Chapter Twenty

"Not Keefer?"

He examined my face for how much I knew, then looked away. "We talked a little, that's all."

"With his local knowledge, he must have been helpful," I suggested mildly.

"He'd done some research, sure. But he hadn't employed a detailed, organized approach. He seemed to think that if he just sat among the information long enough everything would be revealed to him. That might be okay for yoga—" Clearly not a fan. "—or letting woodland creatures come up to him, but to find new information about historic figures who weren't well known in their day and haven't been researched since, you have to be aggressive. Go after every lead. Pursue every possibility." He looked up at me. "You know about that."

"Yes, I do. I can imagine that might cause conflict with someone like Keefer Dobey. Including over access to resources."

He frowned. "We weren't rivals, if that's what you're thinking. He did things his way. I did things my way. We had a few things in common, but we didn't share a lot — we were interested in different things."

"For example?"

I deliberately left that a choose-your-topic question. He could answer about the few things they had in common or their different interests.

"I am focused on the treasure."

"You said treasure — singular. Aren't there several?"

"More than several. You can get lost forever in chasing this tidbit or that if you don't keep laser focused. That's why I've narrowed focus. It's natural to start with the better-known robberies, because there's more material. You train yourself on how to research before you advance to the lesser-known events."

The way he said it, combined with a glance around the bookcases, told me he'd given Serena the same explanation. Possibly when more deliveries arrived.

"So I started with a lot of material on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Although, actually, they didn't team up until late. Elzy Lay was Cassidy's closest friend in the gang for a decade. Only when Elzy was arrested in 1899 did Cassidy team up with Sundance. At first, I thought that tracing some of the other members of the gang — ones not as well-known now — would be the key. But the more I read, the more I thought most of the others were far less likely to have stashed their shares of robberies. They were arrested spending the money or found with a lot of it on them and, in general, didn't show the sort of forethought and organization Cassidy did.

"You know it's accepted by many that he planned the successful robberies, even ones he might not have participated in. He set up the system of fresh horses waiting along the escape routes, so they could outpace the posses. Outpace and outsmart. He didn't need to resort to violence." He chuckled. "Except against vaults, of course. But he said he never killed anyone."

"But would he have left his share from bank robberies here when they went to South America in — when was that?"

He answered the questions in reverse order "Early 1901. Maybe." Defensiveness tinged that. "If he thought he'd come back someday and might need a stake, it would make sense. Or even if he just couldn't get to where he'd hidden proceeds from one or more robberies because of the heat on him or on the location."

"Possible," I conceded.

"Probable," he pushed. "The upshot, though, is that a lot of people concentrated on Butch Cassidy, along with a sprinkling of his confederates. Better known and more documentation. Recognizing that, I struck out on a different path."

I cut through his caginess. "Oscar and Pearl Virtanen."

"That's not for publication," he said urgently.

First, KWMT-TV didn't publish. Second, most of our viewers probably already knew at least the outlines of the story. Third, they didn't seem to care. Fourth, if a rare individual did care, they would have almost certainly gone to the county library early in their research — in other words when the online info on Oscar and Pearl ran out — and thus have encountered Sam and Keefer.

Just as they encountered each other.

I tamped down all that realistic irritation bubbling up in me and gave him the super spy secret handshake he craved.

"It's off the record unless it has a direct bearing on Keefer Dobey's death." Before he could require a blood oath, I pushed on. "So, you and Keefer Dobey shared an interest in Oscar and Pearl."

"We did, but with different slants. And then we realized that a certain aspect could serve each of our slants."

"Which was?"

I didn't waste time or energy on these questions because I'd realized he wanted to tell me this. He wanted a listener for each step, half-step, quarter-step, and toes-inching-forward bit of progress he'd made.

I guessed he'd worn out Serena as such a listener quite a while ago.

"We were both interested in the women."

Okay, that did spark my interest. Not that I needed to express it. Just listening passively worked for him.

"Of course it was obvious for Keefe, since he was looking for family ties — he wanted to know if any of the women associated with outlaws had babies or could have had babies that would have led to him a few generations later, across the blankness of his paternal line. He started tracking the better documented women before recognizing better documentation made it less likely the women had babies no one knew about."

I wasn't so sure. Not only because the Pinkertons fell down on the job when it came to the women, but also because women had had babies unofficially back into the stretches of history as a result of any number of circumstances, with no documentation tracking the event. Whether the baby stayed in the family as the child of a sister, cousin, or parent, for example, or was given up for adoption.

