Gold Fever (33 page)

When Graham had interrupted us watching the dancing, had Tom Jannis been about to tell me he believed Irene had killed Chloe because Chloe, spurned by Irene, had threatened to reveal Irene's terrible secret? That she was a woman-lover, which would have made her an object of scorn to every man in Dawson, and pure poison in every dance hall—including the Savoy.

Was that why Jannis had died—because he was blackmailing Irene?

I'd seen Irene leave the Savoy. Or rather, I'd heard her while Ray was doing such wonderful things to my feet. She was in the company of one of the new percentage girls, a pretty, fresh-faced young thing, going out for breakfast. “My treat,” Irene had said.

Angus. My son was at the Savoy. I'd left him alone. Under the ridiculous protection of Martha Witherspoon. Angus and Martha had been all over Dawson, talking to everyone, poking their innocent, shiny noses into everything and everyone's business.

Who had killed Chloe?

Who had reason to kill Jannis?

I wasn't wearing shoes or a hat, my hair was unbound. In my haste to fasten my dress, the over-corset caught in the eye of the lower button. I wrenched the button off in frustration, revealing enough of my breasts to have me arrested.

Let them try.

Angus pulled the curtains over the windows at either side of the front door. “I'm sorry, Miss Witherspoon, but I have to help my ma here. If you want to leave, it's okay.”

Martha Witherspoon set her shoulders firmly. “Such is the lot of the writer, dear boy. Your mother is perfectly correct. Good heavens, what was that?”

“A mouse, probably. Come out when he thinks everyone's gone. Man's been sick in the back, most likely. That attracts all sorts of vermin. Never mind, Mrs. Saunderson'll take care of it when she comes in. Ma didn't really expect us to clean it up. Are you feeling all right, Miss Witherspoon? You look slightly pale.”

Miss Witherspoon mumbled something about being perfectly fine and sank into the chair recently vacated by Angus's mother.

“The sick isn't so bad,” Angus continued. “It mops up easily. It's blood that's hard to get out. Soaks into the wooden floor, and there it stays. Ma tells me they have a fight every so often, and some guy's usually on the floor, blood pouring out of his nose, before the bouncers can get to him. Mrs. Saunderson hates that. She'd rather have a puking drunk any day. Sure you're okay, Miss Witherspoon?”

Miss Witherspoon tossed him a sickly smile. “I'll lock this sack up.” Angus lifted the bag heavy with gold dust, jingling with coins, stuffed with bills of American and Canadian denominations and topped up with a good number of hefty gold nuggets.

“Sorry, ma'am, but we're closed right now,” he said as a woman came in through the unlocked front door. She was small and skinny. She wore a plain brown dress, caked with mud at the hem, and an unflattering hat, slightly askew. Her pale eyes darted back and forth too quickly, and the skin under them folded over and over upon itself to form deep crevices. The look in her eyes made Angus think of sadness and of loss.

“Ma'am,” he said. “Can I help you?” He'd seen eyes like those before: change the colour from lifeless blue to unemotional brown and they could have been the eyes of the Indian women who'd stood perfectly still as they'd watched Angus and Sterling cross Moosehide village.

The woman shook her head. “Irene,” she said. “Where's Irene?”

“Probably gone home,” Angus said. “The Savoy's closed, you see.”

“You should leave also,” Miss Witherspoon said. “Off you go now.” She moved her hands in front of her as if she were shooing away a particularly pesky lapdog.

The woman made no attempt to move; she stood still, in the middle of the saloon, her eyes darting around, attempting to peer into all the dark corners.

“Light's still on. Late for you isn't it, Fiona? Mrs. MacGillivray?” Constable Sterling walked into the saloon. “Angus, what brings you here? Where's your mother? I thought I'd better check, as she's usually long gone by now.”

The woman screeched at the sight of the red-coated Mountie. She pulled a small-calibre gun out from a pocket in the depths of her dress and held it to Miss Witherspoon's head. All before Sterling could exhale.

It was a lady's gun, a pretty little thing with a stub nose and a shiny walnut handle.

“Put the weapon down, ma'am,” Constable Richard Sterling said, trying to sound calm, in control, a man of authority. “You don't want trouble, now do you?”

