“I never,never, imagined this. His duties... perhaps I should have realized... but I didn’t. I never did, Ben. I wish I had been kinder to him, more attentive. Did you know he liked my apple pie?”
“I think everyone knew that.”
She laughed softly, ruefully. “Probably so.”
“He understood you did not return his feelings, not in equal measure.”
Ellie still did not look at her son. “I suppose I can tell you now that once upon a time he proposed.”
Ben’s dark red eyebrows climbed his forehead. “He did?”
“You were in your middle years. Eleven or twelve, I think. Blue saw us every Sunday back then because he went to church regularly in those days. Do you recall that he sometimes invited us to dinner at the Butterworth afterward? It’s all right if you don’t, but it was on one of those occasions that he asked me to marry him.”
“Where was I?”
She looked up. “You had wandered off to sit with Thaddeus and Remington. I could see where your affections were attached.”
Ben’s eyes widened. “Did that influence you to turn Blue down?”
“No... well, perhaps a bit... but mostly it was because of me. I couldn’t marry him. I loved your father. I know you don’t understand. I’ve told you things, and perhaps I should not have. He was not perfect, far from it, but the love I bore that man... that was perfect.”
Chapter Thirty-four
John Manypenny carefully closed his suitcase so the small bottles of sample liquors inside were not thrown together. He tipped his bowler and thanked the owner of the Angel’s Rest Saloon for placing an order for two cases of rye, a case of gin, and three cases of whiskey blends, and then removed his wares from the polished surface of the long mahogany bar. The suitcase was heavy and he was not a large man, but experience had taught him how to shift his shoulders and heft the case so it did feel less of a burden to carry than it was. He was not a drinking man himself, but on occasion he liked to take a chair at a table and sip a sarsaparilla while he observed others enjoy the fruits of his labor, so to speak.
The owner had invited him to sit a spell, and John had declined, but he changed his mind before he got to the swinging doors. Collier was the next stop on his route, and for the first time in recent memory, he was not eager to go there.
TheRocky Mountain Newshad reported on the gruesome murders of Deputy Buford “Blue” Armstrong, late of Frost Falls, and Miss Caroline Carolina, born in Monroe, Louisiana, and now laid to rest in Collier, Colorado. TheRockyhad treaded carefully around the profession that called Miss Carolina to any man’s bed, but John Manypenny believed that was in deference to Deputy Armstrong and not indicative of the newspaper’s respect for Miss Carolina. He had been on the train between Denver and Jupiter when he read the account, and he had a clear recollection of neatly folding the paper and placing it on the empty seat beside him. He’d reached for his suitcase, then, and without thinking twice,or thinking at all, he had opened it and quickly downed four sample bottles of his finest Kentucky bourbon and one bottle of gin. The recollections that followed were hazy at best, but he knew he missed the stop in Jupiter and ended up in a hotel in Lansing nursing a sore head the morning after.
With that in mind, John Manypenny carried his case to the nearest table, which happened to be a few feet from the door, and called to the barkeep that he would have his usual.
He was close enough to the window that his view of the street was unimpeded by patrons at neighboring tables. When his drink came, he cupped it in his hands but didn’t raise it. Occupied as he was with watching passersby and his own mawkish thoughts, he failed to notice the arrival of the pair of men who walked right past his table and went straight to the bar, and he failed to hear the barkeep call out his name or see the man point in his direction. It was only when they were standing so close to his table that their shadows darkened his vision that they finally had his attention.
“Mind if we join you?”
John Manypenny blinked owlishly behind his gold-rimmed spectacles. The lenses magnified his rheumy blue eyes. He looked from one man to the other, vaguely aware of familiarity with one but not able to place him in a particular situation or in a particular moment in time. He dragged his case from the seat of one of the chairs and set it on the floor. He turned over a hand, inviting them to sit.
“John Manypenny,” he said as they each took a chair. He noticed that neither was drinking. Not troubling himself to hide his puzzlement, he addressed the man who had spoken. “Do we know each other?”
“Haven’t had the pleasure, Mr. Manypenny. Remington Frost.”
John shook the hand Remington Frost extended and then he rose slightly from his chair as he held out his hand to the other man. “Now, you and I, I think we’ve met. I’m good with faces.”
“Jackson Brewer.” He released John’s hand and openedhis jacket to reveal the tin star on his vest. “Sheriff Brewer. Frost Falls.”
John Manypenny’s gaze narrowed a fraction. He lifted his spectacles and resettled the stems on his ears and the crosspiece on the hooked bridge of his nose. His face cleared as the occasion of their meeting came to him. “On the sidewalk outside the Songbird Saloon. I believe I caught you in the knee with the corner of my case as I was hurrying out. Had a train to catch. I didn’t know you were the sheriff or I expect I would have been more mortified.”
Brewer dropped a hand to his knee and rubbed it absently. “I recall it now. You walloped me good with that thing. Wish we had exchanged names. That might have helped some.”
“Helped? How?”
Remington said, “We have a matter to discuss with you, Mr. Manypenny.”
“John. What sort of matter? Have I done something?”
The sheriff shook his head. “Not at all, or at least not that I’m aware. We’ve been trying to cross your path the last couple of days. We missed you in Jupiter and again in Collier. I wasn’t confident we’d run you to ground here, but I don’t mind being wrong. We have a few questions for you. You’re under no obligation to tell us anything, but Remington will empty every bottle in that suitcase if you don’t. One. By. One.”
Manypenny did not react to what the sheriff said. He reacted to the sheriff. “You’re Jackson Brewer,” he said. Even to his ears, the revelation sounded more like an accusation. “Buford Armstrong was your deputy.”
