by Ann Parker
But why?
Inez looked back at Danny, curious as to how much information he might be willing to impart.
“Did you move this armoire recently? Was it where it is now before Lizzie’s death?”
Danny shook his head emphatically. No, and no again.
Curious, Inez walked up to the large piece of furniture, set a shoulder against the side, and pushed experimentally. The armoire ground over the floor more easily than she would have guessed, adding a few more streaks to the once-impeccably polished floor. She opened the main wardrobe door, and frowned again.
Either Flo packed her clothes away or someone has been into her things since she’s been gone.
The wardrobe was nearly empty.
Inez closed the door softly, pondering.
She returned to the length of wall where the armoire originally was located, running a hand over the stripes.
Her fingers explored a seam. A seam that appeared to run deeper than a mere panel of wallpaper. She followed the break up and over as it made a ninety-degree turn.
“Danny?” Molly’s voice.
Danny made a quick hand movement—stay—and left the room, closing the door.
Inez heard his heavy footsteps head toward the dining room. A moment later, the footsteps returned and passed her by. She could hear them again, much muffled, heading up the stairs to the second story.
Inez bit her lip, debating. Sneak out and let herself out the front door or stay where she was until Danny returned?
Suppose the resident of the room comes in while I’m still here? I could hide under the bed if I heard the knob turn, but what if she starts her toilet for the evening and things go from there? I could be trapped, hiding here all night under the bed.
It was more of a chance than she wanted to take.
She opened the door a crack, and listened. All she heard was the chatter of the women in the dining room. She grabbed her basket, slipped out, noiselessly shut the door, and started down the hall.
The massive front door suddenly swung open, flooding the long hall with outside illumination. Stabbed by the light, Inez gasped, clutched the empty basket tighter to herself.
A tall silhouette, crowned by the unmistakable flattop shape of a policeman’s cap, stepped over the threshold. With every step he took toward Inez down that long, long hallway, his identity, never a doubt in Inez’s mind, became more certain. The Hatchet’s slit-eyed gaze never left Inez as he wordlessly bore down on her, every tread ominous. He pulled his sap out of a pocket.
“Pat!” The surprised squeak behind Inez was Molly’s.
Inez risked a quick look over her shoulder. Molly stood at the back of the hall by the dining room entry, a cluster of wide-eyed women behind her, like a Greek chorus arranged to chant the closing lines of a tragedy.
Inez turned around to face The Hatchet, and forced her voice to a pleasant register. “Why, Officer Ryan, we meet again.”
He closed the distance between them and, without preamble, gripped her upper arm and squeezed, as if prepared to drag her to jail, throw her to the wall, or both.
“I warned you. Twice.” The statement came across cold, pointed, dangerous.
Inez held up the basket in one hand, the prayer book in the other and fought the quaver from her voice. “More errands for the church,” she said, glad for the props. “With the recent death in the house and with Mrs. Sweet…um…detained, we of the church are always trying to reach out to those less fortunate.”
Pounding footsteps came down the stairs faster than Inez could imagine someone of that size moving. A thundering crash at the bottom, as Danny took the last three stairs in one.
Inez could see Danny now, behind The Hatchet and approaching.
The Hatchet’s murderous gaze finally left Inez’s face. He glanced up at the women behind her, as if just realizing they were there. He turned slightly, maintaining an iron control of Inez’s arm as he contemplated Danny, right behind him. Danny, Inez noted with some alarm, held a shotgun crosswise his body.
Hatchet released her arm. Tingling pain flooded down to her fingertips.
“Get out.”
He didn’t make any pretense of courtesy.
Inez pulled her long skirts close, to avoid touching any part of him, and edged around his unmoving figure, anxious to obey.
Danny had, during this short exchange, retreated as well, and was holding the front door open for her quick exit.
As Inez scooted down the hall, anxious to make good on a rapid departure, she heard Molly say, “Mrs. Stannert! What were you doing still here?” Her voice had slid from surprise to aggressive suspicion.
