If Fried Chicken Could Fly (13 page)

But today was different. Today I wanted to learn as much as I could about Jerome Cowbender.

As we sat on stools, I told Jake about my encounters with the ghost of Jerome and how real, though not completely human, he’d seemed and behaved. I told Jake about the distinct wood smoke smell and the sense of authenticity Jerome’s ghost carried with him.

Jake listened closely.

“You believe me?” I finally said when he had remained silent as I finished my story.

“I don’t disbelieve you. I’m certain Broken Rope is haunted, Betts, but I’ve never seen a ghost myself. I’m jealous that you might have. I’m still not one hundred percent sure you’ve seen a ghost so much as…as…”

“What, Jake?”

“As maybe just had a haunted experience.”

“What’s the difference?”

“You might be picking up on vibes but a full-fledged ghost? I just don’t know. I want to believe everything you ever say. I know you’ve never lied to me, and I know you have your wits about you. I also know you want to help Miz. As much as I want to believe, it still might take me a little time to get there. Either way, I’m here to help.” Jake hopped off the stool. “I do think that whatever you experienced, and whoever it was that was relaying this experience to you was most definitely onto something. I was checking out Jerome’s tombstone because I’d seen Miz and Everett looking at it, sure, but there’s more. Everett had recently visited me, too. Right here in the archives. He came in about a month ago and started asking to look at everything I had about Jerome. I had no idea why, but I was thrilled to find a willing pupil.”

Jake fingered through a stack of items that was on a low shelf. “Because he’d been coming in, I had a chance to look through pretty much everything I have and make one big Jerome stack. Normally, I keep things filed by dates and names, but Jerome was all over the place, I’m embarrassed to say. Anyway, now he’s right here—or what I have of him is. I might have more and I’ll keep looking.” Jake heaved a stack of items from the shelf to the table.

Every piece was wrapped in its own plastic cover and the stack was a good six inches high. Some items were about
poster board size, other items small. A piece of plastic about the size of a business card rode the top of the pile.

“What’s that?” I grabbed for it first.

“That’s a button from one of Jerome’s coats.”

I looked through the plastic and rubbed my fingers over the button. “I didn’t know they had metal buttons back then.”

“They did. It was this single button that made me originally question Jerome’s reputation. This is not a common criminal’s button. It is from a nice suit of clothes, nicer than what most of the Broken Rope men wore at the time. My research shows me there’s much that says he wasn’t just a common criminal.”

“Any chance you could tell me what’s here so I don’t have to look at every single thing? I feel the need to hurry.”

“Sure. Sort of at least. I know the high points, but I’ll research the other things, too, and let you know later. For now, Jerome wasn’t from Broken Rope. He came here from Boston.”

“Boston?”

“Yes, Boston. He was considered a gentleman there, but I need to brush up on those details. I will. Anyway, for reasons unknown when he first moved here, he left Boston and traveled west.”

“Lots of people did that,” I said.

“Yes, but it wasn’t until he’d lived here awhile that other Broken Rope residents figured why he left Boston. He was on the run from the law. He’d been accused of killing a man and instead of facing what he thought would be a certain guilty verdict, he escaped jail and ran—or rode—away.”

“So he was an outlaw, then?”

“Yes, at one point. But when the citizens found out about his shady past, they decided to forget about
it because they all liked him so much. He was a loner, lived out in the woods, came into town for supplies, and at one point had some cattle. Everyone liked him so much that they forgave him of the crime he insisted he hadn’t committed. It was Broken Rope, after all.”

“You said ‘at first’ he was an outlaw.”

“He was eventually cleared of the crime in Boston. Word didn’t travel quickly back then, but I found an article that printed in Boston after the time of his death that cleared him. Unfortunately, I don’t know if he ever knew, and by the time he was shot down by the sheriff, he’d taken on the full title of local thief in Broken Rope.”

“What happened?”

“That’s the part Everett was trying to figure out. What happened to turn this nice, quiet man into a thief?”

“And?”

Jake shrugged. “Still not sure. Close to the time Jerome started stealing things, there were articles in
The Noose
about him coming to town more often and doing ‘good deeds.’ It was as if a switch was flipped and he one day turned bad.”

“Strange.”

“Maybe you could ask him? In fact, if you could get a full historical account of his life, I’d be forever in your debt.”

“You do believe me.”

“Well, let’s put it this way, if you get me a full historical account, I’ll definitely believe you.”

“He doesn’t remember his life. He says the longer he’s around, the more he remembers, but he’s never sure how long he gets to stay.”

“Why is he here? I mean, why now?”

“He thinks it has something to do with helping Gram. Since he saved her from the fire, he thinks he’s supposed to show up when she needs help.”

“Why does that make sense to me?” Jake laughed.

“I don’t know, but it does, doesn’t it? What about the treasure? Or the legend that he was a bank robber but that he couldn’t shoot a gun well?”

“Again, a little sketchy, but I’ll do my best.” Jake thumbed through the stack of archived items and pulled out something that was contained in an 8½ × 11 plastic folder. “Here are two more articles from
The Noose,
our newspaper. You can’t take them out of the plastic, but I did what I could to translate what first looks like gibberish. Here’re my translations. One article might explain his reputation and hints at the good deeds. The other one plays a whole different tune.” He pulled out some papers from a pocket behind the main one. “Read.”

The papers encased in the plastic did look like they were written in gibberish, faded gibberish, actually. Jake must have painstakingly used a magnifying glass and borrowed some patience from an old dead monk to translate what he had.

