Fletcher's Woman (48 page)

“What is it?” Griffin demanded, after a long, unbearable silence.

Now, John O'Riley's weary blue eyes climbed to his face. “Griffin, Douglas Frazier died this morning.”

Griffin lowered his head, pretending a compelling interest in his coffee cup. “My God.”

John's voice rumbled with fond irritation. “Griffin, the man was a monster. He sold women and God knows what else—”

Griffin swallowed. “He was still a man, John. And he's still dead.”

After that, there seemed to be nothing else to say. Numb, Griffin finished the terrible coffee only because it enabled him to keep moving, keep working.

He'd been expecting Providence's storekeeper-constable all day, on some subliminal level of his mind, and it came as no real surprise to him when Henry waylaid him just outside the entrance to the mess tent.

Judge Sheridan was there, too, and they were both armed. The nickle-silver barrels of their pistols caught the flickering light of the pine-pitch torches that burned on both sides of the tent's doorway.

Griffin stopped, grimly amused that they would come after an alleged abortionist with that much weaponry.
I'm dangerous
, he thought.

Henry's mustache was quivering again, just as it had in church that Sunday, when Griffin had offered him a rock to fling at Field Hollister. “You better come quiet, Doc,” he said, in a tremulous voice.

Griffin allowed his gaze to swing eloquently to the gun in Henry's hand. “I see that.”

John O'Riley, who had apparently been struck speechless by the sight of Providence law in action, finally found his voice. He directed his words beyond Henry, however, to the judge. “Now, Edward, what is this about?”

Henry and the judge exchanged stricken looks, then the latter mumbled, “We sure didn't plan on your hearing about it this way, John. There's nothing for it now, though—justice must be done.”

Griffin found the word “justice” inordinately funny and laughed. “It isn't justice, Judge, and you know it,” he said. “Athena made that story up to avenge her wounded pride.”

Sheridan's face was cold, but his eyes blazed with outrage. “Athena Bordeau is dead,” he bit out. “And no one knows that better than you do, Fletcher.”

John gasped, raised one hand to his chest. “No—”

Stunned to immobility himself, Griffin could make no move toward his friend. “What in the hell are you talking about?” he snapped, his eyes fixed on Sheridan's face.

“Happened a couple of hours ago, according to the undertaker,”
put in Henry, emboldened. “You killed her, Griffin, and you're not going to get by with murder in my town!”

Griffin could move then; he turned distractedly from Sheridan and the constable to look at John. The expression in his friend's eyes went through him like a piece of freshly forged metal.

“You said you'd kill her,” the old man whispered brokenly. “That day in my study, you said you'd kill her with your bare hands—”

“Strangled her,” confirmed Henry, carried away by the sudden magnitude of his office. “Her throat's plum crushed in.”

“Shut up!” snapped Judge Sheridan, seeing the dangerous, stricken grief in John O'Riley's face. “We're talking about Dr. O'Riley's daughter!”

John had turned away, though; he was stumbling back inside the tent. Griffin moved to follow him, was detained by Judge Sheridan's grasp on his arm.

He wrenched free, concerned only with the blue tinge of John's lips, the gray pallor of his skin. “Damn it, let me see if he's all right!”

Henry brought the barrel of his pistol up, so that it rested flush with Griffin's midsection, pressing hard. It felt cold, even through the fabric of his shirt. “You saw to enough, Doctor. After what you did to that poor woman, I'd just as soon shoot you as say your name, so you stay right where you are!”

Griffin swore. “I didn't kill her, you wild-eyed incompetent—I've been here all day!”

“You did it, all right,” insisted Henry, implacably. “We found something of yours near the body. Besides, everybody knows how she wanted you back and how you just couldn't see beyond that whelp of Becky McKinnon's—”

Griffin, swallowing the fury pounding in his throat, closed his eyes. “I didn't kill her,” he repeated.

Judge Sheridan brought a small object from his pocket, extended it to Griffin. “This, among other things, leads us to believe that you did.”

The pocket watch was cool against Griffin's palm, and it confirmed what some part of him had suspected all along. “This belongs to Jonas,” he said, handing it back.

