Silver Lies Read online

  task for her." "Of course you will," Inez said softly, watching him go. She retrieved the notebooks after he left, an idea beginning

  to form. I think I have something suitable for Susan to investigate as well.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Inez peered through the window around the stenciled words "Carother’s Photographic Portraits: Best Prices and Quality Work." Through the half-pulled velvet drapes in the sitting area, she could see Susan posing a young couple. Susan removed the portrait camera’s lens cap, and their faces bleached white in an instant of powder flash.

  Inez entered, a tinkling bell announcing her arrival. She smiled at the couple, noting the silver band on the woman’s left hand, the store-bought formal clothes. Newlyweds.

  Susan said, "Your photographs will be ready Saturday, Mr. McGowan."

  "Thankya," he muttered. The McGowans hastened to the door. After the bell subsided, Susan threw herself into an upholstered corner chair, motioning Inez to its mate. An occasional table between them held a tea set.

  "Married two days ago." She absently pulled at the curtain of bangs on her forehead, then brightened. "Reverend Sands performed the ceremony and recommended they come here. Wasn’t that nice of him?"

  "Mmmm-hmmm." What better way to gain Susan’s trust than send her customers. "I know the reverend’s been out and about, meeting the parishioners. Has he been to see you yet?"

  "He was here Tuesday." Susan’s normally frank brown gaze skittered sideways. She jumped up. "Would you like some tea?"

  "Not now." Inez leaned forward. "Did you mention the situation with the Roses? The condition of Joe’s office?"

  Susan looked trapped. "Well, yes. He’s concerned about Emma and Joey, and he is the head of our church. Until June, anyway."

  "I’m not angry," Inez said gently. "But what exactly did you say? I spoke with him at Emma’s. He seems to have formed certain impressions about Joe and his situation. And he knew about Mark."

  "Oh." She looked crestfallen. "He asked about you. I suppose I did mention Mark’s disappearance. I also told him how hard you and Abe work to keep the saloon going." She raised her eyes, her usual spirit returning. "I believe he thought you were a, ah, woman of loose character." Her cheeks pinked. "Because of your business, I mean."

  "He wouldn’t be the first," Inez said dryly. "What did you say about Joe’s office?"

  "Well, I described the mess and how you found the rat. He asked about Joe’s trips to Denver. I told him Nils knew more than I."

  "At least it was before we discovered the missing ledger page," Inez said half to herself. "Although, he may have gotten wind of that by now."

  Susan turned the teacup in her hands. "You don’t trust him, do you. I think he wants to help. He listens."

  "Susan, consider this. What do you know about Reverend Sands?"

  "He’s ministered in California."

  "That was in the newspapers. What else?"

  Susan rocked the teacup, watching the tea slosh.

  "What about his family? His background? Heavens, his full name? ‘J.B.’ What kind of a name is that? Yet that’s how he appears on the church sign, in the newspapers. We really know very little about him. He’s so smooth at drawing out information. Yet he tells nothing in return."

  Susan looked deflated.

  Inez hastened to add, "Perhaps he’s exactly what he says, but it pays to be circumspect." She picked up the notebooks stacked by her chair. "I have something for you. But let’s keep it between us. Agreed?"

  "Agreed." Susan peered over at the notebooks. "What are those?"

  "They’re from Joe’s safe. I’m hazarding they’re his assay notes. We can’t ask Nils Hansen for help, so—" Inez plunked them into Susan’s lap. The topmost slid to the floor. "Can you look these over? It’s a lot of chemistry, which I know nothing about. Can you fit it in with your work and whatever you’re doing for Jed?"

  Susan paused while picking up the fallen notebook and glowered. "Do you know what he wants me to do?"

  "Do tell."

  "Set type." Susan’s eyes snapped sparks. "I set type for my father’s newspaper when I was thirteen, and I’m not about to do it again, thank you very much." She banged the notebooks down on the table, where they emitted a puff of gritty dust.

  "Jed is just a taste of what’s going to happen when the Eastern establishment moves in to ‘civilize’ Leadville," warned Inez. "Don’t be fooled into thinking the town will stay wide open forever. For anyone different, opportunities will come harder and at a higher price as time goes on. Mark my words."

  "When that happens, I’m off. Maybe to Wyoming. At least women can vote there."

