by Max McCoy
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. He is with Jesus. And you are?”
“Not a churchgoer, I’m afraid.”
“I didn’t mean that, dear. I meant your name. And you are?”
She extended her right hand and I took it. “Ophelia Wylde.”
Her hand wilted in mine.
“Is there something wrong?”
“No,” the Widow Babcock said. “I know about you, of course.”
“Of course.”
“In the Times.”
“It wouldn’t have been anywhere else.”
“I can’t say that I approve of what I read.”
“Do explain,” I urged.
“Editor Shinn reports that you speak to the dead.”
“And you find this without credibility.”
“On the contrary,” she said. “It is because I trust the account that I am disturbed. Leviticus 19 warns us against those who are familiar with spirits, or who are wizards, because we risk being defiled by them.”
“Do I look like a wizard?”
“You are dressed strangely.”
“Let’s take a short walk.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Little pitchers have big ears,” I said. “Come with me.”
We walked a few yards away.
“And what about what it says in the next chapter?” I asked. “The part about a man or a woman who has familiar spirits or is a wizard shall be stoned to death?”
“Yes, it does say that.”
“So you are in favor of stoning?”
“I am a Bible believer, young lady.”
“Then you also believe the rest of Chapter 20.”
“Absolutely.”
“Then let’s see what other offenses are punishable by stoning.”
I asked to see her Bible.
She reluctantly handed it over.
I found the chapter and ran my finger down the verses.
“Adultery. Death by stoning?”
“Of course.”
“A man who lieth with another man.”
“Disgusting,” she said.
“But death?”
“Sadly, yes.”
“How about a beast?”
“It is a chapter on moral instruction,” she said.
“And death for the beast as well, it says here. Is that meant for the instruction of other beasts?”
“You are on the verge of blasphemy.”
“Which brings us to cursing one’s parents.”
“What?”
“It’s on the list.”
“Well, now . . .”
“Says right here that punishment is death by stoning.”
“You are twisting my words.”
“Here’s another: If a man lieth with a woman during her time of bleeding . . . oh, not stoning. Just banishment for them both. Surprisingly lenient, wouldn’t you say?”
Widow Babcock snatched the book from my hands.
“That is quite enough,” she said.
“As you wish.”
“Spiritual darkness,” she said. “That is what I am fighting. The town has been cast down into spiritual darkness. I will pray for its deliverance, Ophelia Wylde. And I will pray for you.”
I forced a smile.
“How kind,” I said. “But I should prefer if you save your prayers for yourself.”
Back at the Dodge House, I threw myself on the bed and told myself that I wouldn’t sleep, just close my eyes and rest. It was too late in the day to sleep now. In a moment, of course, I was asleep.
10
“When am I going to die?” I ask.
Death smiles.
“We really must bring our visit to a close,” he says.
“While I have enjoyed our conversation, it has gone on much too long. And I am not going to tell you when your passage is scheduled, not without a directive from the home office.”
He looks over at the gold-plated telegraph, which is silent.
“So there you have it.”
Death rises from the chair and returns to his paperwork on the other side of the desk. “Go forward and produce your triple naught for the conductor,” he says. “You will be promptly disembarked at the next station.”
“Triple naught?”
“The temporary pass.”
But I don’t have the ticket. It’s not in either hand and there are no pockets in my dress. I look around the floor at my feet, but there’s only the deep purple carpet.
“Did you look in your sleeves?” he says, making a motion of shoving things into the sleeves of his robe. “Women often store things there.”
I make a snorting noise.
“I’ll take your word for it,” I say, searching the wedding dress, which has no pockets and nothing in its sleeves. “Did you pick this getup out?”
“No, that’s always up to the passenger.”
“Yeah, right. Not me.”
“An unacknowledged desire, perhaps,” Death suggests. “But that’s not important now. Think of where you might have dropped the triple naught.”
“I must have lost it between cars when we were on the bridge.”
“Did you pause?”
“At first I was terrified,” I say. “Then, I wanted to jump.”
“L’appel du vide,” Death says. “Call of the void. The inexplicable urge to jump. Good that you didn’t, because you know what happens when you fall and hit bottom in dreams. Why didn’t you?”
“Why didn’t I what?”
“Jump, of course.”
“Because Calder pulled me across.”
“Calder?”
“My partner, Jack Calder.”
“I didn’t authorize passage for anyone else,” he fumes. “Where is he now?”
“Don’t know,” I say. “He hauled me to safety and then disappeared.”
“Highly irregular,” Death says. “We must find that ticket.”
“Can you just let me off at the next stop?”
Death shuffles papers on his desk.
“Right?” I ask. “Next stop?”
“You don’t understand,” Death says.
“You mean if we don’t find the ticket, I’m dead?”
“No,” Death says. “But you’ll be on this train every time you go to sleep from now until the day you die.”
11
The knocking on the door came gently, at about 11 o’clock.
“Miss Wylde?” a voice asked.
