“How you figure on doing the planting?”
“Sheriff?”
“I don’t see any tools in the wagon.”
“Tools?”
“No pick, no shovel. Not even a hoe. Were you boys thinking of digging a grave with your bare hands?”
“Well, shit,” Wes said, disgusted, and spat out onto the road again. Only this time his aim was off. The wad smacked against the off horse’s flank and caused it to frog-jump forward a couple of steps before he hauled it down. When that happened, the outhouse lurched and swayed and made other sounds that surprised me not a bit.
“Time you untied those ropes,” I said, “and took off that canvas.”
They exchanged a look. Lige said, “How come, Sheriff?”
“So I can have a look inside that outhouse.”
“Ain’t nothing to see except old Bryce’s corpse—”
“Untie, boys. Now, and no guff.”
The Hoveys were all out of arguments. They got down and began untying the ropes. Wes kicked his brother again while they were doing it, and Lige glowered at him and kicked back.
“Open up that half-moon door, Wes.”
He opened it.
“Well, well,” I said. “Sure don’t appear to be a corpse in there to me. What would you say it’s filled up with, Wes?”
He didn’t have anything to say.
“Lige?”
“Well … I reckon it’s jugs.”
“Fifty or more, looks like. Packed nice and tight with burlap sacking all around. What’s in those glass jugs, as if I didn’t know?”
Lige sighed. “Corn likker.”
“Uh-huh. Corn liquor you boys cooked up in that still you got hid in the hills. You and Wes and old Bryce, who’s still alive and kicking and tending to his chores. That about the shape of it?”
“Yes, sir. That’s about the shape of it.”
Wes said, “How’d you figure we had a still?”
“There’s not much goes on in Peaceful Valley I don’t know about,” I said.
Fact was, I’d known they were making bootleg for quite a while, just couldn’t prove it. Bad bootleg, too, flavored with red pepper and chewing tobacco to give it bite and make it even more poisonous. A Piegan they’d sold some to had gotten drunk enough to cause a ruction on the reservation, and when he sobered up he told Abe Fetters where he got it and Abe told me. Carse and I had hunted for the still but never found it. I would’ve put the Hoveys out of the liquor business quick if we had.
“You sayin’ you knowed all along we had jugs in that outhouse?”
“Had a pretty good idea once I saw that’s what it was. Knew it for sure when that horse of yours frog-hopped and I heard the noises inside.”
“Noises?”
“Sloshing and gurgling. Never yet heard an empty outhouse that sloshed and gurgled, nor a dead man’s remains that did, either.”
“Well. Shit.”
“Taking the bootleg over to the reservation to sell to some of the feistier bloods and breeds, weren’t you? Even though you know as well as I do it’s against the law to sell firewater to Indians.”
“No, sir,” Lige said, “that sure wasn’t what we had in mind. We was gonna sell it to the ranchers up valley near the county line. Charley Hammond, Hank Staggs…”
“Charley Hammond doesn’t drink. He’s a Hard Shell Baptist, in case you don’t recollect. And Hank Staggs doesn’t allow liquor of any kind on his property. And Mort Sutherland’s got a bad stomach. You figure to sell more’n fifty jugs to Harvey Ames alone? Not likely. No, you were headed for the reservation, and then after you sold out, to Elkton with the money to stock up on supplies for the winter. Own up, boys. No more lies and fabrications.”
Wes heaved a blowsy sigh. “All right, Sheriff, I reckon you got us. What happens now?”
“One of two things. One is I escort you and those jugs to town, dispose of the bootleg there, charge you with illegal liquor trafficking, and lock you up and keep you locked up until court sits again next week. Likely Judge Peterson’ll sentence you to sixty days and order you to pay a fine.”
“What’s the other thing?”
I was in a better mood now, and inclined to be tolerant. “You and your brother unload the privy right here, carry those jugs to that ditch over yonder, and empty them out. Then put the jugs back inside and break them up so they can’t be used again. Do that, and don’t ever let me hear about you making or selling any more corn liquor, I’d be inclined to let you off with a warning.”
