Old Murders Never Die

by Marja McGraw

  “Is he okay?” Pete walked up and gave the dog a close look.

  “Yes. I think he just wore himself out. He could probably use some water, though.”

  “Huh. You’d think he’d have more stamina than that.”

  “Could you chase a horse and not feel winded?”

  “I’m not a dog. Dogs are supposed to run and chase things. That’s what they do.”

  “Uh huh.” I poured some water out of my bottle and into my hand.

  He took the bottle away from me. “My hand is bigger.” Bubba lapped the water out of his hand and waited for more, which was forthcoming.

  I turned and headed back to the barbershop. Pete wiped his hand on his jeans, and he and Bubba followed me.

  “Now what?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m going to take another look and make sure I didn’t miss anything. Why didn’t you shoot back at the cowboy?”

  He stuck his gun back in his waistband before answering me. “He wasn’t shooting at us. He shot up in the air. I think he was just trying to get our attention. Maybe he was trying to scare us, although I don’t know why. If he doesn’t want us around, he should just give us back the ignition relay module.” His tone was angry, but his words weren’t.

  I raised an eyebrow at Pete. The guy had fired a gun. Wasn’t that enough?

  “He reminded me of the stories I’ve heard about cowboys riding through town on a Saturday night, feeling their oats and raising a ruckus. If he’d wanted to hurt us, he wouldn’t have ridden through town so fast and he wouldn’t have fired into the air. I really want to know what this guy’s story is.” The anger seemed to have disappeared and I wondered if I’d only imagined it.

  I picked up the straight razor and wrapped it in one of the old towels. I wanted to take it back to the house with us. It seemed like I should keep anything I found that was related to the murder in one place. I wasn’t sure why, but it felt right. Since the sheriff didn’t appear to have an office, I assumed he’d used both his house and the barbershop to conduct business. I had a feeling there wasn’t enough crime in this little town to warrant a jail. Maybe they carted the bad guys down the mountain to a bigger town if it was necessary.

  “Let’s see if we can find the Newton farm,” I suggested.

  Pete reached into a pocket and pulled out the town map, carefully opening it to see where the farm was located.

  “It’s going to be a long walk,” he said, “but you can handle it.”

  “Yes, I can.” I was feeling my pioneer woman oats at the moment. Women can feel their oats, too.

  After trying to figure out the landmarks, we walked out of town toward the farm. It took us about fifteen minutes, which was less time than I’d expected.

  “This has to be it,” I said, glancing around. There were trees surrounding the farmhouse, almost hiding it.

  Pete took another look at the map. “Yeah, this is it.”

  We walked to the house and gingerly stepped on a front porch, not sure if it would hold our weight. It did, so we approached one of the windows and looked inside. The house was empty. Unlike some of the others, when this family had moved they had taken all of their belongings with them.

  “I’ll bet they left because of Jenny’s death.” I tried opening the front door. Not surprisingly, it was stuck.

  “You’re probably right.” He put his shoulder to the door and it grudgingly opened.

  Once inside, we walked through each room of the house. The family hadn’t left a hair pin behind.

  “This doesn’t tell us a thing. I was hoping we might find something that would add to the sheriff’s story.” I was frustrated, although I shouldn’t have been.

  “We still have plenty of other houses to look through. Maybe we’ll find something in one of them. Come on, let’s head back to town.”

  Taking another look around, I said, “This really is kind of a neat old house. I think I might have liked this town, except for the murder.”

  “Yeah, except for that. Things were difficult back then. I don’t think you would have liked living without an electric washing machine, a cell phone or a microwave.”

  “Maybe not, but in some ways it might have been fun.”

  “I think it would have been more work than fun. Let’s go.”

  He walked outside and I followed him, closing the door behind me. The walk back to town seemed to go faster than our trip out to the farm.

  Glancing at the map every so often, he pointed out some of the homes to me, telling me who had lived in each one.

  “Where did you see that smoke this morning?” I asked.

  He stopped and looked off into the distance. “It seemed to be coming from somewhere behind the Newton place, now that I think about it. Do you want to go back and see what’s there?”

  “Not now. I want to take one more look at the barbershop. I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something.”

  “Okay, you go take another look. I’m going to check out the doctor’s office. Maybe he left some records behind. He certainly would have examined the Newton girl before she was buried.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. Good idea.”

  We parted ways again, and Bubba returned to the barbershop with me. There wasn’t much in the place, but since the murder weapon, or the alleged murder weapon, was kept there, I had a feeling there might be more. I checked for loose boards, both in the floor and the wall, but nothing turned up.

  I wandered over to the doctor’s office to see if Pete had found anything. He was walking out the front door and I saw that his hands were empty. He motioned me over.

  “Anything?” I asked.

  “As a matter of fact, yes. Come take a look.”

  I was surprised and followed him back inside. He’d set an old wooden box on top of the table that we’d assumed was for examinations.

  “There’s not a lot, but at least there’s something. This box was inside the cabinet where he kept his medicines and things. It was wrapped with a heavy piece of cloth and a rope was tied around it. I haven’t looked through it yet because I thought you’d want to be here.” I could see he’d removed the rotted rope and cloth.

