Still, that couldn’t compare with a man who’d just been murdered, even if he hadn’t been the most upstanding citizen.
He was also certain that they needed to establish the identity of the long-dead man who’d been found at the Apache village.
Somehow it all connected. He knew it.
“I’ll keep in touch,” he told her.
“You’d better.”
As he left her, walking around to the rear to get his patrol car, he thought that while it had been far more grueling to be a cop on the mean streets of Houston, being here was disturbing in its own way. A different way. In Houston, it had been easier to recognize the bad guys; here, he was afraid, he was looking for someone who might well be a friend.
Driving out of town, he could see the Silverfest celebrations taking place in the cordoned-off section of Main Street.
People were in high spirits. Most were convinced that a tourist killed in the desert had nothing to do with them.
And most of them were right.
In a few minutes he was back at his place, where Johnny Bearclaw had the horses saddled. Sloan mounted Roo, while Johnny took Kanga.
“We’ll probably run into the trail group,” Johnny told him.
“Yeah, I know. We’ll wait until the group that’s out now has moved on to the Apache village. It won’t look strange that we’re out there,” Sloan said. “There was a murder.”
“I’m ready for anything.” Johnny patted his holster.
Sloan carried a .357 eight-shot Magnum. He saw that Johnny had prepared with his weapon of choice, the 629 six-shot .44 Magnum. He’d had that weapon as long as Sloan could remember, but he didn’t carry it often.
Leaving the property and entering the trail, they caught up with Heidi and her tour group about halfway through. He noted that Heidi wasn’t alone; her older brother, Lars, just out of the military, was riding second with her. Sam, another of the tour guides, was carrying, too.
When Heidi saw him, she went ashen, so he urged Roo through the riders, saying a friendly hello to the mounted tourists as he did.
“There’s nothing wrong, Heidi. I’m just keeping an active presence all over town today,” he assured her quickly.
She let out a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Sheriff. Even though I brought my own ‘hired gun,’” she said with a rueful smile.
“I see that.”
Sloan waved to Lars, who waved back. Heidi was in good hands; Lars was a serious kid who had done two tours of duty in the Middle East.
“Hey, I’d rather not find any more dead men,” Heidi said. “I mean,” she added in a hushed voice, “I only found the old dead guy, but...that was creepy enough for me.”
“You should be fine today.”
“Thanks, Sloan. Hi, Johnny!” Heidi said.
Johnny waved, and Sloan urged Roo back to Johnny’s position beside the group. He smiled as they passed them.
“Give it five minutes?” Johnny asked.
“Yep. We’ll give it five.”
The tour group moved on.
They left Kanga and Roo rooting around for scrub grass and walked to the entrance. With Johnny’s help, it was easy to move the loose boulder. Sloan crawled through and Johnny followed. There was nothing in the first opening; they climbed over rock to reach the second chasm and then the third.
Sloan directed his flashlight all around.
At first, he saw nothing.
And then he saw the dark pile with the tarp over it on the earth-and-rock flooring. He walked over to it and tore away the tarp.
“Son of a bitch!” he exploded.
8
Being Sage McCormick was fun.
Jane had never thought of herself as an extrovert, but she did enjoy being in this costume, and she enjoyed seeing the children so excited. Thanks to the cast of the dinner theater, she was quickly at ease answering all manner of questions, telling kids and adults alike the history of the theater and how she had disappeared one night. “I was suspected of all kinds of terrible things,” she told them, emoting more than she’d realized she could, “but now people know—I was murdered right in the theater and buried under the floorboards!”
Posing for pictures and playing the part of Sage was good; it distracted her from worrying about Sloan.
It was a foolish thing to do, she reminded herself. He’d signed on the line that he was willing to give his life for his work; she had done the same.
She loved her job. She had to go where her work took her and her real home was Arlington, Virginia, where the Krewe units had their offices and where she’d found the town house she loved. Okay, so she could leave a home. But she was an important part of her Krewe, and they solved cases when others couldn’t.
Not that Sloan had asked her to do anything, or vice versa; they’d slept together once. She didn’t regret it.
No, she really wanted to do it again....
But whatever their involvement, it didn’t matter; she’d be worried about anyone investigating a murder. Law enforcement officers everywhere signed up for this, and it didn’t stop those who cared about them from worrying about it.
“Hey, time for the old shoot-out,” Cy said, nudging Brian.
“The shoot-out.” Brian grinned at Jane. “I love this part of the show!”
“Well, of course he loves it—he gets to be fastest on the draw,” Valerie said.
“The things we’ll do for art!” Cy said. “Yeah, sadly, I’m Mean Bill Jenkins and Brian gets to play Savage Sam Osterly. And Osterly outdrew Jenkins.”
Henri Coque was back at his podium. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, make way, if you please! Not long after the lynching of Aaron Munson, the streets of Lily grew even wilder! Sheriff Fogerty struggled to hold on to a deputy, but men were afraid in Lily. He did his best to protect the law, and he turned a blind eye to the men who fought in the streets. On January 17, 1873, two of the meanest, most vicious outlaws ever to come to town met on Main Street, right here, ready to duel it out. They say it was over a chorus girl from the saloon.”
