Copper Canyon Killers

by J. R. Roberts

  “That’s the way I take it.” Thayer sat down on the sofa. Clint sat in an armchair with studs in the arms and down the legs.

  “So tell, Mr. Adams,” Thayer said, “what brings you to Copper Canyon—and more specifically, what brings you to my door?”

  “Well, as for Copper Canyon, I’m really just passing through,” Clint said. “I happened to arrive yesterday, when that murder happened.”

  “Yes, Ed Collins,” Thayer said. “A good friend of mine. I’m so sorry—and that poor boy who did it. He’s very disturbed, but I never thought he was a killer.”

  “Well, the fact is,” Clint said, “his father has hired me to prove that he isn’t.”

  Thayer frowned.

  “I see. And why does that bring you to me?”

  “Well, you sat on the town council with Ed Collins.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And forgive me, but from everything I’ve heard, you weren’t particularly friendly.”

  Thayer sat forward, set his coffee cup down on the table in front of the sofa.

  “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to,” Thayer said. “I know Ed and I were on opposite sides of some issues, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t friends.”

  “I understand you were also trying to buy his store.”

  “That was just business,” Thayer said. “Listen, what’s the point of these questions?”

  “I’m just wondering what motive, if any, you might have had to have Collins killed.”

  Thayer hesitated a moment, then said, “What?”

  “I said—”

  “I heard what you said.” The man stood and drew himself up to his full height. “I think you better leave.”

  “No, Mr. Thayer,” Clint said, “there’s no reason to get upset. You’ve got to admit that you make a likely suspect for Ed Collins’s death. You and the judge, that is.”

  “Judge Miller?” Thayer said. “Did you accuse him, as well. I can’t imagine he stood for that.”

  “I didn’t accuse him,” Clint said, “and I’m not accusing you. I’m just asking questions.”

  “Questions I don’t like.”

  “Why don’t you have a seat?” Clint said. “Go on, sit back down. I only have a few other questions. Besides, this coffee is excellent, and I’d like to finish it.”

  Thayer looked undecided about what to do, then finally sat back down.

  “You’re a rich man, Mr. Thayer, as you yourself have said,” Clint said. “You must have a lot of different types of people working for you.”

  “Whoa, hold on!” Thayer said. “I can tell where you’re heading now. I do not have hired killers on my payroll and I resent your implying that I do.”

  “Again, I’m not implying or accusing,” Clint said. “I’m asking.”

  “The answer is no,” Thayer said. “I do not have any hired killers working for me.”

  “Well, that’s good,” Clint said, putting his empty coffee cup down on the table.

  “And I think you really better leave now,” Thayer said, although he didn’t stand.

  “Well, sure,” Clint said, “I’ll leave now.”

  They both stood up.

  “I’m sorry if you were offended by my questions, Mr. Thayer,” Clint said, “but I’m going to find out who killed Collins, and who hired them to do it.”

  “You’re so sure the boy didn’t do it?”

  “I have no doubt about his innocence,” Clint said. “Thanks for your time.”

  Clint left the man standing in the middle of his living room.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Thayer was good.

  If his indignant manner was an act, the man was worthy of a stage career. But Clint didn’t believe it for a minute. You didn’t get to where Thayer was in his life without knowing how to play people.

  Clint walked back toward the center of town. The thing that was sticking in his mind after spending half the day asking questions was the smell Jason had talked about. The smell of a sweet soap. Letty had smelled fresh and clean when she came to his room the night before. Beth had smelled good, obviously having bathed that morning. But neither girl smelled particular sweet. Clint felt there had to have been a woman in that back room, unless there was a very sweet-smelling man someplace in Copper Canyon.

  And he couldn’t very well go around town sniffing all the men.

  * * *

  Stephanie Kitten came out of the kitchen after Clint Adams left the house.

  “That was close,” she said.

  “He’s got a lot of damned nerve talking to me that way!” Daniel Thayer blustered.

  “He’s the Gunsmith, Daniel,” Stephanie said. “He can talk any way he wants as long as he backs it up with his gun. I notice you were real cooperative with him.”

  “I had to act innocent,” Thayer said. “Say, your two idiot partners aren’t outside, are they?”

  “No,” she said, “don’t worry. When I came over here, I left them behind.”

  Thayer turned and looked at her. She had showed up at his door just minutes before the Gunsmith. It was a close thing. He had just let her in the back door when Adams knocked on the front.

  “I don’t think your cook approves of women wearin’ guns,” Stephanie said. “She was givin’ me dirty looks the whole time I was in the kitchen.”

  “Mrs. Marcus believes women belong in the kitchen.”

  “Well, not this woman.”

  “Look,” Thayer said, “if I need you and your partners to take care of Adams, can you do it?”

  “Of course we can do it,” Stephanie said, “but it ain’t gonna come cheap.”

  “I didn’t think so.” He turned to face her. “Why did you come here in the first place?”

