Red Harvest - Chapter 23

XXIII: Mr. Charles Proctor Dawn

I was half dressed the next morning when Dick Foley came in. He reported, in his word-saving manner, that Bill Quint had checked out of the Miners’ Hotel at noon the previous day, leaving no forwarding address.

A train left Personville for Ogden at twelve-thirty-five. Dick had wired the Continental’s Salt Lake branch to send a man up to Ogden to try to trace Quint.

“We can’t pass up any leads,” I said, “but I don’t think Quint’s the man we want. She gave him the air long ago. If he had meant to do anything about it he would have done it before this. My guess is that when he heard she had been killed he decided to duck, being a discarded lover who had threatened her.”

Dick nodded and said:

“Gun play out the road last night. Hijacking. Four trucks of hooch nailed, burned.”

That sounded like Reno Starkey’s answer to the news that the big bootlegger’s mob had been sworn in as special coppers.