Dead Man's Hand (Caden Chronicles, The) (7 page)

I
found James’s car parked behind the laundry building in a gravel lot marked IMPLOYEASE ONLY—just like Wyatt Earp said I would. Second row. Two doors over from a mud-splattered pickup tagged with a sheriff’s sticker in the back windshield. Given Earp’s suggestion that James often let others park his car for him, it made sense I’d find the Charger in the lot. Question was, what happened to Earp’s Schofield?

Popping the lock took all of thirty seconds. I’d picked up a rubber wedge, the type used for propping open a door, from the general store and a flat, two-foot long piece of metal from the blacksmith shop. Shoving the wedge between the driver’s doorjamb and door, I’d opened a quarter-inch gap just wide
enough for the rod. I’d seen this done once when Mom had locked her keys in the car. We’d tried everything to get her car unlocked. Coat hanger slipped through the window, paper clip in the lock. All we ended up doing was scratching the paint.

Thirty minutes after the call, a tow truck driver arrived. He examined the make of the car and returned from his truck with a rubber wedge and long, straight rod. Took him thirty seconds to pop the lock.

The shaft slipped easily through the gap. I tapped the unlock button and heard the lock disengage.

I opened the door, climbed in, and sat in the driver’s seat, pulling the door shut. The interior of the bright yellow Charger smelled of leather and sour clothes. I kept looking out the windshield to make sure no one was watching. The last thing I needed was someone accusing me of trying to boost a late-model muscle car.

Fast-food bags, stray fries, and a crumpled parking receipt from a Denver parking garage lay on the passenger’s floor mat. I thumbed open the glove box and found a registration card for Dallas Joshua James of Golden, Colorado. Beneath the owner’s manual I found a summons for James to appear in court. The date and time matched his account of the previous day. One charge of assault.

I remembered Earp telling me James was a brawler.
Is he the type to hit a young woman? Or gun down a coworker?
I tucked the court summons back in the glove box and felt under the passenger seat.

Sweat erupted on my forehead and I started thinking:
This is no place for a fourteen-year-old to be. No place at all. But I can’t
go to the marshal with just some crazy story about Billy the Kid being buried on Boot Hill. I need the murder weapon
.

The pounding on the driver’s window nearly sent me into orbit. My sister pressed her face against the glass and peered in.

“Whose car is this?” she blurted out.

“None of your business. Now go away.”

“Does the marshal know you broke into someone’s car? Does Mom know?”

“Wendy, please! I’m working on the case.”

“Come on Nick, tell me what you’re looking for. I want to help. Is it that dead cowboy’s body?”

“No. I found that already.”

“You did? Where? Can I see it? Is it gross?”

“I can’t tell you where it is but it’s not here, okay? Now please go.”

“Mom wants you in the saloon right now. We’re dressing up like those people on Little House on the Prairie and going to have our picture taken for our Christmas card.”

“Tell her I’ll be there in a sec.”

“She said to come
now
.”

I shut the door and bent over to look under the passenger seat. No gun. I sat up and swept sweat from my face. Wendy marched toward the buildings facing Main Street. I knew she’d tell Mom. She always did when I shut her out like that. But I couldn’t risk her blabbing to my parents that I was hunting for a gun. Mom would freak if she knew.

I twisted and felt under the driver’s seat. Nothing. I wanted to look in the trunk but didn’t dare risk it. Not with employees milling around the rear of the laundry building, smoking. I
waited until the lot was empty, then cracked open the door and hit the door lock. Crouching by the side of the car, I snuck to the rear and peeked over the roof. When the last of the workers snuffed out her cigarette and went inside, I walked quickly away from the laundry building toward Sassy Sally’s Saloon, wondering where Billy’s killer had ditched the murder weapon.

The photographer handed me a sack of clothes and pointed me in the direction of the men’s restroom. I peeled off my shirt, shoes, and pants and slipped on the hokey Little House on the Prairie outfit, complete with high-waist pants and suspenders.

“Let’s do this,” I said, joining my family by the piano.

“Boy, you’re bossy,” Wendy replied, twirling her parasol over her shoulder. “Especially for someone who kept the rest of us waiting. Did you find what you were looking for?”

I shot her a quick glance and said to the photographer, “Where do you want me to stand?”

The photographer positioned Mom and Dad on either end of the piano. Wendy and I sat on the short bench with our backs to the keys.
How quaint
. I hoped Mom was kidding about the Christmas card idea. I could just imagine what my friends would say if they saw me dressed up like Albert (Albert!—of all names) Ingalls.

Flash. The photographer snapped a series of photos, moved us into different positions, and reeled off a few more shots. He put the camera away and told us the pictures would be up on a flat-panel monitor in just a sec. I told Mom she had my vote.
In the bathroom I changed back into my real clothes and hurried to the marshal’s office. Even without a murder weapon, I needed to tell him what I’d seen in the graveyard. Maybe Bill Bell’s body would prove to him that I wasn’t lying about the murder in the hayloft.

I’d just stepped from the saloon onto Main Street when a bank customer bolted from the bank yelling, “Quick! Get the marshal! The bank’s being robbed!” The old woman shuffled away to join the other shopkeepers and townspeople who’d taken cover on the boardwalk and inside stores. A burly man in overalls pulled me behind a porch post and told me to get down. My family cowered inside Sassy Sally’s.

“Banco de los Bandidos,” Overalls said, lowering his voice. “Muy malo.”

Very bad, indeed
, I thought, practicing my Spanish.

Seconds later the bandits bolted from the bank. The two men sported drooping mustaches, sombreros, and ponchos. Each carried a bulging gunnysack, which I assumed was full of fake money. From the other end of the street came gunfire. I whirled and saw Marshal Buckleberry coming on at a dead run, firing with both barrels. The taller of the two bandits slung his bag over the horn of the saddle, mounted his horse, and galloped away, yelling, “Yo soy el pan de vida; el que a mí viene, nunca tendrá hambre.”

