Uma's Undoing

by Dallis Adams

  Tomorrow would be the reading of the will. Money was a motivator for killing. Maybe a lead would come out of the beneficiaries or lack thereof. Angela Wicket and Cyril Eley came to mind, and the discussion he’d heard between them. Maybe he would have to look closer into the pair and see if he could pinpoint their footsteps during the time of the murder.

  Too, Cyril was knowledgeable about medicines. Would the murderer have to know the properties of morphine and cyanide? Not necessarily. At least, that’s what Jack thought. Simply forcing lots of the stuff down a person’s throat would be something anyone could do who had the strength to do so.

  He was done with Marshal Spivey. He was going to get Uma out of jail.

  Sixteen

  “Come on, Marshal. You’re being ridiculous. Let Uma out so Cato can read Doc’s will to her and the other beneficiaries in Cato’s Law Office.” Jack shook his head at Spivey. Doc Elroy’s funeral was over. The Marshal hadn’t allowed Uma to attend, even at Reverend Azariah Bock’s request. Uma had shrugged off Spivey’s rebuff. But Jack had seen the sadness that had darkened her eyes. Her spirits were down, and he didn’t like it.

  Jack and Uma had discussed the list of suspects way into the night. After hearing about Tawni’s Yorkshire dog and how the animal bit Cyril when the doc’s assistant was eavesdropping on Uma’s conversation with Doc Elroy, Jack thought Cyril’s behavior was suspicious, too. Maybe both Cyril and Angela were involved, with Angela shooting Doc, then panicking because Doc hadn’t died, which required Cyril to finish the deed with the medicines. Although that scenario didn’t quite fit with the woman who wore the serape. Earlier that morning, Jack had searched Angela’s vardo. He hadn’t found a serape or a derringer.

  Who owned the gun that Zada had found? That was the question.

  With a sigh, Jack glanced through the window panes of the Sheriff’s Office. Dust motes danced in the morning rays that slanted through the glass.

  Outside, a group of at least fifty Cryptians had gathered in front of the Sheriff’s Office, lined up to make a path toward Cato Yanoro’s law office. Word of the reading of Doc Elroy’s will had obviously gotten around town.

  Spivey waved his arm toward the growing crowd. “I said I’m not going out there, not with Mrs. MacKissick. Your citizens are unruly. They might attack me. Try to break your wife out of jail. I don’t trust them, especially that crazy gypsy fortuneteller who thinks she controls the weather. The reading can be read here, in my office, where Mrs. MacKissick is secure.”

  Orchilo opened the door and popped her head into the Sheriff’s office. “I don’t think anything of the sort,” she retorted, obviously hearing what the Marshal said, to Jack’s surprise. “What kind of person would believe she controlled the weather? But you obviously do, which shows what a nincompoop you are.”

  Had Orchilo read Spivey’s lips through the window pane? Most likely. Crimony but Jack was sick to death of Spivey. Jack still chafed over the answer from the Marshal’s headquarters in San Francisco, indicating that Spivey had jurisdiction over Doc Elroy’s murder since the main suspect was Jack’s wife. Jack had to do something to get rid of the annoying man. That the town agreed was no mystery. Spivey’s rash from poison ivy had spread up the side of his neck to his ear, making it puffy and blistered. Now a whitish-pink film coated the angry-looking rash. Obviously the Marshal had purchased calamine lotion from Thistle Do Nicely to treat the rash.

  “And you call yourself a lawman?” Jack retorted as he turned away from the window to glare at Spivey. He saw Uma sit in her high-back stuffed chair and rub her temple, which made Jack’s irritation grow. “You are a disgrace to the Marshal profession. Because of your fear for Cryptians, I’ll move the proceedings of the will to my office.” Jack didn’t give Spivey a chance to respond. Instead, he stomped over the threshold and across the street.

  As he walked, he recalled something about the wording of the telegram. The message was still in his pocket. Reaching inside, he pulled it out and re-read it. Yup. Marshal headquarters for California Northern Territory had declared Marshal Spivey could take over the investigation into Doc Elroy’s murder as long as he was available. What if something happened that required Spivey’s attention? After the reading of the will, Jack decided to visit Creed and see if the two of them could stir up something that would get rid of Spivey. He’d had enough. And so had Uma.

