Deadly Is the Night (15 page)

Chet and his men rode out the next day to get to Holbrook. They camped that night and then went on. Finally in Holbrook, his men put the horses up at the livery and were to meet him later at a diner they liked. Chet headed for the sheriff's office.

Randall Cates was the deputy. A man in his forties with some gray in his sideburns. In his office, Cates leaned back in the squeaking chair and tented his hands.

“What can I do for you?”

“There was a murder up here a few months ago?”

“Charlie Farrell. A bachelor. He had a small cow operation. Lived up in the Burner Canyon Country. They tortured him to tell them where he kept his money. He finally told them in a tin coffee can. They spilled a few coins but never picked them up. Then they shot him. I heard reports he had a few thousand dollars, but I doubted he had over a few hundred. He was an old miser and unless God gave him money he didn't have much. Who killed him? I suspect some drifting cowboy that folks saw riding through the country about that time. No names.”

“Who got his ranch and cattle?”

“Good question. Robbie Clements paid the taxes, so he now owns the homestead. He owns the K Bar Three Ranch. I don't recall who got the cattle.”

“Farrell have many cows?”

“I don't know. I never figured he had very many.”

“What was his brand?”

“CFX.”

“I'll try to remember that. Thanks. You think it was drifters that robbed and killed him?”

“Lots of things happen up here. It's a vast country. I gave the case my best. He'd probably been dead a week when his corpse was discovered. Good luck finding his murderers. I had none.”

“You think more than one man killed him?”

Cates shook his head. “I don't know. I hope you can solve it.”

Chet met his men for the late afternoon meal.

“Learn anything?” Jesus asked.

“The dead man's name was Charlie Farrell. He was a bachelor. They supposedly got his money from a coffee can after torturing him. Another rancher, who paid the taxes, has his homestead. He ran cows but there's no count of them or who eventually got them. The deputy told me the brand was CFX.”

“Boy, this sure sounds tough to me. What do we do next?” Miguel asked.

“Get answers to questions. What did that man pay for the place? Where are the dead man's cattle? That would be a start.”

“We run questions down and get nothing sometimes. Other times we find we answer our own questions,” Jesus said.

“How do we start?” Miguel asked.

“I want to know how Charlie Farrell died. That should be in the coroner's report. It may tell us something,” Chet began. “Then I want to meet this man who bought his homestead land. Next we need to learn how many cows he owned and where they went afterwards.”

“Chet, I thought a murdering drifter robber killed him?” Miguel said.

“In a case like this everyone around is a suspect. Savvy?”

Miguel nodded. “I am trying not to be too slow. This goes deeper than I first thought.”

“You know the man's name who bought the place?” Jesus asked.

“Robbie Clements. He owns the Three Bar K I believe. No the deputy said K Bar Three brand.”

“Where do we start?” Jesus asked.

“Here in the village. Quietly ask around what they know about Charlie Farrell. We need to know about the money he had. What was he like? Anything else we can learn about him.”

Miguel said, “Let's do this.”

“Good. We may be here a few days so first we'll get some hotel rooms, then supper.”

Chet and his team were ready to investigate the murder of Charlie Farrell.

The next morning they met with the undertaker and read his report. His killer and-or others had burned the soles of his feet, until he probably told them where the money can was. That was what the undertaker had surmised.

Chet asked the man, “How old was he?”

“I wrote down sixty because there was no birth certificate to tell me his age.”

“Okay. Thanks. You say here he was shot twice in the back of his head with .44/.40 rifle bullets you extracted from his skull?”

“Yes.”

“The old man would have died from them instantly?”

“Oh, no doubt. Probably lying facedown on the floor. His hands were tied behind his back. I'd say they had the money and whoever shot him did it so he could not report the robbery.”

“Most drifting cowboys, that the deputy suspected, would not be mean enough to do that, would they?” Chet asked.

“I agree. They'd probably left him tied and hightailed it for far away, spending the money in some whorehouse.”

Chet laughed. “Probably so. You think he had much money in that coffee can?”

The older man, sitting in his chair, shook his head. “I have no idea. Farrell was the original skin flint around here.”

“Other words he didn't give anything to the poor orphans and children's fund?”

He chuckled. “Whenever he got a coin I think it would scream ‘Don't put me in the moldy purse.'”

“He have anything else valuable?”

“Not that I know of. He used coffee grounds twice they said. A guy one time asked him if they were weaker.”

“What did he say?”

“Cheaper that way.”

Chet thanked him, took his notes, and left. He met Miguel outside on the porch of the funeral home.

“You learn a lot?”

“Some. But it is all spread out and I don't have much at that.”

“Tell me what you learned. Jesus will meet us for lunch now.”

“The café he likes?”

Chet nodded and told him all that he learned as they walked the two blocks.

“What bothered you the most about what you heard?” Miguel asked, close to the entrance to the diner.

“The way he was murdered. I've been around several robberies. The Mexican bandits were the worst, but they shot with the people facing them and with pistols. This killer shot him twice, in the back of the head, with a rifle.”

“That is real brutal. Maybe Jesus has some answers.”

Chet hoped that Jesus had found out more.

Over lunch Chet asked Jesus, “What did you uncover?”

“Charlie never bought any liquor. But he did frequent the same
putas
on the regular times he came to town.”

“At the red light house?”

“No, they charged too much, they said.” Jesus smiled. “They were Mexican women around here.”

“Get their names?”

“Yes one is Yolanda and the other calls herself the Yellow Rose.”

“Can we go talk to them?” Chet asked.

“I suppose so,” Jesus agreed.

