I helped her inside, supporting her until she sank onto the office chair like a marionette without strings.
Standing back, I examined her more closely. Instead of one black eye, she now sported a matched set. She’d walked to the chair as though her tummy hurt, and even as I watched she caught her breath and put a hand to her slim waist. The state of her wrists, both of them, visible now, made me gasp in shock.
But she wasn’t crying. In fact, there was not a tear in sight.
“Is this your mother’s work? Or your grandfather’s? Or ...” I stopped. Might she, too, have received a visit from Lars Hansen? But surely he wouldn’t—
Yes. He would. He’d hit me, whom he often professed to hold in high regard. Why not a girl, even one barely more than a child, whose own mother struck at the least provocation?
“Or did someone else hit you? And these!” I lifted one of her hands. “Who did this, Neva? And why?”
She glanced at the swollen, blood-streaked abrasions around her wrists as though she hadn’t realized they were there.
“They did it together,” she said, “but I didn’t tell.”
12
Bewildered, I studied Neva’s poor bruised face. As though she’d just awakened, she stared, with an awed expression, into mine.
“Who—” we said together. Then shook our heads. I was beginning to think she must be the little sister I didn’t know I had. Except for her horrid relations. Put Uncle Monk side-by-side of them and I felt certain she’d rather share mine.
“Didn’t tell who what?” I asked.
Neva smiled. A little crooked, but a smile nevertheless.
“I didn’t tell them where I took Mercury. Some place safe. Some place where he can heal.”
My mouth dropped open, astonishment most likely landing me right beside the village idiot. “You stole Mercury?”
She didn’t take this insult lying down, I can tell you.
“No, I didn’t steal him,” she said in a tone of great affront. “You can’t steal your own horse.” Her brows drew together. “Can you?”
“But ... is Mercury yours? I thought—” I paused a moment, absently giving Nimble a pat as she deserted me to go sit beside Neva. “Legally yours, I mean, with a bill of sale or some other means of proof?”
“Yes, he is.” Her head lifted proudly. “Well, mine and Robbie’s, so I guess he’s all mine now. But my mother and granddad said we were too young to race him under our own colors, so they took over. They started charging Robbie and me for Mercury’s keep, too, and then took most all the profits when he won. And he almost always does.”
By this time I wasn’t even surprised by her relatives’ actions. I focused on other aspects. “What means of proof do you have, Neva? And how did you and Robbie acquire the horse?”
She was still wearing her trousers. Pulling up a pant leg, she revealed a scuffed, down-at-the-heel boot, which I guessed were Robbie’s hand-me-downs. She reached into the boot and withdrew a calico bag, the top tied together with a brown string. She opened it. Paper crackled. I heard the clink of a few coins, and saw the shape of a small notebook.
She handed me the paper. Short and to-the-point, with a notary seal, it stated exactly what she’d told me. The horse named Mercury belonged to Neva and her brother, Robbie. It was signed by a Mr. Gordon Robert O’Dell.
“This is from my dad’s dad, from when he died last year. My mother tried to hide the paper from Robbie and me,” she said, “but I know where she stashes things. Her secret cache. Money, too, I mean, like Mercury’s winnings.”
I couldn’t help a quick glance out the window as Neva’s story developed. Was someone peering in? No. Just a fleeting shadow from a passerby.
Or was it?
I felt certain if Mrs. O’Dell or Mr.—what was her granddad’s name? I couldn’t remember—weren’t pursuing her now, they would be soon. And after last night’s excursion, the Doyle & Howe agency was bound to be one of the first places they looked. For their own sake, they’d best not catch her sitting in my office.
I turned the sign from open to closed and pulled down the shade.
“Come with me, Neva,” I said. There seemed only one logical thing, one safe thing, to do.
“Where?” She gazed around as if too tired to move.
“Upstairs, out of sight. My uncle and I live here, on the premises. I’ll bathe your face and wrists with witch hazel, for starters, while you tell me all about Mercury. But don’t tell me exactly where he is. It’s best if I don’t know.”
She got up. “Why?”
“Plausible deniability, my dear. What I don’t know I can’t tell.”
