Silver Lies Page 13

  "I wasn’t exactly charming."

  "Thing is, you gotta certain flash and fire when you get all determined-like. I wouldn’t discount its effect. Especially on Harry."

  She shrugged.

  Abe rested one long arm along the back of the couch. "Well, now. I don’t rightly know what Harry’s up to, but don’t take his talkin’ to heart."

  "The marshal showed up. He’s in Harry’s pocket, I’m certain."

  She leaned against Abe’s outstretched arm and closed her eyes. The smell of sweat and smoke pulled her back to when it was just the three of them. Her, Mark, and Abe. No ghosts from the past. No worries about the future.

  Abe shifted and withdrew his arm. "Inez, I’ve been meanin’ to ask. Have you thought about goin’ to California with Emma and Joey?"

  She opened her eyes and stared out the window. The wind paused. White flakes appeared at the top of the pane and drifted down to vanish from sight beneath the sill. Something inside her froze. Like a small animal trying to escape notice through immobility.

  "No."

  "We cash out of Leadville, you’d have a considerable sum. You could get your young’un back. Move to Sacramento. Do something different."

  And what about you? She didn’t say it. What came out instead was "But if Mark comes back…"

  The pain she’d fought to contain seemed to grow and envelope the room. Side by side, Inez and Abe watched more fat disks of snow splat into the window and slide down the glass into oblivion.

  "And you’re not here." Abe’s gentle voice finished her sentence. "Well, just thought I’d ask. See which way the wind was blowin’."

  He stood. "We can’t leave Useless by hisself too long."

  Inez felt weary to the bone. Tomorrow night, Harry’ll sit next to me while I deal the cards, not say a word about today. As if it never happened.

  Sometimes, the pressure of his presence combined with the ache of missing her husband and son made her want to walk out of Leadville forever. Abe’s right. I could say to hell with it and start a new life elsewhere.

  The thought pulled like the night sky. But like the sky, it shed no light or warmth.

  999

  Bracketed by Abe and Useless, Inez locked up the Silver Queen. Useless shuffled his feet. "I appreciate you lettin’ me be a bardog tonight."

  Inez pocketed the key. "We couldn’t have managed without you."

  Useless snuffled into his muffler. "I always wanted to work the bar, y’know. Mrs. DuBois, she never gave me the chance." He headed down State.

  Even though it was after two, men still milled about the twenty-four-hour music halls and saloons. Blasts of brass bands and the tinkling of pianos pumped out the doors as they opened and closed. The restlessness of the streets echoed Inez’s disposition. Her mind turned over the events of the day, placing bits and pieces side by side, looking for a fit.

  Nils told Harry that Joe fixed Silver Mountain’s assays. How did he know? Is there something we overlooked in the laboratory?

  "Abe. Let’s go to Joe’s office."

  "Now?"

  "I want to take another look around, just for a minute. If Joe was falsifying assays, there should be some sign."

  "Inez, we’ve been over every inch of that place."

  "But we were after his records, Chet’s samples."

  "Do you have any idea what you lookin’ for?"

  "I’d like to look at what’s left of his equipment. The furnace, especially. If Joe was cheating, how did he do it?"

  "All right, all right. I say no, you’ll go anyway. Too late at night for a woman t’ walk around by herself."

  "I don’t need an escort. I’m armed. I can take care of myself."

  "Armed, yeah, with a peashooter. Now, if you had a shotgun or heavy artillery." Abe sighed. "Let’s make it fast."

  As they approached the assay office, Abe put out an arm to stop her. "What’s that?"

  "What?"

  A dim light flickered deep inside the building.

  "That." Abe unbuttoned his greatcoat and pulled out his old Army Colt. "Someone’s in there."

  "For heaven’s sake, put that away!" hissed Inez. "When was the last time you shot anyone?"

  "Been years as you damn well know. Knife’s more reliable. But I’ll do it if I got to."

  The ghost light wavered and vanished.

  "Someone’s in the back." A snake of tension twisted down her spine. She pulled her small revolver out of her cloak pocket and eased the safety off.

  "Aren’t we a pair of gunfighters," grumbled Abe. "Let’s hope there’s only one fella in there or we’re in serious trouble."

