Texas Sun ~ Opening and Links

 Texas Sun ~ Means. Motive. Opportunity

The grime of a working oil field draws together people at odds with the summer heat and with each other.

In the heady flush of a new romance, Nedda tries to ignore the blazing tensions, yet troubling shadows have gathered.

Then Death makes his entrance, and the grim pressures erupt.

LINKS Below.

. ~ . ~ . ~ .

Opening ~ 1 ~ Means

The morning blasted, bright white.

Colfax Ingram grabbed Nedda’s arm and jerked her behind the cab of the big Army truck as a second explosion shuddered the oil patch.

Shouts erupted. Debris rained onto the steel truck hood. She cowered against the mud-caked wheel as pings and clangs and clunks broke over them. Colfax crouched beside her until the debris stopped pinging on the Liberty truck. Then he leaped to his feet and ran toward the yelling men.

Nedda straightened and braced a hand on the steel heated by the Texas sun. She dreaded looking toward the drilling floor.

Her tall Texan, closer to the explosion and danger, remained upright.

The oil derrick remained erect, ninety feet into the blue sky, not yet hazed with summer heat. Leroy clung to the top and shouted down.

Her Hank deflected questions from Denny, the youngest roustabout. Colfax loped toward them.

The motorman Fuller levered up from the engine. He had flung himself across the equipment that ran the bit chipping deep into the ground. Centered under the derrick, O’Hara swung a chain to release it from the pipe.

Beyond the planked drilling platform, the job foreman Rhode Tabbert and the driller Witt straightened from their crouch. They’d been shack-side of the platform, closest to the explosion, and the shockwave had rolled over them first. Tab brushed dirt from his shoulders. Witt spat on the ground then peered at the derrick’s top. He gestured at Leroy then turned back to Tab.

Heart beating again, Nedda looked for the explosion’s cause.

Splintered planks, twisted pipes, and warped tin littered the ground beyond the derrick, flung outward from a churned-up crater in the desert floor. The tool shack had disappeared.

She came around the Liberty’s front and perched on the heavy steel bumper. Her movement caught Hank’s attention. He tapped his head then pointed at her. She sighed then fetched his battered hat from the cab and crammed it on her head. Then she picked her way to the derrick, watching the ground to avoid curled pieces of knife-sharp tin and shards of splintered wood.

The explosion had catapulted the drilling pipes stacked beside the tool shack. Twisted and bent, they littered the desert. None had landed near the truck.

As she approached, Leroy began his climb down. At 90 feet in the air, he more than doubled the distance from the truck to the destroyed shack, but he reached the drilling platform before she reached Hank and the others.

She stepped over a twisted and torn pipe, unusable. The drilling would have to stop now.

Hank McElroy shouted at the motorman. Fuller bent to the engine. It sputtered to a stop, leaving a strange silence.

Broken by raised voices. Tab and Witt, arguing. Again.

Nedda reached the men. Without looking, Hank stretched back his hand. She took it, and he drew her to his side.

Colfax started around the drilling platform.

“Stop, boy,” O’Hara snapped.

He stopped, but the twitch of his shoulders expressed disagreement. “The danger is over.”

“Let O’Hara go first,” Hank said.

“I’ll go with you.” Of an age with Colfax, Denny had revived with the excitement.

“Ain’t no reason,” O’Hara groused. “Ain’t nothing left.” They all looked at the cratered epicenter of the explosion.

Fuller wiped his hands on a greasy rag. “No more drillin’ without new pipe.” He nudged a warped pipe with his boot. “Can’t use nothin’ of what we had.”

“When does the next train run?” Hank asked, a question Tab should answer, but he was ensnarled in another argument with Witt.

None of the roustabouts looked at the two men who had charge of the oil patch. “Thursday,” Fuller said.

Hank wiped the sweat trickling down his temple. He gave a short nod, moving ahead without Tab and Witt. “I’ll telephone the office to send a shipment.”

“You do that.” The motorman rubbed his stubbly jaw as he looked over the debris field. “I guess we’ll clean up the mess.”

Denny groaned.

“I’ll be back to help after I contact the office.” Hank turned toward the truck.

“Wait.” Nedda dragged down his hand and dug her brogans into the sand of the desert. “What caused the explosion?”

Hank stopped. He gave no sign of the need for haste, only a willingness to accept her question as necessary. In the three weeks since they’d met in New Orleans, not once had he slighted her input, treating her like a partner as well as a beloved, a courtship that she preferred over flowery words.

O’Hara sighed heavily. He wiped his brow then re-settled his hat. “Might’ve been me. Weren’t no problems with the refining barrels this morning, but I might should’ve checked it closer.”

“How much oil had you refined?”

