June 27, 1901

Tombstone. 

This evening, Ansar sent a telegram for me to meet with him as soon as possible. I walked through town looking for Ansar and found him in the courthouse in his office. He called down when he saw me and I headed upstairs, opening the door. “Hey there Marshal. Been a while since we met in here.” 

“Yeah it has. Glad you could get here so fast.” 

“I’ve been hoping to catch you on some things. When Natalie told me you were in town I ran right over.” 

“Anyways, the reason I sent for ya was for a few things.” 

“I’ll let you start.” I nodded and took a seat across from him. 

“First of and most important is a fire in diamond I had a look myself and there was quiet a bit of ash. Have you been over there?” 

“I’ve been investigating it. I can relay some information to you on that already if you’re interested. Tom, my man and the deputy over there, is working on the case with me.” 

“What have you found?” 

“We’ve investigated the office and come up with ample evidence on the suspects... Would be nice if I could add witnesses to that but... you know how things run around here lately.” 

“Evidence such as?” 

“Alright well... Suzy and Jackson told me about the fire. I went to the office and found a picture on the window.. It read, ‘Will O’Sullivan for Governor’.” I took out the picture and handed it to him to look at. I wondered why we needed to investigate, but looked further on the issue anyway…” 

“Yeah, I seen the thing.” 

“Nothing is that simple in this town, you know?” 

“Well can’t just blame a guy just on a poster alone. Need proof.” 

“Jackson informed me there were two prints of boots in the office. Since I had Will’s prints, finger and boot, on file... I went back to get my file on Will and brought it to compare the boot print with the one found in the office. It was an exact match. The only mystery remained... Who belonged to the other print? But... We figured that out pretty quickly too. Interested in knowing who belonged to that second boot print?” I looked at him. 

“Okay I see. So two boot prints… right… and fingerprints.” 

“So this second print… Jackson informed us that Rikki and Will have been at his throat since he started his campaigns… In the past... Will and Rikki have been tied to the hip, as I’m sure you’re aware…” 

“Mmhmm so it’s a boot and finger print? Or just boot. Just to be clear.” 

“Two individual boot prints. Separate. Two different people. One of which, I already had on file from when Will was arrested in the past.” 

“Ah, so just boot prints?” 

“The other... Well... Because of this suspicion of Rikki being involved, we thought... Where is Rikki most often? On the train…” 

“What if someone borrowed his boots? Or her boots?” 

“So we tracked down the train, and there were only a couple of prints in the conductor’s car. One which was clearly male by the arch of the boot... The other, more female. It was a match to the one we found in the office. I didn’t say it was good evidence… It’s just... all we’ve got so far. It’s all we could gather at the scene. Most fires around Tombstone have been started with a lamp oil of some sort. But in this case that won’t even help us cause we can’t compare the oil to anywhere…” 

“Well just asking as this are questions the defence could ask.” 

“It’s a fair question, and one I need your guidance on. Quite frankly, Ansar, we’ve got nothing. Jackson told me he would work on the witness statement but I don’t even know if he saw it.” 

“Hmm, if you had a finger print that would be more.. defined. But with a fire.” 

“But the fire would have burned all that up..” 

“Hard to tell,” he said and I sighed. “Did you find where the fire started?” 

“I was hoping to do that with you... My experience on arson is somewhat limited. Even though I’ve investigated several fires here…” I shook my head. “It’s something I wish to learn more about. What would you advise?” 

“Hmm, well... hard to say. fires are a beast to prove. Why most people get away with it." 

“Right... It’s why we need bloody witnesses.” 

“I know Rikki is a big firebug and that’s why she is.” 

“But that’s circumstantial. So is Will’s picture on the window. Even if we had prints on the picture itself... It doesn’t prove the fire.” 

“And her main thing to make sure there never a witness. Kind of her M.O. Calling card one could say. But we can’t blame every fire on her.” 

“Then we’re screwed.” 

“Even with the boot prints... And the picture... We’ve got nothing.” 

“Did you take the picture?” 

“I took a picture of the picture... I could go back to get the picture itself... I’m sure it’s still there.” 

“Someone had to put that thing there.” 

“I knew I should have taken it.” 

“If someone put it there then it could have print, it survived the fire.” 

“Or it was put up after the fire.” 

“That too… Someone put it there.” 

