Page 22 of Love and Order

CHAPTER 5

Rion reined Trouble toward the larger pathway, Mischief following.

Lu Peters’ voice rang out in the predawn. “So who do your sister and her … partner … work for? What agency?”

Now how did she know—?

He drew Trouble to a stop and, twisting in the saddle, glared at her.

“What’re you talkin’ about?”

“They’re detectives, aren’t they? Your sister Kezia and Mr. Nesbitt. Though Kezia’s not really her name, is it? You nearly called her something else just now.”

But he’d said nothing about her working for the Pinkertons. Had he? Did he talk in his sleep during the few moments he’d actually rested?

“Where are you gettin’ this?”

“Same place I got the information that Miss Mary Redmond was a friend of yours, and maybe more.”

He dismounted and marched up to her. “What’re you talkin’ about?”

“You ignored all my questions until I said her name. Who was she to you?”

“That ain’t your business.”

“And what about your visitor—Maya Fellows?”

His hackles rose. “You leave her out of anything you write. She ain’t involved.”

“So who is she?”

The little woman was graspin’, tryin’ to keep him there. He smiled. “Ain’t none of yer business.” He returned to Trouble’s side.

“Like I said before, either you’re the most inept murderer in the world or someone has set you up.”

He paused with his foot in the stirrup.

“I’d like to help you discover who that is. Now, I’ve gathered from your whispered conversations with your sister that these murders have spanned the last five years. She tucked a list of the deaths in your breast pocket yesterday. Why don’t we take a look. Maybe we can ferret out who the likely suspects are.”

He lowered his foot and touched his shirt pocket.

“Yes, that one.”

She’d seen Calliope slip that to him? He’d been sure she was turned away.

As if reading his mind, she continued. “I almost missed it. She was very sly, moving in to kiss your cheek before she left last evening and whispering that she’d written you the list.”

Heat crawled up his spine.

Miss Peters approached, watching him intently. “Why are your cheeks flushed, Mr. Braddock? You didn’t think I’d noticed that tender moment between you and your sister?”

After years of separation and only being reunited for a day, Calliope’s unexpected peck on the cheek had surprised him—and felt too personal for his liking. Maya was the last woman … the only woman … he’d let so close, and she’d wounded him when she ended their courtship to take a part in a play in a city far away.

Granted, there was a big difference between a romantic interest gone awry and his baby sister reentering his life, but circumstances of his past hadn’t left him with a whole lot of trust—for anyone. “Not exactly that, miss, but it don’t matter.”

“Have you read through it yet?”

“Don’t figure I need to.” He stretched to alleviate the knots forming in his neck, then stared into the distance. “I didn’t kill nobody.”

She looked as if he’d gone cross-eyed. “That would’ve been the first thing I did. Look at the list and start trying—”

“Well, that’s the difference between you and me, ain’t it?” He towered over her. “Ain’t just one way to investigate a matter.”

She drew back, confusion marring her pretty features for an instant before her eyes lit.

“Oh.” A little breath whooshed out of her. “You don’t read, do you?”

The whispered words struck like a volley of arrows. “Of course I read!” He glared. “My father was a professor at a big college back in New York. Taught languages—Greek, Latin, Hebrew.”

Her lips parted. “Don’t get so riled, Mr. Braddock. I’m not calling you stupid. Any man able to so easily overcome a cell door like you did—and with only an improvised rope—is not a stupid man. Rather, he’s a brilliant one!”

“Brilliant … Right.” Now she was just toyin’ with him.

He reached for the saddle horn, ready to mount and be off before things went anymore sideways.

“Please.” She caught his arm, and just like when she’d handed him the lantern an hour ago, her touch sent a shock through him. A startling and pleasant one.

Jerking free, he took a big step back and stared. If he got out of this without getting his neck stretched, he really needed to go to town more, be around people. This solitary life was beginning to play tricks with his mind.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. And if I’m wrong and you do read, then forgive my misperception. It’s just that you … you said you’d lost track of how old you are, and then you were flustered at me knowing and asking about the list, so I thought—”

“I’m simple.” Shame washed through him afresh as he struggled to breathe.

