by Ed Gorman
“How did this happen to Uncle Bob? He was such a vulnerable old man.”
While I gave them the particulars, Sister Jane’s eyes filled with tears.
“And why is Molly in jail? She didn’t kill her uncle.”
I explained that Molly wasn’t being cooperative and Terhurne had chosen to hold her in jail.
“Right now, I’m trying to find out something about Molly’s background. Did either she or her uncle tell you much about themselves?”
“Just that they were going to be rich and build us a convent that would put all other convents to shame.” This from the white-haired nun. She smiled and not without fondness. “That was from Uncle Bob, of course. He was quite the dreamer.”
“Did he say how he planned to get rich?”
“One night,” said the red-haired nun, “he told me that there was a man who was going to help him get rich.”
“Did he say who the man was?”
Sister Jane said, “Grieves was a name he mentioned.”
“How about Molly? Did she ever say they were going to be rich?”
“Oh, yes, and we were all going to live in a fairy-story world. She really believed that, I think. Both that such a world existed and that she’d live in it one day.” She laughed. “Uncle Bob, on the other hand, was more practical, his dreams I mean. They were both going to build us a fine big convent but while Molly was off living in her fairytale world, he was going to go to ‘Frisco’ as he called it and have himself a good time.”
A nun who looked to be part-Mexican said: “He always said that he was too polite to tell us exactly what a ‘good time’ meant. Though he did say he’d be goin’ to confession a lot.”
“But you can’t remember anything he said about how he was coming into all this money?”
The white-haired nun said, “He was always very vague about that, even when he was drinking.”
“I take it he drank a lot?”
“Not as much as he wanted to—”
“Once or twice when Molly let him have some whiskey from this flask she kept from him—”
“It didn’t take much for him to get very merry—”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed that, Mr. Ford, about men who drink a lot. They can drink a long time but it doesn’t actually take very much to get them drunk.”
This was a freewheeling moment when everybody was pitching in thoughts and it ended when Sister Jane said: “He just kept saying Grieves and another man were going to make him rich. But he’d never tell us who the other man was. He kept it a real big secret. It was kind of cute, the way he made such a big deal out of it.” She paused. “This was when he wasn’t telling other kinds of stories about taking us to Europe and fixing up our school and telling us how he was personal friends with all kinds of important people. He always talked so big and most of the time it was a lot of fun. But every once in a while Molly couldn’t take it anymore. Then she’d smile and say, ‘Oh, c’mon, Uncle Bob, that’s just another one of your whoppers.’ And he could tell some big ones.”
“According to him,” the red-haired nun said, “he’d pretty much fought the Indian wars all by himself. And he’d been asked by President Lincoln to be his personal bodyguard for a time.”
“He knew we knew it was all bosh,” said the white-haired nun. “But that’s what made it fun for us and for him. He was actually just a tent performer who had very bad bones. He said that he’d made his living for a long time doing a little dancing and singing a few songs and then telling what he called his life story. He claimed to have saved a lot of people in his time.”
Sister Jane said, “One story had him saving Molly from a burning orphanage. And another story had him saving her from going over a falls after her father suffered a heart attack and died in the canoe.”
“And don’t forget when he saved her from the bear,” said the red-headed nun.
They were like gleeful young girls. A visitor had come and so they had an excuse to please him and themselves.
“So, you see, Mr. Ford, you can pretty much take your pick. A burning orphanage, a canoe going over the falls, or a bear about to attack a girl.” Sister Jane touched long fingers to her cheek. “I suppose we sound cruel to you, Mr. Ford, as if we’re making fun of him. But we all loved nights around the convent listening to his tales.”
“He was the most fun we’ve had in years,” said the white-haired nun. “And Molly was a saint. She put in as many hours around here as we did.”
“Where did they sleep?”
“There used to be six of us. There’s a small shed with a stove in it. Room for four more. Meals and everything else they took up here.”
