“I know dear.”
“I don’t like any of them, and I don’t want them in my house.”
“I’ll remember that.”
She turned and looked at him.
“You’re just yesing me, aren’t you, Albert?” she demanded. “You’re just going to go on doing what you want to do, aren’t you? No Matter what I say?”
He smiled at her and said, “Yes, dear.”
She turned her back on him and busied herself at the stove.
“Will you be staying in for lunch today?”
“I believe I will.”
She fell silent, then said, “You could at least keep them out of my kitchen.”
He came up behind her, took her shoulders, kissed her hair and said, “Yes, dear.”
Butler thought he might be reading something into nothing, but he didn’t have many other options. Catching Sutherland and proving that he was the killer was the only way to get Luke Short out from under. And it was the only way for him to be able to move on. Things had not gone the way he planned in Fort Worth. Other than that one game—and he had done very well in it—there had been no high-stakes poker. Just like Dodge City and Denver, he’d gotten himself wrapped up in the troubles of his new friends, to the detriment of his poker. He needed to get this matter resolved so he could leave town and head for California before he got himself killed.
He watched as Helen Newman came out of her house, closed the door behind her, and walked away. As far as he knew, Al Newman was still inside. But at the moment he wasn’t concerned with Al, he was concerned with Helen.
He left his hiding place, fell in behind her, and started to follow her.
CHAPTER 43
It was not Butler’s intention to follow Mrs. Newman for any period of time. What he wanted to do was find a place where he could approach and speak with her. He certainly had no intention of pulling her into a wall the way he did Walt the night before. He needed something a little more subtle.
He finally just decided to go ahead and approach her while she was shopping. And even though he tried making it look as if they had simply run into each other, she managed to see through that subterfuge very quickly.
“Mr. Butler,” she said, “are you following me?”
“No, Mrs. Newman, I just happened—”
“You just happened to be walking by the very millinery shop where I buy my hats?”
He looked up and saw that he had, indeed, “bumped” into her as she was coming out of a hat shop.
“Well,” he said, “I guess you caught me, then…”
“What is it you wish to talk to me about?”
“Actually, it’s about your husband and—”
That was when she cut him off and told him that if he wanted to talk to her, he’d have to accompany her to her next destination.
He never expected it to be a tea room.
“Tea, Mr. Butler?” she asked, after the waitress had left them an entire pot.
“Sure, why not?”
She poured him a cup, and then herself. He dubiously eyed the array of small cakes and sandwiches arranged on a blue china plate, laid out to accompany the tea.
“Watercress sandwich?” she asked.
“Uh, no, thanks,” he said. “I had a big breakfast.”
“I can never get Albert to come here with me,” she said. “He claims it’s effeminate. Do you think it’s effeminate, Mr. Butler?”
“Ma’am, let’s just say I hope no one who knows me passes by and looks in.”
“You men,” she said. “Always so concerned about what other people think.”
“Well, I don’t think you can say that just about men, Mrs. Newman,” Butler said. “After all, why do you buy all sorts of hats and shoes and dresses and perfumes? Certainly not so you can wear them in your house when you’re alone and look in the mirror at yourself.”
“Touche, Mr. Butler,” she said. “I see there is more to you than meets the eye. You seem so… educated.”
“I’m not a native westerner, Mrs. Newman.”
“Yes, that is becoming apparent,” she said. “My husband tells me I’ve been rude to you on more than one occasion. Let me take this opportunity to…apologize, which is not something I do easily.”
“Then I appreciate it,” he said, “even though I don’t think it’s necessary.”
“Very well,” she said. “Since we have that out of the way, and since you won’t have something to eat—”
“I will take one of these lemon cakes,” he said, after surreptitiously eyeing the entire assortment for something he recognized.
“Ah, good,” she said. “The high tea experience is complete, then. Now, tell me Mr. Butler, what is it you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Well…it’s something you said a while ago, at your front door?”
“I thought I apologized for that already.”
“No,” he said, “not that. You said, ‘I wish you’d all leave him alone.’ Who did you mean?”
“Well…you, for one. I don’t want Albert being brought back into that criminal world.”
“Okay, I know you meant me,” Butler said, “but who else?”
“Luke Short,” she said. “I don’t want him in that gambling world, either.”
“I get the feeling there was someone else you meant, though.”
“Well…I don’t even know if I should mention it…but there was a horrid man who came to call just a little while before you.”
“What man? Do you know his name?”
“No, but I know his type,” she said.
“What type is that?”
“The criminal type,” she said. “The type who lives and works down by the docks.”
Butler’s heart started to race, the way it did when he thought he knew what cards a man had in his hand.
“Can you describe him?”
“A big, brutish, dirty man—”
“Can you be as little more specific?”
She got more specific and gave him a perfect description of Sutherland. Or rather, a perfect duplicate of the description they had of Sutherland.
So Newman had lied about knowing Sutherland. And not only did he know him, but he had spoken to him—in his home—just before Butler got there.
Very interesting.
CHAPTER 44
“You’re kidding,” Luke Short said.
“That’s what she said.”
