by Erik Carter
“Now I dare you to find it,” Macintosh had said. “Go ahead. Find it.”
Challenge accepted, asshole.
I slid among the prickly pears he kept along the side of the house. I peered around the edge of a window and looked inside. Complete darkness. No movement.
I ran a finger along the window frame. It was fixed, didn’t open out. I looked up to the second floor windows. Folks would sometimes seal up their ground level for safety reasons. They never gave much thought to the other floors.
Among the small collection of items I’d brought with me in my knapsack was a lasso. I took it out and tossed it up to the roof of the house, catching a piece of the ornate design, a gargoyle or eagle or some other such nonsense. I gave the rope a tug and climbed up the side of the house.
At the second floor I stopped and examined a window. Unlike the ground level, this one did open out, but when I gave it a tug, I found it was locked.
I had just the thing for these situations.
I took a palm-sized piece of metal from my knapsack, rectangular in shape with a variety of odd geometric slots cut into the sides. This is my lock-killer, the brainchild of a blacksmith named Otis Carlyle from San Francisco.
Otis had hired me several years prior to keep tabs on his promiscuous spouse. When he found himself unable to pay, he promised me an invaluable item to calm my understandably flared temper. He gave me this small piece of metal with the promise that it would open most any lock I would encounter. I was skeptical, but I took it. The lock-killer was been true to Otis’ description and helped me out of countless fixes through the years.
I glanced over the various slots in the lock-killer and found a shape that seemed appropriate. I slid it into the window frame and moved it about, up and down, side to side. Come on, come on, where was it? Ah, there we go. I yanked the lock-killer to the side. Okay, a little pressure … and maybe a little finesse.
Click.
Outstanding. Thanks again, Otis. I pulled up on the window … and it creaked. Okay, slowly now, slowly. It squealed and groaned. I reached into my knapsack, hoping I’d remembered to bring some grease or oil. No such luck.
I spit on the hinges.
I tried it again. Still it creaked, but not quite so loudly. I opened it slowly and soon had enough room to enter. I stuck one boot inside and pulled myself into Connor Macintosh’s home.
It was pitch black. I took a dark lantern from my sack and lit it. From what little light was coming from the dark lantern, I could see what looked like a hallway in front of me. To my right, I sensed a hollowness, something like a hole. I turned the lantern. There was a spiral staircase leading down to the first floor. A low, rhythmic sound came from below. Snoring.
I took a step toward the hallway. My boot snagged on a rug, and I stumbled forward, my foot landing with a solid thud. I held my breath and listened the snoring.
And didn’t hear any.
I did, however, hear floorboards creaking on the lower floor. I took a deep breath and quietly pulled out my Colt. I put my thumb on the hammer.
More noises from the floorboards below.
I eased the hammer back. The spring whined from within the gun. The hammer snapped down with a loud click that echoed down the hallway. I bit my lip and held my breath again.
There was silence from below.
I aimed the gun at the stairwell.
There was a minute or so of quiet, then the snoring resumed. I clicked the hammer back and put the Colt in its holster. From this point on, I decided, it was probably a good idea to risk a little more light. I opened the dark lantern a bit wider.
I searched the entire second floor, room by room. Macintosh had just as many artifacts as had been in Cosgrove’s collection, so the work was slow going, especially with the minimal light my dark lantern was throwing out.
When the second floor proved fruitless, I quietly made my way down the spiral staircase to the first floor. I checked every room but the one from which loud snoring continued to emit.
I gave some special attention to the office. It made sense to me that Macintosh would keep the kettle in his office like Cosgrove had. The office was grand and luxurious, and, as with Cosgrove’s office, there were bookshelves on the walls with artifacts displayed here and there. Not a kettle to be found, though.
All said, I was meticulous in my search. I checked that house inch-by-inch. I looked everywhere except the fat man’s bedroom. Maybe he slept with the damn thing. Wherever it was, it was hidden good.
