“Good man. Thanks.”
I tore open the envelope. The wire was from the law in Timber Point, the Ridgely County seat over on the Clark’s Fork northeast of Missoula.
JAMES RAINEY HERE STOP BADLY INJURED UNABLE TO ARREST YET STOP ADVISE STOP
T. BANNERMAN
SHERIFF
Hell’s bells! T. Bannerman was newly elected; I didn’t know him, never had any dealings before. He was either narrow between the ears or a pinchpenny with the county taxpayers’ money. “Badly injured” meaning what? How badly? How injured?
Bert had stayed hovering while I read. “You want to send a reply?” he asked.
“Damn tootin’ I do.”
I went with him back to his office at the depot, where I wrote crisp to T. Bannerman requesting further details and asking if Rainey was in a condition to answer questions. And made the last word in the message URGENT so if he was any kind of lawman, he wouldn’t dawdle.
“Bring his reply to the sheriff’s office, Bert, soon as you get it.”
“Sure thing, but I’m off duty at six. Comes in after that, where should I tell the night man to bring it?”
“My office first, if I’m not there then my house.”
I hurried on to the Commercial Club. Being a bachelor, Carse spends most of his Sunday afternoons there playing pitch or cribbage with his cronies, and honing his card skills with beer. Which is what he was doing today, and he hadn’t had enough suds to fuzz his thinking. I rousted him away from the crib board, and waited until we were outside and clear of earshot before I told him why.
“Rainey’s in Timber Point, laid up with some kind of injuries,” I said. “Pisshawk new sheriff over there didn’t provide any more information, so now we have to wait on another wire from him. If Rainey’s in shape to talk, one of us’ll have to question him.”
“Me?”
“You. Plenty to keep me busy here, not the least of which is testifying to the coroner’s jury. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Round-trip train ride to Missoula, round-trip stage or horse ride to Timber Point if there’s no train service twixt the two. And there isn’t yet, as I recollect. Why should I mind?” His tone was mild. One thing Carse isn’t, it’s a complainer. “Leave today or in the morning?”
“Early morning’s soon enough. If it turns out necessary.”
“Okay.”
“There’s something else you better know,” I said. “I saw Doc Olsen over at Bedford’s after he finished his autopsy. The Axthelm girl was pregnant.”
“Oh, Lordy. How far along?”
“Five to six weeks.”
“That lets out Rainey.”
“As the father, likely so. But it doesn’t let him out as the son of a bitch who strangled her.”
“Could be she told him she was in a family way by somebody else and he jumped up in the collar and killed her.”
“Could be,” I agreed. “But it doesn’t explain what they were doing on the Crockett property.”
“What she hadn’t ought to’ve been,” Carse said, wry.
“We been over that. No need for her and Rainey to meet out there, when he had that closed-in wagon of his. And no tracks deep enough on the lane for the wagon to’ve made.”
“So you’re thinking she might’ve been killed by the man who seeded her. On account of he found out she was running off with Rainey?”
“Not thinking anything yet,” I said. “Just playing wait and see.” But it seemed to fit together better that way. We’d have a better idea after Carse questioned Rainey, if such were possible right away.
I sent Carse down to the courthouse to wait on further word from T. Bannerman, and walked myself back over to the Rademachers. This time I got lucky, if you could call it that. I was about to cross the street when a machine racketed around the near corner, traveling about five miles over the speed limit and toting a raggedy trail of dust behind. It was Clyde Rademacher’s year-old KRIT Touring automobile, bought from a salesman in Missoula, as were most of the machines in the valley, including my Model T. Clyde Junior was at the wheel, a pair of goggles over his eyes that gave him the look of a giant bug. He waggled a hand at me in passing, but he didn’t slow down until he got to the driveway that led back to the carriage barn behind their house.
