Watching Eagles Soar (26 page)

He leaned toward her; the black braids drooped along the table. “I swear I didn't shoot him. I don't even own a gun.”

Vicky was quiet a moment. Then: “Did Willow know Jeffries?”

Richard blinked and leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, I seen 'em together a couple of times at the site.”

Vicky put her things back into her briefcase and got to her feet. She started explaining: He'd had the misfortune to be arrested Friday evening. The initial court appearance wouldn't be until Monday.

Richard had started to get up. He sank back against the chair and put one fist to his mouth. She knew that he knew he would spend the weekend in jail.

She said, “I'll do what I can.” A hollow promise, she realized, when he had admitted setting up the drug buy. But he didn't kill Willow. The trouble was, she had no idea how to prove it.

* * *

V
icky drove north on the reservation. The foothills of the Wind River Mountains raced by outside her window, a blur of pine trees and scrub brush. Beyond the passenger window, the plains ran brown and humpbacked into the horizon. Every mile or so a small frame house appeared on the landscape, as if it had dropped from the sky. Slowing the Bronco, Vicky swung into a dirt driveway and stopped in front of a white bi-level.

Everything seemed familiar. The dirt yard with a truck parked at the edge, the sheets and towels flapping on the clothesline, the hollow rap on the front door and the footsteps hurrying inside, the feel of Grandmother Ninni's arms gathering her in.

Vicky sat across from the old woman at a small table wedged under the kitchen window. Pale daylight slanted over the walls as she sipped at the mug of tea and told Grandmother Ninni about her dream: A man she had never seen before coming toward her through clouds of dust. The evil in his eyes. She kept coming back to the overwhelming sense of evil. “He's a murderer,” she said. “But there's no evidence, and Richard Running Bull is going to be charged with the murder.”

The old woman ran one finger around the rim of her mug, as if she were testing the ridge of a tanned hide to which she meant to sew a beaded design. She said, “You must pay attention to what the earth is telling you about this evil man, granddaughter.”

Vicky waited as Grandmother Ninni took a sip from her mug. Then she went on, her voice so quiet that Vicky had to lean forward to catch the words. “The earth is angry. It erupts in clouds of dust. You must ask yourself what has made the earth angry.”

Vicky gasped. In her mind's eye, as if in a dream, she saw Stephen Jeffries at the site, sniffing and pawing at his nose, striding up and down, shouting, punching the air. A man on cocaine. He'd been getting his supply from Willow—Richard said he'd seen the two men together at the site. He had taken the coke, and then shot the man. And he had hidden the gun in the earth. Stephen Jeffries had defiled the sacred earth.

* * *

V
icky clamped down on the gas pedal. The speedometer needle jumped to eighty as she sped south, diving in and out of the black shadows that drifted down the foothills. She slowed at the outskirts of Lander and threaded her way around the trucks and 4x4s on Main Street. A sharp right, then another right, and she was parking in front of the stone building that housed the Lander Police Department.

She found Eberhart in a small office halfway down the corridor, hunched over a desk piled high with papers. “What do you know about Stephen Jeffries?” she said, dropping onto a metal chair.

The detective pushed back in his chair and shot her a puzzled look. “Jeffries,” he said. The pencil in his hand beat out an impatient rhythm on the edge of the desk: tap, tap tap. “Newcomer to these parts. Brought a lot of jobs to the area.”

“He was high on cocaine this morning.”

Eberhart gave a burst of laughter and flipped the pencil across the desk. “The man's always like that.”

“Always shouting and stomping around. Always impatient.”

“You'd be impatient if we shut down part of your operation.”

“He's a man with a drug problem, Bob. And a money problem. He hasn't paid his workers in two weeks. My bet is, the money's gone to cocaine.”

“As soon as we find the weapon . . .”

“It's not where you think it is,” Vicky interrupted. “Jeffries hid it.”

Eberhart raised one hand in protest, but she hurried on. “He saw Willow at the site. He followed him to the alcove, probably figuring he had drugs on him. They had some kind of argument, and Jeffries shot him. He ran off before Richard showed up.”

The look of comprehension crept into the detective's eyes, and Vicky wondered how much he already knew. She said, “Jeffries bought drugs from Willow in the past, didn't he? You were tapping Willow's phone.”

