by Lou Cameron
Stringer nodded soberly and said, “A man can wind up dead, asking a professional killer to confess, when he’s coming at one with an innocent smile and a tie-down holster. I’ll allow that could be taken as a mite hasty on my part. But I knew for sure I’d been right when Lawyer Addams moved in to shoot me in the back. The record will note his gun was already in his hand when I shot him. He’d have hardly come at me that way if he’d been a lawyer who’d just seen a known client win a fight with a stranger. So it’s safe to assume Nolan was no stranger to Addams and that his actions were those of an outraged employer who’d just lost his last good gun slick.”
The coroner asked if he was finished. Stringer nodded and said he couldn’t think of anything important he wanted to add to his testimony.
The coroner stared morosely at him and said, “I don’t know, son. Your story sounds convincing, but it’s still just your say-so against gents in no position to call you a big fibber. Can’t you produce any material evidence at all to back any part of your complicated reading of a dead man’s mind?”
Stringer couldn’t. So he didn’t answer.
Then Patty Stern stood up in the corner to call out, “I may be able to.” They all stared in her in wonder as she came forward with a sheaf of carbon papers in her hands.
She placed them on the table before the coroner and explained, “I got these from the office files when I heard about this hearing. I frankly didn’t know what they might mean until just now. I dug them out because they were the only papers I’d ever been asked to file that, to me, made little sense. I remember asking my late husband’s partner why we kept getting these carbons from the federal land office, since none of the names seemed to be clients or even anyone I knew. He acted a bit vague about it and said he’d explain later. But he never did. They didn’t seem important, so I didn’t argue. I just put them away as he asked. Now that I’ve heard Stuart MacKail’s testimony, I think I see why a law firm in Navajo County was keeping tabs on homestead claims in Gila County.”
The coroner started leafing through the carbons, passing some on to his jurors. As the rustic but smart old gents examined the evidence, there were low growls directed at the memory of the late Lawyer Addams. The coroner nodded, banged for silence, and said, “This stuff’s material enough, I reckon. I find that if that fat, dead son of a bitch hadn’t been mighty interested in the water rights of Pleasant Valley, he’d have had no call to request copies of every claim filed down that way, dating way the hell back. So I further find that young McKail, here, was acting in self-defense, and it’s too bad he didn’t gut-shoot both the sneaky rascals!”
There was a general murmur of agreement and mention of the saloon next door. Stringer got to his feet, too, but didn’t join the mad stampede for the Bucket of Blood. He waited quietly until Patty Stern joined him, her eyes glowing up at him sort of friendly as she said, “Oh, Stuart, how can I ever thank you?”
He said, “You were the one who saved my hash, so I get to thank you harder. Can I walk you home?”
She said, “You’d better. My knees feel a little weak. I didn’t fully realize the burden I’d been carrying all this time, until you lifted it from me today.”
As he helped her down the stairs he asked if she meant old Addams had been more than fatherly to her since her husband had left him the whole business.
She said, “Oh, not at all. I thought he was very kind, until you exposed him for what he was. Do you think he’d have had me murdered, too, if he thought I knew anything?”
Stringer said, “Yep. He may have kept you on as his filing gal so he could keep an eye on you and make sure you stayed as dumb as he wanted. But now the firm is all yours, and you can surely hire an honest young lawyer to argue in court for you until Arizona gets less stuffy.”
She said, “That’s not what I meant, although I guess I owe you for that too. You see, until you told me my husband had been the victim of a premeditated murder, I couldn’t help feeling I was at least partly responsible for his death.”
He took her arm to steady her as they walked the plank sidewalk, and told her, “That was dumb. You had nothing to do with it, did you?”
She said, “I know it wasn’t rational. But we all thought it was the work of a lunatic, and I couldn’t help thinking that if I’d been at the reception desk instead of having my hair done that awful afternoon—”
“You’ve have been murdered too,” he cut in, adding, “Addams didn’t like you that much.”
She said, “I know. I just said you’d lifted a terrible burden of guilt from my shoulders. I can face what happened calmly now. I loved him. But he’s gone, through no fault of my own, and life must go on.”
At the next corner she indicated a turn up a side street that was more a glorified lane. As they moved up it, arm in arm, she asked what his plans were, now that he’d solved the mystery of the haunted range.
He said, “For openers I have to get it down on paper. I’m sure they’ll give me two columns at space rates for a wild west yarn as wild as this one turned out.”
She reined him in by the garden gate of a little poplar-shaded cottage, and said with a sigh, “I’m afraid this is where I live. I guess you’re sort of anxious to get back to San Francisco now, huh?”
He said, “That’s where my typewriter lives. Even if I had one here in Holbrook, I somehow doubt I’d get much typing done at that Majestic Hotel.”
She nodded and said, “I told you that old Harvey Girl runs a disorderly place. But finding you a typewriter would be no bother. There are three of them at the office, and thanks to you they’re all mine now.”
He said, “That’s a mighty neighborly offer. But while I can type up my feature just as good in one place as another, can you give me one good reason why I might want to do it here instead of back in Frisco?”
She stared up at him sort of dreamy-eyed in the moonlight as she slowly opened her gate and said, “You’d better come on in with me so we can discuss the matter in more depth.”
YOU CAN FIND ALL OF LOU CAMERON’S STRINGER SERIES AVAILABLE AS EBOOKS:
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STRINGER (#1)
ON DEAD MAN’S RANGE (#2)
STRINGER ON THE ASSASSIN’S TRAIL (#3)
STRINGER AND THE HANGMAN’S RODEO (#4)
STRINGER AND THE WILD BUNCH (#5)
STRINGER AND THE HANGING JUDGE (#6)
IN TOMBSTONE (#7)
STRINGER AND THE DEADLY FLOOD (#8)
STRINGER AND THE LOST TRIBE (#9)
STRINGER AND THE OIL WELL INDIANS (#10)
STRINGER AND THE BORDER WAR (#11)
STRINGER ON THE MOJAVE (#12)
STRINGER ON PIKES PEAK (#13)
STRINGER AND THE HELL-BOUND HERD (#14)
STRINGER IN A TEXAS SHOOTOUT (#15)
