When we stepped through the pantry door, we stopped.
Ling had opened a freezer door and Evans Howell’s body had toppled out, and it was still sprawled on the floor, face up. There was a knife handle projecting out of Howell’s solar plexus. He was rigid with cold and stiff in death.
None of us spoke. I heard the men talking outside and then the messhall doors were pushed open.
Maybe I should have been surprised when I saw Barton M. Cassel with the sheriff and a deputy come across the messhall toward us. Maybe I should have been, but I wasn’t.
I stared at the pleased expression on Cassel’s face and I realized that the sheriff had been on his way out here when I was up in that bedroom talking to Bart.
No wonder Bart had let me walk out of there. He had been trying on this frame for size. No wonder I hadn’t been able to outguess him. And in that moment I knew why he’d been late getting into town to the bank this morning. He’d had a little matter of murder to attend to first.
Only I knew how far I could get trying to prove that.
The sheriff was bending over Evan’s body. He glanced up, spoke over his shoulder, “Here’s something that might be a final answer in this here killing, Bart”
“Yeah, sheriff?” Cassel could barely control the smug smile. He spoke to the sheriff but he was staring at me.
“This here knife that killed young Howell,” the sheriff said. “It must belong to somebody out here. It’s a switchblade, Anybody know this knife?”
I didn’t speak. I didn’t even glance at the knife handle sticking up out of Evans Howell’s chest. I was staring at the chilled smile on Cassel’s face. I didn’t have to look at that switchblade knife.
I knew it.
It was mine.
I felt myself tighten up. No wonder I hadn’t taken that knife with me this morning. It had already been stolen from me, and I was too fouled-up when I left my room to pay any attention to its loss. When I’d needed it out there at the creek, the explanation had seemed simple: I’d just forgotten it.
Now I knew better.
I stared at Cassel. No wonder he was barely able to conceal that cat-eating grin. He’d killed Evans Howell, and he’d decked me out in a neat, snug-fitting frame.
“Anybody know this knife?” Sheriff Mason said again.
I went on staring at Cassel. His mouth was twisted and he seemed to be waiting to hear me ask for a noose around my neck. I didn’t move.
But I heard the stirring of the men around me.
I wasn’t the only one who recognized that knife.
“Sheriff.” It was Handecker speaking. I winced. His voice sounded apologetic, mildly reluctant.
Cassel said, before Mason could speak, “All right Handecker. Speak up. What is it? Is that your knife?”
“My God no!” The words burst across Handecker’s mouth. His lips were still split from our debate the other night. But he forgot any slight pain that speaking caused him. Any reluctance to speak up, to tell what he knew, disappeared at Cassel’s suggestion that the knife in Howell’s chest might belong to him. “No, sir. That knife ain’t mine. But I seen it before.”
“Where?” Mason said.
Cassel relaxed now, standing there, waiting. One thing he could not conceal was the anticipatory pleasure that glinted in his eyes.
“That knife is a switchblade,” Handecker said. “The only one like it that I seen around here.”
“Go on,” Mason said.
“Well, sir. One night down at the barracks we had reason to take up all the hardware—the knives and razors—any of the boys might have on them. I remember because it was the first night that ... that Mitch Walker showed up here.”
I heard the slight exhalation as Cassel breathed out.
Sheriff Mason glanced at me.
“I don’t know if that knife still belongs to Mitch Walker or not,” Handecker said. I’ll give him that. He didn’t mind beating a man’s head in, but nailing him for murder was something else again. Handecker wasn’t happy with what he was doing. “He might of got rid of it since then. I mean he might of sold it or give it away. But he had it with him that night.”
“Is the knife yours, Walker?” Mason said to me.
“It was mine,” I said. “But I lost it. Even if it is mine, I had no reason for killing Evans. He was good to me.”
“We’ll worry about that later,” Mason said. “If Evans happened to learn the truth about you, that you were wanted for murder, that might be a motive—”
“But I was cleared of that.”