Eberhart blew out a long breath. “There's nothing to connect him and Jeffries, but . . .” He hesitated. “There was one call from a pay phone a couple nights ago. Some guy begging Willow for cocaine. Willow told him no more until he'd paid what he owed him.”

Silence fell over the small office like a dense cloud. After a moment, Vicky said, “I know how to find the gun.”

* * *

T
he street was deserted when Vicky parked in front of the silver trailer. A thin light glowed through the front windows. Beyond the trailer, the construction site was quiet, the framed walls and piles of lumber elongating into dark shadows. It was almost six. Jeffries could have left. She could be too late.

As she hurried up the wooden planks that formed the sidewalk, a voice broke through the dead quiet: “I don't want any more excuses.” He was still here! She took a deep breath and knocked at the door.

It swung open. Jeffries threw her a glance before turning back to the desk and shouting into the phone clasped at his ear, “You get the framing finished up next week, you hear me? You'll get your money then.” He slammed down the phone and, sniffing a couple of times, allowed his gaze to travel over her. “Didn't I see you out on the site this morning?”

“I'm Vicky Holden.” She forced herself inside. The trailer was filled with evil, a presence as real as the large, brown-haired man behind the desk. She could hear her own heart beating. “I represent Richard Running Bull,” she managed.

The man's eyes bored into her. “What can I do for you, Madame Attorney?”

“Richard needs this job. You'll take him back, won't you?”

“Take him back?” Jeffries let out a long whistle. “That's gonna be kinda hard, with him locked up in prison the rest of his life.”

Vicky forced a smile. “I see you haven't heard.”

“Heard what?” A wary look came into his eyes.

“The police found the murder weapon today. It wasn't near the alcove where they'd expected to find it, and Richard didn't have time to hide it anywhere else. He'll be released soon and . . .” She allowed the information to float between them. “No doubt the police will arrest the real killer.”

The man was quiet. Vicky watched for the slightest twitch of a muscle, the flick of an eyelid. There was nothing. She said, “What about the job?”

“Why not?” Jeffries pinched the tip of his nose between two fingers. “He gets himself out of jail, he's got a job.”

Vicky thanked him and backed out the door, pulling it shut behind her. She could feel his eyes on her through the window as she stepped along the planks and slid into the Bronco. She drove a half block and parked behind a Dumpster. There were no police cars about, no sign of anyone, yet Eberhart had said he'd send some officers. For a sickening moment, she wondered if the detective had only pretended to believe her theory.

She let herself out of the Bronco and started across the construction site, picking her way by the light filtering from the streetlamps, past the half walls and the piles of boards, until she had a clear view of the trailer. The front door opened. Jeffries stepped into the doorway, a dark figure backlit by the dim glow inside. He cast his eyes about, making sure the way was clear. Then he stepped out and started toward her. Vicky felt her heart turn over. She pulled back into the shadows and held her breath as he passed. He was so close she could have reached out and touched him.

She watched him head across the site, boots kicking at the wood scraps and bent nails, at the earth, and at the dust rising, rising. And then he was lost in a forest of posts and shadows. She hesitated a moment, half expecting a police car to pull into the curb. Then she started after him, trying not to stumble over the loose boards.

She spotted him leaning over a large wooden box. Metal clanked against metal as he pulled out a shovel. He took several steps to the right—counting the steps, she thought—then veered left a few more steps before he rammed the shovel into the earth and tossed some dirt to the side. Dust rose around him and hung in the faint light.

Suddenly Jeffries jerked about and squinted into the dust. Vicky stood still, praying that the shadows would hide her. Satisfied, he tossed the shovel aside, fell onto his knees, and began pawing at the earth with both hands.

Still no sign of the police. Where were the police? Vicky moved behind a post, her eyes still on the man. In another second he would have the gun. He would dispose of it somewhere, and no one would ever find it.

Jeffries was on his feet. In his hand was a small, dark object. He swung around and started toward her. She had the sickening realization that she'd waited too long, that she was trapped. There was nowhere to run.

The man was coming closer. He saw her now. The brown eyes bored into her with a look of pure malevolence. Slowly he raised his arm and pointed the small object at her. She was frozen in place, her breath stopped in her throat, just as in her dream. The earth shuddered beneath her feet. And then she heard the crunch of footsteps approaching from the side.

