Silver Lies (51 page)

Without lowering the gun, she stepped around the crates to see what he hunched over. She gestured with the gun, a short jerk. "Move."

He straightened and stepped aside, eyes on the muzzle.

The half-shuttered lantern threw ragged shadows over a crude wooden cage lashed together with small poles and leather straps.

Something dark skittered inside.

In the confined storeroom, Useless’ labored breathing provided a counterpoint to her own rapid heartbeat. Scritching, scrabbling emanated from the cage. Light glanced off a small beady eye. Inez’s breath caught as she identified the shifting form inside.

Rat.

She stared, horrified, at Useless. He looked as trapped as the rodent.

Useless held up his gloved hands, palms out. His nose dripped as he snorted out his words, "Oh Lordy. I promised Mr. Jackson I wouldn’t tell. Oh jeez, he’s gonna kill me. Please, don’t tell him you caught me."

Babbling, he reached into his coat pocket. She pulled back the hammer of the shotgun. It sounded like the snap of a dry bone. "Stop."

He looked confused, hand in pocket. "My nose, ma’am. I, I gotta…" Inch by slow inch, he pulled out a grimy red handkerchief.

She eased the hammer back into place, bracing the gun stock against her hip so he wouldn’t see how much her own hands shook.

Her cold voice filled the cramped room. "You’d better have a very, very good explanation for this."

He blew his nose with a liquid honk, folded the large square of damp cloth, and patted his forehead with it. "You sure put a scare in me, ma’am. I thought you were a thief looking for liquor. Mr. Jackson said no one’s ever here this time of morning." He looked at the cage and crumpled, hunching his shoulders in and his head down. He peered up at Inez, mournful. "It was Mr. Jackson’s idea, y’see. On account of the cat."

"The cat." Her trigger finger ached with tension.

"Yeah." He hunched his shoulders further, looking as if he wanted to duck his head into his collar like a turtle. "Mr. Jackson thought if we trapped the mice and rats every once in a while, you’d think the cat was doing her job and let her stay. She’d die if you turned her out. And Mr. Jackson, he’s got a soft spot for animals." Useless snuffled, stepped away from the cage as if to distance himself, and barked his shin on a crate.

"Ow!" He grabbed his shin. "Mr. Jackson won’t even let me kill them rats. I’m supposed to catch them and let them go somewheres else. Durn things probably freeze to death. Better to put ’em out of their misery, I figure. But, no, Mr. Jackson said…"

Inez watched Useless blather. He seemed genuinely distressed. But the image of the rat and the look in his eyes when he’d first seen her lingered.

A meow sounded behind her. The calico squeezed past Inez and moseyed over to Useless, barely glancing at the captured rodent. She twined around Useless’ legs, directing a hungry complaint to his shaking boots.

Inez’s finger eased off the trigger.

"Durn cat. Doesn’t even
want
the rats," moaned Useless. "I swear, she’s been spoiled on all the table scraps Mr. Jackson and the customers sneak to her. We had an old mouser back home on the farm. Boy, was she good. She’d catch them rats, spread their guts all over the ground."

"That’s enough, Useless." She deliberated, still wavering.

I was wrong about Reverend Sands. Blind and deaf to Abe and Mark. Can I trust what I see now?

"Well jeez, ma’am, what’re you doin’ here anyway?"

Inez started, her allotted five minutes long gone.

"I’m leaving town." She stopped, reluctant to say more. Picturing the rats nailed to Emma’s door, to her dress at the bank, in Joe’s assay office.

Useless isn’t that devious. And he hasn’t got that sort of blood lust. Abe and I, we would’ve seen it in him before now. The cat, the rats…that sounds like Abe, right down to letting the rats go free.

The trapped rat squeaked, driven to frenzy by the cat’s nearby presence. Tiny claws scrabbled at the cage’s confines. Inez’s skin crawled. Her desire to escape increased.

She retreated to the threshold. The four small panes of the kitchen window, high above the stove, showed gray.
The answers are in Denver. If I linger here, Joey and I will be trapped by the daylight.

Useless snuffled and honked into the handkerchief again.

She pulled up the gun. "We’ll discuss this when I return. If I return."

Inez gathered the sample bags, rehung the office key, and kept the shotgun. After locking the front door, she ran to the waiting sleigh.

"Thought we’d have to come looking for you." McMillan barely gave her a chance to settle under the robes before the sleigh started moving. Inez wrapped her wool scarf around her face and her arms around Joey.

Inez awoke in the hotel room, frowned at the clanking radiator, and tried to remember where she was. Rolling to the side, she spied Joey in a trundle bed, blankets covering all but the very top of his head. From the light leaking in around the shades, she estimated that it was mid-morning on December thirty-first. The Denver business district would close early. The red-light district, on the other hand, would be open all night.

