Legends Can Be Murder

by Shelton, Connie

  “What happened?” he heard someone shout out to Soapy.

  “I gave that commissioner what-for,” the slight man in the tan hat said. “Told him if he wants to call me a thief then he can do so! I walked out of there.” He had a glow about him. “Drinks on the house!” he shouted.

  The gathering of men pushed their way in. Joshua debated going inside to see what would happen, but this was unfriendly territory and the situation was clearly heating up. He crossed the road and edged near the open door. Men stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the small bar, raising glasses and laughing at everything Smith said. When he bragged about outwitting the feeble law enforcement in this town, a cheer arose.

  Two more men in well-cut suits approached and Joshua ducked between Smith’s parlor and another building, into the same small alley where he’d watched the man called Stewart this morning, when the pouch of gold had been stolen. The gathering grew noisier as drinks were consumed. Technically, Alaska was a dry state but as with some of the other laws around here, that one clearly had little enforcement.

  Harry had told him the commissioner and this vigilante committee had a lot of power here. A showdown of some kind seemed inevitable and Joshua felt tension run through him like an electrical current.

  No longer able to stand still, he walked toward his rooming house. Broadway was quieter than normal, as were Holly and Runnalls Streets. At the waterfront, some six blocks away, he could see a gathering of people but couldn’t determine their mood. He looked at Mrs. McIlhaney’s place but couldn’t bring himself to stay in isolation there. Whatever happened out here on the streets, knowing the outcome was more important than staying safe. He hurried forward on Broadway, as far as Second Avenue, where a man wearing a deputy’s badge cautioned him to turn around.

  A genuine lawman, or one of Soapy’s conspirators? He had no idea who to trust but he took the advice. He turned the corner, watched at a distance for awhile, then walked up Runnalls, cutting over at Holly just in time to see a portly man push his way into Smith’s place. He was carrying a slip of paper.

  Joshua had no way to know what the note said but moments later Soapy Smith emerged from the parlor, stuffing the paper into his pocket and carrying a Winchester .44-40 repeating rifle. Smith took a few unsteady steps then hefted the rifle to his right shoulder, barrel pointing skyward, strode confidently into the middle of Runnalls Street and headed toward the wharves. Six or seven men hurried to keep up with him. Joshua let the flow of people from the bar ease before he turned and followed. It looked as if Soapy Smith’s legendary nerve was very real.

  Merging with the crowd Joshua kept his eye on the bobbing barrel of that rifle. Ahead, he caught occasional curse words from Smith.

  “Ain’t never seen him quite this mad,” said a man nearby. Another, to whom the remark had been addressed, only nodded.

  Halfway between Second Avenue and First, Joshua saw that Soapy had stopped and turned to the thugs who had come out of the bar with him. He must have told them to wait. He walked on alone, out onto the twenty-foot-wide swath of the Juneau Pier. The rifle wasn’t up on his shoulder anymore.

  Several men had apparently been assigned to guard the entrance to the pier; someone in the crowd around Joshua muttered that the committee meeting was taking place, at that moment, in the large building at the end. Two men approached Soapy, and whatever he said to them made them scatter. As another man came forward, Joshua caught the glint of a gun. Soapy raised the rifle and suddenly there was a scuffle, with the two men only inches apart, and two shots sounding simultaneously. The guard reacted, apparently hit, but he held his ground well enough to get off three more shots.

  Soapy Smith fell to the wharf.

  “He’s dead!” came shouts. “Jeff Smith’s dead!”

  The other man fell back, wounded. Others rushed to his aid and word spread quickly through the crowd. It was Frank Reid, a bartender who had become the town surveyor. People rushed to rig up a stretcher and carry Reid away.

  Joshua watched as the wounded man passed right by him, his face white in contrast with the blood on his clothing. Soapy Smith’s followers seemed to have dispersed. The con man’s body lay on the wooden planks, ignored.