Moments later I made my way to back the second floor window from which I’d entered. Though I hadn’t been successful, I still chuckled at my craftiness. Macintosh had said his home was his castle, that it was well guarded. My ass!
A noise in front of me.
I stopped in my tracks and moved my lantern. Well now … there was the dog I’d assumed Macintosh didn’t have.
It wasn’t too big, maybe Beagle-sized, but it sure was a bruiser. Thick trunk. Short legs wrapped in taut muscle. Broad, dumb face. It growled. A line of drool glistened in the lantern light.
“Hi,” I whispered.
It growled louder.
I eased the lantern down and set it on the floor. I had a clear path to the window, but there was ample room for the dog to catch me before I’d make it there.
When no other options present themselves, I go with my old stand by—the direct approach. Slowly I put one foot in front of me. The floorboards squeaked. I shifted my weight forward and was now one step closer to the window.
The dog, still growling, took one step closer to me.
I took two light steps, a little quicker this time. The dog matched my steps.
So this was his game, huh?
I leaned forward for another step … but pulled back at the last moment.
The dog stepped forward.
“Ah-ha!” I said, pointing at it.
The dog growled.
“Oh, hell with it.”
I bolted.
The window was so close I could taste it. It got closer and closer, but there was a warm, wet breathing right there behind me.
I leapt for the window. I knew I had a one story drop ahead of me, but there was a tree just outside. It would surely break my fall.
I was horizontal, I was airborne—brother, I was flying! I could feel the cool outside air. I sucked in the moonlight, the crickets, the stars.
And suddenly I was plummeting. But this couldn’t be. I hadn’t yet reached the window. From my perspective, the windowsill began to float up. I was dropping to the floor. I became aware of a warm sensation on my right foot.
Just like that, time returned. I crashed into the floor with a solid thud. Searing pain went up my right leg. The dog had bitten down on my boot. I shook and kicked and shrieked. That’s right, shrieked not yelled. Not my proudest moment, to be sure.
I dug my left boot into the dog’s ugly face and pushed hard, sliding my other foot free from the boot that was being devoured. I scrambled away and leapt once more for the open window.
The tree broke my fall, all right. Seemed to be breaking some ribs as well. I bounced off branch after branch as I descended. At one point I looked back at the window, where I saw the dog viciously destroying my boot. Yikes.
I landed in a crumpled mess at the base of the tree. No time to lick my wounds, though. I pulled myself up and bolted for Bob. He was where I left him, tied to a scraggly tree among a clump of desert plants. He was sniffing a saguaro cautiously.
He turned and looked my direction as I waddled over in one boot, my arms wrapped around my aching ribs. I swear, if I hadn’t known better I would have thought that horse was laughing at me. His intelligence astounded me sometimes. Then again, I must have looked pretty ridiculous in my current state. It would be a dim creature indeed that wouldn’t see the humor in it.
I yanked Bob’s reins off the tree and quickly jumped up into the saddle. We thundered away just as lights began to appear in the windows of the mansion.
/> Chapter Ten
I spent a fitful evening in a Tucson hotel. My ribs howled at me all night, but I could soon tell they weren’t truly broken. Good news, I suppose. Still I couldn’t sleep, and I left the hotel in the middle of the night. The trains weren’t running in the late hours, so I rode back to Desecho, taking my sweet time. For a while, each of Bob’s steps sent a shudder of fresh pain up my side.
At my slowed pace, it took several hours to make it back to Desecho. By the time I arrived I was feeling much improved. I’m resilient like that. Fannie calls it my “physical stubbornness.” I call it “manliness.” Tall drinks of water like myself are known for being wiry.
I looked down to the stirrups and my fresh new boots within. Before finding a hotel, I’d hobbled around Tucson in one boot—having left one behind at Macintosh’s as a chew toy for his dog—until I found a leather shop.
