Calico Spy

by Margaret Brownley

  The air hung thick with the smell of onions and wet cat fur. She’d let Spook Cat in earlier when a rain shower passed through town. After filling his belly with warm milk, the tom curled up by her feet.

  Without the drops pitter-pattering on the windows to distract her, the blank sheet of paper seemed even more intimidating.

  Two hours she’d sat there. It wasn’t that she didn’t know what to write. She knew exactly what had to be said. She’d failed in her duties. Two Harvey girls had lost their lives, and it looked like their killer would never be found.

  Her cover was blown. The reverend now knew her identity, and so did Pickens. Confiding in the manager was the only way she could stay at the restaurant after he’d fired her. She had done the unforgivable and had left the restaurant without a word. Such an offense deserved no second chances. Nor would he listen to her explanations. He’d simply said, “You’re fired. Pack your bags.”

  She either had to tell him the truth or leave on the next train. Her reasons for not wanting to leave were many. Branch…

  No, mustn’t go there. Branch had nothing to do with her not wanting to leave. Not a thing.

  How dumb to think she could stay now that Pickens knew the truth. He’d promised to keep her secret, but whether she could trust him was another matter. Realistically, he was still a suspect. No one at the Harvey House had been cleared. Any one of them could be the killer, though she hated to think it. She’d grown fond of the place and the people who worked there, even Gassy, and that was part of the problem. She could no longer be objective.

  She closed her eyes. God, why is it so hard for me to admit failure? It happened to the best of detectives. Even Allan Pinkerton had known defeat in his attempt to capture the James gang. The attempt had ended in disaster and resulted in the death of a child. It had happened long before she joined the company, but some of the older detectives told her that Allan had taken it hard. Some even suggested that he hadn’t fully recovered from the fiasco.

  Is that what she had to look forward to? A lifetime of regret? Would she always be haunted by memories of Calico and everything that had happened here?

  Her muscles ached from sitting so long. Yawning, she decided to get some sleep. The report would have to wait till tomorrow.

  She jabbed the pen back into the penholder and reached for the paper. Her hand froze. Was it just her imagination, or did the blob of ink on the otherwise blank sheet of paper look like a shoe?

  A woman’s shoe.

  Ginger’s?

  Chapter 43

  Only Branch and Reverend Bushwell were at the small cemetery on that windy day in late May. Branch insisted on Clayborn having a proper Christian burial, and though others had tried to talk him out of it, he held firm. The grave site he’d picked was as far away from Dorothy’s and Hannah’s as possible. God’s grace was infinite, but Branch’s forgiveness went only so far.

  Tattered clouds drifted across a deep blue sky, and the wind cooled Branch’s brow.

  The minister performed the simple ceremony and closed with a prayer. After the casket was lowered into the ground, he placed a hand on Branch’s shoulder.

  “It’s a kind thing you’ve done,” he said.

  Branch arched an eyebrow. “Kind? Had I handled things better, Clayborn would still be alive.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  He heaved a sigh. “I put my trust in God and look what happened.”

  “What happened is, you have Andy and he’s now safely in your care. I’d say that was a pretty good deal. As for Clayborn…” He looked down at the dull pine coffin. “His relationship with God failed, not yours.”

  Branch hadn’t thought of it that way, and a weight lifted from his shoulders. “Thank you, Reverend.”

  “No need to thank me. I speak the truth.” After a moment he asked, “Does the boy know it was his real father who kidnapped him?”

  “Not yet, but he will.” So far few people in town knew the real story behind Andy’s kidnapping, but that was bound to change. Better for Andy to hear the truth from him. “When the time’s right.”

  “Would that be his time or your time?”

  “God’s time,” Branch said. Telling Andy about his birth mother posed no real problem, but he would need some heavenly assistance in discussing Andy’s biological father.

  The two of them fell silent. The quiet was punctuated only by the sound of the grave digger’s shovel scooping up soil and dumping it into the hole.

  After a while, Bushwell stepped back. “Don’t know about you but I could sure use a cup of coffee.”

  “Joe,” Branch said without thinking. “A cup of joe.”

  Katie stood at Abigail’s station and gazed about the dining room, empty except for Tully and Mary-Lou putting last-minute touches on the tables.

  Something Abigail had said about Ginger was still on her mind. “She asked me to change stations with her. She seemed really upset.” Why would Ginger want to change stations? Both stations were similar except that this one had a better view of the front door. Was that the reason Ginger wanted to change?

  Pickens entered the dining room with his trusty measuring tape and proceeded to work his way from table to table. Now that he knew her true identity his manner toward her had changed. He had been especially nice to her that day—too nice—even going so far as to ignore a poorly folded napkin at breakfast. Even now he greeted her with a pleasant smile.

  “Looking good,” he said, which coming from him was high praise.

  His uncharacteristic behavior didn’t escape Tully’s notice. “No favoritism there,” she said with a flick of her head. With a huff, she picked up a tray and stalked away.

  The gong signaled the twelve-twenty-five train, and the chandelier bounced about like hail on a tin roof. Katie hurried to the breakfast room and took her place behind the counter. Soon both dining rooms were full of travelers.

