Chapter 42

“IT’S GONE,” NICOLETTE DE LA GRAVIÈRE SAID GRIMLY.

“I would be surprised if it was not gone,” Amos Richardson said. “If there was a document that implicated me in grand theft and a succession of killings, I would not leave it lying around to be discovered twice.”

Amos Richardson had reached the offices of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe to find Nicolette practically ripping apart the desk that once belonged to Ezra Waldron, as Bladen Cole and Joseph Ames looked on.

Most of the paperwork that had been there yesterday was gone, but she was thrashing the remnants. Then she pulled the contents from a bottom drawer and almost idly thumbed through the contents. It was mostly very routine looking paperwork. Angrily, she turned the stack upside down and began repeating the process.

“What’s this?” she exclaimed.

“What is it?” Cole asked, maintaining his place, seated atop another desk.

“It’s a statement from the same brokerage firm,” Nicolette said excitedly. “I recognize the letterhead.”

“What does it show?” Ames asked. “Let me see it.”

“It’s from the same firm, Ripley, Storey & Bledsoe, dated from two months ago,” she said. “It looks like he missed it when he was cleaning his desk because it was upside down. It shows him buying the Denver & Rio Grande shares.”

“That’s unmistakable,” Richardson said, looking over her shoulder.

“Indeed,” Ames said when he was handed the paper. His tone reflected a hint, almost, of sadness. “It does show that he owned their shares. Of course, we all know that their share price has risen to more that double that at which he purchased these shares. I know of Ripley, Storey & Bledsoe. They’re one of the largest firms dealing in railroad shares.”

“Is this what you fellows call a ‘killing in the stock market’?” Cole asked ironically.

Richardson stifled a chuckle. Nicolette merely shook her head in disgust.

“To think that I was working just two desks away from the man,” Ames said, staring at Waldron’s name on the statement.

“At least you don’t have to live with the realization that you were holding his hand in a darkened theater,” Nicolette said, wiping her hand on her dress.

“Out, damned spot,” Cole said with a wry expression on his face.

Nicolette responded only with a sputter of disgust.

“About the killings of the bandits,” Ames said, addressing his remarks to the coroner, “Mr. Cole tells me that you found some evidence . . .”

“Only that one of the men was unarmed when he was killed at point-blank range,” Richardson said. “Given the nature and occupation of the victim, it’s not the kind of thing that would get a man on trial for murder, but it does show that Muriday made a deliberate decision to kill him rather than bring him in alive.”

“What is it that I’m supposed to hear, Doctor?”

Everyone now turned to see Sheriff Reuben Sandoval come through the door with Richardson’s assistant.

“I took the liberty of sending Domingo to fetch the sheriff,” the coroner explained. “I think we should start at the beginning . . . with what Mademoiselle de la Gravière told me yesterday.”

Nicolette repeated the story of her discovery once again, for the benefit of the sheriff and the coroner, and Cole added the story of the attempt that had been made on Nicolette’s life.

“Where is Waldron now?” Sandoval asked.

“He’s been summoned to the home office,” Ames explained. “Called to explain himself, and almost certainly be fired.”

“That’s not much of a penalty for a man who has done what he’s done,” Richardson said. “Of course they don’t know the half of what he has done.”

“It’s not much of a penalty for a man who has made himself rich through his double-crossing ways,” Nicolette added.

“They’ll know,” Ames interjected. “They will know before he arrives, because they’ll be receiving a telegram from me.”

“There’s the matter of an attempted murder,” Cole interjected.

“With no witnesses, that’s a hard one to prove,” Sandoval cautioned.

“Can’t you bring him in and make him confess?” Nicolette asked.

“Where is he?” Sandoval asked. “You said that he’s been called back East?”

“The morning train,” Ames said. “There’s an eastbound train from Lamy that’s leaving . . . just about now. He’s probably on it.”

“Can’t you telegraph them and ask them to hold the train?” Cole asked.

“It’s too late,” Ames said, looking distressed that he had not thought of this sooner. “However, I can telegraph Cibola Station and tell them to hold the train.”

“I’ll go get him,” Cole said, getting to his feet. “If I ride hard, I can be out there in probably three hours.”

“Good,” Ames said. “That’s around the time that the afternoon train from Lamy will pass through Cibola. I’d hate to have two trains delayed.”

“Of course,” Cole said cynically.