I went on over there and waited for him to show himself afoot. He was the spitting image of his father, except that he had a full head of sandy hair and a darker skin color on account of he’d spent the summer and most of the fall working outdoors on the Bruderstein hay ranch. His folks despaired of him for not wanting to go to college, study law, and join Clyde in his firm. He was brash and a touch wild, but you had to give him credit for being his own man, following his own plans for his future, whatever they happened to be. He hadn’t made his intentions clear, maybe because he didn’t know himself yet just what they were.
He was wearing a duster and one of his wide, cheeky grins. “Afternoon, Mr. Monk.” He always called me Mr. Monk, which would have been nice and polite except that, intentional or not, he managed to give the “mister” a faint mocking emphasis.
I said, “By rights I ought to give you a citation.”
“Citation? What for?”
“Exceeding the town speed limit.”
“Didn’t realize I was.”
“Should have. You could’ve run down a kid or a dog.”
“But I didn’t. I always pay close attention to my driving.”
“Uh-huh. Well, pay closer attention to the speed limit next time.”
“I’ll do that,” he said. “The folks aren’t home, Mr. Monk. They were invited out to supper at the Weldons.”
“It’s you I come to see.”
“Oh? What can I do for you?”
“Tell me about you and Charity Axthelm.” No point in mincing words.
The cheeky grin didn’t waver. “I hear she ran off with that traveling peddler, Rainey. Nothing to do with me.”
“I been told you kept company with her at one time.”
“At one time. I keep company with a lot of girls.”
“When, exactly, with her?”
“Back in the spring.”
“For how long?”
“Not long. Month or so.”
“What busted up the romance?”
“Romance?” He laughed. “I wouldn’t call it that.”
“What would you call it?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Never mind why. If it wasn’t a romance, what was it?”
“Opportunity realized, you might say.”
“Meaning what? Speak plain, boy.”
“Well, what do you suppose it means?” he said. “She had something we both wanted at the time. Sort of took advantage of each other, you might say.”
“Uh-huh. You had relations with her.”
“What if I did? You fixing to tell my folks?”
“No.” Not unless I had to. “Just between us.”
“Okay, then, I did. I wasn’t the first, and I sure wasn’t the last. And that’s not telling tales, now she’s gone and not likely to return.”
Clyde Junior didn’t know how right he was. Or maybe he did, though I hoped not. If he didn’t know, he’d find out soon enough—but not from me, not now.
“How long since the last time you and her were together?”
“I told you. Last spring.”
“Nothing to do with her since?”
“Nothing at all.”
“Where’d you do your sporting? One of the abandoned farms, maybe?”
Maybe he thought the word “sporting” was funny; he laughed again. “No need, when you’ve got a motorcar and there’s plenty of private places by the river to park.”
Clyde Junior was beginning to get under my skin. Too damn cocksure for his own good, much less mine. “Who else had relations with her?”
“You don’t think she’d tell me? She didn’t.”
“I was young once,” I said. “Kids your age brag oft
en enough.”
That last statement bristled him, as I meant it to. The annoying grin flickered and thinned. “I’m not a kid, I’m a grown man.”
“Then act like one. Who else?”
“Half the men in town under the age of thirty, probably.”
“I had just about enough of your smart-ass,” I said, sharp. “Answer my question and answer it proper.”
He said, “All right,” his voice a little sulky now. “I only know of one for sure. Besides the peddler.”
“Name him.”
“Jack Vanner.”
Well, now. Vanner was the rowdy type; Sam Prine had locked him up once for attacking another man in Monahan’s with a broken chair leg. Indian hater, too, as his presence at Henry Bandelier’s attempted rabble-rousing last night pointed out. Not the sort I’d have associated with Charity Axthelm. But then, you can never tell about women’s tastes in men. Takes variety in temperament as well as looks to satisfy some.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“He boasted to me, half drunk, one night while I was seeing her. I knocked him on his ass.”
“Boasts can be plain lies.”
“Not his. Only way he could’ve known about a mole she has. Want to know where?”
“No.”
