Silver Lies (22 page)

"For heaven’s sake, put that away!" hissed Inez. "When was the last time you shot anyone?"

"Been years as you damn well know. Knife’s more reliable. But I’ll do it if I got to."

The ghost light wavered and vanished.

"Someone’s in the back." A snake of tension twisted down her spine. She pulled her small revolver out of her cloak pocket and eased the safety off.

"Aren’t we a pair of gunfighters," grumbled Abe. "Let’s hope there’s only one fella in there or we’re in serious trouble."

Inez reached out. The door swung open at a touch. They eased into the front of the office, through the counter-gate, and into the narrow passageway to the laboratory.

The light brightened as they inched forward, Abe first. As they approached, Inez made out a kerosene lamp, turned low.

Inez identified the scraping of metal against metal at the same time that she recognized the broad back of the man bent before the cast iron stove.

"Hansen!" Her voice snapped like a whip.

Nils yelped and banged his head on the lip of the stove. A small shovel clattered to the floor, scattering ashes. He turned. Soot-blackened hands shot in the air. "F’ God’s sake, don’t shoot!"

Abe dropped the muzzle of his Colt toward the floor. "Nils?"

Inez pushed past Abe. "Isn’t it enough that you robbed Joe of his reputation and his life by going to Gallagher? Are you back to steal what’s left?"

Nils’ voice shook along with his raised hands. "What do you mean?"

Inez did not lower her gun. "Don’t play games with me. Abe has a soft spot for creatures and human conditions. I do not. I could shoot you right now and claim we mistook you for a burglar."

Abe’s voice came from behind. "We?"

Inez ignored him. "Now that Joe is in the ground and his family destitute, have you come back for whatever you couldn’t find the first time?"

"It wasn’t me!" Nils sounded frantic. "I started thinking on what you said about Mrs. Rose, how she’s got no money. I still had a key to the office. I wanted to see if Joe stashed his assayed silver and gold in the ash pan. Most assayers do that. It’s not stealing, just part of business. I even found some. Over on the counter."

In the flickering lamp light, Inez saw what looked like a small dusty pile of rice.

Nils rushed on. "I thought I’d give it to Mrs. Rose." A thought seemed to strike him like a hammer. "Does
she
know I went to Gallagher?"

Inez’s trigger finger ached to squeeze the quarter-inch needed to fire. "You’re no better than Judas!"

"But Joe
was
cheating," Nils whispered, staring at the small gun aimed at his chest, not six feet away. "I
saw
him. Shooting me won’t change that, Mrs. Stannert."

Abe reached over and pushed down the muzzle of her gun. "What’d you see, son?"

Nils exhaled in a quivering sigh and slumped against the stove. "The bellows." He nodded at the large bellows hanging next to the assay furnace. "One of the last times I was working here, I saw him pump up the assay fire until it was hot. Too hot."

"You saw this?" Inez glowered, daring him to continue.

"I was in the office, saw down the hallway. He was in front of the furnace, but when he moved to shut the door I saw the fire. It’s supposed to be orange yellow. He had it up to straw yellow, almost yellow white. Silver vaporizes when it’s that hot. When that happens, the assay comes in low, showing less silver than there really is."

"Why would he do that?" Inez tried to puzzle out the profit in a depressed silver assay.

Nils rubbed his face slowly. When he dropped his hands, his face was streaked with soot and despair. "A seller wants the assay high. A buyer wants it low, to drive the price down. But I don’t know who that assay was for. He was doing most of the chemistry himself, leaving me to haul bags around, crush the samples, take in orders. The last time he went to
Denver
, I looked for his assay notes, to figure out what he was doing to who. I never found them."

Inez glanced at Abe. He nodded to show he’d heard.

"And
Silver
Mountain
?" Inez asked.

"Mr. Gallagher was buying up the claims around
Silver
Mountain
. Everybody knew he used Joe for assays. Joe knew the area, could tell if someone borrowed a bucket of ore from somewhere more promising…y’know, salted a claim. Anyhow, Joe did all of Gallagher’s samples himself. He said Gallagher wanted to be sure nothing was tainted."

Nils laughed bitterly. "If that’s true, the joke’s on him. I know for a fact, Joe inflated those assay results, made ’em run high. I figured he was in cahoots with the sellers. Maybe they thought Gallagher’s so rich, what’s the difference if he sinks a few thousand dollars in a worthless hole."

Abe walked over to Nils, grabbing a chair as he went. He set the chair beside him. "Better tell us the rest, son."

