“You are arrogant, sir,” Helsa declared.
“What I am is tired from riding around most of the day looking for Myrtle Spencer. My neck is still sore from where the good citizens of this town tried to hang me. I have aches from the fights I’ve had with three simpletons and I’m mad that someone took a shot at me today and I needed a drink.” Fargo waggled the bottle. “Last chance.”
“You’ve been through all that?” Helsa looked at the bottle and then into his eyes. Her own narrowed and she tilted her head as if she were trying to peer into his innermost core. Her luscious lips quirked in a grin and she shrugged. “A swallow can’t hurt, I reckon.”
Fargo noticed that she didn’t wipe the bottle on her sleeve or cough after she gave the bottle back. “You’ve done that before.”
“I’m human,” Helsa said.
“You put on a good act.”
“I have to. You seem to forget I’m a woman living alone. A widow, no less. Some men seem to take it for granted I’m available. I must be firm to discourage them.”
“Here’s to firmness,” Fargo said, staring at her bosom, and swallowed.
Helsa started to laugh but caught herself. “Honestly, now. Just because I’ve confided in you doesn’t give you an excuse to talk that way.”
“What way?”
Ignoring the question, Helsa said, “You have me so flustered I forgot why I came up. Supper is almost ready if you’re hungry. I’m afraid it’s only beef stew but it’s filling.”
“I’ll wash up and be right down.”
Helsa turned to go and stopped in the doorway. “Leave the bottle up here, if you would be so kind.”
Fargo set it on the dresser. He filled the wash basin from a pitcher. A cloth and a towel had been provided, and he dipped the cloth in until it was soaked and washed his face and neck and took off his hat and ran his wet fingers through his hair. He toweled and put his hat back on and looked at his reflection in the oval mirror. “Play your cards right and maybe you will win the jackpot.”
A grandfather clock was ticking loudly in the parlor. The kitchen table had been set for two, and Helsa was at the stove.
Fargo pulled out a chair and sat. He hung his hat from the back of the chair and clasped his hands in front of him. “Where’s your other boarder?”
“He won’t be with us. He sells farm implements and he’s staying the night with the Ringwalds. He just sold them a cultivator or some such.” Helsa opened a drawer and took out a ladle and began ladling stew from a large pot into a china bowl.
“So it’s just the two of us.”
Helsa looked over her shoulder. “The two of us,” she echoed.
Silverware had been set out and there was a cup and saucer and a napkin. Fargo saw a coffeepot on a burner and smelled the rich aroma.
“Here you go.” Helsa brought the bowl over, carrying it carefully as it was filled to the brim. She set it down in front of him and in quick order brought a small plate with slices of bread, a butter dish, and salt and pepper. “Try the stew and tell me what you think.”
Fargo picked up a spoon and stirred. Chunks of meat had been mixed with carrots, peas and potatoes in a thick sauce. He spooned some into his mouth and slowly chewed. “Delicious.”
“There’s not too much salt? I like a lot, myself, and sometimes my boarders say I use too much.”
Fargo ran his gaze from her lustrous hair to her shapely thighs. “I like salty things.”
Helsa coughed and turned to the stove. She brought back the pot and filled his cup with steaming coffee. “I have sugar and cream if you’d like.”
“Black is fine.” Fargo picked up a butter knife and smeared a slice of bread thick with butter and dipped it in the stew. It melted in his mouth. He held off on the coffee until after his third bowl. Raising the cup, he sipped. “You make a fine feed, Mrs. Chatterly.”
“Call me Helsa. I thank you for the compliment.”
“Your food is almost as fine as you are.”
“Please, Mr. Fargo.”
“Please what? Don’t say you would turn any man’s head? Don’t say I would like to invite you up to my room to finish that bottle together?”
Helsa Chatterly pursed her ruby lips and tapped her red fingernails on the table. “What am I to do with you?”
“Anything you want.”
“I’m a lady.”
“Ladies have wants too.”
“You can’t prove that by me.”
8
Fargo was about to say that he thought he could when someone knocked on the front door.
“I wonder who that can be. I’m not expecting visitors.” Helsa moved past him. “Excuse me a moment.”
Fargo grunted and drained his coffee cup. He hoped it wasn’t the farm-implement salesman. He got up to refill his cup and was by the stove when Helsa returned. She wasn’t alone.
The woman behind her gave the impression of being older than her years. Gray streaked her limp hair and she walked with a stoop yet she had few wrinkles and her eyes, although pools of sorrow, were those of someone half her age. She wore homespun and old shoes and she nervously wrung her hands.
“Mr. Fargo, I’d like you to meet Mrs. Griffith. Susannah Griffith. She very much would like to talk to you.”
“I’m listening.”
“Go ahead,” Helsa urged when the other woman hesitated.
“If you don’t mind,” Susannah Griffith responded, “I’d like to talk to him in private.”
“Oh. Naturally. How remiss of me.” Helsa backed from the kitchen, saying, “I’ll be in the parlor knitting when you’re done.”
Susannah Griffith stood watching until Helsa was out of sight; then she came around the table and over to the stove and lowered her voice. “I apologize for coming to see you out of the blue.”
To Fargo it hardly mattered. “What can I do for you, ma’am?”
“Is it true you’re working with Marshal Tibbit to try and find the monster who is taking our women? The Ghoul?”
“Word spreads fast in a town this size.”
“I don’t live in town, I live on a farm outside it.” Susannah glanced at the hall. “Does the name Griffith mean anything to you?”
“Can’t say as it does, no.”
“You would think that marshal of ours would have told you.” Susannah muttered under her breath, then revealed, “My daughter was the second to disappear. Tamar, her name is. Or was, since I fear she’s long since dead.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Fargo said to be polite.
“Almost nine months ago, it was. Hard to believe, the time flies so fast, but Tamar is all I think of, each and every minute of every day. I can’t get her out of my head.”
“That’s to be expected,” Fargo said, although he felt nine months was a long time to drown in grief.
“My husband and I hardly talk anymore. He took to the bottle, after, and hasn’t come out since. Most nights, like this one, he drinks himself into a stupor early and I have to put him to bed.”
“You still haven’t said what I can do for you.”
Susannah Griffith looked toward the hall. Then, to Fargo’s surprise, she unbuttoned the front of her dress and slipped a hand in and pulled out a leather purse. Jingling it, she said, “This is why I’ve come.”
“I don’t savvy,” Fargo confessed.
