“I don’t know,” Jane said. “I just don’t. Trey Hardy might have suspected something about what was going to happen. And even though he wasn’t a killer, he might have been condemned to death once he stood before the circuit court. He was a gentleman outlaw, so he might’ve been ready to tell what he knew, to see that people weren’t killed.”
Logan remarked, “Maybe Hardy’s legend made too much of him being a good guy. Jesse James, for instance, comes out looking like Robin Hood, but if you were the one being robbed by him it probably wasn’t so great.”
Jane shrugged. “I don’t know. I want to think of Hardy as being a good guy.”
“Well, legends are based on real men and women, and none of us is all saint or sinner. I’ll leave you two to your reading. I’m going to go into the county station and see if they can give us anything from forensics. I’ll keep in touch.”
“Where should I start?” Kelsey asked Jane.
“I’ll keep going with this. Why don’t you go through the old newspaper clippings and see if there’s anything new you can discover.”
* * *
Valerie Mystro stood by the car staring at Sloan. She appeared completely bewildered. She batted her lashes and played the betrayed heroine to the hilt.
“I don’t understand why you’re here, Sloan, why you’d be waiting for someone who simply wanted to be friendly and bring a basket of goodies to the hospital. Everything that’s happened is terrible, but your fixation on the theater is ridiculous! Yes, I went to the hospital. Jimmy Hough was a nice kid, although Caleb was obnoxious to everyone—insulting Alice and me when he wasn’t trying to pick us up or bribe us to have sex. I thought I was doing something good!”
“Valerie, this is one of the two busiest days of the year for the theater—but you had time to drive out to the hospital?” Sloan demanded.
“I felt bad! Caleb was murdered—and those two almost died, as well. Give me a little credit here, will you? Sloan, you think it all has to do with the theater because of the skull. Don’t forget, I’m the one who found the skull and was nearly scared out of ten years by it!”
“Why didn’t you stay at the hospital?” Sloan asked.
“The guard frightened me! I was just going to drop off the basket, ask Jimmy and his mom how they were doing and rush back before anyone knew I was gone. But the way he barked at me and asked what I was doing—well, I just turned around and left.”
“Let me see the basket.”
“You got a search warrant?”
“You don’t want to let me see the basket?”
“Sure, you can see the basket—if you ask nicely. I watch TV. I know I could make you get a search warrant!”
He rolled his eyes. “All right, all right!”
She leaned into the driver’s window to lift the basket off the passenger seat. It was a little straw basket with a bow and a card that said “Feel Better Soon.” She handed it to Sloan; he went through the contents and found cookies and candy.
He didn’t want to admit it, but he felt a little foolish as he handed it back. “Valerie, I’m sorry. But it looks suspicious for you to leave when you’re supposed to be playing your role for the town, and more suspicious when you run out because a guard wants to know who you are and what you’re doing when you’re visiting people who barely escaped attempted murder.”
“Sloan, I was just trying to be friendly, like I said. And,” she added, “even though he was a total prick—and probably because it looked good—Caleb Hough donated to the Theater Restoration Fund. I wanted to make sure his wife continued to do so.”
Sloan was silent for a minute.
“Sloan, please—can I get back to town before they notice I’m gone?”
He walked away from the car. “Okay. But do me a favor. Be a friend by not going anywhere near the Hough family right now, okay?”
“You’re being paranoid, and you need to be out there finding out who really did this, not persecuting good citizens!” Valerie said angrily.
“Trust me, I’m trying,” he said as he turned away.
* * *
“I’m learning about gold mining. It wasn’t found on the surface or in the streams here. It was an accidental discovery when they were expecting to find silver. But once they came across the gold vein, they created a processing station right by the mine, and they used fire and chemicals to melt the gold and mold it into bars. While the gold was being processed, it was protected by Pinkerton guards,” Kelsey told Jane.
Jane looked up at her and smiled. “I’d wondered about that. I mean, I know it wasn’t going to be like a pirate cache of gold coins.”
