Fatal Elixir Read online

  She told me her story. She was living with her widowed mother down in Denver, Colorado, where they ran a boarding-house. One day, a well-dressed man with flashing dark eyes and a big moustache came and took a room. He was Ben Murdo, a salesman, he said. He traveled in ladies’ jewelry, and he had a business card to prove it. He was charming and polite, and though he frequently left town for a month or two at a time, he always came back to the boardinghouse. He courted her like a gentleman, and then one day he said that he had had a very successful business trip, and he proposed.

  I remembered thinking that it would be interesting to compare some of the dates of these business trips with the dates of some major unsolved bank robberies.

  At any rate, they were married and happy: Mr. and Mrs. Murdo settled down in a place of their own, not too far from the boardinghouse so that Jennie could still help her mother while Ben was away.

  He was away far too much for Jennie’s complete happiness, but they made up for it when he was home. Then, after Ben Junior was born (his father called him “Buck”), she wasn’t so alone. Ben did better and better at his business trips.

  Then one day, he didn’t come back when he said he would. Then she got a letter from Wyoming, saying something had happened, and he probably wouldn’t be able to come back for a long time, but that he would always love her and little Buck, and not to worry about him, he would be okay. There was enough money in the bank to see her through for at least a year, and he would try to get her more and have it sent, but he couldn’t promise.

  That was not enough for Jennie Murdo. Leaving Buck with his grandmother, she went to Wyoming and tracked down her husband—on trial in Boulder, Wyoming, under the name of Paul Muller, for robbing a bank.

  “I watched as they were leading him to the police wagon,” she said. “I begged him to tell me it wasn’t true. I pleaded. I screamed. I am ashamed, Mr. Booker, to remember the spectacle I made of myself.

  “But he never said a word, never even looked at me. That’s when I knew him for what he was. That’s when I knew how I had been degraded and debased, and I vowed my son would never know the shame I have felt.

  “And I will keep that vow, sir, if it costs me my life. My secret is now in your hands, yours and Mr. Blacke’s.”

  “And the sheriff’s.”

  “And the sheriff’s. God help you if you betray it. You wish my help? Very well, you shall have it. I hope it leads you or someone to shoot down Paul Muller like the dog he is before he ever comes close to this place.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “You won’t regret it,” which was a prediction I had no right to make, but it seemed to calm her down a little. “The first thing I’d like to ask is, how did you come to this place?”

  “I knew I couldn’t long deceive my mother, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the truth. I told everyone Ben Murdo had been killed in a stage accident and had been buried in Wyoming. Buck cried for days. Everything reminded him of his father. I knew I had to get far away from Denver.”

  “I understand. But why Le Four? Why not St. Louis, or San Francisco, or Fort Worth?”

  “Oh. I had a bit of luck. I was invited to come here.”

  7

  “IT’S JUST AS YOU said, boss,” I told Lobo Blacke after I’d washed the stickiness of the lemonade off myself and changed my clothes. “He arranged it, but he arranged it so slickly, you’ll never be able to prove anything by it.”

  Blacke had just taken a bite out of a sandwich, a thick slab of ham between two slices of Mrs. Sundberg’s rich brown bread. For a man who sits down all the time, Blacke gets awfully hungry.

  He held up a finger while he finished chewing.

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less of Lucius. Give me details.”

  “Right after Jennie Murdo got back to Denver, Jenkins showed up on a business trip. He just knocked on her door. He told her he’d had dinner with an associate of his and his wife the night before, and her dress was so beautiful, even a rough clod like him noticed it. He wanted to know who’d made it, and she’d told him, so here he was. He wanted to know how long it would take her to make dresses for his wife and daughter, if he brought them to Denver for a fitting.”

  Blacke grunted around another bite of his sandwich. “I doubt Lucius has ever noticed what a woman was wearing. You want one of these, by the way?”

