15 Legends Can Be Murder

by Connie Shelton

  “What was Michael’s life like at that time? What was he doing?”

  “We grew up in Seattle. It’s where our parents had lived their whole lives. Well, he was six years younger than I, still in junior high school when I left home, so we really traveled in different worlds. I was accepted at an east coast college, met my future husband, married him and settled near Boston. Aside from letters and occasional phone calls home—remember, there were no cell phones in those days and long distance calls were still pretty costly—well, I got the barest details from Mother but rarely saw them more than once every year or two.

  “As I mentioned, it wasn’t until my husband and I split up that I moved back to the west coast. By then Michael had finished school and was working for a private equity company.”

  I started to ask the name of it, but she went on. “Long out of business now. They had folded by the time we started looking for Michael in 1975.”

  “Maybe he came here looking for another job,” Mina suggested.

  “I don’t think so. Mother was getting fairly frail by then, Dad had passed away a couple of years before—they were not young parents, even when I was born—and Michael continued to live at home to take care of her. She believed that he’d merely gone on a vacation; she insisted it was a trip to Portland, Oregon. Then again, her mind was getting fuzzy by that time. She also told me that he had taken a real interest in family history. It’s possible that the trip was related to that, but I can’t think how. I’ve never heard of any relatives in Oregon, much less in Alaska.”

  “I imagine genealogy research was a very different process in those days, before the Internet and all the ancestry websites that have sprung up,” I mused.

  “I suppose. As I said, Michael and I really didn’t have a lot of contact during those years. Even when I moved back to Seattle I immediately became involved in earning a living for myself, commuting to Tacoma for my teaching job.”

  “So, neither you nor Michael ever married or had children?”

  “No. I’m afraid I’m the end of the line for our branch of the Ratcliff family.”

  “What about his friends?” Mina asked. “I suppose you—”

  “Oh, yes. We contacted everyone we could think of, although there weren’t many. You have to understand that Michael was something of a loner. He was a studious boy in school, never went out for sports, not that I’m aware of. Aside from a couple of boys from childhood, he didn’t seem to pal around much with anyone in particular. We tried tracking his co-workers but, as I mentioned, the company was defunct and many of the young, go-getter employees spread across the country as they found other jobs.”

  “In the process of your previous search, was there any evidence at all? Anything that would give us a clue why he came to Skagway, who he might have been meeting here?”

  Katherine shook her head slowly. “Nothing. Of course, we had no reason to believe this was his destination. Had we known I suppose we could have checked with some of the ships or airlines to see if he’d bought a return ticket or something. I chided my mother for going to all the trouble we did to find him. At the time I really thought he was hiding out to avoid me.”

  Liquid pools formed in her eyes. “Michael and I had our differences and I have to admit to being furious with him at the time he left. He’d taken some money—not important now. My regret is that Mother died, not knowing.”

  She wrapped her napkin around an index finger and dabbed at each eye. “He’s my only relative—was my only relative. I suppose it can’t matter to anyone but me now, but I really would like to know what happened.”

  Well, we sort of knew what happened, just not why or who did it. And my first thought was that there could very well be a killer out there who believed he’d gotten away with Michael’s murder. I wasn’t sure how much Chief Branson had told Katherine but figured I’d better get it all out there.

  “The police chief ... did he tell you the cause of Michael’s death?” I tried to keep my voice gentle.

  She nodded, two quick little bobs. “That he was stabbed, yes. And that he was found in a cave or mineshaft, or some such place.”

  “Yes, that’s true. I saw the place where he was found. And did the chief mention a second set of remains?”

  Her eyebrows pulled together in a narrow white wave. “He did say something ... I guess part of that slipped by me when I heard how Michael had been killed.” Her voice broke slightly on that final word.

  I took a deep breath. “There was an even older set of bones in the same cave. When the crime lab tested them, it revealed that those remains and Michael’s were related. It’s why they wanted your DNA before asking you to come here to claim your brother.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “It means that you are also related in some way to the older person.”

  She pushed her plate away. “I ... I don’t know how that could be.”

  “We don’t either,” Mina told her softly. “But it’s what we plan to find out.”

  I used my salad as an excuse not to talk for a few minutes, to mull over what we’d learned. Katherine seemed stunned. Mina had received a text message and was busily typing a response. I tried to think of ways to get any information whatsoever on a dead body from more than a hundred years ago.

  “Katherine, do you own an old family bible or anything like that?”

  She shook her head. “If there was one sometime in years past, I don’t have it now.”

  “You said that Michael had become interested in family history. What about his notes, anything he might have compiled in his search?”

  “I’ve never come across it. But, when I cleaned his room—after Mother’s death I had to clear things out and sell the house—I did save a few boxes of his possessions. Since we’d never located him, I had no way to know what might be important. At the time I was thinking in terms of what he would want when he came home. There was a time, a few years ago, that I discarded a lot of it. You know, thinking he would never care about clothes from ages ago. I just don’t remember what I threw out and what I might have kept. Oh, lord, I might have thrown all of it out. I don’t remember.”

  I reached out and squeezed her hand.

