A Love to Cherish (2 page)

“That’s highly irregular, Walker. How good are you? My own men have failed to turn up a single clue to Belle’s whereabouts.”

“Good enough to be counted one of Pinkerton’s best men. I haven’t lost a case yet, or failed a client.” Too bad he couldn’t say the same about his own situation, Casey thought glumly. He’d spent months looking for the missing witness, to no avail. Perhaps the reward and Simon Levy would succeed where he had failed.

McAllister thumped his fingers against his desk as he studied Casey, thinking that he did indeed look like a man who seldom failed. His ruggedly handsome features could have been carved from stone and his eyes were coldly dangerous. Though he carried only one gun in his holster, McAllister suspected Casey carried another beneath his jacket, and that he was a damn accurate shot. “Very well,” McAllister conceded. “You may have the bonus now. But I expect results, do I make myself clear? If you fail, the bonus is to be returned to me in full.”

Casey raked him with his cool gaze. “You’ve made yourself perfectly clear.” He uncoiled his lanky frame from the chair. “Give me the name of the whorehouse where Belle worked and I’ll be on my way.”

“Naomi’s Pleasure Parlor. But you won’t learn anything there. My men have already questioned the madam and all the girls.”

An easy smile played at the corners of Casey’s
mouth. “If you don’t mind, I prefer conducting my own investigation.”

Placerville

Two weeks later

Casey rode into the mining town of Placerville at midday. Originally called Dry Diggin’s, the town’s name had been changed to Hangtown in 1849 after a series of grisly lynchings, but in 1854 the miners changed the name to Placerville to satisfy self-conscience pride. Now Placerville was an important mining center, surrounded by mines taking thousands of dollars a day out of the ground. While passing through Sacramento, Casey had inquired about Placerville and learned that the town had a couple of respectable hotels, a Wells Fargo office with weekly stagecoach routes, a post office, and numerous saloons.

Since Casey had no idea yet where to find Belle Parker, he headed down Main Street, looking for the hotel. At No. 543 Main Street he passed a store whose sign, weathered but still legible, proclaimed that the J.M. Studebaker Company once produced the best wheelbarrows in California at that site. A few doors down, Phillip Armour’s butcher shop and Mark Hopkins’ grocery store sat side by side.

Casey reined up sharply before the next building, staring at the cracked, hand-painted wooden sign posted above the door. The name, Isabelle’s Diner, captured his attention and he stared at it with interest.

After leaving McAllister’s office two weeks ago, Casey had paid a visit to Naomi’s Pleasure Parlor.
As McAllister had predicted, the madam and her girls had steadfastly refused to talk about Belle Parker. Casey thought their protectiveness toward the woman extraordinary. No one claimed to know a thing about the former whore. The only useful bit of information occurred when one of the whores let slip that Naomi hadn’t received a letter from Isabelle in quite a while. The girl earned a stern look from Naomi.

But Casey wasn’t a Pinkerton detective for nothing. He paid for the services of the curvaceous whore named Pansy and accompanied her upstairs. It had been far too long since he’d bedded a woman anyway, and he decided to satisfy his yearnings while gaining a bit of information. Pansy had been so beguiled by Casey’s expertise in bed that his subtle questioning soon got her to reveal the location of Naomi’s room.

After satisfying both himself and the woman, Casey plied Pansy with liquor, and while she dozed contentedly, he slipped out of the room. Spying Naomi by the front door, greeting guests, he stealthily entered the madam’s room. In Naomi’s dresser drawer Casey found a letter from Isabelle Henderson. Evidently Belle had taken on a new name and identity. The letter said little beyond the fact that Isabelle and her child were both well and reasonably happy. The letter had been posted from Sacramento by way of Wells Fargo in Placerville. Casey had both a destination and a name when he left the whorehouse a short time later. If McAllister’s men had an ounce of ingenuity, they could have ferreted out the same information he had.

Now, standing before Isabelle’s Diner, intuition told Casey that he was on the right track. Dismounting,
Casey tethered his horse to the hitching post and entered the ramshackle building that appeared to have been one of the first built in the gold camp in 1848. The lunch crowd had already dispersed, and the large room set with trestle tables was empty but for one man, who sat nursing a cup of coffee.

A woman came out of the kitchen and smiled at him. “Can I help you, mister? It’s too late for lunch, but there might be a few leftovers in the kitchen if you’re hungry.”

