A Western Christmas Homecoming

Rand returned ten minutes later, along with a Mexican man lugging a metal bathtub and two giggling girls who dumped in bucket after bucket of steaming water. When they were finished, they left folded towels and a bar of sweet-smelling soap beside the tub.

Alice eyed the tub of steaming water and then noticed that Rand was eyeing it, too. “Isn’t there something you need to do, Rand? Visit the barbershop or the sheriff or something?”

“Nope. I’m staying right here. Like I said, I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“Well, I hardly think—”

“Alice, don’t think. My orders are to protect you and find your sister’s killer, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. The killer could be anybody, so I’m sticking close.”

“But, Rand, I want to take a bath!”

“Good idea. I’ll turn my back.”

She gave him a long look, then studied the steaming tub that beckoned. This was highly improper, sharing a room with Rand, and now... She gulped. Now she would be taking a bath with him standing right there? This was the most scandalous thing she’d ever done in her life!

But instinctively she knew he wouldn’t be talked out of staying, so she shrugged, shook out the petticoat and the corset and lacy camisole she’d brought in her saddlebag and hung them up to air with her red dress. Then, with a surreptitious glance at Rand she began to unbutton her denim riding skirt.

“Rand?”

“Yeah?”

“I am waiting for you to turn around.”

“Oh. Yeah.” He pivoted toward the window and stood with his back to her.

Rand didn’t watch her, exactly. But he could sure hear her. Every little splash and sigh set his imagination on fire, and finally he cracked. He half turned away from the window, and out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of the bathtub. And her.

Big mistake. Big damn mistake.

By the time she finished smoothing that cake of soap all over her skin he was rock-hard. Miss Lolly-Alice was changing his mind about everything—librarians, Pinkerton assignments, even celibacy. When she reached for a towel to dry herself off, he knew he had to escape.

“Alice,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I’m going to talk to the sheriff after all. Don’t let anyone in, even someone who wants to take away the bathtub.”

“The bathwater is still warm, Rand. Wouldn’t you like to use it? It will be cold when you get back.”

“A cold bath will suit me just fine.” If he was honest with himself, a cold bath was exactly what he needed.

He sidled past the tub, locked the door behind him and headed out onto the street to find Sheriff Lipscomb.

Silver City had exactly seven wooden structures. In addition to the Excelsior Hotel and the Golden Nugget saloon, there was the Silver City National Bank, the Coleman’s Assay Office, the run-down livery stable, the tiny sheriff’s office, which looked like a made-over chicken coop, and a large, well-maintained stamp mill, where mined rocks were smashed into bits to extract the silver. Everything else, two mercantiles, a dressmaker, a barber shop, a bathhouse and four eating establishments, one of which served nothing but pie, conducted business in tents. Even the physician-coroner and the funeral parlor did business in tents. One stiff wind would flatten the entire town.

Rand found the sheriff’s office, lifted the tent flap and stepped over the threshold. The fleshy lawman sat with his boots propped up on a desk littered with Wanted posters, sipping from a glass of what looked suspiciously like whiskey. That, Rand thought with annoyance, might explain why the murder investigation had stalled.

“Sheriff Lipscomb?”

“Yep, that’s me. Who’s askin’?”

“Rand Logan. I wired you ten days ago.”

“Oh, yeah? Sorry, don’t recall that.”

“Randell Logan,” Rand clarified. “United States Marshal.”

The sheriff shot to his feet, scattering posters all over the floor of the tent. “Oh, yessir, Marshal Logan, now I remember. You’re investigatin’ Miss Dorothy’s murder.”

“I am, yes. Do you have any new information to report?”

“Uh...cain’t say that I have, no. Talkin’ to those miners is like conversin’ with a clammed-up clamshell.”

“Has the coroner made a report?”

“Nope.”

“Have any witnesses come forward?”

“Nope.”

“You hear any rumors or scuttlebutt around town about the killing?”

“Nope.”

Rand gritted his teeth. Looked like miners weren’t the only closed-up clams in this town. “Sheriff Lipscomb, would you care to accompany me to visit the coroner?”

“You mean now?”

Rand nodded. “Now.”

The sheriff set his whiskey on an uncluttered corner of his desk. “Well, shore, Marshal. Doc Arnold’s a friend of mine. His office is just around the corner on Jasmine Street.”