“—you’re a very intelligent man who has difficulty deciphering the written word.”

The fact that she wasn’t laughing like others had when they’d learned his secret loosened his tongue ever so slightly.

“The marks jumble on the page. I struggle to follow ’em.”

She smiled, compassion in her eyes. “I can help with that—if you’d let me.”

He eyed her a moment then glanced heavenward as the morning sky brightened. Fishing the folded paper from his shirt pocket, he handed it over.

“Read it whilst we ride. They’ll be discoverin’ before long that we’re gone, and I don’t want ’em catchin’ us.”

As daylight broke, the path became much more visible, and the mud dried some, allowing them to make better time, though Mr. Braddock was obviously concerned about their tracks. He purposely chose difficult paths and rocky areas, and he backtracked to cover their horses’ hoofprints when they couldn’t find any way around the mud.

As they rode, Lu looked over the list and formulated questions. However, when she rode alongside him and started asking them, he scowled and put his finger to his lips. It was only as they stopped around noon at a partially caved-in mine shaft that he finally said anything.

“We’ll stop here to rest.” He kept his voice low.

“For how long?” She needed to eat. Surely he did too, although she had no provisions and he had only the contents of his saddlebags. Besides that immediate need, sleep pulled at her.

“That’ll depend on who’s followin’ and how close. We’ll try to stretch it for a couple hours, but be ready to move if I say so.”

She nodded. “I will.”

They dismounted, and he loosened both horse’s cinches.

“Can we talk about your list now?”

“Gimme a few minutes—see if I can’t rustle up somethin’ to fill our bellies. You know how to make a fire?”

“It’s not hard, Mr. Braddock.”

“And you know to look for dry wood, don’tcha?”

Of course. The wet stuff would smoke terribly—if they even got the flames to light the sticks. “I’ll do my best.” She wrinkled her nose. “There was a lot of rain yesterday, you know.”

“Hadn’t noticed.” He returned a playful smile and a wink. “Get what you can carry. I’ll bring some too. Build the fire inside the mouth of that mine shaft. It’ll help disperse the smoke. And keep it small. Easier to put out in a hurry.”

They went their separate ways, and soon she returned with an armload of wood and got busy building the fire. He returned a bit later with three squirrels, which he skinned, cleaned, and put over the flames. Only then did he turn to her.

“So … what about this paper from Kezia?”

The way he said his sister’s name—as if he struggled to recall it—made her think again that it wasn’t her real name. But she’d thrown that bait out, and he’d ignored it. No sense harping.

Lu pulled the list from the cover of her journal and moved closer.

“So the first murder was a senator’s daughter in Chicago, May of 1868.”

“Yeah, and my sister said that happened around the time they named U. S. Grant as the presidential nominee.”

“Exactly. That’s what it says here—and that you were in Chicago at the time.”

“Right, but I didn’t kill no one.” His tone grew defiant.

She acknowledged his declaration with an emphatic nod. “Understood. The second murder happened in St. Louis, just short of one year later. And Miss Jarrett’s notes say you were also there at that time. You recall it because of everyone celebrating the Transcontinental Railroad’s completion.”

“Yep. And I didn’t kill her either.”

Again, she nodded. “Let’s save some time. I don’t believe you’ve killed any of these women—so there’s no need to say so.”

“All right.”

“For the next several list entries, there’s no note on your whereabouts.”

“She didn’t tell me about them.”

“The third is a—a soiled dove. Alice Haskins. She went missing between Christmas and New Years in Omaha.”

“Let me guess.” A hard edge filled his voice. “Three Christmases ago?”

Lu copied details into her journal, not wanting to miss anything, then returned her attention to the list. “Yes. Eighteen seventy. How did you know?”

Glowering, he fed another stick into the fire, then turned the meat.

“Mr. Braddock?”

He heaved a breath. “My sisters and I were orphaned young—I was about ten when it happened. We got put on one of them orphan trains and adopted to different families along the line. The fella what took me in—Ellwood Garvin—he was … evil.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as she scrawled that name into her book.

