Chapter 8

Jarrod hurried back to the telegraph office and wired Pinkerton to find the person who turned the Ivy Erin there in for the bounty, if possible. It was a long shot, Jarrod knew. He expected to be told that that whoever it was was long gone, but it was worth a try.

Jarrod went over to the jail then and found the sheriff there, getting ready for the court appearance at one.

"Harry, I've gotten more information from Topeka," Jarrod said as he came in the door.

"What information?" the sheriff asked.

"The woman turned in as Ivy Erin there was shot in the throat, just as our Ivy Erin here, but the bullet was aimed upward through her throat and took her entire face off. She wasn't identifiable except through the identification papers she carried."

The sheriff understood the ramifications of what Jarrod was saying. "Somebody tried to do the same thing here."

"Except their aim was slightly off and I interrupted them getting a second shot."

The sheriff glanced toward the cell block. "Them?"

"Let's have another talk with them. Do they have lawyers?"

"No. Turned them down, at least until they have their hearing today."

"Let's go."

The sheriff grabbed the keys, and he and Jarrod went into the cell block. Samson and McKee were in their respective cells, McKee sitting down on his cot, Samson pacing. The sheriff closed the cell block door behind them. McKee got up.

Jarrod stood looking from one man to the other, and they looked back. The sheriff waited for Jarrod to do the talking.

Jarrod spoke slowly, deliberately. "The woman who was killed here told me her name was Ivy Erin, and that's who she was. But she was not kin to either one of you. There was a woman in Topeka who was killed and turned in for the reward on Ivy Erin. She was shot in the throat, like Ivy Erin here was. She couldn't be identified physically, so they identified her by the papers she carried. But she wasn't Ivy Erin. Someone killed her and turned her in to let the real Ivy Erin get away."

Jarrod walked closer toward the men, stared hard at one and then the other, then walked to the far end of the cell block and turned around.

"Here's what I'm betting," Jarrod continued. "That one of you, or both of you, is kin to the woman who was killed in Topeka, or a close friend, or somehow that woman mattered to you. You knew she wasn't Ivy Erin, but you couldn't get anybody there to believe you. So you tracked the real Ivy Erin, found out she was calling herself Ivy Elder now and you followed her here to Stockton. She somehow got wind of you and came to me for help. Confessed almost everything to me – at least told me her real name and was about to tell me more but somebody killed her by shooting her in the throat, the same way the young woman in Topeka was killed. But he didn't shoot her face off here, either because he didn't want to or he didn't get the chance to because I came into the alley and he had to run."

"What's your point, lawyer?" McKee asked.

Jarrod eyed him. "Just this. There was only one reason to kill the real Ivy Erin here in Stockton. The bounty was claimed, so that wasn't it. And to kill her in the same way that innocent in Topeka was killed – it points to revenge, to some sense of justice for someone that innocent was important to."

McKee kept staring at Jarrod, but his gaze moved very slightly away from Jarrod's eyes.

"Is it you, McKee?" Jarrod asked. "Are you kin to that innocent woman in Topeka that Ivy Erin either killed or had killed? Say it now, because if you go into that court in about an hour and don't say it, you won't be able to get away with saying it later. You will be held over here in jail for lying to the sheriff and on suspicion of murder, and we will pin you to the murder of Ivy Erin here. If you killed her to avenge the girl in Topeka, say it now and it will work for you. Don't say it, and it's lost to you for good."

McKee's gaze went to the floor then. Samson said, "Tom – "

Jarrod and the sheriff knew then that these two men in the jail were up to something for sure.

McKee held his hand up, still looking at the floor. "Rafe didn't have anything to do with this. He's my brother."

"Rafe Samson McKee," Samson admitted quietly.

"He was just following me out here, and when he got here he found out Ivy Erin was dead and he knew I killed her. I went to claim her body and after he did the same we ran into each other. I killed Ivy Erin, and I'd do it again."

"Who was that girl in Topeka?" Jarrod asked.