“Enough to run the engine for a week. The diesel we had were running low.”

“That’d account for the second explosion,” Fuller mused.

“Yep.”

“Then what the f—beggin’ yer pardon, ma’am.” Denny flushed under his work grime. The bruising sliding under his right eye flared purple. “What the heck caused the first explosion?”

“What indeed?” Hank sounded grim.

He had a right to be grim. The oil patch was nearly a year beyond the predicted two years of drilling. In the last few months one problem after another had plagued the roustabouts, troubles enough that Texas Petroleum and Refining had first sent Rhode Tabbert as foreman to speed up drilling and then sent Hank to determine if the patch was worth further investment.

And Hank had asked Nedda to accompany him. Curious about field drilling and pleased at his invitation, she accepted. Colfax came with her, off for the summer months from the Sacred Heart Academy.

“Tab, get over here,” Hank shouted.

The argument stopped.

The foreman came, trailed by the driller who ran the oil patch.

Nedda hadn’t determined the problem between the two men. Tab had a forceful personality and snapped his orders, but he worked alongside the men. He didn’t have the experience of Witt and O’Hara, but he knew engines and stringing pipe as well as Fuller. Witt’s nasal twang edged across bone, but he’d grown up drilling oil. What he didn’t know wasn’t worth knowing. He didn’t lay about with his orders. Tab irked the man, and Witt didn’t let a day pass without a handful of arguments.

She glanced around the gathered men. Luck had saved them from injury, but the explosion could have seriously harmed one or more of them.

Or killed one of them.

Cold ran over her, dissipating the summer heat.

While Hank spoke with Tab and the roustabouts, she turned to Colfax. “Are you coming to town?”

“I’ll stay here. Give them a hand with clean-up.” He grinned, a sudden shift of his oft-solemn face. His grey eyes had a curious gleam. “Maybe find out how crude oil is turned into diesel.”

“You do that.”

He gave an abrupt nod then turned away, punching Denny high on his arm. The two trotted away to gather ruined pipes.

Hank caught her hand. “We’re going.”

When her tall Texan moved, he dropped that slow drawl and went. She had to lengthen her stride to keep up.

Tab’s presence at the truck surprised her, but it made sense. The foreman would know the number of supplies the office would need to replace.

Hank boosted her to the driver’s seat and climbed up as she slid to the middle. Tab waited at the grill to prime the engine. He stared at the oil patch.

Hank fiddled with the gears. “Crank it.”

Tab gave three hard, fast turns. The Liberty’s engine sputtered then caught with a revving roar. As he came around the engine cab, Nedda opened the passenger door. He climbed in as the big motor sputtered then settled into a muted roar.

Hank leaned forward and unclamped the wind shield. He motioned, and Tab copied him. With the glass down, the wind from their movement would cool the building heat.

“What was it this time?”

Tab grunted. “Same old, same old.”

Nedda caught a breath, but Hank said nothing. He turned the army truck in a tight circle then headed for the track that aimed for the town. The Liberty bounced over rocks, jostling them on the hard seat. She leaned into Hank to avoid bumping Tab. The breeze tugged at her hat, and she dragged it off her head to hold in her lap.

Hank didn’t wait long. “Tell me.” He raised his voice over the motor and wind. “Or is he still on about giving Stevie’s money back?”

“That, too.”

“What’s first?”

Tab watched the scrub of the passing desert, wattle and mesquite, the tall blooms of agave cactus and clumps of creosote brush. A tall bird streaked from under a mesquite and ran across the track to disappear in burnt red rocks. “Witt thinks we’re drilling in the wrong place.”

“Now he agrees with you? Nearly three years on this patch, he’s argued that there’s oil in the hole, and now he decides you’re right?”

“We’re not as deep as we could be. We’ve had bad luck. Drill bit broken. Engine giving out or blown to bits. Pipes the wrong size. Other patches aren’t having these problems. We should strike soon.”

“Tab, what are you saying?” Hank shifted gears as the truck labored up a rise. “Now you think there’s oil here?”

Tab compressed his lips and looked back at the desert. “I think it interesting that Witt wants to find another patch on the same day that the shack exploded.”

“Sabotage?!”

Tab shrugged. “It’s a dirty word, but it fits.”

“Witt has brought in wells for us before.”

“I’m not accusing. Maybe it is coincidence.”

“You think Witt and O’Hara—.”

“I don’t know what to think, and that’s truth, Mac. My gut’s telling me, told me all morning, that we’re close. It’s deep and massive, and we just need faith.”

“Your gut’s telling you to keep the faith?”

Tab huffed a laugh. “Yep, exactly that. And for you to use the `phone at Doc Turner’s.”

“Not the depot?”

