The Hangings

by Bill Pronzini

  Chapter 14

  THE WEATHER CHANGED DURING THE NIGHT—OF A SUDDEN, the way it often does around here. Fog and low clouds blew in from the ocean thirty miles away, herded by an icy November wind. The cold woke me around five; I got up and fetched blankets from the other two cells and heaped them over me, but I could not get back to sleep. I lay there thinking on things, without much consequence, until first light. Then I got up for good, built a fire in the stove and brewed some coffee. I was drinking my third cup and scraping dried swamp mud off my trousers when Boze came in just past seven.

  He seemed relieved to see me, thought the relief didn't last beyond my account of what had transpired in and around Donahue Landing. He rubbed his bald spot, looking unhappy, and said about the same as Obe and Doc had last night: "We can't keep the lid on long, Linc. Mayor Gladstone’s got a nose like a bloodhound; he'll sniff it out about Emmett Bodeen before the day's through."

  "Maybe not," I said. "Depends on how soon Joe Perkins gets here and how much hurdy-gurdy he creates when he does."

  "Perkins will want to bring in deputies for a house-to-house search. What do you bet?"

  "No bet."

  "If he does it, there'll be hell to pay."

  "I know it. But the only way to keep him from doing it is to arrest the murderer ourselves."

  "Maybe the son of a bitch is already dead," Boze said. "Died of his wounds on the way home or after he got there.''

  "Sure, that's possible."

  "But not likely. Be too easy that way."

  "At the least he's holed up," I said. "And if he's holed up, he's not going to be hanging anybody else. Look at it that way."

  "Yeah. You got any ideas where to go lookin'?"

  "No. I was hoping maybe you found out something yesterday that'll give us one."

  He shook his head. "I must of showed that presidential medal to fifty people. Couple had seen one before but not around Tule Bend."

  "Nobody saw or heard what went on at the livery?"

  "Not that owned up to it." Then he frowned and said, "I don't know that it means anything, but there is one funny thing that happened."

  "What's that?"

  "Well, it's Morton Brandeis. I sent word up to Morton's house after you left yesterday morning, about Pike being hanged in the livery. Morton said he'd be down but he never showed up. Later on, after nine, Joel Pennywell saw him ridin' east out of town with a carpet-bag tied to his saddle."

  That was odd. "You talk to Lucy Brandeis or Maude Seeley about it?"

  "Maude. She said Lucy is too sick to have visitors. Said Morton had business in the Napa Valley. But she was tight-lipped and sour about it, like she'd been sucking lemons. Practically shut the door in my face when I asked what his business in Napa was."

  "He come back to town later on?"

  ''Not as far as I know."

  "Who closed up the livery?"

  "I did. I didn't know what else to do."

  "What about the horses?"

  "Owners came and got some. I took the rental nags up to the Union Hotel stables."

  I nodded, pacing a little now.

  "What gets me," Boze said, "is why Morton would leave town without stoppin' at the livery. Pike worked for him— that's one thing. And you'd think he would want to see what damage was done, make some arrangements to keep the place open or else shut it down himself.''

  "You'd think."

  Boze was silent for a time. Then he said, "You don't think Morton had anything to do with the hangings, do you? Hell, we've known him most of our lives. . . ."

  "You can know somebody a long time and not know him at all . . . what goes on inside his head. But no, I don't see how he could be mixed up in it. He isn't the wounded man who fired on me in Donahue, not if he was here in Tule Bend yesterday morning."

  "Well, maybe he's over in the Napa Valley, just like Maude said."

  "Maybe." But it still bothered me, and I thought that I would have a talk with Maude Seeley myself later on. "Anything else happen yesterday that I should know about?"

  "Well . . . there was a lot of talk."

  "Citizen patrols? Obe mentioned that last night."

  "About you and me, too. Especially you."

  "Uh-huh. Making you and me the scapegoats."

  "More than that."

  "Such as what?"

  Boze looked uncomfortable. "You and me never talked about it," he said, "and I don't like to talk about it now. It's none of my business nor anybody else's. But that don't stop some from waggin' their tongues."