* * *

AS HIS NAME WAS BEING TAKEN IN VAIN IN THE OFFICES OF the railroad in Santa Fe, Ezra Waldron was climbing aboard the morning train, bound for points east, accompanied by the loyal Nathaniel Siward. Waldron knew that he could not leave behind the man who had ordered Ben Muriday to murder Nicolette de la Gravière on his behalf.

All night long, as he hurriedly cleaned out his desk and packed his bags, Waldron had thought about that terrible moment when Muriday had stepped out of the shadows.

“While night’s black agents to their preys do rouse,” Macbeth had said. “Thou marvell’st at my words: but hold thee still; things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.”

Every time Waldron closed his eyes, he saw that terrible face and recalled the thoughts that had gone through his mind at that moment. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw the beautiful woman with lips the color of chilies lying dead in a pool of blood.

He knew that he had been falling in love with Nicolette de la Gravière, and he knew that he would be haunted for the rest of his life by the image of her smile and nagged by the question of “what if.”

“Avaunt! and quit my sight!” Macbeth told the ghost of Banquo. “Let the earth hide thee! Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold; thou hast no speculation in those eyes which thou dost glare with!”

“Avaunt . . . quit my sight,” Ezra Waldron murmured as the train rumbled, about to begin its journey.

“What?” Siward asked.

“Oh,” Waldron said, opening his eyes. “I was just thinking about the theater production that I saw last night.”

Through that entire production, Waldron had glanced from time to time at Nicolette and been puzzled by her relaxed smile. She had certainly seen the letter, but he gradually became convinced that she did not know what it all meant.

She was bright and intuitive, but was he reading too much into this? Was he a fool for thinking that a woman could understand the nuances of share prices?

At one point during Act IV, as he looked over at her beautiful face and her soft features, pleasantly smiling at the production, he had considered standing up and rushing out to call off the assassination.

He had not, of course, done that.

He decided that with a plan in motion, nothing should be done to jeopardize its momentum, or its outcome, or the money that was accumulating in his accounts.

Nicolette de la Gravière would have to die—beautiful, young Nicolette de la Gravière would have to die—in the service of sheltering Ezra Waldron’s accounts.

It made him sad that this was the way things had to be, but it was the way things had to be.

“We’re moving,” Siward observed.

Waldron opened his eyes. He had dozed off, which was no wonder, given that he had not slept at all the night before.

His nightmares faded in the light of the day. Night’s black agents retreated to their caves deep in his subconscious.

“I’m glad to be done with Santa Fe,” Siward said. “Guess we’re getting out in the nick of time.”

“Don’t worry,” Waldron assured him. “With Muriday dead, there’s nothing to connect us . . . either of us . . . to the shooting last night.”

“She’s going to be telling everything she knows,” Siward reminded him.

“Let her,” he said, subconsciously patting the jacket pocket that contained the letter. He could have burned it, but he would need it when he walked into a certain office in Denver.

“She has not a single shred of evidence, nor is there anyone who can corroborate anything that she might have seen,” he continued. “I doubt very much that she understood half of what she saw.”

“Then why did you want her . . . ?” Siward started to ask.

“Just to make sure . . . to tie up all the loose ends.”

“Doesn’t it matter that this is a loose end that didn’t get tied off?”

“By sundown, we’ll be nearing Raton, and then we’ll be across the Colorado line, and rid of New Mexico for good,” Waldron assured him. “Nobody is going to bring anyone back across state lines on the flimsy word of a girl . . . are they?”

“I guess not,” Siward said, relaxing.

“That is if they can find us.” Waldron smiled as he closed his eyes. There would be an assumption that they were traveling all the way to the end of the line to answer Waldron’s summons to the home office, but they were traveling on passes, so there were no tickets confirming this.

Waldron knew that he would step off the train in La Junta. Working through the mail, he had purchased a horse that would be stabled there. From there, he would ride this horse to Denver, where his accounts resided.

He supposed that Nathaniel Siward would probably also detrain in La Junta. Assuming that Siward was asleep as the train reached that station, Waldron entertained thoughts of just leaving him on the train, but he would not do that.

Siward did not realize that he too was a loose end, but he was. Last night, Waldron had failed to take care of a loose end—partly, at least, because he hadn’t taken care of it personally. At La Junta, he would not fail.

Despite assurances to the contrary, Nathaniel Siward would not share in the harvest that Waldron planned to reap. Waldron wanted it all.