“You didn’t know you were cleared until after noon,” the sheriff said. “Like I say, we’ll worry about that one when we come to it. We’ll have to wait until we find out just when poor Howell was knifed and shoved in here.”
Cassel shook his head. “It’s one hell of a thing. We take a man like Walker in—and have something like this happen.”
The sheriff showed no compassion. “We’ve tried to warn you, Bart, you take men in, migrants, without checking on them, you’re bound to have trouble. Just like the way you carried big sums of cash on you until somebody slugged and robbed you.”
“I reckon I been wrong all right,” Cassel said.
“Maybe it’s taught you something,” Mason said. “Maybe you’ll listen to us next time.”
“I’d sure be a fool not to,” Cassel said. “Yes, sir, I reckon I’ve learned a lot today,”
“I didn’t kill Evans Howell,” I said. My voice shook.
“Now, son, let’s not have any trouble,” the sheriff said. “You’ll get your chance to testify in your behalf.”
“I’m not going to get any chance at all, and you know it,” I said. “I never had a chance from the day I walked on this farm. Hell, I had no reason for killing Evans. But Cassel did.”
“Me?” Cassel looked shocked. “My God, boy, what are you trying to pull?”
“I had no reason for killing Evans. But you did. You knew he’d been crossing you with your wife for months.”
Cassel lunged forward. His big hands came up and before I could set myself, before anyone could stop him, he had closed his fists on my throat and borne me over and down on the floor.
The sheriff spoke sharply. His deputies, along with Handecker and Potter pulled Cassel off of me. It took all of them to do it.
I stood up slowly, breathing through my opened mouth. “You son of a bitch,” I said straight into Cassel’s face.
He jerked free of them, but I was waiting for him this time, and he took a step forward before he saw that I was ready, and he paused.
They grabbed his arms, and he let them.
He said, gasping, “I ought to kill you. For talking like that, I ought to kill you.”
“Sure,” I said. “Why don’t you? One more kill won’t make any difference to you.”
He tried to lunge free again. But the sheriff stepped between us. Mason stared at me. “You’re in trouble enough, boy,” he said. “Making wild accusations against the lovely wife of the leading citizen of this state ain’t going to buy you much from people like us.”
“Hell,” I said. “I know that. So what have I got to lose?”
“I don’t know, son. I’d kind of think careful, though. I’d keep my mouth shut”
“You might. But I’m not going to. Hell, Cassel killed Evans Howell. Ask Handecker. Potter. Potter told me that Cassel came out there this morning and picked Howell up at work, and Howell never came back out there. Isn’t that true, Potter?”
Potter looked as if he were going to fall. He had never even thought anybody would ask him to accuse Barton M. Cassel of anything. He moved his head, and tried to speak, but there were no words.
I glanced at Cassel. I could see the wheels turning in his head. It was almost as if I could follow the way he figured. There were almost two hundred men on that field when he picked Evans up in his station wagon. Among them, one or two would have guts enough to tell the truth. It could not be concealed that he had picked Evans
up early this morning.
“Hell, Potter don’t have to answer for me,” Cassel said. “Sure, I picked Howell up. What was so strange about that? Ain’t he my foreman? Ain’t I allowed to make decisions about the men that work for me?”
“And the one that goes to bed with your wife,” I said.
The sheriff caught my shirt. “Shut your filthy mouth, killer.”
Cassel looked as if he would shed tears of gratitude for the sheriffs intervention on his behalf. “Thanks, Mason. God knows what this killer thinks he can serve by defiling the fine name of my wife, but I reckon you got to expect things like this. But I brought Howell back to the farm, told him what I wanted done, and let him out. I had to get into town to close that deal for them cattle. That’s the last time I’ve seen this poor boy until now.”
“That’s good enough for me, Bart,” the sheriff said. “We’ll have to have the coroner out here, but we don’t need to have you subjected to vile abuse from this man. We’ll take him on in and lock him up.”
