by Robin Gideon
“Who else, Gerald?” Garrett snapped, mildly curious as to whom the well-heeled businessmen of Whitetail Creek had waiting in the wings to take his place. Maybe someone who’d be more the obedient lap dog they’d clearly expected him to be.
“Andy Fields is a good man,” Gerald threatened, though without much confidence. “We’ve talked to him and see him as a man who understands how the system works.”
Garrett sneered. “I see. That means you can buy him cheap, and he’ll do what you tell him. I’m glad we had this conversation, Gerald. Much easier for me to tell you to go to hell right now rather than after the election, when you think you own me. I’m not for sale, Gerald. I never have been. Tell the boys that, and tell them if they try to stand in my way, I’ll crush them.”
“I can have a lot of wealthy men on my side in a battle against a single renegade lawyer,” Washburn whispered venomously. “You Randolphs may not be as strong as you think you are.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Servants ran around nervously at the Darwell mansion, but they were quiet as church mice, assuming the funereal attitude expected of them with a death in the family.
Ironically, the attitude of the “mourners”—Michael, Angie, and Jonathon Darwell—was quite different.
Michael’s chief concern was how many of Richard’s menial tasks would now be his. While Richard had greatly enjoyed his extortionist role in the operation of Lulu’s bordello, Michael had always found such business ventures, though highly profitable, distasteful.
Angie had no concerns whatsoever. She had successfully managed to get Richard to hire men to beat Garrett up, had murdered Richard before he’d put his filthy hands on her, and had framed Pamela. Virtually everyone in Whitetail Creek now believed that Pamela Bragg had murdered Richard Darwell. For Angie, life couldn’t get much better.
Jonathon had reacted to his son’s murder with surprise. Why had Pamela murdered him? Had Richard found out that she was the Midnight Phantom, forcing her to kill him? It seemed unlikely. Richard was the last person on earth capable of discovering the identity of the Midnight Phantom. Still, stranger things had happened.
Jonathon, Angie, and Michael were gathered in the huge, nearly empty ballroom. A crystal decanter of brandy sat on the enormous table, and all three held snifters of this finest of French spirits.
Jonathon pushed himself far enough away from the table to stand. He raised his glass and said in a solemn voice, “To Richard.”
Angie and Michael exchanged a glance. Jonathon could tell that neither of his children felt like toasting a brother they had barely tolerated, had often berated, and had never liked, much less loved.
“Well?” Jonathon asked, still standing, though his brandy glass was now on the brightly polished oak table.
He looked at his children, waiting for them to show at least some sign of sorrow for the untimely death of their brother. Michael made a slight effort to appear sorrowful, but he simply couldn’t find any appropriate words. Angie didn’t even bother to appear mournful.
Several seconds of stony, questioning silence passed before she answered, “Well, what? He was a stupid, fat, hairy pervert, and the ugly truth is no one is going to miss him.”
Jonathon was too shocked to even speak. His daughter had voiced these sentiments when Richard was alive. Just the same, Jonathon found it abnormal that Angie and Michael had so little regard for their brother now that he was dead.
“Do I have to remind you that he was your brother?” their father said.
“Do I have to remind you that he was a pig?” Angie replied.
“Amen,” Michael added, supporting his sister’s opinion, though he disliked sticking his neck out for anyone other than himself.
Jonathon looked at his son and daughter for a moment, then turned his back to them. Had he really created such heartless monsters? Then he realized that, in truth, he did not mourn the death of Richard any more than they did. Actually, even the familial obligation to defend his deceased son was leaving him.
“Fine. He’s dead,” Jonathon agreed. “The truth is we don’t miss him at all. Fine. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the people of Whitetail Creek think we’re sad.”
“Papa, why worry about it?” Angie asked.
She sprawled now in her chair, the brandy glass held loosely in her hand. Looking at her father, she was making no effort to hide her disdain.
“He was your brother,” Jonathon repeated, losing interest in the conversation. But suddenly, he paused to look at his children, really examine them, as a strange thought came to him.
“You killed Richard, didn’t you?”
Spoken as a question, it wasn’t a question at all. It was an observation.
Angie at last stood to face the accusation. She didn’t appear in the least sorry about her brother’s murder.
“My God, you did kill him.”
Angie looked at her father, saying nothing, her expression neutral. Finally, after many seconds of silence, she asked, “Papa, does it really matter?”
Jonathon wondered what a father was expected to say when he discovered that one of his children had killed a sibling. Still, he had never considered Richard a true Darwell, so it wasn’t as though a member of his family had actually been murdered. In fact, Richard’s death was something of a relief to him.
“I, um,” Jonathon said after a long pause, “actually, I don’t really know.”
Angie smiled then, and her gaze went from her father to her brother. She was obviously quite pleased with her audacity, and not in the least sorrowful over her role in the assassination of the thing misnamed Darwell.
“You did it, didn’t you?” Jonathon asked.
“What difference does it make?” she demanded. “He was an idiot! We’re money ahead without him.”
Had Angie not commented on the profitability of having Richard dead, Jonathon might not have suspected with such certainty that his daughter was the one responsible for Richard’s death. But looking into her eyes, he saw no sorrow, no sense of loss.
