"Drops its brass right there," Kate finished for him. "Drive away with it, it's gone."
"My thinking," Koch acknowledged.
"What was stolen?" J.D. asked him. "Silver? Gold? The mail?"
"I'm afraid," Koch said, "that's the troublesome part."
"Not eight murders?" asked Kate.
"That's appalling, of course, but our contract with passengers strictly absolves the GBSCL from any liability in case of criminal attacks by hostiles, bandits, or whomever."
"You have travel contracts?" J.D. asked. "I figured people just bought tickets."
"Tickets are the contracts, sir. Have you been fortunate enough to ride one of our coaches?"
"Never had the pleasure," J.D. answered. Kate just shook her head.
"Each ticket, on its backside, lists specific forms of injury or loss, for which the traveler assumes responsibility. It's understood that in the West, coaches are stopped from time to time by ne'er-do-wells. Our guards provide security, of course, but they are only human."
"Small print gets you every time," J.D. remarked.
"It's business, Mr. Blaze. You get the same deal from the railroads and from any other stage line on the continent."
"No lawsuits, then," said Kate.
"Oh, they are filed from time to time, but contract law prevails, I'm pleased to say."
J.D. cut in. "You were about to tell us what you find so troublesome."
"Yes. Well, the coach was robbed, although it carried nothing worth the trouble. No mail, no strongbox. The bandits—the assassins, I should say—went through the private luggage in the carriage and the boot. Each bag was emptied, contents strewn about the scene, but—"
"What was missing?" Kate asked.
"That's the problem. I have no idea."
J.D. and Kate exchanged a glance before he asked, "And what are we supposed to do about it?"
"It's my hope that you can find the killers and bring them to justice. That's for the company's sake, to salvage our reputation. Privately, for peace of mind and future plans, I need to know the motivation for this wanton slaughter."
"Find the killers," Kate repeated. "Do you know their names, or their descriptions?"
"Obviously not," Koch said. "No witnesses survived."
"So, where are we supposed to start?"
"The Gatling," J.D. said. "They cost more than a thousand dollars each, which means the only buyers are the military or rich companies with something to protect. There can't be many people selling them, besides the manufacturer."
"That's excellent," Koch said. "I also brought a list of the unfortunates aboard the coach, if you suspect the motive for this crime was personal." As he was speaking, Koch removed a folded sheet of paper from somewhere inside his jacket, handing it across to Kate.
"Just names and where they came from," she observed, after she'd skimmed the list and passed it to J.D. "Won't help us much."
"These are the cities where they started out?" J.D. inquired.
Koch nodded confirmation.
"Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Baton Rouge. They're all over the map."
Another nod.
"We can't go all over the country, asking people if they know who killed their kinfolk," Kate told Koch. "You'd owe a fortune, just for train tickets, assuming we—"
"Train contracts," J.D. interrupted. "One of these was local."
"Norval Jolley, yes. From Reno."
"Any reason to believe he was the target?"
"Other than proximity? The likelihood that killers in Nevada wouldn't know the five outsiders riding with him on the coach that day?" Koch smiled. "I've spoken briefly to his widow. She recalls that in addition to his suitcase, he was carrying a small valise when he left home. Unlike the other rifled luggage, it was not found at the scene."
"So, what was in the bag?" Kate asked.
"The widow Jolley either doesn't know, or won't admit it," Koch replied.
"Did you squeeze her?" J.D. asked.
"I beg your pardon?"
Kate translated for him. "How hard did you press the question?"
"I was firm, but in the circumstances...She was grief-stricken. Hysterical."
"You'd rather have us do it," Kate said.
"I'm not suggesting force," Koch hastened to explain.
"We'll need her name and Reno address," J.D. said.
"Of course. If I could get that back..."
He took the list of names from J.D., pulled a fountain pen out of another pocket, and began to write beside one of the victim's names. "Relia Belle Jolley," he said aloud, while scribbling.
