Trouble at the Red Pueblo (5 page)

Spider turned left, retracing the route of the night before to the Taylor residence. “Oh, he knows she exists, all right. But there’s more that’s come between them than someone in a red convertible.”

“How do you know that?”

“Just a hunch. Something about the way he couldn’t look at her.”

“But that’s because he’s got that city gal panting after him.”

Spider pulled to the side of the street, parking where the ambulance had been the night before. “Maybe, but when she first came in, he turned away and hunched one shoulder. Looked to me like a man in pain.”

“He wasn’t in much pain when he drove away with that woman.”

“I noticed that he looked back at Linda, though, as they were going out the gate, and he looked like someone who’d been waiting for his ship to come in, and the pier collapsed.” He opened his door. “Shall we go in and see what Mr. Taylor can tell us?”

The house, a fifties-vintage, red-brick rambler, had a patchy front lawn and tired side fence that seemed incongruous after the spit, polish, and order of the museum. It was obvious where Martin Taylor spent his time.

The aging concrete sidewalk had lost its smooth finish, exposing the aggregate beneath. Laurie and Spider followed it and mounted the two steps to the small front porch. Spider pushed the doorbell button, but not hearing a chime from the interior, he knocked on the door. It was immediately opened by Mrs. Taylor. She seemed to be the full color version of the pale woman he’d met the night before. A blue headband kept her shoulder-length hair away from her face and accented the color of her eyes.

“Mr. Latham? I met you last night. How do you do?” She opened the door wide. “I’m Geneva, but everyone calls me Neva.”

“Nice to see you again in better circumstances.” Spider took off his hat, and he and Laurie entered. “And you, too, sir,” he said when Martin Taylor stepped forward. “This is my wife, Laurie.”

Martin shook first Spider’s hand and then Laurie’s. “I can’t tell you what it means to have you come.” He pulled a handkerchief from the back pocket of his Levi’s and wiped his eyes.

Spider regarded him, trying to get his measure. Of medium height and wiry build, Martin had graying hair, rimless glasses, and the look of a scholar.

“We haven’t done anything yet.” Spider looked around the living room, noting the serviceable-but-worn furniture. “We don’t even understand what the problem is. Can we sit down and have you fill us in?”

“Didn’t Mattie tell you?” Neva pulled a side chair closer to her husband’s recliner and sat in it. With a sweep of her hand, she invited the Lathams to sit on the couch.

“He got called away on business,” Laurie said.

“Oh?” The question was voiced by Neva, but both she and her husband looked expectantly at Laurie.

When Spider saw Laurie hesitate, he supplied the information. “Tiffany Wendt showed up just after word came you wanted to see us. He said you’d brief us and went somewhere with her.”

There was a long pause during which neither of the Taylors met the eyes of anyone in the room. Finally, Martin spoke. “I see.”

Spider set his hat on the couch. “Can I ask some questions?”

Martin grasped the arms of his recliner as if steeling himself. “Certainly.”

“Brick mentioned trouble. He said it was serious, said I needed to get over here right away and needed to figure on investing a couple of weeks. As I said, no one as yet has told me exactly what that trouble is.”

Martin ran his hand over a seam in the upholstery. There was a slight tremble in his fingers. “The trouble is, we’re about to lose the museum. Or the Goblin Valley Ranch. Or both.”

Spider took out his notebook and pen. “How?”

“A lawsuit.”

Laurie sat forward on the couch. “Matt told us about that. He said it got settled.”

“That was the first lawsuit,” Neva said. “This is a new one.”

Spider’s brows went up. “Really? Another accident?”

Martin shook his head. “A family is suing us to recover the contents of the cache.”

“The saddle and guns?” Spider handed the notebook and pen to Laurie. “Darlin’, can you take notes? This will go a lot faster if I can just talk.”

Martin spread his hands. “The cache contained quite a few items besides the saddle and guns. Most of them are in the display case. The value is, for the most part, only historical.”

“I didn’t get a chance to ask Matt where they were found,” Spider said.

Martin pointed to his chest. “On land that belonged to my family.”

Spider thought a moment. “And what is the law about finding things like that? Are you within your rights to keep it?”