Sister Jane said, “Do you think any of this had to do with Uncle Bob’s murder?”
“That’s the part I’m not sure of. That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
An alarm clock opened up with enough clamor to wake up every living thing within a quarter-mile radius of the place.
“Our meal time is over,” Sister Jane explained.
“We give ourselves exactly twenty-two minutes, the full thirty minutes for supper.” The white-haired woman dabbed at her mouth with her white cloth napkin. “It’s easy to forget we’re nuns sometimes out here on our own. So we stick to a very regimented life.”
“Sister Jane thinks she’s a drill sergeant,” said the red-haired one.
The other two nodded in agreement.
“Imagine how they talk about me when I’m out of the room,” Sister Jane said. Then: “We all had our little fun at Uncle Bob’s expense. But now let’s bow our heads and pray for him. And that Molly gets out of jail right away.”
I thought that was the prayer.
I was wrong. Prayer meant prayers plural. Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be. My wife had been Catholic. These were familiar sounds.
A few minutes after the prayers were finished, the nuns headed to the hooks next to the door where their coats were hung. They shrugged into them and we all went outside.
“Since they were staying here, Sister Jane, I suppose they left some things behind.”
“The shed is right around back. You can see for yourself.” I noticed her blue eyes gleaming. “I’m never as strong as I need to be. It’s just so sad, the two of them. She can still turn her life around. And Bob was a good man. I suspect he lived most of his life outside the law, as they say. But deep down I think there was a decent man there. If you saw him with animals, you’d know what I mean. They loved him.”
She caught my smile.
“I don’t suppose that means anything to you but I’ve found that animals have a pretty good sense of human beings. They seem to know the kind ones and go to them. And they shy away from the mean ones. Not always but often enough that they’re pretty reliable about who’s a good person and who’s not.”
We had walked around back of the house. What she had referred to as a “shed” was a replica of their log cabin, only half as large. “We try to keep it up. There are always people needing somewhere to sleep.”
“And eat.”
One of the nuns had mounted a horse and was riding toward timber; another was working on a wagon that had been turned on its side, something wrong with its axle apparently; and the third nun was busy setting up wood to be chopped into firewood.
She put out her hand. We shook.
“We’ll be praying for you. We don’t believe in execution but we do believe that murderers should be in prison for life.”
Then she set off for the small barn that housed the livestock.
The interior of the cabin was smartly set up. A clean oilcloth covered the floor, the walls were lined with newspapers that had been glazed to be more attractive. A kitchen area, two comfortable-looking beds with heavy red quilts, and potted plants set here and there. A lot of frontier people would have considered this shed a pretty enviable place.
Molly and Uncle Bob had moved in. On the counter in the kitchen area were a few framed photographs of the two of them taken
a few years earlier. Molly looked to be about fifteen, Uncle Bob looked pretty much the same. There were a couple of Molly’s report cards from the sixth grade with straight A’s. On the back of one a teacher who signed herself Nadine Pentecost commended the young girl for “poise, charm and general intelligence. She is especially endowed with a passion for theatrical readings, which she gifted us with many times.”
Uncle Bob had a collection of odds and ends that spoke to a life of travel and pleasure. Stubs attesting to his visits to amusement parks, baseball stadiums, and various museums, musicales, and tent show performances everywhere. He’d obviously spent some time in the East because he had brochures depicting beautiful young singers across a span of years. I thought of what Sister Jane had said about animals recognizing good souls.
Molly’s bed was easy to spot. A large doll with a tiara sat atop her pillow. The tiara was missing most of its sparkle.
Because there was no dresser or bureau of drawers, I looked in the other place people choose to put their valuables. I leaned down and felt around underneath her bed and found a wooden box.
