“I’ll be here. Get along.”
I fed the damn chickens again before going home. They had adopted me, the fool birds, forgiving the swing of the guillotine in the light of my handouts of grain. I thought, as they clustered clucking around me that, if ever I beheaded another, it would be out of necessity. Yep. For good nutrition, good-bye trust.
I worked all that afternoon and into the supper hour on my report. Now that Charleston wanted to see it, it had to be accurate, down to the crossing of t’s and the dotting of i’s. Mother interrupted me just once, saying as she put down a plate of fresh cookies, “What in the world, Jase? A whole book you’re writing?”
“The whole truth,” I answered and thanked her and kept on working.
It was the edge of dark, or a little later than that, when I handed my account to the sheriff. Halvor was on duty and, seeing my tome, said, “Sherlock Holmes rides again.”
“I saddled up for him,” Charleston replied, his tone sharp, for him sharp. “Halvor, I’ll be here till all hours. Why don’t you take the night off? But keep in touch.”
Halvor seemed so pleased at the prospect that he appeared not to notice the suggestion was a dismissal. I watched him as he went out, a big, good-natured man with a self-reputation for wit, a fondness for women, and a well-known generosity of heart.
Charleston riffled my pages and then began reading. I waited, five minutes, ten, maybe more, seeing him bob his head now and then and now and then hearing him say, “Yes, yes,” to himself.
The phone rang, and I answered it. Mrs. Kindrick, who owned six no-account curs, was calling to complain that one of them had been poisoned. Thank heavens, he was recovering, but still and all it was the sheriff’s job to catch poisoners, wasn’t it? I acknowledged as much and promised our vigilance, thinking so doggy a woman maybe ought to buy some strychnine of her own.
To the sheriff’s inquiring gaze I said, “Kindrick dog poisoned, but not enough.”
He answered, “Hum-m,” and went on reading and by and by said, “Jase, a damn fine report. With your consent I’ll take excerpts from it right now, and you might as well go on home.”
He didn’t, and I didn’t, for at that moment Junior Hogue entered with a gun in his hands. He looked, I thought, desperate, though it was hard to read that heavy face.
I kept my eyes on him and the rifle and hitched my tail to the edge of my chair.
He walked to the desk, swung the gun, butt foremost, to Charleston and said, “I found it.”
“A three-oh-three Savage.”
“You asked if we had one. There it is.”
Charleston began examining the rifle, which looked old and beat-up, saying, “Sit down, Junior,” as he proceeded.
“What’s more, I told Jase here I’d come in,” Junior continued. “You got a charge against me, ain’t you?”
It came to me then that Junior was not desperate in the way I had feared but, rather, moody and muted, his usual loud mouthiness reduced by the worry of circumstance.
Charleston levered open the breach of the gun. He answered, “Not yet, Junior. Maybe soon. Maybe tomorrow. We stalled it so far.” His gaze didn’t come up from the gun as he added, “Did I tell you it was a three-oh-three Savage that killed your father and also Ben Day?”
“I could guess at it.”
“And you went looking?”
“No. I just happened to see it in the toolhouse, stacked up with some old axles and junk. I was searching out Simon after that state man—what’s his name? Gewald—scared him crazy.”
“Simon knew where it was?”
“I don’t know.” The question put new wrinkles in his coarse face. “But Simon wasn’t hidin’ in the toolhouse. And I tell you he wouldn’t—”
“Hold on,” Charleston said. “To find answers I got to ask questions. How did Simon and your father get along? What was their relationship?”
Junior sighed and shook his head and moved in his chair. “The old man was mighty disappointed in Simon. He tried hard to bring him up to scratch, you know, put-tin’ out good money, plenty of it, for that phony head-healer. I guess he—the old man, I mean—couldn’t help showin’ how let down he was with my brother.”
“And you acted as the buffer? As Simon’s protector?”
“You would, too,” Junior answered, as if defending a position some might have thought womanish. I almost began to like the big lug.
Charleston asked, “Did they quarrel?”
“Simon don’t quarrel. He just whoops and talks crazy or goes quiet and draws into himself. That, or he runs away. Dad scared him.”
