by April Jane
Candice shot him an eloquent look before examining the unconscious man. He had nice clothing, nicer than William’s, and newer as well. There was a fresh coating of dust on his black leather shoes, but Candice knew that they had been polished to a brilliant shine before he had stepped out onto the parched earth of their small town. “He happens to be rich,” Candice concluded. “Although I have no clue as to why that helps you convince me that you are not the man who killed the women.”
“If you—“ he began to reach down, to show her something, and Candice knew that it was something that would have convinced her from the sure gleam in his eye, when there was a shout from the end of the alley and the sound of running footsteps.
Candice stood quickly spinning to face this newest threat, and found the sheriff and deputy bearing down on her with guns drawn. She threw her hands up, partially to shield her face, and partially to show her innocence, but they breezed past her as if she did not exist.
“William Smithson,” the sheriff, a robust man with the sort of mustache that had always reminded Candice of a walrus, one of those creatures from a faraway land that she would never be able to visit, because she was stuck behind the counter of a bar. “You are under arrest for the murder of six women and the obstruction of justice. You will be dead by morning. Are you alright, Miss Candice?” he asked, turning to spare Candice a glance. She nodded and swallowed, putting a hand to her throat to calm the wild beating of her heart.
What had William been about to tell her? His eyes, which had been alight with emotions before, were now dead, and Candice felt some sort of foreign pang run through her at the sight. She wanted to see his eyes alight with emotions once more, that smile teasing the corners of his lips.
Before she could utter a single word to him, the deputy, who looked like a squatter, even more robust version of the sheriff shoved him away. “You will not need to worry about your safety any longer, miss,” he said, giving her a smile that she supposed would have once charmed her. “And I suppose you will want to come and pick up your reward. You were, after all, the person who found Mr. Smithson.”
Candice was speechless. This was all moving so quickly.
“I—I will come with you now,” she said without meaning to. She had meant to say that she would come by tomorrow with her father, but some part of her wanted to hear what William had been trying to tell her.
The Deputy and Sheriff shared a look that was indecipherable to Candice, and then the Sheriff nodded. “If you will follow us down to the station, ma’am.”
Candice nodded and waited until they had sufficiently tied William up. He stood with his chin tucked to his chest, utterly still, tad-too-long hair covering his face. Candice wished that she could look him in the eye, explain that she had never meant for this to happen—but then, and was that not what she had wanted? For this dangerous killer to be captured? Surely, he was simply trying to lure her in to make her an easy target—his next target.
Candice felt chilled. Surely he wouldn’t—but would he not? She shook her head. The conflicting feelings raged against her, the knowledge that she had likely just brushed death that crashed against the honest, sure look in William’s eyes as he had started to extend his hand out towards the man’s body. Candice glanced back—he was still unconscious on the ground. After she had collected her money, perhaps she could come question him, get the real answer, and do away with her doubts.
She followed the men to the station, mulling over her thoughts.
###
“Give me one reason to believe you,” Candice said, wrapping her fingers around the bars of the cell.
William did not glance up right away. He was huddled in the cell, on the bar cot in a way that made him look much smaller than he was—a good four inches taller than Candice, and even then, she was understating. She was by no means a short girl.
The candle light softened everything, made the harsh lines of the jail into something that could perhaps pass for a home—save the bars that separated her from William.
She had been here for hours, and the darkness had gathered around the edges of the sky and crept slowly over it in the time that it took to get William into the cell, fill out the paperwork, telegraph the marshals and give Candice her reward. The money bag weighed heavily at Candice’s hip, a reassuring sort of weight that might mean her freedom. However, before she could go home and celebrate, she had to know for sure. She would never rest if she ever found out that her freedom had been gained at the expense of a completely innocent man. Well, perhaps not completely innocent, for there had been that look of complete and utter violence in William’s dead gaze as he had beaten that man to a pulp. The man who had been gone when Candice had gone to put the majority of the money in a safe place upstairs from the tavern in her father’s office. When he got home, he would find it, and perhaps it would ease whatever complaints he would have about her leaving the tavern unattended for hours.
William finally glanced up, and she saw that he had a bruise along one cheekbone that had not been there before. She drew in a sharp breath, wondering when he had gotten it. His eyes were unreadable in this light, such a strange color. He looked at Candice for several moments before unfolding himself slowly, methodically, as if he had all the time in the world, though he was to hang in less than seventy-two hours, if they got word from the marshals fairly quickly.
“I have many reasons,” William said softly, his voice low and musical. It did something strange to Candice’s mind. She felt herself blush at the tone alone, and was glad for the deep shadows that were all around her. They would hide her traitorous cheeks.
William did not attempt to come closer, and Candice was strangely torn by this. She felt a little bit of relief; he would not try to kill her then. Part of her wanted to smell that cedar again, feel the weight of his muscled arm against her once more; where his hand had wrapped around her forearm still tingled no matter how much she rubbed at it. “Well, I would be very inclined to hear them.”
