True to the Law (24 page)

“Yes, Marshal, they did. And I was always one of the Indians.” Tru suddenly pushed her chair back and stood. She leaned forward at her desk, arms braced, and glared at Cobb. She spoke in staccatos, each word bitten off. “Why is it so important to you?”

Cobb also stood. His voice was no less harsh. “Because I damn well want to believe you!”

Tru stared at him. The high color in her face started to fade. She felt as cold as she had the night she’d sent him away. “I’m telling the truth.”

“Did you ever wonder why she gave it to you?”

“She valued it. She wanted it to belong to someone who appreciated it in the same way, not for its dollar worth. The fact that I still have it speaks in my favor. I’ve never tried to sell it.”

“Is that really something you could do in Bitter Springs?”

Tru regarded Cobb wearily. “I’m not sure that it’s enough that you want to believe me. Your skepticism is not merely unflattering. It’s draining. Are you going to arrest the schoolteacher?”

Cobb stepped back and hitched his hip on the table again. “No. That was never going to be the outcome of this discussion.”

“Discussion? Interrogatory is a better description.”

He bent his head slightly, allowing that she was right.

“And what if I had stolen it?” she asked. “What then?”

“Then you would return it.” He paused a beat. “You may have to anyway.”

Tru’s brow creased. “Why? And to whom?”

“The answer to the first is that I may be the only person who will believe you. And about the other, that would be the Mackey family.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Andrew Mackey III,” Cobb said without inflection. “I was hired by Andrew Mackey to find you.”

“Find me?” Tru’s absolute astonishment gave way to laughter. She put up a hand to hide her mouth as she shook her head. “He would never do that,” she said, quieting. “He won’t spend a penny to save a dime. There is probably no one in the Mackey family with less interest in my whereabouts than Andrew.”

Cobb wondered what he had misunderstood. Tru’s face was flushed, making it more difficult to tell if she was spinning a story.

Tru sobered. “Did you meet him?”

“I did. In Chicago. He told me you stole something from him, from the family. He never told me what it was.”

Tru closed her eyes briefly and pinched the bridge of her nose as she thought. When she opened her eyes again, she became aware of the late hour. Outside the schoolhouse, the lowering sun was already casting long shadows. Darkness fell early as winter encroached.

She tilted her head toward the window on Cobb’s side of the classroom. “If we stay here, I’ll have to light some lamps. I’m concerned that I will not have enough oil for the first morning lesson. It’s barely light when the children arrive.”

“Your house, then.”

“I don’t think so. The hotel.” She consulted the watch pinned to her pleated white shirt. “In one hour.”

Cobb’s eyes narrowed fractionally.

“Do you think I won’t come?” asked Tru.

“It’s crossing my mind.”

“The last train went through here almost an hour ago. There’s not another one until morning. Where would I go?”

“Jenny and Jim’s.”

She mocked herself with a wry twist of her lips. “Well, that hadn’t occurred to me. I’ll be there,” she said. “I promise.”

* * *

Cobb left his room the moment he saw Tru approaching the hotel. He
had
wondered if she would come. Her promise did not mean a great deal to him. She was not an accomplished liar, but she had proven that she was not above making the attempt.

He was coming down the stairs when Walt opened the door for Tru.

“Saw you crossing the street, Miss Morrow,” Walt said. “How you keep your hat on when the wind’s stirring is a mystery. I’ve been studying it for a spell, but I ain’t figured it out. Can I take your coat?”

“Certainly.” She let him help her out of it. “Is the table by the window available?”

“Sure is. I don’t expect it will be for long.”

“Why is that?”

“Because you’ll be sittin’ there.”

Tru laughed. “You set me up, Walt.” She looked past him to where Cobb was loitering beside the newel post. “Marshal Bridger is going to join me this evening.”

The dining room was pinched for space, owing to the arrival of some new guests from the last train. As Tru made her way to the empty table, she smiled politely at the diners who greeted her and paused at Howard Wheeler’s side while he explained that Jack’s absence was on account of being under the weather. By the time she reached the table, Cobb was waiting for her. She accepted the chair he held out.