With stops to make in both areas, Inez didn’t want to be caught in the unfamiliar streets of Denver after nightfall. Propelling herself out of bed, she staggered to the wash basin and splashed cold water on her face. Not as cold as Leadville, but cold enough.

Toweling off, she shook the lump in the small bed. "Joey, wake up. We’re going to an assay office this morning."

He yawned and sat up, rubbing his eyes. "Like Papa’s?"

"Yes, like your papa’s." She re-examined the business address scribbled down by an obliging hotel clerk.

After breakfast in the hotel’s dining room, they hailed a carriage. Inez gave the assay office address to the driver. "How much?" she inquired.

"Two dollars, ma’am."

"I’ll make it five if you wait. We have another stop before returning."

Entering the office, Inez was struck by its silence until she remembered it was close to noon on New Year’s Eve. A man sat behind a desk, reading the
Denver Post
. He popped up as Inez and Joey approached.

"Can I help you?" He unrolled his shirtsleeves hastily, as if caught in a state of undress.

"I have samples I’d like assayed. I need the results tomorrow." She plunked the two bags on top of the counter formed by the half-wall. Rock dust in the air stung her nose. The man eyed the bags without enthusiasm and turned a polite face to her. "Sorry ma’am. We’re closed New Year’s. Soonest we could get results to you is Monday."

She switched on her most engaging smile. "What’s your fee, Mr.—?"

"Helt." He belatedly removed his derby. "The fee depends on how much you’ve got." He peered past her, as if expecting to see a wagon waiting to be unloaded outside the door. He reversed his gaze to the bags on the counter. "This all?"

She nodded.

He scratched his upper lip, hidden beneath a smartly waxed mustache, and looked doubtful. "It’s a mighty small sample. A fiver for the two."

Inez reached into her coat pocket and extracted a ten-dollar gold eagle from a coin purse. "Mr. Helt." She slid the coin across the counter, keeping hold of one edge. "I really must have those results tomorrow. We’re only in town for a day. Are you certain there isn’t anyone available to do them?" She tapped the gold with a gloved fingertip.

Helt looked at the money, then, for a long moment, at Inez. She held the smile and the eagle, eyebrows raised questioningly.

He finally hefted the bags onto his desk. "Guess I could run your assay tonight, being it’s just these. I’m not much of drinking man anyway."

She released the gold piece. "Thank you. What time tomorrow?"

"Oh, say noon. I’ll need the morning to finish the analysis." He returned to the desk and retrieved a ledger. "A couple of questions, and we’ll be set. Your name?"

"Mrs. Stannert."

He scribbled, then opened one of her bags and took out a fist-sized specimen. "These are from?"

"I’d rather not say."

"Leadville?" He grinned. "That’s okay, Mrs. Stannert. I’ll assay for the usual." He scribbled a bit more. "You looking to buy or sell?"

"Neither." She took his receipt. "I’m looking for the truth."

999

The driver pulled up to an imposing brick house on Holladay Street. "You sure this is the right address?" he asked for the third time.

"This is Mrs. Silks’ boarding house, is it not?"

"Madame Silks." He shifted in his seat. "Yeah, but it ain’t exactly a boarding house, if you get my drift. If you and your boy are looking for a place to stay—"

"I’m looking for Mrs. Silks." Inez handed him a quarter eagle. "The rest is yours when we return to the hotel. It may be a wait."

"You pay, I’ll wait."

She grasped Joey’s hand and they climbed the steps to the entrance. By the door, Inez stooped down, eye level with Joey. "I need to talk privately with the woman who owns this house. You will need to wait while I do that. You must be on your best behavior. Don’t touch anything, be polite, don’t speak unless you’re spoken to. And, Joey, we’ll not mention this visit to your mama."

He nodded, looking more intrigued than alarmed.

Inez lifted the brass knocker and let it fall. After a long minute, the door creaked opened. A man with a face of discretion carved in brown mahogany raised his eyebrows.

"I’m here to see Mrs. Silks on a matter of some urgency."

"Who is it, George?" A soft voice floated to them.

George turned. "A visitor, ma’am. She says it’s a matter of some urgency."

"
She?
" Amusement shaded the voice as it came closer. "We usually don’t have women arriving on urgent business."

George drew back, and the owner of the voice appeared in the doorway.

Inez, who had been prepared to look straight into the speaker’s eyes, found herself gazing down instead. A diminutive version of Lily Langtry gazed up, all blonde, blue eyes, and porcelain skin. A good six inches shorter than Inez, the woman carried herself as if she stood at equal height. A diamond-encrusted cross sparkled on the bodice of a dress as blue as her eyes. Those eyes raked Inez, head to toe, as if she stood upon an auction block.