  Although she didn’t complain, he knew she had to be chafing at the imprisonment. A surge of admiration and love swept through him. She was mouthy and bold — nothing like any of the simpering ladies he’d met from upper society in the past. She challenged and inspired him.

  In the past five months his life had become so full of flavor with her in it. Before Uma, his life was gray, plain, like oatmeal without flavoring. Without her, he would become mist, like the fog that clung to the Redwoods around them. Yes, he would do anything it took to get rid of Spivey so that he could concentrate on catching the real murderer.

  Although he worried about Uma getting involved in finding the true killer, he could hardly keep her out of the loop. Bouncing off ideas with her was what kept the flame of hope lit inside of her. But she was bold and too brave for her own good. He feared for her … and for himself. If she ever figured out who the killer was, he was certain she would confront him … or her. Although Jack didn’t think the killer was a woman. Not many women could hold down a big man like Doc Elroy and force him to drink copious amounts of medicine. And although Doc had been older, he had still been strong. Fit. He knew for a fact that Doc had worked out with kettlebells.

  In fact, the Doc had introduced kettlebells to Jack, which Jack used religiously. Doc Elroy had believed that physical fitness tied into overall health. No, the killer was definitely a man.

  He kept returning to Doc’s duo. He’d overheard her complaining to her traveling friend, Cyril Eley, about Doc Elroy and his stinginess. She’d even mentioned the Doc’s will and how she couldn’t wait to inherit his money. And then there was Orlando. That display of jealousy was condemning. Still. As he opened the door to Cato’s law office, a nagging sensation swept over him. He was missing something.

  Uma watched him go. The whole jail scenario was starting to wear on her. She felt like a canary in a gilded cage. The circuit judge was due to arrive in another week, but Uma didn’t think she could last that long. An itching had started under her skin. And her skin was starting to feel itchy, as if her corset was on too tight. Sometimes she had trouble breathing. Never did she think she would have to be locked up for nearly four days. The most she’d ever had to endure a lock up was one night. She’d been certain that Jack would either discover the murderer or evidence that would exonerate her.

  However, it wasn’t looking good for her. It didn’t seem as if Jack had gotten any closer to discovering the identity of the real criminal.

  Her thoughts were disrupted when Jack walked back in to the Sheriff’s Office with Cato, carrying a swath of papers, followed by Cyril and Angela … and Catalina Navarra.

  The three beneficiaries sat on the stools provided by the sheriff’s office. Cato walked behind Jack’s desk and set down his folder. He nodded to Uma, his expression sympathetic. She barely resisted scowling back at him, knowing he only meant well. But she didn’t want anybody feeling sorry for herself.

  Cato lifted up one of the documents. “Thank you for coming, everyone.” Once again, he turned toward the cell where Uma sat in her chair, comfy, yet still caged. “Uma,” Cato said, greeting her as he ran a finger under his collar, not able to meet her gaze again, as if he sensed she didn’t want sympathy. “This won’t take long.”

  He turned his back to Uma so he could address the other three participants in the room. “Doc Elroy came to me the day he died to draw up a new will. Here is what his wishes were: ‘All my earthly belongings will be distributed as follows: To my almost-stepdaughter Angela, I give her my grandmother’s wedding ring to wear once she marries. I also give her my mother’s silverware and dishes. That is th
e sum of what I am willing to give to Angela. I lived with Angela and her mother for three years before leaving New York. I could never do enough for Angela’s mother and I have seen that Angela has inherited her mother’s greed. I hope someday that Angela will learn to be happy within her means.’”

  Cato turned to Cyril. “To Cyril Eley, my fifth cousin removed —”’

  “What? That’s it? That’s all Doc left me?” Angela cried out.

  “Yes, Miss Wicket,” Cato answered in a calm tone. “Your part in the will reading is over. Now, please do not interrupt, or else I will have to ask Marshal Spivey to remove you from the reading.”

  “Me?” Spivey exclaimed and stared at the milling throng of Cryptians that hovered in the street. “Why not the Sheriff?”

  “Because you have taken over Jack’s role as the lawman, have you not?”