“Drop the gun, Jeffries.” Eberhart's voice reverberated off the framed walls. Jeffries swung around then let the gun fall to the earth. In a moment, the detective and two officers were surrounding him, clamping on handcuffs, reading him his rights. “You're under arrest for the murder of Clifford Willow,” the detective said.

Vicky stepped from behind the post. “I thought you'd never get here,” she said to the detective.

“Bitch,” Jeffries hissed. In the glare he shot her, Vicky felt the force of the man's evil, but she no longer felt afraid. The dust had settled, the air was clear. She could see beyond the shadows to the light glowing over the street. The earth was strong beneath her feet.

Murder on the Denver Express

“L
ooks like you got yourself some high-toned traveling companions, Mol,” Daniel said.

Molly Brown followed her brother's gaze across the platform of the Leadville depot. The Denver Express stood on the near track, steam belching along the coach and the first-class cars. A plume of gray smoke, dense and ash-scented, cut through the cold morning air. Passengers surged around the conductor at the foot of the steps.

Molly knew it wasn't the miners in bulky coats and slouch hats or the women struggling to hold on to squirming children that her brother was referring to. It was the pair of elderly women starting up the steps, heads aloft under wide-brimmed hats, gloved hands daintily lifting the skirts of their traveling coats, and the handsome middle-aged couple, both swathed in long gray coats, who followed the women into the first-class car.

“You're gonna have yourself a real boring trip,” Daniel went on in that teasing voice that had made her pummel him with her tiny fists when they were growing up. “If you wasn't so high-toned yourself, Mol, you'd be ridin' in the coach where you'd have a good visit with some real folks.”

“The likes of yourself, I suppose.” Molly laid a gloved hand on her favorite brother's arm and tried to ignore the cloud of gloom that always settled over her at the conclusion of each visit home. Leadville still felt like home. The narrow, sloped-roof houses, wagons rattling through the streets, whistles shrieking from mines carved into the mountains above town, miners bellowing outside the saloons day and night—all welcome and familiar, unlike the quiet around her new home on Denver's Pennsylvania Street.

She and J.J. had lived in Denver two years now, since the summer of 1894, after J.J. struck gold in the Little Jonny Mine. The strike had surprised everyone, with the exception of J.J. Leadville was a silver town. Even after the silver market collapsed—plunging Colorado's millionaires into bankruptcy—most mining engineers had clung to the belief that Leadville's mountains would disgorge only silver—not gold. But J.J. had believed otherwise, a happy circumstance that had made the Browns rich beyond imagining.

“Why, there's Charles Langford,” Molly said, her attention diverted to the tall, dark-haired gentleman in the chinchilla coat striding alongside the train.

Daniel's expression took on that blank look that always appeared when she had leapt ahead. “President of the Denver Western Bank,” she explained. “Must've come to Leadville on business. I saw him yesterday, too, outside the Vendome Hotel.” She blinked back the image of Langford darting around the corner of Harrison Avenue. Most likely, he hadn't seen her.

Daniel looked away, but not before she had caught the disappointment shadowing his eyes. “You and J.J. sure got a lot of fancy new friends now,” her brother said.

“Oh, I'm sure the Langfords and the Browns will soon be friends.” Molly tried for a cheerful tone. “The Langfords live only a block away—on Logan Street. Yes, we're certain to become friends, and you'll surely meet them one day, too.” She let her gaze roam over the platform, hoping to see Clarissa Langford. What a stroke of luck it would be to travel with a prominent member of Denver's Sacred 36. Why, she could convince Clarissa that the Browns had more than a gold mine to recommend them to society. After all, J.J. was a brilliant mining engineer. And she had read dozens of books and was learning to speak French.

Molly sighed. Clarissa Langford was nowhere in sight.

As the locomotive emitted a series of shrill whistles, the depot door flew open and two women hurried across the platform. They couldn't have been more than eighteen or nineteen, Molly realized, nearly a decade younger than her. Obviously young women with their own living to get: the black cloaks neatly brushed and patched, the worn, polished boots, the everyday struggle to appear respectable.

For the briefest moment, Molly caught the eye of the smaller woman as she hurried by. She had a pale, delicately shaped face, almost like a child's, and long golden hair that fell around the folds of her hood. She carried a brown canvas grip, holding it ahead of her in both hands. The cloak swung open to reveal a dress as blue as the Leadville sky.

