Watching Eagles Soar (18 page)

“How did he take your rejection?”

“It disturbed him,” Bunny said. “I didn't want to think about the fantasies he was entertaining. His behavior became more and more annoying. Standing too close, placing his hand on my arm or my back, as if he could make me change my mind. I informed him of my intention to hire another instructor.”

Detective Peterson went back to scribbling. After a moment, he said, “It's possible you were the intended victim.”

“Oh, my.” Bunny was grateful for the weight of Sloan's arm slipping around her shoulders, keeping her anchored in place. The scenario had shifted so fast, she felt dizzy and confused. And yet, she realized that this new scenario gave Derrick a more plausible motive to commit murder than his assertion that the wife of Sloan Pearl had wanted him dead. In that instant, she knew she was free. No police detective or district attorney in Aspen would take the word of a ski instructor over the word of a billionaire's wife, a prominent New York socialite.

“One more matter to clear up.” The detective flicked a glance at her. “Fitzsimmons claims you told him the security system was disabled. How else would he have known?”

Chester lunged forward. “No need to say anything else, Bunny.”

Sloan put up one hand. “I'll handle this,” he said. “It's clear the man is a liar. No doubt he came prepared to disable the system himself, which is what occurred in the other burglaries in the neighborhood. He is using the fact that our system happened to be down in his attempt to incriminate my wife. The man is shameless.”

Detective Peterson nodded; then he pocketed the tape recorder and notepad and got to his feet. He would send over the statements for their signatures later, he said. He planned to walk Derrick Fitzsimmons through the crime scene to confirm his path in the house, and he hoped that wouldn't inconvenience them. Naturally he understood the couple had long-standing plans to leave for Spain this evening, but they would be expected to return to testify at the trial.

“Naturally,” Sloan had said, following the big detective and the lawyer across the room and ushering them out the door. Then he turned slowly to Bunny. There was such bright relief in his eyes that she clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. After a moment, he cleared his throat. “At Tanya's house, my dear,” he said, “you conducted yourself like the lady you are. I knew then I had made a terrible mistake. I intended to break it off with her before you returned from Denver. Can you ever forgive me?”

* * *

B
unny felt the SUV shiver as the driver thumped the luggage into the back. The car had arrived precisely at six p.m., as Sloan had ordered. They had packed only a few personal items, but after all, they kept the appropriate wardrobes in each house. The tailgate slammed and the driver hurried around. A blast of icy air mixed with flakes of snow invaded the SUV as he climbed behind the wheel. Sloan had taken hold of her gloved hand and was holding on tight, as if she were a lifeline of some sort. The engine coughed into life as they started bouncing down the driveway next to the house. A line of police vehicles was parked in front. What nuisance and inconvenience, she thought. Such scandal. She was grateful to be leaving. She sat straight, facing the road that wound down the mountainside past Tanya's house, past the trees on the right that Derrick had climbed through last night, Sloan's profile floating beside her, the granite jaw and bulbous nose, the eyes trained ahead.

Another police car crawled up the road, and the driver guided the SUV over to make room. Bunny forced herself not to look at the occupant in the backseat as the car passed, and yet, there was the slightest glimpse of the tousled black hair, the red-rimmed dark eyes in the handsome face with features carved in the mountain winds and baked in the snow glare of the sun. She could feel Derrick looking at her, and then, as quickly as he had appeared in her life, he was gone, snow from the rear wheels of the police car flecking her window. She thought he might have waved, but she couldn't be sure.

Molly Brown and Cleopatra's Diamond

{ A Novella }

“W
elcome to the Brown Palace, Mrs. Brown.” The doorman extended a black-gloved hand. Specks of snow glistened on the dark shoulders of his uniform and speckled the top of his cap. Molly Brown took his hand and stepped down from the buggy, as the pair of horses whinnied, stamped their hooves, and blew gusts of steam into the frigid evening air. Bells jangled on the other buggies passing along Tremont Street.

“Good evening, Mr. Brown,” the doorman said, as J.J. alighted beside her. Through her silver fox cape, Molly could feel the pressure of J.J.'s hand on her arm, guiding her toward the glass revolving door. Other doormen doffed their caps, and she and J.J. stepped into a vestibule of marble floors and bronze elevators and electricity-lit sconces that sent tongues of light flickering over the mahogany walls.