“Just leaving. I was admiring your works of art.”
Wincing to herself at this lame prevarication, Inez nearly dashed out the door and down the steps, pulling the bonnet down low to hide her face.
It wasn’t until her shoes hit the boardwalk that she realized The Hatchet had entered the fortified brothel without the doorman present to unlock the door from the inside.
Chapter Thirty-two
She didn’t have time to ponder this development long before she was hailed from the saloon next door. “Mrs. Stannert! Ah, the very lady I was hoping to speak to.” Lynch was leaning on the open entryway to his saloon, wielding a toothpick among his large, unevenly-spaced teeth.
Still shaking over the encounter with The Hatchet, Inez said stiffly, “Good evening, Mr. Lynch. I’m so sorry, I’ve no time to chat right now.”
“Sure, sure, ’tis a busy time. For us too.” His joviality and attempt to draw them together in some common bond, saloonkeep to saloonkeep, rang false. “Won’t take a minute. ’Tis business I wish to discuss. Come on in, I’ve some fine brandy to break out while we palaver. I understand you’ve an uncommon knowledge of bottled Napoleons.”
“Mr. Lynch, I really cannot right now.”
His face reddened. He crossed his arms, causing massive shoulders and biceps to bulge. With his bald head, he looked ready to take on an opponent in the ring. “Well then, we’ll conduct our business in the street as we stroll along. For this is something that cannot wait.”
He glanced back into the bar, roared, “Jack McCarthy! That’s right, you! You’re in charge. Be back in a shake.” And fell in step beside Inez.
“You see, Mrs. Stannert, I’m in negotiations to buy Frisco Flo’s building.” It was a blunt quick jab to the head.
Inez walked, hands folded over the basket, staring straight ahead at the sea of bobbing hats. He’s lying. “Well, Mr. Lynch, I wish you all the best in your negotiations.”
He laughed, without humor. “No, no, ma’am. You see there’s been a complication. A derailment. In what were very very delicate discussions, even from the start. And that complication is you.”
A solid punch to the solar plexus.
Inez’s breath caught in her throat.
She decided the best way to address this was to take the high road, remind him that she was not only a lady, but what kind of a lady. A lady not to be trifled with. The queen of State Street. Holding her head high, she turned toward him with a regal revolve. “Explain yourself, sir. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Your to-ings and fro-ings with Mrs. Sweet do not concern me.”
Lynch still had the toothpick in his mouth. It worked furiously up and down, like the antenna of a small wiggling insect he was devouring.
Revolted, Inez commenced walking. “I really must be getting back to the Silver Queen. Good day.”
Lynch continued to pace her, seemingly untouched by her frosty, dismissive attitude.
“Well then, Mrs. Stannert. I’ll take off the kid gloves and tell it to you plainly, since you seem not to be heedin’ the finer words I’d been rehearsin’ to say over a friendly snifter or two.” The lilt of Old Erin was stronger than ever in his voice as his attacks became more direct. “I’ve seen you and Jackson sneaking ’round these past few days, each of you, walking back and forth
, front and alleyway, looking the place over. I mean—Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—I just observed you go in and not half an hour later, come out. So why, Mrs. Stannert, is someone the likes of you spendin’ so much time in a cat house?”
They’d reached the State Street door of the Silver Queen. Inez set one gloved hand upon the planks. “Really, Mr. Lynch. I was there on behalf of the church. If you doubt me, ask the girls. They’ll tell you I brought food and spiritual comfort.”
He snorted and spat to the side. Inez marveled that the toothpick stayed intact through these ejections. “Sure you did, sure you did. And next you’ll be telling me that’s why you visited Flo in the jail the other day. And surely as I stand here, I saw her talking to you after the fire. You two are in cahoots. So, I thought I’d just let you know, in a friendly, businesslike sort of way…”
Lynch removed the toothpick from his mouth, and pointed it at Inez, a tiny wooden sword.