“You and your father quarreled, huh?”
“Sure. Mostly on account of Simon. But neither of us ever thought about killin’ the other. Christ sake!”
Charleston had not only looked at the rifle, from butt to muzzle, but he had sniffed at the opened breach and put a scrap of white paper in it and had sighted down the barrel for wear and burned powder. Now he said, “Bad shape. Loose breach and worn rifling.”
“Once it was used hard, I guess,” Junior replied, “but for a long time it’s just been layin’ around. We never fired it.”
“Someone did, Junior. Someone did recently.”
“It wasn’t us.” Junior’s rough voice had risen a notch. “Here. Let me see.”
A smell at the opened breach was enough to bring out of Junior, “Oh, Jesus!” He handed the rifle back.
As he sat there, silenced and looking bewildered, Charleston said, “I think you can help us, Junior.”
“How?”
“Let us take your fingerprints.”
“That’s crazy. They’ll be on the rifle. You know I’ve handled it.”
“All the same, I want your prints. You’ve given me an idea, Junior. I been wanting a tool.” He turned. “Jase, your printing kit here?”
By good luck it was. As I moved to get it, Junior was saying, “I don’t get it, but all right. But don’t try to take Simon’s prints. Not guilty—he isn’t—and, besides, you’d scare him shitless.”
“Not Simon’s, then. I don’t want to scare him.”
Junior let me fingerprint him. For an amateur I did pretty well.
When I had finished, Charleston said, tapping the butt of the rifle, “Keep things to yourself, Junior, but, you see, this isn’t your gun.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Charleston was out of the office when I arrived there next morning after fighting a wind that came close to sweeping me into its stream of torn branches and gravel and weeds and discarded containers. Halvor was on hand, though, answering the phone when it rang and otherwise reviewing his prowess while he considered adding scalps to his coupstick. That’s what I guessed, anyway.
The phone rang two times. Once, Halvor told me, it was Mrs. Durton calling to report a case of indecent exposure. Otto Dacey again, who exposed himself only to pee and not always then, but what could you do, besides scold, with a man declared sane?
“Yes, Mr. Gewald,” Halvor said when the phone rang again. “No, sir, he’s not in right now. Yes, right soon, I expect.”
Jody Lester, our part-time stenographer, came in and laid some typed sheets on Charleston’s desk, sighing, “Overtime,” as she did so. “Your sheriff has no regard for the poor working girl.”
Halvor had plenty of regard, though. He showed it as she switched out of the office. Then he said, reverting, “The state gets some rare sparrows, Sherlock. Even I could do better, I bet, than Mr. Gewald. Even old Jimmy. Even you that the sheriff has somehow took under his wing.”
He lighted a shorty cigarette—no filters for him—and gave me a queer look. “Damn funny about you,” he said. “If I didn’t know the sheriff so well—”
“Use your head!” I answered, feeling blood climb my face. “It’s simple. If he used you or Jimmy same as he uses me, the other one would be on night and day duty, both. That, or he’d have to put on an extra man which the office isn’t budgeted for.”
“Dumb kid,” h
e said while the thought percolated. “Yeah. Anyhow, the baby is his and yours, the killin’s, I mean, and it’s all right with me, seein’ the baby is such a bastard.”
Charleston came in then, grinned a hello, his teeth showing white in his wind-reddened face, and moved into the private office. I followed, thinking he might want me to. On the flat of the desk there were my report and a few pages in his handwriting that I imagined were excerpts from my deathless prose. In a corner stood the Savage. From a drawer he took Junior Hogue’s fingerprints, which Junior himself had signed.
While he looked at them, studying some other matter, I asked because the bare possibility nagged at me, “You don’t think Junior was playing it sly, bringing the gun in?”
“Forget it. No ruse. His father might have. Not Junior.”
“He seemed to think the rifle was his, sure enough.”
“He did, Jase, and it wasn’t and isn’t—and that fits the scheme. You care to take my fingerprints, boy?”