"Seriously?" Kate was grinning now.
"I shared that same reaction," Koch replied. "Apparently, it's fairly common in the LDS."
"The what?" Kate asked.
"Latter-day Saints," J.D. informed her. "Mormons."
"Ah. What was the destination of your coach?"
"Provo, Utah," Koch said. "The passengers boarded in Silver City."
"That's a long ride, just to wind up dead," J.D. remarked.
"And an embarrassment to my employers."
"Can't forget the balance sheet," Kate said.
"We are in business," Koch said. "Not unlike yourselves."
"'If price amenable', you said," J.D. reminded him, quoting Koch's telegram from memory.
"I am prepared to offer you one thousand dollars to identify the killers. If you bring them in, we'll pay another five hundred per head."
"And what about the motive?" J.D. asked him. "For your peace of mind."
"Two hundred dollars seems a generous amount for simple information."
Kate met J.D.'s gaze and nodded. "Done," they said, in unison.
Chapter 3
Relia Belle Jolley lived in a small house on First Street, a block north of the Truckee River that divided Reno on an east-west axis. There were flowerbeds beneath the front windows, and paving stones that formed a path between the low gate in a picket fence, up to the porch. J.D. opened the gate, held it for Kate, then closed and latched it behind him.
They had to knock three times before a voice inside the house responded, asking through the door, "What do you want?"
"You first," J.D. suggested.
"Mrs. Jolley," Kate began, "we need to speak with you, about your husband."
"No reporters. Go away."
"We aren't with any newspaper," Kate said. "The stage line—"
"I already talked to someone there."
"Yes, ma'am. We know. He's hired us to investigate your husband's case."
There came a fumbling at the inside lock, perhaps unsteady hands, before he door opened a crack. Kate saw a slice of face revealed, murky behind a black lace veil.
"My Norval?"
"Yes, ma'am. And the others," Kate hastened to add.
"Are you police? I don't see any badges."
"No, ma'am," J.D. said. "We're in the private line of things."
"And working for the stage line?"
Kate produced a business card that Hiram Koch had given them before they left the Regency. On the backside, above his signature, he'd printed: "Please extend all possible assistance." Norval Jolley's widow took the card and held it long enough to read the message twice, then gave it back.
"You'd better come inside," she said. "The neighbors tend to stare."
They stepped into a parlor filled with chintzy furniture, lace curtains, two small landscape paintings on the walls. Relia Belle waved Kate and J.D. to a sofa, while she took a chair facing the two of them, across a long, low table with a vase of flowers as its centerpiece.
"What is it you've been hired to do, exactly?" she inquired.
They had decided in advance that Kate should take the lead with Mrs. Jolley. Now, she said, "Find out who killed your husband and the others, if we can. Bring them to justice, one way or another."
"What does that mean?"
"Anyone can make a citizen's arrest," Kate said. "If they resist..."
"You'd use thos
e guns?"
"In self-defense."
"I see." Relia Belle removed her veil. Behind the black lace, she was pale but pretty, in an undernourished kind of way. "I want them dead," she said.
"We're not assassins," J.D. interjected.
"No, of course not. But if someone forced your hand..."
Kate brought her back on track. "Before we get to that point, we still have to find them. If there's anything that you can tell us, we'd be grateful for the help."
"You're asking me if anybody hated Norval bad enough to kill him?"
"Well..."
A lonely tear ran down the widow's pale left cheek. "There's no one. Norval was a quiet and respectful man. He never hurt a soul, that I'm aware of."
"Maybe it was business," Kate suggested.
"He was an estate agent. That means—"
"He bought and sold the property of people who've passed on. We know."
"Well, there you are. He turned a profit on the deals, of course. That was our living. But you can't offend the dead."
J.D. jumped in, saying, "He bought these things from relatives of the deceased?"
"Or caretakers," the widow said. "But yes, mostly from kin."
