The Night is Watching

That was the confusion—and the mystery. No one remembered seeing the skull wearing the wig before. Granted, the theater had been holding shows forever; it had never closed down. And people had been using the various wigs down there forever, too. From her briefing notes, Jane knew that everyone working at the theater and involved with it had denied ever seeing the skull, with or without a wig. It seemed obvious that someone had been playing a prank, but Jane wasn’t sure how identifying the person behind the skull—given that he or she had been dead over a hundred years—would help discover who’d put it on the rack.

The sheriff, Sloan Trent, had wanted to send the skull off to the Smithsonian or the FBI lab, but the mayor had insisted it should stay in Lily until an identification had been made. So, Sloan had requested help from his old friend, Logan Raintree, head of Jane’s Texas Krewe unit of the FBI teams of paranormal investigators known as the Krewe of Hunters. And that had led to Logan’s asking Jane, whose specialty was forensic art, to come here. The medical examiner who’d seen the skull believed it was the skull of a woman and he had estimated that she’d been dead for a hundred to a hundred and fifty years.

“Come, Ms.—or, I guess it’s Agent—Everett!” Henri said, pushing open the slatted doors and escorting her into the Gilded Lily. “Jennie! Come meet our forensic artist!”

Jane tried to take in the room while a slender woman wearing a flowered cotton dress came out from behind the long bar behind some tables to the left. The Gilded Lily, she quickly saw, was the real deal. She felt as if she’d stepped back in time. Of course, her first case with her Krewe—the second of three units—had been in her own hometown of San Antonio and had actually centered on an old saloon. But the Gilded Lily was a theater and a saloon or bar, and like nothing she’d ever seen before. The front tables were ready for poker players, with period furniture that was painstakingly rehabbed. To the right of the entry, an open pathway led to the theater. Rich red velvet drapes, separating the bar area from the stage and audience section, were drawn back with golden cords. The theater chairs weren’t what she would’ve expected. The original owners had aimed for an East Coast ambience, so they, too, were covered in red velvet. The stage, beyond the audience chairs, was broad and deep, allowing for large casts and complicated sets. She saw what appeared to be a real stagecoach on stage right and, over on stage left, reaching from the apron back stage rear, were railroad tracks.

“Hello, welcome!”

The woman who’d been behind the bar came around to the entry, smiling as she greeted Jane. She thrust out her a hand and there was steel in her grip. “I’m Jennie Layton, stage mother.”

“Stage mother?” Jane asked, smiling.

Jennie laughed. “Stage manager. But they call me stage mother—with affection, I hope. I take care of our actors...and just about everything else!” she said.

“Oh, come now! I do my share of the work,” Henri protested.

Jennie smiled. “At night, we have three bartenders, four servers and a barback. And we have housekeepers who come in, too, but as far as full-time employees go, well, it’s Henri and me. And we’re delighted you agreed to stay here.”

“I thought the theater history might help you in identifying the woman,” Henri said.

“Thank you. That makes sense. And it’s beautiful and unique.”

“Lily is unique! And the Gilded Lily is the jewel in her crown,” Henri said proudly.

“Well, come on up. We have you in the Sage McCormick suite,” Jennie told her, beaming.

The name was familiar to Jane from her reading. “Sage McCormick was an actress in the late 1800s, right?”

“All our rooms are now named for famous actors or actresses who came out West to play at the Gilded Lily,” Henri said. “Sage, yes—she was one of the finest. She was in Antigone and Macbeth and starred in a few other plays out here. She was involved in a wonderful and lascivious scandal, too—absolutely a divine woman.” He seemed delighted with the shocking behavior of the Gilded Lily’s old star. “I’ll get your bag.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Jane said, but Henri had grabbed it already.

“Tut, tut,” he said. “You may be a very capable agent, Ms. Everett, but here in Lily...a gent is a gent!”

“Well, thank you, then,” Jane said.

Jennie showed the way up the curving staircase. The landing led to a balcony in a horseshoe shape. Jane looked down at the bar over a carved wooden railing, then followed Jennie to the room at the far end of the horseshoe. This room probably afforded the most privacy, as there was only one neighbor.

“The Sage McCormick suite,” Jennie said, opening the door with a flourish.