  Inez reached out. The door swung open at a touch. They eased into the front of the office, through the counter-gate, and into the narrow passageway to the laboratory.

  The light brightened as they inched forward, Abe first. As they approached, Inez made out a kerosene lamp, turned low.

  Inez identified the scraping of metal against metal at the same time that she recognized the broad back of the man bent before the cast iron stove.

  "Hansen!" Her voice snapped like a whip.

  Nils yelped and banged his head on the lip of the stove. A small shovel clattered to the floor, scattering ashes. He turned. Soot-blackened hands shot in the air. "F’ God’s sake, don’t shoot!"

  Abe dropped the muzzle of his Colt toward the floor. "Nils?"

  Inez pushed past Abe. "Isn’t it enough that you robbed Joe of his reputation and his life by going to Gallagher? Are you back to steal what’s left?"

  Nils’ voice shook along with his raised hands. "What do you mean?"

  Inez did not lower her gun. "Don’t play games with me. Abe has a soft spot for creatures and human conditions. I do not. I could shoot you right now and claim we mistook you for a burglar."

  Abe’s voice came from behind. "We?"

  Inez ignored him. "Now that Joe is in the ground and his family destitute, have you come back for whatever you couldn’t find the first time?"

  "It wasn’t me!" Nils sounded frantic. "I started thinking on what you said about Mrs. Rose, how she’s got no money. I still had a key to the office. I wanted to see if Joe stashed his assayed silver and gold in the ash pan. Most assayers do that. It’s not stealing, just part of business. I even found some. Over on the counter."

  In the flickering lamp light, Inez saw what looked like a small dusty pile of rice.

  Nils rushed on. "I thought I’d give it to Mrs. Rose." A thought seemed to strike him like a hammer. "Does she know I went to Gallagher?"

  Inez’s trigger finger ached to squeeze the quarter-inch needed to fire. "You’re no better than Judas!"

  "But Joe was cheating," Nils whispered, staring at the small gun aimed at his chest, not six feet away. "I saw him. Shooting me won’t change that, Mrs. Stannert."

  Abe reached over and pushed down the muzzle of her gun. "What’d you see, son?"

  Nils exhaled in a quivering sigh and slumped against the stove. "The bellows." He nodded at the large bellows hanging next to the assay furnace. "One of the last times I was working here, I saw him pump up the assay fire until it was hot. Too hot."

  "You saw this?" Inez glowered, daring him to continue.

  "I was in the office, saw down the hallway. He was in front of the furnace, but when he moved to shut the door I saw the fire. It’s supposed to be orange yellow. He had it up to straw yellow, almost yellow white. Silver vaporizes when it’s that hot. When that happens, the assay comes in low, showing less silver than there really is."

  "Why would he do that?" Inez tried to puzzle out the profit in a depressed silver assay.

  Nils rubbed his face slowly. When he dropped his hands, his face was streaked with soot and despair. "A seller wants the assay high. A buyer wants it low, to drive the price down. But I don’t know who that assay was for. He was doing most of the chemistry himself, leaving me to haul bags around, crush the samples, take in orders. The last time he went to Denver, I looked for his assay notes, to f
igure out what he was doing to who. I never found them."

  Inez glanced at Abe. He nodded to show he’d heard.

  "And Silver Mountain?" Inez asked.

  "Mr. Gallagher was buying up the claims around Silver Mountain. Everybody knew he used Joe for assays. Joe knew the area, could tell if someone borrowed a bucket of ore from somewhere more promising…y’know, salted a claim. Anyhow, Joe did all of Gallagher’s samples himself. He said Gallagher wanted to be sure nothing was tainted."

  Nils laughed bitterly. "If that’s true, the joke’s on him. I know for a fact, Joe inflated those assay results, made ’em run high. I figured he was in cahoots with the sellers. Maybe they thought Gallagher’s so rich, what’s the difference if he sinks a few thousand dollars in a worthless hole."

  Abe walked over to Nils, grabbing a chair as he went. He set the chair beside him. "Better tell us the rest, son."

  Nils fell into the chair. The muscles in his arms jumped beneath his worn blue workshirt as he kneaded his hands on the thighs of his jeans. "I looked at the final assay certificates." He wiped his nose with his sleeve.

