by Robert Knott
“Where to, Truitt?”
“How would I know?”
I grabbed a handful of Truitt’s collar and shoved him five full steps back until his head hit the adobe wall of the hotel.
“You remember Skinny Jack Newton don’t you?”
“What?”
I slapped him.
“You know him?”
“Newton? Fuck. Yeah, I know Skinny Jack. Not seen him, though, in years. Shit, why?”
I slammed his head again against the wall.
“He was shot and killed by Ricky Ravenfield is why.”
“What?”
I slammed him again.
“That’s right, Truitt, Ricky shot and killed him, and for that you are equally responsible.”
“Me?”
I slapped him hard a few times before Virgil got his hand on my shoulder and eased me back from Truitt.
Normally when push came to shove it was me that was the one who took the temper out of Virgil. The memory of Skinny Jack looking up at me as he took his last breath, however, was a memory that was not welcome, one I could not forget, and one that had left me boiling mad.
“Truitt,” Virgil said. “We been after you and Bill Black for a good while, you know that. And so far, besides the lawman you shot, you’ve got five men killed, so you better cooperate before we are forced to see you become the sixth.”
“I really don’t know where he went, or where he’s planning on going.”
“Bullshit,” I said.
He shook his head hard from side to side.
“I got no idea,” he said.
“You came here with intention,” Virgil said.
“Nothing other than I didn’t know where else to go.”
“And he just came with you?” Virgil said.
“He did.”
“Truitt,” Virgil said, “I’m gonna ask you a few simple questions and I want you to give me a few simple answers.”
He looked back and forth between us.
“How is it you was with Bill in the first place?”
“We been friends for a while and he hired me to work with him.”
“Friends from where?” Virgil said.
“New Mex,” he said. “Las Vegas.”
“What’s in Vegas?”
“What ain’t in Vegas?” he said. “I mean, I been there for a while, was living there, and I met him there at the Double Nickel next to the Harvey House. We played cards when he come through and, hell, I got to know him and, well, we was friends, that’s all.”
“But why Appaloosa?”
“I hadn’t seen him in a while and he came in and offered me a job, well, me and Ricky. He met Ricky and he said he could use a few hands.”
“When was this?”
“Three weeks back.”
“Why?”
“Well, shit, Bill was always normally in the money and I’m always normally in need of money, so I come along to Appaloosa.”
“With Ricky?” Virgil said.
“Yeah, Ricky was the reason he wanted to hire me in the first place.”
“Why’s that?”
“’Cause Ricky is . . . was . . . was a gun hand and Bill needed a gun hand.”
“What do you know about Black being a wanted man?”
“All he told me was there was a good chance someone would be looking for him and he was not about being caught.”
“So the two of you were Black’s bodyguards?” I said.
He nodded.
“From what?” I said.
“Black . . . got wind a bounty was on his head and that there would be bounty hunters coming.”
“How did he get wind there was a bounty on his head?”
“Don’t know.”
26.
The two men that Virgil killed in the Socorro cantina were in fact the men Ricky had warned us about. That night we locked up Truitt in the Socorro jail and we spent the following morning seeing if we could get some kind of idea as to the whereabouts of Bill Black. But by noon we came up with nothing, so we collected Truitt from the jail and we set out for Appaloosa.
It was a three-day ride back. The journey was without incident or much in the way of conversation with Truitt. He was quiet and sullen, and damn sure not interested in being in the situation he was in.
We arrived just after midnight and I slept on the bunk in the cell next to Truitt. In the morning, as the sun was coming up, I found Virgil waiting on me to tell Chastain, Book, and the rest of the deputies the story of Skinny Jack’s murder.
“Not gonna be easy,” I said.
“No,” Virgil said, “it’s not.”
We sat quietly on the porch and drank coffee as Appaloosa started coming to life, and within an hour, Chastain, Book, and the remaining deputies had heard the story of Skinny Jack’s demise.
After Book and three deputies left Appaloosa with a buckboard to collect Skinny Jack from the shallow grave behind Ray Opelka’s place, Virgil and I sat on the porch with Chastain and he got us caught up on what had taken place since we’d been on the hunt.
“I’ll be damned,” I said. “Messenger is still with it?”
“Still hanging on, but he ain’t with it, not at all,” Chastain said.
“Figured he’d be dead,” I said.
“Doc said considering the amount of blood he’s lost that if he does come back he’s likely to not be right in the head.”
“What about the Denver police?”
Chastain nodded.
“Oh . . . they showed.”
“The unit,” I said.
“Two detectives. One older fella, Claude . . . Lieutenant Banes is his name. He’s a senior with the department, nice enough, but the one that did all the talking was a younger fella . . . A little smart kind of guy, his name is King, kind of full of shit. Made a point of introducing himself as a detective . . . Detective Sergeant King.”
