Miss Pink Investigates series Box Set Part Two

by Gwen Moffat

  ‘It was Mae who caught him,’ Miss Pink said. ‘Although he might have got away with it but for—’ She stopped.

  Ginny let the water out of the sink and came to the table drying her hands. ‘But for what?’ she asked, taking a chair and tossing back her bourbon like a man. Tonight no one was standing on ceremony. ‘How could he possibly have got away after all he’d done?’

  ‘He could have done,’ Miss Pink said mildly. ‘Mae thought he was the killer so she shot him, but if she’d been certain that he murdered Jed, she’d have shot to kill. Naturally. But Mae had to be sure she’d got the right man, and by the time Farrell had, very carefully, told us his version of the story, she’d come round to believing him, and small wonder; it was a plausible story—at least when he was dealing with Tye’s death. He was reaching though when he suggested that one of the Osborns killed Jed. No intelligent criminal would pay a man like Jed Trotter two thousand dollars in advance for services to be rendered—and Jed’s murder tied in with that money. But someone could have told him that the money was a retainer for future services, and also said he should tell Mae his sudden affluence came from the sale of some elk. And the person who gave him the money knew a man of Jed’s calibre would spend it. Of course, Jed didn’t know it was—tainted; he got the money Sunday evening and at that time he could have had no idea that it was stolen from a murdered man. But he was meant to spend it and draw attention to himself. He was being set up, and before he could be questioned by the police and divulge who gave him the money, he was killed.’

  ‘By Lee Farrell,’ Spears said, almost making a question of it. ‘Why didn’t Mae see through him?’

  ‘I wasn’t certain myself,’ Miss Pink confessed. ‘I had been, then he swayed me the other way. I’d started to have doubts when Billy came up, leading Farrell’s horse, and I saw that the man was terrified. Of his horse? Of course he wasn’t; it was what he had in one of his saddle bags. In the fuss of getting him mounted I took the bags and put them on my own horse. He watched me like a snake but he didn’t dare say a word because if he did, Mae would have killed him. I knew what was in the bag; I’d felt it. But I said nothing either, and he went quietly down the canyon ahead of us, and only he and I knew exactly why he went quietly. He would sooner stand trial for murder than have Mae look in that saddle bag and see the paw.’

  ‘Particularly when Jed wasn’t killed by that blow to the skull,’ Logan said. ‘You should have left him to Mae.’

  ‘You shoulda left him there for the grizzly,’ Spears said.

  Miss Pink said: ‘So far as we know, no living person has been touched by a grizzly in all the years that they’ve been coming through the Silvertips. You can’t blame a bear for scavenging on Tye’s body any more than you blame the eagle and the ravens. It was always the other way round: people attacked bears. If the Osborns are caught, they’ll get off with a good lawyer and only have to pay fines. But they got rich on bear pelts. After a discreet interval they’ll start the same business in a different location.’

  ‘They had nothing to do with the murders?’ Ginny asked.

  ‘Not the murders of people.’ Miss Pink looked glum, remembering that Logan had killed a bear. ‘The murders were confined to Farrell; even Mildred was probably no more than an accessory after the fact. Wilbur and Flossie don’t appear to have been in it at all, although one wonders how much they suspected.

  ‘The Osborns are in the clear so far as the murders are concerned. If either had known anything about Tye’s death, George Osborn wouldn’t have come near Prosper when Tara summoned him. The timing was wrong. In fact, the timing was appalling for the Osborns. Lee Farrell says Tara came here to negotiate. I suspect he was blackmailing them because they wouldn’t increase their price for the pelts. Probably Tara tried a bit of blackmail herself but she arrived Sunday afternoon, just after Farrell had killed a man. He would have been edgy, to say the least. He had a pelt with him too and he would want to sell that to her.

  ‘She couldn’t handle Farrell so she sent for George Osborn who came to browbeat Farrell into accepting the old rates. He arrived to find himself in the middle of a murder investigation. He couldn’t turn tail and run, taking Tara, because that would have called attention to them. They had to stay and bluff it out. Between the pair of them they made a good job of it.

  ‘They refused to buy the pelt but Farrell wouldn’t have been worried. On the contrary, by getting rid of it on a road that Jed used, it played its part in his plan to implicate Jed. He’d had another idea: a form of murder that was almost perfection in grizzly country. But he needed a bear’s paw. He couldn’t take one of them so he removed all the feet and the head from the Sundance pelt. When one paw wasn’t found it would be assumed that a scavenger had made off with it.

  ‘Farrell is cunning and a good liar. What he didn’t understand was that Jed Trotter was less cunning, and a compulsive liar. Because Jed was poaching on Wapiti on Sunday (and Farrell must have known where he was otherwise Jed wouldn’t have been set up) Jed said he was alone. He had his loyalties and he was loyal to his buddy, Zack Coons. Farrell never realized that Jed lied to him and he must have had a shock when Mr Spears told us that he’d seen Zack’s trailer in Hell Roaring on Sunday afternoon. Farrell didn’t panic though, did he, Sim?’

