“You do know that her father was just murdered yesterday?” she asked.
“I do,” he said. “In fact, that’s what I’m here to talk to her about.”
“Why?” the woman asked.
“I’d like to find out who killed him.”
“We know who killed him,” a younger woman asked. She came forward, a rather stern-looking woman of forty or so. “That addled boy, Jason Henry.”
“That’s right,” a woman in her thirties said. “He’s in jail right now.”
“I know,” Clint said, “but his father doesn’t think he did it.”
“I don’t think so either,” the sixteen-year-old said.
The other women all looked at her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “he’s a sweet boy.”
“A sweet killer,” the older woman said. “You have to watch out for those sweet ones.”
“Yeah,” the forty-year-old said.
“What’s going on?” Beth Collins asked as she came back into the room. “I thought I heard a man—oh.”
“Miss Collins,” Clint said. “My name is Clint Adams. I’m here to talk to you about your father’s death—that is, if you’ll talk to me.”
“About what?”
“About who killed your father.”
“I know who killed my father.”
“That’s what we told him,” the older woman said.
“Yeah,” the forty-year-old said.
“Mama,” the sixteen-year-old said to her.
“I think everyone should leave,” Beth announced. “I obviously need to talk to this man.”
“Are you sure you want to be alone with him?” the forty-year-old asked.
“Yes, I am,” Beth said. “Thank you all for your concern.”
As she actively ushered the four women from her store, Clint heard the older woman say, in a low voice, “I know I wouldn’t mind being alone with him.”
“Oh, Regina!” Beth said.
Beth got the women out the door and locked it behind her. She turned and came back into the store. Clint was impressed with her. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-one or -two, but she had great maturity about her.
“Now what can you possibly have to ask me about my father’s death, Mr. Adams?”
“Have you heard Jason’s story, Miss Collins?”
“I have not,” she said. “I heard that he was found standing over my father’s dead body with a gun in his hand.”
“That’s not quite right,” Clint said. “He was unconscious when your father was killed, and there was a gun in the room. That’s hardly incriminating.”
“That is not what I heard.”
“Well,” Clint said, “maybe you should hear his side of it, then.”
She hesitated, then said, “All right, perhaps I should.”
TWENTY-ONE
Clint told Beth the story Jason had told her, and she listened intently.
“So you want to go to my father’s store and take a look?” she asked when he was done. That was not exactly the reaction he had been hoping for.
“Yes, I do,” he said. “I tried the door, but it’s locked, and the sheriff has no objection.”
“All right,” she said. “Let me get the keys and I’ll take you over there.”
She went into the back room, came back with a set of keys. They left her store and started down the street.
“I ran into a very protective woman after I knocked on your door above the mercantile.”
She grinned—a grin that came and went too quickly—and said, “That’s Mrs. Mason. She had her eye on my dad for her next husband.”
“Next? How many has she had?”
“Five,” she said. “She’s managed to outlive them all. Now she outlived my father before they could even get married.”
“Was he thinking of marrying her?”
“I don’t think so,” she said, “but I would never tell her that. It would shake her confidence.”
“Well,” Clint said, “we wouldn’t want to do that, would we?”
* * *
When they reached the store, Beth unlocked the door and entered, Clint close behind her. As they entered, he noted that she smelled fresh, but not sweet, so it hadn’t been her in that back room—unless she’d smelled different the day before.
That made him think of something.
Before they went in any further, he grabbed her arm, startling her.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I wanted to stop you before you were inside any further. Have you been in the store since yesterday?”
“No,” she said, “I couldn’t—I just locked it up.”
“You smell good,” he said.
“I don’t think this is the time—”
“No, what I mean is, I want to see if I can smell what the boy smelled, so would you do me a favor and wait outside for a few moments?”
“Oh, I see. Yes, of course.”
“I’ll come and get you after I’ve taken a walk through,” he promised.
She backed out of the store, and he closed the door.
He went directly to the back room, since that was where the action had taken place. Brushing aside the curtain, he stepped through the doorway and stopped. He inhaled, but as he had suspected—or been afraid of—the smell of whatever Jason Henry had detected had dissipated.
He went back through the store and opened the front door.
“It’s okay,” he said. “The smell is gone.”
“What did it smell like?” she asked, coming back inside.
“Jason said it was sweet, like soap.”
Her eyes widened.
“A woman?” she asked. “A woman killed my father? Is that what you’re saying?”
“Either that, or there was a man and a woman,” Clint said. “Jason was pretty insistent that the arm that choked him was strong, like a man’s arm.”
As they reached the curtained doorway, she stopped.
“I don’t want to go back there.”
“I understand,” he said. “I’m just going to go in and walk around a bit, see what I can see.”
