Prologue
June 20, 1896—Dawn
The rooster in old Fred Zuroske’s back yard announced the coming of day by squawking as if his life was at stake. As though the raucous cockadoodle-do was a signal, the couple writhing with frenetic passion on the tumbled bed ceased their erotic activity. The male figure slid from the woman’s clinging arms, donned clothing, and lingering only for a last kiss, made a hurried exit through an open second-story window. He crawled over the roof, shimmied down a nearby pine tree to the ground, and was soon lost to sight.
Another man, the one who’d spent the last hour watching the clandestine lovemaking from among the branches of that same tree, escaped the lover’s notice with only seconds to spare. Hidden by a nook in the house wall, he watched the lucky man walk away whistling softly. The couple had done almost everything he’d ever heard it was possible for people to do with and to the opposite sex. Almost. Explosive frustration filled him near to bursting. Blood pounded with scorching violence inside his head; his parts burned with sexual heat. It hurt, he discovered, kneading these parts with increasing urgency in hope of relief.
But what he could do for himself wasn’t enough.The window was still open. He could climb back up the tree, take the other man’s place. It would be easy.Motion stirred in the gloom clinging to the back alley, catching his attention. He saw the jaunty, or maybe defiant, flip of a skirt. The Clement girl, he guessed, wandering the streets at night again. He leaned forward, the better to see. His heart beat fast with excitement.He lost sight of her as he rounded the corner of the house, but when he came out in the alley, he found the girl still there. She leaned against the back gate with one shoe off, occupied in shaking a stone from the toe. With her skirt rucked above her knees, her hair was almost long enough to meet the hem.Ah, he had her now. Too late for her to flee.
“Hello, Rachel,” he crooned, savoring her name. At the sound of his voice, the girl jerked upright, staring at him with rounded eyes. In the distance, he heard the clatter of the milk delivery wagon, but he judged there was still time enough.Oh, yes. Time enough.“Come with me,” he said.Chapter 1
June 20, 1896—9:00 a.m.
I stared out the office window watching a two-hitch team haul a wagonload of peeled, red cedar poles along the graded street. On the corner opposite the office, Mr. Thomas Elsom and his crew were up on one such newly set pole, stringing a telephone line through downtown Spokane. Two men stood beneath the pole. Judging by all the arm waving and pointing going on, I guessed they were trying to tell Mr. Elsom how to do his job. He ignored them in much the same way I was attempting to ignore the man glaring down at me.
“Who the devil are you?” Gratton Doyle demanded, his words crackling. “Where’s Monk?”He looked and acted exactly as my uncle had said he would, which was, in a word, cranky. But then, I excused him in what I considered a most charitable fashion, why shouldn’t he be, since he didn’t know me from Adam? He’d found me seated behind the front desk, and what he must find especially irksome was that it was his own front desk. A sign on the wall outside said this place was a detective agency. He was the detective, but without a clue as to the person minding the store.That person was me. Was I, I should say. Miss China Bohannan, spinster, late of Walla Walla, Washington.Nerving myself, I boldly met his impatient gaze. In the stark light of an electric fixture suspended from the high tin ceiling, I saw his eyes were gray and fringed with thick black lashes. Lost in admiration for a brief moment, I was getting ready to answer when I caught wind of a potent stench eddying from his filthy, rough clothing. My nose flared in distaste.The corner of his mouth quirked in what I guessed was amusement as he marked my reaction. What on earth had he been doing? I wondered. He must have been up all night hobnobbing with the drunks and parlor girls down on skid road to have picked up so much of their flavor.I still hadn’t answered his questions, either of them, and he wasn’t about to let me forget. As if he thought he might be frightening me, Doyle made an noticeable effort to soften his voice when he next spoke. Well, he was. Frightening me, I mean. A little. I sucked in a breath and put some starch in my spine.“Can’t figure it out?” he asked. “Let’s start over, shall we? Easy things first. Where’s Monk? Mr. Howe.” Thankfully, he stepped away and began stripping off the tattered, boozestained coat. At least I hoped those dark spots were booze. The alternative that leapt to my mind was blood.“I know who you mean.” I didn’t care much for his tone, fancied I heard condescension in the query, and gave a flat answer that sounded even flatter, given my Missouri twang. “Mr. Howe had to go out. I’m watching the office for him.”“Do tell. And did he say where he was going?” If there was Missouri in my voice, surely Ireland colored his.