“I can’t believe we’re here under the guise of making afternoon calls,” Clara whispered. They stood in a tiny but painfully neat parlor in a house that couldn’t have more than four rooms and an attic. The air smelled of lavender and carbolic, as if it had been thoroughly scrubbed just that morning.
“Shhhh. They’ll hear us.”
“I also don’t believe the way you dragged the information out of Mrs. Howe. And to do so at church!”
“It was just social conversation. Perfectly acceptable.”
“I don’t think your Mama found it so. I saw her face when you announced that one of those maids was a fellow-student at your typewriting class.”
Clara was right, and Emily knew it. “But Mrs. Howe remembered Mary. And her address.”
“You were just lucky she’s got an amazing memory. Still, I wonder if this Mary even gave her the correct address.”
“Well, the landlady didn’t say Mary Pearson wasn’t here,” Emily said. “Surely that must mean she is, and therefore this is the right address.”
“Or she thinks we’re addled and didn’t like to say anything. I wish you’d let us bring Mr. O’Hearn.”
“If he were calling on you, we would have a reason to include him on our Sunday afternoon jaunts.”
“Don’t make me regret I told you.”
“Oh, very well. I’ll say no more. Though it was difficult enough to convince Mama to let me go with you after church.”
“Especially after your little revelations. I suppose I should be grateful you gave up the idea of trying to attend Mr. Pearson’s church service,” Clara began, but the return of the elderly woman who’d answered the door kept her from continuing.
“Miss Pearson is away just now. My sister says she has no idea when she’ll be returning.”
“And it is Miss Mary Pearson?”
The faded eyes took in the two well-dressed girls, whose attire put them out of place in this shabby parlor with its tired fabrics and mismatched furniture.
Seeing the dawning suspicion, Emily answered the unspoken question. “We’re helping my aunt hire a new parlor maid and Mary Pearson’s name was given to us by a previous employer.” Which had the added benefit of being true. “Do you know if she’s currently employed?”
“I wouldn’t like to say. She may well be.”
Emily smiled. “Perhaps her uncle would know? She really came very well recommended.”
“He left town yesterday, but I believe we are expecting him back later in the week.”
“We’ll come back then and speak to him,” Emily said. “Perhaps Wednesday?”
Her story had obviously been believed, for the landlady nodded. “Yes, we had a telegram that he’ll be back that morning.”
Emily thanked her, and linking arms with Clara, turned towards the door.
“I can’t believe it. You found her,” Clara said as they proceeded down the walk.
“If it is she.”
“Well, who else could it be?”
“We won’t know for sure until we talk to her. Perhaps I should have left a note, or mentioned having news to her advantage.”
“Surely saying too much is worse than saying too little? Especially in a situation where a potential fortune is at stake?”
“You’re right, Clara. Mary will have to prove who she is to claim the mine.”
“I’m often right,” Clara said loftily, then spoiled the effect with a giggle. “And I’m sure your Mr. Granville will be as pleased that you didn’t endanger yourself as that you found his heiress. And there’s the streetcar.”
“Good. I think we deserve a leisurely afternoon tea, don’t you?” said Emily.
Granville met Scott back at the Drunken Pheasant. It wasn’t the most inviting of establishments, but it was convenient to their hotel and the beer was cheap and good. Scott was already there, a half-empty whiskey in front of him. He couldn’t read Scott’s expression, though, and that worried him. “No sign of Bailey?”
“Oh, I found him, alright. He just couldn’t help us. What about you?”
“Same.” He glanced at the glass Scott was gripping and signaled to the bartender to bring him the same. “I found Kendrick in the fourth place I tried. You?”
“First one. Bailey was clerking in the same dry goods shop he’d worked in before he left for the Yukon. Any sign of the shooter?”
“None. You?”
“Nothing. What d’ye reckon?”
“Either we weren’t his target, or for some reason he’s given up on us.”
“Huh. Doesn’t make sense.”
“It might, if we knew why we were targets in the first place.” Granville downed half the shot the bartender put in front of him. “You’ve been here awhile?”
“Nope. Bailey suggested a couple other names he knew from the Creek. He even knew where to find them.”
“Useful. I gather none of them panned out, either?”
“You gather right,” Scott said, and drained his glass.
“And what did Harris say?”
His partner shrugged, looked away. “Not much. He seemed kinda embarrassed we’d found an establishment he didn’t know about.”
What was this? “You weren’t there long?”
Scott shook his head, but he wouldn’t meet Granville’s eyes.
Granville eyed the evasive look on his friend’s face with something close to alarm. “Where did you go after you left the police station?”
“Nowhere in particular.”
That’s what he’d been afraid of. “You didn’t go asking questions about your niece, did you?”
“I had to know.”
Granville couldn’t blame him, even if his actions might have made rescuing the little girl even more difficult. “And?”
“Trent was right. Little Sarah was there. She was adopted a couple years ago.”
Granville debated asking how Scott had wrung the information from them, then decided he probably didn’t want to know. “Adopted. They have a name?”
