“I’ll be fine,” she told him. “Shall we go, Sheriff?”
Slaughter held out a hand for her to go first. As they passed Morris Upton, the saloonkeeper said, “If you need a lawyer, Arabella, I have a good one.”
“I won’t need one,” she said as she shook her head. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Slaughter found himself hoping she would be able to prove that.
The crowd parted again to let them through. The hum of excited gossip filled the hot morning air. Lady Arabella ignored it and kept her head high. Slaughter had to admire the way she hung on to her dignity.
Some of the townspeople trailed them the several blocks to the courthouse, gossiping avidly. Slaughter was glad to get inside the sheriff’s office and close the door so he wouldn’t have to hear them and look at them anymore.
Under some circumstances, he thought, humans had altogether too much in common with vultures.
The outer office was empty at the moment. Jeff Milton, Lorenzo Paco, and several other deputies had set off on the trail of Dallin Williams after Paco located the tracks the day before. It left Slaughter a little short-handed, but he figured he would be able to make do.
He hadn’t counted on another murder, especially not such a grisly one.
He escorted Lady Arabella into his private office but left the door open to let in any air that happened to stir a little, knowing it was unlikely.
When they were seated on opposite sides of the desk, he said, “I’m sorry to have to bring you here like this, ma’am, but since you discovered the body I don’t have any choice.”
“I understand, Sheriff. I want you to find out who killed Copper just as much as you do.”
“Is that so?”
“Why wouldn’t it be? Just because I had a disagreement with her, that doesn’t mean I’m happy that she’s dead.”
“From what I saw in the hotel, it looked like the two of you were trying to kill each other.”
Lady Arabella’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “I was just trying to defend myself from her attack. Do you think I killed her, Sheriff?”
“When somebody turns up dead, a lawman usually starts by looking at whoever they’ve had trouble with recently.”
“Well, you can put that out of your mind. I couldn’t have killed Copper Farris. I was downstairs in the Top-Notch the entire time. Copper was still playing when the games started up again last night, so she was still alive then and I didn’t go upstairs after that.”
“You can prove that?” Slaughter asked.
“You can ask the other players in the game. They’ll vouch for my whereabouts. And I’m sure there were dozens of other people who saw me playing after Copper left.”
“Did you go upstairs and find her right after the game at your table was over?”
Lady Arabella hesitated before she answered. It wasn’t much of a pause, but Slaughter caught it.
“As a matter of fact, I didn’t. I stayed for a while to watch the other games.”
“Were you with anybody the whole time?”
“Actually, no. I spoke to several people—you know, the ones who came up to congratulate me on winning the game at my table—but I don’t suppose there’s anyone who could swear to my whereabouts for the entire time.”
Slaughter cocked his head slightly to the side. “It wouldn’t have taken long to go upstairs and then come back down again. As crowded as the saloon was, it’s possible you could have done that without anybody noticing that you were gone.”
Lady Arabella folded her hands in her lap. Her face was still calm and composed, but her eyes revealed the strain she was feeling. “Sheriff, this whole idea is ludicrous. I didn’t kill Copper. I had no reason to.”
“You could’ve been holding a grudge because of that fight . . . or because she stole that fella Drake away from you.”
Lady Arabella drew in a breath.
She was having to work harder to keep herself under control, Slaughter thought.
“Steve Drake was hardly mine, so she couldn’t very well steal him from me. He and I are old friends, that’s all.”
“Sure,” Slaughter said, but it was clear from his voice that he didn’t believe it. He changed tacks abruptly. “Do you carry a weapon, Lady Arabella?”
“You mean a gun?”
“Or a knife,” Slaughter said.
A couple heartbeats went by then she said, “You may not realize it, Sheriff Slaughter, but sometimes being a gambler is a rather dangerous profession.” She pulled back the sleeve of her gown to reveal a derringer in a spring holster. “It’s only prudent to be armed. But Copper wasn’t shot, was she? I got a good enough look at her body to know that.”