“Either way... Even if Will’s prints are discovered on it... It won’t prove who set the fire. He could have done that hours after the fire, completely unrelated.” 

“Right, but it will prove he was there. And his boot prints.” 

“True… I knew I should have gotten prints from the picture itself.” 

“It’s a trail.” 

“Want to go collect that now? Though we do have more to discuss.” 

“Well when you can. But I wanted to speak to of another matter but it’s not as urgent. It can wait.” 

“As did I, which is somewhat urgent.” 

“I can speak to you when you come back.” 

“Alright, you’ll still be here for a while? I want to gather the prints before the picture is lost.” 

“Exactly. I will be here if not you can always get a hold of me somehow.” 

“Alright. I’ll try to be quick,” I said as I headed out of the office. 

I went to Black Diamond and almost fell off the horse in frustration, seeing that everything had been cleaned up at the office. I rode back to Tombstone, frustrated with myself, and saw Ansar and Angel in front of the sheriff’s office. I dismounted the horse in frustration and walked over to them. 

“I’m sorry, Ansar… I should have taken the damn picture yesterday. It’s gone. We’ve got nothing.” 

“Not there? Dang,” he said. “Can’t say ya didn’t try.” 

“I should have. There’s another case I want to talk to you about, which might be connected.” 

“It happenz, Trin. Iz good evidence you got right?” Angel asked.

“Not really, that’s the problem, Angel.” I shrugged. 

“I would speak to Amara she may know more on the matter then me. She the one who showed it to us,” Ansar said. 

“Even if it WAS Rikki and Will who wore those boots... They coulda been there hours after the fire. That picture was probably hung up hours after. It’s too circumstantial. I’ll try to get a witness statement out of Amara... If I can find her.” 

“I know ven the fire happened. Vas ven Tombstone had the dust storm,” Angel said. “I vas in Diamond just before it happened sadly. Vas me and Bree and some new voman. We seen Rikki in Bisbee. Last I heard from her she vas going to tip the outhouse over vith the mayor in it but the rest of us ve vent to mine bakery then boom it happened. But I vasn’t there sadly.” 

“What time of day was this?” 

“Um… I believe about noonish ven I vas about in Diamond.” 

“That was yesterday right?” Ansar asked. 

“Cause shortly after at mine bakery vas showing Joe my new cake and he spoke about Bianca coming about noon.” 

I nodded and said, “Something else happened yesterday too... And I’m wondering if they were connected. Suzy informed me that the ranger station in the canyon had been burned down.” 

“I vasn’t about yesterday had a day off,” Angel said. 

“I didn’t even know we had a ranger station in the canyon, and I went over to look but no one was there so I couldn’t get in to see where the fire happened.” 

“Right, sorry the passage of time gets me sometimes,” Ansar said. 

“Suzy barely stayed two seconds to give me information about that fire.” 

“Days tend to blend into each other. I ask her more about it then. What time she found it.” 

“I haven’t heard a single thing about this other fire. I haven’t been able to find her since. Or any other soldiers.” 

“She may had found, she may have information we don’t. Track her down. You’re good at that.” 

“And Angel’s seeing Rikki in Bisbee before the blast wouldn’t really help us, would it?” I asked. “Since it doesn’t directly tie her to the fire in Diamond. I didn’t think so. So we still have nothing.” 

“Helps but circumstantial. Need more. Like I said, talk to Suzy.” 

“I’ll keep asking for witnesses, but I doubt I’ll find any. Like you said, she’s good at doin’ stuff in secret. I’ll try to get more than two words out of Suzy... But that’s a battle in itself. Guess I’m going to ride out the ranger station then.” 

“Good luck,” Ansar said and nodded. 

“Thanks to you both,” I said to them and hopped on my horse. 

I rode down the street and saw Chris and Bree. We talked about how Amara and Suzy weren’t around when I needed them and I sat down to join them. 

“Do you guys ever… Wonder what the hell happened to this place…” I asked them. 

“Every day…” Chris nodded. 

“Since my mother passed.. And I took some time off... I’ve been working on my memoirs more…” 

Bianca and Aspen came over then and we talked with them about how Nat wanted to learn how to dance. When I said I had to go, Bianca tempted me to stay for a glass of wine and Chris told me not to rush off. I looked around at the streets with a sigh and told them I had people I needed to find and headed down the street.