Anne Marie Duquette

by She Caught the Sheriff

  The morning still smelled of last night’s rain; the sun hadn’t completely burned through the damp. In a few hours the freshness would be replaced by the familiar desert heat. Until then, Tombstone looked the way it did in nineteenth-century photographs. The rain had erased tire marks on the dirt sidestreets. The earliness of the hour meant no tourists and almost no cars. The boardwalks were silent, the hitching posts empty.

  Caro felt as if she’d stepped into yesterday as she walked from the eastern edge of town down Fremont Street. Places and names from the past surrounded her. She passed the Pioneer Home Museum, then turned south down Fifth Street. She walked past the Oriental Bar, once a faro house that Wyatt Earp had owned a share in, now a crafts-and-jewelry shop. Will I ever shop for a wedding ring with a man I want to spend the rest of my life with?

  The Crystal Palace, old Tombstone’s most popular meeting spot, just across the street from the Oriental. Will I ever gather with friends for a friendly chat, a chat about kids and dogs, instead of corpses and murderers?

  Caro rounded the corner and left Fifth for Allen Street. On the corner was the Bird Cage Theater, home of the Black Moriah, old Tombstone’s only hearse, the very hearse I threatened to destroy because I found myself in over my head. Is my whole life to be nothing more than a study of death?

  Next was Big Nose Kate’s Saloon, named after Doc Holliday’s girlfriend, the tough-as-nails “soiled dove” who risked her own neck in a noose by breaking him out of a Dodge City jail after Doc killed a card cheat. Will someone ever love me enough to risk his life for me? And I for him?

  Then came the O. K. Corral, scene of the final big confrontation between organized crime and the law, between good and evil. The law won that time, but will justice triumph again?

  She passed the sheriff’s office. Whose side are you on, Wyatt Bodine? I need to know once and for all. The law’s? Or your family’s?

  The sun rose even higher in the sky, and as businesses started to open, tourists and locals alike lined up for breakfast and coffee. Caro kept walking.

  She left Allen street for the corner of Toughnut and Third. There she approached her final destination, the Old Court House.

  She stopped to admire the building, its warm red bricks edged with larger, attractively contrasting beige ones. She admired the balconies, pillared entryway and churchlike steeple sheltering a small cupola. In front was a graceful oak tree almost as old as the building itself.

  You almost didn’t notice the hangman’s platform in the walled exercise yard. Three rope nooses rose above high brick walls, the hemp’s pale color stark against the turquoise morning sky. The desert breeze made the nooses tremble and sway.

  Caro shivered.

  For a moment, just a moment, she had the same eerie feeling of sin and shame and death she’d felt at the Bird Cage Theater. This was no frivolous tourist display. This was the site of trials, some just, some rigged. It was the site of executions, both deserved and undeserved. Caro could almost smell the sweat of the condemned men, hear the excitement of a town that closed businesses to watch, and sense the raw animal fear of death approaching.

  Then a hand descended on her shoulder, and Caro jumped.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.” Kimberly smiled, her expression apologetic above the spotless, starched beige of her uniform shirt. “Pretty grim sight, isn’t it?”

  Caro reined in her fancies. “No more so than the electric chair. I hate it all.”

  “You don’t approve of the death penalty?”

  “No! Do you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Killing’s still killing,” Caro said tersely.

  “I’m surprised by your opinion, considering all the murders you’ve worked on. Killers deserved to be killed. What if it was your child or your spouse who was murdered?”

  Caro turned back to the Old Court House, where the three nooses still swayed in the breeze. “If I could be certain that every single convicted man or woman was guilty of the crime and sane while doing it, maybe I’d share your point of view. But I’ve seen too many deranged criminals, too many witless juries and too many clever lawyers to believe in perfect justice.”

  “You don’t believe that suspects who’re innocent go free?”

  “No. Too often it’s the other way around.”

  Now Kimberly seemed startled. Her face went a deathly pale, Caro studied her carefully. “You look like a deerskin dragged through the rocks,” she said frankly. “Aren’t you supposed to be resting? Yesterday must have been quite an ordeal for you.”