  “Maybe later,” I said. “Anyway, she told him she was sorry, but she was recently widowed, as he could tell by her mourning attire, and that she was soon to leave Denver, and was not taking on any more commissions. He asked her where she was going, she said she didn’t know yet, and he sold her on Le Four. A great place to bring up a son, growing town, women could vote—”

  Blacke’s “Hah!” nearly sprayed sandwich around the office. We both knew of Jenkins’s threat to leave Wyoming completely if women retained the vote if and when statehood came along.

  “—and he would guarantee a good clientele, and reasonable rental or mortgage terms on the residence of her choice, since he owned the bank and two-thirds of the real estate in town.”

  “So she came, instant hostage in case her husband got loose and had any ideas.”

  “Of course. But as I said, how are we going to prove it?”

  Blacke shrugged. “I don’t know. But it’s something. We’ll be able to use it someday. We’ve got plenty of time to think of something.”

  “It’s nice of you to say ‘we,’ ” I told him, “but where did all this time come from? I thought he could be here by tomorrow.”

  “He could have, if he’d come here. But right after Asa talked to us, I had Becky send out a bunch of wires to lawmen all around. I got a reply while you were out today. Paul Muller shot his way out of a jam in Headbutt, Montana, yesterday. Robbed a general store for supplies and traveling money. Last seen heading north.”

  “Trying to get to Canada. Just as you predicted.”

  “Comes with experience.”

  “So Mrs. Murdo and Lucius Jenkins can relax.”

  Blacke made a face. “I think it might be good to leave them nervous for a while, especially Lucius. Not that I expect him to do anything rash, like pay the widow a visit, but you never know. Of course, sooner or later, word will come through to Asa Harlan, and he’ll tell Lucius that the heat is off, but in the meantime, let’s just let the stew bubble.”

  “It’s going to be tough on the woman,” I said.

  “Dammit, don’t you think I know that? It doesn’t make me happy. I just think it’s the best thing to do.”

  “Well, I’ve accumulated a whole bunch of information about him. What should I do with it?”

  “Write it down. In fact, write it up for the paper. We’ll squeeze it into the territorial news on page four—all citizens have been requested to be on the lookout, and so forth. Don’t mention his wife.”

  “Blacke, I may not be a legendary lawman, but I do have a functioning brain cell or two.”

  He gave me a lopsided smile. “All right, don’t get your bowels in an uproar. It never hurts to make sure.” He wheeled himself to the door to the composing room. “Get that done, set it in type, and get something to eat. Henry is out taking photos of Rebecca and Mrs. Sundberg at Grechtstein’s orchard—”

  “Mrs. Sundberg?”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  “Nothing, I guess. She’s a handsome woman in her way.” Her way was big and robust, handsome rather than beautiful, and each line in her face, and she had plenty, was a testimony to her battles against misfortunes. She was well worth photographing; she simply didn’t strike me as the orchard type.

  “Actually,” Blacke said, “I think Henry took her as a chaperon.”

  “A chaperon?” We were back to the ancient Greeks; I was turning into Echo.

  “Clayton Henry is more straitlaced than a whalebone corset, boy. He’s terrified of what he calls ‘loose talk.’ You know and I know the idea of Henry sparking Becky wouldn’t occur to anybody in this town, and even if it did, you couldn’t g
et any sparking done in the orchard in broad daylight. But Henry doesn’t want to take any chances.”

  “Honi soit qui mal y pense,” I said.

  “Booker, when you do that, I come closer to disliking you than I would have thought I could dislike anybody who’s made me so goddam much money. What was that, French?”

  “Very old French. It means ‘Evil to him who evil thinks.’ ”

  “You see? That’s very good. Why didn’t you just say it, instead of showing off that you learned it from a very old Frenchman. In fact, try quoting it to Henry. He’ll be back in about an hour and a half. Merton’s coming over then, too. We have a paper to put out.”

  “I hadn’t forgotten.”

  “Just making sure,” he said. “I’m going to go take a nap.”

  With that, he wheeled himself off toward his bedroom, which, like his office, was another corner whittled off the composing room that took up most of the first floor. I’d never been in there—Blacke was, I think, sensitive about the bars and ropes and other things he needed to get into bed, or to handle his sanitary needs. I’d only caught glimpses of them through the open door.

