by Brett Waring
He saw the big form of Sheriff Race Hollander coming around from the rear, thumbing back his hat. The man was covered in grime and blisters and one sleeve was smoldering. He slapped at it as he came across to where Hume and Nash stood, raking them with a cold gaze.
“You two friends again?” he asked, probing.
Neither man answered him and the lawman shrugged.
“Can’t find the gal. Come mornin’ we’ll start siftin’ through the ashes.”
“How’d it start?” Nash asked tightly.
“Deliberately lit, I’d say,” Hollander replied in a matter of fact tone. “Neighbors heard a dull thud and next moment the place was engulfed in flames. Sounds like someone set off a bottle of coal oil. We’ll know when we go through the debris.” He looked hard at Nash. “We’re kinda expectin’ to find Mrs. Parrish in there—or what’s left of her.”
“They haven’t finished checking down town yet, have they?” asked Hume.
Hollander smiled faintly. “It’s just somethin’ that’s got to be done. We know there’s very little chance of findin’ her down there. The whole damn population turned out for the fire. She’d have been here seein’ as it was her house.”
Nash knew the man was right. There was little chance of finding Lucy Parrish alive now.
“Where’s Morgan?” he asked suddenly.
Hollander bored his hard gaze into Nash’s face. “Checkin’ through the town. He ain’t good for a lot else since you busted his nose and hand.”
Nash let that go.
“You ain’t thinkin’ of quittin’ town again, I guess?”
Nash was surprised by the question, shook his head. “Why?”
“Might need to talk to you again.”
“Only a few days ago, you didn’t want me around.”
Hollander shrugged. “Just stay in town a spell.”
He turned and moved back towards the burned-out house and, frowning, Nash allowed Jim Hume to lead him away down the hill towards the town.
“What in hell’s he up to?” Nash growled.
“Putting on a good front, I’d say.”
“Looks as if Lucy found somethin’ mighty important amongst Mitch’s papers, Jim.”
Hume snapped his head around. “You think they’ll find her body in the ashes, too?”
“Stands to reason. My guess is she found somethin’ in Mitch’s desk and, instead of bringin’ it to us, tried blackmail. That’s where the money for the furniture came from. Maybe I spooked her when I came back, sayin’ I’d learned Mitch was on the take. I’d say she ran to whoever it was she was blackmailin’ and he figured not to take any chances on her talkin’ and burned the place down around her ears.”
“Anyone in mind?”
Nash stopped on the walk outside his hotel. “Same one as you.”
“Two,” Hume corrected.
Nash nodded slowly. “Yeah. Well, I’m beat, Jim. I’m turnin’ in.”
“’Night, Clay. Watch it now.”
Nash nodded and walked wearily into his hotel.
Hume stood there for a minute, glanced back up the hill to the pile of embers that were still discernible and then continued on down the street. His quarters were above the Wells Fargo offices.
Clay Nash awoke with the sun beating against the cheap tarpaper shade over his window, and he knew it was well after eight. He got out of bed slowly, a little stiffly, feeling the bite of some of the burns and blisters on his hands and neck and face.
He looked at himself in the mirror, examined a couple of small burns he could see and then shaved. He was feeling a mite more alive by the time he was dressed and, just as he buckled on his gunbelt there was a knock on the door.
Nash went to answer it with his hand on the butt of the Colt.
“Yeah?” he called through the woodwork, standing to one side.
“Sheriff. Open up.”
Nash sighed and unlocked the door, looking out into the passage at Hollander. Then the heavy double barrels of Morgan’s Greener slammed him across the side of the head and sent him reeling back into the room. He instinctively tried to drag his gun free of leather and this time the shotgun barrels smashed across his wrist. The Colt fell to the floor and Nash slipped to one knee, dazed, shaking his head, tasting blood.
He looked up at the big deputy standing over him, grinning crookedly, mouth twisted beneath the taped pad across his broken nose. Morgan hit him again and laid him out on the floor. When Nash’s head ceased swimming and he could focus again, he saw Hollander sitting on the bed, casually covering him with his six-gun. Morgan was prowling around the room, opening and closing drawers, ripping open Nash’s warbag.