It was a charming room. The bed was covered with a quilt—flowers on white—and the drapes were a filmy white with a crimson underlay.

“Those doors are for your outdoor balcony. It overlooks the side street but also gives you a view of the main street, although obstructed, I admit,” Jennie said.

“And the dressing room through here...” Henri entered with her bag, throwing open a door at the rear of the spacious room. “It’s still a dressing room, with a lovely new bath. Nothing was really undone. The first bathrooms were put in during the 1910s. We’ve just updated. And, you’ll note, this one retains a dressing table and these old wooden armoires. Aren’t they gorgeous?”

They were. The matching armoires were oak, with the symbols of comedy and tragedy carved on each side and on the doors. “They were a gift to Sage when she was here,” Henri said reverently. “A patron of the arts was so delighted that he had these made for her!”

Jane peeked beyond. The bathroom was recently updated and had a tiled shower and whirlpool bath. The color scheme throughout was crimson and white with black edging.

“This is really lovely. Thank you,” Jane said again.

“It’s our best suite!” Henri gestured expansively around him.

“How come neither of you are in here?” Jane asked, smiling. “And what about your stars? I don’t want to put anyone out.”

“Oh,” Jennie said. “Our ‘stars’ tend to be superstitious. They’re in the other rooms on this level.” With a quick grin she added, “And Henri and I are quite happy in our own rooms...”

Jane waited for her to say more.

Henri spoke instead. “Sage McCormick...” His voice trailed off. “Well, theater folk are a superstitious bunch. I mean, you know about her, don’t you?”

“I know a little,” Jane said. “She disappeared, didn’t she?”

“From this room,” Jennie explained. “There’s all kinds of speculation. Some people believe she was a laudanum addict, and that she wandered off and met with a bad end at the hands of outlaws or Indians. Laudanum was used like candy back then. Lord knows how many people died from overusing it. Like today’s over-the-counter pills. Too much and—”

“And some people believe she simply left Lily with her new love—supposedly she intended to elope—and changed her identity,” Henri said impatiently. “Prior to that, she’d met and married a local man and they had a child together.”

“Really? But she still kept her room at the Gilded Lily?” Jane asked.

“Of course. She was the star.” Henri spoke as if this was all that needed to be said.

“Anyway, the last time anyone reported seeing her was when she retired to this room after a performance,” Henri went on.

“Her esteemed rendition of Antigone!” Jennie said.

“What about the husband? Was he a suspect?” Jane asked.

“Her husband was downstairs in the bar, waiting for her. He was with a group of local ranchers and businessmen. One of her costars went up to get her, and Sage was gone. Just...gone. No one could find her, and she was never seen again,” Jennie told her.

“Oh, dear! You’re not superstitious, are you?” Henri asked. “I understood that you’re a forensic artist but a law enforcement official, too.”

Jane nodded. “I’ll be fine here.”

“Well, settle in, then. And, please, when you’re ready, come on down. We’ll be in the theater—I’ll be giving notes on last night’s performance. Join us whenever you’re ready.”

“I wouldn’t want to interrupt a rehearsal.”

“Oh, you won’t be interrupting. The show is going well. We opened a few weeks ago, but I have to keep my actors off the streets, you know? You’ll get to meet the cast, although the crew won’t be there. This is for the performers. As Jennie mentioned, the cast lives at the Gilded Lily while performing, so you’ll meet your neighbors.”

“Thank you,” Jane said, and glanced at her watch. “Sheriff Trent is supposed to be picking me up. I’ll be down in a little while.”

“Oh! And here’s your key,” Henri said, producing an old metal key. “The only people here are the cast and crew—”

“And bartenders and servers and a zillion other people who’ve come to see the show or have a drink,” Jennie added drily. “Use your key.”

“I will,” Jane promised.

Henri and Jennie left the room. Jane closed the door behind them and stood still, gazing around. “Hello?” she said softly. “If you’re here, I look forward to meeting you, Sage. What a beautiful name, by the way.”

There was no response to her words. She shrugged, opened her bag and began to take out her clothing, going into the dressing room to hang her things in one of the armoires. She placed her makeup bag on the dressing table there, walked into the bathroom and washed her face. Back in the bedroom, she set up her laptop on the breakfast table near the balcony. Never sure if a place would have Wi-Fi, she always brought her own connector.

