The Long-Lost Love Letters of Doc Holliday

by David Corbett

“Correct.”

  “She also had a granddaughter.” Rankin began massaging his knuckles, as though it helped him think. “This granddaughter was engaged to a Swedish writer named Carl Olson—that’s a fact, look it up—and this guy and Grandma talked about Doc Holliday day and night. Olson was fascinated, interviewed Grandma and the Negro, wrote it all down, and those notes became the basis for a biography.”

  “I know all this.”

  “Well, Olson and Grandma Holliday talked about writing a novel together, too. About her wicked dentist cousin by marriage.”

  “You think she and Olson wrote these letters instead of the novel.”

  Rankin shrugged. “It’s a distinct possibility.”

  “Not as distinct as the reality,” Lisa said, “which is my client inherited them from her own grandmother, who collected a safe deposit box that previously belonged—”

  Rankin brushed past her. “Theory number two—you know Doc Holliday was related to the woman who wrote Gone With the Wind?”

  Lisa sighed. The man had the world’s most obvious mind. “Margaret Mitchell.”

  “Her second husband was a copy editor. First husband beat her, or so she said, but who believes a writer? Anyway, her and Hubby Number Two collaborated on a number of projects—dirty books, even—when they were scrabbling for money before she hit it big. The husband destroyed most of those papers after she died in that car accident.”

  “You’re saying they forged these letters.”

  “For the money. And the husband intended to burn them later. But…”

  “Boy, for a bunch of letters that are sitting right there, they sure have been through their share of fires.”

  “You’re not listening.”

  “You think any of that’s more plausible than what I’ve already explained about how these letters were discovered?”

  “I’m saying that as long as there’s that many plausible theories as to where these things came from, any value they have is a moving target, and the trajectory is down.”

  Lisa felt a vein in her neck start throbbing. Calm down, she thought. Be patient. The chucklehead’s just maneuvering. “How far down, exactly, is ‘down’?”

  Finally, Rankin reached for the gloves but didn’t put them on. He just fingered them, smiling, as though they were the punch line. “Five hundred, tops. And that’s just go-away money. Because, like I said, only an idiot would fall for this nonsense.”

  CHAPTER 9

  An hour passed and nothing Lisa said—no evidence she mustered, no logic she availed, not even a random reading from the letters themselves—could move Rankin off his laughable number. The man just kept circling back to the same old objections, the same stories, like a kid with his hands clasped over his ears yodeling gibberish.

  She was about to call for a break, check in with Rayella—hoping she’d kept her word concerning the minibar, though given how much time had passed it would be easily forgivable if she hadn’t—when a brisk knock came from the hallway outside.

  Lisa presumed it was Giordano, coming back to tag-team—and, oh, how he’d been missed—but instead, as the door eased open, a taller, slightly older, more impressive man appeared.

  From her research online, Lisa recognized the face, strangely at odds with his grizzled phone voice. The man had broad, handsome features, the skin smoother than she expected given the sun’s brutality down here, with quick green eyes and a manly smile. His russet hair bore touches of gray, but nothing else about him suggested more than middle-age. He wore a plaid range shirt tucked into jeans beneath a tweed sports jacket. Loafers not boots, Lisa noticed, not sure what to make of that, given all the talk about thrown shoes and broodmares. Maybe they were barn loafers.

  “Excuse my interruption.” That incongruous rasp of a voice. The judge leaned across the table. “You must be Lisa.”

  “Judge Littmann.” They shook hands. “Nice of you to come.”

  The judge took a chair beside Rankin and eyed the letters scattered across the table. Glancing up to Lisa: “May I?”

  “Of course.”

  Rankin handed him his pair of cotton gloves, still unused, and the judge tugged them on. With gentle, meticulous care he picked up the nearest letter and eased up the flap, peering inside before nursing the small worn sheets of paper from their envelope. His green eyes warmed as he folded the pages back, began to read.

  He continued in silence, moving on to the second page with a smile, whispering, “How marvelous…”

  Lisa, heartened by this, glanced across the table at Rankin, who seemed to be drifting into a nap, slouching in his chair, eyelids shuttering.