“Every single jug?” Lige said in a kind of moan. “We spent near three months making that batch and we’re short on winter supplies—”
“Shut up, Lige,” Wes said, disgusted. “You ain’t got a lick of sense.”
“Shut up yourself. Neither do you.”
“Well, boys? What’s it going to be?”
They thought it over. Took them longer than it should have because they didn’t have much to think with. Then, sorrowful and resigned, they commenced to kill off every weed and stem of buffalo grass in that ditch with their godawful corn liquor.
SIXTEEN
AS SOON AS the Hoveys turned their wagon around and headed back to the hills, I drove on to the Macy farm to deliver the court summons in the land dispute. On the way there and on the return trip to Peaceful Bend, my mind kept harkening back to those two nitwits and their hideaway cargo. That little incident made number four in the blasted crime wave that was plaguing the valley, though this one, at least, I’d quashed before any damage was done. And it was the third time in less than five days that I’d had to deal with something unpleasant hauled away in a conveyance—Bandelier’s wooden Indian, Charity Axthelm’s corpse, and the Hoveys’ outhouse. All sorts of things happening in bunches, none of them good.
But cussed coincidence wasn’t all that was nagging on me. Seemed like that outhouse and the stolen statue just might have something in common if you looked at it a certain way. Crept in on me what it was, a notion so outlandish I said, “Pshaw!” out loud and pushed it out of my head. Only it wouldn’t stay pushed. I couldn’t help but chew on it some more, and after a time it didn’t seem quite so far-fetched as it had at first. Crazy or not, it did explain a couple of things that had been puzzling me. Trouble was, it also opened up another, even more puzzling question.
Back in town and shut of the flivver, I checked in with Mavis Cooney, who operates the telephone switchboard in the courthouse and takes messages when there’s nobody in the sheriff’s office. The good news was no calls and no visitors while I was away, so no further demands on my time. The bad news was still no word from Carse.
So then I went over to Main Street and H. Bandelier, Fine Tobacco and Sundries. Bandelier was behind the counter, serving nobody at the moment but himself with a Cuba Libre panatela. The look he directed at me was crabapple sour. Likewise his tone when he said, “I don’t suppose you’ve come to tell me you recovered my Indian.”
“You don’t suppose right. But I’m working on it.”
“You’d better be.”
“Now you listen, Henry,” I said, sharp. “I won’t stand for any more threats, not even veiled ones. Nor any more fool notions of taking the law into your own hands. Understand?”
“Yes. All right.”
“Good. Now I got a question for you about that statue. Was it carved from a solid block of wood?”
Crabapple sour to a scowly squint. “You know it was.”
“No, I don’t. All I know is that it’s big and heavy. What I don’t know is whether it’s all of a solid piece or has hollow insides.”
“Hollow?”
“Made from two separate carved sections, front and back, neither all that thick, fitted together and sealed and painted over. Save the Cuba Libre people money to manufacture their wooden Indians that way.”
“The Cuba Libre Cigar Company is not a cheap outfit.”
“Didn’t say they were. Well?”
“What difference does it make?”
/> “Just give me an answer. Which is it?”
“I don’t know,” Bandelier said. “I guess it could have been made that way—I never bothered to look close or ask. I still don’t see what difference it makes, hollow or solid.”
“Might make some, might not.”
“Well, I want it found, that’s all I have to say.”
“Better be all you have to say. Or do.”
My next stop was going to be the high school for a talk with Miss Mary Ellen Belknap. But halfway there, that visit and my notion about the theft of the wooden Indian got put on hold.
Doc Olsen’s Tin Lizzie came rattling up Main Street as I was about to turn the corner, and he pulled up and hailed me. “I was just over to Reba Purvis’s house, to check on Hannah Mead,” he said. “Be good as new in another day or two. Healthy constitution.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“She wants to see you, Lucas.”
“Reba does?”
“No, Hannah. Asked me to see if I could locate you and deliver the message.”
“Is Reba home?”
“No. Ladies Aid meeting.”
