by Jo Goodman
Ridley didn’t disagree. “Then you have to make her understand that.”
“Do you think I haven’t tried? That’s insulting.”
“No, of course, I know you’ve tried, but perhaps you have to try in a different fashion.”
“I’m listening.”
“Mrs. Springer explained that this business was her father’s. I had the impression that when he died, he left the shop to you, not his daughter. Is that right?”
“Yes. He was old-fashioned in his notions that a woman should not own property.”
Ridley managed not to roll her eyes at that sort of thinking, but it was a narrow thing. “Have you considered selling your wife the shop?”
Jim snorted. “Amanda does not want to be a butcher.”
“No, I’m sure you’re right, but she could manage the money and the books and the ordering and all the other details that you take care of in addition to the butchering. You could advise her on a good butcher, but the hiring and everything else would be her responsibility. There’s hardly a pie in Frost Falls that doesn’t have her thumbprint. School board. Library board. Giving Circle. Quilting bees. Welcoming committee. And no, I haven’t forgotten the temperance society. My point is that she has the skills and the experience; she needs the property to make it all her own. Keep the business in the family, at least for now.”
Jim was silent, considering. “Mrs. Fish has her own business,” he said finally. “So does Mrs. Palmer. Mickey’s wife works side by side with him in the apothecary. You more or less have your own shop.”
She smiled. “More or less.”
“Maybe I should give her the place, make a gift of it the way her father did me.”
“No. She should buy it if for no other reason than to prove she wants it. You can sell it to her for one dollar or a hundred. The amount is less important than the deal.”
“Hmm. What about the temperance society? She thinks her friends will be sniggering behind her back if I serve drinks at the Songbird.”
“I can’t say what her friends will do, but it’s up to you to give her a better reason for choosing to tend bar over all the other jobs you could have pursued.”
He shrugged. “I heard about Buzz not trusting his nephew so I spoke to him and he made me a good offer.”
“A better reason than that,” she said. “I understand you’ve been making noises about doing this for years.”
Jim blew out a long breath as he thought.
Ridley took pity on him. “Maybe you want to work at the Songbird to keep an eye on Buzz Winegarten. I heard he was your wife’s suitor at the same time you were trying to court her.”
“Yes, but that was years ago. I don’t suspect him of—”
Ridley interrupted. “And perhaps you got wind from the sheriff that she offered to make a plaster for Mr. Winegarten’s gouty toe right there in Ben’s office.”
Jim’s eyebrows rose halfway to his former hairline. “She did?”
“So you heard.”
“Oh. I see. What else have I heard?”
“Anything you like. Ask Mr. Winegarten if you need ideas. If he wants you in the Songbird, he’ll be happy to help, and he’s just ill-humored enough that he won’t mind tweaking your wife.”
Jim Springer reached in the till and took out the exact amount that Ridley had given him and then added a quarter. “Here. Take this. I don’t imagine that Amanda thought to pay you for your time this morning, and I am learning that it’s worth quite a bit.”
“You’re kind to say so.” Because she doubted that anything would come of arguing with him, she took the coins and slipped them in a pocket inside her cloak. When he pushed her purchases toward her, she took them in the crook of her arm and thanked him. She turned to go but he called her back.
“One more thing, Dr. Woodhouse. Do you mind telling me exactly what kind of medicine you studied at that big Eastern college?”
She smiled, puzzled. “The usual kind. Why?”
“Because you didn’t make me choke down some foul-tasting concoction and I feel better than I have in years.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Satisfaction that she had done what she could warred with concern that perhaps that she had done more than she should. She was no novice at dispensing medical advice, but this was different, and Ridley knew it. It was her experience with people who truly lost their minds that made her want to do something to help the Springers, none of whom was anything but sane.
She would have to wait and see, something she was not terribly good at.
