Rose's Mail Order Husband - A Historical Mail Order Bride Story (Montana Brides) (4 page)

“The minister will be here soon,” he remarked. “You should get up to your room before he comes.”

He sat up, but she stayed reclined on the couch, looking up at him. She didn’t answer him. She finally looked away toward the window.

“What’s bothering you?” he asked.

“The dress,” she told him. “The dress Violet made for me.”

“What about it?” he asked.

“They got mad because I said I didn’t want to wear it,” she told him.

“Why don’t you want to wear it?” he asked.

“The sleeves are ruffled,” she told him. “The sleeves end here, just below the elbow, and then there’s a ruffle that goes down the rest of the way. When you lift your arm, your forearm is visible.”

“Oh, I see,” he replied. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“They made such a stink that I agreed to wear it,” Rose told him. “I didn’t want to, but Violet went to a lot of trouble to make our dresses, and both of them got very offended when I said I’d wear something else. So I guess I have to wear it. It could cause a problem.”

“I see,” he replied. “Well, we’ll just have to deal with it when the time comes.”

“With any luck,” she continued, “the Sheriff will stay away until after the service. He said he would try to. That will give me a chance to change back into a dress with regular sleeves.”

Jake snorted. “I think that was his polite way of saying he’s coming. Besides, if what you say about the dress is true, you could still have some explaining to do to your sisters and Chuck and Mick. It could get sticky.”

“So I’ll explain,” he replied. “What could be simpler?”

“I don’t know why you didn’t just explain in the first place,” Jake remarked. “Then we wouldn’t have to sneak around like this.”

Rose shrugged. “Humor me.”

“I am,” he replied.

Rose sat up. “I guess we should go back down. There’s no point pawing through every detail of the situation right now. Let’s get the wedding out of the way. Everything will be much clearer afterwards.”

“So you keep saying.” Jake strolled through the room, studying the objects and furniture again. “Doesn’t it bother you in the least that this is his house?”

“Not in the least,” Rose declared. “He deserved to die, and he deserved to die in a much more painful, tortured, excruciating way to pay for what he did.”

Jake shook his head. “You’re a hard one, you are. I didn’t know you were so hard.”

“What’s the matter?” Rose shot back. “You told Violet yourself that the only thing to do with a man like Cornell was to shoot him like a mad dog. He should be grateful he died as quickly and painlessly as he did. There are worse ways a man can die.”

“Just don’t tell your sisters that,” Jake told her. “They’ll go into hysterics if they hear you talking that way. Come to think of it, don’t tell the Sheriff, either.”

“I will tell them,” she declared. “I’ll tell anyone who asks.”

He meandered toward the door. “Are you coming? I’ll walk you out.”

“I’m coming,” she replied.

He met her at the door and took her hand. They went out into the garden, and Jake shut the door behind them. “I like this part of the house best of all. I don’t have to see him here.”

“In a little while,” Rose told him, “you won’t see him inside, either. We’ll get rid of his things, and we’ll rearrange the house, and we’ll make it our own. Then you’ll forget all about him.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever forget him,” Jake replied.

They walked a little further to the edge of the garden. A hedge of juniper blocked any view in or out. Jake pulled Rose close to him again. This time, his lips sailed in toward her and landed on her mouth. “It sure is nice here.”

“I love it,” Rose replied. “I always loved the Bird House. I hated Cornell for living here, because I
couldn’t come here when I wanted to without running into him. I used to come and hide in the garden when I knew he was working in the Main House library. This was my secret hiding place, and neither he nor my sisters ever knew. I could run away when I heard him coming.”

“What would he have done if he knew?” Jake asked.

“He probably would have forbidden me to come here at all,” she replied. “He didn’t want anyone coming here. It was his sanctuary.”

“I can understand why,”
Jake told her. “These hedges keep you completely hidden from the rest of the ranch. You can forget all about the rest of the world and disappear into your own little inner world.”