I thought, “What in hell, now?” but walked into the main office, got Halvor to move, and took out my kit. After I took his impressions, he signed a name, not his, to them. The name was T. A. McNair.
“Now yours,” he said, not explaining. To mine he had me sign Oscar Oliphant.
“I might pick up a couple more, just for effect, understand,” he said as if all were plain to me. “Maybe some true ones, so’s to satisfy truth and my conscience.” He grinned, the grin deepening the lines around his mouth that weather had worn. “Thrice armed is he who’s halfway honest.”
While we cleaned our hands, I said, “I don’t get it.”
“You will,” he answered. “Maybe. Maybe. Long shot. Like shootin’ over a hill or around a corner. Changin’ the figure, it might come out in the wash if we can get it to wash.”
“When?” I felt entitled to ask.
“Can’t say, Jase. Let’s go out. I went shy on my breakfast what with one thing and another.”
“Gewald’s due in,” I told him.
He made a small face and gave a small shrug. “It won’t hurt Mr. Gewald to wait.”
Outside, the wind caught us. It was like a hand in the face or a push on the back, depending. For a space I turned hind end to it so’s to let my lungs breathe, and Charleston yanked his hat hard on his head. Low over the mountains the wind clouds drifted, the clouds that mothered the winds of the world. The sun shone, the upper sky was bright, but from the west came the screech and assault of torn air.
We were in front of the Bar Star when here came Gewald, forging ahead as if neither gloom of night nor wind of day could stay him from the completion of his appointed rounds. He wore a light overcoat which blew heavily at his sides.
He halted and gave a rasping hello to the wind. His lip was still angry, and a tooth looked as if it had had just repair enough to last him to the next service station. “What’ve you done?”
“Investigated,” Charleston answered. The words, spoken loud, had been torn from them and borne east to far-away flatlands, and now he added, “Can’t hear myself think.” He opened the door of the Bar Star and motioned us in.
No one was inside except the bartender, Smoky La-France, and Otto Dacey, who looked at us from the height of his certified sanity and went out to let the wind blow him—which was just as well.
We were hardly seated at a table, hardly had time to refuse drinks, than Gewald asked, “You bring Junior Hogue in?”
“Didn’t need to. He came in by himself.”
Gewald let out, “Ah-h,” indicating satisfaction. “Now I can squeeze him.” He opened his coat and leaned back. “He’s holding back on us, you can bet.”
“Think so?”
“Never a doubt. I’ll squeeze it out of him.”
“When and where?”
“Right away. In the county jail.” He came forward and studied Charleston’s unrevealing face and asked as if he couldn’t believe what might be the answer, “You held him?”
“No.”
“Assault! Impeding an officer of the law! And likely a key witness in two murder cases! Yet you didn’t hold him. Why in hell not?”
Charleston said without heat, “The complaining witness wasn’t on hand.”
“Good God! I’ve met a lot of sheriffs in my time—” A shake of Gewald’s head finished that sentence. “All right. I’ll go out and get him myself. The kid here better steer me again.”
I said, hardly believing I said so, “Not this kid,” and thought I saw a glint of approval in Charleston’s eyes.
Before any of us could go on, the door opened and let Junior Hogue in.
Gewald’s voice sawed out a soft, “Ha-a.”
Junior walked to us and, ignoring Gewald, said to Charleston, “Sooner or later, probably sooner, you told me. You want me now?”
“Yes, by God!” Gewald’s bruised lip gave his saw the hint of a stutter, as if the blade had been flawed. “You’re coming with me.”
Junior still ignored him.
“Any difficulty, I’ll snap the cuffs on you.” Gewald flapped his overcoat, making a jingle. His revolver was in sight on his hip.
“No,” Charleston said, his tone contained. “He won’t do that, Junior.”
Gewald scraped back his chair, like a man making ready to rise. “Some things I won’t put up with.”
“Same here.” Charleston’s voice, still quiet, had an edge of held anger in it. “By law I don’t know that I have to put up with you.”
“Common sense makes the rules.”
Junior was looking from one to the other now as if bewildered that he, a wanted man, had raised such a row between two men of the law.
