The Assassin (Isaac Bell 8)

Edna Matters answered Bell seriously. “They asked me to reconsider. So I did. JDR never gives interviews. I said, All right, I’ll fill you in on some things I learn if, in return, Mr. Rockefeller will sit down with me and my questions for a full day interview.”

“What happened?”

“I never heard back.”

“But it’s interesting,” said Bell. “That he doesn’t seem to hold your writing against your father. I understand he is a member of the inner circle.”

“My father is a valuable man, and JDR appreciates valuable men.”

“Even valuable men whose daughters are a thorn in his side? He can’t love your articles. You’ve exposed all sorts of behavior, both underhanded and outright illegal.”

Edna asked, “Doesn’t his willingness not to hold me against my father speak rather highly of Mr. Rockefeller?”

Wally Kisley hurried up, grease-smudged and reeking of smoke. He tipped his derby to Edna. “Isaac, when you have a moment . . .”

Bell said, “Be right there. Come along, Archie.”

They followed Wally toward the tank that had exploded first.

“Extraordinary!” said Archie. “A journalist who doesn’t reek of booze and cigars.”

“Hands off,” said Bell. “I saw her first.”

“If I weren’t almost engaged to a couple of ladies due to inherit steel mills, I would give you a run for your money.”

Bell said, “Keep in mind the sooner we arrest the marksman who shot Spike Hopewell, the sooner you can go back to catching your jewel thief.”

“What does that have to do with Miss E. M. Hock?”

“It means go find witnesses. I’ll deal with Wally.”

Archie made a beeline for the caboose saloon. Bell caught up with Wally Kisley at a heap of ash and warped metal where the crude storage tank had folded up like a crumpled paper bag.

Wally said, “It blew when you were down by the creek, right?”

Bell pointed. “Past that bend.”

“By any chance did you hear a second shot fired?”

“Not down there.”

“How about behind you? Back at the oil field.”

“I heard something. I don’t know if it was a shot.”

“Could it have been?”

“It could have been. There was a heck of a racket all at once. Why?”

“I found this,” said Wally. He was holding an oddly shaped, rounded piece of cast iron by a square bracket attached to the top. “Careful, it’s still hot. Take my glove.” He passed Bell his left glove and Bell held the metal in it.

“Heavy.”

He examined it closely. It was six inches high. On one side, the entire surface was pocked with minute indentations, as if a blacksmith had peened it with a hammer. “It’s shaped like an upside-down duck.”

“I thought the same thing, at first.”

Bell upended it and held it with the bracket under it. “It is a duck.”