A Lady Never Trifles with Thieves

by Suzann Ledbetter

  The land agent, a second cousin to Beelzebub, earned a living inflating and collecting rents for absentee building owners, plus dunning them for maintenance expenses, bogus taxes, levies and whatever else he could dream up and pocket the money.

  He was snugged upside the agency’s door, obviously having taken up his post a while ago, with no intention of abandoning it until a Sawyer of some persuasion arrived.

  Had Papa been of this world, he’d have scared the water out of Darius Sweet without uttering a single word. I’d proffered numerous requests for an otherworldly haunting of the ferret-faced extortionist. I reckoned that Papa had either ignored them, or Sweet was impervious to vengeful apparitions.

  “Are you aware of what day it is, Miss Sawyer?”

  “Yes, Mister Sweet. I do believe it’s Monday.”

  Scurrying noises accompanied the creak of the door swinging open. Rats seeking shelter from the rain, no doubt. I looked at Sweet, his dripping hat and overcoat forming puddles on the floor. Present company included.

  “It is also the day rents are due, Miss Sawyer.”

  “I’m aware of that.” I scooped up three yellow telegram envelopes that had been poked through the mail slot. I pressed them to my bosom, as if it would affect their content.

  “Then if you’ll pay what’s owed for office space and your house,” Sweet said, “I’ll write out a receipt and be on my way.”

  “I didn’t expect you first thing this morning,” I said, primping in the reflection from Napoleon’s portrait.

  “Usually you don’t collect until later in the afternoon.”

  “Time of day is no consequence. Either you have the money, or you don’t.”

  I turned and knuckled my hips. “I go to the bank between noon and one o’clock, Mister Sweet. You may stop by again this afternoon, at your convenience.”

  “Oh, bosh. What you’re telling me is that you don’t have the money.”

  “Not in hand, no.” I wouldn’t have it this afternoon, either, but so far, I hadn’t lied once.

  “I’ll be back, Miss Sawyer. Make no mistake about it.”

  “Fine. I’ll be here when you return.” If I was, I’d keep the door bolted and duck behind the desk to evade him. The line between truth and falsehood was often finer than frog’s hair.

  He paused at the threshold. “There will also be a two dollar-per-rent surcharge assessed for returning a second time.”

  I nodded. What else could I do?

  “And if you’re, shall we say, called away before I arrive, an additional five-dollar-per-rent late-fee will be added.”

  You mealy-mouthed, scum-toothed son of a carpetbagger. Tenants already scraping nickels together can barely hash what’s owed, let alone your usurious penalties.

  Aloud, I said, “I have business to attend, Mister Sweet.”

  He sneered. “Oh yes. I can see you’re in danger of being trampled by a horde of paying clients.”

  I made a mental note to ask J. Fulton Shulteis if Sweet’s monthly robbery was legal, then ripped open the first telegram’s envelope. Scanning the abbreviated lines, I cursed and sailed it into the ash can.

  I’d have had the blasted rents if I hadn’t put inordinate faith in a hunch. Nor would my skin be as gray-green as moldy bread from my neck to my comely ankles if I hadn’t sat in the rain half the night in a baggy, old Union suit. Or had I remembered to add a splotch of vinegar to the dye-bath.

  If I owned the world, Mondays would be stricken from the calendar and replaced with another Saturday. Doubtless, the Gregorians didn’t know one from the next when they invented it. If they had, they’d have tacked a thirty-first one onto April, June, September, or November, instead of skimping on February’s allotment, three years out of four.

  The second telegram I skimmed, laid aside, then snatched up and reread. The third message had me screaming “Hallelujah” and running to fetch my hat.

  Suffice it to say, my entrance to the police department station house was less than demure. The constable in charge, a sergeant by the name of Nasmith, refused to dispatch a squad of officers until I could explain why I wanted them with some degree of comprehensibility.

  Drawn by the commotion, three, then four, constables crowded in to give audience to my explanation. I’d hardly begun relating my theory that an abuser was likely to have engaged in similar acts over a lengthy period of time when Jack O’Shaughnessy strode in the front door.

