The Sugar Queen Read online

  I peered through the glass window. Snow fell so thickly it was as if there were a gauze in front of my eyes. The Johnson and Olofsson kids usually walked the few blocks to their parents’ shops. I decided right then that it wasn’t safe for them to try to find their way alone. If they lost one another and became disoriented, they might freeze to death. There wouldn’t be room in the sleigh for all of us. Harley would have to take two trips, delaying our trip home. More importantly, the Johnsons and Olofssons would worry if they saw Harley head out of town with some of the students and their own didn’t come home. They might try to come for them, which could lead to disaster.

  They were all in their coats and hats and about to head for the door. “Wait. I’m going with you.” I grabbed the rope from my desk. “Josephine, you stay here with the others. When Harley comes, have him pick me up at the Johnsons’ store.”

  “What’re you doing?” Flynn asked.

  “I’m going to walk them to their parents’ shops. We’re all going to hold on to this rope,” I said to the others as I put on my new coat. “So that no one gets lost.”

  I took the lead, with Martha at the back. “Keep a tight grip and put one foot in front of the other.”

  The moment we were outside, the wind nearly knocked me over. Hard snow stung our faces as we tromped across the schoolyard. “Keep holding tight,” I yelled. The wind made it impossible to know if they heard me or not. We trudged along this way, one foot after the other. Thank goodness for my new coat and boots. The buildings in town were bulky white blocks, but at least they were visible. After what seemed like hours but was only a few minutes, we reached the tailor’s shop. Mrs. Olofsson was at the window, white as a sheet.

  She flung open the door, motioning for the boys to come inside. “Thank goodness. We saw Harley drive by with the others, so I knew you’d closed school early. I was afraid.”

  The boys scurried into the shop and past their mother, chattering excitedly about what a grand adventure we’d had.

  Mr. Olofsson appeared next to his wife. “You’re a smart girl,” he said to me. “With the rope.”

  “I’m headed to the Johnsons’ next.” We didn’t stay for further talk. The girls and I continued our slow pace. My feet had numbed, and my cheeks throbbed from the cold. A few minutes later, we came upon the shop. Mr. Johnson, dressed in his hat and coat, had his hand on the doorknob.

  “Come in, come in,” he said as the girls and I stumbled into the warm room. “I was about to head out to find you.”

  Both Martha and Elsa burst into tears. “We were scared,” Elsa said. “But Miss Cooper said to just hold tight and put one foot in front of the other.”

  Anna Johnson rushed toward us, embracing both her daughters and then me. “You’re so brave, Miss Cooper. Thank you.”

  I hadn’t felt brave, but we were safe, and that was all that mattered now. “I’m going to wait here for Harley.” I explained that he’d taken the farm kids home first and would return for us. “I didn’t want to wait for his return for fear you’d worry and try to come for them.”

  “We saw them drive past, so we knew,” Anna said. “Sven was about to leave. If you hadn’t been so smart with the rope, who knows what would’ve happened.”

  Sven patted me on the arm. “Thank you for keeping my girls safe.”

  “It’s my duty to protect them,” I said. “I’d never put them in harm’s way if I could possibly help it.”

  When Harley pulled up in front of the store, Alexander was with him. I waved goodbye to the Johnsons and ran out the door. Alexander met me halfway and scooped me into his arms and carried me to the sleigh. “I was worried sick. What made you do such a foolish thing?”

  “I couldn’t risk the parents coming for them,” I said.

  “You foolish, courageous woman.” He tucked me into the seat and slid in next to me.

  As we set out, I looked back at the children. With the snow and the dim light, it was hard to make out their faces. Theo had stayed home, so Li sat next to Flynn in the back seat. He stared at me with his dark eyes and smiled. “Is school always like this?” he asked.

  “No, this was unusual,” I said.

  Cymbeline sniffed.

  “Cym and Jo were crying,” Alexander said in my ear. “Worried for you.”

