A small bottle butted up against the wallboard. Plucking it from the floor, Matthew held it up to the lantern. There was no label so he removed the cork and sniffed. Immediately, his eyes began to water and he knew he held homemade laudanum in his hand. The smell was unmistakable as were the small bits and coils of opium that swirled in the bottom.
He placed the vial in his vest pocket and felt the thrill of the chase. Of course, the laudanum could belong to anyone but he knew, deep in his gut, that he had just found a clue…and, more importantly, a weakness in his quarry’s character.
~
Three and a half hours later, Matthew and his deputies arrived at the train depot in Wenatchee, Washington. After offloading and stabling their livestock, the lawmen walked to the closest hotel.
It was a three-story affair with a café, a laundry, and a telegraph office in the lobby. Matthew paid for a large room and ordered a cot brought up for either Roy or Abner to sleep on.
He realized that this wasn’t going to be a straightforward apprehension. Somehow, a group of kidnappers had settled into the area and commenced to snatching young women right out from under people’s noses. This meant they were either well-equipped and fast as greased lightning or operating undercover.
Knowing he and his deputies could not just ride off and expect to stumble across the kidnapper’s lair—there was simply too much uncharted territory—they needed to do some interviews. Ask questions and try to uncover the subterfuge that had so far confounded the frustrated and grieving families. It would take a lot longer and Matthew could hardly bear the thought of what young Amelia might be going through. But it would do no good to run off on a wild goose chase out of sheer frustration.
Sheriff Wilcox swallowed his impatience and settled in to do some detective work.
Chapter 7
Patrick
Patrick sat at his customary table toward the back of the Shamrock Saloon. His two henchmen, Dan O’Reilly and Frederick “The Bullet” Marston, sat by his side in wary silence. Patrick had been in a foul mood since last night when he’d found their latest acquisition near death’s door and his sister Margaret in a state of calamitous stupor.
Both men knew how easy it was to provoke Patrick into a rage when he was sullen like this so they prudently waited for their boss to speak and give orders for the day ahead. Both of them, at one time or another over the last twenty-four years, had been on the receiving end of the man’s meaty fists and neither wanted that treatment this morning.
How many times, Patrick fumed to himself, have I told that woman I will not stand for her addle-brained, opium addiction? He glared at nothing and sucked at the abrasion on his knuckle. Still, I shouldn’t have hit her quite so hard…He grimaced and took a drink of the whiskey in front of him.
A city council member approached, hat in hand, but stopped when he saw a waitress bring Donnelly’s lunch on a large, steaming platter. The politician wanted to ask Donnelly if he still planned to widen the road from town out to the new cemetery before the snow flew but everybody knew Patrick did not like to be disturbed while dining.
Sitting back down at his own table, the councilman gazed at the saloon-owner/undertaker. Patrick Donnelly—a middle-aged man—was huge at 6 feet, 6 inches tall and two hundred and fifty pounds of solid muscle. He was handsome in a rough way with long black hair, just starting to go gray, and brilliant blue eyes. He wore fine, fancy suits and polished, button-up boots. In every aspect, the man seemed a gentleman. And yet there was something about him…a coarseness that made the wealthy patron seem like more of a road agent than a proper mortician and business owner.
Patrick had noticed that little worm, Clyde Dixon, approach and then slump back to his table in defeat and he couldn’t help but grin. Money spoke volumes, especially in these small frontier towns out west. When he and Margaret had first settled in the Wenatchee area three years ago and bought twenty acres of farmland just outside of town with the stated intention of building a fancy new cemetery, the high and mighty had come crawling out of the city’s woodwork like termites.
The Donnellys moved into the large, abandoned house on the property, completely remodeled the interior, painted the clapboards white and replaced all the old window glass with new, modern panes. They fixed up the barn, the bunkhouses and the outbuildings. Then Patrick, his business associates and a small army of well-paid men around the area, leveled five acres of land around the property.
