by Jake Logan
“I had the morning off. I got some whitewash for Severigne and decided to wander about town. I haven’t seen much of it, came upon the church, and then saw this place.”
“You think you’re like one of them fancy ass tourists from back East, come to breathe the fresh air and take the waters? Clabber Crossing ain’t no resort town. We’re hard-workin’ folks. And you upped and killed one of the best of us.”
Slocum counted himself lucky that Marshal Dunbar hadn’t killed him.
“I heard a horse as I came up to this house. Whoever killed her might have ridden away before I got a chance to see him.”
The marshal snorted.
“That was probably my horse. It’s tethered outside. And don’t go muddyin’ the water sayin’ I killed her. Nobody’ll believe that for a second, Slocum.”
Slocum looked at Emily Dawson’s body.
“From the look of it, she might have killed herself. She have any call to do that, Marshal? I didn’t know her.”
“She’d never kill herself,” the marshal said, but Slocum saw his anger and surprise fading. If he hadn’t been so outraged, Slocum would have thought the marshal had killed her and then tried to frame him. But that didn’t add up. The marshal would have shot him on the spot, claiming he caught the killer—Slocum—red-handed. More than this, Slocum doubted the marshal was a good enough actor to feign such shock and outrage. The man had actually gone pale under his leathery, sunbaked face at the sight of Mrs. Dawson’s body.
“You got a mystery,” Slocum said.
“I don’t have anything of the sort. I got you. You can say your piece in front of a jury. Come along.” Dunbar backed from the room but kept Slocum covered, not giving him a chance to escape.
As Slocum turned to get through the narrow doorway, the marshal plucked his Colt from his holster and tucked it into his own belt.
“What were you doing out here, Marshal? You always take a ride this time of day sporting a shotgun?”
“You shut your mouth. What I was doin’ out here’s none of your damned business.”
Slocum knew he had touched a nerve with the lawman, but he couldn’t figure what it was. Mrs. Dawson didn’t sound like the kind of person to have an affair with a grimy, smelly old cuss like the marshal. If she had a son, she would be far more discreet about any affair. Shuffle being married to the town pastor into the deck, and the cards simply refused to come up with anything Slocum could read.
“You going to let her body stay out here in the heat?” Slocum asked.
“You keep quiet. I’ll get the undertaker out when I can. Lockin’ you up is more important right now.”
“I didn’t do it,” Slocum said.
“In all my years as a lawman, both deputy and marshal, I ain’t never arrested a single man what wasn’t innocent.”
“I can believe that,” Slocum said dryly.
“I mean, that’s what they tell me. They were all as guilty as sin. You’re gonna swing for this, Slocum. She was a good woman.”
The marshal rode while Slocum walked back to the jail, where Dunbar shoved Slocum into the small calaboose. Two empty cells stood with doors ajar. Dunbar threw him into the nearest cell and slammed the door. With grim finality, the metallic click as the marshal turned the key in the lock told Slocum he was in a passel of trouble.
“Do I get a lawyer?”
“Only a couple in town. We had more but they got run out on a rail. They was takin’ money to throw cases. We got a fine prosecutor these days. I’m gonna let him know he’s got a case to make against a real cold-blooded killer.”
Slocum had hoped the marshal would leave, giving him the chance to get free from the cell. Right offhand he didn’t see how he could escape, but he wasn’t going to try if the marshal remained in the jailhouse. Instead, Dunbar opened the outer door and bellowed, bringing an urchin of seven or eight running.
“You go fetch Mr. Cooper for me, will you, Jed?”
“Mr. Cooper? Who’s dead?”
“Don’t you worry yourself none about that, boy. Fetch him.” The marshal fumbled in his vest pocket. “Here’s a penny. You get him back here double time quick and there’s another one waitin’ for you.”
“Thanks, Marshal.” The boy ran off as fast as his bare feet could take him.