Nils fell into the chair. The muscles in his arms jumped beneath his worn blue workshirt as he kneaded his hands on the thighs of his jeans. "I looked at the final assay certificates." He wiped his nose with his sleeve.

"We’d assayed some of the claims before, early summer. These results were different. Joe was doing something, maybe pulling out dross after crushing the samples or splitting them." Despite the cold, Nils was sweating. "That leaves more silver per gram weight. Or maybe he added chlorine to the water in the parting process. There’s lots of ways an assayer can cheat. Especially when no one’s watching too close."

Inez spoke. "So you went to Harry with this story. You had no proof, outside of some previous numbers. How could you remember those from way back then?"

Nils hunched his shoulders. "I got a claim, I keep up with the news in the district. And I got a talent for numbers. I figured if I told Gallagher, he’d watch his back. But he already knew things weren’t right. They were blasting and not finding what they expected. Gallagher’d split some samples and sent the matches to a
Georgetown
outfit, on the quiet."

"So you quit, got a job at Kelley’s, and Joe died." Inez glanced at Abe, who was leaning on the opposite doorframe.

Nils bowed his head. "He did it to me too."

"What?" Abe straightened up.

With his hands clasped and head bowed, Nils looked like he was about to pray. "I staked my first claim mid-summer. It looked good, so I asked Joe to assay it. He came back sayin’ I must’ve been mistaken, the area ran hot and cold, and I must’ve hit a cold spot." Nils shook his head. "He offered to set me up with a buyer. I sold that claim for a hundred. Just about covered what I put into it. When he was in
Denver
, I went to the Recorder’s Office. Y’see, after Gallagher, I’d started wondering. Well, that hole in the ground had been sold again for three thousand dollars."

"Did you believe Nils last night?" Inez pushed her breakfast away, nearly untouched. Abe, feet up on a nearby kitchen chair, was rewrapping his knife handle with a new leather strip. The old leather curled on the saloon’s kitchen table like a sluffed-off snake skin.

"Don’t think he was lyin’, under the circumstances."

"None of it sounds like Joe." Inez thought of the brass check for Mattie Silks’ parlor house. She took a deep breath. "Abe, there’s something else—"

Bridgette bustled in. "That painter of yours, I just gave him some biscuits, he’s been hard at work all morning."

Inez pushed back her chair. "Abe, let’s talk later. I want to see what Llewellyn’s up to."

New caulking made white stripes on the planks of the bar’s back wall. Llewellyn hopped off a short ladder, brushing biscuit crumbs off the canvas apron covering his ruffled shirtfront. He gestured toward the wall. "Once that dries, a couple coats of white, and the canvas is ready." He opened a satchel and pulled out
Paradise Lost
. "Thank you for the loan. Most educational."

"Ah then, a test. Satan’s ultimate sin was?" She retrieved the book.

He shrugged. "I read mostly for the descriptions of Heaven and Hell."

Inez smiled. "The sin of injured pride."

Subdued light rippled across the room. Inez turned toward the entrance. "We’re not open yet," she said to the backlit figure.

The figure took a step forward and materialized into Reverend Sands. "This is a social call, Mrs. Stannert."

Inez hesitated, remembering their conversation at Emma’s doorstep, the veiled threat—and invitation—behind his words.

She realized he’d approached and now stood but a few feet away. "Please," he said gently. "I’d like a private word with you."

She wavered.
Oh, what possible harm could come of a conversation. He turns rude, I’ll have Abe throw him out.

"There’s an office on the second floor. Let’s go to the kitchen first. We can get some coffee and I’ll introduce you to Mrs. O’Malley."

Reverend Sands paused by the upright piano and read the hand-lettered sign aloud: "Please don’t shoot the piano player, he’s doing his damnedest."

"We’re trying out someone new," Inez said. "Thursdays through Saturdays. ‘I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen’ ad nauseam."

He tapped a high, slightly sour G. "What happened to the previous player?"

"Not everyone in Leadville can read."

On the way to the kitchen, Inez summarized the house rules. "No drunks served a drink. No married men allowed to gamble."

"Thought I heard about a Saturday night poker game."

"A private game. You’re welcome to join us. You’ve met some of the regulars. Doc Cramer, Mr. Gallagher." She waited to see if Harry’s name would bring a response.

He nodded politely.

Eyes up and center. No innuendoes. That’s good.

Bridgette was rolling out pastry. Flour particles hung in the air like dust motes.

"Reverend Sands, Mrs. O’Malley."

"Reverend Sands!" The rolling pin paused, mid-roll. "What a pleasure. I’ve heard about you, I have."

"You have?" Reverend Sands raised his eyebrows at Inez.