  ‘Not panic,’ Logan agreed. ‘He was riding along the crest of Wapiti, and it wasn’t until we were above the third side canyon: the one after where you went down with Seale, that he come round the back of me, and he said there were cows in that canyon and he was going to take ’em down. I was puzzled—I mean: my cows, my lease, and here’s someone telling me how he’s going to run it.’ He looked to see if Miss Pink understood this breach of etiquette. Satisfied, he went on: ‘So, it was odd, but I wouldn’t stop him. I let him go and forgot about it. And then, not long afterwards, I heard horses behind me and here was Mae and young Billy galloping after us and they come down to me above the edge and they rode along with me. We talked of course and I told ’em what Doug here had told us about seeing Zack Coons’ trailer Sunday afternoon, and Billy asked where Zack was then, and I said he was in Hell Roaring. Mae asked who was helping him. I said Archie was with him, and Miss Pink and Seale had gone down the second canyon, and Lee Farrell had gone down this one below us, and at that, off they went like Injuns was after ’em.’ Logan shrugged. ‘Me, I just thought they’d all gone mad and I kept on driving my cows.’

  Seale asked: ‘How did the Trotters come to suspect Lee Farrell?’

  Miss Pink said: ‘Mae knew more than she was telling, just by a fraction. She knew Jed was on Wapiti on Sunday, she knew he was with Zack Coons, poaching elk. What she didn’t know was where Jed got the two thousand dollars—and Jed wouldn’t tell her. I suspect the reason for that was that he coveted the rifle and he was afraid Mae wouldn’t let him keep the money: not because she was moral but because she was afraid of being involved in murder. Even when he said someone was after him he didn’t tell her where the money came from. Jed was stupid but at some point he realized he’d been set up. I doubt if Farrell will confess to his murder but he doesn’t need to; we have the paw.

  ‘As we came down the canyon Mae said: “My man were set up for the killing but how could it be him when Zack knew he were on Wapiti on Sunday? And I thought as how no one knew that until Doug Spears said about seeing Zack’s trailer, so I wondered, was someone going to come down Hell Roaring looking for Zack Coons? Sim Logan said as you and Seale come down, and Lee Farrell. Sim sent you but he said as Lee Farrell took off.” At that point Mae suspected that Farrell was the killer. She came galloping down Hell Roaring and saw him rope Zack Coons. It was fortunate for Farrell that he hadn’t already pulled Zack off the trail because Mae would have had no mercy on him if she’d seen Farrell doing to Zack what he’d done to Jed Trotter.’

  ‘That’s what I don’t understand,’ Seale said. ‘She knew Farrell was the killer, so why did she merely wound him when she caught up with him?’

  Miss Pink look
ed embarrassed. ‘It could have been that she wasn’t quite sure … And Jed died horribly. She knew that.’

  ‘Oh, I see. So that business about shattering his ankles wasn’t just talk? Then why didn’t she—’

  ‘I’d arrived. I was a witness to whatever she was about to do. And then Farrell started fighting for his life. Mae wasn’t concerned about Tye’s death, only Jed’s. Farrell said enough to make her doubtful. I saw the flaw in his suggestion that the Osborns killed Jed but I wasn’t pointing it out to Mae. Why should she suffer any more? If she had killed Farrell she’d have been her own worst enemy in court. She’d have shown no remorse; she’d have shocked the judge and appalled the jury. She’d have got life.’

  ‘Good for you.’ Logan was admiring, then grim. ‘Farrell will get life, of course: two murders and an attempt. He would have killed Zack, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Miss Pink was definite on that point. ‘There would have been another blow to the skull—and then the paw. Another accident. Farrell was good at simulating accidents: Tye, Trotter, Zack Coons. Only in this case, Mae and Billy were too close and he had to run. Remember, the paw was in his saddle bag. Mae would have made the connection immediately.’

  ‘Did you know all the time?’ Ginny asked.

  Miss Pink was astonished. ‘Not at all. I was as puzzled as anyone. The only fact we knew was that a poacher had been in Sundance. After that it was all assumption: that he, and not a bear, had killed Tye, but that a bear had killed Trotter. On the other hand there was something odd about Trotter’s wounds. Where were the teeth marks? It was a strange bear that would only use its claws and not eat part of the victim. After all, Tye was partially eaten. When they failed to find a fourth paw on the Sweetgrass road I wasn’t all that surprised. The problem was to find the fourth paw—’

  ‘You never told me!’ Seale exclaimed.

  ‘It was too bizarre. And would you have believed me? There was no evidence, no case. There’s only one tangible piece of evidence now but it’s sufficient. There will be human tissue under those claws.’

  Ginny said doubtfully: ‘If he said he cut it from a bear after the bear had been at a human body …’

  ‘No. You didn’t see it. He’d put a wooden handle inside the skin and sewn the skin over it. He’d splinted and taped the claws so that they would stay rigid when they were used. It’s a front paw, the claws about five inches long; it has been turned into a monstrous curved rake.