“That’s what I like about it,” Rose agreed.

He kissed her again. He pulled back and gave her a shy smile. “I’ll guess I’ll see you in a little while.” He put his head to one side. “It seems like a long time. I don’t know why.”

“The sooner, the better,” she agreed.

They shared another lingering kiss, and a knowing look, and then they slipped out through the opening in the hedge.

Rose ran down the hill to the Main House. Just inside the back door, she turned to rush up the stairs, but she stopped when she heard Violet and Iris talking in the kitchen.

“I’m telling you, Violet,” Iris was saying, “
she’s hiding something. The only explanation is that she and Jake planned to kill Cornell, and now she’s worried about getting caught.”

“She doesn’t seem at all concerned to me about getting caught,” Violet returned. “Every time we question her about it, she seems quite certain neither she nor Jake will be held responsible for the murder. She might know something, but maybe she knows who did it and she knows it wasn’t her or Jake.”

“But that would mean that either Mick or Jake did it,” Iris reasoned, “and we know they didn’t. No, it has to be them. Maybe she planned the whole thing with him in her letters to him. Maybe she got herself a mail-order husband who would help her get rid of her guardian, and now they’ve carried out her plan.”

“How can you think such a thing about your own sister?” Violet cried.

“What else is there to think?” Iris shot back. “Have you got another explanation for the way she’s acting? It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“I certainly don’t understand it,” Violet replied. “I’ve never seen her like this.”

“And can you believe that business about her not wearing the dress you made for her?” Iris exclaimed. “I’ve never heard anything so outrageous in all my life. She’s always been such a meek little lamb. If he didn’t influence her to kill Cornell for the house, then the only other possibility is that she influenced him.”

“She can’t be a murderer,” Violet wailed. “She just can’t be! She’s our sister.”

“I’m sure most murderers are somebody’s brother or sister or son or daughter,” Iris remarked. “They must be related to somebody. We’re no different from everybody else. You have to admit that Rose has always been a little queer. Maybe she went off the deep end. Who knows what drives a person to kill another? And for such a paltry prize as a house! It doesn’t bear thinking about!”

Violet sobbed, and Rose imagined her covering her mouth with her hand the way she did when she got distressed.
Dear old Violet! She would defend Rose until the end of the world.

Iris was another story altogether. A groundswell of hatred for her middle sister rose up in Rose’s heart, but she
couldn’t face them both again. She’d held out against almost nonstop assaults from both of them ever since Cornell died.

She turned away toward the stairs and took a couple of steps when her two sisters breezed out of the kitchen and nearly collided with her at the door.

“Oh!” Iris exclaimed. “I didn’t know you were here, Rose.” She bit off the end of her words.

“Of course you didn’t know I was here,” Rose returned. “If you had known, you wouldn’t have been talking about me where I could overhear your conversation.”

“Did you hear….?” Violet began.

“I heard every word,” Rose told them.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” The tears Violet she just dried started running out of her eyes again.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Rose assured her. “I already knew what you both think.
You’ve told me to my face you think Jake is a murderer, and that I’m either protecting him or guilty myself. What is there to apologize for? You can think whatever you want.”

“You’ve never denied it,” Iris pointed out.

“I’ve told you before that Jake is not a murderer,” Rose maintained. “But I can see there’s nothing I can say to convince you.”

“Why don’t you just tell us what it is you know?” Iris suggested. “If we understood your thinking, we might believe you were innocent.”

“No, I won’t tell you anything,” Rose snapped. “If you can’t believe I’m innocent, I’m not going to make it easier for you.”

“Then we have no choice but to think you’re guilty,” Iris concluded, “or that Jake is guilty and you’re protecting him.”

Rose took hold of the banister. “I really don’t care what you think. I’m very happy to have you think me a murderer. At least we all know what we think of each other. That clears the air.”

Violet laid her hand on top of Iris’s on the banister. “Don’t walk away, Rose.
Don’t leave with this ugliness hanging over us. Let’s work this out so we all understand each other. Let us know what’s going on with you. Don’t let us think the worst of you.”

