Fletcher's Woman (49 page)

The beautiful Indian woman lowered her head. “No,” she admitted. But when her eyes came back to Rachel's face, they were filled with foreboding. “I don't think you really understand Jonas Wilkes, Rachel. But I do, and I can tell you that the man is vicious even under the most ideal conditions. It's obvious, considering what he did to Athena, that he has already passed the point where reason gives way to madness!”

Rachel turned away, to stand before Griffin's mirror and brush her hair in fierce, determined strokes. “I don't care how dangerous he is, Fawn. I won't stand by and see Griffin hanged for something Jonas did!”

“He's
mad
, Rachel.”

Grimly, Rachel nodded. “I'm depending on that,” she said.

Fawn sighed furiously, but her reluctance was insignificant. It was clear that she planned to help.

•   •   •

Judge Edward Sheridan reviewed the case of Athena Bordeau's murder over and over in his mind. God knew, after what that woman had done two years before, it was a wonder that she hadn't turned up dead sooner.

Sheridan settled back in his desk chair, lit his pipe, drew thoughtfully on the cherry-scented smoke. He'd seen Griffin Fletcher that night, and been awed by the cold, murderous rage in his eyes, in the taut set of his shoulders. He'd stood at Becky McKinnon's bar, Griffin had, swilling more whiskey than any man had a right to consume and still stand.

Griffin hadn't talked about finding his fiancée in Jonas Wilkes' bed, but then he never talked about much of anything unless he was pressed. No, he'd just stood there, trying to exhaust the whiskey supply, and whatever demons had possessed him had been silent ones. It must have been hell, Sheridan thought, knowing a thing like that, knowing that the whole town probably knew it, too.

Clovis came into the Judge's study, her face avid, for all its aversion to the crime committed the night before. She put a shot of brandy into a coffee mug, poured the steaming brew in after it. “Louisa Griffin Fletcher would roll over in her grave if she knew what's happened,” she said, with a kind of horrified relish. “When is the trial to be held, Edward?”

The Judge reached out for his coffee, stirred sugar into it with irritated vigor. “I think you would like to see young Fletcher hung by sunset at the latest, wouldn't you, my dear?” he bit out.

“He murdered dear Athena!”

“Dear Athena,” mocked the Judge, with gruff scorn. Then, after a reflective silence, he said. “You know, Clovis, that young man is brash and ill-mannered and generally obnoxious, and I don't like him one bit better than you do. But I don't think he killed that woman.”

The very prospect of Griffin Fletcher's innocence had an alarming effect on Mrs. Sheridan. She sank into a chair, pale, and her eyes were suddenly too bright. “Of course he did, Edward! Why, after that scandal two years ago—”

“Exactly,” breathed the Judge. “It was two years ago. Why did he wait so long? Why didn't he murder Wilkes and the woman then and there? A lot of men would have, you know.

“That bothers me, Clovis—that and a few other things. Like the watch, and the fact that the body was found in the woods between Tent Town and the Fletcher house. Seems too easy. Griffin Fletcher is a smart man, Clovis, and he's in love with that McKinnon girl. If he was going to kill Athena, why would he leave so many clues?”

“Edward, really! You're just defending that wastrel because you were so smitten with Louisa!”

Louisa.
The name still ached in a darkened, benumbed corner of the Judge's heart. “Mike and Louisa Fletcher were friends of mine, Clovis, and I'll be damned if I'll railroad their son just because he annoys the hell out of me—or because he nettles you, for that matter.”

Clovis's voice was a petulant whine. “He's guilty as sin, Edward Sheridan!”

The Judge relit his pipe. “Maybe. And maybe not. But he isn't going to hang if he didn't kill that woman, Clovis, and you and the rest of Providence had best be about accepting that.” He sighed. “Now, leave me alone. I've got to think.”

Judge Edward Sheridan was still thinking at seven that evening, when Clovis burst into his study to announce that Mr. Wilkes's housekeeper, Mrs. Hammond, was waiting anxiously in the parlor to see him.

•   •   •

Fawn gasped when she saw the dress. “Where did you get that?”