I opened the lid. Newspaper clippings, magazine articles, ribbons won as prizes, locks of hair, odds and ends of cheap jewelry—a jumble of memories, all of them seeming to be innocent until—
Four books for small children. Each of them with drawings of beautiful princesses and knights and castles in the air. They were cheap books and badly illustrated. That made me feel sorry for Molly. She should have had better editions. But even those crudely drawn books were enough to inspire her. That was where Molly really lived. She was such a young woman of parts—violent enough to put a razor to my throat, innocent enough to dote on fairy tales, strong enough to tell the law she wouldn’t cooperate.
I thought about buying her a gift. She’d be in need of something sweet and unexpected after all that had happened. Of course, I was also hoping that my little gift might start her to talking, too.
Back in town, I rode my horse to the livery and then started off to the newspaper. I barely got out of the barn the livery used before the owner, a swarthy man with a massive head and dark eyes that never looked pleased with anything they saw, said: “I hear you been askin’ about Grieves.”
I turned around. Of course.
“Yes, I have. Do you know him?”
“I don’t. But my daughter does. She stayed out half the night at a party in town here and when she got home, you can bet I tanned her hide good.”
This sounded sloppy even for Grieves. Being with a young girl was a pretty bad problem to have, especially in a strange town.
I was almost afraid to hear the answer: “How old’s your daughter?”
“Twenty-one.”
It was almost like a joke.
“Well, that’s of legal age.”
“It ain’t when she lives under my roof. Boyfriend of hers, no good little bastard, he run off with somebody else and left Lulu Jane with nobody to marry. So she’s still at home and by God she’ll live by my rules.”
“Did she tell you anything about Grieves?”
“Just that he was real drunk and got in a pretty bad fistfight with some real small man who came in late. She’s seen plenty of fights growing up with her brothers but she said this fight was really something.”
“She know the man’s name?”
“Didn’t say. Just said they acted like they really hated each other.”
“Any chance I could talk to your daughter?”
He nodded. “She’s right down the street at the Thrift Shop. She’s got a good job there, especially since she started running the mail-order-bride service.”
I thanked him and walked down the street. The day was still warm and comfortable. Just about everybody around looked to be in a pretty good mood. Spring has got a power no other season can claim.
Lulu Jane turned out to be a rangy young woman with dark hair and a pretty if somewhat pinched face. All I could see of her clothing was a white blouse and a red vest. She stood behind a tall counter surrounded by a store where secondhand clothes of every description packed the place. Unfortunately, they had the smell of secondhand clothes. But that wouldn’t keep poor families from buying everything they could there.
“You here about a bride?” she said. “I just got a new catalog in and I’ll tell you these are some of the prettiest gals you’ll see outside of Paris, France.”
She reached down. I was about to see this fabled catalog.
“Well, actually, I was here to see you, Lulu Jane. Your dad said it’d be all right if I came over here and talked to you.” I showed her my badge.
Her cheeks blazed instantly. “He said it’d be ‘all right’ if you talked to me? Shouldn’t I be the one to make that decision?”
She didn’t wait for an answer.
“I’m twenty-one years old. I don’t need his permission for anything. I’m saving up money for a room here in town and then it’s goodbye to him.”
Is there anything more pleasant to get dragged into than a family squabble? There’s something about arguing with blood kin that makes people insane.
“Well, I guess I’ll leave all that up to you, Lulu Jane. What I wanted to ask you about was a man named Grieves.”
She smiled, looking even prettier. “He makes it mighty tempting to move to a big city. Not with him, I mean. But just to a big city in general. All the new fashions and the parties and the interesting people. If my mail-order-bride business wasn’t doing so good here, I’d give it some serious consideration.” Then she looked at me as if really seeing me for the first time: “How come you’re asking about Mr. Grieves?”
“Your dad said he got into a fight with somebody one night when you were there.”
“Oh, he sure did. He always keeps saying he just wants to have a party that lasts forever and that’s what it was sort of like. There wasn’t anything shameful going on. Everybody was a little tipsy was all. But then this little fella comes in and they go into this other room and right away you can hear them yellin’ at each other. And then all of a sudden they start into this fistfight. The little fella wasn’t any match for Mr. Grieves, that’s for sure.”
