Robert Randisi - Bullets & Lies

Harwick sat back down, and Victoria sat across from him.

“I’m afraid that’s because I haven’t heard from him in a while,” the lawyer said.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “What’s he doing, staying out of contact this long?”

“I don’t know, Victoria.”

“Do you think he’s…”

“What? Dead?” he asked. “He’s a man who can take care of himself.”

“Maybe…” she said, and then stopped.

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe we should have told him the truth from the beginning.”

Harwick stood up, walked around the desk, and put his hand on her shoulder.

“It’s too late for that now, Victoria,” he said. “Come on, I’ll see you home. We’ll hear from Roper soon. I’m sure of it.”

He walked her out, wishing he were as confident as he sounded.

Donald White looked up as his office door opened. This was his real office, not the little empty room at Dupont Circle.

“Sir,” Corporal Prince said. Prince’s actual rank was lieutenant, but he was still undercover as a corporal. “You wanted to see me.”

“Any word on Roper?”

“No, sir,” Prince said. “He seems to have fallen off the face of the map.”

“Not good, Prince,” White said. “I wanted to keep an eye on him.”

“Yessir.”

“Well, all right, pack a bag.”

“Sir?”

“You’re going on a trip.”

“Corporal Prince can’t just leave, sir.”

“ ‘Corporal Prince’ just mustered out, soldier. You’re back to being Lieutenant Prince.”

“Yes, sir, thank you, sir,” Prince said. “When am I leaving, sir?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“And where would I be going?”

White sat back in his chair and said, “I’ll let you know tomorrow morning. Be back here at eight, I’ll have a train ticket for you.”

“Yes, sir,” Prince said. “Would that be the time I’ll also be learning what I’ll be doing?”

“Yes, yes,” White said, waving the man off, “you’ll find out everything in the morning.”

“Thank you, sir.”

As the door closed behind the young lieutenant, Donald White wondered if he should have been more truthful with Talbot Roper. But he couldn’t let friendship interfere with his job. He had known that years ago, when he first accepted this position. And nothing had changed since then. Nothing at all.

Tom Prince left the building with a feeling of excitement in his belly. He’d been undercover as “Corporal Prince” for some time. He was happy to be going back to Lieutenant Prince. He was also very pleased that it seemed he was being sent west to assist Talbot Roper.

Roper was a legend, not only as a detective, but from his experiences during the war, when he worked under Allan Pinkerton. Lieutenant Prince had heard all the stories about Roper and had been very excited to meet him. To be getting a chance to work with him was beyond a dream for him.

When Roper had been in Washington, Prince had not liked deceiving him. He’d be very happy to introduce himself properly and offer his help. Working with Talbot Roper would teach him a lot.

The soldier at the front door recognized Prince as a man of authority even without bars, and saluted him. Prince happily returned the salute. As “Corporal” Prince, he was the one always offering the salutes to others.

This was a nice change.

42

Roper and Wilkins rode into Gilette, Wyoming. The detective expected Sally Bando and Tommy Dexter to be there with their charges, David Hampstead and Zack Templeton. They did not have as far to come as he did, but he’d made parts of the trip by rail. He told Bando and Dexter to stay off trains and away from train stations. They were instructed to make the trip on horseback, stay away from towns, use pack mules so they didn’t need to outfit more than once.

There were three hotels in Gilette, a medium-size town that was growing, just not as quickly as Cheyenne and Sheridan. He and Wilkins checked each hotel. The four men were not registered at any of them.

“Are there rooming houses in town?” Roper asked the clerk at the Gilette House (with three hotels in town, one of them had to have the word “House” in the name).

“Yes, sir,” the clerk said. “We got two. Both run by widows.”

“Okay, we’ll check them. Thanks.”

The clerk told Roper where the rooming houses were, and he and Wilkins checked them, too.

The first was run by a woman named Mrs. Hawkins. She was in her sixties, told them she had four rooms to let and they were all full, but not with the men he was describing.

“I don’t rent to anybody who looks like trouble,” she added. “And I’m afraid that includes you two.”

She closed the door in their faces.

The second rooming house was run by a younger woman. Mrs. Lawson was in her late forties, a widow who had turned her home into a rooming house in order to survive after her husband died.

“I ain’t never gonna find another man like my Ralph,” she told them, “so I got to do for myself.”

She also said her rooms were full, but not with the men they were describing. She closed the door on them more gently, but Roper could see she had the same opinion of them that Mrs. Hawkins had.

“Come on,” Roper said. “We’ll register at one of the hotels.”

“Which one?”

“Let’s try the Gilette House.”

They went back there and registered under assumed names. Roper got one room with two beds. He wanted to keep a close eye on Wilkins.

In the room, Wilkins sat on one of the beds.

“You don’t think anyone was able to follow us here, do you?” he asked.

“Follow, no,” Roper said. “Track, maybe.”

“What do we do?”

“We wait.”

“You said they’d be here waitin’.”

“I said they should be here waiting,” Roper said.

“So what do you think happened?”

“I don’t know,” Roper said. “Something must’ve held them up.”

“But they’re alive?”

“I sent good men to get them,” Roper said. “They should be alive.”

Wilkins thought a moment, then said, “Tell me again why we came to Gilette, Wyoming. I mean…what’s here for us?”

“Nothing,” Roper said, “and nobody. That’s the point. Somebody is planning to kill the three of you. I don’t know why. I decided to take all of you someplace neutral, and I picked Gilette because it’s between Helena, Montana, and Pierre, South Dakota.”

“What are we gonna do when they get here?”

“We’re going to talk,” Roper said. “We’re going to figure this out.”

“What about those affidavits?”

“I don’t know,” Roper said. “I’ll have to decide whether or not I’m still concerned with those.”

“Ain’t that the job you took on?” Wilkins asked. “To get them signed?”

“Somebody hasn’t been truthful with me,” Roper said. “I’m going to decide who that is.”

“And then what?”

“And then I’m going to make them tell me the truth.”

“And us?” Wilkins asked. “Me, Davey, and Zack?”

“I’m going to do my best to keep the three of you alive.”

“I’m happy to hear that.”

“When was the last time you saw any of these men?” Roper asked. “Any of the four of them?”

“The war,” Wilkins said.

“Not since then?”

“No.”

“No contact at all?”

“No.”

“Why?” Roper asked. “Were there any hard feelings after the war?”

“No.”

“What about between all of you and Westover?”

Wilkins hesitated, then said, “I think I’m gonna wait for the others to get here before I answer any more questions.”

Well, Roper thought, that was part of an answer. There was definitely something going on that he didn’t know about. He no longer felt any responsibility to keep in touch with the lawyer, Harwick, or Victoria Westover. They had both lied to him.