“Nor the grocer’s,” Nedda added, naming the most public of the three telephones in town.

She said nothing about the explosion. She kept quiet whenever Hank talked with Tab about the oil business. Conversation about Texas P & R didn’t concern her. She did question whatever affected Ingram & Son Investments, for she had responsibility and interest in that company. In her travels with her late employer Hyatt Ingram, she’d gleaned information about leases and mineral rights and contracts. She knew finances and the business side of petroleum. High up in Texas P & R, Hank knew both sides of the oil industry.

Convinced of oil in west Texas, Texas P & R used science and common sense to sink three wells in the vastness of Hartman County. The first well, close to the town clustered around the depot, had come in with a gush and enough oil to pay for its investment. It ran slow, though, and sputtered, promising a bust rather than a boom. Buzzard No. 2, dry for two years, was abandoned to throw all efforts at the third site. Buzzard No. 3 gave just enough oil to promise more further down.

If Buzzard No. 3 came in, it would be the first benefit the town had seen since its founding in the far-off dry past of the Chichuahuan desert. The land didn’t welcome them, producing nothing in soil baked by a blazing sun into dry rock and sand. The people depended on trucked-in food to survive. Only nocturnal animals and spiny or thorny plants thrived in Hartman County.

At Nedda’s warning about the gossip that spread when people overheard telephone conversations, Hank swore.

The Liberty truck jerked over a rock and ground to the top of the rise, offering a wider view of the desert.

He leaned forward, glaring at Tab. “What was the argument this morning?”

“Witt wants to move a mile to the south.”

“We don’t have a mineral rights agreement one mile to the south.”

“No, we don’t. And we’re not likely to get it. At least, I’m not. Land’s owned by Collier.”

“The railroad clerk?”

Nedda’s wince echoed Hank’s. Mr. Collier worked for the railroad. A lonely man with a lonely occupation, time had aged him early. He remained protective of the people in “my town”. When Hank had arrived, Mr. Collier approached him with complaints that the people who’d signed leases to Texas P & R had been duped.

“We can offer him an improved lease.”

“He won’t sign it.” Tab sounded sure, his gaze on a trail of Texas longhorns maneuvering through a thicket of mesquite. “He’s not an easy one to talk to.”

“If the oil comes in,” Nedda said quietly, “he’ll be a wealthy man. Have you pointed that out? It would matter to some.”

“Don’t see it mattering to Collier,” Hank rebutted. “He likes being cranky and lonely.”

She glanced at Hank. How had he missed—? She shook her head. Sometimes men missed the obvious. “He’s in love with Millie Donovan.”

“So?”

“She’s in love with the idea of leaving Hartman County. She knows an oil man will eventually leave a no-name town and take his new wife with him. Out of here. Gone for good.”

Hank paused the truck to pick the track down the rise. “Explain to a blind man, please.”

“Tab’s an oil man.”

Beside her, Tab stiffened. Hank looked around her at the foreman. “I haven’t seen you with Millie.”

Tab kept watching the cattle. “No, that’s over.”

Three words, but they confirmed what Nedda had guessed after a single evening of watching the young beauty interact with the oil men. Millie had ignored Tab the entire evening.

Hank looked confused. “She flirts with Denny.”

“That’s not serious. Denny isn’t important to her. He’s too young.”

Tab grunted. “She didn’t stop her brother when Stevie punched Denny.”

“Exactly. She didn’t care. She has her sights set on Leroy or Fuller. I haven’t decided which one. She may not have decided.” Tab shifted, uncomfortable with Nedda’s insights. She continued, undeterred. “Leroy might be more impressionable, but he’s a stubborn streak. Fuller’s steady. Or maybe she wants to make Mr. Tabbert jealous.”

Very carefully, Tab leaned away from her, pressing against the truck door as if she were a sybil to avoid.

“Witt would see all of that,” Nedda added, more certain now, “especially since he watches everything after he leaves the poker game. He sees how Millie serves Mr. Green without interacting with him, that she blushes whenever Mr. Collier compliments her, that she tries to coax Stevie not to risk so much during the game. She teases Denny, and she flutters her eyelashes at Fuller and Leroy. And Witt watches all of you.”

“Trouble all around,” Hank said and started the truck down the rise.

The big Liberty jolted and slipped over rocks, but gradually it crept closer to the distant cluster of buildings that formed the no-name town around the Hartman County railroad depot.

. ~ . ~ . ~ .

“Texas Sun” is the second of three novelettes in this tie-in series to M.A. Lee’s Sailing Into Mystery stories and Into Death novels featuring the artist Isabella Newcombe Tarrant. Nedda Courtland enters 1925 America with these stories as she is Courting Trouble.

. ~ . ~ . ~ .