  "We’d assayed some of the claims before, early summer. These results were different. Joe was doing something, maybe pulling out dross after crushing the samples or splitting them." Despite the cold, Nils was sweating. "That leaves more silver per gram weight. Or maybe he added chlorine to the water in the parting process. There’s lots of ways an assayer can cheat. Especially when no one’s watching too close."

  Inez spoke. "So you went to Harry with this story. You had no proof, outside of some previous numbers. How could you remember those from way back then?"

  Nils hunched his shoulders. "I got a claim, I keep up with the news in the district. And I got a talent for numbers. I figured if I told Gallagher, he’d watch his back. But he already knew things weren’t right. They were blasting and not finding what they expected. Gallagher’d split some samples and sent the matches to a Georgetown outfit, on the quiet."

  "So you quit, got a job at Kelley’s, and Joe died." Inez glanced at Abe, who was leaning on the opposite doorframe.

  Nils bowed his head. "He did it to me too."

  "What?" Abe straightened up.

  With his hands clasped and head bowed, Nils looked like he was about to pray. "I staked my first claim mid-summer. It looked good, so I asked Joe to assay it. He came back sayin’ I must’ve been mistaken, the area ran hot and cold, and I must’ve hit a cold spot." Nils shook his head. "He offered to set me up with a buyer. I sold that claim for a hundred. Just about covered what I put into it. When he was in Denver, I went to the Recorder’s Office. Y’see, after Gallagher, I’d started wondering. Well, that hole in the ground had been sold again for three thousand dollars."

  Abe exhaled and glanced at Inez. "Guess we found what we came for."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  "Did you believe Nils last night?" Inez pushed her breakfast away, nearly untouched. Abe, feet up on a nearby kitchen chair, was rewrapping his knife handle with a new leather strip. The old leather curled on the saloon’s kitchen table like a sluffed-off snake skin.

  "Don’t think he was lyin’, under the circumstances."

  "None of it sounds like Joe." Inez thought of the brass check for Mattie Silks’ parlor house. She took a deep breath. "Abe, there’s something else—"

  Bridgette bustled in. "That painter of yours, I just gave him some biscuits, he’s been hard at work all morning."

  Inez pushed back her chair. "Abe, let’s talk later. I want to see what Llewellyn’s up to."

  New caulking made white stripes on the planks of the bar’s back wall. Llewellyn hopped off a short ladder, brushing biscuit crumbs off the canvas apron covering his ruffled shirtfront. He gestured toward the wall. "Once that dries, a couple coats of white, and the canvas is ready." He opened a satchel and pulled out Paradise Lost. "Thank you for the loan. Most educational."

  "Ah then, a test. Satan’s ultimate sin was?" She retrieved the book.

  He shrugged. "I read mostly for the descriptions of Heaven and Hell."

  Inez smiled. "The sin of injured pride."

  Subdued light rippled across the room. Inez turned toward the entrance. "We’re not open yet," she said to the backlit figure.

  The figure took a step forward and materialized into Reverend Sands. "This is a social call, Mrs. Stannert."

  Inez hesitated, remembering their conversation at Emma’s doorstep, the veiled threat—and invitation—behind his words.

  She realized he’d approached and now stood but a few feet away. "Please," he said gently. "I’d like a private word with you."

  She wavered. Oh, what possible harm could come of a conversation. He turns rude, I’ll have Abe throw him out.

  "There’s an office on the second floor. Let’s go to the kitchen first. We can get some coffee and I’ll introduce you to Mrs. O’Malley."

  Reverend Sands paused by the upright piano and read the hand-lettered sign aloud: "Please don’t shoot the piano player, he’s doing his damnedest."

  "We’re trying out someone new," Inez said. "Thursdays through Saturdays. ‘I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen’ ad nauseam."

  He tapped a high, slightly sour G. "What happened to the previous player?"

  "Not everyone in Leadville can read."

  On the way to the kitchen, Inez summarized the house rules. "No drunks served a drink. No married men allowed to gamble."

  "Thought I heard about a Saturday night poker game."

