Fatal as a Fallen Woman (8 page)

"Mac?"

"That's what they call a pimp in these parts. Your mother doesn't hold with turning her profits over to a man. Any man. She told me once that she gave her husband every penny she earned taking in laundry, trusting him to invest what little they didn't need for mere survival. Then he left her with nothing."

"Except this hotel."

"Except this hotel," Jane agreed. "There are three parlors on the first floor, together with a dining room and kitchen. On the upper floors are fifteen bedrooms, plus this suite. And in the basement you'll find a wine cellar and servants' quarters."

"Tell me about the boarders. Who are they? Where do they come from?"

"We don't ask. Most use working names. You met Red Katie and Honeycomb last night. And Long Tall Linda, Strawberry Sue, and Big Nose Nellie."

"What about the cold-eyed brunette?"

"She goes by Maryam. There are two others, Maybelle and Chastity."

"They all seem to dress well. Who provides the costumes?" In a theatrical company, they were sometimes the property of the troupe, sometimes owned by individual actors.

"They buy their own gowns," Jane said. "That's common practice, though some madams advance their girls money. Your mother has accounts at all the best stores in Denver, if you need anything for yourself, but since some shopkeepers charge us more than they do a respectable customer, you might do better not to let on who you are."

"Mother might have done better to stay behind the scenes, but she obviously chose not to." Jane said nothing. "Do you know where she is?"

"No."

Diana tossed her napkin aside and pushed her empty plate away. "And you wouldn't tell me if you did."

"Probably not. She's been good to me. To everyone here. She insists on baths once a day and monthly visits to a doctor." A flicker of amusement danced behind the spectacles. "But she is cruel in one respect. She won't allow any of us to wear perfume."

Diana's lips curved into a faint answering smile. Now that
did
sound like her mother. Diana could remember hearing her wax caustic on the subject of ignorant women who thought the application of a strong sweet scent could hide the stench of an unwashed body. Far too many people in the mining camps, men and women both, had gone weeks without a visit to either bathhouse or laundry.

"She might if it smelled like lemon furniture polish," Diana murmured, inhaling deeply. She should have realized right away that someone else now lived in the mansion on Broadway. There had been a foreign smell to it. Frangipani. Miranda's choice, she supposed, although it did not really suit the delicate blonde.

"How does Mother feel about the use of laudanum?"

"She permits it. How could she stop it when anyone can buy it by the quart at any drugstore?" Jane waited a moment and when Diana made no further comment, added, "She is stricter about Swiss-S. She has forbidden any of the girls to drink that. It is a concoction made from absinthe, sometimes with a few drops of laudanum added."

"Why would anyone want to take something that strong? In the wrong dosage, absinthe alone can kill." For that matter, so could laudanum.

Deadpan, Jane said, "They say Swiss-S makes a body feel awfully good from the waist up and lively as hell from the waist down."

A chuckle escaped Diana before she could contain it." I suppose I can understand the appeal, then, but it seems a dangerous choice of libation all the same."

"That is why your mother doesn't allow it here."

"Yet she permits her boarders to sell themselves." The risks were enormous. Disease. Pregnancy. Mistreatment, even death, at the hands of violent customers.
The National Police Gazette
was full of such tragic tales.

"They're better off in this house than on their own. The girls in the cribs live poor and die young."

"And these girls?"

"Can save enough to go into business for themselves, if they're frugal. Don't look so surprised. The usual charge to go up to a bedroom is five dollars for a quick date. Those who want to stay the night pay fifteen. It adds up. And some girls end up marrying their steady customers. There are worse ways to get on in the world."

Fascinated and repulsed at the same time, Diana could not contain her curiosity. "But you don't sell yourself."

"Your mother pays me a generous salary. As much as a good cook would make at one of those fancy resort hotels in the mountains, so I do well enough without. Elmira does even better." Suddenly Jane grinned. "Have you had time to examine her things?" She flung open a wardrobe packed with clothing and took a heavy jewelry box down from the top shelf.