“Yeah. Seems it was a Mr. and Mrs. Baxter
“Baxter?”
“That’s what I was told.”
“Not Darren Baxter?”
“Yup.”
“Why that slimy, double-dealing son of a …he told me he wasn’t married.” For a moment Granville wondered about that marriage, and just how the greedy lawyer had been persuaded to do something as dangerous as personally adopting one of the infants he smuggled for profit. What kind of woman could convince a man like that to take such a risk?
“I don’t guess the truth is a strong point for our Mr. Baxter.”
“You have that right.” Granville took a deep breath, glanced at his partner. Now he had to ask. “You can’t tell me you simply walked into that baby farm and they answered your every question.”
Scott looked irritated. “I didn’t just waltz in there asking questions. You don’t think I’d jeopardize everything we’re trying to do here, do you?”
“So what did you do?”
“I had a little help.”
Granville let the silence stretch.
“Once I knew little Sarah had been there…I’ve old friends here.”
“Go on.”
“Julia White was just another soiled dove when I know her back in Chicago; she’s a madam now. Runs one of the better houses in town. She has real presence, and connections that it’s better not to ask about. I asked her if she’d see what she could find out.”
“And they simply told her about the adoption?”
Scott shrugged. “I didn’t ask how she found out.”
Granville nodded. Some things they were better off not knowing, especially in mob-controlled Denver. “But you trust this Julia? And her information?”
“Yeah. She saved my life once. And I saved hers a couple of times. She used to have a pimp, beat her up pretty bad.”
Granville glanced at Scott, saw the shadows and the certainty in his face. “All right, then. After I talk to Baxter again, we’ll come up with a strategy for getting little Sarah back.”
“I still say we should be grabbing her and getting out of here.”
“One more day, then we can make plans. Believe me, I don’t want to spend a minute here I don’t have to. Not when it leaves Emily alone in Vancouver with all that’s going on and when she’d just met with that strange woman.”
“One more day then.”
Granville signaled the barkeep another round, then checked his pocket watch. “Where’s Trent?”
“Dunno. He should’ve been back by now—I sent him to follow up on a couple of the names Bailey gave me.”
“Let’s hope his lucky streak continues.”
“Yeah.”
Scott was on his third whiskey and Granville was working on his second when Trent finally arrived.
“Well?” Granville said.
Trent beamed at them. “I found a connection.”
“Where?”
“And who?” Scott asked.
“Third name you gave me, Homer Norton.”
“The tailor?”
Trent nodded. “Yeah. He used to work for one of the big mining firms in Cripple Creek, and he got to know some of the miners real well. He recognized Pearson’s name and description, even remembered a daughter named Mary.”
“He know anything about where Mary is now?”
“Nope, just that she left when he did.”
“Where did they go?”
“He didn’t know about her, but he said Pearson headed for the Klondike.”
“For the Klondike?” Granville repeated in surprise. It was the last thing he’d expected to hear.
“James Pearson,” Scott said thoughtfully. “Trent, you said you had a description?”
“Scott, there were thousands of us headed north. We didn’t know the fellow.”
Scott ignored him. “Trent?”
“Medium height, skinny, sandy hair, gray eyes.”
“Like hundreds of others,” Granville said.
Scott was shaking his head. “Nope, doesn’t ring a bell…”
“His brother Albin went too.”
“What?” Scott said at the same moment Granville said “Albin?”
“Does that help?” Trent asked. He looked pleased with himself.
And so he should, thought Granville. Albin Pearson, alive, might be easier to find than either a dead man or his daughter, who might have married and not even be going by Pearson any longer.
“Granville…”
Something in Scott’s tone made the hairs on the back of his neck rise. “You’ve remembered someone?”
“Do you remember the Pike Twins? We met them in Skagway when we first got there.”
He did remember them. He’d thought the nickname ironic, because the two had looked nothing like brothers, let alone twins. “Slim Jim and Mad Al?”
Scott was nodding. “That’s them.”
Everyone had liked Jim, who always had a joke and a smile. Al was another story—he was a man on the edge and he was deadly. Pistol, rifle, it didn’t matter—he never missed. And the brothers were never apart.
“I don’t think I ever heard their real names. Are you saying…?”
“I came up with them on the steamer. I can’t swear, but I think I’d heard Mad Al’s real name was Albin. Can’t be too many of them around. And Cripple Creek’s near Pike’s Peak.”
The back of Granville’s neck prickled at the thought. If Slim Jim was their James Pearson, where had Mad Al been when Jim was killed? And did he know about his brother’s death?
Granville thought about Jim, all that good humor lost under six feet of frozen ground. It was wrong. If it was the same man, the Klondike hadn’t killed him, but gold had, by way of their ex-client.
Suddenly he was truly sorry Cole was dead, that he couldn’t be the one to bring him to justice. If he could find Mary and help her register the mine, perhaps that was a different form of justice. Unless Mad Al had already delivered his own form of frontier justice? “Any way we can confirm that?”
Trent sat tall. “I got another name, somebody the brothers used to be friendly with here.”
“Go on.”