“There was five of us boys stayin’ with Garvin, and we all escaped together years back. Two of ’em live here. Dutch, the café owner in Cambria Springs. And Seth. Seth married a pretty little gal about three years ago. Her family was from Omaha, so at Seth’s request, I rode the train with him and Lena to see her kin at Christmastime. We stayed about a week.”

Both fell silent as Lu jotted notes and he fumed.

His was a difficult history. Orphaned. Adopted by an evil man—though what made him evil wasn’t clear. It seemed the escape happened long ago. Had he had a family since then? She ought to ask, but if she pushed too hard, he might jackrabbit on her.

Finally, she pulled the list out again. “Victim four was Kathleen O’Malley, murdered in Denver that next summer.”

He raked a startled glance her way. “The singer?”

“That’s what the list says. Did you know her?”

“Maya took me to one of her concerts once. She’d do shows in Denver pretty often, so if I wasn’t huntin’ a bounty, I’d go. But I didn’t know her. Never said a word to her. I just liked her voice. It was real pretty.”

“And you would’ve gone to her shows often?”

“Every night she was in town, if I could.”

Lu copied the details down. “I’m so sorry.”

He turned a hard look her way. “Who else?”

“Norma Varden from somewhere south of Cheyenne, Dakota Territory.”

Mr. Braddock swept his hat off and ran his fingers through his dark hair. “Sometime after June last year, right?”

“You knew her?”

He nodded slowly. “A fella I was huntin’ up that way caught me by surprise. Shot me in the leg with an arrow. Wasn’t long, and I was in a bad way. Mrs. Varden found me and took me back to her place. She, her man, and their twin girls nursed me back from the brink. Let me stay on till I was healed up. June last year.” He shook his head. “Those poor girls.”

What could she say? Every one of these murders was heartbreaking—and it must be especially hard recognizing that his association with each one had possibly cost them their lives.

“We’ll find out who did this, Mr. Braddock, and they’ll pay for every life.”

He clamped his eyes shut. “That don’t bring back little people’s mamas …”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Who else?”

“The three from Cambria Springs. Mary Redmond. Sweet Serafina, and now Hattie, all this year.”

“And I had some contact with all of ’em.” He huffed a breath. “Makes me look guilty as sin.”

“Therein lies the problem. Everything points to you. Since I met you, you’ve been careful. You didn’t leave the rope you used to overcome the cell door. I know you didn’t intend to keep me with you, but you didn’t leave me in town to point the way to you. Now that the ground is drying out, you’ve been meticulous about covering our tracks. You made sure I knew to look for dry wood. Yet whoever killed these women has tried to point to you.”

“Not sure I’m followin’.”

“For instance, I overheard your sister say something about a distinctive boot track at the most recent murder—and from the scene of Hattie’s disappearance. Yet you’re wearing moccasins.”

“I always wear moccasins when I’m on someone’s trail. They’re quieter, more comfortable. They don’t leave tracks.”

“Which proves my point. Someone is setting you up. Who, from your past, has enough against you to go to such trouble?”

“Ellwood Garvin comes to mind. He’s hateful enough.”

“That’s the man who adopted you.”

Mr. Braddock nodded. “He’s accused me of stealin’ from him … among other things.”

Lu scribbled in her book. “Who else?”

He turned the meat again. “Like I told my sister, I’m a bounty hunter. Folks hate my guts for puttin’ ’em in jail—or getting their kin’s neck stretched.”

“You’ve been a bounty hunter for more than five years?”

“Me and Seth collected my first bounty back …” He scowled. “Not long after we escaped Garvin’s place. Before I was a full-growed man.”

“All right. You’ve been at this long enough. Do you recall the men you’ve caught over the years?”

“Some, yeah. Not all.”

Her hopes faltered, though his brown eyes suddenly lit.

“I keep the posters on the ones I’m lookin’ for in my saddlebags. And after capturin’ ’em, when I get back this way, I drop ’em at Seth and Lena’s place. Seth promised he won’t get rid of none of ’em.”

“And where does Seth live?”

“Up the mountain. We’d have to ride past Cambria Springs, and we might run smack into a posse if we do.”

“Mr. Braddock, we need those posters.”

“You best rest up, then, ’cause this ride ain’t gonna be easy.”