A woman who lived in that
barrio
section sent them down there to where one of the women they were looking for was working. The Yellow Rose was washing clothes in the Little Colorado. They found her on her knees in the water, beating her wet wash with a stick to get the dirt out. She stood up and the wet, thin dress she wore left nothing to the men's imaginations.

“Rose, I am the U.S. marshal and I need to ask you a few questions about Charles Farrell.”

“I am sorry, but he is dead now, señor.”

“We know that. Who killed him?”

She went into cussing the devil in Spanish and ended with, “He was such wonderful lover I miss him with all my heart.”

“Oh, I bet you do. But what can you tell me about him?”

“Charles, as I called him, brought me flowers that he had picked on the way to see me. It was as if he was courting me.”

“That was nice. Did you ever think he had any money?”

“One time. He came by with his flowers and he was drunk—he said his brother had died and that hurt him. He was such a tender, how you say, man at most times. He only came drunk that one time. But it made his tongue loose that day, huh?”

“Go on, please.”

“And that he—his brother—left him his gold mine and money.”

“You believed him?”

“
Si
. It was my birthday and he gave me a one-hundred-dollar bill.”

“He ever do that before?”

She shook her head. “Not ever again either. I only charged him a dollar a night. If you are interested I would treat you guys for that?”

Chet shook his head. “My deputies and I are happily married men.”

“Oh, I treat lots of them, too.”

They laughed.

“Was his brother's name Farrell, too?”

“I can't remember his name. He owned the Candy Cane Mine at Silver City. That was what was sold and he said the lawyer sent him the proceeds in cash by mail.”

“Not many people knew about it?”

“No, he swore me to never tell anyone. But now he is dead. Who cares?” She shrugged her shoulders. “I wished he'd given me some of that money before they robbed him.”

“Anyone else ever talk to you about this?”

She shook her head.

“Tell no one else. Here is a twenty-dollar piece for your trouble.”

She looked at it in her brown palm and shook her head. “I could entertain you a lot for this.”

“No, you have done enough for it today.”

She licked her lips. “You need me you can always find me.
Gracias
to you
hombres
, too.”

They left her and hiked for their horses hitched in the tall cottonwoods on the higher bank.

“Wow,” Miguel said, looking back to be certain no one was around. “So he was not a poor man.”

Jesus agreed. “But who besides Rose knew that?”

“We need to find this Yolanda,” Chet said, mounting up.

Jesus nodded. “She lives on the west side of town.”

“You know where?”

“They described the house to me.”

“Let's go talk to her.”

Jesus agreed and led the way.

“Can we find out what the mine sold for?” Miguel asked.

“I can wire the U.S. marshal at Silver City, and he can find out and get me the answer.”

They came to Yolanda's yard gate of the brown stucco house. It had signs of roses in the yard. Winter bare stems showed what it must have looked like in warm weather. Jesus went to see if she was at home.

A woman wrapped in a blanket stood in the half-open door and spoke to him. Chet heard her say, “Not now. Later after dark.”

Jesus tipped his cowboy hat and nodded. He returned and they mounted up.

Amused, Jesus said, “She thought I wanted her body. I think she had business inside. Later tonight after dark, huh?”

“And it will be our turn.” Chet chuckled. “We have done well. I want to talk to the banker next.”

“What will you ask him?” Miguel asked, riding beside him.

“If anyone has paid off a ranch loan lately that surprised him?”

“They would do that, wouldn't they?” Miguel asked.

“Yes, and have a flimflam answer for how they did it.”

“What is that, flimflam?”

“It means their source sounds made up—or a big fat lie.”

“I am learning, Chet. Really I am.” All three laughed.

He found that the bank president, Carlyle Worth, was a starched-collar kind of man, and he quickly took Chet into his office when Chet announced that he was a lawman.

“How may I help you?”

“I have a reason to believe someone paid off a mortgage on a ranch and it shocked you.”

“Why is that, sir?”

“Over the past few months has anyone come in and paid off a large loan and you didn't know how he did it?”

“What are you pressing for, Marshal?”

“There was a large unreported robbery in this area. A man was killed. The person that killed him gained a helluva lot of money with torture. Now I think he may have come in here and paid off a loan he had here.”

Worth sat back in the chair. “Are you saying that old skinflint Farrell had lots of cash?”

“Why ask about him?”

“He's the only murder I have heard about this year.”

“Do you think Charlie had any money?”

“A bucket of dimes, maybe, that the old bastard had saved.”

“So, who came in with an unusual amount of money about then?”

“Deputy Randall Cates.”

“Hmmm?”

“He exchanged a five-hundred-dollar bill for smaller money a week after the old man was shot.”

Hell. Cates may have been involved. “I take it you don't get many of those around here?”

“I had to look up the treasury department's pictures of them. There is someone I didn't even know on it and the thousand-dollar one had a different unknown guy on it, but his was good.”

“Did you ask him where he got it?”

“He said it was from his uncle's will.”

“Any more?”

“Robbie Clements also got an inheritance, he said, but he paid me off with hundred-dollar bills.”

“When?”

“A week after that. Those are the only two I know about. What else?”

“If I paid for the wire, would you secretly send a telegram to Silver City, New Mexico, and find out what the Candy Cane Mine sold for at auction?”

“Does that enter in your investigation?”

“Yes, and I will have more answers when you learn that amount.”

“Are you close to something up here?”

“I am. There have been several murder-robberies across the eastern part of the territory. I don't think, right now, this murder is connected to any of those down in the Snow Flake area, but not a word to anyone until I have stronger proof.”