  The judge folded the pages over again, slid them back inside their envelope, then clasped his hands before him on the table. “So—where do we stand?”

  Rankin sat up straight, blinking his way back from the land of nod. Lisa said, “We’ve so far merely agreed to disagree on the value—”

  “That so?” The judge studied Rankin with imperious curiosity. Rankin shrugged. “Value,” the judge said, turning back to Lisa. “How many letters in all?”

  “Forty-six,” Lisa said.

  “Nice round number.” The judge smiled broadly, but the warmth in his eyes had fled. “Let’s be adults about this, shall we? These letters—I have to admit, they’re more, well, charming than I expected—but what of it? They’re at best a curiosity, a kind of party favor. Something you drag out over brandy for a laugh, like the fake jade cobras they sell the yokels on Patpong Road.”

  “I tried to tell her,” Rankin said, backhanding a yawn.

  Lisa felt lightheaded, as though gravity—and her pride—had lost their hold. “In that case,” she said, “I’d say a meeting of the minds looks out of the question. Sorry to have put you to any trouble.”

  She stood and opened the Pelican case, began to collect the letters. The judge reached out and stopped her, a two-finger tap on the wrist.

  “Give me just a moment.”

  He rummaged inside the tweed jacket and collected a phone, hit speed dial. Instead of putting it to his ear, he watched the display screen, squinting with concentration. When an image appeared, he nodded approvingly.

  Passing the phone across the table, he said, “I trust you’re acquainted with FaceTime.”

  Lisa took the phone and looked at the screen. The image puzzled her for a second, for though she recognized Rayella her head was lowered—until a hand yanked it up by the hair.

  Several strips of red tape sealed her mouth. A florid bruise darkened one cheek, punctuated by a thin gash, possibly left by a ring, now seeping blood. Lisa couldn’t make out whoever had hold of her—the phone was held too close to her face—but she had to assume there were two men, at least, there with her in the room. Giordano and Phin.

  Or were there others here as well—if so, how many?

  Tears had caused Rayella’s mascara to streak. Her amber eyes, normally so vivid and huge, seemed hazed, almost sleepy, as though from denial or disbelief. Maybe she was dizzy from the punch to her head, maybe they’d drugged her. Maybe she just wanted to close her eyes, make it all go away.

  “It appears,” the judge said, “you were wrong about who you could fool.”

  Lisa shot out of her chair, but the judge, with almost preternatural calm, said, “Don’t. You’ll only get the girl hurt worse. That can be arranged, I assure you. Now sit back down, please.”

  Lisa, at a loss for what else to do, obeyed. Rankin stood up, the eager lieutenant, and began collecting the letters. “Thing you gotta love about these old places?” He offered a wily smile. “No surveillance cameras.” Not bothering with the gloves, he tossed the envelopes into the Pelican case like so much trash.

  “Those don’t belong to you,” Lisa said, directing the words at Littmann. “They belong to the girl you’ve kidnapped.”

  He responded, “Ms. Balamaro, if you haven’t figured this out by now, let me make it plain. These letters don’t even exist.” The judge slipped the phone back into
his pocket. “As for the girl, she’s fine, I assure you. Nothing much disturbed but her delusions.”

  “Yeah, that’s just what it looked like.”

  “Spare me the theatrics, Ms. Balamaro. Now I’m sure you’ll think about contacting the sheriff. Just understand, I’m a man with considerable influence in this area. I have many friends at every level, and my word goes a long way. The same cannot be said for you. You and that spic-a-boo you dragged along for window dressing are outsiders. And though it blew up on you pretty badly, you came here, let’s be honest, with criminal intent.”

  “That’s pretty rich, coming from you.”

  “Nothing so clearly signals weakness,” the judge said, “as a tone of indignity. Now wisdom would dictate you minimize your losses and go back where you came from—quickly, quietly. I trust I’m understood.”

  With that, he rose, gestured for Rankin to lead the way, and followed him toward the door.

