by Jake Logan
“Ma’am,” Slocum said, tipping his hat to her.
“He should take off the hat in this house, but he has some notion of proper manners. I might have to instruct him.”
“How lucky for him,” Clabber said.
The two bantered, as if Slocum weren’t there. He looked around and saw a woman peering around the banister on the landing. As if his mere sight could harm her, she squealed and disappeared. A few seconds later he heard whispering, quickly followed by feminine giggling. More than the one timid fawn resided above.
It didn’t take Slocum much to figure out this was a whorehouse—a high-class one from the furnishings and the way the madam acted. But Clabber had been right about one thing. Keeping Severigne happy would certainly be worthwhile if she would only grace him with a smile. Her beauty was enough to take away his breath.
And he had thought of going to San Francisco to find lovely women.
“So?” Severigne said. “Has he explained all to you?”
“How is it you ended up in Clabber Crossing?” Slocum asked. “A woman as pretty as you ought to be back East, moving in society circles.”
“So,” she repeated, but this time with a different inflection. “Mr. Clabber has found a primitive with a spark of chivalry.”
“I’m only saying what’s on my mind,” Slocum said. “And no, he hasn’t told me what I’m to do for the next month, but I can guess.”
“Can you? I doubt it,” she said brusquely.
“You need a bouncer to keep order since the rodeo’s coming to town. He doesn’t mind the cowboys busting up his saloon, but he’s got a special fondness for keeping this place intact.”
“It is a brothel that I run,” Severigne said. “And I run it. No ship on the high sea has a sterner captain.”
“See what I mean, Slocum? You’ll want to keep her happy or she’ll give you twenty lashes.”
“Only if he is very good,” Severigne said. A hint of a smile danced on her lips. It faded as quickly as it was born. “You will keep order in the house. You will not cause any disruption or I will kill you.”
“Sounds fair enough,” Slocum said, “but why do you need me if you’re able to, as you say, keep order?”
Severigne snorted and waved him off.
“You will sleep out back. You will know the place.”
Slocum looked to Clabber, who nodded then bent over and gave Severigne a light peck on the forehead. The madam reached up, threw her arms around his neck, and planted a long, lingering kiss full on his lips. Slocum tried to figure out what was going on since Clabber looked a mite pissed, only there was something else mixed in. There was more than a hint of lust, but he did nothing to take Severigne up on what had to be a blatant invitation to go up to her bedroom for an afternoon of amorous exploration.
“You know how to discombobulate a man,” Clabber said, sighing. “I’ll have your horse and gear sent over, Slocum. Get to work right now since the Circle Bar boys are due in anytime now.”
Severigne watched Clabber leave, further confusing Slocum. She had been exuberant with her kiss, but there was a touch of contempt in the way she watched the man’s back. More went on under the roof of this cathouse than Slocum wanted to think on right now.
“There,” Severigne said suddenly, pointing out the window. “They come. You will stay inconspicuous. No gunplay unless it is necessary. If they get too rough with the girls, you can do what you want to them, but don’t kill them.”
“Unless it’s necessary,” Slocum said, testing his limits. Severigne shrugged and hurried to the door to greet three cowboys. Unbidden a half-dozen soiled doves came down the stairs, mostly dressed. Slocum saw more than a flash of ankle. One had a slit cut in her dress that went all the way to her thigh and showed she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. They lined up, flirted with the cowboys until they made their decisions, and then led the men upstairs.
“See? It is no different here than elsewhere,” Severigne said.
“You’ve got a lot prettier girls,” Slocum said, “than most brothels.” He looked square into her bright blue eyes and said, “There’s something else, too. The madam’s a powerful lot prettier than any of her girls.”
Severigne waved him off but was obviously pleased.
Slocum spent the rest of the afternoon doing nothing. Severigne greeted her customers and the ladies took care of the rest. The only trouble he had was with one cowboy not wanting to leave.
“They do not stay the night. Ever,” Severigne told Slocum. And he took care of the problem, leading the cowboy out back and explaining to him how it was better to come back later and try a different lady of the evening.
He sat on the back porch and watched the stars wheel around as laughter and moans of pleasure came from the upstairs. Nothing had been said about him partaking of the services of any of the women, but Slocum had lost everything in the poker game. He wondered if Clabber might be talked into giving him a few dollars. For all that, he wondered if he had to pay for his own food. The place out back had proven to be a small house, sumptuous by his standards. It had been a month since he’d stayed in a hotel back in Denver, and he had shared the mattress with more fleas than he could count. Some of the bites were just now disappearing from his tough hide.
Severigne ran a clean establishment, and the bed in her guest house was downright comfortable.
“Slocum! Slocum!” Severigne’s anguish was obvious. He took the steps up the porch and into the kitchen to find her clutching her throat with one hand and waving the other about in a manner that struck him at odds with her usual command. Severigne seemed lost.
“What is it?”
“It is Anna. Upstairs. I—”
Slocum shot past, took the steps up the back staircase two at a time, and found the other women clustered around an open door. He pushed through and saw what had unnerved Severigne.