  "A private game. You’re welcome to join us. You’ve met some of the regulars. Doc Cramer, Mr. Gallagher." She waited to see if Harry’s name would bring a response.

  He nodded politely.

  Eyes up and center. No innuendoes. That’s good.

  Bridgette was rolling out pastry. Flour particles hung in the air like dust motes.

  "Reverend Sands, Mrs. O’Malley."

  "Reverend Sands!" The rolling pin paused, mid-roll. "What a pleasure. I’ve heard about you, I have."

  "You have?" Reverend Sands raised his eyebrows at Inez.

  Bridgette blushed to the top buttons of her wool overdress. "Oh no, not from Mrs. Stannert. Around town."

  "Leadville was that impressed with my first sermon." A smile etched deep lines at the corners of his eyes.

  "Well now, when a nice-looking and by all accounts unattached gentleman like yourself comes to town, ladies get interested and tongues start a-wagging."

  "Bridgette!" Inez couldn’t decide if she was amused or horrified.

  Sands turned to Inez. "Quite all right, Mrs. Stannert. Truth to tell, it’s flattering to find myself so noticed. I’ll be on my best behavior."

  "Abe, Reverend Sands and I will be in the office discussing church business."

  Abe stopped wrapping the knife hilt and looked the reverend over. "Reverend. Got a piece of advice for you." He pointed the blade at Sands. "You want to stay healthy, you’d best carry a sidearm."

  Sands spread his hands. "I’m a man of the cloth, Mr. Jackson."

  "Don’t make no nevermind. Even women go armed in Leadville. Ask Mrs. Stannert if you don’t believe me." Abe returned to his task.

  Inez realized with a start that Abe was right: The only thing interrupting the reverend’s somber garb was a silver watch chain, looping across his black waistcoat. No gun. It was as unexpected as finding a man standing barefoot in a snowbank.

  Once in the office, Reverend Sands strolled to the window. Mount Massive towered four thousand feet above Leadville’s rooftops. "Impressive."

  His gaze lowered to the desk and William’s photograph. "Handsome little fellow. Do I detect a family resemblance?" He reached out. To Inez, the sight of his fingers on the glass-covered photograph felt like an invasion of her heart.

  She moved quickly, picked up the case, and snapped it shut.

  He looked startled. "Pardon. I meant no disrespect."

  She slid the palm-sized case into her pocket, reminded of yesterday and Harry’s photograp
h. "It’s a painful subject." She motioned him to the loveseat. "Now, you had something you wanted to discuss?"

  Reverend Sands walked over to the overstuffed couch and remained standing. He removed his hat, ran a hand through his light brown hair. The light picked out gray at his temples. He appeared tired and somewhat chagrined. "It seems that I’ve offended you. I came to make a confession and offer an apology."

  "A minister confessing to a member of his flock? Most unusual." She settled into the desk chair.

  "Nothing about this situation is usual." He sat on the edge of the couch and leaned forward, looking her straight in the eyes. "To be blunt, I committed the sin of not practicing what I preach. ‘Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven.’ Luke six, verse thirty-seven."

  She raised her eyebrows. And waited.

  "I judged by what I saw. A woman, running a saloon, with a husband—pardon me, if I’m mistaken here—nowhere in sight. In my experience, that usually means the woman is.…" He floundered, then proceeded doggedly, a man charging up a steep slope into the unknown. "I was taken to task by those who know you better. I apologize and hope you won’t hold my previous behavior against me."

  She let the silence hang. His face remained open, contrite. How much is real, how much is bullshit? Well, he’s asking for a truce. It would be heartless to turn him down. Not to mention rude. If he’s after something else, I expect I’ll find out before this conversation ends.

  "Apology accepted. I suppose we both erred, since I judged you as well." Inez smiled.

  He leaned back against the couch, taking a relaxed posture at last. His eyes, however, were vigilant. "We have something else in common. A desire to help the Roses."

  Ah. Now we’ll see.

  He continued, "I understand you’re settling Joe Rose’s business affairs. It would be best if you wrapped them up quickly."

  "What’s the hurry? Emma said she wasn’t leaving until the new year."

  "True. But if she can leave earlier, all the better."

  He’s not answering the question. Let’s see what he knows.