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“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“That’s not for publication,” he said urgently.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.
