Lake of Fire (22 page)

It wasn’t possible. Hank could not be living two lives. He must have an alibi, he must have been here at the hotel when the stage was robbed, but … in spite of his gentleman’s airs, could there be a darker side to Hank?

Something that might motivate him to rob a stagecoach?

M
orning had Cord wishing he’d slept better and hoping someone would cancel the meeting with the Northern Pacific reps. The scene with Laura last night had him on edge, though her calling him a savage must have been a lucky guess.

He tried to rationalize that he hadn’t told a direct lie to anyone, but didn’t the sin of omission make him just as guilty?

When he entered the conference room, he found another reason to worry about his position. On the wall, a prominent poster publicized the Northern Pacific with a caption: “The story of a railway in Wonderland, 1900, shows the changes time has made in this old Indianland.” Advertising the “crack train of the northwest, the North Coast Limited,” the poster depicted a fallen Indian with black braids, fringed buckskin, and moccasins. The route of the rail from the Pacific Coast to Duluth followed the contour of
his feathered headdress, along his prone shoulders and back, and down his leg to the end of the line. The first to arrive for the meeting, Cord took a single look and averted his eyes.

Edgar Young followed him into the room. “When you went to St. Paul, the railroad set you up with Hagen as the nice guy. This Hopkins Chandler will be the one who calls the shots, especially now that there’s competition.”

Cord fingered his leather portfolio. “I looked over the documents you gave me. There are some pretty damning things here against Falls.”

Edgar nodded. “I thought you would be able to use them.”

“I can, but you never said anything about the hotel being in disrepair. Though on the one hand it works in my favor, I’m going to have to spend capital on repairs and take that into account on the price.”

Edgar cleared his throat. “I didn’t have the information until recently.”

“When … ?”

He trailed off as Norman Hagen, looking like a painting Cord had once seen of the Norse god Thor, entered. With a smile, he extended a hand. “Morning, Sutton.”

The man behind Norman did not smile. In fact, with his too-black hair and beard, his dour expression, and an undertaker’s suit, he appeared ready to hawk a cemetery plot. “Hopkins Chandler, the fourth,” he announced, without offering to shake hands.

Forrest Fielding and Hank Falls came in next. The banker’s stout body contrasted sharply with Hank’s lanky frame.

Cord gave Edgar a sidelong look. “I thought …” Today was supposed to be his chance to present his position to the railroad alone, as Falls and Fielding had been doing for days before he arrived.

Chandler took the seat at the head of the table. Everyone else sat with a scraping of chair legs. Cord, by virtue of arriving first, had the place at the opposite head.

He pressed his advantage. “This morning, I’ll present my case for why the present management is not the best choice to take over the hotel.”

He withdrew a piece of paper from his file and offered it to Norman Hagen, who sat nearby.

Norman pulled out a pair of half glasses and placed them on his nose.

“That letter was written by a team driver who hauled rock for the foundations of the Lake Hotel in 1889,” Cord said. “He claims that he and a number of other workers were cheated out of their pay by Hank Falls, who supervised the construction.”

“Impossible!” A lock of Hank’s normally controlled hair fell down across his forehead.

“Next we have an inspection report from 1890.” Cord pushed more paper toward Norman. “It states that there were many places in the hotel’s foundation that one could push over with one’s foot.”

“All of it fixed,” Hank insisted. “In the spring of
that year I had the rubble stone foundation remortared.”

Hank’s banker, Fielding, appearing unconcerned, drew a fresh cigar out of his vest pocket.

Norman studied the documents and passed them down the table to Hopkins Chandler.

Chandler fingered the letter from the worker, smoothing his finger over the ink. “This is an original, not a copy, yet it’s addressed to the Northern Pacific.”

Hank’s fingers drew into fists. “Where did you get those papers?”

Cord didn’t answer. In his eagerness to make the case Edgar had prepared for him, he hadn’t wondered that the documents were originals.

Resisting looking at his banker, he suggested, “What say we go on a little tour of the hotel? I’ll show you firsthand where the troubles lie.”

Hopkins Chandler continued to review the documents. “Before I left St. Paul, I made certain to look over all the railroad records of the building of the hotel. There was nothing like this in the files.”

Edgar shifted in his chair. “It seems obvious to me, then, that someone,” he placed an emphasis on the last word, “must have intercepted the worker’s letter. Someone who also made certain the inspection reporting faults did not make it to the railroad files.”

“See here.” Hank rose. “That’s preposterous.”

Now, Forrest Fielding appeared dismayed.

Chandler and Norman exchanged a look that raised Cord’s spirits, even as he struggled to contain his confusion at Edgar’s change of story. He distinctly
remembered Edgar saying the letter and the inspection report had come from the railroad … but how would that have worked? Had Edgar hired someone to steal from the files, thereby explaining why Chandler had not seen them?

Cord gathered his composure. “Mr. Chandler. It seems obvious from Mr. Falls’s consternation that something is amiss.” He gestured toward the door. “Shall we see the condition of the building?”

With a thoughtful look at Hank and an exchanged look with Norman, Chandler nodded.

Cord led the way out of the meeting room. When he shoved open the main door to the parking area, he noted from the corner of his eye that someone small and feminine fell into step behind the men.

He glanced over his shoulder; Laura shadowed them.