“They think we own the place,” Molly said. The idea made her suppress a little giggle. Two years ago, in 1894, the only thing they had owned was a two-room bungalow—not much more than a shack—in Leadville. Then J.J. had tunneled into a vast deposit of gold in the Little Jonny Mine, and the Brown family—she and J.J. and the children, Helen and Lawrence—had packed their belongings, ridden the train to Denver, and moved into a mansion on Pennsylvania Avenue on Capitol Hill, Denver's best neighborhood.

How many times since had she corrected some well-meaning new acquaintance who blurted out: “Brown? Oh, you must be the Browns of the Brown Palace!”

“I'm afraid not.” Molly had learned to lift her chin in an attempt to dismiss the matter. She had no intention of being linked to old Henry Cordes Brown, despite the fact that he was among the Old Guard that had arrived in the 1860s, when Denver was nothing but a collection of tents, cabins, and dusty roads filled with gold seekers desperate to find fortunes. Old Henry had built the Brown Palace in 1892 and promptly gone broke, which hardly left him a member in good standing in society.

The finest of the Old Guard—the Sacred 36, they called themselves—ruled Denver society, and never mind that J.J., sitting on a lake of gold, could buy and sell most of them. Never mind that he had purchased other gold and silver mines across Colorado and Arizona, Nevada and California, and enough real estate, including hotels, to assemble his own town. Never mind all of that. Molly and J. J. Brown were considered newcomers, interlopers sniffing outside the golden fence that surrounded the Sacred 36.

Except that tonight, the Sacred 36 was coming to them.

Molly slipped free of J.J.'s hand steering her left toward the bronze elevators and moved straight ahead into the spacious lobby filled with men in black tuxedos and women in shimmering gowns, strolling the Turkish carpets and reclining in plush chairs arranged around potted artificial trees. The domed ceiling soared overhead, six stories high. Suspended from the ceiling was a crystal chandelier that, Molly guessed, would fill most of the two-room shack in Leadville. Light from the chandelier danced and gleamed in the rows of brass balconies overlooking the lobby.

The muted conversations and the rustling of taffeta gowns seemed to fade into the paneled walls as Molly led J.J. across the far end of the lobby to the winding stairway. She gave a little nod to some of the guests as she passed. Louise Hill—Mrs. Crawford Hill, ruler of the Sacred 36—was surrounded by a knot of other society women, all of them leaning toward Louise, gulping in her every word. She wore a lavender dress that trailed over the carpet, her chestnut-brown hair piled high and fastened with diamond pins that flitted like fireflies when she moved her head.

Molly could feel the eyes boring into the back of her fox cape as she and J.J. started up the stairs, J.J.'s hand firm on the small of her back. Oh, they were a fine-looking couple, she knew. J.J., tall and broad-shouldered, with red hair oil-slicked into place, every inch the gentleman in his cashmere top coat and tailored black tuxedo, and the confidence about him of a man who had made his own fortune. J.J. had never been a common miner. He was a mining engineer, and when nobody believed that the mountains around Leadville—the silver city—would disgorge anything other than silver or lead, J.J. had believed otherwise. He had recognized the signs that gold could also be found, and he figured out how to get to it.

Molly glanced over one shoulder and gave him a smile. She looked her best, she knew. The blue lace dress complemented her blue eyes and her own red hair was swept up and wound even higher than Louise Hill's. She had worn the aquamarine necklace that J.J. had given her their first Christmas in Denver. Oh, how she had screamed with delight when she opened the red velvet box and saw the enormous blue gems winking in their gold setting. That evening she and J.J. and the children had taken a sleigh ride through the streets of Capitol Hill, laughing at the snow that blew in their faces and exclaiming at the fine mansions, light blazing in the windows, that loomed around them. She had worn the aquamarine necklace.