  Chapter 14

  I woke up at daylight with one of those eyes-wide-open flashes of insight. The pockets! Last night I had sorted laundry, reaching into every pocket in our clothing so as not to miss a ballpoint pen or vital slip of paper that shouldn’t go through the wash cycle. It never fails that I’ll find a few things.

  So, whether our cave-guy had been wandering the woods and happened to get lost at the moment marauders bushwhacked and stabbed him, or if he’d been tracked there intentionally, there was the likelihood he had not gone up there with empty pockets. I already knew he had no ID but hadn’t asked what else he’d carried with him. A little obsessive, yes, but you never know what might turn out to be a clue.

  I waited until a decent hour—eight o’clock—to call the police station and speak with Chief Branson. He sounded like a man who’d not had his coffee yet but he agreed to let me stop by and see whatever personal possessions the crime lab had returned with the skeletal remains.

  “We’ll be burying the older remains this afternoon at four,” the chief said as he offered me a seat in his office. “In case you’d like to come. Normally, when it’s an old case like this and there are no next of kin, I just send as many of our officers as it takes to lower the coffin into the ground.”

  I felt a stab of regret for the poor set of bones that had been so completely abandoned. “I’ll come. Maybe Mina would like to be there too.” And if Drake and Kerby weren’t busy, I supposed we could come with a small group to pay respects.

  “Invite them all. The more the merrier, I suppose,” he said. “Meanwhile this is what we got back from the lab on the more recent John Doe.”

  He pointed to a cardboard file box with the lid off. Inside were a collection of plastic bags, sealed with bright tape, and an attached form that anyone opening a bag had to sign and date.

  “I can’t let you open them,” Branson said. “Chain of custody—if this thing should ever go anywhere. But you can see the items clearly enough through the plastic.”

  His phone rang and he put the caller on hold long enough to escort me to an adjoining room where he set the evidence box on a conference table. Through a wide window I saw him go back to his desk and pick up the phone. I turned my attention to the contents of the box.

  Someone had shaken out the loose dust and crusty dirt that had covered the denim pants and polyester shirt, although that didn’t mean the clothing had been washed. Folded to display the front, the brightly patterned shirt showed its grisly collection of rips and bloodstains. I found myself repulsed and fascinated at the same time. Setting that bag aside and seeing nothing unusual about the pair of blue jeans, I turned to the small pouches that contained personal effects.

  It felt strange to look into a life that seemed modern but was pre-electronics. No cell phone, no pager, no PDA, no earbuds or music player. The low-tech possessions consisted of such ordinary things: a plastic comb, a pack of gum, a few coins. So weird to see that the wrapper on a package of sugarless chewing gum had survived decades in a cave far better than the flesh of the man.

  Notably missing were a wallet and keys. Surely this person wouldn’t have taken the time to pick up his comb but leave his more important things behind. It seemed logical, then, that the killer had taken anything that might identify the body. I said as much to Chief Branson when he walked in a few minutes later.

  “I agree. We searched pretty far into that cave and there was nothing else associated with him. Odds are that the wallet was stripped and the pieces dumped in trash bins somewhere.”

  “Do you think the motive might have been robbery? Maybe this man was carrying a lot of cash.”

  He shrugged. “It’s certainly possible. No way to know now.”

  I spotted one final zipped bag, no bigger than one used for a sandwi
ch. I plucked it from the box and saw that it contained a pale yellow slip of paper.

  “What’s this?”

  Branson gave me a patient stare. “Paper. Can’t read anything on it, though. Well, nothing important.”

  I pressed it flat and held it under the light. Very faint gray lines indicated that a note might have been written in pencil. But water had gotten to the paper at some point and I could only make out a couple of non-consecutive letters. Branson was right; the writing wouldn’t tell us anything.

  “Was this inside a pocket?”

  He shook his head. “On the ground, under the body. He might have had the note in his hand when he fell.”

  “So the killer probably didn’t see it, didn’t know to take it.” I mused aloud. “Do you know if the lab ran any special tests to try to bring out the writing and make it more visible?”