Rachel turned the finely tailored white gown in her hands, thought she could feel Athena's terror in its very folds. “Mamie got it from the undertaker somehow. I've sent the message to Jonas, too—so everything is ready.”

“If Jonas doesn't kill us,” Mrs. Hollister breathed, “Griffin and Field will. Lord in heaven, Rachel, you're mad as Mr. Wilkes himself!”

Rachel had spent the day constructing a dummy of bedsheets and feathers purloined from several pillows. Now, calmly, she began to clothe the crude manikin in Athena's gown. “Billy checked,” she said, as if Fawn hadn't spoken at all. “There are no men around Jonas's barn—I suppose most of them are down with the influenza. He's going to put this in place for me, and then, when it gets really dark—”

Fawn's gaze shifted to the window, The rain had stopped; but the sky was overcast all the same, and the night would come sooner because of that. She stood up, smoothed her calico skirts. “I'll do what you asked me to,” she said. “But there is something else I have to do first.”

“Don't you tell!” warned Rachel, in a terse whisper.

As she walked out of the bedroom, Fawn Hollister made no promises, one way or the other.

•   •   •

Jonas stood still at the upstairs window, looking out over the grim aftermath of the rain, the note crumpled in his hand. Did Rachel think he was a fool? he wondered, with savage calmness. Did she really believe that he would walk blithely into whatever trap she was laying?

He let his head rest against the cool dampness of the window, closed his eyes. There were no illusions now; he knew that
Rachel had betrayed him with Griffin, knew that he could not allow her to live.

In his mind, he saw Griffin Fletcher drawing that diamond symbol in the sawdust of the jailhouse floor, pretending not to know what he was doing. But he'd been taunting him all the same—proving that he had, after all, been the first to possess Rachel.

A guttural cry rose in Jonas's throat, tore itself free. He'd loved her so much, loved her against reason, loved her against his own will. And she'd lain with Griffin.

As Jonas waited, he was certain that he couldn't bear the knowledge.

•   •   •

Griffin paced the sawdust floor in volcanic desperation. As he moved, he allowed the nonsensical prayers hammering in his heart to take shape in his mind, as words.

All the while, he despaired. It wasn't likely that Field's God would be inclined to listen to him. After all, this was the second or third prayer he'd ever consciously offered—and he hadn't exactly lived the faith.

He remembered the first time he'd directed a word deliberately to heaven—it had been in Seattle, just after the fire had broken out, when he was searching for Rachel. “Please,” had been all he could manage then, and his entreaty was hardly more articulate now.

Still, that one-word supplication had been answered then, hadn't it? He'd found Rachel.

Desperately, Griffin Fletcher clung to that. God would hear him—for Rachel's sake.

The opening of the outer door startled him, drew him to a sudden, stomach-twisting halt. Field came in, looking both worried and relieved, and Judge Sheridan was behind him.

Griffin was afraid to hope, afraid to speak.

But Judge Sheridan had keys. With maddening slowness, he was unlocking the cell door. “You're free, Griffin,” he said. “Eliza Hammond saw Jonas kill the woman. Henry's gone out to arrest him now.”

Griffin was feeling a number of things—relief, urgency, rage. And the look on Field's face made him uneasy on some deep, intuitive level.

“Field, what is it?” he rasped, bolting out of the confining cell, pulling on his suit coat.

“There was a note,” Field said. “There was a note on my
kitchen table when I went to look in on Fawn. Griffin, she and Rachel are on their way to Jonas's, if they're not there already.”

Griffin broke into a dead run, a swearword rattling in his throat. “What in the hell are you doing here, then?” he demanded, in front of the store, as he and Field and Judge Sheridan climbed onto waiting horses.

Field offered no reply.

•   •   •

It was dark in Jonas's barn; Rachel hadn't dared to light even one lantern. Swallowing her fear, she waited, a stack of baled hay scratching at her back.

The dummy was in place, Fawn was surely at her post at the back door of the barn, everything would happen just as it was supposed to. It simply had to.

In the many stalls, horses nickered uneasily, invisible in the thick darkness. But a buggy was hitched and ready to go, and that meant that Jonas had believed her note, believed that she wanted to run away with him.

Rachel closed her eyes, listening to the rapid, hard beat of her own heart.

