Longarm 245: Longarm and the Vanishing Virgin (2 page)

The bartender poured the whiskey from a bottle with a peeling label into a glass that only had about a dozen fingerprints on it. He pushed the glass across the bar to Longarm and asked, “What brings you to Ashcroft?”

“Looking for something,” said Longarm. He tasted the whiskey and tried not to make a face.

“And what would that be, that you're looking for, I mean?”

Longarm set the glass down, looked across the bar at the man, and said, “A bride.”

As he had climbed up the steps to enter the Federal Building in Denver a few days earlier, Longarm had been in a sour mood despite the beautiful June morning. The widow woman with whom he regularly kept company had chased him off for a spell. She'd gotten her back up because he had forgotten the anniversary of the first time they'd ever gone to bed together. Longarm couldn't quite understand what was so bad about that. To him, the
next
time was more important than the
first
time.

He paused just outside the pillared entrance of the building to light a cheroot and reflect on the matter. It wasn't like she was the only woman in Denver who would welcome him into her bed. There was a lady faro dealer in one of the saloons who was fond of him, not to mention that gal at the public library who'd let her hair down and taken her spectacles off a few times with him. It'd serve that widow woman right if he just went and found somebody else.

None of which thoughts improved his mood any, for some reason. He drew deep on the cheroot, and blew out a cloud of smoke.

What he really needed was something to do. It wasn't good for a man to sit around and brood over his personal dilemmas all the time. He'd been stuck here in Denver for nearly a month, and in that whole time, not one person had taken a shot at him or tried to stab him or trample him under the hooves of a horse. No wonder his nature had turned foul. He was bored.

Maybe this was the day Billy Vail would have something for him to do.

“Mornin', Henry.” Longarm tried to make himself sound cheerful as he came into the outer office of the chief marshal and greeted the pasty-faced clerk who played the typewriter. He added hopefully, “I reckon Billy wants to see me.”

“As a matter of fact, he does,” said Henry. “He told me to send you right in whenever you got here.” Henry frowned a little. “That was over half an hour ago.”

Longarm bit down on the smoldering cheroot to keep from snapping back at Henry. You couldn't blame a fella for coming in late some mornings when he hadn't had anything to do for so long.

The big lawman's long strides carried him across the outer office to Vail's door. He opened it without knocking and stepped into the chief marshal's inner sanctum. “Howdy, Billy,” Longarm said. “I hear you want to see me.”

Vail's desk was cluttered with papers, as usual. Without looking up from shuffling them around, he waved a hand at the red leather chair in front of the desk and said, “Sit down, Custis. Be with you in just a minute.”

Something about his voice told Longarm that Vail's casual pose was just that—a pose. Billy had a burr under his saddle.

After a moment, Vail shoved some of the papers aside and glanced at the banjo clock on the wall. “Well, I had hoped to tell you a little about this case before our visitors got here,” he said peevishly, “but there's no time for that now. They'll be arriving any minute.”

Longarm frowned. “Company coming, Billy?”

“Important company. I want you to mind your manners, Custis.”

“Hell, I'm always polite—”

The door opened before Longarm could finish his sentence. Henry stuck his head in and said in a loud whisper, “They're here, Marshal Vail.”

Vail stood up and motioned for Longarm to do the same. “Show them in,” he said to Henry.

Henry retreated, then reappeared quickly, leading two men. Both of them wore expensive suits, boiled shirts, and silk ties fastened down with gem-encrusted tie clasps. The main difference in them was their ages: one was in his late thirties, the other probably twenty years older.

“Gentlemen, good to see you again,” Vail said heartily. “Come in, come in. Have a seat.” He waved Longarm over to one of the other chairs, leaving the one directly in front of the desk vacant for the older of the two visitors.

Longarm recognized both of them, and only his years of experience at not immediately revealing his emotions kept the surprise off his face. He wondered what a United States senator and one of the wealthiest railroad barons in the country wanted with a couple of civil servants like him and Billy Vail.