“How about a knife?” Slaughter asked quietly. “Do you carry a knife?”
Lady Arabella didn’t answer.
After the silence stretched out for a few seconds, Slaughter went on. “I have it on good authority that you carry a stiletto, Lady Arabella. Discretion and decorum prevent me from mentioning where you carry it—”
“Would you like for me to pull up my dress and show you, Sheriff?” she said coldly. “Or would you prefer to search me?”
“I don’t reckon that’ll be necessary. We both know you’ve got it. There have been two killings committed with a weapon like that, so you can’t blame me for wondering about it.”
“Wait just a moment,” Lady Arabella said. “Are you accusing me of Angelo Castro’s murder, too?”
“He was winning at your table when he was killed.”
Lady Arabella shook her head. “The game was very young at that point. I assure you, Sheriff, I wasn’t worried about losing to Angelo Castro.”
“Can you tell me where you were when he was killed?”
“I don’t know exactly when he was killed. And that was several days ago. I can’t account for every second of my time.” She leaned forward in her chair. “But I didn’t kill him. I didn’t kill Copper Farris, either. I give you my word. I don’t know what else I can do.”
“What about Steve Drake? Does he carry a knife?”
“Now you suspect Steve of the murders?” Lady Arabella laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. “Steve had no reason to kill either Angelo or Copper.”
“He could have been upset with Miss Farris for causing trouble between you and him.”
“It was Steve’s own decision to become involved with her. He wouldn’t have blamed her for what happened. He’s not that sort of man.”
“Maybe,” Slaughter said. “Castro was robbed—”
“Steve had a good stake. He still does. He had no need to steal from Angelo Castro.”
“You’re giving me plenty of denials, but no proof of anything.”
“I have no proof to give you other than my word. Although . . .” She smiled. “If you’ll turn your head for a moment, I can let you see that knife you were so insistent that I have in my possession.”
“All right.” Slaughter turned and looked at the wall.
The English woman’s clothes rustled, and then she said, “Here, have a look.”
She had placed the narrow-bladed knife on Slaughter’s desk. He picked it up and studied it. The blade was shiny and clean.
“As you can see, there’s no blood on it.”
“You could’ve wiped that off,” Slaughter said. “No nicks on the blade, either. The cut in Miss Farris’s throat was so deep the knife might’ve scraped on her spine.”
Lady Arabella paled slightly. Slaughter told himself that maybe he shouldn’t have been quite so blunt.
“There you are,” she said. “Another indication that I didn’t kill her.”
“I said the blade might’ve scraped on bone. I don’t know that it did.”
“Sheriff, we’ve been through everything. Are you going to arrest me?”
Slaughter considered for a moment, then shook his head. “There’s not enough evidence for that. But don’t plan on leaving town any time soon.”
“I’m not going to. The tournament i
sn’t over, and I’m still in the game. That is, if Mr. Upton continues with it.”
Slaughter grunted. “When it comes to making money, Morris Upton isn’t going to let a little thing like a murdered woman with a slashed throat stop him.”
* * *
By the middle of the day, a victor at the fourth and final table had emerged. The tournament was down to four players. Lady Arabella Winthrop, Beulah Tillery, Steve Drake, and Alex Connelly.
Their game would commence at seven o’clock that evening, Morris Upton announced, and as soon as it was over, he would play the winner.
Oscar Grayson’s eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep, but he couldn’t turn in yet. He had to go over the final details of the plan with Jed Muller and Max Rourke.
They met in Rourke’s hotel room as they had before, although Grayson posted Muller inside at the door as a guard to make sure no one tried to eavesdrop on them again.
“She noticed us talking and figured we were up to something. She wanted to find out what it was so she could horn in on our game,” Rourke explained when Grayson brought up the subject of Copper Farris. “She told me all about it while she was begging for her life. She spilled her guts and promised me all sorts of things.” He smiled thinly. “Not that it did her any good.”