  The tiny two-armed saguaro in its earthen pot seemed to wave goodbye.

  Before slipping out, the judge turned back and offered Lisa one last easy smile.

  “You let your friend Tuck Mercer know, him and me? This is just a start. We’re nowhere close to even.”

  CHAPTER 10

  August 11, 1876

  My Dearest John Henry:

  Something happened here today of which I felt you should be informed. Two men from the Pinkerton Agency appeared at Uncle John’s house in Atlanta, hoping to confirm that a Denver man they know as Tom Mackey is, in fact, you.

  They offered no information beyond that, veiling the exact nature of their inquiry behind the repeated statement that their interest lay merely in establishing whether you and this Tom Mackey are, in fact, one and the same man.

  Well, as you know, though Uncle John prides himself on his manners, he is no fool. No one assumes a false name, even one as transparent to his family as the one you have apparently chosen for yourself, unless trouble is snapping at his heels.

  While on the one hand wanting to offer as much cooperation as possible, and yet on the other wishing you no harm, Uncle John told the men they might be confused.

  He informed them of your mother’s brother, Tom McKey, who could not possibly be relevant to their interest as he has never traveled west of Cuthbert, Georgia, where he served with the Fifth Georgia Volunteers as the field hospital’s ward master. He went on to explain that since the war’s end Tom has lived on the Banner Plantation near the Georgia-Florida line. Indeed, he was married just this past March to a Miss Sadie Allen of Valdosta and resides there with his newlywed bride.

  The agents indulged this bit of pettifoggery with stony patience, then asked if there might be a photograph of you in the family’s possession that they might view in order to settle the matter conclusively.

  Now, you may wonder how I come to know all this firsthand. As it turns out, I happen to be staying with Uncle John and Aunt Permelia at the moment. They invited me down to meet some people in their circle involved in the local schools, for they are aware of my own wish to teach.

  Aunt Permelia offered to show the agents the family album. However, before she could rise from her chair, I insisted on retrieving it for her, so she could remain with her guests.

  When I found it, I madly scoured the pages for any photograph bearing your image. There was but one, and I removed it, slipping it beneath my dress before returning to the siting room.

  The two agents flipped through the album with Aunt Permelia looking on, providing names when they inquired. Though Uncle John withstood all this with stoical nonchalance, I could sense he wished that his dear wife would just bite her tongue. That was nowhere more evident than when she came to the page where your picture once rested, and now only a blank spot remained. I feared terribly she would blurt out something thoughtless, but she just squinted quizzically and then moved on.

  Once they had scanned the album twice without success, she innocently confessed to a sense of puzzlement, for she felt almost certain that she and Uncle John had possessed a photograph of you.

  That was when one of the agents glanced up and nailed me in place with his stare.

  He was a hard man with a square face and blank, heavy-lidded eyes, normally so suggestive of low morals and scant intelligence. But this man’s gaze was cold. Even though I knew he could do nothing—what recourse did he have, demand I strip in order to search my person?—my heart pounded so savagely within my breast that I felt certain he and everyone else in the room could not help but hear it.

  Finally, the other agent handed the album back and thanked Aunt and Uncle for their assistance. Only then did Agent Square-Face turn away, doing so with an insinuating smile. Shortly after that, the two men left. As yet, they have not returned.

  You can imagine our state when we were once again alone.

  Aunt Permelia, whose sensitivity to scandal remains acute, could hardly contain herself, wondering what terrible mischief or even outright evil has ensnared you.

  Uncle John came to your defense, if somewhat abstractly, leaning on family honor and reminding us all that you remain, after all, a Holliday.

  I said nothing. I have, as you requested, told no one of your reckless misadventures, or what I know of them from your scant correspondence of late. Even your letters’ existence remains secret, though it pains my very soul to admit such a thing.

  My concern for you and the state of your life has become almost unbearable. I fear I am fooling myself, living not just a lie but a kind of bitter joke, where every noble inclination is corrupted by vain sentiment. What I think is devotion and honest love in fact boils with corrupting, selfish sin, to which I remain avidly unaware.