Ridley wanted to deliver Mary Cherry’s parcels first, and she was moving in that direction when she remembered how close Mary lived to the Salts. Did she dare visit Lily on her own? The question had barely formed in her mind when the answer came back to her. Not only could she not risk a visit for both their sakes, but she had left the house to carry out specific errands and was not in possession of her medical bag. Lily would have to wait, but seeing Mary again would give her an opportunity to learn more than Mrs. Rushton had been able to tell her. Feeling more hopeful than she had only minutes earlier, Ridley crossed the street to the Jones Prescott Bank. She had meant to stop at the bank prior to seeking out Hitch, but it had gone right out of her head as she was walking to the sheriff’s office and thinking deeply about what she wanted to say to the deputy. Some days she could not keep two disparate thoughts in mind simultaneously. She blamed the December cold.
The Jones Prescott Bank had rather a grand entrance relative to the businesses around it. Situated on the corner of Golden and Main, the bank had stairs that hugged the corner and led up to the impressive double-door entrance. Ridley pulled on one of the large brass handles harder than she needed to. It was always surprising when the doors swung open so easily. She supposed the bank did not want to make it difficult to take anyone’s money.
She walked in, smiling, prepared to greet people who were no longer strangers to her. A few steps into the lobby she was aware of a charged atmosphere, the kind one could expect during a lightning storm. The hair on her back of her neck crackled. Her smile faltered then disappeared.
Her gaze was drawn first to Mr. Washburn standing behind the teller cage. He was unnaturally still, his carriage not merely correct but exact. As bank manager, he did not customarily make transactions so his presence behind the cage was telling of itself. He never once glanced in her direction. His attention was all for the man—an outsider to Ridley—who was leaning casually against the counter, knuckling his scrub beard and smiling with a hint of derision.
Ridley met his eyes when they shifted toward her. She smiled as though his attention were a greeting. She had already determined that she must act as if nothing was wrong when, in truth, nothing was right.
She counted five people in the lobby and two bank employees in addition to Mr. Washburn. The bank tellers flanked their manager but neither had the stoic bearing of Praetorian guards. Ridley thought it was not out of the question that their knees would buckle sometime in the next few minutes.
Ridley’s eyes shifted left. Dolly Mangold stood within arm’s reach of another man Ridley did not know. The way the druggist’s wife was clutching her reticule and surreptitiously eyeing the man at her side helped Ridley understand that this second stranger was in league with the first.
What gave her hope was the man standing near the bank of windows on her right. He was holding a young boy in his arms, talking to him quietly, acting as if he had not seen her walk in or that it was unimportant that she had. At Ben’s elbow was a striking dark-haired woman, presumably the child’s mother, who was clearly pregnant and clearly pissed. Ridley had the oddest inclination to grin at the murderous expression on the woman’s face, and she could not dismiss the urge as a nervous reaction because she was not in the least anxious.
Even now Ben was a restful presence. She watched him heft the boy in his
arms, ruffle his dark hair, and give him a finger poke in his chin. Ridley had the impression that whatever Ben was saying to the child was meant in equal measure for his mother. The boy, who could not have been more than four, was chortling; his mother was not.
Ridley’s attention was arrested front and center when the stranger at the counter crooked a finger at her and beckoned her to come closer. She did, but stopped within a few feet of him, close enough now to see that Mr. Washburn was placing money in a leather bag.
“You here to make a withdrawal?” he asked.
Ridley heard an accent that she couldn’t place. There was more twang than drawl in his speech. He had a broad face and a square jaw and wore a hat with a flat crown and a wide brim that covered his hair and shaded his eyes. He hadn’t shaved in several days and his bristle was as much gray as it was black. She suspected his hair was the same salt-and-pepper mixture but that it was the result of graying prematurely and not because he was significantly older. She estimated his age in the middle years of thirty. His dark eyes were watchful, belying his casual stance, but they were not cruel or forbidding. Here was a careful man, she thought, and wondered that he had made no attempt to conceal his face. Was he truly so confident of not being caught or looking for notoriety in the form of a wanted notice?
