Come the Spring (Claybornes' Brides (Rose Hill) 5)

One of them had left her bag behind.

Ryan and Cole were cautious about the discovery and decided in hushed, urgent voices to keep the possibility of a witness to themselves for the time being.

“We could be jumping the gun on this,” Cole warned. “In fact, we probably are.”

“Yeah, but I got a feeling…”

“Me too,” Cole whispered. “The thing is … it could have been under the desk for weeks.”

“We should talk to the couple who cleans the place right away. I’ve got their names and address somewhere in my notes,” Ryan said as he flipped through the pages of his notepad. “Here it is. Mildred and Edward Stewart. They live over on Currant Street. Let’s go talk to them now. I want to get out of here for a few minutes and get some fresh air.”

“It’s past nine,” Cole said. “They might be in bed.”

He was already moving toward the front door as he reminded Ryan of the time. They locked the door on their way out and walked over to the Stewarts’ cottage on the outskirts of town. The couple’s daughter opened the door for them and explained that her parents were working. They cleaned the bank, the church, and the general store every night.

The marshals backtracked. They could see the lights inside the general store. The shades were drawn, but Edward Stewart opened the door as soon as Ryan knocked and told him who he was.

Mildred was down on her knees scrubbing the floor. The heavyset woman got to her feet and wiped her hands on her apron when the marshals came inside. Both she and her husband were older—around fifty or so, Cole speculated—and from their haggard expressions and their stooped shoulders, he knew they had had to work hard all of their lives.

Ryan made the introductions, and then said, “We know you’re busy, but we sure would appreciate it if you would answer a couple of questions.”

“We’ll be glad to help any way we can,” Edward said. “There’s some chairs behind the counter if you want to sit down. The floor should be dry by now.”

“It won’t take that long,” Ryan said. “Did you and Mildred clean the bank Tuesday night?”

Edward nodded. “Yes, sir, we did. We clean it every night but Sunday, and MacCorkle paid us every Monday morning.”

“Do you think the new people running the place will keep us on?” Mildred asked. “We do a good job and we don’t charge much.”

They could tell she was worried. She was wringing her apron in her hands and frowning with concern.

“I’m sure they’ll keep you on,” Ryan predicted. “When you clean the bank, do you wash the floors or sweep them?”

“I do both,” Mildred answered. “First I give them a good sweeping, and then I get down on my hands and knees and wash every inch of my floors. I use vinegar and water, and when I’m done, the hardwood shines, doesn’t it, Edward?”

“Yes, it does,” he agreed.

“You don’t move the furniture, do you?” Cole asked.

“I don’t move the heavy pieces, but I move the chairs and the trash tins. I get under the tellers’ windows, under the desks, and behind the file cabinets that aren’t against the walls. We do a real thorough job,” she insisted.

“MacCorkle always inspected our work. Sometimes he’d get down on his knees and look into the corners just to make sure we didn’t miss a speck of dust or a cobweb, and if he found any, he deducted from our pay. He was real finicky about his bank.”

“He bought old, used-up furniture for the lobby and his loan officers, but he told us, with enough elbow grease, we could make the wood shine again. Some of those desks should have been thrown away years ago, but MacCorkle wasn’t one to waste anything,” Edward said.

“He had fancy new furniture put in his office,” Mildred interjected.

Cole spotted a basket of green apples on the counter. He took a coin out of his pocket, tossed it on the counter, and then selected two. He threw one to Ryan and took a bite out of the other.

“Ma’am, did the folks who came into the bank ever leave anything behind?”

“Sure they did,” Mildred answered. “I found a pretty brooch once, and Edward found a wallet with six whole dollars inside. Anything that’s left behind is put in the lost-and-found box in MacCorkle’s office. It’s in the corner by the safe.”

“Did you happen to find anything Tuesday night?”

Both Mildred and Edward shook their heads.

“Do you remember cleaning under the desks Tuesday?” Cole asked.

“Sure I remember,” Mildred said. “I clean under the desks every night, but Sunday. Why are you asking?”

“I was just curious,” Cole lied.

“Even if we were tired, we cleaned every inch of the bank because MacCorkle wouldn’t pay us our full wage if we didn’t.”

“He was a hard man to work for,” Mildred whispered.

“You shouldn’t be speaking ill of the dead,” Ed-ward told his wife.

“I’m speaking the truth,” she argued.

“We’ll let you get back to your job,” Ryan said. “Thanks for your help.”

Edward moved forward to let them out the front door. “Do you think you could get MacCorkle’s wife to pay us for the two nights we cleaned?”

“I’ll be happy to talk to her, but if she doesn’t pay you, I’ll make sure the new manager does.”

Edward shook his head. “If we can be of any help catching those men who killed our friends, you let us know, Marshal.”

“I’ll do that,” Ryan promised.

The marshals started down the boardwalk. “Now what do we do?” Cole asked.

“Go back to the bank and box up all the papers from yesterday’s business. It won’t take long.”

“Do you think the restaurant’s still open?”

“No, it’s too late. Your apple’s going to have to do for the moment. I wish we could go talk to those three women now, but I don’t know where they live.”