  He sighed. “We have limited enough resources for the new cases. The crime lab is way understaffed and it practically takes an act of Congress to get the okay on testing and equipment we really need.”

  “In other words, no.”

  “Right. I thought about it, but I need to hold my chips for the times I have to cash in on something ... else.”

  Something, or someone, important. His meaning was clear and although it didn’t seem fair, few things in this world really are. Everything was a matter of judicious allocation of time and money. He didn’t expect to catch either of these poor old skeletons’ killers and could only see a waste of time in looking. I got that. I also felt a surge of determination, some sense of doing right at least for the more recent man, not to mention his family, who may have been living in worry and grief for a very long time.

  I asked if it would be all right to take pictures and he nodded. I snapped away with my phone camera, getting an image of each item before placing all the bags back into the box. The chief had been called back to his desk so I gave a little wave and showed myself out.

  Driving to the airport I thought about the note under the body. Logic would dictate that it had to be relevant to his being at that location. Directions, perhaps? Maybe even the name of someone he was supposed to meet. Considering that he was hardly dressed for cave exploration or mining, it was hard to think of a logical reason for him to be there unless he had planned to meet someone. But who?

  Figuring that out was beginning to feel like a monumental task; thousands of people came and went from this area every year, brought in by cruise ships, tour buses and job opportunities. And those thousands usually scattered to the far corners of the earth after their visits; I could see myself traipsing off to some distant region before this was all over. Without the identity of the man, we had an impossible assignment ahead of us.

  I dialed Mina’s number and told her about the burial this afternoon, suggesting that it would add to her story if she was there. In truth, I just didn’t want to be the only one standing at the graveside. I pulled into a parking slot and saw that both Kerby’s and Drake’s helicopters were sitting on the pad.

  Inside, the guys were drinking coffee and staring at the wall map.

  “Hey, you,” I said to Drake. “I brought your truck back. Anything going on this morning?”

  “Not much. You were sure out the door early.”

  I told him about the sudden opportunity to look at the evidence. “Chief Branson says they are burying the gold-rush man this afternoon. I thought I’d go. I mean, it won’t be a real funeral or anything, but the poor man ... all alone even now. Want to join me?”

  Drake knows how I am about funerals and saw through my desperate plea for support. “I’ll pick you up at the house and we can go together,” he said.

  “Kerby? I’m sure anyone can attend.”

  He seemed on the verge of saying no, but changed his mind. “Sure. As long as we don’t get a flight, I suppose I could come.”

  “Bring Lillian too. If she’s not busy.” I said it before it dawned on me that the mayor is probably always busy. But even if it was just Drake, Kerby, me and Mina, at least that would seem like some bit of care for poor old John Doe.

  Clouds had begun to form over the mountaintops, bringing a whiff of dampness. Weather always seemed to be a factor here; I hoped Drake wouldn’t end up flying. Pushing through crowds of tourists, I cut away from Broadway and walked up State. I managed to while away a few hours doing exciting stuff such as sending out monthly statements to our clients on behalf of RJP Investigations.

  By four o’clock those clouds had closed in, giving the small gold rush cemetery just outside of town along the Skagway River the sort of dismal feeling that prevails on such occasions in Victorian novels. Mina brought her mother along, and the two of them stood near the foot of the grave. Drake, Kerby and I had crowded into the front seat of his small pickup truck. Other than the police officers who were simply here to do their jobs, we were the only mourners.

  The graves were set out somewhat helter-skelter over the uneven ground, with tree roots intertwined around headstones that tended to lean with the slope of the land. A decent spot had been selected for our unknown stampeder near a prominent obelisk marker. Chief Branson said a few words, something that sounded canned, as if it was a short chapter in the handbook of odd police duties.

  I had tucked two umbrellas into my shoulder bag and by the time Branson gave the order to his two men to let down the ropes bearing the plain pine coffin, I felt the smack of a few raindrops. The men quickly filled the hole with dirt and we scurried to our vehicles as the rain began pelting down in earnest.