The taller girl had pulled her hood forward around a mass of dark hair. She allowed her companion to board while she stood at the foot of the steps, glancing up and down the platform, eyes wide in fright. Finally she followed the other girl into the coach car.

Molly noticed the round-shouldered man in the red plaid coat standing in the depot doorway, his gaze trailing the two young women. He was hatless, black hair slicked back from a fleshy, mottled face with the gray pallor of a man who had spent too many days underground. He flipped aside a cigarette and started for the train.

“All aboard,” the conductor shouted. Molly planted a kiss on Daniel's cheek. No doubt he was right, but she would take a vow of silence before she would give him the satisfaction of hearing her admit that she was in for a boring trip in the first-class car.

The conductor doffed his blue cap as she approached the train. “Welcome aboard, Mrs. Brown.”

* * *

M
olly tossed aside the small red-leather copy of
Easy Lessons in French Grammar
. She glanced at the silver watch pinned to the bodice of her black traveling dress. Four more hours to Denver. The oil lantern swayed overhead and the sounds of wheels on rails filled the private compartment—clickety-clack, clickety-clack. In the distance, brakes squealed, a whistle bleated. The little station at the top of Kenosha Pass slid by the window, and the train started on the downgrade, winding along a narrow ledge blasted out of the mountainside. Far below a mosaic of sunlight and shadow lay over South Park.

She had been cooped up in the small compartment now for almost six hours, except for the twenty-minute stopover in Como, where she had disembarked and gone to the Pacific Hotel dining room for a slice of apple pie and a cup of coffee. None of the other first-class passengers had left the train. Obviously they were content being cooped up in small compartments.

“What the hell,” Molly said out loud, startled by the sound of her own voice. Perhaps there were rules for a lady traveling alone, but sometimes rules had to be broken. She decided to visit the coach car and find some real folks to talk to. She withdrew a silver compact from her pocketbook and dabbed at her cheeks with the powder puff. Tiny laugh lines fanned from the corners of her eyes, which were the blue of morning glories. She patted back the red curls that sprang around her face and fixed them into place with ivory combs. Then she slid the compact back into her pocketbook.

As she started to her feet, the train banked into a curve, swaying on the outside rail toward the mountain drop-off. The lantern swung wildly on its chain. Molly grasped the window bar to keep from being pitched to the floor. She froze, disbelieving her own eyes. Outside, a girl was soaring over the ledge, face turned heavenward, blue dress and long, golden hair flowing in space. In a half instant, she was gone, a bird swooping into the shadows far below.

Molly pressed herself against the cold windowpane. She could hear her heart drumming. “Saints preserve us,” she whispered. Either the girl had jumped from the train backward—a notion Molly dismissed as ridiculous—or someone had flung her from the train.

Molly crossed the compartment and threw open the door. “Conductor!” she shouted. From somewhere came the sharp, unmistakable snap of a door closing.

She hurried along the corridor, shouting again for the conductor. As she stepped into the gangway, the rush of cold air whipped at her skirt and plucked her hair loose from the ivory combs. The floor bucked beneath her feet. With a kind of horror, Molly realized she was leaning against the railing over which the poor girl must have been thrown.

“Conductor!” Molly shouted again as she plunged into the coach car. The odors of damp wool, cigar smoke, and sausage filled the air. Heads snapped around, eyes stared at her. The man in the red plaid coat leaned over his armrest and framed her in his gaze. “'Spect you'll find the conductor back with the fine folks,” he said.

She swung around and retraced her steps into the first-class car, shouting again and again for the conductor. The door at the far end creaked open, and the elderly women appeared around the frame and stared at her over tiny wire-rimmed glasses perched halfway down their noses. Another door opened. The man in the gray suit stepped out, blocking her way. “What's the meaning of this disturbance?” he demanded.

“A girl's been murdered,” Molly said. Her frankness surprised her. She hadn't wanted to admit what she knew must be true: no one could survive being hurled from the train over the steep mountainside. The two elderly women darted back inside their compartment.

“Ridiculous,” the man said. “This is a first-class car.” Molly felt the pressure of a hand on her arm. “Allow me to be of assistance, Mrs. Brown.” It was a man's voice, low and close to her ear.

