Chapter 46

Louise was feeling very tired, and for a second she closed her eyes. Her left hand spontaneously moved and reached for Kid. She rested her fingers on his thigh and gave it an affectionate squeeze. Today was proving to be unbearable, and she needed to feel Kid by her side. Over the years Louise had gone through very harsh moments, especially when she had lost those dear to her, but the desolation and powerlessness she had now been left with could not be compared to anything she had felt before.

Teaspoon's voice started again, and Louise opened her eyes. She threw a glimpse at Kid, whose blue glance was focused on the men in the bedroom. The cold shine in his eyes and his tightly-pressed lips told Lou about the battle he was fighting inside. Kid was very transparent in his feelings, and most times Louise could foresee what he intended without him opening his mouth to talk.

"What happened with young Jeremiah?"

Teaspoon's question captured Lou's complete attention, and her heart started pounding as she expectantly dreaded her brother-in-law's answer.

Albert shook his head. "I had nothing to do with his death."

"Then who?" the marshal asked, and when Albert kept quiet, Teaspoon added, "Was it your father who killed him then?"

Albert shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't see him do it."

"But you smoothed the way for him, didn't you?" Teaspoon insisted. After his long talks with Lou and the sheriff in Seneca, he was familiar with every single detail of the circumstances under which Jeremiah had been murdered. "Who was Miah supposed to meet that night? Who persuaded him to keep that nightly rendezvous a secret? We all know that young Jeremiah usually didn't go out when the sun set, and if he did, he always told his sister where he went. Who could snare him out of his home that night? Only someone who knew him well enough, for example, his brother-in-law."

Albert averted his eyes, confirming what Teaspoon was hinting at, and Louise could not hold back her tongue this time. "You scum! You killed my baby brother! We trusted you… we welcomed you to our family with open arms! We loved you!"

"I didn't kill him, Louise."

"Don't you dare call my name, you snake! My brother was a wonderful young man, full of life, and you destroyed him! No matter who held the knife that killed him, it was also your doing!" Lou roared with more passion than she had the energy to gather, and tears started springing up to her eyes.

"Sweetheart, why don't you calm down?" the marshal said. "Gettin' this upset can't be good for your health."

"Teaspoon, maybe you should continue your questioning somewhere else," Kid suggested, agreeing that Lou did not need this hassle right now.

"No! Please! I need to listen to everything he has to say! I deserve to know the truth first-hand! I'll behave, I promise."

Teaspoon met Kid's eyes, and the Southerner nodded his head in assent. Louise noticed the exchange, and breathed out. Despite her protests and begging, she knew Teaspoon could take Albert somewhere else whether she wanted or not, and then she could do nothing about it.

Tired of the gun's weight in his hand, the marshal left it on the dresser, folded his arms, and turned around towards Albert again. "Why was Boggs' will in your safe?" Teaspoon blurted out, changing the direction suddenly.

"We… we thought it needed to be kept in a safe place," Albert muttered. "The will was too important to be left anywhere else, and there's nothing suitable for that in my… in the doctor's office."

"How did your father get hold of Boggs' will in the first place?" Cody asked this time.

"He didn't steal it if that's what you're implying!" Albert exclaimed, perceiving Cody's question as an accusation. "Years ago when Boggs was still alive, he and my father did business together. Apparently, Boggs trusted my father more than his usual thugs, so he confided his will to him. Boggs made my father promise he'd look for his children, especially his son, and make sure they received what rightly belonged to them."

"But your father never fulfilled his promise," Cody remarked.

"How could he?" Albert said in a loud tone. "Boggs betrayed him, and because of him, my father was jailed and I had to grow up in an orphanage!"

"You weren't the only one, Albert!" Lou suddenly broke in. "You know, my siblings and I didn't have an easy childhood, and we didn't grow up in a palace!"

"We didn't know that until destiny brought the three of you to us. By then it was already too late."

"Too late?" Teaspoon echoed questioningly. "What do you mean it was too late?" Albert kept quiet, and the marshal ran out of patience. "Sanders!"

With a sigh Albert reluctantly carried on. "By the time Louise and her siblings showed up, Boggs' money was… wasn't completely intact."

"How so?

