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* * *
Leonard sat in the sheriff’s station the next day staring at the wall. Amos stared at him, and Curt stared at them both.
“What happened with the break-in at the general store the other day?” Leonard asked after a while when he’d finally grown tired of the silence. He wished Amos and Curt would talk amongst themselves and ignore him so he could think, but that just wasn’t going to happen.
Curt cleared his throat and said, “Nothing much.” Curt was not the best of talkers.
Leonard waited for more details, but nothing was forthcoming. Amos rolled his eyes slightly, but Curt did not see. He looked at Leonard and said, “Jack’s fine. It was just a window that was busted open. Whoever did it was probably only in the store for a few minutes before they ran out of there again.”
“Any idea who did it?” Leonard asked.
Amos shrugged. “I looked around a bit yesterday, talked to some of the guys in the saloons, you know, the usual fellas, but no one knew anything. At least not that they wanted to admit to.”
“You think they were telling the truth?” Leonard asked.
Amos paused then nodded. “I think so,” he said. “Most of the fellas I spoke to were too drunk to lie. If they’d known anything, they’d have told me.”
Curt rose from his seat and stretched his arms over his head, letting out a big yawn. “I think I’ll go take a walk if that’s all right,” he said to Amos, who nodded and told him to bring them back some penny candy.
“Feels like we’re all three of us falling asleep today,” said Amos when Curt was gone. “A little sugar might be just the thing.”
Leonard nodded, his mind barely able to concentrate on the few words Amos was saying to him. He was exhausted. There was no point in denying it. He’d lain awake almost the entire night trying to wrap his head around what he’d seen.
He’d known full well that Lucille was waiting for him to fall asleep. She’d only been pretending to sleep next to him. Her breath was far too shallow for her to have actually been asleep, and he’d felt her neck twist in his direction several times looking at him in the near darkness of their bedroom.
He’d made the decision to stay awake until he could figure out why she was pretending to be asleep, which meant he’d had to pretend to sleep as well. Only he’d done a far better job at it than she had. He’d rolled around in bed, tossing and turning and tensing his muscles up so that when he finally relaxed them the effect would be that much greater. It had worked. All he’d had to do was loosen his body up a little bit and stop rolling around and she’d thought him asleep.
He’d turned on his side, even letting out a couple of light snores, and very carefully opened his eyes a slit when she’d climbed out of bed and gone to their closet. At first, when she’d pulled the suitcase out, he’d thought she was packing to leave and his heart had given a sudden lurch. His eyes had snapped fully open then, the slits forgotten, and he’d been on the verge of sitting up and telling her not to go when she’d pulled a stack of money out of the case and held it up to the moonlight.
His breath had caught in his chest and he’d had to fight the urge to demand answers from her right then and there. If he’d started shouting, he was fairly certain she’d only have told him more lies. He was getting closer to the truth and didn’t want to blow it, so he’d said nothing and had simply lain there watching the scene unfold before him.
Then, of course, she’d seen him. He’d nearly had a heart attack. His instincts had kicked in automatically and he’d started to talk nonsense, hoping and praying that she thought he was merely talking in his sleep. It had worked. She’d replaced the money in the suitcase, and he’d waited for her to come back to bed. It hadn’t taken long, and this time she’d fallen asleep easily. He’d waved his hand in front of her face to make sure, studying her breath as he did so.
When he was certain she was out, he’d gotten out of bed, opened the closet, and counted up every dollar she was hiding in her suitcase, taking it out into the living room so he would not wake her as he did so, careful of the creaky floorboards. He’d counted several hundred dollars. He knew there was no way she’d gotten all of this money from an uncle.
He’d replaced the money, careful to put it back in the order he’d found it and hide it under the clothes she had stuffed in there, then he’d set it back in the closet and gone back to bed. Only sleep had never come, not even for a few minutes. In the morning, he’d risen before her and fixed himself breakfast. When she’d come out of the room, he’d made up an excuse about having to get to the station early and had run out of the house, managing to beat Amos to work, something which was unprecedented.
He blinked and realized that Amos was staring at him again. “How was your dinner with the marshal last night?” Amos asked.
“Don’t ask,” he said, and Amos chuckled.
“Why’d you invite him over anyway?” Amos asked, curious.
Leonard drew in a deep breath. This was it. The two of them were alone, and he had to tell someone what he’d seen or he’d go crazy. Amos was his boss, but he was also his closest friend. More like an older brother.
“Something strange happened last night,” he began.
Amos leaned forward. “You mean with Decker?”
“No,” said Leonard. “Well, yes.” He might as well tell him everything. Only he didn’t know how to start. He ran a hand through his hair, the words not wanting to form in his throat. Finally, Amos said something for him.
“Did Decker start spouting off his silly accusations against Lucille?” he demanded, sounding almost angry.
“Not exactly,” said Leonard.
“That man has no scruples. If I for one second believed Lucille had anything to do with those train robberies, I’d arrest her myself, but no one who knows her would ever think such a thing.”
Leonard shut his mouth right then, and Amos looked at him.
“What did that fool say to her?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Leonard said. “Not about that, anyway. He... made a pass at her.”
Amos’ eyes widened. “He did what?”
“Well, it wasn’t a pass exactly, but I caught him looking at her. And he made some remarks on her beauty and... well, it was clear where his mind was at.”
“The bum,” said Amos, his face flushing. “I’ll never let him in this station again.”
Leonard waved him off. “It’s all right,” he said. “I set him straight.”
Now that this conversation had started, all Leonard wanted was to extricate himself from it.
“Well, I should think you would have,” Amos said. “I can’t even imagine it. If he’d said anything like that about my Victoria, I’d have punched his lights out.”
“I nearly did,” said Leonard.
Luckily for him, Curt came back into the room just then. “It’s starting to rain,” he said. “I didn’t want to get wet.”
“You forgot the penny candy,” Leonard said.
Curt looked at them and shrugged. He took his seat back up, and Amos rightly sensed that Leonard did not wish continue this discussion in front of him. The three of them resumed their earlier silence. Leonard realized now that if he were going to talk to anyone about Lucille—anyone who might actually be able to help him figure out what was going on with her, that was—it would have to be the one person he least wanted to see—Marshal Decker.
* * *