“You murdered Richard. Sweet Jesus, Angie, you shot your own brother in the back,” Jonathon said then, his absolute conviction stunning him. “It wasn’t that girl Dylan arrested, was it?” Jonathon pursued. “It was you all along.”
Jonathon looked at Angie, realizing how magnificently cold-blooded she was. He looked at her as though seeing her for the first time. Did she even possess a heart that beat like any other human being?
He could see the various responses going through her mind as she weighed an appropriate response against the honest one. In that instant, as he realized that his youngest child—his only daughter—had murdered his second son, he didn’t know whether to be appalled by her savagery or impressed with her efficiency. The fact was everyone had wanted Richard to disappear from the scene, but no one else had had the courage or the determination to make it happen until Angie had decided to simply put a bullet in his back.
“You are wicked,” he whispered at last.
“Wickedness becomes me, don’t you think?” she asked, making no effort to hide her pleasure in her murderous accomplishment. “And I’m brilliant. I hated Richard, and I hated that little tramp, Pamela, so in one move, I was able to get both of them out of our lives permanently.”
Michael said, “Let’s not forget that Garrett’s defending Pamela. And from what Angie’s told us, there won’t be any evidence to put the Bragg woman at the scene of the crime. Her conviction isn’t a certainty.”
Angie’s smile twisted into a bitter frown. She did not like anyone questioning her skills.
“I’m going to have Garrett,” she said quietly. “I’m going to be his wife when he becomes the mayor, and I’m damn sure going to be at his side when he takes office as the territorial governor.”
“Don’t worry, darling, you’ll have everything you want.” Jonathon, having already forgotten Richard, wanted once again to protect his daughter from any unhappiness. “Well, Michael, it�
��s obvious that we’ve got to arrange evidence that will convict Pamela Bragg. That young woman needs a date with the gallows.”
Angie smiled then.
* * * *
Garrett sighed heavily. He rubbed his eyes, burning with the strain of repeatedly examining the documents regarding Pamela’s arrest.
He pushed himself away from the desk and stretched his legs out in front of him. Should he order more coffee from the hotel’s kitchen and get back to work, or simply close the files on Pamela for a while and get some sleep? Pulling the watch from his pocket, he opened it at exactly the same time the grandfather clock in the hotel’s hallway chimed softly. Midnight. Bitter memories came to him of his well-intentioned capers as the Midnight Phantom.
Midnight. He was in a hotel room in Whitetail Creek so that he could be close to Pamela, who had already spent three nights in jail. Midnight. Damn.
Garrett put the watch back into his pocket and tried to concentrate on how to convince a jury that Pamela wasn’t the Midnight Phantom. For the hundredth time, he cursed himself for having made the cape and mask for her. If he hadn’t done that, there wouldn’t be a shred of evidence to link her to being the Phantom.
A plan began to form in Garrett’s mind. At first, it seemed too absurd to consider, yet it wouldn’t leave him alone.
Maybe it wasn’t so absurd after all.
He got to his feet and walked to the windows overlooking the street. Even at midnight, there were still plenty of gamblers at the Cattleman’s Paradise Saloon and Casino.
For a minute, Garrett closed his eyes. He tried to decide whether this plan resulted from Fate smiling benevolently down upon him or whether he was about to make the biggest mistake of his life.
Fate? Why else would Garrett now be looking at a casino owned by Jonathon Darwell? Luckily, he had stuffed his cape and mask into his briefcase before leaving the ranch.
He was grinning as he went to the large bed and stripped off his jacket and necktie. He didn’t have the dark shirt with him, the one he always wore when he’d adopted the persona of the Midnight Phantom, and he didn’t have his black holster and Colt. He’d just have to do without.
The Phantom would strike a little late this time, he thought, but by morning the citizens of Whitetail Creek would be seriously reconsidering whether Pamela was the Midnight Phantom.
* * * *
Garrett was kneeling at the edge of the roof, looking down at the street below. If he didn’t manage the crossing, he’d never survive the four-story fall. He imagined the articles the journalists would write after his mask had been peeled from his dead or dying remains in the street below.
He forced such thoughts from his consciousness. The task he’d set for himself was difficult enough without adding fears.
He pulled the rope tight one last time and checked to be sure the grappling hook he’d tossed to the casino rooftop across the street remained secure. It had to hold as he made his way across the chasm, but in something like this, there could be no guarantees.
After pulling on tight-fitting leather gloves to protect his hands, Garrett tossed a leg over the edge of the rooftop and gripped the rope tightly.
Inhaling deeply, he steeled his courage then slipped off the edge. The rope sagged under his weight, but the grappling hook remained in place.
The instant his weight pulled on his arms, the pain in his ribs exploded, fresh and new, more acute than when he’d first broken them. He waited, his teeth clenched against his agony, until his vision cleared.
Slowly, hand over hand, Garrett made his way along the rope, his black silk cape fluttering in the evening breeze. Four stories below, men were walking about, entering and leaving the casino, oblivious to what was happening high above them.