“Stay away from Flo. Stay away from her girls, and the building. I have friends on the force. Friends that could make your’s and Jackson’s lives very difficult. If you don’t stop, you and your partner,” said with a sneer, “will find yourselves cryin’ in your beers, because that’s all you’ll have left. “
Having delivered his knockout punch, Lynch replaced the toothpick, wheeled around and walked back down State Street, leaving Inez staring after him, clutching her empty basket.
Chapter Thirty-three
“How’d the church business go?” The question to Inez was delivered absentmindedly, as Abe collected a welter of dirty glasses from the end of the bar.
Inez felt a twinge of guilt as she looked around the frenetic saloon. I haven’t been pulling my weight these past few days .
Her only comfort was that Bridgette’s eldest, Michael, was present, working a second shift at the saloon after a full day at the smelter. With his slicked-down hay-colored hair, ready smile, a bounce in his step as he collected a dishpan of dirty dishes from Abe, and the cheery “Good evening, Mrs. Stannert!” he threw in her direction, it was hard for her to believe he’d just finished eight hours of hard, physical labor.
“Mrs. Stannert.” Abe again. He’d paused in his whiskey pouring. Nine glasses were lined up, three abreast, like soldiers in parade formation. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“It’s nothing.” Nothing I can tell you without spilling everything.
Abe shook his head, obviously not believing her. “Well. Got someone here who’s been waitin’ for you the past half hour or so. That mapmaker fella. Over there.” He pointed with the now empty bottle in the direction of the piano.
Inez stepped away from the crowded bar and saw Cecil, sitting at the piano bench, his inevitable surveyor’s board on the keyboard lid. Cup of coffee resting on top of the upright. She felt a pang of annoyance. “What does he want? Did he forget something?”
Abe shrugged. “Guess you’d better ask him. He’s not talkin’ to me.”
He started sliding the shots down the bar, straight into waiting hands.
Inez wended her way through the packed room to the mapmaker. “Mr. Farnesworth. Can I help you?”
He looked up from his survey notes, startled, then stood. “Mrs. Stannert. I’m glad you’re here. I almost…” He faltered.
She finished the sentence to herself. He almost lost his nerve to come here. To wait. This isn’t about maps. This is about something else.
He confirmed her hunch when he added, “Is there someplace private we can talk?”
“Of course. There’s the office upstairs, as you well know.” She softened the sharpness of the remark with a smile and added, “You measured its dimensions, as you might remember.”
Halfway up the stairs, Inez turned to look down and try to signal her intentions to Abe. From that vantage point, she saw a mass of crowns—hats and heads—at the bar, at the tables, filling the spaces in between. A haze of smoke from cigars and pipes covered everything with a light fog. Abe and Sol moved back and forth at their respective ends of the bar, hands moving fast, pouring, collecting money, picking up and replacing bottles on the back bar, tossing dirty glassware into dishpans under the counter, pulling out fresh, wiping up spills. They looked like tin windup toys wound to their fullest tension, set into frenzied motion.
Inez continued up the stairs, unlocked the office, and motioned Cecil inside. She moved around, lighting two of the available lamps, remarking, “You understand, I don’t have a lot of time. It’s a very busy evening for us.”
“I know.” He sounded apologetic. Almost sad. “And I’m sorry. But, I didn’t know who else to talk to. I’d hoped, given that you seem to be a confidante of Mrs. Sweet’s, I could talk to you.”
Inez checked herself and stared at Cecil. How is it that everyone seems to know—or suspect—that Flo and I are in league?
He addressed his surveyor’s board. “I’ve been doing some soul-searching. I had fallen away from my church and faith. But I am trying hard to find my way back.” He sighed. A soft, defeated sound. “In any case, I want to show you something. I’m showing this to you because, well, the woman who died at Mrs. Sweet’s place. At first, I was falsely accused. The pain was unbearable. And now, I believe someone else, a young girl named Zelda, has been falsely accused.” He looked up, eyes haunted.