They cut down trees and pulled stumps from the ground. They hauled in topsoil and planted the acreage with Kentucky bluegrass. They brought in statuary and built a large mausoleum. They built high, wrought-iron fencing and, finally, they disinterred many old bones from the existing cemetery close to town and replanted them in new gravesites in Donnelly’s cemetery.
A few months later, Patrick opened up the town’s first florist shop and bought an expensive corner lot in the city center. A year and four months later, the doors opened to The Shamrock Saloon and Eatery.
Patrick and, to a lesser degree, Margaret became an overnight success story. No one wanted to bury a loved one without Patrick Donnelly’s help. The Donnelly Funeral Parlor with its fancy black carriages, matching plumed horses and exotic purple lilies became the stamp of a high-society funeral.
Even the saloon carried a lofty and elevated air in such a rough and tumble locale. Painted kelly green with bright gold letters, the establishment boasted a chef from San Francisco who served high tea at 4:00 pm for the ladies in town and Angus steaks shipped in from the Spokane area. Folks around town dressed for a night out on the town if they wanted to visit The Shamrock. Malingerers and drunkards were not welcome and neither were whores or card sharks. It was a first-class operation run by a first-class entrepreneur.
Patrick finished his beef stew and dinner rolls. Wiping his mouth and mustache with a fine, linen napkin, he said, “I want you two to load up six caskets for delivery to our warehouse in Seattle. You will leave first thing in the morning.”
Both men knew this meant that six of their captives would be shipping out and they had best hurry. Standing up, Dan said, “Right away, sir.”
Patrick responded, “I won’t be far behind you. I just want to finish my drink in peace.”
Tipping their hats, his long-time lackeys left the saloon and hurried to do their boss’s bidding. Patrick gestured to the waitress, pointing to his office and the woman nodded, pouring her employer another whiskey.
He smiled at the customers in his saloon and walked into his office, closing the door behind him. A moment later, one of his best girls—young Sandra Williams—brought him his drink and asked if he needed anything else. Knowing what she offered, he considered for a moment and then declined. She nodded politely and left.
Patrick sighed and untied the bow around his neck. Six girls would be hauled to their warehouse in Seattle tomorrow. Once there, his female employees would fatten them up a little, clean their bodies and make them ready for the auction to be held October 1st, only three weeks away.
There would be two girls remaining here at home and both of them were sick. Their latest victim had come close to dying from the nearly lethal overdose of ether Margaret had delivered and the other girl, an Indian squaw of about fifteen years, had refused to eat since her capture two weeks earlier. Although Margaret and the boys had done everything besides hog-tie the teenager, anything put in her mouth was either spat out or vomited back up.
Patrick was ready to give up on that one. The easiest thing to do would be to put her out of her misery, bury the body and look for four more girls. Time was running out, though, and he gritted his teeth in rage. Taking another sip of whiskey, he sat back in his chair and stared up at the ceiling.
A few minutes later, Patrick’s snores filled the room and he dreamed of a time when he was just a boy. He did not know it then, but hard times and circumstance had molded his character with the deft, artful fingers of a master of the macabre.
~
After Patrick’s father died, at firs
t it was a relief to be part of Ike Banyan’s gang. He felt like he had a family of sorts, an income and a purpose in life. He no longer needed to worry about what would become of him and his sister, his belly was always full, and his bosses treated him with respect and gruff affection.
The first few years of their new life seemed wonderful. The work was fun—mainly running up and down the streets of Brooklyn, passing messages, delivering or retrieving cash money from grocers, brothels, and saloons and making sure that Ike Banyan’s fine suits and shirts were cleaned to perfection by the Chinese laundry he frequented.
Then things changed. He underwent a rapid growth spurt and his handler, Syrus Monk, told him to start working out at one of Banyan’s many boxing rings. As he gained weight, height and muscle, he was put up against men who were far taller and bigger than he was and he was often beaten to a bloody pulp. At first, Patrick was afraid to fight back. He worried about reprisal and did not want to make enemies out of boys and men he thought were his friends. But it was that or risk the wrath of his boss. So one day he came up from the bloody mat and beat his opponent, an eighteen-year-old boy named Danny O’Reilly, almost to death.