The new boots were clean and smooth. And uncomfortable. Gonna take a long time to break them in, give them some character. My old boots had plenty of character—so much so that they’d gotten me all sentimental when Lilly offered me the case and, thus, prompted me to continue being a detective. So it was sadly appropriate that this case had stolen one of them from me. Luckily, I still had the left one. It was in my knapsack. I would display it on the shelf in my office.
By the time I returned to Desecho, dawn had come and gone. The city was covered in dew and not quite alive yet. It was still stretching its muscles, rolling over a time or two.
Though my ribs were feeling a million times better, I was hurting inside. Today was the day they were going to kill Cosgrove.
Midnight tonight.
If Lilly didn’t get the kettle to the kidnappers they were going to hand-deliver the old man to kingdom come. And the kettle was as missing as a Desecho gal at confession. Short of breaking into Macintosh’s skull and prying the information out of him, the kettle wasn’t gonna be found. No way, no how.
Did I care what happened to Cosgrove? Even if the old guy was blown away, I wouldn’t be losing any sleep. My concern, aside from my potential loss of payment, was for Lilly. If the kidnappers made good on their promise and killed Cosgrove, she’d be alone. All she’d have would be me and Pattison. That’s pitiable beyond belief.
But, then, she’d always been alone. The way I understood it, bearing in mind that this comes from the Desecho rumor mill, Lilly’s mom had been a young trophy wife of Cosgrove’s. Went by the name of Courtney. Cosgrove had been married to a vicious old hag before that and took this young lady as something of a retirement gift for himself. Apparently it was a big shock around town when word spread that Courtney was pregnant. Who would have thought Cosgrove still had swimmers? After all, he would have been in his early seventies. Courtney died when Lilly was still a small child—under questionable circumstances. Lilly was homeschooled, and her half-brother, who was much older, was already away at Princeton when she was born.
The first and only time I’d seen Lilly before she came to my office was about ten years after I moved to Arizona. The railroad had come to Desecho, and every one of the town’s slimy dignitaries had shown up for the commemoration. They all brought their families, wives and children and grandchildren. But Cosgrove, who usually made his public appearances alone, brought only Lilly. She had been just a girl then, maybe thirteen years old or so, cute as a bug, even at that awkward age. I remember her looking scared, stunned even. And can you blame her? It was one of her scant excursions outside the Cosgrove grounds, and there she was thrown into that whole fiasco of the railroad dedication. A big crowd of folks in their Sunday best. Politicians. An idling train. All the pathetic, gossip-mongering eyes of Desecho were upon her. A newspaper photographer had taken her picture.
She’d looked similarly frightened and lost when she arrived at my office. But you know what? She’d made it there. I hadn’t given it a moment’s thought at the time, but looking back on it, I was sure the process of tracking down a private investigator had been quite an adventure for her. For a gal who’d seldom been out of her house, you had to doff your cap to her.
She was such an emotional thing. If she lost that old miser she’d be absolutely crushed. It was a cryin’ shame. The entire situation was a shame, as a matter of fact. I’d gone to Tucson with such high hopes. I had a promising lead, things were moving along well. But then it all fizzled out.
At this point, the only glimmer of hope was tracking down the kidnappers themselves. When we first met, Lilly hadn’t been able to describe the kidnapper she met. It was too dark, she had said, and he was wearing a bandanna over his face. I now knew from my experiences with the mystery man how hard it could be to identify someone who was so well concealed.
The outlook for the case couldn’t have been any bleaker.
It was a busy morning in Desecho, and the roads were crowded. Bob regarded the traffic with boredom. I regarded it with a more candid distaste.
Though I had no official statistics, I was certain that Desecho was one of those places where the daytime population was drastically higher than that of the nighttime. All the hillbillies from the surrounding wilderness would filter into town to buy their plows and seed and barbed wire. They’d be out by sundown, not wanting to stick around for the colorful Desecho nightlife. They must have thought it was less degenerate to get drunk at home.