Henry scowled. “You expect us to believe—”

Griffin brought his own watch out of his vest pocket and dangled it, by its chain, from two fingers. It gleamed, golden, even in the torchlight. “My watch, Gentlemen,” he said, and his
smile felt gruesome on his face. “Look closely—it's exactly like Jonas's. And there is a reason for that.”

Henry's mustache began to twitch again, up, down, sideways. “What reason?”

“ ‘What reason?' ” mocked Griffin, sardonically. “Why don't you tell him, Judge? You should remember.”

Judge Sheridan looked uncertain for the first time, as far as Griffin knew, since before his election. “Jonas's mother was a twin sister to Dr. Fletcher's. Those two fine, gentle ladies always hoped that their sons would get along with each other, so they bought them duplicate watches and threw a big party to celebrate their birthdays one year.”

“So?” challenged Henry, impatient with such pedantic reverie.

“So it's possible that Dr. Fletcher is telling the truth. He has his watch; it's an unusual one—the only other like it belongs to Jonas.”

Henry was gravely disappointed. “It ain't so unusual!” he protested, petulantly.

Griffin opened the watchcase, pressed a small button inside it. The strains of a haunting, tremulous tune sounded. “My aunt—Jonas's mother—composed that melody,” he said.

Henry sighed. “Well, there's still what Dr. O'Riley just said; he must have heard you threaten Mrs. Bordeau's life.”

The judge nodded in agreement. “Mr. Wilkes was her friend—wouldn't have had any reason to want her dead.”

“Did you say that? Did you say you'd kill her with your bare hands?” demanded Henry, the barrel of his pistol still nudging Griffin's solar plexus.

“Yes,” Griffin replied, in an undertone.

“Then you're under arrest,” said the judge, flatly.

“Just let me look in on John—please?”

Sheridan nodded sharply. “But don't try anything, Griffin. Henry would be within his rights to shoot you.”

Griffin wheeled away from his captors, strode into the mess tent. John was sitting stock-still on one of the long benches, staring down at the tabletop.

Rounding the table, Griffin faced him, noted with relief that his color was better, his breathing even. “I didn't murder your daughter, John,” he said.

There were tears on John O'Riley's face. “My God, I wish I could believe you, Griffin. I wish I could believe you!”

Henry and the judge would wait no longer.

“Put out your hands, Griffin,” urged the latter, his voice softer now.

“Ain't we better bind his feet, too?” muttered Henry.

Judge Sheridan searched Griffin's face. “No need,” he said sadly. His eyes moved to John. “I'm sorry about your daughter. Shall I send a message to your wife?”

John shook his head slowly, and his eyes looked sightless, glazed. “I'll let Joanna know myself,” he said.

•   •   •

Rachel sat up in the big bed, tried to scan Molly Brady's pale, averted face. “What is it?” she demanded, in a broken whisper.

“It's Athena Bordeau,” Molly answered, facing her patient squarely as she laid a tray of hot food in her lap. “Eat now.”

But Rachel felt no interest in the nourishing supper she'd so longed for only moments ago. “What about Athena?” she pressed, shaken by the fierce, distracted green of Molly's eyes.

“She's dead,” Molly whispered. “And they've arrested Dr. Fletcher for murdering her.”

The tray and its contents clattered to the floor as Rachel thrust away her covers and scrambled out of bed. “
No
!”

Sniffling, Molly Brady knelt to gather bits of broken crockery, a buttered biscuit, a pork chop. “Now look and see what you've done, Rachel McKinnon. All your nice supper, and the best china—”

Rachel's voice was high and thin with stunned impatience. “How can you go on about china when Griffin is in so much trouble!”

Molly looked up, and there were tears pouring down her face. “Oh, Rachel,” she sobbed, “He said he'd kill her! With my own ears, in this very room, I heard him make that vow!”

Rachel's knees were weak and wobbling beneath her but she had no intention of crawling back into bed and meekly accepting something that couldn't possibly be true. “Where are my clothes—I'm going to him—”

Molly dropped the litter she'd been gathering and shot to her feet. “You'll be going nowhere, Miss Rachel McKinnon! My Billy's gone for Field Hollister—it's him the doctor needs now, not you!”

Rachel wove her way around Molly, stopping to rest once against the wall. “I'll find a stupid dress myself!” she screamed.