Casey returned her smile. Her voice appealed to him. It was throaty and soft, surprisingly arousing, and nothing like he’d expected. None of the whores he knew, and he knew plenty, had voices that made him think of bubbling mountain brooks and sighing winds.

It was more than her delightfully dulcet voice that made Casey think his intuition had failed him. This woman couldn’t be Belle Parker, the mercenary whore who had coerced McAllister’s young, naive son into marriage. This appealing young woman with rich brown hair, peaches-and-cream complexion, and wide brown eyes, was dressed conservatively in a serviceable gray gown covered by a large white apron. No woman who looked like Isabelle Henderson could possibly be a whore. He had expected to find a flamboyantly beautiful woman servicing miners sexually, not someone resembling the girl next door serving meals to them. Perhaps, Casey thought, this young woman was merely an employee, or not the same Isabelle Henderson he sought.

“Anything will do,” Casey said, taking a seat at one of the tables. “Whatever you have to hold me over till supper, miss.”

“It’s Mrs. Henderson,” Belle said, sizing the man up as a stranger in camp. She didn’t trust strangers. Being always on the lookout for her father-in-law’s men was beginning to take its toll on her. “I can serve you up a plate of beans and biscuits.”

“And coffee,” Casey added. He knew it was rude to stare at the woman but seemed unable to look away.

Belle nodded and turned back to the kitchen. Casey continued to stare at her, stunned to note that she was limping. Though slight, her limp was nevertheless noticeable … and surprising. Men rarely were attracted to whores with deformities. Most madams would consider a lame whore a disability and bad for business. Either he had the wrong woman, Casey thought, or McAllister had lied about his daughter-in-law’s profession. Casey didn’t like being deceived. Unfortunately it was too late for second thoughts. He had already taken his bonus from McAllister and wired it to Simon Levy. Casey might not like McAllister, but he had agreed to do a job and he’d never reneged on an assignment in his entire career as a Pinkerton detective.

Belle peeked out the kitchen door at the handsome stranger while the beans were heating, gnawing her lower lip with even white teeth as she considered his strong chin and rugged features. He was handsome, no doubt about it. Those were the men she trusted least. Yet she couldn’t seem to take her eyes off him. Shiny dark hair brushed the nape of his neck, and though she hadn’t noted the color of his eyes, she knew they would be unusual. He was big; she could see his muscles rippling beneath his clothing. The man didn’t look like a miner. Dressed in crisp canvas trousers, plaid shirt and
leather vest, wearing leather boots that were scuffed but of good quality, his attire was too new to mark him as a miner.

Belle noted that the man wore one gun at his hip, a Colt single-action pistol. What Belle didn’t know was that Casey carried an Underhammer “bootleg” percussion pistol beneath his vest. The gun was of small caliber but practical for personal protection when one wanted to carry concealed weapons.

A few minutes later Belle returned with a plate of beans and a cup of coffee, which she sat down before Casey. “I haven’t seen you around before, mister. Going to try your hand at mining?”

Casey shoved his hat back on his head and smiled at Belle. “The name’s Walker, Casey Walker. I’m just passing through. What kind of hotel is the Cary House?”

“The best, Mr. Walker. It was built after the Ruffles Hotel burned in 1856. Expensive, too. If it’s too steep for you I can recommend another.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. How long have you been serving meals in Placerville, Mrs. Henderson?” Casey asked as he dug into his beans.

“Long enough.”

“Is your husband a miner?”

“I’m a widow,” Belle said crisply.

“Any children?” He tried to make the question sound casual.

Warning bells went off in Belle’s head. “I don’t believe that’s any of your business, Mr. Walker. That’s two bits for the beans and coffee.”

“Sorry,” Casey mumbled as he dug in his pocket for change. She’s as skittish as a colt, he thought as he watched her limp away into the kitchen. Not that he could blame her. If Isabelle Henderson was
indeed Belle Parker, she had good reason to be wary. She had to know that T.J. McAllister was breathing down her neck.

Gulping down the last of his coffee, Casey decided to get a hotel room and plan how to proceed with the young widow. Besides himself, the only customer left in the eatery was the man who had been sucking on a cup of coffee when he’d entered the establishment. From the corner of his eye Casey saw the man stumble to his feet and lurch toward the kitchen. Casey thought it rather odd but, then nothing about this assignment seemed normal.

