The Guilty Page 13

  “Places like that keep this town going,” she added. “Heck, there wouldn’t be any need for this hotel without them. Anyway, enjoy your trip, don’t worry ’bout what I said. There’s enough real history in that place to send you home happier’n a pig in slop.”

  I thanked Marjorie, grabbed my recorder and notebook and headed out. The museum was on East Sumner Avenue, less than half a mile from the motel. It was just past eight-thirty. All the houses and shops looked like they’d been pulled from old Western movies. Low-hanging awnings, typeface with old-style lettering, bright yellows and reds slapped on warped wooden signs. It was like the town was bending over backward to retain its precious nostalgia.

  The Museum of Outlaws and Lawmen was a one-story building that occupied most of one block. Sitting outside were two pitch-black cannons aimed at each other across the entryway, as though daring visitors to step past. Beside them stood a carriage-style wheel, painted bright yellow. The sign-age showed an image of a man leaning on a rifle. A rifle which, upon closer inspection, looked pretty darn like a Winchester 1873.

  There were no lights on and the windows were barricaded. Not boarded, but barricaded as though the museum was defending itself from an impending attack. And if Marjorie was telling the truth, maybe it needed that line of defense.

  I wiggled the front door, which was locked, but nothing that would have prevented anyone with amateur lock-picking skills and ten free minutes from circumventing. I stuck my hands in my pockets and waited.

  At ten to nine, a thirty-something man with shoulder-length sandy blond hair, tattered jeans and cowboy boots, walked past the cannons. He nodded at me, took a ring of keys from his pocket and unlocked the front door.

  He turned to me and said, “You here for the museum?”

  “Yessir,” I said.

  “You a college boy?”

  I smiled. “No, sir, a few years out. Just came to visit.” He nodded, as though that was a suitable answer.

  “Just give me ten minutes to open up.” He went inside and I waited.

  Twelve minutes later he propped the front door open and waved me inside.

  The museum was astonishing. It only consisted of four or five large rooms, but each room was packed to the gills with antique guns, bullets, cannons, actual carriages, bows and arrows, belts, rifles and every and any other weapon that looked like it might have been used by, or against, John Wayne. The walls were covered with glassed-in documents that were remarkably well-preserved, along with photos of the writers and/or recipients of the correspondence. The air had a musty smell, the floor speckled with sawdust.

  The manager took a seat behind a counter, put his feet up and opened a newspaper.

  “You need anything,” he said to me, “just holler.”

  Behind the counter hung several replica guns that were available for purchase. Several boxes of dead ammunition lined the shelves. A small sign read 10 Shells For $5.

  I paid the ten-dollar entrance fee. A few other visitors ambled in after me, also happy to pay and gaze at the history of violence.

  I took a slow lap around, surveying the dozens of guns, even running my fingers along the cannons that guarded the entryway into each new room. One room was decorated to resemble an Old West blacksmith’s shop, complete with anvil and tools, bent metals and horseshoes. Along the walls were rifle parts in various stages of development, like a before-and-after of gun manufacturing.

  After sating my curiosity, I made my way around the museum until I found the exhibit featuring the military cavalry sword of John Chisum which Marjorie claimed was a fake.

  The sword was mounted in a glass case nearly four feet long. The blade was slightly curved. I examined the security glass, wondered if the sword had actually been stolen. And if so, why it had never been reported.

  Behind the sword was a black-and-white photograph featuring a caravan of horses, and a portrait of a man who was presumably John Chisum. A black placard above the sword explained that Chisum was a cattle driver, and one of the first to send a herd into New Mexico. Chisum was a tangential part of the infamous Lincoln County Wars, a feud between businessmen Alexander McSween and John Tunstall and their rivals Lawrence Murphy and James Dolan. During these wars, Chisum had been accosted by a band of outlaws known as the Regulators. The Regulators were notorious cattle thieves, who pilfered from Chisum and other herders, but were deputized after Tunstall’s murder. They hunted down the men who killed Tunstall, killing four including a corrupt sheriff named William Brady.

