Airship Hunters Page 4

  Cabot knew his dusty, travel-wrinkled clothes would not promote a professional appearance to the Police Chief of Broken Toe, Kansas, but he didn’t want to delay starting his investigation. He also was aware that to a stranger he would look like a dirty youth in a man’s suit and hat, but he hoped his vitality and enthusiasm would win over the gruff-faced man before him.

  Cabot advanced toward Barker’s desk, hand extended. “Chief Asa Barker? Agent Cabot, United States Treasury Department.” Immediately the agent saw that Barker respected federal authority: the chief stood quickly and shook hands. Cabot made sure he returned the firm grip with one of his own.

  He knew from experience his boyish face could work against him. Cabot stood about five-eight, hat in hand. Wavy hair something between ginger and auburn, tending more to the darker color. Short nose on a squarish face softened with rounded cheekbones. Blue eyes, lively expressions that matched the briskness of his movements, which he hoped demonstrated a let’s-get-to-it quality. Black traveling suit over a gray vest that bore black stripes. White shirt, black cravat. Cabot had been told his enthusiasm for his job could suggest a callow energy, but he intended the look in his eyes to communicate, I mean business.

  Cabot sat in one of the leather-covered guest chairs at Barker’s gesture. He made sure not to kick over the ceramic spittoon placed on the floor for visitors.

  Barker returned to his seat. “I’m surprised to see you, Agent Cabot.” The young man noted how Barker used his title instead of Mister.

  “To see me, Chief Barker?” Cabot followed his mentor’s lessons in dealing with men who used titles when addressing strangers. Such behavior suggested these men’s own titles and positions were important to them, and expected the same in others. And Barker wore a dark blue uniform with brass buttons, something Cabot would expect to see in a metropolitan area, but not on a police chief for a small Kansas town. He noted the matching cap suspended from a hook on the wall behind the desk.

  “Well, not you personally,” Barker explained. “I didn’t know you were coming. But that the Treasury Department would send someone all the way from Washington to Broken Toe is a surprise.” He sat forward and knitted his fingers together on the oak desk.

  Cabot smiled. The desk was clear except for a pen-and-inkwell stand and a single sheet of paper arranged just an inch beyond Barker’s hands. Here was a man who disliked clutter. Cabot extrapolated from the desk’s neatness that Police Chief Asa Barker took to heart his responsibility to the electorate to impose order on any potential chaos.

  “The Treasury takes very seriously reports of counterfeiting. It is a threat to the stability of our nation’s financial underpinnings and to the trust the citizens place in our country.”

  Barker nodded his understanding. “I know the gravity of my discoveries.”

  “But,” Cabot said, “don’t think that simply because you are far from the District of Columbia that your concerns aren’t noticed or appreciated.” Cabot felt a momentary flash of dizziness, a bit of panic that he might be laying it on a bit too thick. What would his mentor, Yankee, do? Show confidence, he’d said, even if you don’t have it. The advice given Cabot by the former chief of detectives for Louisville, Kentucky, had rarely steered the agent wrong. He swallowed. “You clearly understand the importance of your responsibilities, Chief Barker. Not every man in your position would have wired Washington on finding fake coins.”

  Barker frowned. “These things are like cockroaches. Come across a few little clues, there might be a lot more behind them.”

  The Chief looked at his clasped hands, and Cabot wondered if he’d been too hard to judge the man regarding his pride and ego. At the same time, he hoped his worries hadn’t been apparent.

  Cabot cleared his throat. “Tell me about these coins, Chief Barker.”

  The chief looked his visitor in the eye. Cabot mentally waved away the phrase he’d read in a dime novel during his train ride: steely gaze.

  “The coins turned up at the two murder scenes,” Barker said.

  Time seemed to stop for Cabot. “Murders?”

  “Murders,” Barker repeated. “Even now, this far from the War of Secession, there are still bushwhacker and jayhawker reprisals between folks from Kansas and Missouri. But those usually have a different character than what we found in these cases.”

  “And?”

