“What did you do?”
“I shouted for help.”
And I heard you, David thought. I heard you.
Tessa continued. “I looked up and saw Coalie at the foot of the bed. He’d been sleeping in the alcove behind the curtain. I screamed for him to get help. He ran out the door. Then, suddenly everyone came running in. I tried to explain, but some of the girls were screaming that I’d done murder, that I’d killed him. They wouldn’t listen to me.”
“So, Coalie came to get me while the deputies arrested you.” David’s voice was grim. He had the truth. Now all he had to do was prove it. And he had the proof if he could just persuade the judge and jury to put aside their bias against a saloon girl and listen to the facts. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to set Tessa up, but that someone had made a mistake. It hadn’t been necessary for the murderer to lure Arnie to Tessa’s room; he was going there anyway—to kill her. And whoever set Tessa up had written Arnie a note inviting him to Tessa’s room, not knowing Tessa couldn’t read or write.
“Why didn’t you tell me all this before?” David asked the question, but he already knew the answer.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t listen to me, that you wouldn’t take the word of a saloon girl. And if you found out I’d stolen Coalie, you’d think I was a liar as well as a criminal.”
It was the same prejudice he’d have to battle to save her.
* * *
David worked at his desk the rest of the afternoon, his feelings torn. He was relieved that Tessa had finally told him the whole truth about the night of the murder. That meant she trusted him. But he still wasn’t confident he could save her…and it was now more than a matter of professional pride. He had to find someone to help put the pieces of the story together at the hearing. The logical choice was Lee, but David wasn’t sure Lee would be able to testify unless his work in Peaceable was finished.
David took a deep breath. The only other logical choice was Coalie. Coalie could tell why he and Tessa left Chicago, and why they kept to themselves at the Satin Slipper. Coalie knew Tessa hadn’t had a relationship with Arnie Mason because he had slept in the same room; he was, in fact, asleep in the curtained alcove when Arnie entered the room. But there was a problem. David didn’t want to ask Coalie to testify, and Tessa was bound to object.
He stood up and grabbed his coat. He needed to talk to Lee.
* * *
Lying across her bed, Tessa breathed a sigh of relief when she heard him leave. She needed some room and some time to herself without David there. The living quarters were impossibly cramped under the circumstances.
Tessa wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. She was in love with David Alexander—her lawyer, but also for the time being her jailor. She was in love and living in another tiny, cramped apartment when all she ever really wanted was a home of her own and a family to share it.
Sweet Mary, how much more would she be forced to endure? Tessa almost laughed. She was in love with her jailor, her lawyer, and he didn’t return her love. He wanted her; she knew that. But most of all, he wanted to take care of her. Lord, how she hated that phrase. All her life people had promised to take care of her—her mother, her father, her brother. Then they’d died and left her alone with the memories of empty promises.
Tessa didn’t want anyone to take care of her. She could take care of herself, and she could take care of Coalie as well. What she wanted, what she needed most, was someone to love her and to share her life, someone who would accept Coalie as his own and give her other children to mother. She needed David. She wanted David and Coalie together and a home of her own, a little house with a yard and roses and maybe a few sheep scattered around, a place where she could lavish love and attention on her family. When this was over, when they’d found Arnie Mason’s murderer, when she was free to choose her own way of life, maybe then David would love her…
If they found the murderer.
Tessa squeezed her eyes shut, blotting out her surroundings. She didn’t want to think about Arnie Mason’s murder any more. She tried not to think at all.
She pressed her precious silver and onyx rosary, her mother’s rosary, to her lips. She had finally found the man she could love. It was unfortunate that he was also her attorney, responsible for gaining her freedom. She needed all the help she could get.
Tessa felt the hot tears form behind her eyelids, then the dampness as they rolled down her cheeks, felt the lump in her throat as she struggled to recite the old familiar words. “Hail, Mary, full of grace…”
She curled her body into a tight ball, whispering into the soft cotton quilt.
* * *
“You’ve got to tell me what you’re working on.” David confronted Lee at the bar of the Satin Slipper. “It’s important.”
“You know I can’t do that,” Lee replied.
“You have to.” David sat on one of the barstools. “Tessa didn’t kill Arnie Mason. I know that.”
“Of course she didn’t,” Lee agreed, polishing glasses with a white towel. “She couldn’t have.”
“Then who the hell did?” David asked. “I have a pretty good idea, but that’s not enough. You know this town. I don’t just have to prove Tessa’s innocence; I have to give them a murderer. Otherwise they’ll hold her over for trial out of prejudice an
d ignorance. I have to find the murderer, and you have to help me.” David leaned over the bar. “Tessa’s life depends on it.”
“I want to help you, David. But if I tell you what I’m working on,” Lee reminded him, “my life could be in danger.”