  “No more tears,” I said. “I’m perfectly fine, and now we’ll go home and have tea with Lizzie and tell her all about our adventure.”

  “We were scared you were dead,” Cymbeline said. “In the snow like our mama.”

  My poor babies, I thought. Of course that’s what they feared. “I had the rope and no intention of dying,” I said. “Do you know why? Because I can’t stand the thought of not coming home to you.”

  Flynn shouted from the back. “I told them all you’d make it just fine. No one’s as tough or clever as you, Miss Quinn.”

  Touched by his belief in me, I had to swallow a lump in my throat before I thanked him.

  “Next time I want to come with you,” Flynn shouted.

  We turned left out of town and had just rounded a thicket of trees when I saw a small figure slumped over a snowdrift. A cold shot of fear coursed through me. The motionless body was a little girl in a patchwork coat. Louisa. She’d been there a while, given the inches of snow that covered her. I yelled for Harley to stop.

  “Look there. In the snow.” I pointed toward the unmoving body. “It’s Louisa.” Without thinking, I jumped from the sleigh and ran to her with Alexander on my heels.

  I fell to my knees beside her. Curled in a ball with her hands under her cheeks, she looked peaceful and dreadfully still. Please God, let her still be alive. I lifted her arm and felt for a pulse at her wrist. Faint but there. “She has a pulse.” Her arms were as skinny as young birch tree limbs. Even in the dim light I could see the blue veins under her white skin.

  “We’ll take her to our house,” Alexander said as he lifted her from the icy snowdrift. By this time, Harley had joined us, having asked Flynn to take his place in the driver’s seat. There was no need, however. Louisa couldn’t have weighed more than fifty pounds. She hung as limply as a rag doll in Alexander’s arms.

  He positioned her inside, brushing snow from her coat and ratty knit cap. I tucked blankets around her. What had she been doing out in the snowstorm?

  We sat on either side of her. Our warmth would help, I thought, as Harley took the reins from Flynn. “What was she doing out here?” I asked as Flynn settled back next to Li.

  “She might’ve been going to town for food,” Alexander said.

  The children were deathly quiet. Even Flynn looked scared. I wanted to reassure them that everything would be all right, but I wasn’t at all certain that was true.

  We took Louisa upstairs to the spare bedroom across from mine. I asked Alexander to send Merry up to help. “I want to get her into some warm clothes and into this bed.”

  “I’ll ask Josephine for a dressing gown for her,” Alexander said.

  Merry came, and between the two of us we were able to get her out of her cold, wet clothes. Louisa’s eyes opened the moment we had her out of her dress and stockings. “Miss Cooper? Where am I?” She had only a thin slip on, and her skin was blue from cold.

  “Hi, Louisa, you’re at the Barneses’ home. We found you in the snow.”

  “I needed to find food.” She wrapped her skinny arms around her waist.

  “Let’s run her a hot bath,” I said.

  Merry sprang up and was out of the room before I even finished the sentence.

  “A bath?” Louisa asked.

  “Yes, warm water will feel good.”

  “Warm water?” she asked, as if I were speaking another language.

  “We’ll get you clean and fed, and then you can tell me what happened.”

  I wrapped a blanket around her and took her across the hall to the steamy bathroom. As we helped her into the water, I saw skinny purple bruises on her lower back and buttocks. Bruises that could only come from a belt or
a switch. They were in multiple shades of purple from different beatings. This poor child. She would not be going home to that bastard if it was the last thing I ever did.

  With Merry on one side and me on the other, we gently scrubbed her skin and lathered her hair. I searched for nits in her fine white-blond hair, but found nothing. After a few minutes in the warm water, she stopped shivering. When we had her scrubbed properly, I helped her out of the tub and dried her with a soft towel.

  “I’ll go see about a tray of food for her,” Merry said.

  Josephine had left a flannel nightgown hanging on a hook behind the door. Louisa sagged against me as I slipped the nightgown over her head.

  I carried her back into the bedroom and pulled the covers over her. Louisa trembled and let out a small, sad sigh.

