’ve known throughout my life.”
He then launched into an explanation that had Inez exclaiming with force and Mark shaking his head. The Franke brothers had enlisted together and, at their request, were assigned to the same unit. “As it was explained to me later, they always operated together,” Doc said. “It was assumed by those in the medical fraternity that they were brothers trained at the same school, practiced together. They were extremely private and not given to talking about themselves or their past. For a long time, it was believed that Victor Franke was the brilliant physician. He handled the worst of cases with apparent ease and skill. Little did we know that it wasn’t the brilliance of the surgeon, but the
assistant
surgeon, that was responsible for the heroic medical deeds. Since the two of them always worked together, they managed to keep the fiction going for quite a while.”