Four Furlongs

by C. K. Crigger

  Who had sent him on this ridiculous mission? Mrs. O’Dell? The grandfather, perchance? I didn’t even know the grandfather’s name. Surely not my uncle Monk. No, I answered myself. Never Monk or Gratton, even if they did disapprove of my quest. They preferred I never speak to Hansen for any reason. So who?

  An answer occurred. Actually, a choice of two.

  My queasy feeling grew stronger.

  “Who is inconsequential,” Lars said, stumbling over the word. Clearly he hadn’t come up with it on his own. I doubted his mission was at Mrs. O’Dell’s instigation, either. She didn’t seem the type to bandy around a word like inconsequential.

  I must have made some sort of sound. Most probably one that didn’t strike him as complimentary.

  Lars gave me a sideways glance. “Her mother didn’t want the girl seeing her brother all bashed in like he is. She’s afraid the girl will be permanently disturbed by the shock. I figure you’re gonna be in deep trouble for smuggling her in there.”

  His last sentence was the only one I figured stood a chance of being true.

  “I didn’t smuggle anybody anywhere. I went with Miss O’Dell at her request and we walked right in. Openly. Is it my fault if your desk officer left his post unattended?”

  “Yeah, convenient for you, wasn’t it?”

  I smiled sweetly. “It was. I should send him a thank-you note.”

  “Don’t be flippant, China.” His face grew hard and this time I knew he meant to intimidate me. “It don’t become you.”

  I felt Nimble, safe in her out-of-the-way hidey-hole, burrowing in close against my knees as she sensed trouble. Not a shouting match, I vowed. She turns into a quivering mass of jelly when people shout.

  “And it doesn’t become you to use hostile tactics against me.” Pushing my chair back, I rose to my feet and said, keeping my voice quiet, “It only makes me wonder why you’ve come to the office when you know Monk or Grat aren’t here. It makes me wonder who you told about seeing Neva O’Dell and me at the morgue last night.”

  “Monk,” he said. “I told Monk. And Grat.”

  Yes. And took great pleasure in the telling, too. I waved his interruption aside. “So I’ve been informed. But you told—no—reported to others, too. Who?”

  How many others, for goodness sake? Would he admit to reporting to Mr. L. L. Branston, as well? No. He wouldn’t.

  Lars stood and pointed his finger at me. “It’s none of your business, missy, and you need to remember I told you so.”

  The murderer. Had he told whoever caused Robbie O’Dell’s death?

  “Are you threatening me?” I gripped the edge of my desk, trying to still the trembling of my hands. Then, and I can’t explain what came over me, I spoke the most unwise words of my life. More appalling even than the challenge I’d once thrown at a kidnapper who planned to kill me during my first case with the Doyle & Howe Detective Agency.

  What I said was, “Are you openly in league with murderers now?”

  He slapped me.

  Hard.

  Hard enough to rattle my brains. I reeled backward and stumbled over my chair, falling into it only by lucky chance as my legs collapsed. Pure shock kept me from crying out.

  He looked at his hand as though in wonder. His fingers curled. “You don’t want to say things like that, China, not even in fun.”

  Fun? Blood trickled from my cut lip. My cheekbone blazed with pain.

  “I don’t take such accusations from anybody. I’m fond of you, China, but you want to watch your mouth. Things happen to people who talk too much. And sometimes things happen to the people you repeat it to.” It seemed as though his voice thundered.

  Another threat made. Against Monk? Grat? Neva?

  Nimble crept out from her cave under the desk. She was growling, her little white teeth showing in a full blown snarl, her hackles raised, every combative instinct of her terrier breed at the fore. Too bad she wasn’t the size of a Shetland pony.

  “Shut your dog up if you don’t want her dead.” He touched his holstered pistol suggestively.

  Put her on the list of those threatened. I understood the hint.

  Bending down, I gripped Nimble by the collar with one hand. With the other, out of Lars’s sight, I slid open the top drawer of the desk.

  “Do you understand me, China?”

  His face changed. Smiling a little, Lars leaned toward me with his hand out as though to caress my smarting cheek.

