Flying Heart
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“It’s your own fault, Mr. O’Shea,” the woman said as she looked up at him and shook her head. “You can’t blame this on me.”
He ignored her statement and pulled his hat off to run a hand through his hair. “I need to talk with you about that night, Ms…?” He glanced down at the name written in ink on her left breast. “Spencer?” She nodded. “Do I have to come into your room or would it be all right if we spoke out here so no one hears us?”
“We’ll go into my room,” Spencer replied and stepped back from him and opened the door for him. The room was small and plain but clean and didn’t look like a room used by a man who had lived there alone for years.
It appeared as if he’d been using the room only since yesterday evening and even then only for sleeping. His belongings were neatly arranged inside a trunk on the floor beside the bed while clothes hung over a chair along with a few other odds and ends.
Her attention shifted from those things to the large bay window that overlooked the street outside. “If anyone sees us speaking together they’re bound to assume we…”
“Spoke together? No, I wouldn’t say we did, but I’m not sure what you mean by that,” O’Shea asked when she stopped and looked away from the window and into his eyes. “I told you earlier today that I couldn’t give you any information unless we talked privately. Now I don’t want to do that. You should know by now that I’ve got nothing to hide from anyone, including you.”
Her voice lowered slightly when she turned back toward him again. “How many others will you bring with you to speak with me?”
O’Shea laughed without humor. “Why does everyone think I’m going to take someone else into your room?” He sat on the edge of her bed and waited until she joined him before asking, “What are you really trying to find out here with me?”
“I’m not sure yet, but it has something to do with that man who killed himself last night. I overheard your conversation with Mrs. Crayton earlier and I saw the newspaper you were reading this morning.
It’s about some murders that happened several months ago in Colorado City, Arizona Territory. A man named John Haggerty killed two other men and then hanged himself because of what they accused him of.”
“The papers reported that I knew the man,” O’Shea said quietly.
“Yes, that was why I thought it odd that you hadn’t heard the news sooner. You know the newspapers don’t report anything unless it’s important enough.”
“It isn’t important to me.” He shrugged and ran a hand across his chin and neck. “I haven’t been following the reports. I don’t care about anyone killing themselves. Why is it so different this time than when another man hung himself in a town not too far away?”
“This was different,” Spencer said as she reached for the bottom drawer in the small desk sitting beside the bed and pulled it open. She took out the paper and unfolded it carefully. After glancing through the article, she handed it to O’Shea.
“You read this?” he asked when he noticed a familiar name and picture printed on the front page of the newspaper. He glanced up at Spencer as he held the paper in his hands.
“No, I was waiting for you to tell me what you wanted to know so I could ask if it might have anything to do with what’s bothering you. Now I guess you can tell me why it’s so important to you that we talk alone.”
A frown creased his forehead while he studied her face. “Are you still trying to get proof that I murdered the first man you mentioned?”
She smiled faintly. “I don’t think that’s necessary anymore.”
His eyes widened when he stared at her. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing, I just meant that the proof is gone. Your horse ran away after the first man was dead and I never found the second body.”
“So, no more evidence that I killed the man?” O’Shea asked when she started to turn away from him and walk back toward the window again.
“That’s not exactly true,” Spencer told him quietly and pointed to the front page of the paper. “It says here that the dead man shot another man before he hung himself. This man, who called himself ‘Jack,’ also died in the shootout but not before shooting the other man twice. He was killed by Haggerty.”
“What?” O’Shea’s eyebrows shot up high on his forehead. “Did you hear anything else from Jack or Haggerty?”
“I don’t know, but I think you’ll be hearing from them soon.”
“What do you mean? Who will they contact?” He looked around the room and stood quickly. “There must be a message on the front porch. They can send me word through the post office in town.”
“Wait! Don’t leave yet, please stay, and let’s figure out what’s happening. What makes you think these two men will come to speak to me again?”
“I don’t know, but I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough.”
“We’ll see,” he muttered as he picked up his hat and walked out the door.
***
Spencer watched O’Shea ride away down the dirt road leading out of town while she tried to decide what to do next. She had plenty of food in the house so there wasn’t much reason to return to the hotel. The sheriff probably already knew what she intended to do anyway, but it seemed like a good idea to make the trip and see what was going on at the ranch where they’d left their horses.
After getting directions from one of the men riding a nearby horse, she rode over to the main corral and led both horses back to the barn that housed several hundred other animals. When they arrived at the stables, she saw how many others had already gathered there to check on their own mounts.
Many of them had ridden into town to pick up supplies before heading home after their long vacation. Some would be traveling back through here and wouldn’t return until spring, but those who were staying longer would need to buy hay before winter weather came.
