Emerging Writers. Three Mile Road, Sheridan, Wyoming

Three Mile Road, Sheridan, Wyoming 

Episode 10

When Taylor got back to the courthouse, he went into his office, closed the door and put Merton’s laptop and documents on his desk. He decided to go through the paper items first and he slowly opened the folder they had been kept in. 

Immediately Taylor was disappointed. Inside were some blank pieces of paper, an old newspaper clipping and a faded unlabeled photograph. At first glance, there was nothing that would lead him anywhere. The computer was locked shut with a red and black note stuck to it which read, Property of the U.S. Marshall’s Service, tampering is punishable by fine or imprisonment or both. 

Saying many choice words under his breath, Taylor stared at his phone for a moment and then called his friend Bear in California. He was at home, by the pool. 

“Andy, old friend! What can I do for you?” 

“Why exactly did I listen to you when you told me to leave my career back east and come here to work with you?” 

“Well, let me try to remember…hmmm, yes, that’s it! I believe you wanted a better quality of life and felt that in Sheridan you would have it.” 

“Oh, right, I have been forgetting that lately. This Merton thing has got me quite agitated and the two clerks I have…” 

Jenkins finished the thought for Taylor, “…are not very good. In fact, they are not good at all.” 

“Yes, exactly.” 

“Is that the only reason you called, for me to refresh your memory?” 

“A widow here used to visit with Merton and told me he had made his money in investment banking back east somewhere. He had been married, but his wife was killed in an accident. He was very bitter, she said.”

“And?”

“She gave me a newspaper clipping that doesn’t seem to pertain to anything and an old faded photograph not marked. Both things he had given her for safekeeping.”

“OK. Do you have them there?”

“I do.”

“Take pictures for me and we can look at them together. I miss the real world. I ain’t one for California livin’.”

“Could have fooled me, Bear, on that one. Pictures on their way.”

 As soon as Jenkins received the pictures, he remarked to Taylor, “Look in the background of that old photograph. Surely you know what that is?”

Read earlier episodes of Three Mile Road, Sheridan, Wyoming

Let’s Start at the Beginning, Episode 1
Putting Up With the Wait, Episode 2
Not Sitting Well, Episode 3
Not Exactly, Episode 4
More and More Curious, Episode 5
Not His Real Name, I Suppose, Episode 6
No Cakewalk, Episode 7
What the New Day Brings, Episode 8
The Case Takes on Some Life, Episode 9
A picture’s worth 1000 words, Episode 10 (This one)