“His name’s Carl Berger and he hangs at the Red Mule.”
Scott glanced at Granville and grimaced.
Trent looked from one to the other. “What?”
“Berger was the man with Mather and Androchuck the day we met them,” Granville said.
“So how you going to ask him about the Pearsons without giving away that the map’s theirs by right?”
“If you don’t have a good hand, you bluff. Cheers.” And he raised his glass, tipped it at Trent and drained it.
“I see Berger, but I don’t see Mather or Androchuck,” Scott said in an undertone as they strolled into the Red Mule.
Granville’s gaze swept the dim, crowded room. It reeked of spilt beer and unwashed bodies. A certain humming tension told him there would be a brawl later on. “Good. Let’s join him. Maybe we can find out what we need to know before the others show up.”
They sauntered across the room, boots squeaking on the sawdust underfoot, until they reached the table where Berger stood with another man Granville didn’t recognize. “Mind if we join you?”
Berger looked up. “Can if you like.”
“Thanks. Expecting Mather tonight?”
“Why d’you care?”
“I thought to stand him a beer, that’s all.”
Berger shrugged. “Nah, he and Androchuck are busy tonight. You’ll have to wait till tomorrow.”
Interesting. Busy doing what? “In that case, can I buy you both another beer?”
“Won’t say no.”
Granville got up and headed for the bar. Placing the order, he half turned so he could see the table he’d left. He watched Scott lean forward, say something to Berger. The fellow grinned and nodded in return. Scott said something else and Berger seemed taken aback, then clapped him on the shoulder.
Grabbing two foaming steins of draft in each hand, Granville wound his way back to the table. He slid two beers across the table, passed the third to Scott and raised the last to his lips.
“Did y’know Jim too? James Pearson?” Berger asked.
So Slim Jim was their James Pearson. “I did, yes,” Granville said, and took a long swallow of the cold, bitter brew.
“Sorry to hear he’s gone.”
“You hadn’t heard?”
“Nah.” Berger drained his stein and started on the fresh one. “Damn shame. He was a good man. Don’t know how that brother of his is going to survive, though.”
“Albin?” Scott asked. “They called him Mad Al, up north.”
“Huh. And with reason, I’d bet. I swear it was Jim kept him sane, even when I knew him.”
“He’d a pretty quick temper, all right.”
At Scott’s words, Granville had a sudden and vivid mental picture of walking into Doyle’s in Dawson City and seeing Mad Al with his fingers wrapped around another fellows throat. Such outbursts weren’t uncommon, and the Mounties usually restored order pretty quickly.
Usually the arguments were over one of the dancehall girls or a claim dispute. This had been different, he thought, though the details escaped him. He’d have to ask Scott later.
The memory increased the uneasy feeling he’d had since Scott reminded him about the twins. Could Mad Al be their shooter, fixed on vengeance for his brother’s death? If so, why had he suddenly stopped? They hadn’t been shot at since Saturday. Which should be a relief, but the illogic of it had been nagging at him ever since.
“I’ll drink to that,” Berger said, raising his mug and draining half of it.
“Any idea what happened to him? Albin, I mean?” Scott asked, signaling the barkeep for another round.
“Thanks. Wal, I heard the two of them’d settled on the coast. They had people there, but... ”
“Whereabouts? San Francisco?”
“Near Seattle, I think.”
It was what they’d been looking for all day, a lead that might take them to Mary Pearson.
“But Albin was here, day or so ago,” Berger finished.
“What?” Scott said.
Mad Al was their shooter.
Granville finished off his tankard in one swallow. They were lucky to be alive. Denver wasn’t that big; he could have found them easily, and at least one of them would be dead by now. In fact, if it was Mad Al on their trail, they were lucky not to have been killed long before they reached Denver. What was going on?
“Yup, he wandered into the Mule one afternoon. Too bad I didn’t know you were lookin’ for him.”
“He say where he was going?”
Berger shrugged. “Seemed like he’d been lookin’ for work, but after he had a couple drinks with us he said he’d be heading north the next day.”
“Back to Seattle?” Scott asked.
Berger looked surprised. “I think he said he was goin’ to Vancouver. But that’s Canada, ain’t it?”
“There’s two,” Scott said. “One in Washington State, one in British Columbia.”
“Ah.” Berger nodded, apparently satisfied.
Which Vancouver would Mad Al be headed for?
If he was their shooter, he’d come from Canada and would likely return there. And Emily was there, looking for Mary Pearson.
Granville felt a sudden unease. Now he thought about it, she hadn’t actually agreed not to investigate further. Was there any possibility she would actually find Mad Al? He couldn’t risk that happening.
“You sure he said Vancouver?”
Berger was nodding. “Yup, cause I asked him about it. He said it was a pretty place but it rained too much.”
That could still be either city. They needed to free little Sarah, deal with these villains, then get back to Vancouver.
Except he wasn’t even seeing Baxter until the following day.
Perhaps he’d stop at the telegraph office and send Emily a wire, urging her to be careful. And hope she wouldn’t simply ignore it.