Fatal as a Fallen Woman (9 page)

"I beg your pardon?" She went very still in the chair in which he'd just seated her.

"When the Leadville
Chronicle
covered your husband's death. A great miscarriage of justice, in my opinion. Letting the man who shot him get away like that. They never did find him, did they?"

Diana had to swallow hard before she could answer. "Not that I know of." Once she'd left Leadville, she hadn't looked back. She didn't suppose the authorities there knew where to find her, even if they did have something to tell her about the man who'd killed Evan for cheating at cards.

"And this time it's your father who's dead." Arkins beamed at her with ill-concealed speculation in his twinkling eyes. "Mr. Foxe suggests we might be able to help each other, Mrs. Spaulding. He's sent several telegrams here since you left New York, asking for details on the case. I imagine he's also sent messages to you. If you have not yet collected them, the Western Union office is at Sixteenth and Lawrence."

Reading telegrams from Horatio Foxe was far down Diana's list of priorities at the moment. Anger flared up, at both Foxe and Arkins. They wanted to use her. It was the story that mattered, not her, and not her mother.

"Col. Arkins," she said through clenched teeth, "I came to Denver as a daughter, not a journalist." Her hands balled into tight fists in her lap. "At the moment I'm looking for information, not providing it. To be truthful, you are one of the first people I've spoken to."

"Henry Burnett covers the lowers."

"The lowers?"

"The hotel beat along Larimer Street and on down to the railroad station. That includes the Windsor. And the Elmira. I can arrange for you to talk to him in exchange for an interview with you, but I can tell you already what he'll say. She's the most likely suspect. Why else disappear just when the police wanted to arrest her? I'm sorry to say that there seems little question of your mother's guilt, Mrs. Spaulding."

And he called himself a journalist! "To my mind, there is a great deal of question about her guilt, Col. Arkins. Is Mr. Burnett in the building?"

"He is not, at present, in the office. Indeed, I am not certain when he'll be available to talk to you."

"When I agree to cooperate, perhaps?"

Col. Arkins shrugged. "I did you a favor once, Mrs. Spaulding. You might consider returning it."

"What favor?"

"When Evan Spaulding was murdered, your father asked me to hush up your connection to him. That saved you a lot of trouble, I expect. It would have made a sensational story—elopement, life with a company of players, murder." He shook his head regretfully. "Could have stirred up a lot of scandal at the time."

Diana walked out of his office before she said something she'd regret . . . especially if it ended up on the front page of the newspaper. A few minutes later she was back out on the wooden sidewalk, once again seething with anger and frustration. She jumped when a familiar voice hailed her from the street.

"Diana! There you are!" Matt Hastings waved from the high seat of his trap.

Forcing a smile, Diana moved closer to the edge of the wide, dusty expanse of Curtis Street. The previous night she'd been too distracted to notice how shiny and new Matt's vehicle was, or that the two black horses harnessed to it with red leather were exceptionally well matched, both to each other and to the black trap with its red trim. "Good morning, Matt."

"I've been looking for you. Miss Foster said you'd gone to talk to the chief of police and that you hoped to hire a lawyer."

Diana nodded. She hadn't mentioned her intention to call on Col. Arkins.

Matt jumped down, helped her onto the seat, then clambered back up himself. Without asking where she wanted to go, he turned the trap around and set off toward Holladay Street. En route he pointed out a two-story building at the corner of Sixteenth and Curtis. "That's the headquarters of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. The Denver office of the Pinkertons is the staging area for the entire region."

"Are you suggesting I hire a detective to look for my mother?"

"It's something to consider. And everyone knows private detectives have a reputation for being more efficient . . . and more honest . . . than local police forces."

"And no doubt more expensive," she murmured. After a moment's hesitation, she related the gist of her encounters with Denver's police chief and premier criminal attorney.

"Until your mother is found, there isn't much point in paying a lawyer," Matt said. "Besides, if you can't afford a hotel, you certainly can't manage an attorney's retainer."