Dunbar closed the door and half smiled, saying, “That boy’s got a good head on his shoulders. All the time lookin’ to make a nickel or two. One day he’s gonna buy Clabber out, mark my words.” Then Dunbar sobered and glared at Slocum. “But you ain’t gonna see that day. You’re gonna be buried six feet under out on Primrose Hill. Not on the top, if I got any say about it. No, I want your grave to be at the base of the hill. No reason you should have a decent view for the rest of eternity.”
“Emily Dawson’s likely to be planted higher on the hill,” Slocum said. “You wouldn’t want us together, would you, Marshal?”
“She—” Dunbar glared at Slocum, then dropped his shotgun on a battered, stained desktop and planted himself firmly in the chair behind the desk. “You don’t go sayin’ nothing bad about her.”
“I wish she was alive,” Slocum said. “Can I send word to Severigne telling her why I’m not whitewashing the side of her house?”
Stony silence greeted him. Slocum sank to the hard bed and began his survey of the door, hinges, bars, wall, floor—he could get out but it would take him a considerable amount of effort. If he stayed under the marshal’s watchful eye, there was little chance he could do anything to escape.
The jail became increasingly hot and Slocum lay back, ignored the bedbugs the best he could, and was dozing off when the outer door slammed open and rapid, clicking footsteps came in. Slocum looked up to see Severigne standing in front of the marshal, hands on her hips and looking like a prairie thunderstorm.
“You will release him now!” Severigne said.
“I can’t go doin’ a thing like that,” Dunbar said. “He killed the preacher’s wife.”
“He did no such thing. You sent Lloyd Cooper to get her body.”
“Of course I did. I ain’t leaving’ her to rot out in the summer heat.”
“Lloyd says she killed herself. Why do you hold Mr. Slocum?”
“Cooper said that? Well, Slocum is a witness. He found the body and I don’t want him runnin’ off.”
“I guarantee he will not.”
“Got to post bail for him.”
Slocum heard the crash as Severigne slammed her fist down and left behind a stack of greenbacks.
“You did not hear a shot, did you, Marshal?”
“What’s that got to do with anything?” Dunbar looked increasingly uncomfortable.
“You would have heard the shot if Slocum had killed her. You did not.”
“Look, Severigne, this—”
“Release him!” Severigne put one hand on her hip and pointed imperiously with her other hand, index finger stabbing in Slocum’s direction.
“If you vouch for him.” Dunbar poked through the stack of money and looked up. “You talk to the judge about this?” He read the answer in Severigne’s dark look. The lawman heaved a sigh, pulled the key ring out of his desk drawer, and released Slocum. “Don’t you think you’re gettin’ away scot-free, Slocum,” the marshal grumbled.
“I didn’t kill her. Why’d you throw me in jail for something you know I didn’t do?”
“The banker demanded it,” Severigne said. “Marshal Dunbar is beholden to Bray.” She made her mocking donkey sound again.
“You don’t go makin’ them insultin’ sounds, Severigne. I’ll throw you in jail for disturbin’ the peace, you keep that up.”
Severigne smiled and the mockery was far worse than the donkey braying. Slocum said nothing more as he grabbed his gun belt and waited until he was outside to strap it on.
“You should have whitewashed my house, not go gallivanting off this way,” Severigne said. Her French accent turned thicker again. Slocum wasn’t sure if this was because she was madder at him
than at Dunbar or if she was cooling off.
“Never thought I’d find a dead parson’s wife while I was out walking around town,” Slocum said.
Severigne started to ask the question needing most to be answered but held back. Slocum wasn’t sure he could give a good answer to why he had bothered to meet Emily Dawson other than curiosity. She had been flustered and had taken time to pass him a note so no one else in the general store noticed. Whatever had sparked her note, it couldn’t have been trivial.
Slocum pursed his lips as he wondered if it might have something to do with Severigne’s cathouse. Had the young Mrs. Dawson worried her husband was partaking of the charms offered by Severigne’s ladies? Who better to ask than a newcomer to town without all the political chains binding him to one faction or the other?