  “The bodies,” Barker said, then sighed. “They were... ripped apart. Like something... wild had been at them.”

  “I’m sure there are coyotes and wolves in Kansas,” Cabot said. Were there, he wondered, bears?

  “Oh yes,” Barker said. “Wild boars, too. Vicious things. Pigs that got loose during the War, went feral. Those animals will mangle a body to a certain point. I’ve seen plenty of that.” He leaned closer, intent. “These people were torn limb from limb. No wild animal I know does that.” He sat back. “Over time, animals will pull apart a carcass, spread it around an area. But that’s over weeks and months. I once found the bones of a man who’d been missing for a year. They were scattered over an acre.” Barker shook his head. “But these folks—these murdered people—were found only a day or two after the crimes.”

  Cabot watched the chief, and the man—perhaps about forty years old, the agent reckoned—had appeared to grow older as he spoke. Even the brass buttons on Barker’s uniform seemed duller.

  “We found these coins at the victims’ homes.” The chief unlocked a drawer on the right side of his desk. He brought a metal box into Cabot’s view and placed it atop the desk (but, Cabot noticed, not overlaying the sheet of paper). Barker pulled a key from another pocket, unlocked the box and opened the lid.

  He stared at the contents of the box. His lips parted.

  Cabot sat forward. His foot rattled the fancy spittoon. He glanced down, a flash of irritation crossed his face, and he looked back at Barker, who hadn’t moved. “What is it?”

  The chief reached into the box. “The gold coins.” He opened his hand to show Cabot two featureless metal slugs. “They’re gone.”

  The Broken Toe police force comprised two men along with Chief Barker—Williams and Walker. They didn’t wear uniforms like Barker did, but were dressed alike to enforce the image of their authority: white starched shirt with celluloid collar, and the rest black—bow tie, trousers, cutaway coat, and boots exhibiting a well-tended shine.

  Barker raged at his two men for several minutes until Cabot asked a couple of questions. Once it became clear the key—notably, the only key—to the box had never left Barker’s possession, the police chief growled and sent the two out of the office. Cabot examined the box. The lock showed no signs of having been forced.

  “Can you describe the coins?” Cabot asked.

  Barker calmed and got back to business. “They looked alike. Gold coins, not new minted. They’d been passed around for some time. Worn. I thought at first they were double eagles, but the size wasn’t quite right. They just didn’t look... right. I don’t claim to know every gold coin that’s been struck, but they didn’t look familiar. Since they were found at murder scenes, I decided to err on the side of caution and alert the Treasury Department. Just in case they weren’t legitimate currency, and if they may have been linked to the killings.”

  Murders. Even though Cabot had encountered violence in the course of his investigations, none of his counterfeiting cases had involved murders. He could hear his mentor’s words in Yankee Bligh’s strong, gravelly voice: Track down every clue.

  “I believe that is sound reasoning, Chief Barker. May I see the bodies?”

  Barker gave him an odd look. “They were buried weeks ago. If not, every buzzard in the state would have been circling the sky above Broken Toe.”

  “Ah, right. Where did you find the coins?”

  “At the homes of the... victims.”

  “May I see those?”

  Barker nodded. “Do you want to freshen up at the hotel first?”

  “I checked my bag when I arrived, but came righ
t over here. I’ll be fine. I’d like to look for clues while there is still light.”

  Barker had assigned Walker to accompany Cabot to the first house. It was a cabin just two miles east of town. It stood company with a fenced lot and an outbuilding on about an acre. The men tied their mounts—Cabot had rented a horse from a livery in Broken Toe—to a fence rail.

  In the dooryard, Walker pointed to the shed. “An arm—the right arm—was found against that wall. It was still holding an old Navy Colt.” He pointed to the house. “Fired once. We dug the slug out of the wall beside the door.” The door was off its hinges, but had been propped back against the frame and nailed in place.

  Walker had said little on the ride out except for a grunt or a hum in response to each of Cabot’s remarks. The Treasury agent found the policeman’s dry recounting a good fit for the personality he’d shown so far. “What else?”