“We can get the addresses from the sheriff as soon as he gets back with his posse.”

“Yes,” Ryan agreed.

They walked along in silence for several minutes, and then Cole said, “At least we know the bag was left during the day of the robbery. MacCorkle was a real sweetheart, wasn’t he?”

“You mean holding back their wages if they didn’t do a thorough job?”

“Exactly,” Cole said. “Why would a woman leave her purse behind?”

“She must have been in a panic.”

“If she was hiding in the kneehole, she saw the whole thing.”

“Maybe she saw the whole thing,” Ryan said. “We should talk to the man who sits at the desk.”

He handed Cole the key to the front door of the bank while he dug his notepad out again. After Cole had gone inside and turned up the gas lamp, Ryan found what he was looking for.

“His name’s Lemont Morganstaff. We’ll talk to him in the morning,” he said. “He might know something about the bag.”

“What’s he gonna know?” Cole asked.

Ryan shrugged. “Probably nothing, but we have to ask him anyway.”

“And then what?”

“If he doesn’t know where the bag came from, we still can’t assume a woman was hiding in the kneehole. It could have ended up there a hundred different ways. One of the three women could have sat down at the desk to go through some papers. She might have dropped it when she got up. Damn, I wish it wasn’t so late.”

“You’re right. There could be a hundred different explanations. A woman could have left it during the morning. She could have come inside with a friend and been sitting at the desk while he did his banking.”

“Why would a woman carry around an empty purse?”

“I don’t know why they carry them in the first place. Pockets are more efficient.”

“We shouldn’t get our hopes up. A woman might have dropped it, then kicked it into the corner of the kneehole when she stood up. Does that make sense to you?”

Cole shook his head. “The women

I know keep track of their things.”

“God, I hope she saw it.”

“Now who’s being ruthless? If she did see the murders, she has to be scared out of her mind. The last thing she’s going to want to do is come forward.”

“We’ll protect her.”

“She won’t believe that, not if she heard what happened to Luke MacFarland.”

Ryan began to pace around the lobby. In the shadows of the gas lamps, the bloodstains resembled ghoulish outlines.

“We’re going to try to follow procedure on this one. I don’t want to leave any stone unturned.”

Exasperated, Cole said, “I’ve been a marshal one day. I don’t know what the procedures are.”

“We interview the three women first, but we also question every man who came in here yesterday.”

“It seems like a waste of time to me,” Cole said.

“It’s procedure.”

Cole leaned back against a desk and took another bite of his apple. “Fine, we’ll do it your way. There were twenty-nine people inside the bank. You talk to fifteen and I’ll take the other fourteen.”

“No, that isn’t how it works. We interview them together, then compare notes afterwards. I might miss something that you will pick up,” he explained. “We’ll talk to the women first,” he repeated. “Then the others. And that’s only the beginning. We need to talk to everyone who happened to be on the street, near the street, or in one of the buildings close to the bank. We also—”

Cole interrupted him. “In other words, we talk to everyone.”

“Just about,” Ryan replied. “As much as I hate to, we’re going to have to involve Sloan on this. I don’t know these people. He does, and people here might tell him things they won’t tell us. I’ll give him the list of names as soon as he gets back.”

Ryan stopped pacing and looked around the lobby. “I think we’re finished here. I’ll put yesterday’s papers in the safe just in case one of us wants to go through them again. The bookkeepers from the bank in Gram-by will be here Sunday to examine MacCorkle’s records, and when they’re finished, we’ll know the exact amount stolen. Let’s meet back here at seven in the morning and have Sloan round up the people we want to talk to.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to question them here. We should use the office at the jail.”

Ryan shook his head. “Jails make people nervous.”

“Seeing the bloodstains is going to make them more nervous.”

“Yeah, you’re right. We’ll use the jail.”

After collecting the papers and locking the safe, they left the bank.

“Have you checked into the hotel yet?” Ryan asked. “No, I went directly to the bank. What about you?”

“I didn’t take the time either. Are you still hungry?”

“Yeah, I am,” Cole answered. “Maybe the hotel will open the kitchen for us.”

“They will,” Ryan assured him. “We’re marshals. We’ll make them.”

Cole laughed. “I knew there had to be a couple of benefits to this job.”

They walked in companionable silence down the middle of the street, the only light supplied by a full moon.

“How much money do you think they got away with?” Cole asked.

“Like I said before, we won’t know the exact amount until the examiners go through the records. I do know from the receipt I found on MacCorkle’s desk that an army paymaster made a deposit that morning. The amount was seventeen thousand eight hundred and some change.”

Cole whistled. “That’s a lot of money. I’ll bet the bastards knew before MacCorkle did that the money was coming.”

“I’m sure they did. All they had to do was follow him.”

“Why bother robbing the banks?” Cole asked. “Why not rob the paymaster on his way to the fort with the cash?”

“It’s too dangerous and unpredictable, that’s why. The paymaster doesn’t ride alone, and the guards assigned to him are all crack shots. Banks are easier if you know what you’re doing, and the men we’re up against obviously do.”

