Free Fatal as a Fallen Woman by Kathy Lynn Emerson Page B

backed off a few steps and Diana breathed a little easier. She no longer felt physically intimidated by him, but she sensed she wasn't going to enjoy the remainder of this encounter any more than she had its first few minutes.
    "Miranda says you claim you don't want a share of the Torrence inheritance, but she doesn't believe you. Why else would you show up here after all this time?"
    "I came because my mother has been unjustly accused of a heinous crime."
    "I don't see why you should care what happens to your mother," Kent grumbled. "From what the lawyers said, you haven't spoken to each other for six years. It has to be the money you're after. If you can't get it from Miranda, then you'll try to take over this place."
    "I came to help my mother," Diana repeated, pausing between each word. "No matter what happened between us in the past, I'm still her daughter. How can I not do everything in my power to discover who really killed my father?"
    "But Mrs. Spaulding," Jane said. "Your mother did kill him. The morning after the murder, the police found a bloodstained glove in her bedroom."
    * * * *
    Denver City Jail had as bleak an exterior as Diana had ever seen, but the interior had been even more distressing. She came out in a rush, spitting mad and frustrated. The officious, unhelpful moron who was Denver's chief of police had decided Diana's mother was guilty and didn't care about anything but arresting her and putting her on trial.
    At least he'd confirmed what Jane had already told her, that the only physical evidence against Elmira was a glove found in her suite at the hotel. The fresh bloodstains on it were assumed to be the victim's, but Diana didn't see how anyone could prove that. Why, she had two bloodstained gloves among her possessions right now, one from the splinter she'd poked into her thumb on the ferry to Weehawken and the other from yesterday. She wasn't sure how she'd come by the second stain, but it certainly hadn't been from doing murder.
    According to Jane, Elmira had not only denied killing William Torrence, she'd also claimed the incriminating glove was not hers. No one had believed her, but Diana couldn't help but think how easily something as small as a glove could be planted among someone's possessions. And there had certainly been no shortage of strangers in the upstairs hall of the Elmira Hotel that night. There were strangers in the building every night.
    After talking to the chief of police, Diana no longer had any difficulty understanding why her mother hadn't waited around to be arrested. She'd asked him what would happen to Elmira if she was caught and had been told that a woman awaiting trial in Denver was put under the supervision of the city jailer, since the City Council had yet to authorize the hiring of a police matron, and held without privacy or comfort, denied contact with anyone but her lawyer.
    Taking a deep breath to steady her temper, Diana directed her gaze towards nearby Capitol Hill, where the new state capitol building was under construction. Hotels for tourists, modern office buildings, private schools, and exclusive clubs had already sprung up around it.
    Diana sighed. She could remember standing on top of that rounded height of land with her father when their own newly built home was one of only a few structures close at hand. A scattering of church steeples, residences, and flat roofed business blocks had made up the rest of their view of the city, with majestic mountains rising to the west and the wide expanse of the empty plains to the east.
    The memory failed to calm her, but it did succeed in redirecting her anger. This was all William Torrence's fault. Even then, when she'd still idolized him, he'd been all show and no substance. Money and prestige had mattered more to him than love. He'd boasted that he'd be the most important man in Denver one day. And the richest. And that he already had the finest house. He'd made no mention of the loyal wife or loving