Charleston counted on two fingers. “Item one, you were afraid he would talk. Item two, you were sore at him about Rosa.”
A touch of bluster came back to Becker. “Who in hell kills a man over a piece of tail?”
“Lots of men have, including you, for that reason and others. The charge is murder, two murders. We’ll get more proof, but the case is good as it stands.”
The wind went out of Becker and scratched back in. “You make-believe son of a bitch,” he said in his throat.
Charleston and I took him back and locked him in a cell. Gewald still sat in his chair on our return. “A little sketchy,” he said to Charleston, “but all right. You got your man.”
“We’ll fill in the gaps.”
“Sure thing.” For one of the few times I’d seen him do it, Gewald smiled. “Good work, Sheriff.”
“Given the time we had, you would have taken him in yourself.”
“I was hot on the same track all right, but congratulations. Well, no use for me any longer.” He looked at his watch. The clock on the wall said high noon.
Like good companions we went out and had lunch.
Seated back in the office, with Gewald gone, Charleston informed me, “It has been said that there’s more than one way of skinning a cat.”
“What cat?”
“Gewald. We got rid of him, didn’t we?”
“By beating him to the punch.”
Charleston locked his hands behind his head and yawned and for a little while didn’t say anything. Then, “It won’t hurt him to spend time in jail. It just may help his soul.”
“Becker?”
“Who else? We got him to involve Eagle Charlie. I was guessing.”
“It was a good guess,” I said. “But the rest wasn’t guessing. No, sir. You knew.”
“Take the charges in some kind of order, Jase, not that they’re charges in fact yet. Becker is guilty of assault and battery. Guilty as hell and admitted. But Jessie Lou doesn’t want to testify, and I don’t blame her. No case, then.”
He took his hands from his head and let them lie idle on the desk. “Rustling cattle. Grand larceny. Guilty again and admitted. But Grimsley left no will and has no relatives at all, none that have been found to date. So who’s to press charges? With Eagle Charlie out of the picture, where’s the evidence? Just the bank records, and they alone aren’t conclusive. If the estate were to act through an administrator or executor or anyone else—that’s unlikely—but if it happened, even a dumb defense lawyer could win hands down. I said we were lucky to get Eagle Charlie involved. Well, only to confirm a guess. It cuts no ice in the end. So there again, Jase, no case.”
I said, not believing, “You sound like you’re throwing everything out of the window.”
“Oh, I think we make progress, but still you’re right. You see, Jase, Becker’s not guilty of murder.”
Chapter Nineteen
I was up in decent time the next morning and just strolled to the office. The events of yesterday and all the days before swam around in my head. I felt too dull to put them in order or to reach for conclusions. They were just changing pictures and scraps of conversation without sequence or destination. A tired man made a poor thinker.
I had relieved Halvor the night before and not knocked off until after the bars closed. I might as well have been in bed except for one minor incident. I had had to put the run on three kids who were raising a ruckus at Hamm’s Big Hamburger.
Kids, I thought as I lazed along. Kids were a constant annoyance, though not a real menace to life and limb if you ignored their own. Not so, though. Not quite so. Put a brash and headlong kid—they weren’t all that way by far—put him or leave him at a steering wheel, and God save all parties. But what to do? Run them in, and they were put under the supervision of a juvenile-court officer, who was qualified because his own kids were obstreperous beyond his control. I had to remind myself that I was a kid once, not too long ago. A few years could make a whole lot of difference in behavior and attitude.
The door to the inner office was open when I pushed in at the front, but Charleston was not in his chair. Jimmy sat at the board.
“Not here yet, huh?” I asked Jimmy.
“Been and gone. On again, off again.”
“Where? Did he say?”
“Nobody tells me one damn thing.” It was plain that Jimmy had recovered from his attack of good cheer. “All I do is answer this fool phone, turn keys and pack grub to our guests. Yeah, indispensable like they say, that’s me.”
“Nuts, Jimmy,” I said. “No cause to bitch. No one could do your job as well as you do.” A little praise often bucked him up, but not now.
