A Knife in the Heart Read online

  “You don’t come bargin’ . . .”

  Halleck stopped when Fallon withdrew the envelope. He tossed it onto the man’s desk, where the chirpy had been . . . sitting . . . or lying down . . . or . . . dancing? He wasn’t certain. But the greedy man forgot ever having a woman in his office as he ripped open the paper and let the currency drop heavily onto his desk.

  Fallon came over and dropped a dime and four pennies near the bills.

  Licking his lips, Halleck quickly tallied the amount of money. “By gawd, sir,” he said, “you’ve done it.”

  A moment later, Fallon had the receipt out of another pocket. “You’ll sign this now, sir.”

  “You bet,” the owner said, and could not help but laugh, a throaty, greedy cackle, as he scribbled his name. Fallon took his copy, and left the other on the desk.

  “I expect those supplies will be delivered to the construction site for the new U.S. penitentiary beginning first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “It’s a deal.” Halleck extended his hand.

  Fallon looked at the man’s britches. “You might want to button your fly, sir.”

  As Halleck quickly went to work on his pants, Fallon pulled out a double eagle. “Can you make change?”

  That was easy enough. Halleck handed him two ten-dollar notes and a five. Fallon put those in his pants pocket and walked to the door.

  “It has been a pleasure doing business with you, Fallon,” the greedy crook said.

  “The pleasure will be mine, sir.”

  After closing the door, Fallon walked outside, bumping into an elderly woman on his way through the front door. The old hag stumbled, but Fallon caught her and immediately apologized.

  “Take your hand off me, you fool,” the woman snorted, turned, and hobbled over to the counter, where she bought a dozen nails, paying for them with a twenty-dollar gold piece, then started counting the nails on the countertop, examining each as though she were looking for a flaw in a diamond, while the cashier struggled to make change. Finally, as Fallon stared at his pocket watch, the old lady came out and stumbled into a man in a tan sack suit. Her nails and her money scattered on the boardwalk, and the man started picking up money and twelve-penny nails.

  Fallon helped the old woman up, who elbowed him in the ribs and snorted, “I ain’t no hussy, you young whippersnapper. I’m a proper lady.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Fallon said.

  The man started to hand the woman her money, but stopped and looked at the first note.

  “Ma’am,” he said in a pleasant, Midwestern tone. “Might I ask you where you got this bill?”

  “Yonder,” she snapped. “Change for my nails.”

  Fallon handed her the nails.

  “Well . . . ” A crowd started gathering in the alcove. The man eyed the next note.

  “Is there a problem?” Fallon asked.

  “There . . .” The man looked at another bill.

  “What’s going on here?” A young man wearing a deputy U.S. marshal’s badge moved between Fallon and the old hag and the man in the sack suit.

  “This.” The man handed a bill to the deputy.

  “That’s my money!” the hag screeched.

  “What about . . . ?” The lawman stopped. He lifted his eyes toward the man in the sack suit. “Counterfeit.”

  “Of exceptional quality,” the man said. “Only the paper gives it away.”

  “I’ll be damned,” the lawman said.

  “I want my money, you Yankee thieves.”

  At that moment, John Halleck stepped out of the mercantile. “Do you folks mind clearing out of here?” He snapped. “People want to get inside to do their shopping.”

  The deputy marshal and the man in the sack suit turned to Halleck. “As a matter of fact,” the lawman said, “we’d like to do a little shopping in your hardware store, too.”

  The man in the sack suit withdrew a badge from his pocket. “Yes. I am George Goodwin, operative for the American Detective Agency.”

  While the lawman and the detective escorted John Halleck back inside his business, Fallon escorted the hag across the street.

  “How’d I do?” Christina Whitney Fallon asked.

  “You’re a pretty good detective for an old hag,” Fallon told her.

  “Watch who you’re callin’ an ol’ hag, buster,” she said in her old hag’s voice.

  “Where’s Rachel Renee?” Fallon asked.

  “Helping Janice Jefferson make sugar cookies. I’m supposed to pick her up at two-fifteen.”

  “You’d better go home and change then,” Fallon said. “This getup you concocted might scare her so badly she’ll want to sleep in our bed.”