As he spoke, Cy walked out onto the street and waved to the crowd.
For a moment, Jane was distracted. She turned to look back at the Gilded Lily.
There was definitely someone at her bedroom window.
“Mean Bill Jenkins fought on the Union side during the war. He was something of a hero when he was with his Indiana unit at Gettysburg, or so the history books tell us,” Henri said.
Jane turned back to watch the action.
Cy raised his hat, smiled proudly and bowed to the audience—among them, many admiring women.
“But,” Henri announced, “when the war was over, he took up with a group of Kentucky Rebels and Yanks—and they weren’t the kind who robbed banks nicely and kept from killing people. Not like our dashing Trey Hardy!”
Cy paused midsmile and frowned at Henri.
“Sorry,” Henri said as an aside, bringing a rise of laughter from the crowd. “Mean Bill Jenkins was as mean as they got! Oh, yeah, mean and vicious, through and through.”
The temptation to look back was strong. Jane did so. The ghost of Sage McCormick remained. She was staring at Jane. She shook her head; her ghostly hand slammed against the window.
What the hell was she trying to say?
“Yes,” Henri Coque repeated, “mean and vicious, through and through.”
Cy shrugged, and made fists of his hands.
“So,” Henri continued, “on this day, late in the afternoon, after both men were liquored up, Mean Bill challenged Savage Sam to a duel!”
Behind Henri, Valerie raised a sign that told the audience to say “Oooh!”
The audience complied.
“Now Savage Sam...” Henri paused as Brian stepped out onto th
e road, “was a man who kowtowed to no government!”
Brian stood straight and accepted the cheers of the crowd.
“No, he was just a vicious killer.”
It was Brian’s turn to stare at Henri.
“Hey, that’s history!” Henri told him.
Brian sighed and his shoulders slumped, but then he, too, straightened and twisted his lips in a sneer.
“Yes, friends, it was over the love of a woman!”
“Me! Me!” Valerie said, rushing forward.
“No, it would be over me!” Alice argued, pushing her way into view.
“Sorry, the identity of the woman was never written down in the history books. She was just one of many bawdy-house women plying their trade in Lily,” Henri said.
“Oh, let’s see—bawdy woman. That would be you!” Valerie said sweetly to Alice. Alice drew back her arm as if she was going to throw a punch. Mike Addison slipped quickly between them. “Hey, the duel was between the men!”
“No, let’s have a catfight!” someone yelled from the crowd.
There was a lot of laughter at that. When it calmed down, Henri said, “The men asked Sheriff Fogerty himself to call the duel. Oh, wait, that’s me!” He walked down from the podium and stood between the men on the street. “Twenty paces, men.”
The duel progressed. As it did, the amusement Jane had been feeling began to fade.
They were actors, she reminded herself. Playing with blanks.
“Twenty paces!” Henri called again.
Brian and Cy made faces at each other and turned to walk their paces.
“And now...” Henri said.
Both men stood still, forty feet from each other.
“Ready!” Henri called.
They swung around.
Jane looked back at the window. Sage remained there, shaking her head.
She wanted the duel stopped. Why? Did she know something?
Jane was terrified that if the duel went through, someone was really going to die.
“Aim!” Henri shouted.
It was quite possibly one of the stupidest things she’d ever done, but she couldn’t stop the abject fear that swept through her.
She burst out into the middle of the road between the men, arriving a split second before Henri could call, “Fire!”
“Wait! Wait!” she shouted. She had no idea where’d go from there, but she started speaking, saying whatever came to mind. “People died back then because they weren’t smart enough just to have a conversation. Now we’re living in a new time, a new day—and I’m sure you gentlemen are smart enough to have a conversation and work it all out!”
She looked back and forth between Cy and Brian; they stared at her blankly and then looked at Henri. Henri frowned at Jane, then shrugged.
“Hey, come on, shoot it out!” someone cried from the audience.
“No! Enough violence. We’ve already had a lynching,” Jane said. “Think how cool it would be if Congress actually talked with one another.”
She was grateful that those words brought more laughter; she was swaying the crowd. “Now you guys...neither of you is really mean and vicious. You just need a hug, right?”
She smiled at the laughter she received.
“All in favor of a peaceful discussion, raise your hands!”
She was still afraid she was going to lose. She might be entertaining the crowd, but they’d come to see a duel.
To her astonishment, she got help from an unexpected source. Valerie came bursting onto the scene. “No shooting, gentlemen! How will the play go on tonight if we lose one of you?”
Not to be upstaged, Alice Horton, vamping it up, ran out, as well. “And we all know that a good bad girl loves a bad boy with a story—the strong but silent type, you know?”
“Talk it out, talk it out, talk it out!”
Jane was grateful when the crowd took up the chant.
“Give me your weapons, boys!”
They handed them over. She didn’t dare take a chance on looking at them then; she had to make sure her improvised charade went on.
“Now say you’re sorry for flying off the handle, Mean Bill Jenkins!” she told Cy.