"After jail, my father was quite hard-up, and making ends meet was almost impossible," Albert explained. "That will worth thousands of dollars was in his possession, and he barely had a penny to his name. So he came up with an idea that would make it possible for us to lay hands on that money. Nobody knew who Jeremiah was, what he looked like, how old he was, so…"

"You impersonated him," Cody finished the thought for him, and Albert nodded reluctantly.

"What happened then?"

"We transferred some of the money to different accounts. It was then we changed our names, and moved around the country quite a lot. After a while, we settled in Seneca where my father was hired. Nobody knew we were related, and we kept it like that as a precaution. In Seneca we bought a couple of properties and some land. We lived quite comfortably even though we didn't dare to use all the money in the will."

"And then the McClouds turned up," Teaspoon pointed out.

Albert turned his eyes to Lou, and said, "If you hadn't shown up at my door, your brother would still be alive today."

Lou's face drained and her whole body stiffened. Albert's words naturally did not sit well with Kid, who barked angrily, "Don't you dare put the blame on my wife! Only you did this! Stop making others feel guilty when it's just your doing!"

Albert snorted disdainfully, ignoring Kid's angry speech and turning his attention back to Teaspoon. "I panicked, but my father convinced me that their showing up was a stroke of good luck because we could now find a way to make all that money legally ours. I wasn't sure I liked his idea of… of getting rid of our… our obstacles. When I married Theresa, we didn't mention our previous plans again. We still had access to the money, and murder was too big a risk. Yet, something unexpected happened."

"What was that?" Teaspoon urged him.

"One year after my wedding, Jeremiah approached me. He had received a strange letter from a lawyer in San Francisco, regarding some unspecified matter of his late father. At once, I knew who the lawyer was and what he might want to talk to Jeremiah about. I'm not sure how he found out the real Jeremiah's address, but the fact was that he did. I started to panic, and that day we decided Jeremiah had to disappear."

Lou's body shook as she heard Albert talk so casually about her brother's life, and she had to make an almost supernatural effort not to shed the tears that strongly pushed behind her eyelids. Noticing her tremble, Kid steeled his hold around her thin frame, and placed a soft kiss on her temple.

Now that Albert had opened Pandora's Box, he gradually felt more and more relaxed, and his words came out easily. "Jeremiah didn't want to tell his sisters about the letter because they always got upset about anything related to their father. That was my luck. I told him that somebody from my office happened to know quite a few lawyers in San Francisco, and he might want to check with my… my colleague that the letter was genuine and the lawyer was trustworthy."

"And that was why he went out that night… to meet your supposed colleague, but he only met his death," Teaspoon stated in a grim tone of voice.

Albert did not comment on the marshal's words, but continued his account. "I was worried Louise would get another letter from that damn lawyer. So I persuaded Theresa to ask her sister to come live with us after Jeremiah's death. That was quite easily done, and that way I could control the mail Jeremiah still received and hers as well. Actually, I intercepted three letters from that nuisance of a lawyer." Albert stopped to catch his breath for a second. "After killing Jeremiah, we knew the path was now open, and Louise was up next. Naturally, we couldn't do it so close to Jeremiah's death. We'd wait for a year or so, but naturally her husband and their plans pushed us to act."

"And what then?" Kid spoke up, unable to keep quiet. "Was Theresa your next victim, or did you plan to run away on her when the money was finally yours?"

Albert shook his head. "Theresa's my wife, and we have a nice home. Why would I want to leave her? I've really grown quite fond of her over the years, and she's a pretty good wife."

Teaspoon noticed Lou's face red with total indignation. If Kid was not holding her, she would already have jumped off the bed and lunged against Albert mercilessly. The marshal tried to redirect the conversation to other matters. "Where's your father, Sanders? Is he still in Seneca?"

Albert sat down and slumped on the chair. His right leg folded on his left one in a too casual way. "I don't know. I'm not his guardian."

"Damn it! If you don't…" Cody exclaimed, angry and frustrated by the man's attitude, but Teaspoon cut him off.

"Cody, Cody, Cody," the marshal said in a too calmed tone. "You can't lose your temper over this. It's understandable that a man wants to protect his father and sacrifice himself for him. Sanders here is right to do so. His father promised him wealth and a carefree life, and if that turned out quite differently, who's to blame? If Sanders has to face his destiny alone, then let it be."

Albert snorted. "I know what you're trying, but that won't work with me."