  * * *

  Captain Big Tim O’Connor lowered the Post onto the table in the mess hall when Fallon brought over two cups of coffee. “You read this?” O’Connor nodded at the newspaper.

  “I skimmed it.” Fallon sat.

  “Convenient,” O’Connor said. “A detective and a U.S. marshal finding counterfeit currency in front of that mercantile.”

  “More in the cash register,” Fallon said. “The U.S. solicitor thinks John Halleck was responsible for most of the bad money that has been floating across eastern Kansas the past six months. I guess they brought in the American Detective Agency to help with the investigation.”

  Fallon slid O’Connor’s cup closer, and sipped his.

  “Good outfit,” O’Connor said. “So I hear.” He looked over the paper he had started reading again. “The American Detective Agency.”

  “I’ve heard good things about that organization, too.” He took another sip and quickly added. “Since Dan MacGregor took over as president a few years back.”

  “Un-huh. The plates were found in the warehouse. Counterfeit plates. Those used to print the bad bills.”

  “What warehouse?”

  O’Connor rolled his eyes. “Halleck’s.”

  “Looks like he’s guilty then.”

  “Yeah. Except he said you passed him the bad money.”

  “Well, crooks often tell fibs.” Fallon pointed at the paper. “Keep reading and you’ll see that the receipt, which he signed, says he was paid in full in gold coins. The paper money was counterfeit. You don’t find too many outfits trying to make bad gold coins.”

  “We used to try to pass five-cent pieces as five-dollar notes,” O’Connor said.

  “Tim O’Connor!” Fallon said in mocking shock. “And now you’re in charge of prison guards?”

  The big man smiled but just briefly. “You think this is fair, Fallon? Ruining a man’s life, setting him up for something he didn’t do.”

  “He was trying to defraud the United States government, Tim. He was also conspiring with other merchants to drive up prices for their own profit, and thus hurting families like yours and Elliott Jefferson’s, everyone in this part of Kansas.”

  “But he was no counterfeiter.”

  “He won’t go to prison for this,” Fallon said. “They’ll settle for a fine. A substantial fine. And the U.S. solicitor will probably work out a deal so that he supplies building materials for the new pen at cost. Meanwhile, the other merchants who were in this with him will see the error of their greedy ways and prices will drop back down to what they need to be, and Leavenworth, Kansas, will be sort of like every other town in the West.”

  They drank more coffee.

  O’Connor said, “I never worked for a warden like you before, Hank.”

  Fallon managed to grin. “You’ve never worked for a warden who knows prisons like I do.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Removing his hat, Fallon pushed open the door to the prison chapel and stepped inside quickly, closing the door behind him and looking at the twenty prisoners scattered about the pews. One guard, Wilson, stood in the pulpit, in the corner, holding a shotgun. The other guard, Raymond, stood in the back corner, close to Fallon, with his shotgun resting leisurely in his arms.

  “Good morning, Warden Fallon,” Janice
Jefferson called out politely and closed her McGuffey’s Reader. “Class, turn around and tell Warden Fallon good morning.” Like she was teaching a bunch of farm and ranch kids about Rachel Renee’s age.

  But to a man, all of them, black, white, big, small, even old Ben Lawless, turned in their seats and, in unison, spoke in their singsong voices, “Good morning, Warden Fallon.”

  He had to smile. “Good morning,” Fallon told them, and looked up at the pretty young teacher. “I did not mean to interrupt,” he said. “Hoped to get here before you started, but I got tied up with a few things. How is everything going, Mrs. Jefferson?”

  “I have twenty bright young students who want to learn,” she said. “Things could not be any better.”

  She sounded serious.

  “That’s fine.”

  “Now,” she addressed her prisoners. “Who had a question?”

  Seven hands shot up, and Janice gave her wards a pleasant smile and went to the closest man first. While she started pointing to something in his Reader and whispering politely, Fallon watched Wilson step to the pulpit, and bring his shotgun around for easier use. Though none of the students seemed to consider any violent action, Fallon did not like the thought of Janice Jefferson being caught in the middle of a fight with shotguns going off. He slid to the corner and stood next to Raymond.

