True to the Law (23 page)

Finn’s hand shot up. He practically bounced off his bench.

“All right, Finn. What do you think?”

“If there’s a wolf around, it’s better to be a dog or a shepherd. Everyone knows sheep are stupid.”

Cobb covered his mouth with his hand and managed to turn his bark of laughter into a credible fit of coughing. Tru sidled up to her chair and slapped him several times between the shoulder blades. He sobered before she left bruises.

“It’s all right,” he said, pointing to his throat. “Cupcake crumbs.”

“Hmm.” She withdrew her hand and addressed Finn. “That’s certainly one way of looking at it, Finn. Are there other ideas?”

Several children took a stab at it, and one came close, but it was Rabbit who finally hit the nail squarely.

“Sometimes folks aren’t exactly like they appear. Pays to be cautious.”

“Very good, Rabbit. A clever person can fool us into believing he is something he is not.”

The class nodded as a group. Only Finn looked dubious.

“What is it, Finn?” Tru asked. “You don’t agree?”

“No, I understand what you’re sayin’.” He shrugged. “I was just wondering if I could figure it out before the wolf made a meal of me. I’m pretty tasty, Miss Morrow.”

Cobb answered before Tru could. “Finn, if anyone can spot a wolf in sheep’s clothing, it’s you.”

Finn sat up straighter on his bench, puffed out his small chest, and smoothed back his cowlick. The frosting in his hair was now explained.

Flattening her mouth, Tru looked askance at Cobb.

Priscilla Taylor put up her hand.

Tru called on her. “You have a question?”

Priscilla nodded. “For Marshal Bridger.” Without waiting for permission to go ahead, she asked, “Have you ever met a wolf in sheep’s clothing?”

Cobb thought immediately of the preacher and his son who had ministered to a different sort of flock. “I have,” he said, and the way he said it, as much as the look on his face, did not invite more questions.

“What about you, Miss Morrow?”

“Oh, yes.” She did not look at Cobb. “Sometimes you’re the lamb,” she said. Her glance encompassed the whole of the class. “And sometimes you’re the shepherd.”

* * *

Tru expected Cobb to leave when the children did. In fact, she had counted on it. Her nerves were stretched taut from managing her every gesture, every facial tic. She did not believe for a moment that Finn and Rabbit had issued a spontaneous invitation, but she was determined not to be outmaneuvered. It was not possible that he had missed the point of her lesson. Whether it was sufficient to keep him out of the schoolhouse in the future remained to be seen, but she judged his continued presence as an unwelcome sign.

Tru was aware that he had ignored the student benches in favor of making one of the tables his seat. He was settling in, not preparing to go. She busied herself with straightening the items on her desk.

“Should I get a broom?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I’ll sweep up tomorrow. Friday.”

He picked up a slate and blew away a film of chalk dust. “Finn doesn’t help you any longer?”

“Not regularly. He was fickle in his attentions.”

Cobb’s eyebrows lifted. He smiled faintly. Tru saw neither. He set the slate down again and folded his arms across his chest. “We have to talk.”

“We don’t,” she said. “Not really.”

“All right. Then
I
have to talk.”

“I can’t stop you, but I don’t have to listen.” She turned, picked up an eraser at the blackboard, and began to wipe away all evidence of today’s lessons.

Cobb said nothing. He watched the sweep of her arm across the slate. Her motions were not furious. They were deliberate. He recognized anger here, and stubbornness, both of which she was hiding behind as if they were shelter from the storm.

“You are not going to like what I have to say,” he told her. “But you
are
going to want to hear it.” He thought there might have been a pause before the next pass of her hand, but it was so short, so fine, that it was easy to dismiss as wishful thinking on his part.

“Don’t make the mistake I made and not hear me out to the end.”

With only half the board cleared, Tru stopped what she was doing. Clutching the eraser, she slowly turned around to face Cobb. Her eyes narrowed on his face; her voice was crisp. “Just say it then. Say it and go.”

Cobb shifted his seat on the table, moving forward so that his hip was hitched against the edge. He angled one leg out in front of him for balance. His arms remained crossed, not defensively, but more matter-of-fact. “I’ve been in your home several times.”

“I know. As you will recall, I let you in.”

“I’ve been in your home several times,” he said again. “When you haven’t let me in.”

Tru required a long moment for full comprehension. Except for the slight flaring of her nostrils as she sucked in a breath, she didn’t move.

“Three times,” said Cobb. “The Tuesday after we were together. Again, on the Tuesday after that. And finally just a week ago.”

Her knuckles whitened on the eraser. “I am a minister’s daughter. Not a priest. If you need to make a confession, you should apply to the church, not to the schoolhouse.”

Cobb tilted his head a fraction as he studied her. “That’s a curious response. Why aren’t you asking me for an explanation?”

“Because it doesn’t matter. You intend to justify yourself. I imagine you believe that as the marshal, you have the right to go wherever you please, whenever you please.” Tru drew a steadying breath. She spoke quietly, intently. “The Wolf wears a tin star and walks freely among the Sheep.”

“Yes, Little Lamb. That must be it.” He easily dodged the eraser she threw at his head. He turned to watch its trajectory. Like a stone skipping on water, the eraser skimmed the surface of two tables before it thudded softly to the floor. “Nicely done,” he said.

It was an effort for Tru to regain her poise, but she forced herself to be calm because the alternative was a tantrum too unpleasant to contemplate. She sat down behind her desk where she could hide her clenched hands in her lap.

“Very well,” she said after a moment. “I’ll ask. Why? Did you leave something behind?”

Besides my self-respect?
He could taste the bitterness of that answer on the tip of his tongue. He bit it back. “No,” he said. “I was not looking for something I lost.”