LINKS

Zon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FH5VHQ4V

B2R https://books2read.com/u/4XM6k6

Spanish Moss / Opening and Links

 A Death, a Will, and a Way ~ "Spanish Moss"

“Poison” is one of the last words Nedda Courtland’s employer says to her.

Private secretary to a wealthy financier, Nedda has maintained a very British poise as she traveled the world. The New Orleans of 1925 brings it own unique flavor to her experiences. Yet nothing prepares her for Hyatt Ingram’s claim of murder in the hours before his death.

With no evidence as proof, she can only fulfill Mr. Ingram’s last wishes. Holding his absent son’s voting proxy and a new will, Nedda expects the murderer to emerge in the chaos she will create as executrix.

She never expects another murder.

“Spanish Moss” is the first of three novelettes in this tie-in series to M.A. Lee’s Sailing Into Mystery stories and Into Death novels featuring the artist Isabella Newcombe Tarrant. Nedda Courtland enters 1925 America with these stories as she is Courting Trouble.

Opening ~ The Death

In all her years as Hyatt Ingram’s private secretary, Nedda Courtland had disagreed with several of his decisions but never more so than when he was dying.

She’d returned from delivering his grandson Colfax to the Sacred Heart Academy and found him confined to his deathbed. He ignored his doctor’s advice to stay calm and quiet. He commanded his third wife to leave his bedchamber. He demanded that Louisiana Oil Company not delay the upcoming vote on investments from his company Ingram & Son.

His son Sheridan, though, was half-a-continent away, in California.

Had he contacted his son about his failing health? No. Had he notified his grandson Colfax or his secretary Nedda? No. He expected everything to follow the schedule.

Nedda did her job by restoring order to the swirling chaos. The maid stopped flapping about and hied to the kitchens to have a medicinal tisane prepared. The manservant came out of his corner and helped adjust the pillows and straighten the bedcovers, trying to make Mr. Ingram comfortable. The doctor drew Nedda into the suite’s central reception to convey his diagnosis. Then he retreated with a murmured “Matter of hours, Miss Courtland, not days.”

In all his years, no matter how dire the situation, Mr. Ingram had never fretted. Perching on the side of his expansive bed, Nedda covered his writhing hands with her own. His skin felt dry, papery. His eyes were bleary and reddened. His extreme pallor and shortened breaths worried her more than the doctor’s diagnosis.

He looked up at her and swallowed, an effort.

“I will get you some water.”

“No.” His fingers tightened on hers. “Colfax?”

“Settled at the Academy.”

“Problems?”

“None, sir.”

“You’ll need to wire Sheridan.”

A wire rather than a telephone call. The old man knew his son would be difficult to contact. “I will have them bring a telephone into the suite. When he rings, you can speak with him.”

He huffed, lost his breath, then grabbed at it with rapid inhalations. When his breathing was steady, he asked, “You have his proxy?”

Mr. Ingram knew that she did. They had talked about the proxy numerous times on the train from San Francisco. He had discussed how she would need to vote for Sheridan in the investment meeting with LOC. She also had Sheridan’s power of attorney, for she had needed both documents to enroll Colfax in the Sacred Heart Academy. Nedda peered into her employer’s eyes and saw a vagrant confusion that she’d missed earlier.

And that’s when she knew the doctor’s diagnosis was correct.

“Mr. Ingram, what happened? You were not ailing when I left with Colfax, five days ago.”

He licked his dry lips. His eyes slewed sideways, to the manservant standing quietly.

“Bring Mr. Ingram a brandy,” she ordered with brisk efficiency.

“Miss Courtland, you’re in America now,” the manservant protested. Hired on their arrival in New Orleans, he thought he needed to explain the laws of the United States to these British visitors. “We’re under Prohibition here. Where in this town am I to find brandy?”

“I am certain you can locate a place. The concierge should know a source.”

“The doctor said—.”

“Given the diagnosis, I hardly think that a brandy will injure Mr. Ingram’s health.” She waited until the chamber door shut before checking his pulse. His heart fluttered rapidly, faintly. “Tell me.”

“Poison.”

The word shocked her, but she didn’t doubt it. In their travels for Ingram & Son Investments, they’d seen many odd and unexplainable things, especially in Arabia and the Orient. Mr. Ingram believed someone had poisoned him, and she didn’t question that belief. His body might fail him, but his mind was still sharp, still penetrating, still seeing traps and snares that other businessmen missed.

Hyatt Ingram had used those wits to amass a substantial fortune long before Nedda encountered him, and he had tripled it since the Great War ended, investing in the worldwide petroleum industry.

She did have one question. “Has the doctor—?”

“Didn’t believe me. Says my heart was weak. He listens to Giselle.” He had to pause between each statement and gather strength.