He knocked out most of the teen’s front teeth and hammered so mercilessly at the boy’s kidneys he pissed blood for nearly a month. Still, Danny was under orders to take that beating and, as he stared through rapidly swelling eyes, he grinned with relief when Patrick apologized and asked to remain friends.
After that, the word was out and Patrick found himself fighting for money—and usually winning—every other night. When he wasn’t in the ring, he helped a man named Floyd Turcel dress and bury the dead. Most of the men Patrick helped bury were Ike Banyan’s enemies and no great effort was wasted on those men. These deaths occurred in the shadows and the victims’ final resting places resided in shadow, as well.
Yet Ike needed an air of legitimacy to appease the ever-growing constabulary in the city, so Banyan’s Mortuary was founded. Patrick ran the front parlor and learned the mortician’s craft. He dressed in fine clothes and learned to treat regular, law-abiding citizens with kindness and sensitivity. He begged Mr. Turcel to bring in highly-scented flowers, an extravagance but well worth the cost, to mask death’s distinctive odor and used his own money to purchase plumes for their draft horses.
Patrick was filled with pride and, perhaps, happy for the first time in his life. Then one night he was ordered to one of Banyan’s brothels to serve guard duty for a big to-do. He showed up on time and waited in the hallway for a chance to say hello to his twin sister who also seemed to be thriving under Banyan’s care.
That was the night he realized he and his sister were working for the devil himself. He watched, helplessly, as Margaret was stripped down to her boots and auctioned off to the highest bidder despite the fact she was only thirteen years old. He watched as her eyes searched his for help and knew that he was powerless to stop what was going to happen.
He saw Syrus Monk glance his way a number of times as if gauging his reaction. Patrick didn’t have much money yet, and was still too young and weak to rear against the traces that bound his life. But as he stood against the wall and watched his twin sister shiver in mortified fear, he swore vengeance.
It took three years but, one day, during a snowstorm that brought the city to a halt, Patrick snuck into the bedroom of Monk’s home. The boss was sleeping off too much whiskey from the night before and most of Syrus’s lackeys were in the parlor playing cards close to the fireplace.
Placing an ether-soaked rag over Monk’s nose and mouth, he watched as the man’s eyes opened in alarm and closed again almost immediately. Then he walked over to the chiffonier and rifled through the bottom drawer where he found over four thousand dollars buried under a mound of undergarments. Over the past few days, Patrick had done the same thing to a number of hiding places and bolt holes all over the city; not too much in any one place, just enough to give him and his sister a head start. Counting in his head, Patrick smiled. He now had nearly six thousand dollars with which to make himself and Margaret a new life.
He stood over Monk’s bed, giving considerable thought to taking his knife and putting an end to the man’s life but stayed his hand. For now, he was only guilty of stealing from a thief. He doubted whether Monk would even want to share news of his misfortune as Patrick knew that much of the man’s ill-gotten gains had come straight from Mr. Banyan’s pockets.
Although the man had much to account for, Patrick knew if he gave in to his desire for revenge, no place in the world would be safe from Banyan’s reach or that of any number of New York sheriffs. He settled, instead, for screwing his lips into a bitter grimace and spitting in Monk’s face before leaving the room.
Outside in the parlor, he tipped his hat. “I gotta go and help Floyd now. See ya later, gents.”
“You go get ‘em, Undertaker!” Many of Banyan’s men had taken to calling Patrick that since he seemed to take to the job so well and held no qualms about handling dead bodies.
“I will,” he answered as he walked out the door.
Six hours later, Patrick, Margaret, and Danny were on a stagecoach heading for New Orleans. Patrick was both nervous and elated. He didn’t think Banyan’s goons would be able to follow as he had paid well for the driver’s silence. Freddie Marston was paid so well, in fact, that he and Danny followed the twins to New Orleans, on into Kansas City and, later, to San Francisco.