McKee finally looked at him again. "Her name was Amy McKee. Our dead brother's daughter. The light of my life. Beautiful and sweet and her only flaw was that she looked too much like Ivy Erin. That – miserable excuse for a girl decided she was gonna kill my Amy and have her pawned off as herself so she could get away."

"She had help."

McKee nodded. "She talked some boy into doing the killing and turning in the body. I don't know who the boy was or where he's gone. I saw him in the sheriff's office, through the window, claiming the reward. I tried to get to him and I'd have killed him too, but I never got the chance."

"How did you connect the real Ivy to the killing?" Jarrod asked.

"Saw her with the boy after he left the sheriff's office. Ivy took off as soon as they parted company. I couldn't catch up to either one of them on the spot but I found out from the train depot clerk that Ivy was coming out here on the train using the name Ivy Elder, but the sheriff in Topeka didn't care about it, any of it. He had a body and he'd given over the bounty, and everybody was out of his hair. So I came after Ivy myself, and Rafe followed me when he found out about it."

"You killed Ivy Erin," the sheriff said.

McKee nodded. "I did. Rafe didn't know anything about it. I know he'd have stopped me if he could, but I was a day or so ahead of him, and I did the job in that alley before he ever got here. I left her in the alley when I heard you coming, lawyer. I didn't know exactly what to do – thought about running, but then I thought about Amy and I thought I'd try to claim Ivy Erin's body instead. I took too long thinking about it. I should have left town right after I shot her, but I wanted to take that body back to Topeka. I wanted that so bad. Rafe claimed her body for the same reason I did – to take her back to Topeka and get them to understand who they really had buried under the tombstone with Ivy Erin's name on it."

Jarrod looked over at Rafe Samson. The young man had turned his back, staring at the floor. Jarrod believed every word McKee said. But - "Why didn't anyone notice your niece was gone after she was killed?"

"We're nobody much around Topeka," Rafe said. "Don't live in town. Don't even go in all that much except for supplies. Just farmers out in the countryside that nobody has much of anything to do with. Amy meant the world to us, but not much to anybody else, until that Ivy Erin spotted her. Played up to her one day in town, making like she wanted to be friendly."

"The sheriff didn't even know us until this happened, that dammed lazy - ," McKee said. "I don't think he even believed Amy was ever out there with us. That's why we needed Ivy Erin's body – not just to show Amy was dead. To prove she even existed at all to that good for nothing sheriff. I'm the murderer here, Sheriff. Rafe here, he didn't do anything except lie to you about who he was and try to give me time to get away. I did what I did, and I'll always carry it with me. I just had to do it."

Jarrod saw genuine remorse in McKee's eyes – regret over what he'd done, but a sense that he had no choice, that he'd had no power to stop it. "You two need lawyers," Jarrod said. "You can't decide how to plead without a lawyer's help. I can't represent you because I'm a witness in the case, but I'll go out now and get you both some good help, if you want me to."

"We can't afford lawyers," Samson said.

Jarrod shook his head. "Don't worry about it. We have men who will work for free if you can't pay them. But I need to go get them as fast as I can. Do I have your permission?"

Both men in the cells nodded.

Jarrod quickly left.

As he headed for the office of two lawyers he knew could do the job, Jarrod marveled at how fast his sympathies could switch from Ivy Erin to the two men involved in her killing. It wasn't that he felt less sorry for Ivy, even though it was clear now that she was a cold-blooded murderer. To him, she was still that frightened girl who came to his office, too. She was complicated, cheated out of a decent life from the moment she was born, probably incapable of being anything other than a girl who would do whatever it took to stay alive, even if it meant robbing or killing others.

But now he understood why she had been killed in that alley, and his concern was to see that the two men involved in that – men who may not have had much better a life than Ivy had – got good representation in court. Jarrod found himself feeling both anger and sympathy for all of them – Ivy, that innocent girl in Topeka, Samson and especially McKee. Life had been horrid for all of them, and they had fought back in different ways. Ivy and McKee had chosen murderous ways.