Jasmine Street smelled like rotting garbage, not like anything remotely floral, but Dr. Arnold’s office smelled better, like antiseptic.

Sheriff Lipscomb barged into the coroner’s tent. “Doc, this here is Marshal Randell Logan.”

Rand shook the man’s hastily extended hand. “Dr. Harvey Arnold,” the physician muttered. The sheriff plopped onto a canvas folding chair and ran two fingers through his thinning hair.

“Jeremiah,” the physician intoned, “you want a drink?”

“What? Uh...no, thanks, Harve. I’m on duty.”

For a split second a look of confusion crossed Dr. Arnold’s lined face, and Rand nodded in comprehension. During the day Sheriff Lipscomb drank. A lot. Rand clenched his teeth so hard his jaw hurt. That might explain why Dorothy Coleman’s killer hadn’t been apprehended; the sheriff was probably drunk by noon. Sheriffs were elected. How did this man ever get voted into office?

He cleared his throat. “Gentlemen, I am investigating the death of Dorothy Coleman.”

Dr. Arnold jerked. “Oh, yes, I remember. Murder, as I recall. Gunshot.”

“You recover any bullets from her body?”

“I dug one out of her back,” the physician said in an almost inaudible voice. “The other one was embedded too deep in her brain to retrieve without...you know, damaging her looks.”

“Are you saying she was shot twice? Once in the back and once in the temple?”

Doc Arnold nodded and turned to a tall cabinet in the corner. He scrabbled through three file drawers and finally dropped a bit of metal into Rand’s hand. A thirty-two-caliber bullet, Rand noted.

“Any other injuries on her body?”

The physician exhaled heavily. “Other than a slight abrasion on one elbow, Miss Dorothy looked as pretty as she always did.” His voice died away, and he dropped his eyes to study the stack of medical reports on his desk.

The doctor was behind in his paperwork, Rand noted. He also noted how inappropriate the physician’s observation was.

“Was a funeral held?”

“Oh, sure, Marshal Logan,” Dr. Arnold assured him. “Half the population of Silver City turned out, all of ’em crying and carrying on like it was the end of the world. Miss Dorothy’s buried up on the hill, behind the stamp mill.”

“Is that the town cemetery?”

“Not exactly,” Sheriff Lipscomb said. “But Miss Dorothy was awful partial to the Lady Luck mine, and that’s as close as we could get to dig her grave.”

Rand nodded. “If either of you think of anything else that might help the investigation, you’ll find me at the hotel. I’m registered as George Oliver, for reasons that should be obvious.”

The sheriff and Dr. Arnold exchanged a puzzled look. “Pinkerton sent you, isn’t that right?” the sheriff asked.

“Yes, that’s right. But I’m working this case undercover.”

Both men looked at each other and nodded, and Rand took his leave. “Gentlemen, stay in touch.”

He headed back to the hotel with a sinking feeling in his gut. The sheriff liked whiskey. The coroner was almost obscene in his admiration for Alice’s sister, Dorothy Coleman. And if either one of them knew anything of significance, they weren’t saying. This investigation was going to be uphill all the way.

Chapter Eight

“Lolly? Open up, it’s me, uh... George.”

Alice removed the chair she’d pushed under the doorknob and slid back the dead bolt as he unlocked the door. “Rand!” She swung the door open. “Did you talk to the sheriff?”

“I...” The words died on his lips. Standing before him was a stunningly attractive woman in a shiny red satin gown with a neckline so low it would make a shady lady blush.

“Say something, Rand. Do I look the part? Like a saloon girl?”

“You do,” he said tersely. “And I want you to take it off.”

“What? What do you mean, take it off?”

“I—I’ve changed my mind, Alice. I don’t want you to go anywhere dressed like that.”

“But it was your idea,” she protested. “This was your plan, you said so yourself.”

Rand nodded. “Yeah, I did. Now I wish I hadn’t.”

Alice propped her hands on her hips. “But you can’t have changed your mind! You said I was just what you wanted, an undercover saloon girl. The dressmaker made this gown especially for me.”

Rand settled himself heavily onto the bed closest to the door. She was right. But he was so shocked at seeing her all dolled up like that, all red sparkles and creamy bosom, that for a minute his mind wasn’t working right. Lolly-Alice had sneaked up on him.

