by Ed Gorman
“Long story. Not worth going through. So I have to tell you that legally you don’t have to answer any of the questions I ask you.”
She was shining a pair of fancy black shoes, her small hands quick and deft with the rag. “Barbara bought me these here in Denver.”
“Nice.”
“Comfortable, too.” The kid grin again. “You always hear how we spend so much time on our backs. But we also spend a lot on our feet. It’s kinda funny how that works out.” Then: “So what kinda questions’re you gonna ask me?”
“About Ned Hastings.”
“Oh.” Disappointment in her voice. “He sure does think a lot of himself.”
“How so?”
“Big plans. He told me he’s gonna have a gunfight with you and then go into a Wild West Show somewhere.”
“What else did he say?”
She shrugged small, pale, erotic shoulders. “He said he was gonna have a lot of money when he left this town.”
“He say where he was going to get it?”
“Not really. He started to a couple of times-he was pretty drunk-but then he stopped himself.”
“He didn’t give you a hint or anything?”
“No. I thought he might. But that’s when he started getting sick all the time. I kept running him up and down the stairs. Barbara, she always says get them out the back door and on the grass if they want to puke. She says you stink up a house with puke enough, it always stinks like puke.”
“You told Barbara he had a lot of money.”
“A lot of money for somebody like him. Near as I could figure out, he’s just this drifter with a big mouth and a pretty high opinion of himself. Havin’ that much money on him kinda surprised me.”
“It surprises me, too.”
“When I worked in a Kansas City whorehouse, I spent a night with a couple bank robbers. I was wonderin’ if maybe he held up a bank, Ned, I mean.”
I kept trying to figure out how old she was. Barbara had said seventeen. If that was true, and she’d already put in some time in a Kansas City whorehouse, she’d sure started young.
“Well, I guess it’s time to go pay him a visit.”
“He smells pretty bad. I thought of maybe cleanin’ him up a little. But when I got in there with a washrag and some soap, he just stunk too bad.”
“I’ll hold my breath.”
That grin again. “You’ll need to.”
Turned out, she wasn’t exaggerating. Ned Hastings was apparently one of those young men who didn’t take much to bathing. I got a window open, and then I went over and emptied his boots. A hefty sum of gold eagles fell out, clattering to the floor. His eyelids fluttered. But the noise didn’t deter the steady annoying sound of his snoring.
I emptied his gun just as I had yesterday, and then pitched it on the bed next to him. There was tepid water in the bureau pan. I carried it over to him and dumped it on his face. He must have had some night. Not even the water roused him right away. Usually a man would jerk straight up when you woke him that way. He just made some groggy noises and started wiping the water from his face. “What the hell,” he said.
“Wake up, Ned.”
“Who is it?”
“Sit up and find out.”
“How come you poured water on me for?”
“Because I couldn’t get you awake otherwise.”
“You sonofabitch.”
“Sit up, Ned. Now.”
“Hey,” he said, recognizing my voice. “You’re that damned town marshal.”
Sitting up was a struggle. Getting his eyes open was even more of a struggle. “Hey,” he said once he saw me.
“Hey.”
“You sonofabitch.”
“You know somethin’? You’re almost as aggravating asleep as you are awake.”
“What the hell’s that mean?”
“It means you snore.”
And then he remembered his money. And flung himself on the floor to grab his boot and stuff his hand down inside. “It’s all there,” I said.
“It damn well better be.”
“Who gave it to you?”
“None of your business.”
“Paul gave it to you, didn’t he?”
“I don’t know no Paul.”
I couldn’t take it any longer. Or maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe I just didn’t want to take it anymore. I was sick of his face and sick of his smell and sick of him. I stood up, walked over to him, grabbed his wet hair, and slammed his head against the edge of the bureau. I slammed it twice more.
“You’ve been telling lies about my wife, Hastings. That’s what Webley paid you to do. If I hear you talking about her again, I’m going to break you up into little pieces.”
