Sketch a Falling Star (24 page)

Once he made it back to the East Coast, he picked up the fugitive’s trail and followed it to Manhattan, where he spent days going from brothel to brothel, showing Trask’s picture to every madam and prostitute in the city. His efforts finally paid off when he found Lucy Rheingold, a scrappy young woman with a broken nose and a missing tooth, courtesy of Trask’s fist. According to the madam, who was fuming about the assault and subsequent loss of revenue while Lucy healed, Trask had demanded directions to the Long Island Railroad, which she’d given him, regretting only that they weren’t directions to perdition.

Taking the same route, Drummond caught a ferry across the East River to Hunter’s Point, Queens, and made his way to the Long Island Railroad terminal. The ticket agent didn’t recognize Trask from his picture, but after showing it to his colleagues, he reported back to Drummond that the fugitive had indeed purchased a ticket to the North Shore town of Huntington.

Drummond climbed aboard the train, weary beyond endurance. He hadn’t slept in a bed since leaving New Mexico, close to two months earlier, and he was running out of funds. Though his shoulder had healed, it ached like a rotten tooth when the weather was damp, which seemed to be the case more often than not on the coast. The three-hour trip to Huntington included changing trains several times, and on the last stretch, he fell asleep on the hard cane bench and would have missed his stop altogether if the conductor hadn’t awakened him.

He stepped off the train somewhat dazed and stood for a moment blinking in the harsh sunlight, trying to get his bearings. He was buoyed to see a blacksmith shop and stable just across the street from the depot. He was going to need the use of a horse for the duration of his stay in the town. For that matter, Trask had probably found himself in the same position. So a visit to the smithy might well take care of the marshal’s two most pressing problems—transportation and locating Trask.

As he walked inside the shop, he pulled the picture from his pocket, unfolding it with care, as it was starting to tear along the creases. The blacksmith, who introduced himself as O’Donnell, was a short, thin fellow with muscular arms that looked as if they’d sprouted on the wrong body. When Drummond showed him Trask’s picture, he recognized him immediately.

“Something about him didn’t sit quite right,” O’Donnell said, “but I try to treat everyone equal. So when he asked where he could find work, I told him Winston Samuels was looking to hire. If I’d known he was a wanted man, I’d have kept my mouth shut. Anyways, I sold him a horse, and I haven’t seen him since.”

Drummond thanked him for the information, after which the two men worked out a mutually agreeable deal for the rental of a horse and tack. Although the dun had seen its finest days a decade ago, the marshal was so relieved to be in the saddle again that he barely noticed the animal’s deficiencies.

He was about to ride away when a question made him turn back to the blacksmith. “Does Samuels have a family?”

“Not much of one. His wife died some five, six years ago of the pneumonia. Now it’s just his daughter and himself.”

“How old is the girl?” Drummond asked, afraid to hear the answer.

O’Donnell thought for a moment. “Let me see…Claire’s gotta be…gotta be thirteen by now,” he said. “Pretty girl, apple of her father’s…”

Before the blacksmith finished his sentence, Drummond had spun the horse around and raced off.

He had no problem finding the farm from O’Donnell’s directions. The house itself was a white, two-story frame structure with a deep porch. He could see several outbuildings beyond the house as well, the largest of them clearly a stable. As there didn’t appear to be anyone around, he tied his horse to a convenient cherry tree and walked up to the front door. He was about to knock when he heard a young girl scream. The sound seemed to come through the partially open window to his right.

He tried the door and found it locked. Gun in hand he stepped back far enough to come at the door with a powerful kick that tore it away from its hinges and sent it crashing onto the entryway floor. There was a moment of silence that told him the occupants in the next room had been unaware of his presence until the door went down. Making the most of that surprise meant acting quickly. His finger on the trigger, he stepped around the partial wall that separated the entryway from the room on his right.

Trask was standing at the far end of what was clearly a parlor with a gun in his hand. Claire lay in a heap to one side of him, a deep gash in her temple bleeding freely. Drummond could just make out the subtle rise and fall of her chest. This time he wasn’t too late.

As soon as Trask saw the marshal, he dropped to his knees, pulling the limp girl up against his body like a shield. He pressed his gun to her temple. “You’re gonna turn right around and walk out of here, Marshal,” he said in a tone that was eerily calm given the circumstances. “No one has to die today. And you don’t need to worry about Claire here; I plan on takin’ real good care of her.”

