The Judas Tree Read online

  Stooping down, Starbuck grasped the lid and swung it aside. He fished a match out of his vest pocket and struck it, cupping the flame in both hands. Palmer leaned into the grave as he opened his hands in a flare of light. The coffin was empty.

  Starbuck doused the match and hoisted himself out of the hole. Palmer was slack-jawed, still on one knee, staring downward with stunned disbelief. A moment passed, then he stood and glanced at Starbuck with a baffled look. His face was pinched in an oxlike expression.

  “I guess that makes me the prize sucker of all time.”

  “Forget it,” Starbuck said with grim satisfaction. “I wasn’t sure myself till I struck that match.”

  “Dirty bastards!” Palmer cursed furiously. “Half the town must have been in on it!”

  “I’d tend to doubt it,” Starbuck said quietly. “Outside of Skinner and his bunch, all they needed was the undertaker. Somebody probably put a gun in his ear and gave him the word. So long as it wasn’t his own funeral, why should he care?”

  “He’ll damn sure care when I get through with him!”

  “Don’t go off half-cocked,” Starbuck cautioned. “Before you kick up too much dust, there’s one last thing I want you to look into.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The Judas,” Starbuck replied levelly. “Find him and you’ll have an even stronger case against Skinner.”

  Palmer uttered a noncommittal grunt. “Tell you the truth, all this Judas business sounds like a pipe dream to me.”

  “No,” Starbuck corrected him, “there’s got to be an inside man. The holdups are too slick for it to work any other way. The case won’t be closed till we nail him to the wall.”

  “Easy for you to say,” Palmer grumbled. “Where would you suggest I look?”

  “Omar Stimson,” Starbuck advised. “Once he turns canary, he’ll whistle any tune you name. Ask him about our Judas.”

  “Any more instructions?”

  “I reckon that ought to do it.”

  “Then I’ve got a question of my own.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Now that you’ve looked in the coffin, what’s next? You had something in mind, or we wouldn’t be out robbing graves in the middle of the night.”

  A wintry smile lighted Starbuck’s eyes. “While you’re handling things here, I figured I’d tie off a loose end.”

  Palmer’s gaze sharpened. He stared at Starbuck with the beady look of a stuffed owl. “What loose end?”

  “A little lady by the name of Alice Carver.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Starbuck traveled by stage from Virginia City. He took a roundabout route, switching from stage to train. At a whistle stop outside Butte, he finally boarded the Union Pacific eastbound. His destination was Chicago.

  Once burned, Starbuck was now twice as careful. He assumed he was being watched night and day by Stimson’s men. In turn, his every movement would be reported to Cyrus Skinner. He therefore took inordinate measures to guarantee he wasn’t tailed. On guard constantly, he at last assured himself no one shadowed his backtrail. Only then did he discard the guise of Lee Hall and assume his own identity. He boarded the eastbound train confident his destination was unknown.

  Four nights later he arrived in Chicago. Once inside the depot, he bought a newspaper and turned to the theatrical advertisements. The Buffalo Bill Combination was currently playing at Sprague’s Olympic Theater. He checked his watch against the show schedule and saw that he still had time to catch the evening performance. Outside Union Station he stepped into a hansom cab and told the driver not to spare the whip. He was anxious now for what seemed a long-overdue meeting with Alice Carver.

  The ride to the Loop district was a treat in itself. Starbuck was widely traveled, but St. Louis was the largest city he’d previously visited. Framed against a full moon, the skyline of downtown Chicago was a staggering sight. The tall buildings dwarfed anything he had seen before and made Denver look like a quaint hamlet. He was particularly impressed by the brick and stone architecture, the absence of buildings constructed of wood. Then he recalled the Great Fire of ’71, a holocaust that had razed three square miles and left a hundred thousand people homeless. Wood was subsequently banned as a building material in the downtown area. A new Chicago rose from the ashes, and within a year the restoration was complete. Starbuck, never easily impressed, was taken with the Windy City.