“What the hell?” Nash demanded thickly, starting to get up. But he froze when Hollander jerked the gun barrel at him.
“Stay there.”
Nash watched Morgan tip out the contents of the warbag and go through them, poking them around with the barrels of the Greener. He grunted and stooped, picking something up and walking back to where the sheriff sat on the edge of the bed.
“This ought to do,” he said, watching Nash bleakly.
Nash turned his puzzled gaze from the big deputy to the object Morgan handed Hollander. It was his bone handled clasp knife. The sheriff nodded at Morgan and stood up, towering over Nash who still sat on the floor.
“I’m arrestin’ you for the murder of Lucy Parrish and burnin’ down her house in an attempt to hide the crime, Nash. Get up.”
Nash was stunned and didn’t move. Hollander suddenly kicked him savagely in the ribs. Nash gagged and doubled over, clutching at his side. He rolled to elbows and knees and slowly started upright. Hollander kicked him in the middle of the back, sending him sprawling face first across the bed. He clawed at the covers, pulling the sheet into a ball as he struggled to get his rubbery legs under him.
They let him make it all the way this time and he swayed there, staring at the lawmen. Both had crooked, triumphant grins on their faces.
“You’re loco!” he said hoarsely.
Hollander held up the clasp knife.
“Evidence.”
“Of what?” Nash demanded.
“That you started the fire. See you’ve thoughtfully got the silver plate engraved—‘C.N.—Wells Fargo’. No doubt that it’s your knife.”
“And it’s been restin’ in my warbag until a few minutes ago.”
Hollander grinned and shook his head slowly. Morgan remained silent and deadpan.
“No, you’re wrong, Nash. This knife was found at the scene of the fire, near a broken coal-oil bottle, with a charred cork still on the end of the blade. You’d obviously used it to pry out the cork from the bottle neck—they get a mite tough at times, we all know that—you set down the knife while you started the fire and forgot to pick it up when the bottle of oil went up a mite faster than you reckoned on.”
“You’re loco. That’ll never stick. The knife’s not even charred.”
Hollander’s teeth bared as the lips pulled back around them. “It will be, don’t worry. It will be. The bone’ll all be burned and the blade’ll be blackened, and there’ll be just enough charred cork on the tip of the blade to tell what it was.”
Nash looked from one man to the other. “A frame. But it won’t wash. I was with Jim Hume when the fire broke out. Near the mines. A couple of miles away.”
“We’ve only got your word for that.”
“And Hume’s.”
“Anyone else see you?”
Nash’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t reply. Hollander laughed. “A smart lawyer can soon tear that alibi to pieces. No. You fit this nice, Nash.”
The Wells Fargo man was frowning deeply now. He couldn’t figure why Hollander and Morgan were going to all this trouble of framing him for the fire. It would have been easier to kill him from ambush, though Morgan would sure be suspect after what he had done to the man in the street ...
“You said somethin’ about Lucy Parrish’s murder?” he asked suddenly.
&n
bsp; “Yeah. Found what was left of her under a bureau or something. Amazin’ how some things don’t get burned-up even in a blaze like that. Not a lot left of her, but enough to show she’d been strangled. Raped, too, mebbe. Anyways, you were seen goin’ there earlier and she was seen hurryin’ out soon after you left, lookin’ pretty frightened. I’m here to tell you she came to see me and Morgan and complained you were trying to force your attentions on her and she was scared. But we didn’t take her seriously enough. Bad mistake on our part, of course, and hard luck for her. You went back there or were waitin’ when she got home, attacked her and then burned down the house to try to cover-up.”
“And why did I stick around town like a fool after doin’ all those things?”
“You figured you’d get away with it, that’s all.” He grabbed Nash and spun him abruptly, face-first into the wall. Morgan’s Greener jammed against Nash’s spine painfully. Then he felt his wrists grabbed and a moment later, Hollander snapped on the manacles. The shotgun eased up on its pressure and Nash was allowed to turn around.