Giselle, his third wife—the new bride. A mistake in Arizona that Mr. Ingram had enjoyed making. He’d shared with Nedda that the marriage wouldn’t last more than three years. She hadn’t thought it would last a year. Giselle hooked him in San Francisco and spent her last dime to follow them to Phoenix where they married. He wanted to be her savior, yet he knew she loved his wallet, not him.

Nedda shook herself mentally. “Do you think she—?”

“Think it was that cicisbeo Clement LaFoy or the accountant or that lawyer LaFoy brought in or that wildcatter.”

His eyes drifted closed, giving her a chance to mull over his claim.

That tight little circle had formed since their arrival in New Orleans. The suave LaFoy represented Louisiana Oil, where Jamison Parker was chief accountant, financial advisor, and a guarantor with the local banks. Hank McElroy represented the other petroleum company, the wildcatter firm Texas Petroleum and Refining. The lawyer Henderson Beaumont III was intended to be a neutral party, overseeing the negotiations that would be presented at the LOC meeting where the owners and chief officers would vote on investments from Ingram & Son and from the Texas firm. Ingram had squeaked into LOC two years ago with a financial investment that stabilized the company after a boom-and-bust cycle, and now he had privileges to vote for his increased ownership of the company.

Sly man.

Not sly enough to anticipate a threat. Not savvy enough to avoid poison.

She looked through the open balcony doors. The suite on the top floor gave a view beyond the surrounding buildings. On a far street, the canopy of an old live oak peered above the roofs. Even at this distance, she could see the clusters of Spanish moss draping the boughs. A breeze drifted in, warm in these days of Spring although the natives claimed it was cold.

Nedda envisioned that aged live oak, its massive trunks braced on the ground, bent at crooked angles. The crimped moss looked like the hoary beards of old men.

And the ground underneath would be littered with blackened acorns.

LaFoy and Beaumont. Parker and McElroy. Were they the limbs of a conspiracy to drive Ingram & Son Investments out of LOC?

Or did one of the four men act alone?

Or was it Giselle and LaFoy?

Or someone she didn’t know to suspect?

They all received a black mark on the mental tally Nedda was keeping.

“Had a solicitor brought in.”

She quickly turned back to Mr. Ingram. His eyes still looked bleary, but his gaze was sharp, watching her, telling her what she needed to know. “A solicitor? Mr. Beaumont?”

“No, not that fool. Alexander Chatto.”

“A new will?” she guessed.

His clutch felt slippery, as if his muscles were sliding out of his control. “You have Sheridan’s proxy for dealing with Colfax?” he asked again. “You’ll have to act for me as well.”

“Where is this new will?”

“Chatto has it. He’s only to give a copy to you or my son.”

“And Giselle?”

The corner of his lip lifted, a simple indication that meant he’d set an unexpected trap. “She’ll have her portion, but she won’t be getting her fingers into my company.”

Voices in the outer reception reached them, a woman and a man then another man.

A knock on the chamber door. Mr. Ingram released her hand and touched a finger to his lip.

She nodded then stood and smoothed down her skirt.

The manservant came in with the brandy.

Mr. Ingram shot a hard glance at Nedda. “I’ll rest now. I’m tired.”

That dismissed her, but she didn’t intend to return to her own room on a lower floor. Five days away meant a backlog of work for her, correspondence and wires and more. Much would become unnecessary were Mr. Ingram to die.

She wanted to think more about this poison. If they knew what kind of poison, the doctor might save Mr. Ingram.

Or not.

She composed her face and went out to Giselle and Clement LaFoy, a convenient paramour since he had tight connections to Louisiana Oil.

One glance revealed the reason Hyatt Ingram had married Giselle Hampton. The platinum blonde was stunning even when her makeup was not immaculate. She wore a shimmering silk day dress in the current flapper style. With her hair coifed in a fluffy bob, her mouth shaped into a Cupid’s bow, mascara making her wide blue eyes dramatic, she was a porcelain doll that deserved her place on the shelf where her husband’s money would have kept her.

Two porters bowed as they collected tips from her for the dozen packages they had carried into the room. The name of a fashionable boutique was scrolled across several. Nedda said nothing, but Giselle sprang to her own defense. “Just fancy! They have styles direct from Paris.”

Clement LaFoy finished lighting a cigarette for Giselle. He placed it in a silvered holder and passed it to the woman. “I doubt Miss Courtland would recognize avant garde style, my dear.”

Nedda managed to hide a wince, for she loved fashion. Her job enabled occasional indulgences, Chanel or Lanvin or Molyneux, as long as the clothes fit her taste and Mr. Ingram’s strict requirements for an unobtrusive secretary.