The knocking had roused me from my dream conversation with Death, and it took me a few moments to realize I was safe in my room at the Dodge House. The knocking continued, which made Eddie bristle his feathers and make a rasping sound deep in his throat.
“Miss Wylde?” the voice came again. “Are you in?”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I’m here. Who’s there?”
“It’s Jimmy, the desk clerk.”
The damn hotel bill, I thought.
“I know I’m running behind a week,” I said. “But I have a new client and I’ll bring my account up to date by Friday. Or Monday, at the latest.”
“You’re a month behind,” Jimmy said. “But that’s not why I’m here, Miss Wylde. There are some people downstairs asking for you. They said they went to your office and found it closed, so they came here.”
I got out of bed and starting dressing.
“Who are they, Jimmy?”
“Doc McCarty and Assistant Marshal Earp.”
“Wyatt Earp?” I asked, pulling on my trousers.
“Yes,” Jimmy said. “He’s back on the police force.”
“What do they want, Jimmy?”
“I think you’d better hear it straight from them.”
I buckled my belt, then paused. An old fear shot through me.
“Am I in trouble, Jimmy?”
“No, miss,” Jimmy said. “It’s Charlie Howart. He’s done himself in.”
McCarty was waiting for me on the bench on the porch of the Dodge House, clut
ching his Gladstone. He introduced me to Earp, who was leaning against a post with his hands in his pockets, smoking a cigarette and looking out over North Front Street. He was about my age, which is to say about thirty. He was tall, with longish sandy brown hair and a drooping mustache and cold blue eyes. He seemed to swagger even when standing still. McCarty introduced us, and Earp threw his cigarette into the street and disengaged himself from the post with a casual air. He tilted his dark flat-brimmed hat with the back of his hand and nodded in my direction.
“What’s this about Charlie Howart?” I asked.
“Hanged himself,” Doc said, “or so it appears. His wife, Molly, said she had asked you for help in some odd business Charlie was mixed up in, so we thought you might be able to help.”
“I’ll do what I can,” I said.
“We’ll see,” Earp said.
It was an odd comment, but I let it pass.
We began walking toward Chestnut Street. The soles of our boots slapped sharply on the hard-packed street, and the air was already warm enough that it seemed to burn my lungs as I took it in.
“Say, Ophie,” Doc said. “Are you unwell?”
“Why do you ask?”
“You weren’t at your office in the middle of the day, which is uncommon,” McCarty said. “We appear to have roused you from bed. And you look as pale as the light of the moon.”
“Had some trouble sleeping,” I said.
It wasn’t a subject I wanted Doc to pursue.
“Read about you in the paper,” Earp said.
His voice was low and full of grit.
“I don’t know whether to be alarmed or flattered.”
“Where’s your partner?” Earp asked.
“Calder? He’s out chasing a couple of bond jumpers.”
“He’s a good man in a tight spot,” Earp said. “Cool head.”
“Sometimes too cool,” I said, then continued talking before he could have a chance to ask what I meant. “You were in a recent edition as well, Mister Earp. Your reputation as a peace officer precedes you.”
He shook his head.
“Don’t be too impressed,” he said. “All it takes to be a good cow-town cop is to keep just enough of the peace so the bars stay open and the brothels are full. I’ve tried my hand at other things—professional gambler, saloon owner, even tried cutting timber for a living up in Deadwood—but failed perfectly at all of them. Hell, I even tried to be an outlaw once, stealing a horse and setting off for Arkansas after they swore out a warrant for my arrest in Lamar, Missouri; but turns out I was equally bad at that. The only thing I can do well is pin a badge on my chest and walk the near edge of catastrophe.”
Presently we came to the little house with the two pears out front and the vegetable garden in the back. From the outside, nothing looked amiss, except the front door was standing open.
“Where’s Molly?” I asked.
“With a neighbor lady,” Earp said.
“Sure you’re up to this, Ophie?” Doc asked.
“Of course I am.”
“Pardon me,” Earp said, “but I’m not clear on what we expect her to contribute. It’s not pleasant in that house, and not the sort of scene that should be viewed by a woman. I know she is supposed to be a variety of consulting detective, but it seems clear what happened, so I don’t think this is the sort of thing that requires detection. No offense, Miss Wylde.”
“None taken,” I said. “You are entitled to speak your opinion, Mister Earp, even if your opinion is troglodytic. I would prefer if you address your remarks to me, instead of Doctor McCarty, because I am standing right here and can hear and see you quite clearly.”
Doc raised a hand, as if to separate us.
“Let’s not get off on the wrong foot here,” he said. “Let Ophie take a look. If she doesn’t see something we missed, then I’ll bet you a beer at the Long Branch.”
“Make it a whiskey, and you have a bet.”
“I’m glad you gentlemen have found some sport in this,” I said.
Taking a deep breath, I slipped through the open door and took a few steps into the parlor, then stopped. The only light was coming in from the doorway behind me, as all of the windows were shuttered tight, and dust motes drifted in the shaft of light. After a minute or two, my eyes adjusted to the gloom.
