Shooting For Justice by G. Tilman (top 100 novels txt) 📗

tracked them and even he thought so. Pinkerton, of course, denied the possibility. To me, Pinkerton was my father’s great misjudgment. I think the Scotsman meant well but believed his own horse manure.”

“I will keep my ears open, sir,” Pope said, having no plan whatsoever to get into the assassination with his dinner guests.

After the meeting, he called Sarah on the telephone.

“We cannot get used to this. Wherever we settle will probably be a decade or two away from most folk’s home having telephones,” he said.

“I am sure, darling. Is this just for the experience or do you just miss me terribly?” Sarah asked.

“All of the above and one more,” he said.

“Yes?”

“Before Tuesday, I would love to see as many pictures of Ogarita Booth Kane as you can round up.”

“Oh, boy. I would not doubt it was the old librarian for the Library of Congress who took a shot at you. He seems pretty infatuated with me.”

“Sarah, how could he not be? He’s a man. And he is breathing. At least for now. If age doesn’t get him, my friend Bowie here will if he keeps flirting with you.”

“If I had a trustworthy friend left at Pinkerton’s, I could get a real picture of her. But I don’t. If Allan thought for a second, I had an angle on any Booth, he would climb out of his deathbed and be here on the next train,” Sarah said.

“We have to keep this close to the vest. I don’t even like speculating on the telephone. We don’t know who is listening in,” Pope said. As he said it, the central exchange operator wrote something on a notepad and slipped it into an envelope. She would be rewarded well, at least by her standards.

Later, a telegram was received in Scarsdale, New York. Sans the requisite “stops”, it said, “Somebody named Kane has information for Pope. Will be delivered Tuesday by a person named Kane and his wife, Booth’s daughter. Will advise when get time.”

The edited response was, “Do not mess this up like last night. Hire better people or do it yourself.”

Sarah went shopping with May on Monday to fill out the menu for Tuesday’s dinner. They decided on roasted beef, potatoes and salad with cherry pie. Sarah selected a mid-range Cabernet Sauvignon and bought two bottles.

Once they got home and the housekeeper began cooking, Sarah went to the library and found several newspaper clippings with pictures of Ogarita Booth. She “borrowed” them quietly for Pope to look at, thinking she might return them the following day. Or perhaps not.

Pope returned in the evening. He looked at both clippings with photos of Booth.

“I swear I don’t think it’s the same woman I met at the Kane estate. Her face was not as round and the shapes of both her eyes and ears seemed different. One can lose weight and the face changes shape a bit with fuller cheeks. Ears, especially, do not change shape. They just get larger with age. The shape stays the same. See what you think tomorrow. Kane is a mystery man. I don’t distrust him; I simply don’t know what to make of him. He is an enigma,” he said. “A very dangerous enigma.”

“Have you given more thought to the shooter situation the other night?” Sarah asked.

“I have. We need to apprise May without scaring her. Just tell her to keep an eye out for anybody or anything out of the ordinary. I don’t think we need to tell her somebody shot at me to kill me. The bullet flew past my ear. It was a miss, not a warning.”

“What could you tell about the sound?” Sarah asked.

“It was a heavier caliber. Probably .44 or .45. Definitely not a .32 or even a .38. Most folks are not good enough to intentionally fire a round past somebody’s ear. He was aiming for my head.”

“I wonder if he was from out of town? Wouldn’t a .32 or .38 be more usual for an Eastern townie? To try to hide a big gun takes some experience.”

“You are dead-on, honey. Look at what you faced in Chicago and I faced in San Francisco. Usually smaller, lower caliber guns which did not require Buscadero-type belt holsters. I struggle to carry one of my .44s hidden under a suit, but I also have them backed up by a badge. Or, currently, three badges,” he noted with a grin.

“If anybody sees a gun print on you or me, we just flip the vest lapel and the explanation glints back at them,” she responded.

Sarah told Pope the menu for the dinner with the Kanes. He said she and May were the experts and he was just a carnivore. She was continually impressed with the vocabulary and knowledge of the classics of a man largely home schooled by a mountain man.

“How did Israel know so many classical things to teach you? And words like ‘carnivore’,” she finally asked.

“By reading. Even during nights after a long day of working a trapline for beaver, he would go back to camp and read by the light of his small campfire.”

“Why a small campfire?” she asked.

“Let me answer by unintentionally misquoting an old Indian saying. It was something like ‘white man builds a large fire, tells everyone where he is and his front burns and his backside freezes. Indian builds small fire nobody sees, leans in close and gets warm’. It’s close to what he used to quote to me when I was a boy, and he was teaching me woodcraft and tracking. Ask him next time we’re all together.”

“I will. You know, John, this thing of having people over to our house for dinner is kind of like being a normal, married couple.”

“It is. I like it. I will bet you find this couple as fascinating as I do,” he said.

May called them for dinner. Sarah asked her to join them as they often did.

“This is delicious, May,” Pope said of the fresh Chesapeake Bay rock fish, called striped bass