Fatal as a Fallen Woman (16 page)

"You can't hide forever." Aware her mother was about to bolt, Diana's desperation grew. "Will you let Matt defend you, if it becomes necessary?"

"It wouldn't matter who defended me if I came to trial. Whoever framed me did too good a job. If I'm caught, I'll hang. I could be put on trial as soon as the day after I was brought in. The proceedings might be stretched out a day or two, but in the end a jury would convict me, a judge would pass sentence, and within a week of my capture, I'd be dead."

"Petition for a reprieve could—"

A bitter laugh dismissed that idea.

"We'll start before the trial, then. And put ads in all the papers to ask for information—"

"You don't understand, Diana. I wouldn't really be on trial for murder. I'm guilty of the far worse sin of turning adversity into profit. I'm the shameless hussy who failed to slink quietly away. Society matrons will tell their husbands how to deal with the likes of me! I must be made an example of, to dissuade others from taking the same path."

Diana didn't know if her mother was right about that or not, but she could see that Elmira believed what she was saying. "Then there is only one sensible course. You cannot stay in Denver without running the risk of being recognized. Therefore you must leave. Go to New York. I'll follow and—"

"No, Diana. But you should go. Return to your own life. Leave me to mine."

Elmira had asked no questions, Diana realized. Did that mean she didn't care what her only child had been doing these last few years . . . or that she already knew? She supposed it didn't really matter. "Mother, let me help you."

"You can ask Matt Hastings to represent me if you insist on hiring a lawyer. That's your business," Elmira said as she opened the wardrobe door, "but don't expect me to pay him. I've got other plans for my money."

She removed the jewelry box from its shelf and tucked in under her arm. Then she reached deeper into the space where it had been and a moment later came out holding an enormous wad of large denomination bills.

"They won't find me, Diana, unless I want to be found."

With that she walked out of the bedroom. Diana followed, eyes widening as Elmira removed large sums of money from two more hiding places and stowed all of it on her person. She was heading for the secret panel in the wall before Diana gathered sufficient wit to form a sentence.

"You're not coming back, are you? Not even if I find the real killer." It sounded more like an accusation than a question. Perhaps it was.

"Why should I?"

"For the girls."
For me.

"They can fend for themselves."

"And the hotel?"

"Close it. Burn it down for all I care." She hefted the jewelry box. "I have all I want out of it."

"So everything has been about money?"

"What else? Your father taught me well."

"But you take such good care of your employees. I thought—"

"Healthy girls can charge more. That's just good business."

She reached into the pocket of her skirt and retrieved one of the wads of cash. Peeling off a half-dozen bills, she tossed them at Diana, watching as they fluttered to the carpet.

"Go back to New York, Diana. I don't need you."

* * * *

Diana might have considered following her mother's advice if her first stop later that morning hadn't been the Western Union office. Her intent had been to send a message to Ben, but she abandoned that idea once she read the telegrams from Horatio Foxe that had accumulated over the last few days.

He'd sent two that had missed her on her way west. Forwarded on, they warned her that her mother owned a brothel and to beware of a man named Ed Leeves. Too late, she thought crossly. The telegrams Foxe had dispatched direct to Denver, save for the most recent, all contained the same message: CONTACT ME WHEN YOU ARRIVE. Since she'd gotten in late Thursday and this was only Monday, Diana couldn't understand why he seemed so desperate to hear from her.

The last telegram, sent on Sunday morning, offered at least a partial explanation. The message it contained would have cheered Diana in normal circumstances, telling her as it did that help was on the way. Perversely, her first reaction was to resent the interference. This meant she couldn't leave Denver, even if she wanted to, and that she'd have at least a few more days on her own before anyone from the east coast could possibly arrive.

She left Western Union without sending any telegrams of her own. If she had to stay, then she might as well put into effect the plan she'd conceived before her interview with her mother: find a newspaper reporter who'd be sympathetic to Elmira's cause.