Still, she must have known his indebtedness to Clabber since about everyone else in town did.
“Two months,” Severigne said.
“What?” Slocum stared hard at her, wondering what the hell she meant.
“You owe me another month. You owe Clyde a month. Now because of the money I pay that foolish marshal, you owe me a month.”
“Sounds more like slavery.”
“Pay me back the bribe money I give Dunbar and you are free.”
“Wasn’t it bail money?”
“Pah,” Severigne said, waving her hand about in the air as if shooing away flies. “Bribe, bond, fine, there is no difference in Clabber Crossing. It freed you. More than this is something you should never ask for.”
“If you don’t mind, I’ve got an errand to run before I get back to your indentured servitude.” This caused a slight smile to curl Severigne’s lips. She came close to laughing.
“I understand this. He is in the church.”
“Not much gets by you, does it?”
“Dunbar would never ask. You must since your neck is the one he wants to put into a noose. Go, go, question Henry Dawson.” She went to her buggy beside the jailhouse and rattled off, impatiently flicking the reins to keep the horse moving in spite of the oppressive afternoon heat.
Slocum headed for the church and found the pastor in the front pew, head bowed and lips moving silently.
“Sorry to bother you, preacher,” Slocum said, “but I wanted to pay my respects.”
“Bad news always travels so fast,” Henry Dawson said, looking up. His eyes were red from crying, and it took him a second to focus. “You must be the man who found her.”
Slocum hesitated. The preacher wasn’t accusing him. He didn’t even seem to know who had been jailed for his wife’s murder.
“The undertaker said he thought it was suicide. You have a family, a boy?”
“Yes, Edgar,” Dawson said, nodding. He sat a little straighter. “This is going to be difficult for him. He had not wanted to move here from back in Kansas, but God’s calling could not be denied.”
“Was your wife agreeable about uprooting and moving?”
“Yes, Emily understood.”
“How long have you been in town?”
“Less than two months. Six weeks,” Dawson said.
“Did she have any reason to kill herself?”
Dawson jerked around and looked at the altar. His lips moved in silent prayer before he answered.
“Emily had a troubled past. We moved here to put that behind us.”
“That and God telling you to come here.”
“Not here specifically. We stopped traveling when we ran out of money. Clabber Crossing was the first town we found that was in need of spiritual ministry.”
“You didn’t know anyone in town when you came?”
“No one,” Dawson said. “The folks in Clabber Crossing have welcomed us with open arms, but—”
Slocum waited. Dawson had started to say more and had forced himself not to. The silence lengthened into a minute—more—but Slocum remained quiet. He had been a sniper during the war and had learned the value of patience. It paid off again, not with a clean shot but with the preacher finally figuring out what he wanted to say.
“Emily was fine for the first week or so in town, but she grew increasingly restive.” Dawson drew a deep breath before adding, “I could even say she was anxious.”
“Any reason?”
“None that I could see. She had done well organizing a ladies’ auxiliary. Edgar was fitting in. He has found several other boys his age I am sure he counts as friends now.”
“So whatever caused your wife’s upset happened a month or so back?”
“‘Upset’ is a strong word. Perhaps the heat wore her down. But I cannot believe it caused her to kill herself.”
“That means she was murdered.”
“Please go now, unless there is something more I can do for you.” Dawson turned away, closed his eyes, and began a new prayer.
Slocum left, having learned nothing of real importance. Emily Dawson had begun fitting into the social whirl of Clabber Crossing, such as it was, and could hardly have made an enemy so quickly willing to kill her. That left suicide, which seemed to be of almost epidemic proportions in the small cattle town. Slocum couldn’t get Anna’s cold, lifeless body out of his head. Two women had died since he came to town, one by poisoning and the other by gunshot—and both might have been suicides.
A hooker’s life, even working at a classy brothel like Severigne’s, was difficult. Was a preacher’s wife’s existence equally difficult? If so, why hadn’t she waited to meet him before shooting herself in the head? Why bother even writing the note and arranging a meeting with a stranger to town?
