July 12, 1900

Black Diamond. 

This morning I walked into the sheriff’s office and sat at the desk with Aly. “Good morning,” she greeted me. 

“Morning. Not sure about good.”

“You haven’t had your coffee yet.” 

“Nope.” 

“I’m thinking I want to paint the walls in the cells pink. Do you think Lot would enjoy sitting in a cell with pink walls?” 

“There’s an image,” I chuckled. 

“Oh by the way... White Owl paid bail last night.” 

“Fantastic! That’s great news.”

“It almost makes me sad people don’t want to spend their time with me,” she giggled. 

“At least I could close one case,” I muttered. 

“I get so lonely in here sometimes. Nobody to talk to.” 

“Well you can always send me a telegram. I’m lonely too.”

“Well see, that’s one. Even just one is an accomplishment.” 

“Who knows where my partner has been.”

“Hm maybe out of town. Or hidden at his house with a stash of donuts. I do that sometimes.” 

“John still hasn’t written up the statement version of Meg’s interview. Maybe that’ll have something useful in it.”

“Or maybe it’ll just be a list of meatless recipes,” she grumbled and I chuckled at her. “Going to walk around and patrol a bit. Coming?” 

“Yes ma’am,” I stood up quickly and she laughed. 

“We’ll get coffee on the way.” 

“You don’t want me to paint, trust me,” I winked at her and she laughed. 

We walked around town and talked about what had been happening lately and the cases I’d been working on. We talked with Ben when he wandered down from his apartment and then we headed to the cafe for some coffee. The three of us sat down for coffee and we talked about how many lawmen there seemed to be lately. 

“Well no ones ever found out who robbed my place the first week I came to town,” Ben said at one point. 

“Ok, I never heard you got robbed. Who did you tell?” Aly asked. 

“Left a list and report on your very own desk.” 

“And was there any proof: things left behind, fingerprints, etc, so that we could actually help you with that?” 

“Deputy Stormy took the report as well.” 

“I can’t do much with just a report though Ben.” 

“Where’d you get robbed, Ben?” I asked. 

“I’d need things to look in, witness statements, something to go by,” Aly said. 

“My place over the bank,” he said. 

I looked over at Aly and asked, “Stormy didn’t tell you about this?”

“Stormy never came to be about it, but Ben, if I remember correctly, you did give me a list of missing items. I just had nothing else to go on.” 

“Need to have a witness statements,” I agreed. 

He took out the list and handed it to both of us. 

“I’ll re-read it. Maybe I just missed something the first time,” Aly said. “Ok Ben here’s what I want you to do...” 

“The bank was burned and robbed the same day,” Ben said. 

“And I’m sorry for forgetting about this I promise I Wasn’t ignoring you. I think this was around the time of my wedding and I forgot... but do this.... Write me an actual statement.” 

“I don’t have a copy of the report,” Ben said. 

“Not necessarily with the items missing. Think who, what, where, why, when? Time when this happened, if you saw anyone shady around the time of the incident, and anything else that could help us with the investigation and possible arrest of a suspect. I want to help you on this. We’ll start over.” 

“It’s been a while. I can’t tell ya much else..I came back home to find then bank broken into and burned.” 

“Just be as descriptive with it as possible. We’ll be happy to question suspects for you,” Aly handed him a sheet. 

“Stormy came along just after I filed the report with her and thats all I know,” Ben said. “No one else was around at all.” 

“But Ben, we need something to go by. The time I had my boots stolen, I had to give a description of the last person I saw around my house. At least something,” Aly said. “Then put that in your statement.” 

Ben found his old statement and said, “Here’s my old one,” and handed it to her. 

“You said this happened at the same time as that? Good.” 

Ben had to leave then and when we were alone I looked at Aly. “So what are we supposed to do with this? He gave us a list of things stolen and Stormy’s statement.”

“These items are probably sold long ago,” she read over the list. No doubt he wants to be compensated for them though. Do me a favor, Trin... This says there were loose floorboards, in Stormy’s statement... Check for prints? But get with Ben first and have him let you in.” 

“I could... Most of the prints are probably Ben’s.”

“That should make it easier then.  I don’t think Ben gets many visitors,” she chuckled. “Sorry. When you find other prints let me know and I’ll see about getting those individuals for questioning. Also...” she looked at the list. 

“Need a statement from Ben if we want to do anything productive. So now I have five cases.”

“New bed? Someone stole a bed from his house? That musta taken more than one person to steal all these things,” Aly said. 

“Yeah it’s a lot of objects.”

“So let’s just start small...floorboards. And see where that takes us.” 

“I guess,” I nodded. 

“Do you have other ideas?” 

“Talk to Ben more,” I sighed. 

“I’ll bug him every day if I have to to get him to write me a statement. I can’t really do a court report or warrant without it. Well I could, but that wouldn’t really benefit him.” 

“Yeah exactly. A list of things stolen isn’t gonna help me.”

“That’s why I said floorboards. People normally don’t touch those with their hands. Are you done with coffee?” 

“Was fantastic.” 

We headed out of the cafe then and Aly continued her rounds while I went to the tree to get some more paperwork done.