“No, but they were pretty sophisticated. So, the gold would have been formed into bars before shipping and it would’ve been relatively small in bulk, and thus easy to carry on a stagecoach. There were guards the whole time it was loaded. And there were actually two armed guards on board, and the driver was armed, as well. I sincerely doubt that one person could have been responsible. And then the dead men had to be buried, the stagecoach dismantled and made to ‘disappear’ and the gold hidden somewhere. It was a pretty complex operation.”
“One they must have been planning for a long time,” Jane agreed. “Two guards and an armed driver. So, maybe a party of three?”
“And someone in the know,” Kelsey said. “Only someone working for the mine, someone involved in its administration, would be aware of exactly when the gold was due to leave the mine.”
Jane glanced down at her book. “Well, this is like looking for a needle in a haystack. It could have been almost anyone living in the area at the time except...” She paused. “The administrators at the mine would have known—but local enforcement must have known, too.”
“Yes, I imagine they would alert the sheriff’s office.”
“Okay,” Jane said, thinking it out as she spoke, still and staring down at the pages in front of her. “We know that Hardy was shot before the stagecoach was attacked. What if Hardy suspected something concerning the sheriff and the deputy—something he’d picked up in jail because he could hear them when they talked? So Aaron Munson was afraid Hardy would blow the whistle on them before they got the gold. He went in and shot Hardy—never imagining that the townspeople would react so violently.”
“That’s possible. But it would mean Munson was dead when the stagecoach was robbed—and disappeared from the face of the earth.”
“But not Fogerty!” Jane said. “His book points at a man named Tod Green, a man claiming to be a rancher, who was in town at the time. A guy called Eamon McNulty was the director at the theater. McNulty and Green got into a huge argument and they had a duel in the street. Green died.”
“What happened to McNulty?” Kelsey asked.
“I don’t know. I haven’t found another reference to him, other than the fight.”
“Okay, say the sheriff, his deputy and McNulty were in on it together. They set this Tod Green guy up to take the fall. Munson was lynched before the robbery, so he was no longer a player. But Hardy suspected what was going on and he told Sage McCormick about it. Sage disappears. We’re virtually certain she was murdered because her body was found in the theater.”
“Then there’s Red Marston, who disappeared the same night as Sage,” Jane said. “He might have been part of the conspiracy. People thought Sage ran off with Red Marston, but if Fogerty was involved, the rumor makes sense—Fogerty is the one who implied that Sage had gone off with Red. So, let’s say Red was part of this, and he did care for Sage. Maybe he didn’t want her killed, and because he wouldn’t take part in the murder, he had to go, too.” Jane wrinkled her nose. “This is getting really complicated.”
“No kidding.” Kelsey frowned. “But if Fogerty and McNulty came out of it alive, why didn’t they take the gold and get out of town when it all blew over?”
&
nbsp; “I don’t know. That is a dilemma. And I doubt Fogerty admitted anything in a book he wrote himself,” Jane said.
“No. I wonder about Eamon McNulty, though.” Kelsey pulled out her phone. “I’ll look for him on Google.”
Jane waited, watching her.
“‘Eamon McNulty, renowned actor, director, theater manager,’” Kelsey read. “‘Born April 2, 1833, in New York City, New York, died June 4, 1873, Lily, Arizona, of a suspected aneurysm.’” Kelsey looked up at Jane. “It goes on to talk about his start as a poor Irish kid working in the bawdy houses of Five Points, getting a leg up in legitimate theater, staging some of the hits of the day. After critical success and financial failure, he accepted a request to manage the infamous Gilded Lily, in Lily, Arizona, where he brought in artists like Sage McCormick and Daniel Easton, known for their brilliance on the stage.”
“What if McNulty was the one who stashed the gold—maybe lying about where it was or keeping it a secret. And then he up and dies of natural causes!” Jane said. “That would mean Fogerty had to spend the rest of his life looking for the gold. But since he didn’t find it—and he’d gotten rid of all witnesses—he wrote a book!”
