Fatal as a Fallen Woman (27 page)

They found nothing in Torrence's study or his bedroom, which was separate from Miranda's. If William Torrence had kept any documentation of his payment to Evan, it appeared that he'd long since destroyed it. "I suppose it was hopeless from the start," Diana said.

"We haven't looked downstairs."

"I don't think my father spent much time in the kitchen."

"Let's be thorough," Ben said, and started down a flight of back stairs so narrow that his elbows brushed the walls on either side.

Hampered by her wide skirts, Diana followed more slowly, fearful of losing her balance. The kitchen was much as she remembered it. There was no cook in sight, but Miranda's maid was just taking the teakettle off the stove.

"Did you want to talk to the old man?" Martha asked.

"What old man?" Ben asked.

"Name's Morris," Martha said, jerking her head toward a closed door. "He lives here year round. Takes care of the place. Leastways he used to, before he got so sick."

Diana's pulse rate quickened. She'd remembered Morris during the trip from New York to Denver, but she hadn't thought of him since. He'd always been the self-effacing sort, there when one of the Torrences had an odd job to be done but keeping to himself when he wasn't needed. "He worked for my father for years," she said aloud.

Ben crossed the kitchen and rapped on the door Martha had indicated.

A quavering voice bade them enter.

Leander Morris sat in a rocker, bundled in blankets. Blind eyes, deeply sunken, stared at them out of a wrinkled face the color of lead. Violet circles bordered his nose. After one good look at him, Ben leaned close to Diana's ear. "He has a face struck with death. I'm going back to the buggy for my medical bag."

Left alone with the infirm old man, Diana approached him slowly. She remembered him as a ruddy-faced, healthy individual who'd sometimes given her horehound drops. The change in him saddened her. "Mr. Morris," she said softly. "It's Diana. Diana Torrence."

He gave a start before reaching out with one gnarled hand to clasp her fingers. "Come closer," he rasped. "I don't see so well anymore. Little Diana. Well, well. Torrence's girl?"

"Yes."

"And you're here in Torrence again. Well, well."

"Mr. Morris, I need your help."

"Well, well. Came back after all. Good. Good." He patted the back of her hand. His skin felt dry and thin as parchment.

She tried again. "Did my father tell you I was married?"

Blue lips twisted into a parody of a smile. "Told me when you were in the family way, too. What was it? Boy or girl? He was hoping for a boy."

She stared at him in shock and tried to pull free of his grip but it was surprisingly strong. "I never had a child."

"Lost it, eh? Too bad. He was going to raise it right, he said."

"He . . . my father was going to raise . . . my child?" Eyes wide, a feeling of panic sweeping through her, she turned with relief at the sound of Ben's return.

"Mr. Morris," Ben said. "I'm Dr. Northcote. Is it all right with you if I listen to your heart?" He already had his stethoscope out.

Diana's thoughts were racing. Why would her father think she'd been with child? And why would he talk to Morris about it? About raising his grandchild? Had he expected her to die in childbirth?

She tried to dismiss an obvious answer but it would not be ignored. Bracing one hand on the wall for support, Diana fought to quell a rising nausea.

Evan
had told him she was going to have a child. That was the only explanation. He'd lied to her father. And then he'd sold that imaginary child to William Torrence. That was how he'd gotten the money to start his own acting company—not blackmail; just another confidence game.

Ben had finished his examination of Mr. Morris. "I have a powder that may give you some relief," he said, fishing once more in his black doctor's satchel.

"Mr. Morris, did my father say anything more about Evan Spaulding?" Diana asked.

"Who?" He blinked several times and looked confused. "Who are you again? Do I know you?"

"I'm Diana, Mr. Morris. William Torrence's little girl."

"She went away," he said. "He said she died."

And try as she might, Diana could elicit no more useful information from the old man. His mind, so clear only a few minutes earlier, had clouded. He couldn't remember who she was, let alone what her father might have said or done.

"What was that all about?" Ben asked when they were back outside.

She told him her conclusions as they drove away from the Torrence house. When she'd finished, Ben gave a low whistle.

"It makes sense, in a perverted kind of way. And it gives your father a reason to have kept track of you and Evan."