LaFoy dropped into a club chair and swung one leg over the other. He looked elegant in a silvery suit and mauve tie. He pomaded his black hair and affected a hairline mustache. From the beginning she found him slick as a cat and unconcerned as long as the world didn’t touch him. She had never liked cats.

He blew a smoke ring then asked, “How is Colfax? How much did he protest that school?”

Colfax was an English youth stuffed into a Catholic boarding school in an extremely rural parish of Louisiana. He should have been with his peers at Harrow or Eton, but his father had wanted time with the boy after returning from the war. Six years had now passed, and still Colfax traveled with the Ingram men. Yet his father was currently still in San Francisco and his grandfather, hale a week ago, was now failing.

A prominent bishop of San Francisco wrote a letter of introduction for the Anglican youth, but it was the substantial donation that won him admission into the Sacred Heart Academy, for even the half-year mark was well past. Colfax had been on his best behavior when introduced to the headmaster and a couple of the deans. He politely thanked her for her role in winning him entry.

She had misliked his bland expression.

When deeply bored, Colfax was known for pranks. She wasn’t certain the academy was prepared for him.

Yet neither Giselle nor LaFoy had ever considered Colfax. The question was meant to fill the air. Nedda gave it the response it deserved rather than the truth. “I think he will find it an interesting interlude.”

LaFoy tapped ash from his cigarette onto a crystal tray on a polished ebony side table. “He’ll enjoy himself, off his grandfather’s leash.”

Giselle was opening boxes, flinging the lids to the floor followed by the tissues that had protected the gowns. She lifted out a black silk shimmering with beads then dropped it to pick up a pale pink confection with a dropped waist fitted at the hip and lace overlaying the underskirt. “This one is for dancing tonight in the Blue Room. Have you danced there yet, Miss Courtland? Oh, you wouldn’t have, without an escort, would you? It is glorious.”

Nedda sidestepped a wafting tissue. “When did Mr. Ingram take a turn for the worse?”

Giselle peered into a rainbow beaded bag and didn’t bother to answer. LaFoy blew smoke toward Nedda. “He woke ill the morning after you left with the boy.”

If she closed her eyes, she could see the country roads she’d traveled to and from the Academy, with the hard-packed dirt, the oaks leaning over, branches intertwined into an eternal canopy, and ashy green moss swaying in the breeze. “Did you wire Mr. Sheridan Ingram about his father’s condition?”

“I knew you would do it upon your return,” and Giselle dismissed the question.

Five days. Two days to travel on narrow roads in a rattling touring car that she could walk faster than it drove, a day for all the paperwork to enroll Colfax and see him settled, another two days to return. “Mr. Ingram is gravely ill. The doctor said his condition will only worsen. And you did not think it vital to contact his only son? Mr. Sheridan could have been here by now.”

“I didn’t have his address” was her excuse.

Nedda narrowed her eyes. The wife obviously didn’t want the son here.

Did Giselle know about the lawyer Mr. Ingram had called in?

She could do nothing about the damage to his health that had already occurred. She could only prevent more damage.

Sheridan would need a wire this evening. Only God knew how long it would take to reach him.

Colfax, a youth alone among strangers, would need a warning wire. The wording would have to be delicate. And it might not reach him until morning. The academy had a strict curfew.

Nedda would send the wires before seeking her dinner. Then, although tired from travel, she would return to the suite and tuck into the backlog of work.

And hopefully have more conversation with Mr. Ingram, out of the hearing of his wife and the manservant.

The only problem with Nedda’s vow to safeguard Mr. Ingram was that he died in the overnight.

LINKS ~ Ebook Only

Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FF2PTG9W

Books2Read https://books2read.com/u/bPM11l

Red Mask / Opening and Links / Sailing with Mystery Collection

 Red Mask

Isabella receives a disturbing letter—only for it to be stolen before she deciphers it.

The letter claims that a spy is aboard the Garipoola, but is that the only person hiding their true identity and purpose on the passenger ship?

Read on for the Story's Opening ~ 

1

Isabella stopped at a cloth covered with carved bowls. The vendor had placed the bowls rim-down, to display the carvings of monkeys, elephants, and swirls. Intrigued, she knelt for a closer look.

The bowls spanned a wide spectrum of wood tones, light to dark. She touched a light-colored bowl with monkeys in palm trees. “What is this wood?”

“Sagwan.” He repeated it. When she touched a rose-colored wood with little carving but lovely arches, he said, “Sheesham, sheesham.” He hovered his hand over a series of bowls. “Nilambur” was a mandala. “Nagpur” had columns like a palace collonade. Tigers slinking through reeds was “Mango.”

“And cedar” she named the rust-red bowl.

