by Diana Palmer
"It's not fair!"
"Is anything?"
She paused with him at the corner as they were about to cross the street. "What about DiamondJimKilgallen?"
"He may kill people, but he wouldn't doitwith a pair of scissors," he replied, his dark eyes meeting her soft green ones. "The very manner of the thing points to a woman. That's another strike against her."
"Perhaps her husband had a girlfriend."
"Possibly."
"Or someone wanted to make it look as ifNandid it."
"Unlikely."
"Why?"
He took her arm, making her tingle to her toes, and drew her across the wide avenue with him. "Because in order to frame someone, you have to hate them.Nandoesn't strike me as the sort of person who generates hatred in anyone, man or woman." He gave her a wry glance and saw her puzzled expression. "You don't understand? Think. You don't like most women yourself, but you likeNan."
She smiled ruefully. "I see what you mean." They moved down the sidewalk, both lost in their own thoughts.
"Couldn't Diamond Jim have ordered someone to kill him?" she persisted.
"Certainly, but he would have sent a man, and it would have been done with a revolver or a knife or even fists and cudgels—not with a pair of scissors. Kilgallen would be the last person who'd want to implicateNanin the murder by using a murder weapon that pointed toward a female assailant."
She couldn't disagree with that. "If Collier had a girlfriend and he'd broken off with her, that could be a motive."
"We have no evidence yet to make conclusions. Circumstantial evidence won't hold up in court. We have to have a clear motive and a suspect, and be able to prove it."
She grimaced. "This isn't as easy as it looks. Detective work, I mean." She swung her purse absently in her hands. "Are you ever going to take me to see your office?"
"Do you really want to see it?"
"Yes. If you don't mind."
"Idon't. There won't be many agents in today. Most of them are working on cases around the city."
"Do you have a secretary?"
"Yes. His name is Gamer. He came with me from the Pinkerton Agency. He's very efficient, and his handwriting is perfect. Anyone can read it."
"If that's a slur against my own handwriting, I'll have you remember that I never had time to do perfect script. I was too busy writing down my father's instructions, and he dictated very rapidly."
He smiled, remembering her father's idiosyncrasies. "He was a good man. I miss him."
"Oh, so do I," she said fervently. "It was so lonely inMontanathat sometimes I thought I couldn't bear it without him." She paused and lifted her eyes to his. "But I should have asked you before I pushed my way into your life. I know you'd love to send me back toMontanaon a rail. I'm sorry that I've upset things."
He looked astounded. "What have you upset?"
"Your life, Matt," she said heavily. "I've made you uncomfortable with my behavior, embarrassed you…"
"Nothing embarrasses me," he pointed out. "As for being uncomfortable, I'm not. You were never the sort of woman to sit at home of an evening and knit.Itwould have been out of character for you not to get involved in some cause."
"Your landlady doesn't like me."
"She doesn't like me either," he said, "but as long as I pay the rent, she can please herself. If I lose my rooms there, I'll find others.Chicagois a big city."
"So I've noticed. What are we going to do aboutNan?"
"We're going to find the killer."
She smiled. "Both of us?"
He cocked his head and stared down at her. "Will you leave it alone if I ask you to?"
"Certainly not."
"Then, if you're inviting yourself into my case, you'll follow orders, just as my operatives do."
Her face became radiant. Her sense of adventure was kindled, and she felt more alive and happy than she had in weeks. "Okay, boss," she drawled. "Just tell me what to do!"
«^»
Matt's office was impressive. There was a huge desk and behind it a large chair, upholstered in the same burgundy leather that graced all the chairs and the divan in the large room. There was a grandfather clock on the wall and shades at the curtained windows that could be pulled against the sunlight. The floor sported an exquisite Persian rug in muted reds, and the walls were covered with framed photos of Matt with some of the most influential people inChicago, not to mention political figures from the rest of the country. There was even one of Matt with Theodore Roosevelt!
"You know the president!" she exclaimed, staring at the photograph.
"He isn't a personal friend, but, yes, I have met him."
She picked up the gilt frame and stared at the smiling man in the picture. The autograph read "To Matt from Teddy." She placed it back into position with a reverence that wasn't lost on her host.
"Inever thought much about the sort of people you meet," she said, glancing around at the other photographs. "I suppose over the years you've gotten to know a lot of famous men."
"Any number," he agreed, one hand in his pocket as he stood looking out of the curtained window at the busy street below. "They all wear shoes and comb their hair of a morning," he added dryly.
She blushed. "I sound like a bumpkin, don't I? But then, I am. I lived in plains country with my father, very simply, most of my life. I never stayed in such a big city until I came here."
He turned, his black eyes narrowed. "You've adapted well enough."
She grimaced. "I'm not quite so sure."
