Silken Dreams (19 page)

After a moment, the door creaked open, and a plump matronly woman with ginger-colored hair peeped outside. Her lips lifted into a shaky smile when she saw Lettie on the doorstep, and for a moment, there was a glimpse of her usual good cheer in her silver eyes.

“Hello, Mrs. Clark,” Lettie murmured.

“Lettie, how nice of you to call.”

“We don’t mean to impose on you at a time like this, but…”

“Nonsense. Come in.” There was a slight edge of desperation to Mrs. Clark’s invitation, as if she’d spent too much time alone as it was. “I’ve got some hot tea on the stove. Please say you’ll stay and have a cup.”

Lettie glanced at Ethan and saw his slight nod from beneath the veiling.

“If it’s not too much trouble.”

“No trouble at all. Come in, come in.”

Lettie and Ethan stepped through the doorway, and Lettie handed Mrs. Clark the basket.

“Mama asked me to bring this by and to tell you that the church auxiliary has everything arranged for the meal after the services tomorrow. She also asked me to convey her condolences.”

Abby Clark reached for the basket. Her lips trembled for a moment before she pressed them together and tried to smile. “How kind. The bread smells delicious. Your mother is such a fine cook.” She glanced up, and there was an echo of a familiar twinkle in her eyes. “I’m glad you brought it over. It will give us something to have with our tea.”

She gestured for Lettie to precede her down the hall. “We’ll just sit and visit in the kitchen, if you don’t mind, Lettie—and of course your guest.”

“This is one of our boarders: Mrs. Magillicuddy. Agnes Magillicuddy.”

Abby nodded and smiled, but when Ethan did not offer his hand in greeting, she politely refrained from forcing the familiarity. “Pleased to meet you, I’m sure. Come and have some tea.”

Abby Clark led them into the kitchen, where she poured tea, sliced bread, and opened a jar of jam. Lettie felt a moment of panic when the portions were placed in front of Ethan, but he calmly lifted the veiling of his bonnet—just enough to eat without revealing his features—then placed the cup back on his saucer. If Abby noticed the dusting of dark hair on his hands, she gave no indication. Instead, she chattered and talked, while Ethan listened patiently, nodding now and again to show he was attending each word.

Lettie tried to tactfully probe for any information that might be helpful to Ethan, but it wasn’t until they were leaving and Mrs. Clark was leading them toward the front door that her expression became suddenly bleak. She seemed to sag. Her skin grew pale and white against the deep mourning of her woolen gown. “He wasn’t supposed to go last night, you know,” she whispered, turning to Lettie. “But he received a message at the last minute. One of the other boys … got sick… and Silas Gruber asked if he would guard the shipment.” Her last words were uttered in a choked voice.

Without speaking, Lettie drew the woman into her arms and rubbed her back, blinking fiercely against the moisture that sprang to her own eyes.

A few moments later, when she and Ethan had stepped into the sunshine and the door had shut behind them, she turned to him, sensing that Ethan had been as affected as she by the echoing sadness that had pervaded Mrs. Clark’s home.

“Five years ago, I prided myself on the fact that I never hurt anyone,” Ethan muttered. “I started stealing because my mother had been abandoned and we needed to eat.” He gazed at Lettie. “But I never thought I’d hurt anyone—only myself.”

He took a ragged breath. “But I’m partially responsible for that woman’s pain. The man who did this copied
my
methods.” His shoulders squared and his hands balled into fists. “But once I find him, he’ll pay, Lettie,” Ethan muttered. “Whoever did this will pay.”

After leaving Mrs. Clark’s, they drove out of town, following the road north to where the rail lines from Harrisburg ran parallel to the creek. A huge water tower had been constructed for the freight trains a few years before, when the Petesville line had circumvented the stop in Madison. It was here—while the train had stopped for water—that the latest robbery had occurred.

Long before they’d reached the area, Lettie and Ethan encountered several other buggies headed in the same direction, as well as a few that were evidently leaving the scene. By the time the train had come into sight, they could smell the faint odor of charred wood and could see that the grassway on either side was dotted with at least a dozen onlookers.

Lettie maneuvered the buggy onto a shoulder a few yards away from the train and separate from the other townspeople who had come to see. A chill coursed through her when she saw such blatant destruction for the first time. She turned to find Ethan peering at the shattered boxcar from his vantage point within the buggy.