“Yes,” Neva said. “Things like the cache are considered the same as abandoned property. Because they’re so old, and because they were found on our land, Martin, as finder, has ownership rights.”

“But that doesn’t matter,” Martin said bitterly. “We’re on our butts financially. We can’t afford to go prove in court that we’re within the law.”

Spider frowned. “Wait a minute. I don’t understand. How can these people even think to have a claim if you don’t know the name of the person who left the cache in the cave? It seems like you would be able to go defend yourself without hiring a lawyer. All you have to do is show they have nothing to base a claim on.”

Laurie cleared her throat. “Can I interrupt? Martin, you said most of the items found in the cache are in the display case, and most have only historical value. Was there something in the cache— something that’s not in the case— that is worth a lot of money?”

Martin stood. “I was coming to that. Just a minute, and I’ll be able to address both of your questions.” He left and returned presently with an envelope in one hand and a pair of white gloves in the other. “Let’s go sit in the dining room. The light is better there.”

Neva led the way through an archway into a room where a mahogany table stood in the center, ringed with cardboard boxes stacked three high against the walls. “Please excuse the way it looks in here,” she said. “We do lots of cataloguing at the table.”

“Let’s sit at this end.” Martin placed the envelope on the table and put on the gloves. He seated himself at the head and waited for the others to sit. From the envelope, he solemnly pulled a piece of paper about the size of a three-by-five card that bore creases from having been folded several times. He showed them one side and then the reverse. “This was in the match box.”

Spider leaned forward and examined the document lying in Martin’s hand. “It looks to be part of a larger sheet of paper. On the underside, you’ve got pieces of sentences that have been cut away. What is it?”

Martin pointed to some writing. “Look at the signature.”

“Great suffering zot,” Spider murmured. “Does that say what I think it says?”

“His writing’s better than yours,” Laurie said to Spider. “A. Lincoln.” She looked at Martin. “Is this authentic?”

“Yes, ma’am. Mattie has been working for six months to find out. We just got a definitive decision two weeks ago.” Martin turned the paper over. “Apparently the two lines written by Lincoln were on the back of a letter from Archibald Dixon petitioning that Oscar Goodman, a confederate prisoner of war, be allowed to take the oath of allegiance to the union and be set free.”

“Could I see the Lincoln writing again?” Spider peered at the scrap as Martin held it out to him, and he read aloud the two lines above the signature. “Sgt Oscar Goodman, as noted in Archibald letter, take Oath of Dec 8 and be discharged. Jan 16 1864.”

“Who was Archibald Dixon?” Laurie asked. “And why was he writing to Lincoln? Wasn’t Kentucky a confederate state?”

Martin shook his head. “The government was pro-union, the people pro-confederate, so officially Kentucky was neutral. Archibald Dixon was a union-leaning government leader.”

Neva picked up the thread. “On December 8, 1863, Congress passed a bill allowing people from confederate states to take an oath of allegiance to the union and receive amnesty.”

“So the oath was a get-out-of-jail-free pass for prisoners of war?” Laurie asked.

Martin raised a finger. “Not for soldiers from Kentucky who fought for the gray. Sergeant Goodman’s family probably got Dixon to speak for them.”

Laurie sat back in her chair and folded her arms. “But was Goodman the person who stashed everything in the cave?”

Martin shrugged. “Maybe so. Maybe not. The fact that Lincoln’s note and signature were cut from the letter makes it look like someone was collecting a souvenir. There’s no way to know how the paper ended up in that cache.”

Spider rubbed his chin as he digested the information Martin had just given him. “Okay. I understand about the signature, but you haven’t said anything about who is bringing suit. Or on what grounds.”

Martin slipped the paper back in its envelope. “Alyssa Goodman is the plaintiff. She says she’s a direct descendent of Oscar Goodman.”

Laurie looked from Neva to Martin. “But what does that matter? You said there’s no way to prove he was the one who left the cache.”

“What does your lawyer say?” Spider asked.

Martin’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. His eyes widened, and he looked like a goldfish, his mouth forming an O and working uselessly as the skin around it took on a bluish tint.

Seeing Martin’s hands begin to tremble, Spider stood. “Are you all right, sir?”

Neva stood as well. “No, he’s not all right. I think he’s going to faint again. There he goes; don’t let him fall!” She turned around and hurried through a door behind her.