“Like hell! I’m a discard. You go in there with him and close the door, you or him, one. I’m too big a risk to be let in on the know. That’s the shape of it.”
I sat down. “He closes the door so the phone won’t break in on what he’s thinking and doing. He knows you’ll ring him on anything important. That’s what you do. Sift the calls.”
“Never knowin’ what goes on.”
“All right. What do I do? I scribble notes. I don’t know what’s up half the time. Let’s both go on strike.” Jimmy began to look a little less cranky, and I switched the subject. “How’s our new customer?”
“Becker? That bowlegged bastard? I got a mind to order up a barrel so he’ll have a comfortable seat. How is he? As well as could be expected seein’ he’s got a hard dose of lockjaw. Won’t say hello or shit or get out, but who gives a damn? You got him cold, Jase?”
“You’ll have to ask the sheriff. I thought we did but don’t know for sure now. Just one thing I do know. I’d like to give him a good working over.”
The clock on the wall had crept along toward nine o’clock. I asked, “When did Charleston take off?”
“Early. I hadn’t even rolled out. I’m supposed to tell you to stick around. Almost forgot that.”
I went to my desk and began typing up my report. My scatter of notes, plus concentration, brought back the said words.
A half-hour later Charleston brought in Red Fall. “I’m entirely willing to help,” Fall was saying, “but why bring me here? You haven’t told me, though I keep asking.”
“Take a chair,” Charleston answered. “Morning, Jase.”
Fall nodded to me and sat down at the side of the desk. “I could be working, you know.”
“So you’ve said before. I’m sorry my work interrupts yours.” Charleston’s reply didn’t sound sorry.
I had turned in my chair and moved closer, ready for notes.
Charleston took a cigar from his pocket, rolled it in his fingers, regarded it and decided not to light up. Almost casually, except that his eyes were alert, he asked the question that had puzzled me yesterday.
“Mr. Fall, you have heard of a knock-em-dead?”
There was an instant of silence, a hanging silence that seemed to clang bells. Fall sat, motion suspended.
“I’ll show you what I mean.” Charleston opened a desk drawer. He pulled a cow’s tail—a cow’s tail—out of it and laid it on the desk. It was the tail of a red cow. It was lumpy with something that couldn’t be bone. I had time to see that much.
A sort of squawk, a kind of shriek, came out of Fall. He snatched the tail up by one end and swung it back, aiming at Charleston.
I dived at Fall. We went down to the clatter of chairs. I heard Charleston’s “Hold him!” and felt Charleston’s hands reaching beneath me.
It was all scramble and squirm. Fall was wiry and fast as a weasel. He got away from me. He wrenched free from Charleston. He ran for the door with me on his heels and Charleston on mine.
Fall crashed through the inner door and charged toward the outer, and there, crowding the doorway, big as a Percheron, stood Halvor, ignorant but ready for action.
At the sight of him Fall spun around and faced me. His hand with the tail swung back for the strike. A hard swipe from behind knocked me over. I heard the hissing
swish of the tail as it tore by my ear. Then my head hit the wall. It struck the baseboard.
I climbed to my feet, using the wall to steady me. When I turned around, Jimmy was putting handcuffs on Fall while Charleston and Halvor held him tight.
“Good enough,” Charleston said. “Watch him, though.” We were all breathing short. He turned to me. “Sorry I had to knock you out of the way. That thing would have killed you.”
“You, too.”
“I caught him at the end of the swing. Oh, at the desk. Right. Thanks for the dive, Jase.” He straightened his clothes and ran a hand through his hair. “Now, Mr. Fall,” he said as if nothing had disturbed his composure, “shall we continue our discussion?”
We steered Fall back to the inner office, leaving the door open. Jimmy would have no kick coming now. He and Halvor edged inside. Fall seemed tame enough. Seated, he said, “You stole it from me.” The words were inquiry, not accusation.
“No, I made my own knock-em-dead. We’ll find yours at the dude ranch.” Charleston settled himself in his chair. “A few questions now. Better answer them.”