Jane decided she needed to know more about Sage McCormick, and keyed in the name. She was astounded by the number of entries that appeared before her eyes. She went to one of the encyclopedia sites, assuming she’d find more truth than scandal there.

Jane read through the information: Sage had been born in New York City, and despite her society’s scorn for actresses and her excellent family lineage, she’d always wanted to act. To that end, she’d left a magnificent mansion near Central Park to pursue the stage. She’d sold the place when she became the last surviving member of her family. Apparently aware that her choice of profession would brand her as wanton, she lived up to the image, marrying one of her costars and then divorcing him for the embrace of a stagehand. She flouted convention—but was known to be kind to everyone around her. She had been twenty-five when she’d come out to the Gilded Lily in 1870. By that point, she’d already appeared in numerous plays in New York, Chicago and Boston. Critics and audiences alike had adored her. In Lily, she’d instantly fallen in love with local entrepreneur Alexander Cahill, married him almost immediately—and acted her way through the pregnancy that had resulted in the birth of her only child, Lily Cahill. On the night of May 1, 1872, after a performance of Antigone, Sage had gone to her room at the Gilded Lily Theater and disappeared from history. It was presumed that she’d left her husband and child to escape with a new lover, an outlaw known as Red Marston, as Red disappeared that same evening and was never seen in Lily again, nor did any reports of him ever appear elsewhere. Her contemporaries believed that the pair had fled to Mexico to begin their lives anew.

“Interesting,” Jane murmured aloud. “So, Sage, did you run across the border and live happily ever after?”

She heard the old-fashioned clock on the dresser tick and nothing else. And she remembered that she’d promised to go downstairs. The sheriff was due to pick her up in thirty minutes, so if she was going to meet the cast, she needed to move.

Running into the dressing room, she ran her brush through her hair, then hurried out. As she opened the door to exit into the hall, she was startled to see a slim, older woman standing there with a tray in her hands. The tray held a small plug-in coffeepot, and little packs of coffee, tea, creamers and sugar.

“Hello!” the woman said. She looked at Jane as though terrified.

“Hi, I’m Jane Everett. Come on in, and thank you.”

The woman swallowed. “I—I—I... Please don’t make me go in that room!” she said.

Jane tried not to smile. “Let me take that, then. It’s fine. You don’t have to come in.”

The woman pressed the tray into Jane’s arms, looking vastly relieved. Jane brought it in and set it on the dresser. She’d find a plug in the morning.

When she turned around, the woman was still standing there. She wore a blue dress and apron and had to be one of the housekeepers.

“Thank you,” Jane said again.

Suddenly, the woman stuck out her hand. “I’m Elsie Coburn. If you need anything, just ask me.”

“Elsie, nice to meet you,” Jane said, shaking her hand. She couldn’t help asking, “How did this room get so clean?”

“Oh.” Elsie blushed and glanced down. “I make the two girls clean this room. They do it together. They’re okay as long as they don’t work alone. Bess was in here one day and the door slammed on her and none of us could open it. Then it opened on its own, so...well, we don’t have to clean it that often, you know? No one stays in this room. One of those ghost shows brought a cast and crew in here and the producer was going to stay in the room all night but he ran out.... People don’t stay in that room. They just don’t.”

“Oh, well, I’m sorry that my coming here caused distress.”

Elsie shook her head. “No, no, we’re happy to have you. If you don’t mind...please don’t mention that you had to bring your own tray in.”

“Of course not,” Jane assured her. “Why did the producer of the ghost show run out in the middle of the night?”

“He said she was standing over his bed, that she touched him, that—”

“She? You mean Sage McCormick?”

Elsie nodded.

“But what made him think she wanted to hurt him?”

“What?” Elsie was obviously mystified.

Jane smiled. “I thought ghost shows tried to prove that places were haunted.”

“This whole town is haunted. Bad things, really bad things, have happened over the years. The ghost-show people got all kinds of readings on their instruments. And the Old Jail next door! People leave there, too, even though they don’t get their money back if they do. This place is...it’s scary, Agent Everett. Very scary.”

“But you live and work here,” Jane said gently.

“I’m from here, and I don’t tease the ghosts. I respect them. They’re on Main Street, and they’re all around. I keep my eyes glued to where I’m going, and that’s it. I do my work and I go home, and if I hear a noise, I go the other way.” She rubbed her hands on her apron. “Well, a pleasure to meet you. And we’re glad you’re here.”

