by Ed Gorman
He leaned back in his chair, his size imposing in that tiny room where, if you listened carefully, you could still hear the sobbing of mourners, ghost cries that had saturated the air in that house, just as much as the cloying sweet scent of flowers had.
“Not everybody liked him. Somebody in this town killed him.”
“What makes you so sure of that? Somebody killed him but I think who you mean by that is Flannery.”
“That scare you?”
“I’ve got a family to support. You want to know how fast he could get me fired?”
“Would the folks around here stand for that?”
“What choice would they have?”
I reached in my pocket and took out the small notebook I usually carried. “Well, it’s not just Flannery I’m talking about. Here are some names, if you’d like to see them. It’s not necessarily one of them but it’s a start.”
He took my notebook, looked it over. In the office to our left, a woman said, “Did you see the livery bill for last month?”
“He must think we live in Denver,” another woman said, “the prices he charges.”
“Well, Doc certainly isn’t going to stand for this.”
Even in the face of death the daily work goes on, two women bitching about the monthly livery bill. Nordberg got my attention again.
“You going to start bothering them, I suppose?” Nordberg said, handing back my notebook.
“You don’t want to find out who killed the first federal man and then Daly?”
“You don’t care about Connelly and Pepper?” He smiled.
“Not so’s you’d notice.”
“You wouldn’t have killed either one of them, would you?”
“If you’re going in that direction, why not say I killed both of them?”
“Did you?”
“I wanted to but somebody else got to them first.”
He straightened his string tie and sat up straight. I wondered if he’d suddenly seen a pretty lady. “Well, I’ll help you.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
“You take a few of the names to check out and I’ll take the rest.” Then: “I’m sorry I’m a coward. A man doesn’t like to think of himself that way. If you wouldn’t mind—”
“Sure. I’ll take Flannery.”
“He won’t be easy.”
“Neither will I.” I picked up the makings I’d left on the table. “And you’re not a coward. Like you say, you have a family. You have to live here. I don’t. I have no family and when this is all done, I get on a train and clear out. I’ve got the easy part.”
“I appreciate you taking Flannery like that.”
I stood up. “Now it’s my turn for a bath and some good sleep. I should be up by late afternoon. I’ll go over to the bank and talk to Flannery.”
“You have to get past Mrs. Milligan first.”
“Who’s Mrs. Milligan?”
He smiled. “Let’s just say she scares the hell out of every man in this county. But you’ll find out for yourself.” He smiled some more and then went downstairs to see what Doc was learning from his examination of the body.
When I reached the front steps, I saw that Nordberg’s prediction had come true. The crowd had grown.
I stared at them and they stared back at me. They’d know I hadn’t killed their hero. But they just might be thinking that if I hadn’t come to town somehow that hero would still be alive.
People need somebody to blame when things go wrong, especially when death’s involved.
Mrs. Milligan’s desk was on a riser set directly in front of the circular vault that had been built into the wall. I had been escorted there by an elderly bank guard who said, “She’s got a head cold so be careful.”
I guess I was expecting a behemoth. You know how you imagine things based on somebody’s comments.
Mrs. Milligan weighed, at the outside, ninety pounds. Her gray hair was pulled back into a bun so severe you could see stretch marks on the side of her face. She wore a black dress with a black collar and black-framed glasses almost as tiny as her black eyes. The sharp nose and the huge drooping growth to the right of her mouth gave her the look of a witch. The tiny eyes winced when I came into their view, as if they had just seen something that gave them profound displeasure. She sneezed with such force that her glasses flew from her face and landed on the desktop. The eyes dared me to show amusement.
“God bless you.”
She picked up her glasses and said, “You don’t look like the sort who has any right to use the Lord’s name.”
“And you must be Mrs. Milligan.”
Her seventy-year-old face broke into a leer. “You’ve heard the stories, then, have you? That’s how the teacher threatens her students. She told me that at the church picnic this summer. She just says, ‘You want me to send you to see Mrs. Milligan?’ She says I scare them more than Geronimo.”
Then she put her glasses back on with knotty little hands and said: “Why do you want to see Mr. Flannery?”
“I’m afraid I can’t discuss it.”
“Then I’m afraid you can’t see him.”
I held up my badge.
She said: “Is that thing real?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What if I still won’t let you see him?”
“Then I’ll just walk over to that office that says ‘President’ on the door and go in myself.” I laughed. “I won’t tell anybody about this.”
“About what?” she asked with a whole lot of cross in her voice.
“That you couldn’t stop me because of my badge.”
“I’ve seen badges before.”
“Sure, all the sheriffs of the last twenty years or so. But they’re afraid of the Flannerys, which means they’re also afraid of you. But I’m not afraid of either one of you.”
“You really won’t say anything to anyone?”
“I promise.” I smiled at her again. She was part of the town’s lore. I didn’t want to ruin that lore for her or the town.
“You always keep your word, do you?”
“Unless somebody pistol whips me and sets my hair on fire. Then I can’t guarantee a thing.”
