Silver Lies (56 page)

"Why? Is Hollis there, ready to throw me in chains?" She gripped the carpetbag handle with one sweaty glove.

"No, he’s not. But he’s been looking for you. We thought you’d skipped town."

"Well, here I am." She pulled out her pocket revolver with two fingers, slowly, and handed it to him grip first. "There. I’m unarmed. And I’m not leaving until I see Abe."

Curly Dan took a deep breath, then opened the door wide. "This is probably a big mistake. Leave your bag over there.

I’ll take you to him. But only for a minute." He locked the front door behind her and headed for an inner door, sorting through his ring of keys. "I’ve got nothing against you or Mr. Jackson. But what Hollis found sure looks bad."

She set her bag in the shadow of a scarred desk. "What did he find?"

He looked at her mournfully, jangling the key ring. "I can’t be discussing the evidence, Mrs. Stannert."

He opened the inner door and escorted her through. Two figures on the other side stirred, the gold buttons of their uniforms catching the guttering lamplight.

"Well boys," she didn’t bother to hide her disdain, "pulling double shifts at Silver Mountain and the city jail?"

One of Harry’s militiamen looked away. The other pulled up his rifle and glared.

Curly Dan hastened, "Gallagher offered his militia to help keep the peace."

Inez hardly heard, her eyes drawn to the cell in the center of the room. Inside, Abe rose from a straw pallet.

She moved forward and touched the cold metal bars.

Curly Dan was instantly beside her. "You gotta stand back. Rules."

"Abe." She tried to keep her shaking voice under control. "What happened?"

"They found my knife, Inez."

"No discussin’ the evidence." Curly Dan sounded firm. He turned to Inez. "You see, he’s all right. We’re here to make sure justice gets done."

"And will you put your lives on the line if forty men come with a rope and their own notions of justice?" Inez turned back to Abe. "One question. Did you order Useless to trap rats at the saloon?"

His perplexed expression was all she needed to confirm her suspicions. She closed her eyes, then opened them to refocus on her business partner. " I made a big mistake when I hired Useless away from Cat DuBois. In truth, I don’t think

he ever left her employ."

"What’re you talkin’ about?"

She gazed into Abe’s dark brown eyes, then pressed her palms together as if in prayer. "Your guardian angel can help us."

Abe walked to the cell bars, wrapping long ebony fingers around the metal. "Inez, no. She don’t know nothing."

A sudden banging at the inner door ricocheted off the brick walls, the echoes intensifying to a syncopated din. Through the racket, Inez heard Marshal Hollis shout, "Curly, open the goddamned door! I know she’s in there." A thump from a vicious kick vibrated in the tense air.

Curly Dan sighed and pulled his hat off to scratch his bald head. "Now all hell’s gonna bust loose. I knew this was a bad idea. Time to go, Mrs. Stannert."

Abe gripped the bars, staring over Inez’s head. "Useless. He’s been there since the start of all this trouble. My new knife disappeared at work two days after Christmas. I didn’t want to tell you."

"Save it for the judge," Curly Dan warned.

Abe focused on Inez. "You should’ve stayed away. No one short of God Almighty’s gonna find proof of my innocence now. This train’s rollin’ down the track too damn fast to stop. I’ve seen it happen to others." He sank tiredly onto the pallet.

"Damn your hide, Curly!" The door rattled.

"Hold your horses, Bart." Curly Dan pulled out the ring of keys. "Locked inside and out," he told Inez. "There won’t be any lynchings while I’m here."

The door opened onto Hollis’ face, purple with rage. "No lynchin’s. Waalll, you ain’t been in town, hearin’ what I’ve been hearin’."

Back in the office, Curly Dan locked the door and the marshal’s attention zeroed in on Inez. "Where’ve you been, Miz Stannert?"

"Around." She surveyed his iced-up clothes. "Where have
you
been?"

He spat on the plank floors, narrowly missing her skirts. Curly Dan nudged a spittoon toward Hollis with the toe of his well-worn boot.

Hollis ignored the hint. "We got your nigger but good." His voice rang with malicious triumph.

"All that rotgut you’ve been drinking must have pickled your brain if you really believe Abe hurt Emma Rose," she snapped. "You’ve arrested an innocent man. You can’t possibly have any proof."

Hollis clenched his teeth so hard she could hear his jaw pop. He turned to Curly Dan. "Open the safe! Show her what we got. Maybe we’ll catch her lyin’."

Curly Dan glanced at Inez, then knelt to open the black safe. He handed Hollis two cloth bundles from its maw. Hollis slammed the first bundle on the desk and yanked the cloth loose.

"Recognize this, Miz Stannert?"