  I knew what was coming, now. "Hannah Dalton," I said.

  "That's it. Bluenoses don't like it that you're keepin' company with her. They say she's got you so fuddled you don't know which end is up."

  "Well, confound them!"

  "You want to know who's doin' the talking?"

  "No. Better I don't. Bullshit is what it is, Boze."

  "Sure, I know that. But some believe it and there's nothing anybody can say to change their minds."

  "I suppose they want me to resign."

  "Or the town council to replace you."

  "Who with? You?"

  "Hell no. Murray Conrad."

  "Dandy choice." Murray Conrad was a former county deputy who had worked under Joe Perkins during his first term and then quit when his uncle died and left him the family chicken ranch up near Petaluma. He was a decent sort, Murray, but none too bright and a little heavy-handed in his methods. As a peace officer, he was in the same barnyard as Perkins. "What does the mayor say about all the talk?"

  "You know how he is. Told me he was—quote—reservin' judgment for the time being—unquote."

  I was starting to get riled again. "To hell with him. To hell with the rest of them too. Maybe I ought to resign . . . maybe move out of Tule Bend for good.''

  "Easy, Linc. It's not everybody that's talkin' behind your back. Just a few."

  "That's how it starts, with just a few."

  Boze fell silent, I suppose because he was afraid of getting me even hotter than I was. I sat at my rolltop and scowled out at the fog roving past the window, until I cooled down again. More and more lately, I seemed prone to flying off the handle. I had cause, God knew, but that didn't justify it. It was as if there was more eating at my vitals than just the murders and how folks were reacting to them and to me— something I could not put the right name to yet, just as I couldn't put a name to the madman who had killed the Bodeen brothers and Jacob Pike.

  Over by the stove, Boze stood watching me. I could feel the stare of his eyes. I looked up and said, "Hell, Boze, I apologize. No reason to take it out on you."

  "Nothing to apologize for," he said. "Were I you, I'd feel the same way."

  "Suppose we go get some breakfast? I haven't eaten since—"

  I did not finish the sentence—and we did not go get some breakfast—because the door banged open just then and a too-familiar bullfrog voice said, "Well, Lincoln, I heard you were back. Why didn't you report to me last night, eh?"

  Mayor Verne Gladstone. And right behind him was Sheriff Joe Perkins, decked out in a loud checked suit and almost as corpulent as the mayor from all the pig's knuckles and fatty beefsteak he tucked away.

  *****

  The rest of the morning was a loss. I had to tell my Donahue story twice to satisfy the mayor and Perkins and then submit to a long volley of questions, most of them inane. I manufactured half-truths to cover up my finding of Emmett Bodeen's hanged corpse, and allowed as how Bodeen must have lit a shuck for parts unknown after getting into the shootout with his brother's killer. As for the stolen money, which I had put into the office safe last night, I said that I had found it near the roundhouse in Donahue, just lying in a patch of grass where Bodeen must have lost it. Everything else I told pretty much as it had happened and according to my speculations.

  Perkins was all for bringing in a wagonload of deputies and mounting a house-to-house search, just as Boze had prophesied. The mayor was against that, but only because he
couldn't bring himself to believe that one of his friends or neighbors was a homicidal madman. The two of them argued about it as if Boze and I weren't even there. Then two other members of the town council showed up, one of them being Fred Horler, and I had to tell my story a third time, and get the six hundred dollars out of the safe for Fred to count twice before he was satisfied that it was all there, and listen to another heated argument that all but excluded me. My temper was so short by then I had to take my pipe out and bite down hard on the stem to keep angry words from spilling out.

  What they all finally decided was that Perkins would ask "discreet" questions around town and see what he could find out, and that the rest of us would do the same. If none of us turned up anything definite by four o'clock, we would all meet back here and compare notes and make a final decision as to what would be done next.