He plucked the bowl off the ground cloth and turned it upright. Warmed by the sun, the redolent cedar reminded her of clothes presses and chests. Elephants with lifted trunks paraded around the bowl balanced on his hand.

“May I?” She extended her hand.

He bobbed his head. Dark hair fell over his forehead. “You look. You look good.” Like any merchant from ages old, he knew touching the product would often sell it.

Closer inspection revealed that each elephant wore a headband and a cloth over its back, this one ornamented with beads, that one with cross-hatches, a third with swirls, and all parading before a different background. The elephant with flowers marched before a temple; the one with cross-hatches walked through a jungle. Eight elephants in all, which the missionary Miss Harlow had claimed was a fortunate number.

Isabella hadn’t found anything that called to her like these elephants. Within a few minutes, she owned the bowl, and the vendor grinned from ear to ear. She had likely paid too much, but she had no taste for haggling over a price. Mindful of Col. Werthy’s advice at the market in Bombay, before they’d parted ways, she had halved the man’s amount. He countered, she paid, and they were both happy with the transaction. The vendor even wrapped the bowl in a vivid green cloth.

When she stood, a passerby knocked into her. She stumbled.

A hand from nowhere steadied her. “Missy good?” her vendor asked.

“Yes, I’m fine. Thank you,” she directed at the man, but he was gone.

The vendor settled cross-legged at the back of his cloth. Isabella stepped into the flow of the market and let the current take her forward.

The artist in her loved the vivid colors of the canopies over the booths and open shop fronts. Saffron yellow, emerald green and spring green, poppy red and persimmon, tangerine and heavenly azure, and peacock blue, the colors rioted along both sides of the street. The myriad objects for sale, the varied faces of the vendors, male and female, all started a longing to capture the market with its energy. She would need oils. Watercolors would be too diluted. She yearned for a faster paint than oils or the ability to take color photographs. In black-and-white snapshots, the market would look a crowded mess.

A man in pristine white loose jacket and trousers bumped into her. When she edged over, he remained plastered to her shoulder. “Are you on the Garipoola?”

His British accent surprised her as much as his knowledge of her ship. Isabella gaped at him.

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

“You know Col. Werthy?”

He had sherry brown eyes, a long narrow face, heavy eyebrows, and swept-back black hair. A beard had started on his defined jawline.

“You know the colonel?” he persisted.

“Yes.”

“Good.” He thrust a folded paper at her.

“He left the ship in Bombay, with his friend Richard Owen.”

“This is for you. Take it,” he ordered when she remained reluctant. “You must return to the ship. Hire a rickshaw. Here, I call one for you.”

Isabella clutched the folded note. Do I trust this man?

When he turned away, she faded into the crowd. As a western woman, blonde and pale, she would be quickly spotted in this crowd of natives. She cast to the other side of the street and hastened back the way she’d come. The current took her until she spotted a landmark that would lead out of the market.

Outside of the bustling market, she would be even more noticeable, and she hurried along the shop fronts. When she happened upon a rickshaw discharging a passenger, she crossed to the rickshawallah. “Harbor? The ship Garipoola?”

“Yes, Missy.”

“How much?”

He looked offended. “Pay at end.”

The rain started as she settled onto the wooden seat. She leaned back to stay under the umbrella canopy. The man picked up the iron bars and began pulling.

As the rain fell, cooling the heated air, his speed increased. Bare feet splashed through the forming puddles, undeterred while others sought shelter from the sudden monsoon rain. Streams poured along the streets and became freshet floods as the deluge continued. Thunder rumbled, but the rickshawallah never paused.

Her skirt was soaked when they reached the harbor. The man ran all the way to the Garipoola’s mooring. He offered to carry her up the gangway but didn’t seem offended by her refusal. By the time Isabella paid him and reached the ship, she was soaked through. Then, in a twist almost anticipated, as she climbed the gangway the rain stopped, God closing the tap.

From the ship, she looked back at the wharf. Her rickshawhallah was running back to the city, his rickshaw bouncing behind him. A woman had emerged from the port office. A western woman. Then raindrops peppered down, and Isabella hurried to her cabin.

She didn’t slip the note from her purse until she changed from her wet clothes, hanging them in her lavatory to drip dry. Then she unwrapped her bowl and added the green cloth to the shower rod. The elephant bowl fit perfectly on the tiny table jutting from the wall by the head of her bed. She tucked her little alarm clock under the shade of the bed lamp. Only then did she unfold the note.

It didn’t make sense.

A bottle of whisky should cover the cost. Bring it with you. The red man won’t expect the change. Better to have the switch ready. Whiskers shouldn’t delay. A cold clime awaits him if we don’t succeed. Dead men have skeletons.