“Rand?”

“Give me a minute, Alice.” He tried to calm his racing pulse by reminding himself of the assignment he’d taken on. Pinkerton wanted... Oh, hell, Pinkerton wanted him to use Alice as bait. He’d thought it was a good idea before he saw her in that sparkly red getup. Now he wasn’t so sure.

She settled on the bed beside him. “Whatever is the matter? Is my dress not daring enough? Don’t you like it?”

He stifled a groan. Her skirt rustled and he smelled the unmistakable scent of violets. “Yeah, I like it fine, Alice. You look very...fetching.”

You look so damn beautiful it makes my mouth water.

“Rand?” she said, a tentative note in her voice. “You are looking at me most oddly. Is something wrong?”

“No,” he lied. Everything is wrong! “I’m just surprised at your...disguise.”

She stood up and twirled in place, making her skirt bell out, then sent him a look of pure girlish pride. He almost choked.

“I find dressing up as Lolly Maguire has made me quite ravenous,” she announced. “Are you hungry?”

Hungry! He bit back a groan and considered stripping and plunging into the tub of cold bathwater still sitting in the middle of the room. He reached to unbutton his leather vest, then caught himself. He wouldn’t mind taking his clothes off in front of her, but he would mind revealing his engorged groin.

He swallowed hard. “Yeah, I’m hungry, Alice. I think we should go down to the dining room and eat some supper before you go into action at the Golden Nugget.”

“Oh, good.” She peeked in the mirror over the dresser and pinched her cheeks into a shade of raspberry that made his mouth water.

“I want a great big thick steak,” she said with obvious relish. “With mashed potatoes and lots of thick gravy. What do you want, Rand?”

She sent him a definitely un-librarian-like smile, and all his thoughts about librarians and undercover operations and incompetent sheriffs winged their way out of his head. He closed his eyes and clenched both hands into fists.

“Ice cream,” he answered. “That’s what I want. Something cooling.” Something to erase the image of Alice in that red satin dress.

Walking into the hotel restaurant caused a minor sensation. The entire room full of diners, almost all of them male, stopped talking and stared at Alice. Embarrassed, she tugged the red wool shawl she wore tighter around her shoulders to cover the revealing neckline and chose a chair facing the wall with her back to the patrons.

When conversation around them resumed, they placed their supper orders with the waiter, and Rand told her what he had discovered from Sheriff Lipscomb and Dr. Arnold, the coroner. Alice listened without interrupting, her mouth pressed into a thin line and her eyes filling with tears.

“You mean Dottie’s not even buried in a proper cemetery? That’s simply awful!”

“There’s more,” Rand said heavily. He waited until the waiter had set their plates down in front of them and retreated.

Alice ignored her supper and leaned toward him. “What ‘more’? Tell me.”

He reached for his steak knife. “Your sister was apparently very well liked in Silver City. Dr. Arnold said most of the people in town came to her funeral.”

He sliced off a bite of meat. “And,” he continued, “she was shot with a thirty-two-caliber bullet.”

“But you already knew she was shot, Rand.” She loaded her fork up with mashed potatoes, lifted it to her mouth and then lowered it without tasting it. Her lips, Rand noted, looked redder than usual. Rouged, maybe. Something inside him tightened. A large part of him didn’t want Alice to turn into Lolly Maguire.

“You already knew my sister had been shot,” she repeated.

“Yeah, but I didn’t know she’d been shot twice.”

Alice’s already shiny eyes widened into two pools of dark blue ink. “What? I don’t understand.”

He leaned across the table and lowered his voice. “The coroner told me your sister was shot twice. He recovered one bullet from her back, but the other one—” He stopped at her stricken look.

She laid her fork down beside her uneaten steak, her face white as milk. “What does that mean, that she was shot twice? Two different killers? Or did the same person fire twice?”

“I don’t know what it means. But you can bet I’m going to find out.”

She drew in three deep breaths before she picked up her fork again. “While I am...um...entertaining the gentlemen at the Golden Nugget tonight, what will you be doing?” Her voice was shaky.

“Watching you.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks turned pink.

“There’s a killer somewhere here in Silver City, Alice. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“How do you know he’s still here? Or would it be a she?”