As if in prayer, Fall’s head was bent over his cuffed hands.
“You killed Grimsley and Eagle Charlie.” The words weren’t put as a question.
“‘Vengeance is mine saith the Lord.’”
“So it is written. What sayest thou?”
I sneaked a glance at Jimmy and Halvor, standing at the door. Their faces showed the astonishment I felt. Charleston couldn’t be ridiculing the man. More likely he was pretending to join the evangelical league in order to lead him on.
There wasn’t much time to speculate, for Fall came on with “They were abominations in the sight of God.”
“Verily.”
“They trafficked in her flesh. They were forcing her soul to hell, her immortal soul.”
“The soul of Rosa?”
“The soul of Rosa. ‘The Lord knoweth the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish.’”
Now matter of fact, Charleston said, “So you took it on yourself to remove them?”
Fall’s head jerked up. I hitched around so as to have a better view of his face. The one eye I could see had the straight glare of fanaticism in it. “Not on myself. Not for myself. It was ordered.”
“I see. Who issued the orders?”
“You do not see. You cannot see. It was the Lord’s will.”
Charleston said as an aside, “It’s a little difficult to jail God.”
The mad stare held steady. Fall spoke as if Charleston hadn’t. “I was His agent. He spoke to me. I heard His voice.”
Charleston’s head moved from side to side, slowly, as if heavy with understanding. “So you played God.”
“That’s evil. That’s blasphemous. He gave the word. I was His humble servant.”
Fall put his cuffed hands to his face. After a moment I knew he was crying. Mutters came from him, I supposed words of supplication.
Charleston gave him time for his prayers. Then he said mildly, “How did you know about Rosa?”
“From the old Christian lady. From Mrs. Gray Wolf. She hated sin. Then I watched to make sure.” Fall lifted his wet face. He seemed comforted and resigned.
“The assignment must have been difficult.”
“Not with God’s help. I had time. I studied their habits, their movements.”
“You refer to Eagle Charlie and Grimsley?”
“They were both older men. They had to get up at night. The toilets are on the outside.”
“All for Rosa,” Charleston said. He paused and asked, “How do you feel about Rosa?”
Fall’s cuffed hands moved small in their prison. “She is God’s work.”
“So are we all, but you haven’t answered my question.”
“There is no shame in it.” Together the hands moved up and down. “You want to make it shameful.”
“Not unless it is. Go on.”
“I love her, love her as you can’t understand.”
“I presume you have had her? I gather you wanted to save her for yourself alone.”
Fall tried to gesture. The cuffs restrained him. Jimmy and Halvor stood silent, too intent to whisper or move. The phone rang, but they didn’t stir. Fall said, “I knew you would see shame in pure feeling. Only the carnal has a place in your interest.”
“It has some place all right.”
“The one place. The only place. When I say I love her, you make it animal love, that alone. May the Lord help you. May He lead you to understanding.”
Charleston sounded tired when he spoke. “So, since you loved her, God asked you to remove her defilers.”
He shook his head again and rose. “I’m sorry, Mr. Fall, but in our society the laws of man come first. Under them we have to lock you up.”
“May God have mercy on you.”
We locked him up.
Chapter Twenty
Late that afternoon I returned to the office, where I found Charleston waiting. He had sent me home after Fall was put in a cell, saying, “Go on, Jase. Take some aspirin, have a nap. You look done in. A few more knocks on that skull of yours, and I’ll have to call you knot-head.” He added, “Then maybe you’ll feel well enough to come out to our place and have dinner with Geet and me.”
I wasn’t much in favor of rest and a nap, but my head did pound, each pulse of blood being a reminder of hurt, and I was draggy, what with too little sleep and the wear and tear of the day. I fell asleep on the couch at home while trying to figure out how Charleston had come to fasten on Fall. Twice, drowsing, I heard Mother tiptoe into the room. Nothing to wonder about there. She wanted to make sure I was warm enough and all right.
Charleston sat alone in the office when I arrived. Jimmy, I supposed, had gone out to eat. “Feeling better?” Charleston asked after sizing me up.
