Love in Disguise (23 page)

Lips pursed, Lavinia opened the paper and scanned the brief message. The color drained from her face. She folded the paper again and tucked it into her reticule without comment.

Steven touched her arm. “Is it bad news?”

“No, not at all.” Her voice wobbled, and her smile seemed forced. “Just a message from our family in Chicago. It seems we’ll be having a visit from one of my cousins very soon.”

18

E
llie stood in the shadows outside the Palace Saloon, feeling the pulse in her throat pound out a tempo as rapid as that of the tinny music that filtered out past the batwing doors.

A shout of raucous laughter burst forth, loud enough to drown out the off-key piano for a few brief seconds. Ellie’s heart picked up its pace. What was she thinking, venturing east of Seventh Street after sundown and preparing to enter a den of vice?

She spun around, ready to flee back to the safety of her cozy little house, when a thought stopped her in her tracks. She had exhausted every means she could think of to elicit helpful information from the upstanding citizens of Pickford. It was time to look in less respectable places. Getting acquainted with the habitués of the Palace might be her only chance to move forward on the case. She couldn’t allow herself to give in to fear. If she backed down now, she might never regain enough nerve to try this again.

Besides, she wouldn’t be entering the Palace as anxious Ellie Moore. She would walk through those swinging doors as Jessie Monroe—woman of spunk and daring.

Pulling herself into the role, she patted her coppery ringlets into place, pushed through the doors, and walked inside.

The piano music broke off the instant she set foot inside the smoky interior, and the hum of conversation ended as if on cue. The cloying smell of alcohol permeated the room. Ellie fought down the urge to run away as fast as her feet would carry her and scanned the room.

Over at the gaming tables, two groups of poker players sat looking at her as though frozen. Letting her gaze sweep over the rest of the crowd, she saw expressions of stunned disbelief on every face. She recognized several from her jaunts around town, wiry miners she had seen from a distance but hadn’t spoken to. Jake Freeman, the blacksmith, showed none of his usual friendliness, avoiding her eyes as though embarrassed to see her there. One or two men recovered from their surprise enough to stare at her boldly, and Ellie averted her gaze.

She pulled her reticule tight against her and twisted its drawstring between her fingers. She had been an idiot to come. Her heart leaped into her throat when a man detached himself from the crowd and stepped forward. Her panic ebbed only slightly when she recognized Marshal Everett Bascomb.

The dapper lawman doffed his broad-brimmed hat and bowed with a flourish. “Welcome, fair lady. Such beauty has seldom been seen within these walls.”

Her little drama had begun. Ellie put one hand on her hip and gave him the most flirtatious look she could muster. “Good evening, Marshal. What a pleasure to find you here.”

A satisfied gleam lit Bascomb’s eyes. He turned in a slow circle, surveying the room. Everyone else went back to their business, resuming their conversations in hushed tones and casting furtive looks in Ellie’s direction.

“You’re the last person I would have expected to see in this establishment. What brings you here?” Bascomb drew nearer, close enough for Ellie to smell the alcohol on his breath.

She shifted position slightly, trying not to let her distaste show. As she turned, an enormous painting on the opposite wall came into view. Ellie let out a startled yip and stared at the vast expanse of female flesh, marred here and there by an occasional bullet hole. She spun on her heel, turning her back on the appalling sight.

Bascomb gave her an amused smile. “I gather you don’t approve of our Fatima?”

Fatima?
Ellie’s mind raced while she struggled to regain control. This was the painting whose fate the drunken miner had been lamenting on the day of her arrival in Pickford.

She shuddered, trying to erase the image from her mind. What was the word Steven had used to describe the painting? Rubenesque—that was it. And his description had been right on target. She couldn’t imagine a more accurate summation of the lady’s all-too-evident charms.

She darted a quick glance around the room to see if anyone else had noticed her embarrassment. No one met her eyes, but she spotted a number of other holes in the walls that must have been made by rowdy patrons shooting off their pistols. Apparently the Palace had a boisterous clientele, making it exactly the kind of place Jessie needed to visit in order to further the investigation.

She forced a smile to her lips and met Bascomb’s eyes. “I’ve led far too sheltered a life. I’m ready to see more of the world and have a few adventures.”

