“Marshal, why don’t you take your dessert and coffee out on the front porch where it’s cooler? You, too, Alice,” she added.
“And me?” Mark piped.
His grandmother shook her head. “I need you in the kitchen, Mark.”
“Aw, Gran...”
That brought a half smile to Alice’s white face. She pushed back her chair and accepted a tray from Sarah with two thick slices of apple pie and two cups of coffee. Rand stood, lifted it out of her hands and ushered her through the screen door.
He prayed the coffee would make the next hour less difficult.
Alice sank onto the porch swing and lifted a cup of coffee from the tray the marshal set on the railing. “Cream?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Sugar?” Again she refused, then watched him load his cup with two heaping spoonfuls. Aha. The man had a sweet tooth!
He made short work of his apple pie, and when she offered her own piece, he downed that, too. Apparently he hadn’t eaten well recently. Was he married as Mark had asked? Probably not, if his appetite was any indication.
He settled onto the swing beside her, nudged it into motion and stretched his long legs out in front of him. Marshals wore jeans like everybody else, she noted. The only thing that told her he was a marshal was the funny-shaped badge pinned to his leather vest and the gun belt around his waist.
“Alice, is there anything else you want to know about your sister’s death?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “When did she die?”
“She died instantly, as I told you at the sheriff’s office.”
She set her cup onto the saucer with a sharp click. “No, I meant how long ago was it?”
He gave the swing another shove. “Three weeks ago.”
“What took you so long to notify me?”
An expression crossed his face she couldn’t identify. “It’s not just a death, is it?” she said.
His face changed again.
“Is it?” she pursued.
“No, Alice, it’s not. It was a murder. I told you that.”
“Who did it? Do you know? Have they caught him?”
He released a breath and gulped down some coffee. “Nobody has been arrested yet. And no, we don’t know who did it.”
“Why not?”
He hesitated. “Alice, there’s something else I need to tell you.”
“I thought so,” she said. “Your voice gets quiet when you’re hiding something.”
He turned toward her, surprise written all over him. “Well, I... That is...”
She had to smile. “You know, Marshal Logan, people think of a librarian as someone with her nose always buried in a book. Actually, librarians are quite observant.”
“Obviously,” he murmured.
“So I ask you again. What took you almost three weeks to notify me? And why not just send me a telegram?”
“I...wanted to tell you in person.”
“What else is it you need to tell me, Marshal? And who is ‘we’?”
“You sure you want to talk about this so soon after you got the news?”
She bit her lip. “Yes, I am quite sure. Tell me.”
He jolted out of the swing and moved to lean against the porch railing. “‘We’ is the sheriff of Owyhee County, Idaho, and me. And the Pinkerton Agency in Colorado. As for what else I need to tell you, it’s this. The sheriff is stumped. He sent for a US Marshal, and that marshal happens to work for Pinkerton.”
“Why did you really come to see me, Marshal? It wasn’t just to tell me about Dottie, was it?” When he said nothing, she went on.
“Why is Dottie’s death of interest to a US Marshal and the Pinkerton Agency? Exactly why are you here, Marshal Logan?”
Rand stood and began to stack the empty pie plates on the tray. “No, it wasn’t just to tell you about your sister. We... That is, I need your help.”
“I thought so,” she breathed.
“It’s like this, Alice. Your sister lived in this little town that’s mostly a tent community of Idaho miners, and they’re tighter than ticks about sharing any information with outsiders.”
“I would be an outsider,” she pointed out quietly.
“You would be, yes. But we... I...think you might be able to succeed where the sheriff has failed.”
“Why?”
“Because...” He looked everywhere except at her. “Because you’re a woman,” he said at last.
“I see.”
“I tried to talk Pinkerton out of even mentioning it to you. I knew you’d need time to get over the shock, time to grieve. I wired the sheriff in Idaho that I wasn’t going to ask you because it wouldn’t be fair. That you wouldn’t want to do it no matter what.”
Alice took a deep breath. “Right now I would do anything to catch my sister’s murderer.”
Rand stared at her, a proper, delicate-looking girl whose face was still white with shock. My God, a woman could be tougher than he’d ever imagined. Suddenly he didn’t want to go any further with this. She wasn’t ready. She might even get hurt.
Then she surprised him again. “What is ‘it’?” she asked.
Oh, hell, here it comes. She wouldn’t even speak to him after he’d asked what he’d come four hundred miles to ask, much less sit in a porch swing with him. He opened his mouth, then shut it again.
“Marshal?” She looked up at him, and all at once he noticed how blue her eyes were, how downright pretty she was.
“Marshal, what is it you need me for? You might as well spit it out before I lose interest,” she said with a soft laugh.
He resumed his place on the swing beside her. “Okay, Alice, here it is. Silver City miners are suspicious of strangers and they’re tight-lipped about everything, especially a killing. But they might open up to a woman. Someone who could work undercover.”
“Work undercover