  Abigail leaned over the counter. “I need help,” she said. “Could you take charge of the beverages?”

  Katie placed an order of roast beef in front of one of the counter guests and nodded.

  She quickly set pots of coffee and tea on a tray and carried it to Abigail’s station. A quick glance at the cups told her that only one diner had ordered coffee. After filling his cup, she set the coffeepot on the tray stand and reached for one of the teapots. Like a gun going off in her head, a sudden memory came to the fore. Nine o’clock. Orange pekoe tea.

  Startled by the thought, she stood there holding the teapot. That was what had bothered her at the cabin.

  A bearded man held his cup aloft. “I’ll take some of that tea, miss.”

  Shaking off the sudden inertia that rendered her helpless, she forced a smile. “Yes, of course.” Her hand shook as she filled his cup. She quickly filled the other cups and moved away. That’s when she noticed Branch at the counter.

  Her pulse quickened as she hurried to greet him. “What are you doing here?” She set the tray on the counter. He knew this was her busiest time.

  “Had a bad morning,” he said. “Still no luck finding Clayborn’s killer. Thought some of that pie you still owe me would hit the spot, along with a cup of your hottest and strongest.”

  She sympathized. Branch had the unenviable task of hunting down the man who shot Clayborn, but it couldn’t be easy. Not after the trouble Clayborn had caused him.

  As if to guess her thoughts, he added, “When the time’s right I want to be able to tell Andy that his father’s killer was found and justice served.”

  Nodding, she reached for his cup and saucer and turned to fill it from the large silver coffee urn. She then set the cup of steaming brew on the counter in front of him, careful to turn the handle facing his right hand in the proper Harvey House style.

  “What about that pie?” he asked when she continued to stare at his cup.

  She lifted her gaze. “I’ll give you a piece on one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  She glanced
down at the cup again. She hated putting so much stock in a cup handle. Still…

  “You agree to let me have another look at the apartment over the bank.”

  Branch was waiting for her that night when she slipped out of the house after curfew. Beneath the dense canopy of stars the air was still and the town quiet.

  He held up a key ring and jiggled it. “Got the key from the bank president.”

  She let out her breath. “Good.”

  “So what’s this about?” he asked as they walked around the building to Main.

  “I just want to look around again,” she said.

  He glanced at her askew. “Why do I get the feeling there’s more to it than that?”

  “All right,” she admitted. “I think the man in the cabin who shot Clayborn was in that apartment.”

  “Whoa, Nellie!” Stopping in his tracks, he turned to stare at her, pushing back his hat. “Where did that come from?”

  She smiled mysteriously. “I also don’t believe Mrs. Bracegirdle is off her rocker.”

  He hung his thumbs from his belt. “Sorry, but I don’t see the connection.”

  “I’m not even sure there is a connection,” she said. “But some things don’t add up. Ginger’s shoe for one. I could never figure out why her shoe was found so far away from where she was found.”

  “Granted, that’s a puzzle.”

  “Suppose I really did see a light over the bank. And what if Ginger saw one, too. It might have scared her, especially with all that talk about the place being haunted.”

  “Makes sense,” he said. “But what does any of this have to do with her death? Or even Clayborn’s?”

  She started walking again, and he fell in step by her side. “I’ll get to Clayborn in a moment. First, let’s focus on Ginger. What if she saw or heard something she wasn’t supposed to?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.” Questions like that kept detectives pacing the floor. “We assumed she was killed in the alley. But what if she wasn’t? What if she was killed right here?” They had arrived at the bank, and she stopped in the middle of the street.

  He stopped, too. “I checked this area over thoroughly, but this is a busy part of town. By the time her shoe was found, the place had been pretty much compromised by wagon wheels and horses.”

  She glanced up. The windows over the bank looked dark and forbidding, and hair rose at her nape. An odd sensation put her on high alert, and she reached in her pocket for her gun.

  A soft light shone from behind the curtains of Mrs. Bracegirdle’s apartment. Even at this late hour it looked like she was still awake.

  “You still haven’t told me how Clayborn fits into this.”

  “I’ll tell you.” She slanted her head toward the stairs. “Inside.”

  Chapter 44

  Branch inserted the key into the lock. Katie was acting especially mysterious tonight, even for her.

  The door creaked open. He waited for Katie to step ahead of him before following. He quietly closed the door so as not to disturb Mrs. Bracegirdle.

  The narrow shaft of light streaming through a dusty window turned Katie’s hair into copper flames. Eyes bright, she surveyed the room like it was a museum filled with valuable pieces and not just empty space. The glint of metal drew his gaze to the gun in her hand.

  “You like this, don’t you?” he asked.

  Her questioning eyes came to rest on him. “Like what?”

  “This cloak-and-dagger stuff.”

  She slipped her gun into her pocket. “I’d be in big trouble as a detective if I didn’t.”

  Somehow he’d hoped for a different answer. “Ever think about doing something else?”

  The question seemed to surprise her. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Marriage. Kids.”

  The brightness left her face, and a protective surge welled up inside him. Now why did he have to mention marriage? Evidently it was a painful subject.