“I know you wouldn’t think the worst of me, Violet,” Rose replied. “I know you would think the best of me no matter what happened.
But if Iris wants to believe I’m protecting Jake from a murderer charge, that’s okay with me. I’ll admit that all the evidence points to him. I can’t deny that. But you’ll just have to believe me. I know more about him than you do, and he’s not a murderer.”

“I just can’t believe you,” Iris told her. “You’ve been acting so strangely, and you’ve said some very cruel and nasty things to Violet and me.
It’s easier for me believe you’re involved in this somehow. You’ve given me no choice.”

“That’s all right.” Rose replied. “I don’t mind.”

A rap at the front door interrupted them, and Violet answered it. She held the door aside, and Sheriff Tom Maitland strutted into the hall.

“
Mornin’, ladies,” the sheriff greeted them. “Nice day for a wedding, don’t you think?”

“Good morning, Sheriff,” Violet replied. “I trust your investigation is progressing well.”

“Oh, it is,” he assured her. “As a matter of fact, that’s why I’m here. I’m here to arrest Jake Hamilton for the murder of Cornell Pollard.”

The sheriff and Violet and Iris spun around when they heard a sudden cry from Rose. “But you can’t arrest Jake!”

“Oh, but I can,” Sheriff Maitland replied. “I can, and I will.”

“You can’t!” Rose cried again. “He didn’t do it.”

The sheriff examined her with a jaundiced eye. “You’ll have to forgive me, young lady, if I don’t take the word of a woman who’s waiting for him at the threshold of the altar as an iron-clad profession of his innocence. You see, there’s a preponderance of evidence that points to him as the most likely suspect.”

“Would you mind telling us what that evidence is?” Violet asked. “Not that I doubt your investigative abilities, you understand, Sheriff. It’s just that, as you say, Rose is about to marry Jake, and if you’re going to arrest him, it would help if we heard what evidence you’re citing as proof of his guilt.”

“I didn’t say I had proof of his guilt,” Sheriff Maitland corrected her. “I only said I had a preponderance of evidence, and that’s all I need to make an arrest. The court will have to establish proof of guilt. But since you ask, I’ll tell you what the evidence is.”

“I appreciate it,” Violet replied.

“I think I can eliminate you three ladies as suspects,” the sheriff told her. “And I believe that
fella McAllister has an alibi for the time of the murder, even if it is his own sweetheart that’s giving him one. And I don’t believe Mr. Ahern could have gotten all the way around the other side of the house and back up to the Fort House in time to meet Miss Violet at the corner of the fence. So that eliminates him.”

“But just because Jake doesn’t have an alibi doesn’t make him guilty,” Rose pointed out.

“No, but there is other evidence,” Sheriff Maitland replied. “As I told you all in the library yesterday, one of the slugs that hit Cornell in the chest lodged in his ribs. It didn’t penetrate his chest. I could see the end of it sticking out.”

“Yes, I remember,”
Violet replied. “That’s how you knew the gun that killed him was 38 caliber.”

“That’s right,” the sheriff confirmed. “Jake Hamilton is the only one of the three men who carries 38 caliber side arms. The slug lodged in Cornell’s chest had some unique markings on it. I think if I found the gun that fired the slug, I could match it to the slug by some features of the firing chamber in the gun. See what I mean?”

“You could also use the same evidence to clear Jake of any wrong-doing,” Violet suggested. “You could see that his gun didn’t kill Cornell.”

“I could,” Sheriff Maitland agreed, “but to do that, I would have to examine the gun, and I won’t be able to do that until I lay my hands on Mr. Hamilton.
And I couldn’t very well tip him off that I was lookin’ for him without placing him under arrest. He might run off in the meantime. Anyway, I’m here to arrest him, and I’ll examine the gun afterwards. You don’t happen to know where I can find him, do you?”