  I cannot live like this. I cannot keep spinning about in place like a witless dervish. I need to reclaim my hold on truth, or go mad.

  Do not take lightly the loving concern of your family—not just me but Uncle John, who so ably demonstrated this afternoon he still seeks to love and protect you, in spite of whatever misfortune such devotion may bring to his door.

  You would be safe here among your own, even if you stay only briefly. We will not betray you, no matter how grave your trouble. Besides, wittingly or not, you have now enlisted us all in your affairs. Do you not owe us the grace of your company?

  Regardless, I will always stand by you with steadfast faith and loyalty. There is nothing you could ever do to change that.

  Your loving cousin,

  Mattie

  CHAPTER 11

  They stopped at a quickie mart to tend to Rayella’s cheek—dabbing away the dried blood with a wet tissue, using hand sanitizer for an antiseptic. Lisa went inside hoping to find something to help bring down the swelling, settling in the end on a pint of Häagen-Dazs, since there was nothing in the realm of frozen peas to be had, not even tater tots, and the only actual ice available came in rock-solid five-pound bags.

  Using a napkin to protect her hand from frostbite, Rayella held the freezing carton to her face as they continued south to Sierra Vista, the county seat, a sun-blasted grid of strip malls and tract homes and crumbling adobe hovels sprawled across the foot of the Huachuca Mountains.

  Lisa intended to file a complaint with the Cochise County Sheriff, naming all of them—Rankin, Giordano, Littmann, the innkeeper Phin, plus John Does 1-10 for any co-conspirators yet to be identified—for conspiracy, kidnapping, robbery, aggravated assault.

  The first bad sign appeared in the form of the deputy who took down their information—a face hardened by desert sun perched atop a landslide of flab, the gut overhang straining the lower buttons of his tan service blouse. Lardscrabble, Lisa thought, watching as, with ho-hum languor, he wrote out her words in childlike letters, the popping of his gum punctuated now and then with a chesty sigh.

  The second bad sign came when they got led back to an interrogation room, not a detective’s cubicle. Smelling of ammonia and something vaguely repellent not even disinfectant could disguise, the space was cramped, windowless, with yellow-g
ray walls.

  Ever so faintly, in the pitted concrete next to her chair, Lisa could make out the words, written in pencil: Wetback Penthouse.

  The third bad sign was the wait—half an hour, still nothing. Lisa was preparing to go out and raise hell, make a scene only an Italian girl from Philly can, when the fourth bad sign materialized.

  He was a lanky man in a sport coat and slacks, white western shirt, no tie, his badge in a flip wallet tucked into his breast pocket. As though to assure them of his local bona fides, he also wore Tony Lama cowboy boots and a Stetson. Pulling back a chair, he rested the high-crowned hat on the table and sat.

  “My name’s Jim Preston,” he said. Flinty voice, lupine eyes. His graying hair bore a deep oval crease, imprint from his hatband, a kind of southwestern halo. “I head up the Investigation Division. You two ladies aren’t from around here, that right?”

  It went straight downhill from there. The man wasn’t rude or dismissive or hostile, he just kept coming back to the same unhelpful refrain: “Given what I’m hearing, no offense, but this just seems to me like a civil matter, not criminal.”

  Lisa said, for what felt like the thousandth time, “Look—letters of historical, personal, and monetary value were taken by force from my client. Look at her face. She was bound and beaten, threatened verbally in the most disgusting, humiliating terms.”

  She stopped short of specifics, preferring to have a woman deputy hear out that part of the ordeal. Meanwhile, Rayella seemed adrift, staring at nothing as the voices buzzed around her. She’d tossed the melting pint of ice cream in the trash, but a shimmer of dampness remained on her dark puffy cheek. The razor-thin cut left by Giordano’s ring etched a jagged line across the purplish, knot-sized bruise.

  “The man who runs the Whetstone, this Phin person, went to her room pretending that I wanted her to join us in the negotiation. But once she cracked the door, he and this Giordano creature force their way in, coldcock her, bind her hands behind her back, and—”