Fatal as a Fallen Woman (19 page)

Jane blanched at the mention of the murder weapon.

"I wonder why that was left behind?" Diana mused. "I never thought to ask about it. No one is claiming it belonged to Mother, so I suppose it must be a very ordinary type of knife, something anyone might carry for protection. In the heat of anger, it came out. Passionate hatred made the killer plunge it into Father more than once. That took strength . . . or very great anger."

"Stop!" Jane shuddered. "I don't want to hear about such things. I've had nightmares about it as it is, imagining the sensation of steel sinking into flesh, striking bone, pulling out with a little sucking sound and a great gush of blood."

Diana stared at her. "And I thought I had an overactive imagination! Don't dwell on it, Jane." She took the list of questions from the other woman's limp hand and glanced at it.

When and where did Mother threaten Father before witnesses and who were they?
At the Windsor, according to Charlie, in a ballroom at Christmas time. But what she'd threatened was not murder. She'd vowed to make him pay for what he'd done to her. Elmira claimed she had been planning the worst kind of revenge on her former spouse—financial ruin. She'd wanted him alive so she could watch him suffer.

Who else had overheard? Miranda? Was that when she'd conceived the idea of framing Elmira for her own crime?

Did anyone see Mother at the Windsor that night?
No.

Who saw Father at the Windsor before he was killed?
No one had seen him enter the suite. That was an important point. That had to have been deliberate on his part. He'd been hiding something. Which brought Diana to
Why was he at the Windsor?
Answer: to meet someone, probably his mistress.

Who else besides Mother might have wanted to kill him?

She'd written only one name after that question: Miranda. But there were other possibilities. In all fairness, Diana knew she should consider them suspects. She located the stub of a pencil in a pocket and scribbled briefly.

Jane came up behind her and read over her shoulder. "Ed Leeves. Matt Hastings. Father's mistress." She pursed her lips. "No other suspects?"

"Not so far. And I still think Miranda is the most likely person to have killed him. I hope Matt's right, that her own curiosity will drive her to call on me here. I want very much to talk to her."

In the meantime, there was one other person Diana had been looking forward to seeing again. As soon as everything had been unpacked and put away, she found her way to Matt's kitchen.

Dorcas Johnson was just as Diana remembered her, a red-cheeked and robust individual of indeterminate age with bags under her eyes, wobbly double chins, and enormous dewlaps thickening her upper arms. She greeted Diana with a hug that almost smothered her against an ample bosom.

"You've grown, child! Let me look at you." She set Diana away from her and examined her thoroughly, a wide grin on her face. "Very nice. Now what's this I hear about you marrying Mr. Matt?"

Diana found she could not lie to Dorcas. At the first attempt, the old woman knew she was fibbing and promptly whisked her away into the private quarters she occupied as cook and housekeeper.

"No one here now but us chickens. Out with it."

Diana confessed everything.

"Can't say I approve," Dorcas said. "But then I haven't approved of much going on around here the last few years. I wouldn't work for her." She jerked her head in the general direction of Miranda's house. "But I wasn't about to follow your mama into sin and degradation neither."

"I'm glad you stayed close."

"You just want me to make you some of my blackberry buckle."

Diana's mouth watered at the thought. "Would you?"

"I'll think about it. I cook the meals here, but I'm not at anybody's beck and call. I'm too old for that nonsense. I don't wait on people and I don't do extras. You or your chaperone or your companion want anything more than three squares a day, unless I'm in a very good mood, you fix it yourselves. Even Mr. Matt understands that."

"Trained him well, did you? I seem to remember you tried to make Father fend for himself when it came to late night snacks. He threatened to fire you."

"I work hard," Dorcas grumbled. "I need my sleep. To bed at nine, like clockwork, that's me. And up with the roosters."

* * * *

Diana remembered Dorcas's uncompromising stance on "extras" late that same night, after an evening out with Matt. He'd introduced her as his intended bride to dozens of people who'd known her father.

"Some warm milk?" Jane asked when Diana and Matt found her waiting up in the sitting room upon their return. "Long Tall Linda swears by it to help a body settle down to sleep."