Patrick sponsored his sister and his friends with money and muscle. By the time he and Margaret were thirty-eight years old, they were wealthy. Patrick was content…Margaret, however, had never been the same since her world was torn asunder by the cruel and greedy hands of fate.
Chapter 8
Matthew
By the time Matthew and his deputies were finished moving in to the hotel room and stabling their livestock, it was late afternoon. Matthew’s frustration grew. The trail to Iris’s missing niece was growing colder by the minute but there was nothing to be done this late in the day except grab some chow and see if they could glean information from the locals.
The men used the washbasin to clean up a bit and changed into fresh clothes. Then they headed downstairs and asked the clerk where a good meal might be found. The man behind the counter studied them and their clothing for a moment and said, “Well, there’s a dress code at the Shamrock. No offense, gents, but you might do better at Callie’s Cafe. She’s got good food and her nose ain’t so far up in the air she can’t see her boots walkin’. Her little restaurant is just two doors down from here on the right.”
As Matthew loathed snobbery in any form, he thanked the fellow for his scruples and walked through the front door onto the dusty street. Looking right and left, he spied a gaudy green building with large gold-gilt letters embellishing the front…The Shamrock Saloon and Eatery.
He looked down at his clean shirt and vest. They must really have some high standards, he thought. His shirt was snowy white, made of the best cotton and ironed to stern stiffness by Iris’s own hand. His vest was new as well; a silk paisley in muted shades of gray and green.
Glancing at his two deputies, Matthew saw that Abner was a bit more threadbare but also as clean as a whistle. Roy, a bit of a peacock by nature, had dressed in his Sunday best with a long, black duster, new boots and brand new hat.
“Guess we’re not good enough for that place,” Roy muttered angrily.
“Does it matter, Roy? We could head on over there if you really want to.”
He knew that Roy was offended. However, Matthew could afford to be cavalier about it as both he and Iris had come from money and were considered “high salt” by many people in the Spokane area.
Roy, on the other hand, came from poor folk. He had worked himself and his family into a comfortable lifestyle through sheer guts and determination. He was also one of the most honorable men Matthew had ever known and worth three times as much as some of the landed gentry in Spokane.
“Nah, let’s go to Callie’s Cafe.
Something smells pretty good,” his deputy said.
They walked about fifty feet and entered a boisterous little restaurant with yellow gingham curtains and a number of small round tables. Families, buckaroos and shopkeepers were sitting at the tables while two busy, red-cheeked waitresses scurried here and there with plates, cups and glasses.
“Sit anywhere you like, fellas!” a matronly woman called out. She was moving rapidly from one cook stove to another, three in all, where an assortment of big black kettles sent up plumes of fragrant steam.
The lawmen sat down and studied the chalkboard that advertised “Today’s Specials”. Chili and cornbread or baked chicken and dumplings were on the menu. The waitress came and took their orders after serving each of them stout, black coffee. An old man sat at another table. After the waitress left, he hailed, “Howdy! You boys serving a warrant in these parts?”
Matthew smiled. Often, law-abiding citizens showed curiosity when star-bearing law officers showed up. Much of that interest stemmed from self-preservation; they wanted to know if they had a personal reason for alarm. Some of it, though, was morbid curiosity. Matthew was appalled at how many people found a hanging to be high entertainment. He had seen whole families come into town, bearing food baskets and blankets for a picnic, in order to observe death warrants meted out.
He nodded, “Yes sir. We are investigating a series of kidnappings that have taken place in this general area the last few months. Have you heard anything?”
The oldster nodded. “Yeah, now and again. Young girls mainly, right?”
Matthew agreed. “What’s your name, sir?”
The portly fellow struggled to his feet and extended his gnarled paw in greeting. “My name is Yorkie, Yorkie Smith. I have a small apple orchard east of here about five miles. Mind if I join you?”
Gesturing to the fourth chair at the table, Matthew said, “Please, have a seat.”
Smith sat down and wiped his forehead with a large red kerchief. “Those girls that was absconded, I don’t know nuthin’ about. None of them was local, see. But my buddies and I have a few theories.”
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