Come the Spring (12 page)

After giving his explanation, Sloan stood up and excused himself. “I promised a lady friend that we'd go out walking, and she's waiting for me inside. Did you need me to hang around, Marshal Ryan?”

“No,” Ryan answered.

Rebecca waited until Sloan left the porch with the silly little woman giggling on his arm before continuing. “The sheriff showed all of us the purse. It doesn't belong to me. I never carry one,” she added. “May I leave now? I really would like to go to bed. It's been an exhausting day.”

“I don't have any other questions at the moment,” Ryan said. He closed his notepad and looked at Cole. “Do you?”

“Just one,” Cole answered. “How long will you be staying in town?”

“Until the day after tomorrow when the coach comes through again.”

Ryan offered Rebecca his hand to help her stand. She looked startled by the gentlemanly gesture and hesitantly took hold of him.

“You aren't going to bother Jessica and Grace tonight, are you? It's already well after eight,” she said. “They were both so weary this afternoon. Neither one of them is feeling well,” she added. “You should let them get a good night's sleep before you hound them with questions. Good night, gentlemen.”

They watched her walk away. Each was lost in his own thoughts until she paused in the doorway and looked at them again. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Because she had been as cool as ice during the questioning, the emotional display surprised them.

“Are you ever going to catch those horrible men? Do you have any leads at all? The sheriff told me you didn't, but I was hoping he was wrong.”

Ryan's shoulders slumped. “No, we don't have any leads now, but that could change.”

“One thing's certain,” Cole interjected. “We will catch them. It's only a matter of time. You can count on it.”

“Yes, of course you'll catch them,” she said. “If you think of any other questions, I'll be here.”

Once she was inside, Cole muttered an imprecation. “I don't like being a marshal. It's depressing.”

“You know what's really bothering you? You feel sorry for all three of the women, don't you?”

“Yeah, I do. Thanks to Sloan's incompetence, those ladies have been thrown into the middle of a boiling pot. They shouldn't have to be afraid. Besides, it's pretty certain none of them was in the bank during the robbery, but now everyone in town thinks one of them was. Folks around here don't think things
through, do they? I guess I hated seeing Rebecca so scared.”

“I can't blame her for being afraid,” Ryan said. “She knows what the Blackwater gang can do.”

“Do you think any of them will come back to Rockford Falls? Would they go to such an extreme because of a rumor?”

“People believe what they read in the paper. It would be a lucky break for us if they did come back. Stop glaring at me, Cole. I'm only being honest. It
would
be a break, and God knows we're due for one. We can protect the women. Come on, let's go talk to Jessica Summers and Grace Winthrop.”

“It seems kind of pointless,” Cole said. “They didn't see anything.”

“We have to go through the motions,” Ryan stubbornly insisted. “And by the way, you're supposed to take notes during the interviews.”

“You take them. I hate paperwork. Besides, I can remember what everyone said.”

“Maybe now you can, but later, after one or two more robberies, all the names and dates start blending together.”

“Then I guess we better catch the bastards before they rob again.” Hungry and weary, he grudgingly followed Ryan down the steps. “Rebecca told us that Jessica and Grace were exhausted. Remember? Maybe we ought to wait until tomorrow to talk to them.”

“No, I want to talk to them now.”

Cole gave up trying to argue with him. He found the job of marshal incredibly frustrating thus far. He wanted to act. Sorting through the mire of paperwork and talking to potential witnesses was like putting an intricate puzzle together. One had to be patient, and Cole hadn't quite learned how to accomplish that feat.

Part Two
 

The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;

Thirteen
 

Tilly MacGuire's boardinghouse was at the end of Elm Street, a winding road lined with hundred-year-old trees. The front door of the hotel where Rebecca was staying actually faced the front door of the house, but because of the meandering road and the trees, it wasn't possible to see one building from the other.

The old homestead had just been treated to a fresh coat of white paint. The trim of the window shutters and the doors was a dark burgundy red. The color matched the lounging chairs scattered about the porch. The pristine house sat back from the white picket fence that surrounded the property, and while that too had recently been painted, tenacious spurs of ivy were already working their way back up the slats.

Both the house and the rambling lawn in front were shaded by a cluster of ancient walnut trees on either side of the porch. The leafy giant sentinels stood guard over the occupants inside. A faint breeze moved unnoticed through the massive limbs that arched out to one another over the gabled roof.

Tilly MacGuire's home was a charming, idyllic place to raise a brood of children, and she had done just that. The spry sixty-five-year-old woman had married at age fourteen, produced eight offspring—all girls—but after her youngest had married and moved away and her third husband had passed on, she converted her six-bedroom home to a boarding facility.

She didn't need the money; she needed the companionship. She was a discriminating landlord and chose as boarders only those ladies for whom she felt a kinship. She boasted of being a stickler for rules. Men weren't allowed above the first floor, no matter what the reason; her ladies had to be home by ten o'clock every night, including Saturday; they must attend church with her on Sunday morning, and none of them could miss supper. Her houseguests put up with the regulations for the simple reason that as long as they followed the rules, they were gloriously pampered. The food was always delicious and plentiful; the bedrooms were spacious and beautifully adorned, and the linens were changed every other day. More important than the luxuries, though, was Tilly herself. She was a sweet-hearted woman who treated her selected guests like long-lost family members.