Hollander was grinning and there was even a suggestion of a smile on Morgan’s battered face.
“You’re finished, Nash,” the sheriff told him.
“I guess you were the one Mitch and the others worked in with, huh?”
“That’s right. We cooperated, set up the robberies, even arranged for a couple of the outlaws to be captured, just to divert suspicion. It was workin’ fine.”
“What happened?”
Hollander’s face straightened. “Never mind. It suited us better to have ’em dead, that’s all you need to know.”
As he reached for Nash’s shoulder, the agent said, “Lucy found some incriminating evidence and blackmailed you, right?”
The sheriff nodded curtly. “Stupid bitch, figurin’ she could get away with it. Parrish reckoned he was smart writin’ it all out, leavin’ it to be passed on to Jim Hume if anythin’ happened to him. But it got caught up in his desk and she found it, aimed to cut in, for her share.”
Nash’s mouth tightened and he shook his head slowly. Lucy hadn’t known about the five thousand dollars sitting in the bank under her own maiden name ...
Clay Nash stumbled out into the passage and Morgan was right behind him, Hollander holding his right arm.
“By the way, Nash,” the sheriff said casually. “You know there’s no circuit judge available for a spell, don’t you?”
The Wells Fargo man frowned but said nothing.
“So I guess we’ll have to throw you in jail for a spell till one can get here, huh?” Race Hollander laughed shortly. “There’s some friends of yours in there already. And they’re expectin’ you!” Even Morgan laughed.
Nash felt a knot in his belly. No wonder they didn’t bother about trying to kill him themselves. He would never reach even a preliminary hearing, let alone a trial.
Putting a lawman in prison with some of the men he had helped send there was the same as a death sentence.
Chapter Eight – Death Sentence
The Virginia City penitentiary had started out as a stockade for prisoners of war during the War Between the States. It was five miles outside of town.
It had proved to be such an effective prison that when hostilities ceased the authorities gradually built it up, adding huts first, then a barracks for army guards, and finally some brick quarters with iron bars for the more dangerous prisoners. It grew, after that, with cells being added almost at a continuous rate until it reached the proportions it now had: a huge brick complex, three floors high in the main building with two other double-storied blocks. Cells with stone flagged floors and iron-barred windows and doors; cells open to the weather where upwards of a dozen men could be crammed at one time; other, confining black pits deep underneath the building where the only light that ever reached them was from the lanterns of the brutal guards. These were the hell-holes, the cells of solitary confinement where the diet was an unchanging bread and water once a day, and it was an unwritten law that a man’s slop bucket was never emptied until the end of his term in solitary had been served. Consequently the area smelled like a cesspit and disease was rife.
The governor knew about the conditions but chose to ignore them. He knew the thought of going down into those hell-holes was sometimes enough to make even the toughest of his convicts think twice before causing any trouble. And then there was the whipping post; that always brought peace to the prison, often for weeks at a time, if a man was strung up and flogged there with a cat o’ nine tails.
The governor ran a hard, tough prison and he did it along lines that would be as trouble-free as possible for himself and his warders. One day, he knew, long-term prisoners would revolt, but he figured he would have served his term in office by then and the next governor could have this worry.
As Clay Nash was bustled into his office now, still with his hands manacled, the governor raised his head and his eyebrows shot up as he recognized the Wells Fargo agent. He glanced sharply from the prisoner to Race Hollander and Red Morgan.
“Some mistake, Sheriff?” the governor asked in his deep, rumbling voice.
Hollander shook his head briefly. “No mistake, Governor. I’m formally charging Clayton Nash here with murder and arson.” The prison officer snapped his hard eyes to Nash’s face. You’re innocent of course.”
“I am, Governor. You know me. I work for Wells Fargo and you know the investigation I’m involved in. The sheriff and his deputy here are in it up to their necks.”
Red Morgan hooked Nash in the kidneys with an elbow, turning the man’s face gray with pain and he stumbled one step forward. The governor chose to ignore the movement, knowing full well what was happening; he had seen it often enough with his own warders. He looked at Hollander.