Molly pivoted about and stared up at Charles Langford, who lifted his chin, as if, with a snap of his fingers, he might banish the cause of her alarm. He was boyishly handsome, with a long, patrician nose, deeply set brown eyes, and sand-colored hair parted in the middle above a high forehead that gave him the look of intelligence. “Whatever is the matter?” he asked.

“A girl was thrown from the train.” Molly heard her words tumbling together. Her breath came in quick, sharp jabs that pricked her chest like needles.

“You saw it?” Langford's forehead creased in thought.

“Yes,” Molly said. “Well, not exactly. But I saw the girl flying over the ledge. We must stop the train.”

“You mustn't concern yourself further, Mrs. Brown,” Langford said in a low tone, meant to soothe her. “I'll notify the conductor. You can return to your compartment now.”

“Please do so,” said the man in gray. “And allow us to complete our trip without further disturbance.”

Molly felt a sting of anger and disappointment. “You don't understand.” She kept her eyes on Langford. “The girl may still be alive.” She doubted that was the case. “We have to go back.”

“Now, now, Mrs. Brown.” Langford took her arm again and began tugging her toward her own compartment. “The conductor will follow the proper procedures.”

“The conductor! He's nowhere around. We have to stop now.” Molly jerked herself free and started running along the corridor, eyes fastened on the small box tucked under the ceiling near the gangway door. A red handle protruded from the box, and underneath, black letters swayed with the train: Emergency Brake.

“No!” Langford shouted as Molly reached up and pulled on the handle with all of her strength. The handle snapped downward.

A loud screech ripped through the sounds of the whistle and the blasts of steam coming from the locomotive. The train began to contract and reassemble, swaying sideways, jerking forward and back again. Metal squealed against metal; wood groaned and snapped. Molly huddled against the window as the two men stumbled against her, and then righted themselves. Somewhere a woman was screaming. Gradually the train came to a stop, and the sounds gave way to the shrill blasts of the whistle.

The gangway door crashed open, sending a burst of cold air into the corridor. The conductor stood in the opening, his mouth forming words that appeared to be stuck in his throat. “What . . . What . . . What . . .” he stuttered. “What have you done?” He threw both hands into the air.

“This woman is mad.” It was the voice of the man in the gray suit.

“I'm so sorry,” Langford said. “I tried to prevent this.”

Molly grabbed the lapels of the conductor's blue coat. “A girl was thrown off the train at the big curve. We must back up and find her.”

“Back up?” The conductor stared at her with disbelief—she might as well have uttered an obscenity. His massive chest rose and fell as he took in great gulps of air. “That is impossible,” he said, withdrawing a white handkerchief from inside his waistcoat and mopping at his face.

“Stout! Where are you?” The man's voice came from outside.

“My engineer,” the conductor muttered. He stepped into the gangway, opened the gate, and started down, boots thumping on the steps. Molly followed. She hurried to keep up as they strode alongside the train. Tongues of steam flicked from the underside of the cars, but the wind stabbing at her face and hands was as cold as ice. A few feet away, the ledge dropped off into the chasm below.

The engineer came toward them clapping mittened hands together against the cold. He wore a padded coat buttoned to the neck and a slouch hat pulled low over his ears. “What's the meaning of this?” he yelled. “There's an extra freight coming behind us. If that engineer misses the warning flares I whistled out, we'll be knocked off the mountain.”

The conductor tilted his head back toward Molly. “This woman says she saw a girl thrown off the train at the big curve,” he said.

Molly stepped forward. “I am Mrs. J. J. Brown,” she said, struggling to keep her voice steady in the cold. “I demand you back up and attend to the poor girl.”

“J. J. Brown of Leadville?” A look of respect and admiration came into the engineer's eyes.

“Formerly of Leadville. We are wasting time, sir.”

The engineer shook his head. “It is impossible to back up, Mrs. Brown. We'll telegraph the police from Pine Grove. Now we must proceed.” He gave a little bow and started again for the locomotive.

“All aboard, all aboard,” the conductor called as Molly followed him back through the knots of passengers who had also disembarked. Suddenly a chill unrelated to the cold ran down her spine. What had she done? Given the killer a chance to walk away? She stepped toward the ledge, eyes searching the track that stretched out from the train. No sign of anyone walking away. But where could the killer walk to? They were on a narrow ledge, high on a mountainside, miles from the nearest town. No, the killer would wait until they pulled into Pine Grove.