"Why didn't she take some of this with her when she fled?" Diana asked a few minutes later as she fingered a strand of pearls. Gold glinted deeper in the case and a sapphire ring winked up at her.

"She didn't have time to pack."

Every question Jane answered raised a dozen more. Diana was debating what to ask next when the sound of a door slamming downstairs and a male voice shouting Jane's name brought renewed color rushing into that young woman's face.

"I'm sorry. I must go."

"I thought you didn't take customers?" Diana hoped her mother's suite wasn't about to be invaded by an angry stranger. Or was he one of those "macs" Jane had spoken of. Someone out to take over the Elmira Hotel in Elmira Torrence's absence?

"He's a . . . friend." Jane didn't sound convincing. "I'll go talk to him. I'm sorry. He shouldn't have come here."

When he bellowed her name again, she darted into the hallway as if afraid to disobey the summons. Diana started to follow her, then realized she was still in her nightgown. She wasted no time getting dressed, slipping into a simple outfit of dark blue wool that buttoned down the front and could be worn without a corset.

Putting on sturdy shoes delayed her a few minutes longer, as did locating a hatpin, but she felt both precautions were necessary. Although she hoped she wouldn't need to resort to kicking or stabbing, she was prepared to take any steps necessary to protect Jane from her angry and possibly violent "friend."

* * * *

A distant clock struck nine as Diana made her way through the quiet hotel, past a series of closed doors. Faint snores issued from behind one of them. Someone coughed in another room.

At the bottom of the main staircase, Diana paused to listen. The sound of raised voices led her to the back parlor, the room she and Matt had been hidden away in the night before.

The intruder was a thin, sharp-featured man with a bright shock of strawberry blond hair. He dressed like a banker and gave off the pleasing aroma of bayberry soap, but there was nothing pleasant about the expression on his face. His thin lips were compressed into a flat, disapproving line. He had his fingers clamped on Jane's thin shoulders as if he meant to shake her.

"Unhand that woman!" Diana cried, and felt like a melodramatic fool when the two of them turned in unison to stare at her with identical expressions of incredulity on their faces.

Jane broke free, shoving past him to Diana's side. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Spaulding. I've tried to explain."

"Explain what?"

The stranger followed right on Jane's heels. He was armed only with a blade of a nose, but Diana could see the temper building in his eyes. For a moment that look reminded her so strongly of Evan in one of his temperamental rages that it took all her willpower not to turn and flee.

"Who are you?" she demanded instead, squaring her shoulders and forcing herself to glare back at him.

"This is Alan Kent," Jane said. "He works . . . worked for your father. Alan," she added, a warning note in her voice, "you have it all wrong."

"I don't think so. I just talked to Mrs. Torrence. She's very upset."

"You talked to my mother?"

"Not Elmira." Exasperation tinged his words. "I'm speaking of Miranda Torrence."

"I see. So now that my father is dead, you work for my stepmother."

"How do we know you're who you say you are?" Kent demanded.

"Alan!" Jane spoke sharply and waited until he glanced her way. "That's not in question. She brought a photograph album. Pictures of her parents. Of herself. Of her late husband."

Kent still looked skeptical, but he backed off a few steps and Diana breathed a little easier. She no longer felt physically intimidated by him, but she sensed she wasn't going to enjoy the remainder of this encounter any more than she had its first few minutes.

"Miranda says you claim you don't want a share of the Torrence inheritance, but she doesn't believe you. Why else would you show up here after all this time?"

"I came because my mother has been unjustly accused of a heinous crime."

"I don't see why you should care what happens to your mother," Kent grumbled. "From what the lawyers said, you haven't spoken to each other for six years. It has to be the money you're after. If you can't get it from Miranda, then you'll try to take over this place."

"I came to help my mother," Diana repeated, pausing between each word. "No matter what happened between us in the past, I'm still her daughter. How can I not do everything in my power to discover who really killed my father?"

"But Mrs. Spaulding," Jane said. "Your mother did kill him. The morning after the murder, the police found a bloodstained glove in her bedroom."

