Old Murders Never Die

by Marja McGraw

  Arriving back at the house, I placed the pile of pages on the table and sat down to read. My gaze kept wandering back to the window. It was so nice outside, perfect weather for sitting out in the fresh air and reading. Sticking the pages under my arm, I carried a chair out to the front of the house and set it next to the door.

  I settled back with Ambrose’s pages and studied the stack. I figured there were probably about twenty-five pages or so, and it was handwritten so there wasn’t as much as one might think. Although I loved a mystery, for just a moment I wished we really were on a vacation of our own choosing. I wouldn’t have minded being in Wolf Creek where I could explore the old buildings, but I would have preferred that it was on my own terms.

  I thought about the cowboy. We’d really only seen him a few times, so I wondered what he was doing with the rest of his day. He must have something to do. I couldn’t picture someone coming up here and just wandering around the hills. What was his story? I was determined to find the answer to that mystery, too. Whatever he was doing shouldn’t involve us, but he seemed to think it did. What was it he’d said? Something about him knowing what we were after and it wasn’t ours to have. He hadn’t searched the houses, so obviously he wasn’t after the antiques that had been left behind.

  Sighing, I turned my thoughts back to the Ambrose story. For the second time, I thought about how illegible his handwriting was. I had to concentrate to figure out what he was writing.

  Ambrose continued his story with Detective Kroft’s inept attempts to solve the murder of the woman found in the alley. He wrote about the detective asking questions of all the wrong people in his search for the murderer, and simply asking the wrong questions.

  I sat up straighter when I reached a part where there was a third killing. The setting was still San Francisco, and this time a woman was grabbed from behind, dragged into some bushes and stabbed while walking home after dark. She’d been visiting a sick friend.

  There was something that caught my attention, but I couldn’t figure it out until I’d read the part about the murder three times. It was the fact that the woman pled for her life, and he’d given it a semblance of reality. His writing was terrible, but the plea felt real.

  “Please sir,” the woman cried. “I am a mother and wife. What will my children do without me? I will do anything you ask, but please let me go.”

  “Shut your lying mouth,” the man ordered.

  “But I am not lying,” she said while tears streamed down her pale face. “You can let me go. Stop before you go too far, sir. I do have a husband and two children waiting for my return. I do not want my children to grow up without me at their side.”

  The man stood behind her, tiring of her attempt to convince him that she should live. She had to die, like the others before her. “If you scream, your time is immediate.”

  “I will not scream, sir, but please spare my life. I have not seen your face, so I cannot describe you to the gendarmes. My children need their mother. I have so much to share with them, and they are so young, sir. Please do not take me from my loved ones.” The woman cried uncontrollably and the man knew he had to do something before she was heard.

  Gendarmes? That seemed a bit silly in a story taking place in San Francisco, but then I had the feeling Ambrose would use this type of language. I got the feeling he was a bit full of himself.

  “I tire of your begging, madame. Your time has come.”

  The man turned the squirming woman toward him and plunged the knife into her gullet. She dropped to the ground, but held out her hand toward him in a gesture of…

  I couldn’t read the next word, but it didn’t really matter. It was a stupid story, but somehow the woman’s pleading smacked of reality. In my mind, I pictured an old silent movie where the woman was on the ground, holding her hand up in an appeal.

  The man turned his back on the woman. She was unsightly now, and he did not want to see her face again. He did not know her, but he knew of her type. They wandered the street at night, searching for weak men. Her appearance did not fool him, for he knew she was a soiled dove.

  He caressed his knife like a man might caress the arm of his lover before he folded it and placed it in his pocket.

  The man walked for some time before meeting another man who asked, “Please, sir, have you seen a small woman who was wearing a gray dress and a black hat? She has not returned from caring for an ailing friend. Have you seen her?”

  The first man put his head down so the second man would not see his features. “No, I have not.” He continued to walk, but his step was faster now. He did not care that he had chosen a wife and mother rather than a soiled dove. One woman was like the next one.

  My heart beat a little faster. Could Ambrose have been the Wolf Creek killer? If he was anything like the man in his story, he was cold-hearted, which could actually equate to a cold-blooded killer.

  I set the pages on the ground, wanting to think about this story. Picking them up again, I reread what Charles Ambrose had written.

  I was startled out of my thoughts when I heard whistling. Was the cowboy coming? I set the pages down and picked up the chair, ready to use it as a weapon or for defense. I heard Pete talking to Bubba and set the chair down again before walking to the trail to meet the two males in my life.

  He was smiling, and so was Bubba. Bubba’s smile was something to see. If you didn’t know the dog, you’d think he was baring his teeth at you. That’s what I’d thought the first time I saw him. When my mangy mutt grinned, all you could see were some very large and dangerous-looking teeth. However, in this case, I recognized he was happy because Pete had caught more fish.

  I knew we, or I, couldn’t happily live on fish indefinitely, but we still had a few other things left. It would all work out, and if we played our cards right, we might get our car part back and get out of this place before food was really an issue.

  Pete carried a bucket of cold water again, and this time the fish were already sitting in the water. Well, of course fish can’t sit, but I knew what I meant, even if no one else would get it.