I’m not sure she understood the excuse I’d given, or sensed any danger in it, but she came with me willingly enough. We paused at the top of the landing.
“Miss Bohannon,” she whispered, staring around the comfortably furnished, open room, which still smelled of our breakfast ham and coffee. Her nose twitched delicately as she licked her lips. “Please, do you have any food you can spare?”
As if I weren’t already mush, my heart melted. “I most certainly do,” I said, propelling her directly into the kitchen and consulting the watch pinned to my blouse. “It’s almost lunchtime. You must be famished.”
She smiled blindingly. “Oh, yes, Miss Bohannon. I am. I haven’t eaten since—” She stopped and frowned. “I don’t remember.”
She watched me, her huge, dark eyes following my every move as I bustled from icebox, to sink, to bread drawer. Every once in a while her throat moved as she swallowed convulsively.
While Neva made drastic inroads on the sandwiches, I had to settle for an egg scrambled up with bits of bacon. I couldn’t open my aching jaw far enough to chew through the sliced ham with horseradish mustard.
Afterward, she became sleepy even as I washed her abrasions and wrapped bandages like cuffs around her wrists. A few dabs of witch hazel laved her bruises.
But it was time for answers. I got her settled on the overstuffed couch in the darkened front room and sat in Monk’s leather chair across from her.
I had to laugh and touched my own bruises. “Aren’t we a pair?”
As though reading my mind, she straightened. “I didn’t ask, Miss Bohannon, but my mother ... did she pay you a visit? Did she—” She gestured toward my face, battered, perhaps, but no match for hers.
“No,” I said, hoping at least this bit of news would reassure her, “but I think both our conditions stem from the same originating source.”
She blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean our visit to the morgue last night. Apparently there were objections in some quarters.”
“He’s my brother,” she said, sitting up straighter. “I had a right.”
“I agree. But if anyone—I mean anyone—asks about our visit, our answers must coincide.”
She blinked again.
“Our answers must match. Be the same. No variation.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “Yes. But they will. I wanted to see my brother and you went with me because I was scared to go by myself. That’s all.” She hesitated. “Right?”
“Right.” I smiled. “And no mention of the lacerations we noticed on Robbie’s throat. Or of the note I left for the coroner.”
“Yes, but ...” Her dark brows drew together. “Why not? How will the police know to do anything if they don’t know Robbie was killed on purpose?”
Good question. A better one might ask what would the police do if they knew we knew? I couldn’t bring myself to frighten her so badly. Let her believe it was just her family with whom she had to deal. Or did that leave her open to—
My mind stuttered. She was fourteen. My first case had dealt with a murdered fourteen-year-old girl. Youth would not keep her safe.
“Some of the police here have their own interests in mind,” I said.
“What do you mean?” She picked at the bandage on her right wrist.
“I mean they’ve been known to take payoffs to
close their eyes to criminal actions.”
“Like throwing races?”
Nothing wrong with Neva’s grasp of the situation. “Yes. And worse.”
She frowned. “All of them?” she asked on a note of wonder and pained disappointment.
“No. Not all of them, thank God. And I’m hoping the coroner is one of the honest ones. I left him a note in hopes he’d investigate further, and take his findings to someone he knows will follow through. But I don’t know what kind of man he is, which is why I didn’t actually sign the note.”
“Oh, Miss Bohannon, he’s just gotta be honest,” she said fervently. “Do you think he will ... what you said ... follow through?”
“I think he may already have. If he went to the district attorney, it may explain why Lars—Officer Hansen—was so upset with me. With both of us. He may have guessed I started the ball rolling when he felt sure the danger had passed. And call me China.”
Neva’s face lit up. She smiled. “China.”
There was more. I had to tell her about Lars striking me and what he’d said. I had to connect the dots leading from her mother and grandfather to the man she’d seen in the stable and on to Lars. And lastly, I tried to console her with the idea of Robbie’s death not being murder, exactly, but perhaps a bit of an accident when a plan went awry.
I don’t think she quite came to grips with the latter. As she said, “Dead is dead.”