“Walt must have saved this table for me,” she told him. “Did you notice it was the only one vacant?”

Tru saw that Cobb’s eyes were making a sweep of the dining room.

He shrugged. “When Walt told me the hotel’s full up, I asked him to save this table until you got here. What did Howard tell you?”

“He was explaining why Jack wasn’t here tonight.” She fiddled with her fork. “Is that really what you want to talk about?”

“No, but I thought we should have what passes for a conversation before we get to the—how did you describe it?—oh, yes, the interrogatory.”

“I think I could actually stab you with this fork.”

Recalling how Jenny Phillips had gotten her husband’s attention at dinner, Cobb removed his hand to his lap.

“In the eye,” she said.

His mouth did not so much as twitch. “I believe you.”

“Good.” She set the fork down and smoothed the edge of the tablecloth with her fingertips. “I’ve been thinking about some things you said earlier.”

“For instance?”

“Well, you said Andrew Mackey hired you to find me. Coming to Bitter Springs wasn’t an act of fleeing Chicago, but I can understand how he might have interpreted it in that light. Aunt Charlotte knew where I was going. I can’t speak to her reasons for keeping it a secret, though I have to believe she had my interests in mind.” Tru smiled a trifle crookedly. “Then again, perhaps no one asked after me. Most of the family would have delighted in my absence.”

“Most?” he asked. “Not all?”

Tru meant to toss off a careless shrug, but the tension seeping into her shoulders made it weighty and uncomfortable. “How many Mackeys did you meet?”

“One. Andrew.”

“I suppose he spoke with the blessing of the others.”

“That was my impression.”

Tru ticked off the clan on her fingertips. “Three great-nieces: Amelia Mackey Brown, Lavinia Mackey Wilson, Susannah Mackey. Lavinia and Susannah are sisters. Paul Mackey is their father. Although he is not in the truest sense one of the greats, as she liked to call them, he is the last of the middle generation of Mackeys. Andrew’s father, who was Andrew Charles II, was his cousin.”

Cobb nodded slowly, working out the relationships in his head. “Go on. That’s four. Five, counting Andrew.”

“Great-nephews: Jackson Mackey, David Mackey.”

Cobb saw a muscle jump in Tru’s cheek as she set her jaw. He did not think she was even aware of the tic. “Seven,” he said, watching her carefully, alert to the change.

“And the last of the greats: Franklin Mackey.”

“Franklin,” Cobb repeated, biding time until her flat green eyes regained their usual radiance. “How is he related to the others?”

“Amelia and Jackson’s brother. He is very . . . young.”

Cobb wondered how he should interpret “young.” He decided that question could wait. He did not want to be on the receiving end of her flat, guarded expression again. “Are you prepared to give Andrew the brooch if he asks for it?”

“I’ve thought about that, too. No, I’m not. Does that surprise you?”

Cil Ross delayed Cobb’s answer. She had tea ready for Tru, but she had to ask Cobb what he wanted. She went off immediately to fetch his beer.

“No,” he said as if there had been no interruption. “It doesn’t surprise. Not after what you told me about the brooch and what it means to you. Does Andrew Mackey impress you as someone who would be moved by that?”

Amused, she laughed, shook her head. “No. I don’t think Andrew is moved by sentimentality. That is surely not the reason he hired you to find me.” She raised her teacup, sipped. “How
did
you find me?”

Cobb told her about the newspaper she left behind and how once he learned the content of the missing notices he was able to speak to all of the employers who might have hired her.

“So you met Mrs. Coltrane,” Tru said.

Cobb could almost see the metaphorical tumblers clicking into place behind her eyes. She had realized that he was the latest teacher applicant mentioned in Mrs. Coltrane’s last letter. He smiled faintly, fascinated. “I did.”

Cil arrived with Cobb’s beer and their plates. Tonight’s fare was a thick slice of ham barely visible under a generous helping of buttered cabbage and noodles. Tru’s portion was every bit as large as Cobb’s. She eyed it warily. “I only receive plates like this when I’m dining with you.”

Cobb waited for her to pick up her fork before he tucked in. “Maybe Mrs. Sterling intends you to share.”