All the blood had drained from Martha Witherspoon's face. Angus stood rooted to the spot, shock filling his face. The woman with the gun looked at Sterling then back at Martha, who sat as stiffly as one of the legs holding up the table, the gun pressed to the side of her head, and lastly at Angus.

“Where's Irene?” she said.

“Gee, ma'am, I don't know,” Angus cried. “Miss Witherspoon doesn't know either. Do you, Miss Witherspoon?” Martha Witherspoon croaked something that sounded like “no.”

Sterling's heart raced; he wiped his palms on the legs of his trousers. He'd been eager to get the hat pin, and his certainty about the nature of the weapon that had killed Tom Jannis, to McKnight. It was too early to find the inspector in his office, so when Sterling had seen the light from a kerosene lamp flickering from the front room of the Savoy, he'd jumped at the chance to have a minute alone with Fiona, in order to confess how badly he felt about Angus's misplaced faith in him. Perhaps, if he were lucky, he'd be offered the opportunity to escort her home.

Instead he'd stepped into this. The muzzle of the gun was pressed firmly against Martha Witherspoon's right temple. If this wild-eyed woman was serious, Sterling had no chance of crossing the room and grabbing the gun without it going off.

“Why don't you sit down, Mrs…?”

“Brandon. Maggie Brandon, and it's Miss.”

“Miss Brandon. I'm Richard, this is Angus and Martha. Angus, perhaps you could make us a pot of tea. Everything goes better with a cup of tea, isn't that right, Miss Brandon? May I call you Maggie?”

Angus took a tentative step towards the kitchen.

“Don't you move, boy,” she said. “I don't want no tea. No, you cannot call me Maggie.”

“What
do
you want, Miss Brandon?” Sterling asked, hoping he sounded perfectly calm—not like a man scared out of his wits.

He took a step forward.

“Don't you move, either, or I'll finish this one off.”

He held out his hands, pleased to see they weren't shaking. “Okay, okay. You want to talk to Irene? Why don't we send Angus and Miss Witherspoon to fetch her? I'll stay with you while they're gone.”

“I don't think so.
You
find Irene. Tell her there's a steamboat leaving at noon. I want us to be on it. It's time to get out of this goddamned town.”

Sterling didn't bother to reprimand her for her language. He couldn't leave Angus and Martha alone with this madwoman, but did he have any choice? If he stayed, they could stand here all day, or until Maggie's hand got tired. Or her patience ran out.

“You, boy.” She turned to Angus. “Go sit over there.” She nodded to the stools at the bar.

“But…” Angus said.

“Sit over there, boy, or I take the lady's hand off.” The gun swung down and pushed itself into the flesh on the back of Martha's white hand, lying on the table.

Angus ran across the room to the bar.

Maggie looked at Sterling. “You can't make it, Redcoat.” The gun returned to Martha's temple. “By the time you reach me, this lady's brains be all over her ugly dress.”

Martha moaned. She looked at Sterling, her eyes wide, pleading for him to do something…anything.

“Go get Irene,” Maggie said forcefully. All he could do was to go for help. He walked backwards with great deliberation, still holding his hands out in front of him in a gesture of what—submission? friendship? What a mess. If he called for reinforcements, they'd have the place surrounded, and no one would be likely to get out without bloodshed. But he couldn't just walk off in search of Irene Davidson and ask her to handle this situation.

Strange that it was a woman who had a fixation on Irene. Men, particularly lonely men far from home, often got much too emotionally tied-up in the worship of their favourite dancer. But a woman?

He felt the door at his back and grabbed the handle. Sterling took a last look at the almost empty bar. Martha Witherspoon looked close to fainting; Angus was pale but appeared to be keeping himself under control; Maggie Brandon watched Sterling like an eagle might watch a mouse crossing an open field. He knew she was capable of doing what she threatened.

As he moved to open the door, it opened itself and slapped against his back. He whirled around to come what under better circumstances would have been delightfully face-to-face with Fiona MacGillivray.

“What on earth?” she said. He grabbed her around the waist and half-carried, halfpushed her out into the street. Fiona twisted, and without Sterling quite knowing how, she freed herself. “Have you gone mad?” She looked like a madwoman herself, with her black hair billowing like a storm cloud about to break and her dress half undone.