"No need," Diana assured her. "And if you want some for yourself, you'll have to fix it. Mrs. Johnson went to bed hours ago." So, she was certain, had Mrs. Bowden, who had not accompanied them to the gathering at the St. James.

"Let me show you where everything is," Matt offered. "I often make a hot toddy for myself in the evening."

Jane sent Diana a doubtful look before going with him.

Diana climbed the stairs to her bedroom alone. She was exhausted and knew the next day would be just as busy. Unfortunately, she'd gained nothing but sore feet and the beginnings of another headache from tonight's venture into society. No one seemed to have liked her father, but neither had anyone she'd met displayed enough hatred to have killed him. Tomorrow she must speak with Miranda, she decided. Somehow, she had to get the woman to give herself away.

Yawning, Diana stepped into her room.

Something moved in the shadows, causing her to bite back a scream.

"Only me, Mrs. Diana."

"Ning! How did you get in here?" She hastened to light the lamp.

Grinning, Ning pointed to the open window. "Drainpipe outside."

There was so much pride in his voice that Diana couldn't bring herself to reprimand him for the risk he'd taken. "You could have come to the kitchen door. Dorcas would have let you in."

"Gentleman say not."

For a moment Diana couldn't breathe. "He's
here
? So soon?"

Ning nodded. "He send message. Not written down. Say you come first thing tomorrow to hotel." He gave her the room number. "He wait."

"Oh, Lord."

"You okay, Mrs. Diana?"

"Yes. Yes, of course, Ning. You've done a fine job but you'd better go now, before anyone sees you here or hears us talking."

"You go first thing tomorrow?"

"Oh, yes, Ning. I go." But she doubted that her long-awaited reunion with Ben Northcote would go as smoothly as she'd hoped.

* * * *

"You weren't supposed to get here so soon," Diana said the moment Ben opened the door to let her into his suite at the Windsor Hotel.

That's my Diana,
Ben thought.
Tart and truthful.

He stepped back to study her. To his mind she was perfection from her pert little nose to her trim ankles. A lock of her hair tumbled over her collar, having escaped the confines of the bun underneath her favorite green hat with its jaunty feather. Ben resisted an urge to tuck the curl back into place. If he touched her, he wouldn't want to let go, and if she
hadn't
wanted him to come to Denver, if what he'd heard last night turned out to be true and she was going to marry someone else . . . .

She was staring back at him as if she were trying to memorize his features. The look in her wide-spaced blue eyes gave him hope.

"You knew I'd follow you," he said, in the mildest voice he could manage.

"I hoped. But I appear to have some large and frightening skeletons in my closets."

Her voice, low and slightly husky, washed over him like warm rain. He'd missed her voice. He'd missed everything about her, from the way she folded her hands in her lap when she was trying to control her temper to the pencil stubs and little notebooks covered in green cloth that she habitually carried on her person.

"After all you've learned about me and my family," Ben said, "how could you think that anything your parents might have done could change the way I feel about you?" He held his hands up, palms out, to prevent her from answering. "If you compare me to Evan Spaulding, I
will
lose my temper."

"You're nothing like Evan. And I
did
write to you as soon as I could think clearly enough to compose a letter."

He'd have been happier if she'd turned to him full of confusion, needing him to take care of her, but then she would not have been the self-reliant, impulsive, passionate Diana he loved. She'd had to see for herself what was what and a delay would have been intolerable. In his mind he understood that, but his heart was another matter. He fished a telegram from his pocket and handed it to her.

"LETTER ARRIVED FOR YOU FROM DENVER. INTERESTING READING. MOTHER."

Diana groaned. "Maggie read it?"

"Apparently." He opened his arms and she glided into his embrace. A long, satisfying while later, they separated. He put a little distance between them. "We need to talk."

"You are a master of understatement," she said. Rather than try to straighten her hat, she removed it, and took off her gloves as well.

"Why don't you start by telling me why you agreed to marry another man?"

Her eyes twinkled. "
How
long have you been in town?"