“What’d they have to allow?” Virgil said.
“Questions about Roger Messenger.”
“Like what?” Virgil said.
“Wanted to know if we talked with him, how long he was here, if he was alone, who he came in contact with, what happened. The details ’bout the shooting and so on.
“When I started asking questions, the young fella said that this case, the details about it were . . . confidential.”
“Confidential?” Virgil said.
Chastain nodded.
“That’s what the smart-ass shit, the young detective told me . . . confidential.”
Virgil looked at me and shook his head.
“Maybe Messenger was acting on his own, without the department’s knowledge,” I said.
“Might be,” Virgil said.
“So you don’t know anything about the murder of Ruth Ann Messenger? How or when it happened or the evidence that was found?” I said.
“No. They shared nothing, really. All I can really say is they had more goddamn questions than they did answers.”
“When did they arrive?” I said.
“Afternoon train, yesterday . . . Soon as they got off the train they stopped to see me.”
“What other questions?” Virgil said.
“’Bout Bill Black, of course.”
“What did they want to know?” Virgil said.
“Same thing everybody wants to know.”
“Where is he?” I said.
“Yep,” Chastain said. “Now there is three thousand dollars on his head. Where the hell is he.”
“What did you tell them?” Virgil said.
“I told them you were after him but had no idea where you were or if you’d caught up with him.”
“I don’t guess you know anything about who put the money on Black’s head?” I said.
“Don’t know, they didn’t say . . .”
“They say anything else about Messenger and how he was related to the victim?”
“No, but they was anxious to get to him, to see him. I pointed them to the hospital, so they could go see him.”
“And?” I said.
“Well, hell,” Chastain said as he got the coffeepot and topped off our cups. “I told them that all they could do was see him, have a look at him. I told them he was in bad shape, but they wanted to see him anyway . . . They might as well have been looking at drying hay.”
“Now what?” I said.
“Got no idea,” he said.
“They say what they were planning on doing here?” I said. “By staying here?”
“No, but I suspect they’re interested in seeing how the two of you fared.”
Chastain walked to the edge of the porch and poured his cold coffee in the street, then filled his cup with some hot coffee from the pot. He stood with his back to us, looking out at the street with his cup in one hand and the coffeepot in the other. He stood silently for a moment, then spoke to Virgil and me without turning to face us.
“Gonna miss that boy . . .” Chastain said. “He was like a son to me. I’m sure gonna miss him.”
27.
Chastain had one of his young deputies fetch the Denver policemen and bring them to the office to talk with Virgil and me. We closed the door between the front office and the cells, separating us from Truitt.
Detective Lieutenant Claude Banes, the larger and older one of the two, had broad shoulders and large hands. He had that look of a man that likely drank too much whiskey.
After the introductions Lieutenant Banes dropped in a chair, unbuttoned his jacket, and leaned back with his hat in his hand. Everything about his demeanor suggested he was tired, had seen it all before, and was less than interested in his job.
The younger one, Detective Sergeant Sherman King, was a lean, clean-shaven man with a bowler pulled down just above his eyebrows. His manner was precise and rigid, and as Chastain had said, he was certainly full of himself and every gesture he made let us know he took his job seriously.
Chastain, Virgil, and I sat across from Lieutenant Banes, but Sergeant King remained standing as if he were an officer at attention. King looked to Banes and the lieutenant nodded a little, as if to give the young sergeant permission to speak. King quickly weighed in with some brazenness that would be short-lived.
“Where did you lose him?” King said.
“Lose who?” Virgil said.
“Bill Black, of course.”
Virgil glanced at me before he answered King.
“We didn’t lose Bill Black,” Virgil said.
“The deputy that called on us said there was an apprehension of someone.”
He nodded to the back cell room.
“Someone that had been with Bill Black, but that Black got away.”
“Let’s start with something a bit easier,” Virgil said.
“What’s that?”
“Why are you here?”
King looked to Banes, then back to Virgil.
“Official business of the Denver Department of Law Enforcement.”
“What sort of official business?”
The young sergeant stood straight-backed with his jaw clenched.
“We are here to investigate.”
“Investigate what?”
“I don’t have to tell you this is serious business involving a member of our department.”
“Tell us about this murder,” Virgil said.
“I can tell you what is within my purview to be shared.”
Virgil glanced to me again, then looked back to the sergeant and smiled.
“Tell us all you know, within your purview.”
“I can answer the questions I feel are appropriate for me to answer, Marshal.”
Virgil looked to Banes, and Banes averted his eyes to me.
“Roger Messenger a member of the Denver Department of Law Enforcement?” Virgil said.
“Was,” King said.
“He’s not anymore?”
“He is on leave, pending investigation,” he said.
“Providing he lives,” Virgil said.