“Yes,” she told him. Her voice was steady, and she was justifiably proud of that. “A withdrawal.”
“Then we have that in common,” he said. “I’m here for the same.”
Ridley gave a small start when the relative quiet of the bank was interrupted by a loud and harsh spasm of coughing. She turned her head because the sound had not come from the stranger but his accomplice. She saw Mrs. Mangold recoil as the man’s hacking could not be suppressed by the handkerchief he stuffed against his mouth. When he finally stopped, he wiped spittle from his lips and stuffed the handkerchief under his sleeve. Ridley avoided appearing interested in what she had glimpsed. The bloodstains on the white cotton were a mixture of old and new, crimson and rust. The blood was telling but she saw other things that supported her diagnosis. She suspected he had a mild fever because he had unbuttoned his coat when no one else had, and there was a sheen of sweat across his upper lip. In contrast to his friend at the counter, this man did not fill out his clothes though he shared the same broad features. She could surmise that he had been losing weight. Ridley saw hollowed-out cheeks and shadows under his eyes. He looked as if he had ten years on his companion, but she suspected that he was the younger of the two.
There was no conclusion that she could draw but that he was dying.
Mr. Washburn held up the leather bag to show he had filled it. He had to clear his throat to garner the attention of the man standing on the other side of the cage.
The man looked over, nodded, and said, “Now the safe.” He jutted his chin in the direction of his accomplice. “You go with him. Better draw your gun. Never met a banker I trusted.”
The dying man nodded once, removed his gun from its holster with a steady hand, and gestured to Mr. Washburn to precede him into the office, where the safe was located.
The stranger turned so he could lean back. His gun remained holstered and he rested his elbows on the counter. Ridley thought it was rather insulting to the bank employees that he did not see them as a threat, but then they were hardly breathing behind the teller cage. She followed his eyes as they swiveled to Mrs. Mangold.
“Ma’am, you need to sit down. The excitement’s just about over. There’s a bench behind you and I’m suggesting you avail yourself of its dubious comforts. Lie down if you think you have to, but please disabuse yourself of the notion that I am going to wrest that reticule from your death grip. It’s tempting to know what’s inside but it ain’t worth the tussle.”
Ridley watched him turn his sights on the other woman in the lobby. He said, “And you, ma’am, I’d surely like to hear what’s got you so peeved. You need to take a page from your man’s book and settle down so you don’t scare the little one or deliver your baby on its head.”
“Peeved?” she said, thrusting her chin at him and curling her hands into fists. “Peeved is what I am when my husband leaves his trousers on the floor and pulls his socks over the bedposts.”
Ridley looked on in astonishment as a scarlet flush crept over Ben’s face. “Ah, Phoebe,” he said. “Did you have to tell everyone about the socks?”
The woman called Phoebe gave him a withering look. Ridley thought she might cuff him on the back of the head. She probably had in the past, for Ridley now understood this was Phoebe Frost, the sister-in-law that Ben had spoken of on her first day in Frost Falls and hardly a word since. She also recalled that this wasn’t Phoebe’s first experience with robbery. If she was here, where was Ben’s brother? Why wasn’t Remington Frost saving the day again? It was frustrating that she didn’t know more. Ben kept so many of his cards up his sleeve that she should call him out for cheating.
“What I am,” said Phoebe Frost, “is as purely pissed as a cat that’s had its tail pulled once too often. This is that once-too-often moment. You understand what I’m saying, mister?” Her son began to cry. There was no whimper to warn of the impending wail. He opened his mouth and howled. Phoebe clapped a hand over the ear closest to her son’s alarming cry. “See? Now Colt’s pissed.” She stepped in front of Ben and held out her arms to take him. When she stepped back and away, Ben had his gun drawn and aimed squarely at the man who meant to take the bank’s money. Their money.