“All right.”
“Meanwhile,” he said, “I’d like to talk to some of your father’s regular customers. Is there a list somewhere?”
“Yes,” she said, “Dad had a book with the names and addresses of all the people he extended credit to. I guess those are the people you’ll want.”
“Good,” he said. “Would you see if you can find that?”
“I know where it is,” she said.
He nodded, went back through the curtain again.
He looked down at the floor, where there was a dry bloodstain. Just as well Beth had not accompanied him back there.
Walking around the room, he didn’t really know what he was looking for. So he stood across from the doorway and tried to envision what had happened.
There were at least two people back there with Ed Collins, a man and a woman. They heard Jason Henry enter, and the boy called out for Collins. The man must have moved to stand next to the doorway, and when the boy stuck his head in, the man wrapped his arm around his neck and choked him out.
While the boy was on the floor unconscious, the man and woman killed Ed Collins for some reason. They then left the boy there next to the dead body to be discovered and blamed.
But the boy could have awakened and left the store. Apparently when he did wake up, he remained there, staring at Collins, maybe trying to revive him, since he thought he was asleep. The deputy found him there, crouched over the body—but not with a gun in his hand. According to the sheriff, he only found the gun beneath Collins’s body when some men lifted it.
That brought up a few questions Clint had to think about.
He went back into the st
ore, found the girl behind the counter.
“I found my father’s account book,” she said.
“Good. Let’s take that with us.”
“Are you finished here?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, “I’ve got some things to think about.”
“Where are you going to do that?”
“I don’t know,” he said, “maybe in a saloon over a beer, or a café over some coffee—”
“I’ve got a better idea,” she said. “Come upstairs and I’ll make coffee. We can go right up those stairs.” She pointed to a stairway he hadn’t seen, against the wall. It blended in.
It was an offer he couldn’t refuse.
TWENTY-TWO
While Clint followed Beth Collins up the stairs to the rooms she’d shared with her father, Daniel Thayer entered Judge Frank Miller’s office.
“Daniel,” Miller said. “Have a seat. Can I get you a drink?”
“Some of that fine brandy you have?” Thayer asked.
“Done.”
Miller poured two glasses of brandy without having to rise from his chair, and slid one across the desk to Thayer.
“What’s on your mind, Daniel?” Judge Miller asked.
“I heard about Ed Collins being killed,” Thayer said. “Is it true that Big Al’s addled son did it?”
“That’s how it looks.”
“As he going to trial?”
“Just as soon as I can schedule it.”
“Big Al must be upset.”
“Beside himself.”
The two men grinned and clinked glasses across the desk.
“And what about Collins’s store?” Thayer asked. “What’s going to happen to that?”
“If you still want to buy it,” Miller said, “I think you’ll have to take that up with his daughter.”
“Is she old enough to make that deal?”
“She is,” Miller said. “I believe she’s twenty.”
“I’ll take it up with her, then,” Thayer said.
“After an appropriate time, of course,” the judge said.
“Of course.”
The two men toasted each other again.
* * *
Stephanie never found a man the night before.
She had gone home, had her bath with her new sweet-smelling soap, but by the time she got back out on the street, the saloons were empty. At least, there were no men she’d take home to her bed, not even for a quick poke.
She went home to bed and woke up the next morning in a bad mood.
She dressed, strapped on her gun, and went outside. Down the street was a small café that didn’t have very good food, but it was owned by Andy Choate’s mother, so they usually met there.
When she walked in, Choate and Tony Black were sitting there, drinking coffee.
“You missed breakfast,” Tony said.
“Never mind,” Choate’s mother, Mary, said, coming up behind her. “She can have whatever she wants.”
“Thank you, Mary,” Stephanie said. “I’ll have a Spanish omelet, please.”
“Comin’ up. Andrew, pour Stephanie some coffee. Where are your manners?” She patted Stephanie on the shoulder and said, “You smell very sweet, dear.”
“Thank you, Mary. It’s my new soap.”
Stephanie sat down, and after Choate poured her a cup of coffee, she sipped it.
“We get our money?” Tony asked.
Stephanie looked around. She had, indeed, missed breakfast, and the place was empty except for them, so she took out their money and handed it to each of them.
“Any more jobs?” Choate asked.
“Maybe,” Stephanie said. “We’ll just stick around town to wait and see.”
“Well, I heard somethin’,” Black said.
“What’s that?” Stephanie asked.
“Clint Adams is in town.”
“The Gunsmith?” Choate asked. “What’s he want here?”
“I don’t know,” Black said, “but he was seen eating breakfast with Big Al Henry.”
“Damnit!” Stephanie said. “Big Al’s gonna hire him.”