  “Because Adams has been around town asking questions,” she said. “I wanted to know if he’d been here.” “Well, now you know,” Thayer said. “He talked to me and Miller.”

  “And he sounds determined to find out who killed the storekeeper.”

  “And if he does?” Thayer asked. “Are you going to tell him who paid you?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “I guess that would depend on how much you pay me not to tell him.”

  * * *

  When Clint reached his hotel, he did not go in. He also decided not to go to Milty’s Saloon. He’d been asking questions all afternoon, and he was hungry. But he didn’t want to eat in his hotel dining room, in case somebody came looking for him. He kept walking until he found a small café to go into.

  He sat at a back table, the place almost full as people came in for their supper. He saw a couple of steaks on other tables, but decided against trying one. Instead, he ordered a bowl of beef stew.

  Drinking coffee while he waited for his food, he studied the men and women around him—some with children of varying ages—but he couldn’t smell anything sweet on any of them. He wondered if what Jason had smelled might not be soap, after all. Maybe some kind of lilac water, or actual candy? Someone in that back room could have been eating something sweet. If that was what it was—and not soap—it would be ever harder to identify.

  The waiter brought his beef stew along with a basket of biscuits. It was hot, not very tasty, but filling enough to do the trick. He continued to watch as people came and went, some of them glancing at him, others not paying him any mind, at all—all of which suited him fine.

  * * *

  Stephanie Kitten found her two partners where she thought she’d find them, in Andy Choate’s mother’s café.

  “You don’t look happy,” Tony Black said.

  “You’re wrong,” she said, sitting down. “I’m very happy.”

  “About what?” Choate asked.

  “Thayer is gonna p
ay us a lot of money.”

  Both men looked dubious.

  “To do what?” Choate asked.

  She looked around to make sure nobody was close enough to hear them.

  “Clint Adams is askin’ too many questions,” she said. “Thayer doesn’t want him findin’ us.”

  “Why would the Gunsmith find us?” Andy asked nervously.

  “Because he’s lookin’,” Stephanie said. “Big Al hired Adams to prove his boy is innocent.”

  “That’s not good,” Black said.

  “Yeah, it is, Tony,” Stephanie corrected him.

  “Whataya mean?” Choate asked.

  “I told you,” Stephanie said with great patience. “Thayer is gonna pay us a lot of money to take care of the Gunsmith.”

  “Oh, I don’t like the sound of that,” Andy said.

  “Don’t do that to me, Andy,” Stephanie said. “We’re in this together.”

  “Okay,” Andy said, “how much money are we talkin’ about?”

  TWENTY-NINE

  After he’d finished eating, Clint stopped at the sheriff’s office to see if Beth had been there yet. As he walked in, Deputy Ott was coming out of the cell block. Sheriff Brown was seated behind his desk.

  “Just gave your boy some supper,” Brown said.

  “Has Beth come by yet?” Clint asked.

  “She was here,” Brown said with a nod. “Spent about five minutes back there with him.”

  “Good,” Clint said. He removed his gun and set it on the desktop. “I’ll just need a minute.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m gonna go get some supper, Sheriff,” the deputy said as Clint entered the cell block.

  “Bring something back for me,” Brown said.

  Clint walked in, saw Jason Henry sitting on his cot, eating his supper.

  “Heard you had a visitor today,” Clint said.

  Jason looked up and grinned.

  “Miss Beth came in,” he said. “She says she knows I didn’t kill her father.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Can’t they let me out now?”

  “I’m sorry, Jason,” Clint said, “it doesn’t work that way.”

  “Then when can I go home?”

  “As soon as I can prove that somebody else killed Mr. Collins,” Clint explained.

  “Like who?” Jason asked.

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  “Well,” Jason said, “I’m glad Miss Beth forgives me.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive, Jason,” Clint said. “She doesn’t believe you killed her father.”

  “She’s nice,” Jason said.

  “Yeah, she is,” Clint said. “Okay, you finish your supper.”

  Jason nodded and went back to eating.

  Clint went out to the sheriff’s desk and reclaimed his gun, slid it back into his holster.

  “Has the judge set a trial date?” he asked.

  “As soon as he collects a jury,” Brown said.

  “That could take days.”

  “Normally.”

  “Meaning?”

  “When the judge wants a jury—a cooperative jury—he usually gets one pretty quick.”

  “Meaning he handpicks them?”

  Brown nodded.

  “Jesus.”

  “You got any ideas?”

  “Both Thayer and the judge had motive,” Clint said, “to hire the killing done.”

  “Motive?”

  “Profit.”

  Brown nodded.

  “Always a good motive.”

  “So they would have had it done,” Clint said. “The question is by who?”

  “Can I speak frankly?” Brown asked.

  “Sure,” Clint said, “I’d prefer it.”

  “Normally,” Brown said, “I’d think maybe that’s why you were here.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, your reputation, and all.”

