The Guilty hp-2 Page 13

  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 memorabilia 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 governmentfunded 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."

  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.

  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 marker 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."

  "And nobody cared that it suddenly was gone?"

  "Anyone who asked, I told 'em some rich collector bought it."

  I asked, "How long ago was it stolen?"

  Rex stared at the ground.

  "You know Billy built this town," he said, nodding at the grave site. "That man was a goddamn hero. Most don't look at it like that. But he fought for good."

  "I bet the twenty-some-odd people he killed would disagree."

  "Any war, man, you have to spill blood to do what's right."

  "Said like a true patriot," I said, biting.

  "You don't understand."

  "Enlighten me."

  "When he was young, Billy was hired by an Englishman named John Tunstall. Tunstall was a rancher, in a territorial feud with two men named Lawrence Murphy and James

  Dolan. John Tunstall aimed to take Billy under his wing, turn a troubled youth into a good man. John Tunstall was murdered by Dolan and Murphy, who'd paid Sheriff William Brady to

  carry out the crime. After that, Billy and his boys united to form a band called the Regulators. The Regulators killed

  Brady, and because of that, the governor of New Mexico sccked the hounds of hell on Billy and his gang. But somewhere along the line, the Regulators traded places with the devil. The Regulators wanted to kill those who'd done wrong, folks who were contaminating everything that was good."

  "There's a man in New York," I said, "using Billy's gun to kill people. There's no doubt in my mind he stole that gun from your museum. A witness said the killer looked young, in his early to midtwenties."

  "Just like the Kid," Rex said. Then he cocked his head.

  "How old are you, Henry?" I looked at him. And didn't answer.

  "Someone is looking to carry on Billy's legacy," I said.

  "You say Billy meant to create order. He wanted to kill those who'd done wrong."

  "That's right." Rex thought for a moment. "You reckon this killer of yours is some screwed-up kid, wants to play cowboys and Indians?"

  "I doubt it. This isn't just some kid who wasn't loved enough by his mommy and daddy," I said. "This guy has a motive. He thinks he's doing good."

  We stood there in silence, staring at the grave site of one of the most legendary murderers in history. A man who died at the age of twenty-one, having ended one life for each of his years. And yet over the years the Kid had become immortalized as a hero. An icon worthy of legend. How could a murderer incite such passion? How could a man seemingly deputized by the devil himself be remembered as an angel?

  A beeping sound broke the silence. I plucked my cell phone from my pocket, opened it. It was a text message from Jack.

  It was two sentences. When I read them, my blood ran cold.

  There's been another murder. It's David Loverne.

  I couldn't speak. Mya's father.

  The last time I saw him was at his daughter's side at the hospital, where…

  I called you, Henry. I remembered Mya's voice on that terrible day.

  "I have to go," I said to Rex, shutting the phone. "I need to get home right away. I appreciate the help."

  "You gonna be, you know, telling the police about this?"

  "Yes, I am."

  "Figures. Anyway, you'll want to look at Brushy Bill.

  Dollars to dineros if it's Billy's legacy you're investigating, it's something to do with ol' Brushy."

  I nodded at Rex, then half-walked, dazed, back to the hotel. I threw everything in my duffel, jumped in the rental car and headed toward Albuquerque.

  The drive seemed to last for days. Visions in my mind reminded me of that night, seeing Mya's father there, holding her hand. Me not being able to apologize because words were useless. Knowing Mya had been hurt, and that I hadn't been there for her.

  Athena Paradis, Joe Mauser, Jeffrey Lourdes and now

  David Loverne. Somehow Mya's father fit in the killer's demented pattern. But how?

  I'd heard rumblings about David Loverne's misdeeds. That his marriage wasn't as rock-solid as the facade he put on in public. Many felt that at some point scandal would hit, and hit hard. It was only a matter of time. I thought of Mya, how she was so damaged, how she'd been reaching out to me and

  I'd been slapping her hand away. If she ever needed a friend, someone who used to know her better than anyone, now was the time for me to be there for her.

  I tried Mya's cell phone. It went right to voice mail. I couldn't leave a message. I had to see her. Then I remembered her text message.

  I'm sorry. Forgive me.

  I was numb when I arrived at the airport. They charged a hundred bucks to change my flight. I paid it in cash.

  I called Amanda and left her a message. Then I called Jack and told him I would get to the office that night. He told me to read the Gazette and the Dispatch before I saw anybody in

  New York. His voice had both an urgency and sadness to it.

  My stomach turned over.

  On my way to the terminal, I stopped by a news kiosk
. I grabbed a bottle of orange juice and went to the newspaper rack. Thankfully they carried both the Dispatch and the

  Gazette. I paid for the drink and papers and took them to the gate. Sitting down, I took a long gulp of juice and then laid the papers out on my lap.

  The Gazette' s headline read:

  Ballistics Sheds New Light On Murders

  Killer possibly using "Gun that won the West" by Jack O'Donnell with additional reporting by Henry Parker

  Then I looked at the Dispatch. There were two stories competing for dominance. The first headline read:

  Athena Paradis's Greek Boy Toy Speaks Out

  Tells why murdered heiress was second to none in the bedroom

  Then I read the second headline. I didn't hear the juice bottle hit the ground when I dropped it. Or the announcement that my plane was boarding. All I could see was that headline:

  "He Left Me Bleeding On The Street"

  Mya Loverne, David's daughter, comes clean about the relationship that nearly ended her life by Paulina Cole

  27

  Just months ago, voters looked at congressional candidate

  David Loverne as a man who held family above all else.

  A beautiful wife, Cindy. An ambitious daughter, Mya.

  But all this is gone after a series of revelations that have shocked New Yorkers and destroyed a family that seemed indestructible.

  David Loverne is being accused of perpetuating a long affair with a former aide, Esther Margolis. Ms.

  Margolis claims she is pregnant with Loverne's child, and that Mr. Loverne paid her sums totaling nearly ten thousand dollars in order to keep quiet and raise the child alone. Mr. Loverne refused comment for this article, but Ms. Margolis said, "I couldn't face looking at my son years from now and lying to him about who his father is."

  I read the rest of the article, my heart hammering, hands shaking. Then I came to a line that nearly had me shouting in anger. It read: Yet David and Cindy Loverne are not the only members of the Loverne family whose world has been shat tered.