If the truth were known, Tilly was also a real softy under her tough, no-nonsense exterior. She had already broken one of her ironclad rules by allowing Jessica and her son to stay with her. Since her own children were grown, Tilly didn't allow babies or children because of the mess they made, but little Caleb turned out to be her one exception. The toddler, a pistol if ever there was one, stole her heart when he batted his big brown eyes and stuck his tongue out at her.

She was laughing at the baby's antics when the marshals knocked on her screen door. Tilly was a
little acorn of a woman with sparkling eyes and deepset wrinkles. She was smiling until she spotted their badges. Latching on to Caleb's hand, she slowly walked to the door.

“You're here to question my girls, aren't you?”

“Yes, ma'am, we are,” Ryan answered.

Her frown intensified. “They're both worried and scared, and only just getting over a hard bout of influenza. Poor Jessica was almost well and then suffered a setback. She was throwing up most of Wednesday evening. It's a shame those girls have got to be scared too. You might as well come on inside. They're both in the kitchen doing my dishes. I don't regularly allow houseguests to set foot in the back of my house, but my hired girls are both home sick, and I'm feeling a little puny myself tonight, so I'm breaking my own rule. I can do that,” she hastily added, “because this is my home. Do you want to talk to both of them together? I'll let you sit at my kitchen table if you do.”

The freshly scrubbed baby was clutching a rag doll by its hair and looking up at Cole. He pulled his hand free from Tilly's grasp and put his thumb in his mouth.

“We'd prefer to talk to each one separately,” Ryan said. “If you wouldn't mind asking Jessica Summers to come out on the porch, we'll wait here.”

“Go find your mama, boy,” she ordered the child.

The baby pulled his thumb out of his mouth long enough to shout, “No,” then turned around and went running toward the back of the house.

Tilly grinned. “‘No' is that baby's favorite word. He must say it a good hundred times a day. He isn't sassy or slow-witted, though, just stubborn.”

She glanced behind her to make certain the baby was out of earshot before she spoke again. “Like I was saying, Jessica and Grace are scared as rabbits, and
it's all because of that rumor someone started, saying one of them was a witness to the murders. It was even written down in the paper. Now, my girls didn't see anything because they would have told me if they had. I don't want to be hearing you marshals browbeat them with your questions either. You hear me?”

“Yes, ma'am, we hear you,” Cole replied.

“I'll go get Jessica,” she said. “Then I'm going upstairs with a pot of tea Grace is kindly brewing for me, but I'll be back down to lock my doors at ten o'clock on the dot. You expect to be finished by then, don't you?”

“Yes, ma'am, we do,” Ryan answered.

Tilly wasn't quite ready to leave. She had something more to say to the marshals, and whenever she wanted to speak her mind, she did exactly that, believing that time was too precious to waste dancing around a sensitive topic.

“It's a crying shame the way this town is acting. Just because my girls haven't been here long, they're fair targets for every rumor. I feel sorry for poor Rebecca James too. She was feeling just as poorly as my girls. Have you hounded her with questions yet?”

Ryan didn't answer. “When did you happen to meet Rebecca?”

“At church Sunday last,” she answered. “We had us a nice talk after services, and she told me she was considering moving into my house because her hotel room was so cramped. She would have been welcome,” she added. “And I'm persnickety in my old age, but I took to her right away. She's got a good heart. Why, she was even nice to nasty old Lemont Morganstaff. She made him blush with her compliments about his garden.”

“How many boarders do you take in?” Cole asked.

“There's room for five, but I only have two now. Just Grace and Jessica, and the baby of course.”

Caleb came running past Tilly, pushed the door open, and scurried outside before she could grab hold of him. The little boy was dressed in a white cotton gown that came down to his ankles. He was barefoot and full of mischief.

“I'll let you boys keep an eye on that critter while I hunt Jessica down. Then I'll take Caleb upstairs because I promised him a story.”

She was turning away when Cole stopped her with a question. “Ma'am? Where's the boy's father?”

“That's a good question, and if I were at liberty to talk about it, I'd tell you where I think he is, but I gave my word to Jessica to keep my mouth shut. I can tell you that sweet boy's mama died giving birth,” she added. “Her husband wasn't at her side, though. No, sir, he wasn't.”

“Jessica isn't the boy's mother?” Daniel asked.

“Caleb thinks she's his mama because she's been taking care of him for so long, but she isn't his blood mother.”

“Is Caleb's father dead or alive?” Cole asked.

“I don't honestly know,” she answered with a scowl. “But I'm hoping he's drunk himself to death by now. I'm not going to say another word about him,” she vowed. “You'll have to ask Jessica for the details.”

She disappeared into the dining room. Cole and Ryan both turned to look down at the baby. Caleb was standing near the front steps, grinning up at them. All of a sudden he dropped to his knees and crawled backward. He wasn't housebroken yet, and when he tried to shimmy down the front steps on his belly, the ties on his diaper came loose.