The woman on the bed was obviously dead. She had spilled a full water glass, but he guessed this was not a natural death. Anna had not choked to death. He saw the brown bottle of laudanum on her bedside table.
It was empty.
2
“This is terrible,” cried Severigne. “It cannot have happened.” She pushed past Slocum, stared at the dead prostitute, then spun and shooed the others away. She kicked the door shut, leaving her and Slocum alone in the room with the body.
“You want me to get a doctor? Or the undertaker?” Slocum asked. These were not matters that suited him, but he had seen many dead bodies in his day—too many. Some were even lovelier than Anna, although the expression on her face went a considerable way toward erasing any hint of beauty that had been there. Her rouged cheeks looked obscene against the gray pallor of her skin. She had died in some pain from the look of her body and expression.
“Anyone hear her? I don’t know much about opium but there might have been a chance of saving her if—”
“She did not kill herself,” Severigne said unexpectedly. “Someone, someone did this to her. This is terrible!”
“What makes you think Anna didn’t kill herself?” Slocum looked around the small, neat room. Other than the empty laudanum bottle and the spilled water the woman had taken it with, nothing was out of place. “Nothing’s been disturbed.”
“Oh, she was not robbed. The girls do not keep valuables in their rooms. They know better. What she owned, I have in the bank safe for her.”
“If she wasn’t robbed and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of a fight, why—?”
“She was engaged to be married,” Severigne blurted out.
“Might be she didn’t cotton much to the man. Was it an arranged marriage?”
“No, nothing of the sort. Her fiancé came here from San Francisco. He is a rich man, a railroad magnate. He and Clabber had business dealings about shipping cows. Anna met him, quite by accident since he had not come to this house, and it was love at first sight.” Severigne pursed her lips, kissed the tips of her fingers, and made a grand gesture. “I have seen
such a connection between two hearts before.”
“Maybe he found out what she did and broke it off?”
“He knew. Clabber told him. They are business partners. It would have been wrong not to. That did not matter.”
Slocum looked around for a letter or some other indication that Anna had been spurned. He didn’t find anything.
Shaking his head, he said, “She killed herself. There’s no sign anyone was here.”
Severigne stamped her foot and crossed her arms as she glared at Slocum.
“This is not so. Something happened. She was killed. You will find what became of her. That is now your job.”
Slocum poked around the room and frowned. He ran his hand over the windowsill and it came away with a smear of blood. Wiping it on his jeans, he looked over the rest of the window. The smear came from the inside, as if someone with a wound had opened the window to get away. Outside on a ledge he saw another smear of blood and a piece of cloth caught on a splinter in the fancy wood facade. He pulled it loose and rubbed it between his fingers. It hadn’t been outside very long since it wasn’t dirty or weathered.
“What have you found?” Because of her agitation, Severigne’s accent was almost too thick for Slocum to understand. Unlike many “French ladies,” Severigne seemed to actually speak French natively.
“Who was her last customer?”
Severigne shrugged. She opened the door and spoke rapidly in French to a redhead out in the hallway.
“That is Alice,” she said to Slocum. “She is so good at keeping track and I do not know what I would do without her. Anna did not have anyone last night.”
“Her fiancé in town?” Slocum wondered if the rich man might have had second thoughts about marrying a whore and had taken the easy way out rather than letting Anna create a public scene.
“He is in San Francisco,” she said. “I must wire him of this horrible tragedy.”
“Wait a day or two.”
Severigne looked sharply at him and said, “You see that she did not kill herself? Someone helped her do this thing?”
“Is that part of my job?”
“I say it is so a minute back. I will repeat this to you until you understand me. Clabber will say it is,” she added, almost as an afterthought. “I must tell Clabber of this. It will cause such a scandal in town.” She looked more distraught than ever.
Slocum continued to prowl around the room but found no other evidence to give him a trail to follow. Fresh blood. He went to Anna’s body and examined her fingernails. He saw dark, dried blood under them. She had fought, but did she take the laudanum before or after? Anna might have another lover who didn’t take news of her upcoming nuptials to another man well.
Slocum just couldn’t tell—and he wasn’t inclined to find out. If the town marshal cared, this was his job. Slocum wasn’t so naive as to expect it to come raining down that way.
Alice stepped into the room and pointed at the body.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?”
Slocum said nothing.
“Anna’s not the only one. There was another woman from town who died mysteriously a month back.”
Slocum looked at Alice and finally said, “That’s not so unusual. Life on the frontier is hard.”
“You know Anna was murdered. I can see it in your eyes.”
“That explains why I lost at poker,” Slocum said. “Everyone reads my thoughts too quick.” Alice’s lips thinned and she started to angrily reply, but Severigne’s return silenced her.
“The marshal is told. Clyde will know soon.”
“The marshal’s in his hip pocket?”
“No, not really. He pretends he is independent, but Marshal Dunbar is a fool. Clyde keeps him around for entertainment value more than law enforcement,” Severigne said without rancor. Her statements were matter-of-fact, giving Slocum no chance to hear how she felt about the situation. From her looks, Severigne could make a brothel succeed wherever she went, but she had chosen to stay in a quiet cattle town in the middle of nowhere where the town’s founder played power games to keep himself amused.