“I’ll go on my own, Charleston,” Gewald continued. “No thanks to you, as I’ll sure God report.” He paused as though to find the right pitch. “And now, Mr. Sheriff, you can’t keep me from filing charges against this man, this Junior Hogue.”
“Nope. Suit yourself. No cuffs, though.” Now Charleston bent over the table and fixed Gewald with voice and eye. “But I’ll tell you this, Mr. Gewald. Once arrested, Junior Hogue will be released on his own recognizance to appear for trial at a later date, later than might be to your convenience and liking. You can think about that.”
Gewald’s mouth opened, obviously to his hurt for he was quick in closing the gap. Between tight lips he said, “If you weren’t an officer of the law, I’d suspect you had put a fix in.”
Charleston gave him a grin with no humor in it. “As an officer of the law, I’d suspect you were right.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
There was one thing or two that I did know, more that I didn’t and at least a couple beyond guesswork accounting.
The sheriff didn’t want the Hogue brothers pushed, not now, anyhow, and, as Gewald phrased it, had put in a fix to keep Junior Hogue out of jail. But why? A belief in an innocence more important than the guilt of assault? A hunch that, with freedom, the Hogues would betray themselves? The first guess was the likelier, I figured, though for myself I couldn’t dismiss the unwelcome feeling that Junior or Simp Hogue or both were involved in the killings.
The business of fingerprinting, and where could it get us? Sure, there would be prints on the rifle, just left by Junior and Charleston, and possibly older ones which, though, an amateur like me couldn’t lift. I filed the deal under the head of ridiculous, suspecting it wasn’t. I could understand, or, rather, imagine why Charleston had asked Junior and me not to blab about finding the rifle. Simple: what the guilty party didn’t know could hurt him.
Why had Charleston gone to the city those two nights? Not to entertain a date, whoever she was, I felt sure, or not just for that reason. I passed.
What excerpts had Charleston taken from my report, and why? Pass again.
What would I do with Mrs. Jenkins’ chickens? Go on feeding them until the last ancient died of the roup or the pip and so closed down the rest home? There was enough grain on hand to nourish them into fat middle age.
Today was Friday
, two weeks and a day from the night of Buster Hogue’s shooting, and on Sunday I was scheduled to pitch. My arm felt as rusty as an abandoned pump handle—which seemed not to matter much, considering the general state of affairs.
The general state of affairs, represented by one item, stuck sore in my gizzard as I wandered down the street. Less than an hour ago Charleston had dismissed me, saying, “Take the day off, Jase. Go fishing, or warm up your soup bone for Sunday’s game. See you another day, boy.”
I went, the words being orders, and, walking, chewed over the dismissal and, in addition, his behavior preceding it. He had had Jody Lester in the office that morning and had dictated to her for a solid hour and in that time worked down and through his neglected if unimportant correspondence. The last letter was from a lady named Charleston who wrote from Miami wanting to know, among other things, if he was related to her or to a missionary who had distinguished himself by getting killed in the Congo. She had found the sheriff’s name, she said, through a sister-in-law, a grassroots writer on politics, who had paused at our courthouse last summer while touring.
At the finish of his dictation Charleston had got rid of me. Fine thanks for my services.
Mike Day was coming out of the bank and called to me as I passed by, “Hi, you, boy.” He approached and asked, “What’s new?”
“Nothing.”
“Too bad,” he said and went on, his big face momentarily clouded. “We got poor Ben put away, and for the present I’m staying at the ranch. A financial sacrifice, too, but a man does what he must.”
I wondered when he would learn the estate wasn’t his to administer and how he would act then. But it was none of my business, nothing was, and the hell with him anyway.
“To change the subject,” he said, “I have a suspicion the sheriff’s on a cold trail, that is, if he’s on one at all.”
“So.”
“The way I figure it, Ben made enemies not just outside but inside of prison. One of his old pen pals, so to speak, could have come to the ranch and done him in. No way to tell who.”
“Sounds neat,” I answered, “but how come they met at the mailbox, how come Ben had on sneakers, how come all that?”
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