Airship Hunters (5 page)

Sam’s eyes shone. “And he threw in a gold coin, to boot!”

This transaction sounded odd to Rash. But perhaps Sam didn’t have all the details straight.

The Brecker homeplace—a soddy dwelling, a sod-and-timber out-building, a fenced-in pig lot—came into sight. Rash knew the widow and her son were pressed to work hard, and the place showed the results: the house and grounds were tidy. Flowers bloomed in the soddy’s door yard, and the garden patch behind the house was weed free.

Rash drove the wagon closer.

Something looked wrong.

The pig lot was empty. Not a chicken was in sight. There was no sign of the remarkable cow.

Rash neither hastened nor slowed the mule as he approached. As he pulled up before the soddy, he twisted his neck and surveyed the empty lot and yard.

Rustlers? Rash saw no obvious signs of violence.

The woman and boy—where were they?

Rash listened. The silence seemed unusual on what should have been a working farm. So much so, Rash heard the slight noise of the mule flicking one of its long ears.

“Hello!” he called out. He winced at the sound of his voice cracking the silence.

No response.

Rash stepped to the ground. He hesitated at the door, listening still. He knocked; no response. Then he reached and opened the door.

Rash was not a man who rushed. But he was light on his feet, and if he needed to hurry, he could move quickly.

When Rash saw the interior of the soddy, he whipped around and ran toward the wagon. Fast as he could.

He wasn’t fast enough.

When, in the summer of 1800, the capital of the United States moved from Philadelphia to Washington at the direction of President John Adams, only one building in the District of Columbia was ready for use: the Treasury Building.

The building had been the site of much activity since then. It was nearly destroyed by fire within six months of its first occupants’ arriving. The British razed it during the War of 1812, and another fire consumed its replacement in 1833. The new building the government eventually constructed was occupied by troops during most of the Civil War. President Andrew Johnson used the site for his offices to allow President Lincoln’s widow time to grieve before she moved from the White House.

Such volatile situations were not present this day. Instead, a minor firestorm of rumor swept through a small suite of offices on the second floor.

Three men—each in the neighborhood of the age of thirty years—appeared to busy themselves in the large room that served both as an open office for several desks and as an entry to the inner enclave of their supervisor, Assistant Director Hammond Gallows.

“Cabot’s been inside with the Old Man a good quarter of an hour,” one said. He had sandy hair over a long, thin face, and his chin appeared to spear his shirt front as he bent over a leather-bound ledger. His gaze moved to the closed door centered in the opposite wall.

One of his fellows responded, “Gallows has reduced more than one dashing young fellow to cinders in less than half that time.” This second man was round-faced and red-haired. He did not pretend to work, but stared openly at the door.

“Perhaps,” the third said, “he’s delivering Cabot his packing papers. Sending him back to the environs of his beloved detective
optimus maximus
, Yankee Bligh.” He rolled his eyes, appearing to search for the dark brown hair that had, some point in the past, receded from his forehead. While the voices of the other two men had carried a dash of jocularity, the blade of disdain was sharp in the third man’s tone.

A click from the door latch made all three men find sudden interest in the papers before them.

The door opened. After it closed, a young man—a bit younger than the three men already in the room—moved with a determined stride toward the exit.

The sandy-haired fellow looked up. “Back to work, Cabot?”

The redhead joined in: “Or do you get some time to relax? You only arrived back from Baltimore an hour ago.”

“No rest for the weary! And with vitalizing work like ours, who could possibly be weary?” Cabot waved the bowler he carried in his hand, and then hurried out.

The redhead murmured, “He seems very pleased for someone who’s been reprimanded.”

Sandy Hair nodded. “Back to the field for Cabot.”

The third man continued to stare at the doorway after Cabot had dashed through the exit. He said one word: “Drat.”

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 right 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.