His blue eyes touched hers with curiosity and a surprised admiration. She smiled at him, silently thanking him for playing his part.
“Oh, all right! I’m sorry, Savage Sam. I think you got you a fittin’ girl now, and I’m going to get me one, too.”
“Oh, yes!” Valerie said, running to throw herself into Cy’s arms.
“Well, there you go!” Henri said. “The gunfight that wasn’t. Damned good thing we’re not at the O.K. Corral! Hey, everyone, take a gander at all the activities out back. Kids, you can mine sand for silver. Ladies, you can buy some great jewelry. And don’t forget that while you’re in town, you can catch these fine folks performing for you every night at the Gilded Lily!”
Jane stood still in the street for a moment, feeling grateful on the one hand, ridiculous on the other.
A little boy walked by saying, “I thought there was going to be a gunfight!”
He wasn’t happy.
But a cluster of twenty-something young people walked by and the tallest among them was talking excitedly, “See, I told you. It’s great to come out here. They’re not stupid, they keep changing it up!”
“Who would’ve figured?” Henri Coque said, walking up to her. He shook his head. “Never saw you as a drama queen, much less someone who’d be so quick with improv.”
“Seemed like a fun thing to try. As a law enforcement officer in the twenty-first century, of course,” she said.
“And it was good!” Valerie said enthusiastically, coming up beside her. “Jennie still hasn’t shown up. She usually screams and cries and falls down in tears, saying she’s Jenkins’s mother.”
“There’s something wrong if Jennie isn’t here,” Henri said, frowning. “Valerie, will you run in there and see if she’s in her room?”
“I’m not going in the Gilded Lily by myself!” Valerie said. “Even our staff is all out on the street now. I can’t go in there alone.”
“I’ll go,” Jane said. “Which room is Jennie’s?”
“She’s next to Brian and Brian is next to you,” Henri explained. “You don’t mind? Thank you! I hope she’s okay.” His voice was worried.
Jane nodded and hurried into the Gilded Lily. It did seem strange to be in the theater when it was so silent. The main doors behind the old Western slatted doors were open; apparently, Henri wasn’t worried about break-ins, but then it was true that everyone who belonged in the theater was pretty much right in front of it.
Jane ran up the stairs and realized she was still clutching the antique guns Cy and Brian had been about to use for the duel reenactment. Before going to Jennie’s room, she went to her own and inspected the guns. They were replica Colt 45s, also known as Peacemakers, each with a cylinder that held six metallic cartridges. She opened the cylinders, and the cartridges fell out. The bullets from the one gun were obviously blanks.
From the other...
She had learned to shoot; she knew the action of her own gun. She also knew the most important thing about any gun—when loaded and in the wrong hands, it beat brawn every time.
She wasn’t sure about the cartridges. She left both guns, emptied, on her bed, and stashed the blanks and the questionable cartridges in tissues and then in one of her shoes.
Then she ran down the hall and knocked on Jennie’s door. There was no answer. She called the woman’s name. Still no answer. She tried the door—which was open. Hesitantly walking in, she continued to call the woman’s name.
Jennie wasn’t in the bathroom or anywhere in the room. Jane felt a growing sense of unease and even checked under the bed. Again, no
sign of her.
Coming out of the room, she saw Sage McCormick. The ghost was waiting for her on the second landing by the stairs, and as Jane approached her, Sage drifted down the stairs. She walked around to the bar and behind it.
Puzzled, Jane followed her.
Sage went through the door at the far end of the stage. Jane opened the door to a set of stairs that led to the basement, now the costume storage area.
Where Sage’s skull had been found.
Jane carefully went down the stairs. It was broad daylight outside, she reminded herself, and when she tried the switch on the wall, the basement flooded with light.
Sage kept moving.
The basement seemed to run the entire length of the theater. From the stairway, Jane could see the rows of wigs that now sat on mannequin heads, old and new. Most of them had faces either carved into them or drawn on them; they were supposed to be artistic, Jane supposed. Mostly, they were grotesque.
She was, however, glad to see no skulls among them.
She walked around the center of the main room.
There were racks hung with costumes, most of them now conserved in cases. There were shoes, canes, stage guns, props and boxes everywhere. She saw no sign of Jennie.
“Jennie?” Jane called out.
No one answered her.
She realized there were three rooms that led off the main section of the basement; they were separated by foundation walls. There were no doors, just arched separations with handsome wood carved designs as if someone, long ago, had determined that a theater must be beautiful—even in the storage areas.
Jane made her way through crates and boxes to the first of the rooms.
It contained more crates and boxes.
Irritated, she shook her head.
“Where are you?” she whispered aloud.
The ghost had gone through the door—and then disappeared. But Sage had brought her here for a reason.
And then disappeared.
“You could be more helpful,” she said. But then again, if she was right and the ammo in the one Peacemaker was live, the ghost had been a great deal of help; she’d saved a man from dying.
Krewe of Hunters, Volume 3: The Night Is WatchingThe Night Is AliveThe Night Is Forever Page 16