  He carried the bucket inside and set it in the same spot by the window. Bubba dogged his steps and almost tripped him when Pete turned to walk away. Bubba grinned and he scowled, catching himself before he fell.

  I stood inside the door, smiling.

  “So what have you been doing?” he asked.

  “I went back to the Ambrose house like I said I would.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  “No hiding place, like at the other houses, but I did find more of his story.”

  Pete sat down at the table and I proceeded to tell him about Ambrose’s mystery. “It was really corny, but when I read the part about the woman’s reactions, I got a bad feeling about it.”

  “You think he did it?” Pete asked.

  “I think there’s a definite possibility. It’s difficult for me to imagine back in those days a man could make up this woman’s reactions.”

  “Maybe his wife collaborated with him on the story.”

  “But why would he hide the story if he wasn’t hiding it from her?”

  “Because if anyone else in town saw it, they’d have the same reaction you did. He could have found himself hanging from the nearest tree.” Leave it to my partner to be logical.

  “That’s a possibility. It seems like so many things point to so many people. I don’t know if we can figure this one out. There are too many suspects and there’s no one left to talk to or to question.”

  “So Ambrose makes the sheriff’s character out to be an idiot?”

  “More or less. I definitely get the feeling Ambrose didn’t have much respect for Sheriff Croft. Or maybe he’s going to introduce another character into the story who’ll solve the crimes.

  “One thing I noticed is that he made it sound like there’d been other murders. It didn’t sound like this victim was the second, but that she was one of multiple victims.”

  “Rick was right. Y
ou’re a body magnet.”

  Rick is a close friend of Pete’s, and a homicide detective. While investigating a murder, one that we’d been the first to discover, Rick called me just that – a body magnet. Then he’d asked me if I would consider getting out of town for a while so the body count would drop. I hadn’t laughed.

  “I am not,” I said, indignantly.

  “Are you kidding? We can’t even go on vacation without a body or two showing up.”

  “But this is different,” I tried to explain. “These murders happened a long time ago, and we weren’t involved. Since we’re stuck here, at least it’s giving me something to concentrate on.”

  “Okay, I’m just giving you a bad time. I’m fully aware this isn’t your fault. And I know how you love a mystery, so I agree that this is something to keep you busy. And if I’m honest with you, it is intriguing. I’m interested to know who committed the crimes, and I’ll help in any way I can. I just don’t feel the sense of urgency that I would if this had happened recently.”

  “Of course, there is no sense of urgency, except if we find our car part, then we’ll be leaving. And I’d like to solve this before we have to leave.”

  “I understand, sweetie. Is there something more we can do today?”

  “I’d like to look at more houses, and I’d still like to get into that saloon.”

  “Yeah, I’d like to go inside the saloon, too. Maybe there’s some good aged whiskey or something. What did you call it? Vintage liquor, or something like that.”

  “It figures you’d want to go find the hooch,” I said, raising my eyebrow. I knew he was joking, but I had to give him a hard time or I wouldn’t be playing the bantering game we played so well.

  Walking outside, I picked up Ambrose’s story and carried it and the chair back inside with me. “I’ll read the rest of this later. Right now, why don’t we look at the doctor’s house? Didn’t most doctors work out of their homes or make house calls in those days?”

  “I suppose, but not all of them. Maybe he didn’t want the locals carrying germs into his home.”

  “Yeah, right. A doctor who doesn’t like germs.”

  Seeing the town map on the table, I picked it up and opened it, taking a look at all the homes. There were more farms out beyond the Newton place, and there were houses near town that we hadn’t looked at yet. The Benedict ranch looked like the biggest place, if the sheriff had drawn to scale at all.

  Then I spotted what I wanted to look at. “Instead of going to the doctor’s place, let’s take a look at the teacher’s house. It’s located behind the school and not far from the preacher’s home.”

  “Any particular reason you want to go there?” he asked.

  “Yes. The first two women were murdered outside. The teacher was killed in her home. Who knows? Maybe we’ll find something the sheriff missed.”

  “After all these years? I doubt it.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Pete and I walked through town and I took pictures of the buildings. He’d retrieved my camera for me before we started our journey through time again. We stopped at the general store and I took pictures of the inside of the building. I didn’t bother with the barbershop because there wasn’t that much left inside. There was nothing spectacular about the doctor’s office, so we passed it without stopping. The blacksmith’s shop was interesting, at least to Pete, so I snapped a few there, too. I took pictures of the outside of the buildings, and from each end of town.

  Satisfied with my photography, we headed for the teacher’s house. Her name had been Margaret Simpson. The sheriff had made a note in his records that she’d been twenty-six years old, she’d had brown hair and she was tall and slim. While I waited for Pete to bring back my camera, I’d skipped through some of the pages of the sheriff’s records. I discovered that at one point Annie told Sheriff Croft he should describe each victim, so he’d set up a page specifically for the victims. He’d also included details about the wounds on the victims with information supplied by Dr. Summers. Now I was able to create my own idea of what they’d looked like, and unfortunately, what they’d gone through. I’d only read the teacher’s description because we were heading for her home.