It seemed that Charlie Howart had hanged himself.
The body was hanging by a hemp rope that had been thrown over a rafter in the center of the room and tied off on one of the legs of the iron stove that squatted near the back wall. The stove was cold on this summer day, of course, but would be a welcome addition during a twenty below Kansas winter.
A knot lay against the right side of Charlie Howart’s neck and his head tilted to the left. He was fully dressed, except for his shoes. The toes of his socks hung about a foot from the floor, and an overturned straight chair was nearby.
I closed my eyes and waited in silence for something to come to me. Generally, I can feel the presence of the restless dead, even if there is no apparition. I had expected something—suicides often leave considerable unfinished business behind—but here there was nothing.
I opened my eyes and walked carefully around the body, studying the scene. Something about the rope didn’t seem quite right to me, so I stood the chair upright and stepped up on the seat for a better look.
“Find anything in heaven or earth?” Earp asked, a shoulder against the doorway.
“On earth,” I said. “Come inspect the rope.”
He stepped inside.
“Hard to see anything in here.”
“Ask Doc to open the shutters to get some light in.”
“Do you really want the neighbors out on the street to see poor Charlie hanging like that?”
“They won’t be able to see,” I said. “It’s so bright outside that the interior will be a featureless void.”
“Doc,” Earp called. “Open the shutters, will you?”
“Did you ask Molly why they would have the shutters latched?”
“She said they were like that when she found him.”
“Charlie must have done it last night,” I said. “It must have been for privacy, because there was no wind and certainly no hint of a storm. As hot as it was, one would have all the windows and shutters open. Or, perhaps, somebody else did it to keep curious eyes away.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Look at this,” I said, pointing to where the rope went over the rafter.
“So?”
“The rope is abraded, for about a yard where it passes over the rafter toward the stove,” I said. “The rafter is also grooved beneath the rope, having been worn by the friction of hoisting a heavy weight.”
“Charlie was a big man, probably a couple of hundred pounds.”
“Yes, but you’re missing the point,” I said. “Now, if you’re going to hang yourself, you throw the rope over the rafter and tie it off, then get up on the chair, put the noose around your neck, and kick the chair away. There’s no pressure on the rope when you do it that way, except at the very end. There’s not the kind of pressure that abrades the hemp and wears a groove in the rafter.”
“So Charlie was hoisted up by somebody else.”
“Clearly,” I said.
“So, he was murdered.”
“We can’t conclude that,” I said.
“Why not? You just said he didn’t do this himself.”
“I don’t believe he was alive when he was hoisted over the beam,” I said. “There are no signs that he fought the rope; all of his fingernails are intact, and there are no scratches around his throat. Did Molly say she heard anything during the night?”
“She didn’t mention it.”
“There’s no gag in his mouth,” I said. “If he had been alive, I think he would have been screaming bloody murder. I know I would. He was dead all right when somebody hauled him up, but it might not necessarily have been murder, because he might have killed himself elsewhere, or
had an accident, and somebody placed the body here, for effect. Odds are that it was murder, but I don’t think we can take it as a given yet.”
“Good work, Ophie,” Doc said.
Doc had walked inside during my explanation.
“But who would have done this?”
“It would have to be somebody who knew about Howart’s fear of a hanged man, because that’s what Molly came to talk to me about,” I said. “It’s asking too much to believe that it was just chance. But Molly told me she didn’t tell anyone else.”
“That paints Molly with suspicion,” Doc said.
“Yes,” I said. “But that doesn’t feel right.”
“Can we cut him down now?” Earp asked.
“Not yet,” I said. “I want you to take a look at the knot in this rope.”
“The noose?” Doc asked.
“No, the one tied to the leg of the stove,” I said. “I’m no expert on these kinds of things, but it looks a bit unusual. There’s no real knot there, but it kind of loops around itself and somehow holds fast.”
“You’re right, Ophie,” Doc said, kneeling to examine the knot. “This doesn’t look like any kind of cowboy knot I’ve ever seen. Very unusual.”
“Why do an uncommon knot?” Earp asked.
“Well, one uses the knots one knows,” Doc said. “Perhaps it’s peculiar to a profession, sort of like the surgeon’s knot. And, in this case, if you’re pulling poor fat Charlie Howart up over the rafter, you probably only have one hand to tie the knot, because the other is busy holding the body up with the other end of the rope. This is the kind of hitch you might be able to do one-handed.”
“So that means that it’s likely just one person hoisted him up,” Earp said.
“That lets out Molly,” I said. “She wouldn’t have the strength to haul poor Charlie up over the rafter, much less tie the knot with one hand after.”
“Good job, Ophie,” Doc said, smiling broadly. “Wyatt, I’d like top-shelf whiskey, none of that snakebite remedy they give to the cowboys.”
“All right,” Earp said grudgingly. “Let’s take him down.”
“I’d like to sketch the knot first,” I said.