"So he, too, came around to thinking a less documented couple could be more fruitful. My pursuit, however, wasn't as easy."

Hadn't he just said Keefe's wasn't easy because his paternal line was a blank? What was harder than a blank?

He'd paused and I dutifully asked, "How was it not as easy?" Apparently passive only went so far.

"Nobody had thought of this before. That tracing the women was the answer — could be the answer," he amended with obligatory caution he didn't really believe. "All the other researchers traced the moves and timelines of the men involved in the robberies. But the women weren't given as much attention."

Wanting more from him, I didn't mention that Emmaline Parens was way ahead of him — not only in recognizing that fact but in pointing it out to me.

"But the women being the key to finding the treasure makes so much sense. Not only because that angle hasn't been pursued before, but also because of the men wanting to take care of their wives — or girlfriends or whatever they called them — and families if they had them, but also because some of the women bought supplies for them, sold stolen goods. For sure Laura—"

"Bullion. I know."

Not the best interviewing technique. I usually favored letting people talk on and on to get me to where I wanted to be, because especially in these early encounters I didn't always know where I wanted to be. But Sam had been denied an interested audience long enough — had denied himself one with his secrecy, had worn out Serena's spousal support, and had diverged on this matter from Keefe — that his explanation would include every supporting fact he knew.

"Oh. You do know about her." He rallied from that disappointment. "Then you know I'm right."

"It does make sense."

That seemed to satisfy him.

And the satisfaction seemed to be enough to let him remember my reason for being here.

"Keefer and I might have started as rivals, looking for some of the same information, but we realized we weren't really and we cooperated. Because his finding out more about his parentage didn't derail my search for the treasure and vice versa."

"Are you sure there is a treasure?"

"Yes. The last bank robbery Oscar Virtanen pulled, they never found what he stole."

"And Keefer wasn't interested?"

"Not in that part of it. Ask those people where he lived, they'll tell you."

Except they — at least Brenda — referred to the treasure. So where did that get us?

One thing we'd learned about this man in that other investigation was he could hold a grudge.

My Irish ancestors approved — if they hadn't held grudges they wouldn't have kept rebelling against the English until finally reclaiming their independence after 800 years. (That's a lot of grudge.)

My journalistic instincts said a significantly shorter grudge could be a motive for murder. Perhaps over coveted research?

"And we shared," he continued. "He told me he came across this reference to an article written about some guy who'd been in the posse that chased Oscar—"

Ah, the article Ivy mentioned. "He found the article?"

He shook his head. "References, too, including paraphrasing this posse member reminiscing decades later and it mentioned the guy feeling really sorry for the young widow — Pearl. And it indicated she might have been pregnant. Didn't come right out and say it, but Keefe was still real excited about that.

"Another time, he found a letter that he shared with me. Somebody from here wrote to her brother in school back east about the robbery and the manhunt for Oscar and the rumor that he'd buried the proceeds from the robbery somewhere on his route, which went through part of their ranch. And the brother wrote back saying he bet he knew where it was. And he described the place in detail. And when he got back, they'd go search for it. That didn't have anything directly about Oscar and Pearl, but from the dates and geography, it sure seemed like Oscar's last robbery."

"Did they?"

"Did who what?"

"Did the brother and sister search for the treasure?"

His expression went grim. "No. He died. A fever."

"So, it might be where he—"

"No." Grimmer now. "I figured out where he meant and checked. It had been dug up all over that area. Who knows how many people he wrote to or she told. But it had been worked over years ago."

"Maybe someone found it and never told anyone."

He cut me a you're-crazy-lady look. Clearly the concept of not telling anyone about such a find didn't factor into his thinking.

"No. I checked and the family's fortunes didn't suddenly change."

Ah, so the reason I was crazy was for not realizing he'd already thought of that and checked.

That made me feel oddly better about Sam McCracken as I wrapped up this conversation — keeping open the door to plenty more, as well as making the point that if he had something to add to call any time.

He was back into his computer before I reached the shed door.

Too bad he offered no proof of this cooperation with Keefer Dobey he claimed beyond his say-so. Opposed to that, we had the impressions of Ivy Short at the library and Clara Atwood at the museum.... and possibly Serena McCracken at home?

Though I wasn't sure of that last one.