Sterling had no time to appreciate the view. “You can't go in there, Fiona.”

“Of course I can. Angus is there, with Martha. And my dressmaker, although why she's calling at this time of day, I have no idea.”

“Maggie Brandon is your dressmaker?”

“Yes.” Fiona stepped around him. He grabbed her arm. She moved her body to break the grip, but this time Sterling was ready for her, and he took hold of her other arm as she turned.

“Fiona, you have to listen to me.”

“Let go of me.” Her voice was deep and dark, the look in her black eyes matching the state of her hair.

“I'll release you, if you promise to hear me out.”

“You have thirty seconds,” she said, as though she wasn't the one being restrained, “to tell me why my son is sitting at the bar, and I can't go to him.”

Sterling released her. Fiona was a tall woman, but still a good deal shorter than he. In the back of his mind, he'd thought that something was different. Now he realized what it was—she was shorter than normal. He looked down. Her bare feet were covered with mud. Splashes of mud coated the hem of her dress—a dress he hadn't seen before, in a fantastic red. She had thrown a shawl over her shoulders, but it was slipping, revealing that the top two buttons were undone. Her face was flushed red with anger.

Attracted by Fiona's state of dishevelment and her public tussle with the big Mountie, a small crowd began to gather. “You've got her now, Constable,” someone called, to cheers from the onlookers.

Sterling lowered his voice. “She has a gun, Fiona. You go in there, she'll shoot. Step one foot closer, buddy, and I'll have you arrested for using vile language.”

“I ain't said nothin'.”

“You will if I arrest you.”

The miscreant removed himself from earshot.

Fiona lifted a hand to her mouth. “Angus?”

“Everyone's fine, Fiona, but I don't know for how long. I have to go for help.”

“Irene?”

“How do you know?”

“I guessed. Oh my God. Angus.” Her eyes filled with tears, and her lower lip quivered. “Angus.”

Sterling wanted to do nothing but gather her in his arms and promise her that he'd make everything all right. Instead he said, “Do you know where Irene is likely to be? Can you find her and bring her here?”

Fiona looked up. “Bring her here? Isn't she inside?”

“Irene Davidson? No. That's why we need her.”

“You said she had a gun on Angus.”

“Irene? I didn't say that. It's some woman I've only seen around town. You said she's your dressmaker. She's asking for Irene. Maybe she has some sort of fixation on Irene, or else her man is spending too much of his time and money at the Savoy, and she blames Irene.”

A light crossed Fiona's face. “Oh,” she said. “Maggie Brandon killed Chloe and Tom Jannis.”

Sterling felt as if his head were about to explode. What this had to do with the two murders that had rocked Dawson, and Fort Herchmer, in the last two weeks he had no idea. One problem at a time. “You, come here,” Sterling saw a familiar face in the crowd. Not one of the more respectable citizens, but someone who could be trusted to carry a message.

Joe Hamilton looked pleased to be picked out of the pack. No one could quite hear what was being said between the Mountie and the woman every man in town dreamed about, but her state of frantic near-undress, and the look on their faces, was enough to keep the multitude entranced and growing.

Sterling called Hamilton closer and spoke into his ear. “You breathe a word of this outside of Fort Herchmer, and I'll see you run out of town. Understand?”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Sterling.” Sterling told Joe to make for the Fort as fast as he could.

If he passed any Mounties on the way, he was to tell them they were needed at the Savoy. At the Fort he was to go straight to Inspector McKnight's office and tell anyone there that there was a hostage-taking at the Savoy.

Hamilton sucked in his breath. “One word out of place,” Sterling growled, “and you'll be lucky to be run out of town in one piece.”

Hamilton took off at a sprint. The crowd opened before him.

The men were edging closer. Sterling didn't know how much longer he'd be able to keep them back. Fortunately, everyone knew that the Savoy was closed this time of day, so no one was trying to get in for a drink.

“Richard,” Fiona said, so softly he had to bend forward to hear her, “what can I do?”

“Do you know where Irene Davidson lives?”

“I know something better. I know where she went for breakfast. They might still be there.”