Outside the hotel, he stopped, facing the wall. “Watch this.” He kicked the mortared foundation with the tip of his brown leather boot.

Both Chandler and Norman looked amazed as a puff of dust appeared, and several small rocks rolled to the earth.

“Ten years later, we’re back to the same problems.” Cord spoke to Norman as though they were on the same side.

“How can I help it if the railroad refuses to fix this place up?” Hank shot a look at Hopkins Chandler and then subsided, as though he realized that alienating the Northern Pacific’s representative was a two-edged sword.

Forrest Fielding pulled out a pocketknife, knelt, and inserted it into the crumbling foundation. Frowning, he hoisted himself up.

As the group continued through the hotel, Cord showed rooms without enough steam pipe to make the radiator more than a prop. Next, he led the way to the top of the east gable on the hotel’s roof, where a widow’s walk looked out over the lake and the tops of the lodgepole forest. Noticing the way Laura’s skirt clung to her legs in the freshening breeze, Cord thought the roof could have been a pleasant place to while away an afternoon in view of the emerald Absarokas.

He forced himself back to business. “We saw below in the third-floor hall that the roof has been leaking for years.”

Hank’s narrow nose lifted, as if he smelled something rotten.

The roof had evidently been repaired a number of times, with multiple patches of coal tar and asphalt forming unsightly streaks on the shingles. “Up here, what you see is called V crimp roofing.” Cord pointed to the gap where the crown of the roof did not quite meet. “The vertical seams do not form a lock.”

“I didn’t design this place,” Hank said, “just built

it.”

“The whole building is rife with wiring hazards,” Cord went on, “and there aren’t enough of the glass globes of carbon tetrachloride to extinguish a blaze of any magnitude.”

He could see from the corner of his eye that Laura
listened. What he could not decipher was whether she rooted for him or Hank.

Cord looked out over the lake and saw Hank’s steamboat. “I’m sure if we inspected your boat, Falls, we’d find it’s a firetrap, as well.”

Cord raised a pre-lunch toast to Edgar Young in the lobby bar. “Score one for us.”

The meeting had broken up when Hopkins Chandler indicated that he and Norman would take the afternoon and evening to consider the situation and reconvene the next morning.

Edgar smiled. “You certainly showed that Hank hasn’t been keeping the place up.”

Cord’s own grin faded, and the impulse that had sent him to the bar for a celebratory drink evaporated. “Of course, Hank was right when he explained why. The railroad hasn’t authorized the funds to keep it together. They’re selling to get out from under the upcoming maintenance.”

“We have not yet made a firm offer,” Edgar reminded.

“That’s true.”

If Hank did not also deduct the repairs from the price, if he planned to keep on running the place in disrepair, then perhaps the deal might still get away. On the other hand, today’s revelations about past inspections had gone a long way toward discrediting Hank.

Something nagged at Cord, though. Much as he had taken an instinctive dislike to the hotel manager, he did not enjoy the process of character assassination. Especially when he didn’t have the complete picture.

“Edgar.” He set down his glass. “We need to talk about where that letter and report came from.”

His banker shook his head. “The less you know about it, the better for you.”

Cord’s mouth almost dropped open. Edgar had seemed so cooperative. “I’m going to ask you again where you got the information.”

Edgar’s lips compressed into a line.

Cord slapped his palm on the bar. “See here …”

People were staring at them, including the members of the Fielding entourage, coming in to lunch. Laura wore a deep plum riding habit and the boots she had worn on the trail, polished to a high sheen. Even from a distance, he could make out her bruise, becoming a black eye.

Hank stayed close to Laura.

Constance wore the ecru lace concoction he had seen her in last night, the one that made a man look twice to make sure she wasn’t naked. Standing without an escort, she met Cord’s eyes as though she could will him to join her.

On no account would he walk across to where Hank stood glaring at him. After the argument on the pier last night, and the events of this morning, he had no idea what might erupt in front of Norman Hagen and Hopkins Chandler, who were entering the lobby
together.

“Let’s get some lunch,” Cord told Edgar. Over the meal, he felt sure he could talk the younger man into sharing his source for the mystery documents.

While Cord and his banker took seats at a window table, Laura watched through lowered lashes. He didn’t look nearly as pleased as she thought he might after showing Hank up. In fact, he and Edgar seemed to be in disagreement.

Hank shook out his napkin.

Forrest glanced at Cord. “You know, Hank, what he’s got is pretty damning.”

“They could be forgeries,” Hank parried. “Are they?” Forrest came back. Hank colored.

Laura studied his discomfiture. “Are you accusing Mr. Sutton of presenting false information? When the things he said about hotel maintenance are true?”

She expected an explosion from Constance in Cord’s defense, but she was speaking to Aunt Fanny and not following the conversation at this end of the table. Instead, the rebuke came from her father.

“Daughter!” he snapped. “I do not know what can have gotten into you since we arrived here. I expect your support and loyalty to me in my business endeavors, as well as matters of the household.”

She refused to reply, holding his gaze with her
own. Finally, he reached for a slice of bread and began to butter it. Hank studied the menu, though Laura suspected he knew the offerings by heart.

The approach of Sergeant Larry Nevers broke the tension. “Good afternoon, Miss Fielding. I see you have dressed for our outing.”