  I smiled up at my partner and counted my blessings to have found him. He knew me so well. I touched his arm gently as I walked past him, ready to dig through the box.

  “You hit the mother lode. These are his medical records. They’re sure not like the records doctors keep today, but still…”

  He moved to my side and began gently lifting the old papers out of the box. We skimmed them because I wasn’t really too interested in things like Mrs. McCoy suffering from the vapors, or Mrs. Jacoby having her fifth child. It was slow going though, because his handwriting wasn’t too legible. Some things never change, and apparently that includes doctors’ writing.

  “Here’s something,” I said, picking up a brief note the doctor had written. “It’s about Jenny’s death. I’m sure there must be more in here. All this says is that he was called to the Newton farm because the daughter had died suddenly. It has to be referring to Jenny’s murder. The sheriff only mentioned one daughter and some sons.”

  Pete took the note out of my hand, examining the paper. “The bottom of this has been torn off. I think there might have been more to his comments than you’re reading.”

  Taking the paper back, I saw he was right. “Let’s take this box back to the house and go through it there. Maybe the rest of the page is somewhere in this stack of records. I’ll fix some lunch and we can go through these while we eat.”

  “Sounds like a plan, except you can go through them after we eat. I want to finish cutting some of the weeds down in front of the house. That place is kind of growing on me, and I want to clear things up out front.” He picked up the box to carry back to the house.

  I smiled to myself. The house was growing on me, too, but not in a permanent way. It was a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there. Well, it might make a good vacation house with som
e fixing up. Oh, brother. What was I thinking? We were out in the middle of nowhere, staying in someone’s hundred year old house and cooking on an old cook stove. Not my idea of a great vacation.

  We were walking out of town when I happened to glance up and see another building behind the barbershop. “I wonder what that is.”

  We weren’t in any rush, so we headed for the building to see what it might be.

  Pete started to laugh as we approached it. “Well, I’ll be a son-of-a-gun. This is the old saloon. I thought maybe this town didn’t have one, but here it is.”

  “Are you sure? Why would it be set apart from the rest of the town?”

  “Probably because the ladies didn’t want it where they had to look at it all the time.”

  “Maybe. How do you know it’s the saloon?”

  He pointed at a sign that had fallen down. You could just make out the words, Saloon and Restaurant on it.

  The door had been boarded over. We couldn’t get in. Glancing up, I noticed there was either a large attic or it was a two-story building. There weren’t very many windows on the second level, which made me think of the attic possibility.

  “I’ll get the tire iron out of the Jeep and come back after I work on the yard. I’d like to see what’s inside.”

  “I wonder if the ladies ever ate here since they didn’t want it sitting by the other businesses.”

  He shrugged and turned to walk back to the house.

  Bubba sniffed around the door and soon followed behind us.

  I caught up to Pete. “Maybe it started out as a saloon and the restaurant was added later. That would explain it.”

  “Maybe.” He appeared thoughtful.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  He stopped and turned toward me. “Have you ever had a gut feeling?”

  “Of course. I’m surprised you even asked. Are you having a gut feeling?”

  “I am. My gut is telling me that Jenny wasn’t the only murder victim in this old town.”

  “What makes you think that?” I was surprised at his revelation.

  “Like I said, it’s just a feeling. I hope I’m wrong.” He turned his head toward the town and shook his head. “Maybe it’s more than a feeling. When we were looking through the papers, I saw a note the doctor wrote about another death and something about it just felt wrong. We left his office before I could pick it up and read it through.” He glanced down at the box he carried. His brows were furrowed and he tightened his lips before walking back to the house.

  This was an old mystery, but I could see it was getting to him, just as it was to me. What had gone on in this nice, quiet little town?

  Chapter Eleven

  Back at the ranch, or house, as the case may be, I put some sandwiches together and we ate in near silence, both lost in our own world of thoughts. Somehow the doctor’s records had brought us both down a notch. No one expects a little town like this to carry such large secrets. I wanted to get back to the sheriff’s records before I read any more of the doctor’s notes. After Pete’s comments, I thought there might be more drama looming ahead.

  Pete finished eating, gave me a peck on the cheek and went back to his yard work. Who’d have thought we’d end up working on an old house and yard, and trying to solve a murder mystery on our vacation? Well, at least no one could say this was a run-of-the-mill getaway for us.

  I threw the paper plates in the trash bag and sat to once again read about Wolf Creek and its problems. The sheriff wrote that his frustration was mounting because of the lack of clues to follow – my words, not his. A week had gone by. Jenny was buried and her mother had been inconsolable. That was understandable. The sheriff went by their place and found them packing to move away. He felt useless.

  The Newtons are leavin town. Amy Newton jist can not rekkon with her daughter passin in such an ugly circumstance. She says she will not stay in this town one more minute. I can surly understand that. My Annie says she dont blame Amy an would probly be leavin too if she was the mother.

  Sheriff Croft went on to say the entire town was in an uproar. Who could blame them? As I read further, Pete’s gut feeling came to pass. I plucked a chocolate bar out of a paper bag on the floor and began nibbling while I read.

