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“He doesn’t sound like the taunting kind. No—” I held up an objecting finger to my own objection. “Ideas first. Then we’ll consider them. So, Keefe taunted him.”
“Keefe told him there was no treasure,” Diana offered. “Though how he would come to that conclusion, I have no idea.”
“Keefe told him he had an inside track on the treasure because he’d been proved as a descendant. The only descendant as far as we know.” From an office at the TV station in downtown Chicago, Mike added, “That’s assuming he had the DNA test results.”
Skipping over that last part, I said, “Oscar and Pearl were married young, so that cuts the chances for kids beforehand. No word of their having any kids before they went into bank robbing. That lasted about two years. Then Oscar’s killed.”
“So how did Keefer think he was descended from them? There had to be a kid in there somewhere for that to happen,” Mike said.
We were all quiet for a moment, except for faint chewing.
“It’s interesting,” Diana said slowly, “that Pearl was his accomplice except for the last one.”
I tried not to grin. I’d bet she was on the same track I’d followed earlier.
“What are you thinking, Diana?” Mike asked.
“That she might not have ridden with him on that job because she physically couldn’t, having just had or being about to have a baby. I know, I know, there’s no proof.”
“I labeled it speculation when I wondered the same thing today. But that’s what we’re doing right now — letting our minds run wild with speculation, hoping we land on something.”
Diana said, “A baby on the way or just born could be why Oscar pulled another job without waiting for her to participate. He wanted a bigger nest egg with another mouth to feed.”
“Maybe there’s no treasure at all. Maybe the bank people lied about how much he stole and they took the money.”
That foray into deep skepticism by Jennifer caused a silence I covered by saying, “Boy, I wish I’d thought of that to tell Sam McCracken.”
“You’d have made the poor man’s head explode,” Diana said.
“I know. That’s why I wish it.”
“What have you got against him?” Diana’s voice went thoughtful and dry. “Other than he’s wasting time he could be spending with his wife and kids. I did hear from several people that’s caused tension between him and Serena. The word obsessed kept coming up.”
“There’s a flaw with that,” Mike said.
“A big flaw — he’s making stupid choices.” Was she thinking about her husband, who’d lost the opportunity to ever again spend time with his wife and kids in a fatal ranch accident years ago?
“Huh? Oh. No, not that. Jennifer’s idea about the bank people saying Oscar stole more than he did and them keeping the difference,” Mike said. “They couldn’t have known he’d die from his wounds.”
“If he got away, that worked, too,” Jennifer argued.
“But if he got caught — as he was — he could have exposed their lie.”
“If the authorities believed him.” She clearly didn’t think they would. “Why would they take the word of a bank robber over employees.”
“If he had the money with him to show them the amount—”
“They’d say the other guys who went south took the money. Or he hid most of it — which is what they said after he died.”
“But—”
“Whoa, you two,” I protested. “That’s all stuff that concerns Sam McCracken. Not us. Because it didn’t concern Keefe.”
“You’re right,” Jennifer said coolly. “We focus on Keefe. And Ivy said Keefe said Sam was going to his cabin, so that’s opportunity.”
“If he actually went.” Mike spoke low enough that Jennifer didn’t respond.
I said quickly, “It is. But the more I think about Sam McCracken as a suspect, the less enthusiastic I am. Yes, we considered him in that other case. But his motive then would have been to protect his wife and kids. That could stir a lot more people to murder than the possibility of finding out about lesser-known outlaws who might or might not have buried loot somewhere.”