“Can you get any closer?”

She gestured toward the men a few feet away who were poking through the rubble. “Not without calling attention to ourselves. Some of them are members of Jacob’s posse.”

He nodded and settled back against the tufted seat, then lapsed into a brooding silence. Lettie glanced at him, and, because of the angle of the sun, she was able to see a shadow of his features through the veiling. A thoughtful intensity had settled over his face.

“He must have panicked last night,” he said after several long moments of silence.

“What do you mean?”

‘Something must have disturbed his routine, forcing him to make a mistake, the most obvious of which was shooting his witness in the hip. If you want to ensure a man won’t talk, you don’t shoot him in the hip. You aim for the stomach, or the chest, or the head.”

Lettie shivered beneath the obvious intent of Ethan’s words.

“Why would the thief want to kill him?”

Ethan’s head turned and she grew still, sensing a part of him that she found hard to accept: a harder, more calculating side, one that was infinitely more dangerous than the man she’d come to know over the past few weeks.

“If not for the blast, Clark could have been a witness if he’d survived.”

“But he was killed in the blast.”

“The thief didn’t know that. He was gone by the time the blast occurred, otherwise he would have been killed or injured as well.” Ethan gestured to the rubble. “Look at that.”

Lettie gazed at the boxcar but didn’t know what she was supposed to see. For the most part, very little of the railroad car remained. Most of it lay littered about the charred grass around her.

“He obviously used too much dynamite. He blasted a hole out of the boxcar and destroyed too much of the safe.”

“So?”

“That blast shouldn’t have happened,” Ethan continued. “Not like that.” He gestured to the rubble strewn away from the car. “There’s too much damage. Any idiot would have known better than to set something like that on purpose. If he’d been within twenty yards of the explosion, he would’ve caught a piece of debris in the back of the head. Look at the way the force of the charge knocked the other cars off the rails.”

“Then why did he do it?”

“I don’t think it was done this way on purpose. Not for a simple robbery. I’d say something surprised him,
someone
surprised him. Maybe Clark shot at him or there was a scuffle and the man accidentally shot Clark. Regardless, our man panicked and set the charge incorrectly. He probably high-tailed it out of here and never knew he’d murdered Jeb Clark.”

When Ethan grew quiet, Lettie sensed there was more. “Ethan?” she prompted. “What is it?”

Ethan took a deep breath. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Up until now, he’s been copying the methods of…” He paused, then continued: “Copying my methods. But last night, he broke the routine.”

“Why?”

“You told me earlier that five hundred in gold was taken.”

“And the stocks and bond certificates.”

“And he left the paper money.” Ethan gestured to the ground, which was covered with shreds of singed paper that had obviously once been part of a stack of dollar bills. “He didn’t take the money.”

“So?”

“I always took paper over gold. If I was forced to leave something for a quick retreat, it was the gold—gold is heavier and harder to conceal, especially if you’re in a hurry and on the run. This man took the gold but not the paper.” His hands tightened into fists on top of his thighs. “And yet, he took the bonds. That’s stupid. Those bonds can be traced.”

“So?”

“So I think our thief is beginning to get nervous. Scared.” His voice grew hard. “If that fear takes hold, he’ll make more mistakes in the future, dangerous mistakes.” Ethan turned to pin her with an intense stare. “Since the authorities think I’ve trained the man as an accomplice, we’ve got to find him before one of those errors puts him in his grave and destroys any chance I have to see my name cleared and this bastard hanged for his own crimes.”

Once again, his eyes swept across the area, and then Ethan frowned. Not more than a hundred feet away, his stepbrother, Ned, and another man stood beside their mounts, gazing at the wreckage. There was something vaguely… familiar about Ned’s companion.

“Lettie, who’s that?” he asked, making certain his voice emerged with nothing more than casual curiosity.

Lettie glanced in the direction of Ethan’s nod and answered, “That’s Mr. Gruber. Natalie’s husband. Why?”

“Nothing. He just seems… familiar.” When the man in question turned toward him, Ethan looked away, then glanced back, realizing Gruber could never see his features through the veiling from that distance.

“What does Gruber do?”