  “I’m… I’m fine. I just needed a good night’s sleep.”

  “But still—”

  “Wyatt needs me,” Kimberly said fiercely. “Morgan’s still missing, and last night’s dispatcher needs to be relieved. He’s been working overtime this morning because I had a late start.”

  “Then why aren’t you at the sheriff’s office?” Caro asked. “Why come after me?”

  “Actually, I wanted to talk to Wyatt. He wasn’t at the office or the ranch. I came over here to look for him.”

  “I thought the Old Court House was a historic site, not a working office.”

  “That’s right, but Wyatt said something about you wanting to look up some old records. And the Court House doesn’t open for another hour.” Kimberly gestured toward the sign in front. “You’re too early.”

  Caro read the sign carefully; it listed the hours and gave a short history of the building. In 1881 Arizona established Cochise County and named Tombstone as its seat. But the silver rush ended in 1886 with the flooding of most of its mines. Tombstone lost much of its population after that and as a consequence lost its status as county seat. The Old Court House sat empty for years—from 1929 until it was renovated in 1955—and reopened as a historical site and museum.

  “Wyatt gave me a key and the code for the alarm system.”

  “Oh. I didn’t know that.” Kimberly continued to stand there as Caro read the signpost a second time.

  I know about all the silver mines that flooded back then, when ground water seeped into the shafts. But I wonder…has the ground water in The Silver Dollar Mine settled? Or is it being drained using modern technology? It was an intriguing question, and one Wyatt hadn’t brought up.

  “Care for a personally guided tour?”

  “I…” The nooses swung again in the wind and Caro felt a sudden foreboding. She’d never been one to ignore her instincts, and she didn’t plan to start now. “I wouldn’t want to take any more of your time, Kimberly.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “But I do, especially after your ordeal yesterday. I’ll just go on my own.”

  Kimberly still hesitated. “There’s a lot of valuable artifacts in there.”

  “I’m a registered law-enforcement investigator,” Caro firmly reminded her. “Bonded as well, which is why the Sheriff gave me a key. Besides, didn’t you say you needed to get to work?”

  “I don’t know…”

  For some reason, Kimberly’s obvious reluctance only made Caro more determined to do her research alone.

  “Go ahead, check with the sheriff.” Caro glanced pointedly toward the walkie-talkie on Kimberly’s belt. “I don’t mind waiting.”

  There was a pause, then Kimberly gave in. “I imagine it’ll be all right.”

  “I hope you feel better soon,” Caro said politely. “Tell the sheriff I said hello.”

  Kimberly nodded. Caro thought her smile looked a bit forced.

  “Say hello to your assistant for me, too,” Kimberly said. “Where is Marta, anyway? She’s not at the hotel.”

  Word sure travels fast in this town! “She’s out for breakfast, I imagine,” was Caro’s casual answer. “Why?”

  “Catfish wanted me to ask.”

  This was the second time Caro had heard the woman lie. She managed a smile. “Oh, I suppose they’ll hook up sooner or later.”

  “Maybe I should give Catfish a call. I’d better use the phone inside
the Old Court House.”

  There was an expression in Kimberly’s eyes that rang more than just warning bells in Caro’s head. She reached for her mobile phone and held it out. “Here, save yourself the walk and use mine.”

  Kimberly blinked. “I had some business to discuss with him, too.”

  “Why don’t you go sit in your car? That should be private enough. After yesterday, you really should pamper yourself.”

  “You’re very kind.” Kimberly’s voice was too sweet. “But I guess I’ll use the phone back at the sheriff’s office.”

  “If you’re sure…”

  “I’m sure.”

  Caro refastened the phone to her belt as Kimberly finally left. She watched the other woman walk away, watched her get into the car, watched her drive off. Then she waited a few minutes to make certain Kimberly—and the gooseflesh on her neck—wasn’t coming back.

