Holiday Bullets (Caught Dead in Wyoming, Book 13) by Patricia McLinn

Author:Patricia McLinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: traditional western mystery series, female sleuth, mystery romance humor series, cozy mystery dog, western murder mystery series, TV journalist mystery series, mystery novels best sellers
ISBN: 9781960714091
Publisher: Craig Place Books
Published: 2023-09-13T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

Tom returned to work. I returned to the past.

And questions.

By all accounts, Earl Durand had the money from the bank robbery in hand. A decent haul for that time from the tellers’ drawers. No one outside the bank appeared aware of the robbery in progress. If they had, they wouldn’t have thought the robber was Earl Durand.

As far as locals, law enforcement, and reporters camped out in Cody and elsewhere following the manhunt were concerned, Durand was still in the mountains, back by the Clark’s Fork Canyon. In fact, most if not all, of law enforcement was at that location, forty miles away, convinced Durand had gone deeper into the wilderness since Wednesday.

He could have tied up the nine hostages in the bank, walked out, gotten in Harry Moore’s car, and driven away.

What did he do instead?

He opened fire in the bank.

* * * *

“Elizabeth, need you to write Leona’s intro to this piece on the East Coast storm. Also, trim the wire report — versions for the Five and Ten.”

Really?

Now, Audrey?

You want me to do work now, as Earl Durand’s opened fire in the bank he just robbed?

“On it.”

Though not happy about this interruption as I’d been with Tom’s.

* * * *

I kept that copy taut.

Wyomingites might be interested in seeing East Coast city dwellers wallow through snow drifts, but wouldn’t care to hear their local anchor go on and on about it.

I also kept it short to get back to my research.

* * * *

Earl Durand didn’t shoot any of the people in the bank.

He’d already killed five, so it wasn’t that he wasn’t willing to take a life.

Ah, but all those he’d shot so far were associated with law enforcement — although Candace’s grandfather most likely had merely been pressed into service as a driver. But did Durand have any way to know that?

Regardless, in the bank, he shot no people.

He did shoot walls, windows, furnishings, lights.

Not a few rounds, either. Forty, fifty, sixty rounds. Breaking windows in nearby buildings, going on for ten minutes by some reports.

Why?

Did he want to die? He’d certainly predicted that outcome — in his letter to the sheriff, in his departing words to Harry Moore and his companions, presumably in his farewell to his parents.

His gunshots caught the attention of Powell’s citizens. As far as they knew, Durand was miles away, where the posse still searched for him.

When they heard gunshots from the bank, their thoughts went to gangsters. Bonnie and Clyde, Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson were not far in their collective pasts.

Many grabbed their weapons and went to the scene.

One man, a local correspondent for the Billings Gazette, called his editor from his other job — part-time at a drugstore near the bank. The news of a bank robbery also was reported by a Billings radio station that reached Powell.

That meant a potential firing squad was in place if Earl Durand wanted to die.

But then why did he do what he did next?

He emerged from the bank — behind three men with their hands tied together, the president of the bank and two tellers.

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