At the last sentence, a cold chill ran over her.

A flourishing W was the signature.

Is a page missing? But no, the writing didn’t cover the sheet.

The man had used Werthy’s name. Is W my Col. Werthy?

Werthy was a spy—along with Richard Owen and Sheridan Ingram. Yet they had disembarked, Ingram in Muscat, Werthy and Owen in Bombay.

Other spies could still be aboard the Garipoola, traveling together to their assignments in the Orient.

Dead men have skeletons.

With that line, the note acquired sinister and lethal meaning. Had the note been meant for a spy? Did that man mistake me for a spy? Isabella wanted to laugh, but danger prickled over her. He had mistaken her for someone. A woman on the Garipoola. A blonde?

Savina Fremont was blonde, but that young lady could not be the spy. The divorcée Edwina Bridgewater was a platinum blonde from the bottle, with dark lashes and penciled eyebrows to highlight her eyes. Good sense ruled against the flirtatious Mrs. Bridgewater as a cool-headed spy.

Or would that be the perfect cover for a spy? A little frittery, a lot man-crazy, her conversation revolving around fashion and society gossip. Isabella would never have given any suspicion of spying a second thought.

The other blondes aboard were married. Lady Saunders. Mrs. Malcolm, a greying blonde. Mrs. Reynolds, bound to Australia with her family. At least three other women along with the women in third-class. Were the husbands a decoy? She found herself second-guessing everything she knew about several passengers.

This note was obviously in code. Did it talk about four people or three? The red man. Whiskers. The him avoiding a cold climate—Siberia? She’d heard the Bolsheviks sentenced prisoners to the frigid north. The fourth would be the skeleton. The him and the potential skeleton might be the same person.

The recipient made the fifth person—or fourth. Obviously, the red man was a contact—with a lead to the him. And did Whiskers assist the recipient, or was he a threat to keep the note’s recipient from delaying?

Ship’s bell rang off the time. She counted the strikes even as she checked the time on her little alarm clock. Dinner would be in a half-hour. Her stomach growled in response.

She could puzzle out this note for her evening’s entertainment. Mr. Fullerton had already told her that he would not be available tonight for their usual game of bridge. Since Clive Rexton had abandoned them in Bombay, a worthy third and fourth for bridge were hard to find.

As Isabella re-folded the note, she remembered the poison pen letter stolen from her cabin—oh, ages ago, it seemed. A single line had warned her not to encourage Col. Werthy. She had ignored that warning, and Werthy had turned into a good friend. (Too good of a friend, her heart reminded, but she ignored that, too.)

Stealing a letter twice on one voyage—that wouldn’t happen. Besides, Savina Fremont had penned the earlier letter then stolen it back. The young woman had remained in hot pursuit of Werthy throughout the voyage, but he hadn’t looked back when he left the ship. Savina didn’t have anything to do with this note.

Perhaps, just perhaps, she might find a clue about the intended recipient, a blonde woman on the Garipoola.

The ship would cast off late tonight and start its journey up the Indian coast to Madras where Isabella’s husband, Madoc, waited for her. That was a better focus than a cryptic letter she would never decode.

She refolded the note and placed it in the elephant bowl, weighting it with a piece of jade that Werthy had given her when they parted. Then she dressed and dawdled her way to the Dining Room. She was successfully late.

Dinner found her eying the several blonde women aboard from a new perspective. She dismissed the married couples. Lady Bernhardt and the Saunders commanded the best table, but Isabella hadn’t joined them since Bombay, preferring the Australia-bound Reynolds, solid working-class and eager for the opportunities in a new land. She’d introduced fellow immigrant Robin Kennedy to them. They talked so much about the next ship they would board in Madras that they didn’t notice Isabella’s distraction.

When she returned to the cabin, only the jade piece was in the bowl. The note had vanished.

Links to Purchase

Amazon ​https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CCGJC68M​

Worldwide ​https://books2read.com/u/bWpVKq​

“Red Mask” completes the Sailing with Mystery collection.

The short stories were great fun to puzzle out and write, and they brought new ideas and new people into Isabella’s world. I’m currently writing three novelettes with one of those new characters. I previewed the first of the three novelettes at Christmas. Look for all three to be officially published this summer.

Here are the Links for the entire collection Sailing with Mystery, available in ebook and paperback:

Amazon ​https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJL28Z5W​

Worldwide, like B&N, Kobo and libraries ​https://books2read.com/u/3R5QJR​

View the Trailer ​https://youtu.be/csAe72b5X2I

If you want to start the series at the beginning, the most economical is the three-book bundle Into Death. Ebook only, I'm afraid.

Amazon ​https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MRBNCH7​

Worldwide ​https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09MRBNCH7

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