Drummond had Trask framed in his sights. He wanted nothing more than to plant a bullet in the man and watch him die. But with the girl there, it was risky. His reputation as a marksman kept most men with a lick of sense from testing him. But it wasn’t only his life he was gambling with here. There was no room for error.

“I have a better idea. Give yourself up, and I’ll guarantee you live to stand trial,” he said, his voice so thick with anger he hardly recognized it himself.

“That’s not much of a deal.” Trask’s upper lip curled back from his teeth, giving him a feral look. “Here’s how I see it. She comes along with me till I’m feelin’ good and safe.”

“You know I can’t let that happen.”

“’Course you can, Marshal. You can say that when you got here, me and the girl were already gone. There ain’t no witnesses around to call you a liar. I’m sure you don’t want another dead girl on your conscience. What is it now—five or six? I lose count.”

Drummond’s mouth went dry. If Trask wasn’t making up that number, he’d violated and killed another girl somewhere along the way. But he couldn’t afford to dwell on that right now. Unless he shut and padlocked the door on his emotions, he didn’t stand a chance of saving Claire. “I’m not leavin’ here without you—dead or alive, it’s your call.”

Trask laughed. It was an ugly, high-pitched sound that raised the hair at the nape of Drummond’s neck. “Big talk when I’m the one holdin’ the ace in the game,” Trask said.

This was it then. One chance. Take it, or watch Trask carry her off. “I’m sure we can come to some agreement that suits both of us,” Drummond said, fine-tuning his aim on Trask’s forehead.

“Well, ain’t you the optimist.”

It was now or never. Drummond went to squeeze the trigger, but something was wrong. He could no longer feel the gun in his hand. And then his legs gave way.

Chapter 23

“R
ory!” Helene’s voice boomed from the stage when she saw her niece enter the little theater. Everyone turned to look, including Stuart Dobson, who was standing below the stage. But the director immediately turned his back on Rory, making no attempt to hide his antipathy for her. If any of the cast members were of a similar mind, they were discreet enough, or perhaps guilty enough, not to show it.

Helene, who had garnered the role of Fanny Brice’s mother in their production of
Funny Girl
, was presently sharing the stage with Brett and Sophia. To Rory’s untrained eye, it looked like they might have been blocking a scene. The rest of the actors were scattered through the first two rows, with the exception of Jessica and Dorothy, who were having what looked like a serious tête-à-tête off to one side. Everyone was in regular street clothing with scripts in hand.

When Rory had asked her aunt the best time to drop by the theater, Helene had told her to come near the end of rehearsals, most of which were held at night and generally ran until ten o’clock. At her aunt’s suggestion, she’d picked up a few dozen doughnuts to tempt the actors into hanging around awhile before heading home. Coffee and tea were always there for the troupe, compliments of Dobson, which was nice as long as you didn’t mind caffeine. Decaf wasn’t an option in his theater.

“Please, don’t let me interrupt you,” Rory called out, quickly sitting in the last of the twenty rows. The burgundy seats were hand-me-downs from an old theater that was being razed. Although they’d no doubt been splendid at one time, they were now swaybacked, the velveteen upholstery worn and stained, and they creaked and squeaked like a house of horrors in spite of frequent applications of WD-40. Their one redeemable feature was that they’d been free to whoever wanted to cart them away. It was hard to argue with a deal like that.

Rory had come down to the theater hoping to catch the interaction among the Players when they weren’t repeating lines someone else had written. She’d never worked a case that offered the unique advantage of having all the suspects gather together on a regular basis—a suspect zoo where she could come and observe the exhibits whenever she pleased. Okay, that was a stretch. Stuart Dobson was sure to ban her from the premises if she made a nuisance of herself. And as far as that went, she’d already racked up a couple of demerits in his esteem. She’d have to tread lightly around him. Very lightly.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t paid enough attention to the actors’ relationships and attitudes when she’d traveled to Arizona with them. She’d been too preoccupied with researching Zeke’s death. Even after the flash flood, her concern had been focused on her aunt; she’d had no reason to believe Brian had been murdered. When she’d said as much to Zeke at the beginning of their investigation, he’d wagged his head as if he had a dunce for a pupil.