  The little bell clinked as a woman shepherded in three small children.

  "Oops. Next appointment. Inez, I’ll look through Joe’s notes in the next couple of days. And I won’t breathe a word to anyone."

  "I know you won’t." Inez smiled warmly. "Next to Abe and Emma, I’d trust you with my life."

  999

  Inez leaned on the bar and closed her eyes, blocking out the smoky haze and the crowded saloon. She could not, however, block out "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny," which was being rendered with great enthusiasm by the pianist she had hired on a whim that evening. The saloon’s piano, Inez noted, needed tuning. Again.

  "Miz Stannert, don’t hug that bottle too tight." A man with rock dust etching the lines of his face tipped his empty glass.

  Two bits changed hands for another dose of Taos Lightning. Inez checked her lapel watch: quarter past midnight.

  Marshal Hollis ambled in. His reptilian eyes fastened on Useless at the far end.

  Best give him a free drink so he doesn’t pester Useless for it.

  "Marshal!" On tiptoe, Inez waved the distinctive turquoise-green bottle over the heads of the crowd.

  The marshal elbowed his way to the bar, hands gripping the gun belts crossed on his narrow hips. The star of justice pinned on the dingy sheepskin vest showed dimmer from the splatters of a recent meal.

  "On the house." Inez had to yell to be heard above the piano and the general din. She set a clean glass before him. "Opera over yet?"

  "Just gettin’ out."

  She poured. "How’s the law and order business tonight?"

  "Waall, one fella sliced up over a fancy woman at the Red Garter. ’Nother lost an ear over a misplaced ace. A lotta drunks freezin’ upright and flat out on the walks. Jeeeee-sus, it’s cold out there."

  He let loose with a stream of tobacco juice, ignoring the spittoons placed every few yards. After knocking back the shot, he cleared his throat. "Ah-hem. Word has it you’re still chasin’ after Rose’s ghost."

  Inez’s grip tightened on the bottle. "And?"

  "’Taint ’zactly a healthy thing. Furthermore…" He waggled the empty glass at her. His mustache was thawing. She hated to think about the composition of the dripping liquid.

  "All right. One more. But you better have something interesting to tell me. I’m not in business to give it away."

  Hollis sniggered. "Just what Cat DuBois’d say."

  Her polite intentions dissolved. "Keep your insinuations to yourself. You’re a sorry excuse for a lawman."

  Marshal Hollis downed his drink. "You’re lucky you’re a woman. If you were a man…" His eyes looked like pebbles at the bottom of a frozen stream. "You want somethin’ interestin’? How about this? You keep ridin’ down the road after Joe, you just might join him." He slammed the glass on the bar.

  Inez jammed the cork back in the bottle. Every time I talk with this man, I feel the need to take a bath.

  Abe pulled the bottle from her grasp. "You’re lookin’ a tad ferocious, Mrs. Stannert." He glanced from her to Marshal Hollis. Hollis glared back, mustache dripping.

  Useless came hard on Abe’s heels. "Bourbon’s gone and the opera crowd’s here."

  "I say, Mrs. Stannert!" Nigel Hollingsworth, adrift in a sea of silk top hats and cutaway coats, tried to move closer to the bar but was stopped by a so
lid wall of bodies.

  "Mrs. Stannert," he bellowed. "Regarding Rose’s loan. I’ve discovered," he glanced around the milling crowd, "some interesting connections." Jostling elbows threw him off balance. "Meet me Sunday morning. Say, nine. At the bank."

  Inez waved to show she’d heard. He turned and fought his way out.

  Abe turned to Useless. "Get a case of Kentucky from the back."

  Useless grabbed the storeroom keys and fairly flew the length of the bar.

  Inez heard a someone say, "Crowd’s too rich for my blood." The knot of miners shoved through the opera fans, creating a vacuum that was quickly filled. The pianist swung into "Oh Dem Golden Slippers."

  Marshal Hollis looked at Inez with the hooded eyes of a viper. He shoved the empty glass at her and stalked out the front door into the night.

  Chapter Nineteen

  "We are gathered in the eyes of the Lord.…"

  The wind whipped through Evergreen Cemetery and snatched Reverend Sands’ words away, snarling uphill toward the town, the mines, and Mosquito Range. The mourners huddled together, as much for warmth as for mutual comfort. The brass band that had trumpeted down Chestnut Avenue before the casket-bearing carriage stood in a frozen cluster. It seemed that much of Leadville had braved the weather to see Joe Rose on his last journey through town.