By the time he was halfway across the street, the strain on his hands, arms, and shoulders was almost unbearable. Perspiration stuck his shirt to his chest. His ribs were on fire, and he realized, too late, that he’d not regained all his strength since the beating.
He paused a moment to look down, aware immediately that such a move was a mistake, then continued on, hand over hand, trying to maintain a smooth, swinging rhythm to make the crossing easier on himself.
He couldn’t get caught, yet all it would take would be one hotel guest looking out the window, or one person on the street looking up. The closer Garrett got toward the rooftop of the casino, the more fearful he grew that he’d hear a shout then a gunshot, then he’d feel the burning sensation of a bullet striking him. No longer able to hold onto the taut rope stretched across the buildings, he’d spend the hideous seconds falling, falling. And then blackness would envelop him when he hit the ground.
Stop thinking that way! he scolded himself.
He was only a few hand-over-hand swings away from the edge of the casino’s roof. He paced himself so that he wouldn’t have to continue holding onto the rope longer than necessary then kicked his foot up on the roof.
Straining to raise himself, he was at last kneeling on the casino’s roof. Garrett paused, flexing his hands slowly to bring sensitivity back into them, aware of blood pumping into his biceps and forearms.
He waited until his heart rate was nearly back to normal then moved away from the edge of the roof, running in a crouch, certain only that, when this evening had come to an end, the Midnight Phantom would go into permanent retirement.
Two doors led from the roof down into the casino. Both had enormous iron locks designed to be intimidating and functional. But while large, heavy locks were designed to withstand the force of a sledgehammer striking them without the locking mechanism opening, their very size made them easier to open with the appropriate tools.
From the slender leather case he kept in the breast pocket of his jacket, Garrett extracted a dentist’s cleaning hook. Made of the hardest, finest steel available, it worked as well for thieves as it did for dentists. In less than a minute, he had eased open the lock and pulled at the resisting door, which probably had not been opened in several years.
He climbed down a ladder into total darkness. Three sulfur-tipped matches later, Garrett had navigated himself through the storage attic to an unlocked door. Pressing his ear to it, he held his breath to concentrate on the sounds he heard. With difficulty, he tried to distinguish the nearby sounds from those the gamblers made far below.
He opened the door slowly, as yet resisting the urge to pull the small revolver from the holster beneath his jacket and cape. In all his adventures as the Midnight Phantom, in every raid on the overstuffed coffers of his enemy, Garrett had managed to keep from having to fire a gun, and if all went well, on this night—his last performance as the Midnight Phantom—he would be as successful at that as he had been in the past.
* * * *
Michael Darwell stood at the railing of the second floor of the casino, looking down at the roulette players. The place was busy, which surprised him. He wondered if the excitement in town—the rumors of Garrett and Pamela, of Pamela and Richard, and the countless variations on them—had heated the blood, making men feel like gambling.
Below him, he saw a man’s world. The only women present were there to quench the thirst men had for liquor and commitment-free sex.
All was well in Michael Darwell’s world. Because this was his world, where he belonged, wearing the finest clothes that money could buy, associating with the wealthiest, best-educated, most successful people of the territory. He was not like Richard, who had preferred Lulu’s, with its garish decor and loud, bawdy atmosphere.
Richard was gone, murdered by his own sister, shot unceremoniously in the back. The grimness of it brought a pitiful smile to Michael’s lips. When he’d been alone with Angie, he had asked her to tell him everything about the murder, all the little details that had caused the “tragedy.” Angie, still enormously pleased with herself and not in the least bit embarrassed or saddened by what she’d done, had left nothing out, not even the promise she’d made to get Richard to do her bidding.
“
Would you have let him?” Michael had asked his sister.
“Let him what?” Angie replied innocently, looking up at Michael.
“Do it to you. What do you think I’m talking about?”
Angie’s lips pursed in thought, and a moment later, she replied in all seriousness, “Probably not. He was fat, hairy, and always sweating.”
Richard’s repulsiveness had bothered her, had held her back, not the fact that he was her brother. Michael was speechless for several seconds.
Much as he wanted to hate his sister for what she had done, he just couldn’t. She had told the truth when she said nobody ever really liked Richard. And now that he was dead, there was one less slice to the pie when the Darwell fortune was divvied up.
Yes, all was well in Michael Darwell’s world. Someday soon, Jonathon would retire, and then he, Michael, would be in complete control of the funds.
His spirits rising, he looked at the gamblers below and began wondering which were losing more than they could afford. And, of those big-time losers, which had attractive wives who might be willing to show special consideration to Michael if he was considerate about a husband’s gambling debts.
* * * *
A smile tugged at the corners of Garrett’s mouth. If he wasn’t such an honest man, if, as the Midnight Phantom, he sought personal gain, he suspected that he could quickly, and with a minimum of effort and risk, make himself independently wealthy.
These thoughts were going through his mind as he spun the dial on the safe tucked away in the wall behind the flattering portrait of Michael Darwell. He turned the dial slowly, the fingers of his left hand resting lightly upon the handle, waiting for the faint, telltale click signifying the proper number on the dial had been reached.