Devil in Texas (Lady Law & The Gunslinger Series, Book 1) (14 page)

Doing her best not to think about Cass, and how she might be forced to arrest him, she shuffled around the lobby of the Grand Park Hotel in her white mobcap, ruffled apron, and navy-colored uniform. Occasionally, as conventioneers hurried past, she would swipe her feather duster with great exuberance over a Tiffany lamp shade or the eight-foot rack of a stuffed, longhorn steer. Her goal was to keep an eye on the stairwell. She figured Poppy Westerfield would have to descend from the second story eventually.

The Grand Park Hotel was one of the crowning, architectural achievements of Lampasas. It's only flaw appeared to be its lack of an elevator. Built by the railroad as a mecca for conventioneers, vacationers, and convalescents, the hotel looked like an enormous mansion with wrap-around porches and banner-bedecked turrets. Boasting 200 guest rooms and at least a dozen cabins, it sprawled across the southwestern corner of the city with a first-class dining room, ballroom, and recreational area, which offered boating, horseracing, shooting contests, and music recitals. As if these entertainments weren't enough, a guest could travel via boardwalk or mule-drawn trolley to one of the many mineral springs that had given rise to the city's reputation as a health resort.

Sadie had heard the rumor that Baron was ailing. Then again, he might have gone on his morning pilgrimage to Aquacia Bathhouse because a "secret" poker game was attracting conventioneers. About an hour ago, she'd watched the senator stride through the lobby with his gangly, bespectacled secretary. Pendleton had scurried to keep up, looking every inch like an underling, from his thinning, greased-back hair, to his starched chin-high collar, notebook, and stylus.

According to rumor, Baron treated Pendleton like family. The secretary had none of his own, probably because Pendleton spent every waking moment, managing Baron's business accounts. He was wholly devoted to the senator, and frankly, Sadie wouldn't have been surprised to learn that Pendleton covered up Baron's crimes.

She strained to hear what the prune-faced clerk was telling his boss, but she only heard intermittent phrases—something about an upcoming luncheon with railroad financiers. Apparently, Poppy had accepted the invitation on behalf of the senator, but he was refusing to cancel his javelina hunt with his cowboy cronies.

Cass trailed behind Baron and Pendleton, keeping an eye peeled for suspicious characters. As hard as she tried not to care, Sadie wasn't able to ignore how the heartthrob's dimpled grin quickened more than one fluttering hand-fan as ladies of all ages sighed in his wake. The knowledge that she, herself, looked like an apple barrel with a gray mop for hair didn't improve her mood.

Baron and his retinue had left the hotel 30 minutes ago. Now Sadie was waiting futilely for Collie to exit the building. She still wasn't sure where the hooligan was. Gritting her teeth, she imagined him ransacking her bedroom. She couldn't help but recall the shambles in which he and Cass had left Rex's room at the Globe Hotel. After grimly wading through what resembled a torpedo strike, the Ranger had retrieved one of the few personal indulgences he allowed himself: a silver flask. Finding his imported, Glenmorangie Scotch completely drained, Rex had raged: "
It'll be a cold day in hell, before Cassidy wears a Ranger badge!"

Sadie couldn't blame Rex. Especially since Vandy had taken a crap on his pillow.

A heavy boot thumped behind her, interrupting her reverie. Ducking her head, Sadie pushed her spectacles up her nose and looked busy. Tito was exiting the stairwell with Poppy Westerfield on his arm.

For the first time, Sadie was able to lay her eyes on Baron's flesh-and-blood wife, rather than a sienna–toned daguerreotype. Sadie had to admit, Poppy was stunning, possessing all the traits Baron was rumored to covet in a woman.

Sadie studied the Galveston native. Aside from her bodice, Poppy was petite, with strawberry curls, meadow-green eyes, and an enviable waistline for a woman of 41 years—but then, Poppy had never borne children, according to her Pinkerton dossier. The senator's wife walked with an air of privilege in her elegant day dress. A shameless array of matching emeralds adorned her ears, wrists, and fingers. However, nothing more than a silver heart pendant graced her neck. She kept sliding the bauble along its chain, as if she were agitated.