  I hadn’t asked for him when I’d arrived, but now said with infinite sincerity, “Oh, thank God you’re here.” The sentiment was echoed by Sergeant Nasmith.

  “Oh, yeah? Well, I’ve been looking all over Creation for you. I heard a rumor got started yesterday by a—”

  “Never mind that now.” I thrust out the telegrams.

  “Rendal LeBruton, otherwise known as Randall Burton, Burton Randall, and R. Leroy Bruton, is wanted in Sacramento, California, and Comstock, Nevada.”

  Jack whistled backward through his teeth. “Holy Moses. Bigamy, fraud, attempted murder, suspicion of murder…” He shook his head. “Did you know this when you asked me about him at dinner the other night?”

  “Of course not. I had my suspicions, but if I’d had any proof, I wouldn’t have spent a week absolutely terrified that he’d beat Penelope to death or ship her away to an asylum.”

  To Sergeant Nasmith, Jack said, “Remember that assault case a few months ago? Name’s LeBruton. The lady that went after her husband with a knife and fell down the stairs?”

  “Sure do. I was on that call.” He chuckled. “Never did figure out why she didn’t cut herself to pieces on the way down. Tweren’t a speck of blood on her, that I could see.”

  I growled low in my throat. “Was the knife in her hand or near her when you arrived?”

  His mouth pursed. “No, ma’am. Now that you mention it, the husband told us about the knife. I just figgered he’d—”

  “You didn’t figger squat, Nasmith.” Jack’s baritone ricocheted off the grime-crusted walls. “There’s no way in God’s green earth a body can fall down a flight of stairs, knife in hand, without cutting themselves somewhere.”

  Nasmith blustered, “Hold on, there, bub. Best I recollect, you weren’t even there. Where do you come off telling me how the cow ate the cabbage?”

  “I didn’t have to be—”

  “She was drunker ’n two barn owls, man. Prob’ly went limp as a rag doll. Her husband said she’d started hitting the bottle…” The sergeant’s voice trailed away.

  “That’s right,” Jack said. “The husband this, and the husband that.” The telegrams rattled like dry leaves. “Miss Sawyer had the smarts to wire California and Nevada and see if there were any warrants on the husband. If she hadn’t, it’s your hands Penelope LeBruton’s blood might’ve been on, by and by.”

  He pointed to the other constables, who’d backpedaled as far as the wall allowed. “Kent. Paglia. Come with me.” To Nasmith, Jack added, “Why don’t you think about those cows and cabbages while we’re out arresting Mr. LeBruton.”

  The instant we were outside under the awning, I said, “Thank you for the compliment.”

  “You deserved it, darlin’. I only wish you’d told me about LeBruton before.”

  “I should have, I suppose—though after you told me about that earlier call, I wasn’t sure what to believe. Then Belinda Abercrombie was murdered and…” I smiled.

  “Well, opportunities got kind of scarce.”

  “Especially after I went to your office and gave you what-for, then really let ’er rip at the jailhouse.” He grinned.

  “It’s enough to make me think I oughta wear my hat on my hind-end, often as it seems to belong there.”

  Officer Paglia stepped out the door. “Be ready to roll directly, sir. Kent’s bringing the paddy wagon around.”

  “Sooner the better.” Jack glanced back at me, then rolled his eyes. “Yes, I was just about to ask if you wanted to follow behind. Like I needed to.”

  I could h
ave kissed him. Except it would have been in broad daylight on the street and in front of another cop. A lady must have standards and adhere to them. Starting for the buggy, I heard Jack say, “But you’re not going into the house with us.”

  Naturally, I intended to do precisely that. It riled me no end when Jack ordered Constable Kent to guard me at the curb, for crying out loud.

  A very wet, mud-caked Won Li scooted into the buggy beside me. He opened his hand to show me the coins he clutched. “An honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay.”

  I turned to look at Mr. Ernst’s precision-trimmed shrubbery. A square of new shingles contrasted with the weatherworn roof. “An honest day’s work, for sure.”

  “He offered me more. I took as little as he would allow.”

  I reared back my head. “Why? You must not have taken time to wipe your brow, since I left this morning.”

  Won Li shrugged. “Mr. Ernst is a man of humble means. I am a man of humble needs. It was a square deal.”