“What if I do not want to give them?” William’s voice was low, dangerous. Something like what a killer might sound like before they gutted their victim. Candice shivered, but it was not entirely from fear, not if she was being completely truthful with herself.
“I apologize for getting you in here,” Candice said, trying to keep her voice level. She was amazed when it came out in a smooth, unaffected tone. “But the past is the past, and the only way you will be able to get out is by having me help you. So whether you are alright with this arrangement or not, I am all that you have.”
“That is true,” William said, and this time, he did step closer, two steps, which ate up half of the distance between them. The cell was painfully small, something made for maybe a few hours to hold someone. Not days.
But then, what did the sheriff care about an animal that murdered several innocent women? Candice knew that she should move back; there was doubt in her mind that this man was innocent, but she did not twitch a single muscle. Instead, she leaned in closer, pressing her cheek against one bar, and the rest of her face through the other. “Would you like anything? Water? Food?”
“The men of this town were nice enough to provide me with both,” William said, and there was the barest hint of sarcasm in his voice. Candice frowned and glanced at the floor, where a silver tray rested, untouched. Stale bread and water from the horse’s trough. She swallowed.
“I apologize,” she said, and this time, she actually meant it. Even if he had murdered someone, or multiple people—even those girls—she felt responsible for his mistreatment. Innocent until proven guilty, she thought suddenly. Yes, that was something that she had learned from her father, and she would follow it.
“Do not bother,” William said, waving an elegant hand in front of himself vaguely, as if he could dispel the horribleness of it all with that simple gesture. “It is no fault of yours.”
He stepped closer once again, and Candice drew her face back, but did not remove her fingers from the bars. Will
iam was close enough for her to smell him, and she allowed herself two deep draughts of that smell, closing her eyes briefly, and saw her mother’s face, clear as day; clearer than it had been for years. She felt a pang go through her and fought back sudden tears. She would not cry in front of William. Instead, she took another sharp breath in—damn him and that smell—and focused on the matter at hand. “You say that you are innocent,” she said, prompting him. “How can I prove this? There needs to be evidence that will allow people to believe this, for whoever botched these murders did an exceptionally good job of it.”
“I know,” William said, and there it was again, the barest hint of emotion in his voice. If Candice could have worked up the nerve, she knew she would have seen that barely-there smile tracing its way over his lips. But she could not look at him, not when he was so close.
He took another step forward, and Candice drew in another sharp breath. Moving away now would mean submission, and she did not want to admit that this man scared her. This could very well be a test, to prove to him if she believed him or not. While she was not completely sure of his innocence—that dead, violent look in his eyes would not fade from her mind—she knew that he would not hurt her, not here, and not now.
“I planned to be a lawyer before this entire ordeal,” William said after a few moments of silence. She could hear his breathing, slow and even in the quiet. There was no one out on the streets tonight, no one that dared to leave their houses when they knew that they had a murderer in their midst, and the complete lack of noise was the most uncommon of occurrences in their little town of stagnation.
Whoever this man was, and whatever he may or may not have done, he had shaken the people of their town in a way that had never happened before. For the first time since nearly everyone had left, there was change, and even if William was responsible for the murders, he had done this town some good. Change was something that their town needed.
“A lawyer?” Candice asked to distract herself from such strange thoughts.
“Yes. I was to defend the innocent and charge the guilty. Strange, how fate has these ways of twisting things around until they are a crude perversion of what we once wanted to be,” he continued. Candice chanced a glance upwards and met William’s gaze. She let out a breath in a quick, rush as she did so, not bothering to hide the disproportionately loud noise in all of the quietness. His gaze was so very intense.
“Strange, indeed,” Candice said, her voice once again weak. “I wanted to travel the world and see all of its wonders,” she said, and wondered why on earth she was telling this stranger—possible murderer—such personal things. She had never even admitted this to her own parents. They would have simply laughed and told her to reconsider her dreams. “Instead, I am stuck here, in a town with no name that never changes. The inhabitants are ghosts of themselves, mere shells, and I am the only thing that seems to want to change, to move on. I tried to get free, I am in a mail order bride catalogue somewhere.”
William cocked his head to the side once more, as he had in the alley, but this time, there was no chilling effect down Candice’s spine, because there was a smile tilting up the corners of William’s mouth. “What an odd way to describe your little town,” he said.
Candice shrugged, tightening her fingers around the bars. “It is how I see it.”
“I should like to see the world as you do,” William said, and he was suddenly much closer—when had he gotten that close?—and Candice did not have time to jerk herself back as his fingers wove through the bars and into her hair. “Maurice only killed girls who wore lockets, and after killing them, he would cut a lock of hair off and stow it in the locket for safekeeping. If you can find the lockets, I can identify the girls’ hair, and if you can find them in his possession, that will be enough to charge him of the crime.” His voice was still soft, as if they were discussing something much more pleasant, much more intimate, and after a moment in which William’s fingers wove through the flaxen strands of Candice’s hair, his knuckles brushed her cheek in a very deliberate motion. “I am happy to have such a beautiful and intelligent woman helping clear me of these charges,” he murmured. “And perhaps I will have to find that catalogue when I get out of here.” Not if, when. He was putting so much trust into her; Candice nearly choked on the responsibility, but it was not that sentiment that held her in place.