But Molly Brady had not been ill, and she was not in a weakened condition, like Rachel. Taking care to avoid the china shattered on the floor, she grabbed her charge and propelled her back to the bed.

“And what help will you be to that man if you're dead of the bleeding?” demanded Griffin's housekeeper savagely, her hands on her narrow little hips, her eyes bright with tears and determination.

Now, it was Rachel who wept. “He wouldn't—oh, Molly, he
wouldn't—”

Molly's eyes were distant now, emerald in their fierceness. “She's destroyed him, sure as I'll draw my next breath.”

Before Rachel could manage a reply, there were sounds from the entry hall below, followed by quick, light footsteps on the stairs. Fawn Hollister came into the room, brown eyes desolate, and gravitated toward the bed. Reaching it, she sat down on its edge and, without ceremony, wrapped her arms around the shuddering Rachel.

“Field is with him,” she said softly. “Field is there.”

Rachel swallowed a fresh spate of tears. “I think Molly believes Griffin's guilty.”

Fawn's brown eyes rose to meet Molly's, but there was no accusation in her gaze, and no anger. “Molly is wrong, then,” she said.

Molly turned, went to stand at the black, uncurtained expanse of Griffin's window. “I pray that I am,” she said, in a small, hopeless voice. “I pray that I am.”

A moment later, she gathered up the tray and its scattered contents and left the room.

“Jonas,” Rachel said, her forehead resting on Fawn Hoillster's small, strong shoulder. “Jonas killed her.”

“Probably,” agreed Fawn, and there was no more hope in her voice than Rachel had heard in Molly's. “Nothing on earth could make him admit it, though. Nothing.”

“But Griffin could hang!”

“We'll think of something,” Fawn promised, pressing Rachel gently back onto her pillows. “But you must be strong, if you're going to help. Sleep now, and we'll make plans in the morning.”

Rachel could not sleep, but for the sake of her friend, she pretended to. And as she lay still in that darkened room, alone, a plan began to form in her mind. It was wild and it was
desperate, but it had one distinct virtue—it was the only way Rachel could think of to save Griffin.

•   •   •

Griffin Fletcher stood gripping the bars of his cell, tracing a pattern in the sawdust floor with the toe of his right boot. The door leading from the jail's solitary cell to Henry's dry goods store swung open, and Field was there, beyond the bars, looking grim and frightened and sick.

“You were in Tent Town when it happened!” he barked, without preamble. “Weren't you?”

“Of course I was,” Griffin snapped back. Then, gruffly, he added, “I didn't do it, Field.”

For the first time that Griffin knew of, Field swore roundly. “I know that—it's just that Henry and the judge and a lot of other people around here would just as soon see you hang as anybody! Damn it, Griffin, why do you have to go around making enemies all the time, anyway?”

“Habit,” said Griffin, with a shrug and a rueful grin.

Before Field could retort, the door opened again. This time, the visitor was Jonas.

There was a look in his cousin's eyes, a quality in the set of his face, that made Griffin feel fear—not for himself, but for Rachel. Deliberately, he kept his voice light, even. “Don't tell me, Jonas—let me guess. You came to bail me out.”

Jonas laughed, and the sound was disjointed somehow. Griffin's fear deepened, and so did his determination to hide it.

“I wouldn't think of impeding justice,” Jonas said. But then his eyes fell to the design Griffin was tracing in the sawdust on the floor, and a horrible spasm moved in his cherubic face. “The scar,” he whispered, brokenly. “The
scar
.”

And then he turned and bolted out of the quarters reserved for Providence's rare transgressors, leaving the door to gape open behind him.

“What the—” began Field, staring after Jonas.

But Griffin knew. He looked down at the tracing he'd made on the floor and groaned. It was a diamond shape.

Unwittingly, he had confirmed something that Jonas couldn't bear to know.

Fawn's brown eyes widened as she watched Rachel scrambling into a simple calico dress. “You must be out of your mind, Rachel McKinnon!” she announced bluntly. “Jonas would never fall for a trick like that!”

Rachel fought down a rush of lingering weakness and forced herself to be strong. “Can you think of anything better?” she challenged, wrenching the now-scruffy kid leather shoes she'd bought in Seattle onto her feet.