He thought about how to phrase his answer. “Because the sheriff in Owyhee County said it wasn’t a robbery. Your sister’s murder was very deliberate, not something done in haste. Whoever shot your sister meant to kill her and he, or she, took a good deal of care in doing it.”

Alice studied her plate of uneaten food. “Very well,” she said slowly. “I think it is time to go to work.”

Chapter Nine

The air in the Golden Nugget was blue with smoke and sour with the smell of liquor and old cigars. The minute Rand and Alice walked in, the place went silent except for the piano player, who went on pounding out “Clementine.”

Rand escorted Alice up to the bar, feeling the gaze of every male in the place following them. Or rather following Alice. Any red-blooded male would look his fill and he wouldn’t blame them one bit.

The bartender, a burly red-haired man with sharp blue eyes, swiped his greasy rag over the polished mahogany counter and then planted both elbows on it.

“You’ll be wantin’ something, I’m bettin’.” It wasn’t a question. Rand opened his mouth to order a beer when Alice spoke up.

“I’m wantin’ a job, sir.” She let her shawl drop just enough to show some cleavage. “I’m known as Lolly Maguire back in Chicago.”

The bartender’s eyes dropped to her chest. “Maguire, huh?”

“Sure and it is,” Alice said, her voice low and sultry.

Rand blinked.

“I want you to know that I can be quite friendly in the right company,” she said softly.

He blinked again.

“Oho,” the bartender said. “An’ what’s the right company, if it’s not too much to ask?”

“I am partial to the Irish,” she purred. “Irish men in particular.”

“Well, now, girlie—”

“Lolly,” Alice reminded. “Maguire. I haven’t been called ‘girlie’ since I was five years old back in County Clare, Mr....?”

“Donnell. Lefty Donnell. And what’ll ye be havin’ this fine night, Lolly Maguire?”

“Beer,” Rand said shortly.

Alice rested two fingers on the bartender’s beefy hand. “And I would like a chat with your piano player, if you please.”

Lefty Donnell’s red-blond eyebrows rose. “Hey, Samson!” he yelled. “Lady here wants to talk to ya.”

Alice sent Rand a quick look, stepped away from the bar and glided toward the piano against the far wall. Ignoring the tall glass of beer the bartender slid toward him, Rand couldn’t help but watch.

She spoke to the piano player, Samson, no more than a minute before he swiveled his stool around to the keyboard and placed his fingers on the yellowed keys. He looked to be Chinese, Rand thought. Short and compact, with jet-black hair and very white hands. He rippled out a cascade of notes, and Alice turned to face the patrons.

The piano sounded a chord and she began to recite. “‘’T’was Robin of Locksley and Little John, in Sherwood Forest hiding...’”

She’d added an Irish lilt to the words; it sounded like poetry spoken out loud.

Another rippling chord, followed by a pause.

“‘When King John came riding through the thick green woods...’”

More chords. Patrons began shushing their companions as Alice’s voice rose. Rand gulped down a swallow of his beer.

“‘...and spied a gleam of silver there...’”

By now the entire saloon full of miners sat as if spellbound. Even Rand listened, scarcely breathing. Where had this come from? he wondered. Was it something she had memorized? Or was she making it up as she went along?

Her voice rose and fell like dusky smoke, with a slight Irish lilt. “‘All soft among the greenwood trees...’”

Mouths hung open and drinks were forgotten as the men listened with rapt attention. And, Rand knew, every one of them looked at Alice, swaying provocatively at the piano, with hungry eyes.

As the poem wound on and on, she began to move about the room, stopping at each table to smile at her goggle-eyed listeners. She ended up back at the piano, and when she brought her recitation to a close, she briefly touched Samson’s shoulder. Instantly he began pounding out a waltz.

Alice sashayed up to a paunchy miner and held out her arms in invitation. When he lurched to his feet, Rand gulped two more quick swallows of beer and dropped his hand to the Colt at his hip.

Alice and the miner whirled around and around the smoke-filled saloon while Rand gritted his teeth. And then he noticed that the miner was talking a mile a minute, and Alice was nodding her head and listening.

Chester, he said his name was. He smelled rank, but Alice pasted on a smile and asked another question in as sultry a voice as she could manage.

“Oh, sure, Miss Lolly. I know ever’body in town almost. Been a miner at the Lady Luck for thirty years. Not much ever gets by ol’ Chester.”