“Oh, yes,” she said dryly. “I’m sure that’s it.”

After a few minutes of quiet while they did early justice to the meal, Tru broke the silence. “When I received that letter from Mrs. Coltrane, were you at all concerned?”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t show it.”

“Thank you.”

“Naturally you would think that was a compliment.”

“In my work, it is.”

“About that,” she said, pausing with her hand halfway to her mouth. “What
is
your work?”

“The precise word is ‘detective.’”

“Not ‘bounty hunter?’”

“No. I collect at least half my fee when I accept the assignment. Expenses are paid as I go. No payment, I stop. It’s a simple arrangement. The half that was not paid at the outset remains with my client if I am unsuccessful.” His smile appeared briefly. “And, Tru, I’m always successful.”

Chapter Nine

God help her, Tru thought. She believed him. She swallowed, but she had nothing but spit in her mouth, and not much of that. She set her fork down and chose the tea instead.

“Now that you’ve found me,” she said when she could speak again. “What are you supposed to do?”

“Inform Mr. Mackey.”

“Inform him. Not escort me back to Chicago?”

“That’s right.”

“And have you? Told him, that is?”

“Yes.”

The surface of her tea rippled as she released a measured breath. “And?”

“And I haven’t heard from him. He might not have received my letter yet.”

“A letter? I would have thought you’d send a message by wire.”

“I wanted time.”

“Time?”

“To be with you.”

Tru shook her head, disappointed. “To identify and find whatever it is that I am supposed to have taken, you mean.”

“That was part of it,” he said. “But so was the other. I was told to make certain you didn’t run off, but that had nothing to do with wanting to be with you.”

“So you say.” Tru felt herself grow warm when his eyes did not shift from her face. She was the one who looked away. “Did you write to him about the brooch?”

“No. The brooch never figured into the assignment.”

“What if I’d never told you about it? What if you’d never found it?”

He shrugged. “Then I expect we would be having a very different conversation this evening.”

“You are an optimist. If it weren’t for that brooch, we would not be talking at all.”

“Don’t make this about that piece of jewelry, Tru. He said you took something, and he wants it back. I determined that it was probably the brooch, but I don’t know that.”

She leaned forward. Urgent, but quiet, she said, “Except for the clothes Aunt Charlotte gave me, I don’t have anything else.”

“Then you’ll explain that.”

“Maybe I won’t.”

Cobb heard the starch in her voice. She was looking a bit on the stiff-necked side as well. He judged the better course was not to argue. Returning his attention to his plate, he cut and speared a triangle of baked ham. “Suit yourself.”

“I don’t like being accused of stealing.”

“I’m not sure anyone does.”

“The allegation doesn’t deserve a reply.”

Cobb paused, swallowed, and cut another piece of meat. “There would be plenty of people who would agree with you.” Most of them were thieves, but he kept that to himself.

“An explanation could make me seem guilty.”

“Done poorly, yes.”

Tru took a forkful of cabbage and noodles and lifted it to her mouth. “I think I would do it poorly.”

“Quite possibly.”

“I would probably have to go through several drafts.”

Cobb’s head came up. “Drafts?”

“Yes.”

“Did I give you the impression that this was something you could do in writing?”

“Well . . .” A crease appeared between her eyebrows. “Can’t I?”

“Tru,” he said patiently. “I told Andrew Mackey that I found you in Bitter Springs. Nothing else. He doesn’t know that I’ve told you anything about hiring me, doesn’t know that I’m marshal here, doesn’t know that I think his suspicions about you are wrong. Finding the brooch hasn’t changed anything. A letter from you is exactly the wrong way to go about explaining yourself.”

She considered that, knew he was right. “And the not wrong way?”

“Face to face. Here, I think. In public.”

“That would require him coming to Bitter Springs.”

“Yes.”

Tru’s eyes widened. “Andrew Mackey here? He’s coming here?”

“It was always his intention to meet with you. He couldn’t have suspected I would find you so far from Chicago. I don’t know what he will do. There’s been no reply.”

For a moment she couldn’t breathe.

“Tru?”

She expelled the breath, but the word that came out of her still sounded strangled. “Alone?”