At the top of the stairway, Molly linked her arm in J.J.'s and slowed their pace as they strolled along the brass balcony to give everyone in the lobby below a clear view of their progress toward the ballroom. Not until she and J.J. had inspected the ballroom and the dinner table settings and greeted the guests of honor would the maître d' invite the other guests to ascend the stairs. She and J.J. were the hosts, and just as she had expected, no one in the Sacred 36 had turned down the invitation from the J. J. Browns to dine with Prince Alexander Orlovsky and his daughter, Princess Katerina, of St. Petersburg, with the royal blood of tzars coursing in their veins.

“His friends call him Sasha,” Alice Beltran had written on the ivory sheet with the golden crown of the Plaza Hotel engraved at the top. Such a lovely woman, Alice, the kind Molly had dreamed of befriending even when she lived in Leadville, and she and Alice had gravitated toward each other that weekend last fall when they had each settled their children into the boarding school in Connecticut. Alice was living at the Plaza while her husband, George, made arrangements for their residence in St. Petersburg, where he was about to take up the duties of Ambassador to Russia.

“Sasha has spent such a grand time in New York,” Alice had written. “As you know, Molly, royalty must associate with the best people. For that reason, my dear friend, I entrust the prince and his lovely daughter to you and J.J. for their stay in Denver. I know you will introduce them to the right sort. You can reach the prince at the Palmer House in Chicago until next week when he and Princess Katerina will embark by train to Denver.”

Molly had fled down the second-floor corridor of the mansion and flung open the paneled door to J.J.'s study. “Royalty is coming to Denver!” she announced, waving the note in the air.

J.J. had lifted his head from the pile of papers he was hunched over at the rolltop desk. “Royalty?” he said, blinking up at her. “We don't know any royalty.”

“Oh, but we will.” Molly crossed the study and let the note drop on top of the papers. “Alice Beltran, wife of our Ambassador to Russia—remember, I told you about her?—has entrusted a Russian prince and his daughter to us. It is our duty to see that they meet the right people.”

“Hold on just one minute, Mol.” J.J. pushed his chair back and stared up at her with that supercilious grin that meant he was enjoying himself. “The right people haven't exactly taken us to their hearts,” he said, amusement leaking out of his voice. The fact was that J.J. didn't care a fig about the right people and the Sacred 36, which he called a bunch of self-appointed old biddies and their trained-pony husbands. J.J. had his mines, an expanding business empire, and a thousand employees, more than enough to keep him occupied without any concern for the Sacred 36.

“But that's the point.” Molly heard the exasperation in her voice. “This is our chance to be accepted. We must give a dinner at the Brown Palace. There must be an orchestra and dancing. What a stroke of luck! No one in society will turn down the opportunity to meet Russian royalty!” She had whirled about the study, letting the skirt of her morning dress swing out in a circle as if it were the blue lace dress that she already knew she would wear to the gala event. “They arrive next week,” she said, gripping the top of J.J.'s chair to stop the room from spinning. “So little time to plan a grand evening.”

“I'm sure you'll manage.” J.J. pedaled his chair back to the desk and waved a hand over the papers in the sign that she knew well. She could do whatever she wished. Back in Leadville, after he had discovered more gold than they could ever spend, he had told her, “Enjoy yourself, Mol, and don't forget the name of the bank.”

Molly flung herself into the plans. It was like preparing for a military campaign, she thought, an assault on the Sacred 36. Nothing could be left to chance, nothing left undone. She sent a telegram to Prince Orlovsky telling him of the gala event she and J.J. would host, and received a reply that same evening. The prince and princess would be honored to be their guests. She ordered engraved invitations with golden ribbons tied about the envelopes and had them hand-delivered to the mansions of Capitol Hill. She spent hours on the arrangements at the Brown Palace, selecting the menu of ducks' eggs, quail and roasted venison, parsleyed potatoes and squash, hothouse tomatoes and chocolate tarts accompanied by Champagne and the best French wines. She herself selected the cream-colored Irish linen tablecloths, the embroidered napkins, and the centerpieces of lilies, roses, and chrysanthemums, all coordinated with the candles that would flicker about the ballroom.

The arrangements in hand, she sent a handwritten note to Polly Pry, editor of the
Tattler
, Denver's gossip sheet, announcing that Mr. and Mrs. J. J. Brown would host a gala dinner at the Brown Palace Hotel to introduce Prince Orlovsky and his daughter, Princess Katerina, of St. Petersburg, Russia, to the finest of Denver society.