Martin’s head fell forward, and he listed to the side. Spider stepped close to the chair and held the other man’s body erect until consciousness returned.

Martin’s eyes fluttered and then opened. “I’m going to—” His diaphragm began to constrict, and Spider looked around for something to use as a basin.

Neva reappeared and slid a mixing bowl onto the table just as Martin’s breakfast reappeared in liquid form. She sponged his brow, cheeks and the back of his neck with a cool cloth, and she spoke in soothing tones. “Let’s get you in to the couch, honey. You can rest and get over this dizzy spell.” She looked up at Spider. “Can you support him? I think he can pretty much walk there.”

Spider pulled Martin’s arm around his neck and hoisted him out of the chair, but his legs were like wet noodles. Laurie stepped in on the other side, and between the two Lathams, they were able to get Martin from the dining room to the living room couch. Neva propped his head up with a pillow and bathed his face again.

When the color returned to Martin’s cheeks, Neva moved away from the couch, pulling Spider with her. “I need to talk to you,” she whispered. “Can you wait on the patio?” She pointed to the flagstones outside the sliding glass door.

Spider nodded. He picked up his hat, and he and Laurie stepped out into the shade of a huge cottonwood tree that stood in the back yard.

“Over here,” Laurie said, walking toward a cluster of green resin chairs surrounding a table. He followed her, and they sat, waiting only a few minutes before Neva stepped through the door from the living room with a business card in her hand. She left the door open.

“He’s better now,” Neva said.

Spider stood. “You’re sure you don’t want to take him to the emergency room?”

“It would just be a repeat of yesterday. They’ll tell me it’s stress, and, frankly, we can’t afford another trip to the hospital.” Neva sat in a chair and patted the one next to her.

Spider sat but said nothing, simply watching as she fidgeted with the card in her hands.

“I don’t know if this has anything to do with…” Neva flapped a hand in the direction of the living room where Martin lay on the couch.

Spider set his hat on the table. “Yes?”

“Well, a couple months before the accident in the bathroom— the first lawsuit— out of the blue, someone sent us a letter wanting to buy our Goblin Valley property.”

She paused, and Spider waited for her to tell it in her own way and time.

“I thought it was odd,” she went on, “because everyone in the county knows that Martin would die before he sold an acre of that land. It’s got good water, plenty of it, and it’s been in the family for five generations.”

Spider caught Laurie’s eye. “I feel the same way about our place,” he said.

Neva went on. “The letter was from someone over in St. George who said they’d buy it sight unseen. They offered more than it’s appraised for, and something about the whole thing just felt off. I mean, who does something like that?”

“So what did you do?”

“Martin wrote them a nice letter and told them he didn’t intend to sell, no matter what the price. But then—”

“Yes?”

“After we settled the lawsuit for the accident and were flat broke— I mean sometimes I can’t even afford to buy milk— we heard from them again, wanting to buy the property. This time for less money.”

Spider patted his pocket, looking for his notebook. “Can you give me the name of the person in St. George who made the offer?” Looking around, he noticed that Laurie still had his pen and pad, and he signaled to her to write the information.

“I’ve got her card.” Neva handed it to him.

“Leona Rippley,” Spider read. “Earnest Endeavors? That’s an odd name for a company. What did Martin do when the second offer came?”

“He wrote a very firm letter saying that there was nothing that could make him want to sell the ranch.” She looked over her shoulder at the living room. “Three weeks later, we received the summons about the cache.”

Spider put the card in his pocket. “And when did that second offer come?”

“Right after Fourth of July.”

“Wait a minute.” Laurie sat forward in her chair. “You think the offer and the lawsuit are connected?”

“They have to be. It looks to me like someone is determined to get us into a position where our only option is to sell the property. I’m scared we’ll lose the museum. Scared we’ll lose the ranch.” Tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. “Scared I’ll lose Martin.”

Spider fished in his pocket for the neatly folded handkerchief he’d put there this morning and handed it to Neva.

She held it to her eyes as if the layers of cotton could shut out the cares of the world. Leaning over, her elbows on her knees, she exhaled a great, drafty sigh. “And I’m afraid of what Mattie might do.”