The young detective sergeant stared at Virgil.
“Who is Ruth Ann, and how is she related to Roger?”
“I’m afraid I cannot answer that.”
“There is really nothing for you to be afraid of, Detective Sergeant King,” Virgil said.
King blinked a few times.
“The case is confidential, Marshal.”
Virgil glanced to me.
“We heard something about that,” Virgil said.
“There is a warrant and there is a bounty,” I said. “Not much confidential about that.”
“Nonetheless . . .” he said.
“Messenger come here by himself,” Virgil said, “or as a member of the Denver Department of Law Enforcement to serve the warrant?”
Detective Sergeant King pulled his shoulders back and looked at Virgil without answering the question.
“Guess that means confidential,” Virgil said.
“I cannot answer that.”
“How is it that Boston Bill Black ends up being charged with this murder?”
“I told you this is confident—”
“Shut up, Sherman,” Banes said. “Goddamn it, son, just shut the hell up.”
King looked to Banes like his feelings were hurt.
“Ruth Ann was Roger Messenger’s wife,” Banes said. “Maybe you figured that part out already? Nothing goddamn confidential about that.”
“How is it that Boston Bill is wanted for her murder?” Virgil said.
“Ruth Ann was fucking Boston Bill Black,” Banes said.
28.
Detective Sergeant King raised a rigid finger and said, “That is unauthorized and—”
“I said, shut up,” Banes said, looking sternly at the young man. “And I mean it. These fellas have lost one of their men trying to sort this shit out, and I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna just sit here and listen to you avoiding what they need to know so they can do their job.”
Banes looked back to Virgil.
“If I said Ruth Ann was promiscuous, that would be a pound-and-a-half understatement. She was as wild as a March hare. She had a hard time keeping her legs together, you see . . . and Bill Black was not the first. Roger was no match for her, not from the damn beginning. Not sure how she even ended up with Roger or how he ended up with her, but when Black was in Denver, working on the gambling house there, he was giving it to her on a regular basis.”
King shook his head back and forth with a disappointed look on his face. Banes ignored him.
“Everybody knew about it,” Banes said. “Apparently, Ruth Ann had her hooks in Boston Bill bad.”
“Roger knew about it, too?” I said.
Banes nodded.
“Yeah,” he said. “Poor sonofabitch . . .
“When it started up with Bill she flaunted it and shit. That was hard on Roger, you can imagine.”
King looked to Banes and said harshly under his breath, “Sir . . .”
Banes continued without acknowledging King.
“Rumor is Boston Bill tried to break it off with Ruth Ann, but she had different ideas. She wanted to leave Roger. Anyway, she leaves Roger, so the story goes, and Roger starts to drinking and then he gets his ass kicked off of the force.”
“And Ruth Ann?” Virgil said. “What happened to her?”
“Next thing you know, Ruth Ann ends up missing. Then two weeks go by, then Ruth Ann is found down by the South Platte behind the inn where Bill Black was staying, facedown in a foot of water. She’d been beaten, brutally murdered.”
“Any witnesses?
”
Banes nodded.
“Folks, the owners of the inn, heard him, Boston Bill, and Ruth Ann arguing in the middle of the night, the night before Bill left Denver.”
“But no eyewitness?”
“Not directly, but all indicators point to . . . Black,” he said. “There was blood found on the back steps.”
“Who found her?” I said.
“Some kids who were fishing,” he said.
“How could you tell after that long a time what had happened to her?” I said. “That she had been beaten? Hard to believe no coyotes and other varmint got to her.”
“She was in shallow water, a bunch of green river weed wrapped around her, when the kid found her. When the officers got there to the riverbank and pulled her from the water she was still intact. She was brought in, looked at carefully.”
“And?” I said.
“She had a number of cuts on her body,” Banes said. “Looked like a blow to the head is what did her in. Hard to say, she could have been held down in the shallow water and drowned, for all we know. But it was her, it was Ruth Ann, and she was killed.”
Detective Sergeant King lowered his head as if he’d been defeated.
“You and Roger friends?” Virgil said.
Banes sat stoic as he looked at Virgil a bit, then nodded.
“Yes.”
“What he ever say to you about any of this?”
“Nothing.”
“Roger ever a suspect in Ruth Ann’s murder?” I said.
Banes looked at me.
“It was discussed,” he said.
“By who?” I said.
“All of us.”
“What do you think?”
Banes stared at me for a long moment.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“He had to be mad as hell at her. Fact, he even said to me he’d like to see her dead for making a fool out of him like she did . . . I suppose I would not have put it past him.”
“So what do you figure?” Virgil said.
Banes nodded a little, then shook his head. He glanced to his detective partner before he spoke.
“I’d most likely put my money on Roger as the killer of his wife, Ruth Ann.”