“Me, too. And don’t worry about cleaning the room—no one has to clean it while I’m here. I’ll just ask you to bring me fresh towels every couple of days. How’s that?”

Elsie looked as if she might kiss her.

She nodded vigorously. “Thank you, miss. Thank you. I mean, thank you, Agent Everett.”

“Jane is fine.”

Flushing, Elsie said, “Jane.” She turned and disappeared down the hall, heading for the stairs. Jane closed her door, locking it behind her as she’d been told to do.

* * *

When Sloan arrived at the Gilded Lily, the servers had yet to come in for the night. He had to knock on the doors—the solid doors behind the latticed ones that had been preserved to give the place its old-time appearance—to gain entry. The bar didn’t open until five.

Jennie let him in, smiling as she did. Jennie was always in a good mood. “Sloan, hi. You’re here for Jane?”

So...Agent Everett was already on a first-name basis with people at the Gilded Lily. But then again, was she like most agents, or was she an artist—with the credentials to work on FBI cases? He gave himself a mental kick; even though he’d made the call to Logan that had brought her to town, Sloan wasn’t pleased about her being here, but he wasn’t sure why.

Yes, he needed to find out who the skull belonged to. But logically, in his opinion at least, the skull should have been sent off to a lab where such things were done or to the experts at a museum. In the end—after arguing with Henri Coque about procedure—Sloan had been the one to call Logan to ask for a forensic artist and Logan had sent her. He’d trusted Logan to send him a good artist, but he was also aware that Logan was a different kind of lawman.

Sloan was, too.

He and Logan had shared secrets that they hadn’t let on to others. Working cases together, they’d both had occasion to follow leads because they’d spoken to the dead.

Sloan didn’t walk around interacting with spirits all the time. But there’d been occasions... He and Logan had recognized the ability in each other. And they’d been good partners.

True, he sometimes argued that the dead he saw were his particular form of talking to himself. And while it might seem that talking to the dead should solve everything, it didn’t work that way. But now Logan wasn’t a Ranger anymore; he was a fed. And he was the head of a unit. A special unit that was informally called the Texas Krewe.

Jane Everett was part of that Krewe. Did that mean she shared Logan’s secrets? Or that she knew about Sloan? He doubted it. Logan never spoke to anyone about anyone else’s business. But, somehow, Jane Everett made him uneasy.

Was he worried that she was only an artist—and not really much of a law enforcement agent?

Or was he worried that she was an artist and an agent and might find him incompetent?

He’d just had an odd feeling that they needed to get the skull out of Lily. It was almost as if the skull could be a catalyst for bad things to come.

Ridiculous, he told himself. Still, he didn’t like it.

But he’d been the one to call Logan Raintree.

In keeping with what Sloan knew about his old friend, he wasn’t surprised, when he’d looked up his recent work, that Logan’s Krewe worked with strange, supernatural cases.

In fact, it was one reason he’d decided to approach him.

Because there’s more to this than meets the eye and it may be important—but do I really want to know? he asked himself. He’d called Logan because he wondered if they might need help from the dead while not wanting it to be true.

“Yes, I’m here for Agent Everett,” he told Jennie.

“Come in,” she said. “The cast is down by the stage apron. She’s been meeting them all.”

“Sure.” Thankfully, there weren’t any other pressing issues in Lily at the moment.

He followed Jennie into the theater.

The group had gathered around the stage. Valerie Mystro, who had found the skull, was leaning casually against the show’s hero, Cy Tyburn, a tall, blond, all-American-looking actor from Kansas. Alice Horton, dark-haired, dark-eyed, sultry and buxom, the show’s vamp, was seated on the stage next to Brian Highsmith. Brian was dark-haired, as well; his green eyes bright against the near-black of his hair. Smiling, he appeared to be totally nonevil, although he played the show’s villain. Henri looked happy, standing in front of the newcomer, Jane Everett, who was seated next to Alice.

