“You didn’t stop it.”
“I didn’t know it was going to happen.”
“Then you can’t control them.” Ellie could see that rankled. “From what Phoebe said about the robbery, it seemed you were in charge. Was she wrong?”
“No. She wasn’t. But things change and Doyle and Willet are out of their minds. As they recently reminded me, they invited me to join them, not the other way around. They’re not wrong. Your arrangement was with them, so what I’m wondering, since I’m the one here, is if it’s still with them. What do you have in mind, Mrs. Madison?”
“I’m taking a risk here, Mr. Rahway, trusting you, but the Putty brothers are known to me and they have never inspired confidence. I realize it begs the question of why I ever came to terms with them, and the answer is time and the fact that there was so little of it. I did not sanction the robbery. Whose idea was that?”
“Doyle’s, but I won’t mislead you. I agreed to it. It wasn’t a bad idea, merely a poorly executed one, mostly in the aftermath.”
“That’s probably an understatement.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You think you can fix it?”
“I can.”
She studied his face, measured the confidence of the man. He didn’t fidget with his beer or his mustache. He didn’t look away or study some point over her shoulder. “I’m going to tell you something, Mr. Rahway, and you should take it as fact because it is. Thaddeus Frost had no interest in pursuing Phoebe’s abductors. He had no interest in getting his money back. Do you know why?”
It was a rhetorical question, but Natty shook his head anyway.
Ellie narrowed her gaze and held up a single finger. “One reason,” she said. “He’s believed from the very first that his wife was behind what happened. He still might. He only has her word for saying that I offered her money. I never said I did. Nothing would have come of that night if the passengers hadn’t been robbed. Everything that went wrong began there.”
Ellie turned her finger down and tapped it against the table as she finished. “This is what I want you to do, Mr. Rahway: Make it right.”
• • •
Phoebe found Thaddeus and Remington in the barn examining a hoof on one of the newer thoroughbreds. She stood back, listening to them discuss furrows and frogs and walls and whether or not the mare required a new shoe. The mare was at her ease, Phoebe noticed, but then she had the attention of two handsome admirers who wanted nothing but the best for her.
After several minutes, Phoebe interrupted. “A new shoe,” she said. “A lady always wants a new shoe. There truly is no point in further debate.”
Remington clapped his father on the back and they both straightened. “She’s right. A new shoe it is. All the way around.” He waved her in. “We saw you were talking to Les and decided to make ourselves scarce.” When he saw Phoebe look around, he added, “We’re alone. Johnny took off when I threatened to give him indoor work.”
“I thought that might be the case,” she said, smiling. “He’s weeding in the garden. Fiona keeps wandering onto the back porch to check on him.”
Thaddeus cocked his head toward the barn’s open doorway. “What did Les have to say? Are you satisfied with what you heard?”
“I am. I wish I had been able to ask him about his family earlier, but perhaps it would have seemed suspicious so soon after the sheriff was here. It’s hard to say what everyone’s thinking.” Phoebe held up a hand and began ticking off names on her fingers. “There are the Brownlees, but then we knew that. On his father’s side going back a generation or two, you have the Petersons, the Corbells, the Driscolls, and the Finks. His mother’s side is more complicated because there are a number of marriages involving cousins. The family multiplied and spread out, but there are fewer surnames. Mostly they’re all Washingtons or Puttys. You’d need a chart or the family Bible to keep it straight.”
She folded her fingers into a loose fist and dropped her hand to her side. “Once Les got to talking, he warmed to the subject. It seems his mother was a Putty, but he told me she did not have much in the way of good to say about her family. His mother generally described her kin as the black sheep. The larger family tends to stay clear of them. I don’t know if it means anything, but I thought it was worth mentioning because he thought it was worth mentioning.”
“Hard to imagine a family that size not having a few black sheep in its midst, but it could be anything that sets them apart. Did he tell you something specific? The Putty name is not familiar to me.”
“Les had some colorful stories about a few of them. If I had pressed, there are probably more. He was quick to point out that none of them ever warranted a wanted notice, at least that he knew, but they’re acknowledged to be a rough lot by the rest of their kin. There is a history of cattle rustling, cheating at cards, drunkenness, fighting, and ducking the law. It’s this last piece that gives rise to rumors in the family of what the Puttysmighthave done.”
“Hard to say if there’s something there or not,” said Remington. He slanted Phoebe one of his secretly amused smiles. “Did you ask about the chins and the no chins?”
“No!”
He laughed. “All right. I suppose there was no subtle way to advance the subject.”
“No polite way either,” she said. “Really, Remington.”
Thaddeus caught Remington’s eye. “You’ve been chastised, son. Better sober up.”
Remington did, though his grin was slow to fade. “There’s still the problem of rounding them up. We’ll never get them all, but we have to find some means of attracting a large number of them.”