  It has been nearly three weeks now, an there has been a nother killin. I have got to figger this out afore a nother tragidy happens. Amos Trueforth come to see me last night. Winnie Trueforth had gone an got herself lost, or so Amos thought. We got us some of the men rounded up and did a search. We found Winnie down near the crick, an she was done for. Someone had cut her up something bad. Doc Summers come an he said he aint never seen nothing like it afore. Doc was mad as a hornet about Winnie, comin on the heels of litle Jenny dyin. Amos is aside hisself, an I can understand that.

  I checked the barber shoppe where I left my strait razer that had been stolen to kill Jenny Newton, an it was still there, right where I hid it. It is evidence. The low down killer must of got his own knife to do his dirty job. I cant see no connection betwixt the Newton girl an Winnie Trueforth. Jenny was a 15 year old girl an never was married. Winnie is was 22 an had two childrun. But both ladys was kilt with a cutting blade.

  I have started asking everone where they was on that day, an I cant find nary a one that is not accounted for. Well, some one could be lyin right to my face. I have suspishons about that Ambrose feller. Him and his ways jist aint like other people. High falootin, that is what my Annie says. She says Mrs. Ambrose cant jaw with the other ladys cause her nose is high in the air. Says she uses New York words, too. Somthin aint right with those people.

  But I am gettin away from the killins.

  The Stanton family says two murders is too many, an they are leavin our litle town as soon as they can get there things together. Cant say as I blame them. I jist got to do more. We got us some dark days here in Wolf Creek, an I aim to make them come to a fast end.

  I could understand the sheriff’s frustration, and the fears of the townspeople. Two murders in three weeks would be too much even in today’s society. Back in the day it would have felt like the end of the world.

  Holding the book, I walked outside to talk to Pete. He looked up when I opened the creaking door.

  “You were right,” I said.

  “About what?” He set down the scythe he’d been using.

  “There was another murder. A young woman named Winnie Trueforth was murdered within three weeks of Jenny’s death, and she was killed with a knife.”

  He glanced at the ground and then up at me. “The name I saw in the doctor’s report wasn’t Trueforth.” He was quiet for a moment, thinking. “It was something like Samson, or maybe Sanders. Something like that.”

  I was shocked. “You mean there may have had a serial killer here? In the eighteen hundreds?”

  “Serial killers aren’t as common as fiction makes them sound, but yes, they were around even back then.”

  “I think I’ll start putting the list together that we talked about,” I said. “I’ll try to find out everything I can about each of the residents of this town. Between the doctor’s records and the sheriff’s notes, I might be able to come up with something.”

  “Good idea. When I’m done here, I’ll go get the tire iron and we’ll see if we can get into that saloon. Maybe there’s something there, although I don’t know what it might be.”

  “You just want to see if there’s some vintage liquor left.”

  “Yeah.” Smiling, he went back to work.

  I returned to the house and tore a blank page out of one of the sheriff’s books to write my list on. Going back to the first book, I only skimmed for the names. After some reflection, I read the list and crossed out the names of children and women. Somehow this just sounded like the killer had to be a man. I would think he had to overpower the two women in order to murder them. They were both young women, so they probably could have fought back.

  I started writing notes to myself, too. Jenny had been murdered during t
he daytime. If I understood the sheriff’s notes correctly, Winnie had been killed at night. The sheriff said he couldn’t see a connection between the two women. Maybe there was none. Maybe they were crimes of convenience. And just possibly, the killer had struck at night the second time so he wouldn’t be seen. The first time, during the day, could have been a fluke. The killer took advantage of finding Jenny by herself at the creek. Again, a crime of convenience.

  I stood up and walked around the room, stretching my legs and thinking. Murder is always a dark crime, but this series of events was even darker than most. These people didn’t have a phone to call 911 in an emergency. These people were far from any other town, too. The sheriff didn’t have the technology we have today. Who could he call for assistance?

  This was an insidious killer, inconspicuous or seemingly harmless, and yet he was evil personified. At the point I’d reached in the sheriff’s notes, no one seemed to leap out and catch his attention.

  Starting with the first book, I’d come up with the names of Daniel Mack, the loner who lived outside of town, who’d originally made the sheriff suspicious.

  Stephen Mueller was the blacksmith. The sheriff had mentioned him when he chased some kids off who were taunting him. He was German and spoke broken English, and his wife spoke almost no English. His wife had been sent over from the Old Country to marry him, and apparently they didn’t have a happy marriage. He was a hardworking man who took no guff from anyone, according to the sheriff.

  Jonathan Wright was the local preacher, and he’d been mentioned in relation to Jenny Newton’s burial. I felt sure I’d be seeing his name again. He’d also performed the wedding ceremony for Sheriff Croft and Annie.

  Annie’s parents, William and Judith Melton, were mentioned when they told the sheriff someone had stolen food from their house. Mrs. Melton was known for making the best pies in town, and the sheriff believed it had been some local kids.

  Doctor Jackson Summers had been called in to look at each body, plus he’d stitched up the sheriff after he was attacked by a wild dog.