“‘Acted’ is the key word. They can put on a good show, Cassidy, and they do—when they want or need to.”
“But why wouldn’t they want you helping their daughter when she needed it?”
“Their married daughter staying with a single man who already had one child outside of marriage? Not good for the Kincaid reputation.”
Exactly what Zinnia James had said.
“So you and Miriam were—”
“Friends, Cassidy. I do what I have to do to stay on good terms with people I do business with. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I haven’t made mistakes, but I’ll always do an honest day’s work and I’ll never betray the people I love.”
I could feel his hackles rising with every word he spoke, but he kept his voice calm, steady, and matter-offact.
“I don’t work with people I don’t trust and respect. Will I help Keith Kincaid with this bookstore idea? Of course. I work for Bliss, and his business is with the historical society, not me personally. But will I travel to Timbuktu, or wherever, and import God knows what for God knows who, just to pad my stock portfolio? Hell, no. I do some work with Nate at the foundation. Him, I trust.”
I was at an impasse. Will trusted Nate Kincaid, but Miriam had been about to name him as Nell’s murderer—hadn’t she? Their contrasting opinions tumbled around in my mind and I didn’t know what to think.
He held out a wrinkled sheet of yellowed paper. “I found this,” he said.
As I took it from him, the paper curled up on itself, crackling as I unrolled it and held it open.
The writing was spidery and looked rushed, and a few of the letters had been dropped from the words. Clearly a man’s handwriting. As I read it, Meemaw’s voice echoed in my head alongside mine.
3 April, 1898
T~
H and me are meeting up with Etta at Fannie’s. New Mexico or Wyoming next, then to you and, God willing, the babe.
It was signed “RP.”
The small hairs on the back of my neck stirred. It couldn’t be. “Wh-where—”
“Did I find it?” he finished.
I nodded, shoving my glasses up the bridge of my nose before I unrolled the paper and read it again.
He pointed to the workroom. “There should have been a dowel on the leg that came off of that shelf. There wasn’t. That whole thing’s just been sitting on that loose ball of wood, no dowel, because that paper”—he tapped the top of the sheet—“was shoved inside the hole.”
Every bit of breath left my lungs. The round leg had flown off when Nell was in the workroom, right before the jars of buttons fell. The whole scene had Meemaw written all over it. She had wanted me to find this paper. Maybe that’s why she’d arranged for Will Flores to be around, so he could help. “You rascal,” I muttered, my gaze darting around, searching for her misty form.
“Come again?”
“No. Nothing,” I said, but my mind was racing. I bent over, trying to catch my breath, hands on my knees, elbows locked. If this was authentic, then Butch Cassidy really had sent something to Texana and it was probably here somewhere . . . God almighty, the stories were really true. And Meemaw had known the truth all along.
Will put his hand on my back and, like magic, breath filled my lungs again. “You okay, Cassidy?”
I managed a nod as I straightened up. “There’s some family legend, but there was never any proof, but now . . . now . . .” I stopped and regrouped. “But this . . .” I’d let the paper roll into a tight scroll again and clutched it in my hand, afraid it might evaporate if I let go.
He felt my forehead with the back of his hand, then both of my cheeks. “You sure you’re okay? You need to sit down?”
“I’m fine,” I said, batting his hand away. “Look. Look at the date on this.”
“I saw it. 1898.”
“Right. My great-great-grandmother was born in October of 1898.”
The shadow of confusion on his face cleared. “So you think the baby mentioned in the note was your great-great-grandmother?”
The Singer still purred from the workroom. I caught a glimpse of Gracie’s foot. She was back to sorting the buttons from the jars Nell had dropped. I looked up at Will, keeping my voice low, my skin pricking with excitement. “It has to be. It’s addressed to T. That’s got to be Texana Harlow, my great-great-great-grandmother. H was Harry Longabaugh. Etta was his girlfriend.”
“And Frannie?”
I laughed. After a high school research project, I knew almost everything there was to know about Robert LeRoy Parker. “Frannie Porter was a madame in San Antonio. They used her brothel as a rendezvous.”
Will stared at me, riveted. “Family legend. Wait a second. You mean the old outlaw stories about Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?”
A chill of excitement swept through me. “Butch’s real name was Robert LeRoy Parker and Sundance was Harry Longabaugh.”
Will tapped the rolled-up paper with his finger. “And you think this note was written to your . . . great-great . . . however many greats . . . grandmother, from Butch Cassidy?”
“Yes!” I grabbed his hand, my excited whisper ringing in my ears. “I grew up hearing the stories. Butch Cassidy sent a letter and something else—a trinket—to Texana before he escaped to South America. She never saw him again . . . No one ever found the letter. We never had proof of our family lineage. But this”—I waved the note—“this verifies that it’s all true. He and Texana really did have a baby together.”
“Um, Harlow?” Gracie stood just inside the workroom. She held out her hand, palm up. “I think you should see this.”
“Show-and-tell today,” Will said as we went to see what she held.
It was a ring, the band made out of lustrous platinum. The biggest diamond I’d ever seen sat smack in the center of two rows of smaller diamonds.
Butch Cassidy and Texana were still on my mind. “Butch sent Texana something . . .”
“Hate to burst your bubble, Cassidy,” Will said, holding the ring up to the light, “but this isn’t a hundred and ten, or however many, years old.”
He handed it to me so I could take a closer look. All my wishful thinking didn’t make me right. This ring was shiny and brand-spanking new. “This was in that bag of buttons?” I asked Gracie.
“Yep.”
Why would a brand-new ring be mixed in with Meemaw’s buttons? My mind shot back to the day Nell died, yanking out buried images, rearranging them, and shoving them right back into my consciousness.
Nell had been in the workroom. I’d been too busy telling myself that the customer is always right to worry much about why she’d been back there. What had she been doing that could have unsettled the shelves and broken the button jars? Was she searching for something? But how would she have known there was something hidden there? And of all the jars, would she have picked the right one?
Then, for the second time in a few minutes, I lost my breath. She wasn’t searching for it. “Oh my God, she was hiding the ring!”
The Singer had stopped its steady rhythm. “Who was hiding what?” Mama asked, coming over to us.
Instead of answering, I handed her the note. She scanned it, met my gaze, and just like that, all the color drained from her face. “This is proof,” she whispered.
My eyes welled as I nodded. It was a monumental moment for the Cassidy family, but we were also in the thick of a murder investigation. Mama and I wrapped our arms around each other, savoring the moment for as long as we could, whispering about the discovery, Butch and Texana, and our family history.
Mama wandered off a few moments later, still in a daze about the note. Eventually, my mind drifted back to Meemaw and the ring. She’d never done things the easy way when she was alive. Now that she’d passed, everything was more puzzling.