The shorter, rounder bandit struggled to mount his horse. Each time he placed his foot in the stirrup the horse crabbed away, causing the man to hop along in a circle.

The marshal paused and leveled his revolver, ordering the man to drop the money and raise his arms. The bank robber,
finally swinging his leg over the saddle, spurred his horse and attempted to gallop away.

Marshal Buckleberry fired two shots, and the rider suddenly plunged backwards, flipped off and over his horse, and landed on his back in a watering trough. The timing and technique were perfect and would have easily won a medal in the Olympics.

A single boot remained visible, its heel hooked on the lip of the watering trough. The crowd cautiously approached, forming a loose horseshoe around the trough. The outlaw remained submerged, eyes wide and round and peering up through clear water. Casually, the marshal bumped the boot off the rim and it sank. Then, just like in the saloon and train, the phantom figure became less defined, as though melting
into
the water. The transformation couldn’t have lasted more than two seconds. One moment the bandit was there; the next, poof!

The crowd gasped, then applauded. Mom, Dad, and Wendy clapping the hardest.

I congratulated the marshal on another fine performance and told him I had something to show him. He jerked his head back toward his office at the end of Main Street and told me to wait for him.

The marshal’s office shared a feature common to western jails—at least of those jails shown in movies. Two cells stood opposite from each other, separated by a short hallway leading to the rear of the building. The view from just inside the doorway was of a sparse, compact office. Wooden desk, wooden swivel chair. Ring of keys hanging from a peg fastened to a vertical support beam next to one corner of the desk. Above the
keys hung an unlit kerosene lantern. On the other side of the support hung a wide leather belt and holster. No gun.

One edge of the beam had been worn smooth, its rough finish almost glossy. I pictured the marshal resting his shoulder against that beam, arms folded across his chest, one boot hooked over the other in a casual pose. Cameras flashing. Hint of a smile frozen on his face. “Come on, boys and girls. Stand over here and get your picture taken with the marshal,” he might say, beckoning to the timid.

Like a serpent warming itself on a dusty trail, the marshal had tried to cast himself as nothing more than an easygoing lawman in a make-believe ghost town. A harmless brown stick on the side of a footpath. But I knew better. I’d seen a flash of anger in his eyes when I’d questioned his investigative skills. The challenge from Marshal Buckleberry was clear: bend down and mess with that old brown stick and you’ll pay.

I heard the jingle of the marshal’s spurs and went in, taking the only spare chair in the room. He moved to the other side of the desk and rolled his chair back, angling it so we could talk over the corner of the desk.

“You let one get away,” I told the marshal when he arrived. “Was that part of the act?”

“No act, son. What you saw out there was the real deal.” He hung his hat on a peg and pulled the door shut behind him. “I keep telling you this is a ghost town. At some point you’ll start believing me.”

I explained how I’d done some checking and learned that ghosts and creditors were about the only visitors stopping by Deadwood.

“Sounds like you’ve been talking to Jess.”

“I have.”

“He needs to learn to keep his mouth shut. Talking out of character can get you fired.”

“Any truth to what he said about you having financial difficulties?”

“He probably made it sound worse than it is. Sour grapes because I didn’t give him a glowing endorsement like he wanted. But sure, it’s been a tough couple of years. No point acting like it hasn’t.”

“How bad?”

“This is off the record, you understand. I’m just telling you this because I know you’re all wrapped up in this imaginary murder case.” He pivoted and pointed out the window toward Main Street. “Bookings are down. Costs keep rising. Insurance has gone through the roof. You have no idea how difficult it can be to run a venture of this size on a shoestring budget. Families don’t take trips like they used to. Kids today are into movies and video games. But then I’m not telling you something you don’t already know.” He leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on his desk. “You said you had something you wanted to show me?”

“I understand you took a loan from Billy the Kid.”

“I did?”

“As I understand it, Bill Bell loaned you fifty thousand dollars.”

“We’re a small county tucked way up in the hills. This town and the tourists it brings are about the only attraction we have in these parts. Except for the ski resorts, of course, but that’s
seasonal. Good seasonal, but there’s a wide spread between May and December, and people need work year-round.”

“The economy of Deadwood isn’t really my concern, Marshal. But finding Bill Bell’s killer is.”

The marshal sighed and rocked forward in his chair, looking at me with hound dog eyes.

“Four years ago you wouldn’t have recognized this place. We had fresh tar on the highway and plans for a regional airport with shuttle service to Denver. Had a stack of resumes taller than that wastebasket of people wanting to work in Deadwood. Pick of the best actors this side of California. Then the county went and passed a tourism tax. Idea was to get visitors coming to enjoy our county to pay for the road improvements and new school buildings. Sounded like a good idea at the time. First season we hardly noticed the dip in attendance. The next year, bookings were down, but we cut expenses some and did okay. By the next spring I started to notice fewer ads in the chamber of commerce magazine for mom-and-pop shops. You know, the handcrafted quilting boutiques, river tours, eco hikes, those sorts of places. Last summer the price I had been paying for a quarter page ad in the magazine got me the whole back cover. Those ad people did a real nice job. Made us look like Disneyland. Didn’t help at all. Ticket sales fell by half. Word had finally gotten around that our county wasn’t tourist friendly. That we were milking visitors so every kid in our public schools could have his own tablet. Was a lie, of course, but it’s hard to change the public’s perception once they get their minds made up.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Did you and Billy have a
financial agreement of some kind, and if so, was he pressuring you to make good on your end of the arrangement?”