Ruskin looked around at the spread of dried blood on the floor. “I should leave you to your investigation.” He nodded at Casale. “I trust you will catch the killer so he can be hung.”
“I swear we’ll track him down,” Casale said confidently. “Every road out of Salt Lake and all the train depots are covered by a network of police officers. He can’t travel beyond the city limits without being caught.”
“Good luck to you,” said Ruskin. “I pray you will apprehend the fiend.” He turned to Ramsdell. “I will be at the Peery Hotel until tomorrow afternoon, should you require my services. At four o’clock, I will board a train, to oversee the establishment of our new bank in Phoenix.”
“You are most generous, sir,” said Ramsdell. “I will be in touch as soon as we resume operations.”
“Not at all.” Ruskin turned to leave. “Good luck to you, Captain,” Ruskin said to Casale as he made for the front entrance of the bank.
Casale stared out the window as Ruskin walked across the street toward a taxi. “Most strange,” he said slowly. “If I know my train schedules, the next train for Phoenix doesn’t leave for another three days.”
Ramsdell shrugged. “He was probably misinformed.”
“Still, there is something about him that bothers me.”
“What is that?”
“He didn’t look overjoyed that his bank’s money was not taken by the robber. It was almost as if he knew it was safe before he walked in the door.”
“Does it matt
er?” asked Ramsdell. “Mr. Ruskin should be glad his half a million dollars was overlooked by the robber.”
The detective looked thoughtful. “How do you know it’s a half a million dollars? Did you count it?”
“Mr. Cardoza must have counted it.”
“Are you certain?”
Ramsdell began walking from the office toward the vault. “Now is as good a time as any to make a quick tally.”
He opened the case and started to lay the first layer of stacked bills on a nearby shelf. The top layer consisted of twenty thousand dollars in gold certificate bills. Underneath, the rest of the case was filled with neatly cut and banded newspaper.
“Good God!” Ramsdell gasped. Then, as if struck by a revelation, he rushed back to the bank manager’s office and opened a book that lay on the surface of the desk. The book contained bank drafts—but the final draft was missing and unrecorded. His face went ashen. “The murdering scum must have forced Cardoza to write a bank draft for the half million. Whatever bank he deposits it in will assume we authorized it and demand payment from Salt Lake Bank and Trust. Under federal law, we are bound to honor it. If not, the lawsuits, the prosecution from United States Treasury agents—we’d be forced to close.”
“Ruskin was not only a fraud,” Casale said firmly, “he was the one who robbed your bank and murdered your employees and customer.”
“I can’t believe it,” muttered Ramsdell incredulously. Then he demanded, “You’ve got to stop him. Catch him before he checks out of his hotel.”
“I’ll send a squad to the Peery,” said Casale. “But this guy is no buffoon. He probably went on the run as soon as he walked out the door.”
“You can’t let him get away with this foul deed.”
“If he’s the notorious Butcher Bandit, he’s a shrewd devil who vanishes like a ghost.”
Ezra Ramsdell’s eyes took on an astute glint. “He has to deposit the draft at a bank somewhere. I’ll telegraph the managers of every bank in the nation to be on the lookout for him and contact the police before they honor a draft made out to Eliah Ruskin for half a million dollars. He won’t get away with it.”
“I’m not so sure,” John Casale said softly under his breath. “I’m not so sure at all.”
10
THE BUTCHER BANDIT WAS A COUNTRY MILE AHEAD of him, Bell thought as the train he was riding slowed and stopped at the station in Rhyolite. He had received a lengthy telegram from Van Dorn telling of the Salt Lake massacre, as it had become known. A bank in a major city like Salt Lake was the last place he or anyone else expected the Butcher to strike. That was his next stop after Rhyolite.
He stepped from the train with a leather bag that held the bare essentials he carried while traveling. The heat of the desert struck him like a blast furnace, but because of the absence of humidity in the desert it did not soak his shirt with sweat.
After getting directions from the stationmaster, he walked to the sheriff’s office and jail. Sheriff Marvin Huey was a medium-sized man with a head of tousled gray hair. He looked up from a stack of wanted posters and stared at Bell with soft olive brown eyes as the Van Dorn agent entered the office.
“Sheriff Huey, I’m Isaac Bell from the Van Dorn Detective Agency.”