None of it made a whit of sense.
He started back for Severigne’s. As he passed the restaurant, movement inside caught his eye. He stopped and saw a woman dressed in a red-and-white-checkerboard apron and a gingham dress waving a linen napkin at him.
“Ma’am,” he said. “Is there something I can do for you?”
The woman, a slender blonde with eyes so blue they were almost transparent, pursed her lips, as if thinking over his offer. Then she said, “I’ll close the café. Come around back.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Emily didn’t kill herself. She couldn’t have,” the woman said. She shut the door in his face and flipped the sign in the window around. Slocum stared at CLOSED as he wondered what was opening up around back.
Cursing himself for a fool, he went to see.
6
Slocum looked around the dusty street but nobody stirred in the afternoon heat. He went down the narrow alley between the restaurant and the gunsmith shop next to it and saw where supplies were unloaded. He started to knock but the door opened before his knuckles hit the wood and the woman’s slender fingers wrapped around his wrist and pulled him inside.
“I knew you’d come,” she said breathlessly. The way her breasts rose and fell under the gingham dress distracted Slocum a mite. He wondered why since he had spent enough time in Severigne’s cathouse to see his share of naked women darting about. But the blonde was different somehow. She was fully clothed—and something of a mystery. He liked that.
“I’m John Slocum.”
“Sara Beth Vincent,” she said, still breathing heavily. She moved a little closer to him and lowered her voice. “I can trust you, can’t I?”
Slocum had to laugh.
“Doesn’t much matter what I say to that,” he answered. “If I’m a liar, I’ll say you can. And how’d you know if I was an honest man saying that same thing?”
Her blue eyes stared into his green ones. He saw something change in the way she looked at him.
“I can tell you’re honest. You give your word and you keep it.”
“That wasn’t a question,” he said.
“It’s the way you live your life. I see a lot of cowboys come and go through my café, and I’ve learned what’s bull-shit and what’s not.”
“Now that you’ve settled that in your mind,” he said, “what is it you’re trusting me to say or do?”
“Emily,” she said, not moving away from him. “Emily Dawson. She didn’t kill herself. She was afraid of something—of someone.”
“Who might that have been?”
“She wouldn’t say. She and her family’d only been in town six weeks or so, but she changed a month back. Before then, she was friendly and outgoing but she got increasingly morose.”
“Enough to kill herself?”
“No!” Sara Beth reached out and grabbed Slocum’s arm with surprising strength. “She would never do that and leave her son without a ma. And she loved Henry. Heaven alone knows why, but she did.”
“Why do you say that? I was just at the church, and he’s mighty tore up over her dying.”
“He loved her, but he loved his church more. He’d ignore her to help a parishioner. If Edgar—that’s their son—needed help, he was as likely to be ignored if there was a church fund-raiser or baptism on the calendar.”
“Devoted,” Slocum said. He was more interested in Sara Beth than in her tale about Emily Dawson.
“She wouldn’t kill herself.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“I know,” Sara Beth said, her eyes fixing on him again. “I’ve watched you around town. You’re . . . dangerous.” She licked her lips. “But you wouldn’t murder a woman.”
“The marshal doesn’t think so.”
“Dunbar is a fool,” she said. Then she snorted and shook her head. A tiny halo of fine blond hair came loose and caught the sunlight filtering in through a side window, turning her angelic. “But it’s more than that. He’s owned lock, stock, and barrel.”
“Banker Bray,” Slocum said.
“You’ve figured it out. There are two factions in town. Clabber and Bray.”
“Where do you line up?”
“With the truth, and I want to know what happened to my friend. Emily was a tormented soul, but she wouldn’t kill herself. She lived for her boy and she loved Henry, no matter how he spent his time.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I want you to find out what happened to her. It . . . it might be she killed herself. If so, that ought to be brought to Henry’s attention why he was responsible, but if she was killed, the murderer ought to hang. I want to find out the truth.”