"Long enough to hear gossip and to wonder, just for a moment, if you make a habit of moving into strange men's homes on short acquaintance."

She hit him on the upper arm with enough force to make him wince. He found the pain oddly reassuring.

"I've known Matt Hastings since I was a child."

"You aren't a child now, and neither is he."

"You're jealous." She sounded surprised, which sparked his anger as nothing else could have.

"Of course I'm jealous! I love you. You've just moved into another man's house, claiming to be his betrothed. How do you expect me to feel?"

"A little confidence in me would be nice!"

"Diana, I don't want to quarrel."

"Then don't!"

They glared at each other for a moment. Then they were kissing. When they separated this time, they were both breathing hard.

"I'm sorry, Ben. I should have written sooner." She reached up to straighten his silk neck scarf. "At first I didn't know what to say to you. Then, by the time I was here and could organize my thoughts . . . well, I
did
write."

"I wish you'd simply told me what had happened to begin with. I could have come West with you. Or taken the next train. You didn't have to be on your own for a week."

"Maybe I did. And in any case, I didn't want to force you to choose between me and Aaron."

He took both her hands in his and studied her face. She had very fair skin. He'd once compared her complexion to gardenia petals. "Diana, you are the most important person in my life. There are other doctors in Bangor. You know that. But there's only one woman I love and I've been worried sick about her."

"I love you, too, Ben." She sighed. "I had a letter all written, one in which I said I was on my way to Maine to marry you. And then I found out about my father's murder and about my mother."

"Foxe filled me in on some of the details."

"Which details? The information he's gotten from the newspaper here is biased. You would not believe what—"

"He told me your mother had disappeared."

"Well, yes."

"And that she had . . . ties with an underworld figure named Ed Leeves. He was concerned about you, Diana. As I am. Do you know where your mother is? If she'd turn herself in—"

"No!" She pulled away from him and began to prowl the confines of the room.

"No you don't know, or no she shouldn't surrender?"

"Both."

"So, you've seen her? Talked to her?" He couldn't say why he was so certain of that fact, but there was no question in his mind but that she had been in direct contact with Elmira Torrence.

"Yes. Once. She didn't kill my father, Ben. I'm sure of it."

He sighed. "So now you're trying to discover who did." It was not a question. "I was afraid of that."

"What else am I to do? Will you help me?"

"I'm here, aren't I?"

"When did you leave Maine?"

"It feels like weeks ago. I bearded Foxe in his den on Saturday morning." He'd been traveling almost constantly since then. He'd left New York that same evening and, after two nights and a day, had reached Chicago, 900 miles distant. He'd suffered through a twenty-four hour delay there, then covered the next legs, from Chicago to Omaha and Omaha to Denver, on the fastest trains he could catch.

"That explains it. He warned me you were coming, but I assumed you'd been in touch with him by telegram and that he meant you were leaving on Sunday from Maine. I thought I'd have time to carry out a certain . . . plan before you arrived in Denver."

"A plan? I'm not sure I want to hear this."

She made herself comfortable, legs curled beneath her, in the room's one overstuffed chair, and started at the beginning. When she'd finished recounting everything she'd already written to him, she filled in the details of what had happened since.

Ben alternately clenched his fists and prayed for patience as the story poured out. "Dangerously impetuous" did not even begin to describe Diana's actions.

"How does your engagement to Hastings help the cause?"

"It gets me close to my primary suspect, Miranda Torrence. I planned to move out of Matt's house as soon as you arrived, but since I only moved in yesterday, I'll have to continue the charade a bit longer."

"Isn't that a little unfair to your Mr. Hastings?" He couldn't quite keep the sardonic tone out of his voice.

"I've told you. The engagement isn't real. And it was his idea, a way for us to work together to find Father's killer."

"I don't like it, especially when Hastings himself is on your list of suspects."

"I can eliminate him easily enough. While I'm asking questions of and about Miranda, I can also find out more about Matt. Living in his house provides the perfect opportunity to snoop."

"Just as living in my house let you learn all about me?" He could feel his face stick in a scowl.