  “Let’s go somewhere for a toast,” Mina suggested. “Make it a short, informal wake or something.”

  A toddy of some sort sounded good to me, and we told her we would meet her at the Red Onion. She and Berta ducked quickly into their car.

  A blur of motion caught my attention as a tan Escalade skidded to a stop beside us.

  “Lillian, I thought you’d forgotten,” Kerby called out.

  The mayor gave a sideways glance toward Mina’s car. “Earl had car trouble and I had to go pick him up.”

  Peering under the edge of my umbrella I could see Lillian’s brother sitting like a lump of discontent in the passenger seat.

  “Everyone’s going to the Red Onion for a bit. Want to go along?” Kerby asked.

  He stood halfway between our vehicle and his wife’s, waiting for her answer to tell him which ride he would accept. At her nod, he opened the back door and climbed inside. I noticed that Earl’s mood seemed to brighten considerably at the prospect of a drink.

  My own mood lifted a bit, too, once we’d drifted toward a corner of the famed bar with glasses in hand. Mina offered a few words about cave-guy, a wish for the repose of his remains and peace for any unknown family he might have out there somewhere in the world. No mention of an award-winning story for herself, at least not until the two of us had managed to snag a small table.

  Drake and Kerby had walked off to one side, talking helicopter stuff as usual. Earl had spotted someone he knew at the bar and planted himself on a stool. Lillian stood near them, studiously avoiding direct conversation with Berta. I couldn’t imagine what old rift existed there. When a friendship had suffered that bad an injury, it seemed that either you patched things up or you moved on and avoided the person entirely. Maybe avoidance wasn’t completely possible in a town this small.

  Berta didn’t seem to care; she had spotted a gaggle of friends seated at the opposite end of the bar and had greeted them with hugs and exclamations. Perhaps it was her way of showing Lillian that no matter how important she might be, she wasn’t affecting Berta’s own ability to thrive. Someone turned the music up and several of the women were bouncing on their barstools to the beat.

  “So,” Mina said to me. “Tell me what you learned when you talked with the chief this morning.”

  I described the items from the box, keeping my voice as low as possible.

  “The note was the interesting thing. I wish I could say that they tested it and a
bunch of hidden writing showed up, but that didn’t happen. I suppose it was probably his directions to the area. I’ve flown over it a bunch of times now, and there is a trail that runs on the ridge just above where we were—maybe a hundred yards to the cave entrance. You’d have to know what you were looking for to spot the cave, but the distance isn’t all that far. There’s a parking area for the trailhead; usually a few cars are up there.”

  “So ... where did this guy’s car go?” she asked. “I mean, he couldn’t have walked all the way from town, so he drove to the trailhead, walked to the cave ... then what?”

  I did a mental head-slap. I’d homed in on the missing wallet and the fact that he carried no keys. Then I’d become distracted by too many other things and had forgotten to ask whether Branson’s department would have records of an abandoned car from that long ago.

  Lillian had finished working the room and walked over to take the extra chair at our table.

  “Maybe you would know the answer to this,” I said to her. “Would the police department keep traffic records from a long time ago? Something like an abandoned vehicle?”

  She shifted in her seat and glanced down at her drink before answering. “I suppose they file those things somewhere, but I have no idea how long they would keep traffic reports.”

  The way she emphasized traffic, as if I’d asked about old road kill, made me realize that probably was very low on their totem pole.

  “I suppose that would be fairly low priority,” I admitted. “Even today, much less all those years ago, before computerized records and all.”

  “How long ago?” she asked.

  “Close to forty years, I would guess.”

  “Does this have to do with that body in the cave?”

  “Actually, yes.” I told her about Mina making the connection. “If there was a record of the man’s abandoned car being found at the parking area ...”

  “I’m sure the car would have been sold from the impound lot ages ago. There’s no possible way the borough could keep every old vehicle we ever found.” She said it with such authority that I didn’t even bother to ask whether there would be a record of the ownership of said vehicles.