  ‘Farrell was an opportunist. His weak point was that he was impulsive, just a little bit too clever. Look at Tye’s death. Probably the first part of his story is true: that Tye came running through the snow, firing his pistol to attract attention. But I doubt if he thought Tye wouldn’t recognise a bear carcass, particularly with Tye’s attitude to illegal killing and with that Audubon reward looming in the background.’

  Spears said: ‘Then why wasn’t Tye killed close to the bear instead of near the tent where he was found?’

  ‘Because Shelley had been in the tent. The first thing Farrell needed to know was whether Tye was alone. If he had someone with him then that person could be a witness to anything Farrell had done and was already planning to do. Whether he would have killed Shelley if she’d still been there is a moot point, but she wasn’t there, nor were her belongings. Probably Tye did insist that she’d been dragged away by a bear, but there were no bloodstains. Farrell didn’t believe him, and Tye died.’

  ‘Farrell used the paw?’ Seale asked.

  ‘No. He wanted to sell the pelt so he wouldn’t mutilate it—then. Besides, why trouble? There were plenty of scavengers in Sundance, and if he was convinced Tye was alone he would also think, with the snow falling, that the body wouldn’t be found until the drifts melted in the spring. Even then, if there were enough left to identify it as human, the attack would be attributed to a bear if it wasn’t assumed he’d died of hypothermia in the storm. It must have been a bad moment for Farrell when he discovered that Tye had been with a party. Where had the other three been when he was in Sundance killing the bear and Tye? Had Shelley been with Tye after all, had she seen something, was she just ahead of him and Tye when they reached the tent? In that case, did he reckon that the obvious way for Shelley to come out would be by way of Hoodoo Creek? In any event there were his own tracks; the tracks of two horses, coming out of Sundance and back to the dude ranch. So first thing Monday morning he took his party of three: Tara and the Dorsetts, over Pioneer Ridge to Sundance, effectively confusing the tracks he’d made the day before. Of course, above the snow-line the tracks were covered anyway. It continued to snow in the mountains on and off all day Sunday and Monday.’

  Seale said: ‘You said Farrell reckoned Shelley had come down Hoodoo. Was he also looking for her when he was covering his own tracks on Monday morning?’

  ‘Possibly. But he didn’t find her because by that time she’d wandered over No Man Ridge and was holed up in Trapper’s Cabin. Probably he was hoping that she had died in the storm. It must have been a relief for him when Bullard and Gale came in, to discover that they’d never been near Sundance. But there was still Shelley to be accounted for. Then she turned up and he must have been on tenterhooks until I made it clear that she’d seen nothing of him in Sundance, that she hadn’t even heard the rifle shot that sent Irving Tye plunging into the storm. He was safe from Shelley and he could breathe again. By that time Jed Trotter was dead.’

  ‘How did he get Jed?’ Logan asked.

  ‘He told us. He merely changed the roles. It was Farrell, not the Osborns, who gave Jed the money, and Jed took it thinking he was going to start poaching for Farrell. And when he went outside to unsaddle his horse on Tuesday evening he saw nothing sinister in the fact that his co-conspirator was waiting for him to make further arrangements about this exciting and lucrative new job. He must have gone with Farrell like a lamb to the slaughter. I don’t know this, but given what Farrell told us in the canyon, that’s how it must have happened.’

  ‘You suspected?’ Seale said.

  Miss Pink nodded. ‘It had to be collusion. There was a poacher and he was a local man. How did he sell the pelts? Somewhere there had to be a fence and someone had to take the pelts to him. A rancher had the best alibi for poaching; he was herding cattle. But who was making trips away from the area to meet a middle-man, or the fence? Mildred, going to her mother in Spokane? It was all there if you looked for it, but no way of getting the evidence until one realized, right at the end, that Zack Coons could be the tethered goat. It was fortunate we had considered that before Mr Spears exploded his bombshell on Wapiti. Unfortunately I thought all we had to do was to make sure we were between Coons and Farrell at least until we could get down to Hell Roaring and warn Coons.

  ‘Then Farrell went down the third canyon. I said he was impulsive. If it hadn’t been for the stampede he would have let the cows pass and joined Coons and Burg at the back. It would have been simple to wait until the two men were separated and he had Coons all to himself. It was curiously appropriate that his intentions should have been foiled by a bear. He was shameless in his exploitation of them.’

  They were all tired and they accepted this rather odd remark without comment, all except Logan who said: ‘I always felt it wasn’t right, something were wrong about it even as I pulled the trigger but then it were too late. The Injuns used to beg their pardon before they killed the great cave bears. Seems to me that was being hypocritical: apologizing beforehand for something you was going to do anyway. But sometimes now, when they stand up and look at me, I wait to see whether this one, this time, knows, and is going to pass judgement, but they’ve always let me go. They got no malice.’

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  [1] Lady With a Cool Eye

  [*] Die Like a Dog, Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1983.