“Yes. Indeed he did.” I flashed him a glance. “A gentleman by the name of Mr. Clarence Biddlestrom sent a messenger asking Mr. Howe to meet with him at 9:30 this morning in his home. I imagine Mr. Howe is in that meeting as we speak.” My gaze narrowed. “By-the-by, your mustache is falling off.”Doyle reached up and yanked the offending element from his upper lip, smothering a yelp as a few from his own dark stubble of whiskers pulled away with the gum Arabic. He winced, scowling as a grin dented the sides of my mouth before I could stop myself.“You have a name, I expect,” he growled, sounding quite menacing.I nodded, glad I’d refrained from laughing even though he didn’t scare me any longer. “I suppose you do, too.”He matched the description my uncle, Montgomery Howe had given. Dark hair, medium height, medium build. About twenty-eight years old. More than the sum of his parts, I thought. Only Uncle Monk hadn’t mentioned his partner was downright handsome.When I sensed he was about to erupt, I added, “I would imagine you are Mr. Gratton Doyle, are you not?”“I know who I am.” He rubbed his upper lip where two or three tiny speckles of blood welled. “I beg leave to doubt whether you are anyone at all. I’m trying to decide whether you wandered in off the street and felt in need of a place to sit, or if you have mischief in mind.”“Mischief? I’ll have you know Mr. Howe asked me to mind the office.”“When?” he demanded, his expression threatening. “When did Howe hire you? Sure in hell couldn’t have been much of an interview. How long have you been here?”I hesitated. Hired? I hadn’t said I’d been hired. I’d said I’d been asked to mind the office. The hiring part had a nice, tempting ring to it.“Long enough, I believe, to have learned such a simple job,” I said, darting a glance at the watch pinned to my freshly pressed, snowy white shirtwaist.His teeth ground together. “Who are you? Tell me quick, lady, before I toss you into the street on your behind.”I went rigid. “I beg your pardon?”His temper appeared to be sliding downhill as fast as a sled on ice. Enunciating each suspicious word clearly, he said, “Where on earth did Monk find you? Are you one of those society girls from off the hill, doing a little slumming on a dare?”“No, sir. No society girl.” Not any more. My lips twisted as he inadvertently voiced what was a kind of ironic joke. “I’m China Bohannon. Mr. Howe’s niece.”Silent, he chewed on this bit of news for a tick, then said, “I’ve been up all night trying to trace a crooked delivery of Old Crow whiskey. Have I missed something?”“I don’t know. Do you think it’s possible?”“No.” He frowned, rubbing his forehead as though he weren’t as certain of this as his answer implied. “Strange. I’m almost certain Monk never mentioned he had a niece, let alone that he expected a visitor.”My temper fired. I disliked the doubt he implied. “I assure you,” I snapped, “I am—”He interrupted. “Oh, I believe you, Miss Bohannon. I think. But why don’t you scamper on back to whatever hotel you’re staying at until Monk returns. I’ve already had about as lively a day’s business as I can foresee. I’m sure I can manage without your help.”Scamper back to my hotel? I was staying in my uncle’s spare bedroom in his apartment above the office. Just like any other relative on a visit. In the face of Doyle’s rudeness, I couldn’t resist prodding him a bit. “Oh,” I said. “And did you find Mr. Holcrest guilty of watering the whiskey sold in his saloon?”Doyle’s jacket, which he’d been swinging from one finger like a clock pendulum, ceased motion. He leaned, or to be more precise, loomed over the desk and me. “What do you know of the Holcrest business?” He no longer looked sleepy and dull. He looked plain dangerous. I swear even the narrow-brimmed bowler hat he wore on his unruly dark hair seemed to vibrate with an increased energy in his brain cells. I must say, I hadn’t expected this reaction, and now he was frightening me again.“Just what I read in this,” I said, this being the letter Mr. Holcrest had sent Doyle & Howe when he engaged their services. The coffee-stained document had been left between the last two pages in the account book on the desk in front of me and which, being curious, I’d opened. Of course, once I’d done that there was no choice but to read what the letter said.I pulled the note from the ledger with quivering fingertips and showed it to him, trying to act as though I had a perfect right to be perusing the office mail. A Mr. Marvin Holcrest wrote that he’d been receiving complaints about the liquor being sold in his establishment. He swore it wasn’t on his orders the hooch had been watered. What’s more, he said it was imperative he get to the bottom of the matter before his customers took their business to one of the other hundred or so saloons in town. That, or before the police got wind of the affair.I suspect one of my bartenders of the deed, Holcrest had written in his letter. One-eye Jack has been coming to work early, leaving late and generally acting suspicious. I want to hire your firm to root out the problem. My initiative in acquiring this information did not please Gratton Doyle.