It was no accident that Colt stopped crying as abruptly as he started. His performance deserved applause, but no one offered any because the silence was so welcome.
“Hands up,” Ben said calmly. “High. Higher.” When the man opened his mouth to speak, Ben shook his head. “Don’t. I’ll shoot you where you stand, and sure, it’ll bring your friend, and then I’ll shoot him. I don’t much like shooting folks, but I’m good at it. Keep that in mind. Now grab the bars behind you. Todd? Gary? You have something back there to tie his hands to the cage?” When they shook their heads and looked at him helplessly, he glanced around.
“I have something,” said Ridley. She produced the parcels she was holding under her cloak. “Butcher twine. It’s strong.” Before Ben stopped her, she moved to the far end of the tellers’ cage and set the packages down. Mr. Springer had double knotted the twine on the parcels, and she cursed under her breath as she struggled to undo them.
“Pass the twine to Todd and Gary,” Ben said when she was done.
It was an unnecessary instruction since she had no intention of tying the man herself. She dangled the twine through the bars, and when it was taken, she picked up her packages and backed up a safe distance.
She would never be able to say with certainty precisely when it all went wrong, but she could certainly say that it did. Perhaps it was when Gary Cunningham couldn’t steady his fingers to manage a knot or when Todd Lancaster dropped his length of twine on the floor. It might have been when the hacking cough of the dying man in the back fairly vibrated the walls or when young Colt decided he’d had enough of being held and heaved himself out of his mother’s arms. Certainly Phoebe’s mighty groan as Colt launched himself off her belly could have accounted for some of the disturbance, and Dolly Mangold sliding sideways off the bench in a dead faint contributed to more of the same.
Ridley had years of experience standing her ground and she called on it now to remain perfectly still. She needed to remain outside the notice of everyone, especially outside Ben’s notice, because everything that was happening was leading to a particular end. A bad end, she thought, and the best she could hope for was that Ben would emerge uninjured and that she would keep her wits.
As expected as the gunshot was, it was also surprising because it came from Mr. Washburn’s office. Phoebe lost her balance as Colt dove under her skirt and between her legs. She landed awkwardly, mostly on her backside because she was trying to pro
tect her son. Ben did not give any indication that he wanted to help her, and Ridley could only suspect what that cost him. His attention was all for the man whose hands had never been secured and was now diving sideways and reaching for his gun at the same time.
Ben fired. He didn’t miss, but neither did he shoot to kill. The bullet found its target in the man’s thigh. He was still falling, still grappling for his gun, when Ridley decided she’d had enough.
She clobbered him on the head with the soup bone.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Phoebe Frost sat beside her husband on the bench in Ben’s office. Remington had taken her hand over an hour ago when he walked into the bank and found her sitting on the lobby floor rubbing her backside, and he had hardly let go since. Their son was sitting in one of the chairs in front of Ben’s desk, swinging his legs back and forth while he drew pictures on the backs of wanted notices that his uncle Ben had given him. Occasionally he held up a drawing for approval and after receiving the appropriate accolades, he happily returned to his important deputy work. He wore a star on his jacket to prove he was a lawman now.
“I’m telling you, Remington,” said Phoebe. “She was like Samson, if Samson was a woman, smiting that Philistine with the jawbone of an ass.”
“Yes,” said Ben from behind his desk. “If the jawbone of an ass had been a soup bone.” He added dryly, “Although I think Phoebe’s right about our robber being a Philistine. I don’t know anyone from Ebensburg who isn’t.”
Remington’s dark eyes narrowed and darted between his wife and Ben. Nothing about the look he gave them made them sober. “I suppose you two think that’s amusing.”
Phoebe could not stifle her smile. She dropped her head to her husband’s shoulder and made an attempt to console him. “I’m fine, Remington. You’re good to worry, but I’m fine.” She drew his hand toward her belly. “Here, feel for yourself. Little Winchester is better than fine. He’s snug.”