The Night Is Watching

Just then, Jane’s fingers touched something. She wiggled them deeper between the boards. What she touched felt like metal.



“Need help?” Kelsey asked.



“I got it, I got it!”



“What is it?”



“I don’t know, but...” She managed to extract a little metal tube. It might have been the muzzle of an old gun, sawed or cut off to create a cylinder. Or perhaps it had been fashioned from the leg of an old bed. It seemed as encrusted as something taken from a shipwreck.



And inside, rolled up, was a piece of paper. It was old, fragile, but the metal tubing had done its work.



Jane looked at Kelsey and carefully unrolled it.



* * *



The bones were in the mine wall.



They’d been undetected for over a hundred and forty years because they’d been shored up against the stone of the mine wall when work was done to support the structure to protect the miners from cave-ins.



“We found them,” Newsome told Sloan and Logan, “because one member of our crime-scene unit noted a little crevice in the rocks in the second set of openings. If she hadn’t seen that crack and been determined to go farther...”



There was something infinitely sad about the bones in the wall. They were attached to bits and pieces of fabric; time and heat had worn away the tissue and flesh, and they were heaped in a confusing pile. It appeared that the stagecoach robbers had brought them here, dug out the support structure, covered them with dirt and rock, then built up new “support beams” and a new wall around them.



The robbers—the killers—must have moved quickly, at night, because miners were working there at the time.



In fact, miners had come to work for years. Maybe, especially in the months afterward, they’d wondered at the smell.



But maybe they’d been so conditioned to the stench of heat and one another that they’d never noticed, and maybe decay had happened fast....



Three skulls lay in the pile of remains. Femurs stuck out, rib bones seemed strewn about.



It no longer seemed tragic, not the way finding the newly dead could be. It was still terribly sad.



“I’ll see that they’re removed,” Newsome told Sloan. “I’ll take all the proper measures, do what we can to identify the remains and arrange for burial. I just thought you should see this.”



“Yeah, I’m glad to see it,” Sloan said. “I think we’ve managed to solve the past, and what a kick in the ass to oral history and legend. Brendan Fogerty wasn’t a good guy at all. He was probably the mastermind pulling all the strings. Just his bad luck McNulty up and died without letting his partner know how to find the gold.” He looked at Newsome. “But we have no clue as to where the gold did wind up, right? And what about the stagecoach?”



“The stagecoach might well have rotted to nothing over the years. And bones of dead horses have been found in the desert throughout time,” Newsome reminded him. “Or they could’ve been rescued by ranchers or Apaches.”



“Let’s hope so,” Logan muttered.



Sloan nodded. “Yeah, but that gold is somewhere,” he said. “And I believe someone is after it now.”



“Your men are still searching here?” Logan asked Newsome.



“Yes, but it’s not an easy task. I don’t want my people risking their lives in a possible cave-in.”



“I know, and we don’t want to see anyone injured, either.”



“You believe there are a number of people involved in this?” Newsome asked, turning to Sloan.



“At least two. There were two people in the Hough house,” Sloan said. “According to the son.”



“Later today I’ll have DNA results back from those glasses you pilfered from the theater the other night,” Newsome said. “Just remember, unless any of them show up in the system, I need something to check them against. I have the bottle you found in here, but that’s all I have.”



“Appreciate it,” Sloan told him.



“It’s my job. But you know your town way better than I do, Sloan.”



“I thought I knew the town,” Sloan said. “Now—” He broke off and shrugged. “We’ll find out what’s going on. I was a lucky bastard in Texas. I was never part of an unsolved murder case. I’m not going to be part of one here, either.” As he spoke, his phone rang. To his surprise, it was Jennie Layton.



He stepped back. “Jennie? You okay?”



“I’m improving and they say I can leave. Maybe tomorrow. But, Sloan, I’m afraid to leave. I keep remembering things.”



“You do?”



She lowered her voice. “Sloan, can you come see me? I’m feeling uneasy.”



“I’ll come over right now, Jennie,” he promised. “I have to ride back in and get a car, but I’ll be there as soon as I can.”



“Thank you. There’s just...” Her voice fell to a whisper he could barely make out. “There’s something going on here, Sloan. I can just feel it. Something’s going to happen. Something bad.”