“A counter-accusation. You care to answer it, Sheriff?”
Race Hollander shrugged. “Nash quit Wells Fargo, or was tossed out by Hume, a week ago. He’s got no authority and no one to back him. He’s a loner and he tried pesterin’ the widow-woman, Parrish, ended up killin’ her and burnin’ down her house to cover the crime. We got evidence, Governor. Found his knife there, with coal oil cork still stuck on the blade, the silver plate with his initials still visible, though the bone handles were charred mighty bad.”
“If they were burned, the silver plate would have melted, too, if it’d been left in that fire!” Nash snapped, feeling somewhat desperate. The sheriff had spirited him out of town and as far as Nash knew, Hume was totally ignorant of his present situation. And right now he needed the chief detective’s help like he had never needed it before. “Governor, can’t you see they’re framin’ me?”
“Not for me to say, I’m afraid, Nash,” the big man said, rubbing a hand around his shadowed jowls. “In the absence of a magistrate, there can be no preliminary hearing. I have to decide whether to accept the law’s evidence or not and, of course, I have no reason to disbelieve the duly-elected officers.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Nash. I’ll go over the evidence that Hollander puts forward and if I accept it, you’ll be kept in prison here until the circuit judge arrives for your trial.”
He pulled a cord beside his desk and there was a muted ringing of a distant bell. Nash knew a warder would already be on his way to the governor’s office to escort him down to the holding rooms. Afterwards, when the governor had assessed the trumped-up evidence that Hollander would supply, Nash would be taken to the prison proper and thrown in amongst the hardened convicts, the men serving long sentences for violence against society—some men he had either put there himself, or they had kin or friends that he had killed or sent to the rock pile.
Likely he would never make it before the circuit judge arrived.
“Governor, notify Jim Hume,” Nash said, knowing he had only a minute before he was taken away. “I ask you this as a responsible officer. Hume must be told where I am and why I’m here.”
The governor looked at Nash with bleakness in his eyes.”I’ll examine the evidenc
e, Nash. If I decide it’s not sufficient to hold you, then you’ll go free and there’ll be no need for me to notify anyone. If, on the other hand, I decide there is a case and you have to be held, then you forfeit all rights, and so there’s still no need for me to notify anyone, least of all Jim Hume.”
The man gave a thick-lipped suggestion of a smile.
Nash stiffened, feeling a chill in his spine. The door opened behind him and two burly warders came in but he ignored them, staring at the governor, feeling that chill spread through his body.
“By God!” he breathed. “You’re in it, too! You’re in with Hollander and Morgan and all the rest ...”
The governor made a weary sign and Nash’s arms were grabbed savagely and he was yanked back towards the door.
“Goddamn it!” he shouted. “You’re all workin’ the racket together ...!”
He grunted as a heavy fist smashed into his kidneys, and he was flung to the floor outside the office door. The second warder kicked him in the belly and Nash doubled-up his knees under his chin. Through the red wave of pain, just before the office door closed, he saw Race Hollander perch a hip on the corner of the prison governor’s desk and laugh with the big man.
Then the door closed and Nash was roughly hauled to his feet and dragged away along the stone passage.
“C’mon, Nash,” growled one of the guards. “We got some old friends just waitin’ for you to arrive.”
“Yeah,” chuckled the man on the other side of him. “Don’t wanna keep ’em waitin’, do we?”
The desk clerk scanned down the pages of the register and looked up at Jim Hume standing across the desk from him in the Gold Nugget’s lobby.
“Yeah, well that’s right, sir. Mr. Nash’s bill has been paid and he’s checked-out.”
Hume’s face deepened. “Not possible,” he muttered.
The clerk arched his eyebrows. “I assure, you, sir, it is. It’s what’s happened. As you told me yourself, his room is empty. Might I suggest you check with the livery stables to see if his horse has also gone? I mean, it’s possible he just moved out to another hotel in town, though I must admit I can’t see why. He had no complaints about our service as far as I know.”