  Laughing, I hugged his mucky shoulder. “A square deal, eh? Next thing you know, you’ll let out a ‘yeehaw.’”

  “No. I think not.”

  A fair ballyhoo erupted on the LeBrutons’ veranda. My first glimpse of Penelope’s husband had him dressed in silk pajamas and shackles on his wrists and ankles. Red-faced and sweating, he struggled mightily to free himself from Jack’s and Officer Paglia’s grasp.

  I could see why Jack had chosen the barrel-chested, neckless Paglia over Constable Kent. The younger, more slender officer would be bouncing off the porch posts and hand railing like a rubber ball.

  From the house, a woman screamed, “No, no. Don’t take him away. Please, don’t. He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

  A second voice yelled, “Get yourself back in here.”

  A sobbing Penelope LeBruton ran out and launched herself at Jack. “Let him go. Let him go, damn you.”

  Abelia wailed, “Oh law, Miss Penny. Don’t do this. I’m abeggin’ you. Come on back in the house with me.”

  Officer Kent ran to pull the hysterical woman off Jack’s back. I swung a leg out of the buggy. Won Li grabbed my arm. “Sit down.”

  “I can help Abelia calm Penelope down.”

  “No, you cannot. The maid will take care of her mistress. I am certain she has done so before.”

  I fell back in the seat. “I don’t understand. How can you know that?”

  “It is the most vicious of circles, Joby. It is no different than the dog who never knows whether his master will beat him or speak lovingly and stroke his head. He tries his utmost to please his master, thinking if he does enough, is loving enough, the beatings will stop.

  “He may dream of running away, of biting the master—killing him, even. After a while, the dog has no will of his own. He comes to believe he deserves the pain. If someone should take the master from him, he will attack the rescuer, for if the master is saved, perhaps the dog will be loved in return.”

  Abelia and the constable were dragging Penelope back into the house. I thought about Janey Lou Bakker, who’d stayed with and defended her husband until the day he’d killed her. “She’s a grown woman, not a dog.”

  “The analogy was intended not as an insult but as a commoner example. You have never received such treatment, hence it is difficult for you to conceive of it.”

  Anger, compassion, mystification, and emotions I couldn’t name braided and coiled into a hard knot at my chest. “I’m not certain I ever will, Won Li.”

  “It is enough that you do not condemn the actions or inactions of one weaker than you.”

  I nodded at LeBruton, trussed and lying prostrate on the paddy wagon’s filthy floor. His pajama trousers were stained. Sometime during the altercation, he had soiled himself.

  “What about him? To my mind, any man who’d take his fists to a woman, a dog, a horse—anything who poses no threat—is the weakest of the weak. And I sure as six kinds of hell condemn what he’s done to Penelope.”

  Won Li smiled. “My beloved Joby. I may have misspoken to a degree, but we all have weaknesses and strengths. What I meant to impart is that Mrs. LeBruton needs your help more now than ever she has.”

  “If you are exacting with yourself but forgiving to others,” I recited, “then you will put enmity at a distance.”

  “It pleases me that the lessons of the I Ching are familiar to you.” He angled a thumb toward Jack. “Care to practice what it is you preach?”

  Fifteen

  I was sitting tailor-style under the sheet of oilcloth I’d had the presence of mind to pack behind Izzy’s saddle.

  By the time Won Li and I had gotten home from the LeBrutons’ the rain had let up and trees had even doffed the sulky droop they take on when starved for sunshine. Then wouldn’t you know, I’d heard drops peck the window-glass as I’d been changing into the Union suit, itchy and still damp from the night before.

  I’d hooked the neck band over an upper corner of the wardrobe, thinking it would dry faster. Perhaps it had, considering the weather, but gravity had stretched the legs clean to the floor, and the shoulder and one sleeve were pulled anti-goggling.

  There’d been no help for it. About twenty feet of britches leg had been jammed into my boots, and the overlong sleeve had been yanked to my wrist. The excess girdling my arm had cocked it out like shootists depicted on covers of blood-and-thunder magazines. There’d been no help for that, either.