“It’s what you don’t know that’ll get you killed,” he’d said. “You should always be observin’ your surroundin’s, the people as well as the places. You never know when some gunslinger’s goin’ to come up behind you, and if you’ve been payin’ attention to your whereabouts, you’ll know all your options. Saved my life on more than one occasion.”

Rory had been about to point out that there weren’t many gunslingers around these days when she’d realized that wasn’t actually true. It was just the terminology that had changed. Had she taken his advice to heart, she might have suspected earlier on last night that she was being followed. Instead of turning off the main road, she would have driven to the nearest police precinct and avoided the cat-and-mouse game with the SUV.

She set the boxes from the doughnut shop on the seat beside her, thinking this was one time when Zeke would have been a great asset. She couldn’t be everywhere at once, but he had the ability to bop around the room and listen in on conversations without anyone being the wiser. He was still away though, busy recharging himself. After his first such absence, Rory had conjured up a picture of him being pampered at a retreat for ailing spirits. Images of him having a mani-pedi, a facial and a massage were always good for a private laugh. But he’d already been gone for two days, and she was missing him. Well, maybe “missing” was too strong a word, but she couldn’t think of another that was quite as accurate. She missed his input on the case, missed running theories by him, even missed his unique take on things. She’d put aside her irritation over his new alliance with Eloise. After all, it wasn’t technically his fault. Eloise had lured him with the bait of information. If Rory had been in his position, would she have walked away from information she might otherwise be denied? If she wanted to be honest with herself, the answer was “not likely.”

Fifteen minutes after Rory arrived at the theater, Dobson called an end to the rehearsal with a quick pep talk and an admonishment for everyone to be on time the next night. Helene, who was still onstage, took that opportunity to announce that her niece had brought doughnuts. Everyone seemed to perk up at that prospect. Taking her cue, Rory picked up the boxes and headed toward the front of the theater, where she was greeted with varying degrees of enthusiasm. She’d met most of the Players, if only briefly, after one performance or another. She’d naturally become better acquainted with those who’d been on the trip, but some of them seemed noticeably cooler to her now that she was looking for a killer among them.

The coffee and tea were set up on a shaky, old bridge table off to the right, in the walkway between the stage and the first row of seats. Rory set the doughnuts down beside the cups and stepped back as the cast members flocked around to grab their favorites. Dobson was the only holdout. He made his way around the troupe to reach Rory. She’d just finished embracing her aunt and was standing alone waiting for the troupe to disperse a bit so she could start “working the room.”

“Are you wearing your PI hat tonight or your niece hat?” he inquired sardonically.

Rory had a hard time trying to remain pleasant when the director’s tone had already set off another salvo in their ongoing hostilities. “A little of each,” she said, pulling a smile out of her bag of tricks.

“Let me just remind you that you’re on my turf here, and I won’t have you creating more tension among my actors.” Dobson was clearly enjoying his “king of the realm” status.

“Understood,” she said sweetly, thinking how grand it would be to watch him being arrested and hauled off to jail. Too bad he was the least likely suspect in the troupe.

With nothing more to say, Dobson stalked off to meet with his set designer backstage. Grateful to be rid of him, Rory looked around, “observing her whereabouts,” as Zeke would have put it. The Players were drifting away from the table and into small groups, chatting and eating their doughnuts.

Sophia was in a tight knot with Jessica and Brett a few feet from the table. Rory was surprised to see them all being lighthearted and sociable together. Was it possible the two women had found a common bond after Brian dumped Sophia? And if they’d become united in their anger against him, had one plus one added up to murder? Rory decided it was time for her to have a doughnut. She passed as close to the trio as she could without bumping into them. From the few words she caught, they seemed to be talking about other productions of
Funny Girl
they’d seen. Since she wanted to listen in a while longer, she poured herself a cup of coffee and made a production of adding the right amount of milk and sugar. Then she took her time looking over the few remaining doughnuts. She wasn’t actually hungry, but she selected a glazed one and nibbled on it while she heard their conversation move from the musical to pop-culture icons and then to recent headlines in the news. Nothing interesting so far. If she stayed there eating alone and in slow motion, someone was going to notice and wonder why she’d bothered to stop by at all.