The Chase (Isaac Bell 1)

“Jack was a former

mayor of Bisbee, an attorney highly regarded as an honorable man,” Latour explained. “If he said he saw a man on a motorcycle, he saw a man on a motorcycle. I have no reason to doubt his word.”

“You going to see Sheriff Murphy tomorrow?” Crum inquired, finally winning a hand.

Bell nodded. “First thing in the morning. But, after talking with you gentlemen, I fear there is little of importance he can tell me.”

After nursing his drink during two hours of play, Bell was even, almost. He was only four dollars in the hole, and none of the other players minded when he bid them good night and walked back to his hotel.

THE ROAD that wound up to the street toward the sheriff’s house was long, and muddy after a rainstorm that struck Bisbee in the middle of the night. Coming to a dead end, Bell mounted the steep stairway that seemed to go on forever. Despite being in excellent physical shape, he was panting when he reached the top.

Bell was in a happy mood. He had yet to learn what Irvine and Curtis turned up, if anything. But he was dead certain the man seen on the motorcycle was the Butcher Bandit after he removed his disguise as the old intoxicated miner. A missing finger and a hint of red hair was hardly a triumph. Even the hair color glimpsed by Jack Carson was a long shot. It was the motorcycle that intrigued Bell, not because the bandit owned one but because it fit that a shrewd and calculating mind would use the latest technology in transportation.

The primary question was, how did the bandit ride it out of town without being seen again?

Sheriff Murphy’s house was only a few steps from the top of the stairway. It was small, and looked more like a shed than a house. The flood had pushed it off its foundation, and Bell saw that Murphy was busily engaged in propping it up in its new location, ten feet from where it had sat before. True to O’Leery’s description, it was painted green, but the flood had devastated the orange grove.

Murphy was furiously wielding a hammer and didn’t hear Bell approach. A great torrent of dark brown hair flowed around his neck and shoulders. Most of the lawmen in the West were not fat but lean and angular. Murphy had the body of a blacksmith rather than a sheriff. The muscles in his arms looked like tree trunks, and he had the neck of an ox.

“Sheriff Murphy!” Bell shouted over the pounding of the hammer against nails.

Murphy stopped with his hammer in midair and turned. He stared at Bell as he might stare at a coyote. “Yes, I’m Murphy. But, as you can see, I’m busy.”

“You can keep working,” said Bell. “I’m with the Van Dorn Detective Agency and would like to ask you a few questions about the bank robbery and murders a few months ago.”

The name Van Dorn was respected among law enforcement circles, and Murphy laid down the hammer and pointed inside the little house. “Come inside. The place is a bit of a mess, but I have coffee on the stove.”

“After that climb up the hill, a cup of water would be nice.”

“Sorry, the well got befouled by the flood and isn’t fit to drink, but I carried a gallon up from a horse trough in town.”

“Coffee it is,” said Bell with a measure of trepidation.

Murphy led Bell into the house and offered him a chair at the kitchen table. There was no sign of the presence of a woman, so Bell assumed that Murphy was a bachelor. The sheriff poured two coffees in tin cups from an enamel pot that sat on the wood-burning stove.

“I don’t know how I can help you, Mr. Bell. I sent a copy of my findings to your agency in Chicago.”

“You neglected to mention Jack Carson’s sighting.”

Murphy laughed. “The guy on a motorcycle? I don’t believe what Jack said he saw. The description didn’t fit anyone I knew in town.”

“The bandit could have changed his disguise,” Bell suggested.

“There was no time for him to completely alter his appearance, retrieve his motorcycle, and ride off into the blue.”

“The rider and his machine were never seen again?”

Murphy shrugged. “Strikes me odd that nobody else saw him except Jack. A man on the only motorcycle in town is bound to be noticed. And how could he ride out of town without leaving a trail?”

“I admit it sounds a bit far-fetched,” said Bell, not wanting to discard the sighting.

“Jack Carson was an upstanding citizen not noted for being a hard drinker or a teller of tall tales. But I believe he was hallucinating.”

“Was there any other evidence discovered that wasn’t in your report?”

“There was something found after I sent the report to Chicago. Murphy rose from the kitchen table and pulled open a drawer of a rolltop desk. He passed Bell a brass shell casing. “This was found two weeks later, by a young boy playing on the floor of the bank while his father made a deposit. It was under a carpet. The bandit must have missed it.”

Bell studied the cartridge. “Thirty-eight caliber. If it was ejected, it must have come from an automatic weapon, probably a Colt.”