Chapter 5
"And your sister is Ivy Erin?" Jarrod asked.
"Yes!"
"Then why have I just gotten a wire from Topeka saying that Ivy Erin is dead back there and the bounty claimed? Who is that girl lying in our undertaker's? And who in the hell are you really?"
When he heard what Jarrod had to say, the sheriff moved toward the door, next to where Jarrod was standing. The man claiming to be Rafe Samson absolutely blubbered, looking confused and completely at a loss for a story.
"Answer the man's questions," the sheriff said.
Samson blubbered some more. "I'm Rafe Samson! I came to claim Ivy Erin's body!"
"But you're not her brother, are you?" Jarrod asked. "And she's not Ivy Erin."
"She is!" Samson said. "I swear! I don't know what you heard from Topeka, but you're wrong!"
The sheriff grabbed his keys to the cell block from his desk. "You're under arrest, Samson."
Now Samson was mad. "What for? I haven't done anything!"
"Fraud and lying to a peace officer, for starters," the sheriff and took Samson by the arm. "And we might end up with murder."
Samson tried to stay glued to the floor, even as the bigger sheriff tried to move him to the cell block. "I didn't kill anybody! You got no cause to arrest me!"
The sheriff moved him toward the cell block. "You're staying with me until we figure everything out and you answer for lying to me from the start, not to mention the murder of the girl here, whoever she is. You're gonna see a judge, and he'll decide what becomes of you."
Samson went to a cell in the cell block without any further complaint. The sheriff locked him up and came back out to the office, where Jarrod had turned and was looking out the window.
"Now what?" the sheriff asked.
Jarrod shook his head. "I wish I knew. We still have Tom McKee to find and figure out what he's doing here, and figure out who Jack has in his undertaker's office if she's not Ivy Erin, and who in the world killed her and why."
"I swear, Jarrod, this case has me so confused I'm not sure who I am."
"You're not alone on that, but we'll straighten it out, one way or another. Or I'll give up my law practice and go punching cows."
XXXXX
The problem of Tom McKee was addressed fairly quickly, as the sheriff's deputy came back within a few minutes and said he'd just served McKee at the livery stable with the Judge's order on Jarrod's motions. Jarrod, the sheriff and the deputy immediately went running for the livery, and the sheriff was able to grab McKee's horse by the bridle before the man rode away.
"Hey! What's this about?! I told your deputy I wasn't gonna claim Ivy's body anymore if her brother was claiming it!" McKee yelled from the top of his horse.
"Get down!" the sheriff bellowed. "I still have a lot a questions for you!"
McKee climbed down. "What questions?"
Sheriff Lyman took the man by the arm, and his deputy walked along the other side. Jarrod got the livery man to take the horse back and followed the others to the jail, where the first thing the sheriff said when they all got inside was, "Who the hell are you really?"
"I'm Tom McKee, Ivy's uncle, and I came to get her and take her home, but I find out she's dead and her brother is here, so I'm on my way," McKee said.
"That's baloney," the sheriff said. "We've heard from Topeka that Ivy Erin is there, dead, and the bounty's claimed. You're not her uncle, and the man who claims to be her brother probably isn't either. And you said you were her only relative. Come on."
McKee, older than the others, suddenly sprouted even more wrinkles, but he still said, "I'm her uncle."
"Lock him up," the sheriff said to his deputy.
"Wait a minute!" McKee yelled. "What for? I haven't done anything!"
"You've lied to a peace officer," the sheriff said, "and the girl you came for has been murdered, so I'm holding you on suspicion of that murder. Lock him up."
The deputy took McKee back to the cell, McKee complaining all the way.
The sheriff looked at Jarrod, saying, "Well, at least we've corralled these two, but we still don't know if the girl we have here is the real Ivy Erin or some poor innocent who got caught in the crossfire."
Jarrod shook his head. "She told me she was Ivy Erin and wanted for extortion in Kansas. She had something she wanted to tell me in the alley the other night, something she never got the chance to say."
"Something that somebody killed her for."
Jarrod nodded. "Maybe it was for that. But was it one of the ones we have locked up who killed her, or is there somebody else out there?" He chewed on it for a moment, then he said. "I think first things first. I'm going to go talk to the judge, see if we can get the girl here buried today."
"What are you going to put on the tombstone?"
Jarrod choked on that a bit and said, "Nothing yet. The next order of business will be to find out who she really was. Before she's buried, I'm gonna get the photographer in to the undertaker's to get a photo taken."
"That's a plateful, Jarrod."
Jarrod checked his watch. It was just after three. "Yeah. I better go get the photographer first. The judge won't give me any grief for just doing that. Then I'll go see about getting a quick hearing on my motions – I'll come get you so you can tell the judge what Samson and McKee are saying about their claims – maybe you can get them to withdraw them before I get back. With any luck, we can get all that done in the next couple hours and we can start fresh in the morning."
"I want to keep these two as long as I can, so I'm gonna go talk to the prosecutor and see if I can get hearings later tomorrow on them," the sheriff said.
Jarrod nodded. "Sounds like a plan. I'll be in town all night at the Nugget. I'm gonna talk to the girls there and see if they can shed any light on this. I'll get the judge to let me go through her things, too."
"You won't be going home tonight, will you?"
Jarrod gave a shake of his head. "I need to get a longer sofa for my office. Hanging my legs over the end makes my feet go numb."