  Inez, standing by Emma and Joey, focused on Joe Rose’s grave blasted out of the snow and unforgiving ground. At the bottom, Joe’s coffin waited for the first shovel of icy dirt. Inez gripped Joey’s shoulder tighter. Joey peered up at her, blue eyes barely visible above his wool muffler and below his knit hat. A gust tugged at her cloak and wrapped it tighter around her black button boots.

  Seemingly oblivious to the cold, Reverend Sands stood, head bowed, gloved hands clasped before him as he measured out Joe’s eulogy. From time to time he scanned the crowd as if weighing the strength of his words against the growing storm. "We say good-by to a father, a husband, a citizen of unparalleled reputation in this worthy city."

  The mourners stood motionless, bundled in copious winter outerwear.

  "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…."

  Inez saw Nils Hansen, standing with two assayers from Jay G. Kelley’s and looking miserable, whether from cold or emotion, it was impossible to tell. She also spotted Nigel from the bank, Doc, and the foreman from the Denver City Mine. Behind them, she detected what could only be Chet Donnelly’s stove-in hat.

  No Harry.

  "Amen."

  The wind moaned into the silence. Snow peppered the bowed heads of the crowd. Reverend Sands nodded to Abe, who shoveled the first clot of ice into the open pit and passed the shovel to the next pallbearer.

  Inez’s heart contracted with each thump of dirt. She remembered Joe. Building a snow fort with Joey, lecturing on assaying for silver in carbonate of lead, holding Emma’s hand. And Joe with Mark. Arguing politics, discussing the finer points of poker, debating the merits of the latest silver strike. All those common memories now lay at the bottom of that dark hole. Joe was gone. Another link to Mark, broken.

  The crowd shifted toward the welter of sleighs, cutters, and carriages. As Inez watched, a short, voluptuous figure wrapped in fur slipped away from the main crush of mourners. A gust lifted the veil of the fashionable black hat briefly, revealing brassy curls.

  Frisco Flo?

  The woman stepped nimbly into a red cutter trimmed in gold and flicked the reins.

  Nils started toward Emma, met Inez’s eyes, and beat a hasty retreat. Chet, hovering at a distance, finally spat into the snow and walked away. Inez felt an undefined anger growing, searching for a target.

  Abe, Useless, and Reverend Sands approached from the gravesite. Sands stopped by Emma. "Mrs. Rose, it’s time to go."

  His eyes met Inez’s briefly. Somber gray, with a genuine sorrow that surprised Inez. Emma squeezed Inez’s hand, then let him guide her and Joey to a nearby sleigh.

  Inez turned and caught Nils ducking away from her gaze. On impulse, she strode through the snow toward him.

  "Nils Hansen." She blocked his path. "You’ve been avoiding me."

  His two companions exchanged glances and kept walking.

  Nils’ reaction was exactly as she’d hoped. He flushed bright red and looked around to see who was watching. "What do you want, Mrs. Stannert?"

  Inez grabbed his coat sleeve, ignoring the startled looks of passersby, and raised her voice. "Last week it was Inez. Why so formal now?"

  She calculated what she knew of Nils: avoided honkytonks, quoted the Bible, probably an obedient Lutheran son. She lowered her voice to a fierce whisper. "If you don’t want the good folk of Leadville to think you’ve taken up with a lady saloon owner, you tell me what I want to know. Right now. What sort of ‘no good’ was Joe Rose up to?"

  He tried to pull away. She knew he was too well-mannered to throw her off. In fact, she was counting on it.

  "What happened last month?"

  He said nothing, so she decided to up the ante and the volume. "Nils, remember that night? The things you said?"

  One of the assayers, leaning on a wagon, shouted, "Give her what she wants, Nils, and let’s go!"

  Nils squirmed with embarrassment.

  Inez twisted the cloth in her fists. "Joe hasn’t a penny left to his name."

  He looked stunned. "Then Mrs. Rose is—"

  "Destitute. Now, Silver Mountain Consolidated. Why did Harry drop Joe?"