Teaspoon came closer, and stopped at a few inches, his figure hovering over Albert's threateningly. "Look, sonny. You're already doomed, so erase that haughty smile off your damn face. With or without your help, we'll catch your father and if we don't, that will mean little to your case. You're as good as dead."

A shiver ran down Albert's spine, and suddenly, he came face to face with the dismal destine awaiting him. His whole body started trembling, and he felt a strong urge to cry. His scared eyes lifted to the marshal, and in a soft voice he muttered, "He's here in this town… I don't know where."

As soon as Teaspoon heard him, he said, "Cody, take this poor excuse to the jailhouse, and then find buck. We have another weasel to hunt."

Her eyes unblinkingly strained to see what was happening in the street. Her knuckles were white as tension built up within her. A group of curious citizens had gathered in front of the hotel, and after a while the continuous rumor of their voices stopped at once and their attention shifted in the same direction simultaneously.

Theresa leaned forward, almost pressing her face against the window pane. A few seconds later she could see Teaspoon step from under the wooden canopy sheltering the hotel entrance. While demanding the small crowd to move, he shouldered them out of his way. Behind him came Cody and Buck, flanking Dr. Hill. The physician, shackles around his wrists, walked with eyes downcast, and from her position Theresa could hardly make out the expression of his face.

Sighing, the young woman let the lace curtain drop, blocking her view of the world outside. "He's been arrested," she muttered very softly.

"Fortunately, this nightmare will be over soon," said Jimmy, who was sitting on the only chair in the hotel room. After learning about her husband's part in her sister's decaying condition, Theresa had been inconsolable. Jimmy had escorted her to the hotel where she had sobbed uncontrollably. No words had been spoken, not even when she had seen her husband being dragged to the marshal's office. Theresa had just stood there, by the window, silently crying, and Jimmy had felt he had no comfort to offer.

At Jimmy's comment, Theresa turned to him and shook her head. Her eyes were puffy and swollen, but there were no tears in them for the first time that afternoon. "My nightmare starts now, Jimmy," Theresa let out in a deep sigh and walked closer to her friend. "I feel so sad and angry at the same time, but somehow I still don't know how I really feel about all this."

Jimmy nodded with slow, bobbing motions. "It's understandable, Tessie."

"Has my life in the last four years been nothing but a lie, Jimmy?" the young woman exclaimed loudly. "I thought I was happy. I thought I had everything I could wish. I thought my husband loved me. Now it turns out I've been married to a complete stranger whose name I don't even know! A snake that sneaked into my family with the worst intentions because I was stupid enough to fall for his lies and marry him!"

Hickok rose to his feet and came to stand before the young distressed woman. "Tessie, you shouldn't be so hard on yourself," he said, squeezing her shoulder fondly. "You're a great person with a golden heart. What's happened ain't your fault, honey. There are too many despicable men out there, and you were just unlucky to stumble upon one of them."

"How did I never suspect a thing?" Theresa kept asking. "I've shared my bed with him for the last two years, and I never suspected he had some other ulterior motives."

"Nobody did, honey. Not your sister, and not even Kid when your… when Albert was poisoning his wife under his very nose."

Theresa brushed her hand over her tired face. "Thankfully, Kid had the brilliant idea of bringing Louise here and away from us. Otherwise, she'd be dead now. No wonder Albert got so nervous and almost threw a tantrum when he found them gone," she muttered.

"For once Kid managed to squeeze a good idea out of his dry brain. That was a one-time thing, but don't expect that to happen again," Jimmy joked, trying to lift the young woman's spirits.

Theresa managed to stretch her lips in an awkward, sad smile, but her countenance sobered again as she said, "I feel so cheated, Jimmy."

"I know, sweetheart."

"What am I supposed to do now? What am I gonna do with my life?"

Theresa stared at Jimmy with big eyes, expecting an answer, a miraculous recipe to her now messy life. Jimmy cleared his throat uncomfortably and whispered, "I'm afraid I don't know. But I do know you don't have to do it alone. You have us, Tessie. Your family is here for you."

Theresa's tears that had not gone away too far sprang up to her eyes once again. Jimmy's words had managed to move her more than she could express, and now she felt too small and needy. Her hands reached out for him almost desperately as a sob escaped her mouth. Her face buried in his chest and as her body was cocooned in his arms. Her pain and anger got unleashed as a sensation of warmth and comfort gripped her heart, feeling safe and understood as she leaned against her good friend.