  He stopped, smile fading as I jerked erect. I came up holding the Smith & Wesson .32-caliber D.A. pocket pistol Grat insisted I keep in my desk drawer. The click as I thumbed back the hammer sounded loud.

  “Leave,” I said, barely able to move my mouth. I was no longer shaking. “Now.”

  “I’m sorry, China. I don’t know what came over me. I didn’t mean to hurt you.” He pasted a rueful look on his face. “Please, forgive me. See, this is what happens when a Norwegian loses his temper.”

  “Leave,” I repeated.

  He raised his hands as though in surrender and backed away. “Irish girls are known for their tempers, too. And their waggery. You forget this happened and I will, too. Deal?”

  Waggery? Was he insane?

  “Go. Don’t ever come round me again.”

  Oh, he could see I meant it, all right. He could see I was one jiggle away from shooting him.

  “I’m going, China. I apologize. I’m truly sorry.” Hand on the doorknob, he had one last thing to say. “But for your own protection, don’t forget what I told you. It doesn’t do to be too curious.” He sidled out the door so the last few words were almost lost.

  When he walked away he was whistling as though this had all been some kind of joke.

  Maybe he’d meant me to think the slap a freakish mistake, but he hadn’t been able to hide his eyes. I’d made an enemy. A bad enemy. And not just for myself.

  I guessed any chance of a romance between us had just gone south.

  11

  Nimble jumped onto my lap as soon as Lars—and his obnoxious whistle—was out of sight. Even after the sound faded, she didn’t stop shivering for a full five minutes. It took me longer to regain my composure. I was still holding the cocked pistol when my next visitor barged exuberantly into the office. He took one look at the gun and threw up his hands.

  “Whoa, angel, don’t shoot.” My friend Porter Anderson grinned as though certain the gun pointed at him was some kind of joke.

  Porter calls me angel when he wants to tease. The name is an unfortunate—or fortunate, depending on how you look at it—reference to our first meeting. I’d been thrown off a steamboat into the middle of Coeur d’Alene Lake and Porter and his logging crew fished me out. The unfortunate part is that I was half naked at the time. As for calling me angel? Ask Big Jake, one of Porter’s logging crew.

  “Hello, Porter. What are you doing in town?” Unable to move my mouth enough to smile back at him, I did my best to sound natural. My whole head hurt, and for the first time of our acquaintance, I wished he hadn’t come. Not at this moment, I mean. For some reason Porter is quite protective of me and at times his temper becomes explosive. This doesn’t always turn out well for him. I didn’t want him going up against Lars Hansen. Not with Lars a sergeant on the Spokane police force and in a position of authority. By rights, Lars’s ethics—or lack thereof—should disqualify him for the job.

  Porter opened his mouth to answer, then got a closer look at my face.

  “Holy—” He leaned forward, gently took the pistol from me, and uncocked it. “China, what’s going on? Somebody been using you for a punching bag?”

  I shook my head, but he didn’t give up.

  “Are you all right? Who did this to you?” His gaze searched the room as if looking for blood. “You didn’t shoot anybody, did you?”

  Sounded like my face looked even more dreadful than it felt. “Too many questions,” I said, my teeth clenched together.

  Porter’d had his jaw broken by a brute of a man not so
long ago. Right outside our office, as it happens. He recognized the look; the tight jaw, the reluctance to move the mouth.

  “Monk and Grat not here?” he asked. Acknowledging him as a friend, Nimble finally left the safety of my lap and bounced forward to greet him and give him a sniff. He patted her absently as he studied me. “Want me to call the bluecoats?”

  I’d shaken my head in answer to his first question, but said, “No,” quite resoundingly, to the second.

  His expression hardened. “No police? Why not?”

  I looked away.

  “I’ll get the doc.” He started for the door, but I said no again, and without argument, he turned back, hunkered beside my chair and took a closer look.

  “I’m all right, Porter. Honest. Nothing is broken.” I didn’t think so anyway. “Just hurts. Just a slap.” I spoke through clenched teeth.

  “Just a slap? Angel, your lip is bleeding and you’ve got a bruise popping up on your cheekbone.”

  This time when I moaned, it was because of the all-too-apparent marks of violence, not because of the pain.