I showed him the rust-brown button. No reaction when he looked at it, not even an eyeflick. “Ever see Vanner wearing a coat this color, with buttons like this?”
“Not his sort of garb. Why?”
“Never mind why. Know anybody who wears one?”
“No.”
“Who else was seeing Charity besides you and Vanner?”
“Don’t forget the peddler.”
“I’m not forgetting him. Any others?”
“None that I know about.” Clyde Junior cocked his head forward like a bird dog about to point. “I sure wish you’d tell me how come you’re so interested in Charity and her doings.”
I said, “I’ll bet you do,” and left him standing there with his mouth half open as if he was about to swallow what was left of his grin.
* * *
JACK VANNER HAD a room above Otis Moore’s carpentry shop. But he wasn’t in it and the shop was closed up tight. He might be over at Monahan’s, but if so, it’d be a mistake to brace him in front of his rowdy sidekicks. And if he wasn’t there, it was too cold and blustery with the afternoon on the wane to go hunting his whereabouts. Words with him could wait until tomorrow.
I hied myself to the courthouse. I expected Carse to be alone in the office, but he wasn’t. He had company, and none too pleasant company from the scowly look on the visitor’s face.
Bob Axthelm was back home in Peaceful Valley.
TWELVE
YOUNG AXTHELM HADN’T been there very long. He was on his feet, his rawboned frame bent forward and one big-knuckled, hairy-backed hand braced on a corner of Carse’s desk. Carse sat stiff in his chair, the copy of Adventure he’d had his nose in when he was interrupted tented open in front of him. Judging by what he was saying when I came in, he’d been getting an earful of something he didn’t much like.
“You got no call to bullyrag me, son. Sheriff’s doing all he can.”
“Sure he is,” Bob Axthelm said. “You, too, sitting here on your ass.”
Then he saw me and straightened up, hitching at the belt of his worn Levi’s. He thrust his head in my direction, the cords in his long neck stretched rope-tight. Pretty upset, all right. I didn’t blame him for that, but Carse was right, he had no call to come bullyragging.
I said, “Simmer down, Bob, settle your hocks. We’re not shirking or lollygagging, neither of us. Investigations take time—”
“Time! My sister’s been dead four days.”
“Yes, but she was only found yesterday. Word hasn’t gotten out yet, and we’re being careful it doesn’t until the coroner’s jury convenes on Monday.”
“To hell with the coroner’s jury. Don’t need them to tell who choked her to death.”
I shed my mackinaw, hung it and my derby on the coatrack. Instead of sitting, I cocked a hip on the front edge of my desk. Bob Axthelm stayed upright.
“Who do you reckon is the guilty man?” I asked him.
“Who else but that peddler Rainey. Charity was set to run off with him, you know that.”
“We know it. How’d you find it out?”
“That don’t matter. Why aren’t you and your deputy out hunting the son of a bitch?”
“No need. We know where Rainey is. What we don’t know yet is whether or not he’s a murderer.”
The boy’s upper lip lifted high to show his teeth and gums, the way a dog’s does when it’s riled and snarly. “Who the hell else. Where is he?”
“Where we can get to him. And will, tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow doesn’t satisfy, Sheriff. Where?”
“Maybe you’ve got an idea where.”
“Hell. How would I?”
I said, mild, “Where’ve you been the past few days?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“One that can use an answer.”
“Pa told you where I’ve been. Kalispell.”
“How’d you get those scrapes and bruises on your knuckles?”
“What?”
“You heard me. Simple question. Must’ve been recent—they look pretty fresh.”
He shied a look at his hand, then rubbed the sore spots. His scowl was dark as a rain cloud. “None of your business.”
“It is if how you got them involves Rainey.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“We been told Rainey’s hurt, bad hurt.”
“Yeah? How bad?”
“Don’t know yet. We’re waiting on further word. Could be somebody beat up on him.”