Lettie shifted the reins in her hands. “He’s the director of the Thrift and Loan. He and his wife moved here from Chicago a few years ago.”

Ethan’s eyes narrowed and he motioned for Lettie to head back into town. Although the buggy soon disappeared from the area, Ethan couldn’t push away the nagging thought that he’d seen Gruber somewhere before.

The drive back to the dry-goods store was made in silence. Lettie carefully threaded the buggy through the morning traffic that clogged the dusty streets of Madison. Nevertheless, she kept a careful eye for anyone who might be overtly curious about her passenger.

“I’ll only be a minute or two,” she told Ethan as she brought the buggy to a stop. “You may as well stay here until I’m done.”

Ethan nodded and reached for the reins while she backed out of the buggy.

Since Schmidt’s Dry Goods was accustomed to her mother’s business, it only took a few moments to gather the supplies and arrange for the bill to be sent to the boardinghouse. Then, counting out a few of her own precious coins, Lettie bought a pair of large gloves for Ethan.

“Aren’t these a little big for your hands, Lettie?”

Lettie glanced up, startled, when Irma Schmidt, one of the clerks, carefully handed her the parcel wrapped in brown paper.

“They’re … a gift,” Lettie explained quickly, then grasped the package and strode out the door. Irma Schmidt’s ten-year-old son scurried after her, carrying the box of supplies.

“If you’ll just put the crate in the back, Arnie.”

The little boy nodded and hurried to do as he’d been told. “There you are, Miss Lettie.”

Lettie smiled and handed him a penny. “Thank you for your help.”

The boy took one look at the shiny penny and flashed her a wide grin. “Yes, ma’am!”

“Lettie?”

Lettie stiffened when she recognized her brother’s deep voice. Turning, she found him gazing at her from the boardwalk.

“Jacob,” she acknowledged formally, fighting the urge to look in Ethan’s direction, fearing that even a single glance could betray his masquerade.

Jacob pushed off the boardwalk and strode toward her. “Will you give this to Mama, please?” he asked, his voice slightly cool.

Lettie straightened her shoulders even more. Jacob was evidently still a little peeved about her earlier remarks. “Of course.”

Jacob handed her a folded piece of paper. “See to it that she hangs it in a place where everyone can see it.”

“Yes, I’ll do that.”

“Thanks.” Jacob turned and tipped his hat in Ethan’s direction. “Afternoon, ma’am.” Without glancing back, Jacob walked away.

Lettie took a deep breath and climbed into the buggy.

“You two have a fight?” Ethan asked softly.

“I guess so.”

“About me?”

Lettie didn’t answer. She grasped the reins and quickly maneuvered the buggy into the street.

From the far end of the boardwalk, Rusty Janson stepped from the barbershop and ambled toward the tall, gangly form of Ned Abernathy, who had just ridden into town.

“Goldsmith is just about done,” Rusty announced, tucking a hammer beneath his arm and reaching for one of the nails in his shirt pocket. He’d been nailing wanted posters all over town and still had a dozen to post.

“Mmm?” Ned turned to stare at him as if just noting that Rusty had reached his side.

“I said, Goldsmith’s about done,” Rusty repeated. “Though if you ask me, when he takes off that sorry-lookin’ hairpiece he wears, he hasn’t got all that much of his own hair to worry about. Certainly not enough to make it worth paying a barber to trim it.”

Shaking his head in amazement at the other man’s lack of frugality, Rusty struggled to juggle the posters, the hammer, and the nails while attempting to press a wanted notice against one of the roof supports to the barber shop. Seeing his predicament, Ned reached to hold the poster. With a nod of thanks, Rusty grasped his hammer and positioned a square-tipped nail on one corner of the rumpled placard. He hammered the nail into the weathered wood, then repeated the process on each of the remaining corners.

Once the poster was secure, he stood back to eye his handiwork, but Ned continued to hold the paper, not even noticing that Rusty had finished.

Seeing Ned’s preoccupation, Rusty followed the line of his gaze, squinting against the glaring light. “Who’s that with Lettie?”

When Ned continued to stare, Rusty forcibly removed the man’s hand from the poster.

Ned glanced at Rusty in embarrassment, then slipped a finger beneath the muggy restriction of his collar and tie. “Must be Mrs. Magillicuddy. New boarder. Came in last night.”