  “I just got here yesterday.”

  “And Collins was killed yesterday.”

  “Good point.”

  Brown shrugged and said, “I’m just saying.”

  “No, I can see how you might think that.”

  “It’s my job.”

  “And as part of your job,” Clint asked, “are you looking into Thayer and the judge, too?”

  “I’m keeping an open mind.”

  Clint nodded.

  “Got any more questions for me?”

  “No,” Brown said, “I don’t actually suspect you. Although it would be funny.”

  “What would?”

  “If you were hired to look into a killing you committed.”

  “Yeah,” Clint said, “that would be funny, wouldn’t it?”

  THIRTY

  Clint left the sheriff’s office. The man had not offended him. It made sense to consider him a suspect. He arrived in town, and a man was killed. Of course, it helped that he was in the saloon when the shots were heard. Randy was his witness.

  And although Randy was up for Ed Collins’s spot on the council, Clint was his witness. He was behind the bar when the shooting occurred. Unless he had hired it done.

  Everything pointed to the killing being hired out. Jason stumbled into it, but it wouldn’t hurt Thayer or the judge if they could hang the murder on Big Al’s son.

  So he had to find any hired killers who were in town, or had been in town at the time of the killing. Unless, of course, they rode in, did it, and rode out. But more often than not, a hired killer came in and got the lay of the land before doing the job.

  He had to check all the hotels and rooming houses, see if anyone had checked in a day or two before the killing, and had either checked out right after or was still in residence.

  He decided to start with his own hotel . . .

  * * *

  The desk clerk allowed him to look at the register book. Two men had checked in a couple of days before, along with a man and a woman.

  “A married couple, I think,” the clerk said.

  “And are they still here?”

  “Well, these two men checked out the day before the murder,” the clerk said, “but these two—the man and the woman—they’re still here.”

  Clint looked at their room number. It was several doors down from his.

  “Are they in their rooms now?”

  “I don’t think so. I think they went out.”

  “Together?”

  The clerk shook his head.

  “Separate.”

  “What do they look like?”

  The clerk, a young man, didn’t have the words to properly describe the man.

  “He’s tall, dark-haired, dressed like a salesman.”

  “Is he a salesman?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And her?”

  Now his face softened.

  “She’s pretty,” he said, “real pretty.”

  “How old?”

  “I think they’re—he’s older, in his thirties, but she looks like she’s still in her twenties.”

  “Like you?”

  “No,” he said, “I’m twenty-four. She was older.”

  “And how did she smell?”

  “Smell?”

  “Yeah,” Clint said, “how did she smell?”

  The clerk thought a moment, then said, “She smells good, I guess.”

  “Sweet?”

  “What?”

  “Did she smell particularly sweet?”

  “No.”

  “Okay,” Clint said, “thanks.”

  As he turned to walk to the door, the clerk said, “But he did.”

  “What?” Clint turned.

  “The man,” the clerk said
. “He smelled sweet.”

  “Did he?”

  “Yeah,” the clerk said. “I thought it was . . . odd. You know, a man smelling like that.”

  “Yeah,” Clint said, “odd. Uh, what are their names again?”

  The clerk looked at the book.

  “He’s Henry Wilkins, and she’s . . . Amanda Kyle.”

  “Different names, but you thought they were married?”

  The young man shrugged.

  “I didn’t read their names right away,” he said, “but they acted like they were married.”

  “Okay,” Clint said. He just had to find the sweet-smelling man, Henry Wilkins, and ask him some questions.

  He started out toward the door, then stopped again.

  “How much luggage did they have?”

  “Quite a few bags,” the clerk said. “You know, he’s probably a . . . a drummer of some kind. Some of them looked like sample cases, you know?”

  “Yes,” Clint said, “I do know.”

  * * *

  “What are you thinking?” Sheriff Brown asked.

  “That maybe Wilkins and the woman, Kyle, came to town to do the killing. They checked into the hotel, but they didn’t check out after the job was done. That would be too suspicious.”

  “Could be.”

  “Did you ever see them?” Clint asked. “This drummer and his maybe wife?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t keep track of every traveling salesman who comes to town.”

  “That might’ve been what they were counting on.”

  “Damn,” Brown said, sitting back in his chair.

  “And the man,” Clint said, “the desk clerk says he smelled . . . sweet.”

  “A man? Smelling that way? Why?”

  “I don’t know,” Clint said. “Let’s find him, and maybe we’ll find out.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  They left the office together, but then split up, both looking for the sweet-smelling drummer, or his maybe wife.

  “If you find him,” Brown said, “bring him back here. We’ll question him together.”

  “Agreed.”

  As they split up, Clint found himself heading toward Milty’s, so he thought he’d start there. It would make sense for a salesman—a real salesman—to spend some time there.

  “Can’t stay away, eh?” Randy asked. The place was in full swing, with all the gaming tables open and the girls working the floor.