"Did any of them recently complain about a deal he'd made? Maybe regretting that they hadn't asked for more, or that his profit seemed too large?"
"No, no. Nothing like that," she answered, without hesitation.
"So, no sour grapes, then?"
"No. But even if there were, who'd murder all those other people, just to get poor Norval?"
J.D. couldn't answer that. He handed the interrogation back to Kate.
"The stage was traveling to Provo," Kate said. "Was your husband stopping there?"
Relia Belle nodded. "He was, on business."
"An estate?"
This time, he widow hesitated. Finally, she said, "A small one."
"We've been led to understand the killers went through everybody's baggage, after shooting up the coach," Kate said. "The bags are all accounted for, except a small valise your husband carried with him."
"So I'm told."
"Any idea what was inside it, ma'am?"
Another hesitation, longer than the last. When Mrs. Jolley spoke again, her voice was barely audible, a whisper. "Documents," she said. "That's all."
"What kind of documents?"
"I'm sorry. Norval didn't say."
"No mention of a contract, deed, or anything like that?"
Relia Belle stayed silent as she shook her head again.
"He was delivering these papers in Provo?" Kate asked.
"Suppose to be," the widow said. "He never made it."
J.D. had a thought. "So, has the buyer been in touch with you since then?"
Relia Belle blinked at him, seemingly surprised. "Why would he?"
"Well, if this was something that he'd paid for, or intended to..."
"Oh, Lord. I didn't think of that."
It seemed to J.D. that her face, already pale, had lost another shade of color. "Ma'am? Are you all right?"
She croaked a laugh at that. "You have to ask?"
"Sorry."
Kate said, "If he didn't tell you what the documents concerned—"
"He did not."
"—was there any mention of the asking price?"
"Why do you ask?"
"We'd like to know if they were worth enough to kill eight people for."
Another tear spilled over, glistening. "You think all this is Norval's fault?"
"No, ma'am. Whoever did the shooting is to blame, and anyone who might've put them up to it."
"I can't help you with that."
"If we could find the buyer, it would help."
"How's that?"
"Two ways," Kate said. "Some people offer money for an item they can't find, themselves. Then, when it's located, they'd rather take it forcibly than pay the price agreed upon."
"The other side of that coin," J.D. said, "is a competitor who knows a thing's been found, whatever it may be, and tries to intercept delivery."
"It's all so horrible. I can't think straight," the widow said.
"Just take your time," said Kate. "Something might come to you. Maybe the buyer's name?"
"Norval and I did not discuss the details of his business."
"Isn't that just like a man?" Kate said.
J.D. glanced over at her, but instead of answering the jibe, he tried a long shot. "Mrs. Jolley, could the documents have anything to do with your religion?"
"What?" She looked at him as if he'd slapped her.
"Mr. Koch mentioned that you and Norval might be LDS."
"That's right. What of it?"
"Seems I read somewhere that you—your church, I mean—is big on genealogy research, going way back in history. Something about the souls of folks long gone?"
"Posthumous baptism," she said. "We do believe that souls denied the light during their earthly lives may be redeemed through baptism after they've passed. Salt Lake also collects whatever history's available, about the early church, its founders, and so on. That part's not religious, just compiling information."
J.D. nodded. "It was just a thought."
"You're on the wrong track there. I'm sure of it."
We'll see, he thought, but kept it to himself.
"And I suppose," Kate said, "your husband didn't mention where the documents came from? Who owned them previously?"
"No."
"Or if he bought them locally?"
Relia Belle considered that, then said, "He was away from home one night, then started working on the sale when he got back, if that's of any help."
"It gives a time frame, as to travel," Kate replied.
"I hope it helps you, honestly. If I could tell you more..."
"It's hard, I understand," Kate said.
"I have to plan his funeral," Relia Belle informed them. "Do you know, they wouldn't even let me see his body? It will be closed casket, with the shooting and the buzzards, afterward. They only managed to identify poor Norval from his business cards."