“Why would he do that? Although he wasn’t a half-bad writer.”
“I guess he wanted his version of Lily’s history to be the one future generations accepted as truth,” Kelsey said. “But how does that affect what’s happening now?”
“Someone else knows what we know. And they’re determined to find the gold.”
“If that’s the case, they must have some idea of where it might be. Hidden in the old shaft of the silver mine where Caleb Hough was killed?” Kelsey suggested.
“Maybe. But I still don’t understand why Sage McCormick’s skull was found on a wig stand, and why the body of an old-timer was dug up to point the way to Jay Berman’s corpse,” Jane said. “Unless, of course...”
“Unless it’s a warning to all the players to stay with the program,” Kelsey said.
“And Jay Berman somehow became a liability, just as Caleb Hough did. Whoever killed them thinks Jimmy and his mom knew what was going on, that Caleb let something slip,” Jane said. “Someone’s pulling the strings here. We know that at least two people, one of them a woman, are involved, because two people put Jimmy and Zoe Hough in the car in the garage and left them to die. Jennie was attacked in the basement. I was, too. Someone attempted to kill either Cy Tyburn or Brian Highsmith around the same time as Jennie was hurt. And the skull was found in the theater. Two things—the theater has to be implicated in some way...or someone’s going to a lot of effort to suggest it is. And, second, I think we’re looking at something similar to what happened all those years ago. There are partners in this, and a few of them are warning the others—or killing those they’re afraid might be on to something.”
“And the ghosts aren’t talking?” Kelsey asked.
“Sage...leaves messages. I’ve yet to meet Trey Hardy, but I’m hoping to make his acquaintance this evening.”
* * *
Sloan had just gotten Bullet back to the stables and was dismounting when Logan called him. He was glad to hear his old crime-fighting partner’s voice, glad he was in town.
“I’m at the morgue,” Logan told him. “With Liam Newsome. He’s brought me up to speed. We’re expecting some lab reports any minute.”
“Where are Kelsey and Jane?” Sloan asked.
“Reading at Desert Diamonds.”
“They should be safe enough there,” Sloan murmured.
As he spoke, Heidi came up to him. “I’ll take Bullet, Sloan, unless you still need him.”
He gave Heidi a quick smile, handing her the reins. He realized Logan was silent at the other end.
“Logan?”
“Yeah, I’m here. They’re both good at what they do,” he said.
“But I found Jane with a concussion down in the basement of the theater. We’re lucky our killer didn’t finish her off. Or Jennie.”
“You’re going to need to have faith in Jane. This is what she does. Trust in her training,” Logan said. “You, me—anyone out there—can be taken by surprise, especially when we’re not on alert.”
That was true; he’d seen massive sharpshooter cops brought down by junkies because they weren’t prepared to be attacked, because they were trying to help.
“I know you’re right,” Sloan said. “I’ll stop in and see what they’re doing and then head over to join you,” Sloan said.
“You’ve got men in town, right?”
“Both my day guys, and the county has men in.”
“Yeah, Newsome told me. See you when you get here.”
Sloan walked over to Desert Diamonds. Seated on a fake boulder in front of the theater, Brian Highsmith was regaling the crowd with the story of Lily, proudly boasting that the Gilded Lily was older than Tombstone’s Birdcage.
Alice Horton was beside him, dressed in full vamp attire, handing out fliers.
Sloan walked on, to the store. There were long lines at the pizzeria and the coffee bar. People were shopping, spending money—everything was going as it should.
He passed Grant Winston, who was at one of the counters, cheerfully instructing a cashier to return a man’s money; the man had purchased the same book twice. Grant saw him and smiled, then motioned toward his office. Sloan nodded.
He entered the office. Jane was standing with a tall, pretty woman whose reddish blond hair was tied back in a ponytail. They were going through a book slowly, page by page.
