Ghost Killer

by Robin D. Owens

  Pais stumbled back. Put a hand to his head as if his brain might explode.

  Zach continued, “Young Caden LuCette can see ghosts . . . if they start occurring again. You recall that. I’m sorry for your loss, and your granddad . . . died a hero. I don’t know if Clare and I could have taken down the monster without him.” If they’d gotten their act together, worked together, probably. But they’d been at odds. “Hope that helps.”

  “Some.” A shaky breath. “What now?”

  “Now Clare and I are headed back to Denver and you and your town and your county heal. Cruisin’ the Canyon will help with that.”

  “Yeah. No doubt. It’s a busy time.”

  Zach turned and headed out.

  “Wait, Slade,” the sheriff said, catching up with him. Pais held out his hand. “Thanks.” The muscles of his jaw flexed once more. “I owe you.”

  Zach shook. The man’s palm was a little damp; Caden’s had been drier. Losing someone you loved was worse than losing your own life. “Just keep an eye on Caden.”

  Clearing his throat, Pais said, “I checked you out as soon as you gave me your card.”

  “Figured.”

  “And later I found a few comments on the private Colorado police and sheriff’s boards.”

  Zach rolled a shoulder.

  “Denver cop talk, and Denver cops relaying what Wyoming and Montana deputies said . . . and Park County guys. You’ve got a pretty good rep, and you get around.”

  Zach grimaced. “It’s been an . . . interesting . . . month since I hooked up with Rickman.” Since he’d hooked up with Clare . . . but Rickman and those associated with him had given them the last two cases.

  “Good luck.” The sheriff paused. “Come back anytime.”

  With a last glance, Zach met the sheriff’s direct gaze, saw that the man actually meant his words. “Thanks.”

  He strode through the building and out, stopped a minute to let a couple of cars go by and admired the lavender-painted hotel a block down and across the street. The right-hand door to the balcony opened and Clare came out, carrying her tablet and a keyboard. He figured she’d be writing up her notes and cross-referencing everything six ways from Sunday. He pointed to the restaurant in the bottom of the hotel and she nodded.

  He had no clue what she felt for him, and his insides twisted. After he got food for the trip, he opened the door to their room.

  She’d tidied it up and the place looked nearly unlived in. Unloved in. As if they hadn’t experienced so much as they had when they’d been there.

  She sat on the balcony, her gaze toward the gap and the upper canyon. Her hand rested against her side. When he stood at the threshold, her head turned, but she didn’t smile and he’d expected one. She gestured at the chair beside her and he came, shoved it closer to her, and sat.

  “I’m ready to go.” She sighed. “Such a pretty town, and a historic one of my time period that I could actually experience and appreciate, since there aren’t any ghosts.” She waved. “Like this hotel. I should like it more.”

  “We can always come back,” Zach said. He didn’t like this depressed Clare. He was the brooding one of the pair of them and didn’t like seeing it on her. He took her free hand. Her fingers were cool but not cold. With a jerk of his head, he indicated the road up the canyon. “All the ghosts from your time period are gone, right? We can come back anytime you want.”

  “Oh.” She blinked. “You’re right.” A small line set between her brows and her eyes went distant once more. “All the mines up around Bachelor Loop, the site of Old Bachelor, too. No one’s there.”

  “So we can come back. We’ll always have Creede.”

  She looked at him askance. “Are you making a joke with regard to the film Casablanca?”

  He nodded. “Lame. I know. Creede isn’t Paris.”

  There was the hint of a smile. “No, but it’s still beautiful in its own way.”

  “Uh-huh.” She hadn’t taken her other hand from her side. “Are your ribs bothering you?”

  Her gaze met his. One of the things that first attracted him to her were the shadows in her eyes that might match his. Like she’d suffered through darker things in life and he wouldn’t have to explain himself too much. Now the hazel had darkened, and there were more than shadows, there was torment. “I think she wounded me. Inside. It feels like I have a hole, or a lack . . . just some aching emptiness . . .” She shook her head. “I can’t explain it.”

  Raising his brows, he said, “So I can’t be the only wounded one of us? You have to be, too?” Leaning over, he kissed her lips. “I know all about working while wounded, handling that shi— stuff.” Another kiss. “Clare, it’s important to leave the past in the past.” A tingle at the back of his neck, a shadowy bird on the wing, a crow? He couldn’t tell. So it didn’t count. But he got the feeling the words he just spoke would be coming back to haunt him. He didn’t care. They were true, and true for now for Clare. “Let’s leave what we can of this in the past.”

  Her lashes dipped down over her wide eyes, flirted up. She knew that particular look of hers tweaked his libido. This time her faint smile blossomed into more, though he thought she dug deep to produce it. She nodded. “It’s a beautiful day, and I’m here with you in a pretty place. I should stop thinking ahead and cherish the moment.”

  “Good idea.” He touched the hand she pressed at her side, collected her fingers and brought them to his lips. Her body eased and her eyes focused completely on him. Good.

  He gathered both of her hands in his left one, placed his own hand where she’d kept hers, and tried to sense whatever she had. No go.