  “Where’s Grat? He better the hell not have anything to do with you getting beat up.”

  “Of course not! How could you possibly think Grat would do such a thing?” I had to grit the words out.

  He sensed my shock and had the grace to look abashed. “For God’s sake, China, I didn’t mean he’s the one did the slapping. He’d rather shoot himself than hurt a hair on your head. I figured maybe one of his cases got out of hand. You know this detective business ain’t exactly respectable, don’t you?”

  The bright spot in his declaration was the part about Grat shooting himself before he’d hurt me. Of course, I’d never want him to consider such an action. Or ever give him cause. Deliberately.

  “My own fault. I talk too much.” I found a hanky and dabbed at my lips. The hanky came away spotted with blood, but not so much I was in imminent danger of bleeding to death.

  “True enough.” Porter nodded, an agreement I could’ve done without. “Where is Grat?” he asked again. “Or Monk. Better get ’em back and tell ’em what’s goin’ on. Catch the sonsa ... feller who did this before he gets away.”

  I shook my head no. It was becoming a habit.

  “What do you mean, no? Listen, I hate to say it but those bruises are going to turn purple as a ... a ... pansy.”

  Who knew Porter Anderson knew pansies came in the color purple?

  “Trust me,” he went on. “I’ve got experience in these things. There’s no way you can hide them under that powder stuff you women fluff on your faces. Be better if you let me get a handle on this for you.”

  A question was hidden in there. It just didn’t have the correct punctuation mark at the end.

  I grabbed hold of the desk and pulled myself to my feet. Could I stand? Yes, with a little assistance. Porter’s hand under my elbow, I went over to the door, locked it, and put the closed sign in the window.

  “Go upstairs. Ice.” I waved toward the stairs. “Talk there.”

  “You bet we will. Here, let me help.”

  Impatient as I tottered into the hallway, Porter swooped me up as though I weighed no more than a bouquet of those pansies he’d mentioned, and trotted up the stairs with me in his arms. I’m convinced he’d sooner have slung me over his shoulder like a sack of flour, but he was learning finesse. He intended to marry his sweetheart in a month or so, so maybe she was teaching him manners. The thought made me smile.

  And wince as my lip cracked open again.

  Once in the apartment, he dumped me onto a kitchen chair and went to the icebox to hew a few chips from the block of ice with the pick. He wrapped them in a linen dish towel and handed it to me, oblivious to the fact that the dish towel was one of my best and I’d have preferred not to get blood on it.

  “Thanks.” I held the ice to the side of my face. Immediately, the numbing cold began to take away the pain.

  Porter was clad in his usual logger’s duds. Shortened pants, a bit frayed around the edges, heavy caulked boots, and a red-plaid shirt. He barely reached medium height, but was strong as one of his own logging mules. His nose had been knocked askew in a fight and never mended quite right. His skin was darkened by a sun that had bleached light colored streaks in his brown hair. I loved him like a brother, heaven only knows why.

  Helping himself to a cup of the morning coffee kept warm in the pot simmering on the back of the stove, Porter plunked down in the chair across from me.

  “Mouth working yet?” he asked, taking a swallow and grimacing. Monk had made the coffee this morning. He believes in a brew strong enough to float horseshoes when fresh, the leftovers growing more potent as the day wears on.

  Tentatively, I wriggled my jaw. The ice was doing its job. “I don’t know what to do, Porter.”

  “I suppose you mean whoever slapped you not only wasn’t some Joe Blow off the street, but is somebody you know and you’re scared will come after you again.” He studied me. “And he got away with it. It being assault and battery. Think that’s the official charge.”

  He saw too much.

  “Which also means,” he continued, “this somebody is in a position to do Monk and Grat harm, otherwise you’d have them onto him like stink on a polecat. I figure you plan on hiding what happened from them. Am I right?” He hardly waited for my nod.

  “Grat and Monk, they ain’t going to like it when they find out. Them two, they’re about as tough a pair as I’ve ever met.” He pondered a moment before adding a qualification. “Except for me and my men. But they can handle themselves, and most anyone else, too.

