Devil in Texas(22)

Now what?

Frustrated by her failure to find evidence to incriminate him, Sadie stood with her hands on her hips, sweating bullets under her cotton shift and scowling at the furniture. Poppy's starched, white night cap lay on top of her neatly folded bed gown at the foot of a tightly tucked quilt of baby-blues and bonbon-pinks. The coverlet was embroidered with adorable yellow ducklings that reminded Sadie of a baby blanket.

She cocked her head, inhaling violet perfume, licorice hair tonic, stale Cleopatra Federal cigars, and a citrusy-frankincense aroma that suggested copal. The smell of incense made her glance toward the writing desk, which Poppy had turned into an altar by draping half of it with white linen. The usual prayer book, rosary, and saint images adorned the cloth, along with satin hair ribbons of every hue, apples and pecans, two vases of yellow marigolds, and three intricately painted sugar skulls.

Considering that Día de los Muertos was only four days away, Sadie didn't think the contents of the altar were unusual. Even "Gringos" couldn't walk down the streets of Lampasas without a Spanish-speaking vendor shoving colorful altar decorations into their hands.

She turned her back on Poppy's room and studied Baron's side of the suite. Boxes of red-white-and-blue campaign propaganda were stacked as high as Sadie's chin beside a cherry wood wardrobe. In a brass pot by the window, peace lilies were wilting; she figured they were parched for water, like the rest of Texas. Green bottles half-filled with medicine nestled between pricey liquors, brandy snifters, and shot glasses on the pink-marble of the vanity.

Sadie frowned. Besides Poppy's duckling quilt, the only thing that Sadie saw out of the ordinary was the fireplace. It was full of ashes. Unless the maid hadn't shoveled out the hearth since January—when Central Texas had suffered a freezing rain—the ash was probably the result of burned papers. However, none of the documents could be sufficiently identified. If Baron was plotting to blow up a west Texas farm or assassinate a rival candidate for the senate, he'd obliterated the evidence.

Damn that blood-sucking weasel. Sadie really had hoped she could avoid the revolting act of touching him, especially since some poor deluded, Christian woman had agreed to be his wife. Now she feared she would have to crawl into Baron's bed to accomplish her mission.

And that posed the unavoidable complication of Cass.

Suddenly, a floorboard creaked outside the door. Choking back an oath, Sadie glanced at the clock on the mantel. She'd been searching the room for two-and-a-half hours.

Damn! I let time get away from me! And I still have to search Pendleton's bedroom.

A key scraped in the lock. Frantically, Sadie grabbed for her feather duster and began an industrious cleaning of Baron's liquor bottles. The door creaked open. The intruder gasped.

Poppy Westerfield stood on the threshold, minus her bodyguard.

"Where's Sofia?" the senator's wife snapped, hastily hiding her clinking reticule behind her back. "Who the devil are you?"

Sadie's eyes narrowed. So Poppy didn't want her to see her purse, eh?

Cupping her hand over her ear, Sadie acted like the world's dumbest deaf woman. "The sofa, you say?"

"Sofia! Our maid!"

"Slow down there, missy," Sadie croaked in her best crone's voice. "My hearin' ain't so good. You say you want the sofa made?"

Poppy made an exasperated sound. "Out!" She pointed an imperious, red-lacquered fingernail at the door. "I don't have patience for fools."

Adopting a subservient manner, Sadie shuffled forward. Her eyes were focused on Poppy's protruding elbow, the one connected to the arm with the reticule. She had to find out what Poppy was hiding.

Thinking fast, she tripped, slamming into the older woman's arm. Poppy cried out, dropping the bag, and a half-dozen tins of Serenata's Soothing Throat Pastilles spilled across the carpet.

Sadie frowned. Lemon lozenges?

Poppy went apoplectic. "Stupid oaf! Look what you've done! I'll have your head for this!"

She ripped off her gloves, fell to her knees, and raked up the scattered pastilles with her hands. Sheepishly, Sadie tried to help—until their heads butted. Poppy recoiled, hissing an oath. When she looked directly into Sadie's eyes, suspicion furrowed her brow.

Sadie cursed her stupidity.

"Er... looks like you'll need a broom, missy," she blathered, leaping to her feet and fleeing for the door. "You won't want to fall kersplat on your bustle—"

"Hold."

The cold edge of Poppy's voice froze Sadie's feet two paces from the door.

"I will have your name."

Sadie figured a real maid would have been terrified of a senator's wife. She hung her head and wrung her hands. "Mrs. Dalrymple, ma'am. I'm real sorry about the lozenges, ma'am. I don't want to lose my job—"

"Shut up. Get out. And close the door behind you."

Bitch.

Sadie held onto her temper long enough to bob a curtsey and obey. Turning with a vengeance, she ducked into Pendleton's room.

* * *

As the sun sank behind the mansions of Silk Stocking Row, Cass shared a smoke with Gator on the steps of Wilma's back porch, where he was secretly hoping to catch a glimpse of Sadie.

Fraternizing with the enemy. That's what Pa would have called it. Not that Gator was an enemy, exactly. Cass had spent many an enjoyable evening in Dodge, helping Gator and Cottonmouth beat the stuffing out of reprobates, who'd tried to stiff Wilma's girls. Cass had never cared about the color of a man's skin; his best friend was half Cherokee, after all. Cass considered the Mulattos his compadres, too, even though they came from the Bayou, spoke a different language, and exasperated the bejabbers out of him every time they lied to cover up for Sadie.

But Cass could charm the rattle off a rattler. Biding his time, he blew smoke, flicked ash, and yakked about things of importance to Gator: barbecued armadillo, Cajun snake fry, and alligator wrestling.

"I thought I counted a few more fangs on that string around your neck," Cass observed when Gator finished spinning his yarn.

"Gators are good eating," the Mulatto drawled in his thick, bayou-bred accent. "Like coons. Where's your little buddy? I'm hungry."

Cass chuckled, shaking his head. Cotton was the prim and prickly twin. Gator was the cut-up. If one could believe Gator, he'd just won his 12th consecutive alligator wrestling tournament. Cass secretly wondered if there really was a contest. Over the years, he'd begun to suspect that Gator just liked to dive into swamps and beat the tar out of unsuspecting alligators, who'd been minding their own business, snoozing in the sun.

"Collie's guarding Baron, if he knows what's good for him," Cass said. "A sniper took potshots at us in the Square yesterday. But I reckon you read all about that in the Dispatch."

Gator grunted, sucking his smoke. Wilma had taught the twins to read—and how to shoot, come to think of it. After she'd found the desperately hungry, 8-year-old orphans lying unconscious on her compost pile, she'd nursed them back to health from their bout with yellow fever. Nowadays, at the wise old age of 27, they were ardent believers in gris-gris, dream messages, and Ancestral curses.

"I know you hear things," Cass prompted.

"Moi?" Gator grinned, flashing startling, white teeth. "I am deaf and mute."

"Then you see things," Cass said dryly.

"I see and know nothing," Gator assured him merrily.

Cass sighed. At this rate, they'd be trading windies all night. "Look, Gator. I know Wilma keeps her clientele confidential. I'm not asking you to betray her trust. All I'm asking is, have you heard anything that might help me identify this vigilante granger before he tries to kill again?"