Bascomb’s lips widened, revealing a row of teeth in a wolfish grin. “I admire your spirit. What kind of adventure were you looking for?”

Not the kind he meant. Ellie felt sure of that. She shrugged one shoulder and tried to think of a way to respond that wouldn’t make the situation worse. Her goal in going to the Palace had been to strike up a conversation with some of the town’s rougher element, but she couldn’t hope to accomplish that if the lawman insisted on sticking to her like a burr.

She tilted her head and wrinkled her nose at him. “Maybe I wanted to see if a Wild West saloon would live up to the reputation it’s been given in the dime novels.”

“Ah, I see.” The lawman leaned a bit closer and spoke in a suggestive undertone. “Things are pretty calm this evening. If excitement is what you’re after, why don’t you come back here with me on a Saturday night, when—”

“There you are, hangin’ around the bar again. I shoulda known.”

Ellie spun around to see a man stagger toward them and recognized him as one of the mine owners she’d met. Holding aloft a bottle half filled with an amber liquid, he swayed across the floor until he stood face-to-face with Bascomb.

“How d’you expect to catch those thieves if you spend your time chasin’ skirts? No wonder you haven’t found ’em yet, when you’re too busy makin’ eyes at this redheaded floozy.”

Floozy?
Ellie sucked in her breath, trying to decide whether to shrink away in mortification or give the rude fellow a piece of her mind.

Bascomb shouldered the man to one side and sent him stumbling into a table. “You’re drunk, Andrews. Don’t talk to me again until you’re sober enough to tell the difference between a lady and a saloon girl.”

Brady Andrews. The mine owner who had seemed so fond of his flask during the meeting she attended with Steven.

“What good would it do to talk to you? You haven’t turned up one clue in all this time.” He pulled a swig from the bottle and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “We don’t need you, anyway. We’ve got Pinkertons comin’.”

Bascomb’s hands balled into fists, and Ellie saw his face tighten. “What kind of nonsense is that? More of the whiskey talking?”

Brady Andrews pushed away from the table and tottered back toward the marshal, one hand raised as though taking an oath. “Gospel truth. We told ’em what was going on, and they’re sending somebody out.”

Ellie’s heart stopped. The mine owners had been adamant that no one outside their circle should know they’d summoned the Pinkertons. What could he be thinking? He wasn’t thinking, she reminded herself. Not in his inebriated condition.

Bascomb’s jaw worked. “When?”

“Who knows?” Brady made a wide gesture with the arm holding the bottle, sending an arc of whiskey through the air.

Ellie scuttled backward a few steps to keep the liquor from splattering her skirt and took refuge in a shadowy corner.

“We wrote to ’em weeks ago.” Brady slurred the words but spoke in a voice loud enough to catch the attention of everyone in the place. “Oughta be here any day now.”

Bascomb stepped forward and caught a wad of Brady’s shirtfront with his left hand. “What do you mean bringing those snooping Pinks into my town?” He drew his right elbow back, fist poised to crash into Brady’s jaw. “Why, I ought to—”

“Hold it, Bascomb.”

Ellie whirled at the sound of Steven’s voice and saw him push his way between the two men. Her mind reeled. Where had he come from? The lazy swing of the batwing doors gave the only clue to his sudden appearance.

“Easy now,” he said to the lawman in a placating voice. “He’s so drunk he wouldn’t feel it anyway. Might as well save yourself a set of scraped knuckles.”

Bascomb’s chest heaved as he stared at Steven with blazing eyes. Then he lowered his arm to his side, shoving Brady away from himself at the same time. “Are you a party to this cockeyed plan, Pierce? I don’t want any stinking Pinkertons in my town.”

Brady staggered, and Steven moved to wrap a supportive arm around the other man’s shoulders. “Let me take him home. That’s what I came here to do. His wife’s worried about him.”

“She’ll have more to worry about if he keeps mouthing off.” Bascomb tugged at the sleeves of his coat and stalked toward the bar without another glance at Ellie.

Steven turned toward Brady. “Come on. Let’s get you home.” Steadying his friend, he started toward the door.

Ellie slid farther back into the shadows, hoping to avoid his notice. Too late. The shocked look on his face when he spotted her could have easily passed for Macbeth catching sight of Banquo’s ghost.

