The Case of the Sin City Sister

by Lynne Hinton

  Caleb handed the picture back to Eve. “Ms. Gallegos, are you sure the man in this picture is Caleb Alford?” he asked.

  She shuffled over to her seat and sat back down. “Yes, sir,” she answered. “That’s my great-uncle from Lubbock, Texas. He married Katherine, stole all her money, and then disappeared. Everybody thinks he went back east, back to Texas. Oh yeah, everybody in the family knows about Caleb.”

  Caleb looked over at Eve, then to Ms. Gallegos, and then back at the photograph. He handed it back to the old woman. “Well, he may have the same name as I do, and he may have told everyone that he was Caleb Alford, but based upon all the pictures I’ve seen, I’m pretty sure that is not my great-grandfather.”

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  “So what did you find on Epi’s land?”

  Eve and Jackson were at the office, just sorting through a few files and closing up some loose ends before heading out to the doctor’s office in Santa Fe. They were going over both of the cases they’d been working on before she left for Las Vegas.

  She had already told him about how things ended with Caleb Alford, about the visit at the Gallegos home and how he was convinced that the man who had married Katherine Gallegos in Madrid all those years ago was not his great-grandfather, that somehow this man from Texas had stolen the identity of his family member and that there just didn’t seem to be an answer to what had happened to Mr. Caleb Alford.

  She told him that their client had decided not to continue trying to dig up information, that he wasn’t going to attempt to figure out who the man calling himself Caleb Alford really was or even the identity of the person who had sent him the beads. He was finished; he wasn’t going to try to discover what really did happen to his great-grandfather.

  “Gold?” she wanted to know.

  He waved his hand in front of his face. “No gold,” he answered her. “There was a bag of rocks,” he added. “A few chunks of silver and turquoise. Somebody took the gold a long time ago.”

  Eve shook her head, surprised at the outcome of the search at the Salazar ranch.

  “No gold,” she repeated. “How did he take it?” She wanted to know, recalling how the old rancher seemed quite interested in finding the treasure on his property, how convinced he was that it was there.

  Daisy was in her lap, and she was giving the cat lots of attention since she knew the poor thing had been neglected while she was away.

  The Captain took a sip of water from the bottle he kept in his lap and kept talking. “I don’t really think he ever cared about finding gold. It was just his way to get us involved. Just a way to get the answers he really wanted about his family. He had his father’s body exhumed while they were digging. He thought his father had been killed. Turned out he died from cancer. I never knew it, but he thought his brother had shot the old man before he left town. Epi didn’t know how to ask for the body to be exhumed and the questions answered, so he decided to act like he was looking for gold.”

  Eve shook her head. “I guess it’s true. You just never know, do you?”

  He turned to her. “Never know about what?”

  Eve shrugged. “About anything,” she replied, scratching behind the cat’s ears. “About why a person would marry somebody when they’re already married, why a man would pretend he wanted to find gold when all he really wanted to find out was whether or not his brother killed his father, why a man would pretend to be somebody he wasn’t.”

  The Captain cleared his throat. “Life is a great mystery.”

  “It is that,” Eve responded, thinking about everything that had happened in the last few days. Daisy jumped down just as Eve and Jackson turned to the front door as it opened. It was Caleb Alford.

  “Hope I’m not catching you at a bad time,” the client said as he glanced down and saw Daisy heading to her water dish in the corner of the office. “I know I don’t have an appointment.”

  Remembering his allergies, Eve got up to take the cat outside, but Caleb waved her off.

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said. “I’m just here for a second, and besides, I took an allergy pill on my way over. I’m fine.”

  Eve sat back down, brushing the cat hair off the front of her jeans.

  “I just wanted to come by and thank you both for your help. I couldn’t have done everything I did without you.”

  “Sounds like we didn’t really give you the answers you were looking for,” the Captain noted. He was still at his desk. “I’m not sure we solved your mystery.”

  “Well, I guess we can’t really solve all the mysteries,” Caleb responded. He remained just inside the door. “I have no idea what happened to my great-grandfather. I don’t know how he died or if he ever intended to bring his wife and family out here. I don’t know about any of the choices he made. But the truth is we can’t really understand why people choose what they choose. I guess we can just learn from them and maybe try and understand ourselves a little better.”

  Eve nodded. She was thinking about Dorisanne and Daniel, how she’d probably never understand the decision her sister had made to stay in Vegas.

  “After all this searching and researching, I realized I haven’t seen my son in a long time,” Caleb noted. “And the truth is I don’t know anything about him, what he likes, who he loves. I realize now that I’ll never know what my great-grandfather was thinking. I can’t ask him. But I can ask my son, and if he wants to know about me, maybe I can answer some of those questions he has. I guess I went searching for the wrong thing, set myself and you on a wild-goose chase.”

  “Goose chases are what we get paid for,” the Captain replied.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Caleb responded. “And I don’t really think it was a complete waste of my time.”

  The two waited.

  “You know, I did meet Rochelle,” he added. “If it took me a goose chase to find love, then that’s a goose chase I’m happy to go on.”