Then the unbelievable happened. Mrs. Milligan smiled. “You’re an awfully fresh young man.”
“I try to be, Mrs. Milligan. I really try to be. And thanks for saying I’m ‘young.’ It isn’t true but I guess we’ll just let it stand.”
“The same way we’ll let it stand that you won’t tell anybody?”
I worked up another smile for her. “Exactly the same way, Mrs. Milligan.”
“I figured you’d be in mourning, Flannery.”
He had his feet up on his desk—a pair of fine hand-tooled boots he wore—and a magazine hiding his face when Mrs. Milligan rang a bell letting him know somebody was on his way in.
He pulled the magazine down, looked at me and said: “I thought I might see you sooner or later. I was hoping for later.”
I sat down. “You could always confess and make everything easier for everybody all around. You being such a public-spirited citizen and all.”
He took his feet down, closed the magazine, dropped it on his otherwise clean desk. “What would I be confessing to?”
“You killed Sloane, the first federal man out here.”
“Now why would I do that? He was helping try to find Mike Chaney.”
“Exactly. You shot him in the back assuming Chaney would get blamed for it.”
I glanced around his office. Everything but the man himself was mahogany or rich dark leather.
“But the town didn’t get all excited by Sloane dying because they still thought Mike was their hero, even if he had killed him. Nordberg couldn’t get enough men for a posse. Nobody wanted to ride on it because they knew there would be hell to pay when they got back to town. Folks didn’t want anybody riding after him. And they wouldn’t be happy about anybody who did. Then Connelly and Pepper came to town. You tried to get folks all stirred u
p again by killing Tom Daly. Even if Nordberg couldn’t get a posse together, you didn’t have to worry. You had Connelly and Pepper ready to go after him. And you made sure they’d go after him and kill him because you sweetened the pot. I don’t know how much you gave them but they weren’t the kind who worked cheap. Then all you had to do was wait for somebody to bring Chaney’s body back. You think your wife would forget him even if he was dead?”
He jabbed a finger at me, arrow true. “You leave my wife off your filthy tongue. She forgot all about Mike Chaney a long time before we even got married.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
I said it soft, with a hint of pity in the words. It’s an old interrogation trick. A soft tone confuses them. They’d expect you to shout something like that, really assault them with it. They weren’t sure how to react.
He started to get mad and then he slumped in his chair. “We all think of old lovers. It doesn’t mean anything.” He waved a hand through the air, dismissing the offending thought. “She probably did think of him from time to time. But that doesn’t mean she did anything about it. I think of girls I courted before my wife. It doesn’t mean anything at all—if you don’t do anything about it.”
“But you had two reasons to hate him.”
“If you mean the banks, we’re doing just fine.”
“But you don’t have the land you wanted for those Eastern investors.”
His laugh was unexpected. “That’s the trouble with gossip. You can never be sure which part of it is true. I’ve found some other land for the Eastern folks. And they’re giving it a lot of thought.”
“Meaning they haven’t said yes.”
“Meaning they haven’t said yes.”
He leaned forward again. “I’m willing to make you a substantial bet, Ford.”
“I’m not much of a gambler.”
“I’m willing to bet you that you don’t have any way to connect me to Mike’s murder.”
“Not yet I don’t. But I’ve just started looking around.” He started to speak. I held up my hand. “Where were you yesterday?”
“I went to Bent River.”
“What time did you leave?”
“Eight o’clock.”
“You take a train?”
“I rode my horse.”
“In weather like this?”
“The weather to the east was fine.”
“Who did you see in Bent River?”
“I didn’t see anybody. I should have said that the weather was fine until I got halfway there. Then it started to snow pretty bad so I turned back for town here.”
“Any way of verifying you actually went there?”
A smirk. “You could always ask my horse.”
“Did you see anybody on your trip?”
“Not a soul.”
“What time did you get back here?”
“About seven o’clock.”
“Took you a long time to get back here considering that you only got halfway to Bent River.”
“Shoe came loose on my horse.”
Now it was my turn to smirk. “You leave town for Bent River. But you have to turn back halfway there. I’m told that’s about a three-hour trip. So if you turned back at midpoint that means you should have been back in town here by one o’clock at the latest.”
“I told you. A shoe came loose on my horse.”
“And it took you all afternoon to fix it?”
He leaned back. “You enjoy this, don’t you? You get to come in here and push me around because of that badge of yours. You’re not my social equal in any way. You could never get into my clubs; you’d never get invited to any of the parties I go to; you don’t have any real standing anywhere—but you’ve got your badge. And that means that you get to take out all your envy on whoever you want to.”
He stood up. “But you know what? I really don’t give a damn about your badge. Or about you. Investigate me all you want but you won’t be able to prove a damned thing. Because I’m smarter than you. You have the badge but you don’t have the brains, Ford.” He pointed to the door. “The next time I see you, you’d damned well better have some evidence. Or I’m going to wire some friends of mine in Washington and have you pulled off this investigation. And don’t think I can’t do it.”