She broke down sobbing, then. Kate went to kneel beside her, arm around the widow's heaving shoulders, till the worst of it had passed.
Assuming that it ever would.
Relia Belle retrieved her veil and put it on again, before she walked them to the door and saw them off. Her parting words—"I hope you kill them all"—were spoken in a grim and steady voice.
Retreating to the street, Kate said, "She's suffering, but I still think she might be holding something back."
"No way to tell, just talking to her," J.D. answered.
"Do you reckon you were onto something, with the church?"
He shrugged. "Beats me."
"I've tried to think of papers worth enough to kill for. Contracts, maybe, if there was enough money involved."
"Or land grants," J.D. said. "Spaniards were all over the West, claiming the land a hundred years and more before there was a USA. I've heard about grants coming up in lawsuits over property, from grazing land to mines."
"That's something else to check on. Mining claims."
"It's sounding like a lot of work."
"And here's some more. Norval was gone from home one night, and came home ready to start dealing whatever he found. Allowing for negotiating time, with the estate, we might be able to work out how far he traveled in that time."
"Find out who died, and if they left estates for sale," J.D. continued with her line of thought.
"That's it."
"You're more than just another pretty face."
"You'd better think so, Mister."
Leaning in to kiss her was what saved him, J.D. later thought. The bullet missed him by a sliver of an inch, its sizzling whisper followed in a fraction of a heartbeat by the pistol shot.
J.D. dropped to the ground, his body shielding Kate's. She writhed beneath him, reaching for her pistol, but he used his greater weight to pin her down, while whipping out his own, a clumsy sort
of backwards draw with his left hand.
A second shot cracked out, the slug hissing above them, taking out a slat from Mrs. Jolley's picket fence. J.D. saw gunsmoke hanging in the air, across the street and catty-cornered from the spot where he had dropped with Kate. It might have been an alley's mouth, or just a stretch of waste ground between modest homes. Before he could return fire, J.D. saw a man-sized shadow duck back out of sight.
"The bastard's running," he told Kate. "Come on!"
"Get off me, and I will!"
He scrambled to his feet, held out a helping hand to Kate, but she ignored it. Filled her hand with iron and was already running toward the shooter's nest when J.D. started after her.
He doubted it could be coincidence that they were fired on leaving Norval Jolley's place, after jawing with his widow. The only other possibility that came to mind was some old enemy they'd left alive, spotting them unexpectedly on Reno's streets and hoping he'd get lucky with a shot outside of normal six-gun range.
If he had been a betting man—which J.D. was—he would have put his money on a stranger trailing them to Jolley's widow from their meeting at the Reno Regency, intent on ending their investigation of the stagecoach massacre before it started. Only one question then remained: were the shots intended as a warning, or to kill?
One way, they might be dealing with a crafty foe, content merely to put them off the scent. The other meant a would-be killer shaken up by nerves, or just a rotten shot.
Whatever, J.D.'s answer to the challenge was identical. He didn't bluff and didn't scare. He would pursue the shooter, capture him if possible, or put him in the ground if he was left no other choice.
They reached the shooter's spot and found it was, indeed, an alleyway. No sign of anybody lingering, but they could still smell gunsmoke and tobacco where he'd waited for them. J.D. saw a quirley on the ground, where it had been crushed out before the gunman fired.
"You coming?" Kate demanded.
"Right behind you, darlin'," J.D. said.
Chapter 4
The alley wasn't long, but it was narrow, almost claustrophobic. Gravel crunched beneath their boots, announcing their advance to anyone who might be waiting at the other end, just out of sight. They couldn't tiptoe through it, taking pains to mute their footsteps, or the shooter could be long gone and away.
"Ready?" J.D. asked Kate, as they approached the alley's far end.
Blaze! Western Series: Six Adult Western Novels Page 41