A Valentine Wish (Gates-Cameron 1)

“lan—he was different from the others. He had that funny name his Brit father give him, and a bunch of big dreams about owning a whole chain of inns. Seemed like all he cared about was the inn and his sister.”

“Was that why he turned to bootlegging?” Mark asked. “To raise money for his dreams?”

Watson snorted. “Ian Cameron never ran a bottle of hooch in his life. He was a hotheaded son of a gun, but he was honest.”

“You were ten years old when he died,” Mark said. “How do you know what he was like?”

“My mama knew,” Watson insisted. “She’d have knowed if he was messing around with criminals. He wasn’t. Besides, I saw what happened to him. I know he didn’t do what Tagert said.”

“You witnessed his murder?” Dean asked, startled. “You know who killed him?”

Watson’s eyes gleamed with a sick satisfaction that made Dean’s stomach clench. “I know. I’ve always known.”

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“’Cause he told me he’d kill me if I did. Me and my ma. I was ten years old. I believed him. He fired my ma a short time later, and she got a job at the Arlington Hotel in Hot Springs. I ran off when I was fifteen—didn’t want to be a burden to her anymore. I was going to make enough money to take care of her, so she didn’t have to work so hard. She died before I was old enough to get a decent job that would’ve taken care of both of us.”

The bitterness was still there, after all these years. Dean bit back the words of sympathy he knew wouldn’t be appreciated. “Who killed the twins, Bill?” he asked, instead. “Was it Gaylon Peavy?”

Mark’s pen stilled over the notebook.

“Wasn’t Gaylon,” Watson answered flatly “It was his son, Charles. Charles was the bootlegger. He never cared squat about that inn. Money, that was all he ever cared about. He had quite an operation going, him and Buck Felcher—and Stanley Tagert. Tagert was in on it from the first.”

“You’re sure about this?” Mark asked, looking a bit worried.

Watson scowled. “Of course I’m sure. I been collecting money on that memory for sixty years. Think they’d have paid me off if I’d been wrong?”

“Can you tell us what happened that night?” Dean asked, giving Mark a warning look about angering the old man.

Watson glared at Mark a moment longer, then turned pointedly back to Dean. “I was outside, catching fireflies and putting’em in a jar. You know, like ten-year-old boys do when they ain’t got anything better to entertain’ em. There was a party going on inside the inn, a birthday party for the twins. My mama was working, serving food and cleaning up after the guests. She was real happy that night, because Ian would take over the next day and he’d promised her a raise.”

Sighing, Watson continued, “Anyway, I heard some voices out by the old caretaker’s shack, so I snuck up to see what was going on. I knew nobody ought to be there. I heard Charles and Felcher and Tagert talking about their operation. Tagert was saying they were going to have to quit. The cops were getting too close, he said. I heard him say that killing the revenue officer was a big mistake. They were going to get caught. Buck didn’t seem to care one way or the other. He was gripin’ about something else. Probably wanted more money.

“They heard someone outside and they all froze. From where I was hiding, I could see that it was Ian and Mary Anna coming up the path. I wanted to warn’em, but before I could decide how to do it without tipping Charles off that I’d heard him talking, all hell broke loose. Mary Anna said something to Tagert, I can’t recall what. And then Charles shot Ian. Just shot him, cold.”

Dean shivered, imagining the moment. Anna’s horror when she saw her beloved brother fall.

Watson drew a long, shaky breath, as though reliving the moment in his life-weary mind. “Tagert started yelling at Charles, but Charles shot Anna before anyone could stop him. I went numb then. Coul

dn’t have moved if I wanted to. Next thing I knew, Charles shot Buck. Whether it was ’cause he was a witness to the murders, or because he’d been causing a stink about the money, I never really knew.”

Mark looked up from his notes. “This is... incredible,” he said, his voice a bit unsteady.

“It’s true,” Watson insisted. “Every damn word of it.”

“We believe you, Bill,” Dean said gently. “I already suspected something like this.”

Bill nodded. “I sat there without moving, scared that if I moved, they’d shoot me just like they had the others. There was a lot of noise going on inside the inn, so it took a while for the guests to figure out what had happened. By that time, Charles had told Tagert exactly what to say. Tagert was mad, and scared spitless, I think, but Charles kept telling him they’d had no choice. He said all they had to do was stick together and their troubles would be over. The cops could close the case on the other murder, and he and Tagert could retire with the money they’d already made with their bootlegging. Charles ran back to the inn, then came back with his daddy to ‘witness’ the tragedy.”

“You mean, Charles killed the twins because he needed someone to blame for the Prohibition officer’s murder? Not because they were to take over the inn the next day?” Mark asked, looking dazed as he tried to follow the story.

“Charles never cared a lick about that inn,” Watson said, “but he had no intention of going to jail for any of his money-making schemes. He never did like Ian, and he knew there were plenty of others who didn’t, either. He figured if Tagert backed him up, everyone would believe that Ian had been the real criminal in the family. Besides, the twins had caught him meeting with Buck and Tagert. Wouldn’t have taken them long to figure out what was really goin’ on that night.”

Watson looked back at Dean as he continued, “They called the police chief, a lazy, crooked cop who’d been on the take for years, and hated lan Cameron, anyway. He swallowed the whole story. If he ever suspected anything different, he never breathed a word. Charles probably paid him off. He retired a few months later, then Tagert died in that so-called hunting accident—”

“Charles killed him,” Dean murmured.

“More than likely. By that time, my mama had been fired and we was living in Hot Springs, trying to scratch out enough of a living to keep us fed and clothed.”