  According to a placard on the wall, the Regulators consisted of men named Dick Brewer, Jim French, Frank McNab, John Middleton, Fred Waite, Henry Brown and Henry McCarty.

  Next to the name of Henry McCarty, it read: aka William H. Bonney, aka Billy the Kid.

  In the very last room of the museum I found what I’d come across the country for: an exhibit featuring the Winchester 1873.

  Behind a crystal-clear glass case was mounted a pristine Winchester, along with various posters and propaganda leaflets. I took out the Winchester Xeroxes, compared them. The weapon in front of me looked identical to the one on the page.

  Inside the case on a poster, written in big bold letters beneath two opposing firing pistols, were the words: Winchester 1873 edition: The Gun That Won the West.

  There were several bullets mounted to the display below the weapon. A placard identified them as authentic .44-40 magnum ammunition, the very kind used by that edition Winchester.

  I compared the gun and the Xerox until I was reasonably certain they were one and the same. Then I waited until the museum had quieted and the manager was free of troublesome tourists. He was reading a copy of the Albuquerque Journal, looked bored to death, but he set it on the counter when he saw me approach.

  “Help you?” he said.

  I pointed at the relics lining the walls.

  “This is some pretty amazing stuff,” I said, opening a window for him.

  “Man, you don’t have to tell me that. I get a buzz just sitting behind this desk.” The Albuquerque Journal was still splayed open on the counter.

  “No doubt,” I said absently. I nodded at the display containing Chisum’s military sword. “How’d you come upon that beauty?”

  “John Chisum,” he said without thinking. “One of the most influential cattle drivers in U.S. history. Blazed the Chisum trail from Paris, Texas, all the way to the Pecos Valley. You know John Wayne himself played John Chisum in a movie?”

  “No messing? Which one?”

  “Was called Chisum.”

  “Guess that makes sense.”

  “Anyway, when Mr. Chisum passed on, died in Eureka Springs, his great granddaughter endowed this museum with the sword. D’you know Chisum’s only children were born to him by a slave girl he owned?”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “’At’s a true fact.”

  “Sword like that,” I said, “probably worth, what, few grand?” I saw the man’s eyes twitch, and he looked down for a split second.

  “Try a few hundred grand. The country’s swarming with collectors of old Western antiques. ’Course most of ’em call it memorabilia, like a freaking baseball card. Most of ’em wouldn’t know a Winchester from Worcestershire sauce, and I never heard of a baseball card used in a gunfight.”

  “Speaking of antiques,” I said. “Is that a real Winchester ’73 on the wall?”

  The man’s chest puffed out with pride.

  “You’re darn right it is. Gun that won the West, gun that made this country what it is today. Winchester made over seven hundred thousand of those darlin’s back in the day. Nowadays, a ’73 in working condition goes for upward of six figures on the open market.”

  “Bet it goes for even more on the closed market,” I said. The man winked at me, smirked.

  “You’d probably be right there.”

  “Can’t imagine the security you must have in place to keep valuables like that. I mean, there must be a few million dollars’ worth of memorabi
lia here.” The man bristled.

  “We take the proper precautions,” he said.

  “Have you ever had a break-in? A robbery?”

  The man took a split second too long to say, “Never.”

  “That Winchester,” I said. “How long have you kept that particular rifle in this museum?”

  He took several seconds to say, “I reckon upward of ten years.”

  “And you’ve never been robbed.”

  Finally he took a step back, eyed me suspiciously. “Mind if I ask what you’re asking all these questions fer?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I reached into my bag, pulled out the tape recorder and notepad first, and then my press identification. “Henry Parker. Pleasure to meet you. I’m a reporter with the New York Gazette. And I don’t think that Winchester in your case is authentic. In fact, I’m willing to bet the gun that’s supposed to be in that case is the same one used in three recent murders in New York this past week.”

  The blood drained from the man’s face, and his jaw dropped just a bit. “Murders, you’re sayin’? I read something in the papers, that pretty blond girl…”

  “Athena Paradis,” I said.

