Robert Randisi - Bullets & Lies

He was halfway through his leisurely meal when Edward Harwick entered the dining room. Roper waved, and the man came over and joined him.

“Have you eaten?” Roper asked.

“I was about to when I got your message.” A waiter came over, and Harwick ordered the same meal Roper was working on. While Harwick waited for his steak, he poured himself a cup of coffee.

“Did you find out anything interesting in Washington?” he asked.

“I found out quite a bit,” Roper said, “but before I tell you, I want to know who you told I was going to Washington.”

“What?” Harwick looked startled. “I didn’t tell anyone. Why?”

“Because somebody took a shot at me while I was there.” He didn’t bother to add that he was in the company of the head of the Secret Service.

“What? Were you hurt?”

“No, they missed.”

“Well…could it have been someone from another case? From your past perhaps? After all, you do have a reputation.”

“And they just happened to be in Washington at the same time?” Roper asked. “I seriously doubt it. You told someone I was going.”

“No…” Harwick started, but then he stopped and said, “The only other person who knew was Victoria.”

“Mrs. Westover,” Roper said. “Who might she have told?”

“No one.”

“You keep saying that, but it can’t be true. Somebody knew I was going there—it’s that, or one of you had someone shoot at me.”

“That’s preposterous. Why would we hire you and then try to kill you?”

“That’s what I’m wondering. Come on, give it some thought, Harwick.”

They paused while the waiter set Harwick’s breakfast down in front of him, giving the lawyer some time to think.

“Well,” he said when the waiter had left, “there’s Howard, but he couldn’t tell anyone.”

“What about his nurse? Polly?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t tell her, but I suppose she could have heard Victoria talking to Howard.”

“All right,” Roper said, “if she knew, who would she tell?”

“I don’t know,” Hardwick said. “She lives there at the house, looks after Howard, and never leaves.”

“Never?”

“Well…hardly at all.”

“Hardly,” Roper said. “No one else?”

“No one goes to the house, Roper…ever.”

“What about Miriam?”

“Miriam?” Harwick said. “She’s worked for them for years.”

“Does she live in?”

“Well, no—”

“So she comes and goes.”

“Yes.”

“Is she married?”

“Widowed.”

“Does she live with anybody?”

“No. She lives alone. She doesn’t have much of a life beyond her work for the Westovers.”

“She must go to town, do some shopping? Talk to people?”

“I suppose.”

“So someone could have talked with her, maybe gotten the information from her.”

“If she knew.”

“Believe me,” Roper said, “housekeepers, cooks, they know everything that goes on in the houses where they work.”

“Well, I’ll be going out there again tomorrow,” Roper said. “I have things to discuss with the lady of the house. I can also talk to Miriam and Polly.”

“Like what you found in Washington?”

“Yes.”

Hardwick waited, and when Roper didn’t speak further, he said, “Well, what did you find?”

“Like I said,” Roper responded, “I’ll talk with her tomorrow. After that, if she wants to tell you, or wants me to tell you, that’s her business.”

“But…you work for me.”

“Mrs. Westover is the client, Edward,” Roper said. “Isn’t that right?”

19

Roper agreed to ride to the Westover house with Hardwick the next morning, even though he continued to refuse to report his findings to him. The lawyer may have fetched him from Denver and gotten him this job, but Roper was being paid by Victoria Westover. His report would be made to her, unless she decreed otherwise.

Hardwick pulled up in front of the hotel with his buggy.

“We’ll have to be careful,” Roper told him, mounting his horse. He had brought his saddle with him on the train, and had left it behind when he went to Washington, but his own horse remained in Denver. This Appaloosa had been rented locally, chosen by him but paid for with Westover funds.

He touched his rifle and then the extra Peacemaker in his saddle holster. So far the razor in his boot had been of little use, but it was always comforting to feel its presence there.

“Careful?” Hardwick asked.

“I was shot at in Washington,” Roper said. “It could happen here as well.”

“Shouldn’t we have some protection?” Hardwick asked, looking around them. “The law maybe?”

“Don’t worry, Edward,” Roper said. “I’ll protect you.”

He kicked the Appaloosa in his painted hindquarters and sprinted ahead. Harwick flicked the reins at his horse and kept up as well as he could.

Before they reached the house, Roper slowed to allow the lawyer to catch up.

“When we get there, I’d like you to let me do all the talking to Victoria,” he said.

“Why not?” Harwick asked. “You haven’t told me anything anyway.”

“Perhaps you’ll hear it when she hears it, if she gives me permission to speak in front of you,” Roper said. “I also have some questions to ask her that only she may be able to answer.”

“I guess we’ll find that out when you ask them,” Harwick said.

Something occurred to Roper then. “Did you send word ahead that we were coming?”

“No,” the lawyer said, “but she’ll welcome us. She’s been expecting us since the last time we were here.”

They stopped in front of the house, secured their horses, and went to the front door.

“Do you have a key?” Roper asked.

“No,” Harwick said. “I’ve not been given that responsibility. We’ll knock.”

The door was opened by Victoria herself. Roper assumed that the nurse, Polly, the only other person living in the house, never left Howard Westover’s side, certainly not to answer the door. The cook, Miriam, wasn’t a live-in, but perhaps opening the door was not part of her job.

“Victoria,” Harwick said.

“Edward,” she said, then looked at Roper. “Mr. Roper, I’m happy to see you back from Washington. I hope you have news for me.”

“News,” he said, “and questions.”

“Come in,” she said. “We’ll have coffee and pie.”

“Sounds good,” Roper said, even though he’d just had breakfast. Pie was pie, after all, and not to be turned down.

They went into the dining room and she left them there momentarily to go into the kitchen and then returned empty-handed.

“Miriam is your cook?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, “I’m hopeless in the kitchen.”

“Does she live in?”

“No, she goes home in the evenings, after supper.”

“I see.”

“Is that one of the questions you were talking about?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Did you tell Miriam or Polly that I was going to Washington?”

“I did not.”

“Could they have found out another way?”

She didn’t answer.

“Victoria?”

“I suppose they could have heard us talking,” she said. “What is this all about?”

“Somebody tried to kill me in Washington.” He didn’t tell her there was a fifty-fifty chance the bullet had been meant for someone else.

“I’m sorry to hear that.” She didn’t look very concerned, though. “Does it have to do with our business?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “That’s what I’d like to find out.”

“I did tell Howard you were going to Washington. He could have told Miriam or Polly.”

“I thought he couldn’t speak.”