  “Are you sleepy?” I asked. “Do you want to eat first?”

  She nodded. “I went to town for food,” she whispered. “But the butcher shop was closed. We have nothing at the house to eat. Pa’s been asleep since last night.”

  Asleep? Passed out was more likely.

  Merry came in with a tray of chicken soup and some of Lizzie’s freshly baked sourdough bread.

  “Is that for me?” Louisa asked.

  “It is. Can you eat it all up for me?” I set the tray over her lap.

  “Yes, Miss Cooper.”

  Her hand shook as she brought a spoonful to her mouth. She took a timid sip, then another, then another. I buttered a piece of bread for her, and she gobbled that down next.

  When she’d had enough, I set the tray on the dresser and returned to the bed. I adjusted the pillows, so she was less upright. “Louisa, why didn’t you go home after you came to town?”

  “I was out looking for food,” she said. “Sometimes I can find berries or a dead bird.”

  A dead bird? Goodness, this poor child.

  Louisa’s gaze never left my face. It was as if she were watching to make sure I didn’t leave. “If I come home without anything, Pa gets mad.”

  “Does your pa beat you if you don’t bring home food?”

  “Yeah. And other things too.”

  “Like what?”

  “We play the hunter game. He chases me through the woods. I’m the deer.”

  Chills traveled the length of my body.

  “If he catches me, I get a beating. I deserve it because I’m not fast. He says he’s teaching me how to survive.”

  “Does he ever shoot his gun at you?”

  “Sometimes. Just to scare me. He thinks that’s fun.” She shuddered. “One time he almost hit me. I felt it go right past my ear. He laughed and laughed when I fell to the ground.”

  I tried to steady my breathing, but my pulse raced. The hunter game. What if he’d been playing that the night Samuel was killed? Had he been firing his gun to scare his little girl and killed Samuel by mistake? Did he know he did it?

  “Did you ever see any other people during your game?” I asked.

  “Only once. A man in a black jacket was out by a shed.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “I think so. He shouted something, but I didn’t stop. I was too afraid.” A shadow of a smile crossed her face. “That night I got away. Pa shot two times, but he didn’t get me. I got to the house and hid under the bed, but he never came home. I fell asleep. The next morning, he was back.”

  I drew in a deep breath to steady my nerves. “Was that the same night the bullet whizzed past your ear?”

  “No, that was a different time. These shots seemed far away. I was running fast and not looking back because that’s when the enemy will get you, like Pa taught me.”

  I got up from the bed and went to the window. This bedroom faced the barn. The doors were open, and I could see Harley brushing the horses. “You’re going to stay with us for a while.”

  “I can’t. I need to go to Pa.” She sat up and pushed back the covers. “He’ll beat me real bad if I don’t come home with food.”

  “We’ll let him know where you are and that you’re going to be a guest for a few days.”

  “But he needs food. I was supposed to bring it back to him.”

  “Would you feel better if we took some meals out to him? Would that get you to rest?”

  She nodded, but her face remained pinched and worried. “I guess so.”

  “Now lie down and close your eyes.”

  Louisa turned on her side and tucked her hands under her chin. “This is such a soft bed.” Her eyelids fluttered, then closed. I tucked the covers more securely around her small frame and sat watching her. She twitched as she drifted off to sleep. What would become of this poor, hunted child?

  I paced in front of the fireplace as I described to Alexander and Jasper what the little girl had told me. I’d never before seen Jasper sink into anything, always stiff and formal, but for the first time, he collapsed onto a chair. “Dear God,” he said.

  “It’s like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe story,” Alexander said. “We have to get her away from that man.”

  Neither of them seemed to have grasped the other possibility. “What if they were out in the woods the night Samuel was killed? What if Kellam shot him by accident?”

  What was left of Alexander’s color drained from his face. “Kellam’s shack is not far from their property.”

  “He might not have even known he did it,” I said.

  “There were two shots,” Jasper said. “Aimed right into the middle of his chest.”