  From her seat on the stool, Angela stomped her foot and crossed her arms. “Nobody’s going to make me leave. I have rights! What a vagabond the Doc was. I will stay and hear the rest of this so-called will — like, who gets his caravan and his savings.” Angela turned to glare at Uma.

  “Why look at me?” she replied, deciding to call the woman out on her behavior. “I barely knew Doc Elroy.”

  Angela didn’t answer, but turned her head to the side and stuck up her nose.

  “Stay as you wish, Miss Wicket.” Cato turned once more to the young man sitting next to Angela. ‘“To Cyril Eley, I give you tuition monies to be used only for the attendance to the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy. While attending school, I will instruct my lawyer to pay for your room and board. If you complete the courses and graduate, you will receive seed money to start your own pharmacy.”’

  “What if I don’t want to go to the college?” Cyril asked, eyes wide. “What if I want to use the money for something else?”

  “Then you cannot receive the monies,” Cato replied. “You must use your inheritance as specified in the will. Doc Elroy instructed me to send the money directly to the college, as well as set you up and pay on a quarterly basis for your room and board.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Cyril retorted with a huff and a crossing of his arms against his chest. “The man still rules from the grave.”

  “One last line for you, Mr. Eley.” Cato glanced down at his paper. “’I also give you my pipe that has been handed down four generations. Smoke it and remember me.’”

  “What a pompous nincompoop,” Cyril muttered.

  “If you don’t want it, I’ll take it,” Jack said. “I would like to remember Doc.”

  “Take it.” Cyril tossed it toward Jack, who easily caught it.

  Next Cato turned to Catalina. “’To Catalina Navarra I give all of the tools of the trade in my doctor’s bag: bullet probes and extractors, stethoscope, anesthetics, glass thermometer, splints for broken bones, bandages. I know you are the true healer because it comes so naturally to you.”

  “Why did Doc give her his doctor’s bag and not me?” Cyril asked, motioning toward Catalina. He blinked, obviously confused.

  Cato’s patient expression reminded Uma of somebody much older than his twenty-something years of age. “Because Doc Elroy didn’t want you to take shortcuts in starting a doctor’s practice, as you tend to do. He truly wanted you to learn pharmaceuticals in an official manner. At least, that is what he told me.” Cato looked down at the will again. “’To Jack MacKissick I leave my compass so that he always knows in what direction he is headed.’”

  Jack smiled and leaned toward Uma. “I got lost when I was traveling across Montana one time,” he whispered. “It made me late in visiting the Bloom family, where I wanted to buy one of their mustangs. Doc Elroy never let me live it down.”

  Cato continued. ‘“To Uma Kincaid MacKissick, the daughter I should have had. Uma, I give you one-hundred-and-five-thousand dollars that is in Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco. The account is under my birth name, Elroy Slaughter. I also give you my caravan and the contents inside. And I give my steadfast horse, Loki, into your care. He is a prize that I know you will cherish.’”

  “Well, this just stinks,” Angela muttered. She glared daggers in Uma’s direction. “Are you a witch? Did you have some kind of control over the Doc? Because he never indicated he felt as if you were his daughter to me. And that is weird, because he always confided in me. You did something to him to make him leave you all of his worldly prizes. Something nefarious.”

  Cato raised his brows. “I assure you, Miss Wicket, there are no such creatures as witches. And I promise you that Doc Elroy was of sound mind and was not under any coercion when he dictated his will to me.”

  “You’re a liar,” Angela spat.

  “Enough of that,” Jack said with a warning in his tone.

  Cyril put a hand on her shoulder. “Angela, let it go. We’ll figure everything out.”

  She shuddered and shrugged off his touch as if his fingers were spiders, and jumped to her feet. “I’m contesting the will.”

  “It is your prerogative to do so,” Cato answered. “I can give you names of nearby attorneys who can review the documents on your behalf.”

  “As if I would trust anybody you recommended,” Angela sneered, throwing a hateful look at Cato before directing eyes that could kill toward Uma. “I’ll find my own lawyer.” She stomped out of the sheriff’s office without looking back. Cyril glanced at Uma with a flustered expression before rushing off to catch up to Angela.