  She stood, keeping one hand in his. A horn honked and she looked out over the balcony and so did Zach. A small procession of three antique cars drove up the street. The Texan couple they’d met whooped and waved at them. Clare waved back, met Zach’s eyes and smiled. “Look at that—”

  “Cheerfully unaware that anything other than slightly odd stuff was going on,” Zach completed the sentence for her.

  “We did that. We let them keep their peace of mind. Enjoy the moment, Zach. We won this battle, right? Wounded or not?”

  He kept his eyes on hers. “Yeah, we did.”

  She took a breath and said, “Zach,” and he knew his doom had come.

  Stern and sad, she said, “How would you feel if I died when doing your job?”

  The bottom fell out of his life, darkness edged his vision at the thought, the guilt that would eat him alive for the rest of his life, which he might just make recklessly short. As bad as a stupid man of the Old West who didn’t think things through.

  His knees weakened and he fell into the chair. Then his vision cleared a little as she came and sat on his lap, wrapped her arms around him and leaned against his chest, soft, womanly. His woman. In the clean, quiet mountain air he could hear her breathing, thought he might even hear her heart beat.

  He said the only thing he could. “I had to protect you. I love you.”

  “You screwed up.”

  “I know.”

  “Don’t do that again. We are partners. We are a team.”

  “Yeah.” Action needed, groveling if necessary. “Do you forgive me?”

  Her breath hefted from her. “Yes.”

  Words just came into his head and he said them. “Charity covereth a multitude of sins.”

  She frowned. “I’m not being charitable in forgiving you.” Her head tilted and she paused. “I looked up that phrase, you know.”

  “Figured.”

  “It’s from the Bible, the New Testament, Peter, I think, and that’s a quote from the King James Version. The full verse is something like, ‘And above all things have fervent charity among yourselves: for charity shall cover the multitude of sins.’” She pursed her lips. “I’m not
persuaded that the King James Version is the best translation for this particular verse.”

  “No?” His heart, his body, had relaxed at the inflection of her voice, at the feeling that everything would be all right. His lips moved upward then spread into a smile. She’d forgiven him, and was treating him like a partner.

  A very short discussion and stuff had been talked about and handled and they’d moved on.

  And that pursing of her lips? He bent down and stole a quick kiss.

  “No,” she said softly, seriously, licked her lips as if to taste him. “I like the New International Version of the Bible better when I read that verse. ‘Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.’ I love you, Zach.”

  “Yes.” He had to squeeze her tightly against him. “Yes.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  All contemporary characters in this book are products of my imagination.

  As Clare said, there is no definitive biography of Robert Ford, so a researcher must see him through the lens of someone writing about Jesse James, Soapy Smith, or even Edward Capehart O’Kelley (the man who killed him). The primary source for Ford in Creede is Cy Warman, the journalist and editor who ran the newspaper, the Creede Candle, and wrote stories of the Wild West. So the man’s bias, and a storyteller’s wish to make a good story, must be considered, but otherwise, I’d imagine the facts as related by him were true.

  My sources:

  Frontier Stories, by Cy Warman, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1898

  “Creede,” by Cy Warman, in The Colorado Magazine, Volume 1, 1893

  The later works I used most were:

  Soapy Smith’s Creede, by Leland Feitz.

  I particularly liked Catherine Holder Spude’s, “That Fiend in Hell”: Soapy Smith in Legend, since it actually traced the making of the legend of Soapy Smith, compared it to what we know of the man, and brought up some interesting facts about his death. It’s fascinating to see how a legend, any legend, can come into being, and it gave me insights on Cy Warman, my primary source.

  And, of course, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford by Ron Hansen, which is fictional and lists no bibliography, but is very interesting all the same. The movie of that name was not filmed in Creede, but did snag a 2007 Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role Oscar nomination for Casey Affleck, who portrayed Robert Ford.

  Thank you to Johanna Gray and Jim Loud of the Creede Historical Society; the librarians, as always, of the Denver Public Library, and of the History Colorado Center (who have microfilmed issues of the Creede Candle).

  Huge thanks to the ladies of the Creede Chamber of Commerce who let me use their phone, sheltered me during my time of snow, sleet, and rain there (Sound familiar? But it was May), and who pointed me to Robert Ford’s first gravesite.

  And who provide free Internet for travelers! We were doing cover conference (e-mail) at the time and we used one of the pics I took. I’m sure the ladies didn’t expect to have their meeting room used for knife training (of course I looked into it . . . well, the door was open). But what can you do, I needed a venue!

  A website that proved invaluable was http://www.findagrave.com, that I’ve used before and will continue to utilize.

  Other figments of my imagination: the knife (though thank you to Sarah of NaturePunk Creations on Facebook for her information about a human femur as a prospective knife), and the Subscription List (though I do have a pic of the newspaper wall in South Park City on my Pinterest page).

  Also fictional is the oral history of Buddy Jemmings. As far as I know, there is no oral history of anyone that might have been connected with Robert Ford’s murder, though the Creede Historical Society does have some oral histories and interviews of people who were in the valley and canyon before the mining camp and town were founded.

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