  “It can’t be accidental then,” Alexander said.

  My mind raced ahead of the two men. “Samuel saw them. He saw what he was doing to Louisa. She said Samuel called out to her. Then there was shouting and two gunshots. Kellam shot Samuel because of what he saw.”

  “Rachel didn’t hear voices,” Alexander said.

  “Didn’t you tell me she was playing the piano?” I asked. “She might not have heard voices, just the gunshots.”

  “Yes, and the music room is on the other side of the house,” Alexander said.

  “What do we do?” I asked.

  “We go into town and tell the sheriff what we know,” Alexander said. “And pray he’ll do something about it this time.”

  “Not in this weather,” I said. “We’ll wait until morning. There’s nothing he can do between now and the time this storm passes.”

  Chapter 28

  Alexander

  * * *

  The next morning, we woke to clear skies and five feet of new snow. Harley hitched the horses to the snowplow, and the two of us went into town. We cleared our driveway and the road that led to town. He dropped me at the sheriff’s office, promising to return for me after he plowed the streets of town.

  Through the window of the sheriff’s office, I spotted Lancaster asleep with his feet up on the desk. I startled him awake when I burst through the door.

  “What? What the hell, Barnes? You scared me.”

  I hid how pleasing that was to me with a quick apology. “I’ve got some information for you.” The sheriff’s office also contained our jail, which consisted of a small cell behind steel bars. Most of the time, it remained empty. Today was no exception.

  “You know, Barnes, your obsession with Cole’s death has become tedious. Aren’t you busy enough seducing the schoolteacher to let this alone?”

  I’ve never wanted to punch someone as badly in my life. “Keep Miss Cooper out of this.”

  He shrugged. “Everyone knows she’s living with you. Tongues wag, you know. Most folks think she’s no better than a common whore at this point.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “Every parent in this town loves her.”

  “Not what I hear from the boys down at Carter’s.”

  “We’ve already established their lack of moral character,” I said, “when they wanted a man dead for marrying the woman he loved.”

  “What do you want?” he asked. “I’ve got a game over at the saloon in a few minutes.”

  I laid out the entire
story. “We have her at the house and have no intention of sending her home to that murderer. I hope you’ll take it seriously this time and go out and question him.”

  Lancaster took one of his rolled cigarettes from his pocket. “See here, Barnes. It’s not our job to take a young one from her father.”

  “Her father killed Samuel Cole. She has bruises from beatings. He hunts her like an animal.” I gestured toward his unlit cigarette. “He burns her with his cigarettes. Isn’t that cause enough?”

  He struck a match against the rough desk and lit his cigarette. “We don’t know all that to be true.” He took a deep drag, then let out the smoke as if we had all the time in the world. I wanted to strangle him with my bare hands.

  “Thing is, no one here cares about how Cole died. As far as I’m concerned, a man has the right to do with his daughter whatever he pleases. Also, it seems to me that this is nothing more than coincidence. We have no evidence it was his gunshots that killed Cole.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You’re going to do nothing about this?”

  “Can’t say as there’s much to do.”

  “Listen here, you can arrest me, but I’m not letting Louisa go home to a man who thinks it’s a funny game to hunt his own child.”

  He laughed the phlegmy snigger of a heavy smoker. “Barnes, what happens between you and Kellam is your own business. You think you can steal his kid and get away with it, then by all means, take your chances.”

  I leaned over the desk and snatched the foul cigarette from his mouth. “Listen here, you son of a bitch.” I put the cigarette out on the sleeve of his cowskin jacket. He flinched as the tip burned a hole through the thick material. I pulled back before it burned his skin, even though I would have loved to see him yelp in pain. Tossing the cigarette aside, I drew closer, inches from his face. “You can bet your corrupt ass I’m going to take my chances. As far as you go—I’d suggest you start thinking about a different town to do absolutely nothing in but drink whiskey and play cards. This is my town. The people in it deserve a fair sheriff.”