Hours later, temper simmering just below the boiling point, she hurried along the last stretch of Larimer Street before the turn that would take her back to the Elmira. No one at Senator N. P. Hill's
Republican
had been liberal-minded enough to consider that a brothel keeper might be innocent of murder. The editor of the evening
Times
had laughed Diana out of his office, and Eugene Field of the
Tribune
had turned out to be an old acquaintance of Horatio Foxe's. That had not been a good thing.

The only other daily was the
Hotel Reporter
, another dead end. The
Sun
was for coloreds. The
Herald
published only in German. Of the weeklies,
Opinion
was a slim possibility, if she could locate the publisher, but there was no sense approaching the
Colorado Farmer
, the
Live Stock Journal
, the
Mining Register
, the
Labor Enquirer
, or the
Churchman
.

She glanced at the watch pinned to the bosom of her Modjeska jacket. Three already. Not only had the entire day been a waste, but now she'd gone and broken her word to a little boy.

She turned at last onto Holladay Street and quickened her pace, although she was already a bit breathless. Yesterday, after her visit to the old girls' school, Diana had talked again with Ning. Upon learning that he'd never been taught to read or write, she'd vowed to remedy that situation. She'd given him his first reading lesson on the spot and promised him his second this afternoon at three.

A stitch in the side was a painful reminder that she was rushing too fast for a woman wearing a corset. She slowed her speed, but pushed steadily on. She'd made Ning a promise and she didn't want him thinking she'd broken it. The boy had grown far too accustomed to adults who treated him like a piece of furniture—useful, decorative, but essentially worthless and easy to replace.

Puffing more than a little, clutching her side with one hand and her mesh bag with the other, Diana climbed the front steps of the hotel. The bag contained copies of the
Rocky Mountain News
for the entire week of the murder.

In desperation, she had returned to Col. Arkins's premises at the end of her quest. Since this was Monday, the only day he did not put out an edition of his newspaper, he had not been in the building. She'd managed to make an appointment for the following day to talk to Henry Burnett, the reporter who covered "the lowers." She hoped he'd be able to add some significant detail to her knowledge, but she wasn't counting on it. It was more likely that he'd already put everything he knew into the published story of the discovery of her father's body.

Jane was at her accustomed post in the entryway, since the Elmira had been open to custom for more than an hour. "You have a visitor," she said in a worried voice.

Startled, Diana froze. Impossible. She'd only just gotten the warning telegram. 

"Mr. Leeves is waiting in the Chinese parlor."

Diana relaxed and had to smile at her own foolish fancy. No one could get halfway across the country in less than six days, not unless they found some way to sprout wings and fly. "What does he want?"

"How should I know?" But Jane looked worried.

Diana kept the smile on her face, but she was remembering that her mother had been lured from the hotel by a message from Ed Leeves. What if that had been deliberate? What if Leeves was part of a conspiracy to frame Elmira Torrence for murder?

Big Ed was involved in just about every illegal activity in the Denver underworld, from policy shops that ran numbers and sold tickets in the Louisiana Lottery to the opium dens of Hop Alley. Diana had asked a few pointed questions about him while she was visiting newspaper offices and she hadn't liked any of the answers.

Her throat suddenly as dry as her hands were clammy, Diana removed her hat and smoothed her hair. Whatever Leeves claimed to feel for her mother, he was a dangerous man, and she was frankly suspicious of his claim to be so fond of Elmira. Clearly he had no idea where her mother was hiding, nor did he know about Elmira's early morning visit. Indeed, it was possible Elmira Torrence was hiding from Ed Leeves as well as from the police.

Pasting on a new and even brighter smile, Diana entered the parlor. She found Leeves staring up at Elmira's portrait.

He glanced at her, a sour expression on his face, and made a point of taking his watch out of his pocket, opening it, and looking at the time. "I'm a busy man, Mrs. Spaulding, and I've been waiting for you for quite a long time."

"Had I but known you were coming, I'd have made arrangements to be here when you arrived."

Leeves clicked the watchcase shut and turned to face her head on. "I've been thinking about your mother's difficulties. I've come to the decision that I'm the best one to look after her interests while she's . . . away."

"Indeed?" Diana rang a small hand bell. A moment later Ning appeared. "Bring coffee, please, Ning." Leeves, she noted, had already helped himself to whiskey.