I gave him a demonstration. I kicked him hard in the ribs. He doubled over.
“You understand?”
He started crying. He sounded young and scared. But there wasn’t any pleasure in it for me. At this moment there wasn’t any pleasure in anything. My life had been so sweet and uncomplicated since I’d met Callie. And now it had all changed. And maybe it wouldn’t ever change back.
There was no sense in talking to him any longer. He knew what he’d done and so did I. Even if he admitted that Webley had paid him to lie, all Webley had to do was deny it.
“You sonofabitch,” he said, crying.
Irene was in the door. “Gosh, Marshal, what did you do to him?” You could tell she felt sorry for him.
“Not anything half as bad as he did to my wife.”
He puked all over himself then, sitting there Indian-legged on the floor, his one boot knocked over on its side, all the gold eagles spilled out like the innards of a cornucopia.
She went over and knelt down next to him and said, “You sure do like to puke.” He kept on crying. He was coming off a mighty drunk. You saw men like that sometimes in the morning in the cell we keep for drunks. Confused and ashamed and scared about the night before. They cry like six-year-olds.
I liked her for taking care of him. She was as mercenary as all whores have to be, but she hadn’t yet lost all of her tenderness. Kneeling next to him, enduring the stench of his fresh vomit, stroking his head, she could have been his sister or his wife.
***
From Barbara’s I walked back to town. Paul’s surrey passed me at one point. He gave me a mocking little nod. Next to him sat his store-window wife looking too severely beautiful to be quite earthly. She didn’t give me a nod, mocking or otherwise.
Callahan’s was the miner’s saloon. It had the least business during the daylight hours of any of the saloons. Its customers were all down in mine shafts. I went there for a beer. I took it to a table and rolled myself a cigarette.
I was just finishing up the beer when Paul Dodson came in. He was the local Realtor. He’d made a lot of money from rich Easterners who liked the idea of having a home in the Wild Wild West. It made for great stories in the drawing rooms as the waiters were serving aperitifs.
“Hey,” he said to the bartender. He sounded agitated. “Look outside. They’re bringing Callie Morgan in.”
He started to say more, but the bartender nodded in my direction. Dodson looked over and said, “Aw, hell, Lane, I didn’t see you over there. I didn’t mean anything-”
But I was already up and walking toward the batwing doors.
I wanted to see just who was bringing Callie in, and why.
THIRTEEN
I'D HAD A picture of Callie sitting her horse, her wrists handcuffed, a couple of my former deputies toting shotguns as they rode next to her.
Tom Ryan had brought her in. He rode, without a shotgun, next to our old buggy, which Callie drove slowly down the dusty street to the jailhouse.
If Tom had been showboating, there would have been a crowd. But obviously he had told nobody what he was doing. The only person standing in front of the jail when I got there was Horace Thurman, the county attorney.
He looked embarrassed to see me, which told me a lot. He was a
nother one who had dreams of being a power in the state legislature. I’d done him a favor by resigning. He’d look like a man among men to the lieutenant governor tomorrow. Here was the man who’d seen to it that the murderer was arrested, even though it meant bringing in the former marshal’s wife. Surely the lieutenant governor would tell this tale when he once again strode the echoing halls of power. And surely the voters would remember it when it came time to choose their next slate of legislators.
He said, “I’m sorry about this, Lane.”
“Paul got to you, did he?” I wasn’t in any mood for his slick, empty words.
“You’re under a lot of pressure, Lane. I realize that. But that was still uncalled for. I’m my own man.”
I sighed, angry as much at myself as at him for the moment. He was many things-overly ambitious, duplicitous, cynical-but he didn’t do anybody’s bidding but his own. Not even Paul’s. Maybe especially Paul’s. He seemed to make a point over the years to offend Webley in various ways. Just to prove his independence.
“You’re right, Horace. You are your own man. But you shouldn’t have brought Callie in.”