"He must have found out fairly soon that there was no child. Maybe even before we left Denver."

"Do you think Charlie was told to give Evan bad travel advice?" He turned the horse toward the cemetery they'd seen from the train, the next stop on the agenda they'd worked out.

"I wouldn't put it past Father."

"Would you put anything past him? Could he have sent someone to kill Evan?"

The idea of her father as a murderer did not send Diana into heated denials the way the same accusation against her mother had. "I don't
want
to believe that," she whispered.

"He might have thought he'd get you back if your husband was dead."

"He didn't want me back. He wanted a new child to raise 'right.' That's why he gave Evan money. He thought he was buying my baby."

"After he paid Evan, he must have returned to Torrence and sent Charlie to Denver to spy on you. When he found out from Charlie that you were going to Leadville, he recruited Pearl."

"She'd have found it easy enough to get information about me." Diana pondered the issue for a moment as they followed a winding road past one of Torrence's two churches. "It would have been simple to bribe our landlady. She was a money-grubbing old besom."

"I wonder," Ben mused, "if she's still in Leadville."

"What does it matter? It's plain now what happened. Father found out he'd been lied to. I think you're right. Father might well have hired someone to shoot Evan. That must be what Mother meant when she said I had reason to want revenge."

Ben pulled up at the gate to the town cemetery. It was situated away from the windswept summit on which the rest of Torrence had been built. The monuments and markers were further sheltered by aspens and evergreens. They sat in silence, staring at the graves. Sounds from the town were but a muted whisper behind them.

"It's larger than I would have expected," Ben remarked, assessing the number of graves.

With a sigh, Diana hopped down. "We'll have to hunt for Father's marker." How hard could it be? It was probably the largest and most ostentatious one.

"Diptheria epidemic," Ben said, pausing to read an inscription. "From the look of things, it wiped out half the population back in '79."

"I was away at school then." Neither of her parents had bothered to write and tell her of the devastation.

She stopped at the sight of a familiar name on one tombstone, that of a childhood friend. Emily Pargeter had been dead all these years and Diana had never known a thing about it.

She recognized another name, then two more. By the time she found the ornate little obelisk with "William Torrence" carved on it, she felt numbed by the enormity of the losses. Whole families had been wiped out.

For a long moment, Diana she stood at graveside reading the flowery inscription Miranda had chosen and staring at her father's final resting place.

Then she kicked the marble monument hard enough to bruise her toes.

* * * *

The Grand Hotel in Torrence, Colorado was anything but grand. It barely had sufficient space for them all. Diana was sharing the largest of the rooms, one of two with two beds, with Jane, Red Katie, and Long Tall Linda, while Ben occupied a closet-sized space at the other end of the same floor. The hostelry did, however, serve excellent food. When he'd helped Diana back into the buggy at the cemetery, Ben suggested they return there and have a bite to eat rather than immediately continue on to the next item on Diana's agenda.

"You've done enough for one day," he said. "And we've already missed the noon meal."

"I wanted to talk to Alan Kent," she objected.

"What do you think he can tell you?"

"If I knew that, I wouldn't have to ask. Besides, even if he knows nothing about Father's murder, I intend to give him a piece of my mind about his treatment of poor Jane. She came back to the hotel last night in tears."

"Why?"

"She wouldn't say, but I imagine he told her he was through with her."

"You think he admitted he'd been carrying on with Miranda?"

"I don't know if he went that far, but it doesn't matter. He hurt her, Ben, and someone should take him to task for it."

They were already back in the center of town. Ben returned the buggy to the livery stable and escorted Diana into the headquarters of the Torrence Mining Company, which was right across the street.

"You can ask Kent questions about your father or you can berate him for breaking Jane's heart," Ben said in a whisper as they climbed the stairs to the second floor office, "but it you try to do both at once you'll only muddy the waters."

"What if the two are connected?" She whispered back. "I've been thinking. If Miranda did kill Father, who better than Alan Kent to have helped her? Through Jane, he had access to the Elmira Hotel. He could have planted that glove."