And then she cried.
Before I put her to bed in my room, she mentioned Mercury again. He was close, she said, right here in town with someone she trusted. Sticking to the prudent side of things, I refused to listen when she tried to tell me where.
After checking the state of my powdered face and deciding it didn’t look too bad, I left Neva to a well-earned nap and took Nimble downstairs with me. I had typing to do. Clients to serve. Business to conduct.
I turned the closed sign to open.
Just in the nick of time, as it happened. Within seconds my fourth unexpected visitor of the day trooped in. Correction: I should say visitors. The whole Sawyer Kennett family had come to town for Porter’s meeting with Sawyer. And, as with Porter, I was happy to see them.
Mostly.
The Kennetts were former clients of the agency. I’d been a decoy in place of Gincy Kennett when her life was threatened by a gang of thieves trying to take over Kennett’s silver mine. Instead of her being thrown off the steamboat Georgie Oakes to drown in Coeur d’Alene Lake, I’d had the honor. In living through the experience, I’d not only met Porter, but bought enough time for Gincy and her children to get beyond as nefarious a bunch of outlaws as you’d care to meet. In typical frontier fashion, there’d been a shoot-out, in which her husband participated along with Grat and Monk. Somehow, as unlikely as it seems, we all survived and became friends.
Oh, did I mention the silver mine Sawyer Kennett owns is the fabulous Flag of America located in the Coeur d’Alene Mining District? He’s rich as Croesus, and as common as an old boot. I think he’s the reason people like Mr. L. L. Branston, or Mr. Warren Poole, for all their airs, don’t intimidate me. And after all, my family had once been wealthy, too. La-di-da.
I stretched my sore lip in a welcoming smile and rose to greet them. “Hello, hello. When did you get to town?”
Sawyer answered. “Caught the afternoon train in yesterday. Grat around? Got a job for him if he thinks it’s worthwhile.” He bent to greet a joyous Nimble before she gamboled over to jump on Sawyer Jr.’s leg. She loves playing with children and doesn’t often get the chance.
“He’s at the Interstate Fair. Or more precisely, the Corbin Park racetrack,” I said. “He and Monk have been hired to stop the bunco men from robbing fairgoers blind.”
Sawyer grinned. “I wish them good luck.”
Wincing from the pain in my lip, I smiled too. “I think they’ll need it. The job won’t last long, if you can wait a few days. The fair ends on Sunday.”
“Yep. I know. We wouldn’t miss the Spokane Derby. One of Gincy’s relatives has a horse in the big race.”
Gincy Kennett, meanwhile, ignored this exchange to study my face. “China,” she finally said when she could get a word in edgewise. Taking my chin in a gentle hand, she turned my face further into the light, examining me with the sharp eye of a physician—or a mother. “What on earth happened to you? Your poor face!”
Her observation drew Sawyer’s attention. “Looks like somebody punched you.” He sounded awed. “Holy ... uh ...” He snorted. “What did the guy look like when Grat got done with him?”
I can’t imagine how Sawyer knew it was a man who’d struck me. Or why he, like Porter, would assume Grat—
His wife brushed him aside. “Have you bathed those bruises with witch hazel? Put some ice on your lip?” Without waiting for a reply, she glanced at her husband. “We need another ice plant in Wallace, Sawyer. Let’s start one. As a city, we can’t keep enough on hand to use for medicinal purposes.”
“Where would we put it?”
“How about our warehouse down by the river? It’s standing empty.”
I sighed. At least my wounds had served some purpose. Beyond diverting their attention from me, they’d given the Kennetts a new way to make money. As if they needed any more.
Sawyer echoed my sigh. “We’ll talk about it when we get home.”
Gincy nodded. “Yes. Let’s get to the bottom of China’s injuries first.”
Or not so diverted after all.
She’d keep picking at me until I told her something, completely disregarding the fact I’d just as soon not discuss it. However, Gincy is very focused. She refused to let the matter drop.
I eyed the Kennett children. Sawyer Jr. wasn’t paying much attention because Nimble had him occupied. Liddy, the little girl, wanted her mother to pick her up. Gincy did, even as she sent her boy outside to play with the dog.