“You would have brought Callie in. If she wasn’t your wife, I mean.”
I started to object. But then I realized he was right. I was a long ways from being the perfect lawman, but I did try to do an honest job most of the time. And he was right. If Callie wasn’t my wife, she would probably have been my number one suspect.
“What about Sylvia Adams?” I said.
He smiled. “Hard to interrogate dead people, Lane. Maybe you know how to do it, but I guess I never learned.”
“Or Ken Adams.”
“Tom brought him in earlier. Tom and I questioned him for nearly two hours.”
“And decided what?”
“Decided that he was a suspect. But he had a gun on him when he went up to Stanton ’s room.”
“He couldn’t have brought a knife?”
“Could have. But unlikely. I asked a few people around town if they could ever remember Ken Adams carrying a knife. They couldn’t.”
“That’s still not very conclusive.”
“No, it’s not. But the case is a long way from being resolved.”
“So now you spend a couple of hours with Callie.”
His full face, hidden beneath a trim graying beard, became grim. It was a theater move, one he used frequently in court when he wanted to make an especially serious point to the jury. That didn’t necessarily mean he was being insincere. You never know about attorneys and actors. "This isn’t pleasant for me.”
“She didn’t kill him.”
“I’m hoping you’re right. But if you’re not-” His face remained grim. “If I begin to think she really did do it, I’m asking the judge if I can bring in another prosecutor.”
“What?”
“We’ve worked together a good number of years now, Lane. And we’ve gotten to know each other socially. Callie and my wife are friends. Not intimates, but friends. I just couldn’t go after her in court. I like her too much. And in the back of my mind, I wouldn’t blame her if she had done it. Stanton was scum. I got a wire from the Cook County District Attorney’s office this morning. Stanton was quite a boy. He was even suspected though never charged in three homicides. If Callie did do it, as far as I’m concerned she did civilized society a favor.”
I’d been wrong again. All I’d seen when I’d first seen him standing in front of the marshal’s office was the ambitious prosecutor about to wade into one of the most notorious trials of his career. But now, if that trial involved my wife, he was stepping aside.
“You want some advice, Lane?”
“I’d appreciate it,” I said, barely able to speak after what he’d just said. He was a hell of a lot better friend than I’d ever expected.
“Go up the street and tell Old Sam Bowen you want him to represent Callie in all this. And then get him to come down here right away. I’ll let him sit in on the interrogation. He can make any objections he wants, and then he can spend some time with Callie afterward.”
I put my hand out. We shook.
“Since when did you become my favorite person, Horace?”
“You became mine a long time ago. The two of us are the only two who’ve ever really stood up to Paul in this whole county.” He glanced back at the front door I’d walked through so many times. “Well, I guess I’d better get in there. I need to start the questions. And get Toni to buck up a little. He almost handed in his badge when I asked him to go out and bring Callie in. I think it gave him serious doubts about taking the job.”
“I’ll talk to him. But right now I’ll go see Old Sam Bowen.”
***
Bowen, who’d been the county’s first attorney, stood out on the boardwalk going through his morning’s mail in the sunlight. He was a wiry, bald, nearsighted little man who wore a large Union Army pin on the lapels of all his suit coats. He’d earned several decorations in the war.
I wasn’t sure he saw me approach, but without looking up from a letter he was reading, he said, “You did the right thing, Lane.”
“I did?”
“Sure. How the hell could you have stayed on as town marshal with your wife under suspicion that way.”
“I guess I did. But some people think I should’ve stayed.” He laughed. “That’s what they say to your face. But behind your back’s another matter. If you’d have stayed on,
you would have turned just about everybody in town against you.”
“You mean people say one thing to my face and another thing behind my back? That kind of shocks me, Old Sam.” That was his name and he liked it. Not Sam. Old Sam. He smiled. “I don’t want to hear what people say about me behind my back.”
