Mountain Ice (David Dean Mysteries)

It is Saturday night, the worst time of the week, when the miners descend from the mountains, all afrenzy with their lust for drink and acts of the flesh. I am bone-weary of the degradation, of wearing my false coquettish smile, pretending love, until they spill themselves within me. It disgusts me to know of what I've become. Night after night they come, some more kindly than others. Some near animals with their lust. The sheriff ran Happy Jake out of town, saying he was a cheat but I think he was just better at gambling than the others. He was always kindly to me and always smiled.

Frenchie was beaten badly by old Tom who Mrs. Rinaldi struck with a poker, but she was more troubled that he bled on her carpet than by sobbing Frenchie huddled in the corner and Tom, who remained near-dead when his friends dragged him out into the snowy night.

"God! It doesn't sound like a fun life, does it?" Dean said after reading Cynthia's latest translations. "There's no doubt about her occupation now, is there?"

"No. But it's so sad reading about it. What those women had to endure. Listen to this:"

Lola took the laudanum last evening. She is the third to do so since I've been in this dreadful place. It was a time before she died, though she knew she would and suffered for it. The sheriff came and laughed at something one of the men said as she lay there and it made me cry to hear him. But then Rev. Martin came too and comforted us. There will be more work for the rest of us tomorrow night with Lola gone.

Dean was silent. He thought he saw Cynthia blink back a tear. Finally, in an attempt to change the subject, he asked, "You seem to be making pretty good progress deciphering the notebook. Is it getting easier?" They were alone in the kitchen of Bird Song. After leaving the ice park, Dean had gone on to Duckett's Market for groceries. Though he was away only a half hour, Cynthia displayed three new pages of transcription.

"Yes. I can even remember most of the common letter substitutions." She glanced down at the pages before her and continued decoding the notebook. Dean put away the groceries and set out a tray of afternoon brownies for the returning guests. By the time he'd brewed them both a cup of Earl Grey tea and rejoined Cynthia at the kitchen table, she had finished yet another paragraph.

"Enter Rev. Martin," she said with a sigh as she handed him the page. "She's enthralled with the man. Read this."