  I wished him pleasant dreams (he snorted derisively), and he disappeared into his room.

  Then I got to work. Paul Muller... sometimes known as Ben or Buck Murdo...

  I frowned and crossed that last bit out.

  Five feet ten inches tall... Black hair, brown eyes, right-handed... Wears gun backward for a cross-draw... Usually sports a moustache... Uses Gresham’s Hot Pepper Delight Sauce on everything from grits to fried chicken... Has a tendency to whistle “Sweet Betsy from Pike” when concentrating.

  As I wrote it down and later placed the letters in the composing stick, I realized that if Muller himself ever saw this, he’d know precisely where it came from. Nobody but a woman who loves you can possibly notice so many things about you.

  It made me nervous for her; I liked her. She wasn’t a barrel of laughs in the way of company, but she’d borne her misfortunes with courage and resourcefulness.

  Blacke has been a risk taker all his life. He’s pretty blithe about putting people in danger. I never purposefully took a physical risk in my life until I went to work for Blacke. I get very nervous, but so far, I’ve always gone along with him, and things have worked out all right.

  As I say, so far.

  I spent the rest of the time looking over what else was going into the paper. Friday was the big day for that, but I hadn’t been around. I noticed that Merton had done the interview with Joseph Feathers, advance man for Dr. Theophrastus Herkimer’s Great Medicine Show. It wasn’t signed, but I recognized the boy’s style. It was a good piece, factual and impartial.

  I was just finishing up a sandwich and a glass of milk when Mrs. Sundberg, Rebecca, and Henry returned from their picture-taking session. They were all in a good mood, so much so that Mrs. Sundberg saw me with the sandwich, and instead of scolding me for meddling in her kitchen, she just smiled indulgently and said she’d better go clean up the crumbs I’d undoubtedly left.

  “Hello, Quinn,” Rebecca said. “It’s an absolutely lovely day, and the orchard was so nice, with the trees in bud. Wait till you see it when it blossoms.”

  “I’m the sort who’s more interested in the apples than in the blossoms.”

  “The man has no poetry in his soul.” Even Henry sounded less sour than usual.

  “Booker,” he said, “I am a man torn. I am on the horns of a very irksome dilemma.”

  “Perhaps I can be of help.”

  “I doubt it. Despite your education and upbringing, you remain a Philistine. Still, it will perhaps help me to air my problem.”

  “Please do.”

  “In such a godforsaken place as this, when one finds beauty, one should cherish it dearer than diamonds, never let it depart. At the same time, when one discovers potential greatness, one is obliged by sheer humanity to share it with the world.”

  “Perhaps eventually you’ll get around to telling me what you’re talking about.”

  “I am talking, sir, about our mutual friend, Miss Rebecca Payson.”

  “You mean it took you until today to discover that she’s beautiful? I may be a Philistine, but I was quicker than that.”

  Rebecca was laughing and blushing at the same time. “Stop it now, both of you!”

  Henry ignored her. “I was aware of her pleasing symmetry of face, and—begging your pardon, Miss Payson, I speak as an artist—form, and of her lovely coloration. But today, looking through the lens, I discovered beauty. Every pose is a poem, every movement a symphony.”

  “You’re making fun of me.”

  “My dear lady,” Henry intoned, “I do not ‘make fun.’ The camera revealed your intelligence, your virtue, your grace. You are wasted in this place, being photographed by a mere second-rate technician such as myself. You should be in New York, or better still, Paris, inspiring geniuses to masterpieces.”

  He turned to me. “Don’t you agree with me, Booker? Your opinion is valueless to me, but it may have some weight with Miss Payson.”

  “I agree with everything you say.”

  “Quinn!” Rebecca snapped.

  “But,” I went on, “don’t you think Miss Payson’s happiness should be consulted as well?”

  “Bah! What is happiness compared to Art?”

  “Bah, yourself,” Rebecca said. “I love you all too dearly to leave.” She looked at the clock. “It’s time for me to call Uncle Louis.”

  I grinned as I saw her go, and even Henry’s mouth turned up at the corners. It was the last really happy time we were to have.