“As good as new, if that’s saying anything.”
He seemed satisfied with my appearance. “I’ve been putting off what has to be done. Let him think on his sins, I’ve been telling myself. But the sad time has arrived. Come along.”
He rose and took the jail keys from their hook, and I followed him back to the cells. He unlocked the one that held Becker. Becker was sitting on his bunk. He didn’t get up. “More damn foolishness?” he asked, his eyes squinting.
I caught a glimpse of Red Fall in the cell adjoining. He was lying down, his eyes open, praying or meditating, I guessed. Whatever it was, it shut us off from any open attention.
“Get out, Becker,” Charleston said. “You’re free for now.”
It took a second for the words to leak through. Then Becker got up. “I told you. I been tellin’ you—”
“I remember. Now it’s my turn to tell you. Get just one little bit out of line again, do one little thing, and you’ll wish to God you hadn’t. Hear that?”
“Don’t worry.” Becker thumbed toward Fall’s cell. “I’m converted. I heard enough prayers to save the whole goddamned world.”
Fall’s spoken words followed us out. “May God go with you. Believe in the Lord.”
Becker moved ahead of us, making for the outer door, his boots canted to the slant of his legs.
“You sure kept me in the dark,” I told Charleston when we were seated again. I thought, too late, that I sounded peevish, as Jimmy had earlier.
“Sorry, Jase,” Charleston replied easily. He finally lit the cigar he had forgotten on his desk. After it was going, he went on, “A man has a crazy idea, a wild hunch, and, if he looks ahead, he keeps it to himself. What if it doesn’t pan out? He’ll be up a tree. He’ll be up the creek, and no paddle. Respect? I want to save whatever I have, and that includes yours, Jase.”
“You’d have mine, regardless.”
“Don’t be too quick to say that.” He smiled at me through the smoke. “What if a little vanity comes into the picture? I admit to my share of it. What if I wanted, even a little bit, to collar the murderer all by myself? There’s something there, Ja
se.”
“It doesn’t change my opinion.” In the face of his honesty I was uncomfortable, and it was my fault for having let out a peevish squawk. He didn’t have to explain. “You caught Fall, and that’s it, and no one else could have done it.”
“With the help of others, I caught him. Remember that help. We caught him, Jase. We. So I can’t be too proud of myself alone.”
“All right, Mr. Charleston, but I still don’t savvy. I mean the whole thing. What led to one thing and what thing to another.”
He had to relight his cigar. “I was about to explain when you sidetracked me.”
He squirmed in his chair for greater comfort and leaned back. “The clue was there from the first. Doc Yak and Felix missed it, or anyhow missed its importance. Jase, Grimsley’s skull was broken not just in one place. It was dented and broken through here and there. No pattern to those fractures. Random, you might call them, but curved with the slope of the bone. You remember they talked of a blunt instrument and then a blackjack, but neither one fit the bill. You can see why. A blunt instrument doesn’t bend, and a blackjack loaded with shot wouldn’t leave those uneven marks. Then came Eagle Charlie. Same thing with him.”
Charleston bent forward to put his cigar on a tray and resettled himself. “What was the weapon, then? What could be the genuine article? I set myself to find out.”
“Those red hairs, too,” I said. “You had to account for them?”
He nodded. “Part of the genuine article. Seems simple now, doesn’t it?”
“It had me stumped.”
“Me, too, at the time.”
“What put you onto it? What brought it to mind?”
He didn’t answer the question just then. “We know the locals pretty well, Jase. None seemed to me right for the murders or right for the weapon. But two men we didn’t know much about—Becker and Red Fall. Both hail from the Southwest. So I went to the books.”
He grinned in remembrance. “You can call me an authority now, a bookworm authority. Ask me about the Graham-Tewksbury feud, and I’ll tell you. Ask about the Lincoln County War, and I’ll give you the dope. The Gadsden Purchase? Sure, I know all about that. Fringe benefits, that reading was. Not to the point.”
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