Longarm 423 - Longarm and the Dime Novelist by Tabor Evans

Author:Tabor Evans [Tabor Evans]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-01-28T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Longarm and Delia were well into their second bottle of French merlot and their empty plates had been removed. “Mind if I smoke?” Longarm asked.

“Of course not. Just please don’t blow the vile vapor into my face.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Delia. So tell me more about your first day in Reno.”

“I like this beautiful city. It has some very nice ladies’ shops and I enjoyed a wonderful lunch by the riverfront. It was a little nippy, but still pleasant.”

“Glad to hear that.”

“And what about you?” she asked. “I’m assuming you didn’t wander around shopping and sightseeing. Tell me what you found out about the murders and the abduction of the girl. Has she been found, yet?”

“No, she hasn’t.” Longarm emptied their bottle, leaned back in his chair, and told Delia about how they’d arrested Dub Robertson, who was carrying a suspicious amount of cash and then how the man had been shot through the back bars of his jail cell.

“Before he could even tell them what he’d done to that poor girl? How tragic!”

“It might be even more tragic than it is already.”

“What do you mean?”

Longarm tapped the ash from his cigar into a silver ashtray. “I met a woman, a seamstress actually, who loved Dub Robertson and swears that she had given him money to go to Carson City and buy her an engagement ring and a sewing machine.”

Delia’s eyebrows arched upward. “This woman paid the killer to buy her a ring?”

“Yes. And a sewing machine.”

“Well,” Delia said with a faint smirk on her lips, “I’ll have to give it to the seamstress for coming up with an original story.”

Longarm extracted the ad for the sewing machine and showed it to Delia. “I found myself actually believing the story.”

“You did?”

“Yes. If you had been there with the seamstress and seen her tears, seen her face and how she reacted, I think you would have believed her as well. As a matter of fact, why don’t you pay Miss Shirley Morton a visit at her shop and see if you have the same reaction?”

“Give me directions and I’ll do that.”

“I will.” Longarm blew a cloud of smoke over their heads. “And Miss Morton told me something else that was pretty shocking.”

“I’m all ears, Custis.”

“She claims that the sixteen-year-old Pierce girl was a seductress and nothing like the innocent virgin she portrayed herself to be.”

“A federal marshal’s daughter is seducing men?”

“Married men and single. Apparently, her latest conquest is a mine owner that lives up on the Comstock. His name is Maxwell Pennington.”

“Oh, come on! Surely you don’t believe that.”

“I don’t know what to believe,” Longarm admitted. “But I intend to check out the stories. I will go to Carson City first and see if the jeweler or the merchant who was supposed to deliver a sewing machine to Dub Robertson even exist. If they do and what Miss Morton says checks out, then I’ll go on up to Virginia City and pay a visit to Maxwell Pennington.”

“It seems like a long shot to me.

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