Hoss took the butterscotch cream pie he and Adam bought back to Joe's cell. He and Joe, with two forks reluctantly provided by the sheriff, sat on the cot and ate the pie together. Joe said he was eating it, not because he was hungry, but so Hoss wouldn't put on any more poundage and founder his horse. Adam stayed behind to talk to the sheriff.
"I'd like to talk to you and I'd appreciate it if you'd listen and consider what I have to say," Adam said.
The sheriff sat down behind his desk. "Okay. Talk."
"I went to see Dr. Branson."
"He gonna be filin' charges?"
"No. I went to find out the name of his patient the night Melora Rigby was killed. He refused to tell me."
"So? He doesn't have to tell you anything."
"So he said. Amos Spencer won't ask him, says that Branson isn't a suspect and that it's not relevant to the case."
"He isn't a suspect," the sheriff confirmed.
"Why not?"
"Why should he be?" Sheriff Murphy picked up his coffee cup. It was thick-walled white china and he looked at the watery grounds in the bottom as if they held a great deal of interest. He took the mug and walked over to the stove where the dented coffeepot sat, and poured himself another cup.
Adam watched and waited. He recognized what was going on; Adam had given Murphy an idea he hadn't before considered.
"Well, his version of events and my brother's differ. The doc claims Joe was running away—a sign of guilt. Joe claims that Branson told him to fetch Mr. Rigby. That makes a big difference. What if there was no actual patient? What if Branson had been out there…" Adam paused and quickly rethought his approach, "and unknowingly saw the killer or maybe, if the woman he treated that night or one of her family saw the killer—that is if the place was close enough to…Black Water Creek?" Adam was loathe for a reason he couldn't understand, to say the name of the creek out loud; it made his pulse step up. "I would hope that Branson's not one to judge before all the evidence is in but he seems to be sitting on some that might be exculpatory."
The sheriff looked at the coffee in his cup and then at Adam. "Coffee?"
Adam didn't really want any—had drunk 3 cups of sweet coffee with lunch—but felt that the offer was a peace offering of a sort. "Thanks." The sheriff put down his mug, picked up another one upside-down on a shelf beside the stove that also held a bag of coffee beans and a grinder. He poured Adam a cup. Adam swirled the dark brown, oily liquid to cool it off and then hazarded a sip; it was bitter.
"How long has Branson been a doctor here?" Adam took another sip.
"About two years. Showed up with his father in tow and hung up a shingle. He's saved many a life during that time. Kids with pneumonia, women who otherwise might've died giving birth—set broken arms and legs—things like that."
"Do you see his father much?"
"Brings him to church every so often. The old doc doesn't say much, just shuffles in leaning on his son's arm, sits and then leaves after services the same way."
"Like he might be drugged?" Adam asked.
"Or like he might be old and feeble," the sheriff added.
"Have you ever looked into their background? Examined the doc's credentials? Both of them, that is."
"Never had any reason to. Besides, I'd have to ride into a city that had telegraph service and since I'm the only lawman—basically—'cept for my deputy but I wouldn't leave the whole town in his care—I can't take the time."
"I got the impression this was a peaceful town." Adam drank as much coffee as he could before getting to the dregs.
"Usually. But then the past three murders show things can happen when you least expect it."
"You know," Adam said, putting the mug down and remembering Inger Borgstrom, Hoss' mother, "the Swedish crack an egg in their coffeepot when they brew—captures the dregs and takes away the bitterness. Sometimes they even toss in the shells." The sheriff just continued to sip at his coffee. "Another thing, on our way here to look for our brother, we stopped at every graveyard to see if Joe had been killed and buried but I noticed that in most of the towns, there was a group of relatively recent females' graves—seven in each town, to be exact, some girls, some grown, all within months of each other and about nine years ago, there was a series of murders—seven of them—in Virginia City just like Melora Rigby's and the two women before her. Do you see a pattern?"
The sheriff drank off his coffee, put down his mug and then looked at Adam. "Yeah. Seems like wherever you Cartwrights go, women die."