  Nils jumped as if she’d rammed him with a hot poker, guilt plain on his face. "I reckon you’d better ask Mr. Gallagher about that."

  "I reckon I will." She released his arm. As he plowed through the snow toward his companions, she shouted, "I’m not through with you, Nils Hansen!"

  She walked with dignity to her buggy where Abe and Useless waited. Lucy rolled a dark eye toward Inez, indicating by a turn of ear how much she disliked standing around in the blowing snow. Inez patted her mare’s neck absently, her thoughts on Frisco Flo. Why did she come to Joe’s funeral?

  "What was all that about?" Abe leaned down, reins gathered loosely in his hands. In back, Useless tucked his long neck deep into his canvas duster.

  She waved dismissively and gathered up her petticoats, layered skirts, and cloak before climbing up to sit beside Abe. Pulling the hood of her cloak over her hat, she said, "I’ll take her, Abe."

  Abe handed over the reins.

  Concentrating on the ruts fast disappearing under the pelting snow, Inez urged Lucy up State Street. Even in the storm, it was jammed with men, freight sledges, carriages, and delivery wagons. As Lucy trotted past Cat DuBois’ parlor house, Inez risked glancing away from the slush-filled road to the elegant rigs lined up on the side street. The red cutter was there.

  Inez stopped in front of the Silver Queen. As Abe and Useless climbed down, she threw the saloon keys to Abe. "I’ll be in later."

  Abe lifted his eyebrows.

  "I have business to attend to."

  "Somethin’ we can send Useless for?"

  "No. Not that kind of business."

  Abe grabbed Lucy’s harness. "What kind of business, Inez?"

  As she stiffened, he added, "With a storm blowin’ in, I’d like to know where you’re headed, in case I gotta send a search party."

  Inez relented. "Silver Mountain."

  "The mine?" Abe didn’t relinquish his hold.

  "Oh, all right. The mining office. Harry’s office."

  "This have to do with Joe? Is that what’s got you in a lather? Has Harry got outstandin’ business on those books?"

  "It has to do with something Nils said." Inez was suddenly aware of Useless, hanging back from Abe but within earshot. "It would take too long to explain. The sooner you let go, the sooner I’ll be back."

  Abe let go. "You watch your step, Inez. Harry ain’t a man to trifle with."

  "Trifling is the last thing on my mind. I have questions for Mr. Gallagher, and I intend to get some answers."

  She snapped the reins and turned up
Harrison, urging Lucy into the driving snow.

  Chapter Twenty

  Inez encountered a tangle of traffic on the way to Fryer Hill and the Silver Mountain Consolidated Mine. Alternately freezing and perspiring as she guided Lucy through the crush, Inez had plenty of time to consider Harry Gallagher and his possible role in the Roses’ circumstances.

  Harry won’t tell me why he stopped doing business with Joe, but he might let something slip. Particularly if I mention Nils and imply that I know more than I do. Then, there’s Emma. She said straight out that Harry ruined Joe. And she almost certainly met him at the Clairmont. But I won’t play those cards unless I must.

  "Whoa up!"

  The cry behind caused her to yank the reins. A team of draft horses pulling a sledge heavy with timber thundered by, inches away.

  Bastard!

  By the time she and her mare had reached the offices of Silver Mountain, they were out of sorts and out of breath. Inez slid off the seat and dug through her pockets until she found two sugar lumps covered with wool fuzz. Lucy sniffed suspiciously at the meager offerings before deigning to lip them off Inez’s gloved palm. Inez rubbed her hand on her cloak and examined the armed men lounging nearby, dressed in dark blue greatcoats and military-style hats. Harry’s private troops.

  The previous summer, Leadville’s silver barons hadn’t wasted any time in forming their own personal armies. Lip

  service had been given about creating the forces as insurance against lawlessness. Hogwash. The barons raised these armed camps so they wouldn’t kill each other in the rush to get rich.

  Constant ownership disputes over land and mineral rights often erupted into physical violence.

  Inez hitched Lucy to a nearby rail and turned her attention to the two-story frame building. One door, sheltered by a small portico, looked a likely office entrance.

  The door flew open and a figure sailed out, landing hard on the slick ice. A militiaman appeared in the doorway. "You don’t like the work, find another job. There’s a dozen Cousin Jacks to take your place and Gallagher don’t hold with organizers or agitators."