  “How are things going?” he whispered.

  “She’s learning them their letters,” he said, and shouldered the shotgun.

  “Maybe,” Fallon said, “you should leave the shotguns in the armory and bring rifles. Shotguns . . . well, they tend to be messy.”

  “To be honest with you, Warden,” the guard said. “I don’t think we even need anything other than billy clubs.”

  Janice moved to another prisoner.

  Raymond continued. “This is, honestly, like watching over a Sunday-school class at the Johnstown Presbyterian Church back home.”

  That made Fallon smile. “You learning anything?” he quipped.

  “I’m pretty good with my letters,” Raymond said. “So I’m waiting till she starts in on geography and arithmetic. Those can be troublesome.”

  Fallon patted the guard’s shoulder. “At least you’re out of the heat.”

  “Yeah. And that woman, well, she’s real easy to look at.”

  “Remember, Raymond. She’s married.”

  Janice moved to another prisoner.

  “Yeah. Well, so am I. But I can still look.” Fallon gave the guard a smile and a nod, whispered for him to keep up the good work, and turned to leave, stopping when Raymond said softly, “Warden.” When Fallon turned, the guard sighed. “I thought this was a damned fool idea, sir. But . . . well . . . this might work after all.” He nodded at the pews. “Those convicts, they really want to learn.”

  “Thanks, Raymond. I hope they keep learning.” He was at the door when he heard his name called again. This time it was Janice Jefferson.

  She stepped away from the pews to the far side of the chapel and said, “Might I have a brief word with you?”

  When Fallon reached her, she turned away from the prisoners and asked, “Could you do me a favor?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well . . .” He inhaled deeply. “Could you . . . well . . . could you sit with Ben Lawless?”

  Fallon looked over her shoulder, and saw the one-eyed killer of many Cherokee Indians, sitting on the last pew with his left hand raised. Fallon lowered his gaze back at the schoolteacher.

  She sighed. “I . . . I . . . it’s fine when I’m teaching the whole class,” she said softly. “I don’t have to look directly at him. But . . . but . . . he’s . . . well . . . that . . . eye.”

  He understood. The hole in his head, the scars around it, the ugliness, and that on top of what Ben Lawless had done years and years ago. It unnerved many of the guards, too.

  “Why doesn’t he wear an eye patch?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Fallon said, although he had a good idea. It was the fear that missing eye gave people, those scars, and the legend of all that Ben Lawless had done, had been through. That was why Ben Lawless still reigned as king in the Leavenworth pen. The sight of him alone would put the fear of God in the most fearless of men.

  Janice sighed. “I’m . . . well . . . I guess I should just buckle up.”

  “You help the other prisoners, Janice,” he said kindly, and gave her a reassuring smile and then patted her shoulder. “I’ll be happy to help Ben Lawless.”

  He moved to the back pew. Lawless slowly looked up with his one eye.

  “How’s school, Ben?” Fallon said.

  “Fine. I reckon. How’s wardenin’?”

  “Fine.” He sat down beside the man. “Mrs. Jefferson asked if I could help out today, since so many of her students have questions. So . . . what’s your question? How can I help you?”

  “I want to know how to spell my name,” he said.

  “Well, Ben, that’ll take some time.”

  “Most of these boys, they at least know all their letters,” Lawless complained. “Some I think even know more than that schoolmarm. But I don’t know nothin’. Realized I forgot ’em letters my mama taught me, ’ceptin’ X, of course.”

  “Which is why you’re here. We all learn, Ben.”

  “Show me. I ain’t got no patience.”

  “You’ll have to have patience, Ben. You don’t learn everything overnight.”

  Lawless hung his head.

  Fallon reached over and picked the Reader off the convict’s lap. He began thumbing through some pages, looking for the alphabet, before he remembered the blackboard the chaplain had brought in.

  “Ben,” he said. “Look up.”

  Lawless’s head rose.

  “Hand me your note pad there. And the pencil.” Fallon pointed. “See the second letter on the board.” Fallon then wrote the letter B.

  He pointed at the letter. “What’s your first name?”

  “Ben.”