“And you think it might’ve been me? Well, it wasn’t. I’d’ve hammered the crap out of him if I’d caught him messing with Charity, no use denying that, but I only set eyes on him once and that was here in town.”
“Did you know she was set on going away with him?”
“Not until I got back this morning and Pa told me.”
“How’d he find out?”
“If he didn’t tell you, then why should I?”
“Could be he went looking for Rainey, to bring your sister back home if he thought she was with him.”
“Well, he didn’t.”
“How do you know he didn’t?”
“I know Pa, that’s how. He ain’t made that way.”
“Are you?”
No answer.
I said, “I’ll ask you again, Bob. How’d your pa find out?”
Young Axthelm chewed on the question, scrunch-faced as if it were a wad of something with a bad taste. Then, as if spitting it out, “Ma told him.”
“Charity told her, is that it?”
“No,” he said, bitter, “one of our nosy neighbors come by and told her. Heard the gossip in town and wanted to know was it true. Until then her and Pa thought Charity’d gone to Kalispell with me.”
That cleared up that part of things. Or it did if Bob was telling the whole truth. I said, “All right, then. So you and your folks didn’t know she was seeing Rainey on the sly. Was she seeing anybody else you know about?”
“Don’t matter if she was.”
“It might if Rainey’s innocent.”
“Innocent! Christ!”
“If he is,” I said, “then somebody else is guilty. Somebody right here in the valley.”
His face scrunched up again. “Ain’t no man lives here would have reason to harm Charity.”
I wasn’t about to tell him his sister had been pregnant by somebody other than James Rainey. He’d find it out soon enough.
“Besides,” he said, “she wasn’t seeing anybody. Pa wouldn’t let her have callers. He thought she was too young.”
Overprotective, like a lot of fathers with pretty young daughters. One reason, maybe, she’d turned early wild and rebellious. I could
have given Bob the names I’d come up with—Clyde Junior, Devlin Stonehouse, Jack Vanner—but I didn’t do it. Charity had been too secretive about her private life to confide in her brother, and if he had any suspicions, he’d keep them to himself. This wasn’t the time to open up that can of worms, either.
“It has to be Rainey, Sheriff. He must’ve decided not to take her away with him and Charity lit into him—she could be a hellcat when she was mad—and he ended up killing her. Dammit, when are you going after him?”
“As soon as possible,” I said. “When we know anything for sure, we’ll get word to you and your folks.”
“That still don’t satisfy.”
“Then you’ll just have to go back home unsatisfied.”
He glowered at me, stomped over to the door, and slammed out.
Carse stirred for the first time. “More than one hellcat in the Axthelm family,” he said.
“Got that right.”
“He never did say how he got those banged-up knuckles.”
“Better not have been from beating up on Rainey.”
“… Oh, before I forget. Telephone call for you earlier.”
“Wouldn’t have been from Hannah Mead, would it?”
“Nope. But you’re warm.”
“Uh-huh. Reba Purvis.”
“Yep. Wouldn’t say what she wanted.”
“I know what she wants. What’d you tell her?”
“Just that you were out on business.”
Maybe I’d go see her later, maybe I wouldn’t. Reba’s a whole lot easier to take early in the day, and that goes double when she’s on the warpath. I had nothing new to tell her about the poisoning business, and I’d already found out as much as there was to know right now about Charity Axthelm’s love life. Whatever else she could tell me could hold until tomorrow.
Carse untented his pulp-paper magazine, dog-eared a page, and shut it away in his desk drawer. Reluctantly, it seemed to me.
I said, “Must be real interesting, whatever you’re reading.”
“It is. Serial story about a character named Arsene Lupin.”
“That’s some handle.”
“Well, he’s a Frenchman, and a gentleman thief—”
“A which?”
“Gentleman thief. You know, one of those fancy-dressed nabobs, only this one steals jewels and such from other rich folks. Real clever fella, outfoxes the police and gets away with the loot.”
The Peaceful Valley Crime Wave Page 8