“We met with Sheriff Cain last night. He said that he didn’t have any new ideas right now,” Denise Haller said. “That’s what he’s been saying all along.”
“And he told us about you,” Rebecca Nolan said, dawning sunlight glinting off her dark hair. “He said he tried to convince you to stay but you wouldn’t do it. He said that maybe you’d stay if we asked you ourselves. Then Denise thought of trying to hire you. People hire detectives. So we pooled our money.” She dug into the pocket of her Levi’s. Her yellow shirt and black vest gave her a competent look.
Denise Haller said, “I wanted the three of us to go to your hotel room last night. But Karen said it wouldn’t be proper.”
“Our brothers are dead and she’s worried about propriety,” Rebecca Nolan sniffed.
“Well, somebody has to worry about propriety.” Karen Byrnes hadn’t taken the criticism well.
Fargo held up his hand. “Hold on there. I kind of figured that Cain was probably behind this and I guess I figured right.”
“I damned well resent that,” Denise Haller snapped. “Our brothers are dead. We didn’t need any push to look for help if Sheriff Cain couldn’t come up with anything.”
“You didn’t have to swear,” Karen Byrnes said.
“You should’ve been a nun, Karen,” Rebecca Nolan said.
Fargo, despite the situation, laughed. “Ladies, first of all, I’m headed to the livery and then me and my horse are heading out. Second of all, bickering among yourselves is just going to make things worse for everybody, especially you three. And I’m sure that if you give Tom Cain more time—”
“He’s too old,” Denise Haller said. “And he doesn’t have any experience with things like this.”
“And he admits it himself,” Karen Byrnes said. “He said that right to our faces last night in his office.”
The one thing Fargo feared most of all happened just as he looked longingly down the plank walk to the livery and his Ovaro. Rebecca Nolan began crying. Sobbing, really. Burying her face in her hands. Her entire body shook. A woman’s tears could cow him faster than bullets.
Just as her friends reached over to hold her, three rough-hewn laborers came out of the cafe and glanced from the women to Fargo.
“What the hell’d you do to her?” one of the men snarled at Fargo. “You got her all cryin’.”
“He was awful to us,” Karen Byrnes said. “We asked him for a little assistance and he refused to help us.”
One of the other men made a clucking sound. “Out here, mister, a lady asks for help, a man is expected to give it.”
“Thank you, sir,” Denise Haller said. “It’s nice to know that there are at least a few gentlemen in this town.”
“Big, strong fella like you,” the third man said. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
Denise Haller took her hands from her face. Her cheeks gleamed with tears, But her eyes gleamed with amusement. “He’s just a terrible, heartless man, is all.”
“Now are you gonna help these ladies or not, mister?”
By now Fargo could see that all three of them were trying to hide their amusement. They’d figured out his allergy to tears and had used it skillfully.
“All right, dammit,” Fargo said, resentful that he’d been snookered. “I’ll help you.”
“Now that’s more like it,” the second man said. Then to his companions, “We’d better get to work.”
Before Fargo left the women, he made them all examine the silver button carefully. None of them recognized it.
In the morning light Sheriff Tom Cain looked much older than he had the night before in the Gold Mine saloon. Severe lines were etched into the corners of his eyes and around his mouth. Liver spots dotted the tops of his hands. And the coffee cup he held in his grip trembled slightly.
Fargo saw all this as he crossed the threshold of the sheriff’s office.
Cain raised his cup in salute. “Glad to see you stopped by before you left town.”
“I gave it a try but those women you sicced on me convinced me otherwise.”
“Sicced on you?” The broad smile. “Now that’s an awfully cynical attitude. I simply pointed out that you were the most capable man in this valley to help me out.”
“The crying worked pretty well.”
Cain set his cup down and poured one for Fargo. “I’ve found that a woman’s tears can be as effective as a bullet sometimes.”
“I’ll give you twenty-four hours.”
“You think you can find the killer that soon?”
“I’m riding out in twenty-four hours, Tom. One way or the other.”
Cain handed Fargo the coffee and went over to sit behind his desk. Fargo took the chair under the glass gun case.
“Three killings in less than a month. I’m pretty sure those three were involved in a stagecoach robbery we had about five weeks ago. Fifty thousand dollars was taken. The stagecoach driver and one of the passengers, an Englishman, were killed.”
“So who’s responsible for killing the boys?”
“I figure somebody else planned the robbery and then decided to get rid of the boys so they couldn’t turn on him.”
“Any names come to mind?”
“I’d start with the people at the stage line.”
“You think the robbers and somebody in the stage company were involved?”
“It’s not exactly unheard of, Skye. But there’s something else. The stage was carrying the fifty thousand in a strongbox headed for the mines up in the mountains. There’d been a few robberies before and the bank wanted this run to be secret. Well, I don’t have to tell you what secret means, do I? Five, six people knew what was on that stage.”
“What about the bank? Somebody there knew about it, too.”
Cain smiled. “See, you’re doing it already.”
“Doing what?”
“Acting like a Pinkerton. But no, the bank president is a friend of mine. He swears up and down nobody at the bank would have thrown in with bank robbers. He claims he hires a better class of people.” He snorted. “I’m not sure there is any such thing.”
“What’re the names of the men at the stage company?”
“Kenny and Sam Raines are drivers for the stage line. Kenny’s the one you had the run-in with last night. They’re still around. I talked to them myself a couple of times but got nowhere. And there’s another man who has to be considered. Bob Thomas. He worked there until he was fired two months ago. They claim he was caught stealing from the till. Thomas denies it. He was in pretty good with those three boys. You can’t rule him out either.”
Cain paused for a sip of coffee. “And there’s another man there, the manager, who’s deviled me since I came here.”
“Deviled you how?”
A laugh. “Why how else have I ever been deviled, Skye? A woman of course. A very beautiful widow named Amy Peters. I actually fell in love with her the first time I saw her.”
Fargo rolled his eyes. “You? Fall in love? You’ve slept with half the women in the West and it never came to that before. That must mean that you’ve never been able to get her in your bed. And since you can’t have her you think you love her.”
“Might be some sense to that, Skye. But anyway, there’s bad blood between her man Ned Lenihan and me. I—I wasn’t always what you might call decent to him when I went after his lady. And I went too far. She hates me as much as he does.”
“Why do you think Lenihan is involved?”
“Well, since Lenihan is the manager at the stage company, he’s a suspect in the robbery. Lenihan himself was the one who put the money on the stagecoach. And he’s got a need for money. He’s got a little farm that him