XXXXXXX

Two weeks later, Nick Barkley came looking for his older brother after the trial of Rafe Samson and Tom McKee. Jarrod had been a witness in the case and was free to go after he testified, but Nick knew he'd have stayed for the end of it. The trouble was, Nick had just come into town and missed the jury's verdict. He only had time to see that Jarrod was no longer in the courtroom, and no one knew where he'd gone. Jarrod got away right after the jury verdict came in – not guilty on all the charges – lying, murder, obstruction of justice, everything. Samson and McKee left the courthouse and left Stockton, without Ivy Erin's body. It was over.

But Nick knew his brother. It probably wasn't over for Jarrod yet. This was the kind of case his brother would carry with him. Nick checked Jarrod's office and didn't find him there, nor was he in the sheriff's office or the Gold Nugget. Frustrated, Nick was just about to assume Jarrod had gone on home and they just missed each other when he got an idea of one other place he should check.

And there he was, standing in the Presbyterian churchyard with his hat in his hands, staring down at the gravestone that now said "Ivy Erin." Nick hesitated at first, reluctant to interrupt whatever Jarrod was going through, reluctant to intervene in his thoughts. But Jarrod was staying there a very long time. Nick finally came up beside him.

Jarrod gave him a glance but looked back at the grave. "What are you doing in town, Nick?"

"Looking for you," Nick said. "Checked the courthouse and your office and the sheriff's and the Gold Nugget and finally checked here. Ivy Erin is staying here, huh? Not going back to Topeka?"

"The sheriff and I contacted the authorities in Topeka, got everything straightened out about Amy McKee. The right name is on her tombstone, and on Ivy's."

"You've been here a long time."

Jarrod nodded. "Thinking about things. She came to me, and what I saw was a frightened girl, but I didn't understand everything she was frightened about. She might have told me everything if I'd gotten to talk to her in that alley. She might even have been repenting everything she'd done, but only God knows whether that's true or not now. And then those two turned up, claiming to be her uncle and brother, and I was suspicious about their motives from the moment I met each of them.

"Then I found out there was another victim in Topeka, a girl who looked like Ivy, a girl passed off as Ivy for the bounty and to get Ivy free. I worked out some truths, and the uncle of Ivy's victim filled in the rest, and I found myself having more sympathy for him and the brother than I ever thought I could have for a cold-blooded murderer. Yet that's what Tom McKee was – a cold-blooded murderer, like Ivy was. Different reasons for murder, but murder just the same."

"Sympathy for him? What do you mean?" Nick asked.

"I could actually understand how grief and revenge could drive a man to do what he otherwise might not do. It could drive a man to kill another without a second thought – until the job was done. And then – oh, then, the guilt, the reconciling, the facing up to what you've done and what you've become, the trying to find some way to live with it. I'm not sure I agree with a not guilty verdict, but I can feel for Tom McKee. I can understand why he did what he did. I can understand this murderer and why he murdered. And after I said a little prayer here for Ivy, I said a prayer for him, for what he has to carry for the rest of his life. Did Ivy regret what she'd done to Tom McKee's niece? I don't know. I'll never know. But I know Tom McKee regretted what he did to Ivy, and yet he'd do it again. What happened to him could happen to anyone. It could happen to you or me."

"No, Jarrod," Nick said. "Not you. You have too much respect for the law. Don't go worrying it could happen to you. Me, maybe, I'm a hothead, but not you."

Jarrod finally looked up at his brother. His eyes were sad. "It happened to them," he said. "It could happen to anyone."

Jarrod turned then, put his hat back on and walked away.

Nick glanced at the gravestone before walking away, following his brother. Jarrod's words had sent a chill through him, but despite his flip comment about himself he knew that he could never become lewd enough or greedy enough or embittered enough over anyone or anything to commit a cold-blooded murder. Neither could Jarrod. That's not who they were, either of them.

"Ah, Jarrod," Nick muttered to himself, "sometimes you think too much."

The End