Chapter 2

Silas answered the knock at the front door. It was the sheriff. After dark. Unusual, everyone thought. "Fred, come in," Victoria said, and Silas opened the door further.

Sheriff Madden took his hat off. "I know it's kind of late," he said, and then he leveled his gaze at the lawyer. "I need to talk to you Jarrod, privately."

Jarrod put his glass of scotch down. "Let's go into the library. Start dinner without me if we take too long," he said to his mother.

"The sheriff doesn't look very happy," Heath said as Jarrod and Sheriff Madden left the room.

"One of Jarrod's clients must be in trouble," Nick said.

Victoria was more concerned. Something about the look on the sheriff's face said this wasn't anything about somebody simply being in trouble. This was big trouble.

Jarrod ushered the sheriff into the library and closed the door behind them. "What's going on, Fred?" he asked.

The sheriff looked uncomfortable. "I'm sorry to have to come to you about this tonight, but I really don't have any choice. I don't really believe what I'm about to say but – you came in from Carson City today, didn't you?"

"Yes, I was there for several days," Jarrod said.

"Before Carson City, you were in Virginia City for a while."

"Yes."

"Before that, Modesto and Merced about two or three weeks ago."

"Yes, all those places," Jarrod said, not liking the look in the sheriff's eye or his questions. "I had business for the family in all those places. What's the problem?"

"Where were you last June? The fifteenth to be exact."

It was three months ago, but Jarrod had no trouble remembering where he was. "San Francisco until the sixteenth," he said. And he kept on going. "Before that I was a week down in Lancaster, two months before that a week in Sacramento, several times in San Francisco before that. How far back do you want to trace my travels, Fred?"

"It's not me who's tracing them," Sheriff Madden said. "Jarrod, I don't know how to say this easily, so I'll just say it. A federal marshal named Hogan came in to see me a couple hours ago. He's spent the last year investigating some unsolved murders in all those towns – murders that occurred while you were there, in every one of them. He's been trying to connect people to all of them – and you're the one he's connected."

Jarrod understood. He went white. "You can't be serious."

"I wish I weren't, Jarrod."

Stunned, Jarrod frowned and looked at empty air before he looked back at the sheriff. "Fred – are you here to arrest me?"

Sheriff Madden hesitated, took a deep breath, and then said frankly, "Should I be?"

Jarrod exploded. "You can't possibly think that I've been running around the countryside murdering people!"

"Of course I don't!" Sheriff Madden yelled back, then cut the volume down so other people in the house wouldn't hear it. "But the evidence is what it is and Hogan wants me to take you in for questioning, right now."

"I can't possibly be the only one he's zeroed in on!" Jarrod said, also getting his voice down. "Hasn't he connected anybody else? Somebody following me maybe?"

"Right now, you're it," Sheriff Madden said, almost sadly. "Jarrod, I'm sorry. I don't know what you want to tell your family – "

Jarrod turned, saying, "Just that you have a federal marshal who wants to talk to me tonight," and he walked out of the room.

The family was watching, curious, a little alarmed, as Jarrod strode back into the foyer and fetched his hat from the hat tree by the door. The sheriff was following, looking unhappy, catching Victoria's eye.

Victoria noticed that Jarrod did not look her way. He said, "I have to go back into town right away. Fred has a marshal who wants to talk to me. Don't hold dinner for me. If this takes too long, I might be overnight."

He didn't like to think he'd be overnight in jail, but if it came to that, it was better his family knew it in the morning and not tonight. He came over to Victoria and gave her a kiss before he headed for the door.

The family watched the door close behind Jarrod and the sheriff, and they looked uneasily at each other.

"That was odd," Audra said.

"That didn't look like it was just somebody asking for Jarrod to be their lawyer," Heath said.

"Maybe we best go along," Nick said.

But Victoria said, "No." She had read the look in her oldest son's eyes. He hadn't given away any reasons for it, but the blocking his blue eyes were doing told her this was very serious, and something Jarrod needed to handle alone, at least for now. "If he doesn't come home by tomorrow morning, then maybe you should go after him, but not right now. Something is going on he doesn't want us to concern ourselves with. He'll be all right for tonight."

XXXXX

Marshal Hogan was waiting in the sheriff's office when the sheriff and Jarrod arrived. He stood up from his chair when they came in.

Jarrod stared hard at him but tried not to look belligerent.

Sheriff Madden said, "Marshal Hogan, this is Jarrod Barkley. Jarrod, this is John Hogan."

Jarrod extended his hand. "Marshal."

Hogan shook hands with him. "Thank you for coming, Mr. Barkley."

"Did I really have a choice?" Jarrod asked, aiming for something between irritation and accommodation. He glanced through the open cell block door and confirmed the three of them were alone. "The sheriff has told me what's going on," Jarrod said. "Before you start, I categorically deny being involved in any of the killings he described to me."

"I thought you would," Hogan said, motioning to the chair.

Jarrod shook his head. "I'll stand. Ask your questions."

Hogan sat down on the edge of the sheriff's desk, while Sheriff Madden pulled himself away from the two of them and just stood watching. Hogan said, "I've confirmed via the railroad and hotel registers that you were in Carson City until yesterday."

"And Virginia City and before that Modesto and Merced and Lancaster and the other places the sheriff told me about while we rode here," Jarrod interrupted, "at the times you described. I don't deny any of that."

"Including Sacramento and San Francisco," Hogan said.

"I have a home in San Francisco and a lot of governmental business in Sacramento," Jarrod said. "I'm in both places quite a lot."

"And there is a trail of unsolved murders going along with you," Hogan said. "Would you like to get an attorney?"

"Marshal, what you've said so far is nowhere near enough to arrest me on," Jarrod said. "Tell me what else you have. Who are the victims? Have you connected me to them?"

Hogan took a piece of paper out of the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket and handed it to Jarrod.

Jarrod read it – and strength washed out of him. Ten names – one each from Carson City, Virginia City, Modesto, Merced and Lancaster, two from Sacramento and three from San Francisco. He recognized every one of them. One of them – Mark Coleman – was a young attorney he had just seen in Carson City less than a week ago.

"Do you know these people?" Hogan asked.

Jarrod handed the list back. "Every one of them. Some of them were attorneys. Two were clients. I didn't even know any of them were dead."

Hogan repocketed the list. "The first killing was one of the ones in San Francisco, the woman named Bonnie Beach."

"That wasn't her real name," Jarrod said. "She was a singer in a dance hall. I defended her on a charge of theft and got the charges dropped. When was she killed?"

"Nearly a year ago," Hogan said, "and you didn't know?"

Jarrod shook his head. "I left town to come back here as soon as I got the charges dropped and never planned to see her again."

"The story is the same with everyone on that list," Hogan said. "You had something to do with them, and they were each found dead right about the time you left town. Every single time."