“I hate to see any man locked up for murder,” Cassel said. “But I’ll thank you for getting Walker off my land. Much more talk like that and I’m afraid I’d kill him. Sheriff, I want you to question the men on this farm. Ask any of them if they know of anything except the very finest behavior from my wife.”
“No, sir,” Mason said. “I wouldn’t insult that lovely lady by giving any credence to the vile things this man has said here today.”
“Not even if I could prove them?” I said.
Cassel looked as if he were going to jump me again. The sheriff’s face was white. “You’d be a lot smarter to keep your mouth shut, man. You got all the woe that you need.”
“Only I’m not going to take it. I wasn’t even on this farm when Cassel picked Howell up out on that field.”
“You’re a vicious liar, as well as a killer,” Mason said. “We’ve got witnesses that testified you never left this farm.”
“Some of them don’t know what they were talking about,” I said. “Some of them were lying.”
The sheriff’s laugh was harsh. “Funny, everybody lies but you, huh?”
Cassel shook his head.
I said, “Bart Cassel is the only one who has truly lied, all the way. He knows I was in town because he blackmailed me into agreeing to rob him. I was in town before he got there. And he knows I was.”
“Sheriff, I’m telling you. This boy is insane.”
“Sure I am,” I said. “So insane I wouldn’t turn over that money I took from Cassel—which he handed me across the seat of his station wagon of his own free will, before I hit him with that two-by-four. But I can prove I didn’t kill anybody on this farm, because I can take you to that money. I hid it. And that will prove I was not on this farm this morning.”
The sheriff hesitated. He glanced at Bart, then at the deputies.
Bart said, “Hell, sheriff. It’s a trick. He thinks he’ll have some chance to get away.”
“Sooner or later, sheriff,” I said, “you’re going to have to take me to the place where I hid that money, because you’ll never convict me of murder because of it. That’s one story I’ll stick to as long as I’m alive.”
The sheriff considered a moment. Finally he scrubbed at his chin with his fingers. “Okay. We’ll take a run to this place. I’m in favor of getting this here lie nailed down for once and all.”
The deputy parked his car beside the creek. After a moment Cassel arrived in the station wagon with Handecker and Potter.
The sheriff ordered a deputy to link me with him in handcuffs. Then I led them down the embankment toward the tree that had been scarred by lightning.
“First,” I told the sheriff, “I better tell you this. This is part of Bart Cassel’s land. But like you saw, we came through a maze of fences, cutting sections off from other sections. It’s all very clever. We are now on open range. There is no fence at all between here and Road 27. There’s a turn—off about a mile north of a place called Wild Horse. And if you know how to do it you can get on Cassel’s ranch and off of it without going through any gate after you leave the farmyard.”
“Well, if that’s true,” Cassel said, “it’s news to me.”
The sheriff laughed in a cold way. “It’s Walker’s fairy story,” he said. “Let’s go along with him all the way. We don’t want nobody saying we didn’t give him every fair opportunity.”
“Sure,” Bart said. “Let him hang himself. Only he’s wasting your time.”
I pulled the deputy along after me down the grass embankment. The tree stood, scarred with gray streaks. But when I got to it, I knew it was no good.
There was no gaping hole, but I knew how I had left that satchel covered. I could see already that the hole had been opened and carelessly closed, hurriedly.
I fell on my knees, grasped the loose chunks of gravel and jerked them from the ground. I threw them aside, dug with my bare hands. But the hole was empty. The satchel was gone.
I just stayed there on my knees, staring at the empty hole I had dug for myself.
14
When the sheriff got me in the cell at the county jail, he stood outside it looking in at me as if he could not understand a man like me.
“You make up your mind, Walker, to behave yourself in here,” he said. “You’ll have it a lot easier.”
“Listen to me, sheriff. I robbed Bart Cassel. He planned it, and I robbed him.”