Candice could not move. Her fingers were wrapped too tightly around the bars of the cell, and her cheeks were made of flames. She wanted—what did she want?
Wrenching herself away, Candice babbled something about having to get home before her father, and closing down the tavern, and bustling out of the jail quite quickly.
But she did pause outside, leaned against the wall where no one could see her, where she was completely engulfed in the darkness, and pressed her hand to her cheek, just as William had done, and did not bother hiding the secret little smile that bloomed across her face.
###
Over the next few hours, Candice searched the town for signs of the man, Maurice Quincy. She felt certain that she would be able to recognize him if she saw his face once again—regardless of the blood that had covered it—because only so many people had bruises on their faces in the little town of stagnation.
She asked all of the patrons as she closed up the tavern for the night if they had seen the man, bribing them with the money that she had gained from her apparent turning in of the murderer of the girls in Denver, so many miles away.
She shivered as she thought of those girls. Perhaps she had been lucky to have been skipped over. If she had gone to Denver to live with a husband who had ordered her out of a catalogue, she could have very easily ended up in one of their places, and then what would her father be? A wifeless, daughterless man with only his tavern to tend to in a land of ghosts.
If Maurice Quincy was the real killer, she might be next, as might the few girls that remained behind. They were all in danger if she did not find a way to stop him and free William of these false charges and catch the real killer in time.
Thus far, she was having little luck. Candice blew out a sigh of frustration as she counted out a few gold pieces to her latest drunk who claimed to have seen the man, but did not remember where or when.
Candice leaned against the bar and considered the rows upon rows of alcohol. She could nearly see her reflection in the glass behind it, distorted by the multi-colored liquids, the bends and turns of the glass bottles. She tapped her fingers against her forearm, chewing at her lip as she waited for a brilliant idea to come to her. She had talked to every patron she could catch before they left, and no one seemed to know the whereabouts of the man.
He would have to get a room to stay, would he not? The locals did not take kindly to visitors that they had never met before—and sometimes even to family and friends—and did not open their homes up to people. He would have to go to an inn—and there were only two in the town that were still in business. One was frequently trafficked and contained the general populace of the rare visitor that happened upon their nameless little town, and it would be smart to go to the one that had fewer visitors. There would be less of a chance of being caught.
Candice nodded to herself and pushed herself off of the bar. She quickly hurried up the stairs to her father’s study and unlocked the door, peering inside. She had not been in here for a long while without her father’s permission, and it felt nearly odd to be sneaking around.
She rummaged through his desk, heart in throat, searching through his drawers to find—“Ah, there you are,” Candice murmured, pulling out the gun. She had never held a gun before, let alone fired one, and her father had never even used it—not to her knowledge, at least. Candice swallowed. Where she was headed, she would need it, if only for intimidation.
Tucking the weapon gingerly in the pocket in her skirt, Candice closed the desk drawer and snuck out of the office, locking the door behind her and placing the key in its proper place above the door. She took in a deep, sh
aky breath and made her way out of the tavern. It was eerily silent, the last of the locals having left a few minutes ago, and she was completely alone.
The walk to the inn was just as eerily silent. She stopped by the jail once more, not going inside but pausing outside of the window to alert the sheriff to what was taking place.
“I think we may have the wrong man,” she told him.
The Sheriff glanced down at her hand, which was clutched around the barrel of the gun inside of her pocket and raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think that?” he asked, walrus mustache waving around wildly with each word. He sounded disbelieving, which was not surprising, but insulting all the same. Candice took a deep breath and pinned him with a look she remembered her mother giving her every time she got into the cookie jar without permission and took more than two.
“I know for a fact that the man who murdered these women took lockets from them, with locks of their hair enclosed, I read the reports, sir.”
The Sheriff raised both eyebrows, which were just as bushy as his mustache. “You certainly are well informed, young lady.”
Candice ignored the bite to the words and continued. “There were no lockets found on Mr. Smithson’s person, which lead me to assume that he was set up for all of these murders.”
“Has tending the bar caused your brain to melt?” the Sheriff snapped.
“Sir,” Candice snapped. “I am well aware that you wish for this case to be over, as do I, but I will not see an innocent man go to jail for crimes that he did not commit.” And there is the small fact that I might very well be in love with him, Candice added silently, but did not dare say it out loud.
The Sheriff considered her for several long moments. “What the hell,” he said, shrugging. “I have nothing better to do than watch this buffoon,” he said, throwing a casual hand towards William, who was watching them both intently, face cast in shadow and fingers wrapped around the bars.