I didn’t say anything. There was nothing to say. I put my Stetson on and left.
When I came up next to Mrs. Milligan’s desk, she said, “Remember your promise.”
“It’s safe with me, Mrs. Milligan.”
She looked relieved.
Chapter 25
You want beans and pipe tobacco, you go to the general store. You want whiskey and gossip, you head for the saloon.
From what I could overhear while I stood at the crowded bar sipping on a root beer, more than a few of the men in town figured that Flannery had killed everybody. They figured what I figured. He had two reasons to do it, just as I’d told Flannery—his wife and his banks. Nobody else seemed to be in the running.
More than a few blamed Flannery’s wife. A woman like that, one who couldn’t make her mind up, a woman who’d go back and forth between them like that, a woman so selfish she’d put two men through all that anger and humiliation—a woman like that was just as guilty as the man who actually pulled the trigger.
But after a few more drinks, they’d swing back to Flannery. That no-account, no-good, fancy-dressin’, spoiled-brat, cold-hearted, thinks-his-shit-don’t-stink son of a bitch. Killin’ poor Mike Chaney the way he did. Hell with all those federal men what died. It was poor Mike Chaney they mourned. Onliest one with balls enough to rob them banks and give the money back to the people so they could hold on to their little farms and ranches. Nobody else give two turds about them people except poor Mike Chaney. And then a smart-steppin’, fancy-pants, lyin’-through-his-teeth bastard hides in some trees and shoots poor Mike in the back. Don’t even have guts enough to face him front on. Oh, no, not that silk-underweared chicken-shit ruffled-shirt prick Flannery.
I went to three saloons that night—I take my duties seriously—and in every one of them the palaver was just about the same.
The third saloon, though, was a little more intense because it had a spellbinder leading the uproar.
His name was Nick Tremont. He was one of the men I was supposed to see.
The only time I’d seen him before he was angry but in a controlled, civil way. But that night he was rousing the troops. And he knew how to do it.
He had the kind of strong body, white hair, and thunderous voice that has marked the patriarch of every tribe of men dating all the way back to Old Testament days. He didn’t shout the way the preachers did; he didn’t exhort the way a lawyer does when he faces a jury. Instead, he spoke quietly, reasonably. And in the smoky bar, lighted only by low-hanging Chesterfield lamps over the tables and two large lanterns behind the bar—the whole room listened patiently and silently as he ticked off reason after reason why somebody else would now have to pick up Mike Chaney’s work.
“You know how I hated Chaney. I hold him responsible for killin’ my son when he didn’t have to; when he killed him only because he wanted to, not because he had to. But I never talked against the job he was doin’. He saved a good part of this valley and there sure ain’t any doubt about that.”
“What you gettin’ at, Nick?” someone asked.
“I think you know what I’m getting at but you’re afraid to say it.” He stood up tall in his brown leather coat, a Colt on his hip and cold rage in his brown eyes. His gaze took in the men before him, one by one. His lips moved silently as his gaze searched the room. He appeared to be counting.
“I look out here and what do I see? I see four more men who could lose their ranches within the next sixty days. I have it from someone in the bank—a man who won’t come forward because he’s afraid he’ll lose his job, and I can’t blame him for that—a man who told me that Flannery has convinced his Eastern money friends to be patient—that he’ll h
ave six or maybe even seven spreads for them in the next few months. You men know who you are.”
“Ain’t one of them spreads yours, Nick?” asked a rancher.
“It sure is. And that’s why I say as much as I hated him for killin’ my boy, I think he was doin’ the right thing where Flannery was concerned.”
And then we came to the part that everybody was waiting to hear. A man in the back said: “What’re you saying we should do about it, Nick?”
A long pause. His eyes surveyed the room once again. The only sounds were a few coughs and somebody setting down a beer glass.
He said: “I’m not saying anything other than this is somethin’ we should think about. Maybe have a little meetin’ about.”
“You mean right now?”
“Good a time as any, ain’t it?”
I doubt there was a man in the saloon who didn’t know what was being talked about there. Nobody was going to say anything out loud because if anything actually did happen, he might be blamed for starting it.
“Well, let’s get some more whiskey over here and push these tables together and have our little meeting.”
The man behind the bar didn’t look happy about it. But what could he do? These men were in no mood to be contradicted.
He nodded to my empty glass. I shook my head. There were things I needed to do.
“Well, no sir, not a one of them,” the liveryman said.
The wind was up again. It raced through the places where the walls weren’t flush and rattled the doors up top. He was an older man with a bad complexion left over from boyhood. He kept his thumbs hooked into his bib overalls whenever possible. He liked to rock on his heels while keeping his thumbs in place. He reminded me of a statue that was about to fall over.
“But there’s a reason none of them come in here for their horses.”
“Why’s that?”
“They keep their own horses. I’d like to have their business but the only one who gets anything out of ’em is Tully the blacksmith. Now that’s the business I shoulda gone into.”