  Caro stepped inside and, cautious as always, locked the doors behind her before proceeding. The interior of the courthouse was cave-cool—the thick old bricks retaining the chill of last night’s storm. Her footsteps echoed on the hardwood floors, the wood dark and polished with a century-old patina.

  Straight ahead was the docent’s desk and a stand of books and brochures. To the right was the period cubbyhole desk and original sheriff’s office, plus other displays. Caro wandered through it, nothing in the photographs and displays really catching her eye. She left the sheriff’s quarters and headed toward the courtroom.

  The carefully handcrafted judge’s bench, jurors’ chairs, witness stand and bookshelves were works of art, a striking contrast to the primitive hangman’s noose outside.

  Caro’s black humor reasserted itself. “Sorry, Your Honor,” she said aloud, speaking to an invisible judge, “but I don’t feel like lingering. I’ve been in too many courtrooms as it is.”

  Her words bounced off the high ceilings and echoed in the room. Suddenly they didn’t sound funny to her. She was mentally tired and emotionally exhausted from seeing courtrooms and morgues and murder sites. And from interviewing men and women whose every word she questioned again and again. Was it asking too much to find someone she could trust? Someone she could spend a lifetime loving?

  The face of Wyatt Bodine flashed in her mind.

  Caro gave herself a shake. She was mooning over Wyatt E. Bodine like…like Kimberly Ellis! Time to act like Caro Hartlan. “Come on, get to work. Don’t waste all that tuition money the folks spent on you.” She stifled a yawn and pulled out the pencil and little spiral notebook she kept in her jeans pocket. The sooner she finished, the sooner she could get back to the ranch and take a nap.

  “I’m getting too old for these all-nighters,” she muttered to herself. Then she unfolded the floor plan she’d grabbed off the docent’s desk on the way in, got her bearings and set off for the main display room.

  The first thing that hit her as she entered it were the hundreds of black-and-white photos. Like everything in Tombstone, they were a study in contrasts. Exhibited were rich and poor, cultured and uneducated, decadent and decent. Pictures of prim, churchgoing women in yards of hand-sewn material appeared next to scantily clad prostitutes. Dirty, ragged miners with swaybacked, dispirited mules contrasted with elegantly dressed dandies in shining carriages drawn by prancing horses—all purchased with lucky silver ore.

  And then there were the photos of hanged men, their swaying boots and final open-coffin poses recorded for all time.

  Caro found the whole exhibit fascinating. It held the same gruesome pull as the Bird Cage Theater did. Horrific, yet mesmerizing. She had to force herself to concentrate on business, not emotions, and jotted down a few observations.

  She headed decisively for the O. K. Corral exhibit and immediately noticed that the photos and drawings of the infamous shootout were all recent. Funny—you’d have thought that Camillus Fly, that most prolific of photographers even by modern standards, would’ve taken pictures of the incident and its characters.

  But there were none. In fact, there was even a cryptic note explaining that no photos of the incident were to be found—and no photos of the crime scene after the incident, either. This, despite the fact that Fly’s studio stood next door to the O. K. Corral. By fair means or foul, Caro thought, someone had hidden, probably destroyed those photographs.

  There were, however, plenty of photos of the Earps from shortly before and immediately after the infamous shooting. Caro quickly read the display narrative.

  Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp, born March 19, 1848, was an athletic man, she learned, a boxer, frontiersman, buffalo hunter, railroad builder, freight hauler, miner. He was a family man, a man loyal to his brothers and sisters. He was a risk taker, a speculator, a gambler, a horse breeder and finally a sheriff.

  He could keep order without gunplay, but never backed away from a fight. Not once was he ever shot or ill in his eighty-one years, a rare statement for those times. He lived by his own rules and his own code of conduct, not the code of the Old West, but his own. Always.

  Caro studied the solemn Earp expression in all those portraits. She was positive that the ends of his signature handlebar mustache rarely twitched with silliness. Life was hard for lawmen.

  And for law-women.