Diana fingered the bank draft in her pocket but decided not mention it. She'd hold the money in reserve. A hundred dollars would not have covered Mr. Patterson's hefty fee, but it was more than she wanted to carry around in cash. "How much do you charge?" she asked Matt.

"Oh, I'd be no good to you, Diana. I specialize in civil cases. Libel suits. Divorces. I did help Elmira with a small matter a few years ago, but there wasn't much I could do for her. Your father was her opponent in the case. He was a powerful man, Diana. And ornery when he was riled."

He turned onto Holladay Street. It was barely noon and still quiet, although the residents of the parlor houses were by now awake. The saloons were already open for business.

"Do they ever close?" Diana asked.

"A bell rings for midnight curfew, but it is usually ignored. So is the law that bans saloons and gambling houses from opening on Sunday. Of course, strictly speaking, prostitution and gambling are illegal at any time. I don't like you staying here, Diana."

"I need to be at the Elmira, at least for awhile." She hopped down from the trap on her own. "Thank you for bringing me . . . home."

He winced at the word but seemed to accept her decision.

It was only after Matt drove away that Diana stopped to wonder why he'd come looking for her in the first place.

Chapter Five

Diana went straight up to her mother's suite, taking pains to avoid the other occupants of the Elmira. After divesting herself of hat and gloves, she settled in at the small ladies' desk in the sitting room and located a pen and a box of thick, cream-colored stationary. It had never been opened. In fact, she found no letters addressed to Elmira in the desk. There were no bills, either, or any ledgers. Diana supposed Jane handled such things, if whorehouses bothered to keep written records at all.

Keep your mind on the matter at hand
, she warned herself.

She'd been going about helping her mother all wrong. The shocks she'd had, one after another, had left her disoriented. She'd felt devoid of emotions one moment, too full of them the next. She had not been thinking clearly. Now she must. She set pen to paper and started to write.

Composing an account of all she had learned so far helped Diana organize her thoughts. When she'd reread the pages, she added a brief note, signed the bottom of the last sheet and tucked the epistle into an envelope addressed to Ben Northcote. She'd mail the letter at her first opportunity.

Her mind clearer, and one small burden of guilt lifted from her shoulders, Diana selected a fresh sheet of stationary and began to inscribe a series of pertinent questions. An hour later she studied the results of her labor with considerable satisfaction. She had come to no brilliant conclusions, unearthed no answers, but she did feel she had a much better grasp of the situation.

The first question on her list was:
What evidence is there against Mother aside from the glove?

The second line read:
When and where did Mother threaten Father before witnesses and who were they?

Four years seemed a very long time for anyone to hold a grudge. If her mother hadn't killed her father over the divorce, what possible motive could she have had?

The next three questions involved the Windsor Hotel:

Did anyone see Mother at the Windsor that night?

Who saw Father at the Windsor before he was killed?

Why was he at the Windsor?

It was a huge establishment, filled with bedrooms, barrooms, and ballrooms. Matt had said her father had been killed in a suite. His own, or someone else's? Had he been in one of the public areas first, attending a reception or engaged in a game of pool? Or had he taken a room in secret for some nefarious purpose?

Who else besides Mother might have wanted to kill him?
she wrote.

A good many people might have, she supposed. But which of them would also have had the opportunity to make Elmira Torrence look guilty by planting a bloodstained glove in her room?

The young widow profited from William Torrence's death. Diana wrote her name first. She might have had a confederate at the Elmira. Diana made a mental note to find out more about Miranda's background.

"Business rivals," she murmured. "But who?" Her father had exhibited a ruthless streak in dealing with Elmira. Had he cheated others as well?

She tossed her pen aside and used both fists to rub her eyes. For all she knew, half of Denver might have had good reason to want William Torrence dead!

She looked at the list again. At least she had a place to start. With Miranda. Where had she been when the murder took place? Diana was contemplating just how she might find out when she heard a scratch at her door.

Jane came in without waiting for an invitation. "There are some people downstairs who want to talk to you, Mrs. Spaulding."