My humor was short-lived. “I need you to be her attorney, Old Sam.”
“Where is she?”
"Tom just brought her in. Horace invited you to sit in on the questioning. They’re starting any minute now.”
He shoved his mail in the pocket of his suit coat. “Then I’d best be getting at it, hadn’t I?”
I walked him down to the town marshal’s office. He went inside and I went over to where Edgar Bayard had his office. The hitching post outside held the reins of two horses, one of them his. In the street Lem Johnson was scooping up road apples. He was the town’s all-purpose hand. “Sorry to hear you quit, Marshal.”
“Thanks, Lem.” I thought of what Old Sam had said about what people said behind my back.
Bayard’s various business interests were run out of a modest office that was hidden among several modest offices on the ground floor of a building that always smelled sweetly of floor-cleaning compound. Nobody else in town used this compound, which was too bad. It had a friendly smell.
I opened the door and went in and nodded to Bayard’s secretary, a middle-aged woman whose race had long been a subject of speculation. Though her husband was clearly white, she had a complexion and features that hinted at Negro blood. Some people just assumed that she had brazenly “passed” in white society. I wasn’t sure and I didn’t particularly give a damn. She was pleasant and efficient. “Morning, Ruth.”
She’d been riffling through a stack of letters. When she looked up, surprise played in her eyes. The surprise was that
I was the man of the moment in our small town. A former lawman whose wife, innocent or not, was involved in a scandal. Ruth, a plump woman given to matronly business attire, radiated sympathy for me. She knew what it was like when the gossips focused on you. “Morning, Marshal.”
“I saw Edgar’s horse outside. I thought maybe I could see him.”
“Of course.” She stood up. About this time, she’d usually be telling me how good a teacher Callie was. She had a boy enrolled in Callie’s classes. This time, she didn’t say anything. She knocked gently on the door, opened it, peeked inside, told Bayard that I was here to see him. She stood aside for me. I walked in.
Bayard’s office was like the man. Spare and withou
t fuss. A long way from the quietly imposing chambers of Paul’s. The pleasant scent of pipe tobacco filled the air. I sat in a plain wood chair across from his plain pine desk. The walls held maps and charts relating to his various businesses.
“I’ll bet I can guess why you’re here,” he said, drawing on his briar pipe. “I just heard they brought Callie in.”
“Supposedly just for questioning. She’s not under arrest.”
“It’s that damned Grice and Toomey. And I’m sure that Paul’s behind them.”
“I don’t have any doubt.”
He laughed. “We sure wouldn’t want the lieutenant governor to think that Skylar had ever had an unsolved murder, now would we?”
“We’ve got a perfect town here. We wouldn’t want to go and spoil it.”
He sat back, hooked a thumb in a vest pocket. The pipe stayed stuck in the right comer of his mouth. He talked around it. “So now you want to know what I know-or suspect.”
“When you told me about it out at the rail site, there wasn’t this much of a hurry. But now that Calllie’s been brought in-”
“I understand, Lane.” He hesitated. “One of my employees saw this. Or thinks he saw it. He was some distance away. And he made me promise that I wouldn’t get him involved. All I can tell you is what he told me. It’s not proof of any kind. But maybe it would start you looking in a fresh direction.”
“That’s what I need now. A fresh direction.”
He leaned forward. Took the pipe from his mouth. The last wraiths of his last inhalation wriggled from his nostrils. “You know where Phil Chesney has his cabin?”
“The one he uses for hunting?”
“Yeah.”
“Sure.”
“Well, you know that Chesney likes the women.”
“Everybody seems to know that except for his poor wife,” I said.
“Well, he and Stanton got to be drinking cronies. Stanton got a couple of young gals from town here to go out to Chesney’s cabin for a few parties. Stanton gave Chesney a perfect cover. If Chesney’s wife heard about the parties, all Phil had to say was that he’d let Stanton use the cabin and that the girls were all Stanton’s idea.”