Relentless by Ed Gorman Page B

what was going on. Months later, she would realize that he’d drugged her.
        Once they were married, she soon realized that his business enterprises were all confidence games. Not only was he a crook, so were all his important-acting friends. And even more, he enjoyed cheating people out of their money. He and his friends laughed long and drunkenly into the night, exactly like boastful children, about this or that scam and how much they’d enjoyed pulling it.
        She took a teaching job and prayed a lot. Went to three, four masses a week, hoping that God would answer her prayers and turn David into a decent man.
        One night, he asked her to deliver some papers to a certain address. She didn’t want to, but he berated her enough that she finally gave in. The papers turned out to be forgeries of bank documents. When the mark went to the police, he described not only David but David’s “accomplice,” Callie. Thus she became a wanted felon. She found a lawyer and instituted a divorce proceeding. And then she fled Chicago before she could be arrested.
        
***
        
        “A year later, I met you.”
        “I appreciate you telling me.”
        “I’ve destroyed your life, Lane. I’m sorry.”
        I shook my head. “I agree with the monsignor. We need to wait and see how this thing turns out. I’ve got a lot of work to do.”
        “Work? But you resigned.”
        “That doesn’t mean I can’t nose around and ask questions. Besides, I want to see what Edgar’s got in mind.” I told her about my meeting with Bayard.
        “He didn’t even give you a hint?”
        “No.”
        “I want to help.”
        “You can help by writing down everything you did yesterday. Write the times down, too, as close as you can remember them. And mention everybody you saw everywhere you went.”
        “I don’t know if I can. After everything that happened- it’s all sort of a jumble.”
        ‘Try. You maybe saw somebody who might prove important and we don’t know it yet.”
        She came over and sat on my lap. The rocking chair squeaked. We rocked for a good long time without saying anything. Her head was on my shoulder. The scent of her hair in my nostrils was pretty damned wonderful.
        I gave up any hope of relaxing, even here in the rocking chair. I was formulating all sorts of ways Stanton could have been murdered and by who.
        
***
        
        I spent the first hour in town getting stopped by people telling me they wished I haven’t resigned and that they sure hoped I’d reconsider. I appreciated their words, but at the moment I wanted only one thing and that was to find Ned Hastings.
        I had no luck at his hotel, at any of the saloons, at the barbershop or the livery. Hadn’t been there.
        I walked into the section where the vice was contained. Barbara Parsons ran the most popular of the three whorehouses. The place was open only at night. I found Barbara in the backyard behind the two-story white-frame structure, tending, as usual on a warm day, to her garden.
        She was a slender little thing of sixty-some years. She wasn’t pretty, but she managed to make herself attractive by dressing in proper Eastern clothes. She had a yellow dress on. A merry yellow ribbon decorated the right side of her graying head. She was using a pink can to sprinkle water on her chrysanthemums.
        “Looks good,” I said.
        “Me or the flowers?”
        “You are a flower, Barbara. A beautiful, elegant flower.”
        “And you are a bullshit artist, Lane Morgan.”
        I laughed. “My mama taught me to always be polite to ladies.”
        “Well, then you don’t need to worry about me. I’ve never been a lady in my life.” She covered her green eyes from the sun and peered at me. “I heard you quit.”
        “Yeah.”
        “I also heard that your wife may be in