She looked up at Sloan. “Well?” she asked. “Who was it?”
“Valerie Mystro.”
“Valerie? What reason did she give?”
“She likes Jimmy and Zoe Hough. She brought cookies and candy. And Caleb Hough donated to the theater. Apparently, she wants to make sure his wife likes theater, too.”
“You believed her?”
He shrugged. “We’ll see what else happens. What about you?”
“Oh!” she said with excitement. “We think we’ve got it!”
“You know who killed Jay Berman and Caleb Hough?” he asked cautiously.
“No,” she said, her smile fading. “But I think we’ve figured out the past. Brendan Fogerty wasn’t such a good guy—and he fooled the world with his book. He was in on the stagecoach robbery with his deputy, Aaron Munson, and the theater manager, Eamon McNulty. But Hardy heard them talking—and that’s why Munson shot him in his cell. He hadn’t expected the mob to go crazy and lynch him. Oh, and I forgot about Red Marston. I guess he was in on it, too. Sage must have found out from him or her friend, Trey Hardy. We think she was killed because she was trying to find a way out of town so she could tell the truth. She couldn’t go to the law in Lily, because the law was involved. Marston cared about her and wanted to protect her, which meant Fogerty and McNulty had to kill him, too.”
“Why didn’t they get out with the gold?” Sloan asked.
“Because McNulty dropped dead of an aneurysm—and he’d either been the one to stash the gold or he’d moved it, not trusting his partners!” Kelsey said. She flushed, offering him her hand. “Hi, Sheriff, I’m sorry. We haven’t met. Kelsey O’Brien.”
“Good to meet you,” Sloan said. She had clear eyes, a steady handshake and a lovely manner. He hid a smile; he’d expected no less from the woman who had finally lifted Logan Raintree from his pain. “And glad to have you here. Logan is at county, getting lab reports from Newsome. I’m going to drive over and see what he has.”
Jane nodded. “I’m going to suck up to Grant Winston and beg him to let me borrow this book for the night. Then I’ll acquaint Kelsey with the theater, and be Sage again for a while until we hear back from you.”
“Keep an eye on each other,” Sloan said.
“Of course. We’ve been d
oing that for a long time,” Kelsey said.
He nodded and left them.
On the street, Henri was giving a history lesson on the theater with each of his cast members popping up to illustrate a different character. People thronged around them. Others stood just outside the saloon, some of the men with plastic cups of beer raised high as they leaned against the sidewalk support posts, like old-time cowboys.
The drive took him about forty-five minutes. As he neared his destination, he received a call from Logan telling him they’d meet at the morgue. He arrived at a lab and offices that made his little place look like a ma-and-pa operation. But he was grateful that he had the county for backup; it was impossible to have the manpower and technical and forensic support in a town as small as Lily.
A receptionist met him and instructed him to follow a hallway. In an outer room, a man who introduced himself as Dr. Madsen’s assistant gave him a paper lab suit and mask, and he entered the room.
“Sheriff Trent, just in time,” Madsen said.
“Glad to hear that, Doctor,” Sloan said, nodding to Logan and Newsome.
“I was explaining to Agent Raintree and Detective Newsome that because of the way the throat was sliced, I believe the killer was right-handed and that the knife used was about six inches long and two inches wide.”
“Something like a Bowie knife?” Logan asked.
“Yes, something like that. I’d also say the killer came up behind his back, grabbed him around the chest and attacked immediately—he didn’t have time to fight back.” He shook his head. “There are no defensive wounds on the man anywhere. It must’ve been a lightning-bolt attack.”
“By someone Caleb didn’t think would kill him,” Logan said.
“Probably. If I understand the circumstances correctly, whoever was in the mine shaft with him had to be known to him. You don’t just walk into a place like that. You crawl in through an area the size of a two-by-four boulder. Is that about right?”
Krewe of Hunters, Volume 3: The Night Is WatchingThe Night Is AliveThe Night Is Forever Page 23