  “And that means,” he went on, “considering you ain’t calling in the bluecoats, it’s either one of the police or it’s a man with a whole lot of influence in this town. Have I got it about right?”

  Unquestionably, he saw too much. My goodness! He might as well have written out the whole plot.

  “I can’t tell you,” I said.

  “Won’t tell me, is what you mean to say.”

  “Yes.”

  He glared at me, then said roughly, “Dammit, China, keep the ice against your face. It ain’t gonna do any good when it’s an inch away.” He sounded just like Grat.

  Eyes rolled up while seeming to think, he swilled another gulp of wretched coffee before slamming the cup onto the table. The inky brew splattered as far as my shirtwaist. I don’t suppose it mattered. The coffee joined a few drops of blood so I’d have to change anyway.

  “I’ve got it.” His shout made me blink. Nimble, who had followed us upstairs and was lying under the table at my feet, punctuated his exclamation with a startled howl. “Lars Hansen, he’s the one hit you. Sounds just like him, now I think about it. Sneakin’ low-down bearbaiting sonsa ... skunk.”

  Sometimes I wish he’d go ahead and say what he wanted instead of cutting his descriptive phrases off just when they got interesting.

  Anyway, the mere mention of Lars’s name set me shaking again. A dead giveaway to one who knows me as well as Porter does. So then I had to hold him back from taking matters into his own hands. And I had to tell him everything. More than I’d shared with either Monk or Gratton up to this point.

  “But Grat and Monk can’t know, Porter. Promise me you won’t tell them.”

  “You’re not protecting him, are you?” He sounded offended. “Lars Hansen ain’t worth one wiggle of your little finger, China, and that’s the truth.”

  “Not Lars. Them. My uncle and Grat. And someone else, too. Especially the someone else. A person who can’t protect her ... um ... fight back. Please.”

  I daresay I didn’t find it easy to persuade him. But at last I extracted a promise. “I won’t tell your men,” he said. “Not right now. But I ain’t making any promises for myself. I see the bas ... see Hansen, I’m taking him on myself.”

  “So I’ll just have another person to worry about.” I frowned at him.

  “You don’t need to worry about me. I can take care of myse
lf. Take care of him, too.”

  Harrumph! One would think his experience with a broken jaw—even though Lars hadn’t been responsible for it—would’ve shown him he wasn’t invincible.

  After what felt like a very long hour, Porter, satisfied I was in no danger of keeling over with a belated concussion or something, finally left. He was meeting with none other than Sawyer Kennett about cutting timbers for Sawyer’s Flag of America mine, he said. I could only pray he wouldn’t go in search of Monk or Gratton—or most importantly, Lars Hansen—afterward.

  Worry, worry, worry!

  Could this day get any worse?

  After shucking my shirtwaist and the linen towel into a dishpan of cold water before the bloodstains set, I went into my bedroom to assess the damage Lars had inflicted on my face. One thing I can say; all the numbness had faded after Porter’s ice treatment. Yes, indeed.

  I didn’t look as bad as I expected judging by Porter’s reaction. Yes, there was a bruise on my cheekbone and my lip was swollen, but I certainly wasn’t disfigured. A dab of rice powder would help tame the bruise. And the lip?

  Let’s just say I probably didn’t want to kiss anyone today. Unless Grat—

  Pushing the vision out of my mind’s eye, I donned a clean, though well-worn white blouse and tucked it in. After which, I went downstairs, unlocked the door, and turned the closed sign to open. I had no more than sat down when someone, instead of walking right in, knocked. Nimble, made uneasy by the earlier events, pushed her way into the kneehole of my desk.

  This visitor’s rapping sounded tentative rather than demanding. A good omen, or so I hoped. But it wasn’t.

  Neva stood on the doorstep.

  One quick look and fury raged through my veins. My eyes widened. Jumping to my feet, I gasped. “Neva! What on earth? What ... who ... who did this to you?” I could barely get the words out as I hurried over to her.

  “Please, Miss Bohannon, may I come in?” she whispered. She cast a frightened glance over each shoulder.

  Looking for whom? I admit I, too, scanned quickly in every direction. No police officers. No older men or hovering mothers. No other suspicious characters, either, not that you’ll hear me complaining.