His arm slipped from Brady’s shoulders. The tipsy man wobbled for a moment, then sank gently to the floor, still clutching the bottle. Holding it to his chest like a precious treasure, he closed his eyes, and a soft snore emanated from his lips.

“What are you doing here?” Steven stepped over his snoring friend and fixed Ellie with a fierce scowl. “Miss Monroe, this is no place for a lady.”

For once in Ellie’s life, words failed her completely. “I was . . . I only . . .” She cleared her throat and tried again. “I wanted to see what a Western saloon was really like,” she said, trying to recapture Jessie’s spunky attitude.

Steven’s nostrils flared. “Well, now you’ve seen it. If you have no respect for your own reputation, you might at least consider how this is going to reflect on your aunt. I’m taking you home right now.”

“What about your friend?” Ellie almost succeeded in keeping a quaver out of her voice.

Steven hesitated a moment, then he bent over and slipped his hands under Brady’s shoulders, dragging the recumbent form across the floor toward the far wall, where he deposited him under an empty table before he turned to stride back to Ellie.

With a baleful stare, he gripped her elbow and marched her toward the door like an angry father escorting an unruly child. “He’ll be asleep for a while. I’ll come back and get him once I’ve delivered you to your aunt.”

Before they reached the exit, the batwing doors swung open, and a shiny-faced man lurched inside, brandishing a large pistol.

Before Ellie could react, Steven shoved her against the wall and shielded her with his body.

“Congratulate me, fellas,” the newcomer roared. “I just discovered a new vein, and it looks every bit as rich as that new strike they’re talkin’ about in New Mexico!” A burst of gunshots followed.

Ellie clapped her hands to her ears to protect them from the deafening crash. The moment the shooting ceased, Steven propelled her out the door. She had only time enough for a fleeting glance back over her shoulder, revealing that Fatima now sported a new bullet hole.

19

E
llie readjusted the gray wig and slipped the cheek plumpers into place, then checked herself in the dressing table mirror for the tenth time. She couldn’t afford a single flaw when she made her appearance at the stage depot. Reassured, in that regard at least, she picked up the telegram, now creased from a dozen readings since she’d received it on Sunday.

COUSIN TED ARRIVING ON TUESDAY STAGE STOP HE LOOKS FORWARD TO A NICE VISIT WITH BOTH OF YOU STOP

HENRY

Ellie read the words aloud, hoping she could somehow inject new meaning into the message. No such luck. The ominous note had held the same threat every time she’d gone over it. She pulled on her gloves and took a sip of the mint tea she’d brewed earlier in hopes of calming her stomach. So far, it hadn’t worked.

Her foot tapped out a staccato beat on the kitchen floor. Although Cousin Ted was a new character in her little drama, the fact the telegram came from “Henry” confirmed that the telegram had come from the home office. Who was this new relative, and what did his coming to Pickford mean?

Were Fleming and Gates about to pull her off the case? How could she blame them if they did? They’d thought they were sending two operatives to Arizona, one of them a seasoned professional. Instead of that, they wound up with one rank amateur trying to pull the wool over the eyes of her employers as well as everyone in Pickford.

She set down the teacup and swiped at her eyes. If only they’d given her more time. Surely even experienced operatives needed a while to carry out their undercover work. With another week or two to ask probing questions and assess reactions to them, she might glean enough information to ferret out the culprits and ensure future employment for herself.

Frustrated, she picked up the teacup and brought it to the sink. Who was she kidding? She’d carried on conversations, both as Lavinia and Jessie, with anyone in town who would give her the time of day, and what had she learned so far? That Gertie loved to gossip, that Bascomb had an undeservedly high opinion of himself, that Amos Crawford had fallen head over heels for Lavinia . . .

And that being around Steven Pierce turned both her brain and her heart to mush.

As far as the robberies, though? Nothing. Either the thieves had no connection to Pickford, or she was an utter failure as a detective. She only hoped the Pinkertons would let her keep the money they had deposited for her use in the Pickford bank. It might help her get by until she found another position.

And if she didn’t? She didn’t want to contemplate what that would mean for her future. There would be plenty of time for that later.