“Look here, lady,” he said, his gray eyes glittering. “I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours going in-and-out the roughest dives along skid road gathering information. I’m not real happy about coming home to find some meddlesomelittle busybody has moved into my office. Being Monk’s niece doesn’t give you any special right to pry. Got that?”I bit my lip. “Certainly. I was asking out of simple interest, Mr. Doyle. There’s no need to bite my head off. Or to shout.” I clamped my mouth shut, but curiosity got the better of me. “Did you solve the case?”“You don’t give up, do you? Yes. I solved the case, for better or worse. Our client isn’t going to like my conclusions.”“Which are?” I asked.Doyle sighed. “Holcrest Junior has been broaching the kegs and selling the top five or six inches of Old Crow to the Indians, which is a Federal offense that can earn the kid time in jail. When Holcrest Senior receives my report, he’s going to blow his cork.” But whether the client liked it or not, the bill for services was due, and with the proceeds, Doyle & Howe would be able to pay another month’s mortgage. I’d already discovered my uncle and his partner needed paying customers in the worst way.“Next,” Gratton admitted, ruefully shaking out his writing hand and looking for a place to put his coat, “comes the part I hate, writing up the report and giving it to my client.”“I assume you will present the itemized bill along with the report,” I said, thinking of the dismal sums shown on the ledger’s bottom line.“Sure,” he said after a moment. He was quite unconvincing.Fatigue showed in his face. I imagined he’d give anything to go home and climb into his bed about now.“I can do that,” I offered, trying not to appear overeager. “You tell me what to say and I’ll write the report. All you need do is sign it. I can do the bill, too.”At least he acted as if he were thinking my proposal over. He tucked the reeking jacket under his arm and leaned against the desk as if he needed a prop to hold him up. “You don’t resemble my partner in the slightest,” he observed after a moment. “Not in looks and not, I’d guess, in temperament.”I have masses of brown hair that I had pulled into a severe knot on top of my head this morning. Curly hair, some of which had already slipped from the knot and was clinging to my neck. My uncle was going thin on top, and he had brown eyes instead of my bluish-green ones. He was also a bit rounder than me.“I inherited my looks and my temperament from my father’s side,” I said. “Uncle Monk is my mother’s brother.”“I see,” he said, losing interest. “Well, I’ll think about your offer. After I talk to Monk. Later.”It was clear he wanted me to leave. I imagined that thirty seconds after I had gone, anyone who visited the office would find him with his booted feet propped on the desk, sound asleep. Final report? Hah.Presently it occurred to him that I wasn’t budging. Why should I? I had no other place to go. And then the telephone bell clattered. Alarm caused one of those reactions where the stomach feels like it’s sunk to the bottom of a deep well, though the sensation lasted no more than a second.The bell jangled again.“Are you going to answer?” Gratton asked. He eyed the instrument with acute dislike.“Yes. Of course.” Trying for an air of insouciance, I lifted the end with the earpiece from the hook, bent forward, and said into the transmitter: “Here is Main 555.”“Is that you, China?” Uncle Monk’s voice shouted over the wire into my ear.I winced. “Yes, uncle.”"Grat back yet?”Grat, my uncle called the man who even now was reaching to take the telephone from me. I waved him away. “Yes. Mr. Doyle is right here. Do you wish to speak with him?”“Not particularly.” Uncle Monk’s voice boomed loud enough I was forced to hold the handset six inches from my head. “After being out all night he’s probably about as happy as two tom cats with their tails wired together. What I want, lambie, is for you to catch a trolley and join me. I’ve got a little problem I think you can help me with.”According to Mr. Doyle’s sour expression, he’d heard my uncle’s opinion regarding his probable mood.“Me? Really? What?” I checked Doyle’s grab for the telephone, whereupon he hovered above me glowering. “Do you mind?” I said to him from over my shoulder. “The call is for me.”“Let me talk to Monk,” Doyle said. It was an order.“Have you ever ridden a trolley car?” Uncle Monk was asking.“Of course,” I fibbed. “Where do you want me to go?”“I’m in Browne’s Addition,” he said. “Jump on the next trolley headed this way and come on up to Second Avenue, by the park. The Biddlestrom house is the big clinker brick. You can’t miss it. It’s got a barn-red carriage house with three doors and a white pergola. By the way, lambie, come to the rear entrance. Mrs. Biddlestrom is receiving today.”