He didn't move, but his eyes did. They were bold and very disturbing as they ranged over her. "It's hard to reconcile you with the memories of the young girl who helped nurse me."
Her hands were folded at her waist, her string purse dangling. "And I'm no longer young, as the matron likes to remind me," she said with faint bitterness.
"That isn't what I meant." He frowned and moved forward, stopping just in front of her. "You're more mature. Some of that flash-fire temper is missing."
"It does little good to lose control of oneself. You taught me that."
The frown deepened. "And too much self-control can be equally damaging," he said curtly. "You keep secrets from me, Tess. There was a time when you were open and truthful."
She averted her gaze to the Persian rug at her feet. "You wouldn't like my secrets." Tess sounded docile, but she was outraged. How dare Matt say such a thing!He was the one who was reserved…evasive…secretive.
His hand clenched in his pocket. "You and I were, and still are, friends. But you're a grown woman now, and you need more than that from a man."
She looked up at him with green eyes that flashed angrily. "I need nothing," she said through her teeth, "except your assistance in freeing my friend from jail so she avoids the hangman's noose. You don't have to keep pushing me away. I've learned my lesson quite well." She turned and went to the door, leaving him speechless—and perplexed. She checked the small watch pinned to her bodice. "I must go back on duty soon. Thank you for the tour of your office. It was quite interesting."
She gave him a polite nod and left, closing his door firmly behind her. She gave his secretary an equally brief nod and exited the building.
In fact, she wasn't on duty soon; she just wanted to get away from Matt. She went to a small park and sat down on a bench to watch the pigeons strut around the statues. She wished she had some bread to feed them, as a man and woman on a nearby bench were doing. She felt tired and drained of emotion. She'd worn her heart out on Matt, and there was nothing left inside. He was as immovable as one of those stone statues nearby, completely remote from any feeling or hunger.
He was a man without a real place in the world. Perhaps her father had done him no favor by getting him away from his own people and into a world where he didn't really belong. He lived as a white man, and it would be almost impossible for him to go back to the life he'd known when he was younger. She wondered if he ever thought about the old days with regret and loss. If he did, it
was something he kept strictly to himself. He shared his fears and dreams with no one.
After a few minutes of painful reflection on the uselessness of hoping for the unreachable, she got up and went back to the boardinghouse. She was going to do something to help her friendNan, with or without Matt's help. And she had a few ideas of her own about how to proceed.
* * *
The first thing she did the next morning was to go byNan's apartment house on the pretext of handing out leaflets about the women's emancipation meeting. This also gave her a reason for invading the privacy ofNan's neighbors.
Women were at home at the first two apartments she visited onNan's floor. The third was occupied by a rather irritable man, who stopped her at the doorway. But his wife, a homely yet welcoming soul with a nice smile, invited her in.
"Don't mind Humphrey, dear," she said, waving her husband away. "He's resting after an infarction of the heart, and just mad to get back to work at his job. He's a harness maker, you see. It isn't arduous work, but his doctor won't hear ofhisreturning to it so soon. Poor Humphrey hates sitting around."
"I think most men do," Tess replied with a smile. She handed the woman a leaflet, explained what the goals of the group were, and then casually, oh so casually, mentioned that a member of the group lived in the building.
"You mean Mrs. Collier, just down the hall, don't you, dear?" the woman said, shaking her gray head sadly. "Such a nice child, and her husband such a scoundrel! We could hear him raging at her in their little apartment about her 'women's group.' Once I had my Humphrey go and bang on the door to make him stop. Her body was cut and bruised so often that I wondered how she could bear to live with him. The scoundrel seemed to try to avoid hitting her on the face, where people would see the evidence of his cruelty—though on one or two occasions he did bruise her face. And then that last night—!" She shivered. "When I think that I heard him cry out and didn't even ask Humphrey to go and see why. They didn't find him until morning. If he had been found sooner, perhaps he should still be alive." She wrapped her arms around herself. "The policeman said I heard his death cry. I shall never forget it. He called out her name. Just her name, and then, barely two minutes later, that terrible cry!"
"What name?" she asked gently.
"Why, his wife's! He said, 'Nan!' and the next thing I knew—" She leaned forward. "They said she did it with a pair of scissors!"
"Did you see her?" Tess asked urgently.
"No. I heard footsteps on the stairs and then, seconds later, the outside door open. She didn't even stop to closeit,you know. No, I didn't get so much as a glimpse of her, but someone else did, and they're sure it was a woman who did it. Poor Mr. Collier. He wasn't a good man, but it's a wicked thing to kill another human being. A wicked thing!"
Demoralized, Tess got to her feet. "Thank you very much."
"Why, for what?" the woman asked with a puzzled air.
Simultaneously there was a hard knock at the door, and Humphrey went to answer it. He was belligerent only for an instant, and then his whole demeanor changed. Tess turned just in time to see a taciturn, intimidating Matt enter the apartment.