The older man, whose name was Bryce Canady, sat down in the red leather chair and folded his hands on the silver head of the walking stick he carried. He had a shock of crisp white hair, and his weatherbeaten features showed that he hadn't spent his entire life in an office, not by a long shot. In fact, he had started out swinging a sledgehammer on a crew building a railroad in Virginia more than thirty years earlier, if Longarm recalled correctly the newspaper articles he had read about the man. From there he had worked his way up to a position of riches and power as one of the top men in the cartel that controlled many of America's railroads.

The other man was one of the youngest to ever be elected to the United States Senate. Jonas Palmer was strikingly handsome, with dark hair and muttonchop whiskers framing a face that had the hearts of Denver's single women—and their mothers—fluttering to beat the band. But Palmer was no longer one of the most eligible bachelors west of the Mississippi, Longarm recalled. He was either about to be married, or perhaps already was. Longarm wasn't sure which because he didn't keep up that well with society goings-on. But he remembered the name of the young woman that Senator Palmer was going to marry.

Nora Canady. The daughter of the man sitting here in Billy Vail's office.

What in blue blazes was going on?

“Thank you for seeing us on such short notice, Marshal,” Bryce Canady said in a deep, slightly hoarse voice.

These days, since he was riding a desk instead of a horse, Vail frequently had to be as much a politician as he was a lawman. He nodded solemnly and said, “We could have come to your house, Mr. Canady—”

The railroad baron waved a hand. “No, when I have business with a man, I like to come to his place of business. Just a habit of mine, I suppose, but it's stood me in good stead all these years. I like to see a man in his usual surroundings. That lets me size him up better.” Canady glanced over at Longarm. “And this, I suppose, is the man you spoke of yesterday.”

“Deputy Marshal Custis Long,” Vail said. “Custis, this is Mr. Bryce Canady and Senator Jonas Palmer.”

Longarm restrained the impulse to tell Vail that he knew who the visitors were. Instead he leaned forward in his chair and shook hands with Canady, then stood and stepped over to shake with Palmer as well. Both men had good, firm clasps. In orator's tones, Palmer said, “I'm pleased to meet you, Marshal.”

“We've heard a great deal about you, Marshal Long,” Canady said as Longarm resumed his seat. “Enough so that Jonas and I are convinced that you're the man to handle a rather delicate task for us.”

Longarm glanced at Billy Vail, who wore a rather uncomfortable expression now. Vail didn't give Longarm any indication of how he was supposed to proceed, though, so Longarm bulled ahead on his own.

“Begging your pardon, Mr. Canady, but just so you ain't laboring under the wrong impression, I work for the federal government. I don't handle any private errands for folks.”

“We understand that you're a law enforcement officer, Marshal Long,” said Palmer, “but if you'd just hear us out...”

“We need your help, Marshal,” said Canady. “It's sometimes not easy for a man such as myself to admit that he needs help from anyone, but in this case ... Well, let's just say these are special circumstances.”

“All right, let's say that. What sort of circumstances are we talking about?”

“My daughter is gone.” There was genuine pain in Bryce Canady's voice as he spoke.

“The woman I was about to make my wife,” added Palmer, sounding just as upset as Canady.

“Gone,” Longarm repeated.

“Disappeared,” said Billy Vail. He held out a piece of paper toward Longarm. “I wrote this report myself, Custis. It's not to leave this office.”

Longarm took the document, and quickly scanned the words written on it in Vail's blunt scrawl. After a moment, not even his studied stoicism could keep him from glancing up at Canady and Palmer. “Miss Nora vanished on the night before her wedding?”

Palmer nodded as though it hurt him to admit it. “On the very eve of our nuptials,” he said.

“Could she have been kidnapped?” asked Longarm, thinking like the lawman he was.

Canady shook his head. “That possibility occurred to us as well, Marshal, but it's very doubtful. As you may know, I'm rather a wealthy man.”