Inez sank into her office chair. “For the sake of argument, let’s set aside the question as to why you’d think Mrs. Sweet’s and my interests intersect and focus on this Zelda. My understanding is that she was found with the body, in a locked room, with the weapon. Locked door, locked windows. It looks pretty damning to me.”
“There is another way into the house besides the doors and windows.” Cecil smoothed out a paper on the board, and passed it to Inez. It was a sketch, light pencil marks, crosshatching, strange hieroglyphics.
“I can’t decipher this. What am I supposed to be looking at?”
“Here—” He pointed to two general shapes, a square and a smaller rectangle. “The square is Mrs. Sweet’s building. The rectangle is the building next door. See this?” His pianist’s hand traced a faint line connecting one to the other.
“Yes?” said Inez intrigued. “What is it?”
“A tunnel.”
Chapter Thirty-four
It felt as though she’d fallen into a hidden mine shaft. “A tunnel? Between Mrs. Sweet’s parlor house and Lynch’s saloon?”
“Yes.” It came out almost as a confession.
“When did you find out about this?”
“Just this afternoon. I went to the saloon and finally gained entrance to some of the rooms. They’ve been occupied until now. I found the door in the saloon. Partially hidden, but I’ve seen things like this before, so was alerted.”
“This sort of thing is common?”
His mouth twisted. The lines around his eyes made him look suddenly old, older than the streaked gray and brown hair would indicate. “Tunnels abound, Mrs. Stannert. Oh, not so much here in Leadville. I’ve mapped a few, though. A prominent banker here, for instance, has a tunnel that leads directly from his home to his bank. Handy for bad weather, when the streets are foul. Other tunnels are for more deceitful purposes. Tunnels between hotels or saloons, such as this one, and houses of ill repute. Not uncommon at all.”
Inez sat back, fighting a chill of comprehension. A hidden passage. Lynch would know, and Flo. Who else?
“Have you identified where the other egress is, where it comes out in Mrs. Sweet’s building?” she asked cautiously.
He shook his head, his shoulders slumped. “I had only one opportunity to map the building, before Mrs. Sweet was incarcerated. And then, I only mapped the upper floors, nothing detailed on the main floor. I’d hoped, since you’ve been in there, that you could tell me the layout of the ground floor. And is there a basement or cellar? A house that substantial, I’d assume a cellar, at least.”
“I can help you there.” She decided that denial and demurral
at this point would be futile and counterproductive. “However, let us, please, keep this between us. There are forces at work here, and if it was someone else’s hand at Lizzie’s throat, well, I needn’t tell you, they would be anxious that no one finds out.”
He nodded vigorously.
She slipped the pencil from its loop on the board and pulled a sheet of clean paper from beneath the maps and notes. “The front has a door and parlor to the left. The stairs are straight ahead with a hallway on the right.” She sketched quickly. “Down the hallway, there’s a door to a sizeable room underneath the stairs that stretches back quite a ways. Past that, a dining room. To the back, the kitchen and mud room, well, you know about those, you were sneaking around when you were caught with Lizzie.”
She looked up. He looked chastened. And guilty.
“I’m curious. Were you really just checking for a pulse when Danny and Molly surprised you?”
He reddened.
“Oh, never mind. It’s none of my business, and I make no accusations. Believe me, being part of State Street, I’ve learned to cast a jaundiced eye on so-called sins that hurt none but the sinner.”
She turned back to the map. “I’ve no idea if there’s a cellar. But this room,” she tapped Flo’s boudoir, “is the room where Lizzie died. I was just in there—don’t ask why, please—and I spotted a break in the wall. Right about here.” She darkened a portion of the wall. “A large armoire had been moved. It had blocked that part of the wall. The break had the shape of a door, at least as far as I could trace it. My examination was cut short by circumstances.”