"I'm surprised your mother didn't take him with her." His nod indicated the boy. "She's got an unnatural affection for that little coolie."

Diana bit back a sharp comment. She knew already that long-time residents of Denver looked down on more recent immigrants. Their attitude galled her, especially when so many of the newcomers had not had much choice about settling in Colorado. They'd been employed in railroad construction and suddenly found themselves out-of-work when projects ended in Denver. That had happened first to a large group of Chinese laborers and some years later to Italian workers. To Diana's mind, those people deserved sympathy, not scorn, but by the standards of the charitable organizations hereabouts, neither group was "worthy" of help.

Leeves was watching her as he sipped at his whiskey. "I'm here to offer a solution to your problems, Mrs. Spaulding," he said at last. "I am sure you are anxious to return to your own home. All you have to do is leave me in charge of the hotel and you can do so with a clear conscience."

Something moved behind the portrait. Eyes. For a moment Diana thought her mother might be spying on them. Then she realized it had to be Jane. The other woman must have moved at a good clip to get from the reception desk to Elmira's suite and down the hidden stairs so quickly.

"Mrs. Spaulding?"

"I'm afraid that won't be possible, Mr. Leeves. I came here to prove my mother innocent of the charges against her. I have not, as yet, succeeded."

At some point during her long, frustrating day, Diana's resolve had strengthened. She could not give up just because Elmira didn't want her help. Her father had been murdered.

The irony of her decision to stay was not lost on her. Her father had died a thoroughly corrupt and unlovable man. But he'd once had a spark of decency in him. He'd once loved his daughter.

To prove her mother innocent, and to avenge the loss of the father she remembered from all those years ago, Diana wanted his killer found and punished. She wanted justice. If that proved impossible to obtain then, at the least, she wanted the truth, all of it, no matter how painful.

"I don't think you understand me, Mrs. Spaulding." Black eyes boring into her, Leeves lowered his voice to an ominous whisper. "Stay in Denver or not, you cannot remain at the Elmira."

"It's my mother's place. In her absence—"

"In her absence, you have only two choices. I take over and the Elmira stays open. Or you stay on and the hotel is closed down by the local authorities and you are arrested for operating a lewd house."

She stared at him, shocked in spite of the warnings she'd had about the way he did business. Suddenly she was very glad help was on the way, even if it would not arrive until Friday at the earliest.

Heart in her throat, she stalled. "I'll consider what you've said, Mr. Leeves. Thank you for your . . . interest."

The noncommittal reply earned her a sardonic lift of pale yellow-white eyebrows, but for the moment Leeves chose not to pursue the matter, or make further threats. He swallowed the rest of his whiskey in one gulp, set the glass down on a table with a thump, bowed slightly, and left the room.

Diana sat abruptly, her knees as wobbly as they'd been when she first heard about her father's murder. "Now what?" she whispered.

If Leeves was lying about sending that note to her mother, he could be the one who'd killed William Torrence. It would have been simple enough for him to plant the bloodstained glove when he'd called on Elmira the next day. 

Ning brought her coffee and she sipped gratefully. "Fetch Miss Jane for me, will you, Ning? And then, as soon as I've talked to her, we'll have that reading lesson I promised you."

"I'm here," Jane said from the doorway. "I heard." Her eyes cut to the portrait. "Come back in ten minutes, Ning."

"Does Ed Leeves have the power to put the hotel out of business?" Diana asked as soon as the boy had gone. "Can he have me arrested?"

"Oh, yes." Jane looked wistfully at the empty whiskey glass. "He's the most powerful man in Denver. You won't stay in jail long, of course. Just pay the seventy-five dollar fine and they'll let you out."

Diana choked on her coffee. Seventy-five dollars would be a small fortune to most people. Three months' wages or more. Jane spoke as if it were a pittance. "Perhaps I should let him take over."

"He'll make changes, and not for the better," Jane warned. "If the way he operates his other businesses is any indication, he'll take a bigger cut of what the girls bring in, and probably try to crowd in more girls too. And he'll do away with all of the little luxuries Elmira provided."