“We’re wasting time,” O’Hearn snapped. “If he wants to see the body, then so do I. Where is it? Over at Hansen’s?”
“Yes, sir. I guess I’d better go along, too, you don’t mind.”
“All right. Let’s get it done.”
Hansen, whoever he was, was a local entrepreneur. Four businesses occupied an adjacent pair of frame buildings just off Canyon Street, all of which bore his name — undertaking parlor, carpentry shop, gunsmith, barbershop. The undertaking parlor was at the rear of the carpentry shop, presided over by a man in a black suit whose name was Finley, not Hansen. Like Calder, he deferred to O’Hearn and offered no protest at the request to view McClellan’s remains. The body was in the embalming room, already stripped of clothing. Quincannon gave it a narrow-eyed examination, but it told him nothing.
“What was done with his clothing?” he asked then.
Finley, a middle-aged beanpole with a cast eye, blinked several times as if the question confused him. “Clothing?”
“The corpse wasn’t brought in naked, was it?”
“Naked? Certainly not.”
“His clothing, his miner’s duds. Where are they?”
“All beyond saving,” Finley said. “Filthy, blood-soaked, scorched...”
Quincannon resisted an impulse to shake him as he would a stick.
O’Hearn’s patience was even more sorely tried; he growled, “Show us the clothing or it’s you who’ll be beyond saving.”
Finley wasted no more time. He led them into a storeroom of sorts and showed them the bundle, string-tied and stuffed into a trash bin, and then promptly fled. Quincannon untied the bundle, shook out the garments. The powder-marked bullet hole in the heavy-weave shirt told him that McClellan had been shot at point-blank range; the baggy trousers, undershirt, and union drawers held no clues.
He studied the high-laced boots. Along the edge and sole of the left one, and across a small section of the hooks and buckles, was an irregular, smudged black line. He rubbed a thumb over it, further smudging the black, then held the thumb to his nose and sniffed. A small satisfied smile put a crease in his freebooter’s beard.
He returned the clothing and unmarked boot to the trash bin. Dangling the left one by one of its buckles, he extended it to Calder. “Keep this under lock and key, Sheriff. And make sure you carry it by the buckle.”
“What for?”
“The same reason you’re keeping my derringer. Evidence.”
“Hell! A boot? What kind of evidence is that?”
“The kind that can hang the actual murderer.”
Calder made grumbling noises, but he took the boot. O’Hearn said to him, “After you lock that up, Micah, go over to the hotel and find out if the union man, Yost, is still registered.”
“Yost? What for?”
“Stop asking questions and do what I ask. We’ll wait here for you.”
“Yes, sir. Whatever you say.”
The sheriff went out, hurrying. Once the door was shut again, O’Hearn said, “Well, Quincannon? What’d you find on that boot?”
“Black from the black deed.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I’m on the right track. But more evidence is needed, and I know how to get it.”
“How?”
“By going back down into the mine tomorrow morning. On my regular shift on twelve-hundred.”
O’Hearn stared at him as if he’d taken leave of his senses. “The miners won’t stand for you returning to work as if nothing happened today. They’ll rip you to pieces.”
“Not if you vouch for my innocence. You’re in charge — they’ll listen to you and obey your orders.”
“No guarantee all of them will. They’ll suspect you’re a company spy, and the high-graders will know it for certain.”
“Detective, not spy. And it won’t matter if they know. No one outfoxes or disarms John Quincannon more than once.”
“You’re not thinking of taking a weapon into the hole again?”
“I am. A small-caliber pistol, fully loaded.”
“By Christ, you’ve got gall. You’re the one liable to get himself shot dead this time.”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take to put an end to this business. One day, two at the most is all I’ll need.”
“If you live that long.”
“You’ll pass the word to Walrus Ben, then, and to Pat Barnes to let me back on his timber crew? And would you supply the pistol? I’d rather not chance buying one.”
O’Hearn let out an exasperated breath. “More damn gall. All right, I’ll oblige you again. But don’t ask for any more favors. You’re on your own starting tomorrow morning.”
“When and how do I get the pistol?”
“I’ll have it delivered to your room tonight after supper. Just make sure you’re there to—” He didn’t finish the rest of the sentence, because knuckles rattled on the door just then and the sheriff poked his dried-chili-pepper face inside.
“That fella Yost checked out of the hotel yesterday, Mr. O’Hearn. Left on the morning stage to Marysville.”
Quincannon said, “Hell, damn, and blast!”
Calder blinked at the explosive response. “Something wrong in Yost leaving?”
“Never mind, Micah,” O’Hearn said. “Shut the door and wait for me. I’ll be right out.”
“Just you? You ain’t gonna leave Quinn here by his lonesome, are you? Suppose he tries to run off?”
“He won’t.”
“Well, if you say so...”
“I say so. Just remember — if anybody asks why he’s not still a prisoner, you tell them to talk to me. And don’t say anything about this little side trip or McClellan’s boot.”
Calder said, “I’ll remember, yes, sir,” and shut the door.
O’Hearn stayed just long enough to growl, “One day, two at the most.”
It was not so much a reminder, Quincannon thought sourly, as a veiled threat.
16
Quincannon
On his own after leaving the undertaking parlor, Quincannon spent the rest of Sunday afternoon and evening in his room at Miners Lodging House #4, nursing his sore head, planning strategy for the morrow, and pining for Sabina. Now that the end of his investigation was in sight, he yearned to rejoin her in San Francisco, to be making renewed plans for their wedding and once again sharing a bed.
The pistol O’Hearn had procured for him, which arrived by messenger wrapped in heavy paper, was not one he would have chosen for himself. A nickel-plated Sears, Roebuck .22-caliber Defender, it could be bought for sixty-eight cents new. At least it was a seven-shot weapon and all the chambers were filled, though it would need to be fired at close quarters to do much in the way of defending.
In the morning he tucked the revolver into his right boot before going down to the dining room. Cold, mistrustful silence greeted him, and he was left to eat alone. Not that he’d expected any different. O’Hearn had kept his promise to spread the word that J. F. Quinn was considered innocent of McClellan’s murder and would be returning to his work in the mine, but that didn’t exonerate him in the eyes of the hardrock men. Why, they’d be asking one another, would the mine superintendent have vouched for J. F. Quinn unless he’d been a spy in their midst all along?
The morning being cool, Quincannon walked uphill to the mine instead of waiting for one of the wagons. In the yard a few of the topmen gave him hostile looks and one muttered a slanderous allusion to his masculinity, all of which he steadfastly ignored. Few of the day-shift crew had assembled yet; it was still more than an hour shy of the whistle. He crossed directly to the gallows frame, where he found Joe Simcox in conversation with the hoist tender.
“You’ve no right to be walking around free,” Simcox said with a belligerent glare, “after what you done to Frank McClellan, much less allowed to go back down into the hole.”