  On Randolph Street, the hansom dropped him outside the theater. Show posters announced William F. Cody’s appearance in an original play entitled Buffalo Bill’s Pledge. Starbuck inquired at the box office and was directed to the stage entrance. He proceeded down a passageway between buildings and talked his way past a watchman at the rear door. Backstage was a tableau of pandemonium in motion. Frontiersmen in makeup and Indians tricked out in war paint were rushing about in a general atmosphere of confusion. A donkey, which apparently had some role in the melodrama, was braying loudly and kicking at anyone within range. To an outsider, the show business had the look of disorganized chaos.

  Starbuck spotted Cody standing in the wings. The scout was attired in fringed buckskins, bleached a snowy white, and the ivory-handled Peacemakers were strapped around his waist. From beneath a broad sombrero his hair flowed over his shoulders in hotcurled waves. He turned as Starbuck spoke his name. He smelled of rosewater lotion and rye whiskey.

  “Well, bless my soul!” he cackled. “Where’d you drop from, Luke?”

  “Points west,” Starbuck said evasively. “Just pulled in a little while ago.”

  “Don’t tell me you came all that way to see the show!”

  “Not exactly,” Starbuck commented. “I’m looking for Doc Carver.”

  “Look no further!” Cody flung his arm in a grand gesture. “There’s your man!”

  Starbuck moved closer and gazed past the drawn curtains. Carver was onstage, standing near the footlights, with his face to the audience. He had a rifle balanced over his shoulder and he was aligning the sights through a small hand mirror. His assistant, Sally Devlin, was upstage, hands clasped behind her back and her profile turned toward him. A lighted cigarette, trailing wisps of smoke, protruded from her lips. Below the footlights, a snare drum rolled ominously from the orchestra pit. Carver let the tension build a moment longer, then fired over his shoulder. The cigarette exploded in a shower of sparks and tobacco, and the girl immediately held the shredded stub high overhead. The audience broke out in a cheering, spontaneous ovation.

  Carver shamelessly milked the applause. Then, ever the consummate showman, he swiftly moved on to the next trick shot. Starbuck watched only a short time before turning back to Cody. He motioned toward the stage.

  “How long does the act last?”

  “Three more shots.” Cody adopted a lordly stance, thumbs hooked in his gunbelt. “Doc’s a great crowd pleaser! He gets them warmed up before we do the play. Always helps to have an audience in the proper mood.”

  “He’s good, all right.” Starbuck’s tone was matter-of-fact. “Course, his daughter’s not bad, either. Takes spunk to let yourself be shot at.”

  “Alice is a trouper!” Cody said effusively. “Born to the show business—a natural performer!”

  “She’s easy on the eyes, too.”

  “Very easy!” Cody lowered one eyelid in a burlesque leer. “I sometimes regret that I’m a happily married man.”

  “I suppose she has lots of gentlemen admirers?”

  “Their number is legion, Luke! So many she has to fight them off with a switch!”

  “You don’t say?” Starbuck mused out loud. “The only stage women I’ve known were sort of fast and loose. Guess she’s not that way, huh?”

  “Oh—” Cody hesitated, cocked his head in a shrewd look. “All of a sudden, I detect a detective at work. Why so much interest in Alice? I thought you were here to see Doc.”

  “Curiosity.” Starbuck spread his hands, shrugged. “Last time around, Doc introduced her to me as Sally Devlin. I reckon it got me
to wondering.”

  “That’s just her stage name . . .” Cody’s voice trailed off and he suddenly looked upset. “God-almighty! I recollect you told me Doc was involved in a civil suit. That wasn’t so, was it? It’s a divorce action, involving Alice! She’s been named as a corespondent, hasn’t she?”

  “Why?” Starbuck inquired calmly. “Does she play around with married men?”

  “I warned Doc!” Cody fumed. “She’s a wonderful girl and bright as a penny. But she’s got the morals of a heathen squaw!”

  “So she does play—”

  Starbuck glanced past him and abruptly stopped. The stage door had opened and two men paused at the watchman’s desk. One of them was Omar Stimson’s bouncer, the hooligan who had spotted him on the street in Virginia City. He was vaguely aware of applause and the blare of the orchestra from the theater. He sensed the trick-shot act was ending and the Carvers would walk offstage at any moment. His gaze shifted quickly to Cody.