  It was a reasonable enough plan, except that Perkins did not know the meaning of the word discreet and was bound to stir things up even more than they already were. If he found out anything important, it would be by sheer accident. And his presence, if not his tactics, would make it more difficult for Boze and me to accomplish much of anything worthwhile.

  It was after eleven before we were able to get away. I needed to put some food in me first thing. Boze had eaten earlier and wasn't hungry, he said, so I asked him to go to Obe Spencer's and find out if Obe had done as I'd told and brought back Emmett Bodeen's body. Then I went to the Germany Cafe and filled the hole in my belly with eggs and sausage and two helpings of potato pancakes.

  Boze arrived just as I was finishing my coffee. Obe had brought the body back, all right, and without incident.

  From the cafe, we went our separate ways. Morton Brandeis's sudden disappearance was still nettling my mind, and because I had nowhere better to go yet, I walked up to Morton's house on First Street and rang the front bell. Nobody answered. Which was peculiar, because Lucy Brandeis was bed-ridden and had not left the house since she'd taken ill; and her sister seldom left her alone for a minute.

  I rang the bell twice more, then went around to the rear and knocked on the door there and called out a couple of times, also without getting a response. When I came back to the front again I thought I saw the parlor curtain move, as if somebody had been looking out from behind it. If Maude and Lucy were home, there was only one reason I could see for Maude not answering the door: neither she nor Lucy wanted to talk about Morton, especially not to me.

  On a hunch, I walked back to Main and entered the North Coast Bank and spoke to Waldo Thomas, the president. He didn't want to reveal confidential information about one of his customers, but I worked on him for ten minutes until he gave in and told me what I wanted to know.

  Before leaving town yesterday morning, Morton had drawn out exactly half of what was in his account—more than three thousand dollars. And he had taken the money in cash, greenbacks.

  Waldo didn't know why; Morton had not volunteered any explanation and Waldo hadn't asked. He had no idea where Morton might have gone, either.

  What the hell?

  Outside, I crossed the street on a point back toward First and the Brandeis house. I would get to the bottom of this with Maude Seeley, even if it meant using some of Joe Perkins' bullying tactics. I still couldn't see how Morton's actions and disappearance could have anything to do with the hangings; but until I found out just what they did have to do with, I wasn't ruling out any possibility.

  But I didn't make a second visit to the Brandeis house straightaway. I got sidetracked by Ervin Ramsey.

  Ramsey was a little chicken turd of a man with a mean spirit and a disposition to match. He worked as a glazier, among other things, and he was driving his big A-bedded glass wagon down Main as I came upstreet toward First. We noticed each other at about the same time. One of his disagreeable, lopsided grins appeared and he called out, "Hold on there, Constable," and then reined his horse over my way and to a stop.

  I scowled at him. Neither of us had much use for the other. I had thrown him in jail overnight once for public intoxication and he had taken that and his twenty-dollar fine more bitterly than most.

  "What is it, Ramsey?"

  "Know where I'm headed?"

  "How would I? And I don't give a hoot, either."

  "Sure you do. Up to your lady friend's."

  "What?"

  "Miss Hannah Dalton. Or is it Mrs.? I just can't keep it straight about that woman and all the men in her life."

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "Don't you know, Constable? I figured she'd of come runnin' to tell you about it first thing, the two of you being so chummy and all."

  "Spit it out or swallow it."

  "Whey, then, I guess you don't know," Ramsey said, and his grin widened out like a wolf's over a bloody sheep carcass. "Somebody chucked a big rock through her front window last night. Smashed it to smithereens. That's why she sent for me."

  A tightness came into my chest, so that I began to have a little trouble breathing. My hands curled into fists.

  "But that ain't all," Ramsey said. "Way I heard it, there was a message tied to that rock. 'Course I don't know what was on it, but I can imagine. Yes sir, I sure can imagine what that message must of said."

  Chapter 15

  HANNAH'S PARLOR WINDOW HAD BEEN SMASHED, ALL right: only a few jagged shards of glass still remained in the frame. She had found a piece of plywood somewhere and fixed it up on the inside, to keep out the cold wind that blew across the bluff. Seeing the shards and the plywood pushed my dander up even higher. If I found out who was responsible . . .