  “Don’t stress over it right now,” I said, “but when you get home it would be very helpful if you could look for those boxes. Go through them and let me know what’s there.”

  I wrote down my cell number and Mina’s and watched her put the slip of paper into her purse. Now if only she could keep a clear enough head that she would remember to do it.

  Mina dropped a credit card on the small tray that held our check. “Business expense,” she said.

  Normally, in our investigation business, these types of things would be passed along to the client, but in this case maybe we needed to see how it worked out.

  Katherine remained preoccupied as we walked her back to the police station. Luckily, Chief Branson took over once we went inside and took seats in his office.

  “Ms. Ratcliff, I’ve made arrangements for your flight back,” he said. “The remains are securely packaged and will be delivered to the airport tomorrow for your flight. I’m speaking of Michael’s remains. The older gentleman was buried in the local gold rush cemetery shortly after our lab finished the identification work. Both cases remain open with my department, although you must understand that the older man’s killer will likely never be determined. That might be true for your brother’s murderer as well. I can’t make any guarantees.”

  Katherine nodded, her countenance more stoic than mine would have been.

  “Now that we know of the familial relationship, we can have the older remains exhumed,” he said. “It won’t happen today but I could have them shipped ...”

  “No, that’s all right,” she said. “I think it’s appropriate that he remain in the gold rush cemetery.”

  “I’ve made a reservation for you at the Golden North Hotel tonight and I can give you a lift to the airport in the morning.”

>   I have to say, I was most impressed with the chief’s bedside manner. Cops come in all personalities and many are very caring people, but not all of them would take it this far with a crime victim’s relative.

  “I can give you a ride to the hotel,” Mina said, eyeing the suitcase in the corner of the chief’s office, one that would be a little iffy for a seventy-something woman to pull down the uneven sidewalks of the side streets here.

  Katherine spent a few minutes giving Chief Branson some additional contact information while I carried the large bag out to Mina’s car which sat in the gravel lot in front of the small station.

  “Remind her about looking through Michael’s papers when she gets home,” I said. “I have a feeling there’s going to be some important clue in something he left behind.”

  “Will do. What’s our next step, then? Wait to hear from her or keep working on it from this end.”

  “I’m going to talk to my brother again and check some more online databases. Not sure where that might lead, but at least we now have his name and a little bit of history. Call me tomorrow and we’ll take it from there.”

  Chief Branson and Katherine Ratcliff walked out, and I waited until she was settled in the car and Mina had pulled away before I started walking toward home. Little did I know that my next contact with my detecting buddy would come in the middle of the night when she called in tears, practically incoherent, to say that someone had delivered a dead cat to her doorstep with a note made from cut-out magazine letters tied around its neck: LEAVE THIS BUSINESS ALONE!

  Chapter 19

  “Mr. Farmer—is that you?” came Mrs. McIlhaney’s voice from the parlor. “You’ve missed supper but there are some biscuits left if you’d— My goodness, what happened to your trousers?”

  He froze, halfway up the stairs. Damn the luck—she’d spotted the mud, despite the dim light from the single lamp burning on the hallway table. He didn’t dare walk down and speak with her; she would smell the liquor on his breath and she had strict rules about boarders being in a drunken state in her home. He felt like an errant child and cringed at the notion that he could be asked to turn out his pockets, revealing the stolen money.

  “A wagon, I’m afraid. I was standing too close to a large puddle.”

  “Well, get them off and I shall clean them for you in the morning.”

  She returned to her needlework and he quickly locked himself in his room. His heart pounded as he dropped the leather pouch and the thick clip of cash onto his bed.

  What have I done?

  Alistair Connell might be dead—heaven forbid, both men might be. He’d given Mick Thespen a hard whack to the neck. He could be charged as a murderer. If they were not dead, the situation would not be much better—they would track him down to get their money back. Joshua had clearly been seen with the pair in the Board of Trade Bar and the law could come knocking at the door shortly. Mrs. McIlhaney liked him, he felt sure, but she would never harbor a criminal. He began jamming his possessions into his valise.

  He pictured the Queen, sitting at the pier. Harry and his prisoner had gotten aboard, and Harry had offered Joshua the extra bunk in his cabin. He could race down there, tell Harry he’d changed his mind about going ...

  But the Queen had sailed at five o’clock, he realized. A lump settled at the pit of his stomach. There wouldn’t be another outbound steamer for days, perhaps even a week. He would have to hide somewhere until then, perhaps out at Liarsville, the camp full of journalists. He could find an unoccupied tent ...

  The stack of provisions he’d accumulated for the Trail lay in front of the dresser. He picked through them, deciding what might be of use. At this point he wouldn’t need spare changes of clothing as much as he should have food. The large bags of flour and sugar would only be useless weight. He had two chocolate bars and some dried fruit, which he tossed into the valise. What was he thinking? He stopped moving about and forced himself to calm down.

  Skagway was teeming with people, an easy place to remain anonymous, he told himself. He had money; as long as he stayed away from familiar haunts and moved to different lodgings, he could surely keep out of sight for a few more days. He sat on the bed and counted the money.