  Eve looked over at the Captain. He was smiling.

  “Well, that’s a fact. Finding love and deciding to reconcile are both pretty good things,” Jackson said, coughing as he spoke.

  Caleb walked over to him. “I want to thank you for everything,” he said, extending his hand.

  The Captain shook it. “I’m afraid I didn’t do too much on this case.” He pointed over to Eve. “She handled most of the load.”

  Caleb turned in Eve’s direction. “Thank you, Ms. Divine.” He shook his head, realizing his mistake. “Divine,” he noted, correcting his pronunciation. “I don’t know why I can’t remember that.”

  Eve stood up. “No worries. We’re sort of used to it by now.” She reached out and the two shook hands.

  “All right then, I’ll be heading back east.” He nodded at them both. “Thanks again,” he said and headed out the door.

  They both stood and watched as the client got into his car and slowly pulled away from the office.

  Eve turned to the Captain. “You ready to go?” she asked, glancing over at the clock on the wall. “We’ll need to hurry to make your appointment.”

  Jackson got up from his chair, heading toward the door. “I’m pretty sure with your lead foot, you’ll get us there in plenty of time.”

  She gave him a gentle punch in the arm as she held open the door and he passed through.

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  Eve glanced around until she spotted Daisy, who had jumped up and was sitting in the Captain’s chair. “Good thing he’s not looking,” she said to the cat as she turned off the lights and pulled the door closed and locked it.

  She got into the truck, Jackson already settled in the passenger’s seat. She started the engine and backed out. “You want to wear your seat belt?”

  “I always do when you’re driving.” He grinned and pulled at the shoulder strap.

  Eve hit the gas. The wheels spun in the gravel as she moved forward.

  “Oh, Twila found her sister,” he noted, unfazed by his daughter’s driving tactics. He leaned down and set his water bo
ttle in the drink holder between them.

  “Is that right?” She slapped the steering wheel. “Well, how about that? The sisters finally meet.”

  “Yeah, she seems pretty excited. Found her in Nevada, little town west of Reno. She went up there and spent time with her over the weekend while you were gone.” He coughed again.

  Eve looked over at him, her concern about the Captain and his illness growing.

  “Took some pictures—the two of them even look alike,” he added. “If you can imagine that.” He cleared his throat again.

  She turned her attention back to the road and sped up. They drove without further comment about their friend.

  “Dorisanne called,” he finally shared.

  Eve was surprised.

  “When?” she wanted to know.

  “This morning, just after you went out for coffee.”

  Eve nodded but didn’t ask any questions.

  “She says you were quite the hero.”

  A slight grin emerged, but she remained silent about her sister.

  “She said you stole a motorcycle and almost got yourself killed.”

  Eve wondered how her sister had heard that part of the story. She had not told Dorisanne or Daniel about that bit of activity that had occurred in Pahrump before she found them both at the old house.

  “She also said that she was sorry if she disappointed you.”

  Eve could feel his glare on her. She kept her eyes on the road.

  “I don’t understand that,” he said. “What does that mean? Why does she think she disappointed you? Is it because of Robbie and what he was involved in?” He waited for an answer.

  Eve just shook her head. “I couldn’t say,” she replied, knowing that her sister’s comment had nothing to do with the credit card theft ring or her husband’s involvement with loan sharks. She knew that Dorisanne thought that Eve wanted her to move back home to New Mexico and make a life with Daniel. She had never asked Eve what she thought, but Eve figured out that her sister had read her face when they left each other. And it was true—that’s what she was hoping for.

  “Well, are you?” Jackson finally asked after a long, awkward pause.

  Eve thought about the question, thought about how she felt about her sister’s decision. “No, I’m not disappointed about anything.”

  Jackson tried clearing his throat, coughed a few more times, and Eve decided not to continue the conversation. In truth, she was still a little tired from the Vegas trip, and she was quite worried about her dad, so she was glad not to have to talk about Dorisanne and Daniel or anything else for that matter. She hit the gas and hurried along the highway.

  It wasn’t too long before she made the turn into the town of Santa Fe and quickly found the parking lot at the doctor’s office, located an empty space, and pulled in. They had made the forty-minute trip in less than twenty. She felt a little proud of her accomplishment. When she put the engine in Park, the Captain reached over and touched her on the arm, surprising her. She quickly turned to him.

  “Look, if this is bad, I don’t want you to feel like you have to stay here.” He pulled his hand away. “If you’re ready to go back to Pecos, you go. You’ve taken care of me long enough.”

  Eve tried giving him her best reassuring smile. She patted his hand still resting on her arm. “Let’s find out first what this is, then we’ll decide what I’m doing.”

  The Captain studied her as she reached for the door, ready to make her exit. He leaned over, touching her arm again.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I don’t want you to use me as an excuse for not going back to the convent. You did that before, and I suspect that’s the way it had to be at that particular time, but it isn’t going to happen again. You make your decision based upon what you want, not what you think I need.”