14



Jane sat on the floor with Kelsey, carefully reading the note left behind by Trey Hardy.



They know, I’m sure, that I overheard them talking. I don’t believe they will let me come to trial. They suspect that I will use what I have overheard to save my life before a circuit judge. I know this just as I know what will transpire. They leave the jail and speak to one another about their intentions in the alley between my window and the theater, and they have seen my face when they look at me.



There is nowhere to turn. The sheriff and the deputy are both involved. I have lived hard and recklessly; I have seen the fall of the South—and known that we were often wrong. What becomes of me will not be just, and yet it will be deserved because I took the law into my own hands. May God help me. I practiced no cruelty. I killed during the war in the name of a Cause, but never killed at any other time in my life. What comes my way I will accept.



But I fear now for Sage; she has been to see me many times, a dear friend, a skilled actress, and mother and wife. They will kill me before my trial. I pray that someone else might find this letter, stop the crime those conspirators have planned, and see to her safety.



Their plan is that they can surprise the stagecoach. A sheriff and his deputy riding up will not cause alarm. They will murder those on the coach and hide their bodies in the desert; they have no fear of reprisal. They will hide the gold and let time go by, let it be forgotten. Then they will remove it from its hiding place, divide it and make haste across the border. The robbery will remain a legend, and they will invent some story to explain the disappearances of so many—including themselves.



God help us. Pray for all sinners.



Trey Hardy



Jane looked at Kelsey. “This is so tragic. I’m halfway in love with this poor dead outlaw!”



Kelsey nodded, trying to shove a piece of plaster back onto the wall.



It wasn’t going to work.



“Yeah, it’s sad. It’s terrible. But where’s the gold?”



Jane was thoughtful. “It’s in the theater.”



“Why the theater? It could be anywhere. We just dug out a wall and found the note. And here’s another question—why kill Berman? He was a stranger as far as we know. Berman, and then Caleb Hough. Hough is probably involved. But...why kill people, when the gold hasn’t even been uncovered?”



“They both had to be in on it,” Jane insisted.



“You seem convinced,” Kelsey said. “I’m going to call Logan again. If the county cops are handling whatever they just found in the mine, Logan can come back and get started on figuring out the connection. There has to be a connection.”



“I think I know,” Jane said slowly.



“Know what? The connection?”



Jane nodded. “How do you best hide anything?”



“Um, in a deep hole?” Kelsey suggested.



Jane laughed. “No. In plain sight. I think one of these conspirators found some of the gold, maybe a piece. He brought them all in on it, but the hiding place must be so obvious that no one’s seeing it.”



“Right. No one—like any one of us.”



“So, call Logan and tell him about the note. Meanwhile, we’ll go check out the theater.”



* * *



The county officer on duty at the hospital, a conscientious man in his late twenties, was distressed when Sloan arrived at Jennie Layton’s room.



He started to move a few feet from the door to greet Sloan, and Sloan smiled as he heard Jennie calling out, “Don’t you leave me, young man!”



He grimaced as he saw Sloan, speaking softly. “I keep telling her I have to keep an eye on three people here and she’s just one of them. She doesn’t want me to leave her, not for a minute.”



“It’s okay. Go see Jimmy and Zoe Hough. I’m here. Do you know what got her so upset?”



He shook his head.



Sloan went in to be with Jennie. “Hey,” he told her. “You have that young officer all in a dither, Jennie. What’s up?”



“They’re going to find me now, and they’re going to kill me!” she said, her voice hushed. She glanced at the door as she spoke.



“Who are they and how are they going to find you?” Sloan asked.



“They know I’m here. Maybe they didn’t mean to kill me at first, but they do now,” Jennie said decisively.



He sat for a minute, wondering if—despite her job or perhaps because of it—she was still essentially a lonely aging woman with no family of her own.



“Jennie, we haven’t let it out that you’ve even regained consciousness.”



“There’s someone in here, watching me,” Jennie said stubbornly. “One of the nurses, I think.”



“None of these nurses has anything to do with the theater.” He took her hand. “This is a county hospital. We’re from the little town of Lily. Honestly, a lot of county people hardly know we exist.”