“But you
were
looking. It was a search.”

“That’s right.”

“Animal? Vegetable? Mineral? Really, Marshal, that’s a game I play with the children. I’m not engaging in—”

“I found the brooch.”

Tru stared at him. Her lips parted, closed, and parted again. “You broke into my home to steal my jewelry?”

“Hardly. You still don’t lock your door.”

Her voice, like her jaw, was taut. “Please, do not try me further. I own several brooches. Which one did you take?”

“I said I found it, not that I took it.”

Tru’s fingers uncurled. She raised one hand and pressed her fingertips to her temple.

Cobb had seen similar gestures many times in the course of his work. He allowed that she might be responding to the first signs of a headache but that did not make him sympathetic. He recognized the gesture for what it was: a means of delaying her response.

“I wish you would be clear,” she said.

“And I wish you would not pretend that you don’t understand.” He watched her lower her hand. Her chin came up. Her mouth was set stubbornly. She was not going to show her cards until he called her bluff.

So he did. “Charlotte Mackey’s brooch.”

Tru swallowed, but she didn’t speak.

“The trinity set in rubies. The golden crown of thorns.”

“I told you that.”

“So you did, but you didn’t mention the diamond chips that fill the spaces where the three ruby circles intersect or that the brooch would not fit easily into the palm of your hand.”

“It’s not
that
large.”

Taking that as an admission of sorts, Cobb gave her an arch look. “I should have found it the first time. I had it in my mind that it would be in your bedroom. I started with the lacquered box on your vanity.”

“I’m only surprised you waited until I was gone. How that box must have tempted you from the vantage point of my bed. You showed remarkable and uncharacteristic restraint.”

She spoke quietly in acid tones. Accepting it as deserved, Cobb didn’t flinch. “I wasn’t there long,” he said. “The fact that you have so few things in the other rooms made it easy.”

She smiled without humor. “Yes, it was my intention to make it as easy for you as possible. You can appreciate how delighted I am to learn that you pawed through my belongings.” Tru sat back in her chair. “Why are you telling me this? I hardly know whether I’m to applaud your perseverance or your cleverness.”

“I want you to understand that what I did, I did because it was important.”

Tru waved her hand carelessly. “Then go on. I admit to not being able to grasp the finer points.”

“As I said, I went back a week later. I looked in your kitchen this time. My mother always kept some money in the flour jar. That way she could tell if any of the rest of us had gotten into it.”

“I never suspected. You cleaned up after yourself very well. I don’t know if your mother would be proud or disappointed.”

He went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “I was in church a few Sundays later when—”

“The Lord spoke to you?”

“Something like that. Pastor Robbins was leading the congregation in ‘A Mighty Fortress.’ I didn’t realize it had so many verses.” He unbuttoned his jacket and opened it, tapping the star on his vest. “My sheep’s pelt was stabbing me. I had to fiddle with it. It almost fell into my open hymnal.”

“Ah,” she said. “A sign.”

“There was no burning bush, but it was a revelation. Last week I found Mrs. Mackey’s brooch in your father’s Bible. According to the inscription at the front, the Bible was also a gift from Charlotte Mackey. It occurred to me that it probably pained you to hide it there, to cut so deeply into the book the way you did, but it also made sense. The Bible and the brooch kept your father and Charlotte together and connected you to both of them.”

She neither confirmed nor denied what he supposed to be true. At this moment, what he thought meant next to nothing to her. “All right,” she said. “So you’ve seen the brooch. To what purpose? You said you didn’t take it. I fail to understand why you undertook the search.”

Without preamble, he asked, “Did you steal it?”

Tru’s answer was immediate and firm. “No.”

“Then Charlotte Mackey really gave it to you.”

“Yes.”

“And you lied to me when I asked you that very question at your kitchen table. You said that if she had offered it, you would have told her it was too extravagant a gift, that it belonged to her family.”

“Yes, I lied. I’m not about to apologize for it. It’s an extraordinarily valuable piece, an heirloom, and we argued many times about who should have it. She had several great-nieces. One of them, Amelia Mackey Brown, particularly admired the brooch. I encouraged Mrs. Mackey to pass it to her.”

“And yet . . .” He lifted his hands, shrugged.

“She believed I was confusing Amelia’s avarice for admiration. There was no turning her from that opinion, and truthfully, I don’t know that she was wrong.”

“So you finally accepted the gift?”

“No, not the way you think. I found it when I unpacked my trunks, but that was after I arrived in Bitter Springs. It was tucked away between two petticoats. I have to assume she put it there. I don’t think it was something she would have trusted one of the servants to do for her.”

“I thought she didn’t leave her bed.”

“Your mistake—and mine—is underestimating her determination when she wants something. I had moved into an adjoining room by then. She knew when I came and went. I’ve given this considerable thought since I found it. It would have been difficult for her, not impossible, but in all likelihood she had been planning it for some time. She had a wardrobe made for me and inspected everything before it was packed. I told you that she was determined that I should leave before she died. The clothes were for beginning again. I suppose she meant the brooch to be part of that new start as well. It would have been relatively simple for her to conceal it between those petticoats.”

Cobb listened to it all, parsing every sentence for the truth. “And what about your conviction that it should remain with her family? Did you ever entertain the idea of sending it back to Chicago?”

Tru answered as evenly as she could. “I’m quite sure I don’t like your tone. Do I stand accused of something?”

“Not yet.”

“Aunt Charlotte
gave
me the brooch.”

“Aunt?”

“A title of respect and affection. She insisted.”

“That must have caused a stir in the family.”

“I can’t say.”

“I have the impression the Mackeys keep their wagons in a tight circle.”