“Thirty years! Why, how very interesting. Tell me more.”

Gradually she brought the conversation around to Coleman’s Assay Office, and then to her sister.

“Yep, I knowed Miss Dorothy. She was a real fine lady, she was. Always had a kind word when we came in with our diggins’. I was real sorry when she died.”

“Oh? How did she die?”

“Don’t rightly know, Miss Lolly. Sheriff hushed it right up, and three days later we was buryin’ her out behind the stamp mill. She always liked the Lady Luck mine. Said it was makin’ her and ever’body else here in Silver City rich.”

For the rest of the night Alice danced and questioned and filed away information while Rand nursed his beer and Lefty the bartender wiped down the counter and poured out shots of bourbon and rye. Finally he clanged a cowbell he pulled from behind the bar.

“Closing time, gents. Drink up, pay up, and go home and sleep it off.”

Alice appeared at Rand’s elbow, reached for his beer glass, downed a big swallow and made a face. “Oh, my, that tastes perfectly awful!”

“You prefer whiskey?” he inquired with a grin.

“I prefer plain water or lemonade, but my throat is parched from talking. And, oh, my goodness, Ra—Um... George,” she whispered. “I learned some very interesting things tonight.”

He rescued his beer glass and shook his head at her. “Later,” he murmured. He took her arm and steered her out into the chilly night air, then guided her along the board sidewalk to the Excelsior Hotel and up the staircase to Room Seven. Only when the door was locked and carefully bolted behind them did he turn to her.

“What did you learn tonight, Alice?”

She draped her red shawl on the armoire door handle and walked to the window. “I learned that Jim, Dorothy’s husband, died from a gunshot wound, too. That was two years ago. And after Dottie was widowed, all the men in town swarmed around her like honeybees.”

She focused her gaze on the street below, where two unkempt-looking men lurched down the street after a well-dressed gentleman riding a horse.

“You know,” she said in a puzzled tone, “since we arrived in this town I have seen only four women, and two of those were hotel maids. I find that very strange.”

Rand frowned. “Why is that strange?”

“Well, it does explain why the men at the Golden Nugget are so eager to talk to me. They must be starved for female companionship.”

Rand suppressed a groan. “The men at the Golden Nugget talk to you because you’re damned good-looking,” he blurted out. “And every single one of them would like to do more than just talk!”

She turned from the window with an odd expression in her eyes. “Oh, I hardly think—”

“Alice.”

“Yes, Rand?”

“You are a very beautiful woman. And it’s not because of that silky red dress with all the sparkles and that low neckline that shows your—uh...that low neckline. You are probably the most enticing female they’ve ever seen.”

“Oh, I never thought of that.”

He rolled his eyes. “How can you be unaware of how attractive you are?”

She said nothing for so long he wondered if she was insulted by what he’d said.

“Alice?”

She turned back to the window. “When Dottie and I were growing up, she was always the pretty one. I was the smart one, more interested in books than dresses or ribbons or how to curl my hair.”

“What did your mother tell you? Or your father?”

She bit her lip and studied the carpet. “Mama and Papa were both killed when we were little. Dottie was three, I was seven. Papa’s sister brought us to Smoke River to live, and then she disappeared.”

“You mean your aunt abandoned you?”

“Yes, I suppose so. One day she just wasn’t there anymore. Dottie and I used to make up stories about what happened to Aunt Frances, about how she was really a famous opera singer and had to return to Paris for a concert, or that she was really a Russian princess in disguise and had traveled to Smoke River incognito. Dottie believed everything. I didn’t really believe the stories we made up, but I couldn’t stand to hear my sister cry at night, so I went on making them up.”

Rand coughed to clear his throat. “How did you end up at the boardinghouse with Sarah and Rooney?”

Alice gave a little half laugh. “Sarah and Rooney found us, really. When I started to go to school, the teacher found out that Dottie and I were living in old Mr. Cooper’s bunkhouse, out on his ranch. Nobody had lived there for years, so after Aunt Frances left we just sort of moved in. When Sarah heard about it she drove out in a wagon and got us and brought us back to Rose Cottage. They adopted us, really. Later, when Dottie grew up and married Jim Coleman, Rooney was best man.”

Rand made a mental note of that, then asked another question, this time about Dorothy’s husband, Jim Coleman.