“I don’t know. You know him better than I do. Who would accompany him?”

She shook her head, didn’t answer. Appetite gone, Tru pushed away her plate. The smell of the cabbage vaguely sickened her.

Cobb looked from her to her plate, and back again. “It’s not unreasonable to believe he’ll come,” he said carefully. “This is at least as much about you as it is about whatever he thinks you took. In his place, I would do the same.”

“You’ve already done it,” she whispered. “You stood in for him, asking all the questions he will want to ask. I won’t go through that again. It was demeaning. You demeaned me.”

He made no attempt to defend himself. His intentions meant nothing in the face of her humiliation.

“I won’t answer to him.” Tru’s teacup rattled in its saucer as she tried to pick it up. “I’m done answering to Aunt Charlotte’s family.”

Cobb’s eyebrows lifted. What she said surprised him more than her vehemence. Before a clear question formed in his mind, she was speaking again.

“Do you know that they wanted me to be their spy? When it was clear they couldn’t remove me from her side, they began applying to me for help.” Her short laugh held no humor. “Not a coordinated effort, mind you. They came at me one at a time. Each one with an agenda. Each one asking me to keep the conversation just between us. Andrew Mackey was the least of them. There was some sense to what he wanted, which is more than I ever heard from the rest.”

Cobb’s mind was flooded with questions, any one of which might stop Tru in her tracks. He continued eating, for all intents and purposes giving her nothing more than his polite attention.

“Andrew was charged with oversight of the Mackey holdings, not the mills and Great Lakes shipping specifically, but the investments, trusts. The stock. Unfortunately he was little more than a figurehead, a public face for the business when Charlotte couldn’t get out. She did everything from her bed. Lawyers marched in and out of the home almost daily. I sympathized with Andrew. His grandmother was incapable of loosening the reins. He could not make a decision without consulting her, and if everyone didn’t know it, he believed they did. He wanted me to turn over her books to him so he could study them. All the accounts, the numbers. He wanted evidence of every donation she made. He wanted to know how she invested profits back into the companies. He told me he needed to understand all of it if he was going to keep the Mackey empire running after she was gone.”

Her fingertips whitened as she palmed her teacup in both hands. “He was desperate for the information.” She regarded Cobb for a long moment. “You’re not going to ask?”

“I already know,” he said. “You sympathized, as you said, but you turned him down. You turned them all down.”

“How did you—” Tru stopped, sighed. “Yes. I turned them all down. Even Andrew made it easy for me in the end. He wanted—” She stopped, shook her head, clearing a memory. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Were you tempted?”

“No. I never doubted that Aunt Charlotte had her reasons. It was not easy for her to trust, especially in her own family. If she had asked me to taste her food before she ate, I would not have been surprised. It never came to that.”

“Would you have done it?”

“Yes. But not without some trepidation. Her wariness was contagious.”

Cil came, took away their plates, and left four bars of soft sugar gingerbread behind. When she was gone, Cobb said, “She’s quiet this evening.”

“Mrs. Sterling’s marching orders, I expect. There are new arrivals.”

Cobb nodded, picked up one of the bars. He was on the point of biting into it when a movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned his head slightly. His peripheral vision caught the figure on the dining room’s threshold. He could not say why it was immediately familiar to him, only that it was. He accepted that his conversation with Tru was about to come to an abrupt end.

Tru’s eyes followed Cobb’s glance to the source of his interest. Her heart slammed once in her chest before it dropped to her belly. When Cobb looked at her again it was because he was gauging her reaction, and it angered her that she gave him one.

“You knew,” she said under her breath. “You
knew
he was here.”

Cobb had a glimpse of her panic before she shuttered it. Having no expectation that she would believe him, he nevertheless shook his head. She looked right through him.

A moment’s paralysis kept Tru in her chair, but it passed, and then she was on her feet. Her dress brushed against Cobb’s leg as she walked by him. She felt his fingers touch hers, but she couldn’t be sure if it was his intention to caution or encourage her. He had the right to do neither. It was his fault that Andrew Mackey had come to Bitter Springs.