And then, suddenly, there was lantern light glowing in the front entrance to the barn, casting ghostly shadows on everything within a radius of several yards. “Rachel?”

She swallowed. “I'm here, Jonas.”

He approached, holding the lantern aloft, and even in its flickering light, she could see the strange, frightening contortion of his features. “You've had a change of heart,” he said, in an odd, chantlike voice.

Rachel lifted her chin. “Yes. G-Griffin is a murderer—I made a mistake.”

Jonas drew nearer, and though he walked upright, he seemed to be crouching, like a wild beast poised to pounce. Rachel swallowed a scream as his hand flashed out, clasped the bodice of her calico dress, and tore the fabric away.

Idly, his finger traced the tiny birthmark beside her left nipple, his eyes consumed her naked breasts in their golden fire. Rachel closed her eyes, resisting a reflexive need to cover herself.

“You're a liar, Rachel,” Jonas said, in a companionable tone. The topaz eyes moved languidly to her face. “I would have been the most adoring of husbands—that's the irony of it. But you wanted Griffin.”

Rachel stood still, mute with terror.
Now, Fawn,
she pleaded silently.
Please—now!

But Jonas's madness seemed to allow him to view her thoughts as easily as her bared breasts. “Fawn isn't going to help you, Rachel. She's bound and gagged at this moment, in my kitchen. I didn't have time to kill her, but of course, I will.”

Slowly, Rachel raised her arms to hide her naked chest. She'd gambled, and she'd lost. Worse, Griffin and Fawn would lose, too.

“What about my father?” she whispered. “And Molly Brady's husband?”

Jonas arched one eyebrow. “They were in my way.”

Sickened, Rachel closed her eyes, opened them again.

There was a creak at the back of the barn, and Jonas whirled, the lantern swinging dangerously in his hand. “Who's there?” he yelled.

The horses hitched to the waiting buggy were spooked by the sound; they broke into a frantic run, dragging the buggy toward the half-open doors of the barn.

There was a loud, splintering sound as the buggy was caught between the doors, and the horses screamed in panic. Inside the buggy itself, the dummy bounced around like some kind of nightmare specter, horrifying in its limbless motion.

Rachel's heart clamored into her throat, lodged there in very real terror. For a moment, she actually believed that Athena had returned to take her own vengeance.

Jonas's throat worked convulsively as he stared at the effigy of his guilt, and then he screamed and flung the lantern in his hand. There was a
whoosh
, followed by a roar as the straw on the barn floor went up in flames, and then the buggy.

Beyond the barn doors, the trapped horses shrieked and struggled in renewed terror, and the animals inside the stalls were raising havoc, kicking at the sides of their stalls, neighing over the rising roar of the flames.

Rachel stared, her breath still in her lungs. Jonas stood frozen, gazing sightlessly at the burning buggy.

We'll burn to death,
Rachel thought. But she still could not move.

There were voices outside the bam—shouted orders, swearwords. And then the doors were opening, and the blazing buggy was being dragged outside.

Griffin and Field burst in through the doorway, skirting the inferno that nearly blocked their way.

Griffin dragged Rachel to the door and thrust her out, into the cool sanction of the night, before he went racing back inside. She was huddling beside a towering madrona tree when Field led a stumbling, witless Jonas to safety and went back to help Griffin.

The shrieks of the horses rang with terror and pain. Only three had been led from the barn when Field and Griffin were forced to flee themselves.

The wooden roof was a sheet of leaping orange and yellow flames now, and the fire danced in the windows.

Suddenly, Jonas screamed Rachel's name and bounded past Griffin and Field and through the glowing, crimson doorway of the barn. At the same moment, a portly man came from the direction of the main house, half-supporting a dazed, stumbling Fawn.

Jonas staggered out of the inferno, his clothes and hair afire. He was still screaming Rachel's name when Griffin and Field tackled him, rolling him on the ground to extinguish the flames.

Firebrands from the barn exploded into the night sky, landing as far away as the roof of Jonas's palatial house.

Rachel stood still, stricken, until Griffin looked up from Jonas's prone, charred figure and gestured with one hand.

She stumbled across the short distance, knelt on the ground beside Jonas as Field rushed off to meet his wife.