A couple of men were busy stacking bales inside the large barn, and others were helping move the heavy bales from the wagon outside to the barn for storage. There was only a small amount of work in preparing the horses for sale because most of them were already sold during the busy summer months.
But there were some new arrivals, including a pair of mares being led out of their stalls by their respective riders.
“How did things go with your brother-in-law?” Spencer asked a man wearing a white shirt and tan trousers.
The man turned and gave her a surprised look. “Who are you?”
“I’m Spencer, I traveled with O’Shea to Arizona last year, remember?” She nodded to show him that she remembered his name. “O’Shea mentioned you in connection with the man who shot and killed another man in town.”
The man frowned as he stared at her. “He said you were the woman who found the body and then helped me find the murderer.”
“Yes, that’s right,” Spencer told him with a faint smile. “Well, I’m sorry about your brother-in-law.”
“Thanks,” he replied. “But my brother-in-law’s murder has nothing to do with this. It happened at the ranch where he stayed and he was shot there. We’ve been keeping watch ever since the killer returned and he’s been spotted here now. That’s what brought us to town today—we’re looking for the man who killed my brother-in-law.”
“Wasn’t there anyone else working at that ranch besides O’Shea? Anybody else who could have taken the killer back to town after he killed that other man?”
“Yeah, but why should O’Shea help us?”
“Just curious, are you related to O’Shea in any way?”
“No,” the man said with a laugh. “I’m his younger brother, which doesn’t give me an automatic claim to his ranch.”
“Why does he call you his little brother when you’re older than he is?” She smiled. “Don’t get mad, just answer my question. Did O’Shea tell you he was his younger brother?”
“Of course!” He scowled at her. “What kind of question is that?”
“A very important question, considering I met his family when we traveled together,” she told him. “His mother and sister are twins, which means he had two sets of sisters.”
“Two?” He blinked, obviously stunned by the information. “What about his father?”
“Did O’Shea ever mention his father?”
“You mean, his real father?” He looked confused.
“Not really. I didn’t ask him about his past because I thought we might never travel together again. So, he never told you if he had a father or not?”
“Nope,” he shook his head and frowned. “That’s weird.”
“I know, it is,” she said with a shrug as she mounted her horse. “But I don’t think it has anything to do with the killer returning to the ranch. Let’s go take a look around the place, then ride back to town. You can tell the sheriff what you’ve seen and maybe he’ll come out to join us.”
They rode out of the stables and headed toward the ranch, but as they reached the gate, O’Shea came galloping back down the road and drove his horse into the open field. He stopped in front of Spencer, and his eyes widened in surprise as she rode up to him on her horse.
“What happened?” she asked. “Where did you go?”
“Someone saw the killer and called the police,” he explained. “The sheriff and one of the deputies came out of town, so we rode over here to see if he was still hanging around. We left before the deputy got here; he caught up with us just a minute ago.”
“It looks like the killer went somewhere else,” she said as she watched her own horse graze alongside the one O’Shea was leading back to the stable. “He’s not around anymore.”
“I hope the police arrest him before he returns,” O’Shea growled. “He’s too dangerous to be roaming free.”
“You sound like his mother,” she teased. “But I agree with you, let’s hope the police catch him.” She turned to Spencer. “Do you want to ride back to town or will you stay until we find this killer?”
“I’ll wait here,” Spencer told him. “We don’t have any reason to rush back and I can see that the sheriff won’t come out unless the killer makes another appearance. Besides, I wanted to ask you something.”
“Yes?”
“Does O’Shea have a younger brother who was also traveling with you?”
O’Shea looked at her in surprise. “How could you possibly know that? Don’t you remember that trip? You were only fifteen or sixteen years old—”
“I’ve traveled a lot since then,” Spencer shrugged. “And I read about that trip in newspapers, magazines, and even books about outlaws.”
“I guess you could say that,” he nodded and stared at his horse. “There’s no way he would have mentioned having a younger brother when I was with him. Why are you asking me this?”
“Just curious. And I wanted to apologize for calling you his little brother,” she told him.
“I don’t mind.” He looked away from her and cleared his throat. “So, what was the question you wanted to ask me?”
“If O’Shea mentioned having a brother on that trip,” she said, “was that true?”
He hesitated a moment, then slowly looked at her. “It was true.”
***
“Well, well, I suppose that means your little investigation into the O’Shea murders will now become a murder hunt instead of a simple search for information,” Deputy Sheriff J.D. Johnson said as he studied Spencer’s face carefully. “Have you learned anything new?”
“No, actually,” she told him. “I’m afraid all we found was that the killer isn’t around anymore.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because we discovered the same thing as O’Shea: The man who killed the ranchers is a ghost. No one saw him, so there’s no reason for him to return.”
“Ghosts?”