"Let's go, Tess," he said shortly.
"It's my cousin," Tess said at once to the woman. "I must go. Thank you for talking to me."
"Nice to have met you, dear." The woman nodded, smiling at Matt.
He tipped his hat at her, glanced briefly at Humphrey, took Tess's arm in a firm grasp, and drew her out the door.
He didn't speak until they were down the stairs and out on the sidewalk. "Just what the hell did you think you were doing, going to strange apartments on your own?" His tone of voice was cold, cutting.
She drew her cloak closer around her. His voice chilled even more than the sharp wind. "Stop cursing. I was interrogating witnesses," she said defensively. Her face fell. "That woman heard Collier call outNan's name, and a little later she heard him cry out. The police said what she heard was surely his death cry." She sighed heavily. "Do you thinkNanlied to us?"
He was so angry with her that he could hardly speak at all. With effort, he swallowed his rage. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his overcoat and looked down at her from under the brim of his hat. "The police established that at the time of his death Collier was sitting in a dark apartment, without even a lamp burning. He had a pistol beside him. He was obviously waiting for someone, whom he intended to harm."
He held up his hand when she started to speak. "Just a minute. Let me finish. The pistol was never fired. He'd put it on the table beside the chair, and he'd apparently just gotten to his feet when his visitor arrived. He couldn't have seen anyone well enough to recognize them in the dark. I would guess that he assumed it was his wife. He was found lying on the floor, near the door, with a pair of scissors piercing right through the artery in his neck. He bled to death in a matter of seconds."
Tess stared at him, waiting for him to say more.
He continued grimly. "It wasn't self-defense because at the time of the attack, he was unarmed. The door wasn't forced, and the assailant had to be a woman. The scissors point to it, but so does his calling out his wife's name. The shape had to have been a feminine one, which misled him, you see?"
"Yes. But it all points toNan."
He buttoned her cloak up to her chin. "You still dress like a child, haphazardly," he remarked as he slipped the last button through its hole.
She smiled faintly. "You were forever doing this when I was young," she recalled. "I never seemed to button coats to suit you."
"Or even dresses," he mused. "The top two buttons at your neck were always fastened wrong. Didn't you ever look in a mirror?"
She shook her head. "I hated my face. It was so plain and ordinary."
He cupped her face in his warm, lean fingers and stared into her eyes. "It was never either," he said softly.
"It wasn't Sioux," she said involuntarily, and much more bitterly than she meant to.
She jerked back from him and moved away, embarrassed.
He didn't know what to say. He was too surprised to make a logical reply. Didn't she know that she was beautiful, and that it had never mattered to him that she wasn't Sioux? He had a very good reason for putting around the rumor that he didn't care for white women, andhada yen for more exotic ladies of varied extractions. But he couldn't admit any of that to Tess without explaining why. And that was a confession that she wasn't yet ready to hear.
"And you can forget that I said that," she added harshly, interrupting his thoughts. She walked on down the sidewalk without looking to see if he was behind her. "I was just a girl."
He was beside her again, more taciturn than ever. "You still don't look in mirrors."
"I only care about being clean and neat. Nothing else," she said, exasperated with herself as well as him. "Most of the patients I tend are too sick to care either."
"Obviously some of them become attached to you, as your friend Marsh Bailey did," he said after a minute. "I presume there are some single doctors as well," he added suddenly, irritated by the thought.
"Nothing of that sort goes on in our hospital," she said firmly.
"I didn't mean to imply that itdid."He tilted his hat further over his forehead against the wind. "From now on, leave the questioning of potential witnesses to me."
"I had a perfectly logical reason for going from door to door. I passed out leaflets that our women's group had printed up."
He glanced at her with reluctant admiration. "Well, I'll be."
"I'm not a total idiot, Matt. I didn't just walk in and say, 'Here I am to investigate a murder; please tell me everything you know'!"
"So I see."
"Anyway, people were very nice." She clutched her leaflets and her purse. "I'm so afraid that shedid it.Everyone I spoke to said that she had plenty of reason to do it. They knew that he was beating her."
"I have a quite different angle on this business," he said after a minute. "I want to talk to DiamondJim."
She caught
her breath. "He'll shoot you if you accuse him of murder!"
He cocked an impatient brow. "I don't mean to accuse him of anything. And I can't just walk into his office and start questioning him either. I thought I might accept an invitation to the party he's giving for charity. One pays so much a plate to be included on the guest list. Surprisingly enough, it's for an orphanage."
"Will you go alone?"
He searched her face. "That would make it look suspicious. I'm not known for being publicly associated with the various charities. He'd probably think I'd gone there on business, and he might think it had to do with his gambling syndicate. That could make it risky."