That was a blessing. Talking to Hannah with Reba hovering around and interrupting would’ve been a chore. I said, “If you’re not bound anywhere special, Doc, how’s for a ride over there? Save me time and shoe leather.”
“Climb aboard.”
He dropped me in front of Reba’s house. Hannah said when she answered my ring, “I was hoping it was you, Sheriff Monk. I’m glad the doctor found you so quick.” She didn’t need to say why. “I was about to telephone your office when he arrived and again just now.”
“Remember who the Selkirk woman reminds you of?”
“Yes, I did.”
We went into the parlor. Her step was stronger than it had been the last time I was here. There was color in her cheeks again, and her eyes were clear of the sickness that had clouded them on Sunday. Thinking clear again, too, evidently.
She said, “Annabelle Carter, that’s who. In Denver three years ago. I didn’t know her very well, hardly at all actually and not for long—just to say hello and goodbye to a few times. That’s why I didn’t remember right away.”
“How’d you happen to know her?”
“She did some sewing for Mrs. Granger, the woman I kept house for.”
“Sewing?”
“She was a seamstress. A good one. Mrs. Granger said so.”
“She resembled Grace Selkirk, did she?”
“Yes, except that Annabelle had light brown hair and her skin wasn’t near so pale. And she wore bright colored dresses.”
“Same body type, tall and thin?”
“Not quite as thin, as I recall.”
“Could they be one and the same person?”
“I’ve been wondering that myself,” Hannah said. “Three years is a long time and I’ve only seen Grace Selkirk once up close. But it’s possible, I guess.”
“What else can you tell me about Annabelle Carter?”
“Well, she disappeared all of a sudden, not long before I left Denver and moved up here. Under a cloud, you might say.”
“Cloud?”
“A man she was involved with was killed and there was talk that she had something to do with it.”
“Killed how?”
“I’m not sure. It was in the newspapers, but I don’t like to read about awful things like that. Or hear about them. Mrs. Granger said she didn’t believe a lady like Annabelle Carter would harm anyone, not for any amount of money, and must have had some innocent reason for leaving Denver when she did.”
I was on the edge of my seat now. “Oh, so money disappeared, too, did it? How much?”
“I don’t remember exactly. Quite a bit, I think.”
“And she was never heard of again?”
“I couldn’t say if she was or not. I haven’t kept in touch with Mrs. Granger or anyone else in Denver. Sheriff … do you really think Annabelle and Grace Selkirk could be the same person?”
“Strikes me as possible.”
“But Denver is a big city. Why would she have come to a small town like Peaceful Bend and take work in a funeral parlor?”
To hide, if she was a fugitive from justice. Change of environment, along with a change in the way she looked and dressed. And a slight shift in profession from seamstress to coffin trimmer. Might be, too, if she was the predatory kind of female, why she’d gone to work for Titus Bedford. Wouldn’t have been difficult for her to find out when she showed up here and spotted his ad in the Sentinel that Titus was wealthy and unattached. Move into his house, then make an effort to seduce him.
I didn’t say any of this to Hannah, just sat nibbling on my mustache droop. Hell of a coincidence if it were true, Annabelle Carter and Hannah crossing paths in Denver and then both winding up in Peaceful Bend. But coincidences happen more often than folks might think, large and small ones both. Any law officer who has served as long as I have can vouch for that.
Hannah was talking again, saying something about the poisoned buttermilk. I said, “How’s that again?”
“But even if Grace Selkirk is Annabelle Carter,” she repeated, “it doesn’t mean she had anything to do with putting poison in the buttermilk.”
“It might. It sure might.”
“I don’t understand. What reason would she have?”
A good if reckless one, from her point of view. Afraid that Hannah would recognize her, which made Hannah, not Reba, the primary target. The Selkirk woman hadn’t been spying on Reba, then; she’d followed Hannah to find out where she lived. Must’ve had a batch of cyanide all mixed up and close at hand, to be able to dose the buttermilk the following morning. Cold-blooded as hell, if that was the answer. Had Reba drunk the buttermilk and died along with Hannah, why, that would’ve eliminated a rival as well as a safety threat—two birds with one measure of poison.