  “Are those Peacemakers loaded?”

  “Only with blanks.” Cody read his expression, tensed. “What’s wrong, Luke?”

  “Don’t look around!” Starbuck ordered. “A couple of hardcases just came through the back door. I’ve got reason to believe they’re here to kill Alice Carver.”

  “Judas Priest!” Cody croaked. “What are we—”

  “Shut up and listen!” Starbuck interrupted. “Do exactly what I say! Get out on that stage and stop the Carver girl. Don’t let her come back here! Understand?”

  Cody paled. “She’s already coming offstage! Her and Doc!”

  “Then move—now!”

  Starbuck walked toward the rear door. Behind him, he heard a muffled conversation as Cody tried to stall the Carvers. Directly ahead, the two men were moving slowly in his direction. Neither of them recognized him, for he was no longer in the guise of Lee Hall. Their eyes went instead to the wings, and Alice Carver. He halted several paces away, blocking their path.

  “You boys should’ve stayed in Virginia City.”

  Too late, the men reacted to the words. Starbuck’s hand was in motion even as he spoke. The Colt appeared from beneath his suit jacket and leveled at arm’s length. A beat behind, the men clawed at the pistols inside their coats. Starbuck fired two rapid shots, one report blending with the other. The first slug drilled through the bouncer’s breastbone and the second struck him below the left nipple. He collapsed as though his legs had been chopped off and fell spread-eagle on the floor. His sphincter voided and a bulldog pistol slipped from his hand.

  The other man got off one shot. The bullet nicked Starbuck’s sleeve and thudded into a stage set across the way. Starbuck brought the Colt to bear and emptied it in a blinding roar. His shots were deliberate and spaced no more than a pulsebeat apart. The heavy slugs stitched three red dots straight up the man’s sternum to the base of his throat. His mouth opened in a silent scream and he vomited a hogshead of blood down his shirtfront. Then the light went out in his eyes and his knees folded like an accordion. He slumped to the floor without a sound.

  Still watchful, Starbuck shucked empties and reloaded the Colt. He moved forward and checked both men, satisfying himself that they were dead. All around him the troupe of actors, frontiersmen and Indians alike, were gawking at him with looks of popeyed wonder. At last, turning away from the bodies, he directed his gaze to the stage wings. He breathed an inward sigh of relief.

  Doc Carver was pressed flat against the wall. Buffalo Bill Cody had thrown the girl to the floor and covered her with his own body. She was alive and unhurt, no worse for the experience.

  Starbuck promised himself she would talk.

  Some hours later the backstage area had been restored to order. The police had come and gone, ruling the killings justifiable homicide. The bodies had been removed to the city morgue, and Bill Cody had led a gaggle of reporters to a nearby saloon. His recounting of the shootout had lost nothing in the telling.

  On Starbuck’s orders, Doc Carver and his daughter had been sequestered in the sharpshooter’s dressing room. No mention of their role in the killings had been made to the police. So far as the authorities knew, the dead men had followed Starbuck to Chicago with the express purpose of assassinating him. There was no hint of the underlying scandal and the magnitude of the investigation. The police had been fobbed off with a story of stage robbers and unsolved murders.

  Starbuck was now in the midst of his own interrogation. Seated across from him were Alice Carver and her father. The girl appeared in shock, and Carver’s expression was somehow crestfallen. The atmosphere in the dressing room was oppressive, charged with tension.

  “No more lies!” Starbuck eyed father and daughter with a steady, uncompromising gaze. “I want the truth, and I want it now. So don’t try dancing me around. Talk straight and talk fast!”

  Carver flushed and bobbed his head. “How did you find out . . . about Alice?”

  “George Hoyt told me,” Starbuck said impassively. “Just before he was murdered.”

  The girl began to weep, snuffling and whimpering like a hurt puppy. She pulled out a dainty handkerchief and buried her face in her hands. Carver soothed her with a shushing sound and patted her gently on the shoulder. Then he turned back to Starbuck.