  “She was killed by a—” he nodded his head toward the Winchester case “—model ’73?”

  I said nothing, turned on the tape recorder. “That’s a replica Winchester in your case, isn’t it? Where’s the original?”

  “I’d like you to leave right now.”

  “If your Winchester was stolen, I need to know now. We need to alert the authorities in New York. More lives are in danger. Someone is using your gun and—”

  “I don’t know anything about that,” he said, and picked up the phone. I had seconds before he called the cops and I was done. I looked at the nameplate. It read Rex Sheehan.

  “Rex,” I said. His eyes met mine. “Even if you call the cops, at the very least they’ll want to run tests on the gun. If you tell me now, at least we can try to keep some people alive.” Rex put down the phone. He bowed his head and crossed himself.

  “I wanted to tell someone,” he said solemnly. “But we don’t have the money for security. We’re not a government-funded museum like that fancy one down at New Mexico State. We get by on donations. And if you look around, I don’t need to tell you we’re not exactly the Met here.”

  “So somebody broke in and stole the gun,” I said. “Did they steal anything else?”

  He shook his head. His lip trembled. I felt sorry for him.

  “Please don’t tell anyone this,” he said. “If people find out we’re displaying a fake they’ll just stop coming altogether. Besides, it doesn’t really matter, does it? If people think it’s real, who gets hurt?”

  “There are three dead people in New York who can answer that better than me.”

  Rex bowed his head.

  “But it still doesn’t add up,” I said. “1873 Winchesters are a rare model, but not extinct, right?”

  “No, there’s a few still out there. Collectors, mostly.”

  “So why come all the way out to Fort Sumner, New Mexico? Why would someone rob a museum when there had to be easier ways?”

  Again Rex said nothing.

  “Tell me about the gun,” I said. “It’s not just a model 1873, is it? There’s something else.” The man nodded.

  “The gun that was stolen,” he sobbed, “the one you’re saying was used in those murders, well it belonged to William H. Bonney. Most people know him as Billy the Kid.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Paulina Cole wrote long into the night.

  She wrote until the other offices at the Dispatch were dark, until her colleagues had long ago gone home and surrendered to the comfort of a glass of wine and their inviting beds. She sewed together the interview like a trained surgeon, connecting arteries, nerves and capillaries together to create one body of work that would pump blood and live just the way she wanted it to. Read the way she wanted it to.

  She could picture Mya Loverne’s face, that poor, destroyed face, the shell of a girl whose life’s flame had been snuffed out long before its time. So many factors had driven Mya to the brink. Thanks to her father’s chummy relationship with most gossip columnists, the majority of his philandering never made it to the printed page. That didn’t mean it didn’t ruin many a dinner conversation, estrange a daughter in the midst of the most difficult time of her life. Now it was time to collect on that debt. Mya had suffered terribly. But through pain she would regain her life. She was the victim. And the culprit was not only her lech of a father, but Henry Parker, as well.

  Henry had fractured Mya, literally and figuratively. All her troubles since the dissolution of their relationship had applied leverage to that emotional fracture, spreading it until she cracked open fully.

  Paulina had dozens of pages scattered about her desk, three empty cups of coffee strewn about. She picked up the pages, plucked a sentence from different ones, felt her collar begin to burn when she read over all the stories about Henry she’d written last year. Henry, who came to New York as Jack O’Donnell and Wallace Langston’s golden boy. Who was accused of murder and embarrassed the profession she’d devoted her life to. If payback was a bitch, Paulina was its mother.

  And just like Henry struck the flint that burned Mya, this story was the spark that would burn down the New York Gazette. The kindling was there, David Loverne a juicy log, and she was going to blast that place apart.

  Fuck Wallace.

  Fuck Harvey Hillerman.

  Fuck Jack O’Donnell.

  Fuck Henry Parker and everything he was.

  But for now, she had to keep working. Soon the paper would be printed. Soon enough, she would burn their whole house to the ground.