  8

  “THE GREAT MEDICINE SHOW has come to town! Come one, come all! See marvels! Learn about Ozono, the medical miracle, the marvel of the age!”

  The man in the flattopped black hat and long black swallowtail coat over white pants and a silver vest was mounted on a wagon nearly as loud as the voice that boomed through the huge megaphone he carried.

  The wagon was a vision in red and gold, carved in curlicues and arabesques, with sylvan scenes painted in full color on the sides, some featuring plump women veiled only by a few strategically placed wisps of cloth.

  Like practically everyone in town, we’d come out of the office to see the ride-through—the show itself would begin at dusk in Grechtstein’s orchard. I nudged Henry, pointed at the side of the wagon, and said, “Ah, Art.”

  He sniffed and refused to look at me.

  The man with the megaphone, he informed us, was Dr. Theophrastus Herkimer, privy to the secrets of the great healers of antiquity, the lore of Indian tribal healers, and the science of the modern age. It was his calling, given to him in a vision by the Almighty, not to seal up this knowledge in the cold marble halls of a university, but to broadcast it to the common people of this great nation, to heal their wounds and salve their troubles, at the lowest possible cost, and that, ladies and gentlemen, was why he was here today.

  I had to admit, he was good. His voice had a timbre and a rhythm that got your ear rolling along with it, to the point where you were almost writing his speech in your head for him a split second before he delivered the next phrase himself. And of course, since you’d thought of it first, as it were, you were more inclined to believe it, no matter how ridiculous it was.

  His appearance also helped. Despite the sharp duds, as a native of Le Four might put it, Dr. Theophrastus Herkimer seemed anything but slick. He was short and quite fat—the white pants showed the crease at the bottom of his belly quite clearly. His long white hair was straggly, and his jowls shook like jelly as he orated.

  About that time, Merton Mayhew came running down the boardwalk from his father’s office, a look of intense concentration on his face. At first, I thought he was on a mission to heckle the showman, but he had something altogether different in mind. He stopped by Lobo Blacke’s wheelchair and muttered a few words to him.

  Blacke nodded, and Merton ran inside the office, to return a few moments
later with a huge armful of freshly printed newspapers, which he began selling to the crowd.

  “That boy will go far,” Blacke said with pride.

  “You ought to give him a raise,” I said.

  “I’ll consider it,” Blacke said, and I knew it was as good as done.

  This commercial exploitation of a crowd he’d collected seemed to put Herkimer off stride. He didn’t lose the thread of his oration—he was far too professional for that—but he did slip his rhythm for a couple of beats.

  I smiled as I wondered if Merton knew that at one stroke, he had made some money for his employer, earned himself a raise, and gained some small measure of revenge for his father.

  That reminded me to look for Dr. Mayhew, and he was easy to spot, tall as he was. He was there, standing stock-still, with a grim expression on his face. I half expected him to challenge Herkimer’s outlandish claims, but apparently, it was beneath his dignity as a true professional man even to publicly acknowledge the existence of a charlatan.

  In any case, in a few seconds, no one in the crowd would have heard him. The women were too scandalized, and the men were angling for a better look.

  Because Herkimer had caused the wagon to stop where Railroad Street crossed Main Street. The crowd oozed after it, eager to see what would happen next.

  The back of the wagon opened and a woman popped out with a jingle and a flash of light as the sun caught the fine gold chains that circled her face, and looped across her stomach, and held on what little clothing she wore. I had never before seen so much of the skin of a woman whose first name I didn’t know. She was wearing a veil, however.

  Strange violin music started to play, and the woman began to dance, bangles on her arms and legs marking rhythm while her bare feet kicked up a dust storm in the street.

  I was sure it wasn’t an authentic eastern dance, but it was worth watching. Her skin was a smooth light brown, and supple muscles rippled beneath it. I tore my eyes away from her long enough to scan my companions. Merton was mesmerized, Blacke smiling, Rebecca impassive. A look at the crowd showed me a lot of scandalized faces, and more than one man wiping his brow or licking his lips.