  Walker pointed into the fenced lot. “Head and torso in there. Still connected. No cow, of course.”

  “Why ‘of course’?”

  “We learned from neighbors that both murder victims had recently bought cows. One cow, each family. The cows were gone when the bodies were found. We think rustlers or somebody—maybe the killer—stole the cows after the murders.”

  “When did this happen?”

  Walker glanced at the cabin’s roof line. “Six weeks ago, give or take a day or two. Left leg was found up there.”

  “And the other murder?”

  “Two weeks after that.” He gestured with his chin. “Right leg was on the other side of the cow lot. Never found the left arm.”

  Cabot looked around the lot. “May I go inside?”

  Walker didn’t answer, but retrieved a claw hammer from a saddle bag on his horse. While Cabot waited, he examined the door. Walker pulled out the few nails holding it in place.

  Cabot whistled. “This has been flat-out knocked off the hinges. Look here, the screws pulled out of the door. Wood split against the grain. Latch broken in half. Was the door found in the house or outside?”

  The policeman frowned. “In the yard.”

  Cabot entered. The place had three rooms, and each one was wrecked. Furniture overturned and broken, the stove knocked over, crockery shattered.

  “You said a family lived here?”

  “Smith and his missus, two boys. Five and nine.”

  “Smith was the victim?”

  “Yes.”

  “The others?”

  Walker shook his head. “Don’t know. No one’s seen them.”

  “Since the murder?”

  “Boys were at school until two days before the murder. Teacher said they both were ailing, so she wasn’t worried when they didn’t show up the next couple of days. Best we figure, Smith was killed the day before he was found. Mrs. Smith was at a neighbor’s house day before the killing. Trading milk for eggs, so we know the cow was still here then.”

  “No sign of the wife or boys since?”

  “Not a stitch or splinter.”

  “What about the coin?”

  “I found it,” Walker said with some pride in his voice. “In a pocket of what was left of Mr. Smith’s britches.”

  Cabot stepped back outside. He paused and didn’t move a muscle. He searched for some sign of his mentor’s voice in his memory.

  Cabot began walking a circle around the cabin. He spiraled around the lot, his circle enlarging as he went counterclockwise, his gaze scouring the ground. Walker watched from the doorway.

  Cabot’s track eventually took him beyond the outbuilding and fence. He stepped more slowly through the garden plot behind the cabin. “Here,” he called. Walker trotted to the agent’s side. Cabot plucked a scrap of fabric from a stalk of okra. “Look.”

  Walker studied a stain on the scrap. “Might be blood.”

  Cabot pointed to the ground. In the six weeks since the death of its owner, weeds had sprung up in the rows that had gone without a hoe’s bite. “You can make out tracks. Deep at the front, like someone running. Away from the house. Maybe Mrs. Smith?”

  Walker scanned the ground. “No sign of anyone following.”

  “Wouldn’t have to run through the garden just because you’re chasing someone.” He nodded toward a wooded area. It was roughly a hundred yards away, and stretched in an irregular line north and south. “What’s over there?”

  “Creek.”

  Cabot headed in that direction, continuing to scan the ground. He entered the trees about twenty feet from the creek, Walker trailing. The racket raised by birds in the trees covered the sound of their shoes crackling through leaves and briars and the low-growing plants. At the water’s edge, Cabot stopped. The creek was about eight feet at its widest point; according to Walker, it was three at its deepest.

  “The water’s receded from its highest point.” Cabot pointed at the dirt-caked litter along the banks. “When was the last rain?”

  Walker examined the gap between the water and the start of the undergrowth. “Some light showers during the past few weeks. Last soaking rain? Maybe two months ago.”

  “So, right around the time Smith was killed.” Cabot began walking north along the creek. He pointed south. “That way—look for prints in the mud.”

  The Treasury agent soon kneeled. “Here we go.” Two marks made by booted feet running in the mud, charging toward the water. Distorted by the force of the runner’s movement and the mud’s pliability, the marks—now dried and stiff in the area left behind by the dropping water level—still were recognizable to Cabot.