Inez’s stomach lurched in dismay. Lying on the desk was Abe’s new knife, its engraved blade rusty with dried blood.

"I gave Abe that knife for Christmas. Where did you find it?"

"Under Mrs. Rose’s bed."

She took a step toward Hollis. "Emma Rose will deny it."

Hollis snorted. "Doc says it could be a week maybe more before she comes around. Think Jackson’s gonna last a week around here?"

Without waiting for her response, he turned to Curly Dan. "You heard her say it was Jackson’s knife. Now, let’s try this."

The second cloth yielded up Joe Rose’s pocketwatch.

"Where did you get that?" Inez was dumbfounded.

"Jackson’s overcoat." Hollis sounded almost gleeful. "I recollected it was missin’ when we found Rose’s body. Guess Jackson wanted a little mo-mento after he killed Rose. Maybe he kept peekin’ at that picture of Miz Rose, thinkin’ what he’d do to her when he got a chance."

"You’ve the mind of a worm, Marshal!"

For once, her words didn’t faze him. "Now, let’s see what we got on you. The other, Curly." Curly Dan reached into the safe and dragged out—

"My saddlebags!" Inez stared at the scarred leather bags, feeling confusion wind about her like a rope. "I left them with Cooke at the bank!"

"Uh-huh," said Hollis. His mustache twitched in contempt. He plunged one hand inside a bag and pulled out a bundle of fifties. "And this is just a reg’lar deposit. And you probably have ‘no i-dee’ how it got buried in a crate of Taos Lightning in your storeroom." He leered. "Lookit her face, Curly. She’s guilty as sin."

"This, this evidence is a complete fabrication. Abe and I, we’ve been set up!"

"You’re real fond of Jackson," taunted Hollis. "Maybe what they say ’round town about the two of you is true."

She gasped, the urge to hit him burning away common sense.

"Bart!" Curly Dan’s voice was urgent. "Remember what Gallagher said."

Hollis tipped his grimy hat back from his forehead. "When I find the proof that hangs her, ain’t Gallagher nor anybody else gonna stop me from throwin’ her in the calaboose too."

Curly Dan turned to Inez. "Go home, Mrs. Stannert. You aren’t bein’ held on any crimes. But don’t take any more trips out of town."

Fighting her anger, Inez grabbed her carpetbag from beside the desk. Hollis’ eyes swiveled to the bag, suspicious. The counterfeit plates seemed to scream from their swaddling.

After Curly Dan closed the jailhouse door behind Inez, she stood on the boardwalk, motionless. Clouds obscured stars and moon while the wind and snow pushed her from behind.

Heavily bundled figures hurried past. Eyes slid to the shotgun in her hand and then away. Suddenly aware of her vulnerability on the street, Inez started toward her last sanctuary.

The notice on the door of the Silver Queen read "Closed Until Further Notice by Order of the City Marshal."
At least he didn’t padlock the door.

Once inside, she dropped the carpetbag to the floor where it landed with a puff of sawdust. Flexing her hand, she walked around the silent bar to retrieve the office key. Llewellyn had added to the mural while she’d been in Denver. Inez walked its length, examining half-faced armies clashing between cities of silver and ice. She paused before the winged figure of Lucifer, sterling sword pointing toward preordained defeat. Penciled lines drafted the contours of Harry Gallagher’s face.

The chill that invaded her had nothing to do with the cold.

Once upstairs, she unlocked the office door and pushed it open.

The first thing she saw were the papers. Covering her desk, scattered across her chair and the floor. The door to the safe yawned open. The murky lights of State Street and the snow racing past the large window gave the room a strange under

water glaze.

She took one step, muttering, "Damn them all."

"Why did you come back?" Harry’s voice reached her a second after his cigar smoke.

Dressed for the opera, he sat on her loveseat beside a bottle of brandy and a half-empty glass. The smoke curled through the air, disturbed by her entry. Harry’s overcoat was folded over the back of the small sofa, white gloves crossed neatly on top like a pair of ghostly hands.

"Harry, what are you doing here?"

"Waiting. For you."

She finally moved inside. "How did you get in? How did you know I was in town?"

He stretched out his legs to reach into a pocket. The buttons on his waistcoat gleamed.

He held up a key to the saloon’s front door. "Jackson’s." The key went down beside the glass. "My driver recognized you at the coach stop."

Inez thought on Isaac Eisemer’s expensive gloves and hat, the well-brushed overcoat, the cultured intonations. "He was picking up Eisemer."

She noticed the bottle at Harry’s elbow was nearly empty. "How long have you been waiting? Was that a new bottle?"

"I’m good for it." He poured another measure in the glass. "I thought you’d be by sooner. Did you stop at the jail first?"