Sunday mornings were the worst. They came by the wagonful, from the wrinkled old patriarchs down to the wiriest little brats, all decked out in their pretty, pressed, pious apparel. I made it a point to sleep as late as possible on Sundays and happily doze through the whole charade. Usually this wasn’t a difficult task for me. But with nearly broken ribs, I wasn’t so lucky today.
I tugged on Bob’s reigns and took the long way around a group of out-of-towners standing in the middle of the road. Right in the middle of the road!
A little girl darted in front of me. Bob hopped to the side and whinnied. I watched the girl run down a side road, completely oblivious to the traffic around her.
I looked up from her to find someone staring at me.
It was a man. He was standing among a throng of people mingling about the sidewalks in front of some businesses. He was leaning forward on the railing, but trying to hide behind a couple other fellas. He wore a black bandanna over his face and hid in a shadow cast by a beam supporting the overhang.
The mystery man.
This could be it! This could be the answer to all the problems. The better part of my intuition had been telling me that the mystery man was connected to the kettle, and here he was, right in front of me.
He was so concealed in shadow that I couldn’t make out his eyes, but from the sudden jerk of his head, I could tell that he had noticed me looking back at him. He took off.
I wasn’t going to let this punk get away a third time. I yanked on the reigns and gave Bob a smack. We took off down the side road.
Now, it’s important to note that the side street in question was Taylor Road, one of the few areas of good, honest business in all of Desecho. This was where the farmers went to peddle their crops and where the ranchers went to sell their livestock. By midday it was teeming with people and animals.
Today was a particularly busy Sunday. A man with a group of pigs vied for position with a horse dealer and his team, both of whom contended with a swarm of folks on foot and horseback. On the sidewalks, the chaos was just as thick on the roads—shoulder-to-shoulder crowds of churchgoers and cowboys and merchants.
The mystery man thrust his way farther into the crowd on the sidewalk. He was going as fast as he could through the throngs, pushing people aside as he went. I kept an eye on his bobbing black hat as I pushed Bob into the mess of the main road. A woman cut in front of me, and I pulled Bob back. She gave me a perturbed looked and scurried off to the side.
The mystery man was a couple buildings away from me at this point, still shoving people out of his way. The folks yelled out at him, lashed back. The people of Desecho didn’t take things lying
down.
A clearing presented itself before me. I darted across, and as I did I saw the mystery man turn and look back at me. Just as I was about to bound over to the sidewalk, the pig farmer and his swine blocked my way. One of the pigs brushed Bob’s leg, and he hopped over to the side. The pig nipped at Bob’s foot. Bob neighed and smacked his head into the pig, who squealed and ran away to the safety of his fellow bacon-makers.
By now the mystery man had found some breathing room. He was sprinting down the sidewalks.
“Come on, Bob,” I said. I hopped out of the saddle and squeezed my way through the people, tugging Bob along with me.
I haphazardly tied Bob to a hitching post and took off jogging down the road parallel to the sidewalks. Like the mystery man, I squeezed myself through crowds, pushed people aside. Also like the mystery man, I received several retaliatory shoves and elbows to the ribs.
The mystery man was well ahead of me now. He was nearing the end of the shopping region of Taylor Road, the point at which the crowds thin dramatically. I saw him hop from the sidewalk out into the relatively clear road. He sprinted.
I gave chase, pushed my spindly legs as hard as they could go. Tall guys like myself get a good stride. As I continued to push through people, I saw the mystery man getting farther and farther away. He was quick.
I cleared through another clump of people and sprinted faster. The mystery man was turning off onto another road. Faster, Barnaby! I lengthened my stride and—
Landed straight on my back. The air escaped my lungs. I’d hit something, a wall. I looked up.
A large block of a woman stood before me. She was wearing a light brown dress and a bonnet. Her face bore a striking resemblance to the vague memories I had of my father’s. It even had a hint of his mustache. Her eyes were wide with surprise. Then a smile came to her lips … as she scanned the length of my trousers.