“All right.” Although I was more used to being invited into acquaintance’s homes via the front, I couldn’t help the lilt in my voice. The first hour of the first day of my first job, and I’d already been promoted to detective. “I’ll leave right away.”“I’ll be looking for you.” Uncle Monk disconnected before I had a chance to tell him Mr. Doyle wanted to speak to him.I replaced the handset on the hook, looked up into Doyle’s annoyed face, and said, “He hung up.”“So I gathered. What was that about?” Gratton Doyle had a pugnacious set to his square jaw as he reached across me, situated the telephone a scant four inches nearer to him on the desk, and closed the open ledger as though to prevent further snooping.He was too late. My behavior was reprehensible I must concede, but what was done, I couldn’t undo. I would not discuss the matter with Mr. Doyle.“My uncle needs me.” I retrieved my short jacket from where it hung on the back of the chair and thrust my arms into the sleeves. “I’m afraid I must go.” Carrying twenty-five cents and a clean hanky in my skirt pocket, I was set and ready for anything.“What’s Monk’s problem?” Doyle’s question stayed me. “Is he in trouble?”“I don’t think so,” I said. “Should I have thought to ask? He didn’t say he was in trouble. He just said he had a ‘little’ problem and needed my help.”“I thought he hired you to mind the office.”“Indeed.” I smiled, skating around the issue. “And now he wants me to join him at Mr. Biddlestrom’s house.” But I tarried a moment longer, giving in to the urge to prod the so superior Mr. Doyle a bit. I watched, vastly curious as he removed a small pistol from the inner pocket of his jacket before tossing the garment into a corner. He slid the gun into the top desk drawer, handling it with no more concern than if it had been a pencil.A pistol. Whatever Doyle had been doing last night had impelled him to carry a firearm. And now he’d put the weapon out of sight, but where it was ready to hand. It all seemed rather wild and wooly to me, as if one could expect gun play to erupt at a moment’s notice.Yawning, Doyle rubbed eyes bleary from sleeplessness and, for all I know, a sampling of the wares sold down on Front Street.“We’ll need to discuss this, you know,” he said. “When Monk gets back.”“Discuss what? My uncle’s case?”“No.” He sat in the chair I’d vacated and pulled the telephone within easy reaching distance. The chair rocked as he leaned back. “We’re going to discuss the wisdom of having a female in the office. I don’t think it’s a good idea, myself. Our clients aren’t always genteel, Miss Bohannon.”The bubbling joy ran out of me like water emptying down a drain. If he felt any sympathy, Doyle proved adept at hiding it. I’d seen he thought I was taking too much for granted. I also knew Uncle Monk didn’t run the business by himself. Doyle & Howe was a partnership, and as one of the partners, Doyle was entitled to his say on whom was taken on as an employee, if they took anyone on at all. As far as I’d been able to tell, the firm was barely turning a profit. And why that was, only a good bookkeeper could determine. According to the information in the ledger, Doyle had been working his tail off and, in all fairness, so had Monk.I was a good bookkeeper. If they would give me the chance, I could prove it by discovering the weakness in their business.“I believe you’ll find this outfit needs me, Mr. Doyle,” I said. “The same as my uncle needs me right now.”Doyle shrugged, not believing in either.“I guess there’s only one way to find out.” I headed for the door, my skirts undulating over the floorboards. I turned to face him, letting my smile deepen with what I hoped was tantalizing mystery as I tugged on the doorknob. “I’ll be back. Later.”BLACK CROSSING EXCERPT In Osgood’s experience, there was no situation on earth more volatile than a pair of lovesick youngsters, especially if the girl’s pappy didn’t approve of the match. But would a father go as far as Mrs. Gilpatrick was insinuating? Was that what this was all about? Seemed a bit far-fetched. Besides, Mrs. Gilpatrick had made a definite charge regarding old Marshal Blodgett’s murder.
Osgood could see she wasn’t real pleased with him. Not after he’d told her he’d do what he could in finding Marshal Blodgett’s killer, but that Isaac’s case was more difficult.
“Tompko says a judge and jury tried and sentenced your son for timber jumping,” he said. “They executed him. The case is closed. There’s nothing I can do.
“And frankly, ma’am,” he added, “without some kind of facts telling me otherwise, I don’t have any reason to go
poking into what’s already done.”
“What about justice?” the woman fired back. “Or doesn’t that matter to you? Don’t you care that a few people
manufactured lies about a seventeen-year-old boy and then murdered him?”
He saw what Tompko had meant when he’d said Isaac’s ma was going to be powerful mad. And she had the
vocabulary to tie a simple man up in knots.