The discussion ended when they reached the hotel. The only rooms available were in the attic and were about the size of clothes closets. Cole’s room faced the street. Ryan’s room was directly across the hall. The beds were soft though, and with a little persuasion, the night manager agreed to send up supper.

Neither Ryan nor Cole got much sleep that night. Cole kept thinking about the grisly scene he’d walked into, and Ryan spent his time thinking about the possible witness.

Eight

Morning came all too quickly. As agreed, the marshals met at the bank, where Sheriff Sloan was waiting to report that the posse hadn’t had any luck finding a trail. Ryan handed him the list of people he wanted to report to the jail to be interviewed. The three women’s names were at the top.

The sheriff looked over the names and shook his head. “Some of these folks are sick as dogs with influenza. It hits hard and fast,” he warned. “And some of the others are getting ready to head out of town. I ran into Doc Lawrence at the restaurant, and he was up all night tending to the Walsh family, and you’ve got John Walsh’s name on the list. Doc told me Frederick O’Malley is heading out of town with his brood as soon as the general store opens and he can get some more supplies.”

“No one leaves Rockford Falls until Marshal Clayborne and I have talked to them. That includes Frederick O’Malley.”

“I can’t make him stay.”

“I can,” Ryan replied.

Sloan wanted to argue. “This seems like a waste of time to me. If anyone saw anything, he would have spoken up by now.”

“Marshal Ryan wants to follow procedure,” Cole explained.

Sloan was staring at the blue bag on the desk. “Where did that come from?”

Ryan answered. “It was on the floor under the desk.”

“You think someone left it?”

“That much is pretty obvious,” Cole said. “We’re curious to know who it belongs to.”

A gleam came into Sloan’s eyes. “It had to have been left here on the day of the robbery because the Stewarts, who clean the place every night, would have found it if someone had left it the day before. They would have put it in the lost-and-found box. They’re honest people,” he thought to add. “You don’t think one of the robbers left it behind, do you?”

“No, we don’t think that,” Cole said dryly.

“Which desk was it found under?”

“Lemont Morganstaff’s,” Ryan answered. “We’re going to talk to him right away. Do you know where he lives?”

“Sure I do. I know just about everybody in town. I’ll take you over to Lemont’s as soon as you’re ready. Are you going to ask him about the bag?”

“Yes,” Ryan answered.

Sloan’s mind was whirling with possibilities. “Where exactly was the bag found? Was it right by the chair or was it way under the desk?”

“It was in the kneehole,” Ryan answered. “In the corner.”

Sloan’s eyes widened. “You don’t think that maybe someone was hiding under the desk, do you?”

“We haven’t drawn any conclusions yet,” Cole told him.

“But it’s possible, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Ryan agreed. “It’s possible. The matter of the bag is confidential, Sheriff. I don’t want you telling anyone about it.”

Sloan dropped down to his knees. “You can see through here…”

“I want to get started,” Cole said impatiently. “Show us where Lemont lives, and then start rounding up the people on the list. We’ll use the jail to talk to them.”

“I’ll wait out front to take you to Lemont’s,” Sloan said, bolting for the door.

As soon as Sloan had stepped outside, Cole said, “It was a bad idea to tell him where the bag was found.”

Ryan shrugged. “He’s a lawman, and he’ll only get in our way if we don’t feed him a little information now and then. What harm can he do?”  Nine

As it turned out, Sloan could do a great deal of harm. Before the day was over, Ryan actually considered locking the sheriff in his own jail. Unfortunately, the law frowned on incarcerating a man just because he was stupid.

In a town the size of Rockford Falls, everyone knew everyone else’s business, and carefully guarded secrets had a way of leaking out like water through a sieve. The employee who worked at the desk where the purse was found, Lemont Morganstaff, a prissy old-maid of a man, was shown the cloth bag and duly questioned. The interview took place in the claustrophobic parlor of Lemont’s home. Dressed in a bright lime green velvet robe and slippers, Lemont resembled a parrot. He sat in a faded yellow velvet chair, rested his arms on the lace-covered arms, and puckered his lips in thought for several minutes before declaring that the purse couldn’t have been found by his desk. He made it a rule, he explained, never to let any of the customers, man or woman, past the gate.

However, since he hadn’t been working on the day of the robbery, he couldn’t be certain the other employees had enforced his rule.

Sheriff Sloan, who had insisted on being part of the interview, blurted out the fact that the purse had been found in the kneehole of Lemont’s desk. “It couldn’t have been kicked there,” he said, “because your desk faces the lobby and that front panel goes all the way to the floor. Someone had to go around, past the gate, and get behind your desk. I’ve had a little time to ponder on it, and I think that maybe there was a woman hiding there during the robbery. I’d wager the marshals think the same thing. Now, there were three women in the bank—their names are on the list Marshal Ryan gave me—and I’m going to go round them up as soon as I’m finished here. I’m hoping the woman who saw the murders is just too timid to come forward, but if she’s deliberately keeping the information to herself because she’s scared, I’m going to have to arrest her.”