  * * *

  Just several blocks away, at a desk cracked and worn with age, an old man sat typing. The desk was covered in coffee stains and pencil markings, its owner never bothering to clean them, believing they added personality. The corkboard above his computer was adorned with pictures, awards, plaques, books with his name printed on the spine, and a life dedicated to his craft. It was here that Jack O’Donnell put the finishing touches on his story for the next day’s Gazette.

  When the story was done, after he’d saved it on his word processor, made sure he’d written enough inches, and combed through to minimize any errors that would drive his editors crazy, Jack O’Donnell sat back in his chair. He pulled a flask of Jack Daniel’s from his leather briefcase and took a sip. It was a good story, one that dropped a potential bombshell on the Paradis investigation. No other paper had this. It was a Gazette exclusive.

  After fifty years in news, his body still tingled at the thrill of a good story.

  Before sending it off, Jack put the final touch on the article. Underneath the byline Jack added: With additional reporting by Henry Parker.

  And come morning, the sparks would fly.

  CHAPTER 26

  I stared at the weak metal fence which contained three graves resting side-by-side, one of which belonged to the outlaw known as Billy the Kid. The fence was in the middle of a large patch of dirt, surrounded by piles of flowers, photographs and even bullets. Never had I seen such gestures for such a shoddy excuse for a tomb.

  A headstone sat behind the graves, three names engraved on it. The stone looked fairly well-maintained, as opposed to the rest of the mausoleum.

  “The headstone’s been stolen three times since 1940,” Rex said. “At some point they figured it cost more to guard the darn thing than it did to throw up a new headstone. That’s why you see here a gate my eight-year-old niece could pry apart.”

  “Kind of like the security system in your museum,” I said, with more than a hint of sarcasm. Inside the cage were three burial mounds, side by side. At the far end of the enclosure was one large headstone engraved with three epitaphs.

  “That’s Tom O’Folliard and Charlie Bowdre, on the ends,” Rex said. “Friends of the Kid. Billy, he’s in the middle grave.”

  A m
arker sat in front of the graves. It was carved in bronze, about two feet tall, with a triangular top. It read:

  THE KID

  Born Nov. 23, 1860

  Killed July 14, 1881

  BANDIT KING

  HE DIED AS HE HAD LIVED

  * * *

  Quarters were sprinkled atop the earth. “Tributes,” Rex said. On the headstone was chiseled one word, Pals. Above the headstone was a garish yellow sign that read Replica.

  And according to dozens of signs, brochures and tourist bureaus, this was the grave site of Henry McCarty, also known as William Antrim, also known as William H. Bonney, also known as Billy the Kid.

  “This grave site’s pretty much the only thing keeping old Fort Sumner alive,” Rex said. “State legislature made us put that ‘replica’ sign up there, but once a year or so the cops come out here to arrest some hooligans looking to steal the damn thing. I swear, ain’t nothin’ sacred anymore, they could buy their own sign for a buck ninety-five.”

  “But it wouldn’t have been inside Billy the Kid’s grave,” I said. “There’s a mystique to him. Just like to a murderer, there’s a mystique to using his gun.”

  Rex scratched at his neck. I could tell he’d long ago given in to the lore and myth of this town. I didn’t know a whole lot about Billy the Kid, only what movies or books passed down through their own lenses. I knew Billy was a celebrity in the southwest during the late 1800s, had allegedly murdered over twenty people before his twenty-first birthday, and was eventually killed by Pat Garrett, a newly appointed deputy who used to ride with the Kid. I remembered reading somewhere that other than Count Dracula, no other figure in popular culture had been immortalized so often on page or screen. He was a legend, plain and simple.

  “If you used to have Billy the Kid’s actual Winchester, the one he used to kill,” I said, “why wouldn’t you advertise the hell out of it? Why display it as a regular Winchester 1873 when it could be the highlight of your museum?”

  “We did, for a while,” Rex said. “Then it got stolen, and we didn’t want to take the chance. Nobody knows who the hell John Chisum is, but everyone wants a piece of the Kid. Besides, people visit old Fort Sumner to see this grave site. They come to our museum for side trips, before they spend their money on souvenirs and lunch.”