  “I thought about it,” she said, her voice soft. “But it didn’t work out.” She turned abruptly and headed for the kitchen.

  He gave her a moment of privacy before following. “What are we looking for?” he whispered.

  “Why are you whispering?” she asked.

  “I have no idea.” The kitchen was dark and the air stale.

  A match flared in her hand, and she held it over the sink. Standing behind her, he caught a pleasant whiff of perfume. It reminded him of the lilacs that grew in his grandmother’s garden.

  “See the tin cup.” She was all business now, and he sensed her excitement as she pointed into the sink. “The handle is pointing left in the nine o’clock position.”

  “I see that,” he said. “And the head of that dead fly there is lying at four o’clock,” he teased.

  Even in the dim light he could see her face close, and he immediately regretted his flippant tone. “Is that significant?” he asked, hoping to make amends. “The direction of the handle?”

  “Only that the cup was probably put there by a left-handed person.”

  “Sounds like a reasonable conclusion.”

  “There was a cup at the cabin with the handle pointing in the same direction.”

  He raised an eyebrow. Her observation skills put his to shame. “So what you’re saying is—”

  “The same person could have left both cups.”

  He folded his arms. “I thought you brought me out in the middle of the night because of Ginger’s shoe.”

  “First things first.” She blew out the match before it burned down to her fingers. “Did you know that only ten percent of the population is left-handed?”

  “Don’t tell me you believe all that nonsense about a left-handed person being the devil’s playmate?”

  “Not me. Most criminals in the Pinkerton files are right-handed. I just think it’s interesting to find two similar cups with left-pointing handles. Were you able to tell which hand the knifeman favored?”

  He dropped his arms to the side and stared at her. As much as he appreciated what she was trying to do, linking two possibly unrelated coffee cups to the crime sounded like a leap in logic.

  “Our killer is right-handed,” he said and frowned. “Surely you didn’t think there was a connection?”

  “Maybe not with the Harvey girls, but possibly with Clayborn. Whoever was in that cabin didn’t want to be found.”

  “I noticed that,” he said. She moved away from the sink, and he caught her by the arm. “You’re good,” he said. “I never noticed the cups.”

  He heard her intake of breath. “Does this mean you’ve changed your mind about Pinkerton operatives?”

  “Absolutely not,” he said. Only you.

  Gazing into her eyes, he knew a moment of reason. Kissing her would only make matters worse. It would be one more thing to haunt him the rest of his days, just like the other moments they’d shared. But knowing that didn’t make the struggle between mind and body, reason and insanity, any less difficult.

  Still, wisdom and good sense might have won had she not wrinkled her nose like she tended to do. Had she not slanted her head in that certain way and gazed at him with those big, bright, questioning eyes. Blue as the deepest ocean. Blue as the brightest sky. All at once rationale left him, rushing away like a speeding train.

  Closing the distance between them, he circled her slender waist with his hands. She stiffened at his touch, and a look of dismay flashed across her face before her body relaxed in surrender.

  “We shouldn’t do this,” she said, her voice soft. But even as she protested she slid her hands up his chest. “We’re working.”

  “We’re standing in an empty apartment.”

  “Working,” she repeated, her arms draped around his neck.

  He sucked in his breath, but he could no sooner pull away from her than jump off a cliff. His hands explored the contours of her back, and the warmth of her body beckoned to him. Her delicate, sweet fragrance teased his nose, and her s
weet, warm breath was like a beacon guiding his mouth to hers.

  Just before his lips met hers a sound alerted him. “Shh. I hear something,” he whispered next to her silky skin.

  She pulled out of his arms, and he immediately felt a void. Somehow she had taken something of him with her.

  “I hear it, too.”

  She showed no sign of resenting the intrusion. Instead, she was all business as she pulled out her gun, ready for action. Evidently, his kisses were a poor substitute for the excitement of her job, but now was not the time to think about that.

  “Sure you don’t want my Colt?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

  “I’ll stick with this.” He felt her gaze on him. “And if you laugh—”

  “Wouldn’t think of it.”

  He moved quietly into the front room, and she followed close behind. Beneath the carpet the floor creaked like a rickety old bridge.

  “The superintendent should have the building checked for termites,” she said, her voice hushed.

  “My thoughts exactly.”

  “Get ready,” he whispered, hand on the doorknob. “One, two—” He yanked the door open and something flew out of the dark. The object hit the floor with a bang, missing him by mere inches. It looked like a stick of some sort.

  Grabbing hold of it, he reeled the attacker into the room.

  “Mrs. Bracegirdle!” He stared at her in horror. Only then did he realize he was holding on to her walking cane. Had he pulled her off her feet she could have been seriously hurt.

  He holstered his gun. “Confound it! What are you doing here?”

  In the dim light from the window, the older woman’s face looked pale as a wintry moon. “Branch!” she gasped when she was finally able to find her voice. She pressed the tip of her cane onto the floor and held on to it with both hands. “You nearly scared me into my grave!”

  “Sorry.” He closed the door.

  “Are you okay?” Katie asked, her voice soft with concern.