She waited four days for the responses. They arrived almost at the same time, and she had understood. The initial victory in her campaign to storm the gates of Denver society was hers. The ruler of the Sacred 36 had given the approval that sent her entire battalion into retreat. Louise Hill could not resist a Russian prince and princess.

Just as they reached the entrance to the ballroom, Molly spotted a tall, thin-looking man at the far end of the corridor, hovering near the stairs to the third floor. He was dressed in black, with a pale, gaunt face and a short black beard that emphasized the tight line of his mouth. “Who could that be?” she said.

“A hotel guest, Mol,” J.J. said, but she noticed that he had barely glanced down the corridor.

“I wonder why he looks familiar,” Molly went on. “He doesn't seem to belong here.”

“Some might have said the same about us not so long ago.” J.J. squeezed her hand and steered her toward the double walnut doors that swung open before them. They stepped past a pair of doormen into a ballroom that took her breath away. Silver and china settings gleaming, ivory cloths draping the tables and bunching about the parquet floor, flower centerpieces perfuming the air, and soft candlelight suffusing everything. The ceiling floated two stories overhead with crystal chandeliers that dangled on brass chains. A brass balcony encircled the ballroom, like the balconies above the lobby. Burgundy velvet draperies had been pulled back, and the lights of Denver shone like diamonds in the dark windows. Over in the far corner, the orchestra was tuning up, violins and violas screeching softly.

“A fine job you've done, Mol.” J.J.'s voice was close to her ear. “Rivals anything in St. Petersburg, I'd say.”

Molly tried for her best smile, but she still felt the sting from Louise Hill's remark in the
Tattler
not long after the Browns had moved to Denver. A remark aimed at her, Molly knew, like the first fusillade in a battle. “Two things mark the finest people,” Louise had stated. “They have money and they know how to use it.” Well, this evening, Louise Hill would see for herself that the J. J. Browns knew how to use their money.

“Where are they?” Molly said, glancing about the room. The prince and princess were to arrive on the afternoon train, but what if there had been a delay? And all of the Sacred 36 waiting in the lobby? She could feel her heart begin to sink.

“Now, Mol. You shouldn't be worrying,” J.J. said.

“Ah, Mr. and Mrs. Brown!” The maître d' in a white jacket with a red carnation in the lapel broke from a group of waiters and hurried over. “May I take your wraps?” he said. Molly allowed the fox cape to drop into his arms, then waited while J.J. shrugged out of the top coat. After handing the wraps to a doorman, the maître d' said, “The prince has asked that I show you into the anteroom. Please follow me.”

“Thank you,” J.J. said, and Molly felt her knees go weak with relief. She was grateful for J.J.'s hand on her arm, steering her across the ballroom in the direction of the man in the white jacket.

They entered a large sitting room, with damask chairs, sofas, and marble lamp tables arranged around Turkish carpets. Light glowed through the silk lampshades. Seated on a red sofa was a thin-looking man with silver hair and a matching goatee, dressed in dark trousers and a gray jacket buttoned up to the black cravat at his neck. Beside him was a young woman in a white dress studded with beads that reflected the color of the sofa. She had black hair, pinned back into rolls, with tiny ringlets that framed her oval-shaped face and emphasized her long, graceful neck. Suspended from the gold chain at her neck was a large black gemstone that glinted in the lamplight.

“Our charming hosts have arrived, Kitty.” The man lifted himself to a height of six feet or more and came forward, one hand outstretched.

Molly started to curtsy. “Your Highness,” she murmured as the prince started pumping J.J.'s hand.

“Prince Orlovsky,” he said, “but you must call me Sasha. And you must be J. J. Brown, while this lovely woman”—he turned toward Molly, who was frozen in a half curtsy—“must be your wife. May I call you Molly?” He dropped J.J.'s hand and leaned toward her. His eyes were the light blue of a mountain lake in the morning. “We are grateful to you for taking such poor pilgrims as ourselves under your wing and arranging this magnificent evening with the finest of Denver society. May I present my daughter, Princess Katerina,” he said, sweeping one hand toward the young woman.