  His heart pounded as he eyed the pile of bank notes. Connell’s cash was more than Joshua had ever made in a year. And the gold in Mick’s pouch—he was amazed at the amount of it, surely the total came to tens of thousands of dollars. Cash and gold, beautifully unidentifiable. He carefully transferred the anonymous riches to his own money belt.

  Maddie. Their lives would be transformed by his new fortune; although this amount of money wouldn’t make him a wealthy man, it would provide the basis for a new start. He pulled out paper and pen and sat down to write, then he paused. What to say?

  He could never admit what he’d done. Besides, why tell the truth about his Alaska adventure? No one else did, it seemed. Corruption among officials and businessmen, lawlessness practically everywhere, and the press blatantly printing whatever they wanted to as the truth, no matter what the facts were. Joshua had been shamelessly cheated and now he had turned the tables. Would his wife rather hear about those things, or would it be better to simply say that he had found his fortune? He penned a few quick words and sealed the envelope.

  Downstairs, he could hear Mrs. McIlhaney’s voice. His pulse quickened—had someone come to the door? He blew out the candle and peered out his small window. The street below was never quiet, but at the moment he couldn’t see evidence of any activity at the door of this home. He edged to the door and opened it a tiny bit. The landlady’s words were unintelligible but her tone was soothing; she was probably speaking to the children, convincing them to get ready for bed. He softly closed the door and stretched out on the bed.

  Sleep was impossible. His thoughts roiled. He couldn’t leave the house until he knew the family downstairs was asleep. Even then, he might be heard sneaking away into the night. And where would he go? Other rooming houses were usually full, and no respectable woman would admit him this late. Besides, many of them knew Mrs. McIlhaney—word would get back and the gossip would start.

  A hotel was a possibility, but there again, questions about his arrival in town so late at night. And hotels were the first place the law would come looking. Make that the second place—if Mick and Alistair reported the theft, or came looking on their own, they knew where he lived. His nerves tingled; he must get out of this house at the earliest opportunity.

  He slipped out of bed and padded across the room in his socks, cringing when one of the floorboards creaked. Below, the household had become quiet.

  Back to the question of what provisions to take. He couldn’t very well walk around town with more than his smallest valise, not without weighing himself down. For the time being, checking into a hotel or rooming house would attract too much attention. He would pack what he needed for the voyage to San Francisco into his suitcase and hide it somewhere, perhaps beneath the stack of wooden crates he’d noticed in the yard behind the house.

  Carrying a pack of essentials on his back, he would blend in with the population on the streets and look for different places to sleep each night until the next ship was ready to leave port. He dressed in his warmest pants, mackinaw and boots and waited for morning.

  Clouds hung low over the mountaintops when Joshua reached the street after moving softly through the house and closing the front door as quietly as possible. He swiftly covered a few blocks, heading toward the mail office with his letter to Maddie in hand. Depositing it in the box for outbound mail, he realized that he might very well be on the same boat as the letter and that his wife would receive himself and his written account of the news at the same time. He smiled at the thought of her joyful expression when she realized their money worries were over.

  “Collection for a grave marker for Frank Reid,” a man called out, holding a tin can out to passersby. “Donate to the fund!”

  Joshua shoved his hand into a pocket and came out
with two dollars, which he stuffed into the container. A magnanimous gesture toward the man who’d taken the glory for killing Soapy Smith—or a small token to assuage his own guilt? He shoved those thoughts aside and walked on.

  The smell of fried meat wafted from the door of a hotel restaurant and he paused to stare in the windows. The place glowed with light from overhead kerosene lamps—too much light. He would too easily be seen from the street. He made his way around back and hesitated beside the open door. A cook spotted him.

  “Down on your luck, mister?” The grizzled man eyed a bucket of garbage and fished out two biscuits and an undercooked strip of bacon. He stepped to the doorway and extended his hand. “Here, take these. Go on, take ’em. I just tossed ’em in there a minute ago.”

  Joshua wanted to protest, but his stomach growled and he couldn’t honestly think of a place in town where he would feel confident about sitting down at a table in a brightly lit room and ordering from a waiter. He lowered his gaze and took the food.

  Humiliation washed over him. The first time in his life that he could have bought the finest food on the menu, without regard for the cost, and he was afraid to do it. His stomach growled again and he wolfed down the first biscuit. The bacon and second biscuit followed. Hunger appeased, he slunk out of the alley and tried once more to think of a safe place to go.

  Sticking to the side roads, Joshua watched vigilantly for lawmen but the early morning streets were fairly quiet. He worked his way toward The Board of Trade saloon where last night’s trouble began. No music came from the establishment but a few hardy souls could be seen inside, a table of card players and a lone man talking to the bartender. Joshua turned his back and quickly walked a half block before realizing that his quick pace could easily draw attention at an hour when most men had only just awakened or were stumbling home from a night of drinking and whoring.

  An alleyway opened to his right and he realized it was the place, the scene of his crime. A cautious peek into the shadows revealed no bodies on the ground and he found himself releasing a long breath. They weren’t dead after all.