Sadie thought back to a conversation she'd once had with Rex, when she'd been plying him with questions about the type of woman she needed to "portray" to attract Baron's attention.

"But what's Poppy
really
like?" she'd asked Rex. "You come from the same circle of privilege; I've never been to a political rally, much less a debutante's ball."

Rex had fidgeted, a sure sign his southern chivalry was vying with his lawman's code.

"Poppy grew up as the only child of a widowed attorney. She used to scribe legal documents for her father when she was a school girl, during the days when he couldn't afford the wages of a full-time clerk. Eventually, he built a prosperous legal practice and became renowned for manipulating tax laws in favor of shipping interests. However, the wealthy clientele whom he served never truly accepted him into their circle. Poppy got jilted by her first steady beau—a young sugar planter, who had political ambitions. He started courting a gal with Old Money—a textiles heiress, I believe.

"Poppy took it hard. She left Galveston to live with friends in Austin. She met Baron at some capitol shindig. Back then, he was little more than a cowboy with a dream, but he did manage to get himself elected to the Burnet City Council. He doted on Poppy. Fact is, he never did like competition, and he wound up punching out one of her suitors. Eventually, Baron won her hand. The same week he whisked her off on their honeymoon, her ex-beau and his fiancé had a tragic boating accident."

Sadie nodded. She'd read Baron's biography in a dossier. "Yes, yes," she said impatiently, "but what kind of
woman
is Poppy? Prudish? Flirtatious? Maternal? Absent-minded?"

"She can be charming," Rex hedged.

"Can
be?" Sadie hiked an eyebrow. "And when she's not being charming, what then?"

Rex hardened his jaw. "Cold. Ice-water cold."

Recalling that conversation now, Sadie looked for signs of that chilly social maven in the agitated woman, who was toying with the heart-shaped religious relic around her throat. Sadie wondered if Poppy was merely misunderstood. Losing three children in childbirth couldn't have been easy for a wife, who watched her husband choose progressively younger mistresses every year that she aged.

Thoughtfully, Sadie watched Tito hand his boss's wife into a private surrey. Only after the two of them trotted off into the sunshine did Sadie loose a ragged breath and hurry for the stairwell.

The Westerfields' suite was located on the hotel's top floor, where Baron had reserved five rooms in the west wing. Sadie had been forced to bribe a maid to learn Cass and Collie shared the room, flanking Poppy's side of the suite. Tito's room flanked Baron's, and Pendleton's quarters were closest to the stairs. Normally, Sadie would have saved herself the fee for palm-greasing by snooping through the hotel ledger; however, the page with Cass's, Baron's, and Tito's signatures had been missing.

Half expecting to be attacked by a snarling raccoon at any moment, Sadie glanced warily over both shoulders before withdrawing a widdy from her apron pocket and unlocking the Westerfields' door. She'd already searched every desk drawer, file cabinet, wall hanging and floor plank in the Spartan campaign office that Pendleton ran for his boss in the Public Square. Unless one considered a backroom with a mattress suspicious, she could find only one other questionable thing. Pendleton had hidden two ledgers. One had contained the names of campaign donors, all meticulously entered and perfectly legal, as far as she could tell. The other ledger, oddly enough, had been blank.

Sadie sighed. Detective work wasn't quite as romantic as she'd first expected. When she'd signed on as a Pinkerton, she'd imagined posing as some exotic celebrity with a foreign accent so she could save her country. In reality, she spent most of her time skulking around in drab disguises so she could blend into a crowd. If she wasn't on a stakeout, she was searching some suspect's room. Digging through a lowlife's personal belongings was pure, nerve-wracking tedium.

Gritting her teeth, she rummaged through the dingy unmentionables in Baron's underwear drawer. It was hard not to be creeped out by the notion she might have to peel a pair of these nasty-looking shorts off the scum-bucket's erection.

Damn! What's he hiding, and where is it?

The chiffonier had been her last resort. She'd searched the entire suite for false panels in walls, fake bottoms in drawers, cleverly repaired seams in cushions, and loose floorboards under the two beds—because, apparently, Baron no longer slept with his wife.

Now what?