Ben had to admit that the second Mrs. Torrence had plenty of reasons to kill her husband. Jealousy. Revenge. Avarice. Any one alone would have been sufficient to drive her to murder. But they had no evidence. "You need proof, Diana."

"And that's what we're going to get." She opened a glass fronted door without knocking and entered Kent's office. "Hello, Mr. Kent."

Kent was tall, with strawberry blond hair, sharp features, and thin lips. Ben wondered what Miranda Torrence saw in him. It certainly wasn't a pleasant personality. He sprang to his feet at the sight of Diana, cursed fluently, and ordered her off the premises.

"Not until you've answered a few questions."

"I don't work for you, Mrs. Spaulding."

"Thank goodness!"

"You're trespassing. If you don't leave, I'll have the law on you."

"What are you afraid of, Kent?" Ben asked, making his voice as reasonable as he could. He'd taken an instant, unreasoning dislike to the man and was finding it hard to stand still for his belligerent attitude towards Diana.

"Afraid? What's that supposed to mean?"

Ben continued to stare at him. He'd been told he could look intimidating when he tried. As if in proof of it, sweat beaded on Kent's forehead.

"I don't have to talk to you people." He fumbled in his desk drawer and came up with a gun, but his hand shook as he lifted it.

Ben grabbed Diana and started to back away. He'd have felt less nervous if the man showed an ease with the weapon. Nervous people tended to shoot themselves, and others, by accident. "You don't need that, Kent. We're leaving."

Still armed, he followed them until they'd retreated into the street. "And don't come back!" he shouted, slamming the door.

"That's not the behavior of an innocent man," Diana declared.

"Nor is it enough to accuse him of murder." Ben steered her toward the hotel. "Even suspecting him of planting that glove is a stretch. You said he was at the Elmira the night your father was killed, but he wasn't there the next day. When did he
get
the glove to plant it?"

"But
someone
put that glove in Mother's rooms and he's the one with a connection to Miranda."

They walked the rest of the way to the hotel in silence and by mutual agreement went directly to the dining room. Maryam was the only one there, apparently enjoying her late and solitary meal. She made a point of ignoring Diana.

Ben pulled out a chair at one of the small tables, but Diana ignored it. She stared at the other woman. "Someone with access to the Elmira Hotel planted the glove in Mother's suite. Pearl said Father had a spy there. If Miranda knew who she was, and if she was willing to pay that person enough, the
spy
might have planted the glove."

Ben followed her gaze to Maryam. "You think she's the one?"

"That would explain how she knew about Kent and Miranda. It isn't common knowledge. I'm sure of that. I didn't suspect a thing until I talked to Miranda's maid."

"Jane may have—"

"I don't think Jane realized until we came to Torrence, but even if she did, she'd never have confided in Maryam."

Revitalized by a new sense of purpose, Diana stalked across the dining room toward the woman in pink. "I know what you did," she cried. "You framed my mother for murder!"

"You're daft." Maryam came up out of her chair in a rush and tried to get out of Diana's way. Cornered, she backed into an Eastlake sideboard hard enough to make the china rattle. "Why would I go and do a crazy thing like that?"

"For money. Cold, hard cash. You were a spy, Maryam. You took my father's money. You met with him the night he died. Maybe you were even there when he was killed. How much did Miranda pay you to help cover up her crime?"

The pink-clad prostitute goggled at her. And then, to Ben's astonishment, she gave a snort of laughter. Either she was a very good actress, or her reaction was genuine. "Clutching at straws, that's what you're doing! Accuse just anyone and see what they'll do. Well maybe some folks cower and confess with that sort of treatment, but not me. The minute we get back to Denver, I'm looking for another place to work. A girl's got to have some pride!"

With that, she pushed past Diana and flounced out of the room.

Diana sent a sheepish glance in Ben's direction. "Well," she said, "if I were as devious as Maryam thinks I am, I'd have to account myself a rousing success. I certainly got a reaction!"

* * * *

Early the next morning, Diana heard Long Tall Linda get up, dress, and slip out of the room. Then Jane arose, noisily following her rigid routine of a cold splash and calisthenics. Diana watched the process through slitted eyes, feeling not the slightest urge to rise from the bed, let alone participate.