Jane's flushed face and nervous demeanor set warning flags flying. Diana quickly folded her list and tucked it into the pocket that already contained her letter to Ben. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing! That is, there's nothing to be alarmed about. It's just that I don't know how to prepare you."

"Who are these callers?"

"They're all prominent local madams." Jane swallowed hard. "
Important
people in this part of town."

Not to be ignored or trifled with, then. She stood and smoothed the wrinkles out of her skirt. "What do they want with me?"

"News travels fast on Holladay Street. I imagine they want to know what you intend to do with the Elmira when you inherit it."

"That presupposes my mother is going to be executed." Everyone seemed to assume the case was cut and dried, a notion that made her bristle with suppressed anger. "And that I am her heir, which I doubt." Elmira would have made a will. Diana was sure of it. But it seemed as likely to Diana that Elmira would leave her property to her employees as to her daughter.

"Do you want to talk to these women or should I send them away? There are five of them in the Chinese parlor. You haven't been in that room yet. It's the one in front."

"Oh, I'll see them all right. They may know something that will help Mother. But I think you'd best tell me a little about each of them first."

Jane blinked at her for a moment, then suddenly grinned. "I can do better than that." She crossed the room to the floor-to-ceiling bookcase set into the wall next to the fireplace and touched a carved swirl just above shoulder level. A section six-feet-high and two-feet-wide swung silently out into the room. "Follow me, Mrs. Spaulding."

"If we're going to skulk about in secret passageways together," Diana murmured as she stepped through, "I think you'd better start calling me by my given name."

Jane lit the lantern that had been stored in a niche just inside the opening. Its flickering beams revealed a narrow landing and a winding metal staircase leading down. "This way, Diana. At the bottom there's a peephole into the Chinese parlor."

Diana descended gingerly and put her eye to the spot Jane indicated. "What keeps them from seeing a hole on the other side?"

"You're looking through the eyes of the portrait of Elmira that hangs over the mantel."

The idea made Diana's stomach crawl, but she was too curious about the madams who'd come to call to forego the chance to learn all she could about them. "Who is the plump blonde wearing the diamond encrusted cross at her throat?"

"That's Mattie Silks. She'll likely do all the talking. She owns two houses on Holladay Street, connected at the rear, one red brick and one frame. They say every dress she owns has two pockets, the left for gold coins and the right for her ivory-handled pistol."

"Lovely. She's standing next to a very tall woman with black hair and emerald earrings."

"That's Jennie Rogers. She runs four parlor houses. She wants to add the house Eva Lewis runs. Eva's the one standing at Jennie's elbow—she always is. There's a walkway to the rear between Eva's house and one of Jennie's."

Diana's gaze shifted to a fourth woman. "Who's the restless one pacing the parlor?" She was younger than Mattie or Jennie but not as striking in appearance . . . unless you took into account the long, black cigar clamped between her painted lips.

"That's Gouldie Gould. Her business is located on Lawrence, between Twentieth and Twenty-first Streets. She gets away with setting up there by calling herself a dressmaker."

Diana had heard the euphemism "ladies' tailor" before, but "dressmaker" was new to her. "And the demure young brunette with the white poodle?"

"Pearl Adams." Jane hesitated. "She moved here from Leadville a year or so ago. Has a lot of very rich and exclusive clients."

Diana winced at the mention of Leadville, where Evan had died, and was thoughtful as she left the peephole and made her way back upstairs. She didn't speak until Jane had closed the secret door behind them. "Those women are the leaders of this community."

"In a manner of speaking."

Diana paused long enough in her mother's rooms to check her appearance in the mirror. She adjusted the cameo at her throat, then took a deep breath and exited the suite to descend the main staircase. With Jane in attendance, she swept into the Chinese parlor as if she were perfectly accustomed to playing hostess to a room full of courtesans.

Her gaze went first to the portrait over the mantel. What she saw there had her blinking in surprise. This likeness of her mother showed an Elmira Diana had never met, a flashy, vibrant woman wearing low-cut red silk, elaborately dressed hair, and a secretive smile.