"Jake, you've got the hangman's rope around your neck and one way to get it loose. Take me to the man who paid you this money."

Jake Dunn shook his head violently. He looked, Bell thought, frantic as a wolf with a leg caught in a trap. But no, not a wolf. There was no raw power in him, no nobility. Truth be told, Dunn looked like a mongrel dog that had fallen for bait left for bigger game.

"Where is he, Jake?"

"I don't know."

"Why are you lying to me, Jake?"

"I didn't kill nobody."

"You wrecked a train, Jake. You're damned lucky you didn't kill anybody. If they don't hang you, they'll put you in the penitentiary for the rest of your life."

"I didn't kill nobody."

Bell changed tactics abruptly.

"How'd you happen to get out of prison so soon, Jake? What did you serve, three years? Why'd they let you go?"

Jake regarded Bell with eyes that were suddenly wide open and guileless. "I got the cancer."

Bell was taken aback. He had no truck with lawbreakers, but a killing disease reduced a criminal to just an ordinary man. Jake Dunn was no innocent, but he was quite suddenly a victim who would suffer pain and fear and despair. "I'm sorry, Jake. I didn't realize."

"I guess they figured to set me loose to die on my own. I needed the money. That's how I took this job."

"Jake, you were always a craftsman, never a killer. Why are you covering for a killer?" Bell pressed.

Jake answered in a hoarse whisper. "He's in the livery stable on Twenty-fourth, across the tracks."

Bell snapped his fingers. Wally Kisley and Mack Fulton rushed to his side. "Twenty-fourth Street," said Bell. "Livery stable. Cover it, station the sheriff's deputies on the outer perimeter, and wait for me."

Jake looked up. "He's not going anywhere, Mr. Bell."

"What do you mean?"

"When I went back to get my second half of the money, I found him upstairs, in one of the rooms they rent out."

"Found him? What do you mean, dead?"

"Slit his throat. I was afraid to tell--they'd pin that on me, too."

"Slit his throat?" Bell demanded. "Or stabbed?"

Jake ran a hand through his thinning hair. "Stabbed, I guess."

"Did you see a knife?"

"No."

"Was he run through? Did the wound exit the back of his neck?"

"I didn't stick around to examine him close, Mr. Bell. Like I said, I knew they'd blame me."

"Get over there," Bell told Kisley and Fulton. "Sheriff, would you send a doctor? See if he can reckon what killed him and how long he's been dead."

"Where will you be, Isaac?"

Another dead end, thought Bell. The Wrecker wasn't just lucky, he made his own luck. "Railroad station," he answered without a lot of hope. "See if any ticket clerks recall selling him a ticket out of here."