  “I couldn’t level with you in North Platte. Surely you can understand—I had to protect Alice—at all costs! The only out I saw was to send you to Hoyt.”

  A stony look settled over Starbuck’s features. “You and your daughter have gotten several people killed. Tonight you almost bought the farm yourselves.”

  “Nonsense,” Carver said, a bit too quickly. “You told the police those men were after you.”

  “Don’t play dumb!” Starbuck flared. “Skinner sent them here to kill both of you. Unless you cooperate, he’ll try again. You know too much for him to let you live.”

  “No!” Alice protested with a sudden cry. “I don’t believe it! Cyrus would never harm me!”

  “Think not?” Starbuck’s gaze narrowed. “Then who sent them? Suppose you tell me that.”

  “I have no idea,” Alice murmured, sobbing into her hanky. “I only know it wasn’t Cyrus.”

  “You’re lying!” Starbuck said abrasively. “You sleep around, and your affairs end up with dead men all over the place. So cut the crocodile tears and dry your eyes! I don’t buy your act anymore.”

  “Hold on, now!” Carver interjected. “I won’t allow you to talk to my daughter that way!”

  “Button your lip,” Starbuck warned him. “Your daughter’s virtue doesn’t interest me. I’m only interested in who she’s slept with! So stay the hell out of it and let her speak for herself.”

  Starbuck disliked the cruel sound of his voice. Yet the girl’s confession was essential to the case, and he was determined to make her talk. He looked at her now with a cold stare.

  A strained stillness fell over the dressing room. Alice Carver’s face drained of color and she blinked, as though somewhere within herself a festering conflict had at last been resolved. Then she dabbed at her tears and took hold of herself. She sat straighter, lifted her chin defiantly, and the transformation was startling. She gave Starbuck a look that could have drawn blood.

  “Very well,” she said stiffly, her lips white. “Ask your questions.”

  “Tell me about Skinner,” Starbuck prompted. “How did you get involved with him?”

  “Through George Hoyt.” Her eyes shuttled away. “George and I began keeping company soon after our act opened in Virginia City. He was considerate and lots of fun, and we had good times together. Then one night he introduced me to Cyrus.”

  “So you dropped Hoyt?” Starbuck goaded her. “Even though you knew he was stuck on you?”

  “Yes, I did!” she snapped. “I never made any promises! Besides, I have a perfect right to choose who I—”

  “We know what you do,” Starbuck said caustically. “I take it Skinner was smitten by your charms and vice versa?”

  “What of it?
” Her cheeks burned with a blush. “Cyrus Skinner is a very attractive man . . . very kind.”

  “Save it for your diary!” Starbuck’s face toughened and he squinted at her. “How long before you found out Skinner was involved in stage holdups and dirty politics?”

  “I was never certain.” Her look belied her words. “Not until that last night.”

  “The night Skinner ordered Hoyt to fake your murder?”

  “Yes.” Her voice was unnaturally grave, subdued. “Omar Stimson came to Cyrus’s home—”

  “Where were you?”

  A pulse throbbed in her neck. “In the bedroom.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Stimson was raving.” Her lips trembled slightly. “He started shouting about vice collections and robberies, and how he was being cheated on the split. Before Cyrus could stop him, he mentioned something about the boss—”

  “Wait a minute!” Starbuck was suddenly very quiet, eyes boring into her. “What boss? Who was he talking about?”

  “I don’t know.” She squirmed uncomfortably in her chair. “He was just threatening to go see the ‘boss.’ Apparently it’s someone Cyrus reports to on their . . . business affairs.”

  “All right, go on with what you were saying.”

  “Cyrus slapped him and told him someone else was in the house. They argued a little while, and then Stimson stormed out in a rage. Afterward, Cyrus was very upset, concerned for me. He said we couldn’t trust Stimson to keep quiet.”

  “He thought Stimson might go to the ‘boss’ and tell him you’d overheard the conversation?”

  “Something like that.” She smiled wanly, remembering. “Of course, Stimson never actually saw me. But Cyrus was afraid to take the chance. He said if Stimson talked, then I would never leave Virginia City alive.”