I said, “You let me worry about that, Hannah. Did you tell Reba about Annabelle Carter?”
“No.” Then, a little shame-faced, “But I did tell her I was trying to remember who Grace Selkirk reminded me of. I couldn’t help it, she wormed it out of me…”
“Just don’t let her worm out what you and me been discussing here. Don’t tell her you saw me today at all. If she asks, you haven’t remembered a thing.”
“Oh, I won’t say a word to her, Sheriff. I promise I won’t.”
Well, I hoped she would keep her promise, but I wouldn’t have bet on it. Reba had that unholy knack for ferreting out secrets, and Hannah was weak-willed and a mite short on what the good Lord puts between a person’s ears.
SEVENTEEN
THE PEACEFUL VALLEY Sentinel did business in a small shop on Sycamore Street, half a block from Main and the Valley Hotel. Lester Smithfield, who had more energy than a bull in heat, ran the place by himself. Wrote most of the copy for the four-sheet weekly, took and made up the advertisements, set type, cranked out the pages on his old handpress. He also did all the job printing—posters, pamphlets, business stationery, and the like—that was his main source of income. His only employees, if you could call them that, were three kids who delivered the Sentinel for a nickel an hour. Not that Lester was tightfisted, just frugal.
The old handpress was clattering away in the back room when I came in, Lester hard at work. I went back there to interrupt him. He took off his eyeshade, sleeved a sheen of sweat off his forehead. That forehead is like no other I’ve ever seen. It’s got deep-cut grooves in it, crosshatched into squares you could play games of tic-tac-toe in. Grooves in his cheeks, too, only not as deep or squared. What makes this even odder is that he’s not an old man, just forty or so, and the top of his head is as groove-free and shiny bald as a baby’s butt.
He directed his hungry newshawk’s look my way. “New developments on the murder, Lucas?” he said, eager.
“Not yet. Still waiting on word from Carse.”
That puffed a little wind out of him. “You’ll keep me informed?”
&nb
sp; “Sure thing. Meanwhile, there’s something else you can maybe help me with. You read big-city newspapers regular, as I recall.”
“Some, yes. As often as time permits.”
“Any from Denver?”
“The Post.”
“How’s your memory?”
“Sharp as a tack, if I do say so myself.”
“There was a homicide case down there about three years ago,” I said. “Man killed and money stolen, and a seamstress named Annabelle Carter disappeared sudden under suspicion. Ring any bells?”
“Annabelle Carter, Denver homicide, three years ago.” Lester’s checkerboard forehead deepened even more when he was studying on something. Wasn’t too long before he said, “I do recall that, yes. Caused a stir down there if I’m not mistaken.”
“Did it?”
“A man named … let’s see, now … Bowfinger? Bowringer? Something like that. Owned a small factory. Annabelle Carter was his lady friend, more likely mistress.”
“How’d he die?”
“I’m not sure,” Lester said. “Wait, yes, I do remember. He was poisoned.”
Well, now. Well! “What kind of poison?”
He did some more cogitating, then wagged his head. “That I don’t recall. Why are you interested in that case, Lucas?”
“Can’t tell you just yet,” I said, firm. “Anything more you do recall? How much money was stolen, approximate?”
“Quite a bit. Five thousand dollars, I think it was. Missing from the safe in his home—he didn’t trust banks. His body wasn’t found for two or three days. By then Annabelle Carter was nowhere to be found.”
“Stayed that way, far as you know? Never caught up to?”
“Not to my knowledge.” The grooves deepened again. “Seems to me there was more to it than that.”
“How so?”
“Something about her past that came out later…” Lester snapped his fingers. “Kansas City! That’s right, there was a similar case in Kansas City a few years before—man poisoned, money stolen, sudden disappearance of his lady friend. There was speculation that Annabelle Carter might’ve been responsible for that crime, too, under another name.”
The Peaceful Valley Crime Wave Page 11