“There’s nothing in the yard he can hurt, is there?”
“I don’t think so. Except there’s an ax,” I said. “He might hurt himself.”
“Oh, he won’t pay any attention. Now then, China. Speak up,” she urged me.
In the end, I couldn’t tell them the truth. So I flat-out lied.
I’d had an accident with a broom handle, I told them. “The silliest thing. Too embarrassing to talk about. I’m becoming terribly awkward, I’m afraid.” I tried to sound amused as I glossed over the incident. Instead, I rattled on about L. L. Branston’s early morning visit, and spoke of Porter Anderson. I finished up by urging Gincy to tell me all about Rider, a horse bred and trained by the Coeur d’ Alene Indians.
I don’t usually ramble on so long. Sawyer bestowed a questioning look on me, but he let my garrulousness pass.
I made no mention of Neva O’Dell, owner of the current favorite in the derby, upstairs at this very moment peacefully sleeping in my bed, nor of Lars Hansen being present when I had my “accident.”
Sawyer’s interest was piqued by L. L. Branston’s name. “Believe your early morning visitor must be the same man I won five hundred dollars from last night in a poker game. L. L. Branston? Arrogant ... uh ... feller. A little on the stout side. Flashy dresser. The kind of cardplayer who oughta stick to penny-ante games.”
I remembered Branston’s gold brocade vest. Yes. It had been a bit flashy. “I doubt there’s two men of the same name in town. Especially two with enough money to risk losing five hundred dollars.” I was a little surprised to learn Sawyer had been hobnobbing with members of Spokane’s upper crust. Didn’t they get together at some sort of men’s club?
But then I remembered the way he’d become very involved in a poker game aboard the Georgie Oakes, part of the reason I’d gotten thrown overboard. Yes. He did like to gamble, and for high stakes, too.
Sawyer laughed, apparently not bothered by the same memories as I. “I gotta say he wasn’t best pleased by the loss. Had to borrow money to pay his debt. This Poole feller was ribbin’ him about adding it to what he already owed.�
�
Hmm. So Poole was another gambler. Did rich people have nothing better to do with their money than lose it to one another?
Gincy, who’d listened to his tale—and yes, Sawyer was bragging a little—without interrupting, now said, “I’ll relieve you of a few of those dollars, and buy the children new clothes this afternoon. Sawyer Junior wears out britches like he’s working in a hard rock mine. He simply can’t go around looking like a reservation derelict.”
Sawyer, without another word, drew a wad of money from his pocket and peeled off several bills. She, oh so casually, stowed them in her pocketbook.
What a difference between them and my poor young client, Neva Sue O’Dell.
13
The office seemed awfully quiet after the Kennetts left; Sawyer on his way to the racetrack in search of Monk or Gratton—or perhaps to take a punt on the next race; Gincy intent on a shopping expedition.
Left behind by her playmate, Nimble, worn out and more relaxed than I, napped under my desk. It all felt eerie to me, with a queer tense aura of waiting.
Fretting with the desire to talk with my uncle, I decided to go to Corbin Park. With so much else on his mind, chances were Monk wouldn’t even notice my bruises. I’d casually happen to mention the warning Lars had issued. Get the worst part over with. I’d simply omit the rest of what happened. Anyway, there was a method to my scheme. Even if my uncle put Lars and bruises together, as long as Porter kept his mouth shut, I could still deny it. There’d be nothing to prove otherwise. No sense in hunting for trouble.
Leaving a note on my bedside table for Neva, who slept with little spurting snores, I powdered my bruises again before Nimble and I—the dog revived from her nap and ready to go—set off to catch a streetcar out to Corbin Park.
Away from the office, my tension eased. The sun shining out of a clear blue sky felt like an extension of summer, so warm and soft on my shoulders. Autumn in Spokane is a beautiful time of year. As long as the weather held for a few more days, I felt sure Mr. Branston’s concern about the race meet being a rousing success would be pointless. The track itself would be fast, the footing sure. Grat had said the commissioners had hired a man to harrow the dirt between races.
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