  Fighting crime wasn’t an easy life, but it was her choice. She only hoped the cost wouldn’t be as high for her as it had been for Wyatt Earp. His family and friends had been easy targets, maimed or murdered because of his life’s choice. It could happen to her just as well—a sad thing to contemplate, and another reason Caro stayed alone.

  I need someone who can take care of himself—someone I wouldn’t have to worry about. Someone like…

  She didn’t dare complete that thought. She hadn’t even known him for a week! And right now, she had work to do.

  She left the section on the Earps and strolled over to the mining exhibit. She’d barely glanced at it when she froze.

  There, in a group photograph of miners, was a familiar face.

  Despite the graininess of the blowup, that face jumped out at her. Caro pressed her forehead and hands against the glass, slowly reading the lengthy narrative. She didn’t have to read far. A name jumped out at her, just as the face had.

  Her heart pounded. “Son of a desert jack, but I’m good,” she said to herself.

  The man in the photo, the man whose face she had reconstructed in clay, was indeed Lem Bodine.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CARO STUDIED the photo. No doubt about it. The man in the photograph and her clay face over bone were one and the same. She unlocked the glass case, pulled out Wyatt’s camera and carefully inserted it through the opening.

  As she took her shots, she marveled again at the photo. There was no question as to the identity of the skeleton, no question at all. Lem Bodine had to have been murdered and his remains hidden away. Lies had obviously been spread to protect the killer.

  Caro rubbed her temples as she tried to make sense of a century-old crime. “Think this through, Caro,” she told herself. “Slow and easy.”

  The Bodines wouldn’t have killed their own father, would they? He was more than just the patriarch. He was the man who’d made the family fortune from cattle ranching when The Silver Dollar Mine had tapped out—the cattle that Wyatt Bodine had, two generations later, cashed into Arabians.

  That left the Ellises with a motive. According to that dinner conversation, The Bar E Ranch hadn’t made a fortune from cattle. Not then, not now, until Kimberly had taken over running the ranch. Suddenly, miraculously, she had it running in the black again.

  From stolen gold that came from The Silver Dollar Mine? It was a definite possibility.

  But why the skeleton’s sudden appearance? Was it a warning from the Bar E? Or a cry for help from Morgan?

  “I know why you were killed,” Caro said to the photograph. “But I don’t know for sure who did it. I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”

  I’ll have to go back to the mine.

 
The long-dead face of Lem Bodine stared back at her. For a moment it blurred, and she almost thought she could see Wyatt’s eyes, instead, waiting, watching. Caro blinked, and Wyatt’s face changed back to Lem’s. She rubbed a hand across her tired eyes, and in a moment her blurry vision cleared. She deliberately turned her back and headed out of the room for the sun—and Wyatt Bodine.

  For the first time in her life she was ready to trust a case to someone else. And ready to trust him with more…

  There were no lights to bother with. The Old Court House had been built for maximum light, and already it was streaming through the windows and from the cupola above. She could see the gallows in the prison exercise yard.

  Caro looked for and found the side door that led into the bricked, open-air enclosure.

  The gallows didn’t look as dangerous as they had earlier. The bottom steps had been removed, the trapdoor nailed firmly shut, and the nooses were much higher than anyone could reach. The barred door, flush against the building, led from the gallows directly to the jail cells.

  Strange, Caro thought, how small people were back then. The doors were low, the furniture tiny. Only the gallows itself seemed overwhelmingly huge. Curious, Caro approached the bars of the cell. It was dark and smelled of age.

  And something else.

  It was the smell of human sweat. Caro tensed, and peered into the gloom. She could see nothing, hear nothing. But she trusted her sense of smell. “Hello? Is someone there?”

  A faint groan.

  “Are you all right?”

  No reply.

  Caro snatched Wyatt’s key ring from her pocket, her fingers quickly grasping the old brass passkey. It fit the ancient hole in the black barred door, but didn’t turn. At her feet Caro noticed heavy chains with padlocks further securing the door, probably to keep visitors off the aged, damaged floor of the cells.