Tru was aware of the heads that turned as she approached the entrance. Eyes followed her, but she did not mistake that she was the object of interest. A stranger in town was always a trump card.

If Andrew Mackey realized that he was the target of speculative stares, he gave no hint of it.

An arm’s length separated them when Tru stopped. Her smile was restrained. When he lifted his hands toward her, she placed hers in them. She allowed him to squeeze them once before she withdrew them.

“Mr. Mackey,” she said quietly. “I was—”

“I think after six days on a train with no other purpose before me than to see you, you could do me the favor of calling me Andrew.”

It was not the first time he had proposed that informality, but in Charlotte Mackey’s home, Tru had always resisted. She gave in now because it seemed to be the least of the battles that she might have to fight.

“Andrew,” she said. “I’m dining with the marshal tonight. We would be pleased if you would join us.” Tru watched as Andrew’s dark eyes shifted and his gaze traveled past her. She saw his surprise, quickly masked, but whether at Cobb’s presence or to the fact that she had revealed that Cobb was the marshal, she did not know.

Andrew said, “You’re very kind to invite me. The man at your table . . . you say he’s the marshal?”

“Yes. You recognize Cobb Bridger, don’t you?”

He had no immediate reaction. His thin smile was slow to surface. “I wondered at your remarkable aplomb. It appears now that you have been expecting me.”

Tru did not respond. Turning over her hand and indicating the table, she invited him to follow her.

Cobb stood as Tru and Andrew approached. He drew an empty chair from a nearby table and set it facing the window. It could not hurt if Mackey was distracted by his own reflection.

“Mr. Bridger,” Mackey said. He did not offer his hand. Instead, he held out Tru’s chair for her and waited for her to sit before he did the same. Cobb did not yet have his chair under him when Mackey said, “I understand that you are the town’s marshal.”

“He was appointed by the mayor,” Tru said. “It was my idea.”

“Was it? How . . .
enterprising
of you.”

“Mr. Bridger will tell you it was more in the way of interference than enterprise. He did not want the position. He was bullied into accepting it.”

Mackey’s glance shifted to Cobb, but he spoke to Tru. “I’m trying to imagine.”

Cobb merely tilted his head.

Tru was relieved to see Cil emerge from the kitchen. “This is Miss Ross,” she told Andrew when Cil arrived at the table.

“Oh, Miss Morrow,” Cil said, “there’s no need for introductions. I registered Mr. Mackey same as the other guests that came in on the afternoon train. And I was the one who showed him straightaway to his suite. I reckon we’re acquainted now.”

Deep, parenthetical lines appeared on either side of Mackey’s mouth as he lifted his head and smiled at Cil. “I
reckon
we are.”

Tru’s eyebrows lifted slightly. She thought it was not beyond all possibility that Cil might swoon. At the very least, the young woman was transfixed. Tru reached out and lightly touched Cil’s hand. “Perhaps you’d be good enough to bring Mr. Mackey his dinner.”

Nodding, Cil hurried off.

“A suite?” Tru asked. “What did she mean when she said she showed you to your suite?”

“I have no idea,” he said. “It’s not the Drake.”

Cobb said, “I think Miss Ross was referring to the residence on the third floor.”

Tru pretended she did not see the wry twist of Cobb’s mouth or hear his faintly mocking tone. “Oh, of course. Then you have the very best, Andrew. That is where Mrs. Coltrane lived when she managed the hotel and where she and her husband stay when they return to town.”

“Someone
lived
there?”

Tru mocked him with her smile. “You have many faults, Andrew, but snobbery has never been one of them.”

It was a flirtation, Cobb realized. Andrew Mackey was flirting with Tru Morrow, and she showed no aversion to it. In spite of that earlier moment of panic, she seemed entirely comfortable with Andrew Mackey.
Andrew
, she had called him. Not once, but twice. If it was a performance, it was a masterful one. He knew she was an unskilled liar, but he had never considered that when she immersed herself in a role, she might be an extraordinarily talented actress. What had she told him about her time at Mrs. Henry Winston’s Academy for the Advancement of Education and Refinement of Young Ladies?
I wasn’t a model of rectitude and fine manners
.