  We saw that the house had been boarded up, as were many of the others. I wondered if they’d boarded it up right after the murder. There were even boards across the front door. Pete brought tools since we were beginning to realize what an issue it was gaining entrance into the buildings. He pried the boards off the front door and we entered after struggling with the door itself. It was stuck, like the others. He said in addition to time, the weather had probably made the doors swell.

  Of course, it was dark inside. Pete was tired of dealing with dark houses, so he pried the boards from two windows, which still held glass.

  I sucked in my breath as we looked around. Apparently the house had been boarded up right after the crime. Everything looked like it had in 1880. We could see that there had been a struggle. A chair had been knocked over, as well as an oil lamp. Small indistinguishable and broken items were on the floor, apparently knocked off a table. It appeared they’d been figurines.

  In the middle of the kitchen floor was a dark stain. I closed my eyes for a moment, feeling a deep sadness. Turning to Pete, I asked, “Do you think that’s – ”

  “I believe that’s a blood stain,” he interrupted. “In fact, I’m certain of it.” He spoke softly.

  I couldn’t explain it, but this crime scene was like no other we’d ever seen. Maybe it was because we knew an innocent young schoolteacher had died here, a woman who’d taught and cared for the town’s children. There’d been no mention of a husband, so she’d had to fight her attacker without help. Was I romanticizing the woman? Maybe, but I was also humanizing her.

  I sighed, deeply and with feeling. “Okay, let’s take a look around. It appears after searching the house, the sheriff just boarded it up and walked away. If he missed anything, maybe we’ll find it. Investigating has come a long way since his day.”

  Pete nodded and began in the living room area instead of the kitchen. “It looks like the struggle started here,” he said. “Look at what a mess it is. My guess is if there’s anything to be found, this is the place.” He stood still, taking it all in.

  “You might be right.”

  He let his eyes wander around the two rooms before closing them and tilting his head back. “I think they fought out here and he chased her into the kitchen, where he killed her. I don’t see any bloodstains in this part of the house. The mess is here and the kitchen is relatively free of debris.”

  “It looks like they knocked a tea kettle off the stove, but other than that, you’re right.”

  I closed my eyes, too, and tried to visualize what he might be seeing. I could picture the woman fighting for her life, knowing she was seeing the face of a maniacal killer and it was her turn to die. She didn’t accept her fate and fought for all she was worth.

  I pictured a tall woman with dark hair falling around her shoulders. Maybe the struggle caused the pins to fall out of her hair. Her face appeared frozen in fear, but her body didn’t let her down. She fought like a wild woman, knocking things over in the process. My mind’s eye could see her running for the kitchen, maybe to find something to use to defend herself. The tea kettle might have held hot water, boiling and dangerous in itself.

  My eyes popped open. I honestly didn’t want to see any more of what my mind could conjure up.

  Pete was looking at the ceiling, then at the floor, and finally around the room and at the furniture.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “One of the first things a cop learns about investigating is to look up, look down, and all around. You’d be amazed at where some of the best evidence shows up.”

  “I wish you’d told me that a long time ago. Up, down and all around. Great advice. Do you see anything that seems out of place or wrong?”

  “I do.”

  He’d surprised me. “What?�
�

  “I think my initial reaction was wrong. This looks staged. I think the killer murdered her and then began either breaking things to make it look like she’d fought him, or he had a temper tantrum. Look at how far the pieces of the broken glass have scattered. It’s like someone slammed them on the floor, not like they just fell and broke.”

  He was right, and I was learning things from him about investigating. And, thankfully, he’d removed the picture I had in my mind of the struggling woman. I hoped the killer had taken her by surprise and she’d died quickly.

  He began walking around the room, still looking closely in every direction. He bent over to pick something up, but dropped it back on the floor. I followed him, fascinated at how he was approaching this whole thing.

  There was a decorative side table sitting against the wall. Pete dropped to his knees and peered under it. Standing up, he pulled it away from the wall. I watched as he picked something up and nodded his head.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He held out a kitchen knife – one that matched the set the Mueller’s owned.

  “So the blacksmith was the killer?”

  “Could be, but you never know. The knife alone isn’t enough proof. Don’t forget, a few minutes ago you thought the killer was Ambrose.”

  “True. Someone else could have used it, but it makes sense that it might be Mueller. The sheriff said he was an ill-tempered man, and the doctor commented that he thought these were crimes of anger.”

  “You’ve been reading Croft’s records and you’ve passed on what you’ve read to me. What’s your best guess? You’ve got a feel for the people in this town, even if it is slanted by the sheriff’s opinions.”

  I thought about it before answering. Yes, Mueller didn’t sound like a pleasant man, but he hadn’t sounded like a killer either. And I couldn’t discount Marie Mueller. She was a big woman from what I could tell, and it didn’t sound like she was particularly nice. Could she have been jealous of the other women in town? The ones who were younger and prettier than she? I figured from comments the sheriff and the doctor had made that the killer might have anger issues, and who might be nuttier and angrier than a jealous woman?