“To do what?” Choate asked.
“I don’t know,” Stephanie said, “but I don’t like it.”
“So what do we do?” Choate asked.
“Nothin’,” Stephanie said. “Unless we hear from Thayer.”
“Why don’t we check Adams out ourselves?” Tony Black asked.
“You and Andy stay away from him, Tony,” Stephanie said. “If anybody’s gonna check on him, it’ll be me.”
“You ain’t gonna try him, are you, Steph?” Choate asked.
“I don’t know,” Stephanie said.
“You’re not ready for the Gunsmith, Steph,” Tony said.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Tony.”
“I would like to know,” Black said, “what the hell he’s doin’ in Copper Canyon.”
“Well,” Stephanie said as Mary Choate came out with her omelet, “maybe we’ll find out.”
* * *
Sheriff Brown was sitting back in his chair when Deputy Ott came in.
“It’s about time,” Brown said, taking his feet off his desk and standing. “I’ve got to go out. Keep an eye on the kid.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“Never mind,” Brown said. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Can I let anybody see him?” Ott asked.
“Yes,” Brown said, “let his father see him, and Clint Adams.”
“Adams?”
“He’s working for Big Al.”
Ott looked surprised.
“Big Al hired a gun?”
“Not exactly,” Brown said. “Look, Kenny, just sit your butt behind the desk until I get back, and don’t worry so much about everything.”
“Sure, Sheriff,” Ott said.
TWENTY-THREE
Upstairs Beth excused herself and went into the kitchen, leaving Clint in a small sitting room. Off to one side he saw two doorways he assumed led to small bedrooms. He wondered how two people could live up there.
“I don’t have coffee,” she called from the kitchen. “Will you take tea?”
“Sure.”
“And I have some cookies.”
“That sounds great.”
She came walking in a short time later, set down a tray of tea and cookies on the table in front of the sofa.
“Come sit here,” she said.
He obeyed, sitting next to her as she poured the tea into cups. The cookies were oatmeal, and they were very good.
“You make these?” he asked.
“Yes, I did . . . they were my father’s favorite.”
He stopped chewing and stared at her.
“No, no,” she said, “it’s fine. Keep eating them. I’d like them to be enjoyed.”
“Oh, okay,” he said, and continued to chew.
“So,” she said, “what did you find out downstairs?”
“Not much, I’m afraid,” he said. “I didn’t smell anything, or find anything, but if Jason is telling the truth, it looks like there was more than one killer.”
“How many?”
“At least two, a man and a woman,” Clint said.
“Maybe more?”
“Maybe.”
She picked up her cup and sipped her tea.
“If this is too difficult for you—”
“No, no,” she said, “not at all. What’s difficult for me is to think that I immediately blamed that poor boy for my father’s death, when I should have known better.”
“Should have?”
“I know that Jason is a sweet boy,” she said, “and that he has some . . . mental problems. He’d have no reason to kill my father. I just . . . I
was upset, and when I was told he was the killer, I . . .it was just easier for me to believe it.”
“And who told you that?”
“Judge Miller.”
“Why would the judge tell you that and not the sheriff?”
“The judge came to my shop to tell me what happened,” she said. “He said he wanted to be . . . helpful.” She frowned. “That should have been another tip-off.”
“Oh? Why?”
“My father and Judge Miller were on the town council together,” she said, “and they never got along.”
“Is that a fact?” Clint said. He sipped some tea. “Who else is on the town council?”
“Well, there’s Daniel Thayer, Big Al Henry, a few other storekeepers. But most of the talking is usually done by Big Al, Thayer, the judge, and . . .”
“And your father?”
“Yes.”
“And tell me,” Clint said, “who did your father usually side with? When it came to voting, and making decisions?”
“Big Al and my dad were usually on one side, while the judge and Thayer were on the other.”
“That’s very interesting.”
“Are you saying my father was killed because of something that went on in town council meetings?”
“I don’t know,” Clint said. “Could be.”
“That poor boy,” she said again. “Can you get him out of jail?”
“Probably not,” Clint said. “Judge Miller is determined to try him. I can’t just get him out. I have to prove he didn’t do it, and then . . .”
“And then prove who did?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” she said, setting her cup down, “how can I help?”
“You’ve already helped,” he said.
“How?”
“By letting me into the store.”
“But you didn’t find anything.”
“I got a look at the scene of the crime,” Clint said. “I can see how Jason would have been choked if he put his head through the doorway. Especially if they were waiting for him.”
“Why would they wait for him?”
“To frame him.”
“Who would want to frame him for my father’s murder?” she asked.
“That’s the question,” he said.
“How are you going to get the answer?”
Copper Canyon Killers Page 7