  Ramsey swore he hadn't done it, swore he didn't know who had. Maybe that was the truth and maybe it wasn't; the only way to tell for sure was to beat up on him some, and I was not ready for that—not yet. So I had ordered him to delay an hour before he brought the new pane of glass Hannah had ordered—I wanted to talk to her alone, without him and his flappy ears around—and then I had come straight here myself.

  I climbed onto the front porch, twisted the bell. The door had leaded-glass panes in it and I saw her draw the curtain aside briefly to see who it was. At least she was being cautious. A few seconds passed before she opened the door. She wore a silk shirtwaist and a figured cloth skirt, clothing that showed off her comely figure to good advantage, and she had braided her hair rather than piled it atop her head—a style that made her look younger than her thirty years. But this was a business matter, not a social call; I felt none of the yearning that filled me on those nights with her on the rear porch.

  She said in grave tones, "Good morning, Lincoln."

  "Hannah."

  "You look tired. You haven't been hurt again?"

  "No. I expect you know why I'm here."

  "The window. I had hoped you wouldn't find out."

  "Why, for heaven's sake? Why didn't you come and tell me about it?"

  "You have enough on your mind. And I knew you would be angry. You're angry now."

  "Well, why shouldn't I be? Aren't you?"

  "No. It isn't important."

  "The hell it isn't . . . excuse me, but it is important. Malicious mischief is a crime—and it could have been worse. What if that rock had hit you?"

  "I was in bed, asleep. It was after midnight."

  "That's not the point, Hannah, and you know it."

  She sighed faintly and pursed her lips. She had that wall up around herself today; I could see it in her eyes.

  I said, "I'd like to come in, if you don't mind."

  "No, I don't mind."

  She stood aside to let me enter, then closed the door and led me into the parlor. It had her stamp on it: oil paintings of garden scenes dominated by roses, new-looking banquet lamps with rose shades, rose-brocaded arm sleeves on a velveteen couch. I knew she was fond of roses; she grew them in her garden and often had vases of red and white buds on the porch tables. But there were other things here, too, such as a home graphophone and a cottage organ, that reminded me I did not know her wel
l at all. She had never had occasion to tell me she was fond of music or that she played the organ. And I had never thought to ask if she had any such interests.

  I went and looked at the rose-patterned carpet beneath the tacked-up piece of plywood. No glass shards, and no sign of the rock. I turned to face Hannah again.

  "What did you do with the note?"

  The question startled her. "How did you know there was a note?"

  "Ervin Ramsey. I ran into him in town."

  "But I didn't mention it in the message I sent him. . . ."

  So then how did he know? I would ask him as soon as I was done here—with my fists, if necessary.

  "Where is it, Hannah? I want to see it."

  "I burned it."

  "Why?"

  "I don't want any more trouble, Lincoln."

  "Neither do I—not for you or anybody else. But that means putting a stop to mischief like this, not ignoring it."

  "Even if you find out who was responsible, it won't stop people from hating me. You must know that."

  "I know that I have a job to do and that I'm going to do it," I said. "What did the note say?"

  She was quiet for a time, back behind her protective wall. Then, abruptly, she said, " 'If you stay in Tule Bend, the next rock will break your head instead of your window.' That is what it said, word for word."

  My chest was tight again. "And you say that's not important? That's a death threat, Hannah!"

  "No. It's idle mischief. No one is going to hurt me."

  "You can't be certain of that. There's a madman on the loose in this town. . . ."

  "Oh, Lincoln, he isn't going to come after me. Did the killer write notes to his victims? Break their windows?"

  "Who can tell what a madman will or won't do? Living up here all alone . . . you're vulnerable."

  "Do you honestly believe I would be any less vulnerable living in the middle of town?"

  I didn't intend to say the words, did not mean them, but they came out anyway: "There are other towns."

  "Yes, there are other towns. I've lived in some of them—too many other towns. It has always been the same; it always will be the same for women like me."