Spencer grinned as she shook her head. “Let me put it this way: If someone tells you that ghosts exist and you’re smart enough to ask how they prove it, then you’d realize that no one can ever prove there are ghosts. That’s why I prefer to call them phantoms. Now, let’s go inside, and I’ll explain my reasoning to you.”
They climbed back up the porch stairs, walked through the kitchen, and stepped out onto the porch, where J.D. took a seat. “Okay, let’s hear it.”
“When I first started investigating O’Shea’s murder,” she began, “my goal was to determine who killed the man, not how they did it.”
“Then why are you searching for the killer now?” he asked as he folded his arms across his chest.
“Because, if we don’t find him before the killer does, he might kill again. That’s why I decided to change my focus to finding out who the killer is and where he goes next—before he kills again.”
J.D. leaned forward in his chair and crossed his arms as well. “You seem to think the killer has some connection to the O’Shea family, or that his actions have been motivated by revenge against his victims.”
“That’s right,” she nodded. “As soon as I realized that we were looking for a ghost rather than an actual person, I knew it had something to do with the O’Sheas. The ranching clan has always kept to themselves; they have little interaction with others.
It wasn’t too long after the last murder that rumors started circulating about how their family feud might have triggered the killings. When O’Shea disappeared, the sheriff suspected that he fled in shame because of his involvement with the killings. But I don’t believe that was the case.”
“What do you mean?”
“For starters, O’Shea was a very proud man, and I doubt he would run away in shame. I also didn’t think his disappearance was connected to the murders. The fact that O’Shea was missing during the last three killings was probably just a coincidence.”
“How do you figure?” J.D. asked skeptically. “A man like O’Shea wouldn’t disappear without making sure everyone in the county knew exactly where he went.”
“No, but he might leave behind a clue. And it turned out to be an important clue that led us straight to the killer,” she explained.
“The letter,” he murmured.
“Yes. A note written to me from O’Shea’s dead wife was the key that unlocked that box. The murderer gave me proof that O’Shea was responsible for the murders. That note proved it was no coincidence that O’Shea was gone during each of those killings.”
“And the letters,” J.D. mused, “are they real?”
“Absolutely,” Spencer nodded. “We found several of them on the desk inside the safe deposit vault. They’re all dated between the time of O’Shea’s death and when we opened it.”
“Why weren’t they sent?”
“Because, as far as I know, there’s no mail delivery at the bank. So, if they were mailed to anyone in town, they would have been delivered there.”
“But you didn’t check,” J.D. accused.
She shook her head. “There was no need to check. We found more letters in O’Shea’s office, and we already knew that his family members received them after his death. It was easy to determine that they must have been mailed to the wrong place.”
“So what happened to all of those letters?” he asked. “Were they destroyed? Or did O’Shea’s family save them?”
“Neither. The letters are in storage in Denver, so we’ll retrieve them once we’re done here. But that’s beside the point; it doesn’t matter where they are. What matters is that they were written by O’Shea and that he was indeed the killer. He wanted me to see what he’d done in order to send a warning.”
J.D. stared at her for several seconds, trying to sort out the facts. “If that’s true—”
“It’s absolutely true,” she told him firmly. “I can’t imagine any other explanation for O’Shea’s disappearance except that he fled in shame over what he did. His wife never wrote those letters—that’s clear enough. And it doesn’t explain the connection between the O’Sheas and the killer. Why would someone like that have anything to do with O’Shea?”
“I’m still not convinced,” J.D. muttered under his breath as he ran his hand back through his hair. “But maybe if we talk this over…”
She shook her head. “This conversation is over.”
He looked away and took a deep breath, then sighed loudly and rose from his seat. “Come on,” he said as he headed toward the door. “Let’s go back upstairs.”
Spencer stood up as well and followed J.D. down the stairs. As they walked, she tried to think of another way to convince J.D. that she was right about O’Shea being guilty, but she couldn’t come up with anything else. She hadn’t expected him to immediately accept her theory.
After all, he had only recently returned home and was still in the early stages of recovering from his ordeal as a prisoner of the Chinese warlord. Even now he was still in shock when he thought about the brutality of that horrible experience, and she didn’t want to add to his stress by bringing up such painful memories.
Still, it hurt her deeply that he refused to listen to her, even if he was just doing it to protect her.
When they reached the bottom of the steps, J.D. stopped at the front door. “We’ll have to work fast,” he said quietly. “Before O’Shea leaves town for good or someone else comes into the picture. This is a lot easier for you than it is for me, but it’s important that you stay focused.
There are too many loose ends here and if we don’t find out who the killer is soon, there’s going to be a lot of questions asked.”
“I understand,” Spencer promised. “I’ve never worked a case so quickly before, but I’ll do my best.”
With one last long look at her, he turned away and stepped outside.
The End