  For a moment, she thought Jack was going to follow them, but then he stopped and ran a hand through his hair.

  Cato sighed, a sound that made him seem older. “Miss Wicket is obviously angry and disappointed, and probably hurt. But I did advise Doc Elroy that he should leave both her and Cyril something to give his will more legitimacy, which he did, although he didn’t want to.”

  “Why didn’t he want to leave them his inheritance?” Uma asked.

  Cato grimaced. “Because the doc didn’t like what he called the avarice in their hearts. He said they were greedy and lazy and he felt as if they took him for granted.” Cato shrugged. “He wanted to leave his wealth with somebody who he said deserved it. And that was you.”

  Uma didn’t feel as if she deserved it. She hadn’t been very nice to Doc Elroy the day he’d died. And she regretted her wayward tongue. Why was she so quick to judge? To speak before considering what she was saying? Like Madam Wigg at the orphanage was always telling her, she needed to learn discipline and diplomacy. She sighed. It wasn’t in her nature to be diplomatic.

  “Be strong,” Cato said, and patted her fingers where she gripped one of the bars. “Jack is going to get you out of there. And I’m here to help in any way I can. I will come by later to have you sign some papers.” With a last sympathetic glance at Uma and a nod for Jack, he left.

  “Uma love, you won’t have to be in that cell much longer,” Jack murmured as he reached through the bars to grasp her around the waist. With the bars between them, his hug was awkward. But he kissed her, cold bars bracketing their cheeks. Then he, too, was gone.

  Loneliness swamped her like a wet blanket. Her breathing hitched. But she refused to give in to the hot wetness behind her eyes. She glanced at Spivey and how he played checkers with himself. What an idiot. She yearned to yell at the chucklehead. Holding back the urge to do so made her throat suddenly ache with the effort. Instead, she decided to work on a lesson for her students, who were coming to the Sheriff’s Office in about an hour. Thank goodness for them. Teaching broke up her tedious life behind bars. She opened up a grammar book and picked up a sheet of paper and began to write instructions.

  “What do you want?” Marshal Spivey growled.

  Uma glanced up from her reverie and saw that Spivey addressed Harvey.

  “I just want to speak to Uma, you ol’ fart. But it’s none of your business so just do whatever you do all day. Play checkers, twiddle your thumbs, or whatever.” Then he turned toward Uma’s cell. His eyes were surprisingly clear, alert as he st
udied her. “How are you doing?”

  She was getting tired of everybody asking her that. But what else were they supposed to say? “Alright, although I am getting a little restless just sitting in here. I’ll have to ask Jack if he will hang up a punching bag and bring me some boxing gloves next time I see him.”

  “I brought you a book.” He held it out. It was H.M.S Pinafore by W.S. Gilbert.

  Nostalgia made her eyes to burn and her nose to sting. “My stepsisters and I saw the play the last time all four of us were together in New York.” When he pushed it between the bars, she accepted it. “Thank you. Reading the story will be a nice reminder of the theatre and time with my dear sisters.”

  “That’s good.” Harvey shuffled his feet, and then looked up. “That Angela gal didn’t look happy when she left after the reading of the will.”

  “No, she wasn’t. Doc Elroy surprised her, Cyril, and especially me.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because he willed the bulk of his worldly goods and money to me, for some strange reason. In the will, he referred to me as the daughter he never had. Not poor Angela, which is sad for her. He told me how he’d lived with Angel and her mom for two or three years. It still seems unnecessarily harsh for him to do that to Angela and Cyril, who is his nephew. I don’t need that money.”

  Harvey pulled on his lower lip as he leaned against the bars of her cell, and listened. “What are you going to do with it?”

  Leaning back in her high-back stuffed chair, she put the grammar book and paper aside on the nearby table. “I’m thinking of buying lots of books and starting a library.”

  “Always the teacher,” Harvey teased with a grin. “That will be nice, not for just children, but for everyone — if that is your plan.”

  “Of course. I want to buy books appropriate for all ages, even books on different professions to help those who want to learn.”

  “Very good,” Harvey replied with a nod. “I might even benefit from a library since you taught me to read. Although I’m still not good on my writing.”