The Chase (Isaac Bell 1)

“Can you give me directions to his house?”

O’Leery waved a hand toward the north. “Just go up to the end of Howland Street and take the stairs. The house is painted green and has a small grove of orange trees alongside.”

The talk moved to politics and whether Teddy Roosevelt could run for a third term in 1908 and, if not, whom he would pick as his successor. Bell lost three hands for every hand he won, easily putting the other men at ease as they realized the stranger was no gambling cardsharp. He swung the conversation back to the bank murders.

“Seems strange that no one saw the robber leaving the bank or riding out of town,” said Bell idly as he played his cards.

“Nobody came forward,” said O’Leery.

“And none saw the bandit enter or leave the bank,” Latour added.

“There was an old drunken miner that hung around across the street from the bank,” answered Calloway, “but he disappeared soon afterward.”

“Sheriff Hunter did not consider him a suspect?”

Latour had no luck. He folded for the fifth time since Bell sat down at the table. “An old miner who was all played out and looked like he wasn’t long for this world? He was the last one the townspeople thought had anything to do with the crime.”

“More than once, I saw him sprawled on a sidewalk, drunk out of his mind,” said O’Leery. “He couldn’t have robbed a bank and murdered three people any more than I could become governor. I still think it was an inside job pulled off by someone we all know.”

“It might have been a stranger,” Bell said.

Calloway shrugged negatively. “Bisbee has twenty thousand inhabitants. Who’s to recognize a stranger?”

“What about that fellow on a motorcycle?” Crum asked no one in particular.

“There was a motorcycle in town?” asked Bell, his interest aroused.

“Jack Carson said he saw a dandy riding one.” Crum threw down a winning hand with a flush.

Latour took a long puff on his cigar. “Jack said the rider was well dressed, when he saw him pass through an alley. He couldn’t figure out how someone riding one of those contraptions could wear clothes so clean and unsoiled.”

“Did your friend get a look at the rider’s face?”

“All Jack could tell was that the rider was clean-shaven,” Calloway responded.

“What about hair color?”

“According to Jack, the fellow wore a bowler. Jack wasn’t sure, as he didn’t get a good look because the motorcycle went by too fast, but he thought the hair might have been red. At least, that’s what he thought, from a glimpse of the sideburns.”

For the second time that week, Bell found excitement coursing through his veins. A resident of Eagle City, Utah, another mining town where the Butcher Bandit left four residents dead, mentioned that he had seen a stranger riding a motorcycle on the day of the killing.

“Where can I find this Jack Carson?”

“Not in Bisbee,” replied Crum. “The last I heard, he went back to his home in Kentucky.”

Bell made a mental note to ask Van Dorn to try and find Carson.

O’Leery made another sour face at seeing his hand. “Whoever rode that motorcycle must have hung around town for a few days after the robbery.”

“Why do you say that?” Bell probed.

“Because the sheriff and his posse would have spotted the motorcycle’s tire tracks if the killer had ridden out of town immediately after the robbery.”

“You’d think he would have been spotted if he stayed in town until the posse gave up the hunt.”

“You would think so,” said Calloway, “but he was never seen again.”

“Was Carson a reliable witness?” Bell laid five dollars on the table. “I raise.”