  The previous night, I had reminded Won Li that I hadn’t had much sleep of late, so I was turning in early. Out the bedroom window I’d gone to saddle Izzy and make for my hideout. If he knew I’d snuck out or in again well after midnight, he hadn’t said a word.

  After Jack and I exchanged apologies on the LeBrutons’ lawn, he’d invited me to supper tonight. I’d failed to conjure a lie fast enough to decline. I was certain when he arrived to fetch me—shortly after I’d bailed out the window—Won Li must have called me a half dozen times before he’d rapped on my door. When I didn’t answer, he might have gone as far as to open it, but a battering ram to the back wouldn’t have pushed him into my room, proper.

  He respected my privacy. So did I.

  Crouched in my Gulliver-sized long handles under the oilcloth scrap in the pouring down rain, I pictured Won Li and Jack at the table, sipping libations and telling each other what an irresponsible, ungrateful, double-dealing, prevaricating piece of work I am.

  That hurt. I cared a lot what they thought of me. Maybe I was guilty of being some of those things, some of the time, but not all of them, all of the time, and none of them without good reason, most of the time.

  An upstairs light at the near corner of the house flickered, then went out. I froze, staring at the shiny, blank panes. A few moments later, my stance relaxed. Like the night before, that was the nearest thing to excitement I’d had in an hour. Could be two.

  I was beginning to revise my thinking on the marvel of owning a big house. Judging by recent observations, spacious quarters spread things out too much. You’d have to be in the same room with somebody to have a conversation. And children would be neither seen nor heard. Having been one of the type that bore careful watching, the mischief I’d have made had we lived in a mansion could have wiped Ft. Smith, Arkansas, and its surrounds clean off the map.

  The hair on the back of my neck quickened. I tilted my head left and closed one eye to better listen for the soft swish I’d heard behind me and to the right.

  Hang it all. Either it had stopped or it had never existed but in my imagination. Oilcloth was a lousy choice of tarpaulin. Drumming raindrops blotted the noise. A wool blanket would have—

  My breath hitched. There it was again. Closer. Coming steadily closer. It wasn’t a cat this time. Lord God, if my heart thumped any louder, whoever it was would hear it. I turned from the waist—slowly…slowly. My spine locked as though the vertebrae were welded together.

  Motion. A figure loomed. A wet hand clapped my mouth. Thumb and fingertips vised my jaw. I peel
ed my lips back. Forced my teeth apart. Chomped down on the meaty ridge below the assailant’s index finger.

  A muffled yowl ended with, “Shit fire, Joby. Turn loose—turn loose, damn it. It’s me.”

  The hand still at my mouth induced a heavy reliance on m-sounds. As the grip released, Jack cautioned, “Don’t go to yelling or anything, all right?”

  Nodding, I spied his boot inches from my bent knee. Palms together and fingers laced like a bludgeon, I swung back and clouted his big toe so hard that a ball should have shot up a stanchion and rung the brass bell at the top.

  Jack squatted down beside me, teeth clenched and grimacing. “Judas priest,” he whispered. “I take care not to scare you out of ten years’ growth and what do I get? My hand half bit off and a broken foot.”

  “You thought creeping up behind me and slapping your hand over my face wouldn’t scare me?”

  “I was trying to keep you from screaming.”

  “Want to know the best way to have done that?”

  “No, but I’m bound to hear it.”

  “How about not coming here in the first place?” I started at another window going dark. My nerves were so tight they should have pierced my skin. “How did you find me, anyway?”

  “Easy.” Gaze focused on the second-story windows, Jack huddled closer, pulling the oilcloth over his head. “Won Li saw you slink home last night, wet as sop. He thought you’d gone spying on the LeBrutons.

  “When you came up missing tonight, I knew it wasn’t them you were watching. Didn’t take much to guess who it was. Spying Izzy tethered to a tree down yonder made it fact.”

  I shrugged. “So, now that you know, you can leave me be.”

  “Nope.”

  “This is my case, Jack.”

  “Your obsession, you mean.” He shook his head. “I can’t feature why you refuse to believe Vittorio Ciccone is a thief and a murderer.”

  “From the look of him, he could be both, but he didn’t rob the Abercrombies and he didn’t kill Belinda.”