  “Right. Let’s start. This is the letter B. It sounds like . . . B-b-b-b.”

  “B-b-b-b,” Lawless repeated. Fallon handed him pencil and pad. “Now copy that letter.” He pointed. “This is the capital B. Which you’d use when you’re writing your own name. B-b-b-b.”

  “B-b-b-BEN.” He grinned. And carved a big B in the tablet.

  Fallon showed him the E and e, making the “eh” and “eee” sounds, and watched the poisoner of innocent families scratch it next to the B, though not quite on the same line. “That’s the letter E,” Fallon said. “Now . . . how does your first name sound at the end?”

  The man struggled. “B-buh-buh-eh-eh-eeeh . . . ennnnnn.” Fallon wrote the capital and lowercase N. The killer carved it deeply onto the page.

  Fallon smiled and tapped the crooked BeN. “That’s pretty good, Ben. There you have it. B-e-n. Ben. You’ve written your first name. How’s that feel?”

  He wasn’t certain, but it certainly looked as though a tear welled in the vicious fiend’s one eye. “Ben,” the man said and drew a circle around his accomplishment.

  “Good job.” Fallon started to rise. “Now, you keep learning, and you work hard, and you’ll be brighter than any of these other twenty students here. You want to learn, Ben. That’s the big thing. Keep up the good work.”

  The man’s free hand slammed on Fallon’s thigh. “Please, Warden,” he whispered. “One more . . .”

  Sinking back into the pew, Fallon sighed. “All right, Ben. What else do you want to know?”

  “My last name.”

  Fallon sighed. “Well, Lawless starts with the letter L. El. Lah, lay, l-l-law . . . leh-lee-lehhhh . . . less.”

  “No. My real last name. MacIntosh.”

  Fallon looked at him. “Your last name isn’t Lawless?”

  “Hell, no, Warden. I made it up. Strike fear into those damned Cherokees. Let them know I didn’t give a damn about nothin’. That I was the damned law. Coming to kill ’em all.”

  Fallon asked Ben to
keep his voice down. He thought back, but Lawless’s outlawry had been decades earlier, yet everything he remembered said the man’s last name was Lawless, not MacIntosh. Of course, out here, in the West, men often changed their names.

  “MacIntosh.”

  “Yeah, but don’t tell nobody that. Lawless still strikes fear in them.”

  “I guess so.”

  “My wife’s name was Dirty Feet. That’s why I called her Blossom.”

  “I see.”

  “She was Shoshone.”

  “Really.”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’d you get a Shoshone woman to move down to the Indian Nations?”

  “Because back then I was a charming feller.” He laughed. “You know, Warden, I didn’t think I could ever talk about Blossom without getting mad.”

  Fallon patted his leg again.

  “All right.” He took the pad and paper and wrote L-a-w-l-e-s-s. “That’s Lawless. Just so you know. And MacIntosh . . . is that M-c or M-a-c?” He realized the stupidity of his question and said, “Never mind.” He wrote a big M.

  “This is the capital M. Em-em-em, emmmm. Similar to N as in Ben. And the letters, you see, capital and lowercase, are a little alike, too. So . . . write the letter M, Ben, and we’ll go from there.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  For a week, Harry Fallon felt good about his life and his job. Harper’s Weekly had found a correspondent who visited the prison to sketch drawings and interview the teachers, the chaplain, two prisoners, and Fallon about the prison school. Supplies for the new penitentiary began coming in, and Fallon heard people talking in the cafés and other businesses about the change around Leavenworth. He even heard the Widow Daniels—not as bad as Cheyenne’s Widow Walkup but a gossiper of the first class—talk about how pleasant the workers at Halleck’s store had become. And could you believe how low his prices were these days?

  After glancing at his agenda for the day as prepared by Preston the clerk, he had begun his daily routine of opening the mail when the bell began to ring. Fallon stood. The windows to the upstairs office had been opened, because June in Leavenworth had turned hot and muggy. Whistles shrieked. Fallon tossed the letter from Washington, D.C., and the knife he used as a letter opener on the desk, stood, and moved to the window. The clerk and the bookkeeper stepped inside his office as Fallon leaned out the window.