I cleared my throat and read the first article. “Broken Rope resident, Jerome Cowbender, was mistaken for some local bandits yesterday. Mr. Cowbender happened to mosey into town right at (?) when the local Bank and Trust was being robbed. Some robber scoundrels [I think that’s the word] left the bank with bags full of money and fast horses. Mr. Cowbender drew his weapon and commanded them to stop. When they didn’t, he started shooting, causing bullets
to fly willy-nilly around Main Street but not causing harm to any living beings, be they good guys or bad.

“A misunderstanding ensued when Sheriff Earp [not of the famous Earps. I might have the name wrong] shot at Mr. Cowbender. Fortunately, his shot was off a little that day, too.

“No one was hurt and the misunderstanding seems to have been cleared up.”

I put the paper down and looked at Jake. “Jerome was killed by the sheriff in a
later
gun battle, right?”

“I do believe that is true.”

“So he wasn’t a bad guy
again
until he was? And this makes no mention of the treasure.”

“I know. Here, now read this one.” Jake pointed at the other article.

I read: “If anyone knows the whereabouts and wherefores of local resident Jerome Cowbender, would you please come forward and tell Sheriff Earp. Mr. Cowbender is wanted so’s he can answer some questions about some missing gold pieces.”

“Where were the gold pieces from?”

Jake shrugged. “I don’t know. Journalism wasn’t as thorough as it is now, but I think Everett was onto something. He came in the day before he was killed and asked to go through the archives again. He’d been respectful of all the documents so I let him be. I worked up front. I have no idea what he looked at. Except…now something’s missing.”

“Huh?”

“Something’s missing.” Jake held an empty plastic folder.

“What do you mean?”

“I think Everett took whatever was in this one. I went through everything this morning and this folder was empty.

My system isn’t set up yet so that I know what was in this specific folder. It’s my goal to number everything and have a short description of each item in a computer file, but I’m just not there. In light of everything, I feel kind of terrible.”

“Jake, you’re a one-person operation here. You’ve done an amazing job with all this junk—okay, it isn’t junk, sorry. But no one else has your vision and if any town needs this sort of organization, it’s Broken Rope. The fact that you even know that Everett took something is helpful,” I said. “Besides, I bet I know what it was. Jerome said he had been looking around the Jasper last night and saw a piece of paper mentioning him and the treasure on Everett’s desk. He only saw part of it—he can’t move things— so he doesn’t know what else was on it, but he’s sure he and the treasure were mentioned.”

Jake half smiled. “That’s probably it. I don’t remember what it could be, but maybe I can look for it elsewhere. Thanks, Betts. I suspect that it will tell us about more than just a piece of Broken Rope’s history, it might—might—help us figure out who the killer is.”

“Or maybe more about the treasure. I didn’t think it was important at first, but we’d better tell Jim about the gold piece on the tombstone. Or…” I bit on my cheek as I looked at Jake.

“What?”

“Gram lied to the police about seeing Everett earlier that day.”

“So you don’t want me to mention that I saw them either?”

“It would be wrong of me to suggest such a thing,” I said.

“Oh, quit being such a law school dropout. I know Miz didn’t kill anyone. I’m not going to tell the police anything that might make her look guilty, don’t worry about that. We’ll keep the gold piece to ourselves for a while.”

“Thank you, Jake.”

He waved away my gratitude.

“We also need to get into the Jasper and see if we can retrieve that piece of paper,” I said.

“It’s locked up tight right now. I think Jim searched it for evidence and is now looking for someone to run it on tourist opening day.”

“And I really, really need to talk to Gram again.”

“Hang on. One step at a time, Betts,” Jake said. “Maybe we could see if we can get into the Jasper. I might know a trick or two. Let’s start there.”

“Good idea,” I said, glad to put my energy toward something on my growing to-do list.

Jake shooed me out of the archive room so he could refile without distraction. As I waited for him, I looked out the front window and confirmed that my parents were still at the jail. It looked like my brother had also joined them. I wondered briefly where he’d been.

I craned my neck and looked down the street toward the Jasper. It was dark and seemed sad and lonely. Even the small marquee that announced the currently playing movie wasn’t lit anymore. While it wouldn’t do much harm to have it closed, it would be a disappointment for some of our visitors. The Jasper wasn’t only a place to see movies; it was also a Broken Rope historical landmark. Visitors loved the old photographs inside as well as the mosaic designs on the auditorium walls.

The pool hall was directly next to the theater. I’m not usually into gossipy things, but it was difficult not to notice local bartender and one of Gram’s current nighters, Jenna Hopper, exiting the pool hall. Normally, someone leaving the pool hall wasn’t cause for much interest, but Jenna behaved curiously enough to get my attention. She looked around as if she was concerned about being seen, fluffed her hair, and then hurried away.

I smiled. I’d suspected the potential romance between she and Miles; this scene made me think I was on the right track.

“Mmm.”

“What?” Jake said as he joined me at the window.

“Nothing. Just looking around.”

Jake looked out the window, but Jenna walking toward the saloon wasn’t all that interesting.

“Okay, let’s go,” Jake said as he unlocked the door and held it open.

“The Jasper was built in 1872,” Jake said as we tried one of the two sets of large front doors. All four doors were locked and didn’t budge no matter how many times we pulled. “It was specifically built to house a burlesque troupe.”

“Burlesque was like a variety show with lots of cleavage?” I said.

A ticket booth extended from the center of the building. I put my forehead to the glass but couldn’t see how the ticket seller made it back and forth from the main building. There must be a door, but it wasn’t distinguishable.

“Heavy on the cleavage,” Jake said. “One part of Burlesque was all about sex, the striptease. Think about it, what women were wearing at the time. They were covered from head to toe. Imagine the draw of a woman in tights who
could move some big feathers to give the illusion that she wasn’t covered up on the top. It was all about sex, but there was still good music and bawdy humor, too.”