Grayson hated the man. Not because he felt particularly sorry for Copper; she had gotten herself into trouble all on her own because of her greedy nature. Rather because Rourke didn’t seem to have blood in his veins. Or if he did it flowed coldly, like that of a reptile.
Grayson would be glad when he and Muller took the money and abandoned Rourke to his fate.
“Why’d you decide to kill her in Lady Arabella’s room?” Muller asked from the doorway, where he was keeping an eye on the corridor through a narrow gap. “You took a big chance, getting her into the Top-Notch that way.”
“I knew those two had had trouble between them,” Rourke said. “I wasn’t trying to frame Lady Arabella for the killing, just create enough suspicion to muddy the waters and distract that damned sheriff.”
Muller grunted. “We don’t want Texas John Slaughter on our trail, that’s for sure.”
“Slaughter will have his hands full when half the town blows up,” Grayson said. “You have the dynamite, Jed?”
“Yep. Had to go to three different general stores to get enough, but we don’t have to worry about that. I just told the storekeepers I was thinking about doin’ some mining once the poker tournament is over.”
Grayson nodded. That actually wasn’t a very plausible excuse, he thought, but then again, it wouldn’t have to fool anybody for very long.
In less than twenty-four hours, the whole thing would be over.
* * *
Slaughter had felt the frustration of following a trail to a dead end. He was experiencing that again as he sat in his office late that afternoon. He had questioned everybody he could find who had been in the Top-Notch early that morning, but he hadn’t been able to find anyone who could swear that Lady Arabella Winthrop had gone upstairs before she found the body of Copper Farris.
He hadn’t found any witnesses who could swear she was downstairs in the saloon the entire time, either.
Morris Upton had been with Lady Arabella when she walked into her room and discovered the gruesome scene. He had told Slaughter he was convinced that her shock and surprise had been genuine.
Slaughter didn’t put much stock in anything Upton said, though. Besides, Lady Arabella might be a good actress. What better way to divert suspicion from herself than to pretend to find the body when she knew it was there all along?
But if she was that smart, why would she leave the dead woman in her own room to start with? That didn’t make sense, no matter from which angle he tried to look at it.
His instincts told him that Lady Arabella hadn’t killed Copper. But a lawman had to go on more than just instinct.
He was pondering the whole thing again when Pete Yardley came into the office. Yardley was a tall, lanky, bespectacled man with a prominent Adam’s apple. He owned one of Tombstone’s general stores, and Slaughter considered him a friend. Yardley had accompanied him into Mexico during the pursuit of those bandits, and he’d proven to be tougher than he looked.
“Hello, Pete,” Slaughter said. “Something I can do for you?”
“Well, if you want to put on an apron and moonlight as a store clerk for a while, one of mine has disappeared and left me high and dry. Roy Corbett walked off, and I don’t know where he went.”
Corbett’s name was vaguely familiar. Slaughter thought maybe the man was one of Stonewall’s friends.
“You suspect foul play?” He hoped not; he didn’t need another murder to solve when he was having so little luck with the two already on his plate.
“No, no, nothing like that,” Yardley replied. “A couple people told me they saw Roy ride out of town. I just can’t figure out why he up and quit that way.”
“Well, I’m sorry you’re short-handed, Pete, but that doesn’t really seem like a matter for the sheriff’s office.”
“No, it’s not, and it’s not what I came over here to talk to you about, John. I just got sidetracked, that’s all. I came about the dynamite.”
Slaughter frowned. “What dynamite?”
“I sold every stick of dynamite I had on hand to one of those fellas who came into town for the gambling tournament at the Top-Notch. He said that when the tournament was over he might stick around and do some prospecting.”
Slaughter shrugged “One thing’s not much more of a gamble than the other.”
“Oh, I know that. It struck me as a little odd that the fella would buy all my stock like that, but I didn’t really think anything more about it until I happened to talk to Riley Oswalt. He said the same man came into his store and bought all the dynamite he had, too.”
Slaughter sat up a little straighter in his chair. “That’s pretty odd,” he agreed.