“Look, boy. I got no robbery charge against you. Now forget it. If you robbed Cassel, like you claim, you’d have that money. Right? I gave you every opportunity. Seems to me I bent over backwards to give you a chance to prove what you said. Now, I’m sick and tired talking about that robbery. When you’re ready to talk about how and why you killed Evans Howell, why you send for me, and I’ll come any time of the day or night”
“I didn’t kill him. I wasn’t on that farm.”
“Look, boy, we fought all through that. We got the testimony of both Mr. and Mrs. Barton M. Cassel that you claimed you was sick and you stayed right around that farm all day.”
“Mrs. Cassel might have thought she was helping me to say that. But Cassel is lying, and he knows he’s lying. He planned that robbery—”
“Lay off that robbery. I told you. You show me the money you are supposed to have taken, and I’ll listen to you on that subject. But not until. And if I was you, I’d lay off that talking against Mrs. Cassel. It ain’t going to help your chances with the good people in this here county.”
“She admitted—”
“Stop it. Now, we got other witnesses that say that though you took that jeep you never left the farm in it.”
“I showed you how I could have left that farm and nobody would even know anything about it.”
“Oh, you had a getaway planned clever. You found out something that even Barton M. Cassel didn’t know—”
“The hell he didn’t. He showed that road to me.”
“He says he didn’t, boy. And his word is better than yours. His wife says she didn’t know you could leave their land that way. Now we got witnesses that place you on the farm. We got people to swear that for two hours every morning after the breakfast is cleared away, there’s nobody down at the messhall. You could of lured Evans down there and killed him. It looks like that’s what we’ll prove that you did.”
“I wasn’t there, damn it. I was in town, waiting to rob Bart Cassel. The way he planned it.”
“You’re charged with murder, Walker, and it’s my duty to warn you that anything you say from now on can be used against you.”
“Would it make any difference, sheriff? You think I got a chance?”
“You don’t help your chances any by dirtying the names of highly respected people.”
“Do I even get a lawyer?”
He shrugged. “Sure. Why not? You’ll get a fair trial.”
“Sure, I will. So send me a lawyer.”
Now he laughed in a sharp way. “That might not be so easily done, Walk
er.”
“Why not?”
“A lawyer that defends you won’t make himself popular around here. Especially if you keep accusing the Cassels of wild crimes.”
I prowled the cage, walked back to the bars where he stood watching me, that puzzled look still in his face.
“Maybe I could just hang myself,” I said, my voice bitter, “here in my cell.”
He shrugged. “You could confess. To murder. That would help.”
“Don’t sit up waiting for that to happen, sheriff.”
He shrugged again. “Likewise to you, don’t think it’s going to buy you anything to keep talking about robbery and accusing a lady of Mrs. Cassel’s position of ugly, vile things.”
At seven that night Cotton Powell came on duty in the cellblock.
“What happened to your cruiser?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “Arnie and I had a little mix-up. So I got guard duty for a month.” He dragged his nightstick across the bars and grinned at me. “I don’t mind guarding you, Walker. It makes it a real pleasure.”
I turned and walked back to my cot. I flopped down on it. I heard him walking away. I did not look up. I stared at a crack in the floor, going over all of it for the hundredth time.
I could still remember how Cassel had suddenly told me to get out, to take that money and clear out. I had thought at the time this was phony. Cassel wasn’t going to give up like that unless he had a good reason.
He had dozens of good reasons.
He had known the sheriff was on the way. Maybe he was even amazed that Ling or one of the other cooks hadn’t already discovered Evans Howell’s body in the freezer. This would be one of the first doors the cooks would open in the messhall when they came in on the afternoon shift
And then later, down at the creek, when I found out that the money and the satchel were gone, I had expected Cassel to show some emotion, but he had seemed scarcely upset at all. There was one explanation.
Cassel already had that money.
And that brought me around in that tight little vicious circle. How had he gotten it? I had not hidden it in the sump. He could not have trailed the jeep, even if he’d had the time to do it on that hard-packed earth. And he hadn’t had the time. He had gone back to the sheriff’s office. They had bandaged his head and brought him out to the farm.
A Night for Screaming Page 13