Fatal as a Fallen Woman by Kathy Lynn Emerson

said anything.
    "Why was he at the Windsor that night?"
     "Had a mistress there," Mattie told her. "That's what I heard from one of my regulars, anyway."
    But no one knew who she was or where she'd gotten to, or if they did they weren't admitting it. The best anyone could do was give her the name of the assistant manager who'd called in the police when the body was found and make a few suggestions on the best way to get information out of him.
    Pearl Adams was the last to leave. She turned back at the door to offer one last piece of advice. "Watch your back, honey," she warned. "I figure Elmira killed him, but if she didn't, then there's someone out there who wants everyone to keep on thinking she did. Man like that's not goin' to take kindly to you provin' otherwise."
    * * * *
    "Where is she?" Ben Northcote's hands itched to circle Horatio Foxe's scrawny neck and squeeze until his eyes bulged.
    Foxe shot to his feet behind the bulk of an oversized oak desk. The cheroot he'd had clamped between his yellowed teeth dropped unnoticed into the clutter of papers covering most of the scarred wooden surface.
    After a long, sleepless journey by rail, Ben had reached Diana's boarding house on Tenth Street only to be told that she'd left eight days earlier, bag and baggage. Her landlady, Mrs. Curran, had confirmed what she'd said in her reply to Ben's telegram. Diana had departed in company with Horatio Foxe. Mrs. Curran had no idea where they'd gone.
    "She'd had bad news of some sort," Mrs. Curran had added.
    Hearing that, Ben had lost no time hailing a Hansom to take him to Park Row, where most of the city's major newspapers, as well as the Independent Intelligencer , based their operations.
    "Where is she?" Ben slammed the door closed behind him, making the glass rattle ominously, and strode across the room. He gave Foxe no opportunity to escape before he slammed both hands flat amid the litter on the desk. A thin plume of smoke was already rising from the haphazard pile of papers.
    Ignoring it, Foxe puffed out his chest. His shoulders went back and his head shot forward. "Confound it, Northcote! You've go no call to come busting in here and raising a ruckus. I've done nothing to Diana Spaulding but try to help her out."
    "Where is she, then? Why hasn't she written?" Ben backed off, but his clenched fists underscored the threat in his voice. "I'm prepared to beat the truth out of you. In fact, I'd enjoy it."
    The smaller man winced. "That won't be necessary."
    "Talk fast, then, before I give in to the impulse to toss you out that convenient bank of windows behind your desk."
    "She's in Denver."
    He snatched up his smoldering cheroot, slapping at the corner of a telegram and a sheet of foolscap until he'd extinguished all the stray embers. When he was certain nothing else would catch fire, he dropped back into his chair and regarded Ben warily over the glowing tip of the cigar.
    "Be sure you tell her that when you see her. That you had to threaten me before I told you anything. Although, technically, all I promised was that I wouldn't write a word about her business to you when you contacted me."
    "Denver?" Ben prompted him. Why Denver? he wanted to shout. It was like a knife in the heart to learn she was so very far away. The distance made her lack of communication even more inexplicable.
    "That's where she was bound when she left here. Denver, Colorado."
    "Why?" Deprived of the physical release of pommeling Foxe, Ben was reduced to cowing him with a fulminating glare. It was a poor substitute for action.
    "I take it you don't know anything about her parents."
    Ben felt a stab of dread. "Family matters," her telegram had said. But for some reason he'd expected that to mean the late, unlamented Evan Spaulding. "Her parents? They cut her off. She doesn't like to speak of them."
      "No, she wouldn't. Oh, sit down, man! You'll give me a crick in my blasted neck staring up at you."
    Grudgingly, Ben complied. That this was about Diana's