Frustrated by her failure to find evidence to incriminate him, Sadie stood with her hands on her hips, sweating bullets under her cotton shift and scowling at the furniture. Poppy's starched, white night cap lay on top of her neatly folded bed gown at the foot of a tightly tucked quilt of baby-blues and bonbon-pinks. The coverlet was embroidered with adorable yellow ducklings that reminded Sadie of a baby blanket.

She cocked her head, inhaling violet perfume, licorice hair tonic, stale Cleopatra Federal cigars, and a citrusy-frankincense aroma that suggested copal. The smell of incense made her glance toward the writing desk, which Poppy had turned into an altar by draping half of it with white linen. The usual prayer book, rosary, and saint images adorned the cloth, along with satin hair ribbons of every hue, apples and pecans, two vases of yellow marigolds, and three intricately painted sugar skulls.

Considering that
Día de los Muertos
was only four days away, Sadie didn't think the contents of the altar were unusual. Even "Gringos" couldn't walk down the streets of Lampasas without a Spanish-speaking vendor shoving colorful altar decorations into their hands.

She turned her back on Poppy's room and studied Baron's side of the suite. Boxes of red-white-and-blue campaign propaganda were stacked as high as Sadie's chin beside a cherry wood wardrobe. In a brass pot by the window, peace lilies were wilting; she figured they were parched for water, like the rest of Texas. Green bottles half-filled with medicine nestled between pricey liquors, brandy snifters, and shot glasses on the pink-marble of the vanity.

Sadie frowned. Besides Poppy's duckling quilt, the only thing that Sadie saw out of the ordinary was the fireplace. It was full of ashes. Unless the maid hadn't shoveled out the hearth since January—when Central Texas had suffered a freezing rain—the ash was probably the result of burned papers. However, none of the documents could be sufficiently identified. If Baron was plotting to blow up a west Texas farm or assassinate a rival candidate for the senate, he'd obliterated the evidence.

Damn that blood-sucking weasel.
Sadie really had hoped she could avoid the revolting act of touching him, especially since some poor deluded, Christian woman had agreed to be his wife. Now she feared she would have to crawl into Baron's bed to accomplish her mission.

And that posed the unavoidable complication of Cass.

Suddenly, a floorboard creaked outside the door. Choking back an oath, Sadie glanced at the clock on the mantel. She'd been searching the room for two-and-a-half hours.

Damn! I let time get away from me! And I still have to search Pendleton's bedroom.

A key scraped in the lock. Frantically, Sadie grabbed for her feather duster and began an industrious cleaning of Baron's liquor bottles. The door creaked open. The intruder gasped.

Poppy Westerfield stood on the threshold, minus her bodyguard.

"Where's Sofia?" the senator's wife snapped, hastily hiding her clinking reticule behind her back. "Who the devil are you?"

Sadie's eyes narrowed. So Poppy didn't want her to see her purse, eh?

Cupping her hand over her ear, Sadie acted like the world's dumbest deaf woman. "The sofa, you say?"

"Sofia! Our maid!"

"Slow down there, missy," Sadie croaked in her best crone's voice. "My hearin' ain't so good. You say you want the sofa made?"

Poppy made an exasperated sound. "Out!" She pointed an imperious, red-lacquered fingernail at the door. "I don't have patience for fools."

Adopting a subservient manner, Sadie shuffled forward. Her eyes were focused on Poppy's protruding elbow, the one connected to the arm with the reticule. She had to find out what Poppy was hiding.

Thinking fast, she tripped, slamming into the older woman's arm. Poppy cried out, dropping the bag, and a half-dozen tins of
Serenata's Soothing Throat Pastilles
spilled across the carpet.

Sadie frowned.
Lemon lozenges?

Poppy went apoplectic. "Stupid oaf! Look what you've done! I'll have your head for this!"

She ripped off her gloves, fell to her knees, and raked up the scattered pastilles with her hands. Sheepishly, Sadie tried to help—until their heads butted. Poppy recoiled, hissing an oath. When she looked directly into Sadie's eyes, suspicion furrowed her brow.

Sadie cursed her stupidity.

"Er... looks like you'll need a broom, missy," she blathered, leaping to her feet and fleeing for the door. "You won't want to fall
kersplat
on your bustle—"

"Hold."