“Did you ever find out what they were arguing about?”
She thought a moment, biting her lower lip as she considered my question. “Well, it was something to do with business because Mr. Grieves said, ‘We’re partners and you’re not gonna back out now.’”
“Did you happen to catch the man’s name?”
She laughed. She had a sweet girly laugh. “Well, as I told you, everybody was a little tipsy and that was me included. About all I remember was that it started with a ‘D’, I think. And maybe that’s not right. But it could be.”
“So you didn’t hear any more than that?”
She blushed. “Not that I can remember.” Then: “I know Mr. Grieves has disappeared somewhere. I just hope he’s all right.” Then: “I’m sure my dad told you how I was left behind by Vern Tiller, who ran off with somebody else. Well, I don’t mind telling you that I’ve been pining over him for more than a year. And Mr. Grieves’s party was the first time I just let go and had fun and didn’t think of Vern, not even once. Well, maybe once. But no more than that. I sure hope Mr. Grieves comes back.”
She smiled. “And invites me to another one of his parties.”
The gravestones weren’t enough. Not for a man of Grieves’s destructive appetites. As day was pushing on dusk, that sad shadowy twilight time that always reminded Dobbs of the family he’d left behind, Grieves suddenly pulled his horse up short and said, “Give me one of those grenades.”
“What for?”
Grieves looked genuinely shocked. “What for? You’re askin’ me what for, you little bastard? Because they’re mine, that’s what for.”
“Haven’t you destroyed enough things for the day?”
“You still sulkin’ about those headstones? You’re worse than a woman, Dobbs. I’m goin’ to take you to a party tonight that’s gonna make a m
an of you for sure. You wait and see. Now you drop down and get one of those grenades and you bring it over here, you understand?”
No use arguing. For all his fancy ways, Grieves was not of the human species. Dobbs had met a few military men like Grieves. No conscience, no restraint. Evil, selfish, self-absorbed little children. Why in God’s name had Dobbs ever thrown in with him?
Dobbs carefully carried the grenade to Grieves. So far not one of them had misfired, something he’d not yet had to mention to the federal man. Though Dobbs had told him that these grenades never exploded in the hand of the man throwing one of them, this grenade, for all its power, was just as risky as all the grenades that had come before it. Three soldiers had been killed in the trials leading up to Dobbs pronouncing his invention completed. The Army hadn’t cared. If it had one entirely expendable asset, it was the foot soldier.
Dobbs stood in the chilly half-light, squinting a bit now, trying to figure out where Grieves was going. All he could see was Grieves walking slowly across a wide patch of buffalo grass. The patch was empty except for an unsaddled horse that was enjoying the taste of the grass.
There was nothing for Grieves to blow up there.
And then, thank God for the half-light so he couldn’t see it clearly, Dobbs watched in disbelief as Grieves readied the grenade and then lobbed it right at the horse.
Dobbs had never seen such carnage before. And he would never forget it. No amount of willpower, no amount of whiskey, no amount of saloon whores could ever put the sight out of his mind. The horse’s head was ripped from the body and flew several bloody, brain-spilling feet into the air. And from the hole where head was separated from body gushed an unthinkable rain of blood as the horse collapsed to the grass.
“Did you see that, Dobbs? Did you see that?”
The evil child, delighted.
Dobbs swung around backward and vomited as he had never vomited before.
Chapter 11
Liz Thayer, who I’d been told ran the newspaper, was about five two and ninety pounds at the most. Blond hair pulled back and tied into a bouncy tail. Big brown eyes that would have been sweet if they didn’t look anxious. Faint wrinkles at her mouth and eyes. They looked good and true on her. White blouse, a man’s ancient brown cardigan sweater, and a pair of brown butternuts that showed off her very elegant little behind.