Even in the group of beautiful twenty-to-thirty-year-old actors, Jane Everett stood out. She was seated, so he couldn’t judge her height, and she was wearing a typical pantsuit—one he might expect to see on a working federal agent. The slight bulge was apparent at her rib cage; she was wearing a shoulder holster and carrying her weapon, which was probably just as regulation as her black pantsuit and white shirt. But she wore her hair loose and it was a striking shade, the deepest auburn he’d ever seen. And when she looked up at his arrival, he saw that she had the most unusual eyes he had ever seen, as well. They were amber. Not brown. Not hazel. Amber.

As he entered, she stood. Whatever they’d been discussing, they’d all gone quiet as he walked in.

“Sloan! We’ve just met Jane,” Valerie said happily. She giggled. “I told her how terrified I was when I found the skull, but then, she’s an FBI agent—I’m sure she would have behaved perfectly normally.”

“Maybe not. A skull can startle anyone,” Jane Everett said.

“Oh, you haven’t met yet!” Valerie said. “I’ll introduce you. Agent Jane Everett, meet our town’s sheriff, Sloan Trent. Sloan, this is Agent Everett.”

“It’s Jane, please,” Jane said, standing to shake his hand. She was on the tall side, he noted. Probably about five-nine, since she was wearing neat low pumps and seemed about five-ten or so against his six-three frame. She had a beautiful face, absolutely elegant and classical. He imagined that once they were gone, the show’s leading ladies would be discussing her...assets. She appeared to be lean and trim, but even in her regulation attire, she seemed to have the curves to suggest a well-honed body.

So this was the artist Logan had sent to sketch his skull?

It wasn’t his skull, he reminded himself. But the skull had belonged to a living, breathing human being and it was part of his town’s history. As far as he knew, anyway. And if it wasn’t—if Jane Everett’s rendering of the long-dead woman couldn’t be identified—someone had dug it up from somewhere to play a gruesome prank on the show’s cast or crew.

It just should have gone to Washington or a museum, he thought again.

He understood why Henri had insisted it stay in Lily. He wanted to know who’d gotten hold of the skull—and who’d put it in the basement storage room of the Gilded Lily.

“Sheriff Sloan Trent,” he said, accepting her hand and nodding to the others in acknowledgment. They all greeted him in turn, either as Sloan or as Sheriff—as if that was his given name. There wasn’t a lot of formality in Lily.

“I’m here to take you to our offices. We have a room prepared for you to work in. I hope you’ll find everything you need.”

She nodded. “I bring most of my own supplies,” she said, patting the black case she carried over her shoulder. “We should be fine. Thank you, Sheriff.”

“My pleasure, Agent Everett. You ready?”

“I am.”

There was a chorus of “lovely to meet you” and “nice to make your acquaintance” and other cordial statements as they left the stage area and headed out, along with “See you later, Sloan!”

He led the way to his SUV—then hesitated. He’d been raised to open doors for ladies, but wasn’t sure what the protocol was with an agent. He decided he’d be damned if he was going to change. He opened the passenger door. She thanked him as she slid in.

An awkward silence followed as he drove down Main Street, then along the paved road that passed by a smattering of houses and ranches on small plots, and finally larger tracts as he traveled the six miles from the heart of Lily to the modern “downtown” area of town.

She broke the silence.

“So, Logan said he sometimes worked with you in Texas. But you’re from Lily?” she asked.

“I am,” he told her.

“It’s really remarkable,” she said. Her voice seemed strained; she was obviously trying to be pleasant and cheerful. “The town, I mean—not that you’re from it.”

“It’s remarkable in its preservation, I suppose. Tombstone is similar, but far better-known. The gunfight at the O.K. Corral and all that,” he said. “We had our share of outlaws, but none that caught the American imagination like Wyatt Earp and his brothers. Of course, Wyatt Earp wrote books that fostered the popular conception of the Old West.”

“Ah, but Lily has the Gilded Lily,” Jane said.

“And Tombstone has the Birdcage.” He glanced her way. “But the Gilded Lily has never been closed. It’s been an operating theater since it first opened. And while the Birdcage had its ‘cages’ or ‘cribs’ in balconies so its ladies of the night could entertain during performances, the Gilded Lily pretended to be a totally legitimate theater. The working ladies only entertained clients in their rooms upstairs—and that was to keep from losing clientele to the saloon and ‘entertainment’ center across the street. Of course, the Gilded Lily tried for a higher class of clientele,” Sloan said.