“I'd heard,” Longarm said dryly, ignoring the warning look that Billy Vail shot at him. “That's why I brought up kidnapping.”

“Well, of course I take precautions, especially where my home and family are concerned. No one could simply waltz into my house and kidnap Nora. There were guards on duty outside, and servants inside.”

“But she still disappeared,” Longarm pointed out. “If she left on her own, wouldn't the servants and the guards have seen her?”

“Perhaps ... but you have to remember, Marshal, Nora grew up in that house, on that estate. She might well know ways in and out that no one else does. You know how children like to explore.”

“Not firsthand, but I reckon I know what you mean.” Longarm rattled the piece of paper in his hand. “This says some of her things were missing.”

Canady nodded. “A carpetbag and a few of her clothes. And a pair of small, framed photographs. One of her mother and one of, ah, me.” The railroad baron cleared his throat and looked a little embarrassed. He was probably a lot more accustomed to dealing with numbers than he was with emotions, thought Longarm.

“Is that all she took with her?”

“One other thing,” said Canady.

Longarm waited.

“She took a gun,” Canady finally said. “A small pistol. At least, I assume she took it. It's missing from my desk, but I didn't notice that until a couple of days after Nora had disappeared. I feel certain that she took it with her for protection.”

“Protection from what?”

“Well ... whatever she might encounter, wherever she might have gone.”

For a tycoon, Canady was a vague son of a bitch, mused Longarm. But as he had thought a moment earlier, this was probably unfamiliar territory for a man such as Canady.

“Can she shoot a gun?” Longarm asked.

The question brought an emphatic nod from Canady. “Yes, she can. I saw to it that she knows how to handle a weapon.”

“She's an excellent shot,” added Palmer. “We've gone hunting together before.”

That was a nice romantic thing to do for a couple of folks who were engaged, thought Longarm. He kept that comment to himself and said instead, “There was no note or anything like that left behind?”

Canady shook his head. “Nothing. She was just... gone.”

“And this was ... ?”

“Three days ago. The wedding was supposed to be on Sunday afternoon, and the last time anyone saw Nora was on Saturday night.”

Longarm nodded. This situation was mighty puzzling, all right—why would a gal run away from home when she was about to get married to a handsome, influential gent like Jonas Palmer?—but Longarm still didn't see that it had anything to do with him.

“I'm mighty sorry about everything that's happened,” he said, “but it seems to me that this is a matter for the Denver police.”

Canady and Palmer were both shaking their heads before the words were finished coming from Longarm's mouth. “We can't risk going to the police,” Palmer said. “It's vitally important that the newspapers not get wind of what's happened.”

“I'm sure the police would mean to be discreet,” added Canady, “but there's simply too much chance that the news could get out.”

Longarm had to think about what that meant, but only for a moment. Like all politicians, Palmer was loved by some of the papers and hated by others. As a railroad baron, the same was true of Bryce Canady. If it became common knowledge that Canady's daughter had run away from home rather than marry Palmer, some of the papers would play up the story for all it was worth—and more—just to hurt Canady's business and damage Palmer's political career. The two men might be genuinely concerned about Nora's welfare, but at the same time, they were pragmatic enough to worry about how the story would look in the papers.

Longarm mentally pawed through those ruminations for a minute, then said, “I recall seeing stories in the papers about how the wedding was coming up. How did you explain that it didn't happen when it was supposed to?”

“We've told the press that the wedding was postponed due to an unexpected illness,” Canady said.

“You told the reporters Miss Nora was sick?”

“No. We said that my wife was ill.” Canady's fingers tightened on the head of the walking stick again. “As a point of fact, that happens to be true. My wife is so distraught over Nora's disappearance that she has taken to her bed.”

Longarm tossed the report Billy Vail had written onto the chief marshal's desk, then leaned back in his chair and cocked his right ankle on his left knee. He wanted another cheroot, but he wasn't sure how Billy would feel about him lighting up right now.