* * * *

Denver City Jail had as bleak an exterior as Diana had ever seen, but the interior had been even more distressing. She came out in a rush, spitting mad and frustrated. The officious, unhelpful moron who was Denver's chief of police had decided Diana's mother was guilty and didn't care about anything but arresting her and putting her on trial.

At least he'd confirmed what Jane had already told her, that the only physical evidence against Elmira was a glove found in her suite at the hotel. The fresh bloodstains on it were assumed to be the victim's, but Diana didn't see how anyone could prove that. Why, she had two bloodstained gloves among her possessions right now, one from the splinter she'd poked into her thumb on the ferry to Weehawken and the other from yesterday. She wasn't sure how she'd come by the second stain, but it certainly hadn't been from doing murder.

According to Jane, Elmira had not only denied killing William Torrence, she'd also claimed the incriminating glove was not hers. No one had believed her, but Diana couldn't help but think how easily something as small as a glove could be planted among someone's possessions. And there had certainly been no shortage of strangers in the upstairs hall of the Elmira Hotel that night. There were strangers in the building every night.

After talking to the chief of police, Diana no longer had any difficulty understanding why her mother hadn't waited around to be arrested. She'd asked him what would happen to Elmira if she was caught and had been told that a woman awaiting trial in Denver was put under the supervision of the city jailer, since the City Council had yet to authorize the hiring of a police matron, and held without privacy or comfort, denied contact with anyone but her lawyer.

Taking a deep breath to steady her temper, Diana directed her gaze towards nearby Capitol Hill, where the new state capitol building was under construction. Hotels for tourists, modern office buildings, private schools, and exclusive clubs had already sprung up around it.

Diana sighed. She could remember standing on top of that rounded height of land with her father when their own newly built home was one of only a few structures close at hand. A scattering of church steeples, residences, and flat roofed business blocks had made up the rest of their view of the city, with majestic mountains rising to the west and the wide expanse of the empty plains to the east.

The memory failed to calm her, but it did succeed in redirecting her anger. This was all William Torrence's fault. Even then, when she'd still idolized him, he'd been all show and no substance. Money and prestige had mattered more to him than love. He'd boasted that he'd be the most important man in Denver one day. And the richest. And that he already had the finest house. He'd made no mention of the loyal wife or loving daughter.

Diana boarded a streetcar and paid her five cents. She gave herself a stern lecture en route to the next hurdle. She'd be no help to her mother if she let her emotions have free rein.

* * * *

The law firm of Patterson, Markham, Thomas and Campbell had the best reputation in Colorado for winning criminal cases. They had successfully defended a number of people accused of homicide. Diana, whose natural optimism had resurfaced by the time she was shown in to see Tom Patterson, felt her high hopes plummet again when that impeccably-dressed gentleman balked at the name Elmira Torrence.

"I will not represent anyone associated with the red-light district." His lips curled with distaste.

"Mr. Patterson, you don't understand. My mother is innocent. And her reasons for running the Elmira Hotel are—"

"No, you don't understand, Mrs. Spaulding. I will not take this case." The ends of his mustache twitched with the force of his refusal.

"If it's a matter of your fee—"

He abruptly lost patience with her. "Money is no object?" he snapped. "Very well, I'll represent your 'innocent' mother . . . if you pay me $1500. In advance."

 Diana had always thought it a literary convention to say a person's eyes bulged or her jaw dropped, but she felt both things happen to her at once. She was still goggling when Patterson had her ejected from his office.

Diana took several deep breaths, collected her dignity, and resolutely moved on to the next stop on her itinerary. Patterson's office was not the only business at Seventeenth and Curtis. She entered the five-story red sandstone building that housed the
Rocky Mountain News
and asked for  Col. John Arkins, managing editor and part owner of the newspaper.

The letter Horatio Foxe had given Diana was addressed to Arkins, but before she could deliver it to him, he bowed over her hand with old-world gallantry. "I am delighted to meet you, Mrs. Spaulding." There was a hint of Ireland in both his voice and his appearance and he had the dashing, almost careless demeanor Diana associated with that country. Charmed, she was unprepared for what he said next. "The last time I heard your name, it was also in connection with a murder."