“Alice said another woman had died recently.”
“Oh, she has so active the imagination. She should never listen to gossip.” The more Severigne spoke, the more tortured her English became. He knew she was agitated but there must be more to Anna’s death than she was telling him.
“What can you tell me about her railroad magnate?”
“There is so little to tell. They were in love. I have seen lust. I deal in lust. This was love. I know that, too.” She turned her bright eyes on him. “Do not doubt me on this. Anna loved her Roy.” She saw how he waited for more. “Roy Wilcox.”
“I’ve heard of him. He’s something of a recluse.”
“Even the hermit must come out of the cave sometime. This one found love with my lovely Anna. My lovely, dead Anna.” Severigne stared at the body, then went to Anna and pulled the bedspread over her. She shivered and turned to go. Over her shoulder, she said, “You will find who killed this poor dove.”
Slocum passed the corpulent undertaker coming up the stairs. The man smiled insincerely. If he had offered condolences, Slocum would have planted a fist on the tip of the man’s dewlap-riding chin. Rather, the man continued walking up the stairs, gasping for breath by the time he reached the top. Slocum walked through the front door, Alice watching as he left. The undertaker removed the body just after first light. Slocum yawned and stretched, realizing he hadn’t gotten any sleep at all.
He had to wonder at all that went on in this house. Shrugging it off since everyone saw more than a fair share of death and ugliness, he trooped along the double-rutted road toward town as the sun rose over the distant prairie. The saloon where he had lost his freedom for a month held no appeal to him, especially this early in the morning. Severigne kept cases of whiskey at the cathouse, and Slocum had been offered his share.
Although the Cross Timbers Saloon was a good place to listen to men talk, he doubted the cowboys would be doing much talking about a suicide in a saloon owned by the same man who owned the whorehouse. Besides, at this time of day anybody left inside would be hung over and moan more than talk. He doubted whoever had killed Anna would have stayed in town to drink himself insensate. From his experience in small towns, Slocum knew there were other places where such gossip would be rife. Slocum turned toward the general store as three women gathered near the door.
“Ladies,” he said, touching the brim of his hat. He went inside but found some shovels just inside the door to linger over while he eavesdropped on the women a few feet away.
Word had spread fast. The undertaker had hardly returned to town with the body but the three women knew Anna’s identity.
“Help you with a new shovel, mister?”
Slocum looked up. The store owner had watched him as he fingered the handle for several minutes.
“Nope, don’t think this is what I need.” Slocum left, heading out of the store so he could wander up and down Main Street. The quiet that had settled on Clabber Crossing gave him the cold shivers. The town felt as if it was getting ready for something terrible but didn’t know what.
Slocum pushed such a thought out of his head. The only reason the town seemed this way was that he had a theory about a killer on the loose preying on women. Try as he might for the next few hours, he didn’t overhear anything worth mentioning. The topic of Anna’s death created a stir, but not that big a one.
Finding a dime stuck deep in his vest pocket, Slocum partook of lunch at another saloon, McCavity’s, and asked a few tentative questions as he sipped his warm beer and gnawed on the tough beef in the sandwich. He might as well have been talking to a stone wall for all the response he got. Other than the fact that this saloon wasn’t owned by Clyde Clabber, he found out nothing. He was the interloper and the local clientele wasn’t inclined to share their thoughts with him. He finished his meal and stepped out into the hot afternoon sunlight. An entire day had been
wasted on detective work, and he had no more idea about Anna’s death than when he had started. He headed back toward the brothel.
“You’re the newcomer,” a man said from the shadows alongside the jailhouse as Slocum passed. He stepped out and sunlight caused his dull silver badge to gleam.
“You’re the marshal,” Slocum said.
“Reckon we’re both something less than geniuses with those observations,” the marshal said. “Mr. Clabber told me about you, said you were all right and would be working at Severigne’s till the end of the month after the rodeo.”
“Word travels fast,” Slocum said.
“I’m not so sure you’re all right,” the marshal said. “Anna wasn’t the kind to take her own life. I knew her.”
“Professionally?”
“Of course,” the marshal said without any guilt. “That’s part of my job, keeping track of the ladies and collecting taxes on them.” He cleared his throat. “If you mean, did I sample her goods, yup, did that, too. She was real pretty and had . . . skills.”
“So you’re looking into her death because it’s personal,” Slocum said.
“You might say that. You might also say I don’t think Anna would kill herself like she did. She didn’t use laudanum.”
“How do you account for the bottle?”
“I didn’t say others in the house weren’t using that pop-skull shit. A newcomer to town wouldn’t know that, now would he?”
“I had no reason to hurt her.”
“Who knows what goes on when nobody’s looking? She might not have wanted to share her bed with you, not with her getting ready to leave for San Francisco and a rich fiancé.”
“That’s a theory,” Slocum allowed. “It’s just not a good one.” Slocum watched the marshal draw himself upright and rest his hand on the butt of his six-shooter.
“You got quite a mouth on you.”
“You’re not the first to notice. Who in town might have killed her—who might have had a real motive to kill her?”