“Yes, Mrs. Gilpatrick, I care. Justice does matter to me.” Osgood hoped he sounded soothing, even though in his
opinion, her attack on him lacked a little in the justice department. “If someone can show me one shred of evidence
the case was based on lies, I’ll arrest the person responsible in the blink of an eye.”
“What if the responsible person is the most important man in these parts?”
He took that for a challenge. “Doesn’t matter if he’s the president of the United States,” he replied.
She was still as ice for a moment before she said, “All right, Mr. Osgood, you’ll get your evidence. I’ll show you the guilty party, then I’ll hold you to that.”
Osgood felt the pinpricks of her eyes from behind her shawl. Reaching behind herself, she opened the door a crack barely wide enough for a cat, slipped through and flitted away into the night, silent as smoke, all before he could get his mouth open.
“Wait,” he said, a couple of seconds too late.
After she had gone, he tossed another chunk of tamarack into the stove, and rolled his two thin blankets out on the rope bedsprings. One blanket beneath, the other to cover him. He was apt to feel the cold tonight.
Some problems were best slept on, he thought. If he could sleep. As if he didn’t already have enough to think about, Mrs. Gilpatrick had given him plenty more. What—or who—had she meant when she said, “You’ll get your evidence?” He didn’t like the sound of that. It struck him as chancy and dangerous. She’d best not mix in such things because she was apt to wind up getting hurt more than she already was.
Osgood blew out the lamp before he peeled down to his union suit and stretched out on the bed. He lay on his back, arms beneath his head, listening to rain drip through the hole in the roof into the low corner of the room.
Of course, the woman believed in her son’s innocence. Who could blame her? It’s what mothers did. And there was no denying the hurried way the boy’s trial and execution had been carried out raised a whole lot of questions in his mind. Likewise, he downright hated that a young girl’s name had been mentioned in connection with Isaac Gilpatrick. But neither of those things proved the kid innocent.
Complicated. The whole situation was rife with trouble. Osgood had the notion if he looked real close, he’d see a pit opening beneath his feet. Rolling onto his side so he faced the door, he did his best to force the sense of trouble out of his head.
“Think of the tall blonde,” he muttered aloud. Magda Tompko had been a friendly face in a town that, on the whole, had received him coolly. He worked to recall what she looked like, what she’d said, and how she’d said it. Practiced small-talk, he knew that much. Friendly, like all good business people had to be. Tompko had said his ma was a widow woman. Now Osgood wondered if she was spoken for. He’d always been a sucker for big blondes.
But although he did his best to stir up interest in the fair, stately Magda, it was Isaac Gilpatrick’s mother who filled his mind. Dark, slight, and mad as a wet hen. He wondered what she looked like beneath the coat and shawl she’d worn. He wouldn’t even know her if—when—they met in daylight, which he had no doubt they would. One of these days.
“You’ll get your evidence,” she’d said.
THE WINNING HAND EXCERPT
Caroline Pruett came up on his right side and waved the pistol at him. An old pistol, he noticed, in need of cleaning. He caught a glimpse of rust, but the hammer was pulled full cock and her hand trembled until she grabbed her wrist, bracing it with the other. He looked straight at her, into her up-tilted eyes.
“Sis, you’re digging yourself a mighty deep hole. Best think again.”
“Step down, Sutton,” she said, gesturing with the pistol.
Micah shook his feet out of the stirrups. “Sure we can’t settle this a different way?”
He shifted as she started around in front of the horse where she could keep watch on him, and as soon as she moved, so did he. Only he came off the horse on the right, not left like she’d been expecting. And he didn’t step, he flew, diving at her with the intent of catching her gun hand.
His last impression was of an explosion of red, then black. Thunder echoed in the distance.
***
Air gushed from Caroline’s lungs as Sutton landed on top of her. The shot roared perilously close to her own ear since the cowboy was pushing her hand up at the time, and it kept reverberating painfully after the din faded. She hadn’t meant to shoot at all, the fool. Wouldn’t have, if he hadn’t jumped, forcing her finger tighter on the trigger as she went down.
“Get off me,” she tried to yell, only the words came out a whisper. He must not have heard because he didn’t budge, lying across her like a felled tree and just as wooden. She pushed at his chest, the part covering her face. “Get off.”
He didn’t try to stop her from wriggling out from under him, remaining as crumpled and inert as a dead man.
Dead man.
“Oh, my lord!” She sat up and looked at him, which came close to stopping her heart.
Now, just like Sutton had said, they’d be looking to hang her for certain.
ONE FOOT ON THE EDGE
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