Longarm was wearing a grim smile when he reached the top floor of the courthouse building and hustled into the jail.
The smile was wiped away by what he found there.
The door to Potter?s cell stood open, the keys still dangling in the lock. Donald James Potter was there. In the cell. Lying on the hard cot where Longarm had last seen him. The grass-stuffed mattress ticking was a dark and ominous red from drying blood, and the blood covered most of the upper part of Potter?s body as well.
Longarm cursed bitterly and made sure there was no one else in the place, then entered the cell with regret.
Potter lay on his back with his eyes wide and unseeing. He had been stabbed and slashed repeatedly. One hand was clutching something. Hoping Potter might have grabbed at his attacker and snatched some sort of clue from the killer, Longarm bent to the pale body and pried open the cold, stiff fist.
The only thing Potter had, perhaps the one thing that had given him comfort in his life, was the rose quartz pebble the poor fellow had been so fond of touching and stroking and playing with.
Longarm felt anger rise then.
The poor bastard had been harmless. He probably smiled at the man who murdered him, just as he had smiled at the man who put him behind bars. Donald James Potter had not had the brains or the guile to hate or to fear, either one.
Somehow Longarm found this murder even uglier than those of the innocent men who had died in the explosion at the small bank.
The murder meant, though, that the killer was getting worried. Longarm was still alive, the train remained immobile on the rails, and time was on the side of the law. The killer wanted out, and he was becoming worried about the delays Longarm caused.
Gently Longarm replaced the pink pebble in Donald Potter?s cold hand, and as gently pulled the dead man?s eyelids closed. There was nothing more Longarm could do for Potter, except to find his killer, and unlike Arnold Batson, Custis Long was no stranger to death.
He turned and went back down the steps, although more slowly this time.
?No, sir, I haven?t noticed anybody going up there,? the county clerk told him. ?But then, I mean, I wouldn?t. You know? Guys go up an? down all day. I don?t pay them any mind.?
?Thanks.? It was not a surprising response. It was the same one he had gotten from everyone on the lower floors of the courthouse. No one paid attention to anyone else. Particularly to people they would recognize as familiar faces on the streets of Thunderbird Canyon. And it certainly was no stranger Longarm was looking for here.
He tried the last office in the building with a similar lack of success and then moved outside.
He walked to the bank building. The debris left behind by the explosion Friday night had been cleared away now, leaving only the remnants of the ground flooring and a gaping hold down into the cellar.
The last of the workmen had gone, and the rubble of stone and wood that once had been a building was piled to one side. Some of the timbers and most of the shaped stone building blocks would be useful again. Even as Longarm watched, a man pulled a small wagon close to the trash heap and began picking through the stones, selecting some of the smallest and most uniformly shaped and putting them into the wagon for his own purposes.
?You couldn?t tell me where the workmen have gone, could you?? Longarm asked.
?Not really, but I hear that most of the work was done by a crew from the Tyler. You could ask up there.?
?All right, thanks.?
It was a long climb to the Tyler mine, and Longarm was puffing by the time he got there.
The man who had been in charge of the rescue and clearing efforts was a shift foreman named Simmonds. Longarm found him in the small boardinghouse reserved for security and management people. Longarm hoped Simmonds was off duty because by midafternoon he had already been drinking heavily.
Longarm introduced himself and explained what he needed to know. ?I was hoping you might have found something that would help,? he said.
Simmonds grunted and reached for a refill, not bothering to offer a drink. From the way the foreman was going at it, Longarm suspected Simmonds did not want to let any of that bottle?or possibly the next one either?escape him.
?I?ll tell you wha? we foun?,? Simmonds said in a slurred voice. ?A stinkin? mess is wha? we found.? He grimaced and took another drink. ?Wasn?t nobody lef alive in there. Couldna been.? His face twisted and he looked like he might weep at the memory of the things he had seen in the remains of the bank building.
?How many?? Longarm began, but Simmonds cut him off.
?I don?t know. Jesus God, man, tha?s the thing. We don? even know fer sure how many died. They was
they was tore up so awful
we think
we think there?s six dead. But Jesus God, we ain?t even fer sure about that. It could
it could be five. Could be seven. We ain?t even sure about that.? He reached for the bottle again.
?You didn?t find any money, though? There was nothing in the vault when you got to it??
That was one of the things that was tugging at Longarm?s instincts now. The payroll money, more than $70,000 and all of it in minted gold coin, was one hell of a bulky, weighty haul. It would take either time or a great deal of manpower for someone to move it.
The way this thing looked to be working out so far, the thief or thieves were short on manpower. One man, or anyway, no more than a few. More than that would not be able to keep the plan secret in a small, enclosed community like Thunderbird Canyon. The more people you have to trust to keep any secret, the less likely that