  She breathed out a long breath and then looked the other way. “What if I don’t know what I want,” she confessed. “What if I can’t give Brother Oliver an answer? What if my life and the choices I make are as much a mystery as that missing miner or . . .” She hesitated.

  “Or your sister choosing to stay with the man she doesn’t love?”

  “How do you know about that?” She jerked around to study her father.

  He made a kind of laugh that then turned into another cough. “I’m crippled, not blind,” he replied. “I knew she was in love with Daniel when she got married.”

  How could Jackson know about this and not speak about it, she wondered.

  “And Daniel? Did you know then that he was in love with her?”

  He shook his head. “Nah, I didn’t figure that one out until a couple of years ago when he kept making trips out to Vegas for no reason. I knew he didn’t gamble, and I knew he didn’t like that city. Finally put two and two together.” He didn’t finish.

  Eve just shook her head. “Are you going to tell him that you know?”

  Jackson cleared his throat. “Nope. I guess I figure that’s his story to tell.”

  “Well then, what about you?” she asked.

  He seemed confused. “What about me what?”

  “Are you disappointed about this? Are you upset at Daniel? Dorisanne?”

  “Nah,” he replied. “It’s like you said. People make choices all the time. Some are the right ones, others maybe not. But it’s not for me to judge what other folks do. I don’t know the details people are trying to sift through in making their decisions about their lives. I ain’t looking to solve that kind of puzzle. I can only try to work on my own choices. Try to figure out why I do what I do. That’s hard enough.” He coughed again. “And then there’s what we have in our hearts,” he added. “There’s love.”

  Eve waited.

  “Don’t really think we have much choice about that one. We love who we love and we love what we love.”

  Eve sighed with great relief. She was glad to hear that her father wasn’t angry with his oldest friend. “I think you should tell him that.”

  “Who? Daniel?”

  She nodded.

  “I’m not talking about Daniel.”

  She waited.

  “I’m talking about you.”

  She shook her head. She wasn’t following him.

  “I’ll tell Daniel what I think about him and Dorisanne, but I’m pretty sure I’m not the reason standing between the two of them getting together. If he’s the one not moving that relationship forward, I’m guessing he’s making his choice for other reasons, even if he’s claiming it’s me. And I certainly can’t speak for Dorisanne.”

  “Okay, but why are you talking about me? What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that if you love being a nun, then be a nun; go back to Pecos and be about the things that give you peace. But if you don’t love being a nun, if you don’t want to be in Pecos, if you love this work, love being a detective, then you can say it’s me and my diabetes or my old lungs keeping you here, but we both know that’s not really the truth.”

  Eve slumped a bit in her seat. She knew what he was saying was true, and she knew that if she was waiting for what the doctors were going to say about his condition to help her make her decision to stay or go back to Pecos, then she wasn’t really being fair to Jackson or to her superiors at the monastery.

  “There are some mysteries we will never solve, but there are others we could find an answer to; we just sometimes don’t want to search deep enough.”

  Jackson reached over and opened the car door, slid his legs out, and stood up. He leaned back in to say one last thing.

  “But that kind of thing nobody can choose for you. You’ve got to choose that for yourself, even if it’s a mystery to everybody else around. You choose for yourself.”

  He shut the door and coughed a few times and then slowly headed for the office.

  Eve waited a second, watching him as he walked away. She glanced up at the rosary hanging from the rearview mirror of the truck, and then, somehow feeling a new resolve, she stepped out of the truc
k and followed after him.

  EPILOGUE

  JANUARY 3, 1891

  Caleb was halfway home. He was tired and broke. The roommate had stolen everything he had, including his name. It turned out the man calling himself Red was running from a past and looking for a future. He wasn’t from Oregon like he said he was; he was from Texas, Lubbock, Texas, and he was real trouble. The young man from North Carolina didn’t realize it until it was too late: Red making debts, staking claims, and, worst of all, getting married—all under the name of Caleb Alford.

  The miner walked along the wagon trail, the winter wind strong and biting. His coat was threadbare, his fingers and toes frostbitten. He knew his chances of making it all the way to North Carolina without any money and in the worst season for travel were slim, but he couldn’t stay in New Mexico. He loved his wife, missed his family, and he was a wanted man. He had killed Red and left his body in the mine where they had worked. He knew it wouldn’t be long before the law would realize he was the killer and come find him. He had to get home, had to get as far away from Madrid as he could.

  Caleb felt for the bag he had in his pocket, the small one where he kept the necklace he had made for Claire. He’d wrapped it in a handkerchief, along with a note asking that it be sent to his wife in case he was found dead somewhere along the trail. It was the only thing Red Farley hadn’t taken from him, and he could only hope that somebody would get it to Claire along with the news of his death and the news that he was trying to make his way back to her, trying to make his way home.

  The young man stumbled along, knowing he couldn’t make it much farther. He stopped and sat down by the frozen river, hoping just to rest and then keep walking. He leaned against a large stone, closed his eyes, and thought of Claire. He smiled, seeing her smile, hearing her voice calling him, feeling her warm arms around him.