  He examined more closely the area to the sides of those prints. And received a shock.

  He found another footprint. But much larger, wider than the span of his spread-open hand and nearly as long as his forearm. The foot was unshod—Cabot could hardly imagine a shoe that size—and the great toe actually wasn’t in the lead position, but rotated farther to the side, in the way a primate’s great toe acts like a thumb.

  A brief thrill ran up his neck as an image flashed through his memory: that of the villain from Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”

  He shook his head. Perhaps the print had been distorted first by the malleable nature of the wet mud and then by the process of drying.

  Just then he caught the sound of Walker calling him over the noise of the birds and of the moving water. He joined the policeman, who had found another print. Like the one Cabot found, this one was grotesquely misshapen, but not so large. Both were pointed toward the water, suggesting each was made by separate people—creatures?—and not by one returning to the banks after venturing into the water.

  Two?

  Cabot stood. “The other side, then.”

  He removed his boots and carried them. With Walker’s help, he found a way across the creek by stepping on some large stones. On the other side, he resumed sweeping the ground for clues. Several yards to the north, he made a discovery.

  He picked up a small dirt-covered boot, a woman’s shoe, and waved it for Walker to see. “She must have made it across the water.” But search as he might, he found no footprints leading from the creek. None for the woman nor for the strange feet whose prints they’d found on the other bank. He cast about in wider arcs from the spot he found the shoe. After several minutes he paused and considered.

  He lifted his gaze, looked into the tree canopy overhead. The leaves swam with birds.

  Like a rag doll tossed into the trees, there hung Mrs. Smith, clutched by branches.

  What was left of her.

  They found no trace of the boys.

  Walker urged a return to town. He wanted to send some men out to retrieve Mrs. Smith’s body before dark.

  They had been riding a few minutes when the policeman said, “I’m surprised we didn’t find that shoe the other day.”

  “May have fallen just recently. The... state of decomposition may have caused it to fall after a few days.”

  Walker nodded as the hurt to his professional pride eased a bit. “
Where did you learn to track so? An Injun teach you?”

  “No, all I know about investigating crimes I learned from Yankee Bligh.”

  “Bligh—didn’t he nearly catch Jesse James?”

  Cabot nodded. “He was quite the policeman. I grew up in Louisville hearing about his exploits. I was inspired to join the police force. I was fortunate to catch his eye and to be mentored in his methods of detection. He encouraged me to strive beyond my career in Louisville, and I was emboldened to seek a position in the Treasury Department.”

  “Guess that worked out.”

  “It did. I was very surprised that my desires turned out in my favor. As if a dream too good to be possible came true.”

  Cabot supposed Walker was about his own age. He saw his companion’s brow knotted in thought.

  “A good policeman will be welcomed anywhere,” Cabot said. “It’s still a big country. The law needs good men on its side.” Walker looked at him. “You might think about that.”

  Walker nodded. “I will.”

  In Broken Toe, Walker directed the undertaker and two recruits to the Smith farm. Then Cabot and the policeman reported to Barker. Afterward Cabot retired to his hotel, sank into a hot tub of soapy water, and finally settled into bed.

  The next morning, Walker guided Cabot to the second murder scene. The Smiths had lived two miles east of Broken Toe. The Kellys lived two miles west of town.

  The house was little more than a shack. James Kelly, a widower of ten months, had been found in a state similar to that of Smith. His daughter, Dorothy, fourteen years old, had not been found. Walker reminded Cabot the crime had been discovered two weeks after the Smith murders.

  The signs of destruction were like those Cabot had studied yesterday. Walker pointed out the places he’d located Kelly’s scattered parts. Again, no cow or other livestock had been found at the scene. Barker had been here with him that day, and the Police Chief had found the gold coin with some other money in a broken sugar crock.

  The tatters of a ripped-apart dress on the floor of the wrecked kitchen held Cabot’s attention for several minutes. He found no strange footprints as he had at the Smith home. After two hours, the Treasury agent gave up looking for further clues.