“I thought so, too, so I went down to Dobson’s Mercantile and asked old Abe Dobson if he’d sold any dynamite lately. Turns out he did. Today.”
“To the same man?”
“Yep,” Yardley said. “Between the three stores, I reckon he bought enough dynamite to blow up a mountain.”
Slaughter scraped back his chair and stood up. “Do you know the man’s name?”
“I asked around until I found out. His name’s Jed Muller. What are you going to do, Sheriff ?”
Slaughter reached for his hat. “I think I’d better go hunt up Mr. Muller and have a talk with him. I want to know what he intends to do with enough dynamite to blow half this town to kingdom come.”
Chapter 26
For the second time since he’d been in Tombstone, Oscar Grayson woke up to find Steve Drake in his room in the squalid little hotel. Grayson was ready for trouble. His pistol wasn’t on the table beside the bed. It was under his pillow, and as he opened his eyes and saw the bleak look on Drake’s face, his hand darted for the gun.
Coming out of sleep the way he was, his reactions weren’t quite fast enough. Drake sprang at him, caught his wrist, and twisted. Grayson cried out as bones ground together under his skin.
Drake hauled him out of the rumpled, dirty sheets and dumped him onto the floor next to the bed. He landed hard enough to knock the breath out of him. He lay there in his long underwear, gasping.
“What the hell are you up to, Grayson?” Drake demanded. “What’s your connection to Copper Farris?”
Terror shot through Grayson. Drake knew that Rourke had killed Copper!
Grayson forced himself to get control of his galloping fear. The Virginian hadn’t said anything about knowing who killed Copper. He just knew there was some sort of connection between the redhead and Grayson.
Sometimes, stubborn denial was the best course of action. Grayson shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Drake. I barely knew the woman.” He paused. “You think somebody like her would give the time of day to somebody like
me?”
“Well, that’s true enough, I suppose.” Drake took his gun from under his coat. “I’ve been asking around. Somebody saw Copper Farris outside the door of Max Rourke’s room in the American Hotel not long before she disappeared, only to turn up dead in Lady Arabella’s bed later on.”
“Then why aren’t you talking to Rourke instead of me?” Grayson asked sullenly as he pulled himself to a sitting position with his back against one of the bedposts.
“I’ll get around to Rourke. I started with you because you’ve been seen talking to Rourke and Jed Muller, and you’re the biggest weasel of the bunch. Tell me what you’re up to and what it’s got to do with Copper.”
Grayson shook his head again. “You can insult me all you want, Drake, but I still don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re just holding a grudge against me and Jed because of what happened in Wichita.”
“If anybody’s holding a grudge, it’s the two of you.” Drake eared back his pistol’s hammer. “Now, I’m not going to ask you again. Tell me what’s going on, or I’ll just shoot you like the little rat you are.” He looked and sounded like he meant what he said.
Grayson swallowed hard. He was scared, but didn’t want to give up his dream of stealing all that money.
He saw movement behind Drake and realized the Virginian had left the door into the room open a few inches. It swung wider, and Muller’s face peered through the opening.
One of the hinges squealed faintly, warning Drake. He whirled around, but Muller burst through the door, swinging a blackjack he clutched in his hand.
The sap smashed against Drake’s head and dropped him like a stone. The gun slipped from his hand and thudded to the floor, unfired.
“Damn, that was a close one,” Muller said. “He sure had the drop on you, Oscar.” The big man laughed as he tucked his weapon into his jacket pocket. “You were about to spill your guts, weren’t you?”
“Hell, no,” Grayson insisted as he got to his feet. “I wasn’t going to tell him anything.”
“What’s he doing here, anyway?”
Grayson shook his head “He tumbled to the fact that you and Rourke and I are working together on something. I guess we weren’t careful enough about not being seen together. Somebody saw Copper outside Rourke’s door while she was spying on us. They told Drake, and he seemed to figure we were responsible for what happened to her.”
Deadly Day in Tombstone Page 20