Casey paused as he ambled toward the front door, wondering if Belle, or Isabelle, as she called herself, was plying her trade in the kitchen. It certainly seemed to prove that McAllister had been right about her being a whore. He was actually relieved. Knowing that McAllister was right made his job easier to swallow. He continued on his way. His hand was on the doorknob when a strangled cry stopped him in his tracks.

He whirled on his heel, listening, trying to decide if what he’d heard were cries of passion and he should mind his own business. Then it came again, only this time the cries sounded desperate and frightened and were followed by a crash of dishes. Raw instinct set his long legs into motion as he hurried toward the kitchen. He stopped abruptly in the open doorway and stared in consternation at the couple grappling on the kitchen table.

The woman had been shoved onto the table, which had been hastily cleared of dishes. Her skirts had been shoved up to her waist as the huge miner tried to mount her. The woman’s small fists flailed at the miner but were as ineffectual as gnat stings against the burly man nearly three times her size.

“Aw, come on, Belle, be nice to me,” the miner cajoled. “I got plenty of gold dust in my poke to pay ya for a little tumble. It ain’t like ya ain’t done it before. Ya got a son to prove it. I’ll bet ya weren’t even married, let alone a widow. Come on, Belle, open yer legs.”

“Get off of me, Pike Dinks, you drunken oaf, unless you want Wan Yo to come after you!”

Dinks laughed gleefully. “That old Chinaman couldn’t hurt a flea.”

“You’ll find willing women in any one of the numerous saloons in town.”

Dinks gave Belle a sloppy kiss, shoved his knee between her legs and his hands inside her bodice. “Ain’t enough whores to go around. I want you.”

When Casey saw where the miner’s hands were he flew into a rage. He couldn’t recall when he felt so protective toward a woman, especially one who had been a whore before her marriage and was probably used to being mauled. Hell, maybe she liked it. But he didn’t. It stuck in his craw to see her abused by a drunken, foul-mouthed miner. Upon further consideration, Casey decided she didn’t look at all like she enjoyed being roughed up.

Belle shoved against Dinks with all her might, feeling like a bird trapped beneath his considerable bulk. She should have known better than to turn her back on Dinks. This wasn’t the first time the miner had tried to assault her. She could smell booze on his breath and hadn’t realized when he’d come in for lunch that he was drunk. When she felt his knee between her legs and his hands fumbling inside her bodice, she clamped her teeth down hard on his shoulder.

Dinks cried out, shaking himself free. “Ya little
bitch! You’ll pay for that.” His fist flew backward, but before he could bring it forward he went sailing through the air. He landed on the floor at Casey’s feet.

“Pick on someone your own size,” Casey said, baring his teeth in a feral smile. His eyes were luminous with anger and his face was the twisted visage from hell.

Dinks blinked up at him. “I don’t wanna fight with you, mister.”

“I can see that. You prefer to abuse women too weak to fight back. You’re scum, Dinks. Get out of here and don’t come back. Mrs. Henderson doesn’t need your business.” The air thickened with his anger. “And if you ever, I repeat,
ever
lay hands on this woman again, you’re a dead man. Do I make myself clear?”

Dinks scooted backward toward the door, staring at Casey in abject fear. He wasn’t a slouch when it came to defending himself, but he sensed something dangerously lethal in this man. Something about his eyes hinted of ruthlessness and a willingness to carry out his threats.

“I’m going, mister, don’t get your dander up,” Dinks said as he staggered to his feet and slunk out the door.

Belle hoisted herself from the table, still trembling from her encounter with Dinks but in full control now. She couldn’t afford to show fear. She didn’t know this stranger, and for all she knew he was of the same ilk as Dinks. Just because he had sent Dinks fleeing didn’t mean he wouldn’t launch an attack of his own once he had dealt with the miner.

During her years with Naomi, Belle had seen men of all sizes, shapes, and sexual persuasions. She had
learned that good men were few and far between. Her own father, though he had loved her, had easily succumbed to the lure of wine, women, and cards. Tom had been the only good man she had ever known, and he was gone.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Henderson?”

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Walker. I’m grateful for your intervention. Pike Dinks has been pestering me ever since he came to town. The only times he’s actually assaulted me, though, was when he was too drunk to know what he was doing.”